Offered in more than half of our communities throughout Oregon, Washington and Idaho is one of our most popular plans: The Edgewood. The 1408 square foot Edgewood is a mid-sized home catering to those who value both comfort and efficiency. An award-winning designed kitchen, featuring a breakfast bar and ample counter space, overlooks both the spacious living and dining rooms. The separate master suite affords you privacy and features two large closets and an oversized dual vanity bathroom. The two sizeable bedrooms – one of which may be used as an optional den – share a full bathroom and complete this clever home plan. Check out our website for an Edgewood near you! www.hayden-homes.com
If your New Year’s party got a little out of hand and someone put a hole in the drywall of your home, first of all, sounds like a crazy party and second, we have some easy tips for fixing it like a pro.
Small Hole Repair
If the hole is 1-3 inches big you are in luck. Go to your local hardware store and buy: self-adhesive plastic mesh tape, fast-drying patching compound, sandpaper and a putty knife. Find your matching wall paint and check to see if it is still good. If you have a good hardware/paint store they can do this for you. And, if your wall is textured rather than smooth get a can of the spray-on patching texture.
You are ready to begin. Peel off any raised portions of the drywall paper around the edge of the hole and sandpaper the edges. Cover the hole completely with the plastic mesh tape. Next, apply the patching compound with the putty knife, getting it as smooth as possible. Let it dry for a couple of hours. Come back and sand the area with your sandpaper, wipe it off with a damp cloth to remove any sanding dust. You can then either paint the wall or if you have a textured wall first spray on the texture, let dry and then paint. Tada! Good as new.
Large Hole Repair
Now, if someone really went crazy and put a football through your wall you aren’t going to be able to fix it with a little tape. This time you will need to go get: a drywall saw (like a small handsaw with a narrow blade), a sheet of replacement drywall, drywall tape, drywall nails, joint compound, sandpaper, putty knife, primer and paint. You are ready to begin.
Find the nearest studs on your wall on either side of the hole. You can do that either with a stud finder. If you don’t have a stud finder you can find the stud by knocking on the wall. While knocking you will hear a different sound when you get to the stud – the sound will change from hollow to solid at the stud.
Mark the two studs on either side of the hole with a pencil. With a large ruler draw a straight rectangle all around your hole that reaches to the studs. Cut the rectangle out with your drywall saw. Place this piece on top of your new drywall sheet and trace around it so that you can cut out the same size replacement piece. Put your replacement piece into the wall. It should fit pretty perfectly. Attach it to the studs on both sides by nailing in the drywall nails. Don’t drive the nails in too deep – just make it flush, not breaking the drywall paper. Next, apply the joint compound along the seams with your putty knife. Gently press paper joint tape into the joint compound with your putty knife.
After the joint compound is dry, spread two additional thin coats of compound over the tape, extending 6 inches on each side of the seam to blend in with the surrounding wall. Let each coat dry and lightly sand between coats. Wipe with a damp cloth between sanding. Paint primer over the compound. This will help it absorb your paint more evenly.
Go grab a refreshment and think seriously about not inviting that football-throwing-nut back to your next party.
Happy New Year!
Part 4:
Ian and I were pretty sure we could afford the homes in Merrick, but wanted to make sure. Michelle let us know that the best way to figure all the financial stuff out is to talk to a mortgage planner. She recommended that we fill out the pre-qualification form on the Cornerstone Lending Group’s website. Cornerstone is the Hayden Homes preferred lender and it sounds like they use them a lot. So we went ahead and filled this out online. It was pretty simple and straightforward – asking a lot of financial information of course. While filling this out, it hit me how big of a decision we were making. It is one of those huge life decisions that should not be taken lightly, and from that moment on, I decided to not forget that.
After submitting the form, we heard from Cornerstone the same day. We had to get some copies of paystubs, W-2s, etc. together for them and made an appointment with their Oregon Regional Manager, Rich Waller.
Meeting with Rich was so helpful. He was very patient with our questions and explained the process very well. Since this is our first home loan, we had a lot of questions and pretty much walked in to the meeting blind – not knowing how this process worked at all. We concluded that we are qualified for pretty much any plan offered in Merrick, but after calculating monthly payments, we decided to stick with the smaller floor plans. Our monthly payment with three of the plans offered was very close to what we are paying in rent currently, once the tax benefits were calculated in. We were pretty surprised and excited to find this out – this way buying a house did not seem quite so frightening!
“Oliver” is an adorable 8-month old baby whose teen-aged parents are doing their best to meet his needs. Oliver’s mother left home at 16 to get away from a toxic situation. She has completed her GED and is currently taking classes at COCC. She is also providing in-home care for a neighbor’s child to bring in some extra money. The family has a lot on their plate right now, but loves their baby boy very much.
Thanks to Hayden Homes, “Oliver” and seven other babies from MountainStar’s Healing Children program slept safely and soundly last week in brand new cribs donated by Hayden Homes.
During the shopping spree, members of the Hayden Home team and Robyn Lopez Melton, Hispanic Outreach Coordinator and Program Specialist with MountainStar, set out for visits to Walmart and Costco and they returned with eight cribs and mattresses, and supplies including crib bumpers, blankets, diapers and wipes, stroller, baby gates, bathtubs, and more.