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Camping out in my Own Townhouse

13 Sunday Oct 2013

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AKA…”celebrating” a decade (errr, now almost 11 years, eesh) in the townhouse.  Part trois.

Remember when this first got started?  If not, feel free to peruse here.  Yes, it was February 2012…Super Bowl Sunday actually.  Man oh man, what a journey it’s been.  And I think a “fuck this shitty goddamn mess of a ceiling already” was one of the outbursts along the way.  And then things with the ceiling work went dark. And, thank goodness, it will resume on Tuesday.

This project has been so goddamned delayed it’s turned into a punch line.  Co-workers, friends, even my hairdresser and manicurist ask every time I see them how “that ceiling project” is coming along.  I just have to laugh off all the delays.  It was way more than I could chew and while the Man Help early on meant well, between schedules and the workload/skills involved it was way over our heads.

Now…squee!  This week my plumber, R, will pick up where he left off this week, getting my bedroom, master vanity and the walk-in closet all finished up.  THEN it’s time to paint.  This is exactly the motivator I’ve needed to do lots of things:  get the walls repainted (I love the bright turquoise walls, but the green I chose for the others in the big open space is too minty next to the bright blue and never quite felt right.  I may just cover it all up with a nice, rich taupe.  I have some beautiful giclee prints of outdoor Mediterranean café scenes in gorgeous wood frames that I purchased.  In 2005.  And never hung on the wall due to wanting to repaint the mint green wall prior.  Errgh…am I the only who takes YEARS to get silly projects like this done?

J was amazing getting me motivated and helped out this weekend, and it’s wonderful to tell and show him how appreciated he is.  But first, we had to relax on Saturday!  Ugh, U of W Huskies had a tough loss to Oregon, but we enjoyed watching the game at a local sports bar in walking distance from my house.  Indulging in a pitcher of Mac & Jack’s on a beautiful, sunny fall day…hey, why not?  It’s football season, after all!  We then made yummy chili in the crock pot…ground turkey, grilled chicken breasts, black beans, garlic, spices onions and tomatoes.  Fantastic…and spot on healthy “comfort food.”

Then we saw Gravity in 3D on Saturday night.  If you haven’t already seen it, RUN don’t walk and see it on the big screen.  For this movie it’s an absolute must.  Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are fantastic together.  All thumbs up!

Today we tackled the not-so-fun chore of getting my bedroom cleared out for the ceiling work.  Moving my box spring and mattress and dismantling the wrought iron frame and getting it around tight corners to the spare 3rd bedroom (also on the upper level) was not fun but WE DID IT!  Now I’ll be camped out in that room for I’m guessing at least a week, depending on how long it takes R to finish the ceiling scraping, mudding and texturing and for J’s schedule to help me get everything back in the bedroom.  Which we’ll probably paint prior to that…

I’m so glad I’d already spent a bunch of time clearing out my walk-in closet.  It’s not super big, but it does hold a ton (and could use a major California Closets-like update to replace the single hanger bar around all sides.  There was a lot more cleaning out to do and J and I chuckled at how much stuff I’ve accumulated.  Trust me, I didn’t used to be this way!  I moved a ton of clothes downstairs save for what I’ll need for work and the gym this week.  And I have a MAJOR clean out project now of sorting through all of these clothes…what should I keep?  What’s in a smaller size I might be back in someday soon…and hopefully still in style to keep wearing?  What’s a definite tosser?  More to follow on that.

So over brunch and an ugly game but a win by the Seahawks, it was another glorious day.  I savor the fall sunshine, for soon the rains and chilly winds will kick in.  But I love the sensuality of the changing seasons.

I’m feeling happy, blessed and content.  This home improvement work WILL happen…and the ceilings are just the beginning.

Bedroom Grinning

10 Sunday Jun 2012

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I was thinking about calling this post “Grinning in the Bedroom.”  But that might be a little misleading.  Although I AM grinning in this bedroom too but not for the reasons you might think. 

