#does not like the tree trimmers across the street

[thefishisthemoose]

Pester the cat Saturday

[book-of-ryker]

Billie Eilish Pirate Baird Quackenbush

Her hair glistens gold like a pony. Yeah, that’s about the best that I could come up with. Today is 22September2021. A lot has happened. I’m not sure if I  or anyone really reads this, but I do need to get my thoughts out more frequently and this always served as as a good outlet. Let’s see what I can write down. My name is Ryker Quackenbush. You’ve probably never heard of me or you have. What do I care? I’m almost thirty and my life has been a lot of treks through hell. There’s only one way out of hell, but it’s too early for me to be ranting about that. My mom died when I was a kid and I like to smoke a lot of pot because of her still following me around. She is in the clouds and in the trees and in the rain and in the flowers and everywhere to me. And we all know that there is no one true church. In walks Durzo Blint and Bobby Pendragon. The land of Midcryu is dangerous for a young man like Bobby, but he prospered in the lands of Zadaa. I was having nightmares that Kelsey Richards was cheating on me. Billie Eilish was the inner voice inside my head. I know it sounds like a lot, bt I’ve become quite accustomed to having her around. I checked into the Behavioral Health Intensive Care Unit (BHICU, for short) and I ranted and raved about how I’d discovered the Theory of Everything. I wont get into that right now.  I started to have dreams about Billie and I getting married. I just started to workout when Kelsey Richards and I started to see each other, and when I moved in and lived with her family. Kelsey was overweight, and I wasnt really attracted to her, so I understand why she cheated  on me with her old boyfriend. But it cut deep because she caught me watching cuckold pornography and was devastated. I learned that my pornographic addiction is what was allowing for the relentless nightmares to be endless. I was put on an antipsychotic, and I hated it. I knew I would have to fight my way through this. I called my parents and asked if I could live with them. I was humbly aking for the support system I needed. My stepmother denied me. I journeyed across the county to live with my older brother, Keith Scott Quackenbush II. I took a train out of Sacramento, California. It brought me all of the way to Lincoln, Nebraska. I was kicked off of the train there for being drunk when I didnt want to antagonize a person sleeping in my seat. I found the nearest homeless shelter. I then went and spent my last dollars on a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska. Sex trafficking is everywhere. Riker’s Island is a nightmare for sure. The next day, I find a young black man at a gas station and we smoke a blunt together. On whatever this day was, I made fully telepathic contact with Billie Eilish. She hated me and wanted me to die. God put us all on autopilot. It was bizarre and miraculous. I board a Greyhound and almost get kicked off for smoking some stranger vape pen. The bus driver could apparently “smell what we were doing.” The entire time that I was in the military, I never once brought up the fact that I knew martial arts and could severely hurt someone if I put my ol’ college try in. In Lincoln, Nebraska, I check into a crisis center. It was very abusive, but I did get to meet even crazier people and eat even crazier food. I watched a lot of Game of Thrones and did a lot of pushups and read a lot of books. When I made it to Pensacola, my dad picked me and my older brother up and drove us to his 450 square foot apartment. I began to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and I still went to the gym on a bike. I havent stopped lifting weights. It’s the one thing I have that saves me as much as it does. I tell Scott not to bother fighting me, or even attempting to fight me. He throws a fit and starts to attack me. Eventually, he is on top of me and tying to gouge out my eyes with his thumbs. Unhappy with this, I take control of the situation and get him into a chokehold, making him submit and squeal like a baby pig. I check into another suicide watch unit. I eventually go back and have my father pick me up from my brothers house. I live with my father and my stepmother for months at this point and I even managed to hold a job and go to college. It was not good enough in their eyes and they abuse me more in this time period than they did with all three of us children collectively. Roshi and Son Goku. There was was a monkey man and a goat boy. The goat boy would later become the Alpha superhero for Earth-001. I get evicted, officially, from my father’s home. All of my friends abandon me. All that I have is Christ. I get word that I can be hired on over at MGM Grand with a friend of mine from high school. I drive my 2014 Chevrolet Spark across the country. At this point in my life, that’s the fifth time. I get to California and we meet Niekko and the lady that own Nate Harrison’s Ranch on Palomar Mountain. We rent a van for Niekko’s transcendent festival, Zen Awakening. We drive this completely stuffed van across the country, my sixth time. We make it to Zen Awakening near Orlando and I had the time of my life. When I left my parents’ house, I was in the best shape of my life.

