Tag Archives: condo

Still Making Small Upgrades (or Almost Fully Unpacked A Year Later)

Posted on September 20, 2023 | Comments Off on Still Making Small Upgrades (or Almost Fully Unpacked A Year Later)

When I moved into my condo, I tried to unpack as much as possible as quickly as possible so I could feel settled in my new space. But as I unpacked, I realized that some things I thought would work in my new space didn’t seem to fit the way I wanted them to. It was a crazy adjustment to move into a space that was about 3 times the size of my old home. But I have tried to make things work as much as I could since I didn’t want to buy a ton of new things.

But there were some things that just wouldn’t work no matter how I tried to get them set up. I had to get a new couch because my old one looked so wrong in my living room. I got a new tv because it was hard for me to see the small tv clearly from the distance between my couch and tv (which was probably about 4 times further away than my old home). But that also allowed me to use my old tv stand in my office since I hadn’t found new office furniture that I liked. Things have been moving around in my place and I’ve tried to figure out new ways to use things so I didn’t have to sell or donate a lot, but it hasn’t been easy and it’s been a slow process.

But over the past week, I’ve been able to make a few small changes that seem to have made a big impact on my home. One was a purchase and the other was unpacking things a bit more.

In my living room, I have a lot of empty space. I do like a bit of a minimalistic style, but not quite as bare as things have been. I have slowly been adding things in and trying to figure out what else I could possibly want, but it’s been hard to decide on anything. I would like to maybe add more artwork, but I don’t have anything in mind so I just keep looking around to see if anything inspires me. But one space that has been bugging me is the empty space between my couch and sliding glass door. It’s not really a functional space to use, but I also didn’t want my couch to be off-center to fill it in. So I just kept looking for things that might fit in there like a light or high-sitting end table.

And one day, in my random online searches I happened to find a nice floor lamp that would fit the space and was on sale! And this had glass trays on it that could serve almost like an end table. Because my couch is so tall, only one of the trays would be visible from the couch, but that worked for me. So I ordered it and it arrived only a few days later.

To build the light, I won’t go into the frustration I experienced. I will say that the person who designed it really didn’t think the process through and I had to keep balancing pieces of glass on my feet while I built the other sections. But when it was done and in the space I wanted it to be, I felt like it was the perfect addition!

It’s a really big lampshade, but that’s exactly what I needed to go there. And if I ever want to have light in my living room but not the lights in my ceiling, now I have another option.

After getting the light and putting it together, I was inspired to do some more organizing. I have been putting off working on my office and organizing more because I was hoping I would get a new desk soon. But I have been struggling to find something that fits what I want and need, so I have no idea if I’ll get a new desk any time soon. But I wanted to finally get out the last few things that have been in boxes waiting for my new office furniture so I could finally feel like all my things were out. There are a few things that will have to wait until I figure out my new office setup because I don’t want to hang things on the walls if they might need to move, but that was only a handful of items compared to what was still in boxes.

The first task was going through the boxes and seeing what I actually wanted to keep. And of course, there were things that I realized that if I hadn’t needed them in over a year, I could get rid of them or donate them. These were mainly random things that I had held onto from my old home. For example, I had some old IDs that I had on a corkboard in my old office area, but I have no need to keep them now. I also found some things that went with items that I had previously gotten rid of, such as the extra shelves for my old makeup stand which I think I got rid of almost a year ago. But I forgot that I put those extra pieces in a box and closed them up when I moved.

I decided to use my old tv stand as a combination of a bookcase and a display case. I don’t have a lot of physical books anymore, but I still have some of my favorites that made the move with me. I would like to have more actual books eventually, but I want to work on building an interesting library instead of the random paperbacks that I used to have. Most of the fiction that I read now is on my Kindle, so I don’t buy a lot of books. But there are some collections of classics that I’d love to have in the future. But for now, I just wanted to get the books I had in boxes out and fill in the space in my office that has felt so blank.

This is still a work in progress. I actually want to switch where things are in my office so this would go under the window and my desk would go on this wall, but I can’t move my current desk because it’s starting to crack. So moving things around will have to wait until I finally get a new desk. But at least for now, I have things out and on display and I can feel like my belongings are not just in boxes.

I do still have a few things in an open box that I haven’t decided what to do with or can’t put up just yet, but considering that I got things down from being in 2 boxes and a storage tub, this is a huge improvement.

