We rent still, but, it's our first place together so I am happy with this little place
we finally got around to putting all the IKEA stuff we got last month together and rearranged our living room to have a proper couch+tv area set up. it's good, it feels nice to have some sort of open social space
I'm still a bit annoyed with the property manager of this place, but it turns out there's a couple of other people at the company who are really good at getting stuff done. I had a call the other week asking if there were any maintenance issues outstanding and I just gave them a big list of some plumbing problems and within three days a plumber called and sorted out a date to come fix them all. I might have to call the same guy back in a month or so and get some of the other little things that bug me looked at.
Oh, I bought a house
last month actually. Not QUITE on a whim but almost
we were renting a beach house down the coast, at the same place my family have been coming to for 30+ years. There is a small but very cute little shack/house down there which my sister has always loved, and when we drove past we saw there was a for sale sign up. And I have some money my grandfather left me 12 years ago which is not doing much at the moment.
So we went in and had a look, and it was even cuter on the inside, and very well-finished/renovated. And the money I had was enough for a downpayment if the bank valuation came in high enough. So I told the real estate agent that we'd have to get an inspection and check on financing, but to let us know if an offer came in before that so we could counter. He said "Oh, just put an offer in contingent on those things, you don't want to get into a private bidding war, it just drives the price up." (!)
so we offered 15k below asking
and they accepted
and the bank was like "the amount you paid was exactly what we valued it for, what a lucky coincidence"
and as long as we can rent it as a holiday home for 12+ days a month, mortgage payments and costs will be easily covered by that
WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
Thing about our move into a much bigger apartment, we have no furniture. We have desks for the computers and a bed, and a bookcase. We need a dresser, nightstand, dining table, couch, etc. We're actually going to have room to host guests, if we both weren't reclusive people that don't have friends.
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Soooo... one of the things I wanted to do is tile my entire downstairs with wood-look tile. I found a guy willing to sell me some high quality wood-look tile for pretty cheap (1.73 per sq ft, usually retails for 4+ per square ft). I'm going to meet him tomorrow.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
We rent still, but, it's our first place together so I am happy with this little place
we finally got around to putting all the IKEA stuff we got last month together and rearranged our living room to have a proper couch+tv area set up. it's good, it feels nice to have some sort of open social space
I'm still a bit annoyed with the property manager of this place, but it turns out there's a couple of other people at the company who are really good at getting stuff done. I had a call the other week asking if there were any maintenance issues outstanding and I just gave them a big list of some plumbing problems and within three days a plumber called and sorted out a date to come fix them all. I might have to call the same guy back in a month or so and get some of the other little things that bug me looked at.
Leaky taps? Toilet running on? I can help!
The toilet seat wasn't properly attached, so it would sit off-centre and at some weird angle so like the first time I tried to clean it one of the little plastic pins just snapped. Plumber just put new pins in and made sure it was aligned correctly so that's fine. The basin in the bathroom has a really crap drain design so it clogs up really easy, and despite several rounds of draino it kept draining super slowly. I'd tried cleaning out the S-bend myself but that wasn't the problem, it was the actual section in the sink itself. So he cleaned that out best he could and took the stupid attached plug bit off so it can drain easier. And then the shower head had started dripping recently, so he took a look at that and decided the shower needed new taps, went out for 20min, and came back with new ones and put those in.
Was actually a really helpful and competent plumber for once, I was quite pleased.
That aligns with my one and only rental/plumber experience (and also the sparkie, come to think of it..). I figure the agency and the plumber know not to fuck with each other on things, because the agency trusts the plumber and the plumber knows that the agents will pay the bill because aforementioned trust, and the agency knows that this good experience keeps you happy as a tenent. I had the agents get the plumber in to replace a tap that I literally tore off the wall because it was that old and worn out, while he was there I mentioned that the shower was really juddery so he replaced the head on the spot and robert's your mother's brother.
They brought the new oven, which looks really nice, but of course the gas line that came with the oven doesn't fit with the line on the house, so we have to call the gas company to replace it. And of course, they couldn't make it out for another week. So we're basically living off of take out in the meantime.
