What's Up With Us

I'm not quite sure what happened to the rest of the year. It feels like we've spent most of it in a non-productive haze, which is why I haven't posted much—there didn’t seem to be anything noteworthy to report. That's changed now.

This past August, Intel announced layoffs that affected most of Jeff's group. Although Jeff wasn’t laid off, he was offered a role he would have disliked, so he chose to leave with his colleagues. Fortunately, we have a friend in a high-level position at Hewlett Packard Enterprises who helped Jeff quickly find a new job. It's a fully remote position, which includes some travel for customer visits.

Taking advantage of his newfound flexibility, Jeff spent a week visiting his mother at her retirement community in Anaheim, CA. He is always impressed by the vibrant social life and the close-knit community there—a lifestyle he now envisions for us. And not having to do yardwork and cook everyday is also a feature. So, we've decided to move into a retirement community ourselves. We're currently exploring options, ideally looking to be closer to family in California. Thus, our search has extended from Southern Oregon to Northern California.

Jeff dropped by Mountain Meadows in Ashland, Oregon this past week and was quite taken with it, making it our top contender. Finding the right home could take some time, as they only have around 50 detached single family homes available in the community. Luckily, we aren't in a rush.

This waiting period will be our opportunity to focus on downsizing—a necessary step, considering the homes in the community are about half the size of our current one. It looks like we're in for a serious "stuff diet."

Storage Emptied

We made it! We actually finished clearing out storage last Sunday, but I've been too distracted to post photos.

As an aside, I thought it was interesting all three walls of this locker were patched. I wonder if someone who rented this space before us broke into all three of the adjoining lockers. It never occurred to me to be worried about folks breaking in this way. Consider yourself warned.

We still haven't figured out where to store the extra black wire racks that no longer fit. But we did finally decide to let the white cubes go. I'm trying to overcome my tendency to hang onto things just in case we might need them later.

We've started setting up the workout area.

We are currently searching for a used recumbent bike for me. I don't really want to buy new, but if I haven't found something by Black Friday, then I'll probably break down and buy new.

Jeff already chose the set up he wants (the Inspire FTX) but we'll probably wait until Black Friday to buy it as well. That will give us a good deadline to get everything cleared out and have the spot ready for it.

Storage Almost Empty

We've been steadily chipping away at our storage unit, visiting every weekend to bring home a load. It looks like just one more trip and we’ll be completely moved out—right on track for our end-of-June goal!

Letting go of things we probably won't need again is still a challenge for me. It's tough parting with items that 'might' come in handy someday, but I'm working on it.

Back at home, we've set up all the racks, including one for our canning supplies. Back when we lived in a rural area, canning was a big part of our routine thanks to the abundance of free or inexpensive produce. However, since moving to Portland, those opportunities have become scarce. It just doesn't make sense to spend a lot on fruit for a few jars of jam, so I’ve been downsizing our jar collection. Just this past week, I managed to clear out three large boxes!

Our next puzzle to solve is finding a new home for several boxes of fairly valuable books. Since the county library system stopped accepting donations at the beginning of the pandemic and hasn’t resumed, and I’m reluctant to simply drop them off at Goodwill, I’m considering selling them. It does mean more work, but I'm thinking of starting with a few of the most valuable ones to see how it goes. Who knows? It might turn out to be a worthwhile endeavor!

Moving Out of Storage

Despite my best intentions to get out before we got the inevitable rent increase, we procrastinated. Oh well, we'll pay one month of the higher rent.

I had planned to rent a trailer and move the racks whole and possibly rent some help to move them back into the basement, but we finally decided to just take them apart and throw them in the back of our Ford F-150. It was possibly more time consuming, but much cheaper that way.

This past weekend we finally got started. On our first trip, we managed to get about a third of what was in storage and all of the racks that we'll be setting up with the new space plan. We're slowly putting them back together this week. (The rest of the racks will be taken apart and probably put up in the attic.)

The pantry tubs were all stacked up in Jeff's closet
so it's nice to have this rack set up again.

