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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, dang SIX! That looks classy!

That's really good looking!

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But what was that border along the ceiling? Wallpaper?

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Wow! That is fantastic SIX.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Wow! That is fantastic SIX.

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The pictures or the health insurance update?





Sounds like you deserve to relax tonight. You going to watch Killers of the Flower Moon tonight?

Figured you would have mentioned if you'd watched it already.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Lots to catch up on with you guys!

BRENDA, I hear you about flat feet and shoe shopping! I've got thst, plus EEEE width feet, and a bunion on my right foot. Once I find a brand and style that I like, I stick with it. Shoe shopping is such a trial!

Glad you noticed your blood sugar bouncing around. As I recall, you have hypoglycemia, right? I'll bet that's no fun.

SIX.
Interesting option on the insurance angle. I guess you report to the IRS as "self employed“. You might want to get a receipt book and save your copies bc I assume you'll be paid in cash? Also not sure what the contractor laws are there, but here any job worth more than $500 requires a license.

Also, don't do what our one handyman did: He did phenomenal work, a perfectionist. But had the strangest hours, would show up at 8PM and work until 3AM. That made sleeping difficult! And ultimately he bailed on a job and we couldn't get hold of him for completion. Once you get the rep for being reliable, people will be banging on your door! Also, have you thought of helping people de-hoard, or at least organize? It's light work but highly valued!

And congrats on getting that door up!

*****

Dpeaking of de- hoarding... I found dear daughter's secret stash in the front guest bedroom, where I rarely go. So we butted heads and then I sat her down in front of 8 bins ... #1 plastic, #2 plastic, glass, aluminum, general recycling, small scrap metal, and trash, and sorted thru the bags with her.

She's still mad at me.

When we get to her room, tho, I won't make her get rid of anything. It'll just be organizing so hopefully less friction.


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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SIX.
Interesting option on the insurance angle. I guess you report to the IRS as "self employed“. You might want to get a receipt book and save your copies bc I assume you'll be paid in cash? Also not sure what the contractor laws are there, but here any job worth more than $500 requires a license.

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Yeah. I've got some research to do for sure here. It wouldn't surprise me if there are some limitations to what I could do without a permit. Obviously, unless I really knew people well I wouldn't be doing things like electricity for them and take money in exchange for it. I know my work is up to Cook County, IL code and exceeds code around here in many aspects, but I'm not licensed or certified in the work. It's not exactly trying to get away with doing brain surgery when you never went to medical school, but things like that I would avoid. I know I couldn't install gutters since it requires a $30 permit even just to do your own around here, and I was told by the city it's to verify that the people you're paying to do it are licensed and bonded, or that you truly are doing it on your own and not paying somebody else to do it.

As for job prices, I don't think I'd see to many that were $500. I don't have interest in doing things like half/full bathroom remodels, and literally almost anything to do with a kitchen. I couldn't make money doing that stuff with how slow and perfectionist my work is.

But I could make money doing things like painting bedrooms and hallways and bathrooms and kitchens, or sheds on the exterior, or putting poly on your fence, etc.

I love painting. And I know I'd still take a long time doing it and making everything as perfect as I could, but it's low-danger, medium exertion work that I absolutely love doing. If I were able to get a couple of painting gigs every month, that would probably be all I needed to do.

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Also, don't do what our one handyman did: He did phenomenal work, a perfectionist. But had the strangest hours, would show up at 8PM and work until 3AM. That made sleeping difficult! And ultimately he bailed on a job and we couldn't get hold of him for completion. Once you get the rep for being reliable, people will be banging on your door! Also, have you thought of helping people de-hoard, or at least organize? It's light work but highly valued!

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Oh god. He did what? I know I got weird hours when I'm on my own time, but if the job isn't a 1040/W2 job where I'm scheduled to work overnight, I'm going to be there at banking hours, and only ever earlier if I wanted like some extra drying time between stuff to get it all done in one day instead of finishing it off on a 2nd day, and ONLY if you didn't immediately poo poo that idea because you've got your own life to live.

Nah... I come off like an asshole a lot here, but in real life, The Dude (usually) abides. I'm all about Don't Tread on Me, and when I interact with people in the real world I generally treat people the way that I expect people to treat me until they give me a reason to do otherwise. When it comes to customers, I do have lines, but I'm not going to come right out of the gates stepping all over their lines by inflicting my insomnia and weird sleep patterns on them.

But good lookin' out. You never know. I very well could have been somebody who desperately needed that advice that nobody ever gave him before. It's great advice.

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And congrats on getting that door up!

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Thank you. Pictures to follow in the next post.

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*****

Dpeaking of de- hoarding... I found dear daughter's secret stash in the front guest bedroom, where I rarely go. So we butted heads and then I sat her down in front of 8 bins ... #1 plastic, #2 plastic, glass, aluminum, general recycling, small scrap metal, and trash, and sorted thru the bags with her.

She's still mad at me.

When we get to her room, tho, I won't make her get rid of anything. It'll just be organizing so hopefully less friction.

