#it is funny how much easier a homeowner could do this than me. those people have yard debris cans

[coquelicoq]

yeah sex is great but have you ever unflooded your street by removing leaves from the storm drains using the litter-grabber tool you bought from lowe's two weeks ago for that exact purpose?

[oneeffie]

A Spark

A Spark

By: Emma Sinclaire & Line Svensson

“Sometimes we have to do what we don’t want to do.” That is what my mother would tell me when I objected to going to school as a kid. I wanted to stay at home or go to my mother’s job and do things than be there. But every time, without fail, when my mother said this phrase I promptly grabbed my bag and went to school. I knew the story behind her saying that. I’d only heard it once, in the midst of one of her few drunken moments, but that was enough.

We live in the country of Panem, in a place called the Capitol, which is the heart and soul of the country, or so I’ve been (I’d been) told. The districts surrounding the Capitol was there to bring nourishment to us. It is a place of beauty and luxury. Supposedly the greatest place on earth. But if it’s so great, how could the events in my mother’s life be possible? My mother didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and even less when she got into her adult life. Before she had gotten the job at “Intexui” she had struggled to get by, taking odd jobs here and there, just to make ends meet. But that’s when things changed for the worse.

42 ADD

She had walked up the entrance of a big mansion. There was a party going on inside and she was demanded to be there. As she knocked on the door the head of the house opened it.

“Ah, there you are. You must be the lovely lady my colleague was so kind as to send us”, he said while he had a malicious smile on his face. She could feel her pulse into her fingertips. She had been terrified to her very core, but what was she supposed to do? When they had seen you, they had seen you. When they wanted you, they wanted you. There was no going back, and she couldn’t afford to lose everything. She plastered on the bravest face she could, smiled slightly and walked through the front door. As she walked in, he put his arm around her waist, and he guided her around the house. As they walked into the backyard, she could see there was a small party gathered. Most of them were women, but they all had the same look on their face as she did.

“Look, fellas! Pontius sent us another gorgeous one!”, said the homeowner as he let go of her waist and made his way to the couch in the middle of the yard and picked up his purple-tinted drink. Everyone eyed her like she was a piece of meat that was up for sale.

“She truly is a beaut. What’s your name sweetheart?”, said one of the men as he poured himself another drink.

“Anya”, she replied.

“That is a beautiful name.”, said a voice behind her. The man came around so she could see him. He was a generically attractive man. Average height, olive skin, short clipped curly hair that had been dyed into a silver color and with silvery lips to match. He was wearing a neon green colored suit that had feathers around the sleeves. A very typical outfit for someone in the Capitol. When she looked into his eyes, she tried to look for some kind of warmth in them. There was none to be found. Her heart was beating faster now. She had never been this scared before. But she knew again that there was nothing to do. She had heard it wasn’t as bad if you didn’t resist it.

“Caiaphas! You’re here. Great now the party can really get started. We were just discussing this years Hunger Games. We think it’ll be a blast. Abimelech just told us that the arena this year will be in a woodland area, with all manner of poisonous animals,” a gentleman in a bright pink suit said. The man Abimelech turned his head towards them and smiled.

“You did hear that I’d been accepted as a part of the game maker group? We get all the details before it’s released to the public,” he said very proudly.

“I did hear. That is smashing! We expect to get a good show out of you then,” said Caiaphas. He took Anya by her arm and guided her to the yard, and there the gentlemen engaged in conversation until nightfall. The women, however, did their best at trying to fit in and being of service, but it was clear that they weren’t there for their conversational prowess.

The people eventually started trickling off from the conversation and Caiaphas put his hand on her leg.

“Let’s go,” he said with a very commanding and sharp voice. Then he stood up and grabbed her hand. As they walked off into the house and up the stairs Anya knew that her life would not be the same.

They had stripped her of her agency, and she had become just another part in their game. A game she couldn’t win. After a long and humiliating night, she took a car ride back home. Once she was in the car, she felt dirty and violated. She sobbed into the early hours of the morning. Never again, she thought. No matter what.

43 ADD

9 months later she was admitted into the hospital with intense pains coming from her abdomen. The time had come for her to deliver the baby. She had found out that she was pregnant just weeks after her horrid night in the mansion. She had, of course, tried to get in contact with him, as she liked to call him, her perpetrator, but she never saw or heard from him ever again. It was truly amazing what money could do. It could even make you invisible. I was born on January 8th and was taken home the day after to be raised by my mother alone.

49 ADD

My childhood passed me by without any event. I got up in the morning, ate, went with my mother to work and then home to eat and sleep. Same thing day in and day out. The thing that did change though was the love I had for my mother. It grew day by day as I saw her work her hardest, push herself to the limit with a constant smile on her bright face. The only time she broke from that smile was when someone asked about my father and in those lonely moments, she had by herself, in the late nights, sitting by the kitchen table with a glass of pungent spirits. When I turned six, I had worked up enough nerve to ask about my dad. She had turned around to me in the store and given me a defeated but stern look.

“Later,” she said. I had nodded and gotten back to drawing my undecipherable painting. In the evening, when we got home, she drank a whole bottle of a lemon-colored drink and sat in silence for about an hour before she started telling me the story. I could see how much every word hurt her, so I did my best to not ask more, and remember every word she said. When she finished, she grabbed another bottle, kissed me on my cheek and went to sit in the living room.

Life went on as normal after that, on the outside at least. There was, however, a battle that raged within me. Good versus evil. Right versus wrong. Things didn’t get any easier when I started school. I had always lived quite the secluded life with my mother. I never had many friends, and now I was being made to go and socialize with my peers. From day one I could tell they were very different from me. My general attitude was always a silent, cheery type. My classmates were, however, more, peculiar. They all had that strong Capitol accent which would just drive my mother up the wall sometimes. However, they made me curious. I wondered what their lives looked like. How did it differ from mine? What were their parents like? It would become more and more apparent over the years exactly how I was different, and nobody likes a person who breaks the status quo. But that’s the great thing. Sometimes we don’t just have to do things we don’t want to do, but we can actually do what we want. This thought would come to set deep roots within my heart and soul, and it would emerge years later.

50 ADD

I remember the first time I truly started to see the horrors the Capitol with my own eyes and understanding. Sometimes you see these events in hindsight and realize the horrors you witnessed or experienced. To me, that was the 50th Hunger Games. Double the tributes, double the celebration, and double the suffering.

Since there were twice as many participants, there was also twice the demand for the most extravagant garments for the celebrations. The fabrics store mother worked at, was, of course, booming in business due to this demand. During this time, my beautiful mother spent more time in the store, than she did at home. Her dark curly locks framed her almond-colored face,  illuminating her bright hazel iris with specks of gold. She was a true beauty amongst the flamboyant fashions and unnatural colors of the Capitol.

Like the brat I was, I blamed my mother for not making enough time for me in her day. Little did I know that she was constantly berated by demanding customers and blamed for errors that were no fault of her own, for several hours on end in order to keep the roof over our heads and the food in our bellies. She would come home, exhausted and immediately fall into bed and sleep, on most days. Sometimes I would hear an odd noise coming from her bedroom during nights, but only as an adult did I understand them to be smothered sobbing.

My favourite tribute this year was a tribute who wore one of my favourite fabrics from the store. When he answered a question regarding the 100% increase in tributes. He said he didn’t see much difference this year, as they would also be 100% as stupid. Just hearing someone say stupid is funny enough to a kid I guess.

But I truly understood the sufferings once the 50th Hunger Games was finished. My mother cried for most of it. Especially when the girl died by the pink birds, and my favourite had to hold her as she died in his arms. I remember seeing many people happy or cheering, but I didn’t understand why. There was even more celebration when he won the entire event, after winning a gruesome fight that mother would barely let me watch. The sounds were enough to understand the violence they put each other through.

“Why is everyone happy, but not that guy?” I asked while pointing at the winner on the screen. Mother looked at me with mixed pride and sorrow, as she answers:

“Because being a winner, means someone else has to lose.” she points at the same guy. “But he didn’t want to be a winner, he just wanted to survive.” I still couldn’t quite get it.

“But what’s the difference?”

“A winner wants to see others fail, in order for themselves to succeed. But the survivor is someone who simply lived when others unfortunately died.” She gave me a weak smile with teary eyes as she said the last part.

Even the child me now understood that the Capitol wanted winners, but we were in fact just survivors, trying to live through a game they created.

I looked to the screen again, to see my once hero, being wounded, broken and empty.

56 ADD

I stepped into the store and was greeted by a forced smile. The smile falters and instead grows into heartfelt glee. Nobody embodies strength quite like my mother. Although tired from the daily labour at the store, she still finds happiness and energy in her heart to always make both of us happy and safe.

“You’re here early! Is school already over?” she asked.

“Yeah, they finished early since the celebrations start today.” hinting at the reaping that was going to air later that day.

“I see. Well, it is understandable. Many do create extravagant viewing parties, and that sure takes time.” she answers with a slightly displeased tone. “Some girls came in earlier today looking for fabrics for a last-second change of a dress. They looked at almost all the fabrics we had before choosing just another tint of the original color the dress had. But the smallest things matter of course!” she said the last part with clear sarcasm.

“So what’s the inspiration and trends this year?

“Seems to be a lot of dark green, brown and beige. Some even come looking for skins of lizards, frogs and crocodiles,” she answered a bit wearily.

I just sighed and marvelled at the ways Capitol would try to find any symbolism from the games and always taking the most basic ones.

I recently started to come to help mother at the store after school and the owner, Gaius. would even toss an extra coin our way for my effort. Most days I just helped to restock and putting the fabrics in proper order onto the shelves, as they tended to be moved around a lot when mother was busy. I found the work satisfactory and calming. Feeling the fabric between my fingers and seeing all possible colors through different materials. Sometimes I’d imagine them as gowns, shirts or other garments. I would sometimes even draw the ideas onto paper once I got home. I’m pretty sure that mother knew, but it didn’t seem to bother her.

Just as I was about to finish off my work, the doorbell of the backdoor rang.

“Coming!” mother yelled out. She opened the door to find a man holding a smaller package. Mother signed the waiver as she usually would and thanked the man.

“An odd time to make a delivery. They usually arrive much earlier,” she said once she had closed the door. We opened the package and saw a peculiar note saying “experimental material”. We both looked at each other, confused and curious. Mother pulled out a black polyester material that didn’t seem like it was any different to other black fabrics in the store. Right then the front doorbell rang, signalling customers. Mother shoved the box towards me and said:

“Could you put this on the desk in the office? I think the owner needs to look at this.” and left to care for the newly arrived customers.

I quietly walked into the office with the box and put it on the desk. When I did, I saw another note fall out of the box. I picked it up and glanced at it. This was a manual or explanation of the fabric and how to utilize it. Although seemingly uninteresting at first glance, the fabric was able to give off different illusions in different lights and angles. I touched the fabric again with awe and my imagination soared. The outfits and gowns this could create would be a sight to behold and a true spectacle. However; it would take someone with quite the personality to carry such a striking look.

“Cinna! Could you help for a second?” my mother called from the store. I touched the fabric one last time and went to help with whatever task I was called for.

61 ADD

I decided to teach myself more about how to design and create clothing. I would ask and learn some of it from customers in the store since many worked with design or made a living by sewing. I also learned some from books I could manage to borrow from time to time, but most of it was from practising on my own when the store was closed, on the sewing machine. I had asked to borrow it from the Gaius and the materials needed was either scrap from the store or paid by working.

“Come Cinna, it’s time to go home.” Mother ushered me away from the sewing station, ready to head home.

“Very well, but you know I’m old enough now to walk home on my own, right?” I answered slightly frustrated on having to finish early and leave my work unfinished for another day.

“Would it hurt to humor an old woman who wants to walk home with her son?” she answered with a cheeky grin. Although she looked somewhat worn after all the years of hard work, she was still a beauty with immense energy in my eyes.

“You’re no old woman yet. My eyes cannot be fooled.” I answered in an amused tone.

I packed the last bits and pieces into a designated box for my works and stood up to link arms with my dear mother.

“Shall we?” I asked as she nodded and we headed home. My mother gave me a prideful and pleasing smile that only a mother can give her child.

Once at home, I got to study for school, as well as research more work or techniques I could practice. Mother stood in the kitchen, making the usual late evening dinner for us both. I was fully immersed in learning the history of the Districts and their importance to the Capitol when I heard my mother yell in agony. Shocked and worried, I got to my feet and hurried into the kitchen, scared that she was hurt or injured.

“Mother! What happened?” She was crouching next to the stove, with a pan to her left side, cradling her left arm. Her heavy breathing and groans subsided slightly as she explained:

“I tipped the boiling water onto my arm. Stupid of me.” she cursed herself for the one small mistake she made. From what was not covered by her shirt, the elbow, most of the forearm and hand was covered in red blotches. Trying to hold back a shocked gasp, I decided that it was too serious to be left on its own.

“There’s nothing stupid about an accident. Come, let’s get you to a hospital quick. We need to get some medical attention before it gets worse.” I tried to gently lift my mother by the right arm to stand, but she pulled back her arm and almost hissed at me:

“You know we can’t afford that! It would be cheaper to cut off my arm!” she seemed instantly apologetic for her behaviour and continued to cradle her arm.

“Then let me at least get you into the shower so you can run cold water on your arm. That would hopefully do some difference.” I answered as I pleadingly looked at her. She meekly glanced back and silently nodded. I gently grabbed her right arm again and led her into the shower and ran some cold water. She sat down in the shower, audibly groaning as the water hit her injured arm.

“I will get you some painkillers. Hopefully, they will alleviate some of the pain.” with one last squeeze of her hand, I went to get her medicine. I heard her agonizing groans as she pulled off the first layer of the shirt she was wearing, so she could more properly cover the burn with cold water. Some screams slipped out and I hurried back with the medicine. Once I was back in the bathroom, she had gotten the shirt of the injured arm.

“Here, let me do the rest,” I said, kneeling in front of her and gently rolled the shirt off her. My mother was visibly exhausted from the pain as I brought the pills to her mouth. “Take them, you will need them.”

She sighed and swallowed the pills, although some defiance was still in her eyes.

I spent the night in her bedroom, looking after her while she slept and wetting the towel that covered her arm with cold water ever so often. She luckily stayed asleep. Must be the sleeping pill I gave her with the painkillers.

“...inna”

I must have fallen asleep at some point during the night, as I woke up so a soft whisper of my name. I stretched out my slumped back on the chair and slowly opened my eyes to the rays of lights that penetrated the curtains.

“Cinna..” mother called out in a weak voice. I looked at her and saw sweat pearling on her pale face and a weak right arm stretching out to me. I bolted out of the chair to hold her hand.

“Mother, how are you feeling?” I asked worried, although I could clearly tell this wasn’t good.

“I’m ok, just help me to the bathroom.” It took all she had to just say those words. I gently took he by the right arm, trying to not look at her swollen left arm. She grimaced and groaned as she got to her feet. We slowly made our way to the bathroom and I sat her on the porcelain seat.

“Just tell me when you’re done, and I’ll pick you up.” I closed the door and headed to the kitchen to arrange some more painkillers and food. After a while, she called out and I tried as gently as possible to get her back to the bed. When the discomfort and pain had subsided a bit, she asked:

“Could you cover for me at the store today? You know no one else will be able to.” we were lucky that the school was off for the weekend.

“Of course, but you should really get yourself checked at a hospital first,” I said, worried and hoping she would see reason this time. She did not.

“It’ll be fine with some more rest and water. Just go work and I’ll surely be fine by the evening.” she smiled to try and gloss over the alarming symptoms she showed.

“Ok, but if you don’t feel better by the time I’m back, I’m taking you to the nearest hospital.” I tried to say it in a commanding tone, as to make her understand that I was serious.

“It seems that I’ve gotten old enough to have my own boy worry about me,” she said while stroking my cheek. I kept a steady gaze as I grasped that hand.

“I mean it,” I answered. She fell silent, and her smile wavered. “I’ll drag you there if I have to.” I continued. She nodded and gave a weak:

“OK.”

I was off to the store, after preparing more medicine, water and a new cold towel on her arm. I arrived minutes before the store would open and explained the situation to Gaius. Although slightly dissatisfied with not having his favourite employee at work that day, they understood and agreed I should fill in her role for the day.

The day passed, and except for a few hiccups with my service manners, I would say it went fine. But I hastened home to check on mother’s condition.

“Mother! I’m home! How are you feeling?” I called out once I opened the door to the hallway. No reply. I quickly went into her bedroom to find her, still in bed, but the bed was now soaked in her sweat and water from the towel. She looked fatigued and worse than this morning.

“Cinna, I’m so sorry,” she muttered through her fever dream. I knelt down by her side and held my hand against her forehead. It was sweltering. I knew that she could not stay like this.

I barely got her on her feet and prepared to take her to the closest hospital. I took her uninjured arm over my neck to drag her there. Luckily enough, the closest one was only a block away, so after an unstable walk, we arrived. The nurses took one look at my mother and quickly got to work by pulling out a wheelchair and promptly putting her in it. Dazed and confused, mother called out to me.

“Cinna! Cinna, where are you?” Put myself in her range of view and answered:

“It’s OK mother. The doctors will take care of you now.” I answered to assure her. She sloppily grabbed my hand in desperation and replied:

“But the fees! We can’t afford this!” I looked into her eyes and stroked her cheek.

“I’ll figure something out. You should just focus on getting better now.” was the last I could reply before the nurses urgently rolled her off into a restricted area.

“Are you the relative of Anya?” someone asked behind me. What looked to be a doctor approached me in the waiting room with a medical report in his hand.

“Yes! I’m her son, Cinna.”

“Well, we have finished our emergency treatment and examination.” The doctors face hinted that the rest would not be good news. “But we have deduced that your mother has Toxic Shock Syndrome from an infection started from the burn on her left arm. The toxins from the bacteria are what’s causing her illness. Her situation is in dire need of more treatment” I looked into the doctors face in horror.

“Can you treat it? Will she be OK?” Because that was my only concern at this point.

“Yes, but the treatment of both her arm and the TSS will be quite costly and she would also have to be administered to the hospital for a couple of weeks during the treatment.” He then gave me a sheet estimating the cost for said treatment. The doctor made an educated guess that we could not afford such a fee, which is correct.

“I know we lack the proper funding, but could you start the treatment now and we could pay it off at a later date?” I tried to find any way to make it work and was as close as I could be to bargaining.

“That is unfortunately not a service we provide. We can at most hold her until tomorrow evening while trying to keep her condition stable. But I’m afraid we can’t do any more after that point.” The look in his eyes made it seem like I was the unreasonable one and a nuisance. I then felt my shaking hands that I had unconsciously formed into a fist.

“Please…” My voice cracked as I pleaded and held back my tears.”Please just hold her until tomorrow. I will find a way.” Although no idea of how. The doctor nodded.

“Very well, please be back by 10 pm.” The doctor almost sneered at me.

Well at home again, I panicked. I let out the sobs I withheld earlier and my mind spun around on what I should do. I could call Gaius for an early payment or a loan, but that would probably still not be enough. I know there are some people looking for extra organs on the black market, but that would not make me able to reach her in time. Yes, time was of the essence here. I could not lose the once person I held dear in this wretched city. Should I sell myself of for servitude, like my mother had been forced to? And then it hit me. Caiaphas.

After a sleepless night, I put my plan into action. In order to save the one I loved the most, I had to face the one I loathed even more. My own father. I stood at the gated entrance and my finger hovered over the call button. I had dressed in the finest suit I had sewn for myself, but that was still not much in comparison to the servants clothing. My red eyes and swollen face probably did not help either. I pressed the button and waited.

“Caiaphas manor. What business do you have here?” The impatient lady answered at the other end. I suspected it was a secretary who could see me from some camera by her tone.

“I am Cinna.” I paused and hoped she would know by my name alone. She did not. “I am Caiaphas’ son.” The other end went silent for a moment as if she was doubting it.

“Please hold” she answered with a sigh that got cut of. I now felt my palms sweating and the nerves kicking in. As I was lost in thought, the gate suddenly opened.

“Please enter” sounded from the speaker.

I took slow and careful steps up the stairs leading to the big mansion. The wide doors swung open as I saw a man spread his arms out to welcome me.

“Cinnaaa! What a joyous occasion,” he exclaimed. I had mastered the ability to tell when a smile meant something else, and by his, I could tell this was not joyous at all. “What brings you all this way?” I was at first surprised by the fact he remembers my existence or that he wanted to greet me at all.

“Hi.” I gave out weakly. “I was hoping that we could talk,” I stated as I nervously glanced around at all of the staff. “Alone?” He did not look pleased nor surprised.

“I suspected as much.” He kept trying to hold his facade but seemed to be slipping now. I silently followed him back through the garden to a bench halfway down the driveway.

“Please, have a seat.” I sat down on the far end of the bench as he sat down at the other. “So what business did you have today, Cinna?” He spitefully said my name.

“I came today to ask for a loan.” I thought cutting to the chase would be easier since time was of the essence and he did not enjoy my presence, to begin with. “I fully intend to pay it back in time, but I would need to leave with the specified amount by the end of our meeting.” I gave him a note with the estimated cost from the hospital. He took it into his hand and glanced at the amount. He lifted one eyebrow and snickered.

