The Market a Block Away

Our Argenta Craftsman home is only a block away from the new Argenta Market grocery store. We are very fortunate to have the store and to be the closest house. The market is a major milestone for the urban development of both downtowns on either side of the river.

Our Argenta Craftsman Home is also the closest house to a trolley stop. We got married on this one.

Clawing my way forward

I got started on getting this area cleaned up. I am working with a hypothetical goal of making the house presentable as if it were to be shown on the real estate market.
I want to fix this wall by taking down the bad parts and re-building it complete with a new concrete cap. Fixing this wall is complicated by the need to have a rain gutter over this portion of the porch. The concrete porch deck needs to be demolished and replaced with a new deck with drains. The rain pours onto the porch here and gets behind this wall and has to leak out through the joints.
There is much to be done on the whole front porch to bring it up to speed. Just doing this little bit of preliminary work is exhausting. But I have to make progress when and were I am able. Looking at this picture makes me feel better about this area, so it is well worth the effort.
I think a big part of making progress is for me to take it in small bites. I am getting a better feel for proportion. I had to remove an ornamental plant at the far end of this excavation, but I left the one on the right. The area of this project starts about five feet on the other side of the gate and comes past where I stood to take this picture, beyond to the sidewalk, which is about 25' behind me.

Curb Appeal Project Growing

Becky and I had a good talk this morning about our budget.  I have vacated the mini storage unit and dealt with almost everything in it. I put up a picture here of some of the junk out at the street for pick up tomorrow morning. Here is the voided check for the mini storage rent and the estimate I have accepted for a new gutter to be installed in about two weeks. The cost for the gutter came in $100 less than the amount I had budgeted.
I donated the excellent shelves which I had in the storage along with some plywood to the Downtown Council here. They helped with moving it out. I separated out anything from my former painting business and we will be taking that stuff to Habitat For Humanity. There are some tools and supplies they may be able to use. Becky saw to that. Basically all I will have left to dispose of is the old paint and solvent.
I already feel so much better. I hope these experiences I am reporting will serve to inspire others to break out of old, dead ways and move to new and exciting adventures. Just the other day I was thinking there was no way I could come up with the money to take care of some of the problems of our poor, neglected house and here I am well on the way.
For inspiration I use the image of Sandra Rinomato of HGTV standing in our house and telling us that we have done a fabulous job with it and that it is worth so and so. The things that need doing just jump out at me. And they are things which by and large are fairly easy and inexpensive to accomplish given my experience as a professional painter.

Gotta Dream Boys? Paint Your Wagon

I did not wait for Becky's approval to get started on getting the back door fixed. First thing to do is to empty out the mini storage unit before the 1st. That's all the junk paint left over from countless jobs. Every single can and jug has some significance to me. When I look out at this I don't see old paint cans. I see old tombstones of dead jobs. Each and every one of them come from certain paint stores for specific jobs and specific customers, all of whom became very familiar to me, the good and the bad. I realize that respectfully closing up and clearing out all the dead stuff is very important. This is going to do us a world of good, getting rid of all that. That's all the paint material to be processed. There is much more junk to be got out and rid of.
It's going to be work for sure. All that old paint has to be solidified with cat litter and then the city will pick it up. The dirty paint thinner, which is settled has to poured into containers without residue. The residue which is settled out also is solidified with kitty litter. The city has a reclamation center for the clear solvent. Sitting where it is, I am highly motivated to be over and done with it.
It is surprising to me that the first action to take to fix the rotten spots on the back door is this.
This is what I've got to cure before the door is ruined:

My neighbor and I installed this door. It had to be custom made to fit the odd opening. It was very difficult to get in there and it was very expensive to have made. I only want to repair this with marine (boat) epoxy to extend it's life two years until we effect the improvements in the kitchen. That should be very possible if I can prevent the water from getting to it.
Closing the shop gets the money that buys the gutter that keeps the rain off the rotting door whose life must be saved.

A Light Shining Through The Darkness

I put up stiff resistance to the crushing doubts in my ability to meet the challenges of making repairs to the house. Looking over the plan I had created I saw that I really needed only $350 to get started. I could request estimates if I was assured of having that amount. While I was wracking my brain the idea kind of slipped into my head full grown. It was based on ideas I already had but not acted on.
I have maintained a mini storage unit for over ten years. The unit was the base of my painting business operations up until I stopped accepting work. In the year or two leading up to the stopping point I had crammed some junk I inherited or otherwise could not let go of from the sale of my parents' house. Becky's sons had used it to store their stuff in. I had the remnants of my old business and boxes of company records in there, junk from the old houses, Mike and Dan's leftover junk, and junk I have taken out of the house, here. $83.85 per month down the sewer.
It was clear to me... close out the mini storage and put the $83.85 a month into an account for home improvement. There was my funding stream. Next is the need to sell Becky on the idea. What I propose is to transfer $350 from savings into a new checking account as a start up loan. I will deposit the check I have ready for July rent in there as well. Then, beginning July 25th, I will make monthly payments back into the savings account to repay the loan and with a little interest. So, if Becky approves and we can find a gutter installer to come in under budget, we can soon have that very important, very crucial repair of the back door under way.
Here is my loan analysis:

A Problem? It Costs Money

The list of our monthly budget items from the least, Netflix, to the greatest, the home mortgage or the grocery bill is a long list indeed. For the car, alone, the sub-list is: 1. car payment 2. car insurance 3. fuel 4. service and maintenance 5. registration fees 6. property tax. Numbers one and three come up every month.  A simple calculation renders the total cost per mile, on average. The cost can be shown in terms of time, the cost per month. With the passing of time costs arise. You eat breakfast and in while you are hungry again. Time passes and it costs calories - there is no getting around that. The idea is that life is to be lived in the faith that the earth does indeed yield her increase. It does not pay a thing to live life in fear of all the realities of life and death. Better to live in faith for love's sake that as we sow good faith we shall reap the good fruit of good faith.
Thinking about the repairs and improvements so desperately wanting my faith was a little withered. I can't do a thing without a budget. Where to begin? Creation of a budget requires a clear-cut plan with accurate line item costs. There was nothing left for me to do but to sit down and work up a cost estimate. I figured up the fixes and the line items tallied to $1360. So, I added another $140 for unforeseen circumstances which brought it up to an even $1500. My heart wanted to sink, but I just kept working at the problem.

I produced this document:

Add To That List - Paint The Down Stairs

May as well add these areas to the painting list. I can do it.