House reno as zen....
Sep. 7th, 2020 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jebbypalso with the moving in / decorating / etc options, there is a double edged sword:
1) Anxiety caused by making choices (and wondering if said choices will fit up the stairs on occasion)
2) Anything housing related does reliably cause my brain to completely switch off and stop thinking about work
So, yeah. there's that. And i'm putting most of my stuff surrounding all of this behind a cut because i realize that times are hard. But this is a first for me so it's pretty consuming and will be good to have to look back on. Plus, conversation with my dad range from "you shouldn't buy a house" to "you're doing it wrong" with very few anything positive. (and i'm pretty sure the only ones of those i've gotten because my aunt and uncle probably made a point of saying that he was being a dick about it). I mean I appreciate the advice, but at the same time, buying a house in Oklahoma is not exactly = to buying a house in Northern NJ. (hell half the time you have to get a realtor to even find houses to rent because of the competition). So yes, bear with me here and skip it all as you need to
Friday fun involved getting to show house off to a real live person (vs virtual facetimes which probably don't show dimensions well.) Going through with work friend A was nice. Helped validate my decision to use the dining room as my home office between 1) keeping most of the wi-fi needs to one floor, 2) reducing up and down the stairs carrying of food and drink constantly, 3) upstairs will officially be all "turn off".
we also spent 2 hours of fun cleaning the old cabinets -- which they aren't grody, but there's lots of dust etc and just a bit dank -- and putting in contact paper. Which was an experience since the majority of the cabinets are attached to the floor, the shelfs are nailed in, the door openings are variable width (don't ask, this entire house is a exercise of 2-3 inches of deviation from actual alignment but optical illusions prevent most from noticing) and figuring out the best way to get our shoulders inside said cabinets to reach the back...
Note to self: never do something like that again on the also back day
Saturday was furniture shopping and 2nd floor furniture decisions --
So moving estimator guy is certain my queen bed will fit up (and the sleep number makes it easier...which helped dictate which room it goes in because of the #s of outlets in the various bedrooms). But the dresser, while it might fit, would dominate any room it is in, so that's definitely out.
So furniture shopping.... Decided to that a taller and narrower dresser vs my 66' wide dresser would be better. Which i grew up calling the tall ones "chest of drawers" which apparently confuses yankee sales people? Anyway, looked around and found a nice armoire/wardrobe that has a rolling door to separate one side one 4-5 drawers from the other side of hangable area. When i put that in the master bedroom it leaves 22 inches of space between it and the bed in the short area they overlap which i think (hope) is doable.
And we confirmed that should fit up the stairs. *finges crossed*
So then I was looking at a few things for the guest bedroom which is where I spaced and forgot to double check all diagonal measurements on whether it will fit or not. So i'll probably call or head back next weekend to confirm. Got a loveseat/chaise that pulls out to a full bed and has some storage in it. it pulls apart so i'm hopeful it fits, but if I'm going to cancel/refund I have to do it before delivery. Then a accent chair and small dresser/bedstand, which again, forgot to do measurments on the chair which is in more of curved design and boxy so i'm worried on it.
Which if the worst happens i could just get rid of my living room sectional and put that stuff there, but the fact that the chaise is a left sided chaise makes that slightly less than optimal (but not undoable).
the rest of the weekend i spent playing with my room design plan program (magic plan. definitely helps for the spatially impaired, and on Sunday had L and R over so R could help with the removal of the chandelier of doom! and determine what was up with the kitchen fan that wouldn't fan (which i noticed on walkthrough and should have pushed more on, but i thought it was likely a switch and we didn't have a ladder...)
So removing the chandelier was fine and WONDERFUL to get that hazard out of the way. Seriously, you would have to be less than 5'ft to walk under it. fine if you have a big kitchen table but not conducive to movers! and it was HIDEOUS. We got a nice LED flush light to replace it which we were a little concerned on if a 11' one would work, but they didn't make a larger size in the style i wanted. And it works actually. plenty bright. [which to my dad's mind i should have had the seller replace this if i hated, or walked away. *rolls eyes* i know lighting change outs aren't the norm up here for selling etc, as that's something you change yourself)
Onto the kitchen ceiling fan. R got up on the ladder to find the switch, pushed it.... and the entire fan came away from the ceiling. Fortunately it didn't hit him, and i was nearby to help catch it (and it was light). Soooo, yeah that happened. (and notch one to my father not so directly calling me an idiot for not being more thorough on my walkthrough. Which fair, i should have been in less of a hurry and gone back for my ladder and made sure it worked)
So replacement fan: i didn't want to make R make 2 trips and the Lowes that was open on a sunday (Bergen county blue laws baby) didn't have the wifi enabled version. So we got one that had a remote instead (as I'm somewhat shy of pulling on chains now, i wonder why!! It's a miracle it didn't come down on my head on friday). So began the saga of replacing this. Which fortunately i have short ceilings (slightly less than 8 ft) since I only had the one step ladder.
After assembling it all, R started trying to get the top part to fit into ceiling etc and this was not easy because this fan was HEAVY. The other might have been 10-15lb, though we didn't really hold it up long. But this one was easy 20-25 lb. so he was supporting 1 handed, or working with his arms above his head slightly the entire time, and at different periods, i was doing static overhead press... at one point on my tip toes before i decided to see if I could stand on my plastic tool cases without breaking and I could. the extra 4-6 inches helped, but it was still directly over my head.
Needless to say my shoulders are a bit tired today.
But we got it done. And then found out it was making a horrible hum. Fortunately R kept playing and experimenting until we found out it was the new dimmer switch apparently that caused that.
So yeah, With the help of good friends, I have accomplished the actual 1st upgrade / redesign of my house. Whoo.
Now, it's the last day of a 3-day weekend, and I need to do a little bit of actual work and mow the lawn (transferred my lawn service over to the new house).
