The Move to Awahnee

[Greg]

So, my office. Also known as the place where all the crap goes. Also the shrine to long forgotten technology. Also the home to all the light stands.

As I slowly, ever so slowly, figure out where to box up everything, it becomes clear the answer to the packing problem, increasingly, is cleanse with fire.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Embrace your new Zoroastrian faith!

[Greg]

House Hunt, Number 2

We visited 12 houses over the course of two days, experiencing sunshine and blizzard. I even had a treacherous moment when navigating a short stretch of ice covered up hill road. The tires decided they would deny friction and we got to travel backward. The driver's wheel only gave a semblance of controlling the car. Fortunately, I tried it twice to the same result because I really felt I had figured out how to get up that hill on the first go round. Make God laugh. Tell him your plans.

Friday was a glorious day in the mountains. Fresh fallen snow covered the hills around us. The sun played peak-a-boo through puffy white clouds. The weather forecast called for rain all day but it didn't make an appearance until late. We saw five homes on Friday, starting the search immediately upon arrival from the drive up from Los Angeles. We had to do one swap out where we lost the 150acre ranch that had a 1Bed/1 Bath house on the property for the house with a huge shop on the back of the property. The Queen was against the 150acre property from the start after seeing the pictures of the squalid house. I kept reminding her that it was on a 150acres. I have certain lust for land at the moment.

In two of the properties we saw on Friday, there were widows selling their beloved houses because their husbands had just passed. In one case, I felt the woman getting ready to tear up talking about how much she her husband loved this house.

There were two properties we really liked. One, with the aforementioned widow, was on Tip Top Road. From the pictures, it looked like nothing special, but seeing the setting for the house was something else. It was a beautiful property. The house was only fair, but in really great shop. And has a lot to recommend it. We'd probably have to build a big structure on the property for office and shop space.



Tip Top house



View from Tip Top

The other property was on Woodview. It sat on 8 acres and the house was huge, by far the largest house we saw all weekend. Most of the land was hillside, but not too steep. It had a building site at the bottom of the property as well were water, power, and sewage hookups were already in place.This is the property the Queen loves. I give it a resounding meh. But it will work.



We actually saw two properties on Woodview and I had high hopes for the second property. It was over 30 acres and at one point there was a 5 acre lake on the property. Unfortunately the dam for the lake washed away in 2016 during flooding. It would cost $50K to fix. Now the property has this giant 5 acre mess in the middle of the property. The house was bad and the second house we couldn't get into because it still had tenants. But it did have a really nice barn on the property with room for 4 horses. The 5 acre swamp was a deal killer.

The second day we saw seven houses. Two really caught our attention. One was on Jean road. Was really big and new. Unfortunately, all the acreage was on a steep cliff with exception being where the house pad was cut out of the cliff. But it was big and nice and had tons of rooms.


Jean Rd House

The second property sits on 77 acres. It would be like living inside our own little park. It took us about five minutes of walking just to get from the gate to the house. It sits atop a knoll so there are views all around it. There is a huge 2 story outbuilding that has about 2000 sq feet on the 2nd floor.

The problem is the house. The house is a disaster. It's a weird manufactured home that they added on addition. The Queen says she couldn't live in the house. At least not for any length of time. It would require a tremendous remodel or tearing down the main house and building a new house. Which are all doable. It's also really far from town. Or at least I thought. When I checked the map. it is actually 5 miles closer to Oakhurst than Tip Top which I thought was much closer to civilization.


Raymond House (House to left, barn to right)

So, Goldilocks. We need to find the house that is just right. (The Queen would move into Woodview tomorrow. And I can't fault her. It's the newest home. It has the most space. It would require the least amount of work. But see, I'm dumb. I'd like to make the Raymond property work.

We rounded out the trip by realizing The Queen had left her camera bag in the hotel room when we were about an hour from Los Angeles. The nice people at the Best Western will be shipping it to us later this week.

Now, I have to go receive 1500 sq feet of laminate floor, since we are also in the middle of a house remodel.

[Greg]

We have now entered the remodel phase.

It's as hellish as you imagine. I spent the weekend loading the majority of our worldly possessions into a giant box down on the street. Monday was the mad scramble to prep for the floor installers, who then failed to show up at the proper time.

Today the floor installers finally got to the problem child of the floor. There is a seam in the house where the previous remodel meets the original house. The remodel is about a 1/2" lower than the original house. Which is fine if you are doing carpet. Not so good if you are putting in hard wood floors.

Tomorrow I will be spending the day putting in 1/2" OSB sheets in two bedrooms and the hallway to fix the problem.

