Three random projects

I haven't started on the floors yet. It's basically the "Everest" of projects that I have remaining, and it's not easy to just dive into it. So, I've been trying to tackle a few minor projects before I get to that one.

Door adjustments.

Our carpet was a bit longer than the old carpet, and some of the doors were dragging on the top of the carpet. We were worried that it would gradually "shave" the carpet and make our floors look like architectural drawings.

So, I consulted my friend Google, and found this article. It worked really well with one exception. The people that designed my saw didn't really anticipate this application. The motor and the tab to adjust the depth of the cut were both too low to allow me to use a 1" piece of wood to guide the saw. Luckily, there is about 1 inch to the right of the saw that I was able to place against my guide board. It may not have meant for the most perpendicular of cuts, but for the bottom of a door, nobody is going to notice. I ended up buying the saw horses, clamps, and a level for the job. I didn't really end up needing the level for "leveling" purposes, but it came in handy as a straight edge. I had 16 doors (including closets) to do, and here was my procedure.

1. Measure the cut. To do this, I laid down on the ground, dug thru to carpet until I could feel its base, then stuck a measuring tape in. I ended up measuring each side of the door so it was 7/8" above the base. That meant the door just barely brushed the tallest strands of carpet.
2. Pop the door off of the hinges. This involved a hammer and a screwdriver. Just put the screwdriver on the bottom of the hinge, tap a few times with the hammer, and the pin comes out pretty easily. I learned after the first door to pickup the pins with a paper towel so I didn't grease on the door while I carried it downstairs.
3. Carry the door downstairs. Out of 16 round trips, I only hit the wall twice. We have to paint downstairs soon, so I'll just touch up when we do that. It helped that we have hollow doors.
4. Line the straight edge up with the two measurement marks and clamp it in place.
5. Score a line with the carpet knife (this avoids splintering).
6. Move the straight edge so it is 1" from the score line.
7. Put masking tape over the score line (further avoids splintering).
8. While wearing eye protection, cut with the circular saw. After a few doors, I figured out that about 6 inches into the cut, the saw would catch because of the "protector door" (no clue what it's called) catching on the bottom edge of the door. I fixed that moving forward by holding it up when I started the cut. Oh, a few doors had brad nails in the bottom of them. For all but one nail, the saw handled them with little trouble and a few sparks. One was actually ripped out of the door and I found it on the other side of the room. It was a "why you use eye protection 101" lesson. The face (and nose) full of sawdust is another reason to think safety first.
9. Remove the tape and sand the edges to remove any splinters.
10. Put the shop vac to work to avoid vacuuming upstairs.
11. Carry the door upstairs.
12. Line it up with the hinges and put the pins back in.
13. Enjoy your freely swinging door.
14. Repeat 15 more times (you get in a groove after a while).

Hang the family room light

We used to have a fan and a standing IKEA light in our family room. It was always pretty dark in there so we ordered a new one. It showed up a few weeks ago, and was just a big box in said family room. I have hung lights before so I was confident in the electrical side of the work. I even laughed at the warning in the box that it should be installed by a professional electrician. In hindsight, I wish I had someone else do it, but it didn't require an electrician. It required someone with superhuman strength and a lot of patience. I got buy without either of them, but I was in a lot of pain the next day. A lot of the work involved preparing the thing to be hung. It took me a solid hour to put it all together. Then I hung it from some temporary screws that they provided. They allowed the whole light to hang about 8" below the ceiling while you did the wiring. The directions had suggested that you do this while hooking up the cables, but that would have been insane. Once I got the wiring done, I flipped the circuit back on just to make sure it worked. It did. Jen thought it looked great, but asked if the wires were supposed to look like they did. I told her that I wasn't done yet, but only have one more thing to do. MAN. That one thing was a doozie. I first tried removing the four temporary screws, then while holding the whole light in my left arm, guide it into the 4 bolts with my right, then put a nut on the end of one of the bolts. I quickly realized that would work. So, I struggled to put the 4 temporary screws back on, then had to figure something out. I realized that I needed something to support the light while I worked to secure it to the ceiling. If I wasn't going to be able to secure it, I needed somewhere to put the light without dropping it or unhooking the wiring (oh, I had the circuit back off at this point). So, I ended up building a support out of the kitchen table, the saw horses I used for the doors, and the boxes and styrofoam in which the light arrived. It wasn't the sturdiest of structures, but it only had to hold up for a half hour or so. Now armed with a resting place for the light, I employed the services of my lovely assistant Jen. Each of us on our own ladder, Jen's job was to put the nut on the bolt after I put the light up through them. It took us a few tries before we realized that we couldn't even get the nuts through the 4 holes. So, I put two of the temporary screws back on to guide things. That worked, and Jen was able to put two nuts on two bolts. (Yes I'm giggling now because of how many times I'm using the word "nuts".) I was able to handle the rest, and finally secured our new light to the ceiling. In hindsight, I would have put the nuts on the temporary bolts, gradually raised the whole thing, eventually removing one temporary screw at a time. Maybe next light. Probably not though. We've had to live with a weird smell from the light for a bit, but the directions said that would happen. Our new light looks great though, and we now have plenty of light in our family room.

