Oh Yeah... Its Finally on the Market

Here's the link to the listing....

http://swmric.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Swmichigan&PRGNAME=MLSLogin&ARGUMENT=9xdjz3%2FFLFfjPzpyKpBuDkIbs5l2eUmToOIOg4NHv94%3D&KeyRid=1&Include_Search_Criteria

One of the many changes...

123 E. Maple St. - Virtual Tour

123 E. Maple 10.12.08

123 E. Maple Photo Update 09.28.08

*** UPDATE - 123 E. Maple St. ***

A Little Bit Closer :) Recent projects inc. replaced windows, paint exterior, hang and mud drywall upstairs and downstairs, removed overgrown landscape.
Upcoming projects... Hoping to prime and paint the two bathrooms and laundry rooms this week to get ready for tiling this weekend. Next prime and paint walls, refinish kitchen cabinets. It's nice because each day we are starting to see great changes. Once the house is a little closer to completion I will have a website dedicated to the house with a virtual tour. I will post the web address on here so everyone can take a look.

Above: Great new paint job and removed overgrown landscape thanks to my dad.

Above: Standing in Kitchen looking through dining room into living room. This is where we removed the load bearing wall, we have added a 1/2 wall for kitchen cabinets and breakfast bar.

Above: Standing in dining room looking into kitchen.

Would you do this?

What's the status???

Where the heck have you been hiding? Alright... I know its me that's been missing. First I must apologize for not keeping everyone updated with current pics of the house project. I have had a lot of requests from family and friends for some updates on the house. I will do my best to fill you all in with the pics I have on my computer right now. I'm down in AZ this week so have some free time to post the pics that I do have with me. These pics were taken the end of March so a lot has been done since then, but this will give you all an idea of where the house is headed and when I return home will try to substitute with some updated pics.

123 E. Maple St. Update... currently we are in the process of putting the house back together. We are finally at the point where we will begin to notice substantial changes. All electrical has been replaced and completed. I added numerous circuits to bring electrical up to code (as you can see in the pics below the whole house was a fire hazard) and to add items like microwave over oven, garbage disposal, recessed lights over bar, etc... All plumbing is complete except for final connections. We completely replaced all the supply lines with PEX Tubing and a majority of the drain lines. Replaced the water heater. We rebuilt the steps leading into the basement. The basement will be completely finished; all walls have been framed, insulation, electrical installed, etc, just waiting on drywall. We removed the load bearing wall between the kitchen and dining room and have built a half wall for the bar. Added a closet in the front entry / living room. We moved the furnace and re-routed the duct work and added new ducts for the basement living areas. The basement now has a master bedroom w/ walk-in closet, a living area, full bathroom, laundry room and mechanical room. We added glass block to all windows in the basement except for the egress window in the Master Bedroom.

BASEMENT

Before: This will be a new full bathroom and a separate laundry room.

Below: Adding rough-in for toilet and moving shower drain.

During: 3/22/08 - The full bathroom is on the left with a separate laundry room on the right. We had to bust up all the concrete to rough in for a toilet and move the drain line for shower and tie into the main drain. As of now, all electrical, plumbing drain and supply lines are complete. Shower is installed as well as the insulation and vapor barrier.

KITCHEN / DINING ROOM

Before:

During: 3/22/08 - The wall between the living room and dining room was a load bearing wall which meant we had to reinforce with proper support and install a (2) 16' LVL's for the new header. In the pic the wall is still in place with the shoring wall behind it. The shoring wall acted as a support for holding the ceiling / roof up while we removed the wall and installed the header. This has been completed and makes a HUGE difference in the feel of the house. You can kind of get an idea from the pic below.

Misc. Pics

Basement Bathroom, Laundry Room, Mechanical Room. I decided to do the wall for the mechanical room at angle to give the basement living area and hallway a much more open feel.

Added direct drain for the washing machine in the new laundry room.