Almost got a matching wall cabinet on craigslist but despite the promises of yesterday the guy had sold it already when I got there. He was selling it from a discount store so I wonder if the ad was just to entice people to find his place (it wasn't easy to find).
I might be getting a matching mirror tomorrow from someone on craigslist.
But I waited too long and they're out of stock now. However I lucked out today and one of them came up for sale and I bought it. I might get the second one on Ebay depending how that auction goes, but if not I used the chat on home depot.com to ask when they'd get them back in stock and the guy said 3/5 - just in time to still get it for 55% off.
This is the granite top I want for my vanities, but I'm waiting because a) it's not on sale and b) I might find something similar on craigslist if I wait.
Really early on I actually found someone selling a new granite top w/ sink and the right spacing for my faucets on Craigslist, but it was a gray color which doesn't really match the warm colors of my bathroom. So I had to let that one go.
Oh also: my parents visited us for the first time on Friday. They brought their tile saw with them to give to me. Fuckin' a.
Cambiata we have that exact same vanity top and we're looking for something to replace it with (along with a new cabinet). There's nothing wrong with it, just don't like the color (it came with the house). If you were in CA, I'd say just come over and take ours.
Damn. If it were a closer state I'd even consider driving over for it, but CA is too far from TX.
Ha! I always thought the other side of Texas was too far of a drive. It was 7 hours from where I lived just to the border of LA.
Almost got a matching wall cabinet on craigslist but despite the promises of yesterday the guy had sold it already when I got there. He was selling it from a discount store so I wonder if the ad was just to entice people to find his place (it wasn't easy to find).
I might be getting a matching mirror tomorrow from someone on craigslist.
But I waited too long and they're out of stock now. However I lucked out today and one of them came up for sale and I bought it. I might get the second one on Ebay depending how that auction goes, but if not I used the chat on home depot.com to ask when they'd get them back in stock and the guy said 3/5 - just in time to still get it for 55% off.
This is the granite top I want for my vanities, but I'm waiting because a) it's not on sale and b) I might find something similar on craigslist if I wait.
Really early on I actually found someone selling a new granite top w/ sink and the right spacing for my faucets on Craigslist, but it was a gray color which doesn't really match the warm colors of my bathroom. So I had to let that one go.
Oh also: my parents visited us for the first time on Friday. They brought their tile saw with them to give to me. Fuckin' a.
Cambiata we have that exact same vanity top and we're looking for something to replace it with (along with a new cabinet). There's nothing wrong with it, just don't like the color (it came with the house). If you were in CA, I'd say just come over and take ours.
Damn. If it were a closer state I'd even consider driving over for it, but CA is too far from TX.
Ha! I always thought the other side of Texas was too far of a drive. It was 7 hours from where I lived just to the border of LA.
Ha ha, I live within like 3 hours of Louisiana.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
0
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
edited February 2017
So yeaaaaah, I bought a whole bunch of wood look tile using part of my tax return money. And I'm planning a herringbone pattern because I'm a masochist apparently.
For that reason I've changed my mind on where I'll use the large travertine - I think I might use it to re-do the flooring in the master bathroom because the contractor who owned this house before us kind of did a shit job there - both bathrooms have new floors that got a broken/loose tile after about 6 months of living there. Since I've been educating myself on how to do it properly I believe I know what they did wrong and how not to do that.
Also I might, possibly, perhaps, be getting design pointers from
Dragon Age Inquisition
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
+11
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
The new builder starts today. Basically everything the last guy did needs to be done again, so we've lost at least £5k. Some of the kitchen units may also need replacing through being stored badly and installed incorrectly, although we're not sure the extent of that.
We should just about have the money to cover it assuming that all the structural checks go okay - which we need to have redone as it looks like he may have just not bothered with calculations and tried to eyeball the size of steel required to support the floors.
All in all I'm surprisingly happy. The new guy has done work for the neighbours before and everybody was pleased with him. And he arrived exactly when he said he would and started working.
Fingers crossed that in another month this can all just be a funny story we tell to people when they mention they are thinking of doing work.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
+5
AwkoAbout to poison the waterhole.Registered Userregular
So, we didn't get the house we put an offer on, but that's cool. We're on a monthly lease at the moment and our landlord doesn't particularly want us to leave anytime soon.