I know that even in my old place, I was still organizing and redoing things all the time, even after living there for over a decade. And I’m sure I’ll be always redoing things in my current place too. But at least things are finally unpacked and I can feel like I have moved in just a little bit more.

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Default Thumbnail1 Year Of Living In My Condo (or I Do Feel Settled In) Default ThumbnailMaking My House Look Fancy (or Doing Some Upgrades For The New Year) Default ThumbnailNot Fully Able To Unpack (or I Think The Move Prepared Me For This) Default ThumbnailI Really Did Give Myself An Easy Monthly Challenge (or This Month Will Possibly Be Easy As Well) Default ThumbnailRecognizing Some Weird Habits (or Continuing To Work On Being Used To My New Space) Default ThumbnailI Feel Like I’m Always Buying Stuff (or Some Small And Big Upgrades)

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Still Learning Things About My Place (or Not The Morning I Expected)

Posted on March 17, 2023 | 1 comment

I’ve lived in my condo for almost a year now, and I do feel pretty settled in at this point. There are still things that need to be purchased, but I don’t feel like I’m in flux anymore. I am looking forward to buying the last few things I want to get so I can finally feel like all my belongings are where they should go, but that’s a much different feeling than when I had a lot of things still in boxes and I didn’t feel like I had fully moved in. There were things I needed to learn or figure out that are different about being at the condo versus my old place. Some of these are just technicalities about living in a place I own compared to a place I rent and some are just because I have very different appliances and things in my home so I have things that feel much fancier. But learning all these new things has been fun since I have loved being in a place that works so much better for me.

But this week, I had a learning experience that wasn’t really that fun. On the mornings that I go to work out, I have a routine that I follow each morning. I get up and get ready for my workout. I’m out of my front door by 6am. I usually arrive at Orangetheory around 6:10. And that gives me about 10 minutes before class starts. I’m there earlier than I need to be, but I like having a little extra time in case there is weird traffic that early or if I have to take a detour due to a street closure. I don’t have a lot of time to get ready, but I also don’t really need much time since I know where my workout clothes are to get dressed and I don’t do anything other than get ready before I leave.

On Wednesday, I did my routine as usual and got in my car to leave. There is a gate for the parking garage, and normally as you are leaving the gate will automatically open. But this time, the gate didn’t open. I backed my car up and drove up again just in case I wasn’t hitting the sensor correctly, but that didn’t work either. I also tried my gate remote and the gate still didn’t move. I got out of my car to see if I could figure something out, and I had no clue what was wrong.

I know that for safety, garages and gates have emergency releases so you can get out if there is a fire or earthquake. But I couldn’t find one for the gate. I searched around the mechanism, but I had no clue where it might be. I also tried to remove the cover for the chain for the gate, or at least I thought I did that, and I couldn’t lift it up. I tried texting a neighbor but I knew that since it was so early, he might still be asleep. I also tried texting friends who sometimes work out at the same time to see if anyone could come to pick me up. But once it was closer to 6:15, I knew there was no way I could make it to my workout and I called to let the staff know. They felt bad for me and said they would hold my spot until 5 minutes after the start of class in case I could get out of the garage. But I knew that wouldn’t happen.

I ended up just going back to my place and doing other things before I needed to work, but I was annoyed that I missed my workout. And I was concerned because I realized that if there was an emergency, I wouldn’t be able to get my car out unless I figured out where the emergency release was. So when I reached out to the HOA management company about the broken gate, I added a note about not knowing where the release was. The gate was fixed a few hours later and the HOA emailed all of us updating us and also explaining where the release was. I was actually so close to figuring it out. I thought there was a plastic lid that I needed to lift up, but I just had to lift the entire plastic cover off and I would have seen it. It was a stupid mistake on my part, but at least I know where it is now in case I need to use it in the future.

I talked to my dad after this all happened and I joked about how I was shocked we didn’t go over this when I moved in since he is always on top of making sure I know all the safety things about the place I’m living in. We went over so many things about safety, but somehow we just missed this one. At least this wasn’t an emergency and I needed to get out and it was just an inconvenience. And I’m pretty sure I’m set for all other emergency things I need to know about such as where different fire extinguishers are and stuff like that.

I know I’ll continue to learn things about my condo and the building as I live here, but hopefully they won’t be as eventful as this one was or won’t prevent me from doing something that is on my schedule. And if it took me missing one workout in order to learn an important safety thing I should have known about a year ago, I guess that’s what I needed to do.