What brings me to Phoenix…

When I'm down in Phoenix unfortunately its not always fun and games; I just tend to leave the work part out of it. I know whenever I'm down in Arizona I always post about what I'm doing in my free time like biking, hiking, climbing, sightseeing, being a tourist, etc… and I know some believe that's all I do when I'm down here. Unfortunately that's not the case… For me writing about work is boring and who wants to read about that anyway. So here's my one post of what brings me down to Arizona. Simply put we have 3 Projects that are currently underway 1) Phoenix Convention Center, 2) Sunrise Senior Living Center, and 3) Navapache Regional Medical Center. Most of my time is spent at the Convention Center attending meetings, walking the job site, taking field measurements, reviewing blue prints and specs, having "discussions" with the GC and other trades, coordinating my subcontractors, site coordination, catching other people's mess ups, notice I said "other" because we all know I don't make mistakes :) Just kidding. Below are some pics of the Phoenix Convention Center Building.

For some reason I don’t think this meets the Electrical Code. What’s your opinion???

Well Marc and I finally closed on the house this past Thursday and we scheduled our first day of work for Saturday morning. Our game plan was to go in and demo all the drywall and some walls in the basement, along with the concrete wash sink, shower stall, etc… We put in about 8 hours of hard labor and needless to say my leg / hip was feeling it Saturday evening. When we removed the fabulous drywall job in the basement we uncovered some interesting ways of making a junction box and connecting wires… (see below pics)

Duct tape works for everything in this case it substitutes as a junction box... Nice, Fire Hazzard! Good thing there were only 4 kids living in this house.

Dining Room Trim Project

Well I wasn't able to get this project completed before my last trip to AZ. But now it is about 99% complete, I just have to do some touch up painting. See below for the pics. Hope everyone is having a great day and staying warm; it's a blizzard here in Kzoo and wind chills could get down to -25. I'm anxiously awaiting my next trip to AZ.

Hey… If you gotta go you gotta go… Just not in our basement.

Where have I been…? I know it has been a while since my last update, life has been pretty busy lately with PT, work, Arizona, getting things together for the house project, etc… I had my latest doctor's appointment a week ago Monday. The doc said that the bone is healed completely and that I can start strengthening with weights and can begin running next Monday. Unfortunately no skiing just yet, the doc said once I can withstand 20min on the treadmill of running I can ski. So naturally my comment to him was… "So all I have to do my first day on the treadmill is last 20min and I can go skiing." He laughed and said "I'm sure that's exactly what you'll do too."

There's my condo at the bottom of the trails... Pretty cool, about 51 miles of trails right out my back door.

Me on my hike...

I did make the trip back down to Arizona a couple weeks ago. It was great to get a break from the Michigan weather, wear shorts and spend some time hiking in the mountains. I was kept pretty busy with work stuff while I was down there but I did manage to get some hiking in. My next trip will be in a couple weeks and I plan on bringing the road bike with me on that trip. It will be great to ride outside and get some miles in. I'll probably keep my rides pretty tame and mostly in the valley avoiding the climbs and mountains, but hey I'll be riding outside and it won't be snowing.

An update on the house project… Our offer had been accepted and we are just waiting on a closing date. The closing should be later this week or sometime the following week. An interesting story… we met a window guy over at the house this past Saturday morning to get a price on some vinyl windows. The salesmen went through the house, took his measurements and when he came up from the basement asked… "Does that drain downstairs work because I gotta take a leak?" I about busted out laughing thinking did he really just say that. Notice he said drain, not a toilet. Right now there is no toilet in the basement so this guy was asking if he could pee on the basement floor into the drain. Obliviously I told him no and that he could head outside by the garage. Marc and I busted out laughing thinking he must still be drunk or hung over from the night before. Needless to say he did not get our order but that was because his price was too high.