House hunting is so much easier this time around now that we don't have a 400+km round trip to deal with every weekend
Our mortgage company wants us to get a damp survey done on the new house before they'll consider it. So that's another few hundred pounds that we're out before even getting a mortgage.
On top of that the HOA where we're currently living wants £400 from us before they'll consider letting us transfer ownership of the house. Well, there's two tiers for transfer - a letter and a form for £97 and a "sellers pack" for the full £400. The buyers solicitor announced that they wanted the sellers pack and asked whether I could arrange payment.
I may have gone slightly ballistic at them and asked them to justify in writing why they wanted me to spend 4x the amount when everything they require for transfer is in the letter and form.
So that might bite me in the arse later.
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
Offer to pay the 100, then say you're more than willing to arrange for the sellers pack if the front the other 300.
I'm still waiting (2 days later) for a reply about why they need the pack in the first place but that'll be my next step.
It doesn't help that my solicitors are entirely useless and just pass the buck from the buyers solicitor to me without thinking about what they're asking. Earlier they wanted me to find the planning permission and building regulations certificates for the entire estate. 54 houses!
Yeah, let me get right on that.
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
General question, who has the responsibility to fix drainage pipes under driveways? City or owner? What if it's two driveways mashed together with one pipe underneath both?
General question, who has the responsibility to fix drainage pipes under driveways? City or owner? What if it's two driveways mashed together with one pipe underneath both?
If it's between your house and the street, it's usually the city. In any case, you should always call the city first, because even if they evaluate the situation and decide it's not their responsibility, they won't charge you for the evaluation. Plumbers will generally charge you quite a bit of money just for having a look, because their time is probably more valuable than ours, hourly speaking.
Hahah. Now the mortgage valuation report came back saying the house is worth less than we offered, which was already around £30k under asking price.
Less by £1000.
Either we suck it up and pay that £1000 or go back to the vendor and ask if they'll accept another reduction in price.
Ask them to come down the 1k, unless you really want the house, in that case, tell them it came back 1k under, and ask if they'd be willing to split the difference 50/50 (but be willing to go 100% in if they decline).
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
General question, who has the responsibility to fix drainage pipes under driveways? City or owner? What if it's two driveways mashed together with one pipe underneath both?
If it's between your house and the street, it's usually the city. In any case, you should always call the city first, because even if they evaluate the situation and decide it's not their responsibility, they won't charge you for the evaluation. Plumbers will generally charge you quite a bit of money just for having a look, because their time is probably more valuable than ours, hourly speaking.
To extrapolate on this, the distinction between "yours" and "the city's" is often which side of the water meter the problem is on.
Hahah. Now the mortgage valuation report came back saying the house is worth less than we offered, which was already around £30k under asking price.
Less by £1000.
Either we suck it up and pay that £1000 or go back to the vendor and ask if they'll accept another reduction in price.
Ask them to come down the 1k, unless you really want the house, in that case, tell them it came back 1k under, and ask if they'd be willing to split the difference 50/50 (but be willing to go 100% in if they decline).
Either way I have to wait until the mortgage company mandated damp / timber report comes back. That was another £300. After all this they could turn around and hold a retention of the mortgage contingent on getting work done.
This whole exercise has just been like burning money.
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
+2
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
In my goal to make my house look like it came out of Dragon Age, I really wish Bioware sold Dragon Age style housewares. Seeing as they don't, I'm wondering how hard it would be to try my hand at making large sculptures using game assets for plans. I wouldn't mind a fen'harel statue or a high quality print of some of the cooler paintings in the game.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
In my goal to make my house look like it came out of Dragon Age, I really wish Bioware sold Dragon Age style housewares. Seeing as they don't, I'm wondering how hard it would be to try my hand at making large sculptures using game assets for plans. I wouldn't mind a fen'harel statue or a high quality print of some of the cooler paintings in the game.
Depending on how much money you want to sink into the endeavor, I'm 100% certain you could find a model in a format that a 3d printer could accept. And canvas printing exists, but is stupidly expensive even at Costco.