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Getting Some Custom Artwork (or Finishing Up More Projects At My Place)

Posted on February 23, 2023 | Comments Off on Getting Some Custom Artwork (or Finishing Up More Projects At My Place)

After my parents were in Santa Barbara, they came to LA for a few days. Sometimes when they come to LA, they are here longer, but this time we had only a few things we wanted to accomplish and we had to work around my work schedule. But we lucked out and the Monday they were here happened to be a holiday, so I had the day off work. So we were able to do a lot in a short amount of time.

Every time my parents are visiting me, I always have a list of projects that I need help on. This has happened at every place I’ve lived, but I think the projects have become bigger now that I own a place. But this time, most of the projects I had ahead of time were pretty small things. I had worked on building a tv stand, but couldn’t get a few of the steps done so I needed my dad’s help to finish it. I also had built a shelving unit for my bathroom and needed help hanging it up and making sure it was secure. And now that I know where most of my furniture is going to be, we worked on making a few things a bit more secure for earthquake safety.

But the biggest project we had to work on was something that I didn’t have until my parents got here. I have a very long wall in my living room behind my couch and I looked online for a few months to find the perfect thing to put there. I found something I liked, but it was too expensive. But I showed it to my dad since it was made of wood and I knew he was learning woodworking. He showed it to his neighbor, who is his woodworking teacher, and they decided that it wouldn’t be the easiest project but it was doable. So my dad was going to make something similar to what I saw online, but more customized for my house.

I had seen progress pictures over the past 6 months of the different stages of the artwork in process. And when I was in Portland we worked on the color design since they needed to stain the wood. The one that I saw online was a single piece, but because of the size of the wall, we knew doing a triptych would probably look cooler. And once the artwork was here and we were able to hang it up, I know that was the right choice.

It doesn’t cover the entire length of the wall, so I might add some photos or something to the sides to make it more of a gallery wall. But it is substantial and really a statement piece. The colors are similar to what I have in my living room, but also a bit bolder so it adds a nice touch. A lot of the things I own are more neutrals and I knew I needed some color. The teal in the artwork really stands out in a great way.

I don’t know if the photos really show off how cool this piece is, but you can see a lot of the texture from this close-up photo.

Most of the visit with my parents was focused on doing all these projects, and I think it was worth it to do that. My place still isn’t fully decorated or complete, but it’s feeling more like it’s not something still being worked on. And the things I don’t have yet aren’t things I urgently need so I’m ok with waiting a bit longer to buy them. I just have wanted to make my place feel like home and every time I get a few new things or work on projects like this, it feels more like it’s mine. I also think the renovation helped it feel like that right away since I designed a lot, but the furniture and artwork helped so much.

I’m glad we were able to get so much done on the day I had off of work since the next day I was busy pretty much until dinnertime. But my parents came over after I was done with work and we went out to dinner. It might have been faster than most of their visits here, but we had some very specific things we wanted to accomplish and we were able to get them done. And even though I have a few other little projects to still work on, those are things that I either need to hire someone to do because we can’t do them or they are very small that I can do at a later date.

I’m not sure when my parents will be in LA next. Possibly at some point this summer or maybe in the fall. But I’ll see them again in a little over a month in Santa Barbara and I’m hoping that maybe I can finally make it back to Tahoe this summer! But whenever they come back to the condo, I’m sure I’ll have more projects on my list for us to work on and we’ll try to be as efficient as we were this time.

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Reorganizing My Space (or Enjoying The Possibilities I Have)

Posted on February 17, 2023 | Comments Off on Reorganizing My Space (or Enjoying The Possibilities I Have)

When I was living at my old place, I felt like I didn’t change my furniture that often because most of the things I owned fit a very specific space and I couldn’t imagine anything else fitting there. The only real changes I can remember making were getting a new couch and tv stand. But for both of those things, I was replacing something from my place before that didn’t really fit into the tiny house I was living in at that point. But when I was moving out of that place and into my condo, I did end up getting rid of quite a few things, and many of them I had for over a decade.

I’ve slowly been upgrading things in my current place. Some of the new things I got were things I had when I moved, like my new bed. Others were things that took a bit of time to find, like my couch. And there are also some things that I am saving up for and will eventually get but I’m not in a rush to buy them. I want to make sure that I get the right things and not waste my money, so it’s taken time to find the things I want.

