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Tag Archives: Mattress 8

Mattresses and Mushrooms

There’s a good chance we won’t be using this “free” sink. On the other hand, it’s in good shape…

Hello again! I just thought I’d write a quick note to update you on the Mattress 8 house. We got the bid in from our contractor, Richard Nagle, and Lee really liked it a lot (in other words, it was lower than we had feared it would be). So, we accepted the bid and will get started when he has time on his schedule.

One reason the cost for this renovation will be low is that we aren’t fixing the house up to be a showpiece; we are fixing it up to be a livable rental property For example, we are repairing the roof, not replacing it, we’re not tearing down walls, and we are going to use as much as the “free” material we found in the house.

Mushrooms

Here in Texas, we’ve had a lot of mushrooms popping (dare I say, mushrooming?) up in the past few weeks. It’s rained a lot, and we’ve had a lot of thunderstorms, which I’ve read may encourage them to fruit.

Pretty little parasols.

At our ranch house, the most common one in the fields is this one, the green-spored parasol mushroom. It’s a big one, and very pretty. Too bad it will make you (or your dog) really sick. If you’d like to learn more about it, check out this post over on my nature blog. You can keep browsing and learn a ton about dog coat genetics, too. Spoiler: another name for this mushroom is the “vomiter.”

So, if these are cropping up in a house you have on the market, you might want to discreetly remove them, so avoid tempting any little kids.

Need us? Give us a call at 512-807-8777. Carol will answer or cal you back if she’s still enjoying her short vacation (after all, they have to have that house READY to show in only 5 days after moving in!)

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Looking around at the Mattress 8 House

There is a row of trees in front of the house with these creative tire surrounds. Each has a different paint scheme. This explains all the tires in the back yard: future lawn art.

Yesterday, Lee and I went to meet up with one of our contractor partners to look over the Mattress 8 house in Temple, so he could put together a bid. Lee had already started by giving him a list of the things he wants to see done (the repair estimator!), but there’s nothing like actually seeing a place to make clear what the priorities will be. And since this house is quite a mess, we will definitely have to prioritize.

Exterior

One thing I noticed is that much of the “yard” was once paved, but grass has grown over it. There is an asphalt “something” right behind where the snazzy collection of trees in tire planters sits. We also have to put on a new roof, for sure. We are thinking about putting a metal roof over the current one. Why? Because there are a lot of metal roofs in the neighbhorhood, so it will fit in.

I think this view creatively hides the worst cracks. But they are there. And look at those two trees at left. Eek.

There are all sorts of cracks in the stucco on the exterior. That is easily explained by the fact that the house leans and sags in multiple directions. Luckily it’s pier and beam, which is easier to level than a concrete slab. Once the house is level, we can patch things up.

In addition to replacing all the windows, there are some nice touches on the exterior that we hope to emphasize eventually, such as the shutters and decorative exterior beams. The house can be quite cute, even without spending too much money.

I still think those trees in the front have to go, though. While they don’t hit the roof, if they blew over in a storm it would be bad. Removing the trees might enable us to put more of a front porch on, like a deck or something.

Continue reading →

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Mattress 8 Closed!

At least this much stuff has been removed from the house.

Lee got all the issues with the closing documents fixed, so we were able to close on the Mattress 8 project in Temple yesterday. Hooray for officially having another project to work on.

He went by the place after the closing and found that much of the intriguing junk we were looking forward to scavenging had already been removed. Darn for the potential treasures, but yay for not having to pay so much to have the place cleaned out! There turned out to be another entire bedroom that Lee had not been able to get to before, so it’s a 3 bedroom one, just like it was supposed to be.

On the right of this lovely bedroom photo is a lot of flooring. Hmm.

The mattresses and extra refrigerators, and all the interesting glassware are gone, but as you can see, there’s still plenty to remove. There are also some intriguing building supplies still in the house, like drywall and flooring. Maybe they are not all ruined!

