So today marks the 1 year anniversary of our Connecticut house. 365 days ago, we were plunking down a lot of money for our new adventure here. Reflecting back, a lot has happened in that time. Here's a few tidbits:

First, there's the house.

Before painting (circa end of July):


Then after painting a few weeks later:


Declan started Kindergarten:


Then Fall came and we did things like apple picking:


And we had a tree come down:


Zandra became a famous radio personality:


And James actually ran a 5k (sick and totally congested the day after flying home from a business trip):


Our first Christmas in our new house:


And then it snowed:


And snowed:


And snowed:


And then the ice and water damage:


Thankfully, Spring did show up eventually and we now have a garden:


Declan graduated Kindergarten:


And we're all still here, in CT. Sane (for the most part), happy, and another year older and wiser.

What's next? Stay tuned to find out!

Tags: Moving, Declan, Andrew

In my last blog post, I was hoping for better news - there is some! It looks like the fungus is just ordinary tree fungus, and the mold is very limited and will be coming out with the affected outer wall (which the dry rot necessitates its replacement).

Samples taken, but it's looking more hopeful. That and that I've actually been able to find 3 contractors to come out and look at the mess....hopefully one gives a reasonable estimate and can do the work!

Tags: Remodel, Snow

This is getting oh so much more fun. We now have an active mold/fungus problem in our outer wall.

I'd post pictures, but it would gross you out. We discovered this after enough insulation blew off for us to notice what was going on underneath. Apparently a leak for a very long time has caused this.

The dining room is now sealed off. Hoping for better news soon. Actually, just for a carpenter who is available to fix this wall (since we can't keep it long this way...)

Tags: Snow, Remodel, Rants

Water damage to the house is far worse than expected. The water went quite a ways, and there looks like there's previous damage from leakage. I'm wondering if the outside structure board needs to be replaced in one section - it doesn't look very strong as it is.

Tired of the droning of the commercial dehumidifier and drying fans that have been going non-stop since Saturday.

Hopefully it will be over soon.

The "rustic" look for the dining room below...



The drying equipment....

Tags: Snow, Remodel, Weather

How much snow have we gotten? Well, after the leak, we had the roof cleared off. Afterwards, had big piles of snow all around the house. The picture below is *after* they knocked the mound down a bit.



At one point, you could have gone skiing down the roof, down the pile of snow, down the front yard, and into the street...

Hope that Groundhog was right about an early spring...

Tags: Weather, Snow

Woke up to this this morning:





Sigh. What you can't see is the hardwood floor. Which is warping from the water damage.

Tags: Weather, Home Improvement, Rants

I'm ready for Spring. As much as I like snow, I'm ready for Spring.

Snow is fine until it starts costing me money. In this case, I've got a growing tab to fix things the snow has damaged. Like a dining room. Paying to get the snow off the roof. Probably the roof. Oh so frustrating.

Will have to post more details of the damage to the dining room later. Right now, I can't turn the light on in the dining room for fear of a short caused by water running down the chandelier. Yes, it's that bad.

Tags: Home Improvement, Rants, Weather

I'm sure I over analyze things, but since moving in to our new house, one of the things that has driven me nuts are the light bulbs in the house.

First, there's the burned out light bulbs. Everywhere. It seemed like every fixture in the house had at least one burned out bulb. I guess if you're moving out of a house, you don't want to spend money on light bulbs. After all, you're not going to be around to use them.

Then, there's the light bulb wattage selection. 40W bulbs to light a 3-car garage (only 3 of them). Yet, 3 100W bulbs *per*vanity* upstairs in the Master Bath. Guess you really want to see what you look like in the morning.

Finally, the wrong sized bulbs. Bulbs in fixtures that are too small. So not only do they look goofy, but because they don't fit right, they let a lot of cold air from the ceiling down into the house. So massive heat loss...

Maybe I'm too picky, but the right light bulb seems to make things better. And it's a cheap way to save energy....

Tags: Home Improvement, Energy, Illogic

Creak and squeak. This blog is rusty. I haven't written a thing in over 7 months.

I think I have good excuses. The least of which are the purchase of a house, the sale of a house, a move, getting kids settled, getting *me* settled, and getting life in order in a short amount of time.

This is a "ping" so to speak. Going to see if I can write anything over the next few weeks. Or I might just hang this whole thing up if I find I can't.

For more recent status updates, visit me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/jystickman

But let's see if I can throw some shorter (less editorial pieces) down here. Stay tuned.

The last few weeks have had me shuttling back and forth between our current home (in Maryland) and our soon-to-be-home (in Connecticut) several times to take care of various house purchase related things. For the most part, I've chosen to travel by car since it takes just about as long to travel by car as it does by air or train, and traveling by car gives me more schedule flexibility.

On my last trip up, I drove across the Tappan Zee Bridge into New York, then up the Saw Mill River Parkway and then over into Connecticut. The vehicle of choice was the Mini Cooper. Driving through New York kind of brought back memories of childhood living in New York. And, me being me, the inevitable comparison list between then and now started forming. Here's what I remember about this list I made as I hurtled up the road to Connecticut.

