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I said that the four middle months of summer were the ones where we really had the time to get ready for our move: after my trips in the early year; and before my trip in the late year and our general roll-up to the end of the year and our actual departure. And July was the other month when we got tons of stuff done.
Our big task for the month was getting painters going on the exterior. So we had our old friend Charmed Painting out, and they gave a five-digit quote to refurbish the wood on our exterior and get the whole house painted that was just over the number where I'd thought we should absolutely do it. So, without much thought, we OKed the quote and signed a contract.
That then led to big bit of work #2, which was getting support from our neighbors. One of the long-time nuisances of this house is that it's on a teeny lot. So Charmed Painting felt like they needed to put ladders up in our neighbors' yards at two points for safety and that they also needed to mitigate any dangers from the paint removal and painting for our closest neighbors, whose house I could leap to from my sun room.
(I am *SO* looking forward to not having a house so close that I can hear their conversations from my office.)
So I did all the initial running to warn everyone and make sure our painters could put the ladders up. And it was good. And Eddie our painting guy has talked to them since, and our closest neighbors apparently had some considerable restrictions and issues. Sigh. But Eddie is happy to keep talking to them, in part to help maintain our relations with them, as they were.
I'd thought the actual painting was to start yesterday (to the point where we got some 14-day parking passes for Charmed), and that's apparently been slowed down by the previous job. But hopefully we're really on the verge of getting going.
My big job for June meanwhile had been getting a bunch of handyman work done. Our actual handyman finished up last week, then I had an electrician out on Tuesday. The electrician was particularly great and did all the tasks we wanted and a little more, generally making the house nicer, in an hour and a half. Woot!
We've still got a few nuisances (including the collapsed drywall in our Art Room closet), but we've now got this flagged for work by Charmed Painting's carpenter when they do interior work later in the year.
Onward to other things!
I took two solid days last week to do all of Skotos' filing, which was a task from March or something. I first organized the last seven(!) years worth of filing, then I culled out everything from more than seven years ago unless it was an ongoing contract or some other fundamental document. Then I moved all of both Skotos' files and my personal files from filing cabinets to file boxes (part of a file box for me; two for Skotos, one of which has since gone to Chris' storage). Along with the X-Men comics that I boxed up, that pretty much cleared out the Sun Room, other than my comfy loveseat, and a closet full of stuff to get rid of (more on that in a second).
I did more Skotos work yesterday when I helped Chris with his storage. In the process, I went through the Skotos and Alacrity files he had out there, mostly sending them off to shredding (other than a few Skotos files that I grabbed to put in the "currrent" Skotos box).
And there was infinite packing and culling in June.
At the end of May I'd prepared 32 boxes of books for Hawaii, and I'm now at 80 boxes of books, graphic novels, and RPGs. (The process got faster once I moved on to regularly sized graphic novels and, to a lesser extent RPGs, in part because I carefully searched to find perfectly sized boxes, but I'm now almost out of those boxes and trying to figure out if I should order more.)
At the end of May I'd culled 27 boxes of books. I've now stopped counting at 72 (which was 59 for Friends of the Oakland Library, 10 to Fantastic Comics, 2 to a friend's little library, and 1 to Half-Price books). That was pretty much all our book and graphic novel culling. I've since moved on to RPG culling (currently culled to the Sun Room closest, and I need to figure out what to do with it) and board-game culling (which has thus far resulted in what would be a few boxes worth of games going off to friends, but generally the filling of my office closet, which I believe Eric V. is going to help me dispose of after I've offered everything to nearby friends).
Meanwhile we're doing our best to empty rooms of furniture that's not going with us. Two book shelves went to Eric L. and three bookshelves and a desk to Uhuru. One desk went to a lady in Point Richmond. One badly damaged bookshelf went out on the street, where the next-door gardeners picked it up. An old Skotos file cabinet went back to Chris, and my old metal file cabinet, that my parents gave me when I was teenager, went out on the street, and hasn't received any love yet, despite the "Yes, It's Free" sign. I'm currently trying to free up Skotos cube-shelves so that I can give Chris a cube-shelf base and he can start taking the actual cubes. (Those will be the next to go!)
Big job in August? I dunno. Maybe it's time to get back in touch with our realtor and talk to the stagers about what they want us to keep and/or do. Or maybe there's something else ...
