Changing Burrows #5: The Neverending Story
Hello there, good people! Michael here, and welcome to another instalment of Changing Burrows, the temporary series where we keep you up to date about our inherited house-project!
So, plenty of stuff happened since we last wrote, and while we're doing our best to establish ourselves and decorate the place a little...
Like, -really- stressful, actually.
We caught ourselves working until 9 in the evening on a Friday, after a very busy week, completely at our limit and on the edge, losing our temper at the literal drop of a hat.
That kind of stressful.
That was a couple of weeks back. We're better now, but yeah, that was a bit of an unpleasant time for us.
Matter of fact, it made us decide to organize things a bit. With how chaotic things are at the moment, there's basically no way to establish proper routines or structure to our life (And we're a stickler for that, so that's a shame!), but we can at least come up with a rough plan:
Monday and Tuesday evenings, we get some work done on the house project or the bureaucracy around it.
Wednesday, we reserve the evening for some kind of creative activity. Writing, drawing, music, videos, whatever we prefer.
Thursday evening is more time for the house project.
Friday is a short workday for us, and we take the afternoon off. At that point, we've been working all week, and we -need- to take some time to recover, because...
Saturday is for work. Would love to relax the whole weekend, but we really have to put our time to good use. At the moment, this is usually when we take a trip to our old apartment to get some more stuff ready to transport out. Mind you, we might take the second half of the day off, or do something creative with it.
And then we'll use Sunday as our one proper full day of rest per week.
..... obviously, this is all -in addition- to our normal Monday-Friday 7-4 job. We'll leave work early or take the occasional day off as necessary, but it's not like we can just go "oh sorry, we're a bit busy" and neglect our main source of income.😉
But yeah, like i said, it's been tremendously busy and we found ourselves on the edge of going whacko a couple of times, so we're gonna try and stick to a bit of a system, just for our own wellbeing.
It might sound a bit overblown, but seriously, you would not believe the sheer amount of -stuff- that needs doing, both practical, hands on problems to solve and also bureaucratic hoops to jump through in order to keep the officials and clerks happy.
..... doesn't exactly help that my father spent the past 35 years doing exactly nothing with the house my grandparents built.
Ehrm, yeah, we weren't on the best of terms, and the state of the house isn't helping our perspective. Surprisingly, Amalia actually seems more upset about it than i am. But don't worry, i won't dwell on family drama, especially since we're actively reminding ourselves that we ought to be looking forward, not back.
It's horribly cliché, but we've got plenty of work ahead of us, so it's no use dwelling on the past, eh?
So anyway! What have we actually been doing?
Well, for one, there's this desk:
Oh, and it looks just kinda..... cold, and lifeless. Not a fan.
Which is why we ordered ourselves a new desk! Here it is!
It's height-adjustable! I'm writing this very post standing up!
This is a lovely upgrade. Many of our hobbies involve our PC in some way, so being able to choose between sitting or standing is an absolute godsent for our spine.🙏
Also, we're totally #nonspon, but we like the desk and found this a bit funny:
They give you a company logo and even put it in the instructions. Heh. 😜
So, fancy new desk taken care of, we made a bunch of plans for how to go about things, and we split the whole house-project up into 4 large phases:
During phase 1, we focus mainly on clearing out our old apartment and fully establishing ourselves in the upper apartment of our house, clearing out the stuff we don't need and bringing our own stuff in. Basically, this phase will we fully completed once we've got no more ties to the old apartment.
With that done, phase 2 will be all about the attic, which we'll be turning into our studio (Both music and drawing), as well as clearing out the downstairs apartment of all the small detritus lying around on shelves, in drawers etc. (Furniture will stay for the time being. We'll let our future tenants decide what they wanna keep, in that regard. It'd be a shame if we went through the effort of throwing everything out and then it turns out they would have kept a bunch of it).
Phase 3 will see us digging through the basement and garden, both of which are seriously full of debris and detritus. The garden in particular is a bit of a mess.
Wanna rent that out eventually as part of the downstairs apartment, but we've gotta make it at least somewhat presentable, first.
And then finally, phase 4 will be the biggest and most expensive one, but probably the least work-intensive one for us personally: The actual renovation. As in, calling in companies to install the new heating system, new windows, replace that little stairwell you see in the bottom left of the garden picture, because that thing's a death-trap my father just kinda slapped there at some point.
Not sure if that thing needs planning permission, but if it does, i guarantee you my father didn't get any. And one of the steps cracked a few days back, so nope, ride's closed!
But yeah, phase 4 will be all about actually renovating the place. Budget for that should be around a maximum of ~90,000 Euros. Let's see how far it'll get us.
But anyhow, that'll be next year, and before that, we've got plenty of paperwork to do in preparation, not to mention 3 whole phases of clearing the debris that comes with years of neglect.
And speaking of debris:
The day finally arrived. Our first collection of bulk rubbish! Much of it consisted of that sofa we took apart last time, but well, plenty of it was also just random objects strewn about the house, including a borked flatscreen TV that they never bothered to throw out.