One of my more recent upgrades was to get a new tv and tv stand. I first set up my new tv on my old tv stand since that was the easier project. And over this past weekend, my friend Pamela came over to help me build the tv stand. I was excited to build it since the box was huge and heavy and it was taking up a lot of room in my entryway. The project ended up being harder than expected and there were a few steps that we just couldn’t figure out how to make work. So my dad is going to help me when my parents are here soon. But at least I got most of it built and it’s looking pretty good so far. The cables are a mess for now since I’m waiting until it’s done being built before organizing it, but it’s so much better than my old setup.

But after building it, I had to find a place to put my old tv stand while I work on selling it. I also need to sell my old tv but that is easier to store away for now. I had a few options for where I can put stuff, but I ended up putting the old tv stand in my office for now since the wall where I will eventually have a bookcase murphy bed is still empty. And since I put that in that room a few days ago, it’s made me wonder if I should keep it there for a while since I won’t be getting the murphy bed any time soon. I probably won’t do that since I want to sell things while I can, but it’s interesting to plan for different options that I hadn’t considered before. I’m not used to being able to have multiple options for furniture and it’s kind of fun to imagine what I can do with different things.

I’ve been so used to having to be set into a specific layout and now I feel like my mind has been opened a bit more to what I can pick with the other things I want to buy. I have been looking for new nightstands and a dresser for my room, but I’ve been looking at a lot of the same things over and over again. And now I’m expanding my search a bit more and have had some more interesting and creative ideas of what I could do. Since I don’t need to buy new things immediately and can just keep using what I have for now, I have the freedom to consider more options and I think my search might take a bit longer now that I have started looking at some different possibilities for how I can reorganize my room with new things.

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More Proof Of My Strength (or I Love Seeing Results Of My Workouts In Real Life)

Posted on February 3, 2023 | 1 comment

I know that I do the best I can in my workouts each week. Sometimes that means I’m working harder and sometimes that means I’m going a bit easier. But I always make my best effort and try because I do want to see results. Seeing results hasn’t been the easiest thing for me and that can be very frustrating. I feel like for the work that I do, I should be seeing more changes in my body. And I know that there are probably some changes that are happening that I can’t see, but I wish that there were some visible results from time to time to encourage me to keep going.

I’ve had a few moments since starting at Orangetheory that I have seen my strength and it’s surprised me. I know that I’m strong, but when 20-pound weights seem heavy in a workout it’s crazy to think that I can lift several times that if I’m doing something in my regular life. And maybe the real-world experiences have to do with being stubborn and not just my strength. And I had an example of that this week.

I have been looking for a new tv stand pretty much since I moved into my condo. When I saw how tiny my current one looked, I knew I needed to upgrade. But I didn’t want to just spend my money on anything so I took my time looking for the right one. It was nice to not need to rush to buy something, but I also realized after looking at them for a while that I needed to make a choice because any of the ones I was looking at could work. So I picked one that felt the most unique and visually interesting and had it shipped to my house.

At my old place, deliveries were always right in front of my front door. At my current place, sometimes they bring things right to my door and sometimes they are left by the mailboxes. Our mailboxes aren’t that far from my door, I just have to go across the courtyard. And it’s never really been an issue since I haven’t ordered anything that was too heavy before. But that was until my new tv stand arrived.

I knew that I ordered something big because I was very specific in my search for the right one and I knew I needed something much bigger than what I had. But I guess I didn’t think about it too much until the box was sitting by the mailboxes and it was taller than me. And not only was it a huge box, but it also weighed over 120 pounds (at least according to the side of the box). I went to my neighbor’s door to see if maybe they could help me, but they weren’t available. And I didn’t want to leave it by the mailboxes since it could possibly be in someone’s way. So I had to figure out how to get it across the courtyard to my place.

It took a few minutes for me to safely lay the box down so it was on the side and then I worked on pushing it in small bursts. It was like how people in workouts push those weighted sleds, but it was a very awkward thing to move since it was a skinny box and I had to navigate multiple turns. Nobody was in the courtyard while I was doing this, so I didn’t have a chance to ask anyone for help. But also nobody saw how long this took me to accomplish. It felt like a second workout for the day since I had already worked out that morning. But after some time, I finally got the huge box inside my house and I could relax.