My hope is to do a load every weekend until we're out.

Basement Storage Clear Out

Well, we decided to do one last remodel. This one is more of a spruce up than an actual remodel. 

We have this funky basement storage area in the front portion of our basement.

This space is not original to this house. This is a space that Mr. Leonard (the 2nd owner of the house) actually dug out and finished to store the massive amount of sawdust/wood chips they needed for the house boiler. The front stairs were originally wood and they would simply remove the tread and blow in the wood chips. We were told stories by the Leonard kids of their memory of digging tunnels and playing around in the pile of sawdust/chips. 

We have found this space handy for storing stuff that we should probably get rid of, like wedding momentos and old records.

Anyway, before we remodeled the rest of the basement, we had a little workout area.

After the remodel, we filled this space with the master bedroom furniture and we never set up any dedicated space for working out. But we've been putting weight back on, and we've finally gotten motivated to set up a new workout space. Really, the only space we have left is in this front storage area.

Here is how the space looks tonight. We've been shifting some of our long-term storage (stuff we don't expect to touch again until we move) into the attic. We've also got a growing pile of stuff that we'll toss or donate, as appropriate. Tomorrow we have movers coming and they'll schlep the rest of the stuff to temporary storage.

Tim Austin thinks he'll have time next week to help us spruce up the space. We're going to paint everything a light color, probably Hubbard Squash because we have nearly 5 gallons of it. And he's going to help us cover the floor. He'll probably put down more of the DRICORE Subfloor Tiles, then we're going to put some sort of rubber exercise mat over the top. We have a couple of lights leftover from our earlier basement remodel and we hope to hang those at well. 

We may have to hire an electrician to install some power outlets. It's likely we'll need a place to plug in an exercise bike.

I'll post updates as we have them.

Furniture Rearranged

Last Wednesday, which luckily turned out to be a fairly sunny day, we hired a couple of movers from Oregon Trail Moving to help us move some furniture from storage and to rearrange furniture inside the house. Since it was so hot last summer we decided it would be worthwhile to move a bed down into the finished basement. The long-term plan is to install a murphy bed, but we just moved one of our bedroom sets down there for now. (I guess I haven't taken a photo since we cleaned up and made the bed.)

I don't have a good photo of the other side of the basement yet. Last night we got the television installed on the wall bracket and we started hooking up the gear. It's going to look a lot nicer with the wires all behind the walls. We are still hunting for a used nice-looking media cabinet so we will continue to use the inexpensive IKEA unit we bought to use during the remodel.

I also started moving my quilting stuff into the upstairs bedroom. I need to try and figure out the best way to use this furniture. Those are two Stickley bookcases and a Borkholder console table (all solid wood) that I scored off craigslist for very good prices. I think I may cover the console table with an ironing pad and use it as a permanent ironing station.

I'll have to show photos of the second bedroom next time. I still haven't taken any pictures since we moved in the new furniture.

I had planned to have the movers just move the big furniture pieces and then we would move the rest of the boxes and little stuff ourselves, but they managed to get virtually everything loaded in our pickup and rented U-Haul trailer. We only have a few things left in storage to retrieve before the end of the month.

The extra help was great, but I had rather expected to be able to deal with stuff a little at a time. Since everything came at once I now have a rather large pile of boxes down in the basement I need to finish sifting.

Basement Work Prep

We've worked all week emptying the basement. There is still quite a lot to do, but we've made great progress. I thought the 10x20 storage was way too big, but it turns out we had a lot of stuff squirreled away down in the basement. 

We've got all the furniture out that we want to keep and now I'm just working on sifting/sorting the loose stuff.

The rugs are going away tomorrow on our local
Buy Nothing group. The recliner is also going away.

We brought several pieces of furniture to storage from the main floor to clear space for exercise and for the TV setup. We bought this little media center off craigslist to use during the remodel. We'll resell it once we can move back down into the basement.

Christmas is canceled this year. We don't have the bandwidth to deal with the remodel and the decorating. At least we have the loaner range now so we can have a decent meal on the day.

