Remodel Project 2025 @ D-1 and D+1

D-1 

Before it starts. The two major bathrooms in the Tower.

The Master Bedroom Bath

Second Bathroom

 D+1

After the first day of demolition

The Master Bath

 The Second Bath

Remodel Project at D-2!

Wednesday morning is D-Day for the remodel to begin with the demolition of our current two primary bathrooms. Wife and I have been busy emptying everything out of the bathrooms and the master bedroom. It has been lugging a lot of stuff around which has been tiring and tough on our aching backs.

Figuring where to store everything so it is covered in dust that is inevitable from any kind of remodel project (this being our third!) has been a challenge. I will be taking a huge load of stuff to Goodwill today. We have junk removal people getting rid of our antique, barely working exercise equipment tomorrow. 

Based on advice from #3, we have decided to NOT include the full house painting as part of this project. Wife was going nuts trying to figure out the colors with only a few small samples of the new flooring. #3 advised we live in the house for a while to get an idea of the best colors. So there will be another project that will essentially be an interior design project with painting, throw rugs for the hardwood floors, revamping of furniture and rooms that will come after this. 

Wife, who has been our purchasing agent and has saved us big bucks in the process, still has some last minute plumbing things to buy. We are going to a rental for two days during the demolition process.  

Finally happening. 

de-I - IT Tech Support Professional

Yesterday we had an internet meltdown. 

First the ISP was down for about 3 hours. Of course I was in the middle of a call with #3. And then missed a scheduled meeting (and couldn't even tell the person why because I didn't have their phone number and my phone email connection wasn't working either). I managed to salvage a third meeting by doing it on WhatsApp using cellular data. Wife was unable to do any of her construction purchasing work.

Went it came back up, our modem crashed.This I discovered by working for over an hour with Xfinity 's (our ISP) automated customer service system where no matter the interface, calling, texting, using the internet, you will not get a real person. All you do is get shunted down the same menus again and again telling you to do the same things that have failed again and again. I finally ended up with a message that said, "Looks like you need a technician. We can get you scheduled for an appointment in 4 days. 

At this point I was ready to get another ISP.

But I remembered that Xfinity has a store in Albuquerque. It was 5pm by this time but it was open until 7pm. I ran out with the modem. There, I found real humans (if rather blah attitude humans) who swapped out the modem right away.

Then had to get it set up using their app which took a while. Right after I finally got it set up and working, THE ISP WENT DOWN AGAIN. Finally about 7 hours later everything was working.

And to end up a totally frustrating afternoon, I asked Wife if she would fill out a brief  survey giving me a high rating for my tech support services. 

She said, "I don't do customer service surveys."

And The Return Of Travel

Not only is our latest (and hopefully LAST) remodel project less than a week from start-up. We are back in the traveling business again! 

Until we got Wife's clean bill of health, we were not willing to commit to anything. Our scheduled March trip to Malaysia we canceled. But the moment we got the green light, we booked a short (for us) three-week trip to Gothenburg Sweden. It is the second largest city in Sweden and is only a couple of hours away from #3 and family.

We are both in need of the R&R that we only seem to get from travel. 

D-Day Announced! Purchasing Mama Already Deployed!

Received in an email today...

"We will start on Wednesday 3/5"

  ...from our contractor

In follow-up emails, he detailed an estimated schedule that will take us through the first week of April. If all goes well, we would expect the job to be finished by around April 7-9. We will be able to stay in the house through March 24 when the painting and flooring will be done. So we will only need to be out of the house for about 2-weeks.

And while this planning going on, our resident super heroine, Purchasing Mama (aka Wife) has been working to save us big time bucks by researching and purchasing the massive amount of plumbing hardware needed for the bathroom remodel.

After the years of studying options, starting and stopping, hitting walls, going down blind alleys, the remodel we've envisioned to allow us to stay in the house long-term is taking place. 

Breakthroughs! Progress On Many Fronts!

Suddenly A LOT is happening.

THE REMODEL

Money has been exchanging hands. Product is ordered. Dates for the construction commencement have been floated. Plans for how we are to are to live in the house during the construction have been finalized. We are hoping work will start in about three weeks. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 WIFE HEALTH

Wife went for her ultra-sound to see if the blood thinning medication was helping reduce her blood clot. Not only was it reduced. It was gone! In fact the vascular surgery people recommended she stop taking the blood thinner. Having watched Wife's energy and behavior over the last few weeks return to what it was before the blood clot incident, I can't say I was totally surprised. No, that's not honest. I saw the improvement and hoped it was a sign that the clot was diminishing. I can't say I expected her to get a 100% clean bill of health! We actually looked at the pictures of the current veins working versus what they were in November. It was dramatic.

TRAVEL

And the health news means travel is back on the table! We have put in motion a short (well short for us) three week trip to Sweden in May!

Woo Hoo!

BOOK SIX FINISHED!

OMG! After five years of on and off writing, it's done!

I did my first re-read over the last couple of weeks and I was amazed (pleasantly) that despite the herky-jerky process of writing it, all the stopping and starting, all the painful blocks in determining what the story line would actually be, it turned out pretty darn good. And as I commented in my last post related to it, there are a number of ideas and themes that can be used to create the next book or maybe even books. 

My next task will be to re-read and capture all those ideas in written form so I can begin designing Book Seven.