There have actually been a couple of you readers of this blog out there that sent me questions about what’s going on with the move — I do appreciate that.  It was one of the most convoluted and screwed up real estate transactions you could possibly imagine!  Diane and I ended up in an empty house for 2 weeks sleeping on a borrowed foam pad and eating off of a borrowed bistro table and chairs thanks to our wonderful neighbors.  The folks we had working for us on the sale were fantastic, namely Audrey Tolley here in Phoenix, Susan Daichendt our Las Vegas agent, and Myron Chamberlain from Prime Lending here in Phoenix.  That team cannot be thanked enough for their hard work and diligence in completing this transaction.  The agents for our buyers on the other hand were terribly incompetent and were the reason for all of the problems.  The lender for our buyers, Noble Home Loans was terrible!  I had several phone contacts with the president, Brad Malkin and the principal Herman Vander Veldt.  After threatening to file complaints I was asked to “not phone again” by the president and given unkept promises by Herman.  Seems that they are a broker for home loans and sub-contract their work out to underwriters in Dallas.  As such, they have no control over the process.  The sales agent for the buyers, Jonathan Jacobs can best be described as one who over-promises and under-delivers.  He contracted three different closing dates which was the cause of Diane and I living in an empty house.  Like my friend Randy likes to say: ” to make a long story short” don’t use either of these companies for your Las Vegas real estate transactions!

Cutting Boardwalk

So, let’s get to the good part of the move.  Having been in the same house for 20 years the change wasn’t easy.  We used the PackRats for moving our “stuff” and were very pleased with them.  They arrived at the Phoenix house a couple of days after we did which gave Diane and I time to paint the dining area, our bedroom, and the master bedroom.  We were able to move almost everything ourselves but hired a couple of guys from Silverbell Moving Services to help with the shop equipment.  The shop is located about 30 feet from the house over a dirt area.  Luckily, the former owner left a bunch of 2×10’s behind the shop so I created a “boardwalk” to get the heavy equipment out there.  It worked well but let me throw something very unusual out about how we irrigate our lot.  Our home is in an historic district of Phoenix called Rancho Ventura.  It used to be orchards and so we have the remnants of that by being able to irrigate our lots with water from the canals, this is called flood irrigation and costs about $80.00 per year.  We had our first experience with it and it’s really something to see, water runs for about an hour and subsides into the soil within 3-4 hours.  During the summer, we are scheduled once every two weeks and in the winter time we get it once a month, check out these pictures:

Front Yard Irrigated, enjoyed by birds

Backyard, notice my Woodshop!

As any of you that have ever moved know, there is a myriad of things that need to get accomplished when you move.  Painting, unpacking, organizing, changing insurance, registration, etc. — the list seems endless.  We’ve been here since the first of September and today is the first opportunity I’ve had to get out to the shop.  You may have noticed that there is a porch in front and only a single entry door.  My initial thoughts were to add a double, french door so I can get in sheets of plywood and get my larger pieces out.  Diane suggested expanding the shop onto that porch area which makes sense and will give me an additional 85 square feet or so.  The double doors will be on the end with an additional window on the side.  The drywall installed in the shop hadn’t been taped or mudded so removal was easy.  Here’s a few shots of the shop before I started:

After removing the screws and stacking the drywall against the far wall, the insulation was taken out as well.  Lucky for me, no staples  just pressed between the studs.  Notice the funky ceiling insulation, kind of looks like those foil blankets you put in your car windshield — looks like I’ll need to put up a new ceiling as well!  Here’s how the wall looks now plus  a shot of the porch area that will be enclosed.

Stripped!

Porch area to be enclosed

As I said earlier, this is quite a process.  Besides just the normal moving items the shop will need 220v electricity added to run my equipment and I’m definitely budgeting for a mini-split a/c unit.  This will pretty much wipe out my woods budget so it’ll be like starting over again but I plan to be up and running within 2-3 months making furniture, easels, and carving/gilding frames.  Thanks for being patient during this process — John