Mupdate

Mupdate = a portmanteau of “me” and “update.” Mupdates!

Soooo…. Bathroom time! :3

I decided in early September to go ahead and get the bathrooms redone in my house. It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since I bought the place. The original bathrooms were built in the 60’s and uh… they have a certain… aesthetic, lol.

Like… a green bathtub. And a pink sink.

I also took advantage of a home equity loan about two years ago, which is what I’m using to pay for it all. Mostly I stuffed the money into a savings account in preparation for my roof being blown off by a hurricane (only slightly kidding). But I also hoped to do the bathrooms with it, once I felt more secure in my new job.

It was my 1 year anniversary at my new job last month, so safe to say I’m feeling more secure now! And while I have that security, and my paychecks are coming in okay, I felt like it was time to do the thing.

So, I did a bunch of measuring and put together some mockups:

It’s my first time actually like… managing a budget for something. And a timeline. So, it’s an interesting experiment. And a lot of work.

But a good experience, I think, since I eventually would like to hire help on my animated stuff!

I don’t have any hard and fast deadlines, but I do have to manage money. Which is pretty stressful.

Finding vanity cabinets and such for acceptable prices is also difficult. A lot of stuff just isn’t in stock. And if you don’t like anything at the local Home Depot or Lowe’s, you’re about to go WAY up in price.

Also vanity cabinets are often sold without the sink tops???? WHY. That just makes them more expensive!

And sometimes, even if you DO buy online, like at Wayfair, they will have a sale, and when you buy the item on sale, turns out their database screwed up and they cancel your order, leaving you with nothing!

Tile was the hardest thing to get. I thought you could just go into a store and pick out the tile you need. But it doesn’t work like that.

Apparently, most tile and flooring businesses just have a whole bunch of stuff available in their showroom. But the workers have to check if the tile you want is in stock. If it’s not, it could take weeks to months for the tile to arrive.

Buying tile is also not rewarding. Because you just go in there and say “I want this,” and then they charge your credit card and you go home with nothing. Because the tile has to get shipped in. It felt really… bereaving? I dunno, I didn’t like it lol.

Tile seems to be made of glass and porcelain, with the really high-end stuff being made of stone. I can’t afford stone—and it’s high-maintenance, I’ve been told. Marble goes yellow over time!

Also, companies charge credit card fees because credit card companies are big giggling sacks of trash. Sucks! Raising merchant costs and inflation sucks.

Having dealt with fees when I take PayPal transactions, I get it. Every transaction costs money when you use a service like PayPal or Square or Venmo.

I bought tile for one of the bathrooms, and 3% of the total went to credit card fees. Plus taxes (7%), plus shipping and handling. Shipping and Handling was $150 – $200 no matter where I went or how little tile I bought.

However, I did learn later on in my exploits that I can reduce shipping costs by asking the seller to throw my order in with someone else’s order. One even said I could cut the shipping cost if I picked up my order at the port.

That was an unusual answer? But fascinating all the same. Seems like people are willing to work with you if you educate yourself on their industry a bit ::wink wink::

So “procuring materials” is definitely a lot harder than it seems. It would be super stressful if I wasn’t laid back about it all! Mostly I was just curious about how the whole system works. And yeah, I bought some stuff I didn’t end up using. But I can always find a creative way to deal with it.

October was mostly about turning those PowerPoint ideas into reality. Or rather… working with someone who had the skills to help me turn them into reality!

Most of the hard work was done by the plumber my dad put me in touch with, Luis. He does renovation work as a side hustle. I take no credit for the actual sweat that went into it. So major props to him!

He started work on the guest bathroom first, since it’s the one most people see. That one got finished this month!

Here’s how it looked before.

The first thing I bought was the replacement bathtub. It was a cheap-ish acrylic soaker which had an integrated push-pop drain. Here’s what the tub looked like (with Joel for scale!):

And then the tile choices:

Here is the vanity I found (on sale! Lucky!) which I also got before the demo.

Once the bathtub and tile arrived…. I had to travel for work! BOOO.

That appeared in last month’s newsletter. So you can see how that went if you read my last newsletter here!

When I got back from work travel, we scheduled the bathroom demo. Without really thinking of the looming hurricane….

Here’s how it looked with everything torn out after the demo (which Luis did with his dad):

I did some vacuuming after, and here is where the vacuum sucked up our desiccated mouse friend. Under the floorboards!!

I had a moment of pure horror. I have no idea how long mouse-san was in the walls, but long enough to be dry, and short enough to still have fur.

