Friday!

charlotte989875

Finally. The week was long. No major plans for the weekend. H is out of town so it’s me and Baby M. The weather looks bad but hopefully we’ll get to be outside a bit. 

What’s everyone else planned for the weekend? 

banana468

I need to run and do laundry in between meetings.  Of course last night Chiquito left his bathing suit at the marina so today when I ran to my emergency Target run for extra underwear and socks for the kiddos I grabbed him another suit JIC DH doesn't find it when he goes later.  

Now we pack.  We pack all the things.  

climbingsingle

Finally, finally getting to have my friends over tomorrow. I can't wait. So tonight is grocery shopping and cleaning like a mad woman. 

MissKittyDanger

We're finishing our yard tomorrow. BK and I are going to my mum's place, M & my mum's bf are gonna finish it up. We're staying for dinner too, so that'll be fun. My mum got M cupcakes, but he doesn't know yet.
I'm bringing dinner there because the original plan was them coming to our place, but my mum suggested hers to keep BK out of the way {she's 3, she wants to know what dad is doing ALL THE TIME lol}

We're hoping the weather will be decent, and walk up to Home Sense/Winners so I can take a look at stuff for daycare gift basket plan.

Sunday M is going fishing - belated thing for his bday - and idk what the afternoon is but I may try to convince him to help start sorting a box or pick up the last piece for BK's stuffy zoo.
I'm prepping the clear out of the spare room.

STARMOON44

I’m really craving a beach day and going to try for that tmrw. Realizing I’ve never done a solo beach trip and I def have friends who would come but I’m kinda into the idea of just doing exactly what I want, which is leaving very early in the morning and probably heading out from the beach at lunch time. But very weather dependent. Otherwise it’s a Chores weekend for me. I’m hosting a party next week so need to clean and prepare and going to a baby shower and need to make my gift. 

CharmedPam

fun weekends planned, I see

I wanted to take a 1/2 day, and our portal SAYS we can do 4 hours off, it never allows us to.  I swear other regions log 4 hours off.  I tell my boss and he’s super lax and is just like “leave early then”.  I hate abusing that but I don’t want to take 8 for the 4 I need. Actually, just 2 hours early is all I need.  He’s not here today, and Im sure he’d tell me to anyway, so I’m going to wfh @ noon as I pack and get ready to leave to see my brother this weekend, and beat the traffic, leaving at 3 now.

side note, even leaving at 3 doesn’t “beat the traffic” out of the city, but it helps.  I’m heading over to my bro’s to help him for a farm event this weekend.  And by help, I hope he means I get to take care of the nephews so they have 100% devotion for their manual labor because spoiler alert, I’m not one for manual labor. 

I also came in today because there’s an office in our building that said they needed volunteers for a study and I’d get paid $60 for 1 hour of my time.  My admin joked and asked me if I wanted to make $60 yesterday  when the announcement came out. I was like hell yeah! She thought I was kidding and it wouldn’t be worth my time, but no one knows what I’ll do for a little extra cash.  Anyway I emailed the lady and she said they’re actually doing this till the 30th and will get back to me.  I mean… our office is SUPER lax and wont even know or care I’m gone that time, but Friday’s are best because no one’s ever in the office. Or working in general. 

climbingsingle

STARMOON44 said:

I’m really craving a beach day and going to try for that tmrw. Realizing I’ve never done a solo beach trip and I def have friends who would come but I’m kinda into the idea of just doing exactly what I want, which is leaving very early in the morning and probably heading out from the beach at lunch time. But very weather dependent. Otherwise it’s a Chores weekend for me. I’m hosting a party next week so need to clean and prepare and going to a baby shower and need to make my gift. 

You know what? This is a great idea. I've also never done a solo beach trip. I also like getting there super early, and getting my friends on board with that is impossible. And now that I live in NJ, the beaches are so much closer. Thank you for the inspiration! Totally doing this. 

MyNameIsNot

I'm ready for the weekend. It's been a long week! Tomorrow lots of chores and yard work, then a game in the evening. Sunday we're going tubing if the weather cooperates. Hopefully catch up on sleep also. 

Nothing much else going on. Work people are still annoying me with dragging their feet and asking me to expedite things at the last minute. That got a hard no this morning. 

missJeanLouise

We're chilling this weekend. I made some oatmeal cookies this afternoon. Tomorrow we are meeting some friends at an Italian restaurant with robots who bring your food to the table. Apparently they also play songs and dance with kids. DS isn't really a dancer so we will see if he like it.

kvruns

solo beach trip sounds wonderful @STARMOON44 I hope you do it!

