So it looked like I last checked in July 23rd. Had been threatened in my own kitchen by a Sub Zero delivery guy, was celebrating the mad power of my pool heat pump, was crowing about my sink choices and expressing disgust over fuckin' ceramic countertops. The fridge is a goddamn portal to Narnia but the faces aren't on it yet because we have other shit to deal with My Weasel contractor charged me two man-hours to move the heat pump 10 feet and when I called him on it he said "but see I was doing you a favor working when I could have been working for other people" (that makes it 'not a favor' and you weren't, you were on your way from an estate sale where you overpaid for a Breitling chronograph, you brought it by to ask me about it). He also put four brand new doors on a refrigerator water line, perforating it and soaking the doors. He also broke the secret bookcase. Long story short I ended up auditing his hours and docking him like $1800 (plus the doors) because he'd been padding his invoices with an hour or more every day (at a house where the lockbox talks to the Internet, where his comings and goings are recorded on eight cameras). He acted cool about it until he apparently consulted a lawyer and learned that cashing the check implies acceptance of contract at which point he legit confronted me on the street. The sink isn't in but the Seattle Times ran a "style" article telling everyone they should have sunken living rooms now when fuckin' six months ago a designer was beating me up for my sunken living room. I ADDED ANOTHER STAIR BITCH I finally today got my wife to go along with negresco granite in no small part by showing her pictures of negresco granite in house books from the 70s Beyond that, fuck So the house was cursed. We've been over that. Dog skeleton in the service pit, lake under the dining room, re-inter Bandit under daffodils. I didn't mention at the time that I swear I saw Old Man Hoggson out the corner of my eye the day after I did the memorial. But I did. Standing in the driveway, just over my shoulder, while I was sweeping the garage. Pareidolia is a hell of a drug. But the house hasn't been cursed since. I have... a gawping amount of hardwood going in. My hardwood guy is like a monk, I love him. His work is incredible and his price came in at 1/4th the high bid. Whenever I say "damn, dude, this is incredible" he goes "well, it turns out there's one thing I'm good at and it's nice that I enjoy it." And I get there to do some work and I see this And I look closer And I ask my hardwood monk And he says "yeah! Strangest thing - that was under the flooring in the closet. And those look like your doors - I think that was taken in this room? Do you know who those people are?" And I am not a religious man but I am a superstitious man and if I were a ghost? I could come up with dumber ways to convey approval. _____________________________________________ There was a moment about two weeks ago when I realized we were going to make it. There's been enough paint, there's been enough drywall, there's been enough forward progress that the end is in sight. The day before that I'd crossed a threshold - there wasn't anything I needed to do that was holding others back. As far as the main dwelling is concerned, it's in the hands of others. We're going to make it. That prompted me to touch base with the electricians who worked with my electrician who now works for the Port. Turns out they formed a new company. Named after the install sticker they saw on the electrical panels they pulled out of my saunacloset. Yeah. My electricians named themselves after my house. They un-fucked some stuff that was kinda fucked. I asked them about the garage, which was a mess. They said "yeah we could sort that out but honestly you're better off starting over" so I spent a week pulling down fixtures, getting crud out of the rafters, confirming wiring and putting up new LEDs. Fortunately I'd bought in bulk when Costco was blowing out Feit fixtures because I had twenty five four-foot strips and I used them all. I also sealed up the 50-year-old foil-backed rockwool. 250' of foil tape and 100' of 12" foil roll vanished into that space like throwing it down a well. But look at this shit I showed that to a friend and he said "looks like Yavin Four" and I wasn't enough of a dork to know what he was talking about in the moment, perhaps because I had been going so hard for so long that when I finished I had just enough time to take a shower and pick up my kid and drive to Portland and I legit forgot my luggage. There were three switches on one side, there were three two-way switches on the other side, and over the years enough fluorescents burnt out and enough lamps were added and enough chaos ensued that I have wires that just sort of stop. But now I have three bays and I can make it all work with Caseta and there's a switch with bare wire in the middle and fuck you I'ma put a disco ball on it. And probably up the size of the speakers from what I intended. Because that there is a goddamn dance pavilion that empties out onto a driveway that's even bigger and if it were a club it would have a capacity well over 250 people and I own a teenager. This is the Bond VIllain Aquarium. It comes in at 280 gallons. I realized that I couldn't really do the aquarium any cheaper than the big mammer jammer but I also realized that most of my fear of the cost came from the stand and I realized that it's just water and goddamn it I own Solidworks So I'ma weld that up and order an aquarium and put in a sink and a shower filler and I will have water and a drain right there and can automate THE SHIT out of it and the floor has been reinforced to hold up a goddamn Honda Prelude and if I make the stand out of what I'm most comfortable making the stand out of the stand itself will support an M48 Patton tank before appreciable deformation so we're good and it'll cost me like $300 in metal and goddamn it I'm still a better welder than anyone I know and I haven't struck an arc since 2014. My wife bought "the family" a Cricut. I had her make me Greek eyes for the pool skimmer. Her name is Argo.