Packing Again

It has begun again. Yet another storage locker.

The unit is way larger than we need but that size was "on sale" and cost little more than a locker half the size.

We started packing boxes in earnest today. It won't take us long to get the bulk of the stuff out of the basement. We're also going to be moving out about half the furniture from the living room so we can make room for Jeff's gaming rig and for the TV.

I'm hoping we'll only have the stuff in storage until a couple weeks after the basement is finished, probably late-February.

Basement Work Scheduled

We have a start date for our basement project. Tim Austin is currently on a job and believes he'll be ready to start our basement project on Dec 15!! So, I guess it's time to get serious about this! I am not excited about emptying out the basement, but it needs to be done so I scheduled another storage space and we'll start moving stuff over as we pack.

We have a fairly simple "remodel" planned; it's not really going to be more finished than it is now but Tim will be bracing the house to the foundation and then installing a steel framework around the perimeter of the space which should provide further support. This is an example photo he sent me of another job he worked on.

Then Tim is going to level the floor as much as he can within the framed sections. We're not going for full-on level; that's not possible with our horrible floor without more effort than we're willing to pay for. This is another photo he sent as an example.

Once leveled, the floor is going to be finished with one of the Lifeproof plastic floors, probably in the Crosbyton Oak color. Tim assures us this flooring is one of the best options for an occasionally damp space. Even though our water infiltration problems went away once Jeff installed the French drain on the side of the house, it surely is better to plan for some future water seepage.

For the ceiling, I had originally wanted to install a dropped ceiling but it is already too low. With a dropped ceiling, we would lose several more inches so Tim persuaded me to replace the current sheetrock with new sheetrock after the wiring is finished. We will take good photos and dimensions to document the space once it is open so hopefully we'll have less destruction when we have future work to do.

This floor plan is roughly what we are hoping for once the space is finished. Really, the only change from the existing space is the addition of two closets and better lighting. We have made some minor changes since I did this SketchUp file, but they're not important enough for me to take the time to update SketchUp.

A couple days ago, I discovered some great wall-mounted arms to install Jeff's computer gear, so we'll be putting those in once the walls are up. Right now the computer gear is in the center of the room clamped to a table and looks so untidy so I'm really looking forward to this change.

LX Wall Monitor Arm

LX Wall Keyboard Arm

We have so much to do in the next couple of weeks. I guess I'd better get started tomorrow!

So Much Purging

We have spent weeks sifting old boxes. On the bright side, opening 15-year old boxes is like going to the store and getting new stuff without paying. It's also a lot easier to get rid of stuff we haven't touched for so long.

We've filled up the car twice this past week to get rid of stuff. And I've had a parade of people coming by to pick up free stuff. I love our neighborhood Buy Nothing lists.

Some of the mess remaining in the basement is stuff that needs to go in for recycling. It will hang out until we get our truck back from the body shop. Some uninsured moron decided to hit it last week. The front bumper was totally crushed in.

The living room is still a mess, but it does look better than it did.

Here's how it looked on Aug 19.

Here's how it looks today. 6 more days to get this cleaned up.

Sifting Stuff Again

We are going to have out-of-town guests over Labor Day so we're trying to get the upstairs bedrooms cleaned up. They still had big piles of boxes sitting around that had been disgorged when we cleared out the closet to build in the cabinetry.

(I haven't given up on the stained glass. I am definitely planning to finish it this year, but our weather has been so hot that I really can't spend all day down in the freezing basement and then go up to bed in the unseasonably hot upstairs bedrooms. I don't get a lot of sleep when the weather is consistently over 100℉. We really need to get a bed down in the basement before next summer.)

Anyway, I have been trying to talk myself into cleaning upstairs, but it turns out I like quilting more than I like cleaning. LOL 

Today, I decided to try something drastic. I asked Jeff to help me carry all the piles of stuff lying around in the bedrooms down to the living room so I could get it all in one place. I'm hoping it will make it easier to sift. Plus, it has the advantage of being located in a cooler area of the house.

