Preparing for the Next Project

The next project involves getting this firebox rebuilt to accomodate the smaller opening. I bought 45 firebricks and two buckets of refractory mortar this week for the job. All I need now is some angle iron, an ash dump door and the most important thing, some TIME!

A Walk in the Woods on Thanksgiving Day

We went to Sugercreek Metropark this afternoon for a walk in the woods. There are a couple of 500 year old oak trees in the woods there. There used to be three but one died several years back and some moron set fire to it and now it is laying on it's side. They are still called the "Three Sisters." We were surprised at how many people visited the park today. Besides hiking around the woods we took a stroll on the prairie walk when Elizabeth began to get fussy. It took us a while to figure out why she was so bored on this walk because this was our view from the path.



Then we got it. This was her view!



Reminds me of the one about the Fukarwee tribe of pygmies in darkest Africa. They got their name because they jump up and down in the tall grass shouting "Where the fukarwee! Where the fukarwee!"

Current Tax Evaluation Update (Hint: It Still Sucks!)

Remember a few weeks back how our real estate tax evaluation increased our property value 96% over last year? The price of everything around us has dropped. Metal and oil prices are down considerably? Well, I made an appointment to plead my case and explained that we don't have three and a half bathrooms, we only have one full bath that doesn't work. a half bath on the first floor that does work and a quarter bathroom on the second floor because I haven't installed the toilet and that room isn't functioning either because we don't have heat on the second floor and the pipes keep freezing. I also explained that the total square footage of the two floors that they count for tax purposes isn't 3970 but in fact 3631. I gave them pictures showing how the front porch is collapsing and we have an extension of the Amazon Rain Forest in our very own back yard yet alone in our bathroom when it rains and the walls blossom with mushrooms!

The guy told me that the value would be adjusted down and should come in about where I would expect it to. He said I would get notice of an adjustment within three weeks. That was six weeks ago! So I check the treasurer's website and noticed a few weeks ago that the value dropped $3000 when the correct number of bathrooms was listed. Last week the value dropped another $44,000 because they corrected the square footage and probably reclassified the condition of the property. Currently we are at a 43% increase over last year and $40,000 - $60,000 above everyone else on our side of the street who have finished, livable houses. I think we are about $60,000 higher than the other side of the street. This equates to a $600 increase in taxes for us every year. The house is worth little more than we paid for it in its current condition, even with all the work because it isn't any where near finished. I told the man if he wanted to appraise it $5000 dollars above what we paid I wouldn't argue but any higher and I would fight it. Especially when 5 properties adjoining ours are vacant and have been for several years. Currently we are $33,000 above last years tax value. They must have justified the increase because I finally rebuilt that chimney and put in the bulk head doors, which are the only improvements I have made in the last 12 months! So you know that economic stimulus check that we got back in June because we pay too many taxes to the Federal Government? Well, it looks like our local county auditor wants to claim ours. In January I can appeal my evaluation to the State. Looks like I might be doing that. I better go find where I packed up the boxing gloves!

This is a Test of the Emergency Heating System

This is only a test. If this were a real emergency you would see cups of coffee and hot cocoa in the vicinity.



I need to replace the duct pipe with black stove pipe and I need to line the chimney ultimately but since it is clean and I don't plan on having to use this thing this winter I figured I should fire it up to see if there are holes anywhere in the stove or in the chimney! This old thing raised the temperature in the adjoining dining room from 50 degrees to 52 degrees in three hours. At this rate we might get up to 70 degrees by Christmas! The pellet stove is programmed to come on at 45 degrees. We don't know if it will work this winter because we haven't tested it yet. Hence the need for an emergency heat system .......
The thing seems to be working just fine. I didn't manage to burn down the house today and the upstairs rooms didn't fill up with smoke, which is a good thing, I think.

Bulk Head Doors are Done!

These babies lock on the inside. Later in the week when it rains I will find out if water still floods into my basement or if these do the trick!

If You Love This Blog You Need To Do This .....

You need to go over to Dogs and Jen and post a big thank you in her comments because she IS the savior of these sites! I don't know what kind of other magic she is into but she sure knows how to handle a guys files! I understand the whole process took minutes to complete whereas I would have spent countless hours trying to achieve the same result.

For those who don't know, America Online is dumping "Hometown" which is its FTP space provider. I had to move 7 years worth of web page entries and photgraphs. All the pages that make up "The entire Crack House Story" and my website were scheduled to be terminated on October 31st even though I have paid AOL thousands of $$$ over the last 13 years. So you may find a few dead links or a couple of pictures missing from this blog in November. I have to go through all my entries, and there are over 470, to find and edit the links to the old host. The new hosting service is managed by a gentleman who lives two blocks away who is doing it for all the free publicity that I can give him! Just as soon as I get a banner ad or a button from him, I will add it to this blog but here is the link anyway.

