The Price of Fixer-uppers....a bottomless pit.

This morning I sat in my living room for like 10 minutes admiring all the amazing upgrades we've made in just one week. But it’s more amazing how the costs add up so quickly. We were fortunate to get a credit of $1500 from the seller, which now seems like it was not enough. I mean, around every corner of this place there is a new repair that is followed by an expense.

Just last week when were laying the flooring for the kitchen, our plumber which happened to be there, glanced over at the plumbing under the sink. He quickly asked me if an inspector had taken a look at it, because it was all corroded. What the previous owner did was cover the corrosion with tape to hide the damage. Thank goodness our plumber caught that, because I would've had a heart attack if the kitchen flooded after laying down new laminate flooring. Nevertheless, that was an added expense not in the budget.

To date we have put in about $2800 in upgrades to the condo that includes our credit. For the most part, I have been happy paying the guys who have worked on the place. Most of the work has been done by Latino immigrants (Salvadoreans to be exact), which gives me great pride because I too am Salvadorean. All our contractors did a great job and for very reasonable pay. There was time when I felt guilty, because I thought I wasn't paying the guys enough. Which leads me to wonder about all the anti-immigrant sentiment going around the country, these folks just wanted to work and for many they were moonlighting from their day jobs.

Anyways enough politics, we actually had our first guests last night. My 2 sister and laws and one of their boyfriend came over. They were very impressed with what we had done with the condo. The boyfriend described it as straight out of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," which made me feel good because I did read one of their books on home design before we began planning the renovations.

Today we get the rest of our furniture delivered from Levitz, my wife stayed home to wait for them this time.