1) Anxiety caused by making choices (and wondering if said choices will fit up the stairs on occasion)
2) Anything housing related does reliably cause my brain to completely switch off and stop thinking about work
So, yeah. there's that. And i'm putting most of my stuff surrounding all of this behind a cut because i realize that times are hard. But this is a first for me so it's pretty consuming and will be good to have to look back on. Plus, conversation with my dad range from "you shouldn't buy a house" to "you're doing it wrong" with very few anything positive. (and i'm pretty sure the only ones of those i've gotten because my aunt and uncle probably made a point of saying that he was being a dick about it). I mean I appreciate the advice, but at the same time, buying a house in Oklahoma is not exactly = to buying a house in Northern NJ. (hell half the time you have to get a realtor to even find houses to rent because of the competition). So yes, bear with me here and skip it all as you need to
Friday fun involved getting to show house off to a real live person (vs virtual facetimes which probably don't show dimensions well.) Going through with work friend A was nice. Helped validate my decision to use the dining room as my home office between 1) keeping most of the wi-fi needs to one floor, 2) reducing up and down the stairs carrying of food and drink constantly, 3) upstairs will officially be all "turn off".
we also spent 2 hours of fun cleaning the old cabinets -- which they aren't grody, but there's lots of dust etc and just a bit dank -- and putting in contact paper. Which was an experience since the majority of the cabinets are attached to the floor, the shelfs are nailed in, the door openings are variable width (don't ask, this entire house is a exercise of 2-3 inches of deviation from actual alignment but optical illusions prevent most from noticing) and figuring out the best way to get our shoulders inside said cabinets to reach the back...
Note to self: never do something like that again on the also back day
Saturday was furniture shopping and 2nd floor furniture decisions --
So moving estimator guy is certain my queen bed will fit up (and the sleep number makes it easier...which helped dictate which room it goes in because of the #s of outlets in the various bedrooms). But the dresser, while it might fit, would dominate any room it is in, so that's definitely out.
So furniture shopping.... Decided to that a taller and narrower dresser vs my 66' wide dresser would be better. Which i grew up calling the tall ones "chest of drawers" which apparently confuses yankee sales people? Anyway, looked around and found a nice armoire/wardrobe that has a rolling door to separate one side one 4-5 drawers from the other side of hangable area. When i put that in the master bedroom it leaves 22 inches of space between it and the bed in the short area they overlap which i think (hope) is doable.
And we confirmed that should fit up the stairs. *finges crossed*
So then I was looking at a few things for the guest bedroom which is where I spaced and forgot to double check all diagonal measurements on whether it will fit or not. So i'll probably call or head back next weekend to confirm. Got a loveseat/chaise that pulls out to a full bed and has some storage in it. it pulls apart so i'm hopeful it fits, but if I'm going to cancel/refund I have to do it before delivery. Then a accent chair and small dresser/bedstand, which again, forgot to do measurments on the chair which is in more of curved design and boxy so i'm worried on it.
Which if the worst happens i could just get rid of my living room sectional and put that stuff there, but the fact that the chaise is a left sided chaise makes that slightly less than optimal (but not undoable).
the rest of the weekend i spent playing with my room design plan program (magic plan. definitely helps for the spatially impaired, and on Sunday had L and R over so R could help with the removal of the chandelier of doom! and determine what was up with the kitchen fan that wouldn't fan (which i noticed on walkthrough and should have pushed more on, but i thought it was likely a switch and we didn't have a ladder...)
So removing the chandelier was fine and WONDERFUL to get that hazard out of the way. Seriously, you would have to be less than 5'ft to walk under it. fine if you have a big kitchen table but not conducive to movers! and it was HIDEOUS. We got a nice LED flush light to replace it which we were a little concerned on if a 11' one would work, but they didn't make a larger size in the style i wanted. And it works actually. plenty bright. [which to my dad's mind i should have had the seller replace this if i hated, or walked away. *rolls eyes* i know lighting change outs aren't the norm up here for selling etc, as that's something you change yourself)
Onto the kitchen ceiling fan. R got up on the ladder to find the switch, pushed it.... and the entire fan came away from the ceiling. Fortunately it didn't hit him, and i was nearby to help catch it (and it was light). Soooo, yeah that happened. (and notch one to my father not so directly calling me an idiot for not being more thorough on my walkthrough. Which fair, i should have been in less of a hurry and gone back for my ladder and made sure it worked)
So replacement fan: i didn't want to make R make 2 trips and the Lowes that was open on a sunday (Bergen county blue laws baby) didn't have the wifi enabled version. So we got one that had a remote instead (as I'm somewhat shy of pulling on chains now, i wonder why!! It's a miracle it didn't come down on my head on friday). So began the saga of replacing this. Which fortunately i have short ceilings (slightly less than 8 ft) since I only had the one step ladder.
After assembling it all, R started trying to get the top part to fit into ceiling etc and this was not easy because this fan was HEAVY. The other might have been 10-15lb, though we didn't really hold it up long. But this one was easy 20-25 lb. so he was supporting 1 handed, or working with his arms above his head slightly the entire time, and at different periods, i was doing static overhead press... at one point on my tip toes before i decided to see if I could stand on my plastic tool cases without breaking and I could. the extra 4-6 inches helped, but it was still directly over my head.
Needless to say my shoulders are a bit tired today.
But we got it done. And then found out it was making a horrible hum. Fortunately R kept playing and experimenting until we found out it was the new dimmer switch apparently that caused that.
So yeah, With the help of good friends, I have accomplished the actual 1st upgrade / redesign of my house. Whoo.
Now, it's the last day of a 3-day weekend, and I need to do a little bit of actual work and mow the lawn (transferred my lawn service over to the new house).