Vacation my foot...

Some updates:

The House (Renovation)

Back into the hall bathroom to get it finished out. I’ve got the shower doors installed and that was a pain in the posterior. Seems the shower walls aren’t what we could consider to be totally plumb. It’s somewhat infuriating to get to the last step and find that somewhere along the line the wall is now off by about an eighth of an inch. Maybe I should tear it all back down and fix it. Nah…

Remember this?

Well it now looks like this.

I’ll get the vanity top on order this week but it probably won’t be in until after the first. I’m not in any massive hurry to complete this room as it doesn’t get used anyway. 

The kitchen is starting. It sort of feels like skateboarding down a hill, very slowly at first but will pick up speed and eventually it will become crazy until the finish. Fortunately it starts out simple enough with demolishing the breakfast nook area. I want to raise the ceiling and add recessed lights above where the table goes. About a third of the kitchen will shortly become a construction zone while I try to keep the rest somewhat clean and useable.

I'll take a bunch of before pics in the next day or two just so I can have a comparison at the end.

I’m still extremely undecided about floor tile, cabinets, countertops, appliances, etc. I’m starting to hear that granite countertops are getting to be kind of passé. They’ve been very popular for quite a while now so it wouldn’t surprise me too terribly much. I’ve been looking at some of this solid surface countertop material and I like the looks and the prices I’m seeing. This could be a good alternative.

The House (Un-Stuffing)

Did some more in the kitchen cabinets in the last week or so. I’ve now got two or three cabinets emptied out and I’m debating about whether or not to consolidate stuff to the east side of the kitchen and demo the west side. Maybe I can do at least some of the work in halves and still keep the kitchen somewhat functional.

I also went through the garage again. I put a huge dent into the amount of stuff out there but still have a long way to go. I can see now that I’m going to have to make at least one trip to the hazardous waste dump. There’s too much stuff that I can’t just throw into the garbage can (paint, solvents, etc.).

RV/Truck Search

Looking forward to the big RV show over in Tampa on January 16^th. It’s possible that this may be my last time of being a browser as there’s an outside chance that I could actually buy my unit next year. Lazy Day’s always has a huge presence at this show and they could have my 293RK on hand. I would LOVE to be able buy the one at the show. It would afford me the chance to great a really good deal on it. I already know what the regular AND sale prices are so if the sales person tries to feed me a line, I’ll know it immediately. Of course there’s no way that I’m going to let them know that I’ve been researching this particular model trailer for more than two years until AFTER the sale is inked.

I’ve also been researching the ins & outs of buying a used truck. I’m finding it helps out quite a bit to know exactly what you’re looking for instead of just being talked into just any truck. Going in without a plan will probably net you that lot-queen truck that they haven’t been able to sell to anyone else or one that their ‘used car lot mechanic’ has done extensive work on (shiver).

Two things I’ve learned so far is that it’s ok to have the truck thoroughly inspected by a third party before purchase and that a recent Carfax report is a requirement, not an option. I’m now studying what the normal mark-up is for a used truck. Seems it’s extremely subjective, so knowing the blue/black/red/green/yellow/pink/chartreuse/salmon book values helps out somewhat (NOT!). I love it when somebody starts talking ‘whatever-color’ book values. Those NADA books are almost completely useless.

Jumping Off

Spoke to a realtor agent the other night that lives up the street from me. She is the one that I was going to contact anyway once I got a little closer in date, but I figure it couldn’t hurt to introduce myself now. Anyway, she and her husband were walking their dog and we got to talking. I told them what I have in mind and what I’ve done so far and she’s worried that I may have already done too much. I asked her if they would like to take a look at where I’m at so far and possibly give some suggestions or direction after the holidays and they agreed.

She did mention that houses are selling unbelievably fast so when I’m about ready to put it on the market, be prepared for it to sell super-fast. Like within a month type fast. That would suit me just fine if that were to happen. She did say to NOT go crazy in the kitchen cost-wise.

On another front, I did spend a good bit of time polishing up the (what I call) push-out plan. I pushed the jump-off date out about 7 months and everything really started to gel much better. I still need to work on the 'changeover' which is the period of time when I basically trade the house for the truck & trailer.

One other thing that helps is that I'll get underway in the springtime instead of fall. The original plan was to head south from here down to the keys and extreme south Florida to spend the winter. While that sounds very nice and all, it's also rather expensive. So by leaving in the spring, I can head out of Florida and chase the winter west and north.

It remains to be seen the actual path I'll take as I'll be making it up as I go along. My researched plans end at the Florida/Alabama border. After that it's 'Any direction is a good one' type of thing. Maybe I'll just do a total diagonal across the U.S. from Florida all the way up to Seattle.

Maybe I'll make a board with a spinning arrow on it and compass directions around the edge. Then every so often I could spin the 'Arrow of Direction' to see which way I go.

2015 Review and plan changes

Wasn’t quite sure how to go about closing out 2016, was it a good year, was it a bad year? Well, it had some of both. I guess it finished out as a sort of a good news/bad news type of situation.

The Good

The house is ahead of schedule for completion and on budget. I’m still running the whole thing completely out of pocket. No debt whatsoever. I’m very pleased to be able to say that. Yes, there are weeks where I'm scratching to make it.

I finally found a budgeting/financial software package that I like very much and is working extremely well for me. I now have good control over budgeting and spending. I only wish I had found it earlier.

