corrvin | Entries tagged with house

(This entry has been Piranhacized.)

New employees having trouble identifying the parts of the piranha. I would settle for "the bitey end" and "the non-bitey end" at this point.

Three days off later this week cannot come soon enough. I already jam-packed them with plans as follows:

Wednesday: ME DAY. Sleep, play around online a bit.
Thursday: THIS HOUSE, A PIT. Clean like my parents' opinion depends on it. (So, likely to be be 20 minute bursts with loud music and tons of dry-erase-board lists.)
Friday: Birthday celebrating for the youngest two-legged member of the household. Food, cake, possibly even presents. Movie! Shopping! Fun!
Friday night: Collapse in exhaustion and sleep up until work Saturday night.

So, I've survived the weekend from heck; I'm still sad but doing a little better. Survived a little rockiness in my personal life, things are doing better there too.

This week's schedule is going to eat me alive. I have cleaning to do today (Wednesday) and my dad coming tomorrow for us to work on wiring or... something! I don't know what. In the kitchen.

I'm having sleeping problems, as usual, with the 2pm wakeup and inability to sleep again. I'm sure it's stress, it should go away soonish.

I am still unsure how I ever find time to date. I'm just glad I do. I've been having a spectacular time with the folks I've been seeing. I need to make more time for just hanging out with people I care about. Good thing work is giving us 2 weeks of vacation starting next year!

On the knitting needles this week:

1) Charcoal gray pocket hat, needing 2 rows + ribbing + pocket to be complete, hat 1 of 3 for the Tulsa crew (my ex's family)

2) Striped pink and brown hat waiting to be frogged for re-use... I wanted a pointy elf kind of hat, but I should've double increased every 4th row instead of single every 2. Also, reverse stockinette 2-row stripes are PERFECTLY straight and I kind of would rather have those almost than stockinette ones.

3) a fair number of scraps of yarn sitting by for....something. I'm not sure what yet. And a ball of sock yarn.

I really want to knit a vest, and I have the yarn put aside for it (Silky Wool in green/blue) but I need time to pick out a pattern and start work. I have the duct-taped pieces for at least the measurements from waist to underarm.

I still need to do laundry and pack for my trip Sunday. OH MY GOSH IT'S THIS SUNDAY. HOLY CRAP. I have a lot of stuff to find! (I'm only going for 4 days, so I'm taking two changes of clothes at most. This sounds easy, but I also need my laptop, iPod, chargers for those and my cell phone, knitting stuff, and whatever else I can fit in a teeny tiny bag. Also, I'd like a messenger/laptop bag. I'll go look for one in the morning.)

Sometimes I wonder if my parents lied to me and I was actually secretly raised by wolves.

Because when I go to clean my pit of a room, I keep asking questions that just have more questions behind them. ( cut for long rambly house post )

So, I faxed over my insurance information Sunday night, and I was expecting to call AT Roofing Tuesday morning and set up a time for them to come and do the roof.

To my utter surprise, they were ready to do the work Tuesday! And I was impressed:

( pictures under cut )

I'm really thrilled with how great my roof looks and I'm especially happy that I don't have any cleanup to do. I paid a reasonable price, and this is really extraordinary work.

(Too bad I can't sneak search engine terms in here like "AT Roofing review." Oh wait, look what I just did.)

So, I've finished doing my taxes (still have to mail them in, though) and thanks to the house credit, I have some money to throw at the kitchen.

( cut for pics )
Other features I want:
Open shelving, especially for pantry goods. I think food doesn't get eaten because we forget it's there. I also like to look and see what I have, and that doesn't work if the doors are open creating a hazard.

I do want enough storage space, but I also want to think about having enough and not too much. Having service for 20, in ordinary dishes, does not mean I need more space, it means I have too many damn dishes. The problem I've seen with cabinets is that you shove all your stuff in, and then you shut the door, and go "Oh, how be-yoo-tiful" because it looks neat-- but behind that door is a festering mass of chaos. (This goes double for our corner cabinet spaces.) So what I kind of want is space with a purpose. I'm still pondering this one.

Countertops of appropriate height. Standard counter height is 36". I want at least one counter at 40" or better, so I can knead bread without a backache.

I'd like to re-do the flooring to something washable but cushier; I'm wondering if those interlocking rubber floormats have a slightly prettier version?

Will post more from home with idea pics and stuff... later. :D

My parents came up and got me a super cool present.

See, only 3 burners on my cooktop were working. That and the oven are both vintage and original to the house. And in a state of vintage, original grease coating internal to every part.

I now have...
1) A new two-door freestanding cabinet in front of the kitchen window
2) A pretty gray-and-tan (it's "Brazilian Granite" color pattern) countertop on said cabinet
3) The old cooktop sitting outside waiting for big trash day

and...

4) A new white smoothtop range with convection oven.

BOO YEAH.

I am so totally cooking.

Tomorrow. When I'm not too tired to stand up.

People who have hearing loss, or sleep very soundly, may not wake up to a smoke alarm.

