And the credit card companies have not helped us either

Here is another good article about how we have become a nation addicted to debt:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/addicted_to_debt.html

It echoes the stories that you have seen. I have not done everything "right" financially, but we have not fallen into the debt trap like so many people have. You, Rick and Kara need to pull back a little bit and get your non-mortgage debt paid off. The mortgage is fine and is almost a fact of life. The rest is a way for credit card companies to bleed money away from you.

Think about this. Every time you use a credit card the credit card company takes 2 to 3% of the transaction. And we all pay for that. The vendor does not say I want $1000 for this and if you pay cash I will give it to you for $970. No they say I need to get $1000 for this to make a reasonable profit but most people use credit cards and I (the vendor) will have to pay the credit card company $30 on each item, so I will charge $1030 and let my customer pay the extra $31. Pretty neat for the credit card company. But it does not stop there. The credit card company, out of the goodness of their heart, say you only have to pay 2% of your outstanding balance each month because we are willing to loan you’re the remaining $1009 at %20. Next month you own $1009 + $15.45 interest and pay $20.60. Guess how much the credit card company will make and how long you will be paying before the original $1030 charge is paid off? Over 19 years! And the credit card company will get about $2,020 in interest plus the original $30.

Go to this web site and play around with the numbers: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/MinPayment.asp

If instead of making the minimum payment you pay $100 each month it will be paid off in 1 year and the credit card company only makes about $105. The credit card company really does not want you to pay extra. But it gets even better for the credit card company if you miss a payment, then they get to charge you a $25 to $45 late fee and the interest.

Just remember that when you are paying interest on credit cards you are also helping support a couple of other families in addition to your own. You are much better off putting off instant gratification, saving your money and buying what you truly need and can afford with cash. Then all of your earnings will go to support you family and its habits instead of god knows who and their habits.

I am mad a hell about the mortgage crisis

This is the best explanation that I have read as to what the root cause is of the current mortgage/credit issue.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2008/10/the_long_road_to_slack_lending.html

The summary is that liberal journalists and editors pressured our government to ease long standing mortgage lending standards like the traditional debt-to-income ratio that had been used. They lowered the standards so that more minority and low-income borrowers would quality. The standards were lowered so much over the past few years that borrowers that were clearly unable to keep up their payments were given loans. Loans were granted with no documentation, no down payments and for more than the true market value of the property. Liberal legislators pushed these ideas on Freddie Mac and Fannie May. Even people of some means have taken advantage of these questionable lending practices by buying homes that were much higher that what they could afford hoping that they could refinance later as the home's value increased.

I saw this happening earlier this year when we sold our rental house and to a lesser extent 3 years ago when we bought it. I thought it was interesting when we bought the house that we could get what is called an 80/10/10 loan. (My previous experience in buying homes was 25 years earlier when you had to have 20% down, no exceptions.) We got 30-year mortgage for 80 percent of the purchase price and then that bank had a sister bank loan us another 10% for 15-years and we wrote a check for the remaining 10%. I thought that was creative and it was interesting that the bank was the one that suggested it.

When we sold our house the young couple that bought it had not saved enough for even a 5% down-payment let allow 20%. They bought the house by writing a $500 check and signing their names to a mortgage. I have paid more than that to get into an apartment! The deal they got was that we raised the price of the house by $5,000 over what they offered and we would accept. Then they got a loan for the original agreed upon price and at the closing the extra $5,000 went to the bank for the down payment. Pretty neat, huh? I was assured a number of times that the couple who purchased the house always paid their bills, credit card, etc and there was no problem with this approach. It seemed almost illegal to me. But once the house was sold and the closing was done, it was not my problem.

It now appears that is was not the banks problem either because they were able to sell the loan to Freddie or Fannie or someone else and pass the "risk" on. Neat, or so I thought.

I am sure this couple does pay their bills and may still be making the mortgage payments. But it appears that there are a lot of people in this country that are no longer paying their bills and mortgages because I and many others are being asked to pay part of the $700,000,000,000 to bail out the stupid banks, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and god knows who.