The house is getting emptied out very nicely. A burglar breaking into my house would be unbelievably disappointed to say the least. Five rooms are completely bare, the rest aren’t far from it and getting closer by the week.

The Bad

The truck is starting to fall apart at an increased pace and is starting to cost a lot more than just gas and routine maintenance. I was truly hoping to stretch it another year or so and then trade it in on the new (to me) truck. Fingers are crossed on this one.

The stock market did a huge nothing for 2016. It bounced all over the place and was a scary ride, but in the end it ended up right about where it started in January. I didn’t lose anything, but I also didn’t make much of anything.

The Ugly

Because the stock market did a big zero, I lost a whole year of saving up to go. It then ripples into my having to push out the jump-off about a year. Yep, I've had to push off the start of my grand adventure roughly a year unless something highly unexpected good happens. I maybe could get by as is but the budget would be scary skinny. One glitch and I would be screwed.

Trust me I am so unbelievably bummed out over this, for several reasons. The first reason is obvious; I wanted to get out there as soon as possible.

Another bummer is that I wanted to be able to put a for sale sign in the yard about 30 seconds after the last brush stroke of paint. That way the house would be at its very best possible condition (think sale price). Now it will sit for nearly a year ready but I can’t sell it. Obviously I could sell it but then I’d have to get an apartment for a year and I’d be flushing rent money down the toilet instead of adding equity.

Maybe the biggest problem is that I’ll be asking the truck to hang on for an additional year. That’s a very chancy proposition at the very best and the odds are getting worse almost daily. I already drive it like a little old lady trying to not push anything hard mechanically. Even with that I’ve had two major breakdowns in the last two months.

The Plan 

There are however a couple of positives by waiting another year. It gives me time to save up for the adventure. It does allow me to spread out the last of the renovations which helps my monthly budget and it also builds more equity in the house. So I guess it’s not a total downer, but I would much prefer to get out there sooner rather than later.

I am exploring the idea of trading the truck and buying the trailer on the original schedule and then spending a good bit of that additional year going weekend camping. I would have to take out a loan (cold shiver) and I utterly hate the thought of that, but it would get paid off when the house sells.

At least I wouldn’t have to pay for storing the trailer as the north side of the house is still set up for trailer storage (remember the BBQ trailer?). I would have to extend the length a little bit as the fifth wheel is somewhat longer than the BBQ trailer was, but that’s no big deal.

I’ve also decided to forego the apartment or condo idea. To do either one of them would delay me even further. So the current plan is to go ahead with the truck/trailer purchase on schedule (with the loan that I absolutely abhor) and storing on the side of the house. Then when the house sells I will simply hitch up and go. That lets me spend the least possible amount of $$. Of course I will stay in the area for a few days to make sure that everything is closed out and paid off.

I’m thinking Jetty Park might be a good first stop.

Here’s hoping that 2016 is a much better year!

And now for something completely different...

Title of this entry from Monty Python's Flying Circus..... IT'S!!  You have to be a python nut to get that one.

Some of you may know that I enjoy gardening a great deal as it’s kind of a way for me to unwind. Well, that hobby sort of extended into another hobby. You also probably know that I am easily distracted into new and often very expensive hobbies. It’s a problem for me.

Anyhow, the new hobby was/is butterflies, Monarch butterflies to be exact. It started out from me noticing that butterflies of various types liked different plants, so I did a little internet searching and found that Monarchs only go to one type plant and are having a tough go of it lately. There are all sorts of theories out there about why, but I really didn’t research that angle very much. I was far more interested in how to help the little guys out.

Seems it’s pretty easy. Just grow the milkweed plant. That’s pretty much it. There are a couple of other things that help out the process but aren’t required. In Florida it’s predominantly the tropical milkweed that they prefer. It grows wild but with all the development it’s getting pretty scarce in some areas. Well, not in my yard! I’ve created a sort of Monarch rest stop.

Now before I get too far into the rest of the story, I should give a really quick and dirty lesson on how they work. They have four stages in their lifetime.

First is the egg stage. The previous adult will lay their eggs on the underside of the milkweed plant leaves. Probably not the best idea as I’ll explain a little further on. Sorry, I don't have a picture of this stage. It's not much to look at anyway. It sort of looks like a black speck on the underside of the milkweed leaf.

Second is the caterpillar stage. These guys will devour every single leaf on the milkweed plant. Hence why I think it’s not a good idea for the eggs to get laid here. The caterpillars have no regard at all for the eggs on the underside of the leaves. If the eggs get in the way of the eating caterpillar, then they just get destroyed. Their setup must work for them as they never listen to what I have to say. They start out really tiny and will grow up to 3-4 inches in length depending on how much milkweed foliage they can find.

Third stage is the chrysalis. The caterpillar will find an appropriate spot to hang upside down and develop a shell around them. They will stay in this state for about 7-15 days but I have seen some go a little longer. I believe its weather related but I have no proof of that.

The fourth stage is the adult. The butterfly emerges from the chrysalis pretty much ready to fly. They will sit on a branch for a little while until they can open their wings fully. Then they take off and go do their thing!

The adults will come back to the plants to visit the flowers for the nectar. They don’t let me get very close to take pictures. Two or three feet seem to be about the closest they allow. I’ve found that I can get a good close-up right after they emerge mainly because they can’t fly away yet.

Other butterflies that visit the yard will let me get much closer. I’ve got some black swallowtail ones that will let me get within inches and they don’t seem to care. I’ve got others that will actually buzz me pretty close. It can be kind of startling to get a close flyby of a butterfly right next to your face if you don’t see them coming.

