Alyssa and John 7: Laura Ingalls, Something, Something...

[front hugs > duggs]

9 minutes ago, Bastet said:

I wouldn’t go too crazy adding more color to the nice gray kitchen above. Life itself will take care of that:

A counter full of kitchen appliances of various colors (don’t make that matchy matchy mistake!) and a sink full of dirty pots and pans will help. Consider cooking more southern Italian food—tomato splatters are good for that homey touch. Finally, adopt a big orange cat. Imagine how he will look on the counter, slowly and tenderly washing his face. 

I think I can help with the red sauce for sure. It’s the orange cat that’s the problem.....

[dawn9476]

One last note from the video, John and his brothers were wearing protective masks when pulling up the floor and doing the drywall.

Edited March 12, 2021 by dawn9476

[catlady]

20 minutes ago, Bastet said:

 Finally, adopt a big orange cat. Imagine how he will look on the counter, slowly and tenderly washing his face. 

In a pinch, a black-and-white cat monitoring the teal popcorn popper can do a comparable job. ?

[JordynDarby5]

11 hours ago, IsmeWeatherwax said:

I got an amazing multi coloured rug off amazon, its fair trade made in India by women and girls and they use the scraps from the clothing industry, also different coloured cushions. I love it now! I read once that your rooms should be done in a 60/30/10. 60% main colour, 30% accent colour and 10% striking colour. The only grey I have is the cat tree!

That sounds really cool!

[byzant]

2 hours ago, IsmeWeatherwax said:

@byzant yes of course! https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0050I1BNC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 

I got the large one and its really cheerful and happy ??

Brilliant  thank you so much 

[metheglyn]

Per Alyssa's newest video, Ellie, Addallee, and Isaiah were there when Alyssa was doing a bunch of packing and cleaning, with Ellie and Addie helping watch the kids while Isaiah helped with a lot of hauling. Then Carlin and Evan showed up to help her and John with painting, major vacuuming, etc. So yeah, definitely pulling in the siblings to help, especially if more showed up even later. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

The navy wallpaper looks pretty good in her dining room. I’m not a fan of the light fixture but it could be much worse.

[Bazinga]

I apologize if this has already been stated already but I have to wonder if John and Alyssa regret putting so much money into updating their rental home now to purchase a home themselves? I've always wondered the same thing with Erin and Chad as well. Maybe it's just regionally where I live but putting money into somebody else's rental property would be really unheard of.

[JermajestyDuggar]

27 minutes ago, Bazinga said:

I apologize if this has already been stated already but I have to wonder if John and Alyssa regret putting so much money into updating their rental home now to purchase a home themselves? I've always wondered the same thing with Erin and Chad as well. Maybe it's just regionally where I live but putting money into somebody else's rental property would be really unheard of.

My cousin would update her rental and the landlord would knock money off their rent that month. Chad could have worked something out with their landlord.

Edited March 12, 2021 by JermajestyDuggar

[IsmeWeatherwax]

@JordynDarby5 @byzant you are most welcome! What else I love about my rug, is they are all made individually! You wont get the same colour combos every time, the colour choices you get are decided by the lady/girl who made the rug. Its so much nicer than a factory made one. If you do purchase any I'd love you to let me know ?

[The butcher's wife]

17 hours ago, Satan'sFortress said:

We need to put in a new kitchen floor. Ours is cheap builder-grade vinyl and is old enough to vote, buy alcohol, rent a car, and run for Congress.  It is past the point of being able to clean it. 

I was considering Vinyl Composition Tile (Anderson make it, among others.)  I think it is used a lot in schools, hospitals, etc. and looks very durable.  I want something easy to clean. This comes in lots of fun colors, too, and just looks very functional.

Anyone ever used this?

When we had to redo the floor of my basement bedroom at my dad's house we used those. We wanted something that would withstand humidity as well, as the reason for having to redo the floors was that the ivy growing outside my window had managed to push itself through under one of the window's corners which wasn't noticed for a long time because I had a chest of drawers standing there. Anyway, the hardwood floor didn't take too well to soaking up all the water that now leaked through the hole made by the ivy, and we used something that after looking at their homepage seems to be the same product or a very similar product. It was fairly easy to install and really is very durable, though I would make sure to have some shock/sound-absorbing layer underneath it, as it is fairly thin and non-springy, and when not installed in a basement might annoy those on the floor underneath you. We picked a red oak kind of colour and the same for the baseboards. I agree with what @JermajestyDuggar said about having to dust them a lot less. When our apartment was build a few years later we were saidly told by the floor-people that the trend of doing the baseboards in the same colour as the floor had come and gone, so now I have to deal with white baseboards again ?

[freethemall]

17 hours ago, CarrotCake said:

You mean dinning room?