I could do a million exercises and not get tired. Creatine and preworkout were my potion of choice. I hardly touched the CBD or the THC as much as I would have liked. I get to this festival, and after all of our work was done, the fun began. Firstly, the was the biblical Nathaniel that showed up. He’s a bud trimmer now and he is 934 years old. Then there was the tall and powerful Sharon. We fell in Love at Home Depot where I slipped a ring on her finger. And last but not least, the lovely and little McKayla. I will never forget you. I took four hits of LSD, some Cacao, some pot and some American Spirits. I jogged around the festival that night, blurring the lines of a Jedi, ninja, samurai and a Velociraptor.

I go into my glampin, trippping happily. I grab my Bible with Nathaniel’s turquoise ring I fond in the shower and cant get off of my finger and I flip it open to see the word LORD glowing on the page. I have never believed in magic until that very moment. My consciousness shifts to the greater Sol in me. I tell Billie that I’m moving on. Let the record show that this is when Billie begins to follow me in this dance of life. JERUSALEM also glows off of the page, indicating the direction in which I should travel. After leaving Florida again, we drive back across the country to Palomar Mountain. I live there and even did some construction work. My tent ends up battering my car and then being destroyed by ninety mile an hour gusts.

I move to Sacramento again. I live on U street, near little Japanese church. Rian didnt pay his half of the rent and stole my half. I had nowhere else to go, so I called Nation’s Finest. I brag about how Billie is my soulmate, like a child. I turn evil. I choke a guy out that was stealing from People, including me. I get checked back into the exact same BHICU I was in earlier. I do not lose it. I calmly explain the situation. I went to therapy twice, loving Billie EIlish. That’s what I think the song Male Fantasy is about. Thank you for reading.

[mandichpropertygroup]

First Impressions Are Important When Selling Your House

You are ready to sell your house. You possibly are ready for an upgrade or maybe have a new job in another city. Whatever the case may be, getting your house ready to sell is at the top of your list. First impressions to a potential buyer are extremely important. What's the first thing they notice? Your yard. If the yard is trashed and hasn't been maintained, a buyer may leave and not even want to come in. No matter how nice the inside of your house is, if you have overgrown shrubs and bald spots in the yard, buyers are going to form an opinion about your house before stepping foot inside. Don't know how to make your yard immaculate? Then keep reading.

You Get One Chance At First Impressions When Selling Your House

In a previous post "Tips On How To Sell Your House Fast " we touched on the fact that the front of your house and yard make the first impression. Like it or not, your yard is the first thing people notice when they arrive. How does the grass look? Do you have sod with weeds in it? Are there bald spots? How about the shrubs. Are they overgrown and maybe touching the house? Surprisingly enough, Popular Mechanics has this to say about your front yard when selling:

It doesn't matter how attractive your home is if no one can see it. Trees, branches, and shrubs can obscure your home's features and make it seem dark and uninviting. Plus, trees that rub against your house can damage your siding, limit the amount of direct sunlight you receive, and offer a bridge to squirrels, mice, and other critters that want to get onto your roof or under your siding.

Rent or buy a chain saw to trim back tree branches, and use a hedge trimmer to tame your bushes. Cut away anything covering a window or touching your house. Well-manicured trees and shrubs complement a healthy, green lawn.

Read The Full Article "10 Ways to Improve Your Home's Curb Appeal" Here

Even if you aren't moving, keeping shrubs, overgrown bushes and trees from touching your house is a good idea. The thing that we notice most here in Georgia by overgrown shrubs touching the house is that it is a gateway for bugs to enter your house.

Look At Your Property From A Buyer's Point Of View

This is pretty easy to do. You can walk across the street and just look at your property and see what needs to be done or what "jumps out" at you. An important thing to do is to park where a potential buyer would and evaluate the property from there, which was pointed out in an article from The Balance:

Curb Appeal Exercise

The next time you drive up to your house, make note of the following:

Your first impression of the house and yard.

The best exterior features of the house or lot.

The worst exterior features of the house or lot.

Park where a potential buyer would and walk towards the house, looking around you as if it were your first visit. Is the approach clean and tidy? What could you do to make it more attractive?

Take photos of the house's exterior. If you have a digital camera, view the color versions first, then remove the color and look at it in black and white. It's easier to see problems when color isn't around to affect our senses.

