Old Bones

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Hello to my readers, I am not dead, I've just been too overwhelmed to keep this blog up. I was hoping to do better this past year, but well, now it is 2024. Shout out to the Korean gambling commenter bots I get every once in a while that serves to remind me that this blog exists, I appreciate your views but don't appreciate deleting your spam comments.

This past year I celebrated my 29th birthday and was reawakened to marijuana in the form of a topical salve on my sore finger joints after an evening of embroidery. I typically just smoke, but the way this lotion was able to penetrate and soothe my throbbing knuckles was like magic. But why were my fingers in such a state? My goal for my birthday this year was to "throw a party and try something I've always wanted to do, but force all my local friends to do it with me since it's easier to do things together as a group sometimes", and I think I succeeded. An inexpensive DIY embroidery kit was provided to everyone, and I even got a message that one of my friends went home and bought some thread and a blank fabric to make their own custom projects! The past few nights I've been finishing a few more sections of my own little embroidery piece from the party, taking it much slower than I did that first day as my finger joints doth protest the movements. Finding this small piece of joy in a sea of chaotic life gave me a boost of inspiration to start improving my living conditions within the house, so that I may have a space to do new things that I enjoy in the future.

Starting projects in a house with memories and scars is a tricky business. In the current state of the world, the fact that we have a house at all is a blessing. But, this house throws all sorts of tricks and round-a-bouts at me at every turn and new discovery. Knob and tube wiring, incorrect subfloor, tin foil stapled to the ceiling in lieu of a vapor barrier... the list goes on, this house shows its age and shows all the quick fixes made throughout its lifespan. The records that we can find state that this house was built in 1890, making it well over 125 years old at this point, and unfortunately the last owners of this home before the decades of neglect from my spouse's mother was a flipper that cut a lot of corners getting this house "pretty enough" to trick a gullible person into buying it for more than its worth. If given the right circumstances, and the right people, this house could be made into something extraordinary. But instead, it has sat for the last three decades, slowly rotting away. Literally. And now I'm here, doing the same thing, paralyzed by indecision.

The first thing we did was stop leaks. New roof, fixed gutters, sealed windows. Stopped the fridge supply line leaking, tore up rotten flooring, and fixed a burst old iron plumbing stack. Then, it's bandaging the daily life areas - installing a sink into the upstairs bathroom so that we'd have one full bathroom, putting up drywall in the living room over the areas that were destroyed by water damage so the cats can't get into the walls/basement, repairing the drop ceiling tiles that have been missing since my spouse was a teenager (wish we had the money to remove and restore the tall ceilings, but it's just not in the cards right now). My next steps are, to replace the living room carpet as our dog has made it her personal pee pad, to repair the back deck that has fallen into disrepair due to age, and finish our upstairs spare room/office so that I have a proper space to work from home and play games with my partner.

That last task is the one I have been hung up on lately, as it seems that every time I do something in that office, I discover something else new that needs to be repaired. I uncovered a floor that needs to be sanded but will save us some money for the next few years until we can get new flooring for that room. But, when I was removing the tinfoil and staples from the ceiling to prepare it for new drywall, I discovered that the ceiling fan is connected via knob and tube wiring, and instead of "just leaving it", I feel compelled to bring it up to code since we're changing it for a new one since it's motor is blown. I plan to do this before I drywall the ceiling and the section of water damaged wall where I was already planning to run electrical to for another set of outlets. My dad is the electrician, not me, so I am so hesitant to start that project, even though I'll have his guidance every step of the way. The deck, and backyard in general (we have an in-ground pool that is falling apart, once again due to age) are a huge source of anxiety for me, and I'm debating saving money just to pay someone else to deal with it at this point. I live in constant fear that someone will come calling to tell us we're being fined due to the backyard. As awesome as restoring the pool would be, I don't know where to start, and filling it in seems an easier feat, but I know in a decade I'll be angry at my young self for doing that. It's a hard decision. At least the indoor living room floor stuff is something I'm capable of doing on my own, I just need to save enough money for some decent quality laminate since it's a high-traffic area of the home, and the dog loves to just pee on the floor instead of asking to go outside.

One hidden upside to an old home is that nothing is level already, so everything you do is really only an improvement, especially if you're able to level out the floor or a section of the wall that has been slowly leaning for decades due to the weight of lath and plaster under layers of drywall and wallboard. It's also interesting looking online at other "Old House" spaces and seeing the arguments of painted vs unpainted wood, professional floor sanders, and the likes while being in a low-income situation that doesn't allow for such frivolities such as renting a large floor sander for the original wood subfloor that was uncovered in one of the two upstairs spare rooms (future office), and knowing these people would ridicule me for being on my hands and knees using a small circular sander to sand the entire floor.

I've thought about the idea of recording myself while I work on renovations, or art, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to it, even though it might be a fun way to reconnect with my parents and show them what strange projects I find myself working on these days, now that we're thousands of kilometers apart. Who knows what the future holds, but for now I hope to just focus on improvement. Personal, artistic, home - everything can always use some improvement.

There's obviously a lot more happening in my life, I feel like I'm in a whirlpool of chaos at all times these days, but this is all I have the time and energy for at the moment. Thank you for reading.

Matt.