“What? Anya can’t pay for college?” he humorously replied. “You probably won’t need the education anyway. You’ll just stay in that shithole with her.” He waved his hand at the thought.

“I need it for mothers treatment,” I answered blankly, trying to ignore the seething rage building in me. He got quiet then and his smile dissipated.

“Treatment? What treatment?” He looked at the note in disgust now. He still did not understand the seriousness of the situation.

“She has had a serious burn which led to Toxic Shock Syndrome.” I steadied my gaze into his eyes. “This is the only thing I will ask of you as a son. You will never have to see me after this unless it’s for the payments.” He looked slightly shocked and froze for a while. But then burst into laughter, which shocked and enraged me. He replied:

“You really think I care about you or your whore mother?” he answered with a mocking tone. “If I wanted you in my life, you would be. But I don’t, so leave and stop wasting my time. What a waste of space.” He continued to mock and laugh as he stood up and started walking away. I slammed my hidden fist onto the table and got to my feet with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart.

“She’s dying and that’s all you have to say?!” I furiously spit out. He turned around, still looking somewhat amused but at least he contained his laughter now. “We might be a waste of space, but at least we’re not the shitstain of humanity.” That removed his stupid grin.

Two guards escorted me to the gates and shoved me through the exit. One guard yelled after me:

“For your own good kid: don’t come back.”

I made my way home, but without a single hope or possibility left, I was in tears. Although many whispered and avoided me on the streets, I couldn't care less. The tears trickled down my face and dampened my handmade suit.

The walk back took quite some time, and by the time I got home, it was 7 PM. Only three hours left. I was now filled with rage. I took out my anger on my environment. The clothes I ripped apart, the furniture I toppled and rendered some of them unusable. I felt my hands beat along to my heart, from punching the furniture and floor, in anger. I gasped for air as I regained my senses and sadness. I had failed her. I promised her I could find a way. But there is none. Not for a waste of space. But the ringing of the phone abrupted my breakdown.

A block later and I was outside the dreaded place. As I entered, one of the previous nurses led me into a nearby room where several nurses and doctors ran in and out. Upon entering, I saw my now husk of a mother on the bed and felt like collapsing then and there. But before I could, the doctor I had previously talked to approached me once more.

“Can you go through with the treatment?” He urgently asked. I bit my lower lip and shook my head. He looked solemn for one moment, but then stated. “Then there is nothing we can do. She has deteriorated quickly and will unfortunately not be with us for much longer at this pace.” He then waved for the staff to exit the room. “We will leave you two alone.” Door closed.

I sat down on the chair next to her bed and collapsed my body onto her bed. I could once more not withhold my cries and sobbed like the child I was. Suddenly I felt a soft hand on my head.

“Cinna, my sweet boy,” she whispered with a smile that contained the beautiful strength I knew her for. “I am so proud of you.” I looked up with tears in my eyes as I replied:

“No mother, I failed you! I tried to convince Caiaphas to lend me money for the treatment, but he simply laughed in my face! I couldn’t even make him see reason!” she saw my distraught face and teary eyes. She put my hands in hers and smiled again.

“What matters is that you had the strength to try and fight and that you also still made your way back to me.” she squeezed my hand with the little effort she had left. “I needed nothing more from this earth than you by my side..” she now let a tear from her eye, to match mine. “Just remember that I always have and always will love you, my boy. You made this life worth living, not just surviving.” she slowly uttered those last words, as she fell into a calm sleep. I stroked her beautiful locks away from her face, as I kissed her forehead.

“As do I love you, mother.”

I collapsed back onto the bed in tears, when I shortly after heard her last breath.

63 ADD

Days turn to weeks, months and eventually years. The memory of my mother’s final moments haunted me almost daily. The initial rage after my mother’s death had brought me to the point of an insane hunger for my dad’s death. Why did he deserve to live when she, who is so good had to die? But eventually, the pain and anger faded. There wasn’t anything that I could do. I was again reminded of my mother’s classic phrase. And it wasn’t fair to her, so I focused less on the negative moments and more about the positive ones. The way she would brush her hair behind her ear when she felt accomplished, the way she would admire a beautiful fabric, the golden specks in her eyes that would shine in the light or just how she radiated so much warmth.

I kept working in Intexui after she passed away because I didn’t really know where to go. It was a good enough job, that paid the bills and kept me out of trouble. I also got to keep working with fashion and clothes. I still spent all my spare time practising, observing and taking notes on what I could.

One day I was sitting at the front desk sketching away. This new fabric had come in that I had experimented with a little bit. It was aqua colored, and I was trying to find other fabrics to combined with it to create the illusion of waves. I was drawing up a way of sewing the shirt together when the door to the store opened. I looked up and there was a slightly older woman standing in front of me. I recognized her from the Hunger Games. She was one of the designers for District 2. Her face was striped yellow, orange and black with whiskers coming out the sides of her cheeks. Her hair had tight curls that were pulled back into a ponytail at the back of her head, giving the silhouette of a feline.

“Hello, I am Tigris. I am looking for Gaius?” she said. Just then he popped his head out of his workroom.

“Oh, let her in Cinna! Tigris, darling!” he said as he moved towards her. She walked around the desk and towards Gaius and they exchanged air kisses. He pulled her in with him and the door shut. The door opened again and a company of 3 walked in, two women and a young girl.

“Did you see the latest from Juan? Apparently, leather is the new sequins. Absolutely inspired.”

“Oh, tell me about it. Our cook kept getting sequins in our food, so I had to fire her! Leather should be a bit harder to mix into the veal lasagna.”

“I don’t know though, these avoxes can be quite stupid, I must say. Did you hear about…” They continued chattering on as they looked around the shop. Finally, they came up to me.

“How much is this?” they asked as they showed me some fine black leather.

“That would be 50 dollars a yard madam,” I answered.

“Wow, well then we can’t have that. Do you have something in a higher price range? You know more, exclusive?” she said and winked at me. I moved into the store and started going through and showing them all the different kinds of leather we had. After settling on the one that was 120 dollars a yard we moved back to the front desk. There was Tigris looking at my sketchbook. I rushed over, closed it and put it to the side.

“Sorry,” I said. Tigris moved to the side and let me pass. As a measured up the fabric and charge the woman for it, I could feel her gaze. As the woman left the store, she came up to me.

“What kind of fabric are you thinking for your design?” she asked. I little bit surprised I pulled out the aqua colored chiffon out from the counter. She looked at it and then said:

“Chiffon is a hard fabric to work with. First of all, if you want the effect of more movement, I would suggest having a white base, something sturdier like cotton.” She moved in closer and grabbed my sketchbook. “May I?” she said. I nodded. “You’re thinking a little too narrow. Instead of sowing things so much into place consider doing more layers with different lengths of fabric under one overlapping piece of fabric.” She turned to a new page and drew a slightly different version of my dress. She then put the pen down, grabbed a pair of scissors and went into the store. She came back with four different colored fabrics that all complimented each other. She put them all in the book and stamped them into place.

“Thank you,” I said. Right then Gaius came out of his workroom.

“Cinna, Tigris and I are going out to dinner. Lock up the store at closing time.” And then the walked away, not looking back. When they had gone, I opened up my book again and looked at what she had drawn. I got a new page and redrew the dress, adding the ideas she had suggested. That way would provide less room for mistakes with the sewing and would perhaps create a better illusion. The following days I worked on the dress for the next few days and made adjustments until I had achieved the perfect result.

This happened several times in the months and years that followed. Ever so often Tigris would come into the store to see Gaius and at the same time, she would offer me bits of knowledge that helped my technique and look at my end results. She convinced me to sell the clothes I make to her grandmother, who owns a clothing store. Eventually, she stopped coming by. I didn’t know why, and I never would. One day, however, as I was working one of my all-night-open shifts I had an older gentleman come in with a woman looking for me.

“I was at this dinner with my father’s colleagues, when I saw the most divine dress on one of the past victors. And I said to my papa that I simply must have it. And so, we asked her where she got it and she shared that she had gotten it from this little shop just two blocks from here! We hunted the place down and they told us that the designer worked here. And here we are!” The woman beamed at me and the elderly gentleman reached out his hand.

“So, what do you say boy? Care to help us out?” I took his hand.

“Of course. What will it be?”

After that, I had people coming in from time to time. Not a lot of people wanted to share where they got their one of a kind outfit, in fear of someone copying them, but ever so often I would get new customers come in and request their various different clothing ideas and I got to put all my knowledge into practice. I felt myself discovering more and more who I was as I drowned myself in work. I found my peaceful mind space. I still remember one morning when I got into work and I had three orders to finish by the end of the day, I saw a golden pen on the floor of the store. I picked it up and looked at it. It reminded me of the golden specks in my mother’s eyes. Oh, how I wished that I could see her again, just to talk to her one more time and to hear her say she’s proud of me. I wanted to look into her eyes again and find the reassurance that together we could do anything. I walked towards a mirror took of the lid of the pen and drew a straight line across my lash line on both eyes. I backed up and looked at myself in the mirror. Dark hair, black pants, black shirt and the gold eyeliner. It was a good look.

74 ADD

I was finishing up the last piece of hemming on the late-night order I had received the night before when the doorbell rang. I placed the last pin in the neckline and put the dress down. When I walked out into the store there was a woman standing looking at the newly arrived fabrics.

“Welcome to Intexui, can I assist you in any way today madam?”

The woman turned around and smiled. She couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than me. She had a light purple wig on that was cut to a short bob with a fringe on the front. Darker skin, almost like mine, a dark silvery jumpsuit with boots to match. A very nice-looking outfit.

“Thank you and not madam, it’s Portia,” she said and reached out her hand.

“Cinna.” I grabbed her hand and shook it. She turned around, doing a fast glance at the store.

“I am looking for an organza fabric, I’m thinking maybe green or turquoise. Do you happen to have anything of that category?”

“We do, as a matter of fact, I have some on hand if you’ll just hold on for a moment.” I went back to the back and got a few samples for her and brought them out. She grabbed them and started scanning them, pulling them a bit and holding them up to the light.

“I am not sure which one I like better. It’s hard to tell what this light green one would look like with layers towards the light. How’s it sewing with it?”

“Let me grab a sample from the back,” I said and then went into my workroom and grabbed the dress that I had been working on. I brought back and laid it in front of her. Her eyes widened a little bit and she picked it up gently. She spent a good minute just looking at the dress. She looked up at me and said:

“Who made this?”

“That would be me,” I answered. Her smile widened.

“Well, it’s beautiful. It’s really a fine piece. Where did you study?”

“Oh, I learned most of it from the store, some books, and by practice. You meet a lot of people in these kinds of places who are eager to share their wisdom and knowledge,” I said waving my hand around the room. I couldn’t help myself from thinking of Tigris.

“That very well maybe, but Cinna, raw talent isn’t something you pass down. It’s something you’re born with.” She put the dress gently back on the countertop. She then picked up the bright turquoise fabric and handed it to me.

“Can I have 10 yards of this please?” I took it out of her hand and started measuring the fabric. This gave me some time to just let the compliment sink in. I felt like I had gotten loads of praise over the year but for some reason, this situation really stood out. And then I realized that it carried the same kind of spirit as something that my mother would have said. I am what I make myself. I folded the fabric up nicely and placed it in a bag and handed it over to Portia. She took it and started to walk away. She then came back up to me.

“So, I just got hired for the hunger games as a stylist. I still have the guy’s number if you are interested.”

“I don’t know. That whole spectacle isn’t really my scene,” I answered. She opened up her bag and pulled out a card and handed it to me.

“Well, here is his number in case you change your mind. Could be your opportunity to make a mark.” She then turned around and walked out of the door.

After I finished work, I walked home in deep thought as I held the card in my jacket pocket. If there was anything in this world that was against everything I believed in, it was the Hunger Games. But it was those last words that Portia uttered that made me think. As I walked through the door, headed to the living room and turned on the TV. I took the remote control and flicked through different TV shows until I landed on last years broadcast of the Hunger Games. I hadn’t watched it of course, not after the 50th. But I wanted to see something with my own eyes. I started going through the reaping segments. When I got to district 12, I observed what was happening. As they called out the name of the scrawny girl, I could see the fear in her eyes as she moved towards the stage. I saw the same kind of fear in the lanky boy. As the reaping was over, I observed as the peacekeepers took these two children by the arm and guided them into the building behind them. Words from my mother’s story of her night at the mansion popped out in my mind. Being overcome by fear, not having a choice and my dad grabbing her arm pulling her towards the moment that would change her life forever. All survivors. I turned off the TV and walked up to the phone and dialled the number on the card.

The following day I took the train into the Gold Circle, the centre of the Capitol to meet up with Seneca Crane. I had brought all of my sketches and some of my finished products that were yet to be picked up at the store. As I walked into the building the word luxury came into mind. Huge marble walls stretching up for hundreds of meters. I walked up the front desk and gave my name and was directed to the 15th floor. As I was moving up the elevator, I was running through what I was going to say in the meeting. When I arrived, I was directed into what seemed like an office. Sitting behind a big white desk sat a man with a beard that had a very intricate pattern. He was wearing a bright red suit and was preoccupied with writing on a piece of paper.

“Come in and have a seat,” he said without looking away from what he was doing. As I sat down, he collected everything on his desk into a pile and put it to the side. “I’m Seneca. I believe that you brought your portfolio?” he said and reached out his hand. I opened up my bag and pulled out a book, to put in his hand, and then spread everything else out on the table. Seneca spent about 15 minutes in silence looking through my sketchbook and picking up the different pieces of clothing. Finally, he closed the book and put everything down on the table.

“You obviously have talent, and I can see here that you have worked with some good people. We like that. Tell me, why do you want this job?” I thought about it for a second. I had to really think about how I could phrase my answer.

“I feel like I have more to offer. And I would like the chance to prove that, to show people what I can do with the simplest of things,” I answer him. Seneca looks at me closely and leans back in his chair.

“I agree with you. However, you are a newcomer, so we don’t have much to offer in terms of the districts.”

“Okay, well, if you’ll permit me, I’d like request district 12.” He smiled and stood up.

“Request granted. Welcome to the Hunger Games Cinna.” he replied as he shook my hand.

It had been two months since I had gotten the job to work in the Hunger Games. Shortly after the interview, I got to meet my fellow stylist, which just so happened to be Portia. We got started right away on brainstorming different ideas for the opening ceremony outfit, just so that we would be prepared. On the day of the reaping Portia and I came together to watch together at the tributes we would be designing for. One by one we watched the tributes for the different districts being selected. I couldn’t help but notice how cold some of them looked. Like they had lost their souls. My heart broke when I witnessed a young twelve-year-old girl get reaped from district 11. However, the real showstopper of the entire reaping was district 12. I watched as Effie Trinket took to the stage and pulled the name for the girl. This year it seemed to be another small twelve-year-old girl. I started taking notes on her, but then suddenly there was a scream from the crowd. A slightly older girl had thrown herself in front of the first girl and screamed that she was volunteering. The little girl was lifted away by another boy as this girl took to the stage. It was shared that she was the older sister. Following this, there was an odd cut in the footage and it jumped straight to the reaping of the boy. A blond-haired, strong built boy walked up on the stage. Finally, they shook hands before they were taken into the building behind them. As the screening finished, I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. A scrawny, brown-haired girl that had not volunteered for the sake of glory, but to save her sister. I wrote down: Tell prep team to leave her hair as is. I looked up at the screen again and rewound back to the moment she threw herself in front of her sister. The honest terror in her eyes, but also the heat. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. This girl, I thought, she’s got fire.

[calleo-bricriu]

Sunday Afternoon.

(( Cleaned up and pieced together from a thread with @misfit-herbologist , who you should definitely check out. I’ve known & have been writing with them for several years. ))

A couple of hours meant exactly two hours.

Not an inaccurate interpretation of two hours but, it might have been easier to just say “two hours”.

When Calleo appeared in front of Vasiliy’s place he stopped for a moment, looking around the area. It must have been awhile; he was almost certain there weren’t that many greenhouses the last time he’d visited or, if there were, they were almost certainly smaller.

Moving plants, the thought struck Calleo out of nowhere, always made him nervous and there were bound to be a lot of moving plants in that place. Plants were just–not supposed to do that, they were supposed to stay in the ground and not wander about, make sounds, grab things, or even worse and even those that were meant to capture prey were still supposed to remain firmly in the ground.

Well, non-magical plants were supposed to, at any rate. What magical plants did was anyone’s guess; maybe nothing, maybe screaming in a way that would cause you to die, because why not?

Our of habit, Calleo swept the area for traps, wards, and hostile magic in general. He didn’t necessarily expect to find anything, though; at this point it was more of an automatic habit that one was just supposed to do before approaching a building, even when invited.

And, of course, finding nothing out of the ordinary, he walked up to the door and knocked, silently hoping it was Vasiliy who answered the door and not Vasiliy’s partner whose name he could never get entirely correct even after several years.

This time, Calleo had not left his hair down, that was far too much to both deal with and risk around weird, grasping plants. It wasn’t exactly done up nicely either, just lazily tied back in a manner that suggested he might have actually wrapped it around the two wands whose job it was (at the moment) to act as hair sticks. Perfectly appropriate use of wands.

That added wonderfully to the impression that Calleo had, perhaps, been up all night, took a bit of a nap in the morning, then realised he was supposed to have been somewhere an hour prior and decided as-is would have to do. As long as nobody looked terribly closely, he did manage to look relatively put together.

Fortunately for Calleo, it was indeed Vasiliy who opened the door. He still had his winter beard and had thankfully remembered to trim it before his friend’s arrival. His hair, on the other hand, looked like it hadn’t seen a brush or comb in a few days, though it was just as likely that Vasiliy had just been frantically cleaning and getting things ready for his guest. Not like his house really needed that much more cleaning and organising, truth be told.

 “Ah, Calleo,” Vasiliy said with a warm smile. “Please come in. I was just finishing up the tea and I’ve got fresh biscuits.” The welcoming smell of tea and biscuits was evident as soon as the front door was opened, and Vasiliy stepped aside to let Calleo through.

   There were a number of indoor plants inside, though thankfully nowhere near enough to confuse the home with the greenhouses, but enough to give the strong impression that the homeowner was a fan of plants. They also, thankfully, didn’t rustle or give the faintest impression of sentience at the guest’s arrival.

   Aside from Vasily himself, and his cat Smoky peering around the stairs in the hallway, the only other sounds in the home were from the kitchen of the tea kettle’s whistle slowly dying down and the clinking of some tea spoons and cups as they filled and arranged themselves on the small table there. A small stack of book sat waiting.

“Vasiliy! You look–” he canted his head in a slightly bird-like manner, “–about how I’d look if I had left this mess on my head down.”

Calleo stepped past Vasiliy and into the house, taking far too careful note of which plants were where in case nay of them got any strange ideas of moving about or acting in ways plants just shouldn’t be acting.

“Kitchen, or–?” He glanced back at Vasiliy and stopped moving, not particularly wanting to just wander around the house, even if it was the house of someone he knew fairly well. Calleo did give the cat a nod, as though the animal were going to greet him in return.

“Anyway, I was mostly a bit curious as to how accurate you could get an array of flowers to fit at least the general theme, kind of, of something but I probably shouldn’t jump straight to business, should I?” Another sidelong glance at the cat with fur that probably stuck to clothes, though it may also have been a quick look to see if Vasiliy’s partner was around or if he’d purposely made himself scarce.

“We probably ought to catch up a bit first, yeah?”

The cat stared back at Calleo while Vasiliy shut the door behind him and then gave him a slow blink. She didn’t otherwise move, seemingly waiting to see what room they would be heading to.

“Oh— I was just getting things ready in the kitchen but it’s no problem to move things out to the not-kitchen.” Vasiliy paused and then ran a hand through his messy hair as if that would fix anything, taking a moment to remember how to be a normal social person. He hummed to himself and stepped into the nearby kitchen. “Tadeusz went out to run some errands so he may be back before you leave.”

It was cosy and not too big but managed to keep anything one might need in a kitchen. On top of the cupboards were tins upon tins of various teas as well as a number of coffees. Some were purchased and others had new labels written upon them–they must have been the ones Vasiliy grew himself.

“Sugar or honey? Cream or milk?” Vasiliy asked Calleo, looking back towards him to quickly inundate him with too many questions. “Or do you prefer black? Do you want jelly with your biscuits? Or would you perhaps prefer something more savory?”

“Kitchen’s fine, mate,” Calleo waved dismissively at nothing. “Usually no rugs in there, not that I intend on dropping anything. It’s been awhile since I’ve forgotten I’m holding something, open the hand it’s in, and drop it.”

“By awhile, I mean about seven months.” He turned as the door closed, and his attempt to do so casually didn’t necessarily land; it ended up looking more like a mild jump than anything else.

Before he could manage to apologise for that reaction to nothing more than a door closing, Vasiliy had begun peppering him with questions–about something? Tea and food and then tea and–

Calleo blinked owlishly and followed Vasiliy into the kitchen, “It–black is all right. I’ll figure the rest out when I get to that point.”