Hang the TV

You may remember that we don't like the TV cubby in our fireplace. We just don't think it is the best way to showcase a fireplace. It'll just draw attention away from the rest of the room, and we just don't like that. So, we bought a kit to hang our TV on the wall. I worked on it last night. It was pretty fun to do, especially since I was able to live out my childhood dreams of writing on the wall. Because we hadn't painted yet, I was drawing all over the wall to show myself and Jen what it would look like when completed. We agreed on the final outcome, then I started the hanging process. About 5 minutes in, I realized that the bracket wouldn't center too well on the wall studs. So, we moved the whole drawing about 6" to the right. If you come over and mention that the TV isn't centered on the wall, please just notice that it's still on the wall and level, not on the ground or leaning to the left. I ended up putting the bracket on the wall, but wished I could break out the ratchet set we're giving Dave for Christmas. I ended up screwing 4 bolts into the studs with a lock wrench. I put the other brackets on the back of the TV, and only broke one screw in the process. I then hung the TV on the wall. It was pretty easy. Had I not been drawing all over the wall, I would have likely finished in a half-hour. I then hung our speakers on the wall. At this point, everything is hooked up, but the wires are exposed. My next project will be to hide them. The tricky part is going to be the power for the TV. It goes against pretty much every code to run a power cord through a wall. So, I have some research to do. I'm hoping that I'm going to be able to run the wires through the wall and floor without having to cut any drywall except for holes. We'll see though. If I have to, it won't be too bad because my next project will be to cover the hole in the fireplace and hang a new mantle. That'll require drywall for sure, and I bet I'll have some left over.

That's it for now. I'll post a picture of the whole room when we're done. Have a Merry Christmas everyone, and if I don't do anything by then, have a Happy New Year too!

Our hardwood floors have arrived!

Our hardwood floors have arrived. They came via freight in a giant semi. I received a call on Thursday saying they'd show up today (Monday) or tomorrow, and they'd tell me Friday which it would be. I hadn't received a call as of this morning, and was planning to call on my way to work. Good thing I didn't wait because the guy I talked to said they cleared customs in Canada (Port Huron) this morning. I guess I had to work from home then. The truck arrived around 12:30, and the driver reiterated that he couldn't do any work outside of the trailer. That meant he'd unload the boxes from the palette, and I'd carry them into the house. The fact that they came via semi meant that he had to park in the road and I had to carry them all the way up the driveway. Oh, it happened to snow and freeze our driveway yesterday. I sure am glad they didn't deliver yesterday when it was 35 degrees warmer and 45 degrees outside. After trip number 15 of carrying one 52.5lb box at a time, I really didn't feel the cold though. After trip number 50, I could barely fell anything in my right hand. After trip 80, I was glad to have only one trip left. Then the driver carried the last two boxes in on his shoulder. What a glory whore. The picture above is just less than half of them.

From what I've read, I'm not supposed to install them for 3-4 days so they can get acclimated to the humidity of the house. It's a good thing, because I think it'll take that long before I'm able to feed myself again. Well, I'm off to go read up on hernia symptoms.

Carpet and upstairs paint

Here are a few pictures of our upstairs paint and carpet. We decided to go with a two tone frieze (mini shag) carpet so it could eventually be somewhat kidproof. It should be able to hide spills and stains somewhat well. I dropped my wallet on it, and couldn't find it for a week! OK. I'm kidding. Just two days.

Projects the weekend of 12/13

I didn't have any projects this past weekend. We had a few Christmas things going on, involving a Christmas party Saturday night that wiped me out for Sunday. Here's what I need to do next weekend.