I’ll work on building the tv stand soon, but since I can open the box and take out what I need I don’t need to worry about pushing the heavy box again. But knowing that I was able to do that on my own when I thought I would need help just proved to me how strong I really am. I don’t think this means I should lift heavier weights all the time since this was a very different thing from what I do in my workouts. But it was nice to see how strong I’ve gotten and how there are results in my body even if I can’t see them when I look in the mirror.

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Recognizing Some Weird Habits (or Continuing To Work On Being Used To My New Space)

Posted on January 31, 2023 | Comments Off on Recognizing Some Weird Habits (or Continuing To Work On Being Used To My New Space)

I’ve been living in my condo for just over 9 months now, and I feel like I’m still getting used to it. I was worried about the move being weird, especially since I was staying in the same neighborhood. I joked that I would probably accidentally pull into the wrong driveway at least once because I had been going into that driveway for 12 years. I’m still shocked that I haven’t made that mistake yet, and even before I was fully moved out, my old place just didn’t feel like home anymore. Maybe I’ll make that mistake someday, but at least for now, it hasn’t happened.

But I’ve been noticing other odd habits that I think have carried over from living at my old place. I had such a routine being in that home for over a decade and so many of them were specific to that space. But because they had become routine to me, I guess I carried them into my new home and it took me until now to realize what I was doing.

A lot of these old habits have to do with how I put things away or store things. I’m so used to having very little space and even less storage space. I found a way to make a 400-square-foot home not feel tiny and cramped, but I think a lot of that was luck and how I put things away when I brought them into my home. I had only so many places I could put things like my purse or keys and if they weren’t in that location they made my place feel messy or I couldn’t find what I needed when I needed them.

Now that I’m in a home that’s almost 3 times the size, I’m still doing some things the way I did when I had less space. I’m trying to find places to store things that feel a bit more random and weird. I don’t need to store things behind others in closets or squish things into drawers anymore. It took me until this past weekend to realize I had the entire top of the closet in my guest room/office to store things and I finally put some things away in there. I’m used to putting things away in specific areas, but they aren’t always the best places now that I have more options. I went through this a lot with what I stored in my bathroom compared to before, but I guess it never really connected that I needed to do this for other areas of my home.

I am still getting some furniture that I know I need to store items, but I’m hopefully getting my new tv stand in the next few weeks so that will give me a bit more storage space in my living room. And I’ll probably keep my old tv stand in my office for a little while and use that for storage until I get the library bed I’ll be putting in there eventually. I still have things in boxes that I’d like to put away when I can, even if the place I put them isn’t going to be where they stay for a long time. But I’m realizing that it’s not a big deal for me to have to rearrange or reorganize things as I continue to get more furniture or more set up in my home. And as I do that, I hopefully will find more of these storage habits I have held on to and see how I can do things better in my current place.

I know that it’s not easy to break habits I have had for almost 25% of my life. I need to remember how much space I have now and how I can put things where I want to and not just where it has to go because that’s the only place they can fit. And I’m sure I’ll create some other odd habits with storage in this place too and if I move in the future I’ll have to break those. But for now, I just want to really allow myself to take advantage of how much space I have and feel like I can use it the way that seems right to me now and now just how I am used to doing things.

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Making Sure All The Details Are Right (or Maybe This Is Actually The End)

Posted on January 20, 2023 | Comments Off on Making Sure All The Details Are Right (or Maybe This Is Actually The End)

The renovation of my condo has been a much longer process than I think anyone imagined. There were things that were out of our control that added to the timeline and there were things that needed to be adjusted or corrected that made things take longer. I’ve never really been directly involved in a renovation before, so I didn’t know what to expect going into this. But I know that things haven’t been as easy as they could have been. It’s been frustrating, especially when I was waiting for most of the work to be done so I could finally move in. I think the last 8 months since I lived here were easier since I wasn’t also dealing with the stress of a bad landlord and trying to get ready to move.

There were a few small things that were fixed in the fall and I was hoping at that time that would be the end of the work. But unfortunately, there were more issues that came up after that. Everything was pretty minor and didn’t necessarily affect my daily living, but they needed to be fixed. If this was a rental and it was a handyman fixing things, I wouldn’t be as picky. But since this is my home and we hired them to do specific work, I want everything to be right. For example, I found some cracks in the grout in my kitchen that I wanted to be fixed. This wasn’t going to cause any issues in my kitchen or become a bigger problem down the line, but I still wanted there to be no cracks in the grout.

