A Bloy and his Blog

Yesterday I finished painting the upstairs bedrooms in my place. I had plans to do that over the winter, and here it is May already. But, late last week I got some serious motivation when I drove past a house for sale about a mile from work. The price was very reasonable, and that got me daydreaming of living within walking or biking distance of work. How great would that be?

Of course you can’t buy a new house until your current home is sold, so I headed off to the home center for some paint. Next on the to-do list, get two of the windows fixed, do some serious cleaning, and contact my real estate agent.

I spent most of last weekend removing the last traces of wallpaper from my condo, when I stripped it from the downstairs bathroom. Yes, my home is now wallpaper free!

If I were ruler of the kingdom, I would require anyone installing wallpaper to be responsible for its removal. The installers would be required to do that when any future owner of said wallpaper wishes it to be removed. As much as I dislike removing wallpaper, after removing it from my kitchen, and now the bathroom, I’ve become quite good at it. Although I probably shouldn’t admit to that (no, I am not available for outside jobs).

Yesterday I spent a few hours spackling the bathroom walls, and today I painted the primer on. Hopefully I’ll get the final coat of paint on in the next few days.

As I was cleaning the paint brush today, it hit me that I’ve have spent more of my free time fixing up or improving this condo than any other home I’ve lived in. One thing I have come to realize: I would most certainly rather be doing something else. If money were no object…

My kitchen remodeling project is moving along. Yesterday, my brother and I installed the tile. I had never done tile before, so I was very lucky to have Steve around to help me out with that. It really wasn’t that hard of a job to do, although cutting it to fit around the electrical outlets was a tedious and exhausting process (especially considering the only tool we had to cut those L-shaped corners was a small hand saw). For every half-inch of cutting we needed to do on those porcelain tiles, it took about five minutes. Yes, my right arm was a bit sore this morning.

We installed the tile in the space above the sink, ran it the full length of the counter (about six and a half feet), and up to the bottom edge of the upper cabinets. It looks great, even without having the grout in there yet (hopefully, we’ll do that sometime this weekend).

I spent most of today spackling and putting primer on the walls where that oh-so-beautiful wallpaper used to be. Paint goes on tomorrow. Hey, I might actually finish this project!

Several months ago I talked about the possibility of moving into a cohousing development next year. Unit costs are beginning to be finalized for the project and despite the goal for the development to be affordable, unit costs are WAY too high for my meager librarian’s salary. Consequently, I will not be moving into that cohousing project.

While the costs made it an impossibility for me, I was also having second thoughts about the whole cohousing concept. I’m not sure how much I would enjoy things like having meals in the common house on a regular basis. Perhaps it’s just a little too communal for me.

At least I’ll be able to continue to enjoy the antics of the neighborhood adolescents, like the group that decided to hang out for a couple hours in front of my condo this evening. Oh, what fun!

I’ve got running water in my kitchen! This is not a bad thing (it only runs when I want it to). Four days ago I wasn’t so sure that would be the case.

A while back I decided to get rid of my 23-year-old kitchen counter. Of course you can’t have a new counter and keep the 23-year-old sink and faucet. The disposer was also in serious need of replacing. So, I purchased the new stuff, and signed up with a contractor to install the counter. In order to save some money (I hate to think what a plumber charges per hour), my brother and I ripped out the old stuff, and had planned on installing the faucet and garbage disposer ourselves. After all, Steve and I have both watched a lot of This Old House episodes, and the two of us replaced his garbage disposer last winter.

read the rest of: Adventures in kitchen remodeling

The other day I was doing laundry and the washer (which was original to my 23 year old condo) decided it had enough of this life and died. [sigh] Time to buy a new one. Might as well replace the dryer too, which is also two decades old. After shopping around a bit, I got out the credit card and bought those today.

Once they are delivered (which I hope will happen before my clean underwear runs out), I will have replaced every major appliance here, except for the refrigerator and dishwasher. New stove, furnace, air conditioner, water heater, and now the washer and dryer — all in about a year and a half. I’m betting on the dishwasher to go next, it’s the last original appliance. Any takers?

I am now officially a member of Arboretum Cohousing. After investigating the project and attending a few meetings, I decided it would be worth my while to invest $500 into a possible change of living locations. And for me location is the key word.

The beauty of the surrounding landscape and recreational potential is huge. I would live one just or two blocks away from Lake Wingra, the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, the Henry Vilas Zoo, and the excellent network of recreational trails that go through Madison. That’s a lot of potential bicycling, hiking and kayaking, very close to home.

read the rest of: Moving in 2007?