Posts Tagged ‘Construction’

Remodeling… Redecorating.. Medicating?

Monday, April 13th, 2015

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic.  We’ve started some big projects in the house that have, in turn, verified a few suspicions.

Our kitchen was pretty closed off from the rest of the world.  Even though there’s an addition on the house, nothing was really done to help with the flow (and lighting) for the original house.  So, after determining that the wall that was bugging me the most was load bearing, we took the steps to turn a section of it into a window by removing the drywall, adding a header to transfer the load, and then framing things out.  There’s some painting to do, but the window was finally trimmed out this past week by our friend Colin whom came down for Easter.  We used a wide windowsill for the bottom to give a bar top kind of a look and feel to it, and now even though there’s no flow in terms of walking, it helps to increase a little counter space in the kitchen and offers the ability for more light to come through.  There’s an unfortunate lack of overhead lighting in the living room, so the extra bump of light from the large window in the kitchen makes the difference.  With doing this construction, however, we had to move a few things around in the living room and this is where we found that our problems were a little bigger than the lack of lighting…

As I’ve previously said, Bella’s been having a difficult time for the past few months.  Her eyes have been gunky, she’s been drinking a lot of extra water, and her anxiety is pretty much through the roof.  After finally getting her to the vets office and having some tests run on her, the preliminary results brought back a diagnosis of Stage 1 Diabetes, and her vision loss is in the 75% range.  The vision was something that seems to have been brewing for a little while recently, but moving the furniture in the living room to do the construction on the wall proved that she was a lot further along on the blindness scale than originally anticipated.  The diabetes came as a complete shock to me, her glucose numbers were well into the high 700’s when they’re only supposed to be in the low to mid 100’s.  This unfortunately means 2 insulin injections daily. I would love to say that’s only until her numbers come down and then we can adjust things, but I think it may wind up being for the rest of her life and I can’t even begin to describe the anxiety she’s experiencing because of it.  The back of her neck is so sore from the injections and she’s lashing out like all holy hell if you get anywhere near her.  It’s a work in progress, but we’re trying our hardest to make her as comfortable as possible.

The gunk build up on her eye wasn’t completely due to an infection as we originally thought.  She does have a minor infection in the eye that houses the cataract, unfortunately this eye is the one where she’s lost complete vision.  She’s receiving antibiotic eyedrops twice daily for this. But the gunk build up, overall, is due to chronic dry eye. She’s receiving two more drops daily to keep her eyes lubricated.  The issue though.. I believe they cause either a slight dialysis or just blurred vision because her vision seems to have been getting worse since we implemented the drops into the daily routine.  She’s walking into walls more often than usual and I’ve noticed she has no interest in being outside while the sun is up because she can’t seem to get comfortable when there’s a brighter light shining into her eyes.  I’ve also noticed that they clearly sting a little because as soon as either of the drops go into her eyes she’s wanting to rub them out as quickly as possible.  I’ve made it a point to kind of rub around her eye to make sure the medication gets to the back of her eye were it’s needed in hopes that she doesn’t wind up completely rubbing it into the carpet as soon as she has the chance to rub her face after we’re done.

Everything combined, however, is a major stress factor for her life.  She’s getting the injections every 12 hours, and also the eye drops every 12 hours.  The injections is more of a stress factor than the drops, the drops just seem to be happening more often because she needs multiple drops within an hour of each other so ensure that one doesn’t cancel out the other. I’m also still using the saline eye wash to help keep the gunk from around her eye from getting hard so her eyes are as clear as they can possibly be.  She’s fine with the eye wash, but I’m sure that’s due to the fact that she’s not getting anything IN her eye, I’m only wiping the crust from around it.  As clear as her eyes appear, I know the vision just isn’t there anymore and unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about that.