Ok so I noticed in her most recent story she screenshotted DMs she got from people on Instagram that ALSO said "dinning room" (interesting my auto correct made me manually retype it that way). Are they trolling her or is this a common mistake and there are a lot of dummies? 

12 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

The navy wallpaper looks pretty good in her dining room. I’m not a fan of the light fixture but it could be much worse.

I'm actually into the wallpaper, shows she's willing to do some interesting stuff outside of making everything grey and white and dull (Josie are you reading this?)

[GreenBeans]

On 3/12/2021 at 9:46 AM, The butcher's wife said:

Count me in among those fascinated by real estate prices. Our area's COL is fairly high, though we haven't quite reached Southern Ontario prices and obviously can't compare to cities like London, New York etc. We live in a 92 sqm (990 sqft) / 77 sqm (828 sqft) (corrected for the space lost by the sloping ceiling) apartment that we rent from my MIL. We have a big kitchen/dining/living room area, a fairly small bedroom (which I don't mind, it's for sleeping) and a tiny second bedroom that is currently our "office". I call it the chaos room; it's stuffed with everything that doesn't have a place anywhere else. SO keeps promising to build shelves/closets to make it more usable but I'm still waiting on closets in our actual bedroom so I'm not holding my breath (we've lived here 3,5 years; I would have bought closets years ago but contrary to my username, he's actually a furniture builder and insists on building most things himself). MIL paid about 350.000 € when she bought it 5 years ago, which was considered a fairly high price at the time, even though it was a new build. Now it would easily go for 500.000, and noone would bat an eye. And we live in a small town (population under 10.000) that doesn't have much to offer apart from grocery stores. The next bigger town is only 5 kms away but traffic at rush hour is horrible; by car it could easily take you 30 to 45 minutes some days which is part of the reason I ride my bike whenever I can. The thing that's so strange to me is that the rents aren't actually high enough to buy apartments for investment purposes at the prices they are being offered at right now. That said there barely are any. Let alone houses. In the local paper you can see the same families/couples looking to buy a house or bigger apartment for months on end, and there are very few being sold at all, none at reasonable prices, and most very far out in tiny villages and not in good repair. Buying land to build a family home is also nearly impossible (price and availability). I'll be very interested to see how the market changes over the next few years, and if/when this bubble will burst.

Similar situation here... Only time will tell whether we overpaid when we bought our apartment last year (~900sqft for ~600,000$). The previous owners scored a great deal (our purchase price was about 50% more than what they paid 5 years ago when it was newly built), prices have been skyrocketing. But they’ve gone up even further ever since, so at least for now we are still happy with our purchase. 

It’s mind boggling to me how it’s possible for young couples without a proper job (or something like cleaning, lawn care etc., which can’t pay that well) and with several kids to buy a house in some areas of the US. Prices are cheaper than in the big cities, but they still have to be able to afford it and find a bank that will approve the loan. But maybe that whole loan/mortgage thing just works really differently in the US?

 

[OHFL2009]

3 hours ago, GreenBeans said:

It’s mind boggling to me how it’s possible for young couples without a proper job (or something like cleaning, lawn care etc., which can’t pay that well) and with several kids to buy a house in some areas of the US. Prices are cheaper than in the big cities, but they still have to be able to afford it and find a bank that will approve the loan. But maybe that whole loan/mortgage thing just works really differently in the US?

 

Are you referring to Alyssa and John? John works in management for his family’s HVAC company. I don’t live close enough to them to know their reputation, but they’ve been around a very long time and appear well-established, and HVAC companies in Florida are pretty much always in high demand but especially right now with new home construction booming. Based on salary estimate websites I’d guess he makes somewhere around $75k per year, plus they make money from the show and Alyssa makes some money off social media and YouTube. 
 

Based on location, size and condition of the house I’d guess it’s worth somewhere around $300,000, which is reasonable based on that income and even with a low down payment they would probably qualify for a mortgage on a house worth that given their income. But it appears they’re also buying the house from their current landlord (who may be a family member), so they could also have a private loan with him and he could’ve given them a good price. 

[byzant]

@IsmeWeatherwax have just ordered so will report back with pictures! Thank you I'm so pleased! 

[indianabones]

On 3/12/2021 at 7:20 AM, Johannah said:

Alyssa says she’s been leaving all 4 girls with her MIL, but how does that work with nursing? Even if Maci is being bottle-fed, Alyssa would still have to pump which seems like it would be a time-consuming pain. But maybe Maci was only there for a few hours.  

Pretty sure Alyssa uses formula.

[Satan'sFortress]

On 3/12/2021 at 3:57 PM, catlady said:

In a pinch, a black-and-white cat monitoring the teal popcorn popper can do a comparable job. ?