Car:
Then: Little Green Volkswagen
Now: Little Green Mini

Gas:
Then: $.36/gallon
Now: $3.00/gallon

Turnpike Rest Stop Food:
Then: Lousy mystery cafeteria food
Now: Lousy fast food

Toll Booths:
Then: Get a ticket, pay cash
Now: One word: EZPass

Guidance:
Then: Paper Maps and good sense of direction
Now: GPS and good sense of direction

Speed Limit:
Then: 65 or 70
Now: 55 or 65

Road Conditions:
Then: Bumpy
Now: Bumpy

Another thing I reflected on was the stretch of New Jersey Route 17 through Paramus that I typically take to get to the Tappan Zee. I remember this route well from childhood too. It's changed a lot, but my favorite diner (the Suburban Diner) is still there as is that funky Holiday Inn across the street from the big mall (though it's a smarter Holiday Inn Express now and the lousy Chinese restaurant it used to have is now gone). The other random thought was memories of my favorite burger place, The Country Burger. Unfortunately, a great little restaurant that first had the misfortune of having a McDonalds get installed next to it, and then being burnt to the ground in a fire.

But in the end, the thought of me driving (and not my parents) to a house my wife and I (not my parents) will own, where once again I'm going to have to deal with a well, septic tank, propane tank, fuel oil, and (more) snow, as well as two kids and a dog made me wonder where all the time has gone....31 years since I left that part of the country, I will soon be returning.

Tags: Travel

Zandra and I spent the end of last week in Connecticut (our soon-to-be-new-home) looking for a new home. I've forgotten how much I hate searching for a new home, and am now realizing how absolutely blessed we were to be able to actually build our current home. Alas, building a new home is not in the budget, nor in the timing for us this time, so it's house searching for something that suits our needs with flaws we think we can correct.

This week's search was primarily an area recon, so we saw lots of houses in lots of areas. After about 18 or so houses, I realized that in addition to rating the houses on suitability space/layout/location, I was beginning to classify houses by smell. Much like people get classified by Myers-Briggs personality types, I started dropping the houses into smell types. Here's what I came up with:

• "New House" Smell - The smell of new construction. Dust, dryness, wood, paint, new carpet, and probably a bunch of chemicals used in cleaning or construction.
• "I just replaced the carpet" Smell - The smell of someone who just replaced the carpet to make the house look nicer for sale. Smell of new carpet, chemical odor from gluing seams and manufacturing.
• "A cat owns this house" Smell - The smell where a cat owns the residence. Kitty litter (and, um, litter box contents), cat food and mustiness
• "A dog lives in the house" Smell - The smell where a dog lives in the residence. Amplified on days when it's raining, it's the smell of a happy dog who enjoys rolling around in the grass.
• "I've got something to hide" Smell - Probably what Martha Stewart's house smells like, except on steroids. Scented candles burning everywhere. Air fresheners galore. What smell are they trying to hide? Maybe the "cat owns this house" smell.
• "I don't clean well" Smell - Smell of cooking, trash, mustiness, and maybe dirty laundry. The smell of someone who only cleaned the house because someone was coming to see it.
• "Basement w/o a dehumidifier" Smell - The smell of a damp, but not wet basement. Usually holds true only to the basement of houses - normally when a basement is used for storage.
• "This house is making me hungry" Smell - Reserved for one house where the owner was home preparing for a dinner party he was catering. Owner was a professional chef. The smells were unbelievably good. I felt like penance should have been for us to stay until he was done cooking so we could sample. The kitchen of that house was fantastic. Too bad the bedrooms of the house were not.
• "I left the windows open to ventilate" Smell - The smell of the outdoors. People who like to leave their windows open. Very nice.
• "There's something weird but I can't put my nose on it" Smell - Reserved for one house where I think I spent more brain cycles trying to determine the smell than on the house itself. I think I eventually came to the conclusion that it was a mix of "A cat owns this house" and "A dog lives in the house" and "I don't clean well" smell....
• "There's no smell in this house whatsoever" Smell - The smell of, well, nothing distinctive. I think this means a clean, well-kept house that was fairly new.

I wish we were done house hunting. I don't know how my friends in the military do it every few years. It would drive me up a wall. I think I'm doing this classification thing because I'm trying to keep my sanity intact.

The fact that we also can't seriously put an offer down on a new house until we sell the old one doesn't help the job either....

I have to think no one is reading this blog anymore. After all, I haven't posted in 2 months. That said, it's been an eventful 2 months. Since Snowmageddon, Zandra has been offered and accepted a job in Connecticut, which is just an awesome opportunity for her. Of course, Connecticut is not commuting distance from Maryland, so we're moving. Yes, just after finishing the basement (if you've been following the updated pictures).

So we've cleaned, touched-up, and now have our house on the market.



We're sad to be leaving, but excited for the new opportunity. So far, listing our house and having it on the market has been stressful as you would expect, but we've done all we can to make the house look good and now just wait for a buyer. Interested in buying the house? Send me a note - if you use our agent, I'll throw in a new iPad at closing.

Speaking of which, gotta blog about the iPad next....