Make a list of the problem areas you discovered. Tackle clean up and repair chores first, then put some time into projects that make the grounds more attractive.

Read The Full Article "How to Improve Curb Appeal" Here

We like the tip of taking photos and removing the color and looking at them at black and white. That's a great idea to gain another perspective of your property. It's also a great idea to make a list of everything that needs to be done even before starting. The list will help you make sure you get things done as well as give you a sense of accomplishment checking things off the list.

Tackling Large Shrubs And Flowering Trees

While everyone that owns a house knows how to mow a lawn ( or at least you should :) ), not everyone knows how to maintain larger shrubs and flowering trees. One flowering tree that is popular in Georgia is a Dogwood. Believe it or not, there are proper times of the year to trim up these trees without damaging them, which was covered in a recent article by Houzz:

Flowering dogwood forms flowers on older growth and should be pruned shortly after flowering has ceased.

Flowering trees. Early blooming trees, such as dogwood, should be pruned in summer, once the flowers have faded. These trees, which bloom in spring into early summer, produce their blooms on growth from the previous year. Trees that bloom in summer develop flowers on new growth that has occurred in the same year, and they can be pruned in late fall through early spring.

Read The Full Article "When Should You Prune Your Trees and Shrubs?" Here

Hopefully you have been keeping up with trimming your flowering trees. If you are selling your house and you need to trim a tree outside it's recommended time frame, hopefully you won't damage or injure the tree to bad. You may want to seek the advice of a professional arborist to properly guide you.

Conclusion

Like we stated above, you only get one chance to make a first impression. When selling your house that first impression is made when a buyer first arrives at your property and looks at the front yard. If you can afford it, you may want to hire a professional landscaper to help up your game. If not, you may have to spend an entire weekend or longer making your property more presentable.

If you don't have the time or money to make your landscaping look immaculate, let us remind you that we buy houses as is. We don't care if the yard or house itself hasn't been kept up. We buy houses fast in any condition - you can learn more at MandichPropertyGroup.com

The previous Post First Impressions Are Important When Selling Your House is republished from Mandich Property Group. Read more at: Mandich Property Group We Buy Houses Blog

[fixerupperchic]

It’s TIME!  I’ve been plotting & planning, dreaming & scheming, adding & subtracting….and now FINALLY it’s time to tear into this house & MAKE IT HAPPEN!

or…time to let the house reveal its dirty secrets…

  OK, so we KNEW the old ac was leaking….we KNEW the laundry room sub-floor was going to need to be replaced….

But it was still a bit of a shock to see just HOW rotten that floor was, as Jose peeled and scraped away the layers of time-worn flooring!  Obviously the old vinyl fashion statements  were all that was holding the laundry room floor  together!

Just some housekeeping notes (pun intended):  when I looked at the house, it was obvious the old HVAC unit housed just above that HOLE in the floor was leaking, though very slowly.  The top layer in the laundry room was carpet, and it was damp around the HVAC closet, just a tad….UNTIL the day the appraiser came, that is!  Most of you know that an appraiser visits the house about a week or so before the intended closing date…just to be sure it’s worth the sales price, right?  Well, on that particular day, for unknown reasons, the AC had really leaked, and there was water on the floor.  The appraiser wrote it up as a condition of sale that the AC be replaced to prevent further damage to the structure.  

If you’re thinking “that sounds reasonable“…..sure, but he meant it had to be replaced BEFORE closing.  BEFORE I owned the house.  If you’re thinking “yay, then the seller had to replace it!“….no, that was not reasonable.  Not only had they given me a ridiculously low price, but I had already planned to  replace the unit first thing after closing.  So….I was to replace the AC system in a house I didn’t own???  (shameless plug coming…)

This is when you need a good REALTOR on your side of the transaction!  Happily, I had myself (warned you!)  We were able to work out putting $$ into escrow with the lender, so that the AC could be replaced once I actually owned the  house; this required the appraiser to go back out after replacement to sign off that it HAD in fact been done, and done satisfactorily.  By the way, I now own a super duper efficient (and shiny and huge) new Carrier HVAC unit; the inside portion now resides in the attic…the outside unit will be ‘dressed up’ with the L-shaped iron gates I showed you earlier, hopefully covered with beautiful vines of some sort!