Maybe if he sat down there would be fewer questions? Probably not but, taking a seat would look less standoffish than staying where he was, looking mildly shocked at the fact that a door had closed. It was just a closed door anyway, not a cell door, this wasn’t a prison, he wasn’t a captive, and there would be no good reason for Vasiliy to have locked anyone in or out of a room.

“Things have been well, yes? It has been some time and I figure it may not be the best idea to just presume,” while he was now in the kitchen as well, Calleo didn’t sit. Not yet, anyway.

“You’ll have to–well, not have to, but it would be nice–forgive me, with all the work I do and the sorts of people I work with it’s sometimes a bit tricky to not be a little jumpy!” He laughed and shook his head, “Old habits and all of that. Funny thing is, around people I know are dangerous, I’m perfectly at ease.”

“Hm. That’s all right,” Vasiliy reassured him. He set some sugar, honey, and cream on the table anyway in case Calleo did change his mind, and a jar of strawberry jelly. “Nothing in here will bite you.” He side-eyes a tea spoon that was still floating about in the corner. It promptly dropped to the counter with a clang–a small clang proportionate to its size–when it was seen. “Well, nothing should bite you.”

“Oh! And where are my manners? Please, take a seat, make yourself comfortable.” He gestured to the chairs at the table and waited for Calleo to sit before seating himself down.

“Ah, everything’s been well for me, and I don’t think there have been any dramatic changes since the last time we met. I’ve just been studying different plant specimens, writing about them, experimenting with hybrids of a few.”

Once it appeared that the pair were getting settled, Smoky entered the kitchen and sat down by the door. Observing.

“Won’t and shouldn’t are two very, very different things,” Calleo all but flopped into an open chair, “though it doesn’t look like much in here does a lot of moving on its own–I mean, apart from us and the cat.

A cat that Calleo turned to eye somewhat suspiciously.

"That is just a cat, right? Not some sort of familiar or some kind of weird living situation with an–no, obviously not an Animagus, I’d be able to tell that. Forget that part, that was a part that should have stayed right inside my head!” He flashed a brilliant, if a bit tired, grin and, for the moment, only curled his hands around the tea cup.

“Hybrids like making lilies produce lima beans? Or something a little less mad than a suggestion a Muggle illustration from the 1920s made as a joke? Or more mad? I’m not sure what the scale of ‘mad experimentation’ is in Herbology, maybe that’s all perfectly normal.”

Calleo moved to take a sip of his tea but stopped when the cup was mid-way to his mouth, “You did mean hybrids of plants and other plants, yes? Not hybrids of plants and–garden toads or people you don’t particularly like or anything like that? Because you don’t need to hybridise anything for that, you can just get creative with Transfiguration.”

“Smoky?” Vasiliy picked his own tea up and looked at the cat. “Ah–oh no, she’s just a house cat,” he said, shaking his head. “I think she’s just checking you out. Nothing to worry about.”

The aforementioned cat gave Calleo another slow blink, and then began washing her face like a perfectly normal cat. Nothing suspicious here. Vasiliy meanwhile took a biscuit and spread some jelly on it as he listened to Calleo.

“Plant hybrids. The lillies that produce lima beans will just be a silly little side-project because now I’m just curious if I can do it. I’m sure I can, but the process is still fun.” He sipped some of his tea before continuing.

“But yes, I’ve mainly been experimenting with various herbs and some produce plants. Seeing if some can be made hardier, or if they can take on the qualities of both parent plants, or maybe even produce some combination.”

Vasiliy paused, considering the hybridisation of plants and very-much-not-plants. He hmms and makes a mental note.

“What about yourself, Calleo? What have you been up to?”

“Cats are such odd creatures. I think it’s the eyes, somehow.” Reluctantly, Calleo tore his attention away from the perfectly ordinary cat that was busy doing perfectly ordinary cat things.

“I’m glad your answer was–not boring or mundane but normal? Then again, my basis for normal is often based on what my own projects are and none of those are even remotely objectively normal most days.” He absently scratched the side of his head, “That happens after a few years, you just lose all sense of what ’normal’ actually is.”

The hum seemed to prompt Calleo to elaborate, “You ought to see the dog I made for Braxford. Had a Magizoologist yell at me about it like I didn’t think it entirely though! It’s technically just a dog that was a little transfigured, not something I bred, because I don’t think you could breed a dog and a spider–” he trailed off. That likely wasn’t the best line of conversation for tea.

“I have been up to a lot of things I have no business being up to, around or in, chief of which is a tower. What’s left of a tower anyway. That’s partially why I’m here but, I’ll get to that later.”

“Apart from that, work,” he shrugged idly and took a sip of tea, “and I don’t like a good lot of what I keep seeing on the political side of my job; I have to keep myself in relatively okay standing with various governments on the continent in order to move freely, you know.”

Calleo shook his head and paused for a moment to have some more tea, “The Ministry wants nothing to do with reports that have been leaking out from Eastern Europe for almost eight years now and it’s not going to end well for anyone if they keep their current view. At this point,” he chuckled lightly, “I’m fairly certain Europe’s reaction in the next four or five years is going to be a tired, vaguely sarcastic, ‘I told you so’.”

   “A dog and a…spider?” Vasiliy frowned a little. “Ah–no, that’s okay. I don’t like spiders. I’m sure it’s interesting though!” He smiled a little and took another biscuit. “No adverse effects? I would be concerned about its well-being and quality of life, especially since those are two very different organisms.”

   “That’s not to say I wouldn’t be curious to see a plant combined with an animal,” he added quietly.

   He then furrowed his brows a little. “I honestly am very bad at keeping up with politics or anything. And what have you been doing in a tower?” Vasiliy takes another sip of his tea. “Is that where you’re growing lichen? Why are you growing lichen, anyway?

   The cat, while no-one’s looking at her, quietly hops onto the table and lies down on the stack of books beside them.

“Now you just sound like a Magizoologist!” Calleo snorted back a laugh, “It’s not as though I did it on a whim; it started out as a pun–you know, wolf spider–but the first one was…it was a spider so it had the brains of a spider, and that didn’t go so well.”

“The second one was arguably more dangerous and much less frantic, so, kind of messed with the pun when the third one was a domestic dog transfigured to have several features more commonly seen on spiders.”

“Specifically,” he grinned, “eight eyes, eight legs–just two extra in the front and two extra in the back–and it can spin webs. It also has hollow, venomous, black ‘teeth’. Incredibly friendly, and has a permanent charm on it so Muggles only see a little white spitz dog.”

Calleo picked up his cup again and answered Vasiliy’s first question without exactly thinking, “Grindelwald,” he seemed to realise mid-sip what he’d just said out loud and very slowly and deliberately set his cup back down; the only outward sign of what was probably a somewhat large internal cringe.

“I’d apologise for my personality but, really, you’ve known me long enough to be probably mostly used to it by this point,” he sighed and shook his head, “That is where the lichen is, though; grows on the walls. I’m not growing it. I wouldn’t have any use for it. It’s–I think it turned into one of those weird things someone latches onto if they’re kept in solitary confinement too long? There used to be rat skeletons nailed to the wall as well and I really don’t want to ask about that because I’m certain the answer will be as unsettling as anything I could come up with on my own.”

“He’s weirdly protective of it. The lichen, not the skeletons; I don’t normally get near that wall just on principle. It flowers now and again. Odd little red things on stalks.”

   Vasiliy shivered lightly. “No. That’s–that’s too many things on one dog. Is it poisonous, then? Or–I mean more is it dangerous for people?”

   “G–Grindelwald??” Vasiliy momentarily went pale and just stared at Calleo unsure of how to even continue on that topic. Did he want to know more? Was it safe to know more? Dare he ask?

   “The red stems that the lichen grow are their reproductive structures,” he then says. Yes, let’s change topic. That’s much safer than worrying and wondering about the war criminal. “It sounds like those are isidia–column-like structures that stand up above the thallus, which can be different colours depending on the species. So, red in your case.”

   Yes, that’s good. Let’s talk about fungus. Excellent.

“Peekers is a perfectly normal–ish–friendly dog. Of course, that goes off of Braxford’s interpretation of friendly but he’s had dogs before and I’m sure I’d have loudly heard about it if Peekers were somehow unmanageable.”

Calleo nodded, “Mm. Surprisingly friendly and conversational when not completely out of his mind. Reckon most people are, though. He’s not even the most dangerous person I know these days. Anyway!” He smiled again, “Isn’t that what flowers in general are? Or am I still at some T level understanding of what flowers are?”

“Admittedly, I didn’t know lichen, of all things, flowered.  I’m not even sure I knew it was a plant, to be perfectly honest. The red clashes fantastically with the weird shade of green that stuff is.”

“I managed to get it to grow on a few rocks in my yard, somehow. I"m not entirely certain how that happened because the Muggle who explained how to do it said it involved a blender and something else–I’m not really sure, I haven’t got a blender, and just let her do it.”

“I can tell you, however,” he pointed at Vasiliy with his cup, “I felt more than a little mad using a butter knife to spread it onto bare rocks. Glad nobody but the crows in the yard saw that.”

   “Well, they aren’t really a plant so those structures wouldn’t be considered flowers. They’re close to plants, like moss, but are also similar to fungus. They can grow in practically any climate, too. And what kind did you start growing yourself? The same one as in the tower? Or another type? Is it because you like that colour contrast, or did you just have that on hand? I don’t really keep too many of them myself but I do have a few unusual lichen specimens in my collection.”

   “I think the ones I enjoy are a little fluffy, you could say. They’re a little like mesh and grow out like little branches from whatever it is they’re on, usually tree branches, and they’re lighter in colour. Well, at least the ones I’ve collected are a little on the bright side, there are likely others that are dark.”

   “If you’d like to add a little variety to…either of those lichen collections, I could give you some that I keep. You would, however, need to spread them in much the same way.”

   Vasiliy then took a slow sip of his tea, feeling a little better now that he rambled a little about plant-things.

   “Now, ah–you wanted to do something with a flower message?”

The question about what type of lichen it was was met with a completely blank stare. A completely blank stare that continued for far longer than it should have. The only indication that Calleo hadn’t completely somehow frozen was the fact that he was occasionally taking a sip of tea.

“I have no idea what it is apart from lichen that makes weird red stalk-flowers now and again. Whatever I spread onto rocks was whatever flaked off and fell to the floor there. I just sort of–collected it for a couple of years. There’s a small ‘garden’ of it on a few smaller rocks in a bell jar there now.”

“I’m not sure if I’m insulted or not that it grows just as well on outdoor rocks in Scotland as it does in a dodgy old building designed to suck the life out of everything it touches. Doesn’t say much for Scotland’s weather or my house, does it?”

Calleo sat quietly for a minute or two, considering the lichen offer, “You know, I think I will for the sole reason that I want to see if he asks me what in the actual hell I’m doing to what’s left of the walls and to see if he believes the explanation.”

“Right, right!” Again, he set his cup down. Holding it and talking at the same time didn’t appear to be a possibility, “The entire reason I decided to take up the majority of your Sunday! It’s not–I know, for the most part, how messages via flowers work, primarily because I can read, but this is slightly different.”

“I don’t think it can be done directly because what I’m kind of thinking of is more–a ‘mood’ in the wording that would make it recognisable as to what it’s meant to be paired with if that makes any sort of sense.”

   “We can take a look at the lichen that I have later then.” Vasiliy nodded. “Even if I strongly question your life choices,” he then added quietly.

   He glanced at the stack of books beside them and then reached over to stroke Smoky’s head, who purred in return. “That sort of message is really much easier to send via flower arrangements. What are you pairing it with? A letter? A poem?” Vasiliy paused. “You’re not sending him some sort of secret messages, are you?”

“Vasiliy, I strongly question my life choices. You can see what good it does.”

“It’s not as bad as it seems–I mean, it kind of is, it’s actually rather objectively terrible but, it also isn’t.”

“At some point I think I just got rid of the bar,” he shrugged and smiled again. If any of that bothered Calleo, there certainly wasn’t any indication of it.

“I hadn’t really thought that far ahead; does it need to be paired with something?” He canted his head slightly, “Secret messages? No, no, it’s more a–re-reading of something.”

“What kind of secret messages did you imagine I’d be sending, out of interest?” A hint of amusement crept into Calleo’s voice.

“Oh, I don’t mean pair it when you send it. I may have worded that poorly. I think I just meant what you’re basing the message on?” Vasiliy ran a hand through his hair, this was a lot more socialising that he’d done in a good while.

“And I have no idea what sort of secret messages you might send and if that were the case I wouldn’t want to know what they were or whom they were for. But if that’s not what they are then–that’s good. That’s good and fine and I prefer that.”

“Oh! It’s a poem. I haven’t got it written down, I’m not sure I’m allowed to; I do have it memorised, however. Maybe think of whatever plants get involved as a bit of theatre or something? That’s probably not exactly the right word there.”

“Not sure yet if I want to be able to read along with them.”

“I’ve sent coded messages before with flowers but I’m not entirely certain if the recipient knew that or if he just thought some weird man was sending him flowers for some inexplicable reason,” Calleo frowned slightly at his cup.

“And once, with Felix,” he perked right back up again! “I had to tell him not to take ten words and something like a hundred letters and symbols to say what he could say in English in, like, five words because chances are I’d translate something wrong or miss some subtle nuance and take it literally.”

“I like to send Braxford inappropriately aggressive messages that way and it’s a lot more interesting than just sending an owl to ask him if he fancies a duel.”

Calleo’s grin was now back and it had a bit of a sharp edge to it, “I like to send him bouquets of Rhododendron and Tansy.”

“That is clever,” Vasiliy said with a smile. “I didn’t think anyone still sent little messages with flowers. Well, apart from the maybe-more-typical romantic sort, of course.” He then nudged Smoky a bit and pulled a notebook out from under her. The cat didn’t seem to mind and lied back down on the next book as if she were never disturbed in the first place.

“A poem then? Hm. I won’t write it down if you’re not allowed to but I will note some keywords and themes so we can keep track, if that’s all right. I know I can get a little excited when talking about flowers and I’m pretty sure you’re not here for a lecture on herbology or anything,” Vasiliy said with a light chuckle.

“At least I know Braxford isn’t going to misinterpret it–and it’s not really ‘war’ but, the way we destroy everything involved sometimes might count as a minor one. Great way to keep your skill and reaction time up!” Calleo watched the cat a bit too closely again. It was just. A. Cat.

When Vasiliy asked about the poem again for possibly the third time that afternoon, Calleo wrenched his attention away from the perfectly ordinary cat and back to his friend, “Oh! Right, right, the thing I’m actually here about!”

“I’m going to play it a bit safe and not just read you the entire thing but, the topic of it was, of course, waxing poetic about the sunrise over the Northern-ish lake where they lived. Thing is, though, you do have to avoid anything reed-like,  aquatic, or anything like long grass that looks like it might grow around the edges of a lake.”

“Now that I think about it, it could probably just be an array of orange and reddish flowers mixed in above a lower blue layer but, I’m guessing, you’ll be able to add a little more depth to it than that.”

Vasiliy jotted a few things down so he doesn’t forget: sunrise over a lake, no aquatic plants, and also draws some little flowers of different types as he thought them over. He tapped his pencil on the paper a few times before speaking up.

“Gerbera and tulips are a couple of flowers I can think of that have mostly symbolism as well as come in a variety of colours–aside from roses, in popularity, of course,” he said. “Red, yellow, and orange tulips tend to symbolise passion, cheerful thoughts, hope, and understanding. There are also blue ones for tranquility if you wished to stick to one type of flower.”

“Gerbera, which also come in a range of colours that would be appropriate for the sunrise theme, represent energy and joy,” Vasiliy continued, all the while more focused on making little drawings of the flowers he’s talking about and noting their meanings. “Again, positive messages, but maybe a little too…loud? Not loud, but they don’t really read as peaceful and tranquil as a sunrise over a lake would be.”

“Ah, freesia is another. Protection and calm. Let’s see.” He went back to tapping on the notepad as he recalled flowers, not yet resorting to the assortment of books he’d dragged out of his and his partner’s little personal library. “Blue violets for faithfulness, purple for loyalty and simplicity.”

Vasiliy finally stopped and looks up at Calleo, a touch of concern on his face. “Was that too much?”

For the most part, save for tulips and violets, Calleo had no idea what Vasiliy was talking about.

“I think, if it’s a sunrise, it’d be a bit of a–half circle that dips behind the blue flowers? So maybe a few of those,” he pointed to the Gerbera sketches, “for things not the–whatever the center of a floral sun would be, and use the tulips near the center.”

“A mix of blue and violet, well, violets might give the water some depth and it looks like the freesia has a shape that would work well to be rays of sunlight throughout?”

Evidently, he didn’t think it was too much.

“Should probably put a few preserving charms so it doesn’t start to wilt and die the way cut flowers tend to do after awhile. In this particular situation that would–” Calleo shook his head, “it just wouldn’t be a good idea.”

   “I think that would work out just fine,” Vasiliy said with a smile. “So–this and the other lichen samples. Was there anything else you needed, Calleo?”

   “Oh! Did you want to make this flower arrangement here? I’m not sure that I have all of the required flowers, but you can take this sheet and I can point you at a good local florist?”

Calleo shook his head, “No, no, nothing I can think of and, since I’ve taken up the majority of your day with all of this you’re overdue for a break!”

“I’ll take the sheet to a florist and let you get back to your afternoon, thank you again.”

“I’ll let you know how well it goes–though I probably won’t know with the lichen for a month or so.”

[birbofathena]

twitter has a character limit, which is why we’re here

hi there. it's been a lil while, huh.

scrolling through my twitter, i found this (seen below) and i'm in the mood for rambling on and on so woo here we go.

Have you ever

1. skipped class

never with the intent of skipping class. i've missed quite a lot of class in my time, but my brain gets awful sick in the winter, which really inhibits my ability to do "normal human" things. i see a therapist every two weeks.

2. done drugs

nah. addiction plagues my paternal family line, and we're seeing glimpses of it in my brother as well. will i try drugs? maybe weed. anything that can be a one-and-done thing, just to try it. never nicotine. never alcohol.

3. self harmed

nope. i have an irrational fear of the consequences that might come of that specifically, and frankly i'm better off for it. heaven knows i've spent enough time thinking about that for one lifetime.

4. drank

see question two. it's funny that a differentiation between alcohol and everything else exists, imo.

5. shoplifted

i don't think so. i'm really starting to wonder about the demographic that this question set was originally made for.

6. gotten a tattoo

nope! maybe one day. probably a nice little flower, with an inkling of color peeking at the edges of its petals. probably on my back somewhere, so that i'm always a bit surprised when someone points it out. "oh yeah, i have that. cool, huh?"

7. broken up with someone

once. even then, we weren't official. my reasoning was that i wasn't ready, though frankly i think we both weren't. i didn't even know what i wanted. perhaps what i do want is something that maybe not a lot of high-schoolers want - something pragmatic, honest, somewhat more private. or that could be what most people do want. i really don't get out that much.

What's your favorite

8. show

my gut response is over the garden wall. i love, love, love fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood too, though i'm waiting until i have the chance to watch it with a friend of mine to finish it. it's sooooooo intense. don't spoil me, please!

9. movie

i'm not a real movie type of person, so i always default to the movies that i grew up watching whenever this question is asked - the incredibles, the lion king, monsters inc. ...

10. song

you might as well ask, "who's you're favorite child?" there are simply too many. here, if you want to feel out my taste for music, this is my main playlist. feel free to follow that (and me) for more! i get a kick out of having followers on spotify, for some reason. (sidenote: i created a whole new account so that i could change the username, so that account really needs some love again. curse the constant state of toil for consistency i'm in. everywhere the world must know me as birbofathena.)

11. artist

i read a lot of webcomics, so while i can't speak of any historic artists, i do think you should definitely check out ari (and his comic here), owen (and the comic she writes and colors for here), toby (and his comic here), and vi (and her comic here).

12. singer / band

this is an easier question, because i can just take a look at whom i listen to the most. now, i listen to a lot of ambient music, so right off the bat, i can recommend moby, ulrich schnauss, balmorhea, and chihei hatakeyama. speaking about the more "mainstream" artists, i like marina, mgmt, elton john, the 1975, patti page, and tessa violet.

13. memory

lately i've been thinking a lot about how i, as a kid, spent my time laid on the cement by the yard of my first house, watching the bees work on the clover. from one small flower to the next. watching them dig through the petals in search of nectar. it may not be my favorite, but it's what comes to mind.

14. book

i'm reading the poisonwood bible right now, which has been so fantastic. seriously, read it if you haven't yet. aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe is another excellent book.

This or that

15. invisibility or the ability to fly

invisibility, because violet is my favorite character from the incredibles. she's so cool. also worth noting: you start flying everywhere, and soon enough you'll find that you've become a living carnival ride.

16. cookies or cake

when done right, cake every time. cookies produce more consistent results though - as far as pleasing me goes - so long as there's chocolate somewhere within. ~~cookies without chocolate are an atrocity.~~ EDIT (10TH MAY '19) - jamie, u ignorant slut. i completely forgot about sugar cookies, in their entirety. forgive me. cookies can live their lives as they please. i know nothing.