Now, why does a picture like this make me smile?  Let me count the ways!  It’s PROGRESS.  It’s ACTION.  It’s IMPROVEMENT…and it’s a sign of what’s to come.

A few months ago L and I started this messiest of messy home improvement projects call Scraping Off a Very Heavily Painted-Over Popcorn Ceiling.  It was Super Bowl Sunday actually when we kicked off – no pun intended.  I really wanted to do the fun stuff first like repaint a few walls I was getting sick of here in the townhouse and replace the old doors, but L wisely said no, we need to scrape, sand and repaint the ceilings first.  Man, he was right. 

Back in early February, June seemed a long ways off.  We figured sure, we’ll be done with the upstairs by June.  Now, blink the eyes and it’s MID JUNE.  We have made progress though not as much as I’d hoped.  We’ve learned so much about this process…the guinea pig room was my master bedroom and open dual-sink vanity area.  The largest of the 3 bedrooms upstairs and THE most personal, sacred place for me.  So it was painful cutting our teeth in there, it took far longer than we thought and it’s not yet finished – the ceiling is scraped and sanded but not yet primed and repainted.  Living with displaced clutter has grinded (ground?) my nerves but I’m a lot more used to it now.

The 3rd bedroom has been a dormant mess for, sadly, nearly 10 years.  It was going to be a guest bedroom but ended up being a dumping place for things I didn’t know what to do with…and was too lazy to tote down to the garage (which has yet to have some decent shelving added…Le Sigh that’s another thing on the list).  This weekend it was time to clean it out and scrape the ceiling.

L came over Friday evening.  I made quinoa chowder (find the recipe in my post here…I diced up a chicken breast, sautéed it and added it to the soup to make it a little heartier) and we just relaxed and watched TV.  It felt good having him over.  I’m feeling in a much better place these days.  Work is super busy, but I’m relieved my assignment will be extended into the fall.  I’ve got some fun summer plans on tap, I feel happy that L and I are great friends and he wants us to stay friends forever.  The home improvement work is messy and moving slowly but I trust that he will keep helping me until we finish.  I know it’s going to look great when we’re done.  By 10pm we were both tired and crashed.  He took over the living room couch, M’s dog by his side on the floor and I headed upstairs. 

The next morning I fueled us up with a big breakfast…bacon, scrambled eggs with Tabasco and toasted bagels with cream cheese.  And lots of coffee of course.  We finished the last part of the 3rd bedroom clutter…moving the books off the tall bookshelf and lying the bookcase on its side against the wall, ready to wrap in protective drop cloths.  Ideally we would have moved it completely out of the room but there was nowhere convenient to put it.  My upstairs hallway is pretty narrow, and the other room up here – my home office – now has boxes and stacks of books added to the rest of the clutter already in there.  It’s starting to look like it’s auditioning for an episode of Hoarders.  Scary.  Breathe, breathe…it’s temporary.  This is how I continually remind myself it’s going to get finished and all of this mess will be back in order.  I DO NOT live like this. And I giggled when I realized how pristine the carpet in the 3rd bedroom is.  It’s hardly been walked on in years.  The only routine action it gets is when my house cleaners vacuum what they can every month.

Now if you are considering attempting a ceiling scraping project like this, remember that you cannot have too many plastic drop cloths.  It’s essential to not only cover the floor with them, but also to tape drop cloths along the top edges of the walls to catch the ceiling debris as it comes down.  It’s a pain in the ass taping drop cloths along the top edges of the walls but if you do you will avoid a lot of mess with dust clinging to the walls as it comes down.  You can see a strip of leftover painter’s tape in the picture actually.