Someone actually had to have a study to show that children don't all wake up to the sound of a parent's voice telling them to get up.

From here:

"After about four minutes of the blaring alarm, a groggy Mason stumbled from his bedroom into the hallway, but then immediately returned to bed.

Seven minutes into the test Lilly stirs, sits up in her bed, and then goes back to sleep.

"I was shocked," exclaimed Doyle. "I thought for sure both kids would wake up, out of a sound sleep, and be totally confused and not recognize the alarm system and know what it meant."

"I was amazed how sound asleep she was," said Martinez. "There was no movement there, no eye movement until the very end when she started coming to, but by that time our house would have been engulfed."

Fire experts said survivability greatly decreases once three minutes has passed.

"Fire doubles in size every 30 seconds," said Martinez. "So you think about a waste basket fire, or a fire in the kitchen, the fact it doubles in size every 30 seconds -- to fill a room is really just a two to three minute process."

Martinez knows that fact all too well.

"I have to go to plan B, this doesn't really work," he said. "You know the whole purpose of having this alarm system installed in the house -- well it's not just for the kids, but primarily it's for them. We've talked about what to do, to feel the door and check if it's hot. We've reviewed all that stuff, but if they don't wake up it's all a moot point. I've got to do homework and find out what else we can do."

I have a new kitchen sink faucet. The kitchen sink is the original white enamel over cast iron. The new faucet is intended to go with the current sink AND with the next sink (sink is up for replacement, just not right now).

New faucet has a tall neck for filling pitchers, and white accents on the handles, and a sprayer!!! A sprayer!!!

I also bought the laminate flooring for the living room, because that's all that would fit in the vehicle we were in (my dad and I). I'll pick up the remaining amount for the master bedroom on another trip. This took up half my flooring budget* but I have way plenty for the living room and some left over for the master bedroom. I'm doing them both in the same color which is sort of a medium cherry. (They had a way cheapo light oak but it was awful.)

Off to bed. We'll see how I feel tomorrow after having lifted 300 sq ft of flooring into a car...

*For those keeping score at home, my budget is $1000 for all the flooring. I am within budget at this time.

Tomorrow is the penultimate visit to the apartment, or if I'm very lucky the very last one. I'll be spackling a couple of holes in the wall and slapping some Kilz on some dark spots, replacing the door that we took off for litterbox access in the bathroom, and calling it good.

The house now has furniture. We have a couch, china cabinet, and dining table in the library (back room) and a new mirror and two rugs in the living room, plus new beds and new dressers.

Tomorrow I'll probably be doing a load of laundry when I get home, and hanging it out, yay! I haven't had line-dried laundry in ages and ages. We only have two lines on the clothes thing but that should be plenty for a load a day. And a load a day will eventually get us caught up.

The kitchen needs some Kilz and drywall in a bad way; one of the major cabinets is unusable until it's cleaned and sealed. The fridge is in, and while a side-by-side is awesome for being able to get into it without blocking the whole kitchen, I can already see the problem in not being able to store pizzas without removing shelves.

More update later, I'm sure.

( pix below cut )

Curtains are up and I will take pics this morning. I will be poking around to see about rugs... I am totally asking my mom for the oriental rugs in her attic. TOTALLY. I think she has two. Yummeh!

Kitchen needs to be painted, also the kid's room-- kitchen first, fridge comes Thursday. And washer and dryer. I totally want a kitchen remodel.

Stairs to be sanded after, repeat after, eye protection is bought. Staples at 14krpm are NOT good for the eyes.

Also, I noticed something with the shopping trips. Normally, I'm a "we don't need it put it back" kind of shopper. But lately, every time I go to the store, even for some eensy thing, I find all this stuff I need. I never needed any of this stuff before, but I can't figure out how to do anything I want to do without it, so I have to buy it. Weird!

The kid wants her room painted light pink, and some kind of curtains; she's rejected some stuff as being way too little-girlish, which I'm ok with her feeling that way, but we're going to have to come up with some way for her to get to choose among things I think are reasonable. No stepchild of mine is going to have something decorated in Boudoir of Vice™ or whatever. And she's still little enough to want room to play with her toys and all that. I'll be brainstorming those things for a while. She also needs a comfy chair that's reasonably sized for her to sit in, so she doesn't have to always sit on her bed to play Nintendo or something.

I never really got the point of not having at least one chair and preferably two in your bedroom; after all, it's about the only area for a private conversation if you aren't the head of the household. And sometimes people want to have private conversations, but maybe they don't feel comfortable on the bed with someone! I know it was tough for me when I lived in the dorms and dated a few guys, and we wanted to have a conversation without random people in the hallway listening (which left out the lounge) but I wasn't at all ready to jump into bed with the guy, and jumping on the bed in front of him seemed kind of weirdly taunting because of that.

Today's project: go work on the apartment and see how much more of my stuff I can move out, whee!

Well, we've dragged over 3 or 4 loads of stuff from the apartment to the house, and Raven is unscrewing the banisters to remove the last of the carpet (I ask you, who puts down carpet and then screws hardware OVER it?) so we'll feel okay bringing the cats in.