For the first time since this mess started, I understand why there are so many people mad as hell about this and not willing to allow congress to pass the previous bail-out plan. For one thing the cost of this is not going to be carried by "everyone" because 40% of the potential tax payers do not pay any taxes at all! And the next 40% paid hardly any taxes. So what is happening is that a small percentage is going to have to pay a great deal and work a great deal harder to pay for the mistakes of congress and social meddling that is being pushed on us by a few.

The current credit issue is the best reason that I have seen for voting for a John McCain. Someone who will work to clean up the root causes of this mess and get the government out of our lives.

Here in Texas it is very likely that McCain will win, but those of you in other states need to think hard about voting for and suppporting McCain instead of the social engineering that we will get with Obama.

New house pictures

We had blinds and shades installed yesterday and it really seems like the house is complete now. We still have some stuff to do; lots of landscaping (that can wait for the 100 degree weather leaves us); moving Nanny and Poppy in and getting their furniture distributed around;  moving a few more things from the hanger to the house and setting up the media room. Here is a link to some photos of the house: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/564213337TSkwAw?vhost=good-times

 

We have been in the house a month now and really enjoy it.  Once the weather cools off we will have an open house in invite everyone. If you are in the area, please give us a call and stop by

 

Cheers, Steve & Cindy

 

 

We have moved in!

Cindy and I, with the help of Nanny and Poppy and Mike and Patti, moved into our new home this last weekend! We moved a fair amount of stuff from the apartment into the house, our bedroom, one of the upstairs bedrooms and most of the kitchen stuff and most of the clothing. We still have most of the furniture to move, but since our lease on the apartment goes until August 20^th, we do not have to be in a hurry.

 

Poppy and I finished up a few things and we discovered a few more that need to be done. We installed a door stop in the travertine floor to stop the front door and one in the carpet for the deck door. The electricians did not connect the in floor temperature sensor for the heated floor in the master bath, so I did that and now we have a heated bath room floor. I can hardly wait until winter to get the full enjoyment of the floor!

 

We decided that we needed a couple more towel bars. One for the utility sink and one inside the outside garage man door for the outdoor shower.

 

I did care my bride across the threshold. Pictures later. We are very excited and hope to have the house ready for an open house in the near future. But if you want to stop by, please do.  Attached is a map that shows you how to get to our house from I-35E.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

The end is in sight

Today we are getting the electric meter and the final building inspection. The oven will be installed today and the travertine tile is down. The last three holes the electrician cut into the walls will be fixed today and the painters will come next Monday to re-paint those areas as well as a few others that have been nicked by the subcontractors. All of the plumbing is installed. We have phone service already. But I have not completed the interior wiring. We should have air-conditioning this coming weekend and I should be able to complete the interior data wiring that is needed for us to move in. The cable is being installed on the 6^th.  The only remaining major item is the carpet that will be installed next Wednesday and Thursday. The mortgage company will do their final inspection next Friday and a week from Monday we sign the mortgage. We will move some of our stuff in on the weekend of 6/14-15 and the rest over the next couple of weekends. We are very, very close to the end of the project.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

We have a drive/taxiway!

We have a drive/taxiway and a sidewalk now. The flatwork is done and we should be able to drive into the garage this weekend and I have a tie-down spot on the “ramp” also! I will get some pictures this weekend to post on the group site. The drywall guys came back yesterday and fixed the holes that the electricians made fixing their security wiring. We also moved the powder room sink light over to center it and that had to be repaired also. The cabinet people may be there today or on Tuesday will all the shelving pegs and to adjust all the cabinet doors and draws to make sure they operate smoothly. The rest of the appliances will be delivered today and stored in the garage until they can be installed.

 

The HVAC team will be there to set the outside AC coils and all the thermostats. We have a cleaning crew coming this weekend to do a thorough clean before the travertine tile is installed starting next Wednesday. Once the travertine is down, we can install the plumbing in the powder room and appliances and get our final inspection …. Then we can close on the mortgage and move it!

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

We have lights!

We have lights now, but no electricity. The light fixtures have been installed but we have to wait for the final inspection next week to get the electrical meter. We do have a gas meter. Getting that was a bit of an issue. But a few phone calls to city hall to get them to tell the gas company that the lines had been inspected freed it up to be installed. The staining and painting are done. Most of the plumbing fixtures have been set and all of the granite counter tops are in. The lights and faucets look great. The kitchen backsplash including the gas cook top and pot filler are in also.