1. Change air filters. Update: Done.
2. Cycle GSM switches. Update: Done.
3. Change smoke detector batteries and install carbon monoxide detector upstairs. Update: Done.
4. Put the closets back together. Update: I still have to do this.
5. Hang picture in master bedroom. Update: Done.
6. Break up the glacier in our driveway. Our hardwood floors are arriving early next week, and I don't want to slip carrying them up the driveway. Update: This was easier than I thought. I bought the scraper for the floors, and used that. It was a lot easier than using a shovel.
7. Buy vacuum cleaner. We have carpet fuzz everywhere! Update: Done. I learned that it's a lot easier to vacuum an empty room than one with furniture, or stairs. I was able to practice my "mowing" techniques in the empty rooms.

Bonus chore: I even spread some Christmas cheer. We bought a new wreath, and I setup a spotlight for it.

Projects the weekend of 11/29.

1. Finish painting the doors.
2. Cleanup the floors before the carpet comes on 12/3!

Update: We were able to finish these both in time for the carpet. Pictures of that should be coming soon.

Literally a Breakthrough

I was really distraught on Monday morning because of those floors. It was a major pain in the a** and a lot of chisseling just to get very few results. I think I was on a pace of 2 sqft per hour. I didn’t see how I was going to be able to finish my closet (roughly 6 x 8) in time for the carpet to get installed. I was willing to have Jen's closet just carpeted over the old hardwood. Then, pure dumb luck hit. I was ripping up this small 3”x6” piece (which was taking me about 10 minutes), and it was ripping up not only the glue, but the flooring below the glue. The farther I went, the more subfloor it ripped up. It was like trying to pick a dangling piece off a scab, but getting the whole scab with it. I thought I was going to have to replace the subfloor because of it. So, I got my circular saw and tried to cut it off before it got worse. I knew I had to cut a bit into the subfloor to do it, but was thinking it would be only for this one spot. So I cut, and pulled up “the scab”. I noticed a staple under the scab, so I picked at it a bit more. I noticed that I hadn’t been cutting into the subfloor, rather it was a thin piece of plywood that the flooring installer must have put down to keep the glue from seeping through to the main level of the house. So, I got my circular saw and started cutting at that depth. The picture below shows what I had done up until that point and the result of my literal "breakthrough". After that, I was able to remove chunks that were 2’ by 3’ large, and ripped up the rest of the floor in about an hour and a half. Now I just have to figure out how to leave a nice line of existing flooring in the doorway. The circular saw is only capable of cutting within a few inches of the doorframe, so I have to figure out how to extend that cut. That's a much smaller problem than the one I used to have though.

Projects the weekend of 11/22

I really need to get back to posting before the weekend. I will write this one as if I did.
Here are the projects for the weekend:
1. Fix cracks in the stairway baseboards. Update: This was relatively easy. I just had to use a scraper to get rid of the old caulk, which is the hard part, then lay down a new bead. I had to buy the kind that can be painted over. This stuff, made by GE (is there anything they don't make?), can be painted over in an hour and doesn't shrink. Hopefully that means no more caulking for a long time.
2. Paint the baseboards and railings in the upstairs hallway and stairwell. Update: I was able to get this all done, but the white paint I bought is just a bit whiter than the stuff still on the doors. So, Jen started painting those Sunday night.
3. Rip up the hardwood floor in our master bedroom closets so the carpet can be installed in early December. Update: I thought this was going to be easy because a neighbor told me his floors were of the floating variety. Well, they were not. They were glued down, which was my worst nightmare. I started out with a circular saw, a claw hammer and a pry bar that I had laying around, a Michigan bleacher seat for my knees, and a few bruises on my thumb. I think I was able to pull up about 1 square foot in about an hour. Only about 90 more to go. So, thinking there had to be a better way, I started researching. Turns out, I needed a heavier hammer, some knee pads, and something better than a pry bar (note the hand protector). I got all of that home, and increased my output by 1 sqft per hour, up to 2 sq ft per hour with only 88 to go. I went to bed distraught, and not knowing how I'd get it all done before the carpet guy showed up. More work will be in store for me Monday and Tuesday nights, as well as next Saturday and Sunday (meaning we have to cut our Trip to Michigan short).
4. Watch Michigan and the Lions lose. Update: After Thanksgiving, the 2008 football season will officially be over. What? 4 more games for the Lions? Darnit.