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Oh... Is she saving garbage then? Yikes. She'll get over being mad, but does she understand that you can't do that and what it could lead to if you do and nobody's stopping you?

A little advice that maybe you don't need...

I think your plan on her bedroom is spot on and what she needs after the talking to.

But I think that your end goal should be to really get her to understand why she can't do this and eventually willingly throw out the garbage she's hoarding on her own because she knows it's the right thing to do.

I get it, totally. My hoard tends to be a wide variety of stuff that a lot of people would consider garbage, but I have proven many times over that if I eventually do get to it, chances are I'm going to turn it into something great.

But my buddy and his Dad who I miss the hell out of now are a few steps beyond that. His dad remembered life shortly after the depression and he had an almost impossible time giving anything up. And because of the nature of his work for himself handyman who could do anything, he hoarded a LOT of trash. I'm sure when my buddy was going through it all, there were probably over 100 plastic butter tubs and 500 plastic cups. All sorts of trash that are quite useful to have on hand during a lot of jobs. But it's just all over and it's everywhere. A beautiful 2-car garage that for the 20 years I knew him never was empty enough to park a single car.


Sometimes there is purpose behind saving trash, but she needs to know that saving trash just for the sake of saving it is not an option.

.....


hmmmmmmm...

Have you asked her why she saves this stuff?

Maybe you should be specific with her about individual items. "What is it about this can that you felt you needed to hide it or else it would be thrown away? What does it mean to you? What were your plans for it?"


That's interesting. I wish you luck with that and I hope you can get her to understand all of it, Sigs.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
I meant the pictures.

Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."

I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.

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Originally posted by Brenda:

I meant the pictures.

Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."

I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
I meant the pictures.

Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."

I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.

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Thanks, Brenda. Just saw this now.


Nice. I'm surprised you hadn't seen it until now. We were talking about that one quite a while ago.

So you're really not able to see much unless the library gets it, huh?

One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.




I hope you enjoy(ed) it.



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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:

I meant the pictures.

Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."

I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.

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Download free movies from https://yts.gg/home

For example: Killers of the Flower Moon 2023 at https://yts.gg/movies/killers-of-the-flower-moon-2023

A recent movie which is still playing in theaters can also be downloaded: Disclosure Day 2026 at https://yts.gg/movies/disclosure-day-2026

You will also need a free program called qBittorrent from https://www.qbittorrent.org/ to actually download the movies.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by Brenda:

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:

I meant the pictures.

Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."

I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.

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Download free movies from https://yts.gg/home

For example: Killers of the Flower Moon 2023 at https://yts.gg/movies/killers-of-the-flower-moon-2023

A recent movie which is still playing in theaters can also be downloaded: Disclosure Day 2026 at https://yts.gg/movies/disclosure-day-2026

You will also need a free program called qBittorrent from https://www.qbittorrent.org/ to actually download the movies.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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SECOND, I do not want to do any of that. Downloading unknown programs makes me nervous.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, SIX, I've been looking at the before and after pictures to unravel how you managed to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. There are clues in there for me.

To me, the most obvious thing is changing the trim from the mingy 1950's contractor's trim to to wider, classy trim. And the CARE that you took to install it. I don't recall the details of how you got that trim on the stairs to fit so absolutely perfectly, but I'llbet you sweated blood.

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If you mean the big white piece to the right of the steps with the quarter round on it, I can't actually take credit for that. The quarter round wasn't on the top of it and that was an addition I made, but the rest of it was already there. But it was all wood color, so the bitch of a time that I had there was staining and putting poly down on the steps while painting that trim and the faces of the steps white and not having any bleed-over from the two. To get that to happen as you see it now was actually two rounds of work that I did on those stairs, maybe 6 or 7 years apart.

And that trim...

Boy. What a steal that was. I only wish I'd bought more of it, because I bought enough to do every door and window in the house, including the basement, but I'd bought all of that a few years before fixing the gaping hole in the porch and even having any idea about how I was going to change the walls to keep water out and what sort of windows that would entail and how much extra trim I would have needed. I didn't even think about the porch when making that purchase. So now all I have left to do the doors in the basement is the old trim that's still up in the rafters of my garage. That trim was nicer than any of hte original trim in the rest of the house though, so if it wasn't too badly water damaged and it cleans up nice, it should be fine.

But yeah... That trim and the baseboard were all on clearance for some reason. And if memory serves, I bought all of that back before I started my last job, so until I used up the rest of it in the porch I was sitting on that stuff for about 7 years before it was all finally used. I was getting 8ft lenghts of the door/window trim for something crazy like .95 cents each, and the 10 or 12ft lengths of the baseboard were only like $1.25 each.

There were only 3 pieces that I had to pay full price for, and it's only because I didn't want to go to the trouble of joining two pieces in 3 different spots. One for the tops of both sides of the overlook, and a third for the top piece above the two stairwells. Those were something like $10 or $11 each. I really should have bought 4 of them to do the piece that goes under the sill for the large multi-pane living room window after tearing out the crap that was there before, but because there is likely always going to be a couch sitting right in front of that I just joined two cheap pieces there. But the work is so good you can't even tell I did that. I really didn't need to have one piece anywhere else because you wouldn't have noticed it when I was finished, but that extra $30 or so saved me a lot of time and hassle.