Now, I can’t prove it but it sure seems like my guys always come back to my plants to lay their eggs. That or there are a LOT of Monarchs in this particular area. I seem them all the time depositing there eggs to the leaves.

My only problem is that I can’t seem keep the plants in foliage and blossoms very well. Every time I get a plant really going again, they come in and chomp it to twigs in no time. But that’s ok, I don’t mind that they do it. I just wish I had the time to grow more plants for them.

I thought about registering my rest stop with the butterfly society as a registered Monarch ‘Way Station’. But I finally decided not to. I only do it for my own satisfaction. I don’t really care if it’s not official or anything.

In one of my next entries I’ll introduce you to my hummingbirds. These guys are CRAZY fast but extremely friendly. They take a lot of time and patience, but once they get used to you they will let you get unbelievably close. Getting pictures so far have been very difficult.

Is it November already?

Ok, so I haven’t updated in a while, a long while, a really long while. What can I say? Not much to report. But here’s what I have:

The house (Renovation)

Still working at it, the living, dining, and family rooms are totally complete.

All the doors are finished except the front door which I’ll do this weekend. Then I can tear down the paint booth and get a big chunk of my garage back! All the baseboards are installed and painted so no more crawling around on the floors at least for a while.

I also got all of the electrical outlets changed out and most of the wall switches. Still a couple to go but they’re easy. It sure looks a WHOLE lot nicer having all that beige, bone, ivory, etc. gone. Now it’s all about wall colors contrasting against super white baseboards, doors, door casings, and wall plates. Really makes the wall color and the wood flooring pop.

I still have a fairly long punch list of things to go back and touch up, fix, install, etc. Probably the biggest is to finish the hall bathroom. It still doesn’t have a vanity top, sink, or shower doors. So that’s right at the top of the list.

The kitchen is next. Ugh, the kitchen is next. Somehow I’m really not looking forward to tackling this one. It will be the largest mess yet and will cost the most money. I won’t officially start it until late March as I need to save up so that I can do all the purchasing in one shot. I can’t have the kitchen dragging on for weeks and months. I want to get it started and get it done in one shot. I’m going to take 3 weeks of vacation to devote full time to getting it knocked out. I’ll actually start with some of the smaller parts during the Christmas break. But the big demo and such won’t be until later on.

I’m having a hard time coming up with ideas for cabinets, countertops, and floor tile. I think I’m pretty sure that I want to go with white cabinets and I’ve just recently started looking at those wood grain tiles for flooring. I like the look as it’s different from the traditional tile look and mimics wood flooring pretty well. Have to research it some more.

The countertops are a whole thing all on their own. First decision is material, should it be granite, marble, soapstone, etc? There’s a very long list and the pros & cons versus price will make you go nutty. Then you get to pick out colors. Again, the options go on forever. Aaaagh!! I’m leaning towards exterior grade plywood. It’s cheap, easy to replace, and has lots of character. What do you think? Yes?

Once the kitchen is finished, the interior renovation of the house will be complete. At that point I’ll shift gears and start work on the exterior. Painting, landscaping, pool, etc. are ALL on the list. That will all begin right about the start of spring. It’s funny how the timing worked out like that! It’s almost like I planned it that way! Wait, I did!

The house (emptying)

The family room got a good going over and there’s not much left in that room. The few things that are left will stay until right before the house goes on the market.

Emptying the kitchen in earnest is next. One reason is that the demo isn’t far off and I must have those cabinets totally empty. The other is that I will be setting up a ‘kitchen’ in the dining room and space will be at an extreme premium.

My plan is that I’ll buy an el-cheapo 6 or 8 foot laminate countertop and a couple of lower cabinets to set the counter on. Very much like my workbench setup in the garage. In fact, the setup in the garage will get pitched (it’s seen better days) right before the garage demo and this setup will replace it afterwards.

I’ll clean off the cheap plastic shelving unit in the garage and bring it in to be my pantry/storage (pots/pans/dishes/etc.). I’ll buy one or two of those portable infra-red burners as my stove and a new toaster oven (the old one is dying fast) along with the microwave oven for baking.

I’ll buy two or three of those big moving blankets and plywood to put down on the brand new dining room floor to protect it. I’ll be replacing the sink in the garage (it’s looking pretty bad) and that will be my ‘kitchen’ sink. Should be pretty slick, right? Well we’ll see. I see a lot of takeout pizza in my future.

I think starting with my next update I’m going to put up pictures of stuff that is available to take if you want it. I’m tired of garage sales, the people at Goodwill just roll their eyes when they see me anymore, and the garbage truck is getting a hernia. So I’m thinking that maybe some of you guys might want some of this first rate junk. I’d rather give it away than throw it away.

Fifth Wheel Search

Went to an RV show in Tampa a couple of weekends ago and it was a total bust. I went through the whole thing in like 90 minutes. What a waste of time.

However, I did go by Lazy Days on the way home and it was a major score! They FINALLY got a 293RK in stock! I spent the better part of three or four hours going over it in excruciating detail and took a boatload of pictures. Spending that kind of time with no salespeople or anyone else bugging me was completely awesome! I even spent some time just sitting in it getting a feel of the interior surroundings of what it will be like to live in it. I know that sounds weird, but it actually helped me to get a fairly good idea of what it will be like.