So, I mean... what's it worth to you to live in a video game?
In my goal to make my house look like it came out of Dragon Age, I really wish Bioware sold Dragon Age style housewares. Seeing as they don't, I'm wondering how hard it would be to try my hand at making large sculptures using game assets for plans. I wouldn't mind a fen'harel statue or a high quality print of some of the cooler paintings in the game.
Depending on how much money you want to sink into the endeavor, I'm 100% certain you could find a model in a format that a 3d printer could accept. And canvas printing exists, but is stupidly expensive even at Costco.
So, I mean... what's it worth to you to live in a video game?
I don't want 3-d printing, I'd rather see what I can sculpt myself from a 3-d plan. More interesting to me as a project and perhaps more likely to look like stone.
And I don't need canvas printing necessarily, I do enjoy having art I actually like to look at around our house... I have a large framed print of Van Gough's Irises that cost around $250, is canvas printing more than that? If Matt Rhodes was selling prints of his work some where, I'd just buy those.
So I'm not sure what the answer to "what's it worth having art you like around you"; certainly it's worth at least $250 per painting?
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Backstory: so that blockage I was talking about in the last thread, turned out there was a plug about 70 feet down the tubes, which is in the city's territory under the street. They couldn't get the snaking wire down the tubes because within 10 feet there are three different 90 degree bends.
In the end, they had to tear up some of my front yard and about 3/4 of the street to get at the pipes, which were about 16 feet underground.
To see roughly how big the hole ended up being
For some reason the pictures I had taken during the digging, of the hole they had created, were corrupted on my phone
They managed to get everything fixed up, the water was running again. But one thing I noticed was the first time I used any tap after they excavated, I would get a bunch of particulate dirt and stones through the pipe. This was okay with the taps which didn't have filters, but just required me to take off the filters and run the tap on the ones that did. Except the toilet. It either would stop filling the tank half way through, or would take 3-4 hours to fill entirely. I did have a las vegas style fountain system coming out of my toilet tank at times. I couldn't figure it out at all, and ended up taking out almost the entire tank control system (fluidmaster 400a) and flush it all out of the particulate which came through, and now it works perfectly and refills in under 10-15 seconds!
General question, who has the responsibility to fix drainage pipes under driveways? City or owner? What if it's two driveways mashed together with one pipe underneath both?
If it's between your house and the street, it's usually the city. In any case, you should always call the city first, because even if they evaluate the situation and decide it's not their responsibility, they won't charge you for the evaluation. Plumbers will generally charge you quite a bit of money just for having a look, because their time is probably more valuable than ours, hourly speaking.
To extrapolate on this, the distinction between "yours" and "the city's" is often which side of the water meter the problem is on.
I don't think this is true. One of the reasons the lead problem isn't fixed in Flint and other places is because the line connecting to the water main is the homeowners responsibility. Replacing them with non lead ones is very expensive and most people don't have the cash.
Backstory: so that blockage I was talking about in the last thread, turned out there was a plug about 70 feet down the tubes, which is in the city's territory under the street. They couldn't get the snaking wire down the tubes because within 10 feet there are three different 90 degree bends.
In the end, they had to tear up some of my front yard and about 3/4 of the street to get at the pipes, which were about 16 feet underground.
To see roughly how big the hole ended up being
For some reason the pictures I had taken during the digging, of the hole they had created, were corrupted on my phone
They managed to get everything fixed up, the water was running again. But one thing I noticed was the first time I used any tap after they excavated, I would get a bunch of particulate dirt and stones through the pipe. This was okay with the taps which didn't have filters, but just required me to take off the filters and run the tap on the ones that did. Except the toilet. It either would stop filling the tank half way through, or would take 3-4 hours to fill entirely. I did have a las vegas style fountain system coming out of my toilet tank at times. I couldn't figure it out at all, and ended up taking out almost the entire tank control system (fluidmaster 400a) and flush it all out of the particulate which came through, and now it works perfectly and refills in under 10-15 seconds!
I'm really proud of this silly accomplishment.
No toilet repair related accomplishment is silly, they are vital.
