Category: October 2022

When we were first buying the house in Tucson I kept saying, “It’s only 10 degrees hotter there”. And that’s true during the season we were most worried about – summer. Albuquerque is very nearly as hot as Tucson at the hottest time in the summer. But it turns out Albuquerque has bigger temperature swings over the rest of the year. The weather difference is closer 15 degrees to 20 degrees during the shoulder seasons and in the winter.

The afternoon temperatures over the weekend in Tucson were in the high 80’s. It was hot! We got back last night, and here we are in Albuquerque on this lovely Monday morning; it’s freezing. Literally.

John is supposed to be part of a group outdoor picture for an award his team won at work. If I remember correctly, that photo is supposed to be happening at about exactly when I took this video just now. (In case you don’t like clicking on links, it’s just 20 seconds of hail, you won’t miss much.)

So that was our welcome back to Albuquerque this morning.

We had wind on the way back yesterday. I have an excellent app for predicting winds in a visualization that works well for me. Here is the prediction on Thursday, for the wind on the following Sunday (which was yesterday, when we drove back to Albuquerque). It’s a great app, it’s called windfinder.

I hate driving the van in the wind. It’s a big nuisance going to Tucson frequently, and it’s probably not strictly necessary. But we feel better after we’ve done some yard work, cleaned the pool filters, checked on the drip irrigation, and tidied up the chaos in the house. For example, there was an entire full “big gulp” of coffee growing mold in the living room. I didn’t even know coffee could grow mold, but I guess if given long enough, it can. I don’t understand why they can’t pick up after themselves a little better. I think the problem is the tile guy. I really can’t wait until the floor tiling is done. It is such an invasive job, impacting every square inch of the house.

I went through the box of books that were ruined in the kitchen flood when they were doing the kitchen demolition work in August, and ordered the ones I wanted to replace. Ugh, $280 worth of cookbooks (actually we lost more than that, but $280 was the total for the ones I decided were worth replacing). We also lost a small flokati rug to mildew. I took it to Albuquerque to try to save it, but was unsuccessful.

I spent a lot of time getting the thick construction dust off my houseplants, which should have been temporarily covered in plastic during the drywall work. My contractor said he’d water them for me, but houseplants are not really his focus right now. I’ve brought the smaller ones back to Albuquerque and are hoping the larger ones will handle an intermittent watering plan. Very intermittent!

Here’s the living room after we tidied up some.

And my plants, dusted and in a better location:

The main reason for going out this weekend was to check on the completion of the screened porch. We had our back porch screened in by a company that specializes in that kind of work. Our contractor wasn’t involved in it, so we needed to go out and approve the work ourselves before paying the remainder on the invoice.

We are super happy about our new screened-in porch. As you have heard me mention (repeatedly), the mosquitos in Tucson are a problem. Tucson seems tropical to us – less dry than we expected, particularly in the summer when there’s significantly more rain than in Albuquerque. The tropical vibe comes complete with tiny aggressive tropical “tiger” mosquitos. They are small, fast and impossible to hear. And they bite all day long during the summer. The porch will allow us to enjoy the outdoors without the bugs. We already love it. The entire big panel on the left rolls up with a remote control, so if we want to open it up during the bug-free winters we can.

There are just a few tiny cracks along the bottom where mosquitos could get in, but those will be covered once we tile the patio floor.

John wants to put a doggie door in the screen door, but I think it would end up being a mosquito door. Plus, Biska already has a doggie door in and out of the house via our bedroom. She doesn’t need to be going in and out of the screened porch on every whim. She doesn’t need to be in the screened porch area at all. If we’re out there and we want her to join us, we can always let her in ourselves.

Meanwhile, on the inside of the house, we continue to be happy with the quality of the work itself, unhappy with the unnecessary mess, and disappointed with how long it’s taking. Luckily, the kitchen is starting to look somewhat less scary.

Unfortunately the cabinet company shipped two cabinets the wrong size, so we are waiting for replacement cabinets to arrive before our contractor can install them. Here you can see a corner base cabinet isn’t long enough:

It wasn’t my contractor’s mistake or my kitchen designer’s mistake. It was a factory mistake. The replacement cabinets should arrive soon. It’s always something.