Power tools are awesome!

I needed a circular saw to rip up the floors, so Jen and I went to Home Depot, armed with a 10% off coupon for recent movers. I really wanted to take my time because a lot of these tools come with batteries that can be interchanged with other tools. I didn't want to get stuck with one brand, then have to buy different batteries for another brand. It really came down to Dewalt and Ridgid. We settled on this one because of the lifetime warranty. It didn't come with batteries or a charger, so we were about to spend $200 to get them. Then, we noticed this. For less than the cost of two batteries and a charger, we got two batteries, a charger, a screwdriver, and a hansome carrying case. Jen and I both left very excited. She got to use a coupon and get a deal, and I got awesome tools!

Projects for the weekend of 11/15

I am posting this a few days late, but this was my chore list this weekend.

1. Paint hallway and stairwell. Update: Jen and I did a lot of painting on Sunday and managed to put one whole coat on. It looks really nice, and I was able to use our "Climb Tech" ladder as a scaffold. It was a bit scary though. We learned that Benjamin Moore's "Aura" paint is really worth the extra $10. It goes on so much smoother, expecially when doing the cutting. We looked this morning, and still should put one more coat on but it would be worse with the older Benjamin Moore "Regal" paint.
2. Watch Michigan and Detroit lose. Update: Done and done.
3. Enjoy the Hold Steady concert. Update: If you haven't yet heard the Hold Steady, I highly recommend them. Their lead singer has an infectious stage presence.
4. I also ripped the carpet off of the back stairwell, and had to do a little bit of caulking of the baseboards. A few cracks had developed. I learned that water-proof caulk does not wash off your hands very easily.

Projects the weekend of 11/8

It's a light load this week because my sister (Sue) and niece (Annie) are coming to town. Jen is handling most of the festivities, thank God. I say that because the sole purpose of the trip is for Annie to go to American Girl Place for her birthday. I guess they're eating dinner there. There are about 14 million things I'd rather do than that. It would be infinitely, except for my obvious love of food.

Anyway, all I'm doing this weekend is fixing a headlight and license plate light on my car. Oh, and I'm watching the Lions and Michigan lose.

Update: Michigan somehow managed to retain the little brown jug, Lions continued their consistent suckiness, Annie had the best weekend of her life, I have to admit I thought Wicked was excellent, I fixed the headlight, but new bulbs didn't manage to fix the license plate light. All in all, a decent weekend.

Halloween

Yesterday was halloween in Libertyville, and luckily they do Halloween on Halloween like they did when I was growing up. It was supposed to go from 4-7, and I was really excited to be here for it because we wanted to meet our neighbors. I was thinking that we'd just meet the dads that were walking around, but little did I know.

When I was driving up, dads leading their kids around the neighborhood. That was nice to see. Then I realized that the dads were pulling wheelbarrels with coolers full of beer. Then, I noticed that most people were sitting outside instead of being inside like I remember it being. In a way, it was like a giant block party. Jen and I had planned on the inside strategy, but I got the tailgate chairs out as soon as I got home.

I'm really glad I did, because our neighbor George (who we met shortly after we first moved in) came over and walked us around the neighboorhood to introduce us. I'm really glad he did. We ended up meeting several of our neighbors to the west of our house. We're going to have to work on meeting those to the east of our house. It sounds like we'll have other opportunities. Apparently, there will be several Christmas parties and some sort of "dinner progressive" in February.

I guess the progressive involves every house in the neighborhood making a course, and the party goes from house-to-house. Eventually it ends up at someone's house for a big party. They jokingly nominated our house for that, but then told us that the new neighbors usually get a pass on the first one.

We can't wait for Christmas now!

Paintings arrived this week

I mentioned that we bought some paintings last week. Well, they finally arrived and I hung them Thursday night.

This is the triptych. We're pretty sure that we're going to put it in our living room where we have it right now.

This is the diptych. It's currently in the hallway from the office to the kitchen/family room, but you can see it from the foyer. We're probably going to end up putting it over the fireplace after we fill in the "tv hole".

We decided to put the painting we bought on our honeymoon in the dining room, and think it's a good place for it.