@short+sassy what kind of flooring do you put in your kitchens or bathrooms when you're renovating? 

STARMOON44

climbingsingle said:

STARMOON44 said:

I’m really craving a beach day and going to try for that tmrw. Realizing I’ve never done a solo beach trip and I def have friends who would come but I’m kinda into the idea of just doing exactly what I want, which is leaving very early in the morning and probably heading out from the beach at lunch time. But very weather dependent. Otherwise it’s a Chores weekend for me. I’m hosting a party next week so need to clean and prepare and going to a baby shower and need to make my gift. 

You know what? This is a great idea. I've also never done a solo beach trip. I also like getting there super early, and getting my friends on board with that is impossible. And now that I live in NJ, the beaches are so much closer. Thank you for the inspiration! Totally doing this. 

My personal favorite is Spring Lake. Nice and peaceful and clean. My friends mostly like Asbury Park which is nice but much more of a scene. 

MissKittyDanger

Guys .... is it weird to be excited that when my yard is done I can sit out there with a coffee comfortably while BK plays in her water table?

Is this peak adulting?
Because it feels like it.


ALSO! Patio tables - those with littles or recently had littles. What kinda chairs {think eating outside kind of table} would be ideal?
{not these exact ones, but maybe similar}

A



or B

short+sassy

CharmedPam said:

fun weekends planned, I see

I also came in today because there’s an office in our building that said they needed volunteers for a study and I’d get paid $60 for 1 hour of my time.  My admin joked and asked me if I wanted to make $60 yesterday  when the announcement came out. I was like hell yeah! She thought I was kidding and it wouldn’t be worth my time, but no one knows what I’ll do for a little extra cash.  Anyway I emailed the lady and she said they’re actually doing this till the 30th and will get back to me.  I mean… our office is SUPER lax and wont even know or care I’m gone that time, but Friday’s are best because no one’s ever in the office. Or working in general. 

I wish I made the kind of money where $60 for a kick-back hour of being in a study wasn't worth my time, lol.

CharmedPam

Right @short+sassy!

Chair A looks way more comfortable to me @MissKittyDanger.  My fat rolls would poke through all those design holes.  Not saying you have them, but if you invited me over to sit outside, I’d be constantly shifting so my backfat doesn’t get caught. 

climbingsingle

STARMOON44 said:

climbingsingle said:

STARMOON44 said:

I’m really craving a beach day and going to try for that tmrw. Realizing I’ve never done a solo beach trip and I def have friends who would come but I’m kinda into the idea of just doing exactly what I want, which is leaving very early in the morning and probably heading out from the beach at lunch time. But very weather dependent. Otherwise it’s a Chores weekend for me. I’m hosting a party next week so need to clean and prepare and going to a baby shower and need to make my gift. 

You know what? This is a great idea. I've also never done a solo beach trip. I also like getting there super early, and getting my friends on board with that is impossible. And now that I live in NJ, the beaches are so much closer. Thank you for the inspiration! Totally doing this. 

My personal favorite is Spring Lake. Nice and peaceful and clean. My friends mostly like Asbury Park which is nice but much more of a scene. 

I always forget about Spring Lake! Good suggestion. 

MissKittyDanger

CharmedPam said:

Right @short+sassy!

Chair A looks way more comfortable to me @MissKittyDanger.  My fat rolls would poke through all those design holes.  Not saying you have them, but if you invited me over to sit outside, I’d be constantly shifting so my backfat doesn’t get caught. 

That makes sense. We're mixed on that because IL's have both idea - BK sits in her own chair now, but I figure next year she may not?
I'm hoping something that will grow with her and last {our last one did not - pro tip, don't get wood and leave it out}

CharmedPam

Comfort level too @MissKittyDanger, chair A is mesh, right?  Better for my tushy.  B is cast iron? Even if you think you’ll put a padded seat on it, think of the rain. When I was looking for my set, I got mesh for this reason.  I have an outdoor loveseat that has removable cushions but I have to bring them in when I’m done and take them out when I want to use them again. My mesh chairs stay out in the winter even! (We get snow here too)

short+sassy

@MissKittyDanger, that is peak adulting!  I am so much more of a homebody now then when I was in my 20s.  Part of that is I love my house.  Not everything about it, of course.  But it's such a pleasant and aesthetically pleasing place to be for me.  The deck of my master bedroom is so much nicer than the outdoor areas of a coffeehouse.  And the coffee is a lot cheaper too, lol.