17. twitter or facebook

twitter. hell, anything that isn't facebook. facebook's the place that moms go to to eat each other alive. having a facebook account is plain unhealthy.

18. movies or books

depends, really. there're awful movies who have awesome book counterparts, and vice versa. and to be fair, each medium offers things that the other one can't. if you were to ask me though, i'd say books. the feeling that you get when you reach the end of a book is like no other.

19. coke or sprite

this is a lame question, and everyone knows it. the real question on everyone's mind is: coke or pepsi? and i am a pepsi drinker. though the flavored cokes that've been coming out lately are pretty tasty as well. f me up with that strawberry guava, yes please.

20. blind or deaf

anxiety or depresson? brain cancer or pancreatic cancer? alzheimer's or parkinson's? need i say more?

21. tea or coffee

i haven't actually ever tried coffee, though i've been told that i'd like it (due to my liking dark chocolate so much)! i don't really like most teas though; i'll only drink this one herbal tea called bengal spice which is a pseudo-chai tea.

What's your

22. age

i'm 18. i was born 18th february, 2001, at 18:18. whew.

23. sign

pisces sun, capricorn moon, virgo rising

24. height

5′8″ or 173 cm

25. sexual orientation

gay

26. shoe size

9.5 in US mens

27. religion

i don't associate myself with any one religion. i think it's one of those things that's good for some and terrible for others. just do what makes you happy.

28. longest relationship

tbd. the non-relationship described in question 7 went for nearly three weeks.

Opinion on

29. gay rights

i always hear that a lot of homophobic people are lgbt themselves, which is strange to me. though i suppose it's in my nature to be unforgivably confrontational when it comes to inner turmoil, so i'll never really be able to understand homophobic lgbt folk. it goes without saying, then: i support "gay rights," if that's even a differentiation we want to make. i also support "women's rights," "homeowners' rights," and "dogs' rights."

30. second chances

i think for the most part i can empathize with those whom have struggles and missteps i haven't personally experienced. i am a very feeling person. there is an exception to this, but only when one's done something so blatantly wrong - decisions driven by greed or malice.

31. long-distance relationships

tough and complicated. having a relationship through messaging allows both parties to understand how the other thinks - their opinions, their emotions. essentially how their brain functions, because there are few things more idiosyncratic than language, and writing allows one to take full advantage of that. however, having a relationship in-person grants this knowledge, and so much more. (no one said that in-person relationships can't include any messaging, anyway.) we don't speak with just our tongue. what about the silent conversations? what about physical compatibility? like i say, it's tricky, but i think it's more-or-less doable.

32. abortion

i'm pretty pro-choice. if one'd like to offer up their child for adoption, that'd be cool, but no one should feel obligated to do so. whatever you're comfortable with is what i'll support you doing.

33. the death penalty

absolutely not, not ever. it costs more to pull that trigger than it is to sentence someone to life in prison. they must be absolutely sure that they have the guilty before killing them, which takes a long time to decide, and attorneys' time is expensive. and if a mistake is made and an innocent person is killed, boy, do you have one hell of a lawsuit on your hands. not only that, but it is so hypocritical of us to be killing someone... for killing someone. the whole thing doesn't make sense, and i'll tell you why it's still around: people want to kill, kill, kill anything that is bad, bad, bad. dog bites your child? kill that monster. say goodbye to the family pet. people feel so strongly that they've triumphed over evil when they see this drastic result - a carcass underneath their feet. to hell with that.

34. marijuana

i keep saying this: do what you want. marijuana doesn't hurt anything. humans have been doing it ever since we discovered fire. it's absurd that we regulate it now.

35. love

love. it's different for everyone, but for me, it's an enhancement of life. not something necessary, but something that's nice to have. to have someone to bounce ideas off of 24/7. to have someone to turn to in a crisis. to have someone who mourns with you after a loss. indeed, one can face these alone with relative ease, but it's just easier to have someone by your side along the way.

Do you

36. believe in ghosts

yes. old houses might just as well have a mouth, they have so much to say. brand-spanking-new houses are barren, lifeless. i know you know this feeling. ghosts aren't necessarily the malicious, turbulent spirits everyone wants you to believe. they're the vestiges of life, left behind by anyone who's ever felt strong enough to leave them.

37. shower facing the shower head or away from it

away from it, always. who faces the shower head? do they shower with their eyes closed the whole time? just... what?

38. sleep with the door open or closed

i sleep with it closed, though i need to start leaving it open more. it's been getting awfully stuffy.

39. love someone

no. it's not something i'm currently looking for, though my therapist did ask in my last session... i don't know. will it be something i will ever truly look for? i hate the idea of online dating, though that's just my first impression. i just don't know.

40. still watch cartoons

of course. i watch plenty of anime, but if that doesn't count as "cartoons," i also watch and rewatch steven universe, over the garden wall (as mentioned above), and gravity falls.

41. have a boyfriend / girlfriend

nope.

42. like yourself

hell yeah.

[nightmare-afton-cosplay]

Exclusive: Scott McGillivray’s Tips From ‘Vacation House Rules’ That’ll Make You Rich Off Real Estate, Fast

HGTV

Ever wonder how much cash you could rake in renting out a vacation home when you’re not using it? Real estate expert and contractor Scott McGillivray helps homeowners do just that on the HGTV show “Vacation House Rules.”

On the show (which returns for its second season on Saturday), McGillivray and his team take some of the most dated and neglected homes and turn them into unlikely slices of vacation paradise. In a time when everyone is looking to get out of their quarantine routine, a rental home can really bring in the big bucks.

Curious to learn more, we talked with McGillivray about the allure and logistics of owning a vacation home, his own story of how he went from one to 25 rental homes, the one funny thing vacationers crave in a rental, and more.

When you were in college, you had a hard time finding a place to live. How did that inspire you to work with real estate, and rentals in particular?

When I was in college, my landlord was selling my house, pretty much at the last minute. My roommates and I struggled to find a place to live. The real estate agent who was trying to help me find a place to rent suggested that maybe I should buy a place instead, which I thought was a crazy idea. But we talked about the economics of owning versus renting a property, and how it might actually be more affordable to purchase. And it turns out she was right.

We looked at a bunch of properties and found one, and my roommates were excited. I said we should all go in on this together, but everyone got nervous. I ended up using my student loan as a down payment, and my roommates became my tenants, and the rent that I brought in from my roommates was enough to cover all of the expenses of owning the home.

So I basically just looked at my down payment as prepaid rent, and after I graduated, I had built some equity in the property. I was really excited about the opportunity to profit on this type of venture, and ended up taking the equity out of that house and buying two more. And then by the time I was 25, I owned 25 student rental properties, and decided that’s what I want to do full time. I’ve been doing it ever since.

What a success story! Do you have other memorable stories from your clients?

I’ve been doing HGTV shows and helping people invest in real estate for almost 12 years now, and I’ve been fortunate enough to meet hundreds of homeowners. I’ve done over 1,000 renovations. So there’s lots of stories for sure.

A couple of years ago, one woman was trying to afford her first apartment. She said, “I would love to buy a home. I’ve been saving up for years and just don’t know how I can do this. How am I going to be able to afford it?” And we looked at the economics of it, and she was right. It was going to be difficult for her to afford a home. So I suggested she buy three.

She thought I was crazy. But if she had three of these apartments, she’d generate enough income from those other two rentals to pay for all the homes. She thought it was the craziest idea, but we helped her get some private financing, and she was able to buy all three two years ago.

She just sent me a message to say she’s been saving up like crazy, the other apartments are paying for her home, and everything’s [appreciated] by $150,000. In a couple years, she’s gained almost half a million dollars in equity.

Scott McGillivray has lots of tips for fixing up a vacation home.

HGTV

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve seen homeowners make with their rental property?

The biggest mistake I see is that people think, “Oh, it’s just a rental, leave it alone.” But I always tell people that the caliber of your space is the caliber of your tenant, and it’s easier to be a good landlord than to be a bad one.

If everyone’s having a great experience, you’re getting repeat clients, they’re paying top dollar, and they’re making your life easy as well.

Are there any small DIY improvements that homeowners should do to a rental property?

Typically, we’ll tell people to update fixtures—so faucets, light fixtures, door hardware. Upgrading all of those are simple DIY projects that you could do over a weekend. It’s not a massive investment, but it makes a big impact. It’s the jewelry of the home.

The other things that I tell people to consider are appliances and countertops. Countertops make a significant difference, especially if they’re old and beaten up. Some solid-surface quartz or quartzite is a fantastic option for increasing the caliber of the space.

What features will attract the most short-term renters?

No. 1: the curb appeal, because people will judge a book by its cover when it comes to short-term rental. That might mean fixing up the front door, the front walkway, planting a garden. These things aren’t expensive. Most of it can be done using sweat equity. One of the rules in my show is “roll up your sleeves,” which means you don’t have to hire somebody to do everything. There are things you can do yourself that add a tremendous amount of value.

And the second thing that I would suggest people do is consider designing your space with a theme in mind. Themed-space rental properties rent faster and for more money than non-themed properties. So for instance, if you decide that your property is in the mountains, maybe it should be “The Lodge.” Then you can choose items that reflect that experience, or paint in colors that reflect that experience.

Or maybe it’s a Malibu beach house. Even if you’re not in Malibu, you can have a property that looks like a Malibu beach house, with beautiful sandy-colored floors and light white walls, maybe some turquoise accents. The theme itself is not expensive, but it makes such a huge difference for people being attracted to the property.

McGillivray hosts the second season of “Vacation House Rules.”

HGTV

2020 was a big year for vacation homes. Do you think this demand will continue in 2021 and beyond?

The reason why we started doing this show a couple of years ago, pre-pandemic, was because there was a big trend of people moving to smaller towns, enjoying quiet places, and living in vacation destinations. The short-term vacation rental market, the amount of people listing properties has doubled every year for the last three years.

The pandemic just really expedited that trend for people. So, instead of waiting 10 years to buy vacation homes, they’re, like, “Life’s short, I’m going to do it now.” What we’re really seeing is a fast-forward button being hit on what people really want with their lives. So, realistically, domestic travel will become a habit for a lot of folks. It will become tradition going to the cottage, the cabin, the camp, whatever you call it, wherever you are. It will ultimately be a way of life, not just a trend. If you can get your hands on something now, my advice is to do it. It’s not going to get any easier.

The post Exclusive: Scott McGillivray’s Tips From ‘Vacation House Rules’ That’ll Make You Rich Off Real Estate, Fast appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

from https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/exclusive-scott-mcgillivrays-tips-from-vacation-house-rules-thatll-make-you-rich-off-real-estate-fast/

[arplis]

Arplis - News: Emily Bowser, back with that bathroom I promised you in my bedroom reveal last week (catch up: intro here, makeover here)

SO! Welcome to my airplane-sized bathroom. Okay, that’s a little obnoxious to say. I’m sure plenty of people live with smaller bathrooms. Let’s call it economic? My whole house is very economic. There isn’t one space that isn’t used. There’s no “bust through this wall and use that empty space between the bathroom and hall closet,” because that space is where the fridge is in the kitchen. The closest during this renovation that we got to adding space was when we took out two closets in order to make our bedroom big enough to fit our bed AND a dresser, but even then, we lost two closets! I’m here to talk about how we completely renovated without (completely) breaking the bank and got creative with what we had to work with, both with $$ and space. This room is a total #ipaidforthis inside and out! Let’s get into it! First, I thought it would be helpful to show the layout oft he house, since, after the last blog post, there were a handful of curious commenters: Neither the home nor the cats are to scale above, but it does the trick. As you can see above, this is the one and only (teeny) bathroom in the house. Side note: Kudos to Sara, who was somehow able to take pictures of this space because apparently I could NOT. I didn’t take these pictures thinking that they would be on a blog for a lot of people to see one day so my apologies, they are crooked and dark and not terribly in focus. The bathroom is off our hall and in the center of our home (read: no walls that face the outside). You may be surprised by this because isn’t that a window? Why, yes it is! A window that looks directly into our laundry room! The original home didn’t have the master bedroom or the laundry room (“room” may be an overstatement). We think the laundry room may have been a small porch because the door that leads to it from the kitchen appears to be original. The laundry room is very small, however, on one wall there is a window and a door that has a window in it so a lot of light comes in. The bathroom window is directly across from that wall so the light goes through the laundry room and lights up the bathroom pretty nicely. The window is made of obscure glass, so you can’t see through it and even though it’s not particularly pretty, I made the decision right away to keep it because it was a natural light source. Side note here that there are SO many decisions you have to make right away when you are doing a bigger renovation like we were. If you are a person who likes a lot of time to think things through and talk them out, this part may be particularly hard on you. The reason being, once demo starts, you better know what’s getting knocked out because if you change your mind later, it will cost you and for sure, there will be things you hadn’t thought of or things that come up because of the demo. The window staying or going was one of those things. The second reason I didn’t touch the window was because it was simply cheaper not to. In a perfect world, I think I would have taken the window out and done something creative along the top of the same wall, like a long and skinny window that was more interesting architecturally. That way the light could come in while giving me more wall space for a decent sized mirror and shelves. I don’t know, I didn’t let myself think about it too long because it wasn’t an option. Along these same lines, all of the plumbing fixtures, although we replaced all of them, were kept in the same places so that we didn’t have the extra cost and also, WHERE ELSE COULD THEY GO? There are only so many options in a 32-square-foot space. About the Demo: As you can see, there was chair rail height tile that continued into the shower and I probably could have lived with it, I mean, with a toothbrush and bleach to the grout (which was a lovely shade of orange throughout). The floor tile is the same that was in the rest of the house. It was damaged, many of the tiles cracked and obviously it was something we weren’t going to invest in keeping. We were ripping the tile up off the floor anyway, so why not go ahead and rip the tile off the wall too? Turns out it was a good idea because there was a ton of mold hiding behind those tiles. We took out all the plumbing fixtures. The toilet here got moved to the back house because it needed a new toilet and if someone was getting a brand new toilet then IT WAS GONNA BE ME. The pedestal sink was also in fine condition but I wanted to try to find something that would have even a little bit of storage. I gave the sink to my contractor and he used it in one of his other personal projects. The tub was trashed unfortunately because of damage from the demo and the mold. For those of you who will for sure ask, I didn’t throw the vintage corner storage cabinet in the dump. No, I paid $100 for it to be fixed because I neeeeeded that storage and it fits perfectly in the small amount of space I have between the window and the wall. When the workers were installing, they somehow dropped and shattered it so my contractor sent it off to be fixed and I never heard about it ever again. When you owe someone $80,000 (if you don’t know why, you probably missed my “buying an income property” post, read that here), it is kind of hard to be like “YEAH BUT WHERE IS MY MIRROR, RON?!” On Choosing Finishes: Tile: As I discussed in the master makeover post, choosing tile was as simple as “what do I not hate that doesn’t cost a fortune?” Answer: subway tiles ($2.30/square foot) and black hex ($5/square foot). A little on the boring side? Kinda. Did I wish I could have afforded fancier tiles? At the time: yes. Now, I don’t know. My house is economic so I feel like it makes sense that the finishes are, too? I am one of those people that always picks out the most expensive thing in the store. My soul child is fancy AF (wallet, not so much). If I had been able to get whatever I wanted for this space, I feel like it wouldn’t have fit the house. I live in a box, one that doesn’t have a lot of architectural character, and the kinda boring finishes we ended up with make sense for the house, if that makes sense? I like it feeling more like a minimalist space whose character comes from the art or vintage pieces I bring into it. I wouldn’t have minded doing the same chair rail height tile situation again, because it makes cleaning up a bit easier and protects your walls from water (and let’s be honest, other bodily fluids) but I didn’t care enough about it to spend the money on the tile or the labor. I did tile the shower walls all the way up and onto the ceiling. I had lived in many a rentals and noticed what the constant condensation would do to the area right above the tiling in a shower. I’m glad I did it. Plumbing Fixtures:  First and foremost, I found a toilet, but not just any toilet. It’s the toilet of my dreams. Well, my economic dreams anyway. This toilet, hands down, is one of my favorite things about the house and I’m going to tell you why. I wish it was because it has a dual flush and therefore conserves water, but no, to me that’s just a bonus to the fact that IT DOESN’T HAVE THOSE WEIRD LEG THINGS THAT COLLECT PEE RESIDUE AND HAIR. This toilet is so easy to clean and I give it 5 stars based solely on that. It’s also not expensive. I will pay $299 (the price when I bought it) all day long to not have to get on my knees with my mouth all too close to the lid of the toilet, and awkwardly use my pointer finger through a rag to try to get in the crevices to remove bodily fluids that are most likely NOT MINE ANYWAY. Pro tip: buy all your fixtures and appliances during Black Friday sales. I even bought all my kitchen appliances and Home Depot waited to ship them out until I was ready for them. I have a funny story about the mental state of a person in the process of buying a house vs. that of one that OWNS the house. As I’ve mentioned in this post, I was in escrow from May until October of 2016. That’s a long time. It’s also fair to mention that I didn’t get to see the house much before we actually owned it. There was a renter here that was in the process of moving out so we couldn’t bother him. That said, the idealistic side of me that was excited about becoming a homeowner remembered the house very differently than the day after I actually owned it and saw it naked for the first time (the house, not me). The house was naked in that it wasn’t full of the renter’s stuff and it was naked metaphorically because the rose colored glasses I was wearing were suddenly more like a cheap pair of glasses, smudged and scratched, found in the bottom of an unused purse in the back of your closet. The reality of a $630,000 mortgage and an undetermined amount of money to be spent on the renovation changed my perception. Is this what they call buyer’s remorse? In the five months of being excited about being a homeowner, I did the thing you’re not supposed to do but couldn’t help myself: I bought stuff for a home I didn’t yet own. One of those things was a vintage dresser from the flea market that I wanted to turn into a sink for this bathroom. The dimensions of the dresser are 21.5” deep, 31” wide and 35.5” tall. What actually barely fits there: a sink that is 13” deep and 24” wide. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot but believe me, in real life, it is insane and laughable that I thought this piece of furniture (that now lives happily in my living room) would fit in this space. If you could see it you would understand me, as a person, fully. After realizing we definitely would not be able to use it (immediately), I had to pivot, quickly. There was no time for sourcing a very specific piece of vintage furniture. HELLOOO IKEA. We bought the Hagaviken sink with the Hemnes sink cabinet that we later painted my favorite green and changed out the knobs. The faucet is from Amazon and actually works great. They no longer sell the sink cabinet in the size we have, but they do have the Godmorgon which I honestly don’t know why I didn’t get. I would have much preferred to have a floating sink (easier to clean—sensing a theme??). I have a lot of opinions on this sink. It’s nice to have the storage. I fit a surprising amount of stuff in these two slim drawers. The depth of it would be fine if it were for a space where people just used it to wash their hands, a powder bath off your mudroom, for example. HOWEVER, washing your face is the most obnoxious process one could think of. I’m going to put this in the same box as “black floors” and “my cat, Puck”—they aren’t for everyone and by not for everyone I mean, “don’t have them unless you don’t mind cleaning, all the time” (we can talk about my cat Puck’s strange addictions in the comment section). Here follows my nightly routine: wash face, dry face with a small washcloth (kept in the top drawer of the sink, folded Marie Kondo style DUH), use used cloth to wipe down the top of the sink, the wall behind the sink, the front of the sink cabinet, the inside tops of the drawers, and finally, the floor. Every. Single. Day. I’m not kidding. You would think I was washing my face like a Clean & Clear ad from 1995—everything is soaked. There are two positives to this situation: 1. I dry my face with a clean towel every day which is good for your skin because of the bacteria that is on our everyday towels and 2. My sink and bathroom floor get a wipe down every day and therefore look cleaner throughout the week. *Rose colored glasses, put back on.* One of the only—maybe THE only—“must haves” on my husband’s buying-a-house list was that it had to have a tub. There was no budging on it. He’s a bather which I find slightly disgusting (because he doesn’t shower first or sometimes at all). But, whatever, he likes to do his creative thinking in a bath and doesn’t demand a lot, so a bath we would have! Plus, if we can ever afford children, a bathtub would be helpful. We bought basically the same tub that was in there, a run-of-the-mill alcove tub that we got somewhere in the valley for $300-ish. It’s 58” long, by 28.5” wide by 13” deep so a grown human can barely fit in it and have water covering them, but it gets the job done I guess. We put in two inserts for shampoo, soap and what have you and I’m very glad we did but I have a question: Am I supposed to put shelves in these things? They are entirely too tall. If I could do it again, I would make them a more reasonable size. In 2016, matte black plumbing fixtures were still weirdly hard to find and if you did find them, they were $$$. We ended up with this one in wrought iron and it was only $270 when we purchased it. I wasn’t stoked on it but I will say, it works well and we haven’t had any issues. This one is more modern and definitely what I would buy now. It’s also by Moen so I would assume also good quality and an even lower price point than the one we bought is now. Something else I wish we could have invested in is a matching tub drain, but alas, we used the stainless steel one that came with the tub. To shower door or not to shower door?? My contractor tried to convince me I needed a shower door and that water would go everywhere and it kinda does, but it was an extra expense and, you guessed it, impossible to keep clean. I bought a matte black tension rod, matte black shower rings, a hemp canvas shower curtain (hemp is antimicrobial and does better in moist climates) and a liner that has suction cups that *mostly* work to help any leakage onto the floor. All in all, it cost me $143 and saved me years of wiping down glass panels. Another positive to shower curtain vs. doors is that if you do have kids, it’s much easier to have the whole space open rather than having a glass wall in front of half of the tub. I can’t believe I have this much to say about 32 square feet! Moving on. Storage. If you will allow me to don my rose-colored glasses when the corner mirror was destroyed/disappeared, I had to make do, and as making-do usually does, I was inspired. I saw an opportunity in my window box (22”x22”x4.5” deep) to add shelves and create storage space. I simply bought a piece of wood and some smaller square wood dowels (0.5”x0.5”), cut the wood to the appropriate length, screwed the dowels in from the sides with 2 screws to hold the shelves and placed the shelves on top (with a little wood glue between to keep them from slipping). At first, I put a small tension rod with a sheer curtain over it so that I didn’t have to look at the clutter of misc bathroom stuff but I found that the stuff, along with the curtain, blocked too much of the light. While musing about it on Instagram stories, an acquaintance (shoutout Shadi!) told me I needed to just lose the curtain and make the things on it prettier and I took her advice. This meant I needed to decant and find some minimalist products that I wouldn’t mind looking at every day of my life. In my search, I found Public Goods which has the most simple packaging and simple ingredients to match. I figured if I didn’t like the products, I could just reuse the packaging because at their price point, it was just as, if not cheaper, than doing a run to The Container Store. Turns out, I do like most of their products (I have a lot) and no, they did not pay me to say that and yes, we can talk about it in the comments. All of the things on “display” are things I use most, if not every day. A great thing about having limited storage is that it’s hard to keep stuff you don’t really want to have. The little containers with cork are Saxborga and the glass container holding my reusable bamboo cotton rounds is H&M Home (similar). I decanted mouthwash into the Korken from IKEA, pulled obnoxious labels off of my nail polish remover, and even decanted ibuprofen. My husband shaves his head and he always needs a mirror to see the back of his head and he somehow misplaces them?? It’s a mystery. My pretty way of solving this problem was to buy a vintage mirror with a handle and a hook for the wall so I never have to hear “WHERE IS THE MIRROR??” ever again. No room for towel bars (at least not if you want art!), but these Turkish towels dry fast so hooks are just fine. I regret not thinking about lighting in this space. If you don’t specify things, contractors will always do the standard without asking. I came over one day and he had installed recessed lights, one in the shower area and one in the middle of the wall, closer to the window. If I had been thinking before they closed all the walls up I would have had them run electrical over the mirror, but alas. The recessed lights are SO bright and my husband and I are both super sensitive to bright lights. We retroactively put dimmers almost everywhere and will here eventually but immediately upon moving in, out of necessity, threw these string lights up from Target (similar) and they have just kinda stayed. The naked lady art was $20 from the Melrose Trading Post and came framed (WIN). The wood frame was also a welcome addition to the other wood/warm accents throughout the space. We bought a perfectly small wooden stool from a local neighborhood store (here’s a similar one in two sizes) so that he would have a surface to put a book, a candle, a mug of hot tea or whatever else he needs for his romantic tub time alone. The smaller art is MaryAnn Puls framed in a Ribba from IKEA. I was toilet paper holder-less for over a year before I found this maker on Etsy and I’m glad I did. Let’s talk about clean butts. Pretty sure that’s the only time that’s been said on this blog. If you have a keen eye, you will notice that I own a Tushy. I wanted to take the opportunity to give a review of their product. I became obsessed with bidets when I moved into my grandmother’s house for a year to plan my wedding 10 years ago. She had a Toto and you could say that there was the Emily before she lived with a Toto and the Emily after. For bidet aficionados, you know that the Toto is the top-of-the-line bidet. They range from $500-$2,000 so you can see why this bidet had me second-guessing if I really should get married and move out of my grandmother’s home. In truth, there were MANY things about my grandmother’s home that made me never want to leave, but the bidet was up there on that list. 2010-2018 are considered the dark years for me. The years I lived without waking up in the middle of the night to a welcoming warm seat on a cold night, years without the confidence that I was squeaky clean no matter what time of the month it was (PERIOD POSITIVE OVER HERE). Then, Erik (upholstered-my-headboard-while-I-watched Erik) got a Tushy and told me I should, too. With the low price point of $69 for the non-heated (water, not the seat) and $99 for the heated, I opted for the heated. Here is what I have to say about my purchase: I love having a bidet and I 100% would buy it again. However, I would buy the $69 model because the water never really does heat on the other model unless you run your sink water until it gets hot, which is a huge waste of water. One knob would also be easier to clean than two. The place where the bidet connects to your seat is very hard to clean, let’s just say my cleaning supplies for this product includes a Q-tip. So this should be thrown into the box of things to pass over if you’re not a clean freak. However, if you don’t mind a little extra cleaning, are a firm believer that showering every day is probably not good for your sebaceous glands but still want your underbits fresh, want to conserve toilet paper use, this is a good product for you. Unless you can afford a Toto. I can’t give you accurate labor cost because everything in my house was happening at the same time and my contractor didn’t break it down by room, unfortunately. But here is a breakdown of all the things in the bathroom (rounded up): ***photography by Sara Ligorria-Tramp Don’t miss other posts in this series: Makeover Takeover: How EHD Stylist Emily Bowser Tackled Her Awkward Master Bedroom | Reveal: Emily Bowser’s Bedroom “After” is Unrecognizable From the “Before” | DIY How-To: A Step-by-Step for Making Emily B.’s Wrap-Around Velvet Headboard   The post MOTO Reveal: Emily Bowser’s 32-Square-Foot Bathroom Is Packed With Small Space Hacks appeared first on Emily Henderson. #Makeover #Reveal #Makeovers #Bathroom #Moto

