Lbrook: Yes, I do love the tub. The manufacturer is Jason International. The tub is the Carrera oval. The three tubs in the Carrera line are made of a solid surface material in a matte finish. The surface is very smooth and holds the heat well. Just the other night after a day of doing battle with weeds, I spent just under an hour soaking in the tub. Because of the relatively straight sides, it's easy to clean. The GC and plumbers all said to get a stool for getting in and out of the tub, but I have no problem just stepping in and out. I'm only 5'4" and not as limber as in my younger days, but it still is not an issue. Because no stores near us had the tub on display, I had lots of conversations with the Jason folks. They were very good to deal with -- even sent an engineering drawing that showed the angle of the tub back. The list price is quite high. A local plumbing supply company sold it to us for just above half that, however. If you have questions about it, I'd be happy to answer them. I think I've sat in every tub out there! Good luck in your search.

I have quad outlets everywhere. I did them anywhere I d@mn well pleased in the kitchen, too. I can't tell you how many people said I didn't need them. Until I reminded them that electrical needs of the 30s and 40s changed dramatically in the 80s and 90s. Imagine what they'll be in the next 50 years. Just the list that looklakelaborcamp listed isn't even the beginning, if you really think about it. How many chargers? How many battery operated tools and cleaning implements do we have these days? OT: I had my windows and sliders on the front of the house taken out. I think I'm going to brick the front (after much research here on GW/Houzz) but first things first. I'm replacing my horrendous windows and sliders with Anderson casement windows and two sets of beautiful, 2" thick antique doors where the sliders were. Those sliders just plain sucked, as did the windows. Talk about leaky... My house looks like it's foreclosed upon, all boarded up. Doesn't help that my lawn was up to my waist. Who needs to buy grass seed? Just grow your own. I'm sure, though, that the scummy neighbors figure it's now mowed because it's going up for sale. I'm kind of afraid to leave! CL: 7 new windows $500. 4, exterior, antique doors $200. Labor: to take out? Free. To put back in? $100 a day and they will be PERFECT. If it takes longer than a day, given my weird house, it's $100 until that window is done! I can afford this.

Here is my 2 cents and worth at least half that... We have to remember that "the economy" is not some abstract thing. It is income for people. GDP is literally the compensation people receive for their efforts. This compounds because of the GDP multiplier, simply put... If you lose your job the GDP loses more than your wages, because you spend your money on things like rent, food, entertainment, clothes, etc. Those businesses where you spend your money use it to pay their employees who use it buy stuff so still other businesses can pay their employees. So the economic effect of 10% more unemployment can be large. The current GDPNow estimate (which uses indicators to estimate actual GDP and is not a projection) is scary, the latest estimate is -41.9%. I assure you, you are going to feel a 42% contraction in GDP. Yes, construction is still going, house prices are up, etc. However, that doesn't mean a lot, as the government and businesses have done lots of things to delay the pain, but they have not erased it. I am just letting renters who can't pay rent right now live for free, I am planning on crediting all my renters 3 months free rent, but if they don't go back to work I am eventually going to have to evict them. I can let people live rent free during a pandemic but I can't do it forever. However, it is going to change the money I have available to invest and the same is true for a lot of people. We still need people investing in bonds and MBS's to fuel the mortgage machine and they are not, so something is going to have to happen there. Maybe mortgage rates that are effectively negative. That has been done before and it does work, but there is the moral hazard problem. The government can keep injecting money during the pandemic and delay the pain Keynesian style, but eventually they will have to stop. ----- Here is my projection, it is an educated projection, but it is still just a guess. Actually, my projection is OK, it is my assumptions that are questionable. There will be a slow down in entry level home purchases (which drive the entire housing market). Houses will not lose that much value but they will slow down appreciation, largely this is going to happen because the number of buyers and sellers will both go down. The HELOC market is going to get tighter. We are going to move away from 100% & 95% LTV and go back to 80% and 85% LTV. Rates will stay down but approval will be a bit more difficult, and you will see more actual appraisals ordered. The low wage labor market will get a lot more competitive and construction wages will drop. Construction costs will drop with that and construction will become a bit more competitive. However, we could also see people more willing to improve existing homes than sell, so it might balance out and just become more profitable. In general, I believe there is a serious possibility that we see a change in liquidity versus equity. For years we have seen people preach about paying off your house because we have had a few asset bubbles in the last 30 years... Now we are seeing a liquidity crunch, where people with paid off houses and little savings are driving to food banks in order to eat. I suspect we may see people start valuing cash savings over home equity. I also believe the rental rates will become more competitive for the next 5 years. So that may have positive or negative affects on home value depending on your area. --- If you use any of that stuff above to make a decision, well you're a gambler. My advice to clients today is largely the same as it was before with a few modifications. If you are making a move I would suggest you not depend on a quick sale of your existing property. It may sell quick and that is great but make sure you can make two payments significantly longer than you hope to. You can't eat your shingles, don't sacrifice access to liquidity for equity. Until we can see past this, which will be a couple of months from now, plan but don't execute.