 

This week the flatwork is going in. The patio area will have some concrete there and there will be a concrete walk to the front door from the drive/taxiway and parking ramp. The HVAC guys will trim out the system this week and then we should be able to get our final building inspection so that we can get an electric meter installed.

 

The last two weeks have been pretty busy and I am sure that I forgot some of the stuff that was completed. We actually drove to Lubbock this past Friday/Saturday to clean out the rental house there so that we can sell it. We are ready to get our weekends back to just relax and enjoy friends and non-house building stuff!

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Still moving along

The septic tank was set today. It is a three compartment tank that is about 8 feet wide x 18 long x 10 deep and the top is about 4 feet underground. Air is pumped into the second tank to promote and feed the bacteria. The third tank has a basket of chlorine tablets to treat the water that is left and then there is a pump that goes to sprinkler heads that are in the wooded area behind the house that comes on whenever the water level gets high enough. That was probably more than you wanted to know about our septic system, but there you go.

 

The stairs and railing are completed and they look great. We also had the Brazilian cherry solid wood floors installed in the dinning/living room and study.

 

All of the bathroom tile is in also including the radiant heat floor in the master bath.

 

I created a new location for some of the pictures also at: http://family.webshots.com/album/561207017OFYisn?vhost=family if you want to take a look at the history of building the house so far.

 

It looks like we will move in near the beginning of June or sometime in June.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

The stairs are going in

The back stairs are almost done and the front stairway is under way. Both stairs are wrought iron balusters with solid oak treads, risers and railing. The same railing will also go around the bridge and game room balcony. I added a couple of pictures of the back stairs and a picture of the garage doors while they were being installed. On the curved entry stairway it was interesting how they laminated it together and formed it to the curve of the stairway. I added a picture of this after they had taken most of the clamps off.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Red letter day!

The brick and stone is complete! The brick and stone mason finished the house today including the fireplace hearth and the floor of the porch. The stone and brick look great and the fireplace is impressive.

Cindy and I spent the day picking up the trash in the house, scraping the drywall mud up and sweeping. We are really getting tire of do that! While we were doing that the brick guys were finishing up these guys have work 6 days a week and 10 hour days for the past 4 weeks. They are some of the hardest working people that we have seen and they have excellent workmanship.

I am too tired to write more but I did post some photos of the brick and cabinets.

Cabinets, doors, brick and stone

Well, we have rolled into April now and the brick and stone is almost done. The front of the house is complete except for a few details. I have added a few pictures to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SteveNCindyHome. The brick layers are doing a great job. We decided to take the stone around and over the garage doors and around the back side of the garage to the corner of Nanny and Poppy’s closet. The arches over the entry look great also.

 

The cabinets are in. I added some pictures of them and will add a few more a bit later. The cabinets around the fireplace look great with the stone and wood. The closets are pretty neat as well. It is fun to be able to design the layout your closets. Our trim guys are just great and perhaps even artistic. The detail over the front door and the study French doors are very nice.  Most of the trim is done. Some crown molding and base still needs to be done and should be completed in the next few days.

 

We decided to install Bella Brazilian Cherry solid wood floors in the dinning/living room and the study. Oh, I just remembered and I have to get some pictures of this, but the study has fantastic looking oak beams on the ceiling that one of the trim guys built. So, things are moving along quickly. It looks like we may move in before Cindy’s birthday in June!

 

Enjoy the pictures.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

March update

Things have been moving fast at the new house the past 3 weeks. we now have all the interior walls drywalled and textured. The insulation was sprayed and the house was caulked and sealed. The brick and stone is about half the way done. Take a look at the pictures on the SteveNCindyHome yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SteveNCindyHome/

We spent the past two days driving all over the DFW area from north Fort Worth to the south side of the metro-plex to Richardson to the east and Denton to the north buying 920 square feet of ivory travertine tile. Home Depot had a clearance on 18 inch ivory travertine for $1.99 per sq ft. It normally is $5 to $8 per sq foot. We got 700 at one store then 9, 100 and 111 at another.

