Elizabeth Newlin – Arizona Real Estate Agent

Alright, so I’ve finished ‘the bag’, as it’s come to be called in our house. As in, “Honey, can you give the boys a bath so I can just finish this bit of top-stitching on ‘the bag’?” or “I hope ‘the bag’ is going to be finished soon and the dining room table cleared of the chaos that now exists on it, or I will have to kill you in your sleep.”

I feel like I now own sewing with a pattern as a skill. It was totally confusing at first, but I’ve learned a lot and I’m totally hooked. I saw a bag in a cart at the grocery store this morning and I’m already planning my own pirated version to give as Christmas gifts.

Anyway, though I am happy with how the bag turned out in general, it has some major flaws. Sure, laying on my floor all poised and posed, it looks fab:

Unfortunately, its fatal flaw appears when you actually try to carry anything in it. Then it gets all smushy and shapeless. I took it to the fabric store and they diagnosed the problem as a severe lack of interfacing. So in the version 2.0 I will be working on soon for my backtacking buddy, I will make sure to remedy this problem.

Sewing is fun!

I’ve been steadily working on my backtack project for the last week. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but this is my very first time ever working with a pattern, so I’ve been struggling a bit. In the last week I’ve called my grandma four times to ask for definitions of terms in the directions I’m not familiar with, called my mom five times to read her passages in the directions for help with deciphering and gotten Jason involved at least twice.

For me, the hardest part of this whole sewing-with-a-pattern process is that sometimes it doesn’t matter how many times I read a step, or who I get to read it with me, I cannot for the life of me make heads or tails of what it wants me to do. And even if I do exactly what it seems like it’s directing me to do, it seems like it will end up looking completely wrong (raw ends showing and whatnot). My solution to this, this week, has been, to veer off in another direction from the pattern and just do what I think makes sense.

Anyway, last night I got to yet another one of these points that haven’t been making any sense to me, and I had an epiphany. All of the sudden I understood what they had been meaning all along. I was elated and frustrated with myself all at the same time. Looking back at what I had already done I could see where doing what they were recommending would have made my work less complex and more straight and flawless. But, I thought to myself, this is what the prototype version is for, I will learn from my error and move forward, making sure to do it right the next time.

Unfortunately, in the wee hours of this morning my perfectionist side dug in and made an executive decision to take it apart and do it correctly. And looking at it now, I’m glad I did it, it’s SO much better. Still not perfect, but I’m happy with my progress.

Welcome to the chaos of my latest endeavor:

Yep, I’m taking up a new hobby: sewing! My good friend, Kelli, participated in this thing called Backtack a couple of months ago. She’s a big ‘crafter’ and found this activity on-line through one of her crafting websites. Basically she was paired up with another crafter and had to make her a project and send it to her anonymously. She, in turn, also received an anonymous project. Anyway, she had been talking about how fun it was, and I’ve always wanted to learn to sew, so I decided to join in for Backtack II. This time, the project is to make a bag any way that you like (sew it, knit it, macrame it out of bubblegum wrappers, if you choose) and fill this bag with crafting items you think your recipient might enjoy. So it does entail a bit of sleuthing. I was given the name and blog address of a gal in California. I signed up for a fake email address and sent her a list of questions about what she likes and doesn’t like, and now my task is to create a bag. It all seemed very simple in theory.

I started out at the fabric store around the corner on Friday. I picked out a pattern of a bag I liked (while Ben, the boy-genius, chatted the ladies who worked there up about King Tutankhamen and how he was king at nine years old, etc.) and got the sales lady to help me get everything I needed to make it. I’m starting out with super-cheap fabric from the half-off room so that I can make a prototype of the bag just to make sure I can actually do it. So that little hour long trip to the store started to make me think about how little I know about sewing. Sure, I have a sewing machine, but I’m not totally sure what all those settings do…

Yesterday, I sat down with the pattern and the fabric and spent most of the day cutting. I think there were three reasons, OK, no FOUR reasons why it was so difficult and time consuming:

1. I can’t actually work on the bag unless little Mr. Gray is sleeping. The Living Tornado has a radar for what he could ruin that would really upset me and also what might injure him. So I basically had to spread it all out on the floor in the living room and work for a bit and then clean it all back up three times yesterday.

2. I’m an exceptionally slow cutter. The biggest problems are my left-handedness (I cut right-handed, but it still throws me off) and the fact that my hands naturally shake like I’m a meth-addict. It’s a problem I just have to learn to live with (the shaking hands, not the meth-addiction, I swear, I don’t have one).

3. I spent the first half of the day using the little scissors I’ve had in the junk drawer for the last three years and have used to cut everything from packing tape, to wrapping paper, to stubborn food wrappers. They were a little dull. Jason showed up from a trip to Home Depot with a nice long, sharp pair of new ones about mid-day. They helped SO much.

4. Um, I picked a really complicated pattern. My grandma (master seamstress that she is) showed up this morning to check out my progress and help me a bit. She gasped a tad at the bag I’d chosen to do. “You’ve picked a really tough one, Dear. You could have started with something a little easier, you know.”

