I'm guessing RuPaul took that pic?Larry told me Dave wanted to take the truck to the strip so he called some sketchy talent agent and told him he needed a pit crew for the drag races. As usual, Larry really came through. Just look how happy Dave is!
For all of you who stayed along with me on this journey thanks for being there! A few of you (who know just about all of what went on) really helped me keep my sanity and I appreciate that.So much has been going on since we got back from our second trip I just now had time to explain all this. Hopefully it makes sense as I'm on very little sleep now with this air mattress we're on. lol
I’ll try to keep it as short as possible but there were several things that led up to our decision. Yes, we did up sell the house and while it wasn’t an easy decision it did get easier as more and more things either got messed up or we just didn’t get what we wanted. I hired this builder because he was a small company and only built 5-6 houses a year and that’s what I was looking for. Someone who'll spend time with us and on the job site and attention to details. Well he ended up getting super busy and never was around (had 19 houses under contract) and I was the one doing all the work and good thing I was in the trades for 42 years and have built several of my own houses. There were so many mistakes especially with the electrical and plumbing and he never caught them, I did. Can lights in the wrong places, can lights in the master bedroom ceiling where there weren’t supposed to be any, lights all wired to the wrong switches and some not wired at all like the nightstand outlets. The 2 outlets by the nightstands were supposed to be switched as you enter the room so you can turn the lamps on. The garage was supposed to have 4 LED strip lights. 2 in the front and 2 in the back and they roughed it for can lights. I did catch this but it wasn’t worth waiting days for them to come back and redo them. What’s worse is I gave the electrician a 5 page detailed list of where we wanted lights, extra outlets and 2 and 3 way switches for certain areas and he messed them all up.
One main concern was I had a tankless hot water heater installed and the plumber put the gas shut off valve at the end of the flex pipe where it goes into the unit. It’s supposed to be at the hard pipe supply line because if there’s a failure you can turn off just the gas to that unit and not the whole house.Several things were installed wrong, they ordered the wrong LVP flooring (color and product) which we caught the night before they were going to instal it. That was another 2 week delay getting the correct flooring. Then they installed it at the wrong angle after going over this several times which direction we wanted it. The front porch rails (there wasn’t supposed to be any rails at all) were installed wrong. We wanted black wire so you can see through it and not obstruct your view of the lake across the street. They installed white pvc posts and rails which doesn’t look bad but again, not what we specd out. The deathblow was the yard. He knew from the first time I contacted him I did not want grass! I wanted all stone for easy maintenance and when it came time to do the yard the new estimate for the stone was $10,000 more than the original estimate. His excuse was he doesn’t use the landscaper that originally quoted it and this guy is more.
This was another problem throughout the build with stuff being overcharged. I paid out of pocket for anything extra from the original estimate but almost every quote was way more. Not just 3-5% (which isn’t unusual) but 20-35% higher. There’s so much more but you get the gist and while some of you know the whole story there was still much more that went on that I was to frustrated to discuss. Much worse happens in life but this was a weekly fuster cluck that just kept getting worse with every passing day. I was afraid to ask Annie “What else could go wrong” because something else always did.
We were so disgusted with everything that when we finally closed on the house we already had the realtor ready to list it the next day. I wanted a quick sale to be just done with it and while I could’ve made a lot more money I just wanted out! While it looked great we didn’t get what we wanted. I never had this problem building my own houses back east in fact I always wondered why people would say it’s the worst experience they've been through. Now I know! Besides the weather had really changed a lot here and the storms were getting worse and worse. 5 tornado warning it 3 weeks and it seemed like every week there were 3-4 days of flood warnings. All our friends there said this wasn’t normal but they did say things were starting to consistently get worse. We’re good with this and I mostly feel bad for Annie because she’s never had a new house and this whole experience was a nightmare but she 100% agrees it was time to move on. To quote the great Fred Durst “Life is a lesson, you learn it when you’re through”. Amen to that!!
