I live in Florida by choice, isn’t that weird? I Decided to move down here in 2016. At the time I had a job that allowed me to work from home so I decided to make a change from my 16+ years in Kansas City. My parent’s had retired and bought a condo in Clearwater. They couldn’t quite move in yet so I moved down first and stayed there for a few months fixing it up since it was foreclosure. Meaning that Everything from the prior owner was still there. By the time they had moved down I had my own crappy apartment and their condo wasn’t as much of a weird time capsule from the 80’s. I mean the place had 14 mirrors. Even mirrored ceilings in the bathroom… I had to take midnight dumpster runs to dump all the awful furniture and TV’s that were older than me. Midnight runs because I wasn’t 55+ and TECHNICALLY was not allowed to be in the retired community. Also I didn’t know where it was legal to dump things soooooo I just found a construction site down the road with a gigantic dumpster and went under the cover of darkness like a true renovation vigilante. To my surprise, I’m very sneaky and no one ever found out.
Occasionally I’d run into a noisy neighbor trying to see who I was. I would just tell them that I’m the son and my parents bought the condo. I was there fixing it up during the day and DEFINETLY not living there… I was, but shhhhhhhh. My main goal was just to clear the place out of old furniture, trash, and other things left behind. Coming back each night to see a shadow figure of dude standing at the end of the room isn’t scary at all. Granted it may of only been reflections from the many mirrors but who knows if that place was haunted or a house of mirrors. Lets just go with both.Those pink Pepto Bismol carpets still haunt my dreams. Obviously so do those mirrored walls. I was never truly alone in that place. Always a reflection staring back at me no matter where I stood.
I fixed it up as much as I could between still working during the days, and other excuses I could list off. I did not get as much accomplished as I’d like but back then I did not have the skills I do now. That experience kicked off my DIY phase. I started crafting my own decorations, or wall décor and then gradually moved into other categories. I would make my own christmas cards, ornaments, and gifts. It has only sky rocketed from there. My cheapness knows no bounds and it just feels so much better to say “Oh, that old thing? Yeah, I made that.” unfortunately for my parents condo I just slapped some paint on the walls, ripped down a few mirrors, and removed the awful wall paper in the bathrooms. I wish I could tell you a fun quick easy way to remove wallpaper but damn. All my methods did not work on this place. The best one was the simpliest method of just dishwashing soap and hot water but you still gotta scrape that crap off and its so time consuming.
The main thing I’d like you to take away from this post is be shady. I’m not talking like “rob your friends” or “hang out in alleyways” shady. I’m talking about being a renovation ninja. Get that job done no matter what you gotta do. I am NOT saying “go do illegal things” by any means. I’m pretty sure I may or may not have done a few illegal things on accident.. BUT just get the job done efficiently and effectively. If you gotta throw some sketchy moments in there then so be it… once again I’m not responsible for your shady ass, I’m just giving out unsolicited advice 😀
