Home Improvement
Timing is everything
February 25, 2011 09:33 PM Filed in: Personal
I've decided that the phrase "Timing is everything" really fits us these days.
Good Timing: With oil skyrocketing, I timed an oil contract just right this summer, so I'm now paying $1 less per gallon for heating oil than current market price. A good thing given we slurp hundreds of gallons of the stuff per month keeping the house warm.
Bad Timing: Our choices of locations during the last two winters. We've gotten pummeled.
Good Timing: Trading for a more fuel efficient car about 10 days ago. Before prices started rocketing up 10% this week.
Bad Timing: Moving into a house with leak problems *before* a bad winter.
Good Timing: At least being around this morning to see the new leak and get it dealt with (or scheduled to be dealt with). Yes, we have a new leak. At least this one's in the garage.
Bad Timing: Don't have our tax refund yet (at least we hope we get a refund)
I could go on. That said, I'm not upset about the bad timing stuff. We're really fortunate for the good things. I just wish we would stop going back and forth....
Comments
Ice (Hoover) Dam(age)
Woke up to this this morning:
Sigh. What you can't see is the hardwood floor. Which is warping from the water damage.
Is Winter Over Yet?
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.
Light bulb insanity
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....
Family Room Improvements
September 17, 2008 11:59 AM Filed in: Personal
Painting the family room has been “next” on our painting list for quite a while. A few weeks ago, I started tackling this project. I’ve been doing one wall per week (it takes a while to tape and move furniture and stuff).
Of course, the first wall I picked (actually one wall and a part of a second) was the corner that Declan has tended to call home for his activities. It was first not only because it had the lightest furniture to move, but also because Declan had drawn all over the walls with crayon. With the original builder paint on the wall, scrubbing the crayon off was out of the question...
The “after” pictures (I didn’t think to take “before” pictures - click on the pictures for full sized versions):
That chalkboard is actually a usable chalkboard - I picked up some Benjamin Moore chalkboard paint. I figured I would try it - at least it looks really nice.
Basement ramblings
July 06, 2008 05:05 PM Filed in: Personal
I took some time over this long weekend to clean out the basement. Since moving into our new house almost 3 years ago, our basement has become less and less, um, “clean” as it were. I set out Thursday to do something about that. In addition to freeing up some walking room, the other goal was to take advantage of the dwindling supply of free dumpsters in our neighborhood (the result of contruction being almost complete in our subdivision).
I made great progress, but only got 1/4 of the basement sorted. I found lots of things like pictures from junior high school and high school, documents from my office I hadn’t looked at for 5 years, and, well, junk. If I get motivated, maybe I’ll scan in a retrospective of some of those old pictures. I also tossed all my old college notes (so all thoughts of Aerospace Engineering as a second career are now gone).
I did, however, come across 7 full file boxes that have documents that require shredding. Great. Shredding one box left me with a yard bag full of confetti for recycling, and an overheated shredder which no longer seems to be shredding as well after accidentally ingesting what I think was a paper clip. Sigh.
And I never realized how tall dumpsters were until I had to toss a 30 lb. box of old course notes into it....
All in all, a useful exercise in exercise. And the basement is now *slightly* cleaner.
I love the smell of paint in the morning
August 13, 2007 11:24 AM Filed in: Personal
The silence in the last week is because we've embarked on a new project at home - painting. Our house is 2 years old now, and we've decided we're tired of white everywhere. So we're repainting. We started with Andrew's room, and after one week of work, here's the result:
Now if you wonder why it takes a week to paint a room, this is an evening/spare time project, and, I had to do the ceiling. I usually go out of my way to avoid painting ceilings. There was no alternative in this case because during the drywall repair for the typical settling nail pops and such, we discovered that the touch up paint was still very noticeable. Repainting the ceiling was the only way to fix that...
The colors are Hawthorne Yellow and Linen White (from Benjamin Moore). Great paint, by the way. Very happy with the stuff and the local dealer.
Now, we're on to the dining room...