I'm also going to be building an additional two garage doors. I was hoping I could get away with just building two of the four and reusing two of the original doors. But no. Too much termite damage in those doors as well.

Good thing the painters are showing up on Wednesday to paint said doors, so, no rush.

I'm overeating to relieve the pain.

[Drunk Monk]

We enter the remodel phase this weekend.  

I feel ya, bro.

I so feel ya.

[Greg]

The new garage doors are done. The paint contractor was surprised I built them. He figured I was just going to go buy custom made garage doors for a 90 year old garage. You know what a 90 year old garage door doesn't have? Square corners. Not a one. Lots of cutting and fitting and more cutting and more fitting. And swearing.

At least it started to rain to keep me cool while I worked.

Today I have started putting in OSB sub-floor to level up the floor for the floor guys. For those who don't know what OSB stands for, it's Old Shitty Boxes.

Today I might break my four day streak of moving everything from the master bedroom to the outside and back. This includes the very heavy, particle board infused head board.

[Drunk Monk]

No square corners? WTH? Some Carpenter is laughing from his grave...

[Greg]

Fuck that guy.

It has to do with a poorly poured foundation. It's starting to sink in some places which is causing the doors to rack. There were things to fight in the door construction.

Today I came up one sheet short in the subfloor project. Back to home despot for the third time this week.

[Drunk Monk]

Back to home despot for the third time this week.

Home despot trips are like potato chips.  Can't just have one.

[Greg]

Started the day at the Despot. Keeping the streak alive
I've seen the same checker all three days. The first day I forgot my wallet, so that left a good impression. I'm sure she's thinking that I obviously don't know how to order things.

At this point all the animals are completely freaked out by the activity. The dogs got to to go with The Queen to a friend's house so she could get some work done and the dogs could get some peace. When Maeve came home yesterday she had to be dragged into the house. Meanwhile the cats are running around like lunatics. Mama cat follows me when ever I'm in the yard. Fergus spends the day running.

I was supposed to get ten boxes of new flooring from Home Depot yesterday as well. Those are the replacement for the boxes that were damaged when the pallets I ordered were left out in the rain and water got inside of the packaging. The new flooring never arrived. Which is problematic since flooring needs to sit in the house for 72 hours to acclimate before installation. The floor guys are coming back tomorrow to finish the job. Doing the math shows that the flooring will be sitting in my house for considerably less than the required time.

The remodel should be done by next Friday, I'm thinking. The house goes up for sale March 15.

[Greg]

Saturday was a scramble. The flooring guys busted it out the last two rooms and hallway without a break. The painters worked extra long in my office. The Queen and I made a brick walkway out the multitude of bricks that have been lying around my property. They were stacked neatly against the garage. But since the garage is to be repainted, we had to move them. I opted to make the path. There were not enough good bricks in the garage pile so I had to get some from the secret pile squirelled away under the deck. I made The Queen go get them since I was a bit to thick around the middle to get under one of the beams. The best moment came when one of the cats popped out at her from under the house.


And on Sunday, we rested. No contractors. No painters. No side job. I slept in. I took a nap after sleeping in.

I did invite our realtor over to take pictures. He liked what we had done with place and looks forward to selling it.

After all that sleep, I switched back to my wake up in the middle of the night for a couple hours of thinking thoughts. I also had Queen's "Keep yourself Alive" roaring through my head.

[Greg]

With much sadness, The Queen realized the shoes and suitcase she needs are buried in the storage pod on the street.

In her defense, the original plan was to empty the pod and return so as not incur additional charges. But the charges weren't going to be as high as expected and the thought of taking all the boxes out of the pod and putting them back in the house gave us the shakes. Plus, the house will look cleaner for the prospective buyers.

[The Queen]

Got the suitcase and the shoes. Only missing some warm underthings, as it will be rather chilly in Washington, D.C. next week. Well, if I’m too tired for pod-diving this weekend, it probably won’t hurt to buy a couple new pairs of tights.

[Greg]

I find myself doing fixit projects that should have been done at least a decade ago. Today I'm going out to fill the final 8 panels of glass in the kitchen cabinets. I had the glass in the garage since I did the original order. I've been kicking the molding around for the install almost every day. Now, that I come to install the glass, I can't find the brown paper wrapped package. I now need to find a very specific glass that they probably don't make anymore.

I hate me some times.

[Greg]

Lynch Manor goes on sale in less than two weeks.

It is contra-indicated to binge watch home construction shows before you go to bed. A lot of my dreams centered around building problems constructing my house in Alaska.