Luckily it was plugged in to full shore power so I got to try out almost all the systems in detail. I even went through the auto-leveling system and leveled the whole unit! Truth be told, it was only one button, but it was still neat.

This would be Jessica's bed should she ever decide to visit. Obviously minus the sheets, pillow, and stuffed animals (Hey! Leave me alone. In my mind she's still that little girl who has a bed full of stuffed animals and always will be)

So this is the outside. The two things I like best about this unit is that there are no slideouts on this side (no banged noggins) and a nice big awning. Most 5'ers have little tiny awnings because of the slideouts. Yes, that whole underneath front area is all storage. Huge.

I’m convinced now more than ever that this is the make/model that I want. I’ll still keep looking and going to RV shows, but I’m pretty set on this unit as my next home. A contender would have to be pretty spectacular to beat this one out for my needs.

Truck

All good stories have to have a dark side to them and here’s this one’s. The truck has served me very well over the years so I shouldn’t complain, but damn. I mean really….. damn.

When it breaks, it really breaks. It decided that it didn’t like the taste of anti-freeze anymore and chose to start vomiting it out in wholesale fashion. Lest you think it was something simple like a hose, or radiator, or water pump, let me kill that hope right now. Oh no, it was painful.

Seems that Ford in all their finite wisdom designed a plastic intake manifold and hot then cold coolant flows through that manifold. Well, after a bunch of years of hot/cold/hot/cold there’s a very good chance that the manifold plastic will warp. Warping tends to create leaks, and those leaks can’t be fixed by a new gasket. No, no, the ENTIRE manifold must be replaced and to do that the ENTIRE top of the engine has to be disassembled.

Anyway, a big bucket of money later and it’s all fixed. But damn.

It did very sharply point out the need for some form of back-up transportation (other than sneakers). Thinking about this a lot and I’ll dive further into this one later on.

In General

So that’s where things are at this particular moment. Still working on the planning of how this whole lifestyle transition is going to work out. I’ve changed it several times and to be honest I still haven’t found a very elegant solution.

After following the Ynab style of budgeting (which I absolutely LOVE) for almost a year now, I simply REFUSE to go into debt anymore. So that’s making it difficult to change my life from a stationary home to a home on wheels. It has become very obvious that I will have to sell the house before I can buy the truck & fifth wheel. Basically, I just want to swap one mode of living for the other. So how to do I do that without taking out a loan or living in the street for a while?

One option is to get an apartment for an extremely short term, but I don’t want the hassle of first/last/security, moving stuff twice, and more cost. That plus the idea of paying rent just doesn’t sit well at all. Unfortunately, this is becoming the best option. I will keep working on this issue.

I’ve also been working on planning for the first few months of travel. I’ve got a rough outline of what the first 3 or 4 months will be. The very rough idea is to head south towards the keys with eventually ending up in Key West. Then I’ll slowly start heading up the west coast of Florida towards the panhandle. At that point I’ll turn left and basically head west following I-10 through Alabama/Mississippi/ Louisiana/Texas.

I’ll actually probably not use I-10 itself very much if at all. I’m thinking of sticking to secondary roads and being open to stopping and looking at most anything that peaks interest. I’m not doing this excursion to make good time, I’m doing it to explore things. If I only make 20 miles in a day, then so be it. I’m in no hurry, especially since there’s no time frame attached to any of this.

Whew! Seems I got a little wordy…

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's been a while

Been working my butt off on this place and finally got some progress to show for it. Problem is, once I work all day, the last thing I want to do is mess around with the stupid computer. So I got behind in the blog.

I got on a roll (get it, roll?, paint-roll? oh never mind...) and got all the painting in the living/dining rooms done. Actually, once I got started I decided to simply just continue until I ran out of paint. Well, I ran out only after going down the hall and around the top 3 or 4 feet of the family room walls. So now all the up high cut-in work is completely finished. No more aerial acrobatics!

Something is different between the next two pictures. See if you can pick it out.

That’s right! The lighting and camera angles are different! No getting anything past you all that’s for sure!

Yes, my back, knees, hands, shoulders all hurt. Who knew laying all that flooring was going to hurt like that? I must have knelt down and stood up probably 10,000 times. It got to the point where kneeling down was little more than a barely controlled fall. But except for a very small piece of fill-in in the hallway, the wood flooring is totally complete.

I also need to put in the wood/tile transition pieces. These aren’t terribly difficult, but they are very time consuming. Fit/trim/fit/trim/fit/trim/fit……  When I did the hallway bathroom piece, I actually ended up just bringing in all my hand tools and sitting on the floor for quite a while working that one piece. Of course the instant I put it all the way in (it’s almost impossible to get it back out without destroying it), I instantly noticed a tiny spot that wasn’t quite right. Naturally, right?

So when I’m installing all this flooring, my mind is wandering all over the place and I start to get distracted. I’m throwing all the empty boxes over by the garage door and I need to move the pile as it’s now in the way.  Woohoo! A break from flooring and this just sort of ‘happened’. I call it ‘The arc of the cardament’. Yes, double humor within a play on words. Hmmm, maybe I do have an artistic side lurking in there somewhere.

Next up is baseboards and door casings. Since the existing tile job was so crappy, I’ll have to do my best to match the grout just so I can have something to butt the baseboards up to. The guy who did the tile job didn’t want to spend the time taking out the baseboards before tiling, so he just grouted right up to (and in some cases up) the baseboards. Bastard. If I’d known at the time I would have demanded that they be removed.

