Just Add Money - Part One

We made the offer, they countered, we accepted, and the dance begins. We had seen another house, but it was not YET on the market and the owner had decided it was worth $585,000. It was perfect, and we'd not have changed even the paint color, but it wasn't yet on the market, and in all fairness, it was at the top of the range I thought I'd have to spend.

Enter a property listed at $419,000 - one level, two car garage, two bedroom, two bath. While the other more expensive, but not yet listed, property offered an actual office, we saw possibilities. Ultimately settling on $400,000, we took our favorite contractor, Jason, through the house and discussed possibilities. He came up with an idea that would convert the breakfast area adjacent to the kitchen into a "man cave" where I could move my computer, a credenza, my Missouri condo's recliner, a bookshelf and my television. It would involve some kitchen reconstruction, and addition of a frosted glass door to allow light from the breakfast area (soon to be "den" of the papa bear) into the kitchen.

So, with the knowledge we could get the benefit of the office out of an unused breakfast area, we started making plans. We'd move an interior wall in the "den" to make it 9' wide and 14' long, we'd add a peninsula in the kitchen where we could put a couple of stools and have a surrogate breakfast area for coffee drinking and newspaper reading, and we'd replace the flooring throughout (except for bathrooms) with wood, and change out the cabinet fronts to a light colored wood, and add granite counter tops. We'll also remove the "popcorn ceilings" and replace them with skip troweled finish, and redo the bathrooms where the current pink tile would find more neutral replacement. There is a fireplace, and we've found a tile that we think will look great, and as this is written we're still looking for an appropriate back-splash. Today we found some nice pendant lights to place over the desired peninsula - stools to fit under can wait.

Oh, we've not kept my usual record of what we're spending - in terms of the granite, we started at several places where granite ran from $60 to $120 a square foot. What we found, at the workplace of our contractor's favorite fabricator, was a bargain at $22 a square foot - so we bought three large pieces - it will do the entire kitchen, plus seats in the showers, and perhaps a hearth in front of the fireplace. The wood will come from Lumber Liquidators, and I'm confident I'll find a good price on that. Watch this blog for further episodes