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Moving, mortgages, and renovations


Cerina
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Yay stairs! Share your paint choices.

We did our test on the fence gate today. Since it's the crappiest section we figured worst case we just replace that if it came out terrible. It was a little darker than anticipated but our realtor approved. So now this is my project because I need my husband to focus on the lawn and I am capable of handling paint and stain.

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HA! This paint was literally some pre-mixed paint I found on clearance at Walmart while I was grabbing some extra sandpaper the other day. It's a silvery grey and just perfect as a neutral for the kids' rooms. We might even have enough to do the small hallway as well. 

We'll probably do a cool accent wall in Noah's room later on down the road. And Luke just got this awesome treehouse bed that someone was selling on FB Marketplace and I couldn't pass up for the price, so we'll probably lean into this treehouse idea and do a mural or something in there. But first we have to finish painting his room. 

I'm still mulling over paint choices for the rest of the house. 

Fence looks awesome, btw!

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We got some work done on our house this summer, too.  It really started because my wife loves to cook on the stove, including stir fry.  The fan on the microwave above it wasn’t connected to any ventilation, so it just circulated it back out and we always had to open windows.  We wanted to hire a contractor to install ventilation for it and finally found a renovation company that had expertise in doing this.

I forgot to take a photo after they painted it the same color as the wall, but they did a great job.  Now, with the fan on, we basically can’t even smell what’s cooking.  It’s great!

Since we had them here, we also got them to do the much bigger project of redoing the shower in our bedroom.  The old one was super tiny, as you can see from the photo.  The new one just needs the glass door installed, but that is currently being made.   In the meantime, we have a curtain up to let us use it.  It seems so huge now!  The work they did around the shower makes it basically impossible to tell it hasn’t been there all along.

for some reason, the shower photos uploaded upside down.  Whoops.

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Very nice new shower!

Here's the fence progress. Its like putting lipstick on a pig but it just has to look better in the background of pictures. My husband insisted we try a sprayer and it was a disaster, as I expected. Although now that I did 4 panels with a brush I may not care anymore. I think I have 20 more to go. Going to try to be done by the end of the week.

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Anyone got a good eye for landscaping?

We have this big old shrub that we are considering cutting back as far as the white line. We initially grew it really tall for privacy purposes, and then it got kind of out of hand and it ended up shading our grass really bad and killing it. The second picture is from when we bought the place. As you can see, the shrub is a lot lower and neater. Should we go as low as the white line? Half that?

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My step-mom says you can go to that line but it will look ugly as hell until it grows out at the top where you cut it because it will be all bare stumps. She said to just shape it a bit where it's still leafy because it's not that bad and you want it to just be good enough to sell the house. Basically just round it a bit at the top and along the bottom but not too far so you still have some leaves and no brown. It also creates a good barrier to the house on the side. Let the ppl who buy it sort that out. 

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Also OMG I'm waiting until this housing market cools. It occurred to me that if I sell my condo now I'd get 100K for 571 square feet but the house I will buy will also be WAY over priced and if I need to sell it in the future I will owe more than it's worth for a while for the new house. I hate this housing market soooooooo bad.

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How much are houses going for in your area?

We finished tilling and re-seeding the grass in the yards this weekend. This took far longer than necessary because my husband insisted on setting up a sprinkler system a week before the rainy season starts.

I think the backyard is going to look good because we basically ripped most of it up and seeded. We left Luna a small patch of grass to continue to murder and she is not happy with us about it. We may just have to sod that last bit in when we move out. I am a little less confident in the front because he didn't till it and he's trying to revive brown grass. Here's hoping the sprinklers and rain make it green again.

I almost finished the fence yesterday. Basically there was ceap blocking the last 3 panels and my husband didn't want to help me move stuff out of the way. I threw out his garden hoarder stash (literally 30+ of those temporary pots that plants at Lowes come in) and tried to get rid of the rest on Buy Nothing, but no one else wants it either. Anyone need cherry timbers, green plastic fencing, chicken wire, and corrugated metal? I so don't want to take this crap with us.

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I am kicking myself I didn't buy way back a year and a half ago. The same small three bedroom 1200 square foot new houses I looked at back then at $179,000 are now $215,000. Only high end houses seem to get price cuts. But ones in the middle area are like over priced. I could buy a shit hole as our former president coined still for like 30K but will it have floors and walls? LOL

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Man. Now that my Dad has passed away, my brother and I have been prepping the house to be sold.  SO much junk to be cleaned out.  A lifetime's worth.  I am going to have to rent a storage unit to save some sentimental stuff, but most of it has to go. There is so much to do, I  hyperventilate every time I think about it.  We are just going to have to sell the house as is.  I hope being a seller's market helps us with that. 

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1 hour ago, Zathras said:

Man. Now that my Dad has passed away, my brother and I have been prepping the house to be sold.  SO much junk to be cleaned out.  A lifetime's worth.  I am going to have to rent a storage unit to save some sentimental stuff, but most of it has to go. There is so much to do, I  hyperventilate every time I think about it.  We are just going to have to sell the house as is.  I hope being a seller's market helps us with that. 

