I am boring

I realize that I have become one of the most boring people ever. I know that most of you come to my blog to read about cycling or at times skiing. Instead you are stuck hearing about my remodeling projects, my descent into debt and my attempts to furnish an apartment entirely off freebies and craigslist postings. My teammate asked me today if I would be racing the upcoming local crit . . . I admitted that my longest ride was to work and back. I haven't even being skiing and I've only gone out for 3 pitifully short jogs.

My life revolves around being the general contractor on our remodeling projects and trying to furnish the apartment upstairs. On a certain level it sucks as I would like to be out skiing and biking and running. However, on another level it feels good to finally be taking care of all the nagging issues with our wonderful but old house. I love where we live so it is good that we're getting this done. And realistically this is the best time of year to be focused on all this.

For those of you contemplating a remodeling project of any size I will say it has its ups and downs. The financial part is definitely a down. I worry about having a large home equity loan but I reassure myself that now is a good time as rates are low. I also remind myself that frugality is a virtue. It also helps to do tons of improvements to the apartment you rent out so you can justify raising the rent. We hadn't raised the rent in at least 5 years so I suppose it was time. Basically the best thing ever if you're going to remodel is to have an apartment so you have income coming in every month to help pay the bills (and yes I do complain about it every time I have to find new tenants but after I find them I go back to like being a land/slum lord). And in August a cross racer is moving in upstairs which is awesome!

Craigslist finds recently - cool modern area rug, set of dishes that match the ones we already have. I also have a lead on a couple of futons and I think a queen mattress. I'm getting closer to everything I need for the upstairs apartment so it can be fully furnished.

Contractors - They started installing our new gutters this morning but a thunderstorm rolled in and they only got the back of the house done. They can finish in a day though so maybe tomorrow or Wednesday for sure. Too bad we only got the new fascia primed and not painted. Now we're going to have to finish painting with the gutter already in place.