So out of about 850 square feet of wood flooring, I ended up with five pieces leftover. I felt pretty good about that. I was concerned it was going to end with a bunch leftover, or worse, being two pieces shy and having to order another box (20 square feet) just to get one or two pieces.

Was it expensive? Well, yeah, but not as bad as I had feared. I originally thought that it was going to run in the neighborhood of 5-6 thousand dollars but in the end it was a little less than half of what I planned. Now, if I had had it installed professionally, then absolutely it would have been obscenely expensive.

I’m finding that is true throughout this process. If I spend some time learning how to do something (flooring, tiling, drywall, plumbing, etc.) then I can save myself a ton of money.

I think it will be most pronounced when it comes to the kitchen. Since I’ll be doing everything (except counter-tops) myself, I should be able to save several thousand (if not $10k) dollars. I constantly hear horror stories from other people about how they spent $20-25-30k on their kitchens and I’ll bet they are unbelievable pieces of artwork with only the very finest commercial grade appliances.

That’s lovely but I don’t have that kind of time or money. So I’ll put in a nice decent kitchen that has nice appliances and leave it at that.

I still would like to get the house on the market by maybe early springtime.

So in other news, work has announced a round of layoffs coming up. They also offered what we call a 'blue light special' (a K-Mart reference for a very special deal) to the people that are very close to retirement. This was the first one they've offered in a very long time. Well, of course I'm just a little too young to be able to take them up on it. Lovely.

My boss and several of the people that I've worked with for many years are all taking it. Guess where that leaves me. Right in the cross-hairs. Very soon I'll probably be the resident guru on all things aviation navigation. Great, I can hardly wait (said in a very dead-pan voice).

Can you feel the excitement?

Whew! What a weekend!

Just so everyone knows, this is where the highly suspect surgeries and experiments took place.

Oh.

Wait.

Oops, Wrong Blog.

Never mind.....

Seriously, all of the below happened in the 3 days of Labor Day weekend.

Actually, that's part of the kitchen after it was given the plastic prophylactic in preparation for ceiling paint spraying. Here's a couple different views.

The rest of the living/dining/family rooms got the same treatment.

Actually, those pictures are right after I got done spraying. If you look close at the ceiling you can see the 'stripes' of where I sprayed and the over-spray on the walls. It looks that way when I come back for the second coat at 90 degrees to the first coat. It's a little disconcerting while spraying as it looks like I've got missed areas all over the place, when in actuality, I didn't. It's the light playing across areas that are wet or dry.

Yes, I used Jessica's old wagon to move the 5 gallon bucket and sprayer around. The high pressure hose isn't long enough to reach the entire area so I had to move the rig around with me. That old wagon has paid for itself so many times over I can't even count anymore. It's gonna be a bummer to get rid of it finally. Best little wagon ever.

You might have noticed that I didn't get too fussy about taking the plastic sheeting all the way to the ceiling. That's because I'm going to re-paint the walls anyway.

What's that old Temptations song? 

"What a difference a day makes?

24 hours little hours ...."

I forget the rest.

So less that 24 hours later it's out with the plastic and I started doing the cutting-in painting.

The color is called 'Silver Tradition' and it's a bluish-gray with a slight tint of grayish-blue. Got it?

Would you believe that even with all the taping and plastic there's STILL a super fine layer of paint dust on every horizontal surface? It doesn't stick to anything but I can swipe my hand across anything and I get a hand-full of white dust. Of course I'm assuming it's the paint. Maybe it's been that long since I dusted and I'm just now noticing it! Ooops!

Anyway, I'll order the wood flooring in the next week or so that will continue the hallway out to the edge of the tile. Then I can fill in the dining and living room areas. Probably around 350-400 square feet, but I'll measure it out to be sure. Originally I was going to remove the tile out to the family room, but it would just be too much work and mess.

I'll finish the painting in the next couple of weekends and except for the kitchen that will finish out the bulk of the interior stuff. I'll still have a couple dozen leftover projects in different areas but the non-kitchen areas will be essentially finished. I'll put together a punch-list so I can start working through all the little things.

The kitchen won't get the grenade for a while yet. That's going to be $$$ and I need to save up for it.

At this point I just want to finish out this sucker and get it on the market. I know what I wrote in the last entry, but I must have been drunk at the time and out of my mind. I'm going back to my previous plan of getting this albatross on the market ASAP. I'll decide later on if I still want to do the condo thing or just sell out completely and go full-timing.

A favor to ask everyone. If I ever say that I want to renovate another house, would someone please track me down and punch me really hard??

Next steps

Figured I should check in as it's been a while.

House Renovation
I've decided that since the renovation budget is on life support after the hall bathroom thrash that I'm going to move on to other things that cost little or nothing and come back to the expensive stuff later on.

Really the only thing left in the bathroom is the shower doors, vanity top, and vanity fixtures. I figure that since that bathroom doesn't get used anyway that to stop all progress waiting for funding on a room that sits unused anyway doesn't make sense. So onward!

I got the carpeting, baseboards, tack strips, etc. demo'd out of the living room and dining room. Sort of a milestone as that was the very last of the carpeting. As of this step there is no more carpeting in the whole house!

This is part of the living room and the bedroom set that I was very happy to see leave. I'm thinking I'm going to keep the tile and just run the wood flooring right up to it and then transition. It would be a ton of work and a huge mess to get it jack-hammered up.

Here's the last of the carpeting right before I tore it all out.