@kvruns, LVP (luxury vinyl plank) flooring for the kitchen and tile for the bathrooms.  Though I suppose there isn't any reason you couldn't put LVP in a bathroom also.  You can even buy LVP that looks like tile.  However, if you go the LVP route, make sure it is waterPROOF since it will be going in wet areas.  It can be a little tricky because all LVP is water resistant, so they all list that as a benefit.  But some LVP (a lot, but not all) goes the extra mile and is actually waterproof.  

Though I know there was a discussion on here a few months ago that, apparently in a lot of areas, people put hardwood floors in their kitchen.  I was actually shocked because I didn't think you were supposed to put hardwood floors in wet areas and it's not done where I live.  But I looked it up and apparently it's not as bad as I thought, though hardwood kitchen floors do require more maintenance.  

Generally speaking, tile is less expensive than LVP for the materials.  But tile installation takes longer, so that part is usually more expensive. 

My LVP love is because it has the look of hardwoods (or tile or stone), for substantially less cost.  And is a lot more scratch-resistant.  Plus, if a piece of LVP is damaged, you can just cut out out that piece and slap down a new one.  You usually can't do that with hardwoods. 

Nowadays, they also make tiles that look like whatever you want them to, including hardwood floors. 

Here's a pic where we used wood-look tile for a living room.  You might wonder why we didn't use LVP.  Because we did this reno 6 years ago and, although LVP existed, it wasn't widely available.  Now it's everywhere!  Amazing what a stronghold it has taken in the flooring industry over such a short time.

On our next reno, we replaced a shower surround with tile.  We used one of these pieces of flooring as an "accent".  It was fun to watch the double take people would give it in showings!  And we would explain, "That's actually not wood, it's tile!  Touch it, you'll see."  People who hadn't seen wood-look tiles before got a kick out of it. 



I've posted this next pic before, but here's a refresher.  This is the wood-look LVP flooring we put into all four units of the two duplexes we reno'ed last year.  In our case, we had to replace all the flooring in the house anyway, so it runs continuously from the kitchen to the living room.  But if you're just doing the kitchen flooring, for whatever floor you choose, you'll just want to make sure it has a nice "look and flow" with the flooring it will be next to.

I don't have a very good pic of "just" the kitchen floor, but here are partial pics from two angles:

missJeanLouise

@MissKittyDanger if you go with A, make sure you have a plan for when it's windy.

Guys... I can't find my old drivers license. Even if I did, pretty sure it is expired by now. I am afraid I am going to have to do the whole shebang (written and driving) over again. But mostly, how do I do the whole 2 pieces of mail thing? I am sure it is simple, and most likely time consuming, but all this just occured to me and I am mildly freaking out. Not even sure it is 100% necessary but I feel like it does come in handy sometimes.

short+sassy

Speaking of tile that looks like other things.  Not something I've done, but I saw a commercial where they used stone-look tile on the sides of a kitchen island, including "stones" that jutted out.  It looked awesome!  It's not for everyone, but I like that interplay of a stone-look within a more typical kitchen. 

kvruns

thanks @short+sassy we have hardwood in the kitchen and I had it in my old house. 

Any brands of LVP or similar you recommend? I'm just pricing some things out in a "just in case" type of thing. TBH I like carpet in the living area but it would make more sense in most places I've looked at to do the same flooring in kitchen, living room, and hallway since they all connect so I'm getting ideas. But I really can't afford to break the bank but every house I look at seems to need new flooring

Like one I looked at today the bedrooms definitely need new carpet, the living room carpet is OK and the hallway and kitchen flooring is linoleum (? the cheap stuff, though it doesn't look bad...ish). But it seems like if I did new carpet in the bedrooms it would be weird to then have different carpet coming out of the bedroom and into the living room so I should just do it all. 

Of course my realtor is like all new flooring maybe $7K no big deal and I'm like yes it is a big deal seeing as I'm buying houses way above what I want to spend (but can still afford, I'm just very conservative) so an extra on $7K on flooring makes me want to cry

Jen4948

Going to visit my mom in the hospital. Hopefully she'll be out in a few days.

My bosses are driving me insane with giving me assignments, interrupting me to "prioritize" other assignments, then questioning how I work, mansplaining and wasting even more fucking time. And no, the work can't be done "snap, snap, cut, paste, snap, snap." It actually needs to be done entry by entry. I've been applying for other jobs and getting nowhere.

short+sassy

kvruns said:

thanks @short+sassy we have hardwood in the kitchen and I had it in my old house. 

