house good, homeowner’s association bad
Yeah… this should all be in separate posts in separate places, but I don’t have the time to do that so, it’s all going in one big post. If you read something that bores you, just skip to the next paragraph. Thanks.
h3. running cable sucks.
My dad came out last Saturday to help run Coax, and Cat5e for Networking and Telephone. I was shocked to find that the house only had 3 Coax outlets (living room, master bedroom, game room), and 2 telephone jacks (kitchen, master bedroom). The builder was so proud that all the phone jacks were wired with Cat5e but I say “big fuckin’ deal” when they only run two. My dad and I stuck 4 coax in the game room (2 for DirecTiVo, 1 for cable modem, 1 for TiVo backfeed), and 1 in one of the bedrooms. Then we stuck a phone connection and an ethernet connection in each of those rooms as well. We also put a box in the wall of the third bedroom, but were unsure of how to wire it.
h3. our first guests; running cable still sucks.
Sunday night, Joel and Emily came to visit. Joel and I worked out a plan to get additional wiring into the living room which my dad and I thought was nearly impossible without making it look terrible. The new plan requires a lot of work, but will look nice when finished. I’ll probably try my hand at that this weekend. If any of you would like to drill holes, crawl around in an attic, and bash out chunks of sheetrock, give me a holler.
h3. DirecTV sucks.
On Monday I decided not to get DirecTV. My reasons were plenty. First, DirecTV wiring can’t be split repeatedly without expensive equipment. This means that running all the wiring I want to run would cost me even more in the end (2 in the living room, 1 in the game room, 1 in the master bedroom, 1 in the first bedroom, 1 in the second bedroom = 6, which means I’d need an “8-way multi-switch”). Secondly, to get the TiVo to work to its full potential, I’d have to get a second wire into the living room, which, even though I’ve worked out a plan for that, isn’t exactly fun. It would also require extensive wiring on the outside of the house, and poking holes from the outside in, which I’d rather not do. Finally, DirecTV was going to cost about $40 more per month than the solution with cable, not to mention my need to by more equipment for each room. Using CATV just simplified everything. Maybe some day I’ll change my mind.
h3. TiVo sucks.
I was very excited to be having TiVo with DirecTV, so I didn’t want to give that up. I went and bought a Standalone Series2 TiVo DVR at Circuit City for $149 with a $100 rebate direct from TiVo. Unfortunately, TiVo is stupid. Despite the fact that we live in the 20th century where Internet access is present in almost any home that would consider purchasing a TiVo, they’ve forced their product to handle all initial setup over an old pair of copper wire. This is also despite the fact that the TiVo itself has an active and support USB port designed for accepting USB Ethernet and Wireless Ethernet adapters. Of course, my VoIP phone line isn’t good enough to carry the TiVo’s modem connection, since the modem in the unit refuses to step down below a 56k connection. So, I’m in need of someone with a dwelling equipped with an honest-to-goodness, real-life, belongs-in-a-museum, copper-wire-based, telephone and a television that doesn’t mind me tieing up their phoneline for a few hours. Any volunteers?
h3. HOAs suck.
The homeowner’s association our house is in is a nightmare. Or, at least it seems that way. Down the street from “our subdivision”:http://savannahdfw.com/ is “another subdivision”:http://providence-tx.com/ under the same developer with the same basic rules in their HOA. This other subdivision is quite a bit more developed than ours and has an “online forum”:http://providencelifestyle.com/ for its residents run by a homeowner. Reading their complaints about the HOA makes me scared and sick. From this vantage point, it seems as though the HOA enforces the letter of the law on those who are mostly compliant, and yet neglects entirely those that neglect the law entirely. Of course, I don’t live there, so I don’t know how warranted the claims are.
h3. Yes, HOAs suck.