 Here's about the same shot about an hour or two later

After what I've seen, I will NEVER have carpeting ever again. It is gross to say the least. That vacuum cleaner that you THINK is doing such a great job???? Guess again. It is only cleaning the top 1/3 of the carpeting. There's all sorts of disgusting stuff percolating down deep and that vacuum just ain't gonna dig it out.

Anyway, I'm in the process of stripping stuff off the walls and ceiling getting ready for ceiling paint. Pretty bare in there. Great echo chamber for the music though! In the last two pictures you can see my little bluetooth speaker sitting on the window ledge. Works really well! Just have to remember to charge it every now and then.

Un-Stuffing the House
Big steps recently. Finally got rid of the bedroom set as I mentioned. Moved a whole bunch of nick-nack stuff to the garage in preparation for it to get gone altogether. Part of the garage has turned into a staging area for stuff on it's way out. I give it all a last chance go-over before it goes totally out the door. Just to be sure that I'm not getting rid of anything that anyone wants.

The family room is next and then the house will be pretty well emptied out except for the kitchen and garage. The kitchen is going to be a whole project in and of itself. I'm kind of dreading that whole mess, and it WILL be a mess.

I'm dragging my heels a little on the garage as that will be the last space to get gutted out. Once the garage gets emptied and overhauled, that will essentially be it. I'll get rid of the renovation tools (chop saw, paint sprayer, air compressor, nail gun, etc.) and the house will go on the market.

RV Search
Well, actually truck search. The RV search is taking a small hiatus until the weather cools off a little. My forehead is peeling really bad after the last time out.

I did spend some time looking and pricing trucks. Didn't take long to figure out that I certainly will NOT be buying a new truck. Wow they are expensive.

Found a used truck dealer over in Orlando that deals only in trucks. Did some emailing back and forth with them and they agreed that when I'm ready I can give them a wish list of what I want and they will try to find a close match at the auctions. I've got some items that are must-haves (diesel, duelly, 4x4, etc.) and some that are nice-to-haves (leather, power everything, stripper pole, etc. Wait, what?).

My F-150 is really starting to show it's age pretty badly. It just turned over 210k miles and the list of stuff that doesn't work anymore seems to grow by the day. Luckily the drive-train is hanging in there but I'm wondering at what point my luck will run out. I'm hoping that it can hold on for a few more months.

Misc
In the last few days I've started having some thoughts that possibly a better idea would be to keep the house and delay my retirement for a while. I'm thinking that an additional two or three years would be about right. I still would get the fifth wheel and go camping with it all up and down the eastern seaboard. Monetarily it makes a ton of sense to stay working and use my vacation time to go camping. Eventually I would retire and then spend time out west.

I could very easily hire out lawn and pool services. It most certainly would NOT break my heart to not have to mess with the yard or pool anymore. Plus, I spent all the time and money getting the north side of the house all fixed up to store the BBQ trailer and it would work extremely well for keeping the fifth wheel plugged in and ready to go.

I'm even toying with the idea of holding off on the kitchen renovation until after I get the fifth wheel. Once the kitchen is wrecked I won't have any way of cooking for quite a while. The 5'er would make a pretty good option. Just don't tell the neighbors or the HOA. I would wager that they would take a very dim view of that.

Part of this thinking comes from the idea that I'm putting all this work and money into the house and then selling it right away. Hell, I put a LOT of time and sweat into this sucker, I may as well get some enjoyment out of it.

I'll be mulling this one over for a while before I make any firm decision. Yes, for once I'm actually going to think something all the way through before jumping in with both feet. That's right, a first for me!

Catching up a little

Wow, have I been slacking or what?

This was a good weekend. Got to see all the usual suspects at a lunch over in Tampa. Thanks to all for making it a fun event! I really enjoy the laughing and cutting up. Even better when some of it is irreverent.

So after said luncheon I was supposed to go over and drop off some speakers over in St. Petersburg to get re-coned. My iPod docking station that I paid some $$$ for a year or two ago started growing a buzzing sound in one of the speakers. I thought it was some loose hardware or something easy. So I took it apart and couldn't find anything loose. So then I thought it might be something just barely touching the speaker itself like dust or a hair. So I took the speakers out and couldn't find anything. So then I started looking at the speakers really closely and there it was! A little tiny split in the speaker cone!

Ah man! This sucks!

So I called Klipsch and they don't make that model anymore and ran out of replacement speakers. This really sucks! But the guy from Klipsch recommended this guy over in St. Pete that might be able to repair the speaker. So I thought, hey great, I'll be over that way anyway, I'll just drive by after the lunch and see what he says.

Nice idea but they are closed on Saturday. Son of a biscuit! I'll deal with this later.

The other thing I had planned for the afternoon was......go ahead take a guess.......that's right! Go to Lazy Days and look at fifth wheels! No fooling you!

Two tiny little problems. One, it's hotter than Hades in those parking lots and NONE of those trailers have the A/C on. I'm soaked with sweat in a matter of minutes and I'm really starting to get concerned about heat problems.

Second, I stupidly forgot a hat and with my ever receding hairline, my extended forehead got cooked beyond belief. Oh yeah, that was dumb. Luckily they give away bottles of water when you go in or out of their showroom. I have to say, that water tasted like champagne to me.

After Saturday's heat/sunburn episode I figured I would stay inside and take it easy on Sunday.

Yeah, well, that lasted about 20 minutes. I just cannot sit and watch TV during the day when I've got SO many projects going on.

