floored - ides of march
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The Ides of March (i.e., 15th of March), signifies different things, spring, a full moon, or in Shakespearean terms, and in our case a bad omen. Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 14th, 44 B.C. Our March 15th was arguably much better than his, but the days leading up to it, though not as dire as Caesar’s, were no picnic either.
After more than 4 years in the house, we felt finally so close to having this fixer upper be near completion, or at least at a point where we felt we’d exorcised all the bad decisions the former owners made.
New garage floor and me!
We put in a whole new boiler & HVAC system, as well as an on-demand water heater
Added a wheelchair accessible font and back walkway and patio
Widened the driveway to allow me to get my wheelchair out of car regardless of where I parked or which car I was driving
We replaced the roof and then added solar panels
We fixed the fireplace and chimney
We replaced the siding
We replaced the front and back doors, adding glass to bring more light into the house
We added new light fixtures in the dining room and master bedroom
New dining room light
New master bedroom light
We updated the main bathroom, including a sliding barn door, making it worlds easier for me to get my wheelchair in and out
We added 7 flower beds around the house, as well as sod in key areas around the house
We had a wrought iron fence and swing set in the back to keep the kid safe and allow for fun
We had a new garage door installed
We replaced the garage flooring with an amazing product
We had fully renovated the kid’s room when we found mold in there
The fully renovated the kitchen, adding the mudroom space to make it 360 square foot
One of the last projects we had was the flooring. Of course the flooring includes fixing the doors, closets, trim, and baseboards, but who’s counting?
Garage shelving detached from wall, leaning
Something I always tell my husband is “don’t jinx it”. As in, don’t say it’s almost spring in March, because we’ll get slammed with a snowstorm the next day. He didn’t follow my advice. At the end of a recent “floored” project, he said “this is the last major thing, then all we need to do is the garage”.
I kid you not, less than a day later, we went out the garage to go for a family walk and realized the entire garage shelving unit, a mish-mash of woods left to us by the previous owners, had detached from the concrete wall and was leaning in thin air with all our stuff hanging off of it. It was horrifying. My poor husband spent the rest of the afternoon and evening precariously moving all our belongings off the shelves, taking the shelving apart, and then piling all of our stuff back up against the wall. I couldn't believe it!
Garage shelving front view
To make room in the now wreck-of-a-garage, he moved some heavy materials up to a storage unit we have. While he was moving it, the caster wheel broke and dragged a black mark all over their new floor. (ack!) So he spent another hour going to get a magic eraser and hopefully remove the scratch enough we wouldn’t be charged.
Do you ever feel like things are just piling on? Me too. I got an electric bill, an ELECTRIC BILL for the first time in 3 years. It wasn’t much but I was furious. I realized that even with all the net metering we’d done from previous summer, that our credit with the electric company had been steadily decreasing over the last months. Due to the pandemic, we’d been home 24-7, we had the lights on heat on all day and night with 2 work laptops and a remote school iPad running all the time. I couldn’t shut everything down when we left for work and use the smart thermostat to turn the heat to 62 degrees when we were gone. Even with that knowledge though, getting the bill sucked.
When we went to install the new doors (2 of the new four), we realized we forgot door knobs. Not the end of the world, but I wanted to ensure we installed them properly and that means ensuring they latch. So MIchael ran up to Lowe’s, grabbed what we needed and headed home. My family pod of helpers was already there when he returned, and I could tell by his face, it wasn’t good news.
Air nailing closet trim with Dad
New office door, primed for paint
Linen closet door
The automatic window won’t close on the Challenger. “Oh for goodness sake,” I said, only that is NOT what I said. Knowing that we had to deal with that problem at what would very likely be an exhausting day, was not making me happy. We brushed it off though and managed to work together and install the two doors. The first door’s rough opening was perfectly level - a miracle! The second door was the challenge, but we got it in and managed to have some family-pod fun in the middle, sharing a batch of shrimp and keto cocktail sauce and some keto buffalo chicken.
We realized later that the Challenger may need a new fuse, or maybe more likely, needed to be driven more often to charge the battery. We’d hardly driven the sports car during the pandemic, opting instead to jump in the other car that holds a bit more for our local home improvement retailer.
My way of negating my husband’s jinx is dealing with all this crazy head-on. So now that that is taken care of, onto the installing next two doors and getting ready for the plasterer on Saturday.
“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”
As You Like It, William Shakespeare
