Jessica Ferguson

Author, Writing Coach, Speaker

A to Z Reflections

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I love the A to Z Challenge. Believe it or not, I think about it all during the year and wonder what I should blog about. This year was a no-brainer since I’d just been through renovation hell. But, I never jot notes or plan posts ahead of time. I figure I’ll learn more if I write off the cuff, like a newspaper reporter who just happened onto a story, and writes it five minutes before they put the paper to bed.

For anyone who has never tried the A to Z Challenge. Do it! Make a plan to participate next year. You can plan your posts or you can write “off the cuff.” Either way, it’s a blast!

Z is for Zealous

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We’ve reached the end of our A to Z Blogging Challenge. I made it! It sure got tedious reliving my renovation experience. I’m glad it’s over! For more information on the challenge and its creator, and to read other bloggers please visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

My Z is for zealous. I remember how zealous my contractor was when he began our construction, and how that enthusiasm tapered off after the first week or two. That describes me too when I start a new writing project. I jump in with energy and excitement, but then I reach a tough spot and put off dealing with it. Procrastination sets in. Often I never pick up that project again. I start a new one…. only to do the same thing.

Sometimes you hear writers compare writing a novel to building a house. I see the similarity. When it comes to finishing my projects, I’m as bad as Mr. Contractor. In our case, we had to let our contractor go–he couldn’t be trusted to do the job right. We hired others to finish the project.

I’m wondering–should I turn my many unfinished projects over to another writer…? Mmmm.

I’ve enjoyed the 2015 A to Z Challenge. I hope you have. See you next year?

Y is for YouTube

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We’re closing in on the end of our A to Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

Today I’m honoring YouTube because that’s the one place you can find the answers to anything and everything. Seriously, if you want to know how to lay flooring, pull up flooring, build shelves in your garage or kitchen, connect your toilet, you can find instruction on YouTube. You can even post instruction on YouTube if you want to share your expertise with others. 

Let’s take it a step further: Even if you aren’t planning to do these renovation jobs yourself, watching and listening to the YouTube presentations will give you knowledge about how the job should be done and the right questions to ask a contractor or handyman.

Want to make a pretty scarf: try YouTube.
Interested in making jewelry: it’s on YouTube.
Want to plot a book: yep, go to YouTube
Want to learn how to fold fitted sheets: it’s on YouTube
How about demolishing a house? Need I say more? It’s on YouTube

X is for Xenophobia, I think

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We’re closing in on the end of our A to Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

For X I’ve chosen the word xenophobia. That means an unreasonable fear, distrust, or hatred of strangers, foreigners, or anything perceived as foreign or different. Someone who is xenophobic might distrust a neighbor he’s never met, or someone who lives halfway around the world. He might distrust people because they seem — foreign.

Okay, I realize this is a real stretch, but renovation was pretty foreign to me, and because I’ve been through a traumatic experience with our renovation, I now have a fear and distrust of contractors, builders, handyman types and anyone who comes to perform a service for us. Unreasonable? I don’t think so, but whatda I know?

We’re almost finished with A to Z! Aren’t you glad you don’t have to read but two more posts about my renovation? I am!

 

W is for Wood (or not)

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We’re closing in on the end of our A to Z Blogging Challenge. Boy, April has gone by fast! For more information on the challenge and its creator visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

If you’ve kept up with my postings, you know that we just completed a home renovation. Supposedly, our job would last four to six weeks. Yeah, right! It lasted a year. Mr. Contractor didn’t show up for work half the time, he postponed things and lost cabinet doors, lost his truck keys and a number of other things. Unfortunately, he didn’t lay our wood laminate floors right. There’s a procedure–and he didn’t know it.

In all fairness to Mr. Contractor, not EVERYTHING that happened to our wood floors was his fault … but almost. For sure our concrete wasn’t treated or prepared correctly. Because of problems that would take too much space to explain, we had the moisture level in our concrete tested (especially when it started growing fuzz) and this was AFTER we had to take up our beautiful wood laminate! The risk was too great to put down wood laminate again. Such a long, horrible sad story, I won’t bore you with it.

We investigated ceramic tile and even concrete floors, but because we’re getting older, we didn’t want to risk falling on a concrete floor. I think concrete floors can be beautiful, but I’m not sure they would be comfy if I stood at the kitchen sink for two or three hours.

There are so many things to consider when renovating a house! Or maybe we just drive ourselves nuts trying to consider too many things.

At any rate, we ended up going with the wood plank vinyl flooring. It’s very similar to the wood laminate, it comes as planks that are joined together with a tongue and groove cut. You just click them in place. The good thing about them is they’re easy to install, very durable and water resistant. It won’t chip or warp and it’s easy to remove. It’s considerably cheaper than wood laminate too. Still, I prefer wood laminate.

If you’re thinking about new floors, consider all your options. And if you’re like me, you’ll also consider your age, the age of your home, resale value, potential falls, spills, and … well, my list goes on and on… Don’t be like me! Get what you want, enjoy your choices and live with the consequences.

Happy Monday!