Now, because the hall bathroom cost quite a bit more than planned all of a sudden, there was no spending money today. Just wasn't gonna happen.

Well then, I'll just work ahead on stuff that doesn't cost money, like demolishing the living room. I'm unbelievably good at making a mess! I can do that with my eyes closed! So here's the fun I had today!

Janine and Scott decided that they want the bedroom stuff so it goes next weekend. I'm just happy to get it out of the way.

The majority of the stuff in the dining room is the dollhouse that I have not found time to work on in months. I hate to say it but I may have to just pitch it as there just isn't time to spend on it right now and it's now in the way. I'll demo the dining room probably next weekend.

Believe it or not, but out of three bedrooms, living room, and dining room that's the extent of the stuff that's left. The bed-frame that's leaning against the wall on the left will go to Mel's and the rest will probably get pitched or donated.

And this was my 'take it easy' day.

Now, after a hard day off ripping up carpeting, baseboards, tack-strips, edging, and sweating my arse off, you would think that I would be ready for a nice thick steak and baked potato. Something to satisfy that manly 'been working hard all day' hunger.

I wish, but sadly no. My dinner tonight will consist of baked chicken cut up into a salad with a balsamic vinaigrette. Yep, that's about as he-manly as I get anymore. I cannot begin to relate how much I hate this diet.

Every year my company has this deal where if you meet the health standards you get a nice stipend added to your HSA account. Ugh... So every year I have to lose a few pounds, get my cholesterol under control, blood pressure, blah, blah, blah. The cutoff is the end of September. You better believe that October first I'm gonna go find the biggest steak with all the trimmings and an ice cold beer to wash it down with.

Ok, How about bathroom and pizza bread??

Well, I figure since last time it was bathroom and lasagne we may as well stay with a theme no matter how weird.

Been working my tail off in the bathroom in the last month but not so you can readily see.So not so you can tell very easily, let me point out some of the stuff that I've been working on. But, just 'cause I'm something of a jerk (just ask anyone), see if you can pick out some of the updates.

So how many did you get?

Ok, enough of the guessing game. Here's what I've been working on.

- The tub is now white instead of the old beige

- Addition of the bathroom door (installed, caulked and casing painted)

- Baseboards (installed, caulked, and painted)

- Towel and TP bars

- Caulking around the tub and surround

- (Almost impossible to see) grout around the base of the toilet

- (You can't see this one) The water lines are fully roughed in

- The new electrical outlet is installed

- The new ceiling vent fan switch is installed

- (Really hard to make out) The transition piece between the tile and wood floor in the hall

What's left to do you ask? Well, let me list it out!

- Install vanity top

- Connect faucet connections

- Install shower doors

- Paint bathroom door (that will be done in the garage paint booth)

- Install vanity mirror

- Install vanity hand towel ring

- Install lighting dimmer

- Fix a small mistake in the ceiling paint

- Install door hardware

And here you thought I was almost done in the bathroom. I thought I would have it all done by now but who knew that bathrooms had so many details to them? I most certainly didn't.

So what has been the toughest part so far in this room? Hmmm, that would be a tossup between drywall joints and that one piece of wood that transitions the tile floor to the hallway wood floor. That one piece of wood took me the better part of a day to get right. I literally sat in the hallway with a utility knife, rasp, wood file, and sandpaper trimming, fitting, trimming, fitting, etc, etc, etc. Then when I did the very final install, it didn't sit just the way I wanted it to and now it irritates the hell out of me every time I look at it.

No, I won't be fixing it.

So on and on it goes.

Now on to the food part.

I came up with this little goof on a complete whim. I was tired one evening and didn't feel like doing anything fancy. So I looked around and made up something really old but with a new twist.

Pizza-Bread, or sometimes called bruschetta! Yep, that old standby that we've all done many times. However, I decided to amp it up a little and see if I could give that old venerable standby a bit of class. So I'm calling this Pizza Bruschetta.

Here's how it works. Starting from the bottom right corner and moving counter-clockwise (anti-clockwise for my friends from across the pond!).

1. Slice a baquette on a very heavy bias about an inch thick.

2. Hollow out a good bit of the inside but don't make holes!

3. Spoon in some tomato pesto (don't use pizza sauce, that is so yuck!)

4. Add some chopped garlic

5. Add pepperoni (I didn't have prosciutto on hand)

6. Add some shredded Italian 5 cheese

7. A dash of a 5 pepper sprinkle to give a tinge of heat

Put on a baker's sheet and into the oven at ~400 for about 15 minutes. We're not really cooking anything so watch the cheese and it will tell you when it's done.

Viola!

Six is usually a good number for me. 

A variation would be to use grilled chicken instead of pepperoni. Also, maybe a small drizzle of olive oil would be really tasty.

There's probably a thousand variations of this standby. This one was mine and it was pretty darn good. Try it yourself and maybe jazz it up in a different direction. Maybe some crab meat or shrimp and do a seafood bruschetta. Sky's the limit on this one!

Bathroom and Lasagna?? What the Hell?

Was in a very weird zone this weekend.

I wanted to get a whole bunch of stuff done in the bathroom and for some crazy reason I was jones'n for some lasagna. No, no drugs involved here.

First off the bathroom. From last episode I had gotten the tile up and was dreading the grout job. I thought that the grout was going to be a nightmare. Grout everywhere and me standing there having a complete meltdown.