Her drinking has subsided, but her bladder control is pretty much out the window. I’m doing everything I can to ensure she’s going out as regularly as possible to relieve herself, but there’s still been accidents in the house and even with everything else going on with her – that’s where MY anxiety levels have skyrocketed. I’ve been shampooing carpets regularly but she was clearly going in the house more often than I originally noticed so there’s heavily perfumed areas of urine in my carpet that I can’t get out with a regular home-based cleaner, to the point that I may need to have Stanley Steemer come in for the deep clean in hopes the steam and cleaning solutions penetrate down to the padding where the smells are being held.  On warmer/humid days the smell is overwhelming and as someone who takes pride in keeping a clean house, having pet odors to this degree is embarrassing as all hell for me.  Having a house guest for a week and needing to have candles going at all times just to mask the smells that I couldn’t get up with the cleaner wasn’t a pleasant experience. I know that he didn’t care, and he only said “ooh, I smell pee” once in the 7 days he was here but the fact that it was even the topic of conversation wasn’t something I was thrilled about.

I knew when we purchased this home that I’d eventually be removing all of the current ‘flooring’.  The floor in the living room/dining room is a weird tan tone that’s been on the floor for probably 30 years.  The carpeting in the hallway and three bedrooms is also 30 years old and a very traditional rose color for the late 70’s that is just ugly regardless of stains.  The den and my closet have a newer berber carpet, but even low piles hold smells and there were stains that I couldn’t removed with the cleaner last year that have only gotten worse over time. So, by default, I’ve been looking into wood flooring.  While it’s more expensive than just replacing carpet, it also gives me a solid floor to easily wipe up instead of having to worry about something soaking into padding.  I also feel it would help to increase the value of the house since it’s more ascetically pleasing in it’s own right. At this point I’d be content with having solid vinyl floors throughout the whole house just so there’s a barrier there for no liquid to penetration.  So, the best of both worlds, I’m looking into laminate hard woods through Lumber Liquidators. I’ve found a few that have the tone I want, and would look amazing with the color I plan on painting all the walls with (Sherwin Williams – Canvas Tan).  The issue is really just buying it and putting it down, cost for everything was about $1200. This covers the cost of wood the entire first floor (minus kitchen and bathrooms), the padding and tools.  Considering having a company come in to do this job would run me over $8000… it’s a pretty good deal.

This isn’t something that will happen in the near future though, finances don’t allow for that kind of modification being as we still have a roof in need of repair, a kitchen that requires the completion of a remodel and a basement to reconfigure to accommodate the possibility of having a few people move in within the next year or so.  That mixed with the fact that I now desperately need to completely fence in the back yard because of Bella’s lack of desire to take a proper walk at night… money’s tight.   We’re absolutely fine on paying bills, there’s no lack of food, we’re not going ‘without’ for anything. We’re comfortable month to month and putting money aside for what we need, but there’s no overflow where we can just pull out money and get things done at once. This house will continue to be a ‘work in progress’ for the next 30 years, but we do have our priorities.

It would be amazing if like $75,000 fell into my hands somehow.  I know our Mortgage still has over 200k on it, and we could easily pay down the principle with 75,000 to help in the long term, but when you factor in everything that needs to be done in and around the house – that bit of money could go a really long way. It would cover all debts (minus mortgage), the roof, a fence, tree removal, landscaping, new flooring, kitchen remodel, and the basement.  It could also cover getting a shed into the yard so I can gain use of my garage for more than a dumping ground and actually have the ability to park in there. It could go so, so far it just needs to appear. Will it? Probably not, but that’s because I don’t live in a dream world where it grows on trees and gets handed to you.

In any event, it’s time for someone’s eyes to get some drops and there’s plenty of work to get done around the house while my inbox is still empty.  Those dishes won’t do themselves… and trust me – I’ve been hoping for that too.

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Posted in Bella, Daily, Home Ownership, Pets | 1 Comment »

Rollin’… rollin’… rollin’…

Sunday, September 7th, 2014

Quick note: I’m not a hoarder, this is what moving looks like. This is also a graphics heavy post.