V is for Voices (and other things)

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I’m hanging in there with the annual A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

Can I just tell you that a whisper sounds incredibly loud in a house with no carpet? Voices… I’m always hearing voices… among other things. We had carpet everywhere, even our bathrooms were partially carpeted. Believe it or not, our baseboards in our sunken den were carpeted too.  (I love my new baseboards!) I suppose wallpaper in the kitchen and halls buffered sounds too.

What’s weird is that it’s not only inside sounds that echo and seem louder, its outside sounds too. Neighbor’s music and voices, birds tweeting and cooing, and the ice cream truck sounds like it’s in our driveway waiting for us to run out and choose a flavor.

Maybe things will change once we finish the furnishings–chairs, curtains, paintings on the walls. I hope so.

If you plan on getting wood floors throughout your house, you should know there’s going to be some echoing. And certainly more dust. Sweeping is a daily thing these days so you might do like we did–invest in a dust buster to chase those dust bunnies.

Any tips on how to buffer the sounds in our house? Have I overlooked anything?

U is for Undo

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I’m hanging in there with the annual A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

If you’re just tuning in to my A to Z postings, my theme is home renovation. We just renovated our house–a job that was supposed to last from four to six weeks.

We’ve spent a lot of money on our renovation. Unfortunately, we have less storage space (and more boo-boos) now than we did before Mr. Contractor got started. So, that being said, I have to admit that I’m not at a place–mentally/emotionally–where I really love what’s been done. With the exception of the bookcases and my dining room, I’d UNDO much of what was done. I’m trying to be appreciative and thankful. Maybe later–once I’ve licked my wounds and forgotten the name of the contractor.

Is there anything you’d UNDO–that really can’t be undone? How’d you deal with it? Share with me.

T is for Terra Cotta

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I’m hanging in there with the annual A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

I love terra-cotta…terra-cotta everything: the color, the flower pots, and anything else terra-cotta might describe. So it wasn’t too odd that I’d want a terra-cotta room. I just didn’t know what shade of terra-cotta. I kept going back to the cover of this magazine but wondered if it would be too much.

If there’s one thing Mr. Contractor did right it was to show me a room that had been painted terra-cotta, and I loved it. So here’s my dining room.

When we started our renovation, we got rid of a lot of furniture. We had planned to buy a new dining room table, but after looking and pricing, I couldn’t find anything I like. Thankfully, I still have my dining room table and plan to chalk paint it. Any suggestions on color? Below you’ll see a picture of the rug I purchased so please visualize a color that will be neutral enough for the rug and the walls … but still pop.

And then Mr. Contractor told me that I need to have at least one thing in the living room that was terra-cotta, just to sort of carry over and tie the rooms together. Right or wrong, I walked into Home Furniture and fell in love. Believe me when I say, it called my name. Doesn’t it look beautiful just sitting there in the middle of all those drab colors? What’cha think?

We’re still buying furniture. I need a couple of chairs for the living area, dining room chairs for the table I plan to paint and I’m going to paint a huge coffee table too. Wish me luck!

S is for Shower

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I’m hanging in there with the annual A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

Today is S day and S is for shower.

Mr. Contractor was a force to be reckoned with in our bathrooms. To recap: He busted the toilet and used gorilla glue to repair. He tightened the faucets so tight that he stripped them and they leaked. And … and… he took it upon himself to raise my shower head about a foot. What possessed him?

I didn’t call his hand on it until he started work on the second bathroom. Remember, I’m not a confrontational person so all I said was, “Don’t raise the shower head. I like it where it is.” He proudly stated–yes, proudly: “I raised the one in the master.”

I said: “I know, and really, I don’t like washing my hair every time I take a shower.”

Mr. Contractor, laughing. “You’re just like my wife.”

What did that mean?

If you’re getting your shower retiled or updated, and you don’t want the shower head raised, you’d better be smart and say so.

R is for Roughing it and Roughing it in!

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I’m hanging in there with the annual A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit:   http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com.

Mr. Contractor made renovation sound so incredibly easy. Oh, yeah, easy for him. He could go home to a clean, organized house, while hubby and I holed up in the back bedroom, trapped like rats.
For months, we ate every meal out. It sounds like a woman’s dream to not cook but it gets old. Eating out is more fun when it’s my choice—not mandatory.
As for clothes … we couldn’t find a thing. Everything we owned was in boxes, piled in a stack on a bed, or in the middle of a floor. When Mr. Contractor was ready to demolish a particular room, we had to move all our piled up clothes to another room, one he’d finished. To date, I haven’t even found all my clothes because we still haven’t unpacked boxes or organized our closets. Maybe my missing items ran off with my washroom doors!
While we were roughing it, Mr. Contractor was roughing it in. He built walls and tore some out. He had a good laugh about how my dining room had a weird opening that led into our den, and talked me into letting him enclose it. Do you think a contractor should make fun of his client’s home?
I guess his enclosure actually made the den and the dining area seem larger–though it wasn’t on my list of things to do. But neither were a few other things. Our little contractor took some liberties, and I’ll tell you about one of them on S day.  See you then!