Any brands of LVP or similar you recommend? I'm just pricing some things out in a "just in case" type of thing. TBH I like carpet in the living area but it would make more sense in most places I've looked at to do the same flooring in kitchen, living room, and hallway since they all connect so I'm getting ideas. But I really can't afford to break the bank but every house I look at seems to need new flooring

Like one I looked at today the bedrooms definitely need new carpet, the living room carpet is OK and the hallway and kitchen flooring is linoleum (? the cheap stuff, though it doesn't look bad...ish). But it seems like if I did new carpet in the bedrooms it would be weird to then have different carpet coming out of the bedroom and into the living room so I should just do it all. 

Of course my realtor is like all new flooring maybe $7K no big deal and I'm like yes it is a big deal seeing as I'm buying houses way above what I want to spend (but can still afford, I'm just very conservative) so an extra on $7K on flooring makes me want to cry

Not so much a recommendation on brands.  I haven't personally found or even read reviews that any particular brand is so much better/worse than another.  But, if you have a Sherwin Williams Flooring store near you, they were by far the best pricing I found the last time I was looking (2019).  The same company as their much more famous "paint sibling", but totally different stores.  The Sherwin Williams paint stores have nothing to do with their flooring division and vice versa.  Or at least that is what it is like in my area, though also my impression, nationwide.

We bought our LVP from SW Flooring, the same one in the picture, for just a little over $2/square foot.  It's also the little bit better quality thicker and waterproof kind.

If you don't have a Sherwin Williams Flooring near you, Lumber Liquidators and Floor and Decor are also good lower-priced options.  Mainly because they have such a HUGE selection, there will be lower-priced goodies mixed in.  Lumber Liquidators can have really phenomenal deals on clearance, just make sure there is enough available for your project, including whatever surplus/overage they recommend (It's something like 5-10% of the quantity).  Their LVP is more in the $2.30-$3.00 square foot range for the thicker/waterproof kind I buy.  Though, once you start getting into the $3/square foot range, you'll also start bumping into engineered hardwoods for that price.

I feel your pain.  Including my personal home, I've purchased six properties.  Five of them needed new flooring.  FIVE out of six!  Maybe not always for the whole house, but for a lot of it.  And that wasn't just me being picky and wanting nicer floors for my own home and rentals.  They were hideous and/or non-functioning flooring that absolutely needed to be replaced.

There was one duplex I purchased, where the "flooring" for the two bedrooms was the top of the concrete slab.  I can't make this stuff up, lol.  The TOP OF THE SLAB, ie the foundation of the house.  And the previous owner's brother had been living in that unit for 10 years with it like that.

I would say, since it is for your own home that you are buying, to get the flooring done over time.  But then you will end up like me.

When I bought my house, there was an extremely stained carpet in the two front rooms and one of the bedrooms.  All the flooring flows together for those rooms.  The carpet was that short, nubby stuff that is more like what you see in an office.  But there were hardwood floors underneath it.  So glorious!  But I had to shell out $2200 to have them refinished.  And that was only about 600 square feet total.

As you walk through my house, it is those first three rooms that now have my beautiful refinished hardwoods.  Then it is the tiled kitchen and laundry room (I didn't replace those floors).  Then it is our master bedroom all the way in the back.  It has old style linoleum that looks like "green marble".  It is so loud and ugly, it burns your eyes.  But we were definitely going to replace that within the first 1-2 years, once we financially recovered from the house purchase and the upgrades/repairs we needed.

But then we got into real estate investing.  And there was just always something better to spend the money on.  Plus, now there is so much furniture and boxes and stuff in our bedroom.  Where would we put it all to redo the floors?

So it's 10 years later.  And we still have that hideous "green marble" linoleum floors in our master bedroom, smh.  I don't have a pic of my actual bedroom floor.  But, thanks to the internet, I can give you all a small taste of the horror.  Do you know what is really hilarious?  I tried to find a pic where you can see a whole floor of this stuff, but apparently no one else who owns it wants to take a pic of it either, lol.

 
I'm reminded anew that we need to just bite the bullet and do something.  Just purge and get rid of stuff.  Then figure out where to temporarily put the stuff that's left.  It would be so great to reclaim that room from the clutter and have pretty floors there also.

charlotte989875

kvruns said:

thanks @short+sassy we have hardwood in the kitchen and I had it in my old house. 

Any brands of LVP or similar you recommend? I'm just pricing some things out in a "just in case" type of thing. TBH I like carpet in the living area but it would make more sense in most places I've looked at to do the same flooring in kitchen, living room, and hallway since they all connect so I'm getting ideas. But I really can't afford to break the bank but every house I look at seems to need new flooring

Like one I looked at today the bedrooms definitely need new carpet, the living room carpet is OK and the hallway and kitchen flooring is linoleum (? the cheap stuff, though it doesn't look bad...ish). But it seems like if I did new carpet in the bedrooms it would be weird to then have different carpet coming out of the bedroom and into the living room so I should just do it all. 