The windows are set very, very low in all the rooms-- about 8" off the floor-- so I can see the street outside while lying on the couch. I am on the couch because my sciatic nerve is very very Not Happy with me. In a bit once I feel a little better I'll go do a bit more painting and finish up the computer room.

I bought a sander today, so I can work on the stairs next time I have a few hours free and nothing else pressing. My plan is to sand them, get the paint flecks off them, and stain and refinish them.

I'll write more about the house stuff later; right now I really need a nap.

House progress continues here.

Raven put in new deadbolts on all the doors, with matching keys (yays one key).

I finished painting the bookcases and have maybe 20% of my books left to carry over and shelve. The rest of the shelves will be for sewing machines and other such fun things.

I'm about halfway through painting the living room; still have to do one wall (different color) and cut in all the tops and bottoms and paint the trim (yet another color).

The stairs have had the carpet stripped and

ravenlet has done an awesome job removing the staples with needle nose pliers. I think we may sand the everloving foo out of the stairs and then stain and finish them and just go with it.

Once I cool down it's time to get back to painting.

High today near or over 100.

By 8pm, it may be down to the low 90's.

By 5am, it'll be nearly down to 80 for a few minutes, then start climbing again the moment the sun peeks over the horizon.

I'm going to bed right now and if I sleep until work time, fine, and if not I'll work on painting the bookshelves, and if I don't work on painting then I'll do it tomorrow after work, when it's still a balmy 95 or so.

My feet are so hot it feels like they're going to catch on fire. Blah.

So, while reading through my house mags, I saw more than one "pot-filler." This is an extra faucet on a swivel arm that is mounted above the stove, so that you can set your pot on the stove and then fill it with water, and not make an extra trip.

I think this is brilliant, but it's missing something.

No matter what your reason for using a faucet over the stove to get the water in, it remains that you must get the water OUT somehow. If it's clumsy to get the filled pot from sink to stove, it surely can't be any more fun to get the filled pot from stove to sink, AND now it's hot!

So, what would be the ideal method for coping with the admitted problem of getting hot water to the stovetop containers, and then getting it out?

( some ideas under the cut )

What do you all think?

Link goes directly to picture of kitchen cabinets.

I want two-tone cabinets like this, only I want them in green. (A friend says this may be an artifact of the doors/cabinets and not a true two-tone, but I want to do this on purpose.) At some point I'll figure out how to link you guys to the colors I'm going to use.

Well, my friends, next Monday we'll begin moving into our New House. I'd be happy to share my address, but here's how I'm comfortable doing it:

I'm tagging this post so that people can find it later if they want, and I'm leaving it up and accessible. I'm not friend-locking it, because some of my friends read my LJ but don't have LJs of their own, and in the future I want to be able to add people as friends without worrying about whether I want them to know where I live. On the other hand, I'm not posting my address here in the clear.

So here's how it works. Comments are screened-- no one is going to see what you leave me in a comment, except you and me. No matter how far in the future this post remains up, I will never unscreen people's email addresses.

Comment and leave me your email address, and I will email you my new physical address. You may then commence looking it up on Google Street View or mailing me postcards, or whatever your little heart desires within common sense and the law. If you comment anonymously and I don't recognize you from your email address, you should probably also sign it with your name, cause otherwise I'm probably going to email and ask who you are.

Don't forget, this address won't go live until NEXT MONDAY JUNE 22 which is the start of our moving. The former owners still live in the house for the remainder of this week.

( square footage )

OMG TROLL GLOVES.

And...

( look what my new house has! )

I think plenty of people talk about "oh, I would never want my mother/grandmother/whatever to have to live in a nursing home."

How many of us are really doing something about that, though? How many of us are considering not only the needs of our current household, but the future members-- not only future children or a future spouse, but our own parents and brothers and sisters who may be in need?

And that, by the way, is why I want a house bigger than my current household can fill. I'm thinking that someday I may share a roof with my parents again, and whatever I need to do so that it's not an inconvenience, or anything that makes them feel unwanted in my house, is a blessing.

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Corrvin

March 2026

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Page Summary

Wuh oh.
Some better.
And living in the bell tower like that...
Roof is done already!
MSPaint + new kitchen planning
SQUEE!
Smoke alarms, hearing loss, and children
New faucet!
House update
House progress and other stuff-n-things.
[cue Tetris music]
(no subject)
Forecast: Unbelievably flaming hot.
miss_next and other interested parties
In which I do not hot-link.
New address. (Comments screened!)
Note to self (house)
Squee and squee!
Family statement.

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Entries tagged with house

Wuh oh.

Some better.

And living in the bell tower like that...

Roof is done already!

MSPaint + new kitchen planning

SQUEE!

Smoke alarms, hearing loss, and children

New faucet!

House update

House progress and other stuff-n-things.

[cue Tetris music]

(no subject)

Forecast: Unbelievably flaming hot.

miss_next and other interested parties

In which I do not hot-link.

New address. (Comments screened!)

Note to self (house)

Squee and squee!

Family statement.