Notebook Blogging #7

Sorry "notebook blogging" is getting out late today, after class I decided I wanted to have some fun with drywall so I went to my apartment and fixed some holes in the walls and ceiling. This could be a whole topic in itself, but the quick version is, the apartment above me had some pipe issues and they had to go through my apartment's ceiling to get them, which of course left holes that I figured should be fixed. In case you have not experienced fixing holes in walls I recommend you "accidentally" slam a door open and fix the resulting hole, it is great fun. Or you could just use duct tape like a good friend of my does ;)

Because of the weather our house has been moving right along, no one has gotten injured except a guy named Steve who hit his pinkie with a hammer...everyone kids him about that. I was in charge of cutting all the joists for one side of the house and I have to say good tools really do make a difference. The circular saws we have in class are simply amazing. Even though we have a circular saw as soon as I can, I am buying the one we use in class.

When we finished the sub-floor Mr. T. got up on it and did a little dance number, oh the times I wish I had a video camera! This past week we actually had this thing called the "cultural fair" which I guess is supposed to introduce us to different cultures....All I did was eat great food :p Oh and watched Mr. T. dance. Turns out his little dance move he did on the sub-floor was just a warm up for the dancing he did with his group, "The Crazy eights".

Next week I have spring break, which means I will have an amazing amount of time on my hands. Back in December when I was looking at the schedule the thought crossed my mind that I would go on a road trip up north on spring break but that is not an option at the moment. My grandmother actually has been wanting to go to Boston to visit her sister but she is going to be flying up. Stuck in a car with me did not interest her too much, besides she got her plane ticket free. I have a feeling my mother has plans to use my "skills" around the house, if that is the case, just a heads up, there may or may not be any blog posts next week. :p

I am a landlord...

First, I am sorry I have been lax in posting recently, I was not even able to get a "stupid people" post out until this morning and I have yet to find the time to type up the post I have in my notebook. It was not that long anyway, hopefully by next week I will have more written up. My reason for not posting is because I have been busy but also because I have been trying to spend less time sitting in front of the computer screen. It is good because it gives me more time to do things like drive Nick crazy with my woeful guitar playing, :D but it is also somewhat bad, since I checked my email this morning and had 17 new messages! Anyway on to the post title!

I am now a landlord....I have had my apartment up for sale since mid-October. While several people have been very interested when they go for a loan because the mortgage industry is in a bit of a mess right now most buyers have not been able to get funding. Rather than let my apartment just sit empty and collect dust, I decided I might as well make some money with it. The good thing is the lady who is renting it wants to buy it, her credit is low but the bank has told her that if she rents and pays on time for 6-12 months she should qualify for a loan.

The only negative about renting is she wanted me to provide a washer/dryer and a refrigerator, the cost of which would be added to the purchase price when she buys the apartment as well as the rent being raised a bit. So with the truck and my dad we set out to get some appliances. The first stop was the Sears outlet where I picked up a stackable washer and dryer. There were no refrigerators there so we drove across the street to pick up one at Costco, then it was back to the apartment to put everything in it's place. Once we had everything unloaded into the apartment we discovered we had some issues. The first issue involved the refrigerator and the planks that were attached to the bottom with several bolts. We had no socket set, but a call to Garon who was over at disaster house working on the wiring fixed that. He had a socked wrench and one socket, which amazingly happened to be just the size we needed, funny how things happen like that.

The second issue happened to involve the refrigerator as well. This one was a little more serious, it would not fit in the kitchen door.....In seems in my apartment all the doorways are smaller than in a regular house. We tried to take the fridge door off but since we did not have the necessary tools it was my idea that we just go through the hole in the wall connecting the kitchen to the main living room:

I know that hole has a name but my mind can't think of it right now, so I will just call it the hole in the wall. :p Anyway getting the fridge through the hole into the kitchen was relatively easy, we just turned it sideways hoisted it up and pushed it through, though it did bump the hanging lamp several times.

But the refrigerator issues were minor compaired to the washer/dryer issue. In the apartment, the washer and dryer go into the half bath in this little nook. The nook was small but we figured the stackable washer and dryer would fit...What we did not think about was the smaller doorways in my apartment.....The half bath's door frame is 23".... 23 inches! The washer and dryer is 27, so it was four inches too big! My first thought was to check for a smaller washer and dryer but alas the smallest I have been able to find through special order is 24" still an inch too large....So today I return the 27" and next week I probably will have to order the 24" and just take the door frame off to get in in!!!! The moral of this post is this, if you every live in an apartment, measure before you buy any appliances!

You want apartment pictures?

I have apartment pictures! When you first walk into the apartment you are in the main living/dining room. If you shift clockwise slightly you will be looking down a hallway.

Before drywall:

Drywall almost done:Finished hallway:

The first right from the hallway is the kitchen:

The next right is a half bathroom:

The third and final right is the first bedroom :

You are now at the end of the hall and at another bathroom that is at the end of the hall:

Turning to your left you have another bedroom:Then if you turn around and start going back down the hallway on your right is the largest of the bedrooms, the master you could say. This is a bad picture as you can't really tell the size but I wanted to show you are almost directly across from the first bathroom:

Looking back down the hallway toward the front door:

I am not sure why it was designed the way it was, you have one good sized bedroom but the other two are pretty small, it would have been better I think if those two smaller bedrooms were combined. Also there are two small bathrooms which I think is silly for an apartment this size.... It would have been better if you just have one good sized bathroom. I guess maybe I could have done something about that since I had it all the way down to the studs but I honestly never thought about it until the drywall was up..... Anyway that is a tour of my apartment. :)

Oh and one more picture of Nick :p In the first bathroom, the half bath, there is this very narrow closet which Nick was very tempted to hide out in and then jump out at people when they came in....I figured it would not be good for business so we just have a picture of it:

The boredom of a Saturday

This past week my apartment was put up for sale. So far there have been a few people interested but not as many as I would like, to try to get some more interest yesterday I had an open house. It was rather boring, I just sat in my apartment with no furniture but the chair I was sitting on. Because Nick had basketball and I was his ride there, Nick also had to sit in my empty apartment. :p It actually was not as bad as it sounds as I was able to watch a movie when no one was looking at the apartment which unfortunately was most of the time....So besides having to sit around all day, I did not even get to talk to very many people about the house, well except for Ray.