It felt so good to get all that rubbish out! And that, along with a couple of trips to the local recycling centre, also freed up a bunch of space, which we urgently needed to bring over some stuff from our old apartment!
Look at that. We used to live there, and now it looks like a battlefield. Or well, it did, before we cleared out all the stuff that's piled up in that bottom picture. As of writing, it looks more like this:
Starting to get that "empty apartment"-look. Also, you know how the acoustics change when you remove most of the furniture from a room? When it gets all echo-y? Yeah, got that going on now, too.
[Editor Amalia's note]
Just wanted to clarify here: We still have that apartment. Gotta clear it by the end of October, which should be easily done.
A couple more trips to disassemble stuff, get things ready for transport, and do some cosmetic work, and we should be just about outta there!
Anyway, we got lots of stuff moved over to our new home now. Granted, there's been a bit of a hiccup, in that it turns out that if you bring over all the stuff from shelves and drawers, it's a good idea to also bring the shelves and drawers themselves, or you'll struggle to find a way to store it all. 😜
Buuut at least we're making some progress. Remember this corner, with all the boxes full of detritus?
Well, it looks like this, now:
It's turned into our library!
.... also yes, we know that lampshade is covering that picture of Amalia. We'll have to move the picture, obviously.🙃
We also got just about all of our musical equipment over, which is actually creating a bit of a mess for now, because we're still in phase 1, and all that stuff is just gonna lay around until we really get working on the attic studio in phase 2, so....
Half the room is just covered in instruments strewn about! It's a mess, but i bet this picture's gonna turn into a cool memory in the future, when that room's been properly reorganized and repurposed.
Actually, there's an interesting..... "opportunity" this whole situation has created.
You see, Amalia and i have been deliberating about whether or not we should be getting a new PC for a solid year or two. Our current machine's around 8 years old, and while it's actually still pretty good for most things, some proper high-demand games, flight sims and the like could use a bit more oomph.
But well, now that our living room and studio will be two separate rooms, on two separate floors no less, there's no way around it: We need a second PC.
So we've been planning a new gaming rig. Not a ridiculous 10,000 Euro machine or anything, but the plan is to get a reasonably good, modern machine for around ~3,500 Euro for the living room/gaming PC, and then use the current one as our studio machine.
In fact, we already have another height-adjustable desk ready for assembly in our future studio, along with a keyboard and trackball (mice are for the weak!😈). Just need a new screen and the PC itself, which we'll be going for quite soon indeed.
(We might also be dead-set on buying a Steam Frame when it comes out, and a beefier PC might help with the PCVR side of that. But we don't wanna sound like irresponsible spenders, so ssssh.😉)
Aside from all that, there's been a bunch of smaller projects around the house. For instance:
Look at this stairway. Boring. Uninteresting. But now....
It has become a hat-storage!
..... also yes, we wear hats, if you weren't aware. And the thing covered in stickers is our bicycle helmet.
We've also bought an oven, so we can finally cook without having to run to the downstairs kitchen!
...... or at least we could, if it came with a connection cable, and if we had any idea on how to connect it. Electrician's coming 'round in a few days.
There's also the breaker box, which we'll have to ask 'em about.
Why do we need to ask about that? Simple: Because it appears that almost the -entire- upstairs apartment is connected to -one- breaker, while most of the others just don't seem to do anything at all.
Seriously, we've found exactly 2 little things that aren't connected to the single main breaker. Dunno what the logic behind the wiring was when it was implemented, but i'm pretty sure it'll be an expensive mess to get that updated to a properly safe (and legal?) level.
But then, updating the electrical systems of the house is generally one of the bigger projects coming our way, partially to potentially pave the way for solar panels on the roof, should the budget allow for it.
Speaking of expensive stuff, remember how we mentioned we wanna replace the heating system? Got an old fuel oil heater in here at the moment, and since we've got no real chance of getting that replaced this year, we had to order a bit more oil to get us through the winter. Except.....
The blasted gauge is completely worthless, showing a quarter of a tank when upon closer inspection, we found that we were basically running on fumes, so for fear of our heater running out of oil and burning itself out (necessitating an expensive repair), we decided to turn off the heater and get by without hot water for a couple of days while waiting for a (very expensive) express-delivery of heating oil.
Oh, there was also a -legally required- retrofit of the filter system which my father straight-up refused to install a few years back. Had to have that done too, even though we're replacing this whole system next year.
I mean, we really don't wanna seem complain-y because hey, in this day and age, being a home-owner is quite the privilege, especially at our relatively young 34. But..... the state of this place, man. We can't be sure, but we'd assume most people don't have quite -this- many issues popping up when they buy/inherit a house.
Sometimes, it just seems like an unending stream of "Oh look, there's another thing we need to invest our time and/or money into fixing."😑
But ehrm, staying positive, we did find something neat! Checking the downstairs balcony, there was a cardboard box on a table. We lifted the box up and found.....
...... a perfectly functional air fryer? Uh... r-right then.