Yeah, I guess I could have, but that’s just not me. When I learned to cook, I started with homemade lasagna. It took me four hours, but it tasted pretty good! So hopefully this will be OK too. I’m hoping to finish the prototype this week and start the real one next weekend… I’ll let you know how that goes.

Remember months and months ago when I first mentioned our bathroom remodel plans? Yeah, well it’s still not completed. As usual, our home improvement project is taking eons longer than we had anticipated. I do have some good news, however. The shower is finished and it’s gorgeous. I absolutely love it. I showered in it for the first time yesterday morning and it’s wonderful. I have a zillion photos of the process I’d love to share with you.

Jason ended up doing the demolition and the re-framing of the wall. We hired a tile guy to come in and tile the entire shower (Jason had to remove some of it, though, to re-plumbing of the shower) and we hired people to put in the new shower door. It was a mix of DIY and professional work.

Before and demolition:

Re-framing:

Tiling:

The finished product:

Whew, life has been rolling along at breakneck speed as usual. Here’s just a quick update to life in the Newlin house:

1. I hosted an open house for my Tempe listing on Saturday. It went well and my cookies and tiny little sodas and waters were quite popular this time (probably because it was up-wards of 105 degrees all day). We did end up receiving and offer and accepting it, to the extreme pleasure of both my clients and me. It seems to be currently holding up in escrow (did you know that more than 30% of all homes that go into escrow right now fall out before closing? The lesson there is that if you really love a house that’s pending, go in with a backup offer, you have a good chance at actually getting it!) and I’m hoping it stays that way. Now we just have to find them a house to buy…

2. My youngest son turns ONE this week!! Thursday to be exact. Prepare yourselves for cake-faced baby pictures on Friday; I can guarantee them.

3. Our bathroom remodel has taken over our lives. The first contractor we had in for a quote didn’t return my emails until over a week after I sent them, and in that time we met with another contractor who quoted the price lower and was willing to start immediately. So Jason spent the weekend demo-ing the bathroom and reinstalling the glass block wall. The new contractor started this morning. I have lots of pictures of the process, unfortunately, I seem to have damaged my photo card reader, so you’ll have to wait for those. We are currently in an ugly stage of the bedroom/bathroom. The endless amount of junk we had in our sink cabinets is in boxes, the bathroom wall still goes straight out to the outside and the room smells faintly of sewage because the contractor (Ed, I will from now on refer to him as Ed) removed the toilet today so he can start tiling tomorrow. So it’s not going to be a pleasant sleeping situation tonight, but I’m SO excited for the end result. Plus it’s just kind of fun to leave for work in the morning and come home and have so much stuff done to it!

So that’s life in our house this week. I’m taking lots of classes right now and learning tons of useful things. I am, as ever, ready and willing to serve your home buying/selling needs. Always call or contact me if you have anything I can help you with! And I promise lots of pictures tomorrow.

When we moved into our house almost three years ago, we bought a new, fairly inexpensive dining room set. It has been quite good to us for hundreds of meals, but we always knew that the cushions were going to be a problem. You see, they’re white, and we have kids and cats… so now, after almost three years of use, they look like this:

Yes, you can feel free to say it, EW. So this week, knowing that I’m having family over next week for my youngest’s first birthday, I decided to recover them. It turns out that this is an incredibly easy process. First I went to our closest fabric store and asked them to point me to the upholstery fabric section. I bought two and a half yards of heavy duty dark fabric (for six chairs). It cost me just under $18. Then I went to Home Depot and bought a heavy duty stapler and staples to go with ($21). When I got home I flipped the chairs over and using a small screw driver, removed the three screws holding the bottom of the chair to the frame. I then cut my fabric just large enough to cover the seat and stapled it in place. Finally, I replaced the screw, and Viola:

Practically spill-proof and everything… I’m quite pleased with the results!

Well we’ve gotten started… sort of. Last week we had a contractor come out to quote our kitchen and bathroom projects. We talked about what Jason and I are interested in doing and she took measurements. She said she would get a quote back to us in a week or two. My biggest concern with that idea was that we hadn’t even discussed materials. I’m quite aware that the price of things like tile and cabinets and whatnot can vary wildly. So was she just going to base her quote on the middle of the road materials? The cheapest to keep the quote low? But we will see how that problem develops.

She told us to go to Arizona Tile to choose our counter tops, kitchen floor tile and bathroom wall and floor tile. So this morning we took a trip out there. It was a lovely experience.

To begin with, we of course had the boys with us because they pretty much go everywhere with us. This is usually a total hassle on errands like this because Gray is fidgety and is like lugging around an anchor, and Ben gets bored quickly and starts with the whining. This problem was immediately avoided because they have a little staffed childcare area that was windowed and visible from almost every area of the showroom. We checked the boys in and they were quickly immersed in a video and a large collection of toys.