Backstory: so that blockage I was talking about in the last thread, turned out there was a plug about 70 feet down the tubes, which is in the city's territory under the street. They couldn't get the snaking wire down the tubes because within 10 feet there are three different 90 degree bends.
In the end, they had to tear up some of my front yard and about 3/4 of the street to get at the pipes, which were about 16 feet underground.
To see roughly how big the hole ended up being
For some reason the pictures I had taken during the digging, of the hole they had created, were corrupted on my phone
They managed to get everything fixed up, the water was running again. But one thing I noticed was the first time I used any tap after they excavated, I would get a bunch of particulate dirt and stones through the pipe. This was okay with the taps which didn't have filters, but just required me to take off the filters and run the tap on the ones that did. Except the toilet. It either would stop filling the tank half way through, or would take 3-4 hours to fill entirely. I did have a las vegas style fountain system coming out of my toilet tank at times. I couldn't figure it out at all, and ended up taking out almost the entire tank control system (fluidmaster 400a) and flush it all out of the particulate which came through, and now it works perfectly and refills in under 10-15 seconds!
I'm really proud of this silly accomplishment.
No toilet repair related accomplishment is silly, they are vital.
Yah I agree, there were 3 days where I wasn't supposed to use any water in the house, and yeah it's important.
Also, so I have a crawl space under my house, it's maybe 1.5-2 feet tall at best. While the plumbers were trying to figure out what's going on and if they can fix the plug without tearing up the yard, the 60 year old plumber with a bit of a gut crawled down there himself.
He had to be hauled out by the people from the city and his apprentice by his feet.
I used to entertain the occasional idea of crawling down there to see what it's like for myself, but always worried a bit on how viable it would be to get out.
I feel like these pictures and posts are part of an Ocean's-11 caper, code words and pseudo-shots of plumbing that actually lead into a high-value diamond vault.
I need to get out more.
+2
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
For the record, it's not that I "want to live in a video game." It's more that when i go into a setting in DA, I feel like, "Man, I wish I lived in a place that looked like this." I feel like the designers did a good job of displaying old world grace and style and that's exactly the style I find most appealing. I've wanted to live in a castle since I was a child; now that I'm an adult I realize an actual castle would be uncomfortable, expensive and inconvenient, but I could maybe make my actual cozy little house look like a room in a castle and that would be pretty rad if I could manage it.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I bought a new washer with my tax return. Best part though is that after a town rebate for water conservation and a state rebate for energy consumption it basically is free. Of course it helps that it was replacing an old leaky beast.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
In my goal to make my house look like it came out of Dragon Age, I really wish Bioware sold Dragon Age style housewares. Seeing as they don't, I'm wondering how hard it would be to try my hand at making large sculptures using game assets for plans. I wouldn't mind a fen'harel statue or a high quality print of some of the cooler paintings in the game.
Depending on how much money you want to sink into the endeavor, I'm 100% certain you could find a model in a format that a 3d printer could accept. And canvas printing exists, but is stupidly expensive even at Costco.
So, I mean... what's it worth to you to live in a video game?
I don't want 3-d printing, I'd rather see what I can sculpt myself from a 3-d plan. More interesting to me as a project and perhaps more likely to look like stone.
And I don't need canvas printing necessarily, I do enjoy having art I actually like to look at around our house... I have a large framed print of Van Gough's Irises that cost around $250, is canvas printing more than that? If Matt Rhodes was selling prints of his work some where, I'd just buy those.
So I'm not sure what the answer to "what's it worth having art you like around you"; certainly it's worth at least $250 per painting?
Canvas printing online can be found at decent prices because they will go on sale regularly. I'd have to look up where I got mine again, but I think 16 x 20 unframed with wraparound were $40 to 50 each on sale. I have four in my house, all of photos that I took. The three in my living room are from state or national parks in the three former states I lived in. I think they ask if you own the copyright to whatever is being printed.
I also bought glass from kog.com/glass.html and framed it on the wall that gets sun.
