Meeting the Neighbors

Not actually the neighbors, really. More the HOA board. Their first meeting since our purchase was last night and we attended to get a feel for the group and to ask some questions. The meeting was at the site of the current (for the next two days) management company and will be moved to another site for next month. The board is mostly younger people (30s and 40s I'd say) with one older lady and they all live in the same area. They really seem like nice people, too. They aren't vindictive or unreasonable at all, which is what I'd heard to expect from an HOA. Some folks sent letters asking for a waiver of a late fee for their dues or something and the board was cool about reading their reasons and giving them a break. They were also very understanding about wanting to make exterior changes to the house for security reasons and not wanting to wait to hear back from them with their approval. We'll still submit our forms and all to be safe, but it's nice to know they aren't going to come after us as long as we're being reasonable.

My parents and the handyman got a lot done in our absence, too. My dad swapped out some light switches, pulled up the linoleum in the pantry, helped hang doors, pulled the hall bath vanity out, helped replace the flooring around the toilet drain, and who knows what else. My mom continued cleaning the kitchen and touched up some paint in the office, and I believe she also got a full coat of the paint for the hobby room up.

Jenna and I went and picked up a tile saw from our friend Martin, the same friend who lent us the miter saw to help with the laminate floor and the power roller, and also helped us do the actual work with both of them to boot. We're very nearly ready to start laying tile in the hall bath now, so that will be nice. You may be asking why we replaced the floor and took out the vanity in there, since that wasn't originally part of the plan. We got some really good advice from a guy at Lowe's about the whole thing, and decided to go with it. His suggestion was to replace the floor rather than trying to level it with something because it's going to need to support a lot of weight once it's installed and in use. That makes a lot of sense to me, and I wasn't at all convinced that the damage the mold did was strictly in the color department. I feel much more comfortable having replaced the subfloor so we know it's strong and stable. Also, he suggested taking out the vanity and putting tile under it. We weren't really thinking about that, but it makes a lot of sense. We're probably going to replace that vanity at some point and having to find another with exactly the same footprint (or having to bust out and re-do the tile to fit) didn't seem like a good idea. This way a replacement will be an easy drop-in. Thanks, Lowe's guy!