#fixerupperdetroit - gaining momentum!

I'm delighted to share lots of good news with you, and I also have some bad news. I'll start with the bad news:

Pretty soon I'm going to stop posting photo updates about the house.

Here's the good news:

The house is making so much progress that I will stop posting pictures of whole rooms because I want there to be some surprises left when the house is finished. 

In the last week we've:

Passed our rough plumbing inspection.

Passed our framing inspection.

Ordered kitchen cabinets.

Passed our electrical inspection.

Repaired a bunch of plaster.

Primed a room.

Picked most of the paint colors.

And some other things that I'm currently keeping a secret.

Tomorrow the plumber should finish some major projects so that we can have the water turned back on.

I'm still having trouble believing that we will actually be living in this house, but it won't be too much longer!

Reflections on Life in Southgate, Now that it's Almost Done

Back in 2011 or so, when we found out that Rebecca would be doing her third year of medical school at Henry Ford Wyandotte, we looked for apartments in Southgate. I didn't know much about Downriver communities. I can't say that I held them in particularly high esteem. We picked an apartment in Southgate but ended up finding a flat in Wyandotte that was cheaper.

The flat itself was terrible. Unsafe, not up to code, and horribly inefficient, but it was cheap and only about ten walkable blocks from lovely downtown Wyandotte. We fell in love with Nanna's Kitchen, visited the Wyandotte art fair without buying anything, and sometimes walked to the Methodist church for services.

When we left Wyandotte for Meridian Township, I thought our tenure as "River Rats" (a term used to refer to people who live Downriver from Detroit - used, at least by some, affectionately) was permanently over. We expected to stay in the Lansing area, where I would do my Ph.D. and Rebecca would get a residency.

Women plan. God laughs.

Our next move was to Royal Oak, and we thought we'd move from there to the Detroit house. The mold infestation left us scrambling to find an apartment with a six month lease, and we ended up finding one in Southgate, near the one we had picked a few years before.

The apartment here is okay. Carpet is less than ideal with two cats, and I miss having an outdoor space, but six months isn't so long. The commute to my Oakland county students is longer, and it ended up farther from the Detroit house than would be easiest, but it's temporary.

If I'm being honest, the worst part of our apartment building is the smell. The mail room, hallways, and laundry room are a mix of so many personal and/or foul odors, and then covered with an awful air freshener. Our apartment usually is okay, but both of us sometimes gag in the hallways.

In other words, my unhappiness here is more a reflection on our apartment building than on Southgate itself.

And here is what I remind myself:

1. This is temporary. We're moving out soon.

2. This is what we needed to do to get away from the mold infestation that made us really sick.

3. I am not too good for the things I need to do.

We needed to live in Southgate for a while to avoid anaphylaxis from the mold and still be able to afford our house. We needed to live in this giant complex that smells weird. We needed lower rent.

I see my students sometimes decide that they are too good for community college, even if it is their only option to continue their education. I see other people decide that they're too good for certain jobs, or parts of their job, even if they really need the work. And it's helped me realize that if there is something that I need to do to achieve an end goal, I'm not too good to do it (assuming that it is ethical, of course).

In twelve days, we'll be moved into #fixerupperdetroit, ready or not (let me assure you: not). I'm sure there will be new things that I'll do that I'd prefer not to. But the alternatives to struggle are boredom, stagnation, or death.

Mississippi on my Mind

Friends, we recently celebrated the end of state-wide bans on same-sex couples adopting children. Mississippi's ban was overturned, in a victory that will help many children find forever homes.

Those who are not as cynical as I rejoiced.

I hoped for the best. But I knew that the pipeline contained a lot of setbacks, given that there has been an agenda, ever since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, to restrict rights to gay couples as much as possible.

Less than a week after the end of state-wide adoption bans, Mississippi passed one of the most devastatingly homophobic, discriminatory, bigoted, harmful bills into law that the United States has ever seen. It allows medical providers to refuse certain services to LGBT members of the community. It allows state officials to refuse to license marriages, even when it is their job to do so (see my article from when Kim Davis made this a thing). It intensifies housing discrimination.