In the deep recess of my mind I will always have the “I need to sit down and get this done” mentality. The reality of that, however, it just doesn’t freaking happen. I’ve deleted five posts that were sitting in drafts over the course of the past few months. I’m to a point in my life where I’m really just too bored with things to even care about them. I always find a way to side track myself just to get away from the task at hand. This is killing me on all levels because I feel like I don’t actually complete anything from start to finish in the usual time frame.

Last month Sean and I headed up to New York because he had an appointment in Manhattan, and we hadn’t been up there in well over a year so we were doing double-duty on this trip by getting my childhood bedroom packed up so we could move everything into the house. I wanted to get up there earlier, but I also wanted to get the new house settled a little bit before there would be complete and total chaos with new stuff. I’m actually happy I did it this way because the end result of unloading the truck into the living room put my OCD about keeping things clean into a tail spin.

As you can see from the photo below, the living room and dining room were covered in boxes and bags and just fabric everywhere. It took me a solid 3 days to get everything where it was supposed to go.  Literally, three days, 8-10 hour days a piece. Books were put on the shelves, furniture was moved to the rooms they actually belonged in, DVD’s and Games were put away, shelves were hung in the hall closet to accommodate the extra jackets, winter gear, and even board games (that I had no idea I had a stock-pile of) and then all of the clothes somehow wound up inside of MY closet. This is primarily because it’s a 8-foot by 8-foot room and there was enough space on the floor, and enough height with the shelves that I could actually get the boxes into the shelves.

cleanhouse

So this is ultimately how the house looked after a solid 3 days of busting my ass. And even though the mess of stuff didn’t actually wind up in the den initially, since I was on a cleaning rampage anyway – I went a head and not only rearranged the furniture in the den, but cleaned and organized it from top to bottom as well.

den

Bella now has her own little corner by the doors, I needed this to happen because I wasn’t able to close the glass doors with the way the furniture previously was formatted. So I had to move Sean to his own corner, which works out better for him because it’s right in front of the TV. Not many people believe that it’s a 70-inch television, but it is and it just looks super small up against the huge wall it’s on.

The closet was a different story.  I think since it’s in an area that doesn’t get a lot of daily foot traffic, I was able to keep it at the back of my mind… as well as at the back of the house. I had no ability to even really access the closet, because three weeks of laundry kind of piled up in front of it. Of course, after the laundry was done I still couldn’t get towards the shelves because of everything on the floor inside of the closet that needed to be sorted through and thrown away.  In the end, however, the final result makes me very happy. Note: The bathroom and closet are not green, they’re white…for some reason the tablet is randomly changing things to different colors.

closet

Another area we’re tackling is the kitchen.  I’ve been fairly unhappy with it since we moved in. The location of the island really cut down the proper use of the counter space. So, what we did was get rid of the island. Does this sound crazy? Sure, but we turned the island so that it is up against the wall instead of coming out from the wall. We then purchased two upper cabinets to hang above it, and cut the depth of the counter top so there is no longer the ability to put the barstools up against it. This isn’t something I’m worried about though, what we’re going to be doing on the other side of the kitchen is opening up the wall to have a picture window (that will allow for more light in the Living Room), we’ll be purchasing two lower cabinets to flank on either side of the bar stools that will now overlook the living room and fireplace. This area will more than likely be used for quick meals, or going through the mail, or just sitting down and having a cup of coffee.  Maybe if Sean and I ever decide that we’re ready for children this could eventually turn into a homework space. I don’t know… I just know that by opening things up into the Living Room/Dining Room it’ll just make the kitchen feel larger than it actually is.  In order to do the walls, however, I’ll have already needed to have countertops ready to go.  We’re replacing the butcher block look formica with a slate black color, I’ll need to purchase two counter tops to replace the existing ones, and then an additional one to put against the new wall. I’ll be painting all the cabinets white, putting in new flooring, and going with a grey tone on the walls.  I’ll have pictures of that in an upcoming post, this one was a little picture heavy and I’m personally not 100% happy with how the kitchen currently looks so obviously there’s nothing to show.