We started off in the Slab Showroom to choose our counter tops. It was a hardhat only area:

Jason and I were totally fascinated by the machine that transported the huge pieces of granite.

We wandered along the rows of beautiful natural stone and, as we usually do, pretty much agreed on which we loved and which we didn’t care for at all. We narrowed it down to four:

It was an interesting shopping experience because the slabs weren’t labeled with anything but their names, so we had no prices to influence us either way. I feel like prices are usually such an influence in so many different ways. We definitely want a deal, and would never decide on the most expensive, but we tend to be prejudiced against the very cheapest too. So when we walked out of the show room, our choices were purely about aesthetics. Of course, when we handed out list to the woman who was helping us, she commented ominously, “Ooo, don’t you have champagne taste?” OY. I mean, I guess it makes sense that the prettiest ones would be the most expensive, but good lord, we had to love the most expensive, didn’t we?

They gave us samples of the counters we liked to take to the tile showroom and find what we liked that matched. It helped us narrow things down even further.

This first combination is the Blue Guagain granite with Slate Grigio tile:

We’re thinking if we chose this combination, we would do maple cabinets with a pewter (light gray) stain.

The second combination we liked was Verde Tunas Classic granite with Gemstone Africa tile:

With this busier and more colorful combination we think we would do again a maple cabinet but with a light natural stain.

Whew. Now we just have to find out how much it’s all going to cost. I’m so excited!

Well, it actually worked. I managed to scam the bank into giving me $20,000 AND lower monthly payments on my mortgage! OK, really we just refinanced our loan for a lower interest rate and got rid of our monthly Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) payment because the equity in our home has almost doubled in the three years we’ve lived here. But the long and the short of it is: I got a check for $20,000 today! Woo hoo! So the remodel is officially funded and the old kitchen had better get ready to duck and cover. Next: the Planning Phase, and after that Demolition, baby!

Well, we have decided that the bathroom is not the only area in need of a major overhaul in our house. The kitchen has been an issue for both of us from day one here. It is small, with hideous linoleum, a bad wallpaper border and an extraordinarily inefficient use of cabinet space. The kitchen and lack of storage space is so bad, in fact, that I have seriously considered just moving to a house with a larger kitchen. However, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. I love many of the other things we’ve done to our house (this is one of my favorites:
)
and really, the kitchen has a lot of potential; it just needs a serious renovation.

So, we’re currently in the process of refinancing our house (we got a great deal with Wells Fargo) and will soon be in possession of $20,000 earmarked for remodels. Jason pretty much has me talked into the idea of doing it ourselves. I’m not looking forward to several months of total chaos in our bathroom and kitchen, but I know that we will be much happier with the end result if we do it ourselves. There’s something to be said for the pride that comes with accomplishing a project without the help of a professional (although, there’s also something to be said for the happiness of our marriage when we’re not in the midst of a home improvement odyssey). I also would like the bulk of our money to be spent on the gorgeous materials I have in mind, rather than labor. We will see, though, I’m not committing to anything just yet.

I may be totally naive as to how far I can stretch our dollars, but here is what I want to definitely be done with by the end of this: new shower (maybe out of these), bathroom floor, light fixtures for the bathroom, sinks, cabinets and towel bars, new floor for the kitchen, counters, cabinets, stove and dishwasher. If we have any money left over, I want new front doors and to paint the outside of our house, which currently looks like this:

but I would prefer it to look like this (this house is across the street from us, doesn’t it look nice?):

And that is the plan… I’m an excellent bargain shopper and Jason’s practically a pro-contractor. I think we have at least a shot at accomplishing this before we end up in marriage counseling…

We’ve determined what our new home improvement project will be:

Yes, you can feel free to be horrified. As I have mentioned before, our house has needed a lot of work. Our shower has finally squeaky-wheeled itself into the next position for improvement. Not only is it ugly (don’t you love the marbled green and gold?), but water has been leaking behind the panel under the glass block since before we moved in. Jason pried the panel off this weekend to find disintegrated Sheetrock and a full inch of silicone that some previous owner had put in place in an attempt to stave off the inevitable mold.

Our plan is to totally gut this bathroom. We would like to do an all tile shower stall. We also plan to tile the floor of the bathroom outside of the shower (instead of the current linoleum) and of course replace all of the gold towel bars and light fixtures. I’m torn between having this done by a professional and attempting to do it ourselves. We have some experience with tile (we did the extra bathroom’s floor and walls) and a decent wet saw, but I’m intimidated by the idea of the all tile shower. We have a do-it-yourself manual that explains the process step-by-step, but the idea of water running constantly over an area we could have not properly sealed fills me with the fear of mold. And then again, the idea of turning control over to someone else, doesn’t make me sleep easy either. At least half the fun of our home projects for me has been the meticulous attention to detail we’ve paid. Shopping for fixtures and picking out the perfect shade of paint is a perfect Saturday for our family. So it’s all still up in the air. But don’t you worry, there will be many pictures to follow of the entire process.