I had a friend who wanted to come in early November – oops, we’re not going to be ready after all. Callan and Chirstina wanted to come at Thanksgiving, but I don’t think we’ll be ready for that either. Maybe Christmas? We’re definitely not ready for guests yet. Here’s the guest room, complete with its own toilet. Oh wait. I guess that one’s not usable, lol.

It’s a trip trying to figure out what is and is not useable. For example, the remodel of the master bathroom hasn’t started yet, and the original sinks are still in place and should be working. But for some reason they have been disconnected and aren’t usable. You would never know just from looking at them.

Yeah, that is one ugly set of sinks. At first we were thinking we could get away with just changing out that vanity and removing a similar one on the other side, but it’s looking more and more like we’re going to end up gutting the whole master bathroom. It’s very small and an extremely poor use of space. It will always be small, but we want to make it more useable, and able to accommodate a wheelchair.

Last time we went to Tucson the house was so torn up and unusable that we parked the van in the street in front of our house and lived 100% out of our van, including sleeping in the van at night. This time we were able to put together our bed in the master bedroom, utilize the pool bathroom, and use the new screened porch for our kitchen-dining and hang out space. Here’s our temporary kitchen on the back porch:

The cooler from the van is plugged in on the right, and we have a countertop microwave that came out of our old kitchen, which didn’t have a built-in microwave. There’s no sink on the porch, so we have to go out to the pool bathroom for water. It’s currently the only fully working bathroom. At least there is one!

The pool bathroom, by the way, is a bathroom that was added onto the back of the garage and is accessed from the backyard. My contractor calls it a cabana bath, but there isn’t a cabana, just a small addition onto the garage. You cannot access the pool bathroom from inside the house. It’s specifically for using when you’re using the pool. It’s also not heated or air conditioned, but I plan to put a portable unit in there, plus a fan. In the summer it can get so hot and humid you could pass out in there. There’s an idea. Add a bench and we have a sauna.

Ok, enough about the remodel! In other news, while in Tucson I managed to make it to my hairdresser. I don’t go on a very regular basis. I think the last time was sometime in July. I had him cut it pretty short because knowing me, I won’t have it done again for awhile.

I noticed the hair salon had brick accent walls.

I’m seemingly unable to stop thinking about remodel design ideas nowadays, no matter where I am or what I’m doing!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

After my friend Amy’s visit and our fun time at the Balloon Fiesta, John and I took another quick trip back to Tucson to check on the remodel again (this commute is getting to be a big pain in the butt). It had been three weeks since we had gone out in September, and we couldn’t really tell that there had been much progress. Here’s where we were as of October 8.

A little bit more tile had been installed. The tile looks great, although it’s hard to notice past all the stuff that isn’t done yet.

The new sliding doors and the new back door to the garage had already been in for awhile, and are still not trimmed yet.

This next picture is the sliding glass door from the main bedroom suite out to the backyard. We’re going to try to do a minimal trim around it rather than slapping big clunky 1×4’s all around the edges. But obviously that orange filler foam is going to need to be covered up. (This photo is from standing outside looking in; the pool is just reflecting in the glass.)

Look – an incorporated doggie door in the lower corner! It looks small, but our only choices were small or huge. Biska is full grown at 25 pounds, so as long as we don’t go and adopt a big dog, we’re good.

The next photo is the new sliding glass door from the back porch to the family/dining area. We got a 8″ wide slider, which is significantly larger than the one it is replacing. We were able to enlarge the opening fairly easily because this is one of the few exterior walls that’s not adobe brick. It’s not brick because it was originally an Arizona room with no back wall. Then when it was enclosed at some point, they just used drywall and wood siding. That made it easier for us to expand the opening. Eventually we plan to stucco the back wall, which will look better with the brick walls than the siding does. I assume stucco would be cheaper than bricking it, although bricking it is an option. My contractor thinks we can still get that burnt adobe brick, even though it’s not usually used anymore. It would be nice if we could get it in 3″ thick rather than 6″, because we would want to retain the stick framing in order to add insulation. Our 6″ thick brick adobe walls have no insulation because there is no hollow wall space to put it into.

