jkom, You seem the to be the only one with an understanding of the structural bracing necessary in an earthquake territory. The earthquake issue poses very real and expensive challenges in updating old houses. Do folks in other parts of the country not worry about crumbly concrete? I have only lived in the Pacific NW. It is actually quite common to see old houses lifted up on jacks and have the foundation re-poured and the house set on a new foundation. Our GC told us that it costs 50K-100K to do that. Since that is quite commonly done, my DH's proposal is to rotate the house at the same time if physically possible! In a $1mil house, it is a doable proposition. We live in a remodeled 1950s house right now. We took off all old lap-sheathing under the old siding, placed structural plywood sheathing with bracing everywhere. We had to get engineer's sign off prior to starting the project... We bolted framing to the foundation in the basement before finishing the basement. Our current house has been 'earthquake retrofitted'. It cost A LOT of money without really increasing the value of the house. When you go to sell the house, most people (young buyers or people from elsewhere in the country) don't realize what it takes to do that. We have friends in the SF bay area, CA that bought a house with the idea of total remodel. When they started to rip out things, they discovered that the foundation was damaged beyond repair and the previous owners covered it up to sell it. They actually demolished the house, then rebuilt on the lot. They sued the original owners... Our friends ultimately won the case. I think our friends with really deep pockets may have ended up paying more money in legal fees than what they got out of the settlement because they were MAD about the fraud. These things happen, buying things that are beyond what one had anticipated. I am putting a big padding number to not be surprised, hence my $500K to $750K number to update structurally to not have a total loss.... Anyhow, old houses with structural issues in an earthquake territory is a sad thing. There was an amazing old house on a steep hill in my neighborhood with really a stunning view. WAY WAY better than the one we are considering. The house was used as the Italian Consulate in its heyday. It even had a ballroom. Due to structural issues, the person who bought the house ended up donating the property to the city and the house was demolished, and the lot subsequently became a park. I think the tax break they got from the donation was easier to swallow than what it could have cost to restore. One of the due diligence we need to do is to see if we can get a reasonable earthquake insurance on this property. Many old houses in Seattle cannot get ANY earthquake insurance unless you do the extensive earthquake retrofit. For those folks not familiar with earthquake premiums, you buy separate earthquake policies in addition to the regular home owners insurance. The premium is usually equal to the regular home owners insurance. The deductible is generally 20K or more on an earthquake insurance. We have multiple rentals and we carry earthquake insurance on all of them. It costs several thousand $s every year for that! After what happened in Japan and Katrina, we are unsure if the earthquake insurance will actually be helpful if the city was a TOTAL disaster to the point where bridges fell down, tall buildings tumbled. But alas, we play by the rule and hope that the insurance companies also play by the rule.

I am always standing at my 33" single sink and saying how much I love my kitchen. Such a simple thing that makes such a big difference. Even DH likes it because we can both stand at it and do two different things at the same time. As far as cleaning the stainless grid, I fill the sink until it is completely immersed in hot water and add a splash of chlorine bleach, let it sit for 10 minuets. Then I rinse. Presto, clean grid.

I can just slightly cry today . The wifey has no idea on the madness if not impeccable time I have spent undertaken on rejuvenation pruning. I literally have been on my hands and knees doing selecting pruning down to to base, and just keeping as minimal old wood as I can so there is a balance to it. Weaving a Suji saw in between canes just to do selective ~sawing~. I've had my body in all sorts of weird angles getting the saw to do selective sawing without harming old canes or new tender growth from base. Surgical precision I'd like to think. Not fun ! Apparently the old shrubs were not round and uniform for her and it was a bit too much of a layered look ....so she went to town pruning it even and even taking out some of the much needed new growth leaving short stubs. I thought women were all about the layered haircut. I guess I was wrong on that assumption

We've been running about 70% of our average monthly rainfall (average since we started keeping rain records for the garden in 2004). One benefit of keeping the rain records is putting it all in perspective - e.g. rainfall is very variable from year to year here - for instance we had 82mm. in June, compared to 119mm last year and 89mm for the 2004-2020 average. But the lowest rain amount we had in June was 43mm in 2016! We water new plantings and things in pots, but other than that, things are expected to survive on their own with natural rainfall! We did use soaker hoses in the first few years when we started the garden but, by 2004 when we started keeping the rain records, we had largely stopped using them and they have long since been removed or abandoned. It's tough coping with dry periods and we do sometimes water (by 'flooding' a dry area with the hose running gently in the bed) if somewhere is looking very stressed. Plants are generally tougher than we feared!