So, what good will come of this? Well, I can dump my dial up service now since I"m losing the web hosting capability with AOL and get high speed internet! Whoo hoo!!! Travelling at the speed of light, Baby!

More Polished Concrete

A little over two weeks ago when I had to fight with the tax appraisel folks I took this picture of our unfinished hearth in the main bathroom. Complete with water puddle on the floor from our leaky roof.



As of last night it looks like this.



Here is a close up for all you polished concrete sceptics.



This was poured in place and glass was pressed into the surface. The fact that it was poured in place and trowelled means the surface is slightly uneven. It is level but uneven. Most of the surface area is going to be covered with a mantle and a pellet stove insert. I curved the front to make it more interesting otherwise it would have been too square for the room.

I noticed our tax evaluation hasn't been adjusted yet to reflect the market as I was assured it would be. Gasoline is way down, copper is way down, natural gas is down and our house value is still double what it was a year ago.

My Big Boy is Finished!

It only took about 6 real days of work, something like 320 bricks. 8 sacks of mortar, 12 gallons of water, two chimney liner tiles and 14 bags of vermiculite for a total weight 2400 lbs. of stuff that I had to haul up three flights of stairs and 13 feet up a ladder through a small opening onto the roof!




Now after some five years or so it is time to get all those old crumbling bricks from the original chimney down to ground level. I can think of one easy way to make that happen!

Politically Incorrect for Columbus Day

We just participated in another 17Th century re-enactment event. This one is local. We have the Sunwatch Indian Village here in Dayton. It is a 11Th century archaeological site that has several reconstructed huts. It is a cool site and a great place to host this type of event. We put on a trade scenario and a couple of ambushes circa 1680. At this time the natives won many of the encounters because matchlocks were the affordable weapon of the day and plug bayonets were not a common thing. None of our scenarios were scripted so we went with the mood of the day. Both trade scenarios went bad for the English trading party. I got jumped twice. I did manage to survive one of the ambushes though. The worst thing is my daughter has been influenced by the natives into thinking that I am one of the bad guys!



She was an active particpant in the trade scenario on Sunday. She even learned to shoot arrows and fire off my musket. The cool thing is not many 5 year olds get to experience history this way. The things she will do to run around barefoot in a leather skirt!

Land Contract vs. Rent to Own

You may have heard of these two terms in the past but not understood them fully. They are both forms of owner financing a real estate sale. You can Google both terms to find out more information than I will provide here because I'm not a real estate agent or a whiz at financing. Just someone who is aware of numerous ways to creatively finance a home sale.
Rent to own means just that. You set a price value on a house with a prospective tenant interested in ownership but lacking the credit or large down payment needed to buy a house at the present time. You get a down payment which is basically a right to exercise an option to buy a house at a pre-determined price for a period of 1 to 2 years. The option amount and a portion of the rent paid is applied to the purchase price if the option is exercised and becomes equity for the buyer. Real estate taxes are not required to be brought current until the house is sold under the option. This type of arrangement makes code enforcement, tax liability and maintenance the responsibility of the seller for the rental period. The seller also has the right to sell the property to another who will uphold the rent-to-own contract or increase the sale price of the house at the end of the option period.
A Land Contract is a sale of the property but a withholding of the deed by the seller until final settlement. A price is agreed to and the buyer pays principle and interest to the seller. Since a land contract can be filed at the county records office, the taxes must be paid current to the day of the contract by the seller and a recording fee is involved. The buyer should expect to incur some closing costs as a result but these are often applied to reducing the principle. The buyer is responsible for taxes, insurance and maintenance of the property. After a set number of years, generally three to five, the balance owed to the seller is paid in full by a conventional refinance through a mortgage company or a bank. At this time the deed is transferred.
In both cases, if the contracts are not complied to by the buyer, the property becomes the responsibility of the deed holder except with a land contract, the equity acquired by the buyer is generally refundable to the buyer as a result of liquidation of the property at auction if necessary.
So, if you want to buy a house and your credit is currently shaky, find a seller who doesn't need the money right away and work out a deal that benefits both parties. You don't need to look for "For Sale" signs either. You can always walk up to someones front door and make an offer though it is less likely to be accepted. Now if anyone wants to offer me a cool million $$$ for the "Crack House" I am all ears!