Compared to the large master bedroom and vanity area, this room was a breeze.  It’s a lot smaller – it’s too small to hold a queen-sized bed if you would also want two decent night stands to give you an idea of the size.  We started at the section where the window is, so we could take down that wall drop cloth first to get some ventilation.  For those of you just tuning in, L and I are doing the old “spray and scrape” method of taking down the popcorn ceiling.  I use a garden sprayer to spray small patches of the ceiling, let it sit for a few minutes, and L scrapes away.  We found a cool-looking tool designed for this purpose that attaches onto an extension pole awhile back.  Sadly, it’s too flimsy to do the job.  My ceilings are heavily painted over with thick, flat, matte white paint so a couple of good putty knives are what L uses while standing on a step stool.  One knife is 6″ wide and the other 3″ wide.  It’s tempting to get something even wider to cover more surface area more quickly, however the risk is if the ceiling is not perfectly flat you run the risk of gouging it with the tool edges.  So far no problems there.

We’re also learning about the fine line between getting the ceiling damp enough so the scraping is relatively easy, versus getting the ceiling too wet and risking mold later.  Another reason why good room ventilation is essential.  Thankfully the weather has been somewhat decent this weekend.  I’ll be keeping the window ajar for the next few days.  I can already see how a lot of the wetter patches have dried.

Now that the ceiling is scraped we’ll need to sand it down like we did in the master bedroom, but I’m already thrilled with how it looks.  This room is going to transform…I’m not 100% sure how yet but it will.  See that small patch of paint?  That’s a Benjamin Moore paint in Sioux Falls.  It’s a glorious bluish green and I can’t WAIT to paint!  I love color and I can’t wait to get rid of that horrible, flat white paint.  The ceiling will be painted off white, however, not colored.  

L thinks I should make that 3rd bedroom my home office and make the (larger) bedroom where I’m sitting here – my current home office – as the guest bedroom.  Interesting idea!  I could definitely put a queen-sized bed in this home office which would be a lot more comfortable for guests.   I know L likes smaller, cozier spaces to work in, while I thrive in more open spaces.  This could be a fun way to change things up.  Technologically it could be a problem now that I think of it…that 3rd bedroom does not have any phone jacks or cable hookup.  Gotta love older (32 year old) homes that are not pre-wired for technology like homes are today.  Hmmm.

So while I tend to get frustrated when I see the long road ahead in getting this townhouse updated and the shell game of having to move crap between rooms to clear them out for the ceiling work, I remember how great a place it is.  The floor plan is kickass.  I remember when I was ready to start looking to buy a place and made a list of my priorities for my realtor.  She found everything I was looking for at the top of my list…3 bedrooms and townhouse style!   And a huge 2-car garage!  They just don’t make them like this anymore.   Sometimes I wish I’d purchased a newer home that didn’t need so much updating.  Carpet, countertops, window treatments, flooring, appliances…but I know that newer places have problems too.  Guess it’s all part of the journey of homeownership.

For now, I grin…progress and wonderful Man Help thanks to my guy BFF!!

Cabin Fever Week

22 Sunday Jan 2012

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How quickly things changed in 24 hours.  I came home from work last Friday (the 13th, which was a good day save for saying good bye to a co-worker who is relocating overseas), relaxed at home and slept in gloriously late into Saturday.  Know that feeling when you wake up and it just ‘feels’ different?  In my bleary just-out-of-bed attempt to wake up I couldn’t quite figure out what it was…other than it was super quiet outside.  No dull drone of street noise.

Aha!  It SNOWED!  Where did I miss this on the TV weather forecasts?  I suppose I should not have been too shocked – it is January, after all. I don’t even know where to start with this one.  Other than Snow + Seattle area is a very bad combination.  For getting around, that is.  Otherwise, it’s gorgeous.  Exhibit A – the view off my back deck. 

We got around 6 inches or so in my area – by the time it was done the faint line markings from the deck in that picture were completely covered over.  After hearing news reports and reading countless local-area Facebook posts we had anywhere from around 3 inches to over a foot depending on where you were.

The power stayed on here and my furnace is working.  Everything else after that truly is all gravy.  Check out my Cold Where It’s Supposed to be Cold post from (*gulp* wow time flies) November 2010.  Two furnace repairs and a crapped out fridge just a couple months prior to that made it an expensive end of that year…after just starting to get some decent income again following a long unemployed streak.  So anyway, here we are in 2012 and I relished my warm townhouse, hot showers and the beautiful snow falling outside.