Because of scheduling, the holidays, and other stuff happening; the contractor wasn’t able to get to my place until this past week. There were only a handful of things to fix, and they were all connected to tile work and things like grout and caulking. I was very specific with them about what needed to be fixed and how I wanted it to be completed (thanks to my parents who told me what needed to be done), and I know I was probably a little harsh and maybe rude when talking to them. But this has been a year-long process and I felt like things had taken long enough and I was ready for it to be done.

I think because there have been so many little fixes, they had a supervisor here as well to make sure that my concerns were being understood and addressed and they also explained some of the repairs that were being done a little differently than what I expected. I know I don’t know a lot about construction, but I still want to make sure that I understand why certain materials are being used and not others. For example, to fix some cracked grout, they didn’t use normal grout but something that was more like a grout and caulk hybrid so it would allow for movement that might happen from the unit above mine and would hopefully prevent any other cracks in the future. I appreciate that they took the time to go over those things with me so I felt a bit better about everything going on.

As far as I can tell, I think the work is finally done. We haven’t signed off on it yet because my parents want to see everything in person. They will be here in about a month, so they will go over everything in super detail to make sure there isn’t something missing or incomplete. But I have high hopes that maybe the work is finally done and I can feel like I’ve gotten past this phase of my new home. If it’s not, I guess there will be a bit more work to do before I can finally feel like that.

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Default ThumbnailOne More Step Closer To Being Done (or I Can Finally Add In More Furniture) Default ThumbnailA Busy Family Visit (or Making Some Choices For My New Home) Default ThumbnailNow I Think This Is The End Of The Renovation (or I Keep Thinking I’m At The Finish Line) Default ThumbnailJust A Bit More To The Renovation (or Still Working On Standing Up For Myself) Default ThumbnailOne Step Closer To Moving (or My First HOA Meeting) Default ThumbnailNow Things Are Feeling Real (or So Far, We Are Ahead Of Schedule)

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Just A Bit More To The Renovation (or Still Working On Standing Up For Myself)

Posted on November 11, 2022 | Comments Off on Just A Bit More To The Renovation (or Still Working On Standing Up For Myself)

It feels like the renovation of my condo has been going on forever. And that’s probably because the process started about a year ago. It was just under a year ago that we started to interview contractors to do the work. The actual work didn’t start until the end of January, but that’s still almost a year. Most of the work only took 3 months, and since then it’s just been a bunch of random little things that still had to be completed.

I had been warned by my parents and everyone I know who has done a renovation that it will always take much longer than expected. But I think this is even longer than what I had been warned about. Some of the delays have been because of things needing to be worked on that had to be planned out. For example, when my floors had to be redone, they had to work on ordering enough new floors for me and that took time to come in. And once the new floors arrived, they had to work around my schedule and I had to make sure I didn’t have any meetings the day that they were working. I think they also wanted to do some of the things on the punchup list on the same day to not have to be here while I work more than necessary.

And because of the timing of other things in my life, there was a bit of time between the floors being redone and when my parents would be able to be in LA again. And my parents wanted to inspect things before we signed off on all the work being completed, which I totally understood. I think I’m so used to living in rentals that had a lot of little flaws, so the small mistakes aren’t things I noticed. For example, my parents noticed that two of my kitchen cabinets weren’t straight and the gap between them was crooked. I don’t know if I ever would have seen that if it wasn’t pointed out to me. But once they did point it out, I always noticed it. So after they went through the condo again, we created another punchup list to be completed before we signed off.

The work was supposed to be done this week, but it ended up only partially being done. Some of the work is related to the tile in my kitchen and bathroom, and I guess their tile person wasn’t available or there was a miscommunication. But there were other things that could have been done, and most were completed except for one.

There is a fastener for my dryer vent that isn’t secure, so that needs to be fixed. It should be a very simple fix, but they have to move my washer and dryer in order to do it. And because I don’t want my floors to be damaged, I knew I would have to make sure that they protected my floors before they did that work. I noticed when the worker was about to start that there was nothing on my floors. I asked him what he was going to do to protect my floors since they are very aware of my floors having to be redone before. He said he didn’t have anything, and I told him that he couldn’t do that repair today unless he protected the floors first. Since he had nothing with him, that wasn’t completed and they will need to return another time.