Of course my realtor is like all new flooring maybe $7K no big deal and I'm like yes it is a big deal seeing as I'm buying houses way above what I want to spend (but can still afford, I'm just very conservative) so an extra on $7K on flooring makes me want to cry

Are you finding anything that you like and would be in your price range?

We did LVP in our kitchen and bath before we sold our old house- we put it right over the linoleum in the kitchen. It was easy and cheaper than we thought. 

kvruns

@charlotte989875 the one today is my range although having to go over on a place that needs updates I don’t love that part. But the house is great and it is my top 2 neighborhood choices so I’m trying to let go of my penny pinching a bit. Realistically it needs flooring and anything else would be a want not a need. 

Although I’m the kind who would probably never make any of those changes later on either. I wish I was handy, or my family was, bc having to pay for anything like changing out light fixtures or a vanity or whatever makes me not want to do it even if I’d like it 

ILoveBeachMusic

short+sassy said:

@MissKittyDanger, that is peak adulting!  I am so much more of a homebody now then when I was in my 20s.  Part of that is I love my house.  Not everything about it, of course.  But it's such a pleasant and aesthetically pleasing place to be for me.  The deck of my master bedroom is so much nicer than the outdoor areas of a coffeehouse.  And the coffee is a lot cheaper too, lol.

@kvruns, LVP (luxury vinyl plank) flooring for the kitchen and tile for the bathrooms.  Though I suppose there isn't any reason you couldn't put LVP in a bathroom also.  You can even buy LVP that looks like tile.  However, if you go the LVP route, make sure it is waterPROOF since it will be going in wet areas.  It can be a little tricky because all LVP is water resistant, so they all list that as a benefit.  But some LVP (a lot, but not all) goes the extra mile and is actually waterproof.  

Though I know there was a discussion on here a few months ago that, apparently in a lot of areas, people put hardwood floors in their kitchen.  I was actually shocked because I didn't think you were supposed to put hardwood floors in wet areas and it's not done where I live.  But I looked it up and apparently it's not as bad as I thought, though hardwood kitchen floors do require more maintenance.  

Generally speaking, tile is less expensive than LVP for the materials.  But tile installation takes longer, so that part is usually more expensive. 

My LVP love is because it has the look of hardwoods (or tile or stone), for substantially less cost.  And is a lot more scratch-resistant.  Plus, if a piece of LVP is damaged, you can just cut out out that piece and slap down a new one.  You usually can't do that with hardwoods. 

Nowadays, they also make tiles that look like whatever you want them to, including hardwood floors. 

Here's a pic where we used wood-look tile for a living room.  You might wonder why we didn't use LVP.  Because we did this reno 6 years ago and, although LVP existed, it wasn't widely available.  Now it's everywhere!  Amazing what a stronghold it has taken in the flooring industry over such a short time.

On our next reno, we replaced a shower surround with tile.  We used one of these pieces of flooring as an "accent".  It was fun to watch the double take people would give it in showings!  And we would explain, "That's actually not wood, it's tile!  Touch it, you'll see."  People who hadn't seen wood-look tiles before got a kick out of it. 



I've posted this next pic before, but here's a refresher.  This is the wood-look LVP flooring we put into all four units of the two duplexes we reno'ed last year.  In our case, we had to replace all the flooring in the house anyway, so it runs continuously from the kitchen to the living room.  But if you're just doing the kitchen flooring, for whatever floor you choose, you'll just want to make sure it has a nice "look and flow" with the flooring it will be next to.

I don't have a very good pic of "just" the kitchen floor, but here are partial pics from two angles:

We put LVP in 3 bathrooms and our kitchen. We did the bathrooms several years before the kitchen and love it. We put in a stone look LVP in 2 of them and  a marble look in the 3rd. 

charlotte989875

kvruns said:

@charlotte989875 the one today is my range although having to go over on a place that needs updates I don’t love that part. But the house is great and it is my top 2 neighborhood choices so I’m trying to let go of my penny pinching a bit. Realistically it needs flooring and anything else would be a want not a need. 

Although I’m the kind who would probably never make any of those changes later on either. I wish I was handy, or my family was, bc having to pay for anything like changing out light fixtures or a vanity or whatever makes me not want to do it even if I’d like it 

That’s tough to have to go over knowing there’s updates. I’m not at all handy either but I’m surprised how much I’ve been able to with some patient people at Lowe’s and a lot of Google. H is handy but I hate feeling like I can’t do things either. 

For what it’s worth the vanity isn’t hard as long as the plumbing lines up!