After a couple of days it got old.  Driving in the snow in the Seattle area is a hot topic for sure.  In general, it’s not a good idea.  Seriously…a few inches of snow will literally bring us to our knees.  We’re hilly.  We don’t have a ton of snow removal equipment.  We’re not like other parts of the country who deal with this routinely and life goes on.  Around here, it just doesn’t.  Hell, when a UPS truck gets stuck in your driveway, you know it’s bad.

What is it about snow?  It brings a huge Hush Hug over everything in its embrace.  I stay in my jammies all day and take naps.  At noon. 

But soon it was time to get back to work.  Thankfully this team is all about playing it safe and not trying to be heroes getting into the office.  We can all work remotely, although in the type of work we do it’s not ideal for long periods of time as I learned.

There was one small problem.  The power cord for my work laptop was still in my office!  I never bring it home because I never work from home.  It still reminds me too much of when I was unemployed, and frankly I’d rather get out of the house and be around people during the day.  In my last work assignment my work laptop was the same brand as my home one, so it was easy to just swap out the power cords between the two if I ever did work from home on rare occasion.  Not this time, however.

On Monday I was able to squeak by with doing email either from my phone or through my home laptop.  But I didn’t have full access to the internal resources I depend on to get work done.  And I attempted a few times to get the work laptop connected with my home cable modem, but the modem is new and I was unfamiliar with the steps to switch connectivity (I don’t use a router).  And I watched the battery power indicator slowly sink southward as I chatted with our corporate Helpdesk and all to troubleshoot.  No luck. 

So I knew Tuesday I needed to get into work somehow to get that power cord.  They were predicting heavy snow Tuesday into Wednesday.  Turns out the main roads were pretty clear.  It’s the side streets, sidewalks and driveways that are the problem. 

I got into work just fine and was pleasantly surprised to see my officemate there already.  Ahhh, human interaction!  We had both planned to stay for a few hours, but then got a phone call from her husband around lunch time that it was really starting to snow hard and we better get home. I’m so glad he called, because our office does not have a window and it was snowing much harder up near where my officemate and I live compared to work.

When you’re stuck at home snowbound, the cabin fever grips tight.  The novelty wears off quickly.  So to fight it off, I vowed to get out of the house at least once a day for a walk.  And it really helps – and is pretty good exercise too stomping through heavy, wet snow.

Thankfully by Friday the snow turned to rain and everything turned into a big slushfest.  Relief was coming!  Freedom! 

And what a great way to blast back into the routine of life with a wonderful Saturday.  My friend L ventured out this way to the suburbs (I joke that he’s mentally allergic to them but that’s another story).  With iPad in hand, he and I walked through the townhouse here and talked about tons of ideas to update my place.  I know my place needs work, and I know I need to keep an open mind.  We jumped around all over the place with ideas and chitchat.  And we agreed on a general plan to start work upstairs here where the bedrooms are and then slowly work our way downstairs.  

Oh boy.  That means my 3rd bedroom – the Room of Crap – is in the hotseat first.  And that’s actually a great idea as it is very underutilized space save for a large bookcase and random stuff on the floor that needs to get boxed up into storage or thrown out.  And I get to think about paint colors too, for it’s still Insane Asylum White like the rest of this place was when I first bought it.  Oh, the possibilities!  L wants to convert it to my home office and have the home office where I am now become a guest bedroom, as this room is larger and can hold a queen-sized bed. Interesting idea!

Later I headed out (Out! After not driving for 5 days!) to meet friends for our annual Chinese New Year dinner at China Clipper in Woodinville.  They have wonderful, pretty close to authentic Northern Chinese cuisine.  We had a blast at dinner and then headed over to J’s house for board games and laughter.  Know when you laugh so hard that tears stream down your face? 

Fantastic.