It's quite a lot when you get it all in one place. I have two weeks to get this mess cleaned up. =)

Trying to Purge

Jeff told me I could get a long arm quilting machine if I found a spot for it so I have ramped up my basement sifting and purging efforts. 

I had the idea if I could get rid of four racks in the front storage area, we could move our workout area into this space and then I could use the back half of the family room for the long arm machine.

I've been making steady progress sifting and unloading tubs filled with sewing gear and costumes now that my closet is finished. With an hour or two of box shuffling and empty box flattening, we could nearly empty the four racks, but I am still spending my time trying to sift boxes we moved upstairs. My goal is to get the bedrooms all cleaned up again. It would be nice to be ready for guests now that the world is opening up again.

I was astonished to find I had 4 tubs/boxes of fabric scraps! I cannot believe how many times I've moved them. They will not be moving again. I had planned to just bag them up and recycle them, but then I was thinking it be worthwhile to cut up the wool scraps into squares so I could make rag quilts from them. But then as I started going through the fabrics, I started cutting up all the scraps. I've already spent three days on the project. So, I'll still have one bin of scraps, but they'll be packed much more efficiently. (I inherited the hoarder gene from both sides of my family tree.) 

Once I'm finished, the remaining bits of fabric will be turned over to a textile recycler.

Closet Finished!

With all the drama in the kitchen, I never got around to posting about my closet progress. It is finished! And I have unpacked ALL the clothes! 

I thought I remembered downsizing my square dance clothes before I packed them up originally, but I clearly still have way too many. That bottom rod is crammed full and I'm worried there is too much weight on there. I will definitely need to disassemble some of the skirts to make quilts, or start dancing again. =)

I scored 5 large tubs of plastic hangers in rainbow colors off craigslist so I actually
managed to hang all the shirts/blouses on color-coordinated hangers. LOL

I'd forgotten about some of my really beautiful medieval costumes. I definitely need to try them on and see if they'll fit me again.

Sold Prineville House

We decided to sell our house in Prineville to the renters, so yesterday Jeff and I ventured to Prineville to move a load of our stuff from the workshop. We got almost everything in one trip. The house closes later this month, but we have until January to get all our stuff out. We're planning to return in the next few weeks, before the snow starts, to move the last load. 

Hazardous Air

All of our outdoor projects came to an abrupt halt when that branch blew off the roof last week because that was when the fires around Portland got so out of control.

I'm a little frustrated we can't work on the garage, because we are so close to being done. I have tried to turn my attention to sifting misc boxes in the basement but I can only stay motivated to sift old stuff for so many hours a day. Though, I have found some fun items I kept from my grandmother's house.

Elephant Lamp. I have no recollection of keeping this. I have no idea what to do with it. LOL

Elephant Sprinkler. This attaches to a hose and then the water sprays out the trunk. I haven't tried it yet.

I think I have finally opened and sifted every single unlabeled box in this house. We've taken a truckload of trash to the metro processing center and we have a number of piles that need to get donated to charities once Portland opens up again. Our basement storage area is looking much more tidy and organized.

Update the next morning. Getting worse. I've never been more eager for rain.

So Much Sifting....

I have spent at least 20 hours the last few days sifting boxes and piles. If I see a box that clearly has stuff in it and isn't labeled, I bring it to my sorting area and go through it. We have a large pile of stuff to go away, some to the landfill and some to various charities. I also made a lot of progress at cleaning out the front storage area in the basement.

Here is where we are now.

Most of the boxes still kicking around on the floor are empty or staged to go to the Rebuilding Center (an architectural salvage place in Portland). The table has the last pile of stuff I need to deal with. And I still need to organize the tools and repopulate the pegboard.

There is still some remaining wood leaning against the house.

Although we probably won't keep all of it, I do want to sift through and keep the best pieces, especially the beautiful wide douglas fir we bought several years ago. Most of the wood has already been stowed in the garage on top of the new rack and on wall brackets; this is what is left outside.

After this recent success, we're feeling brave and we're going to try and build this mobile wood rack.