The Official "Say Anything" Thread

[ducpainter]

Tomorrow when the day is longer. I'm going to cook bacon and pour the grease on the dogs dry food. 

It only takes an extra minute

[lethe]

the 2nd one went pretty quick   

felt longer at the time

[triangleforge]

Evening. The weather has been cooperating (No snow) so Joy and I have been getting some painting done. This is a huge improvement over the old peeling paint.

Our next door neighbor's house is that color, with sayings painted on it in lavender - every morning before coffee, I raise the shade on our kitchen window and read the purple admonition  "Did you ever notice that 'what the hell' is always the right decision?'". We bought the house in no small measure just because we wanted to live next door to Johanna & Tom! 

We're sitting here trading text messages with our daughter - which wouldn't be notable except for the fact that she's spending two weeks in Cambodia and is doing it on an iPod. I'm old enough that weirds me out just a little.

Well, that and she wants to bring home a monkey.

[MendoDave]

Well I hope more people in this neighborhood will paint their house bright and cheery.

Don't let her smuggle the monkey back home. It could be trouble. Come to think of it, monkeys are trouble anyway.

[RAT900]

Every thing is so blah colored around here, we decided to shake things up. Make it look like the mission district. Or Havana or something.
The down I live in is largely depressed and unsightly.

Great colors and kudos for the bold move. 

You might be surprised what can happen to a neighborhood when 1 person or family starts putting the effort in

I saw it firsthand with my former tumbledown crack-house in Asheville...it dragged the entire neighborhood down

4 of my neighbors have put serious money into their houses since I started my house resurrection

anyone who "owns" understands property values

[MendoDave]

Great colors and kudos for the bold move. 

You might be surprised what can happen to a neighborhood when 1 person or family starts putting the effort in

I saw it firsthand with my former tumbledown crack-house in Asheville...it dragged the entire neighborhood down

4 of my neighbors have put serious money into their houses since I started my house resurrection

anyone who "owns" understands property values

Yea it does make a difference. I don't really care about the monetary property value, but I do want to improve my neighborhood.
Joy and I lived in two different trailer parks when we were first married. Each time we moved in we found out that if you  make your space look neat and clean,  before you know it the neighbors are doing the same thing.

I don't know what to do about this biker gang up the street but they probably won't be there forever.

[RAT900]

Yea it does make a difference. I don't really care about the monetary property value, but I do want to improve my neighborhood.
Joy and I lived in two different trailer parks when we were first married. Each time we moved in we found out that if you  make your space look neat and clean,  before you know it the neighbors are doing the same thing.

I don't know what to do about this biker gang up the street but they probably won't be there forever.

All sorts of things can change when a neighborhood comes back to life...including what sorts of folks think it is a good idea to live there

in our case the police have stepped up the number of neighborhood drive thru's without even being asked to

when I first bought we would only see them when someone called them in...they understand the value of their "presence"

we were considered a "no delivery" zone for local restaurants, we're off that list now

around the corner and down the road there's an abandoned tumbledown bungalow that now gets checked daily for squatting drug transients

when they see that the people care then they respond accordingly.... at least down here

people familiar with the old neighborhood will stop when they see you outside and express admiration (including the cops)

I have the anchor house as I am on the corner at the top of the hill

so like it or not my place sets the tone for the rest of the immediate neighborhood

and it isn't killing it anymore

[MendoDave]

That's cool. Its good to hear that kind of stuff. This building was an old grocery store once built in 41' I think. over the years it's had various uses. It's on a corner and it used to have a corner parking lot, mostly gravel. So every body used it for a turn around, meetup place, smoke break place, drug deal place and so on. That's the way it was when we first moved in. Almost the first thing that I did was build a fence. People would still drive through the parking lot while I was out there building ,on the fence.

Once I got that all blocked off the litter, broken down cars, and most of the cigarette butts went away.

Anyway I had to make lots of improvements on the inside, and we just finally got around to painting the outside. Most of the old parking lot is now a lawn. The house in the back is pretty nice, small but nice.

[RAT900]

I'm just getting to the inside of our place now...

with daughter and house-share mates living there and going to school

I couldn't dig in to the interior for the past 5 years so I did the exterior work first

which is just as well as renters don't have the same appreciation as owners

I love the fact that yours is an old neighborhood market...

there's one old 1920's era neighborhood market store down the road from us with a corner entrance that was converted to residential

still has the original shop doors, corner steps and display windows w/second story living quarters

if I wasn't already maxed-out I would love to own it

[MendoDave]

Speaking of stores I like this one in Bernal Heights is S.F.
I cant find a picture of the whole store but it has been converted to housing. Anyway there is a big hub bub over an old coca cola sign on the side of the building.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/02/old_coca_cola_sign_causes_flap.html









Found it..

[RAT900]

What a great find under the siding...I hope the guy wins his case

I've seen preservationists go out of control in the Montford District of Asheville...it ain't Colonial Williamsburg or something

and I have also witnessed government toss authentically historic buildings under the bus in favor of

developers building generic crap non-stop up here in NY

[ungeheuer]

Evening community builders 

[RAT900]

Good Day at ya!

[ducpainter]

morning

[ungeheuer]

Painter

So I had a modestly productive day.  Bought a little window framing timber.....  and a new cheap cordless drill so that I dont have to keep being pissed off coz my expensive Bosch POS has flat batteries every time I wanna use the effing thing.

My youngest boy and I had fun "removing" part of the existing bathroom window frame.....  tried and failed the get the glass out in one piece (not that it matters, I'd only store it in the shed for the next 20 years anyway  ).  Frame mods mostly completed, its fun to see such pride in my young fella's face at a job well done  .   So now we have a bathroom with a reworked window frame but no actual glass whatsoever.....  Mañana.

Hung a new screen door....

.....