Projects the weekend of 11/1

1. Put another coat on the master bedroom walls. I only have a quart left, so I have to buy another gallon of Pismo Dunes.
2. Paint the guest bedroom. We're going with Baja Dunes. The room is roughly the size of our master bedroom, so I'll probably get two gallons of it too.
3. Put two more samples on the wall. Shaker Beige and Putnam Ivory were too dark. I need to buy a sample of Palace White and a quart of Everlasting.
4. That doesn't seem like a lot. Oh, and watch Michigan and Detroit lose.

Update: When I went to buy a gallon of Pismo Dunes and two of Baja Dunes, the guy at the paint store told me that they were the exact same formula. That means two things. First, we saved the price of a gallon of paint. Second, we can pick which color name that we like the best. I'm thinking Baja Dunes sounds cooler. I'm not so sure about the word "Pismo".

Update2: Both rooms are painted, the sample colors are up, and of course Michigan and Detroit lost. 4-4 this weekend!

Projects the weekend of 10/25

1. Update drivers licenses. Update: Done. Apparently, there are long lines at the DMV on Saturday mornings. Surprised I didn't know that.
2. Get a few more paint colors for downstairs. Jamie didn't like the first option. Update: We bought a sample of "Shaker beige" but didn't want to buy a quart of "Everlasting". "Shaker beige" looks pretty good on the wall though, so we might go with that.
3. Get a few more bamboo samples. Jamie liked bamboo, but Jen doesn't like the color. Update: We meant to do this today on the way to a party, but ran out of time. I'll probably have to take care of it during the week.
4. More work on leveling the back yard. Update: This is progressing pretty well. I've used 6 bags of topsoil so far, but there is still some more to add.
5. Fertilize the yard (It was aerated on Monday). Update: I bought some fall fertilizer that's supposed to make the yard come up nice and green in the spring. We bought the bag that covers 5000 square feet of lawn. Apparently, we have 5050 feet of lawn, because I ran out just before doing a small patch in the back. So, we may have a small patch of brown grass next spring, but I don't care.
6. Put at least one more coat of paint on the rooms upstairs. Update: There's still a slight tint of the blue and mint colors from before, but we think it's good enough for now.
7. Start painting the master bedroom. Everyone liked pismo dunes. Update: This is what I'll be doing Sunday. Update2: I've got one coat on, and I like how it looks. It needs another coat still.
8. Watch Casino Drive win Belmont Stakes (I like Colonel John too). Update: Neither won, but both ran decent races. They were no match for the European import though.
9. Watch Michigan and Lions lose. Update: Never fails this year. Let's see how my fantasy football team does. Maybe I can pull the trifecta... for the 3rd straight week.

Projects the weekend of 10/18

1. Update drivers license addresses update: we didn't realize that the place closed at noon until we showed up at 12:35. We'll try again next weekend.
2. Prime upstairs bedrooms update: We put one coat up in each room, but we probably need one more at least in the bright blue room. Luckily, the previous owners left 2 five-gallon buckets of white "base" paint behind, so this project was basically free.
3. Watch Michigan and Lions lose update: Done and done. This project was free, but my soul is damaged because of these teams.
4. Pickup flooring samples update: We were able to get two samples of a nice cherry from Home depot, a bamboo sample from Lowes, and about 6 carpet samples from Deerpath Carpet & Rug. Our designer is coming over Friday 10/24 to help us make our final selection. We had to leave a $25 deposit at Lowes because we basically rented a board with 3 samples on it. It should be 4, but someone ripped the 4th one off. We better not get dinged for that. Home Depot actually sold little samples of their stuff for $1 each. The carpet samples were free, and the guy there was really nice. I'm not sure what he's going to charge us though. We've already been quoted $4.10/sqft by Luna, and I'm not sure how this guy is going to improve on that.
5. Put up sample family room paint colors update: Jen did this. Our walls are now several different colors. We bought 2 samples. One is Putnam Ivory, the other I forget at the moment. Each was $3.50.
6. Sweep da floor update: I took care of this. I think I need to buy one of those brooms that school janitors use. We have basically 4 times the hardwood as we did in the condo, and our tiny, 8" wide sweeper is not cutting it. So, it was free so far.

Home decorating update and some sad news.

We've met with our home decorator twice now, and have a lot of our family room and kitchen picked out. Some of the family room furniture is on order, so we have to get cracking on the painting and hardwood flooring installation. We're going to some stores this weekend to pick out samples of paint colors, carpeting, and hardwood floors so we can show them to Jamie next Friday. That'll be the first time she comes to our house after we've picked out a few things.

