Closing the Terrifying Gap

Not long ago there was a hole in our house where we’d removed a chimney. It wasn’t actually that big, but it went all the way through from roof to basement, and looking down on it from the third floor was kind of terrifying. I sent pictures around and the response, uniformly, was “don’t fall in!” It was only about 12×12, so it would have been hard to fall through. But still.

It’s gone now. The old pine flooring from what will become the main bathroom has been taken out and used to patch it. So now instead of the wall of awkward closets that was there originally, and the dangerous-looking hole that replaced it, we’ve got this totally normal looking old wood floor, just waiting to be refinished:

Floor-Update

While that was going on we had several days of house madness. The flurry of decisions seems to be messing with our heads, and we have a hard time thinking or talking about anything else.

This week, Megan went over to the tile shop and got samples, and I think we’re just about done picking tile, including this black hex tile for the 2nd floor bathroom:
Black-hex-tile

Neena’s Lighting is closing their Cambridge store, so we stopped by and picked up a 19th-century style pendant lamp for our front hall.

We’ve also been over to Ikea to choose cabinets; with that done we can finalize appliance locations and request a price on fancy cabinet fronts from Semihandmade.

We also stopped at two different places to shop for a back door, which has become far more complicated than we expected. We found a hideous prehung fiberglass door at the big-box shops for $250, and one that was acceptable as a special order for $1,000, and then we went over to the salvage warehouse to look at rescued wood doors, figuring we could put on a storm door and it’d be almost as good. We didn’t find any that fit. So, our door quest continues.

To go with the doors, we’ve had to pick new handlesets, which is what hardware stores call exterior doorknobs, apparently. The folks over at Commonwealth Lock have firmly identified the broken one we have as a Schlage G-Series, which was discontinued in 1981. Anyway, we found some pretty ones that fit in with the overall look we’re going for and actually look like they’ll hold doors shut.

Picking Tile Sounded Fun At First

Oh god. Tile. There are so. many. kinds. of. tile. I’m really feeling Yellow Brick Home’s post about indecision.

Early on in our pinteresting, we found some really sweet large hexagonal tiles in a rich cobalt blue. Of course, they’re $35 a square foot. So, that’s right out. And where would we even put them?

We’ve got a lot of different places to pick tile for:

  • Half bathroom: We’ve got plain walls here and all-white fixtures so we can choose something fun and bold here.
  • Pantry: This can be plain and neutral. It’s just the pantry, we’re not showing off. Or we could just go with the same tile that’s in the half bathroom, since they’re next to each other.
  • Kitchen backsplash: This is a small space, so we could pick something kind of expensive per square foot and not break the bank. Or we could pick plain subways and put them in a neat pattern and just let it hide behind all the other stuff going on in the kitchen. It doesn’t need to be a focal point.
  • Full bathroom, floor and tub surround: This is the hard one, since there’s a lot going on in this room and a lot of surfaces to tile. There’s a brick wall on one side, the vanity cabinet is wood veneer, the rest of the fixtures are white, and we’ll need to choose a few bits of marble or other stone for some other spots. The goal here is to keep it subtle and mostly neutral since there’s a lot of other stuff going on.
  • Full bathroom, shower: Do we pick one kind of tile for the whole shower, or do we do one thing on the floor and another on the walls? Either way it needs to be reasonable when seen next to the other tile in the rest of the bathroom.

Back Door Man

The back door needs to be replaced. M is lobbying for real wood; I’m lobbying for fiberglass. She wants character; I want something low-maintenance with good insulation that doesn’t warp in humid weather. So, we’re going door shopping this weekend. Therma-Tru or salvaged antique? Stay Tuned to Money Pit and find out!

Tonight, on Haunted Money Pit: The Structural Engineer Visits

Last week I met with the contractor, structural engineer, and architect all at once. Structural Engineer Dan B looked in at the joists and pronounced them quite sturdy and not in need of any modifications. So, that’s good. The oddities that had been seen in initial demo were, it turns out, related to something else entirely.

Then we went into the downstairs neighbor’s unit and we got slightly less-good news. There are three places where we need to put posts made of quadruple 2x4s so that our unit can transfer its weight all the way down into the basement and foundation and ground, rather than, say, directly into her living room. These spots are all inside of already existing walls, but we do have to open her walls up to get to them, then close them back up and paint them again. Downstairs neighbor is, fortunately, OK with this disruption.