Kipling on
3DS Friends: 1693-1781-7023
0
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Actually looking in to it, I think what I really want is a bunch of John William Waterhouse paintings. I'll start collecting those. I just ordered a framed print of The Soul of the Rose. This store has actual painted replicas which are generally much nicer than prints, but I wanted The Soul of the Rose and they didn't have it.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
+1
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Oh good apparently the previous builder also illegally moved the electricity meter. Excellent
And now some apparently unrelated pipes are leaking
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Posts
You just have low standards, it's ok.
Leaky taps? Toilet running on? I can help!
last month actually. Not QUITE on a whim but almost
we were renting a beach house down the coast, at the same place my family have been coming to for 30+ years. There is a small but very cute little shack/house down there which my sister has always loved, and when we drove past we saw there was a for sale sign up. And I have some money my grandfather left me 12 years ago which is not doing much at the moment.
So we went in and had a look, and it was even cuter on the inside, and very well-finished/renovated. And the money I had was enough for a downpayment if the bank valuation came in high enough. So I told the real estate agent that we'd have to get an inspection and check on financing, but to let us know if an offer came in before that so we could counter. He said "Oh, just put an offer in contingent on those things, you don't want to get into a private bidding war, it just drives the price up." (!)
so we offered 15k below asking
and they accepted
and the bank was like "the amount you paid was exactly what we valued it for, what a lucky coincidence"
and as long as we can rent it as a holiday home for 12+ days a month, mortgage payments and costs will be easily covered by that
so, ... I have a beach house now.
The toilet seat wasn't properly attached, so it would sit off-centre and at some weird angle so like the first time I tried to clean it one of the little plastic pins just snapped. Plumber just put new pins in and made sure it was aligned correctly so that's fine. The basin in the bathroom has a really crap drain design so it clogs up really easy, and despite several rounds of draino it kept draining super slowly. I'd tried cleaning out the S-bend myself but that wasn't the problem, it was the actual section in the sink itself. So he cleaned that out best he could and took the stupid attached plug bit off so it can drain easier. And then the shower head had started dripping recently, so he took a look at that and decided the shower needed new taps, went out for 20min, and came back with new ones and put those in.
Was actually a really helpful and competent plumber for once, I was quite pleased.
Ha! I always thought the other side of Texas was too far of a drive. It was 7 hours from where I lived just to the border of LA.
Ha ha, I live within like 3 hours of Louisiana.
For that reason I've changed my mind on where I'll use the large travertine - I think I might use it to re-do the flooring in the master bathroom because the contractor who owned this house before us kind of did a shit job there - both bathrooms have new floors that got a broken/loose tile after about 6 months of living there. Since I've been educating myself on how to do it properly I believe I know what they did wrong and how not to do that.
Also I might, possibly, perhaps, be getting design pointers from
Dragon Age Inquisition
We should just about have the money to cover it assuming that all the structural checks go okay - which we need to have redone as it looks like he may have just not bothered with calculations and tried to eyeball the size of steel required to support the floors.
All in all I'm surprisingly happy. The new guy has done work for the neighbours before and everybody was pleased with him. And he arrived exactly when he said he would and started working.
Fingers crossed that in another month this can all just be a funny story we tell to people when they mention they are thinking of doing work.
House hunting is so much easier this time around now that we don't have a 400+km round trip to deal with every weekend
On top of that the HOA where we're currently living wants £400 from us before they'll consider letting us transfer ownership of the house. Well, there's two tiers for transfer - a letter and a form for £97 and a "sellers pack" for the full £400. The buyers solicitor announced that they wanted the sellers pack and asked whether I could arrange payment.
I may have gone slightly ballistic at them and asked them to justify in writing why they wanted me to spend 4x the amount when everything they require for transfer is in the letter and form.
So that might bite me in the arse later.
I'm still waiting (2 days later) for a reply about why they need the pack in the first place but that'll be my next step.
It doesn't help that my solicitors are entirely useless and just pass the buck from the buyers solicitor to me without thinking about what they're asking. Earlier they wanted me to find the planning permission and building regulations certificates for the entire estate. 54 houses!
Yeah, let me get right on that.
If it's between your house and the street, it's usually the city. In any case, you should always call the city first, because even if they evaluate the situation and decide it's not their responsibility, they won't charge you for the evaluation. Plumbers will generally charge you quite a bit of money just for having a look, because their time is probably more valuable than ours, hourly speaking.