The Half-Assed Purple Wall

15 Sunday Jan 2012

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Alrighty.  This week’s picture makes me cringe, but we’re gonna go there anyway.  Good incentive to fix this, right?  This and so much more.

This is an actual wall in one of my bathrooms here in the townhouse.  It’s a small wall where the door is.  And yeah, awhile back I thought it would be fun to paint it purple. Shitty paint job (I think my plan was to go back and do another coat with a roller like you’re supposed to) but obviously I haven’t. 

Oh dear.  I have done all of the painting here in the house myself and trust me it’s nicely done (and finished)…everywhere except here.  And this same purple, believe it or not, is on the inside of my front door.  It’s a beautiful, semi-glossy blue violet.  Ralph Lauren Canyon Iris to be exact.  This shot does NOT do it justice.  

I remember the plan now.  The plan was to paint this wall purple, to motivate me into getting rid of the God-awful (original 1980) countertop that clashes horribly with it (you can see a tiny bit of it in the lower right corner of the picture).  That countertop actually clashes with life, period.  And I was going to get rid of the scary dark brown door (and the others on the top floor here) and replace them with white ones like I did downstairs.  I shudder thinking I made those “plans” probably two years ago or more when I was unemployed.  Didn’t have much disposable income, but I sure had time.  But not enough time to finish as you can see.  What’s hilarious about this is that I have 4 sets of door hardware picked out for the upstairs – nice brushed nickel – all ready to rock, but sitting dormant in their boxes. In the hallway.  And no new doors yet.  Typical me…I zoom right in on accessories and mentally space out on the “big” stuff. 

2012 marks the 10-year anniversary of the townhome purchase. Not beating myself up here…I HAVE done a lot to update this place.  New back deck, custom wood window treatments, major appliances like the fridge, washer/dryer, stove and microwave (I’m on my second fridge; see my Refrigerator Drama post for the lovely story on that), some light fixtures and painting projects I actually finished.  But it needs so much more.  I am the queen of Lists, and I have always had a wishlist of things I want to do here on the fridge – decorating, new cabinets, ripping out carpet, countertops, flooring…

…but, knowing myself well, sometimes I just get overwhelmed.  I forget how to prioritize, I see tons of stuff I want to do on my list (and think how much it’s all going to cost) and then nothing gets done.  What’s the tipping point for a list to turn from inspiring to intimidating?  Hmmm.

Well, it’s time.  Time to get moving and get this place in decent shape and out of the lingering early 1980s funk.  A friend has offered to help me out with some of these projects and he’s going to take a look and see what he can fix and give me some advice about things in here in general too. 

Now, where did I put that IKEA catalogue…?

The Nine Year Sage

10 Sunday Apr 2011

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This November I will celebrate nine years here in my townhome.  Yes, it was Thanksgiving weekend 2002 and I won’t ever forget the adrenaline rushes, from waiting on offer respones to the inspection…and the hugeass cashiers checks in my hot little hands.  Sweating it a bit as a first-time home buyer…doing this on my own, with no husband or boyfriend.  And being in a dual residency position for a few weeks, as the last days of my apartment lease overlapped with when I closed on the place here. I remember thinking oh, this is perfect, I’ll have time to paint or whatever before the furniture gets moved in.

Yeah, right.  Turns out I had to go out of town on business for a week, very last minute, and I got home literally at midnight the day of the big move.  My pre-move time was focused on packing up endless boxes and making multiple trips to Goodwill. My Mom, bless her heart, offered to help me put shelf paper in all of the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and drawers because there was NONE.  Gross.  So, after some good scrubdowns and seemingly endless cuttings of shelf paper, we did it.  Between the kitchen cupboards and cabinets, plus 3 bathrooms (a powder room, full bath, plus a separate large master open vanity), there was a LOT of surface area to cover.