I’m so used to not making trouble and just trying to go with the flow, but I was glad that I stood up for myself. I know that asking them to wait until they could protect the floors wasn’t the biggest ask, but it was important for me to do it. I’m used to being in a rental where I didn’t feel pride or ownership over things like floors, but now these are mine and I have every right to ask for people working on my place to keep them nice. It’s similar to how I’m getting used to asking people to take off their shoes in my house since I don’t like shoes to be worn inside (mainly to keep things clean). It’s not easy to ask someone to do something that might inconvenience them a bit, but I have every right to do that since this is my home.

I’ve tried to be better about standing up for myself and asking for what I want in different aspects of my life, and this was just another one. And yes, this means that the fixes that need to be done will be delayed again, but that’s not something I feel at fault for. It would have been delayed anyway since the tile person was not there. But even if everything else had been done, knowing that I won’t need to worry about my floor being scratched up will be worth whatever delay that might happen.

And eventually, all of these last little things will be done and the renovation will finally be done. But it looks like there will still be a bit more to go and I’ll just have to continue to be patient.

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Default ThumbnailNow I Think This Is The End Of The Renovation (or I Keep Thinking I’m At The Finish Line) Default ThumbnailSeeing My New Home Come Together (or This Feels Like We Are Starting The Last Renovation Stage) Default ThumbnailOne More Step Closer To Being Done (or I Can Finally Add In More Furniture) Default ThumbnailInto The Next Stage Of The Renovation (or Seeing Things Come Back Into My Place) Default ThumbnailOne More Design Choice (or I’m Ready To Be Done With The Renovation) Default ThumbnailAnother Busy Condo Weekend (or A Working Visit For My Parents)

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1 Year Of Being A Homeowner (or It’s Been A Crazy First Year)

Posted on November 3, 2022 | Comments Off on 1 Year Of Being A Homeowner (or It’s Been A Crazy First Year)

Exactly one year ago, we closed on the sale of my condo. In some ways, it feels like it was just the other day and in other ways, it feels like it’s been longer than a year. I think the fact that I looked at so many condos makes the timeline a bit muddy in my mind. But I know that only looking for a month last year is a lot quicker than most people experience. And I know several people who didn’t get the first or second place they put an offer in on. So to only have to put an offer in on one place was very lucky and I’m still so grateful that this is my home.

Even though I have been a homeowner for a year now, I consider this to be my home for only about 6 months since I didn’t move in here until April this year. I wasn’t expecting to have to stay in my rental as long as I did, but the renovation took longer due to multiple reasons and I knew I didn’t want to live through a renovation when I could be living in a different location. It did make things a bit more expensive for me since I was paying for rent during that overlap plus I had bills at both homes, but it was worth it to me to have peace in my home and not construction noise all day.

Looking back at the photos of the condo from the listing, it doesn’t feel like the same place to me anymore. I was really able to make this my home and fit my style and aesthetic. It’s not finished yet and I still have things I need to get, but it’s much more like my home than my rental or what the condo looked like before the renovation.

Originally, the plan wasn’t to do a huge renovation, but as we got started it made more sense to do everything at once instead of doing some before I moved in and some after I was living here. And we made a few significant changes such as making the passthrough between the kitchen and living room much bigger so it felt like the two rooms were open to each other. That idea was something my parents heard when they were interviewing contractors, and I think that change made such a difference in how the space feels. We also had to get new kitchen cabinets when the original plan was to just refinish the ones that were in there because the original ones were damaged and wouldn’t be able to support me putting dishes in them without risking having them fall off the walls. So obviously that had to be fixed. I don’t think we necessarily went overboard with the renovation, but we did do a lot as we discovered things that needed to be done. And at least now anything else I want to do (which is only my closet and my bathroom) are things that can wait for a few years since the changes are about the appearance and not the function.

I haven’t had to change too much in my life since moving because I’m only a few blocks away from my rental. My life still has the same routines and I still go to the same places I went to before, like the same grocery stores. But I think the quality of my life has improved a lot. Having almost 3 times the space has been a huge and positive change. I didn’t realize how nice it would be to have my office area separate from my living room. I have a kitchen that is really functional and that has appliances that work and don’t make it harder to cook. And I’m very fortunate that my costs haven’t changed too much compared to what I was paying before. Some of my bills are a bit higher, but others are lower. And paying property taxes was a bit of a shock with how much they are, but when you split up the cost over a year, between those and my HOA fees, it’s about the same as I was paying in rent.