(Above) Check out the craftsmanship. This is one of our favorites. This is of a wall in the basement that the previous owner was finishing. I wonder what this guy was thinking when he put this contraption together. Notice the extra piece of drywall at the end with the nail sticking half way out.

Another good story... Marc and I went by the house to take some before pics. In the bathroom is a drop ceiling (will be removed) but Marc popped opening a ceiling tile and what did we find??? A stack of adult magazines from 1995. Pretty funny.

Marc and I are anxiously waiting starting the project. We have been getting estimates on cabinets, windows and some of the things that may need to be ordered. Some good news… we did meet Marc's Aunt over at the house Saturday morning as well and she is a realtor here in Kalamazoo. She thought the house was definitely a good buy and that she has a couple who is currently looking for a house that is in the price range ours will be in when the project is completed. I mentioned bring them by and we'll even let them pick out paint colors.

Thanks for reading, I hope everyone is well and has a great day!

Flip This House… The Marc and Jay Show!!!

Once I tossed the crutches aside I started house hunting. They say things happen for a reason and this may be why I broke my hip. After my second trip to the hospital and I was finally back home. I ended up meeting my neighbor Cindy who her and her husband Dale flip houses here in Kzoo. I ended up meeting her because she heard about my accident and wondered if there was anything she could do to help (she's a nurse) she ended up helping me with my blood thinner shots the first couple times and we got to talking. I found out that they have done pretty well flipping houses here in town and that was always something I thought about doing, but because of the housing market didn't think it was possible and never acted on it. I figured if they can do it so can I, it's a new year and it's time to work towards my ultimate goal instead of talking about it… and then the search began. I got pre-approved for another house, got a realtor to work with and started searching. There was a house that caught my eye; small, vinyl siding, someone had already started working on it, quiet street, the houses on the street all looked nice and it was listed for $24,900.00. I talked with my buddy Marc from college to see if this is something he would be interested in going in on. Marc's pretty handy himself and I knew we would be a good team. Marc met me out at the house; we walked through it, took notes and met back up a couple days later. I created a budget, ran some numbers and we both agreed that we could make some money on this house and give a family a nice home at a reasonable price. Then the good news… Tuesday morning I woke up, checked my e-mail to find that this house had been dropped $5000.00 to $19,900.00, I thought wow that's 20%. I called Marc with the good news and set a time to meet later that evening. Then called the realtor and said we were interested. Tuesday evening we put in our offer. Friday (today) I finally heard from the realtor, they had accepted our offer, but I'm still a little skeptical of this… they did not give us anything in writing yet. They wanted us to have our home inspection first which will be sometime next week / weekend. I'm still a little skeptical but he reassured me it was ours.

What made this house a good deal??? It's sat on a quiet street, the other houses on the street were all in good shape, the asking price was less than the taxable value of $30,000 (usually the taxable value is half of what the house is worth, so it's kind of like getting a $60,000 house for $19,900), a house 3 doors down was selling for $76,000, I created a very detailed spreadsheet that went over the budget and the numbers worked out. We still have the home inspection, but Marc and I are geeked about the new project. It will be great to have a partner on this project to have a second set of hands, bounce ideas off each other, keep each other motivated if one gets burned out, split the cost financially, and just someone to work with.

This evening after work I stopped by the house and took a couple pictures of the exterior. Now I know it's no Taj Mahal and it never will be, but were confident we can make it a nice home for a family, help improve the neighborhood and make some money.

I enjoyed working from home much more!!!

So it's been a week or so since I've had the chance to post anything new. I've had some exciting things going on right now. I started back to work after the New Year and will be making my next trip to Phoenix here soon. This will be a short trip and I am debating on whether or not I will bring my bike. I can't imagine going down without it. There some great riding down there and the forecast is Sunny and 65 -68 degrees. It will be quite the change when I arrive back in Michigan. I've been working on some trim projects around the house and have started putting up a chair rail in the dining room, it's not quite finished yet, but I'm hoping to get it wrapped up before I leave for Phoenix. I'll post a final picture once it's complete.