(yes, these are actually laying on the floor, and I rotated the pic to make them easier to see….so if you feel dizzy looking at the floor acting like a wall, just move on)

  ~~here’s a little tear-the-house-apart ditty for you~~

    A few demo stories for your enjoyment…

The big blue dumpster was supposed to be delivered & plunked down in the backyard…oh  so convenient for the whole sunroom being torn off….the guys were ready, with a section of fencing rolled up and the yard cleared…but the dumpster couldn’t back over the curb – ouch!  So when I pulled up later that day I saw the BIG BLUE DUMPSTER right in the middle of the front yard; they had to take down the mailbox to get it in!  Not only do we now  have deep ruts….it’s already been dumped once and so now they’re re-delivered and made NEW deep ruts….grrrr

Last  Saturday I had real estate appointments stacked up all day, but I finished some showings that happened to be in Kilgore a little early…so I decided to drive by my house before heading back to Longview.  I knew nobody was working that day, but something told me to go!  As I turned the corner onto my street, I was stopped, as a man was standing in the road (curious yet?!)

(first you should realize I had been knowing I needed to find tree trimmers, as there were huge branches hanging over the garage and part of the house on the other side; they’d have to be removed before we could replace the roof….it was nagging at me, but hadn’t risen to the top of the priority list yet!)

Now, back to the man in the road….my brain took in, all at once, the fact that there was a crew trimming trees across the street from my house, there was a long trailer already piled high with huge branches, there was a truck with a tree trimming sign on the front door….and there was the owner, inexplicably standing in the road as if I wouldn’t run over him!  

Feeling completely bemused that something I so needed was presenting itself so easily, I pulled over and asked the man (still in the road) if he was the owner.  “Yes”, he said.  “Will you come give me a price to trim my trees too?” I asked……well, within about 5 minutes I had a very good price quoted, and a promise to get it done the next day!  Margarito Ramirez and his crew did an excellent job; now the large oaks are canopied nicely all around the house, and it happened while my whole crew was off!  

Serendipity??

As it happens, right after I talked to Margarito, at a time I wasn’t supposed to be there,  my contractor Roger pulled up, quickly followed by Don, the plumber!  Don hadn’t looked at the job yet, so they just came by to go over things….at the absolute perfect time!  Having worked with Don a few times before, I was able to go over the particulars of where everything would be…..and he had some great ideas!  Since he’s already re-piping the whole system, we can add tankless water heating for just the difference in cost of the system and what the new tank would have cost.  YES!  This means NO water tank in the attic, and NO chance of running out of hot water ever!  I’ve had tankless in my last 2 houses (one a retrofit like this) and admittedly, I’ve become spoiled!  It bears noting, however, that a tankless system is more efficient, as you’re not paying to keep gallons of water hot until the moment you choose to use it, and it also cannot suddenly burst and flood your house!  

This is the former kitchen sink area; to me it just said NASTY!  To Don it said, “Let’s replace that galvanized pipe while we have the chance”.  OK, sure…that’s not my thing…..as I always say, I don’t have to KNOW everything….I only have to know who does!  Go Don the plumber!

So…I left to continue selling houses, excited about coming back on Sunday to test paint colors on the brick…I was determined to order the exterior paint during the Sherwin Williams Labor Day Paint Sale, you see!  I had left home EARLY that morning to go by SW for a few sample jugs.  The plan was to test Sunday…. and order paint Monday….

Mmmm hmmmm….yet another blue box greeted me as I pulled into the driveway on Sunday….planning to test paint, right?  This was my FIRST CLUE that Don had turned off the water after I left Saturday.  Always the optimist, I chose to  celebrate PROGRESS rather than bemoaning the fact that I had no water to clean brushes between tests….

Well, I did test the paint around almost noon on Sunday…it was a beautiful day!  Saturday when Margarito said they’d trim my trees the next day, I really wasn’t thinking about how much noise tree trimmers make!  As I painted bricks against the ear-shattering noise of chainsaws and the front-end loader they used to carry the branches, I  just hoped my soon-to-be neighbors would still be talking to me when I finally move in next month!

My last demo story of the day is really a design story….let’s call it the saga of the original wood floors not making the grade…and why:

From the beginning, I’ve known that a pier and beam house built in 1961 would have original wood floors under the plethora of flooring subsequent owners chose to “upgrade” it with.