My trip around Labor Day will throw a big wrench into work, but that's still almost a month away ...
Our big task for the month was getting painters going on the exterior. So we had our old friend Charmed Painting out, and they gave a five-digit quote to refurbish the wood on our exterior and get the whole house painted that was just over the number where I'd thought we should absolutely do it. So, without much thought, we OKed the quote and signed a contract.
That then led to big bit of work #2, which was getting support from our neighbors. One of the long-time nuisances of this house is that it's on a teeny lot. So Charmed Painting felt like they needed to put ladders up in our neighbors' yards at two points for safety and that they also needed to mitigate any dangers from the paint removal and painting for our closest neighbors, whose house I could leap to from my sun room.
(I am *SO* looking forward to not having a house so close that I can hear their conversations from my office.)
So I did all the initial running to warn everyone and make sure our painters could put the ladders up. And it was good. And Eddie our painting guy has talked to them since, and our closest neighbors apparently had some considerable restrictions and issues. Sigh. But Eddie is happy to keep talking to them, in part to help maintain our relations with them, as they were.
I'd thought the actual painting was to start yesterday (to the point where we got some 14-day parking passes for Charmed), and that's apparently been slowed down by the previous job. But hopefully we're really on the verge of getting going.
My big job for June meanwhile had been getting a bunch of handyman work done. Our actual handyman finished up last week, then I had an electrician out on Tuesday. The electrician was particularly great and did all the tasks we wanted and a little more, generally making the house nicer, in an hour and a half. Woot!
We've still got a few nuisances (including the collapsed drywall in our Art Room closet), but we've now got this flagged for work by Charmed Painting's carpenter when they do interior work later in the year.
Onward to other things!
I took two solid days last week to do all of Skotos' filing, which was a task from March or something. I first organized the last seven(!) years worth of filing, then I culled out everything from more than seven years ago unless it was an ongoing contract or some other fundamental document. Then I moved all of both Skotos' files and my personal files from filing cabinets to file boxes (part of a file box for me; two for Skotos, one of which has since gone to Chris' storage). Along with the X-Men comics that I boxed up, that pretty much cleared out the Sun Room, other than my comfy loveseat, and a closet full of stuff to get rid of (more on that in a second).
I did more Skotos work yesterday when I helped Chris with his storage. In the process, I went through the Skotos and Alacrity files he had out there, mostly sending them off to shredding (other than a few Skotos files that I grabbed to put in the "currrent" Skotos box).
And there was infinite packing and culling in June.
At the end of May I'd prepared 32 boxes of books for Hawaii, and I'm now at 80 boxes of books, graphic novels, and RPGs. (The process got faster once I moved on to regularly sized graphic novels and, to a lesser extent RPGs, in part because I carefully searched to find perfectly sized boxes, but I'm now almost out of those boxes and trying to figure out if I should order more.)
At the end of May I'd culled 27 boxes of books. I've now stopped counting at 72 (which was 59 for Friends of the Oakland Library, 10 to Fantastic Comics, 2 to a friend's little library, and 1 to Half-Price books). That was pretty much all our book and graphic novel culling. I've since moved on to RPG culling (currently culled to the Sun Room closest, and I need to figure out what to do with it) and board-game culling (which has thus far resulted in what would be a few boxes worth of games going off to friends, but generally the filling of my office closet, which I believe Eric V. is going to help me dispose of after I've offered everything to nearby friends).
Meanwhile we're doing our best to empty rooms of furniture that's not going with us. Two book shelves went to Eric L. and three bookshelves and a desk to Uhuru. One desk went to a lady in Point Richmond. One badly damaged bookshelf went out on the street, where the next-door gardeners picked it up. An old Skotos file cabinet went back to Chris, and my old metal file cabinet, that my parents gave me when I was teenager, went out on the street, and hasn't received any love yet, despite the "Yes, It's Free" sign. I'm currently trying to free up Skotos cube-shelves so that I can give Chris a cube-shelf base and he can start taking the actual cubes. (Those will be the next to go!)
Big job in August? I dunno. Maybe it's time to get back in touch with our realtor and talk to the stagers about what they want us to keep and/or do. Or maybe there's something else ...
My trip around Labor Day will throw a big wrench into work, but that's still almost a month away ...