Your cupboards are so pretty! That's my kitchen wall color, and I love how you've used it here. Our cats wouldn't match though, mine's tabby!

[G33kywife]

4 hours ago, indianabones said:

Pretty sure Alyssa uses formula.

She’s said before that she nurses but that her milk dries up around 2 months. I’m sure the rigid Babywise scheduling plays into that heavily. Maybe this time around she decided to just pre-emptively switch to formula so she could work on the house without worrying about pumping breaks. 

[Jackie3]

10 hours ago, OHFL2009 said:

 

Based on location, size and condition of the house I’d guess it’s worth somewhere around $300,000, which is reasonable based on that income and even with a low down payment they would probably qualify for a mortgage on a house worth that given their income. But it appears they’re also buying the house from their current landlord (who may be a family member), so they could also have a private loan with him and he could’ve given them a good price. 

It seems strange that their landlord would own a property that was in such poor condition. The floor was ripped up and the paint on the walls was a mess.  I assumed they bought a foreclosure. It certainly wasn't fixed up for sale on the market, which is why I assumed it was a foreclosure.

[dawn9476]

When she was cleaning the master bathroom, she has her pump with her. I think in one of their Q&A's, she said her milk supply is not great so she can only nurse up to 3 months.

Edited March 14, 2021 by dawn9476

[Melissa1977]

39 minutes ago, dawn9476 said:

When she was cleaning the master bathroom, she has her pump with her. I think in one of their Q&A's, she said her milk supply is not great so she can only nurse up to 3 months.

I have been a nursing mom, and a nursing+pumping mom when I came back to work. It's (relatively) easy to pump when the baby is older than 6 months and can eat solids (you can leave just a bit of milk because they are eating other things, and nurse the baby after work), but it's hard and time-consuming to pump for a 1 month old who only can eat milk. 

 I find it difficult to believe Alyssa works full time in the new home, cleans her current home, plus raises 4 girls, plus nurses, plus pumps. Alyssa wants to look perfect and, in her head, perfection=breastfeeding. But I can't believe she is doing it now, while working, if she didn't do it with the eldest when she had more free time. Formula is OK, why to hide it? 

The only thing that worries me is that Maci is one month old and Alyssa seems so happy working in the new house, without the baby. Definitely Alyssa should be a working mom, she's way happier working than being a SAHM and she's not afraid of hard work (she was happy in the cleaning business). I say it worries me because she is adding more kids to the crew, but looks so distant. I understand that some people priorize work over children for a lot of reasons, but Maci is 1 month old. 

 

[OHFL2009]

8 hours ago, Jackie3 said:

It seems strange that their landlord would own a property that was in such poor condition. The floor was ripped up and the paint on the walls was a mess.  I assumed they bought a foreclosure. It certainly wasn't fixed up for sale on the market, which is why I assumed it was a foreclosure.

According to county property records, the house was foreclosed on in 2010 and their current landlord purchased it from the bank a few months later. There are no deed transfers listed since. My best guess is that he had been using it as another rental property, and when the previous tenants moved out, the house was in really bad shape and he offered John and Alyssa a deal. Something that offered them a cheap price on a large home if they did all the work to fix it up.  

As far as I can tell, the property was never listed for sale this time. But I'm pretty sure their landlord is an extended family member, so they probably told him they were looking to buy a house, and when he had one available, offered it to them. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

10 minutes ago, OHFL2009 said:

According to county property records, the house was foreclosed on in 2010 and their current landlord purchased it from the bank a few months later. There are no deed transfers listed since. My best guess is that he had been using it as another rental property, and when the previous tenants moved out, the house was in really bad shape and he offered John and Alyssa a deal. Something that offered them a cheap price on a large home if they did all the work to fix it up.  

As far as I can tell, the property was never listed for sale this time. But I'm pretty sure their landlord is an extended family member, so they probably told him they were looking to buy a house, and when he had one available, offered it to them. 

That sounds like it could be the case. Lifting a home for sale is a huge pain in the ass. If I could sell it to someone I know without having to list it, I would probably give them a good deal. I bet that’s what this person did. 

[Tangy Bee]

Getting siblings to help equals free labor. Plus I wouldn't mind having an excuse to visit FL. I'm sure they are having fun being together as well.

[AussieKrissy]

7 hours ago, Tangy Bee said:

Getting siblings to help equals free labor. Plus I wouldn't mind having an excuse to visit FL. I'm sure they are having fun being together as well.

They would want to be putting me up and taking to me to Disney and Warner’s at the end!!! I would work for that lol 

universal not Warner’s. Thinking about my own Aussie holidays lol 

Edited March 14, 2021 by AussieKrissy