When I started looking at condos again in September, we had no idea how quickly I would find a place I liked. It would have been amazing if I had found a place when my parents were in town, but I also knew that was going to be very unlikely. Then, I started to hope that maybe the timing of finding a place would be when my parents were going to be in Santa Barbara for our early Thanksgiving. What ended up happening was finding a place before my parents were here this month, but I think it worked out better. Because the condo is officially ours now, my parents were able to visit me after the early Thanksgiving so we could focus on the work we want to do before I move in.
Technically, I could move into the condo in the condition it is in now. Not everything is working perfectly, but I could do quick fixes to make them work. And some work could have waited until after I was living in there. But it’s easier to do the work before I move in, so that’s what we decided to do. There aren’t really any structural changes we want to make, but we want to fix up things that are outdated or broken and make the condo really my style. Fortunately, the ideas my mom and I had were not too different, so deciding what projects we wanted to do wasn’t too hard. But that was the easy part.
So for the past few days, my parents have been in LA helping me plan out fixing up the condo. They have been doing most of the work because I have had to be working while they were here. So they interviewed contractors and discussed bids, which was better for them to do since I’ve never done this before. They also took a look at a few things that we might be able to fix ourselves and what little projects we might want to add or remove from the plan.
They also made some decisions on a few things like if we should try to fix up something already in the condo or if we should remove the broken thing and put something new in. We are mindful of a budget, but it would be easier to do this all at one time and not have to wait until later and do another big project. And we don’t want to do something that might break in a few years so we want to find a good balance of low price but good quality. Again, I’m glad my parents are helping me with this because I don’t know what to look for or even what prices seem reasonable.
Since I was working most of the time they were visiting, I only saw them in the evening after work. But I did take one day off work so we could do a lot of design planning. We went to multiple stores to try to see what styles I was interested in and to pick out a lot of materials we would be using. The main materials we needed to find were for the kitchen for the counter and backsplash. I had an idea of what I wanted, but I also hadn’t looked at counters and tile together and I knew that would be important. I originally picked out a tile I loved for the backsplash, but it was 4 times the price of almost any other tile. So that had to be replaced. But I think I found the perfect combination of counter and tile for my kitchen.
I also had to find tile for the bathroom and there were so many ideas of what we could do. I think my mom and I decided on something a bit more unique with a textured tile for the walls so it has a bit of character. But for a lot of what we are looking at, we are just trying to keep things clean and somewhat neutral. I can add a lot when I move in with art and my furniture. To me, moving somewhere that is fresh and new will feel amazing, so I don’t think I am too worried about things like what style handles are on a cabinet. Most of the things I ended up liking as we went from store to store were the most basic and generic models. Fortunately, that meant they also tended to be on the lower price side. But we are still shopping around since I do have time before I need to have everything figured out.
My parents might not be back in LA until after the condo is done. That depends on how long things take to finish and if I need more help. But we did make a lot of progress on this project and I’m excited to start getting things moving! The point of my parents visiting me this time was to get work done and not to have as much social time, and I think we accomplished just that!
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