Next time on Haunted Money Pit: Choosing appliances, paint, kitchen sink and faucet, tile, and molding. PLUS: Is decision fatigue a real thing? Eh, I don’t really care anymore, let’s just assume it is.

Setbacks and Spending

Setback: The joists in the 2nd floor – that picture right below this – don’t do quite what we’d thought they would. This means that we’ll need to open up the ceiling more, both so that the structural engineer and architect can see exactly what is going on there, and so that we can put in recessed lighting that’s up to code. It’ll cost a little more of course, but “wiring up to code” is important and that ceiling was pretty nasty anyway.

Spending: Placed order for all the bathroom goodies: Vanity, sink, faucets, tub, shower. Delivery to be scheduled for next month.

Deep into Details

The other day I saw a question on a student aid messageboard from someone who had a loan in default and wanted to go to nursing school. They were a couple months away from completing a loan rehabilitation program, but until they got at least 2/3 of the way through it they weren’t eligible for additional federal student loans. How, they wanted to know, could they get aid for a program starting before then?

They mentioned that their parents were willing to help, so I said they should probably take out Parent PLUS loans. This was, it turns out, incorrect: You can’t borrow a Parent PLUS loan for your child if that child is in default on a federal student loan. The poster will have to wait a couple of months to regain their own eligibility for student aid, at which point they and their parents could both borrow to pay tuition. They’ll probably be able to get the school to allow them to use a payment plan for the first part of tuition, enroll, then get the rest of the tuition in loans later on in the semester.

Spurred by that embarrassing public error, I decided to read as much as I could of the entire 2016 Federal Student Aid Handbook, which is… not generally a page-turner.

But there are some amazing little details in there that are really cool:

As a result of the Jay treaty of 1794, native Canadians (that is, First Nations tribe members) qualify for student aid. However, as non-citizens they don’t have Social Security numbers, and as non-resident-aliens they don’t have alien registration numbers either. So, what ID number do they use when applying? Apparently all of them just put A9999999999 in that field, and then the financial aid administrator is prompted to check their tribal membership bona fides.

Children under 13 can go to college and get financial aid if they have finished high school or equivalent credentials. But the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prohibits governments and businesses from gathering personal information about these children online, so they must apply on paper. (If you’re still in high school and just taking college classes, you don’t count as a college student and can’t get aid).

Men must register with the Selective Service between the ages of 18 and 26, or they can’t get financial aid. The exceptions are students who became citizens after the age of 26, and students who served in the military, more or less proving that their non-registration was accidental. If they simply forgot, no dice. Trans men often have obstacles registering for the selective service, since their gender isn’t necessarily what was on their paperwork between the ages of 18-26, so they also are exempt from the requirement. (I did not see an equivalent footnote about trans women, but my expectation would be that they are women and therefore not required to have signed up, even if they were legally male in the past – nobody’s going to ask Caitlyn Jenner if she signed up for the selective service back in the day).

The definition of “parent” for student aid is very complicated. If you have foster parents, for example, their income isn’t included when calculating your family contribution. But they do count as parents for other aspects of college and financial aid.

Homeless students get special consideration. If they live on campus, does that count as a home and therefore mean they won’t get the exceptions anymore? Nope, “would be homeless if not for dorm” still qualifies for special processing.

Residents of US territories qualify for US student aid… if they were born recently enough. If you’re from the US Virgin Islands and born before 1917, you may have trouble getting college aid. I don’t know how many 99-year-olds from St. Thomas are applying to college right now, but there’s a rule about it. In the case of Puerto Rico, for some reason you have to have been born after January 13, 1941, even though Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship under the Jones act of 1917. I don’t quite understand that one.

Creepy Basement: Now with Fewer Cobwebs!

There’s a set of shelves built into a sort of alcove in our basement. For some reason they’re made of old doors. Before being made into shelving they were pretty nice solid wood doors. But they’ve been shelves for a long time and they’re absolutely filthy, with just years of dirt and dust and cobwebs.

After about half a bottle of Simple Green a several absolutely blackened rags this afternoon, they’re… not exactly clean, but less filthy. It’s progress.

The permitting process is still ongoing, so actual construction can’t begin yet, but we’re hoping it’ll start next week.