Less by £1000.
Either we suck it up and pay that £1000 or go back to the vendor and ask if they'll accept another reduction in price.
Ask them to come down the 1k, unless you really want the house, in that case, tell them it came back 1k under, and ask if they'd be willing to split the difference 50/50 (but be willing to go 100% in if they decline).
To extrapolate on this, the distinction between "yours" and "the city's" is often which side of the water meter the problem is on.
Either way I have to wait until the mortgage company mandated damp / timber report comes back. That was another £300. After all this they could turn around and hold a retention of the mortgage contingent on getting work done.
This whole exercise has just been like burning money.
Depending on how much money you want to sink into the endeavor, I'm 100% certain you could find a model in a format that a 3d printer could accept. And canvas printing exists, but is stupidly expensive even at Costco.
So, I mean... what's it worth to you to live in a video game?
I don't want 3-d printing, I'd rather see what I can sculpt myself from a 3-d plan. More interesting to me as a project and perhaps more likely to look like stone.
And I don't need canvas printing necessarily, I do enjoy having art I actually like to look at around our house... I have a large framed print of Van Gough's Irises that cost around $250, is canvas printing more than that? If Matt Rhodes was selling prints of his work some where, I'd just buy those.
So I'm not sure what the answer to "what's it worth having art you like around you"; certainly it's worth at least $250 per painting?
Backstory: so that blockage I was talking about in the last thread, turned out there was a plug about 70 feet down the tubes, which is in the city's territory under the street. They couldn't get the snaking wire down the tubes because within 10 feet there are three different 90 degree bends.
In the end, they had to tear up some of my front yard and about 3/4 of the street to get at the pipes, which were about 16 feet underground.
To see roughly how big the hole ended up being
For some reason the pictures I had taken during the digging, of the hole they had created, were corrupted on my phone
They managed to get everything fixed up, the water was running again. But one thing I noticed was the first time I used any tap after they excavated, I would get a bunch of particulate dirt and stones through the pipe. This was okay with the taps which didn't have filters, but just required me to take off the filters and run the tap on the ones that did. Except the toilet. It either would stop filling the tank half way through, or would take 3-4 hours to fill entirely. I did have a las vegas style fountain system coming out of my toilet tank at times. I couldn't figure it out at all, and ended up taking out almost the entire tank control system (fluidmaster 400a) and flush it all out of the particulate which came through, and now it works perfectly and refills in under 10-15 seconds!
I'm really proud of this silly accomplishment.
I don't think this is true. One of the reasons the lead problem isn't fixed in Flint and other places is because the line connecting to the water main is the homeowners responsibility. Replacing them with non lead ones is very expensive and most people don't have the cash.
See link
https://www.cityofflint.com/wp-content/uploads/deq-spotlight-Flint_water_FAQs_500946_7.pdf
but they're listening to every word I say
No toilet repair related accomplishment is silly, they are vital.
Yah I agree, there were 3 days where I wasn't supposed to use any water in the house, and yeah it's important.
Also, so I have a crawl space under my house, it's maybe 1.5-2 feet tall at best. While the plumbers were trying to figure out what's going on and if they can fix the plug without tearing up the yard, the 60 year old plumber with a bit of a gut crawled down there himself.
He had to be hauled out by the people from the city and his apprentice by his feet.
I used to entertain the occasional idea of crawling down there to see what it's like for myself, but always worried a bit on how viable it would be to get out.
I no longer entertain those ideas.
Edit:
This is what he crawled down into:
I need to get out more.
but they're listening to every word I say
Canvas printing online can be found at decent prices because they will go on sale regularly. I'd have to look up where I got mine again, but I think 16 x 20 unframed with wraparound were $40 to 50 each on sale. I have four in my house, all of photos that I took. The three in my living room are from state or national parks in the three former states I lived in. I think they ask if you own the copyright to whatever is being printed.
I also bought glass from kog.com/glass.html and framed it on the wall that gets sun.
And now some apparently unrelated pipes are leaking
Pretty sure at this point the only fair thing would be for you and the previous builder to switch houses.
Provided he hadn't done any work on his own, of course.