In any event, I actually finally sat down and got everything in my head written down. I am going to try for more posts, lord knows there’s enough going on that I want to blog about but at least for now the “I finally have 30 years of my life under ONE roof” post is finally complete.

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Posted in Daily, Delmarva, Home Ownership, New York, Stressed, Work | 1 Comment »

Productive procrastination?

Monday, June 23rd, 2014

Believe it or not, I’ve actually been actively attempting to complete a blog post for the last week. This is where my life has pretty much gone in the shitter. I’ve sat down and started writing this particular entry probably 15 times, and still have yet to complete it. So my goal for the next 20 minutes is to complete a thought and hopefully be able to hit the “Publish” button instead of saving the draft. Work has taken up a lot of my time which has caused me to slack just about everywhere else… but it’s not like I’m being a lazy ass either… right?

First and foremost, my dad came down to visit this past week. He’d never seen the house before and probably hasn’t been to the state of Delaware either EVER or at least within the last 30 years that I’ve been alive, so it was a nice little vacation for him. Typically when he takes his mandatory time off of work (he accrues his hours, but never uses them), he takes off two weeks in a row and will maybe spend a few days in Atlantic City but for the rest of the time he’s hanging out in front of the TV complaining he’s bored. So, as a nice little change for him he got to leave New York and had a place to stay for a week that wasn’t his own house. He seemed impressed by the size of my master bathroom, which hell even I’m impressed with that. The house itself also (like it did with Colin previously) seems much smaller in pictures. When you actually walk through it and take in the 3,000 sqft it’s semi-shocking.  It’s way too large for just two people, but that’s just how it goes.

Moving on, while he was here I got to celebrate father’s day with both him and George, which was a nice thing to finally have some family members together from both sides under the same roof.  We took him to the two restaurants that I know he couldn’t possibly have up in New York. First of which is Cracker Barrel, because hey that place freaking rules and $30 for three people to eat A LOT of food is just an awesome experience. Then another night we headed over to Bethany Blues in Lewes because it’s just damn good BBQ. I’m a sucker for their Mac & Cheese (even though I find mine to taste better, it’s just a nice change to get it from there). I wasn’t happy with my rib choice, should have stuck with the brisket or pulled pork but I wanted something different, and it just didn’t work out that well. That’s ok, dinner was still enjoyable, and dessert was freaking awesome so I really can’t complain.

He left us on Wednesday, he took the ferry up to Cape May and then drove up to Atlantic City for a few days and noted that he not only got to see a few hawks floating around, but even spotted little dolphin following the ferry. He knows based on prior experiences with seeing hawks that it’s just not gonna be a good gambling time, he experienced that almost every time he drove up to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. It was no different when being on the ferry heading to Cape May. So, even though he unfortunately lost in A.C. he enjoyed his week away from New York.

So, moving on. We had a few big plumbing issues this week. Something happened to the pump in the basement for the bathroom  and we wound up springing a leak. Of course Sean over reacted and made it seem like the basement was flooding out and it was just a trickle of water that we were able to take care of. George came in and fixed the pipe, sealed things up and now we no longer have the weird sewer smell either, which was freaking disgusting but I already know once we get a good chunk of money together we’re completely gutting the basement and starting over. The assholes who previously owned the house compromised so many different things by building the basement that we really have no choice.

