A bit of what's been happening the last several months, and why I have been scarce on here. Several months ago, we started a complete home renovation. My wife and I built this place over 20 years ago, doing most all the work ourselves except for the brickwork and flat-work. When it comes to concrete work, I can make it grey and hard, and that's it. Level and smooth, shhhhiiiittttt. Forget it. We finished the exterior reno work prior to the heat, and moved inside to do painting and finishing a complete demo and redo in the kitchen, which is now finished except for the floor. (BTW 120+ degrees F next week? Fuck me! Anyway, I digress. We finished taking up the tile a month or so ago. I'm 69, and pulling up 2000sf of floor tile with an 60 lb jack hammer, doing a couple hours at a whack almost killed me. Seriously. I ended up buying a new and lighter unit during the project but still had to go back to the big one when I had trouble with the thin-set removal. The tile itself (which was a bitch to put down when I was 20 years younger) comes up fairly easily with the demo hammer, but the thin-set is a whole nuther story. I am now working on fixing the concrete floors where they have buckled and cracked. Very common out here. It's a slow multi step process to do it right. Then I have to run a machine that looks like a big floor buffer, but uses diamond blades, over all the flat work to make certain the floor doesn't have any whoop-dee-doos. This last fw weeks, we have been trying to find some new floor tile that we like, and will be putting that down soon. (Oh my aching ass) Actually, I have had some pretty bad back issues stemming from a couple of near fatal car wrecks several years ago. Even my spinal implant has limited effect any more, and the drugs trash me, but I digress again. Now..............
I have always installed and maintained my own home security system. My old system was close to 20 years old, and getting buggy. I replaced the fire/smoke detectors last year. And I am replacing the old FBI panel with a new Honeywell Vista 20p series unit. I have replaced all the motion detectors. Of course, they were a pain in the ass too. They are now way too small to mount in a standard back-box, so I had to come up with a special mounting system to allow them to mount in the box, and yet not hinder operation. They also have a dog corridor function that won't sense animals smaller than 70 pounds or so. Our Black Lab is a bit bigger so it will be interesting to see if he trips the alarm. I have to do the wireless break-glass detectors, and that's all for ancillary components. I am at the point of programming the alarm panel itself. Jesus. The old one, while comprehensive to do, is nothing like the new ones. For starters, I can't get the programming software to run properly on my machines, so I have to program through one of the keypads. That in itself isn't too tough, but they have added a zillion panel parameters (some of which are Greek to me) making it a long drawn out process. I'm sure once it's down, there will probably be a shit-ton of do-overs to make it work the way I want it .
The bottom line is, I think this whole house thing is teaching me I'm not as young or spry as I used to be. In spite of my back, arthritis, and other limiting effects of aging on a body that has been rode hard and put away wet, it's just not in my make-up to sit back and let someone else do the work. I guess it's the old story of the heart and mind are willing, but the body is sadly lacking. But I swear I will finish this project if it kills me. And if it does.........
Don't it look nice?
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Originally Posted by NA4BH