(Dining Room Before)

(Dining Room During, I still have to do the cap and it will all be painted white)

Physical Therapy is going well. I am still progressing, but not as rapid as I was right after surgery. I'm still going three days a week and working with Carl. My range of motion is back to normal and right now we are working on core exercises and strengthening. Something new in PT is a game we play with the balance board. It's me versus Carl (right now it's just practice and we haven't had the final showdown YET!) we each have to balance on one leg on this board that tilts every direction and toss a soccer ball back and forth. Carl tries to get me to fall off or my foot to touch the ground. He throws the ball high in the air, off to the side, low, basically anything to try to improve my strength and balance. It's working and I'm getting better each session, but I'm no Carl. I think he could stand there all day long, nothing seems to faze him. Once I get a little better then we may have the final showdown.

I've also been working on a project with my buddy Marc. Stay tuned for the next post, I think it's pretty exciting. Have a great day!

Let's Ride... 5 Weeks After Surgery... 1st Ride on Bike...

Happy New Year!!! It’s 2008.

It's been a busy last couple of days. Sunday evening I met Carl, LeAnne, the kids and Matt, Nicole and their daughter Sydney at University Road House for dinner. It was great to see everyone. It had been a while since I've gotten together with Matt and Nicole. Matt took a promotion which moved him to Northern Indiana; which is still not that far away. Carl was thinking of a way to get Matt and Nicole back to the Kzoo area and here's his plot. There's a bike shop that may be up for sale and Carl suggested a little business venture. I don't know if that will go anywhere but I'm always up for looking into something like that.

New Year's Eve I had physical therapy in the morning and that went really well. Later that day there was a group of us (14 total & Lil Jack) that was meeting at Field Stone Grill for dinner at 7:30. Jack is Jason and Cecily's son and is will be one year old I believe January 28th. I was joking with Cecily at dinner and was saying he was about 4 weeks too early. I was remodeling their kitchen last winter and the original plan was to have the kitchen done by mid February. Jack showed up a couple weeks early and put the pressure on me to get it completed by the time they got home from the hospital. So I was entertained all evening, I sat next to Jack and Cecily and Jack even sat with me a while before dinner. After dinner we sat and talked for a while and hung out. It was really enjoyable and then we headed outside to a slick roads and a bunch of snow.

New Year's Morning I woke up early and headed outside to snow blow my drive as well as both neighbors. Wouldn't you know it just as I finished the plow came by and buried the bottom of the drive. I tried to hit him with a snowball. Just kidding, but I wanted too. Were supposed to be getting 2-4 inches of snow still today so I figured I'd save it for later. I headed inside and got cleaned up; I was meeting Jason, Cecily, Jack and Mike down at Food Dance for breakfast at 10:30. Later today I plan to hop on the trainer for a little bit and get a decent workout. I hope everyone had a Safe and Happy New Year!!!

Post Surgery Check Up Dec. 28th

Can I ride please??? I had my second post surgery check up on Friday the 28^th. I was hoping for good news from the doctor. I have been progressing so well and fast that I knew the Doc was going to be impressed. He definitely was impressed and said "it was nice to have a patient that is very motivated." They took x-rays again and the doc said the bone is healing well and you couldn't see the break on the x-ray. He said I can start working on strengthening in Physical Therapy and can ride the bike only inside. I asked him about skiing and he said not yet. What a bummer because as I sit right now I'm looking at about 8 – 10 inches of fresh powder. I have another appointment on January 28^th and he expects to let me be free to do whatever after that; I'm counting down the days. It was good to hear that he told me no skiing or riding outside because I have been feeling so well and with all this snow I'm itching to get out and have all my activities back to normal. He said that if I was to fall on my hip right now that there is a chance that it would break again since it's not 100%, so we all know we can't take that route again. As my mom always says "PATIENCE JASON" J