So back in late February/early March I started looking for alternative options and everything kept leading us back to Arizona. Lot’s of sunshine and no real natural disasters per se but there was no way I was going back to that heat island in Phoenix. After researching the whole state I contacted Phil @P. A. Schilke about his area in Green Valley. Phil was super helpful (much appreciated Phil!!) and gave me the lowdown on GV so we planned a month vacation there from mid June - mid July to see the area and how the weather was. It’s at 3,000’ so it doesn’t get as hot as Phoenix and the best thing is that it cools down night unlike Phoenix where it’ll still be 106 at 10pm. Even when it hit 108 by 7 pm it was already down to the high 90’s and with the dry heat that’s easily doable and mornings were low - mid 70’s which are perfect. It’s a small city (24,000) with just about everything you need right there and we met so many friendly people. It’s mostly a retirement community with most communities being 55+ and a ton of amenities. Luckily we sold the house in 4 days and continued to look online and decided to go back for another month or so to look at houses. That’s where we were last month, looking at homes and found a nice one that had a ton of updates done to it. New roof, windows, kitchen, water heater, water softener, most appliances and so much more. Besides some cosmetic stuff (we don’t like the paint inside or out) I think I have it in me to do it one more time. lol This couple took super good care of the house and fixed or repaired anything that needed it and with top of the line stuff. Roof has a 30 year membrane, windows are lifetime warrantied new appliances all have extended warranties and everything is transferrable (one time) which is great. Really the only thing we need to buy is a new stove and dishwasher.They’re 10 years old and white and the fridge and microwave are SS and are new so we want them to match plus we want a gas stove. There’s also a nice view of the Santa Rita Mountains from the back yard and the Mst bedroom.
It’s super clean and not just “we’re selling our house clean” I mean clean as in eat off the floor clean. They might even be more OCD than I am if that’s possible.The house inspector even commented on well the house is and only found 3 small things. A blind that the cord was broken, one sink stopped that didn’t work and the plastic guide that holds the drain tube for the water softener line was cracked. Not bad for a 20 year old house! We’re closing on October 30th and plan on leaving here on the 28th. Good thing most of our stuff is still in boxes and it’ll finally be nice to unpack everything. So here we go again and hopefully this will be it. Even though they just had the kitchen remodeled we didn't really care for the quartz and I hated the sink and faucet and it has a two tier (pony wall) bar. So on top of all this we're redoing it all and that's scheduled for the Monday (4 days) after we arrive. Like I don't have enough going on.
So much for keeping it short.
Or does not like to hear banjos playing off in the woods.
Because if you can hear the banjos, at least you know where they are. It's when the music stops that things get sketchy.In a weird way I'm gonna miss that!
And, of course, there is always Payson....
That’s just A - L.
Duke in his home office with his R5G member files.
(Notice that he's also hired a PYT to be his "assistant")
You know how the media nicknames celebrity couples like Bennifer and Brangelina? We have friends whose names are Ruth and Paul. I call them RuPaul.
is that when sooie sooie becomes the melody ? Arkansas is after all frequently referred to as the Razorback state.
Thanks Adam! You're right "everything happens for a reason" and I had to keep telling myself that throughout this. There's now a light at the end of the tunnel (probably all Sids lights lmao
) as we're leaving tomorrow morning and closing yet another chapter in this game we play known as life. 
All our neighbors said the same that the weather really changed. lot just in the last couple years. Of course right when we moved there!
I've been through some pretty nasty storms both thunder and snowstorms when I lived in MA. We got some really nasty "NorEasters that were like hurricanes in the summer and total white outs in the winter. But the storms in BV were just brutal! I'm talking rolling thunder (loud, like dynamite loud) and lighting for 5+ hours and a few times so loud it shook the whole house we thought a tree fell through the roof. That along with the builders mess made it easy to leave and not look back or regret it.
Speaking of which:In a weird way I'm gonna miss that!
