Getting the old house ready to sell has been a real problem. The yard needs a lot of clean up work to have good curb appeal and to fix all of the deferred maintenance problems like the ivy in the trees and tree limbs encroaching on the house. The carpets need to be cleaned. The whole house needs to be scrubbed top to bottom. And, worst of all, the front bedroom and the office need to be repainted. I’ve been working on the painting for a couple of days now and I am ready to be done with it. I prepped and painted all day Wednesday and then again for three hours last night. Looks like this Saturday morning will be more painting, trying to get the front room done before the carpet people come at 1:00 and get the office done in there some time too.
The garden was enough of an extra expense that I told the yard people not to do it. Mom is coming up so we’ll do painting and garden stuff and then some cleaning. The good news is that once Saturday is done the house should be almost ready for a For Sale sign. I also have two people that already live in the neighborhood that are interested in buying it and my neighbors tell me that there are a lot of investors that are looking for houses like mine too so I might get a couple of bids. I would prefer it go to a family rather than a California Rental Tycoon but it will be hard to turn down money.
Easter was last weekend and I went to Mom’s to see the family. There ended up being quite a bit more family than I expected. It was fun and I got to see my nieces. They grow up so fast. I can’t believe they’re almost three. Little people with personalities and everything. Crazy.
The ill-fated bookshelf project mk.2 has finally progressed. A local metal worker, Jeff McGlew, built the metal frames I designed and they’re perfect. The dimensions are correct, they are square, the weld finishes are very clean and they’re even pretty light weight. I’ll Scotch Brite them down and then put some paste wax on them to finish. Then I’ll need to start cutting the nice maple veneer plywood I got to make the actual shelf surfaces. I may trim down a spare piece of MDF I have just to see how it fits and looks to start with. The finishing regimen I’ve decided on will be a long, tedious and high VOC affair. A gallon of either Waterlox Original or Arm-R-Seal and four coats a side. I’ll have to figure out how to get good ventilation in the garage and to keep the TR6 from getting all solvent abused.
The big news is that I am seeing someone. I’ll refrain from putting her personal information all over my blog but she’s been a friend for a while and we started dating a little more than a month ago. I’m very happy and she seems to be happy as well. We’ve been mostly cooking dinner and watching a few TV shows as dates but we went to Cantine for dinner this week. The fried olives and the affogato were both tasty treats and we each enjoyed our pasta also. She has a cat which is less of an issue than I feared it might be and I even had the little fluff stay at my house for a day during apartment maintenance. I look forward to seeing her every time we have something scheduled and I miss her when we don’t.