With homeowner’s association nightmares plaguing me, I decided to actually read almost every page of the bylaws and CC&Rs that were given to us at closing. There are quite a few things that are outrageous. For instance, the pool, paid for by homeowner’s dues, is only open until 9pm. Why? Secondly, we can only bring four guests to the pool per month. Why? You mean if I happen to have a few people over and we decide to go for a swim, we can’t? They say it’s to prevent other residents from bringing their entire family out to the pool once the subdivision is entirely sold. And of course, the yards are so small, no one can actually install their own pool, so we have no choice but to use the one for the community. I say they shouldn’t make it a rule until it becomes a problem. Additionally, cars are not allowed to park on the street for more than 3 consecutive days. This means that if Jess and I had two driving aged children, we’d be forced to play the garage and driveway shuffle every morning so that all four cars can fit on our property. I don’t know how they intend to enforce this. The street isn’t labelled “no parking”, and, if we performed a bit of trickery, they’d have no way of knowing WHICH house the cars belonged to. And they certainly can’t tow the cars, as the street doesn’t belong to them and the car hasn’t done anything illegal. Finally, it seems we must have proper window coverings in all windows within 60 days of closing. However, it also seems that wood blinds are a proper window covering. So, if I have them all installed within 60 days, yet leave them completely open all the time, am I in compliance with this rule despite the fact that my window coverings made no difference in the appearance of my home to the outside world. Additionally, all window coverings must be “approved”. I’ve been told by others in similar situations that this isn’t enforced as long as your window coverings aren’t objectionable. And ours are quite nice looking, a conservative white on the outside, and very similar in appearance to mini-blinds from the outside. So, it doesn’t seem like they should have a problem with them. However, I’m a bit sick with the thought that we might have spent $1300 on window treatments that could be denied, leaving us with a $1300 pile of custom fitted crap and the task of finding new, approved, window treatments.
h3. my wallet is bleeding.
Moving into a new house is very expensive. There are things we’ve had to pay for that I never even considered. For instance, it cost us $95 to have our water, sewer and trash services activated. Additionally, for those same three services, we have a minimum payment of $57 every month. That’s before we ever flush a toilet, throw away a bag of trash, or turn on a faucet. Our new house fund is starting to run a bit dry, so, many of the things we really wanted to have in place before we moved in might have to wait a few months/years/decades.
h3. storage? what storage?
Though we didn’t notice when we looked at the house before we bought it, it is severely lacking in closets and storage space. There is a nice sized pantry, a *HUGE* master bedroom closet, one small closet in each of the upstairs bedrooms, and the bathrooms have cabinets over the toilets… but that’s it. No linen closets. No coat closets. No medicine cabinets. No place for storage in the garage. And only a small shelf in the laundry room. So… we’ve got to come up with a few interesting ideas to handle all of this stuff. There’s some decent attic storage, which is good for stuff we don’t use often. But, for everything else, we’re still working on ideas. If you think you might have some creative ways to store common items and want to come take a look at what we have to work with, give me a call.
h3. goooooo homeowners.
Regardless of all of my griping, we really love the house. We’ve gone up there almost every night since we closed to drop off boxes, seal tile, run wire, or just watch TV. All of our services have been turned on, and all of our appliances are in, except for the refrigerator which comes next Tuesday (damn I wish we would have ordered that earlier… dealing with a cooler and ice is a pain in the ass).
h3. new furniture?
This weekend, hopefully, we’ll head out to “Freed’s Furniture”:http://www.freeds.net/ to spend our $2000 gift certificate that we got from the builder. Hopefully they sell patio furniture, because we need a lot of it. Another couch or two would be nice as well. New computer desks would look very sharp in the game room. A rolling island in the kitchen would also be a great addition. I guess we’ll see when we get there. Maybe we’ll go look tonight, and then think it over until this weekend, just to get an idea of what’s available to us, there.
h3. Jess’ birthday.
Jess’ birthday is this Sunday (the big “two one”). We’re postponing the big party until Brad and Morgan get down here, but if a couple of you would like to get together that night and celebrate with dinner and few drinks or something, let me know.
So, yeah. That’s it.