Lee is currently negotiating with a contractor to get working on the many, many repairs needed. I’d share more photos, but, really, you see one pile of junk, you’ve seen them all.

Carol has been working on acquiring a house in San Marcos, so maybe we will have more to report on that soon. We think it’s on the borderline of what we want to pay and also that there may be a bidding war, but you have to try!

Other than that, Carol and Sierra are mailing things out to market for us, so we are hoping for good results.

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Mandi to the Air Conditioning Rescue, Etc.

Patsy Catsy just hides under the house when it’s hot. What a cutie!

The air conditioning system at the Cameron office suddenly stopped working last week. That was making it hard for Sue Ann and Mandi to work there. It takes a while to get somone out to look at air conditioners in the middle of summer, so poor Mandi was having to work at night or early in the mornings.

Luckily, someone on our team has some common sense. Last night, Mandi checked, and sure enough, we’d forgotten to change the filters. Poor system was just tired of trying to push through the dust.

We feel like the renters we always complain about who don’t do their monthly filter changes! Glad this one wasn’t so expensive.

So the lesson is: change your A/C filters, people! Including us.

Got Any Money? Want It to Make You More?

We’ve actually been looking at quite a few houses lately, and have another prospect our fingers are crossed for. We’re looking for some private money lenders for one of the houses, so if you would like to help us out, give us a call at 512-807-8777 or hit me up for Lee’s private number.

This fierce animal will keep random salespeople and rabid animals away from the office!

Closing on Hold

The Mattress 8 house in Temple did not close on schedule yesterday, thanks to yet another title company mix-up. That’s becoming more and more common lately, not a trend we are happy with. We’ll get it closed this week, we hope. We want to go in there and check out the junk!

Another Guard Animal?

We seem to have another security guard in training. The office cat, Shadow, has produced an offspring, Patsy Catsy (OK, I made that last part up). We’ve been making sure she’s not feral by playing with her, now that Shadow brings her out of hiding. It looks like Patsy will be a fierce guardian of the property, because she’s practicing subduing Mandi’s feet quite assiduously. Way to go, baby cat.

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New Project! Need a Mattress?

There’s a tree that’s got to go in front of the house. You can see it was once cute.

Our patience has paid off at last,  and we’ve found something new to work on that fits our model. We are all happy campers, to say the least! Thanks to Lee carefully evaluating all the wholesale deals that come our way, we now have a little house near downtown Temple to fix up. We’re calling it the Mattress 8 house, since it is quite full of mattresses, even in the living room. We’re grateful to the wholesaler we worked with, and hope to work with him more in the future.

We are pleased with the deal we got on this one (let’s say the price begins with a 2). It obviously needs a lot of work. Nothing is salvagable in the kitchen or bathroom, it will need windows and doors, and you know, everything else in a house.

This porch is not being held up by this porch support.

Lee has handed over the earnest money and will close on the property on Monday. Since it’s a wholesale deal, we don’t have to worry about problems with inspections or other such issues, so we are confident this one will go through.

It’s definitely a sad house, with boarded windows, a porch post that doesn’t actually reach the surface of the porch, and a tree trying to grow into the front. But the neighborhood has quite a few homes that are well kept or have been renovated, and it’s in a convenient neighborhood for anyone who works downtown.

Mandi is excited about these free cement blocks.

Mandi’s all excited, though, because among the junk surrounding the place is a big pile of cement blocks, which we have ideas for at the Rattlesnake house. There is some interesting stuff left inside the place (other than mattresses), so we’re all looking forward to picking through things before we hire someone to haul everything else off.

The plan for this place is to renovate it to be a rental property. Once we fix it up to be livable, it should cash flow very well. We’re now figuring out who will be the project manager, lining up contractors, and figuring out what other folks we need to get moving on this one quickly.

If you want to see more photos of the property, visit the Mattress 8 page. There are lots and lots of “before” pictures to marvel at.

And if you need a used mattress, look no further than the Hermits (eww).

 

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