Category: house

11/14/21 12:22 - ID#60857

dj roomba

As confirmation of my previous post that i turned thirty, I went and bought a Roomba.

My union at work got a new contract got a new contract with retroactive pay, so i thought I'd splurge.

We also had to get ready for (e:Terry)'s family coming to stay for Thanksgiving. So (e:Paul) and I went for a shopstravaganza at Niagara Falls Boulevard Plaza of Hell.

I am terrible shopper and waffled the whole time at Best Buy whether to get one and if so, Paul eventually convinced me to just pick one. I also had decision paralysis on choosing a shopping curtain.

Anyway the Roomba navigation is kind of dumb, it has to bump into everything. But it is amazing at cleaning and the floors have never been less dusty.

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Last Modified: 11/14/21 12:23

Category: house

12/28/20 10:17 - ID#60831

New mattress

I can't believe after not posting for so long and everything that happened this is what I am posting but gotta start somewhere. We finally bought a new mattress, after years of researching while sleeping on the saggy pokey old one. I think I did a good job sifting out the marketing bullshit, and settled on a natural latex one. The outside is wool and cotton so there's no flame retardants. In theory it's compostable?

But it's very quiet and I can sleep again.

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Last Modified: 12/28/20 10:17

Category: house

10/24/16 12:53 - ID#60698

Dehoarding, and hoarder shopping

Like (e:mike) I took time to get rid of old junk. (e:mike,60694)

I dislike keeping things around in case you 'need' them later.

I'm guilty of hoarding though. I finally got rid of my old high school and college computer, a Dell Vostro. I used it circa 2006-2012. The last 3 years the hinges were torn off so I always had to prop it up against a wall or with my knee while I worked with it. It's probably not even salvagable for donation.

A lot of what I got rid of were boxes and broken electronics but also books. Recipe books seem extra useless, when you can find millions of recipes online with reviews and pictures. If that ever goes away I'm going to guess we're also not going to have much produce year round anyway.

Saturday we went to Coocoou to look at office desks for (e:terry). The warehouse is floor to third story ceiling with vintage stuff. Like this giant fiberglass flamingo. Or rustic wooden booths that look like they're from the Roadhouse Grill. Maybe (e:terry) can set up a replica restaurant to work in.

There was only one desk he liked. It was huge and seriously hardwood, from a Xerox executive. $4500(!) - he didn't get it

Some of it was cool to see and I recognize mid-centry design is trendy but I get flashbacks to my grandparents house when I see so much junk.

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Last Modified: 10/26/16 09:21

Category: house

04/26/16 09:36 - ID#60479

Spring cleaning

(e:terry) and I spent four and a half hours cleaning the gutters and the windows in one(!) room. It was worth it if only for the fact that our yellow room looks so much nicer, but if we ever move I'm never living in a house this size again.

I didn't realize how grimy the windows were until I had was able to compare these cleaned ones to the schmutzige ones.

After we finished we walked with (e:paul) and (e:mike) who got back from the outlet mall.

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Last Modified: 05/06/16 10:22

Category: house

01/18/16 01:24 - ID#60401

I'm a stripper

It finally snowed on Sunday. I don't think it ever felt like winter until now. It really all came down in only a few hours - so I took a walk with (e:terry) when he went to go work and got to play in it for a bit.

When I got back, (e:paul) helped me continue stripping the upstairs back hall with the steamer. I worked about 5 hours on one side of the hall with the steamer - what a pain in the ass. If it wasn't for the embodied energy in this plaster I'd say rip it out, replace the electrical and put up dry wall. It would have taken less time, and we wouldn't have a patchy, delaminated plaster wall anymore.

I have seen lots of sites that show fixing delamination and cracks with plaster buttons and adhesive.

Then you have to learn how to do a good job mudding it. If I had more time I'd be interested in learning but this has taken two months to get back to to begin with.

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Last Modified: 01/19/16 02:13

Category: house

12/27/15 02:52 - ID#60378

Dehoarding the orange room

The orange room is now dehoarded. (E:paul) was going crazy. We have so many boxes of outdated electronics to recycle and twice as many books and stuff to goodwill. The boxes are the symptom of a capitalist dream. Boxes of boxes of electronics, their cords, and their successors smaller boxes. We left the books. We thought we should wait for (e:terry) to return from florida to review them.

There were many pictures of pre digital times to review including (e:Paul)'s old wet vegan passport. Isn't he cute? Both him and Terry had whole boxes from their youth. It's weird how geschictelos I feel. Most of my life took place in a post digital, pre backup age. there are no photo print outs, no letters, nothing of my teenage years. maybe somewhere in an encrypted file of AIM chats or on some NSA SMS archive. Thousands of junk shots but nothing to see. One day I will have to review what I have. I should probably (e:strip) better or I will never remember what life was really like. I don't Facebook anymore so at least it won't be sold back to me down the road.

I'm glad to have cleared space. After cleaning (e:Paul) wanted to go to Sato.

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Category: house

11/12/15 02:52 - ID#60327

Solar panels are installed

Much to the hate of the probable hate of the preservation board, we now have solar panels! 17 panels are mounted on the south facing side of our house. 14 on the sloped roof, and 3 on the flat part. So long rooftop parties ;(. The installer, Solar Liberty upgraded the panels from 305kW to the newer 310kW panels, for a total of 5.3kW. We would have had 20 panels at 6.2kW, but the preservation board stupidly denied three. Now it's not symmetrical for the 30 feet you can see it.

The electrician will be here tomorrow to replace our panel box, add a ground, and connect the panels to our house. Old house, new technology!

It's so windy today, 60 mph gusts. (e:paul) is afraid the panels are going to blow off. I think it's a good first test.

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Last Modified: 11/12/15 10:30

Category: house

11/12/15 02:50 - ID#60326

Metro Rail room

We started painting the brown room with the new yellow paint.

It looks amazing in the sun. At night the lighting isn't great - it looks a little more like the old Metro Rail colors. Maybe we should get those plastic chairs to line the room.
I kind of like the scheme but (e:terry) and (e:Paul) would like it to be a less intense yellow.

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Category: house

11/08/15 08:09 - ID#60325

Painting Pt 1

Second day of work done on the brown room. It's now all primed and ready for a yellow paint, with orange baseboards that (e:terry) has painted. It's crazy how much better it looks already with the stains covered up and some of he unevenness patched over.

Now we are at Sato for a ramen dinner.

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Last Modified: 11/08/15 08:54

Category: house

11/08/15 01:15 - ID#60323

Brown room redo

Since the tortoise is now gone ? to warmer climes, we now have an extra room. like we didn't have enough. BT since there's no other bed furniture (e:Paul) and I wanted to have a computer work/hangout room. It gets so much light.

First we had to unhoard all the computer boxes, booked, and knock knacks in the room. Can you believe (e:Paul)'s PowerBook still boots? Some sugar gliders peed in it at some point so it smells now. It still contaons whatd you expect for Paul Visco circa 1999.

Paul wanted to get rid of the closet so we demolished it. I love drywall a million times more than messy plaster. It turns out there's a ton of illegal wiring to this room, including unsecured lines hanging in the basement.