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/emily-bowser-back-with-that-bathroom-i-promised-you-in-my-bedroom-reveal-last-week-catch-up-intro-here-makeover-here-1

[longlistshort]

Silver Jews- Random Rules

I first heard about David Berman and his band Silver Jews a while ago, as they were one of those bands you heard about if you were a Pavement fan. But sadly, I never got around to listening to them until now.

Stephen Malkmus and David Berman went to the University of Virginia and later moved together to Hoboken, New Jersey. There Malkmus, along with their other roommate Bob Nastanovich, played with additional bandmates as Pavement, and together with Berman they formed the Silver Jews, although Berman soon remained the only constant member of the band.

When I discovered that David Berman had passed away and read the many quotes from his songs posted online by friends and fans, I finally spent some time listening to his music. There are just so many great lines in these songs. For instance, from Random Rules, posted above- “In 1984, I was hospitalized for approaching perfection/ Slowly screwing my way across Europe, they had to make a correction”. It’s a funny opener and the whole song is filled with quotable lyrics. Towards the end are the lyrics “I asked the painter why the roads are colored black/ He said, ‘Steve, it’s because people leave/And no highway will bring them back’.” So many of his songs are like this, the humor mixed with the pathos.

Silver Jews disbanded in 2009 and Berman quit making music for awhile. In 2011 he started a blog. In May, ten years after he stopped making music, he released the album Purple Mountains. The lyrics to the songs on this album, including the one below, are poignant, made even more so after his death. In a recent interview with Exclaim!, he discusses each song off that album.

Purple Mountains- All My Happiness Is Gone (song starts 2:06)

He also wrote poetry, and this poem, from his book Actual Air, is just so incredible I’m presenting it in its entirety (via poemhunter).

Self- Portrait at 28

I know it's a bad title but I'm giving it to myself as a gift on a day nearly canceled by sunlight when the entire hill is approaching the ideal of Virginia brochured with goldenrod and loblolly and I think "at least I have not woken up with a bloody knife in my hand" by then having absently wandered one hundred yards from the house while still seated in this chair with my eyes closed. It is a certain hill the one I imagine when I hear the word "hill" and if the apocalypse turns out to be a world-wide nervous breakdown if our five billion minds collapse at once well I'd call that a surprise ending and this hill would still be beautiful a place I wouldn't mind dying alone or with you.

I am trying to get at something and I want to talk very plainly to you so that we are both comforted by the honesty. You see there is a window by my desk I stare out when I am stuck though the outdoors has rarely inspired me to write and I don't know why I keep staring at it. My childhood hasn't made good material either mostly being a mulch of white minutes with a few stand out moments, popping tar bubbles on the driveway in the summer a certain amount of pride at school everytime they called it "our sun" and playing football when the only play was "go out long" are what stand out now. If squeezed for more information I can remember old clock radios with flipping metal numbers and an entree called Surf and Turf. As a way of getting in touch with my origins every night I set the alarm clock for the time I was born so that waking up becomes a historical reenactment and the first thing I do is take a reading of the day and try to flow with it like when you're riding a mechanical bull and you strain to learn the pattern quickly so you don't inadverantly resist it.

II two I can't remember being born and no one else can remember it either even the doctor who I met years later at a cocktail party. It's one of the little disappointments that makes you think about getting away going to Holly Springs or Coral Gables and taking a room on the square with a landlady whose hands are scored by disinfectant, telling the people you meet that you are from Alaska, and listen to what they have to say about Alaska until you have learned much more about Alaska than you ever will about Holly Springs or Coral Gables. Sometimes I am buying a newspaper in a strange city and think "I am about to learn what it's like to live here." Oftentimes there is a news item about the complaints of homeowners who live beside the airport and I realize that I read an article on this subject nearly once a year and always receive the same image. I am in bed late at night in my house near the airport listening to the jets fly overhead a strange wife sleeping beside me. In my mind, the bedroom is an amalgamation of various cold medicine commercial sets (there is always a box of tissue on the nightstand). I know these recurring news articles are clues, flaws in the design though I haven't figured out how to string them together yet, but I've begun to notice that the same people are dying over and over again, for instance Minnie Pearl who died this year for the fourth time in four years.

III three Today is the first day of Lent and once again I'm not really sure what it is. How many more years will I let pass before I take the trouble to ask someone? It reminds of this morning when you were getting ready for work. I was sitting by the space heater numbly watching you dress and when you asked why I never wear a robe I had so many good reasons I didn't know where to begin. If you were cool in high school you didn't ask too many questions. You could tell who'd been to last night's big metal concert by the new t-shirts in the hallway. You didn't have to ask and that's what cool was: the ability to deduct to know without asking. And the pressure to simulate coolness means not asking when you don't know, which is why kids grow ever more stupid. A yearbook's endpages, filled with promises to stay in touch, stand as proof of the uselessness of a teenager's promise. Not like I'm dying for a letter from the class stoner ten years on but... Do you remember the way the girls would call out "love you!" conveniently leaving out the "I" as if they didn't want to commit to their own declarations. I agree that the "I" is a pretty heavy concept and hope you won't get uncomfortable if I should go into some deeper stuff here.

IV four There are things I've given up on like recording funny answering machine messages. It's part of growing older and the human race as a group has matured along the same lines. It seems our comedy dates the quickest. If you laugh out loud at Shakespeare's jokes I hope you won't be insulted if I say you're trying too hard. Even sketches from the original Saturday Night Live seem slow-witted and obvious now. It's just that our advances are irrepressible. Nowadays little kids can't even set up lemonade stands. It makes people too self-conscious about the past, though try explaining that to a kid. I'm not saying it should be this way. All this new technology will eventually give us new feelings that will never completely displace the old ones leaving everyone feeling quite nervous and split in two. We will travel to Mars even as folks on Earth are still ripping open potato chip bags with their teeth. Why? I don't have the time or intelligence to make all the connections like my friend Gordon (this is a true story) who grew up in Braintree Massachusetts and had never pictured a brain snagged in a tree until I brought it up. He'd never broken the name down to its parts. By then it was too late. He had moved to Coral Gables.

V five The hill out my window is still looking beautiful suffused in a kind of gold national park light and it seems to say, I'm sorry the world could not possibly use another poem about Orpheus but I'm available if you're not working on a self-portrait or anything. I'm watching my dog have nightmares, twitching and whining on the office floor and I try to imagine what beast has cornered him in the meadow where his dreams are set. I'm just letting the day be what it is: a place for a large number of things to gather and interact -- not even a place but an occasion a reality for real things. Friends warned me not to get too psychedelic or religious with this piece: "They won't accept it if it's too psychedelic or religious," but these are valid topics and I'm the one with the dog twitching on the floor possibly dreaming of me that part of me that would beat a dog for no good reason no reason that a dog could see. I am trying to get at something so simple that I have to talk plainly so the words don't disfigure it and if it turns out that what I say is untrue then at least let it be harmless like a leaky boat in the reeds that is bothering no one. VI six I can't trust the accuracy of my own memories, many of them having blended with sentimental telephone and margarine commercials plainly ruined by Madison Avenue though no one seems to call the advertising world "Madison Avenue" anymore. Have they moved? Let's get an update on this. But first I have some business to take care of. I walked out to the hill behind our house which looks positively Alaskan today and it would be easier to explain this if I had a picture to show you but I was with our young dog and he was running through the tall grass like running through the tall grass is all of life together until a bird calls or he finds a beer can and that thing fills all the space in his head. You see, his mind can only hold one thought at a time and when he finally hears me call his name he looks up and cocks his head and for a single moment my voice is everything: Self-portrait at 28.

There is only so much time to read, listen to, and see all the wonderful things people have created. David Berman made work well worth spending some of that precious time on.

Rest in Peace.

[darwinbigelow]

There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE

Did you know you can soundproof a room with drywall? Or install some that can take a (literal) beating? During a recent tour of National Gypsum headquarters in Charlotte, NC, I learned a lot more about what makes their Purple XP drywall products so unique.

Click on these to jump to a section in this post (trying out a new feature with longer posts with lots of info, let me know if you like it):

Fighting Moisture, Mildew, Mold

How Drywall is Made

Nifty Specialty Types of Drywall

Our Drywall Competition at National Gypsum HQ

Anyone out there a fan of the show, How Its Made? As a kid, I found this behind-the-scenes look at how everyday objects are created fascinating. Perhaps, in a small way, it influenced my adolescent brain into a career of showing people how I make/build/fix/renovate. (Funny that I didn’t really think about it until I started writing this last paragraph, but huh — neat!)

Often, when I start working with a brand as part of a blog partnership, I get invited to one of their manufacturing plants. For the brand, it’s one of the better ways to understand their products on a fundamental level: their company’s history, their motivations, their employees, the work that goes into new product development, and all sorts of things that lead up to the last step of using it in a home. For me, it’s an invite to the living version of the show I used to watch as a kid.

This fall, I’ll be working with National Gypsum and using one of their unique types of Purple XP drywall for a new sponsored project. But until I took the trip, I pretty much assumed all drywall was relatively the same. I mean, other than making sure you use the correct thickness for your wall or ceiling, that’s really all there is to it, right?

Turns out — not true! If you see those purple drywall panels in the store, they have a few secrets up their sleeve…

Ask for Purple — Because It’s Moisture, Mold, and Mildew Resistant

It seems like I am learning a lot about water this year: moisture is the enemy of keeping a safe, clean, worry-free home. Indoors and out, bathrooms and kitchens — all of your home regularly interacts with water. At the same time, we need to prevent mildew, mold, and rot. That’s why we use pressure-treated wood and flashing tape on outdoor projects; it’s why polybutylene pipes became a problem; and it’s why we get all freaked out when we see a leak in our ceilings. It’s a very simple concept, and yet it is a very tall order for most manufactured products. I will now and forever remember the quote I heard while in Charlotte:

When owning a home, it’s not a matter of if you will have a moisture problem, it’s when.

Purple XP® drywall: if the name doesn’t mean much to you yet, it’s worth noting. What differs most about this product (other than the noticeable color, of course), is that it’s manufactured to be moisture, mildew, and mold resistant. You may have read about me using paint products with mildew-resistant properties in the past, and the reason is the same: to prevent that very expensive call to a remediation specialist. Toxic mold is not only extremely hazardous to have in the home, but it can be very expensive to remove (and once it’s in the drywall, it has to be ripped out). While paint products are still a good idea, it’s not going to do me much good if the back paper on the drywall is heading to Mold City.

Less than a month later after my trip, I had problems with my air conditioning unit, which forced me to cut a big hole in my ceiling. There was also the time my master bath’s hot water valve popped right off, flooding the room. Brittany from Pretty Handy Girl was also on the trip (I love it when we get to hang out!); she’s had her share of not-so-fun adventures with mold. Eventually, I think every homeowner has a story of close calls or giant disasters!

A rare occasion where we’re hanging out but not covered in muck ;)

Bottom line is, if using a product likes this keeps mold from growing in the first place, and you may not always catch something growing behind your walls, it’s smart to prevent it rather than spend thousands of dollars repairing the damage (or deal with the health effects on those who live in the home).

How Its Made — Purple is… Green?

So, I started this whole post about how things are made. And I definitely learned more about that during the trip. As you might assume from the name National Gypsum or drywall’s other name, “gypsum board,” drywall is created from gypsum. Plenty of it is blasted out of quarries all over the country, which looks a lot like this when holding it in your hand:

But, drywall is also possible due to a byproduct of coal burning power plants. By filtering out and reusing this byproduct, it saves literal tons of waste from landfills. National Gypsum has also been making the paper that goes on the front and back out of recycled materials since the 1960s. And since having to rip out less drywall from mold damage keeps old home materials out of landfills, when you think about it, Purple is actually pretty green.

We got the opportunity to walk the entire length of the (extremely clean and hot) manufacturing center, and it was kind of amazing to see the mix come out in liquid form and be hardened to the touch by the time we walked to the end. They scooped up some of the liquid product for us in cups as well, and we could watch little filaments form on the edges as we walked through. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to film this part of the tour (pretty standard since they don’t want me accidentally capturing something important to their competitors), but I’ll have a video for you guys soon on all of the other cool things we got to see! In the meantime, you can catch this How Its Made version.

Specialty Drywall Types

As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, one of the biggest surprises for me was to learn that there is far more to drywall than I thought. Some are made for areas that get knocked into a lot, and some are made to prevent neighbors from making each other miserable:

XP® — the “normal” XP stuff is meant for most wall applications, and especially in areas where moisture might eventually be a threat, such as bathrooms (non-wet areas), kitchens (non-wet areas), basements, and laundry rooms. If you are building a new home or tearing out walls, I would recommend using it wherever drywall needs to be replaced (after all, the ceiling of my living room is really nowhere near a room I’d think I’d have a moisture issue, and yet, here I am).

Hi-Abuse XP® and Hi-Impact XP® — both of these drywall types are made for areas where the walls might take a beating. But where Hi-Abuse XP is more meant to resist scratches and scuffs (think hallways, stairways, or places where furniture gets moved around), Hi-Impact XP can literally be beaten with a bat and still hold up to its job. It’s got a fiberglass mesh inside the core, so it can withstand some impressive abuse! I know I’m only 5’2″, but I played fastpitch softball growing up… I really hammered this wall, and only broke through after repeatedly hitting it HARD in the same exact spot. Workshops, playrooms, frat houses, maybe the tasting room at a brewery… it’s a perfect match. If you’ve ever had to repair a hole punched through a wall, you know that running some joint compound over a dent is far easier than patching a hole.

SoundBreak XP® — This was my FAVORITE thing to learn about during the trip. Almost all of us are familiar with “thin walls” and noisy neighbors in hotels, apartments, townhomes or condos. Sometimes, it’s as though a neighbor only has to blink and you can hear it through the walls. An interesting piece of info shared was that, with the popularity of mixed-use real estate and the conversion of commercial buildings into high-rise lofts, noise-related lawsuits are becoming much more common for real estate developers. So, a lot of them are starting to pay more attention to the cost vs. risk of using cheaper, lightweight drywall where noise slips right through. But that’s not what got me so excited…

SoundBreak XP Retrofit® Board — THIS. This product is so cool, because it can be applied on TOP of your existing drywall to add a sound barrier! It’s super thin, so it can be installed without demo-ing your walls, which saves a LOT of time and labor. I can think of all sorts of applications for something like this: nursery walls, media rooms, bedrooms (hehe), or even a home office or workshop. With the effort I’ve been putting into doing both written and video tutorials this year, I have a greater need for cutting out background noise (barking dogs & air conditioning/fans are really inconvenient for voice-overs, so I usually have to do it in my master bedroom closet!). And like many of my woodworker friends who find their creativity at night, I would love the opportunity to learn new skills without annoying my neighbors (or the bearded guy sleeping upstairs).

Competition

To give us some “hands-on” demos, they first presented a few pointers on how to better tape drywall seams and install drywall properly. I was very into it, since I have had a little experience with both repairing old drywall and installing new drywall over paneling. Even though I have learned a lot through my own DIY efforts, it’s great to get some solid tips from an expert in the field.

Then, they had the group of us — me, Brittany, and a handful of professional remodelers (that was quite a different experience, since almost all of my trips include only DIYers and this had pros in the mix!) take part in a competition!