We are looking at hard wood flooring and I believe that we are going to use 3/8 inch solid pre-finished Brazilian cherry or mesquite. We only need 500 sq ft of that. We are getting the cabinets installed next week. They are being built right now. We have picked the granite for the kitchen and to downstairs baths plus the upstairs wet bar. We are using new venetian gold in the kitchen and tan brown in the other areas. We also have the kitchen back splash picked out and are now working on the master bath and Nanny and Poppy bath. We are close on those.

We have also settled on the plumbing fixtures and have the order ready for those. We have to pick the lights but think we know what we want there except for the ceiling fans. We will probably just look for fans on sale.

So, all is moving along well.

The house passed the plumbing, electrical and framing inspection

The house passed the plumbing, electrical and framing inspection so now we move on to insulation, drywall, brick and stone. Over the past two weekends I have set 4 external doors and the interior doors in the garage so that the walls that need to be insulated have all the doors. The only place this is not true in the patio sliding door for the deck. That door should arrive this week and I may be able to get is set before the insulation guys are done. All of the outside soffit and trim work is done and all of the interior framing is completed.

 

Cindy and I have the plans for the cabinets and for the most part have picked the tile for everywhere. We also ordered a 36 inch round tile medallion compass rose that will go in the entry foyer. Since our 8^th anniversary is coming up and one of the gifts for number 8 is pottery, we decided that this medallion was sort of like pottery and it could be our 8^th anniversary present to each other. Attached is a picture of the design but we changed the colors of the other half of the 8 center points to be black (like is show and a gold travertine instead of the light travertine shown.

 

 

 

The brick and stone were delivered yesterday and that should start going up in the next few days and the drywall should be delivered today or tomorrow and that will start by next week. So things are moving forward quickly again.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

More changes to the house and dealing with utilities

Cindy and I have changed the design of the master bath shower and the carpenters should finish that change, the new wall near the guest suite, and the boxing in above the built-in’s next to the fireplace this Friday or early next week. We believe these are the last changes.

 

Today Cindy has been trying to get a deliver date from the window guy on the windows that they made incorrectly. That has been a challenge, but the delivery date is now this Friday. We’ll see.

 

Then she tried calling the gas company and the rep there was rude to her and simply told her that she need to have her contractor get the initial gas service and would not give her any more information about how to do that.

 

Then she called the US postal service about getting mail to the new address and the person just said, “Well submit and change of address and it will just happen.” But we are not moving yet. “Well just do a temporary one and then change is back.” Sure, can you imagine how messed up our mail would be if we did that! So I ordered a trial subscription to Better Homes and Gardens and put the address of the new house. We will see if any magazines get delivered. We already sent ourselves a Christmas card and it never arrived nor did it get returned to us. Who knows where it is.

 

So Cindy was a bit frustrated with customer service people today. I did find a place on the gas company web site where builders request new service. So I put in Mentor Custom Homes and the company and our apartment address as the contact information and sent off the request. I assume that someone will contact me to get the details. Who knows, we may get to the house one day and find a gas line has been run.

 

Such is the life of building your own home.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Another change on the house

Nanny and Poppy saw the house this weekend for the first time. Of course we put them to work right away. Poppy helped me with a bit more wiring and other little things. Nanny was on clean up detail with Cindy picking up trash that was blowing around and left around the site. We were talking with Nanny about the nice patio and deck and how it would be good for parties and just enjoying nature and as she was walking into their bedroom from the patio door she noted that it would be nice to have a wall and door there so they could close that and then they could go from their bedroom to the bath room with coming in to the rest of the house and then we could party all night long and not bother them!

 

The truth of the matter is that Nanny normally stay up later than I do, but I do have a place to go and be a bit away from the rest of the house. It turns out that Cindy and I had consider having another door and wall to make the guest bed room more private but we did not way Nanny and Poppy feel like we had built servant’s quarters for them. We should have asked when we had that thought, plus once you see it in person, it does make a lot of sense to add the wall and door. So later this week the carpenters will be back and do that plus a few other things that are needed.