Well, sorry to disappoint but it wasn't that way. About the only mistake I made was to try to do too big of a batch at once. Once I started making smaller batches, things went pretty well. It was still an unexpected workout with all the trowel and sponge work, but it went ok.

So here is the tile with the grout all finished. Oh, did I forget to mention the toilet? Oops....

Yeah, I told you I was in one of those moods where everything has to get done all at once. Yeah, the toilet is installed and all I have left is to buy the water connection hose. Sort of forgot that one. I'll get it tomorrow.

Kind of obvious that the tub needs to be re-glazed rather badly.

Now I really, really want to get the shower slider doors up. I think it will make a huge difference in the way it looks.

However, not being content with leaving it this way until later, I simply HAD to press on.

Yep, I just had to install a couple of the fixtures. As you can see, I still need to caulk around the edges of the tile, but you can start to get the idea.

So for the lasagna.

As usual, I had to start from scratch.

The sauce was actually started much earlier this morning and has been slow simmering most of the day. Here I'm going to reduce/thicken it and the noodles have just gone in their little happy bath.

So fast forward and I'll save you all the boring details. Here's the finished product.

Literally, as I type this, it is cooling just a bit so I can slice it up and eat dinner. It won't help my waistline one bit, but it sho will taste good!

So with that, I'm out to go chow down. Enjoy!!

Going back in time to better days..

A bunch of updates ago I said that I would get around to posting pictures of the little sailboat that I built a bunch of years ago. Well, I forgot about it until some little thing jogged my memory and I remembered.

So anyway, here's the little boat that I built from total scratch quite literally in the driveway.

I made it from plans and the type was called a 'Weekender' which was aimed at being able to sail on Saturday, spend the night somewhere, and sail home on Sunday. It was 19'6" on deck and a little over 23' LOA including the bowsprit. Except for the sails, it was all handmade from scratch.

The mast was made out of a quarter-sawn Douglas fir 4x4 piece that I found at this ancient lumber yard up in Port Canaveral. The keel was three laminated layers of 1x12 Douglas Fir that ran the entire length of the hull. Yes, I built it from scratch and it was attached with silicon bronze screws. Try to find those if you can. They were obscene expensive, but they will never, ever, rot or rust.

It had a group 27 deep cycle battery that ran a large trolling motor off of the transom. Wasn't all that fast under power, but it sure was quiet!

All of the exposed wood rub rails, grab rails, porthole rings, mast, boom, jib club foot, etc all were stained and had three coats of Epifanes varnish. They were beautiful and were like glass. The hull had two layers of 6 oz fiberglass hand-laid with epoxy and a white two-part epoxy roll/tip finish. Even the rudder (which for some reason isn't in the picture) was hand shaped, stained and varnished.

It even had hand made non-skid on deck made out of ground up walnut shells that were laid out on deck and captured with epoxy. It was really trick how it worked out.

The cabin was a small cuddy-cabin that could have slept two people quite comfortably and had a forward hatch that propped up for surprisingly good ventilation.

It was named 'Opus' which means work. It was my one piece of work that I was very proud of. I still get neighbors walking by that ask what happened to the boat.

Yes, that is a real ships wheel for the helm and was mounted against the lazarette. This allowed full cockpit mobility without having a helm right in the middle of the cockpit sole.

It sailed pretty good and the gaff rig got many, many waves and pictures. It's an old timey way of rigging a mainsail and it really isn't seen that much anymore. You can just see the bottom of the gaff in the extreme top of the first picture. I always wanted to rig a topsail and a staysail (pronounced stay'sl) jib for it. Then I could have legitimately said that it was a top'sl schooner.

The coast guard guy that came out to inspect it to allow a HIN (Hull Identification Number, similar to a car's VIN number) application was shocked when he pulled up in his truck. He filled out the paperwork first thing and said that he was expecting a bathtub with a broom handle mast, but was stunned when he pulled up to the curb. It really made me feel good as he went over everything and said that he couldn't find a single thing to ding me on.

So what did become of it? Well, I sailed it for 2 or 3 summers and decided that a bigger boat was needed. I put it up for sale (sail?) on a couple of web bulletin boards that were dedicated to what was called 'backyard boatbuilding'. Well, as it turns out, a guy out in Arkansas saw it and fell in love with it. He wanted a boat that he could take his wife out on in the evenings on some large freshwater lake. He actually drove all the way down here and bought it.

The last I heard was that he got it back up there, but some weeks later had a massive heart attack and they ended up selling it. Somebody in Nebraska(?) bought it and I pretty much lost track of it after that. I did get a picture from a friend many months later showing what looked like Opus but had been repainted to white with brown trim (ugh..). It was a lousy picture and I can't find it at the moment.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. When I built it, I was big into boat-building lore. I found several references that it was considered good luck to put a dime under the mast foot as payment to Charon to pay for the crossing of the river Styx if the boat ever sank and all hands were lost. So instead of just any old dime, I found a Canadian dime that of course has the schooner 'Bluenose' on it and I actually did put that dime under the mast foot (the very bottom of the mast on the keel of the boat). It was still there when I sold it.

It was a fun boat and I had a good time building it. I always wanted to go up to Maine and learn traditional lapstrake or clinker style of boatbuilding and build a much bigger boat (a la the movie Message in a Bottle?). I guess it just wasn't meant to happen as I really don't see that ever actually occurring. Of course I say that now. Next month my plans could get turned completely upside down and who knows? I sure would love to do another one. That would be a project of a lifetime.