I am just finishing a four month reno that affected nearly my whole first floor (and half the second) and left me with no kitchen or eating area the whole time. I have a fridge in the garage but the fridge portion was no good to me bc it’s winter and everything froze in there. I set up one end of my living room with a long folding table. I had some very lightweight thin sheets of wood cut to fit it at Home Depot and laid that down for heat protection, then put a table cloth over it that hung down to the floor. I put a dorm fridge at one end of the table, and on the table I put a toaster, microwave, and toaster oven. At the other end was the trash and recycling bins. I kept one plate, one cup, one bowl, two knives, two spoons, and two forks in the house, along with salt and pepper, a spatula, some tongs, and several disposable food storage containers that could either store leftovers or act as additional bowls if needed. All of it went in a basket under the folding table, behind the tablecloth, which gave me some sense of neatness and order. Another basket under the table held food basics - bread, pb&j, cereal. Almost every single other thing in my kitchen was packed up and put into storage. I cooked tons of stuff ahead of time and froze them in individual serving sizes and put them in the garage freezer. My best advice is to get the stuff you will not need out of your house. ALL of it - put it in storage. I put a lot in storage, but there were some misc hard to pack things (like bottles of liquor, and a large wall mirror, and a clock) that I decided I could just stick in my living room or office. I also didn’t want to put any sort of pantry food in a storage facility so anything I hadn’t used up before the reno I put in boxes and set it in other rooms. I regretted these decisions big time. I’ve spent four months tripping over that stuff or shuffling it from place to place - I should have just found a way to pack it and store the possessions and given the food to a food bank. It seems like every available surface had stuff piled on it that I should have stored. I hated that way more than not having a kitchen. And remove any excess stuff from the room you’ll be living in - pare it down to only what you need. Otherwise it will just feel cramped and overwhelming. I just found it’s super important to create some order and visual calmness in the spaces you are living in. Other advice - take everything off the walls, even in rooms adjoining the work area, otherwise it may fall during work that vibrates. Buy extra filters for your HVAC and change them frequently during the work. And absolutely do not use your garage as storage for what is normally in your house. The very best advice I saw on Houzz before my remodel was to ruthlessly purge and organize my garage ahead of time. I did it, and thank goodness I did - both the house and garage would have been sheer chaos if I hadn’t, because the garage was used to stage materials and set up saws and other tools. Even though I had completely cleared both bays, this stuff completely filled the garage at times, leaving only a narrow aisle up the middle, so thank god I didn’t try to also use it to store stuff from the house. One of the big surprises to me was the amount of money it costs to deal with the reno but is not being paid to the contractor or designer. Examples include: movers to move things in and out of storage, storage fees, post-reno deep cleaning, post-reno duct cleaning, area rug and carpet cleaning, service charges from my home security company to come and put sensors on my new windows, appliance delivery and installation fees, packing supplies, etc. It adds up. BUT it will all be worth it!! Good luck!