Trust me, even moving just 3 miles is a huge pain in the butt.  I had to get a new phone number (landline) because I’d moved out of whatever zone or grid they were using. [I was late to the cell phone party, just getting my first in 2001, so I was much more reliant on the landline in those years]. And I now also recall how the cell phone reception in my old apartment was pretty bad – we were perfectly poised in a dead spot.  Ugh.  Other than that, I adored that old apartment.  So much I stayed in it nearly 5 years, and it really didn’t motivate me to look for a place of my own.  The rent was very reasonable, and the amenities in turn were incredible.

I am probably the 5th or 6th owner in this home.  These units were built in 1980, and, as cliche as it sounds, they really don’t make ’em like this anymore.  These units are true townhome style, not cookie cutter square boxes.  Each home has an oversized, 2-car garage.  You really, truly don’t see large garages in newer condo/townhome construction around here.  Maybe a 1 car garage, or a 2 car, tandem style.  And STAIRS.  Three levels.  One of my earliest posts in here was how much I felt grown up when I got stairs of my own. My earliest childhood memories are of my folks’ large rambler – we moved to a home with stairs later.  To me, as silly as it seems, this meant GROWING UP.

I can only imagine all of the memories jammed in my house from the past 30 years.  Lordy, just my short block of nine is chock full.  Painting – doing it on my own and schlepping back and forth to the local Home Depot.  Countless trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond.  Holy crap, now I had THREE bathrooms to furnish, not just one!  Updated window treatments.  Workin’ on that curb appeal.  Not to mention the social memories – too countless to list here. 

I met the sellers of my place very briefly, and they mentioned that they had 6 ferrets as pets, but replaced all of the carpet and flooring once they moved out.  FERRETS?  SIX?  Faint.  Did I really need to know this?

They may have replaced the carpet and flooring, but took the fridge and washer dryer.  Not very appealing to a buyer necessarily, BUT it gave me good leverage in negotiating a price.  After all, I would need to fork out a few grand to purchase appliances. At least they would be new. 

How much updating have I done in here beyond that?  Well, not as much as I’d hoped after nearly a decade, but I have a tendency to be overly self-critical.  Between a large outside repair assessment (for our entire HOA), and later a large, individual project for me to rip out and redo my back deck, those were large chunks of spending for sure.  But so worth it.  I have a nearly 400 square foot back deck which is private.  I’ve had a ton of fun painting and playing around with bold colors, plus I just adore the custom wood blinds I’ve added in the living room and bedrooms.  Replaced the microwave and stove too.  The fridge now, ahem, twice. [See my ‘Refrigerator Drama’ post from last fall on that episode].  

And yet in this age of super-large kitchens, granite countertops and slate tile flooring, well, I have yet to make any of those updates.  Hell, I still have popcorn ceilings which need to be sprayed down and scraped.  For real.  No floor molding updates either, as I ripped out the yucky brown stuff when I painted.  And some old, scary dark brown doors on the upper floor need replacing.  I did the downstairs doors but was on the brink of a job change and held off doing the whole house, grr.  Now I wish I had.  Too funny how I have the doorknob hardware all ready to rock – but no new doors.  Yes, the list is long.

So what’s the deal with saging?  Well, several of my friends have done it and really recommend it.  It’s cleansing and gets rid of negative energy in a house – moving into a new home is a perfect time to sage.

The sage I purchased is about the size of very small bundle of asparagus.  You light it, blow out the flame, and let the rest of the ‘torch’ smolder.  Spring has yet to really, well, spring, around here but it wasn’t raining so I decided to do it today and open up all the doors and windows here in the house.

And no, the smoke alarm did not go off, whew.  

You’re supposed to go clockwise in each room with the sage smoke, saying a blessing meanwhile.  Clean, clean clean.  All of the bad memories for me in this house BE GONE, plus who knows what else happened prior to me moving in.  I know a woman died in here a couple decades ago but honestly that never has really freaked me out.  What else happened?  Doesn’t really matter now – the vibes if any are gone.

Call me cuckoo, but I DID feel better after doing this.  And the smell was not overwhelming at all – in fact it was gone after about 30 minutes – all I felt was fresh air after that.  Nice.