Posts Tagged ‘House’

Projects in Progress

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

I alluded to this topic on my goal page so I thought I would elaborate a bit. I don’t want it to seem like we don’t have follow through b/c hey– we are pretty stubborn people when you get right down to it. Its just some projects take an odd spin sometimes. For example, Paul disconnected the speakers when we had our floors put in. He has spent the equivalent of an entire weekend army crawling in and out of the crawl space under the house trying to run the wires…unsuccessfully. He talked to his friend Brian and has a new plan so we have a new angle to tackle it from. Those kind of things–anyone who owns a home knows what I am talking about! So here is the list of things that we need to complete before moving on to bigger and better (ok, just new and different) home improvement projects:

  1. Finish wiring back speakers in living room. See above.
  2. Change handles on Tyler’s dresser. My old dresser, they all broke off–not sure what the deal was there. It was fine, then we moved it and it was not fine. Kind of like the stroke of midnight for Cinderella. You would think this was an easy task–NO handles fit the current holes. We bought several kinds, then finally just took measurements to Lowe’s and I went through EVERY HANDLE THEY HAD. So we need to drill holes, but when we had time to do that, the drill was under the house where Paul left it one afternoon in disgust over project #1.
  3. Susan’s mtn bike. Paul has been fixing it up for me for a year. Last thing is putting on new tires. FYI–sitting in a shed year round for about 8 years is not good for tires nor tubes. Who knew??
  4. Paint touch ups. Amazing how many things you don’t see until the can is hammered closed and the brushes are clean.
  5. Finish peg board and bike maintenance shelf. Paul thinks we are done. Little does he know how much more purging, I mean organizing we can do to his shelf! Muuuuaaaaahahhahahahahhahahahh!!!

So that is our lil list o’ fun. Does that make you feel any better for not getting a call back from us? :)

UPDATE 2.11.09: Paul did the handles last night, then Tyler vacuumed out the drawers. He is fired UP about chores! (Tyler, not Paul).  1 down, 4 to go! :)

The latest reason I love my husband!

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

First of all, b/c “organizing” is now a blog tag so he is accepts this is a continual part of our life together. It really helps me keep mentally healthy! For those of you who don’t know, I tried my hand at a consulting business once, professional organizing was part of it.

Now Paul has gotten into the act. He purchased several sheets of peg board and put it up in the garage. Then he hung his bike maintenance tools (there are 4 shelves of a workbench full of them). We did this on Sat afternoon so while the kids played outside and Paul did that, I spent all that time cleaning out and organizing the garage! AWESOME! Here are the lessons we have learned:

1–Home Improvement Formula: (# hours spent on project) x (1.79) = number of trips to the home improvement store. It took us 5 trips.

2–We have found the limitation to the Honda Fit (see Laminate Flooring post). We wanted 8×8 peg boards cut in half, and after waiting 38 minutes (literally, I know I exaggerate, but I am not here) for some guy to have 27 cuts made (I counted, thinking of the entertainment you, the reader, would get out of this) we went to the car only to find out 4×4 sheets will not fit in the car.  So we returned to the store for additional cuts (this still counted as 1 trip in the formula). At least we made the man cutting the wood smile.

3–There are always unexpected surprises when you clean out a garage. Like bike tools you have been looking for, toys you didn’t know you had, and dead squirrels. Yep–I moved the steam cleaner and there it was. I think I wet my pants. Tyler offered to pick it up for us. Paul again saved the say with a Wal-Mart plastic bag and plenty of anti-bacterial soap.

Stay tuned for the building of loft storage for the garage! Whooo hoooo!!!

Here we go again…

Friday, November 7th, 2008

I met w a realtor today to put my house back on MLS listing. I listed it w 2 realtors in 2007, then FSBO in 2008 until now. No serious offers in about 20 months. I clearly am not a real estate agent so I give up. I feel like a sell out for a few reasons:

1–I will have to take a loss b/c of the crap housing market.

2–My HUSBAND has to sign the paperwork in order for me to list it. Stupid sexist NC laws. No, his name is not on the title, loan or even utility bills. Whatever.

3–I cannot even remember what #3 is b/c 1 and 2 suck so much.

So this weekend will be pretty intense: Tonight I have a scrapbooking open house at Shirley’s. Saturday Biz and I are going to the holiday market, then Paul, the kids and I will go to the house to fix up some things including but not limited to: emptying the attic, touching up some paint, taking down the pool, mow and trim bushes…all while trying to keep Anna and Tyler from killing each other. Oh, and we have a 5 mile run on Sat to do.

Needless to say there may not be a post until we are back at work to rest on Monday. :)