I don’t know what to call this room that goes out onto the back patio. We’ve taken to calling it the Arizona room because that’s what it was originally, before this back wall was installed. The previous owners had their refrigerator here (because there was no place for it in the kitchen) and they had a couch pushed awkwardly across half the entryway.

When we moved in, at first it we made it John’s office because it was his favorite room in the house. He loved the interior brick walls, unpainted beam ceilings, and he liked working in the main part of the house near the patio. But when he’s having conference calls all day, I feel inhibited about clattering away in the kitchen. That’s when we decided to make it a dining room. It would make an excellent dining room, but I’d also really like to have a family room near the kitchen. If it were just John and I, we don’t really need both a family room and a living room. But I have some non-dog-friendly (and non-kid-friendly) furniture, artwork, house plants, and my handpan that I would like to keep in the living room, that I can close off with French doors.

I’d like to have a more casual, kid and dog friendly space with a TV near the kitchen/dining area. My husband needs TV time with the dog! (Since the poor guy can rarely get me sat down to watch TV with him.) That means a dog-friendly couch. Plus my little nieces need a peanut-butter-friendly couch in front of a TV! (Right, Emily?)

So now we’ve been talking about making the Arizona room into a family room, which means I would not have a separate dining room. There’s room to put the dining table in the open part of the kitchen, close to where we had it originally, which would mean I wouldn’t also have a breakfast nook. I don’t actually need a dining room and a breakfast nook. We really just need one table. Although I have a second dining table that I’d like to find a place for, somewhere. Tables are always so handy – but this house is not large.

Meanwhile, the new cabinets had been moved in from the garage and unpacked, but not installed.

We continue to be very pleased with the color of the new cabinets up against the new floor tile. They are soft, warm, earthy colors without just being beige, beige, and more beige. Beige has become dated, but the cool grays, blacks & whites that everyone else is installing right now doesn’t match our casual southwest, rustic, Mexican, and handmade furniture and artwork. With these earth tones I think our southwest style decor will match the house, without having to resort to splashing bright primary colors on the walls or something over-the-top like that.

It’s a challenge trying to remodel in a style that’s not popular – it’s hard to find materials – there’s just not a lot of choices. The primary style right now is a minimalistic gray-tone, simple, cool and sparse. John hates that style – it’s not warm and homey. And I don’t want to have to replace all our New Mexico style furniture and artwork!

It’s coming together. And best of all, the new window is in! I love the new window! It’s expensive and difficult to put new windows in adobe brick due to support issues. But we had one spot where a new window would be easy – this nicho on the outside of the house.

Part of me was reluctant to remove a traditional and authentic detail. This nicho with an electric outlet was built to hold a religious statue that lights up at night. I’m personally all in favor of cultural appropriation, but we didn’t want a lighted figurine of a Catholic saint in our front yard. I realized that the existing brickwork would make installing a much-needed living room window a cinch.

Here’s the living room as our contractor was preparing to cut out the window:

And here’s the new window!

It faces east and will get the morning light. The palm tree shades it and provides privacy from the street. We are on a corner, so we have two street sides. We intend to continue to add landscaping for increased privacy, because we like to leave the blinds open during the day, and we have a lot of people walking by on their way to the bike path that’s nearby.

I don’t think I’ll put a blind on this window for daily use, but I have a few artsy ideas for in case we do want to occasionally block it when we’re away. Or if we’re using the living room to accommodate extra guests during the holidays.

These photos are from when we were out there a week ago. We continue to be discouraged by the slow progress even though we are happy with the quality of what’s been done so far. We decided we should go out more regularly to keep a better eye on things, even though it’s a big trip. We’re going to go again this coming weekend, so I should have updated photos next week. Hopefully there will be more progress to report. I am getting excited about moving back to Tucson and trying not to be impatient!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism