Welcome to the Dwellings conference!  

This is where we talk about houses, apartments, and other places to live. 
We can talk about how to rent, buy, finance, etc., perhaps review various
local apartment complexes, and we can also talk about maintenance,
improvements, and other useful topics.

I bought a house this year, and as a card-carrying fixit type, I wanted to
have a place to discuss all of this stuff.

54 responses total.

Scott, what "fixit" type of projects do you have going on your new house? 
Any thing you've learned that you can pass along?

Many things!  I'll be starting items as I go, I guess.  Plumbing, wiring,
furnace repair, trees, etc.

"card carrying" fixit type - read Visa or Mastercard!.

I guess I'm a hammer carrying fixit type than ;-)

has there been anything written on "Zen and the art of folding door
maintenance"?

Perhaps.  I certainly didn't get much out of Zen And The Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance when I was trying to adjust the gap on my Honda.

You were sitting there by the side of the road in a rainstorm adjusting your
gap, and you didn't have any universal thoughts? 

#5 - do you need folding door advice?  What kind of problem do you have?

The concept of Zen motorcycle, etc., is that with proper maintenance ahead
of time, or with having thought through ahead of time what you needed to
know, the problem would not have occured when it did.

I failed to respond to door problem.  I have had three different types in
three different houses built during the 1960's to '70's and find that
each type of folding door requires its own special maintenance.  I
discovered early on that kicking the door doesn't help.  However, they
do need a little time, attention, and some care in use reminding me of
zen.  

I'd guess that maintaining folding doors is a bit like tuning pianos, in that
there are all these interrelated settings, and then every season you have to
do it over again when the humidity changes.  ;)

(Catriona lugs in her toolbox, and looks around)
Is this where I come to find a date for the tool show?

Hi peoples!  I figured this is item 1 and all so this greeting is appropriate
here, or at least more so than in any other item.

Welcome to Grex, lee. Stop and dwell awhile.

<kara grins>
Okay.  Speaking of dwellings, I am trying to fit more things into my small
one... any suggestions on how to make a small apartment look bigger so I can
fit more things in here?

Shelves?  You might try rearranging things like beds and sofas.  Sometimes
a different bed position will free a lot of odd space up.  (Steve Gibbard
talked about "defragmenting his bedroom" once)

I don't have any sofas as of yet.  The bed is in the corner where it is
hogging minimal space, I think.

Where did Mr. Gibbard talk about "defragmenting his bedroom"?  Was it iRL or
in some item on grex?  If so, where is said item on grex?

He said it in person, after having moved a few things in his bedroom and
finding that a lot of space seemed to magically open up.  He'd actually
condensed a lot of little useless spaces into a couple big ones, hence
"defragmenting" the free space.  Same thing worked for me; I couldn't believe
how much space I found.

Having the bed in a corner robs you of wall and floor space, assuming you have
a square or rectangular room. And scott's right, think vertical.

If you can, a loft with the desk space underneath, is a great start on opening
up floor space.  We bought two lofts for teenagers who have to share a room,
intending them to take them away to college and their first few apartments.

Paint all the rooms white. Put more shelves in the closets. 

If you have high ceilings, put in a second floor.

Oh, boy! Finally a *real* reason to go to an outlet mall.  
The outlet mall at Birch Run (just north of Flint) has a BLACK & DECKER
outlet.  Hardware, tools, etc, etc, etc.  Cheap too.  

(Scott makes that annoying Tim Allen sound)

But what does it cost to get there?

It was a sidebar to a family trip to Frankenmuth.  No marginal cost this time.

I just discovered this conference.  Cool.

I don't remember talking about defragmenting my bedroom, but consolodating
open space is something I discovered to be a good thing a long time ago. 
Generally, when I'm arranging the furniture in a room, I'll put furniture
around the edges, while leaving the middle of the room very open.  In my
current bedroom, which is quite small, the only real pieces of furniture I
have are my bed and my dresser.  They are both up against one wall, right next
to eachother, leaving the rest of the room as open floor space.  If the bed
were sticking out into the room, rather than being in a corner up against the
wall, there would barely be room to move around it.  Having it up against the
wall, though, leaves a fair bit of space.

hey scg, look into Murphy Beds.  They hang from the walls and fold up flat
again when you are through sleeping.

In a couple of months or so, I'm going to start looking at townhouses (unless
something goes wrong or weird). Does anyone know anything good or bad about
Geddes Lake? They're the brown houses on the east side of Huron Parkway, just
north of Huron High.  Thanks.

re. murphy beds, any idea on where you can get them?  So far haven't seen them
in any of the stores.  
re. Geddes Lake townhouses.  They are in a great location, prices are great,
good design, I have a couple of friends there who like them very much.  Only
problem to some people is the Co-Op concept, which is different than
condominiums.  Instead of buying your own space, legally you buy a part of
the whole.  

How is it different? I mean, details, or day to day stuff?

I think it has more to do with risk and committment than anything operational.

In theory, buying shares of the whole development rather than buying your own
unit should mean that if somebody else takes really bad care of their unit,
your share will decrease in value, while if you make big improvements to your
unit, you will only get a tiny fraction of the value increase it causes.  I'm
not sure how that would work in practice, though.  I can't imagine somebody
buying a share that includes living in a really poorly maintained unit being
willing to pay the same price that people are paying for a share that includes
getting to live in a really nice unit.  Likewise, I can't imagine somebody
who has taken really good care of the place they were living in being willing
to sell for the average value of the places in the development, if theirs is
much nicer.  How does that work?

re #29 -- I happened to notice today that Latham's furniture store on Main
Street here in Milan (formerly a movie theater) has an advertisement of 
"Wall beds" in one of their formerly-movie-poster windows.   So I expect
they would be able to supply one.

re: #32:  Thanks. I'll probably start looking around next month.

I just suggested starting a conference called Fix-It or Do It Yourself. 
Valerie Mates thought Dwellings might be an appropriate location.  (See
conference requests, item 34 of co-op conference).  I thought perhaps
Environment or Hippie (repair instead of dumping), but maybe it could be in
all three places?  There do seem to be a few repair-related topics here.  You
could write it asking how to fix a broken furnace or lamp or even computer
(but maybe computers have their own spot already).  Chances are, someone else
had a similar problem.

Consumer is another location for do-it-yourself. If whatever develops
seems relevant in another cf, I am sure a watchful fw will link it.

Dwellings would be a fine place to cover that, too.  I'd want to maybe limit
it to home-related things, like larger appliances, but small appliances could
be in consumer, electronics in hardware, etc.

Most of us in the "other" (non-Agora) conferences tend to be in a lot of these
conferences.  And since items can be linked between confs, a "fix-it" conf
could still tie all the scattered items together.

Hi, I'm looking for an apartment and I would like to know if there is an item
or a conference where Grexers can exchange information on where apartments
are available. I'm looking for a one bedroom apartment, within a 15-20 min.
drive to the I-94/Zeeb Rd. area. Money's tight, so rent would have to be less
than $400 a month. I may have to opt for the roommate alternative if I could
hook up with the right person. I need it by Nov. 1. Thanks.

How about a two bedroom apartment or duplex for under $700?  Preferably in
the Ann Arbor area. Thanks.

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