Big Picture: Where are we?
About the same as last week- closing out items at Mintwood. Getting ready for Christmas visitors (YEAH!!!)
Also- Duncan St. is rented for Feb 1st, so I need to press to complete everything there.
Goals for week of 5 December
- install tile in vestibule. (delayed)
- Complete backsplash tile in kitchen. (delayed)
- Install granite countertop (laundry) and marble countertops (living room) (done)
- Trim painting/ hallway painting (Wolfe Painting) (in progress)
Corp Update
- Dec 20th-ish kids arrive for the holidays
- My SWIF audit actually did reclassify me into a lower risk category, so that’s good news. I’m expecting some sort of refund/ rebate. The letter says it also applies to the prior year. On the flip side, they appear not to have been applying my payments, and I received a “cough up or we will cancel” notice. So now I need to chase down the proof of payments and get them to straighten out.
- We are evaluating a different property in Garfield. It’s a vacant lot that we might develop. The adjacent property is also vacant, so it might be interesting to get both.
Accomplishments
Mintwood St
- Jonas Wolfe (Wolfe Painting) is back in the building, finishing the trim on the 1st floor, and also the hallway/ stairwell. He should wrap up this week.
- The granite and marble were installed as scheduled. The living room was pretty uneventful, but the laundry was a different story. The install team only brought 2 guys, even though the paperwork said it needed three people. As expected,two guys can’t manage a slab of granite that actually requires 3 people to move it. There was a fair bit of damage to the walls in the laundry, and they also dropped the slab on the dryer which bashed it up pretty good. They discounted my final cost, but I’m a bit annoyed. The dryer is brand new. If I’d wanted to save a couple hundred bucks on my dryer, I’d have bought my own scratch-and-dent dryer.
- I’ve been applying varnish to the front entry doors. It is a slow process, bc the marine-grade spar varnish takes quite a while to dry between coats. Still, it looks fantastic and I’m anxious to get them installed.
- I started work on the tile in the vestibule. Unfortunately, *all* of the black marble tile was shattered and useless. I’ve reached out to the seller/ shipping company to expedite replacement tile.
- Cast iron vent covers for the first floor have arrived. I’ll install them after the painting is done. Initially we will just set them over the openings, but eventually, I’ll recess them into the floors. That will likely take place in the spring.
- Landscaping: No big change- other than the fact that I hauled the trash from the back yard to the dump. Worth noting that dump fees have gone up 30% in the past 6 months. I haven’t done anything with the landscape plans bc we learned that the neighbor in the back (with the failing retaining wall) is selling her place. We’ll wait for the new owner to take possession and then we’ll approach them about sharing costs on the wall.
Pearl St.
- Tenants held Thanksgiving dinner at the house and it was a big success. Nice to see people enjoying the building.
Duncan St.
Since I can’t do any tile work this week, I’m likely to spend time at Duncan St working on tasks there. As noted above, we rented Duncan St. It was not planned at all- the property isn’t finished. However, a friend-of-a-friend was looking for a place, and was pretty keen to get it, so I’ve committed that we will have it done by Feb 1st.
Goals for week of 12 December
- Get replacement tile for vestibule.
- Complete backsplash tile in kitchen (on hold until I’m doing the vestibule).
- Finish painting trim and hallway, 1st floor
- Develop working plan for Duncan St., start knocking off items.
Entropy Properties LLC 