Ray was this older gentleman who showed up about two hours into the open house. He is a mortgage broker and was just stopping by to look around the apartment. After he walked around and looked, I guess he had nothing better to do because he and I then proceeded to have a conversation that spanned everything from computers to shingles to bees....Yes bees! (I used to raise bees, well maybe raise is not the right word, take care of more like) Anyway, somehow the conversation just kept on going and going. After 30 or so minutes we went outside and walked around the apartment complex and talked some more! I am not sure how it happened, I mean here is a complete stranger and we talked for over an hour!

If it had been my dad in my shoes I could totally see this happening as my dad seems to have lengthy conversations with strangers all the time. Me on the other hand..... ok, I will admit I like to talk but unless it is with a friend, I am not one to just carry on a lengthy over an hour conversation with someone especially with a complete stranger. Or so I thought... :p I guess Ray had a good conversation as well since he said maybe we should get together for lunch sometime!!! :o Well sorry if this has been a bit of a boring post, to make up for it I have an interesting picture of what Nick did the whole time:

Also, I think it was Abigail who asked about the interior paint color of my apartment so here are two pictures of that:

About my apartment....

In the comments of my last post about my magnificent new door, Sleepy Joy brought up an interesting question: "Are you going to move into your apartment now?" This is actually a topic I was going to post about but it has been in the "rough draft" stage and I have not had the time to finalize it. Since she did raise the question and a simple "yes" or "no" would need an explanation here it is:

No, I am not moving into my apartment now, or in all likelihood ever. I am going to sell it. I have seriously thought about living in it, it is in an excellent location and is only 5 minutes away from work. Gone would be the 2+ hours of driving I currently do everyday, and I would have practically 1,100sqft all to myself. Sure I would have a monthly power/water/phone bill to keep track of, but at least half that cost would be covered by me not needing hardly any gas for my car. So why don't I want to move into it? The answer is actually pretty simple, I love my family! :)

That is a pretty blanket statement, but probably the thing I would miss the most would be the conversation. That is easy to fix, just get room mates for your apartment you might say. Yes, I could do that, but it really would not be the same. The past probably year and a half, I have really enjoyed being at home and having our "after 10 discussions" with my family especially Sarah. I have jokingly told her there is no way she is getting married before me because I would lose a buffer (inside joke) and I also would have no one to act crazy with or sing with when I am doing the dishes.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problems moving out and living on my own. When I am married I will have no issue moving to Timbuktu or wherever else my wife and I feel God wants us to live. Until that happens though, I am content to live at home and spend time with my family. Besides, without me their life would be pretty dull and they would probably have to get rid of the computers since they most likely would start having issues as soon as I moved out!

A magnificent door!

Last week I bought a door! :D That's great, you might say, so what? Why are you posting about getting a door? Well besides the fact that I could not think of anything else to post, I am also pretty pumped about my door! To explain why I am so pumped up about a door requires some background:

I own a 1049sqft apartment. It has been completely remodeled inside, and when I say completely, I mean the only thing left from it's previous state are a few of the studs...Everything else was torn out. The reason everything got torn out had something to do with the floor to ceiling mold that was everywhere when I purchased it out of foreclosure. The first time I walked in I was actually a little depressed. Mold is not something you want to mess around with and my apartment seemed to have every type of mold there is growing everywhere. Eventually the apartment was gutted down to the cement floor, ( I am on the bottom floor) and the previously mentioned studs. Then it was time to rebuild the interior.

Because everything had to be replaced the remodeling took a little longer and cost much more than I had first thought it would. A brand new kitchen had to be built, shelves, counter tops, appliances and lots of other things add up over time. Everything finally was almost done except my door needed a new lock. On the door was this metal plate thing, that looked like it was there to reinforce the door lock portion of the door. Well that is what it looked like, it actually was the only thing holding the door together at the lock!!! Off comes the metal plate and the handle and lock pretty much fall out of the door... It seemed a new door was needed.

This did not make me happy! Doors really are not that expensive, the price for a good exterior door is just a drop in a bucket compared to what I have already spent. Still, I really did not want to spend at least another $150 or so just for a door!! I decided rather than buy a new door, I would check on craigslist to see if maybe a used door could be had for a good price... There were a few, but they were left hand doors and I needed a right.

The next morning resigning myself to the fact that I would have to buy a new door, I checked craigslist again and low and behold posted less than an hour before, was a listing for a right hand exterior door with a peep-hole, everything I was looking for!!! I immediately contacted the person and told her I would be there that afternoon with cash for the door. So my apartment now has a wonderful almost new door! :)

It is actually hard to express how thrilled I am over the door. I know this is going to sound crazy, but when I put the door in the back of the trunk to bring it to the apartment, I had this sense of, I don't know any other way to describe it other than, it was just complete and utter joy. :D I had lost all hope in getting a cheap door and then out of the blue a door practically drops out of heaven for me! Driving to the apartment, I would look in the rear mirror and see it in the bed of the truck and I just could not help but smile. Well, that is the story of my magnificent door, even now, days later, every time I think about it I am just amazed that I got it.