The roof is complete

The new roof was completed late Friday afternoon and it already makes the house look better. There were two layers of old roofing shingles that had to be removed, so the job took a little longer than anticipated.
Most of the soffits and facia had to be replaced, and that was done by the general contractor while the roof was being replaced.
This week the exterior will be prepared for painting. We have decided on white. The exterior bricks are brown and the white will compliment the brown bricks. Also the new window trim will be white.
We got our first electrical bid and the bid was almost as much as we paid for the house. So we are still getting bids on the electrical work. The Midland housing market is still booming and most electrical contractors have more work than they can handle. Which makes it difficult for a relatively small project like ours to get done.
My partner (wife) and I are updating our plans for the interior of the house now that most of the clutter has been removed. We are planning on saving the wood floors. She has convinced me that we can do the work ourselves. The restored wood floors might give the interior the "wow factor" that we want. (I must give credit to A&E, TLC and HGTV for the "wow factor" phrase - we have been watching too many "Flip This (That) House" shows.)
The rear living area of the house also has a concrete floor. We are thinking about just painting the concrete. I have seen quite a few painted concrete floors that were very attractive.
We have never done any of the work ourselves, and this will be an interesting (to say the least!)way to test our skills and save some money.

The project continues

The work has resumed on our current project. As you might recall, work stopped when the entire crew developed the flu. Then we had spent just over a week correcting things in our South Central Midland house that finally closed on Friday the 29th.

The roof on the house is currently being replaced, and it is expected to take three to four days. While this is being done we are also replacing the trim on the house. The next project will be to replace all the windows in the house - this should take one to two weeks to complete.

We are getting concerned about the electrical work that needs to be done. We still do not have an electrician. Two electricians have looked at the project but we have not received bids from either one, and now they will not return our calls. We have leads on three more electricians who are scheduled to look at the house this week. We know that this is going to be a major job in terms of labor and cost, so we are anxious to find out just how much!

FHA Loans

We have accepted our first FHA loan on a home, and I am not sure we knew what we were getting into. The inspection process for an FHA loan is much more comprehensive than for any other loan.

A few minor items showed up on the first inspection of the home, we promptly took care of these. Then a FHA inspector checked out the house. We received four pages of major items that had to be corrected in order for the loan to be approved.

They were all taken care of and ranged from replacing wood planks with small holes in the house to repainting parts of the house.

The house sits on pier and beam and the FHA inspector had concerns about the bracing of the house and insisted that a structural engineer also inspect it. Fortunately for us, this inspection disclosed no problems.

Finally, after a week of additional work we passed out final inspection and we closed on the house on Friday.

FHA loans allow more people to qualify for home loans, but it does mean more work for the seller and additional costs for the buyer.