Considering that at least one member of our group had decades of experience doing this exact task (and coughcough, used his tape measure to make sure he got exact 12-inches on center when the rest of us were told we couldn’t measure — but no, I’m not bitter ), it wasn’t really a shocker to me that I lost. I was glad to know that I can hold my own in the room, though!

Why I’m Working With Ask for Purple

Before you guys think that I’m going to only sing the virtues of Purple, there is one thing that I will say is a negative, at least in my area: availability. It’s available in big box stores in some places, but where I live, I’ll probably have to order it (especially if it’s something like Retrofit). It’s not that I have an issue with working with local suppliers (I think it’s good to support local business). It’s that I’m no stranger to needing eight trips to get supplies in a single week, and at least one of them will be 15 minutes before closing. So, whenever I consider working with a brand, I heavily weigh whether or not the “extra effort” is worth it. As cool as a product might be, I certainly don’t want to add to my DIY frustrations by the store being closed while there’s still daylight and I have a deadline to meet, or having something only available if I buy in bulk. Pros have enough experience to create a list they can more easily stick to. But that’s not my life, and I don’t want to pretend it is. And it wouldn’t be honest to advocate that you should make extra efforts that I wouldn’t be willing to make.

As you probably guessed, I had zero problem telling the marketing team exactly this. A homeowner needs more than just the product’s benefits or cost; the experience can still be intimidating and frustrating. And that’s ultimately why I chose to work with them. Because a pro can know all day and night why one product might be better than the other and advocate for it with ease. A brand’s sales team can work their magic to get a product into stores to test sales performance. But if there’s something out there that will solve a DIYers problem and we don’t actually know it exists, we can’t go looking for it or ask the store to start carrying it. This is one of those times where it might legit be worth it, and we’ll see once I install!

The post There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE appeared first on Ugly Duckling House.

More Where That Came From

How To Fix and Skim Coat Damaged Drywall

How to Remove Wallpaper

Painting Prep after Drywall Repair

More Skim Coating Tips

.yuzo_related_post img{width:170px !important; height:170px !important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{line-height:14px;background:#ffffff !important;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover{background:#ffffff !important; -webkit-transition: background 0.2s linear; -moz-transition: background 0.2s linear; -o-transition: background 0.2s linear; transition: background 0.2s linear;;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a{color:#102a3b!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a:hover{ color:#113f5e}!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover a{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo__text--title{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post:hover .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{ margin: 0px 6px 0px 6px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; } jQuery(document).ready(function( $ ){ jQuery('.yuzo_related_post .yuzo_wraps').equalizer({ columns : '> div' }); }); from Home Improvement http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheUglyDucklingHouse/~3/HhbMc5hsJuI/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[endlessarchite]

There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE

Did you know you can soundproof a room with drywall? Or install some that can take a (literal) beating? During a recent tour of National Gypsum headquarters in Charlotte, NC, I learned a lot more about what makes their Purple XP drywall products so unique.

Click on these to jump to a section in this post (trying out a new feature with longer posts with lots of info, let me know if you like it):

Fighting Moisture, Mildew, Mold

How Drywall is Made

Nifty Specialty Types of Drywall

Our Drywall Competition at National Gypsum HQ

Anyone out there a fan of the show, How Its Made? As a kid, I found this behind-the-scenes look at how everyday objects are created fascinating. Perhaps, in a small way, it influenced my adolescent brain into a career of showing people how I make/build/fix/renovate. (Funny that I didn’t really think about it until I started writing this last paragraph, but huh — neat!)

Often, when I start working with a brand as part of a blog partnership, I get invited to one of their manufacturing plants. For the brand, it’s one of the better ways to understand their products on a fundamental level: their company’s history, their motivations, their employees, the work that goes into new product development, and all sorts of things that lead up to the last step of using it in a home. For me, it’s an invite to the living version of the show I used to watch as a kid.

This fall, I’ll be working with National Gypsum and using one of their unique types of Purple XP drywall for a new sponsored project. But until I took the trip, I pretty much assumed all drywall was relatively the same. I mean, other than making sure you use the correct thickness for your wall or ceiling, that’s really all there is to it, right?

Turns out — not true! If you see those purple drywall panels in the store, they have a few secrets up their sleeve…

Ask for Purple — Because It’s Moisture, Mold, and Mildew Resistant

It seems like I am learning a lot about water this year: moisture is the enemy of keeping a safe, clean, worry-free home. Indoors and out, bathrooms and kitchens — all of your home regularly interacts with water. At the same time, we need to prevent mildew, mold, and rot. That’s why we use pressure-treated wood and flashing tape on outdoor projects; it’s why polybutylene pipes became a problem; and it’s why we get all freaked out when we see a leak in our ceilings. It’s a very simple concept, and yet it is a very tall order for most manufactured products. I will now and forever remember the quote I heard while in Charlotte:

When owning a home, it’s not a matter of if you will have a moisture problem, it’s when.

Purple XP® drywall: if the name doesn’t mean much to you yet, it’s worth noting. What differs most about this product (other than the noticeable color, of course), is that it’s manufactured to be moisture, mildew, and mold resistant. You may have read about me using paint products with mildew-resistant properties in the past, and the reason is the same: to prevent that very expensive call to a remediation specialist. Toxic mold is not only extremely hazardous to have in the home, but it can be very expensive to remove (and once it’s in the drywall, it has to be ripped out). While paint products are still a good idea, it’s not going to do me much good if the back paper on the drywall is heading to Mold City.

Less than a month later after my trip, I had problems with my air conditioning unit, which forced me to cut a big hole in my ceiling. There was also the time my master bath’s hot water valve popped right off, flooding the room. Brittany from Pretty Handy Girl was also on the trip (I love it when we get to hang out!); she’s had her share of not-so-fun adventures with mold. Eventually, I think every homeowner has a story of close calls or giant disasters!

A rare occasion where we’re hanging out but not covered in muck ;)

Bottom line is, if using a product likes this keeps mold from growing in the first place, and you may not always catch something growing behind your walls, it’s smart to prevent it rather than spend thousands of dollars repairing the damage (or deal with the health effects on those who live in the home).

How Its Made — Purple is… Green?

So, I started this whole post about how things are made. And I definitely learned more about that during the trip. As you might assume from the name National Gypsum or drywall’s other name, “gypsum board,” drywall is created from gypsum. Plenty of it is blasted out of quarries all over the country, which looks a lot like this when holding it in your hand:

But, drywall is also possible due to a byproduct of coal burning power plants. By filtering out and reusing this byproduct, it saves literal tons of waste from landfills. National Gypsum has also been making the paper that goes on the front and back out of recycled materials since the 1960s. And since having to rip out less drywall from mold damage keeps old home materials out of landfills, when you think about it, Purple is actually pretty green.

We got the opportunity to walk the entire length of the (extremely clean and hot) manufacturing center, and it was kind of amazing to see the mix come out in liquid form and be hardened to the touch by the time we walked to the end. They scooped up some of the liquid product for us in cups as well, and we could watch little filaments form on the edges as we walked through. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to film this part of the tour (pretty standard since they don’t want me accidentally capturing something important to their competitors), but I’ll have a video for you guys soon on all of the other cool things we got to see! In the meantime, you can catch this How Its Made version.

Specialty Drywall Types

As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, one of the biggest surprises for me was to learn that there is far more to drywall than I thought. Some are made for areas that get knocked into a lot, and some are made to prevent neighbors from making each other miserable:

XP® — the “normal” XP stuff is meant for most wall applications, and especially in areas where moisture might eventually be a threat, such as bathrooms (non-wet areas), kitchens (non-wet areas), basements, and laundry rooms. If you are building a new home or tearing out walls, I would recommend using it wherever drywall needs to be replaced (after all, the ceiling of my living room is really nowhere near a room I’d think I’d have a moisture issue, and yet, here I am).

Hi-Abuse XP® and Hi-Impact XP® — both of these drywall types are made for areas where the walls might take a beating. But where Hi-Abuse XP is more meant to resist scratches and scuffs (think hallways, stairways, or places where furniture gets moved around), Hi-Impact XP can literally be beaten with a bat and still hold up to its job. It’s got a fiberglass mesh inside the core, so it can withstand some impressive abuse! I know I’m only 5’2″, but I played fastpitch softball growing up… I really hammered this wall, and only broke through after repeatedly hitting it HARD in the same exact spot. Workshops, playrooms, frat houses, maybe the tasting room at a brewery… it’s a perfect match. If you’ve ever had to repair a hole punched through a wall, you know that running some joint compound over a dent is far easier than patching a hole.

SoundBreak XP® — This was my FAVORITE thing to learn about during the trip. Almost all of us are familiar with “thin walls” and noisy neighbors in hotels, apartments, townhomes or condos. Sometimes, it’s as though a neighbor only has to blink and you can hear it through the walls. An interesting piece of info shared was that, with the popularity of mixed-use real estate and the conversion of commercial buildings into high-rise lofts, noise-related lawsuits are becoming much more common for real estate developers. So, a lot of them are starting to pay more attention to the cost vs. risk of using cheaper, lightweight drywall where noise slips right through. But that’s not what got me so excited…

SoundBreak XP Retrofit® Board — THIS. This product is so cool, because it can be applied on TOP of your existing drywall to add a sound barrier! It’s super thin, so it can be installed without demo-ing your walls, which saves a LOT of time and labor. I can think of all sorts of applications for something like this: nursery walls, media rooms, bedrooms (hehe), or even a home office or workshop. With the effort I’ve been putting into doing both written and video tutorials this year, I have a greater need for cutting out background noise (barking dogs & air conditioning/fans are really inconvenient for voice-overs, so I usually have to do it in my master bedroom closet!). And like many of my woodworker friends who find their creativity at night, I would love the opportunity to learn new skills without annoying my neighbors (or the bearded guy sleeping upstairs).

Competition

To give us some “hands-on” demos, they first presented a few pointers on how to better tape drywall seams and install drywall properly. I was very into it, since I have had a little experience with both repairing old drywall and installing new drywall over paneling. Even though I have learned a lot through my own DIY efforts, it’s great to get some solid tips from an expert in the field.

Then, they had the group of us — me, Brittany, and a handful of professional remodelers (that was quite a different experience, since almost all of my trips include only DIYers and this had pros in the mix!) take part in a competition!

Considering that at least one member of our group had decades of experience doing this exact task (and coughcough, used his tape measure to make sure he got exact 12-inches on center when the rest of us were told we couldn’t measure — but no, I’m not bitter ), it wasn’t really a shocker to me that I lost. I was glad to know that I can hold my own in the room, though!

Why I’m Working With Ask for Purple

Before you guys think that I’m going to only sing the virtues of Purple, there is one thing that I will say is a negative, at least in my area: availability. It’s available in big box stores in some places, but where I live, I’ll probably have to order it (especially if it’s something like Retrofit). It’s not that I have an issue with working with local suppliers (I think it’s good to support local business). It’s that I’m no stranger to needing eight trips to get supplies in a single week, and at least one of them will be 15 minutes before closing. So, whenever I consider working with a brand, I heavily weigh whether or not the “extra effort” is worth it. As cool as a product might be, I certainly don’t want to add to my DIY frustrations by the store being closed while there’s still daylight and I have a deadline to meet, or having something only available if I buy in bulk. Pros have enough experience to create a list they can more easily stick to. But that’s not my life, and I don’t want to pretend it is. And it wouldn’t be honest to advocate that you should make extra efforts that I wouldn’t be willing to make.

As you probably guessed, I had zero problem telling the marketing team exactly this. A homeowner needs more than just the product’s benefits or cost; the experience can still be intimidating and frustrating. And that’s ultimately why I chose to work with them. Because a pro can know all day and night why one product might be better than the other and advocate for it with ease. A brand’s sales team can work their magic to get a product into stores to test sales performance. But if there’s something out there that will solve a DIYers problem and we don’t actually know it exists, we can’t go looking for it or ask the store to start carrying it. This is one of those times where it might legit be worth it, and we’ll see once I install!

The post There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE appeared first on Ugly Duckling House.

More Where That Came From

How To Fix and Skim Coat Damaged Drywall

How to Remove Wallpaper

Painting Prep after Drywall Repair

More Skim Coating Tips

.yuzo_related_post img{width:170px !important; height:170px !important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{line-height:14px;background:#ffffff !important;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover{background:#ffffff !important; -webkit-transition: background 0.2s linear; -moz-transition: background 0.2s linear; -o-transition: background 0.2s linear; transition: background 0.2s linear;;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a{color:#102a3b!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a:hover{ color:#113f5e}!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover a{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo__text--title{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post:hover .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{ margin: 0px 6px 0px 6px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; } jQuery(document).ready(function( $ ){ jQuery('.yuzo_related_post .yuzo_wraps').equalizer({ columns : '> div' }); }); There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[georgeycowell]

There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE

Did you know you can soundproof a room with drywall? Or install some that can take a (literal) beating? During a recent tour of National Gypsum headquarters in Charlotte, NC, I learned a lot more about what makes their Purple XP drywall products so unique.

Click on these to jump to a section in this post (trying out a new feature with longer posts with lots of info, let me know if you like it):

Fighting Moisture, Mildew, Mold

How Drywall is Made

Nifty Specialty Types of Drywall

Our Drywall Competition at National Gypsum HQ

Anyone out there a fan of the show, How Its Made? As a kid, I found this behind-the-scenes look at how everyday objects are created fascinating. Perhaps, in a small way, it influenced my adolescent brain into a career of showing people how I make/build/fix/renovate. (Funny that I didn’t really think about it until I started writing this last paragraph, but huh — neat!)

Often, when I start working with a brand as part of a blog partnership, I get invited to one of their manufacturing plants. For the brand, it’s one of the better ways to understand their products on a fundamental level: their company’s history, their motivations, their employees, the work that goes into new product development, and all sorts of things that lead up to the last step of using it in a home. For me, it’s an invite to the living version of the show I used to watch as a kid.

This fall, I’ll be working with National Gypsum and using one of their unique types of Purple XP drywall for a new sponsored project. But until I took the trip, I pretty much assumed all drywall was relatively the same. I mean, other than making sure you use the correct thickness for your wall or ceiling, that’s really all there is to it, right?

Turns out — not true! If you see those purple drywall panels in the store, they have a few secrets up their sleeve…

Ask for Purple — Because It’s Moisture, Mold, and Mildew Resistant

It seems like I am learning a lot about water this year: moisture is the enemy of keeping a safe, clean, worry-free home. Indoors and out, bathrooms and kitchens — all of your home regularly interacts with water. At the same time, we need to prevent mildew, mold, and rot. That’s why we use pressure-treated wood and flashing tape on outdoor projects; it’s why polybutylene pipes became a problem; and it’s why we get all freaked out when we see a leak in our ceilings. It’s a very simple concept, and yet it is a very tall order for most manufactured products. I will now and forever remember the quote I heard while in Charlotte:

When owning a home, it’s not a matter of if you will have a moisture problem, it’s when.

Purple XP® drywall: if the name doesn’t mean much to you yet, it’s worth noting. What differs most about this product (other than the noticeable color, of course), is that it’s manufactured to be moisture, mildew, and mold resistant. You may have read about me using paint products with mildew-resistant properties in the past, and the reason is the same: to prevent that very expensive call to a remediation specialist. Toxic mold is not only extremely hazardous to have in the home, but it can be very expensive to remove (and once it’s in the drywall, it has to be ripped out). While paint products are still a good idea, it’s not going to do me much good if the back paper on the drywall is heading to Mold City.

Less than a month later after my trip, I had problems with my air conditioning unit, which forced me to cut a big hole in my ceiling. There was also the time my master bath’s hot water valve popped right off, flooding the room. Brittany from Pretty Handy Girl was also on the trip (I love it when we get to hang out!); she’s had her share of not-so-fun adventures with mold. Eventually, I think every homeowner has a story of close calls or giant disasters!

A rare occasion where we’re hanging out but not covered in muck ;)

Bottom line is, if using a product likes this keeps mold from growing in the first place, and you may not always catch something growing behind your walls, it’s smart to prevent it rather than spend thousands of dollars repairing the damage (or deal with the health effects on those who live in the home).

How Its Made — Purple is… Green?

So, I started this whole post about how things are made. And I definitely learned more about that during the trip. As you might assume from the name National Gypsum or drywall’s other name, “gypsum board,” drywall is created from gypsum. Plenty of it is blasted out of quarries all over the country, which looks a lot like this when holding it in your hand:

But, drywall is also possible due to a byproduct of coal burning power plants. By filtering out and reusing this byproduct, it saves literal tons of waste from landfills. National Gypsum has also been making the paper that goes on the front and back out of recycled materials since the 1960s. And since having to rip out less drywall from mold damage keeps old home materials out of landfills, when you think about it, Purple is actually pretty green.

We got the opportunity to walk the entire length of the (extremely clean and hot) manufacturing center, and it was kind of amazing to see the mix come out in liquid form and be hardened to the touch by the time we walked to the end. They scooped up some of the liquid product for us in cups as well, and we could watch little filaments form on the edges as we walked through. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to film this part of the tour (pretty standard since they don’t want me accidentally capturing something important to their competitors), but I’ll have a video for you guys soon on all of the other cool things we got to see! In the meantime, you can catch this How Its Made version.

Specialty Drywall Types

As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, one of the biggest surprises for me was to learn that there is far more to drywall than I thought. Some are made for areas that get knocked into a lot, and some are made to prevent neighbors from making each other miserable:

XP® — the “normal” XP stuff is meant for most wall applications, and especially in areas where moisture might eventually be a threat, such as bathrooms (non-wet areas), kitchens (non-wet areas), basements, and laundry rooms. If you are building a new home or tearing out walls, I would recommend using it wherever drywall needs to be replaced (after all, the ceiling of my living room is really nowhere near a room I’d think I’d have a moisture issue, and yet, here I am).

Hi-Abuse XP® and Hi-Impact XP® — both of these drywall types are made for areas where the walls might take a beating. But where Hi-Abuse XP is more meant to resist scratches and scuffs (think hallways, stairways, or places where furniture gets moved around), Hi-Impact XP can literally be beaten with a bat and still hold up to its job. It’s got a fiberglass mesh inside the core, so it can withstand some impressive abuse! I know I’m only 5’2″, but I played fastpitch softball growing up… I really hammered this wall, and only broke through after repeatedly hitting it HARD in the same exact spot. Workshops, playrooms, frat houses, maybe the tasting room at a brewery… it’s a perfect match. If you’ve ever had to repair a hole punched through a wall, you know that running some joint compound over a dent is far easier than patching a hole.

SoundBreak XP® — This was my FAVORITE thing to learn about during the trip. Almost all of us are familiar with “thin walls” and noisy neighbors in hotels, apartments, townhomes or condos. Sometimes, it’s as though a neighbor only has to blink and you can hear it through the walls. An interesting piece of info shared was that, with the popularity of mixed-use real estate and the conversion of commercial buildings into high-rise lofts, noise-related lawsuits are becoming much more common for real estate developers. So, a lot of them are starting to pay more attention to the cost vs. risk of using cheaper, lightweight drywall where noise slips right through. But that’s not what got me so excited…

SoundBreak XP Retrofit® Board — THIS. This product is so cool, because it can be applied on TOP of your existing drywall to add a sound barrier! It’s super thin, so it can be installed without demo-ing your walls, which saves a LOT of time and labor. I can think of all sorts of applications for something like this: nursery walls, media rooms, bedrooms (hehe), or even a home office or workshop. With the effort I’ve been putting into doing both written and video tutorials this year, I have a greater need for cutting out background noise (barking dogs & air conditioning/fans are really inconvenient for voice-overs, so I usually have to do it in my master bedroom closet!). And like many of my woodworker friends who find their creativity at night, I would love the opportunity to learn new skills without annoying my neighbors (or the bearded guy sleeping upstairs).

Competition

To give us some “hands-on” demos, they first presented a few pointers on how to better tape drywall seams and install drywall properly. I was very into it, since I have had a little experience with both repairing old drywall and installing new drywall over paneling. Even though I have learned a lot through my own DIY efforts, it’s great to get some solid tips from an expert in the field.

Then, they had the group of us — me, Brittany, and a handful of professional remodelers (that was quite a different experience, since almost all of my trips include only DIYers and this had pros in the mix!) take part in a competition!

Considering that at least one member of our group had decades of experience doing this exact task (and coughcough, used his tape measure to make sure he got exact 12-inches on center when the rest of us were told we couldn’t measure — but no, I’m not bitter ), it wasn’t really a shocker to me that I lost. I was glad to know that I can hold my own in the room, though!

Why I’m Working With Ask for Purple

Before you guys think that I’m going to only sing the virtues of Purple, there is one thing that I will say is a negative, at least in my area: availability. It’s available in big box stores in some places, but where I live, I’ll probably have to order it (especially if it’s something like Retrofit). It’s not that I have an issue with working with local suppliers (I think it’s good to support local business). It’s that I’m no stranger to needing eight trips to get supplies in a single week, and at least one of them will be 15 minutes before closing. So, whenever I consider working with a brand, I heavily weigh whether or not the “extra effort” is worth it. As cool as a product might be, I certainly don’t want to add to my DIY frustrations by the store being closed while there’s still daylight and I have a deadline to meet, or having something only available if I buy in bulk. Pros have enough experience to create a list they can more easily stick to. But that’s not my life, and I don’t want to pretend it is. And it wouldn’t be honest to advocate that you should make extra efforts that I wouldn’t be willing to make.

