Archive for the ‘Housing’ Category

Mini-Renovation

1 May 2021

I spent about six weeks working seven days a week to get our old house ready for some new tenants. I did mostly cleaning, finish carpentry, and painting. I didn’t get it all done, of course, since that house will never be done, but made a ton of progress. Here are a few pics.

Even though this house is old and requires a lot of ongoing maintenance, I love it. After living in it for 20+ years and raising our kids there, it feels like home to me. And the yard has lots of space for gardening and chickens, which our current home doesn’t.

I brought up the idea of moving back after the kids are out of the nest (five years at most), and the wife was not opposed to it. We’ll see.

The kitchen with freshly-painted floor.
Freshly-painted kitchen cabinets and backsplash. The backsplash is made out of cheap vinyl tiles.
Basketball schedule uncovered during renovation.
Our Vogelzang Durango and wood box (wood box later removed). Love this stove. We’ve told the tenants not to use it because we’re not insured for it, and there won’t be much occasion to use it before October. If we’re still renting at that time, we’ll have to remove the stove as well, and maybe replace it with a fake electric stove.
Freshly painted floor in front room.
From the dining room to the kitchen.
Living Room
Dining room

Posted in Burning wood, Chickens, Family, Gardening, Heating, Housing | Leave a Comment »

Home Prep

29 June 2019

So I worry about basement flooding in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. If there’s no electricity to run a sump pump, you’re just going to have to wait for the water to naturally drain away.

But you wouldn’t have to worry about your furnace or your washer and drier if there’s no electricity to run them.

You would have to worry about food you have stored down there, but you can get that out when necessary. And there would be a lot of mold.

But still, you’d have a place to stay. And it may never flood again like it did in 2018. Our house has quite a few things going for it with regard to TEOTWAWKI.

Posted in Climate Change, Food, Housing, TEOTWAWKI, Water, Weather | Leave a Comment »

Motivation

18 October 2011

So what’s it gonna take for me to get motivated enough to get some work on my house done? These are projects that need to happen ASAP (as in, before the freeze-up):

Finish new closet/desk area
Build wall in garage (reinforce structure, leads to making back room of garage into a living space)
Make area for washer/drier in basement (especially need to get hole for drywell dug in pit before the ground freezes)
Fill cracks in cement around garage foundation
Paint back garage door
This is stuff I’ve known about all summer, and now it’s crunch time.

Could I not do at least something in the evening? Even if it’s not much, anything would be helpful. I simply need to move myself out into the garage after the boys go to bed and do something, anything. Even cleaning up and organizing my workspace would be helpful.

Yes, it’s hard, and it’s asking a lot of myself, but I can do it.

Aha! It’s just like when I need to work out but really don’t want to: I tell myself that I don’t have to have a hard workout, I don’t have to have a long workout, I just have to do something. That helps to get started, and I usually end up having a good workout. Yes, that should help.

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