Home Improvements

In the next few weeks, we are contining to updating our house. I handle the aesthics, Andy is dealing with hard labour stuff. Yearly, we change the shower curtain–always a palm tree/jungle theme (we are a bit obsessed). We are going to be updating the doors in the back addition to our house. The two doors to the rooms back there were the cheapest doors ever. Andy wants wood doors, I am fine with duracore (or fake wood.) We know we need some sort of discount faucets . We do not want to pay full price for a faucet. Do you know how many diapers that is? We also want to put fans in the back rooms also. We are having an old family friend come over and price everything all out. The other thing Andy wants done is the floor in the kitchen. That is one thing I think we can wait another year for. Living in an house, the work is never done, is it?

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Disarray to Order

Since it was a three day weekend, we decided to make the most of it and waste (i call it wasting–there was better things I could have done) Saturday cleaning our basement. Yes, I know it was probably something I should have done before the baby–but we tried in one corner of the basement and ran into the issue–I was pregnant and couldn’t move anything and couldn’t stand for long and was basically not in the mood to organize the basement. But, alas, the time had come to put stuff in its rightful place finally. I invited (bribed by breakfast) my parents to watch Gabe for a couple hours (which turned into 6). We started about 10 a.m., only taking a break for lunch. I actually ran upstairs a few times to calm Gabe down, but nothing more than 10 minutes. I remember growing up in our basement, just boxes and boxes of stuff. Nowadays, I think its much easier with the bins. The people who have stock on bins, must be raking in the dough. It seems like we never have enough bins. Especially when my sister is having me store all the baby clothes she is letting me borrow. The cool thing about our basement is that the prior owners built shelves on the sides of the basement which are perfect size for storing bins. After all our hard work, our bins are now in order too (i.e. one shelf is camping gear, another clothes, another gift wrapping stuff–including good size boxes to wrap gifts in. We actually have more room now that we organized. Now all we have left is to go through our books and movies. I think I have about a hundred books–by just perusing over some yesterday, i put together 6 to get rid of (give to Goodwill or save for a rummage sale). That is actually good for me–I do not like to part with books. I am hoping by next weekend to be done with that because I have a new job for us to do before Gabe starts crawling—baby-proofing the house. We don’t have a ton of time left before he starts crawling so might as well when we have a weekend free!

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Rage Rage….

Against the dying of the light–. Since I barely sleep anymore, I have been thinking about what things we need to change about the house. I think Andy and I need to look into Progress lighting for the house. I have been finding that the lighting we have in the house is not baby friendly. I think we need more dimmers because he does not like bright lights (like Gizmo), especially at 3 in the morning when baby is hungry. I actually think we should have the clapper installed–but that may be to loud for the baby. We’d be sitting in the dark all the time!

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Renovations 101

One thing my mother always taught me was to make lists. Andy’s friend should have taken the advice and made a list when they were renovating their kitchen and bathroom. They just bought their house about a year ago and hated the kitchen floor and decided to redo the flooring with tiles and laminate flooring. When all the tile was laid in the bathroom, his friend put the toilet back. Since he didn’t have a list of things he should of done, he forgot to put the wax seal and take the towel out of the pipe. He didn’t notice until he had to use the toilet and we are not talking about number one. Let’s just say he won’t forget that again and I doubt we will forget that!

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Not So Perfect Timing

This weekend, Andy tried to start our snowblower to snowblow our long driveway. It wouldn’t start. He’s pretty sure it something to do with not using a stablizer and not starting it in the summer or early fall so that the gas doesn’t “varnish” the carborator. I sound like I know what I’m talking about, kind of! Well, he called a repair shop–it won’t be fixed for about a week–maybe longer. This morning, we woke up the weather for this week. Starting tonight, there is a winter advisory starting at 4 and carrying on until midnight tomorrow. There is about 12-14 inches of snow expected. Not the time for our snowblower to be out of commission. Our only hope is an old neighbor that we hope can fix it.

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Almost done

Yesterday, Andy spent the day painting our soon to be new bedroom. We picked the color “Billard Room” which is a darker green color. He did pretty much everything but the edges because the cheap edger he bought didn’t work. Plus, he didn’t have tape to tape around the windows and closets so he could get close with the paint brush. Why didn’t he have tape? He didn’t listen to his wife (that’s me) when I mentioned when we picking up the paint, we might as well, if we don’t need it we are only out a couple of bucks. But no, when is a wife ever right. Then he wouldn’t admit to me yesterday that I was right! So this morning while I was craft saling, he went to Home Depot to pick up tape. He also looked at tile, Moen faucets, etc. I know he likes doing home projects, but we can only afford to do so much at one time. We still have fans to install in our back rooms to be more energy effecient ( I read a billboard at Home Depot that said that). A project a month or every two months now that it is holiday time is enough.

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Hole in the Wall

Since we are turning the spare bedroom into an office, we decided to take out the mirror and move it to our room. I did not think this would be a big to do, but I was proven wrong. Andy found a big square hole in the wall covered with cardboard. The spare bedroom wall is right next to the bathoom and it looks in order for the prior owners to install the new tub, they needed to cut a hole in the wall.

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So now we have to determine if we can either drywall or if we need to have to figure out something decorative to hide behind the desk or filing cabinet. But I am just irrated that the prior owners did not properly take care of it. We are finding more and more about this house that the prior guy was very into making stuff appear to look great, but not really making sure that everything worked.

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Seriously??

I am just getting sooooo overwhelmed right now. I was downstairs doing a load of laundry and I notice a little wet spot on the floor. Now, it looks like our toilet is leaking or something. Thankfully, its Sunday night and thankfully we both have very flexible schedules, but I don’t want to be working overtime for the rest of my life. It seems like I don’t need any Phentermine to lose weight, I just need more house problems to stress me out. So here’s my question—-bad things come in threes—is this the third? I thought I had all threes, but I guess I was wrong.

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Does it End?

I’ve only owned a house for about a year and half now.  I am just wondering if I will ever be done decorating or adding stuff to the house.  Just last week, I finally bought picture frames to hang on the wall for our wedding pictures (in June we will be married 2 years)  Of course the pictures are waiting anxiously on the floor for the man of the house to hang them.  We are looking in expanding the kitchen into our office area because our kitchen is tiny.  I am thinking of maybe looking at bathroom vanities.  We are also thinking our switching our rooms around a bit.  All this while cleaning up and putting stuff in its right place.  Or right place for now.  But will it ever end?  Will I ever think one day, I’m done? 

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Basement Renovation

When I went to my cousin housewarming, they had built a bar and were planning on putting in shelving.  It made me think of the ideas Andy and I have for our basement.  I can tell I am starting to mature because I have been thinking about talking to Andy and seeing if we can put in a projector and some home theater seating.  When I still watched Trading Spaces on TLC, I liked the home theater setup that they built.  It was like their own person theater, with the theater lights built in the floor. 

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