03/15/21 – Numbers and Percentages

Spacetrawler, audio version For the blind or visually impaired, March 15, 2021.

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2021-03-15-spacetrawler3

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Hey, Cedra and I bought a house here in New Mexico, we closed on the 9th. It’s a REEEAAALLLL fixer-upper, we only paid 25k for it. But it’s ours, and we love it.

The bones are good, and it has a well, but the inside needs a total gutting. Fun! I hope! We spent two days already hauling out garbage, and may-maybe-might-we-hope have a roofer lined up for the gaping holes up there? Fingers crossed!

I have been thinking about bringing back the journal to document us fixing it up, but this month I’m working on a big animation job, so IF it happens, it might be a while before it starts.

us_house

intrior

22 Comments

  1. Erhannis

    Congrats on the house! I, too, am buying a house, though I hope it will require less work than yours does, haha. I do like the look of yours, though; it has a nice old-timey feel to parts of it.

  2. Rikard

    Seems you got a good price! From the pictures, it doesn’t look like any major jobs are needed, and that fireplace is a godsend when the power goes out.

    Have fun!

    Perhaps you’ll turn it into an illustrated book about renovating a home from scratch?

  3. FlySwatter

    Thank you for sharing the photos Christopher. I doubt you’ll regret your purchase, and you certainly won’t regret not paying $200K or more for house. I bought my own place 25 years ago based on a similar strategy; a 1950 house that I’ve slowly updated through the years. Enjoy your new home!

  4. KQY

    Congrats on the new abode! 🙂 Hopefully, the Pound Puppies never come back to Earth… 😉 The pics show me something with good bones, so it appears you’ll be good with it in the end. And, I see a way to eliminate the Pound Puppies with…get this…hugs!

  5. Kaidah

    Wow, you bought an entire house for only slightly more than I pay for rent every year (stupid Toronto prices…). Congratulations. It looks great, so much potential. It’ll be lots of work, but doable. Just be sure to hire reputable professionals for things like the roof and any electrical or plumbing (at least for the water lines). Sure you can do it yourself, but trust me the extra cost is worth the peace of mind knowing that what’s running through your walls was done correctly and to code.

    Also, New Mexico gets snow? You learn something new every day.

  6. Pete Rogan

    I like your new house, Chris, and I can’t help but calculate how much work it’s going to take to get it into the shape you want. But it doesn’t all have to be done at one time, and I can see how the house will become an excellent way to distract from work and divert the mind. After a time, you know, you start looking for distractions like this. An excellent bargain all around.

    Wait a minute. Darnitawls are toxic to humans but not the other way around? I find this strange, since a number of my cats found out they’re allergic to ME, no matter how good my ear-scratching. Is the reaction actually corrosive? In which case this suggests an exchange of biologic material, which I imagine would be deleterious to both species — unless there’s something really, really regenerative about Darnitawls. But I will hold speculation until I see Chiphu actually burned by contact with Alykine. I will certainly watch for it, you bet!

  7. M.A.

    The house gets good light, and you have a fireplace! I love that arched entryway into the livingroom. And it costs more than my annual rent, which is what I get for staying in California.

    I see becoming male isn’t nearly solving Chiphu’s sex problems…

  8. Muzhik

    Chris, congratulations on the house! Now for the free (worth what you pay for) advice:

    First, make sure you have the house rewired so every outlet is grounded.

    Now with that out of the way, here’s the real problem: about a dozen or so years ago I got my HERS (Home Energy Rating System) certification. That’s where they block all the furnace outlets, etc. and hook a blower to the front door. The blower is supposed to suck air from the house, and gives you an idea of how good (or bad) your insulation is. I had to learn a buttload of things about insulation, and I gotta tell you — that photo of the attic made me cringe. NO insulation up there! I had to hold my tongue SO hardduring the freeze they had in Texas, because I knew, I KNEW, from conversations with people down there that insulation was the last thing on their minds. Either no insulation or just an inch or so of R-6. “Why bother? It doesn’t ever get that cold down here!”

    They ignored the fact that the insulation doesn’t just keep cold air out in winter, it keeps cooled (air-conditioned) air inside in the summer. And the end result was all these people who had been told they didn’t need to worry about insulation learned the hard way, yes, they need insulation.

    By getting a HERS rating on that house, you have a solid number that you can take to any number of banks and get signed up for federal programs that will give a low-cost loan to pay for the insulation, if not subsidize the whole blessed project.

    When you DO get around to putting in the insulation, look at getting borated cellulose blow-in insulation. It should be about R-36, and by being borated, it acts as a rodent repellent.

    You got a good-looking house, there.

  9. The Gorram Batguy

    1) Congrats on the house!
    2) Is this character’s species name meant to be pronounced “darn it all”?
    3) If so, is that because that’s how he/she feels every minute he/she is subjected to Chiphu’s conversation style?

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