We'll just over two weeks in and the job is great so far. Team is lovely and supportive, patient and willing to spend time to train. Truly a delight. Partner's first few weeks of her PhD are going well too which is awesome. She's learning so many fun and terrifying things! Us epidemiologists are super fun at parties... The house is going well. We probably need to drop 15k on electric to get rid of leftover knob and Tube that's burned through insulation and is still active. We need to spend another 15k on a roof and want to add in a skylight when we do that for an additional 5k. Turns out a beautiful garden is a ton of work. I spent two weekends thinning out a 6 ft by 3 ft patch of bamboo because it looked horrible and filled out compost bin twice, and bent the brand new pair of garden shears. Painting and even finding the right colors is a long and adventurous game, we've got most of the house chosen but still need a few rooms of color. Our doorbell broke, our washing machine plumbing is dripping, and our below kitchen sink stopper doesn't work, but we have a home warranty and all are covered, just trying to organize those contractors to come out and visit. And we need to add a garbage disposal because not having one sucks, but we need to add a switch in too, which means more electrician work. It's a neverending charade, and I am loving it even if it's too expensive.
Skylight should be substantially cheaper than that. Velux Actives in 2x4 are $1700 at Home Depot all day long and while I haven't added any, I've had three or four replaced for $200 per. I'd maybe find another quote on the roof. "Thinning out bamboo" is a fool's errand. Cut it down to nothing and keep an eye on it as it grows in. Garbage disposals are easy. If you have power under the sink you don't necessarily need a switch installed in the countertop. Just put one of these in the face of the counter. The hole saw you need is $18 at Home Depot and $5 off Amazon. srsly tho. Garbage disposals are easy. Ours died and I had the Costco replacement in and functional within two hours, and that included an hour going to Home Depot to get the parts I needed to install it.
Roof quotes were 13k and 25k without skylight. Skylight I had 5k because we're cutting in the new hole so leaving room for installation, drywall and attic work+insulation if need be. We're lower than our neighbors behind us by a good 20 feet. The space is weird, the bamboo actually is well contained, part of it was dying off and so I trimmed it to actually help it grow back. There's a 10 ft retaining wall behind it, and then someone's yard and house. It's a lovely green wall that maybe one day we'll exchange for something else but that's not anytime soon. We have the plug under the sink but need a switch. We could drill the countertop hole, didn't think of that thanks! I do think we could do the install ourselves, just a question of a switch for it.
I won't tell you to decrease your budget if that's how you're looking at it. I will tell you that you should have a lot of money left over afterwards. I've got thirteen skylights (because of course I do) and only two are active, but they're upstairs and they're great for moving hot air out of the house. Not sure it would matter that much to you but I recommend doing some cursory research before any purchase decisions. And I'm not saying "get rid of the bamboo." I'm a big fan of bamboo, actually, and find that it's predictable and well-behaved within parameters, those parameters to include things like "will shoot runners clear under a sidewalk." What I'm saying is it's a grass not a tree and cutting it down regularly is good for its health. Check with your local of course but one of the things I've had difficulty letting go of from my desert upbringing is "green things like to grow." "Prune harder than you think" is perhaps a better way to convey my advice. You can wait until December or January to keep what you have but if you straight nuke it before February it'll be lush and green by April. And I wouldn't necessarily drill through the countertop. Drill through the face of the cabinet below the sink. It should be 3/4" beech or whatever. Those pneumatic plungers are a pain in the butt to trigger accidentally.
The bamboo is actually well contained directly in front of a massive retaining wall between us and the people behind us. I watch the garden to make sure it doesn't jump but the previous owner had few problems with it and looking at how it's growing I understand why. It's in a 6 inch thick cement box in front of the retaining wall. I'm ready to dig it all up eventually but that's not an immediate need. We'd want to replace it with something else that grows as tall and dense but is native, and that's the part I need to research.
My bikesharing project is coming to the finish line (for me) in the next week or two, so it’s all I’m focusing on. Getting all twelve government-shaped ducks in a row is hard; it’s a lesson in both vigilance and letting go. But I love how this project runs entirely on internal motivation. I’m very motivated to make it work because how cool will it be to have a regional bikesharing system out there in the real world next year with my hard work and vision behind it? Last week I had a small bout of fever. Not enough that I felt bad for myself but it enough to fog my mind up and anchor me to the couch in various blankets. I watched an ungodly amount of YouTube music gear reviews because I’ve been toying around with the idea of getting some kind of DAWless groovebox in an attempt to hone in on the fun of making music. I just wanna sit on the couch with headphones in layering drums and electronic melodies on top of each other. I’m on the fence as to how easy I want (or need!) my learning curve to be. Right now I’m eyeing a Roland MC-101 because it’s both compact, capable and has every Roland sound I could ever want. But it’s not as ez pz as a Circuit Tracks. Elektron’s Digitakt/-tone look more dope than those two but also a lot more complicated and (maybe?) better suited to music for hip Berlin industrial nightclubs than, say, trying to make something Boards of Canada-y. I’m hoping to find a store somewhere to just fiddle around with these - play to find out so to speak.
one of these days they’ll finally move packaging and process engineering under me (agreed on at the business level just working through one communication piece) and then uhhhh idk. weird to think I’ll be leading that for a nationally distributed company. still dealing with shingles. still sucks.