If you wonder how I knew, just think about it; what else would they have used?  Though plywood had been widely used in furniture & some construction for 40-ish years, there was a huge shortage of it at the time (the shortage was of the wood used to make plywood).  Particle board had come along as an alternative, but wasn’t widely accepted as being stable, and really wasn’t, for a subfloor.  This was long before OSB became a standard subfloor material, and just before slab construction began to be common….thus the need for the basic flooring to be used in a pier and beam house.  Pine or oak planks were readily available and relatively inexpensive; if you’ve seen old-house wood floors, they were generally 2 3/4″ to maybe 3 1/4″ planks.  It’s always good to find a corner of carpet or lineoleum to    pull up and peek (and we did) but the chances of ‘original wood floors’ being underneath any other flooring in a 50’s-60’s era house are worth betting on.  

OK, back to my flooring saga…I knew there could be some damage to the living room and hall floor due to the leaking AC unit, so had to consider keeping the floors COULD prove to be a problem until all the carpet was removed.  Further, Jose had pried up bits of the kitchen vinyl earlier, and it appeared there was some type of plywood under it.  That left me with non-matching floors in the kitchen and living room, and I was tearing out that wall!  Ugh.  Of course I knew the laundry room floor would have to be something different since it was clearly going to have to be replaced all the way down to the sub-floor.

We had determined the bedrooms all had wood floors under the carpet, so I definitely planned to leave those intact….2 of the bedrooms, that is.  The 3rd was destined to become the master bath, so that floor would have to go.  THIS IS WHAT I THOUGHT I KNEW BEFORE DEMO TOOK PLACE!  Remember my subtitle at the beginning of this post?

or…time to let the house reveal its dirty secrets…

Yes, my sweet little house let me down all around on the wood floor issue!  I’ll be installing ALL new flooring

This is in the living room, obviously right in the walk path leading to the hallway….who’s ever seen an old floor grate for an old gas heater?!  Yep – at some point the old gas heater was upgraded to CHA – and at that point the old grate had to come out.  It’s not IMPOSSIBLE to replace the missing boards with ones from, say, the room that becomes a bathroom, but it would be very difficult to work them in right in this main walkpath!  Anyway, that was only problem #1

Though the hallway does have the original wood, it does have enough damage from the adjacent leaking AC to rule out it’s use….

We were surprised to find that under ALL the layers of flooring, the kitchen did in fact have the wood planks.  I had argued with Jose that it couldn’t be anything else!  But it was buried so deeply…to his credit he did not give up until every piece of every old floor in the house was scraped up and added to the dumpster!  But even IF we could patch the former grate in the living room, getting this yucky smucky stuff all the way down wouldn’t have been easy.

Strangely, this room is the one that disappointed me the most!  Known as “bedroom 2” it is going to be MY home office.  What you’re looking at is the remains of the walls which formed the world’s smallest master bath (remember the pic?  if not I’m reposting here)

Not only was this tiny bath useless, the loss of it caused us to NOT be able to use the original wood floor in this room either.  I was so bummed!  I had just been SURE this bath was added later, as I couldn’t imagine it being part of the original plan!  If it had been added later, they wouldn’t likely have dug out the planks for the footer, so either they had the most patient remodeler ever to exist, or they actually built this bath from the beginning.  No wood floor for Nancy’s office – pout!

Ditto for the closet in the soon-to-be-master bath…but that floor will be tiled anyway.  Ditto again for the hall bath, and ditto on the tile too.  There is exactly one bedroom where there is nothing at all wrong with the wood floors!  But alas, we can’t really go to all the trouble to refinish ONE bedroom floor….and worse yet, we can’t have new wood, tile, or any other new material come up next to that old wood floor…

So the consensus is….we are unable to use any of the original wood floors and I’m so bummed about it!

Tune in next time to find out what I’ve cooked up to make me feel all better about the floors…..I’ll start sharing colors and finishes with you next week – fun!  

Let’s also say goodbye to the old bathroom heater; I would love to hear from you in COMMENTS if you had one of these in your house growing up!  Wow, there was never any WARMER heat than what you got from a gas space heater!  These are actually illegal now, though.  Of course I wouldn’t use it again anyway, but they have to be removed with a permitted remodel.  Say goodbye….and tell me about your favorite childhood gas space heater!

(did you race your siblings to get to it first in the morning???)

  Once again, I thank you for keeping me company on my little cottage redo…I’ll be inviting you over to celebrate the finish before you  know it!

          Let the DEMO begin! It's TIME!  I've been plotting & planning, dreaming & scheming, adding & subtracting....and now FINALLY it's time to tear into this house & MAKE IT HAPPEN!