The key for us was starting small. Fill a trash bag. Fill a box. Focus on what’s possible, because if it’s anything like my parents house, it’s going to seem impossible. And try to find the humor in it when you can. My sister-in-law took great pleasure in finding the dirty letters my parents wrote each other while my dad was in Vietnam and sneaking up and reading them to us. Or laughing together because my dad had a dresser in the basement full of cords he had take off of anything that broke. Like lamp cords, appliances, whatever - completely full. Why would anyone need all of those? Reasons! 

The whole experience is horrible, but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad to find levity when you can. 

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I'm sorry again for your loss and your grief.

You may not be looking for practicality at this moment. If so, scroll on past me and return when you're ready

An estate company is a good way to deal with this, but I think its mostly useful if your dad had actual valuable stuff like antiques or collectibles. If not, your best bet is to donate most of it. You can also utilize free gifting economy groups such as Buy Nothing or Green Bee (search Facebook for those terms+your town or neighborhood). Maybe it is easiest to clean out the stuff you don't care about and isn't sentimental? Start with, say, the bathroom. Are there old shampoos you can give away or toss? Are clothes sentimental to you? I admittedly did a lot of the cleaning out for my mom a few months before she died when she was still alive and I think that helped me not be as emotional.

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At this point, we are probably a 1/2 of the way done going through my Dad's house.  My brother wants to do an estate sale to get rid of furniture, so not sure the estate planner would be worthwhile.  We have so far donated 3 truck beds worth of stuff, and will end up donating a lot more.   I am looking into getting a storage unit for the stuff I want to keep, which will mostly be tools, some furniture, and pictures and sentimental items I want to keep.  

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3 hours ago, Zathras said:

At this point, we are probably a 1/2 of the way done going through my Dad's house.  My brother wants to do an estate sale to get rid of furniture, so not sure the estate planner would be worthwhile.  We have so far donated 3 truck beds worth of stuff, and will end up donating a lot more.   I am looking into getting a storage unit for the stuff I want to keep, which will mostly be tools, some furniture, and pictures and sentimental items I want to keep.  

Maybe use Facebook Marketplace to sell or give away furniture. If that's all you have left, an estate planner probably won't want to deal with it.

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My husband finally asked me to clean out the garage. This has been a sore point for the last 2 years. My husband has ADHD and just cannot clean up after himself. I have a little more sympathy towards him than I used to now that I understand more about it (and that now I understand that his "I'm not sure I really have ADHD and meds just made me a zombie in 4th grade" are a river in Egypt). It was quite the chore and I spent about 5 or 6 hours in there today and I'm about 80% done. I finally had to give up on some of the loftier goals of everything in its proper place and finally had to resort to about 5 see-thru bins (empty Costco animal cracker and nut bins) and just throw all the loose screws and random bits in those. He struggles to throw anything away and even keeps used screws. Our wood scrap pile is out of control and he owns more screwdrivers than Trevor. At first he said I was just doing exactly what he does, dragging everything into the driveway, but I was clearing the space and then I started putting things away once I could actually use surfaces again. I also got all the tools to put into one box so that he could then take that box over to his tool chest and put them away. I also threw out so much stuff that was trash or useless. I've learned these tricks through reading books about ADHD, and how the mess gets so bad that his brain just shuts down. With our son, I have to direct him quite a bit with cleaning up and break it down to very specific tasks (i.e. "I want you to find all the Legos and only the Legos and bring them here.") Another good trick is hiding a mess pile under a blanket and just peeling a little bit back at the time so that they literally can't see the whole mess and get overwhelmed. So I think the garage looks manageable now but we need to finish putting the tools away (and maybe get a top for his chest). I'd like to get him to maybe part with a few screwdrivers and pliers but he wants to wait until after the move. I guess as long as he puts away his tools and doesn't just leave them out on the work bench until then I can deal.

I'm really considering a moving sale but it's all free instead. Buy Nothing isn't moving fast enough for me. We are going to need to do a dump run but we don't have a big enough car for that. I had some lady flake on me to pick up these 8 foot sections of corrugated metal, and finally got frustrated enough to put them on Facebook Marketplace and was bombarded. Maybe that's the key, because there are not a lot of dudes on Buy Nothing and I am trying to get rid of dude stuff.

We also hacked that bush back. It doesn't look too bad, actually, since its a very full one to begin with. The middle looks a little bare but thats because it was. We may take it further but we filled up our yard waste bin plus one of those brown yard bags already so it'll have to wait until next weekend.

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OH GOD. I couldn't live with that. My sister is a huge mess maker. I know it's her brain but I come home from working two jobs and the last thing I want to do is pick up empty pill bottles, piles of used tissues, wipe the counter, do the recycling and clean the bathroom while she's watching pluto tv on her phone laying in her bed. It's taking all my strength not to lash out because she's got mental issues but at the same time I'm at my breaking point because this is stuff she can do while she's LAYING AROUND THE HOUSE ALL DAY. But her life is stressful and she needs to smoke cigarettes. That garage would probably have been my breaking point. LOL

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I'd lose my crap with Tina for sure. You are pretty much a Saint.

Well day 2 of garage organization and I feel a lot better. It took awhile to start packing but we got probably 50% of the garage done, maybe 60. The rest I'm ok with leaving out while we fix up the house (or some things like paint we will leave behind so the new owners can touch up if needed). A lot of it large tools at this point.

I think tomorrow is pressure washing. I offered to do it but got turned down. So maybe I will pack some more. We need to do a dump run, a friend might help us out next weekend.

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