As you probably guessed, I had zero problem telling the marketing team exactly this. A homeowner needs more than just the product’s benefits or cost; the experience can still be intimidating and frustrating. And that’s ultimately why I chose to work with them. Because a pro can know all day and night why one product might be better than the other and advocate for it with ease. A brand’s sales team can work their magic to get a product into stores to test sales performance. But if there’s something out there that will solve a DIYers problem and we don’t actually know it exists, we can’t go looking for it or ask the store to start carrying it. This is one of those times where it might legit be worth it, and we’ll see once I install!

The post There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE appeared first on Ugly Duckling House.

More Where That Came From

How To Fix and Skim Coat Damaged Drywall

How to Remove Wallpaper

Painting Prep after Drywall Repair

More Skim Coating Tips

.yuzo_related_post img{width:170px !important; height:170px !important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{line-height:14px;background:#ffffff !important;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover{background:#ffffff !important; -webkit-transition: background 0.2s linear; -moz-transition: background 0.2s linear; -o-transition: background 0.2s linear; transition: background 0.2s linear;;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a{color:#102a3b!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a:hover{ color:#113f5e}!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover a{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo__text--title{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post:hover .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{ margin: 0px 6px 0px 6px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; } jQuery(document).ready(function( $ ){ jQuery('.yuzo_related_post .yuzo_wraps').equalizer({ columns : '> div' }); }); from Home https://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/theres-a-drywall-for-that-touring-national-gypsum/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[lowmaticnews]

There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE

Did you know you can soundproof a room with drywall? Or install some that can take a (literal) beating? During a recent tour of National Gypsum headquarters in Charlotte, NC, I learned a lot more about what makes their Purple XP drywall products so unique.

Click on these to jump to a section in this post (trying out a new feature with longer posts with lots of info, let me know if you like it):

Fighting Moisture, Mildew, Mold

How Drywall is Made

Nifty Specialty Types of Drywall

Our Drywall Competition at National Gypsum HQ

Anyone out there a fan of the show, How Its Made? As a kid, I found this behind-the-scenes look at how everyday objects are created fascinating. Perhaps, in a small way, it influenced my adolescent brain into a career of showing people how I make/build/fix/renovate. (Funny that I didn’t really think about it until I started writing this last paragraph, but huh — neat!)

Often, when I start working with a brand as part of a blog partnership, I get invited to one of their manufacturing plants. For the brand, it’s one of the better ways to understand their products on a fundamental level: their company’s history, their motivations, their employees, the work that goes into new product development, and all sorts of things that lead up to the last step of using it in a home. For me, it’s an invite to the living version of the show I used to watch as a kid.

This fall, I’ll be working with National Gypsum and using one of their unique types of Purple XP drywall for a new sponsored project. But until I took the trip, I pretty much assumed all drywall was relatively the same. I mean, other than making sure you use the correct thickness for your wall or ceiling, that’s really all there is to it, right?

Turns out — not true! If you see those purple drywall panels in the store, they have a few secrets up their sleeve…

Ask for Purple — Because It’s Moisture, Mold, and Mildew Resistant

It seems like I am learning a lot about water this year: moisture is the enemy of keeping a safe, clean, worry-free home. Indoors and out, bathrooms and kitchens — all of your home regularly interacts with water. At the same time, we need to prevent mildew, mold, and rot. That’s why we use pressure-treated wood and flashing tape on outdoor projects; it’s why polybutylene pipes became a problem; and it’s why we get all freaked out when we see a leak in our ceilings. It’s a very simple concept, and yet it is a very tall order for most manufactured products. I will now and forever remember the quote I heard while in Charlotte:

When owning a home, it’s not a matter of if you will have a moisture problem, it’s when.

Purple XP® drywall: if the name doesn’t mean much to you yet, it’s worth noting. What differs most about this product (other than the noticeable color, of course), is that it’s manufactured to be moisture, mildew, and mold resistant. You may have read about me using paint products with mildew-resistant properties in the past, and the reason is the same: to prevent that very expensive call to a remediation specialist. Toxic mold is not only extremely hazardous to have in the home, but it can be very expensive to remove (and once it’s in the drywall, it has to be ripped out). While paint products are still a good idea, it’s not going to do me much good if the back paper on the drywall is heading to Mold City.

Less than a month later after my trip, I had problems with my air conditioning unit, which forced me to cut a big hole in my ceiling. There was also the time my master bath’s hot water valve popped right off, flooding the room. Brittany from Pretty Handy Girl was also on the trip (I love it when we get to hang out!); she’s had her share of not-so-fun adventures with mold. Eventually, I think every homeowner has a story of close calls or giant disasters!

A rare occasion where we’re hanging out but not covered in muck ;)

Bottom line is, if using a product likes this keeps mold from growing in the first place, and you may not always catch something growing behind your walls, it’s smart to prevent it rather than spend thousands of dollars repairing the damage (or deal with the health effects on those who live in the home).

How Its Made — Purple is… Green?

So, I started this whole post about how things are made. And I definitely learned more about that during the trip. As you might assume from the name National Gypsum or drywall’s other name, “gypsum board,” drywall is created from gypsum. Plenty of it is blasted out of quarries all over the country, which looks a lot like this when holding it in your hand:

But, drywall is also possible due to a byproduct of coal burning power plants. By filtering out and reusing this byproduct, it saves literal tons of waste from landfills. National Gypsum has also been making the paper that goes on the front and back out of recycled materials since the 1960s. And since having to rip out less drywall from mold damage keeps old home materials out of landfills, when you think about it, Purple is actually pretty green.

We got the opportunity to walk the entire length of the (extremely clean and hot) manufacturing center, and it was kind of amazing to see the mix come out in liquid form and be hardened to the touch by the time we walked to the end. They scooped up some of the liquid product for us in cups as well, and we could watch little filaments form on the edges as we walked through. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to film this part of the tour (pretty standard since they don’t want me accidentally capturing something important to their competitors), but I’ll have a video for you guys soon on all of the other cool things we got to see! In the meantime, you can catch this How Its Made version.

Specialty Drywall Types

As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, one of the biggest surprises for me was to learn that there is far more to drywall than I thought. Some are made for areas that get knocked into a lot, and some are made to prevent neighbors from making each other miserable:

XP® — the “normal” XP stuff is meant for most wall applications, and especially in areas where moisture might eventually be a threat, such as bathrooms (non-wet areas), kitchens (non-wet areas), basements, and laundry rooms. If you are building a new home or tearing out walls, I would recommend using it wherever drywall needs to be replaced (after all, the ceiling of my living room is really nowhere near a room I’d think I’d have a moisture issue, and yet, here I am).

Hi-Abuse XP® and Hi-Impact XP® — both of these drywall types are made for areas where the walls might take a beating. But where Hi-Abuse XP is more meant to resist scratches and scuffs (think hallways, stairways, or places where furniture gets moved around), Hi-Impact XP can literally be beaten with a bat and still hold up to its job. It’s got a fiberglass mesh inside the core, so it can withstand some impressive abuse! I know I’m only 5’2″, but I played fastpitch softball growing up… I really hammered this wall, and only broke through after repeatedly hitting it HARD in the same exact spot. Workshops, playrooms, frat houses, maybe the tasting room at a brewery… it’s a perfect match. If you’ve ever had to repair a hole punched through a wall, you know that running some joint compound over a dent is far easier than patching a hole.

SoundBreak XP® — This was my FAVORITE thing to learn about during the trip. Almost all of us are familiar with “thin walls” and noisy neighbors in hotels, apartments, townhomes or condos. Sometimes, it’s as though a neighbor only has to blink and you can hear it through the walls. An interesting piece of info shared was that, with the popularity of mixed-use real estate and the conversion of commercial buildings into high-rise lofts, noise-related lawsuits are becoming much more common for real estate developers. So, a lot of them are starting to pay more attention to the cost vs. risk of using cheaper, lightweight drywall where noise slips right through. But that’s not what got me so excited…

SoundBreak XP Retrofit® Board — THIS. This product is so cool, because it can be applied on TOP of your existing drywall to add a sound barrier! It’s super thin, so it can be installed without demo-ing your walls, which saves a LOT of time and labor. I can think of all sorts of applications for something like this: nursery walls, media rooms, bedrooms (hehe), or even a home office or workshop. With the effort I’ve been putting into doing both written and video tutorials this year, I have a greater need for cutting out background noise (barking dogs & air conditioning/fans are really inconvenient for voice-overs, so I usually have to do it in my master bedroom closet!). And like many of my woodworker friends who find their creativity at night, I would love the opportunity to learn new skills without annoying my neighbors (or the bearded guy sleeping upstairs).

Competition

To give us some “hands-on” demos, they first presented a few pointers on how to better tape drywall seams and install drywall properly. I was very into it, since I have had a little experience with both repairing old drywall and installing new drywall over paneling. Even though I have learned a lot through my own DIY efforts, it’s great to get some solid tips from an expert in the field.

Then, they had the group of us — me, Brittany, and a handful of professional remodelers (that was quite a different experience, since almost all of my trips include only DIYers and this had pros in the mix!) take part in a competition!

Considering that at least one member of our group had decades of experience doing this exact task (and coughcough, used his tape measure to make sure he got exact 12-inches on center when the rest of us were told we couldn’t measure — but no, I’m not bitter ), it wasn’t really a shocker to me that I lost. I was glad to know that I can hold my own in the room, though!

Why I’m Working With Ask for Purple

Before you guys think that I’m going to only sing the virtues of Purple, there is one thing that I will say is a negative, at least in my area: availability. It’s available in big box stores in some places, but where I live, I’ll probably have to order it (especially if it’s something like Retrofit). It’s not that I have an issue with working with local suppliers (I think it’s good to support local business). It’s that I’m no stranger to needing eight trips to get supplies in a single week, and at least one of them will be 15 minutes before closing. So, whenever I consider working with a brand, I heavily weigh whether or not the “extra effort” is worth it. As cool as a product might be, I certainly don’t want to add to my DIY frustrations by the store being closed while there’s still daylight and I have a deadline to meet, or having something only available if I buy in bulk. Pros have enough experience to create a list they can more easily stick to. But that’s not my life, and I don’t want to pretend it is. And it wouldn’t be honest to advocate that you should make extra efforts that I wouldn’t be willing to make.

As you probably guessed, I had zero problem telling the marketing team exactly this. A homeowner needs more than just the product’s benefits or cost; the experience can still be intimidating and frustrating. And that’s ultimately why I chose to work with them. Because a pro can know all day and night why one product might be better than the other and advocate for it with ease. A brand’s sales team can work their magic to get a product into stores to test sales performance. But if there’s something out there that will solve a DIYers problem and we don’t actually know it exists, we can’t go looking for it or ask the store to start carrying it. This is one of those times where it might legit be worth it, and we’ll see once I install!

The post There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE appeared first on Ugly Duckling House.

More Where That Came From

How To Fix and Skim Coat Damaged Drywall

How to Remove Wallpaper

Painting Prep after Drywall Repair

More Skim Coating Tips

.yuzo_related_post img{width:170px !important; height:170px !important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{line-height:14px;background:#ffffff !important;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover{background:#ffffff !important; -webkit-transition: background 0.2s linear; -moz-transition: background 0.2s linear; -o-transition: background 0.2s linear; transition: background 0.2s linear;;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a{color:#102a3b!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a:hover{ color:#113f5e}!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover a{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo__text--title{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post:hover .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{ margin: 0px 6px 0px 6px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; } jQuery(document).ready(function( $ ){ jQuery('.yuzo_related_post .yuzo_wraps').equalizer({ columns : '> div' }); }); There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE published first on https://landscapingmates.blogspot.com

[alexrodriguespage]

There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE

Did you know you can soundproof a room with drywall? Or install some that can take a (literal) beating? During a recent tour of National Gypsum headquarters in Charlotte, NC, I learned a lot more about what makes their Purple XP drywall products so unique.

Click on these to jump to a section in this post (trying out a new feature with longer posts with lots of info, let me know if you like it):

Fighting Moisture, Mildew, Mold

How Drywall is Made

Nifty Specialty Types of Drywall

Our Drywall Competition at National Gypsum HQ

Anyone out there a fan of the show, How Its Made? As a kid, I found this behind-the-scenes look at how everyday objects are created fascinating. Perhaps, in a small way, it influenced my adolescent brain into a career of showing people how I make/build/fix/renovate. (Funny that I didn’t really think about it until I started writing this last paragraph, but huh — neat!)

Often, when I start working with a brand as part of a blog partnership, I get invited to one of their manufacturing plants. For the brand, it’s one of the better ways to understand their products on a fundamental level: their company’s history, their motivations, their employees, the work that goes into new product development, and all sorts of things that lead up to the last step of using it in a home. For me, it’s an invite to the living version of the show I used to watch as a kid.

This fall, I’ll be working with National Gypsum and using one of their unique types of Purple XP drywall for a new sponsored project. But until I took the trip, I pretty much assumed all drywall was relatively the same. I mean, other than making sure you use the correct thickness for your wall or ceiling, that’s really all there is to it, right?

Turns out — not true! If you see those purple drywall panels in the store, they have a few secrets up their sleeve…

Ask for Purple — Because It’s Moisture, Mold, and Mildew Resistant

It seems like I am learning a lot about water this year: moisture is the enemy of keeping a safe, clean, worry-free home. Indoors and out, bathrooms and kitchens — all of your home regularly interacts with water. At the same time, we need to prevent mildew, mold, and rot. That’s why we use pressure-treated wood and flashing tape on outdoor projects; it’s why polybutylene pipes became a problem; and it’s why we get all freaked out when we see a leak in our ceilings. It’s a very simple concept, and yet it is a very tall order for most manufactured products. I will now and forever remember the quote I heard while in Charlotte:

When owning a home, it’s not a matter of if you will have a moisture problem, it’s when.

Purple XP® drywall: if the name doesn’t mean much to you yet, it’s worth noting. What differs most about this product (other than the noticeable color, of course), is that it’s manufactured to be moisture, mildew, and mold resistant. You may have read about me using paint products with mildew-resistant properties in the past, and the reason is the same: to prevent that very expensive call to a remediation specialist. Toxic mold is not only extremely hazardous to have in the home, but it can be very expensive to remove (and once it’s in the drywall, it has to be ripped out). While paint products are still a good idea, it’s not going to do me much good if the back paper on the drywall is heading to Mold City.

Less than a month later after my trip, I had problems with my air conditioning unit, which forced me to cut a big hole in my ceiling. There was also the time my master bath’s hot water valve popped right off, flooding the room. Brittany from Pretty Handy Girl was also on the trip (I love it when we get to hang out!); she’s had her share of not-so-fun adventures with mold. Eventually, I think every homeowner has a story of close calls or giant disasters!

A rare occasion where we’re hanging out but not covered in muck ;)

Bottom line is, if using a product likes this keeps mold from growing in the first place, and you may not always catch something growing behind your walls, it’s smart to prevent it rather than spend thousands of dollars repairing the damage (or deal with the health effects on those who live in the home).

How Its Made — Purple is… Green?

So, I started this whole post about how things are made. And I definitely learned more about that during the trip. As you might assume from the name National Gypsum or drywall’s other name, “gypsum board,” drywall is created from gypsum. Plenty of it is blasted out of quarries all over the country, which looks a lot like this when holding it in your hand:

But, drywall is also possible due to a byproduct of coal burning power plants. By filtering out and reusing this byproduct, it saves literal tons of waste from landfills. National Gypsum has also been making the paper that goes on the front and back out of recycled materials since the 1960s. And since having to rip out less drywall from mold damage keeps old home materials out of landfills, when you think about it, Purple is actually pretty green.

We got the opportunity to walk the entire length of the (extremely clean and hot) manufacturing center, and it was kind of amazing to see the mix come out in liquid form and be hardened to the touch by the time we walked to the end. They scooped up some of the liquid product for us in cups as well, and we could watch little filaments form on the edges as we walked through. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to film this part of the tour (pretty standard since they don’t want me accidentally capturing something important to their competitors), but I’ll have a video for you guys soon on all of the other cool things we got to see! In the meantime, you can catch this How Its Made version.

Specialty Drywall Types

As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, one of the biggest surprises for me was to learn that there is far more to drywall than I thought. Some are made for areas that get knocked into a lot, and some are made to prevent neighbors from making each other miserable:

XP® — the “normal” XP stuff is meant for most wall applications, and especially in areas where moisture might eventually be a threat, such as bathrooms (non-wet areas), kitchens (non-wet areas), basements, and laundry rooms. If you are building a new home or tearing out walls, I would recommend using it wherever drywall needs to be replaced (after all, the ceiling of my living room is really nowhere near a room I’d think I’d have a moisture issue, and yet, here I am).

Hi-Abuse XP® and Hi-Impact XP® — both of these drywall types are made for areas where the walls might take a beating. But where Hi-Abuse XP is more meant to resist scratches and scuffs (think hallways, stairways, or places where furniture gets moved around), Hi-Impact XP can literally be beaten with a bat and still hold up to its job. It’s got a fiberglass mesh inside the core, so it can withstand some impressive abuse! I know I’m only 5’2″, but I played fastpitch softball growing up… I really hammered this wall, and only broke through after repeatedly hitting it HARD in the same exact spot. Workshops, playrooms, frat houses, maybe the tasting room at a brewery… it’s a perfect match. If you’ve ever had to repair a hole punched through a wall, you know that running some joint compound over a dent is far easier than patching a hole.

SoundBreak XP® — This was my FAVORITE thing to learn about during the trip. Almost all of us are familiar with “thin walls” and noisy neighbors in hotels, apartments, townhomes or condos. Sometimes, it’s as though a neighbor only has to blink and you can hear it through the walls. An interesting piece of info shared was that, with the popularity of mixed-use real estate and the conversion of commercial buildings into high-rise lofts, noise-related lawsuits are becoming much more common for real estate developers. So, a lot of them are starting to pay more attention to the cost vs. risk of using cheaper, lightweight drywall where noise slips right through. But that’s not what got me so excited…

SoundBreak XP Retrofit® Board — THIS. This product is so cool, because it can be applied on TOP of your existing drywall to add a sound barrier! It’s super thin, so it can be installed without demo-ing your walls, which saves a LOT of time and labor. I can think of all sorts of applications for something like this: nursery walls, media rooms, bedrooms (hehe), or even a home office or workshop. With the effort I’ve been putting into doing both written and video tutorials this year, I have a greater need for cutting out background noise (barking dogs & air conditioning/fans are really inconvenient for voice-overs, so I usually have to do it in my master bedroom closet!). And like many of my woodworker friends who find their creativity at night, I would love the opportunity to learn new skills without annoying my neighbors (or the bearded guy sleeping upstairs).

Competition

To give us some “hands-on” demos, they first presented a few pointers on how to better tape drywall seams and install drywall properly. I was very into it, since I have had a little experience with both repairing old drywall and installing new drywall over paneling. Even though I have learned a lot through my own DIY efforts, it’s great to get some solid tips from an expert in the field.

Then, they had the group of us — me, Brittany, and a handful of professional remodelers (that was quite a different experience, since almost all of my trips include only DIYers and this had pros in the mix!) take part in a competition!

Considering that at least one member of our group had decades of experience doing this exact task (and coughcough, used his tape measure to make sure he got exact 12-inches on center when the rest of us were told we couldn’t measure — but no, I’m not bitter ), it wasn’t really a shocker to me that I lost. I was glad to know that I can hold my own in the room, though!

Why I’m Working With Ask for Purple

Before you guys think that I’m going to only sing the virtues of Purple, there is one thing that I will say is a negative, at least in my area: availability. It’s available in big box stores in some places, but where I live, I’ll probably have to order it (especially if it’s something like Retrofit). It’s not that I have an issue with working with local suppliers (I think it’s good to support local business). It’s that I’m no stranger to needing eight trips to get supplies in a single week, and at least one of them will be 15 minutes before closing. So, whenever I consider working with a brand, I heavily weigh whether or not the “extra effort” is worth it. As cool as a product might be, I certainly don’t want to add to my DIY frustrations by the store being closed while there’s still daylight and I have a deadline to meet, or having something only available if I buy in bulk. Pros have enough experience to create a list they can more easily stick to. But that’s not my life, and I don’t want to pretend it is. And it wouldn’t be honest to advocate that you should make extra efforts that I wouldn’t be willing to make.

As you probably guessed, I had zero problem telling the marketing team exactly this. A homeowner needs more than just the product’s benefits or cost; the experience can still be intimidating and frustrating. And that’s ultimately why I chose to work with them. Because a pro can know all day and night why one product might be better than the other and advocate for it with ease. A brand’s sales team can work their magic to get a product into stores to test sales performance. But if there’s something out there that will solve a DIYers problem and we don’t actually know it exists, we can’t go looking for it or ask the store to start carrying it. This is one of those times where it might legit be worth it, and we’ll see once I install!