 

I have include a diagram of the new wall and door on the message list site plus some more pictures of the deck and rooms. Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SteveNCindyHome/

 

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3S099
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Problems with the windows

Today we are dealing with problems with the windows the 5 windows that are high in the family room on the deck are the wrong size. These windows were roughed in for 3’ wide by 5 ‘ high which mean that the rough opening should be about a 1/2 to 1/4 inch less than that. But the window company did not make these windows a 1/2 under sized that they did all the rest. Some are exactly 5’ tall and some are 2’ 11 3/4 or a bit more. So we will have to do battle with 84-Lumber and they will have to do battle with the window manufacturer. The three windows up high in the living room are not right either. My guess is that they were not ordered properly. We will get this all worked out with the lumber yard and the window company.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3N035
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Another busy day

Today was another one of those days where a lot was going on. About 10:00 this morning I started getting calls about the house. The general contractor called and there is a problem with 1 to 3 of the small curved top windows above the living room windows. There were made incorrectly. You would have thought that the guy window guy with the plans would have ordered the correct sizes, but he did not. So he will have to come out and measure and re-order the correct windows on their nickel. Then the fireplace installers called and they did not have the access code to get in the airpark and they wanted a check before they started. George talked them into starting while I was driving out there. Then the HVAC guy called. The place where we were going to put the outside HVAC conditioner coils was stolen by the electrical guys for the electric meter and messed up our plan. But we worked that out and found another spot that is just a good and perhaps a bit better.

 

All is better now and by the end of the day all but three of the windows will be installed. The fireplace insert is in and we have plan the AC units. I took some pictures of the windows. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/SteveNcindyHome and bring up the Windows photo album.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3N035
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Messy worksite

I never knew that building a house was such a mess. There is trash everywhere, sawdust all over the house and building material scraps everywhere.

Data, TV, intercom and phone wiring

Last weekend I pulled about 1,000 feet of cable through out the house. I have about 500 more feet to run. I decided to run my own cable for the network, intercom, TVs and phone lines. I have it all going to a closet at the top of the back stairs next to the media room. Right now there are abou 35 cables going into that closet plus the electricians have run all of the security wiring in there also. It will allow me to keep the house up to date as new technology comes out and for me to automate the house. At some point the house will talk to us as we enter or leave and arm the security system.

Roof is finished

They put shingles on the roof last week and most of the electrical and HVAC stuff has been roughed in. We are waiting on windows now. They should be installed next week and then exterior doors. We are in the process of finalizing the stone and brick and the labor for that.

I ran the thermostat wire for the two Rinnai tankless water heaters. We have the thermostats in by each tub/shower and in the kitchen. This weekend I will work on pulling telephone, internet and cable.

We bought the exhaust fan/light units for the 4 bathrooms and the powder room this week plus the vent-a-hood for the kitchen so the vents for all of them can be run. We also need to get the fireplace insert so that can be roughed in.

Always something to do. Speaking of that we ordered the SPA tub on Friday and on Monday the called said it was ready to be picked up. So we need to go get that on Friday. Busy, busy, busy.

We know how big the house is now!

We know how big it is because we spent much of the day sweeping it! The carpenters had swept some the day before, but there was still tons of saw dust and bits of lumber and nails all over the house. So we did our part and swept all but the family room where a couple of carpenters were working. Cindy and I think they were laughing at us sweeping while they were still producing more saw dust. But we enjoyed it and it gave us chance to get to know our new home.

The house is coming along great. We went to Home Depot and bought a nail magnet to pluck the nails out of the saw dust. That was a great idea. So far we have almost a full box of nails, both bent and perfectly usable.

The new house, Jan 11 2008

I started Friday, at my doctor's office for my annual physical and ended the day watching the carpenters complete the construction of the curved stairway in our new foyer. I had not intended to do that but after the doctor's visit I decided to take the day off. I then went to a supply house and picked up the tankless water heaters that we had ordered.

Upon arriving at the house, the framing foreman and carpenter were telling me that they may still need to add a column under the front stairway to support the upper stringer. Niether Cindy nor I wanted to have a column 3 feet from wall and 5 feet from the kitchen half wall right in the middle of a walkway area between the foyer/family room and ktchen. After discussing it for a bit I suggested placing a doubled 2x6 under the existing stringer and running them up into the beam of the second floor. the light went on with the framing foreman the rest is history. We now have a great looking stairway and nice location for a message desk under the stairs!

The carpenters finished the stairs and Cindy joined me at the house after work. She was very happy with the result as am I.