Before we left for New York in November, I checked the forecast and told Mitzi that, if we were lucky, we might get to see some snow.
That turned out to be an understatement of enormous proportions. We saw over a foot of snow, and a thirty-hour power outage. (Which we spent part of at my sister's, who had power.) Then we spent five hours driving through a separate snowstorm.
Anyway, although it seems to have dampened her enthusiasm somewhat, it hasn't seemed to have deterred her. She reiterated to her daughter in a FaceTime call that we were likely to be out of Florida by sometime next year. And she's begun thinking about how to stage the house.
Our "library" has overstuffed bookshelves. (As does my office.) She began going through them and boxing up books to give away. I did the same, and pulled every book I have about Florida, its history and its environment, and those are all going away too. I no longer have any interest in Florida.
The library looks neat and tidy today. Not so, my office.
This house is pretty nearly ideal for what we want to live in as we age. The main bathroom is the biggest problem because of a step-in shower enclosed in glass, but that's the only significant deficiency. We need to think about how to replicate at least the utility of this place in New York. We won't have an unlimited budget, and we expect construction costs are going to skyrocket once the orange one takes office.
She also doesn't want to buy all new furniture again. That mainly affects the design of the living room, but I think that poses the least difficulty. We haven't talked about the appliances yet, but my wish is to have them convey with the house. Likewise the LG OLED TV. Moving and storage isn't ideal for these things, and you want them to be up and running when you move in, not needing a repair.
I have to figure out what I want to do about this office. I need to get this monstrosity of a desk out of here, get rid of some things, find storage for others and still have a way to kind of relax and enjoy myself in here.
It's not going to be all sunshine and roses in New York either. Apparently, the organization that revises the state's building code is considering requiring all new-construction single family and duplex homes to have sprinkler systems built-in. This seems absurd to me.
In my opinion, it's a cash-grab by the fire safety industry. Because not only will it add significantly to the cost of a new home, there are periodic tests and re-inspections that have to occur.
It's getting attention and push-back, so who knows if it'll be enacted? But it's a reminder that New York has its own brand of stupid sometimes. From this website:
In a review of fire fatalities in New York between 2019 and 2023, the mean dwelling was built around 1932. No residential fire fatalities occurred between 2019 and 2023 in 1- and 2-unit homes built after 2000. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reported that only 33% of dwellings in residential fire fatalities in New York state had smoke alarms and that not all of them were functional.
The council is also considering revisions that require all-electric housing, so no more fossil fuel cooking or heating. That's not a problem to us, we would be building an all-electric home anyway.
I'm not looking forward to the frustrations and disappointments of new construction, having experienced it in the recent past, starting with the reconstruction of a 20-unit condo building, to the renovation of my own condo, to watching the construction of this place.
But we'll be doing all that on our own terms; not after a catastrophic loss following a hurricane. That would add an entirely different dimension of pain and frustration.
The front page of this morning's paper talks about "the mean season," and Florida's insurance market. Republicans are crowing about how well it's holding up following Helene and Milton. That's because most of the losses were due to flooding, not wind damage. So it's not so great for Floridians who lacked flood coverage because "it's never flooded here." But the Republican politicians get to keep talking through their hats that everything's great.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:20 Sunday, 8 December 2024