The post There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE appeared first on Ugly Duckling House.

More Where That Came From

How To Fix and Skim Coat Damaged Drywall

How to Remove Wallpaper

Painting Prep after Drywall Repair

More Skim Coating Tips

.yuzo_related_post img{width:170px !important; height:170px !important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{line-height:14px;background:#ffffff !important;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover{background:#ffffff !important; -webkit-transition: background 0.2s linear; -moz-transition: background 0.2s linear; -o-transition: background 0.2s linear; transition: background 0.2s linear;;color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a{color:#102a3b!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a:hover{ color:#113f5e}!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover a{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo__text--title{ color:#113f5e!important;} .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo_text, .yuzo_related_post:hover .yuzo_views_post {color:#454747!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{ margin: 0px 6px 0px 6px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; } jQuery(document).ready(function( $ ){ jQuery('.yuzo_related_post .yuzo_wraps').equalizer({ columns : '> div' }); }); There’s a Drywall for That? | Ask for PURPLE published first on https://vacuumpalguide.tumblr.com/

[garagedoorsbrighton]

There’s a Drywall for That? | Touring National Gypsum

Did you know you can soundproof a room with drywall? Or install some that can take a (literal) beating? During a recent tour of National Gypsum headquarters in Charlotte, NC, I learned a lot more about what makes their Purple XP drywall products so unique.

Click on these to jump to a section in this post (trying out a new feature with longer posts with lots of info, let me know if you like it):

Fighting Moisture, Mildew, Mold

How Drywall is Made

Nifty Specialty Types of Drywall

Our Drywall Competition at National Gypsum HQ

Anyone out there a fan of the show, How Its Made? As a kid, I found this behind-the-scenes look at how everyday objects are created fascinating. Perhaps, in a small way, it influenced my adolescent brain into a career of showing people how I make/build/fix/renovate. (Funny that I didn’t really think about it until I started writing this last paragraph, but huh — neat!)

Often, when I start working with a brand as part of a blog partnership, I get invited to one of their manufacturing plants. For the brand, it’s one of the better ways to understand their products on a fundamental level: their company’s history, their motivations, their employees, the work that goes into new product development, and all sorts of things that lead up to the last step of using it in a home. For me, it’s an invite to the living version of the show I used to watch as a kid.

This fall, I’ll be working with National Gypsum and using one of their unique types of Purple XP drywall for a new sponsored project. But until I took the trip, I pretty much assumed all drywall was relatively the same. I mean, other than making sure you use the correct thickness for your wall or ceiling, that’s really all there is to it, right?

Turns out — not true! If you see those purple drywall panels in the store, they have a few secrets up their sleeve…

Ask for Purple — Because It’s Moisture, Mold, and Mildew Resistant

It seems like I am learning a lot about water this year: moisture is the enemy of keeping a safe, clean, worry-free home. Indoors and out, bathrooms and kitchens — all of your home regularly interacts with water. At the same time, we need to prevent mildew, mold, and rot. That’s why we use pressure-treated wood and flashing tape on outdoor projects; it’s why polybutylene pipes became a problem; and it’s why we get all freaked out when we see a leak in our ceilings. It’s a very simple concept, and yet it is a very tall order for most manufactured products. I will now and forever remember the quote I heard while in Charlotte:

When owning a home, it’s not a matter of if you will have a moisture problem, it’s when.

Purple XP® drywall: if the name doesn’t mean much to you yet, it’s worth noting. What differs most about this product (other than the noticeable color, of course), is that it’s manufactured to be moisture, mildew, and mold resistant. You may have read about me using paint products with mildew-resistant properties in the past, and the reason is the same: to prevent that very expensive call to a remediation specialist. Toxic mold is not only extremely hazardous to have in the home, but it can be very expensive to remove (and once it’s in the drywall, it has to be ripped out). While paint products are still a good idea, it’s not going to do me much good if the back paper on the drywall is heading to Mold City.

Less than a month later after my trip, I had problems with my air conditioning unit, which forced me to cut a big hole in my ceiling. There was also the time my master bath’s hot water valve popped right off, flooding the room. Brittany from Pretty Handy Girl was also on the trip (I love it when we get to hang out!); she’s had her share of not-so-fun adventures with mold. Eventually, I think every homeowner has a story of close calls or giant disasters!

A rare occasion where we’re hanging out but not covered in muck ;)

Bottom line is, if using a product likes this keeps mold from growing in the first place, and you may not always catch something growing behind your walls, it’s smart to prevent it rather than spend thousands of dollars repairing the damage (or deal with the health effects on those who live in the home).

How Its Made — Purple is… Green?

So, I started this whole post about how things are made. And I definitely learned more about that during the trip. As you might assume from the name National Gypsum or drywall’s other name, “gypsum board,” drywall is created from gypsum. Plenty of it is blasted out of quarries all over the country, which looks a lot like this when holding it in your hand:

But, drywall is also possible due to a byproduct of coal burning power plants. By filtering out and reusing this byproduct, it saves literal tons of waste from landfills. National Gypsum has also been making the paper that goes on the front and back out of recycled materials since the 1960s. And since having to rip out less drywall from mold damage keeps old home materials out of landfills, when you think about it, Purple is actually pretty green.

We got the opportunity to walk the entire length of the (extremely clean and hot) manufacturing center, and it was kind of amazing to see the mix come out in liquid form and be hardened to the touch by the time we walked to the end. They scooped up some of the liquid product for us in cups as well, and we could watch little filaments form on the edges as we walked through. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to film this part of the tour (pretty standard since they don’t want me accidentally capturing something important to their competitors), but I’ll have a video for you guys soon on all of the other cool things we got to see! In the meantime, you can catch this How Its Made version.

Specialty Drywall Types

As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, one of the biggest surprises for me was to learn that there is far more to drywall than I thought. Some are made for areas that get knocked into a lot, and some are made to prevent neighbors from making each other miserable:

XP® — the “normal” XP stuff is meant for most wall applications, and especially in areas where moisture might eventually be a threat, such as bathrooms (non-wet areas), kitchens (non-wet areas), basements, and laundry rooms. If you are building a new home or tearing out walls, I would recommend using it wherever drywall needs to be replaced (after all, the ceiling of my living room is really nowhere near a room I’d think I’d have a moisture issue, and yet, here I am).

Hi-Abuse XP® and Hi-Impact XP® — both of these drywall types are made for areas where the walls might take a beating. But where Hi-Abuse XP is more meant to resist scratches and scuffs (think hallways, stairways, or places where furniture gets moved around), Hi-Impact XP can literally be beaten with a bat and still hold up to its job. It’s got a fiberglass mesh inside the core, so it can withstand some impressive abuse! I know I’m only 5’2″, but I played fastpitch softball growing up… I really hammered this wall, and only broke through after repeatedly hitting it HARD in the same exact spot. Workshops, playrooms, frat houses, maybe the tasting room at a brewery… it’s a perfect match. If you’ve ever had to repair a hole punched through a wall, you know that running some joint compound over a dent is far easier than patching a hole.

SoundBreak XP® — This was my FAVORITE thing to learn about during the trip. Almost all of us are familiar with “thin walls” and noisy neighbors in hotels, apartments, townhomes or condos. Sometimes, it’s as though a neighbor only has to blink and you can hear it through the walls. An interesting piece of info shared was that, with the popularity of mixed-use real estate and the conversion of commercial buildings into high-rise lofts, noise-related lawsuits are becoming much more common for real estate developers. So, a lot of them are starting to pay more attention to the cost vs. risk of using cheaper, lightweight drywall where noise slips right through. But that’s not what got me so excited…

SoundBreak XP Retrofit® Board — THIS. This product is so cool, because it can be applied on TOP of your existing drywall to add a sound barrier! It’s super thin, so it can be installed without demo-ing your walls, which saves a LOT of time and labor. I can think of all sorts of applications for something like this: nursery walls, media rooms, bedrooms (hehe), or even a home office or workshop. With the effort I’ve been putting into doing both written and video tutorials this year, I have a greater need for cutting out background noise (barking dogs & air conditioning/fans are really inconvenient for voice-overs, so I usually have to do it in my master bedroom closet!). And like many of my woodworker friends who find their creativity at night, I would love the opportunity to learn new skills without annoying my neighbors (or the bearded guy sleeping upstairs).

Competition

To give us some “hands-on” demos, they first presented a few pointers on how to better tape drywall seams and install drywall properly. I was very into it, since I have had a little experience with both repairing old drywall and installing new drywall over paneling. Even though I have learned a lot through my own DIY efforts, it’s great to get some solid tips from an expert in the field.

Then, they had the group of us — me, Brittany, and a handful of professional remodelers (that was quite a different experience, since almost all of my trips include only DIYers and this had pros in the mix!) take part in a competition!

Considering that at least one member of our group had decades of experience doing this exact task (and coughcough, used his tape measure to make sure he got exact 12-inches on center when the rest of us were told we couldn’t measure — but no, I’m not bitter ), it wasn’t really a shocker to me that I lost. I was glad to know that I can hold my own in the room, though!

Why I’m Working With Ask for Purple

Before you guys think that I’m going to only sing the virtues of Purple, there is one thing that I will say is a negative, at least in my area: availability. It’s available in big box stores in some places, but where I live, I’ll probably have to order it (especially if it’s something like Retrofit). It’s not that I have an issue with working with local suppliers (I think it’s good to support local business). It’s that I’m no stranger to needing eight trips to get supplies in a single week, and at least one of them will be 15 minutes before closing. So, whenever I consider working with a brand, I heavily weigh whether or not the “extra effort” is worth it. As cool as a product might be, I certainly don’t want to add to my DIY frustrations by the store being closed while there’s still daylight and I have a deadline to meet, or having something only available if I buy in bulk. Pros have enough experience to create a list they can more easily stick to. But that’s not my life, and I don’t want to pretend it is. And it wouldn’t be honest to advocate that you should make extra efforts that I wouldn’t be willing to make.

As you probably guessed, I had zero problem telling the marketing team exactly this. A homeowner needs more than just the product’s benefits or cost; the experience can still be intimidating and frustrating. And that’s ultimately why I chose to work with them. Because a pro can know all day and night why one product might be better than the other and advocate for it with ease. A brand’s sales team can work their magic to get a product into stores to test sales performance. But if there’s something out there that will solve a DIYers problem and we don’t actually know it exists, we can’t go looking for it or ask the store to start carrying it. This is one of those times where it might legit be worth it, and we’ll see once I install!

The post There’s a Drywall for That? | Touring National Gypsum appeared first on Ugly Duckling House.

More Where That Came From

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[bettydgunter90]

How to Dominate Your Market As A House Wholesaler

When you’re starting out as a real estate wholesaler, you only need a staff of one.

With a little luck and patience, you’ll land some deals and make some money. But if you want to go beyond scratching the surface to pursue growth and success, you’ll have to expand your workforce.

Why can’t you do it alone forever? Ask the clock. Your limited time needs to be spent talking to sellers and arranging deals. Big picture, that means you won’t have the time to drive around looking for new properties — and you won’t be able to scale effectively, as a result.

This is actually a good problem to have because it means you’re experiencing upward momentum. The big challenge, then, is deciding which activities to outsource for help. One of the simplest — and most meaningful — is the responsibility of driving around and looking for potential gold mines in the form of run-down, abandoned, or distressed properties located in well-performing neighborhoods.

RELATED: What is “Driving for Dollars” and How Does it Work?

In other words, you need to find, hire, train, and manage a team of people to go out and be your boots on the ground — or, rather, tires on the road.

Why You Should Hire Drivers

You might feel nervous at the thought of suddenly becoming a boss. Taking on the role of head honcho may seem overwhelming, but it’s doable, even if you’re inexperienced in the art of supervision.

It’s more lucrative to pay part-time drivers to find deals than it is to purchase mailing lists and send requests to random homeowners. In general, if you buy 1,000 names in bulk and work those leads, you might be able to snag one deal. That’s a .01% conversion rate. But sending your own drivers to be scouts allows you to be more selective. When you do it this way, one deal usually comes from every 200 canvassed homes. In other words, your conversion rate rises to .05%, raising your odds of success to about five times what it was.

Drivers will send you properties that meet your criteria, which you can compile into a unique list that no other real estate wholesaler will have. You’ll have fewer competitors vying for prospects’ attention. If you depend on a list that everyone else uses, too, you’ll never feel that peace of mind. Essentially, your drivers will be your secret weapon.

Best of all, amassing a cohort of responsible drivers doesn’t have to be complicated. You probably know some of your future team members already, which means the only thing holding you back is taking the first step.

Step 1: Finding Dependable Drivers

Sometimes, people get caught up in their fears about delegating work. There are a lot of questions.

How will I know they’re not faking what they do?

How do I keep everyone from driving the same routes and sending me to duplicate addresses?

How do I pick the best people for the job?

Suffice it to say that if you hire the most eager, dependable people at the onset and structure your pay well, you won’t come up against many of these concerns.

RELATED: It’s Time to Fire Yourself From Your Real Estate Business

Start by connecting with the people closest to you, like trustworthy family members and friends. All of your drivers will need to be licensed and insured, as well as own a cellphone. Recruit them by either talking with them in person, sending them a quick text, or getting in touch on social media to let them know you need drivers. If they don’t have an interest in joining your team, ask whether they know someone who might.

You can also use your social platform to reach friends and followers who are seeking part-time employment or looking for a side hustle to pay the bills. Your driver might work 30 hours a week but will have the total freedom to control when and how he or she gets the job done. Think like an advertiser and whip up some clever headlines to grab potential drivers’ attention. To stand out, you can even use:

Images

Videos

Funny GIFs

Emojis

Just make sure your messages include a call to action that prompts people to head to your landing page, send you a text or email, or give you a call

“Hey so-and-so, quick question for you. 😊 As you know, I’m a real estate investor. I’m looking to pay for someone to help me look for houses that look like they need a little maintenance. If you see any, would you be interested in taking a quick picture of it for me and getting paid?”

Beyond that, you can just ask people for help as long as you don’t have a problem with approaching strangers or acquaintances. Who knows? Your mailman could be a great driver. Talk to him. Paint the whole picture of how you’d like to work together. Don’t be shy, and don’t hold back. Picture yourself as a persuasive storyteller, and be sure to bring evidence that you have a thriving business he’ll want to be part of.

Speaking of thriving, driver candidates will inevitably (and rightfully) ask you about compensation. That said, you’ll need to set up a payment system that’s going to work for everyone. Don’t get concerned yet, though. Even if you’re low on cash, you have some great options.

Step 2: Paying Your Drivers

Treating your drivers well means setting up a payment structure that ensures they get their money on time and as expected. Three payment arrangements tend to work extremely well:

Pay a certain amount for every approved real estate deal. This could be a flat fee or a percentage of the net. Figure out what you can afford to offer, and set up a tracking system so your drivers know when a property they recommended converts to cash. This works well for family members and friends who are fine with deferred payment because they know you’re honest.

Pay your drivers the old-fashioned way with an hourly wage. People looking for steady paychecks will appreciate getting money every week without fail. The only downside is that you’ll need to have dollars on hand to keep everything flowing. Plus, this structure would mean you’d need to more actively manage drivers to ensure that they’re driving in places most likely to bring in warm or hot leads and maximizing their time.

Pay your drivers every time they send you a viable lead. Again, this isn’t ideal for those who are relying on you to help cover weekly or monthly bills. It’s relatively unpredictable in terms of the frequency at which you’ll get leads, but it could be an incentive for your drivers to constantly follow different routes and find good properties.

Some people have their drivers work 35 hours a week and pay them by the hour. Others will pay them per deal and have 175 out on the road. There’s no specific formula — just whatever works best for you. I like paying one person by the hour for the sake of consistency, but many people like to have quite a few drivers on the road hunting for properties.

Whichever payment structure you decide is best for you and your team, remember that your drivers are independent contractors, not full-time employees. You won’t reimburse gas or meals. Instead, you’ll find a payment structure that makes the most sense.

RELATED: DealMachine Review: So Simple, Even Your Kids Can Do It

And incentives? If you’re paying $15 per hour, don’t worry about them! Drivers already value this kind of guaranteed paycheck. But if you’re paying less than $12 per hour — or not hourly at all — it’s a good idea to offer them something extra to sweeten the pot. Give your drivers a reason to stick around. This might look like paying them 50 cents to a dollar for every property they submit; if one closes, there might be a bonus attached. Incentives like this let drivers get money immediately and that will ultimately contribute to your success.

Once you finalize your pay setup, arrange for a service to help you coordinate payment disbursements. PayPal and Venmo are top-performing platforms to keep everyone on track. They also let you print statements so you can track your expenses. Budgeting and doing taxes is so much easier when you can download a PDF of the payments you made to drivers.

Step 3: Formalizing Work Relationships With Drivers

A handshake used to be all you needed to make an agreement, but times have changed. Now, you have to get your relationship with drivers in writing. This not only protects you, but it also protects them.

Use this sample contractor agreement as a springboard, adding language as needed to flesh out the details. Ask your attorney to double-check that this agreement includes everything.

Remember, your drivers may not be used to being third-party contractors. Explain everything in the contract (e.g., they’re in charge of paying taxes on their earnings). Giving drivers the scoop on their responsibilities from the beginning should minimize the chances of misunderstandings down the road.

One more note before we move on: Be sure to keep copies of any signed contracts for your records. You may even want to scan them to a cloud-based server to eliminate the possibility of them getting lost.

RELATED: How to Stay Organized (Tour My Paperless Dropbox Filing System)

Step 4: Training Your Drivers to Succeed

At this point, you may be so familiar with which properties are good candidates for deals that you can practically find them with a quick glance. Never assume that your new drivers will have this kind of innate ability, though.

You’ll need to spend time onboarding all your drivers so they understand their duties. They should know the best locations to drive, the types of properties you want them to select, and how to further vet homes after spotting one that seems to fit the bill. Start by creating an online checklist or use the DealMachine app to clarify the requirements all properties should meet.

Here are a few key things to have your drivers look out for:

Neglected landscaping

Disrepair and a need for updates

Clear signs of vacancy

For full-time drivers, training should probably take about a week. They’re not talking to customers or learning anything too complicated. Here’s a rough outline of what that training week might look like:

Day 1: Have your drivers go out on the road and get started on their own. They should be finding properties within 24 hours.

Day 2: Start having them focus on a certain area. Once they spend the first day scouting, you can help them dial in their skills in more specific locations.

Day 3: Review properties with your new drivers. This will give them an idea of whether the properties they find fit your criteria.

Day 4: Show them how to track their drives, leave notes on properties, and tag the deals that stand out to them.

Although it’s tempting to do this kind of training over the phone, via Google Hangouts, or at the coffee shop, nothing works as well as going on trial runs — assuming you’ve properly vetted drivers during the interview process.

While this will take up a little bit of your time, heading out with your newest driver in your own vehicle will be the most hands-on training you can provide. It also gives you the chance to direct the driver’s attention to the right areas and properties. He or she will remember the experience and be able to better emulate it when riding solo.

Step 5: Managing Your Driving Squad Long Term

Your drivers are on the streets and sending in leads. Super! But your role in onboarding isn’t finished yet. Every few weeks, you should review each individuals’ performance and results. This will help you see who is doing really well and who might be falling behind.

If you think certain drivers aren’t meeting performance standards, compare the number of deals they scouted this week to the number they found the week before. You can even compare their deals from last month to their deals this month. Ideally, the numbers will either be getting higher or staying the same. If you notice a dip, be proactive and reach out to keep them from lagging behind. Intervening before things go downhill makes more sense than waiting months to discover that a driver you’ve paid hourly hasn’t been living up to expectations.

As a manager, be sure to celebrate and share your drivers’ real estate hits. Set up a Facebook (or other social media) group specifically for you and your driving squad. When one of them gets a big payday, thanks to a closed deal, announce it on the site. People will get excited when they realize that they could be the next individual hitting the wholesaling jackpot.

And because your drivers are like a roving sales team, use sales incentive techniques (depending on your pay structure) to keep their spirits high. People working on commission sometimes lose their edge if you don’t stay top of mind. It doesn’t cost much to motivate your drivers if you enter each into a raffle to win something like an iPad once every period. When you have a winner, take and share a picture of him or her using the prize to snap an image of a property that meets your criteria.

Scaling Up and Cashing In

Over time, your drivers will become a vital part of your wholesaling business. One of them might even fall in love with the business so much that you join forces as equal partners and grow even more. That’s a good thing for your bank account and for the community around you.

Make the first move and start delegating. Little by little, you’ll work your way to having a solid team of drivers whose individual dedication leads to your collective success.

David Lecko is the CEO of DealMachine, an app that helps real estate investors contact property owners of off-market properties through direct mail, email, and phone by simply taking a picture of any house.

The post How to Dominate Your Market As A House Wholesaler appeared first on REtipster.

from Real Estate Tips https://retipster.com/scaling-house-wholesaling/

[julianledet4439-blog]

Do You Mean To Mention That It goes without saying These Years ...

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