I remember telling my grandma about this acquisition with pride. And the fact that I took out one of those promotional credit card deals that gave you an extra $250 on your signup bonus if you spent $1000 in the first 90 days, so when it was all said and done I told my grandma that the hardware store just paid me $75 to haul an entire house worth of trim from their store.

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The floors. Did you stain them? How did you get that high polish? They look absolutely fantastic.

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Oh yeah. Just the stairs and the 2nd floor though, since the first floor living room wasn't bad. Upstairs was awful though, and that's why it was a great surprise to see it up there AFTER I bought the house when I tore up that awful carpet they hid it all with.

I made the mistake of renting out a floor sander from a local ma and pa shop and the thing was probably from the 1980's or something. 2 days and I still wasn't done. And that was an expensive rental. I then went to Home Depot and rented what looked to be a brand new machine and finished it off in an afternoon.

After that I put done some really nice stain I got from the same place I was buying my Benjamin Moore Aura paint, and then I had to go to Sherwin Williams for their "pour out" poly that came in a container that looks like it could have just as easily had antifreeze or 5.1 quarts of oil in it. You'd just pour that out onto the floor a little at a time and with that applicator at the end of the pole you just rubbed it all in and made sure you weren't painting yourself into any corners.

I believe I did 2-coats for the shiny finish. I would have to go back in my post history here probably though to know for sure. It was at least 2 coats, but it may have been 3. I'm not sure now.

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Wall repair, paint job, and color choice. Again, very carefully done. There isn't a thing I would change. The way you finished the stairs is inspired.

Changing and painting doors, cabinets, light fixtures, mirrors etc. Classy and decorative without being either stark or fussy.

And of course decluttering and (altho I can't see it) furniture choice.


You have a decorator's eye, SIX. It's clear to me that you had an integrated picture in your mind how you wanted the house to look and were working towards that goal with each choice you made.

Bravo! Well done! And thanks for the pix and inspiration! I will never be satisfied with substandard contractors work again!

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Thanks, Sigs.

Yeah... Things evolve over time as the projects actually begin and I see the horrors that I'm actually working with behind the scenes, or I come up with something better than I had initially planned as the job goes along, but overall this is the picture I've pretty much had in my head for 15 years now.


Don't be too hard on your contractors though. Everybody's got to eat. My friend's dad would always say to me "This ain't the Taj Mahal". He never had any complaints about my work, but he was always on me about my perfectionist streak. If he were still alive today and knew that I was going to paint the back of that bifold door before hanging it up he'd give me shit about it.



I understand that everybody wants a good deal and it's hard to trust somebody with a big job like that. But at the same time it really annoys me how easily people with too much money will part with it to pay for things like cleaning services. My step-mom makes no less than $25 per hour cleaning houses, and she's even got one job paying her $35 per hour to do it. That's insane. No matter if I was doing jobs hauling up 350lb cast-iron tubs up 2 flights of stairs, or hoisting a sliding glass door to the 2nd floor of an apartment building, or maintaining servers that were responsible for around 25% of the credit card transactions in America getting to the FED on time every morning, I've never made anything close to $35 an hour.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:

Quote:

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:

I meant the pictures.

Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."

I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.

---

Download free movies from https://yts.gg/home

For example: Killers of the Flower Moon 2023 at https://yts.gg/movies/killers-of-the-flower-moon-2023

A recent movie which is still playing in theaters can also be downloaded: Disclosure Day 2026 at https://yts.gg/movies/disclosure-day-2026

You will also need a free program called qBittorrent from https://www.qbittorrent.org/ to actually download the movies.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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SECOND, I do not want to do any of that. Downloading unknown programs makes me nervous.

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To be completely fair here, I can vouch that he's not telling you anything that I wouldn't have told you myself if you were interested in doing any of this.

But given that you're in Canada, that could make things different. For decades here in the US they seem to have given up going after anybody for pirating music or movies or TV shows or games or really anything at all, and have directed their focus instead on taking down the people who provide the services.

That could change at any time, and I do suppose they have a record of everything we've ever downloaded somewhere, so if they ever get desperate enough for cash they might start going back through everyone's download history and stealing all their property away for them to pay for all that stuff they though that they were getting for free.


We really should get you a smart TV or an Amazon Fire Stick though.

There are a ton of free and legal programs on there that offer movies and TV shows without any worry of downloading any possibly sketchy programs or getting yourself put on a list. My aunt was in heaven when I set all that up for her and I couldn't believe how easy it was to get her to cancel the Cable TV subscription with all those programs.

The drawback of using these services instead of downloading specific movies and shows you want to watch now is that you're only able to watch what they've currently got up for you to watch, and it could be a long time until the movie you want to watch comes up as a freebie. But if you used something like this in tandem with your Library rentals I think you'd really enjoy it.


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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
That is the other thing. What is offered down there in the way of streaming can be different up here.

My poor old tv is good enough for now as I spend enough money on replacing things and trying to get new things like a freaking couch.

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