I won’t point them out in this next pic, but mouse-san is there! Along with all the junk from under the floor.

After I vacuumed I put in some new insulation. Here’s what it looked like before and after:

Then…. there was a hurricane!

So… a week went by with hurricane prep and whatnot. Screwed up all our plans.

But we came limping back the week after. Luis came over the next few days and got the plumbing and the bathtub all put in, along with the rough for the niche:

The drain caused some issues because the seal on it was funky. So Luis had to push out some of the insulation in order to reach it and fix it.

Then came the electrician, who replaced the exhaust (fart) fan. I got a new one, which is a combination light and Bluetooth speaker! Now we can listen to music in the bathtub!

Next came the cement board to close up the floor and walls:

Then the drywall to cover the rest of the holes. Removal of the glass in the skylight, along with floating the floor with waterproofing material:

Then the tile and paint, which took a few days (tile missing there because I was shorted by the distro… currently working on figuring THAT out). I did the painting! So here’s where my labor came in.

And then finally the toilet and vanity and everything got put back in.

Here’s the last before and after!

I’m so happy with how it turned out! It just feels more open and less claustrophobic. And brighter. Especially with the new light above the bathtub.

Just a few last things to fix with it here and there. Like some paint nicks on the walls. I took a test shower in it this afternoon and it was REAL NICE.

Now I’m really looking forward to the next one. So stoked!

Focus Time!

Apsu’s Children Novella

Not much progress here. Bathroom took the vast majority of my attention this month.

vTubing

While I didn’t specifically work on my vTuber stuff, I did pick up my business plan again and chipped away at it.

So here’s some of what I put together for that.

This is more for me than anyone else… but maybe you’ll find it interesting, haha.

I have four overarching focuses.

1. Building artistic and professional credibility with a public persona. (vTubing)

2. Producing small and large-scale storytelling projects to showcase and improve skills.

3. Explore ways to ethically monetize my projects.

4. Skill improvement.

Then I made 3 short-term goals for each of these focuses, along with 3 mid-term goals:

 Focus 1: Build artistic and professional credibility with a public persona

 Short-Term Goals (6 mo):

• Establish an efficient video production process to test out the merit of a YouTube Art Show for the character Marley Nox and Studio Moonyn.

• Create a sustainable social media posting schedule.

• Continue documenting my artwork in An Errant Mongrel’s Scribblings newsletter.

 Mid-Term Goals (1-2 years):

• Create a buffer of 6 videos and begin posting 1 video per month.

• Create clips of each video to post on YouTube Shorts and Tik Tok.

• Evaluate the workload of video production and make adjustments.

 Focus 2: Producing small and large-scale storytelling projects.

 Short-Term Goals (6 mo):

• Work on outlines for revising 3 writing projects:

  • Apsu’s Children (novella)

  • Synchronicity (novel)

  • The Dogkeeper’s Gryphon (webcomic/short film)

• Begin working on one of the following Apparel and Print projects (more detail about these projects below):

  •  Cozy Fantasy creatures

  •  Extinct Animals

  •  Animal Heroes

  • Witchy Animals

• Begin fleshing out reference material to invite people to join in on creating their own munikin characters.

Mid-Term Goals (1-2 years):

• Produce the 3 projects that were outlined.

• If the interest continues, choose another series of creatures to work on from the original list.

• Post reference images for munikiniverse online

Focus 3: Explore ways to ethically monetize my projects

 Short-Term Goals (6 mo):

• Explore subscription services, such as Patreon or Ko-Fi.

• Determine how to make subscriptions valuable for subscribers.

• Explore licensing opportunities for artwork.

 Mid-Term Goals (1-2 years):

• Choose a service and begin creating a profile.

• Execute plans to sustainably provide value for subscribers.

• Reach out and attempt licensing negotiations.

Focus 4: Skill improvement

Short-Term Goals (6 mo):

• Finish the Lighting for Story and Concept Art Class on Schoolism.

Mid-Term Goals (1-2 years):

• Begin the Storyboarding and the Dynamic Characters class on Schoolism.

Still a work in progress… but we’re getting there!

Fundamentals of Lighting Schoolism Class

Also no progress on this… had some struggles because the dog ate my tablet pen and I bought the wrong pen TWICE. But now we’re all okay… for the most part. Blargh.

Preoccupations

None for this mupdate! Too busy for much…

Faretheewell

My newsletter now has an archive! Yaaay! Like a little blog. So, if you liked any past issues, you can go back and check them out again.

And thus we come to the end of yet another scribbling.

See you end of November! Turkey Time!