basementholesI got to the point, while my father was here, that I actually put a hammer through the wall in the basement because the fucking morons who built up the basement decided it would be smart to block a window with drywall because they couldn’t figure out how to cover a pipe. Yep.. block a window… lose ventilation as well as an exit point in case of fire. FUCKING SMART! I took the pic of the aftermath of this area off of Sean’s Instagram. The photo to the left is my exposing of the window, and the photo to the right is us exposing the super fucked-upedness of the previous owners.  Now… Sean has two vents in his office for the HVAC. Both of which BLAST air into his office, but then you look at them on the other side of the wall (in the area where the holes are now) the vents were half-ass placed on the wall, and then they were clearly leaking because with how cold Sean’s office was getting, the room (where these holes are) was a good 10 to 15 degrees colder.  So, he taped up the vents and then heard a weird noise coming from the wall behind the shower, he opened up the wall to find a HUGE hole in the duct work where it appeared that they were attempting to heat the back wall of the shower in order to get around the lack of a vent in the bathroom. So, prior to us locating this hole we knew that the bedrooms upstairs did not have good airflow at all, it was always either too cold in the winter, or blistering on the recent hotter days when factoring in that the A.C. will never kick off because the house would not get down to the 65* that the thermostat was set on.  So, once this hole was located and patched a blast of freezing cold air came through the vent in the master bedroom. While we’re confident that there are still leaks here and there, I feel the A.C. is now even functioning better because it’s actually turning off when the house hits the temperature it’s supposed to.

The only reason we really started to investigate into things was because my father had mentioned that the room he was staying in just didn’t have a good flow of air and it was only realized after he’d shut the door to go to bed for the night. Now, I don’t like the idea of someone being uncomfortable in my house, it’s one of my biggest pet peeves. If you know me in person, you know that I’ll make it a point to keep things as comfortable as possible. Case and point would probably be Karen, she’s got poor circulation and is commonly always cold. So, I make it a point to turn the A.C. off before I know she’s coming, or turn it to a higher temperature. Sean and I are comfortable at 70*F, she’s more comfortable at 80*F, so I compromise and bump it up to 75*F and make sure that there’s a fluffy sweater within reach for when she gets the chill.  Knowing that my dad is on a normal persons schedule and eating habits, I made sure to have cereal, cold cuts and other things in the fridge/pantry so that he had what he’s used to noshing on at home. I went and bought a double decker air mattress (as the temporary bed until I can get my mattress from NY), this way he wasn’t sleeping on the futon, or on the floor, plenty of clean towels, even found some of the shampoos and stuff I’ve taken from hotels over the years of travelling back and forth with Sean and put them in the bathroom in case he’d forgotten anything.  I just, I dunno, I just want to make sure you’re comfortable.  I’m not the “Oh do you want a drink?” type of person. I show you where everything is and you help yourself… but that’s just a ‘default’ thing for me because anyone who does stay here, or stop by for whatever length of time is typically someone I’d consider family anyway.

So yea, it was an eventful week and thankfully a few things have been fixed. We still need a roof, still need to get all of the rest of their shit out of our garage, and also are quite possibly going to need to gut the basement and start over. I know Sean doesn’t want to lose his office, but if we can make it better… why not?  The goal for next year is to tackle anything on the outside of the house, we want to put up a fence, a pool, get a shed for the lawn/pool equipment, so the next few years are going to be tight, but we’re thankfully pretty settled in and minus the lack of furniture for the master bedroom, pretty damn comfortable.  I think the saving grace is the fact that Sean and I both have our defined office spaces and things just run smoothly. I find it’s easier to concentrate when I’m working in the office and not in the den, which could be why it took me almost 3 weeks to blog, because I get side tracked by the T.V. while I’m working.  So sitting in the office with music and both feet on the floor in a proper upright working position I was able to spend 16 hours yesterday finalizing a site for a client.

I’ve been working on big name things that I’m not allowed to talk about and it freaking kills me, because my portfolio would look fucking fantastic, but when dealing with NDA’s things just get tricky and I personally do not want to deal with a lawsuit for my boss, or even me.

So… I’m heading off, I’m actually going to hit the “Publish” button, and I’m happy as hell about it.

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Posted in Daily, Family, Fiance, Home Ownership, Work | Comments Closed