Good evening everyone! First off wanted to apologize for being “off the grid” for a couple of weeks. Not unlike me, but I have been in a mental funk - completely overwhelmed with work and life to even think about doing anything extra.
It all started about two weeks ago - at the Chicago house, water heater went out. Bad things happen in three’s right? Ha! Wait till you hear this!
I live in a typical Chicago suburb home, built in the 60’s, great construction home. It is a split level with a massive sub basement under everything (pretty rare and spacious). A few years ago we gut rehabbed the entire inside and outside and all the landscaping. But left the sub basement untouched. Put in a new air handler etc but the rest of the mechanicals were (how old who knows). Everything is new but I am down to two bathrooms left and the sub basement. Decided to put in a tankless water heater…
Everything hooked up and running properly. Poking around down there I realized just how far we have let the mechanicals go… out of sight and out of mind sort of thing. While we were down we also put in a new washer dryer hookup and sink faucet.
Washer hookup installed - eventually when i get time I am going to wall this off, paint the entire basement and do epoxy on the floors - just not at the top of my list ATM.
Also stuck in a new faucet. Wife wants to re do the slop sink down there and change it out, but I refuse! I just want to refinish it. It is this old double basin cast iron (incredibly heavy) sinc and I love the nostalgic feel Of it.
As far as chicago basements go it is really not a bad space - has 8 foot ceilings which is super rare for that period of building it is clean but all original. I think this summer i am going to finish it off and make it nice. Grateful to have this home.
Situation number 2! My bride got covid back in early December, she just hasn’t felt right since, been to every doctor under the sun it feels like and all they do is prescribe stuff. (We are not into that style of treatment more natural people). However we spend 10 days a month in Florida every month and when we go there she starts to feel better. Strange so we chalked it up to old age (we are in our late forties) and she cannot handle cold anymore.
Last week she had an air quality test done in our home, you guessed. MOLD!!!! WTF. We are over the top OCD clean freaks what are you talking about?? Turns out like any 60’s house we have those giant galvanized air ducts with the flappers in them you are constantly tweaking… Because the house sits closed up and vacant so much (we turn the climate control up when we leave) condensation had built up and mold began to grow.
So the next day here I am booking flights lol, finding a place to stash cars that live in my garage (of course they went to work where there is no space), cleaning out the basement and putting everything in the garage. FML. In the meantime of course it is almost march 15th (corporate tax day) and we are slammed at work, and work is taking a lot of my attention right now as I am smack dab in the middle of launching a new ops framework with Dynamics!
Next day we are on a plane to the Florida house while the mold is remediated. I land, turn on my phone to a letter of resignation from my top sales guy…. Can’t make this S*** up! Super happy for him, he is getting out of the industry and taking a job with long term upside and a great future for him and his family. I truly and grateful for him and incredibly happy for his future, but what horrible timing!
This has been my home for the last 6 days BURIED in financials and sales calls -
Ive got tons of content to post, but every time I sit down to do it I just don’t have the motivation. Need to put my big girl ******* on and just do it!
