Saturday, December 31, 2011

Bye 2011


New Year SMS

Well, I sure did try to make 2011 the year that I finally moved to the pedestrian neighborhood near downtown where I want to be.  2011 was the best time to make that happen, because when housing prices begin to rise again, the prices there will rise at a much faster rate than the rest of the area.  It is really difficult to live in a house which has to be available for showings, but I did it.  There was at least one showing per week for several months until July, when activity pretty much stopped.

No offers were made on my house, not even low offers.  I came to realize that the house would not sell in this market unless changes were made.  So my kitchen is being renovated and the rest of the house is being dealt with as much as I can afford..  I am doing what I can myself, and have become rather adept at plaster repair and interior painting.

Then, in early spring, the house will go back on the market.

Meanwhile, I have a different relationship with this house.  I never really liked this house before, and I was always very detached from it.  I never made it a home.

Over the past few weeks I have put a lot of effort into carefully choosing paint colors and small upgrades like outlet covers.  I really like the new colors I've applied, except for the bathroom which has 2 impossible per-existing tile colors.  I ended up having to faux finish the walls of the bathroom, and the resulting wall color is OK. 

When the house is placed on the market again, I will have a new attitude.  I will know that I have made this house as appealing as it can be within a reasonable budget.  The house looks a million times better that it used to.  Maybe its "energy" has changed.

Happy new year.



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Monday, December 19, 2011

Renovation

This is from my final set of photos taken of my kitchen prior to renovation:


And this is what that view looks like now:

A picture is NOT worth a thousand words in this case.  It all looks very neat, orderly and acceptable in this photo.  It looks as though the renovation is not disrupting any lives; it looks as though the house this room is in is still functional.  It does not appear that the homeowner is losing her ever-loving mind.

The horror stories you've heard about kitchen renovations are all true.  Guaranteed.  I just hope the one thing every survivor claims, about the renovations always taking twice as long as promised, is NOT true. 

I suppose that if this were a bigger house, it wouldn't bother me so much to have workers in it 7 days a week.  There are only 4 rooms in the house.  I can't stand to have this much contact with other people.

I also can't find anything.  Now I realize that I used to store a shocking number of non-food items in my kitchen - necessities like scissors, paper, writing utensils, important papers and contact information.  (It's a four-room house after all.)  I can't find anything now, even though I am the one who hauled everything out of the kitchen.  It's a tiny  house, which means that accessible and viewable storage of displaced items is not an option. 

It goes without saying that it's extremely challenging to live for weeks on end with no kitchen.  It's impossible to eat properly with no kitchen.  I suppose if we lived near a health food store, it wouldn't be so bad.  But we don't.

And then there are situations like this morning.  I never get sick, and one of the reasons I don't is because whenever I feel anything coming on, I go straight to the kitchen to take whatever remedies apply.  I eat garlic or onions (natural antibiotics), take some echinachea for general malaise or some cherry bark syrup for a sore throat.  Well, you know where this is going.  I could barely get out of bed when the alarm went off at 6:30 this morning, and I knew I needed echinachea.  And yes, you guessed it - I haven't the foggiest idea where it is.

It is notable that the only time I have ever failed to get The Child to school on time occurred last week.  My life is so turned upside down that I failed to awaken last Thurday when the alarm went off.  The Child was forced to go to detention because of it, even though I wrote a lengthy note to the school administrators explaining that it was entirely my fault.  I should have been sent to detention.  In fact, I should have been sent to detention for making the decision to renovate. 

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Some time has passed since I began writing this post .  Here's what the kitchen looks like now:


It doesn't look much different, even after more than 2 weeks of work, but there's been a lot of electrical work to re-do that doesn't show.  The renovator (who usually works alone without helpers) often talks to himself or whistles while he works.  I like that.  He seems to enjoy what he's doing, even though he gave me such a low price that he's probably not making any money on this job.  I also like the fact that he works 7 days a week. How many workers do that?  (I can just imagine the outcry if the employees at my workplace were asked to work 7 days without a day off!  Heads would roll!)

No matter what the new kitchen ends up looking like, I guarantee that I'm going to be thrilled to have one again.  

Meanwhile  I have begun painting elsewhere in the house.  I painted the master bedroom pale yellow, as Cinderella suggested.  I think it looks really good.  The room (which is where The Child sleeps) is  a wreck, so I'm not posting photos.......well, actually, I will...............

Here's before:
http://p.rdcpix.com/v01/le8452543-m6o.jpg


Here's after:


Cinderella obviously has a good eye for color.  I am very pleased with the room.  Thanks, Cinderella!  Next, when I have time to shop, I am getting new carpeting for the room.

Progress is being made.


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