But I think the best thing that has happened to me in the past year of being a homeowner is just feeling more settled in my home and really feeling like I have a place that is mine. My rental felt more like my place than any other place I had lived before, but I had no idea how much more I could feel like my place is my home until I moved into the condo. Part of it has to do with the renovation and changes we made to how things look. But there’s just something different knowing that this is my home and my piece of LA. I’m not dependent on a landlord to maintain a space and I don’t have to worry about the rents increasing and pricing me out or having a landlord that wants to tear down the building to modernize things and needing to rush to find a new home (which is what is going to happen to my neighbors at my old place as soon as the landlord can kick people out). I have felt like LA has been my home pretty much as soon as I moved here. Even living in the dorms in college, LA felt like home.

But even though I have felt like LA has been my home for over 20 years, I have spent the past year owning a part of LA and really being able to build a home and not just moving into a space to try to make it feel like mine. And I can’t wait to continue my life in LA in this home and see what the next year and beyond have in store for me!

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Still Learning More About Being A Homeowner (or Observing Another HOA Meeting)

Posted on September 29, 2022 | Comments Off on Still Learning More About Being A Homeowner (or Observing Another HOA Meeting)

I know there is a ton to learn about being a homeowner and I’ve been slowly learning things. I’ve always been pretty handy with little repairs around the place and I used to fix things on my own at my rentals if they were really easy because it was normally simpler for me to do it than to wait for someone to come. But I have had to learn more things now that I don’t have a landlord since I don’t want to pay for someone to do things that I can try to do on my own. For example, I’ve had to learn some basic plumbing things to try to fix a slow drain. I’m also looking at replacing a bathroom faucet since that wasn’t done in the renovation, but that will need to be done by a handyman since that is a bit more involved than what I’ve been figuring out.

But besides the homeowner stuff that I’ve been learning regarding maintenance and repairs, I’m also learning about being in a condo building and having an HOA. I know other people have complained a lot about HOAs and how they micromanage every little thing, but I think I’m pretty lucky with my HOA. I did have to get their approval for the renovation and it wasn’t the quickest process, but it wasn’t too difficult. And I’ve had to get approval to replace my front door lock since that needs to match the existing lock, but I was able to find almost an identical match and got it approved so I can either try to replace it myself or hire someone to do that. We don’t have a lot of amenities here, but the HOA does a good job of maintaining common spaces like the courtyard. And they do the gardening in the little backyard area that I have.

I know there are a lot of things I can learn about how the HOA works, and I have plenty of time to figure things out, but I want to know as much as I can so I can understand how things get done. And the best way for me to do that is to attend the HOA meetings. I’ve only been able to attend a few of them, including the meeting I attended where they discussed my renovation plans so they could be approved. Sometimes the meetings conflict with other meetings, and I just can’t attend. But just like the different union meetings I try to go to, I make every effort I can to attend the HOA meetings.

So when an emergency meeting was called earlier this week, I made sure to make time in my day to be a part of it. I don’t know if any meetings before the pandemic were done in person, but every meeting since I bought my place has been over Zoom so at least it’s usually easy to attend even if I have other things I need to do at the same time. This meeting was an emergency meeting because the HOA board was looking to hire a new HOA management company after ending the contract with the current management company. There were a few different issues with the current management company, some of which I experienced myself. I had delays with getting my renovation approved because of the management company. I also had delays with other responses I had been waiting for from them. I tried to not be frustrated, but I did want to get faster responses so I could get things done and not keep waiting. And it was actually reassuring to hear that others had the same issues as me so I wasn’t odd for being frustrated with the waiting.

I didn’t really say too much in this meeting since I don’t know anything about HOA management companies. But it was interesting hearing about the different options and what exactly the management company does versus the HOA board. And by the end of the meeting, a new management company was agreed upon and we have all been emailed to set things up with them so we can have a smooth transition. Even though it’s only been a day, I’ve already had a good experience because I asked for approval for something I have been waiting on and it was approved within an hour! So I think this is a good sign of things to come!

I’m sure I’ll continue to learn more and more about home ownership and the HOA as time goes on. I’ve almost been a homeowner for a year now, although I’ve only been living here for just under 6 months. I’ve learned a lot so far, but I can’t wait to see what else I will learn about because I know it will only be things that benefit me going forward.

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