And it likely means that adoption agencies will discriminate against LGBT applicants, meaning that the state will return to a de facto same sex adoption ban, given this language in the version signed by the governor:

The state government shall not take any discriminatory action against a religious organization that advertises, provides or facilitates adoption or foster care, wholly or partially on the basis that such organization has provided or declined to provide any adoption or foster care service, or related service, based upon or in a manner consistent with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction described in Section 2 of this act.

I can't speak for the LGBT community in Mississippi, so I don't know how they feel about being refused service at restaurants or florists.

Here is what I can tell you.

Children with special needs are overwhelmingly stuck in the foster care system and group homes in the United States. When they are adopted, they are much more likely to find a forever home with a same-sex couple. So are children above the age of six. So are ethnic and racial minority children. Straight couples generally* do not prefer to adopt children from these backgrounds. Preventing gay couples from adopting hurts those couples - but it hurts these vulnerable children waiting for families more.

Rebecca and I are not interested in visiting a place where we could be refused service at a lunch counter, or where the legislature and governor are more interested in protecting discrimination than finding homes for their children.

In fact, yesterday, Rebecca vowed never to set foot in Mississippi, even en route to someplace else. I wish I could say that Michigan is substantially better, but my home state seems to be in a race to the bottom right now.

*Yes, I know people who are anomalies here, and I'm sure you do too. Of course, one possible solution would be for all straight people to adopt special needs children so that there are none left for the gay couples to need to adopt. This isn't happening and is unlikely to start, though I would be thrilled to see many of my straight couple friends consider adopting out of the foster care system.

Job Search Update: What's Next?

Some of you have been following my semi-cryptic posts about a job I'd been applying for and was excited about it. I made it to the second round interview and felt it went okay but maybe not perfectly.

I got the news yesterday:

they picked someone else.

What was the job? Yelp was hiring a Community Ambassador for Detroit. It was 15 hours a week for a year, applicants had to live in the city, and I felt I was a strong candidate for the position. I was excited to reach out to new businesses, bring people to events in the city I love, and have an excuse to try out new places.

I had also applied to teach SAT prep at Phillips Andover in Massachusetts and was offered a five week contract for this summer. I turned that down in the hopes the Yelp job would come through. Both were jobs I would have been able to do along with my current test prep instruction, which I'm fortunate to love doing most days.

I thought I would be really sad if the Yelp job didn't come through, and I was for the first few minutes. And I thought I'd be especially sad that I had turned down Andover if the Yelp job didn't work out.

The next feeling surprised me though. I ended up feeling relieved. Relieved that I wouldn't be spending half the summer away from #fixerupperdetroit just as it's being finished. Relieved I wouldn't be spending the summer teaching SAT at an elite private school. Relieved that I wouldn't be working for a tech company whose labor practices I don't completely agree with, and that is financially struggling. Relieved that I have the next few months to find a job in the public or nonprofit sector instead of remaining in the for-profit one.

And then I felt a little lost. A little afraid. Because I haven't been scheduled for anything for the summer yet, which means I could consider going through an alternative teaching certification program. I don't have plans for the fall, which means I could pick a public school to work at. I've been seriously considering trying to find a position as an ESL classroom aide or building substitute teacher, or possibly as a long-term sub. Those are jobs I could do while doing test prep in the evenings or on weekends, or that I could do while figuring out what teaching certification would be the most effective. You know I've said that I can't handle teaching full-time in a public school. I don't want to jump in head first.

Rebecca and I sifted through some job listings when I got home last night. The areas it would be easiest for me to be certified (Spanish and ESL) are now critical shortage areas in metro Detroit, unlike when I graduated college into the Recession and no one was leaving a teaching job while pensions were in jeopardy, universities were producing too many certified teachers, and the majority of jobs available were paid hourly at charter schools or in such desperately low-income schools that I couldn't bear the working conditions. Turns out vilifying teachers, cutting pay and benefits, increasing standardized testing, and withdrawing public support from public schools has had a devastating effect on availability of teachers. Who knew?

So I'm pretty sure I must be addled to even think about going back, but I love teaching. I love languages. I love my colleagues who have stayed and bravely stuck it out for the sake of the children. I love children. And #fixerupperdetroit didn't really make sense either, from a purely logical perspective.