How long has this thing sitting out there?
Why was this sitting on the balcony with a cardboard box to protect it in the first place?
What was that -other- device that was sitting next to it, which we threw out because it was was gunky and grimy because it -didn't- have a cardboard box for protection?
Who knows? Can't ask anyone anymore, so we'll just pick up the pieces and..... make fries, i guess.🤷
Speaking of not being able to ask anyone, here's a curious thing:
In our upstairs kitchen, we have a washing machine and dryer.
Now, that's not that unusual. Except.....
.... there's -also- a washing machine and dryer sitting in the basement! So here's the thing: I would have bet that the two machines in the basement broke, and rather than throwing them out, they just left them where they were and bought new ones.
...... but we tried, and i would have lost that bet! Turns out the machines in the basement work just fine. So..... guess we'll have some appliances for our future tenants to use. Weird, that. Doubly weird to think about the idea that we, legally a single person, now own two full-size washing machines along with two full-size dryers. Feels..... oddly decadent?
Well, those two machines might be good to keep around for our future tenants, assuming they want them, but there's some stuff we definitely won't keep around, but which is also too nice to just throw away. So, for an experiment, we put our first sale listing. It's for this:
A little coffee-machine-thing. We don't drink coffee and aren't really familiar with all that stuff, but it's a limited edition, seems to be functioning properly and probably worth ~20-30 Euros. Let's see if someone buys it.
There's plenty more stuff we wanna sell, but for now, we'll just see how things work on the platform we chose. Call it a pilot project.
Ah, but here's one very nice little thing: In bringing over a bunch of stuff from the old apartment, we now have (almost) all of our peripherals in the house! And since our studio is now a separate room, they don't have to compete for shelf-space with a bunch of instruments anymore either, so we can store it all within easy reach (the steering wheel used to be banished to a large drawer), and still have plenty of room for the steam frame other stuff!😉
And speaking of gaming-related things, we actually managed to carve out some time for that, here and there. As a matter of fact, my dear Amalia would like to tell you all about it, so i'll let her have the floor.
Heya, folksies! Hope you've been good!
So, let's do something we've missed doing on this blog and talk about video games for a bit!😀
So first off, we mentioned last time that we had found a bit of time for Snowrunner and yep, during that little lull in the action, we actually found some time to play, and even record a bunch of footage!
Since then, we've been too busy to get around to uploading said footage and eventually writing our next post in that series, but actually, i'm looking to make a start on that today, right after writing my part and proofreading this post.😉
(It also a bit annoying. Gameplay-wise, we don't wanna get too far ahead of what we upload, so we've gotta catch up with the videos and blog so we can keep playing the game!😜)
Beyond Snowrunner, we've kinda been doing some comfort-gaming, purely to save our sanity, with no intention of writing about it or recording.
Mostly, we played some games that got expansions/large DLCs recently.
For one, there was Mechwarrior 5, and it's Chaos Reign DLC.
Quite enjoyed that, got a Kodiak 'mech and went stompy. Also, the next DLC already got announced, so we're looking forward to more. Y'know, MW5 started out a bit iffy back when it first came out, but it really grew into a cool game! Even got us to read the occasional Battletech novel.
Then, we played some Teardown!
Specifically, the Relics of Barkuna DLC. Originally, we were planning on writing a post about it, but to be honest.... there's not much to write about.
It's simply a collectible hunt. You get 3 maps, and each map has some dozens of collectible items strewn about. Some are out in the open, some are a bit more hidden, others are locked behind puzzles. Honestly, in our situation, it made for a great comfort game, but well, after clearing most of each map, running around and trying to find that last item on the bucket list is became a bit of a chore, so we just ~99%ed it.
And well, while you do get a torch that can set fire to stuff, it's obviously quite a big departure from normal Teardown gameplay. Or at least that's what i want to say, but i'm not sure i actually can, considering one of the other DLCs is literally a racing game within Teardown.🙃
Still, we'll probably revisit that DLC sometime and write about it after all. We talked about all the other DLC in our big Teardown post, so it'd feel a bit wrong not to.
Just the other day, we started playing Atomic Heart, which got the Blood On Crystal DLC.
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| #Couplegoals😉 |
Y'know, we -love- Atomic Heart. We played through it just last year so it's a bit soon to replay it for a blog post, but at the very least, you can expect us to write about the sequel, eventually.
But yeah, the Blood On Crystal DLC feels good, so far. Feels like more Atomic Heart, which is lovely.
And sticking to the soviet theme, Womrade Michael's got a serious itching to play some Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic again, because that game got the Early Start DLC a while back, allowing you to start with steam locomotives and even horse-drawn carriages. Hurrah, comrades!🙃
..... man, felt good to write about video games. Should try and do that more often.😉
But yeah, that's what we've been up to, these past few weeks.
Again, you can expect some new Snowrunner videos popping up as we go forward, and eventually a post on here to accompany them.
In the meantime, stay safe, do some comfort gaming to regain sanity points, and have a good one!😉
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