Long time

Well, it's been almost two months since I wrote my last blog. I've been concentrating on getting our house all finished---all the little and big things that need doing after twenty-four years. I want everything completed before I go back to concentrating on QlownTown. As a former contractor, I have some projects that were never finished, and I intend to do them all now. The plan to sell our house this summer, then this fall, has now been bumped to spring, but I'd like to actually live in a finished house for awhile anyway.

It's frustrating to have to repair things that have broken or aged after so many years, but of course they'd have to be addressed even if we were going to stay forever. And I am not allowing myself to do any half-assed repairs so I can sell the house: I don't want to have on my conscience that something might go wrong for the eventual buyers a few months after we're gone. (Nor do I want them coming to me and saying "Hey!...There's [fill in problem here] that you didn't tell us about.")

One nice thing that I did was to enlarge our shower. It used to be about 31" x 32". Yes, tiny, and closed in on three sides. Now it's three feet by three feet, with clear glass on two sides. The extra inches make a huge difference, as does the extra light pouring in and the view out through the glass. And instead of molded white fiberglass, the walls are tiny yellow-green tiles with pristine white grout. I wish we'd done this years ago. Some people say, "Aren't you sorry you did this if you'll be gone in a few months?", but I figure it'll be a big selling point, and we're really enjoying it now.

And I see any improvements made in this period as research for the next house.

 For example, our garage door was always this big, flat, fake-wood-grained slab. I added a post in the middle, creating the look of two doors, and added trim and windows to make it look like two sets of carriage doors. (Finished photos to follow once it's painted.) Now I know that I can put in an inexpensive door and, with some moldings and a little time, create a much more expensive-looking "set" of doors. I probably wouldn't have attempted it on a new house.

I was just looking for the photos I took during the process, and evidently deleted them. I had thought I might write an article for Fine Homebuilding, but now, I guess I'll need to do this again to get pictures.

So, until I get back to making the big QlownTown push: upgrading the site and store, submitting to newspapers, and working on a one-of-a-kind approach to the online presentation of the strip, I'll probably just blog about construction---which is my other big love anyway.