But can we really say that choosing love is logical?

Progress at #fixerupperdetroit: A Photo is Worth a Thousand Words

This is what our living room looks like currently: a staging area to get the plumbing done, and possibly storage for items that have arrived ahead of their associated appliance.

More living room things: I don't actually know what this is, but it's new and looks important.

This is where the toilet will go in our entry-level lavatory. So excited to see it peeking out.

Our kitchen has had all the plumbing removed for months now, so seeing new plumbing run through it is definitely a plus!

This was an effort at a panoramic of the kitchen. Note the new floor joists (in real life they're straight and tidy - the curvature is a product of the photo setting) and plumbing.

More plumbing and vent lines. It's like there really is going to be a bathroom there someday :)

Another panoramic, this time from the hallway that runs along the living room, past the new lavatory, into the kitchen. Once the lavatory is done, pictures like this won't be possible, as the framing will be filled in. That beautiful lady is my wife in her Easter Sunday best.

I know it doesn't look like much, but our upstairs bathroom needed new plumbing work, so there has been a hole in the floor where that white cylinder is. Now we're getting it set up to put the toilet back.

More new stuff - in the attic, under the eaves. I don't know what this does, but I'm glad it's here!

A bucket with plumbing supplies. I know it's not exciting, but I promise the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is what's going on for us.

This room is being cleared out gradually. It will eventually (in a few years, once we save up more money) be turned into part of a master suite. For now, it will be set up as a temporary walk-in closet and dressing area so that we don't wake each other when one of us gets in late or has to leave early. (That seems to be the story of our lives lately.)

Another panoramic - standing in the living room. This includes the dining room (center front), Rebecca's study (center back), and a peek into the kitchen (right).

Yeah, I know this looks really gross. It's our basement bathroom, which wasn't in great shape. We're moving the laundry hookups out of here and had to add a support for the kitchen floor. I'm not sure that we'll end up with working plumbing to this for now, which is fine, since who really likes using a basement bathroom anyway? It can be redone in a few years if we need it.

#fixerupperdetroit: The Beginning is Near

Our contractor ordered appliances today! Here is my reaction:

After a year of searching, paperwork, negotiations, mold infestation, and writing check after check after check, there is finally a time in the foreseeable future when we will live in #fixerupperdetroit.

We picked a kitchen pendant fixture that we hope will bring some 1920s class back to our old girl. Odd Fellows in Berkley gave us a discount because this 1920s Detroit Art Deco fixture needs a good cleaning and rewiring. Thank goodness Rebecca's parents have dealt antiques for years, Rebecca scoped antique shops when we moved to Royal Oak, and that Rebecca took electrical engineering in college.

This is a sneak peak of the newly vaulted ceiling in the sunroom that will become my office. It still needs insulation and drywall, and there will be more details to take care of in the second phase of renovation (when we get some more money together and aesthetic details are manageable). It had a low drop ceiling before, so this change makes the room feel more spacious and inviting.


We've filed our move-out paperwork, so we will be leaving our apartment when the lease ends at the end of April - and we'll need help packing and moving boxes (though many items are still packed from the previous mold infestation move). I'm hoping it will be a gradual process this time instead of a whirlwind weekend. I'm starting to get overwhelmed at the prospect of cleaning and painting, but my work load should lighten in mid-April, and we can do it in pieces instead of all at once.

#fixerupperdetroit goes on a field trip!

Today Rufino Labra, our contractor, and I went on a field trip to Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit. (I still need to write a post about how we know Fino and why Labra Design+Build is the perfect group to do this project.) $127 and a crash course in water versus steam radiators later, we have a new-to-us radiator for the  game of musical radiators our heating person will be playing. We also got a pocket door so that when guests exit our new lavatory, they don't knock anybody down the basement stairs.

New lavatory is framed:

No luck on the 1920s tiny corner sink for the lavatory, alas. We will have to order one.

While I'm at it, here is a pile of more things that have been removed from the kitchen:

And the pretty new work that will keep our second floor from collapsing:

Still no huge transformation, but things are starting to come together.