Oh that reminds me. When we were picking out the family room, we decided to put some artwork above the fireplace. We wanted to show Jamie what we like so we started googling Ed Klink to show here some examples of what our Honeymoon painting looks like. We discovered that the artist had passed away. It was like a punch in the stomach. We were then worried that the prices of his paintings would skyrocket (if they hadn't already), so I started calling all of the galleries that carried his work, trying to pickup a triptych or diptych. When I spoke to the people at the gallery, they were quite sad about Mr. Klink and some knew him personally. I really felt bad for them. They also said that Mr. Klink's family had been picking up the paintings, so we knew we had to act fast if we wanted any more pieces. We ended up buying two from a gallery in Wyoming, which wasn't really in our immediate plan, but it was really our last chance to pickup some of his work, which we love. It's weird, but I think we'll miss a person we never actually knew. Anyway, the reason that reminded me is that the pieces should show up next Friday. We can't wait to get them.

Projects for this weekend

Here's my home improvement list for the weekend.

1. Fix the creak in our upstairs hallway. Now that I have the carpet all pulled up, I'm hoping this is as simple as driving a few drywall screws into a floor joist. Update: The floor looks like swiss cheese because I couldn't find the floor joist, but I eventually did and our floor is squeek-free.
2. Install the SWM8, and make sure it works for the fireplace TV. Then, hook up our other rooms, and verify that the TV in the master bedroom works. I'll have to buy a ladder to make this happen though. Update: This took me a while, but I eventually got it working. It ended up being easier than I thought, but I made a dumb mistake that made it take longer than it should. I went out and bought a ladder, a cable stripper, a few cable endings, a 50ft cable to connect the sattelite to the house's existing cabling, some wood screws, and caulk so our roof wouldn't leak. I hooked everything up, and of course it didn't work. I tried switching around the cable order and messed around with the sattelite box settings. Nothing. Then I started googling, reading about things like line amplifiers. I didn't want to mess with that. Then, I decided to check the connection on the box one more time, and I connected the cable to the wrong place. I'm glad it was something dumb like that. I got it all hooked in time to watch the Lions blow their lead. After I watched that, I went back up on the roof to screw down the swm8, and ended up getting caulk all over me. Oh, and the worst part of it all was the damn ladybugs. They were all over me when I was up on the ladder (it was like high-school all over again - yeah right), and would stay on me when I went into the house. Little jerks.
3. Prime the 3 upstairs rooms that have the ultra-bright paint. Update: I didn't do this yet. We have time to paint though.
4. Check on the uneven back yard to see if I can add more topsoil. Update: This is going to be an ongoing project because I don't want to kill the grass. I've been putting on about 1 1/2 bags every month or so.
5. Added: Put the ADT stickers on the windows. I had been procrastinating on this one, mainly because it meant I had to clean the windows.
6. Added: Put pads on the kitchen cabinets. I went out and bought about 100 silicon pads so our cabinet doors don't slam anymore.
7. Added: Reset the garage door code. We have one of those keypads on the outside of our garage so we can open the door without the opener. This was a classic "google" project. I eventually found the manual for the opener, hit the "learn" button, entered the new code, and held down "enter". The light blinked a few times indicating that it had been reset.

And one maintenance task:

1. Test the sump pump. Update: I just dumped two buckets full of water into the well, the pump went on, and away it went.
2. Added: I raked leaves from the two trees in our front yard.

Catching up on other improvements

I don't really have a picture of it, but we had an alarm system installed the day after we moved in to warn us against burglaries and fires. It's not that we live in a bad neighborhood at all. In fact, we love the neighborhood. However, it's just for the piece of mind. Everywhere we lived in the city wasn't really "ours". We could always rely on other neighbors to call the fire department, because it was their apartment or condo building too. But, now that we live in a "detached single-family home" (I spent a lot of time on real-estate sites looking for this place), we can't rely on others to watch out for us... well, unless we pay them an installation and monthly fee. The alarm install ended up taking most of a day, and cost us more than we thought, but it helps us sleep easier at night.

DirecTV came out the same day I was ripping up the carpet. I was hoping that the installer wouldn't have to run 2 lines into the house (so we can watch one channel while TIVOing another), but the guy didn't know about SWM8 technology. I had read about it a few months earlier, and we were using it in our condo. But, I hadn't done my homework before he came out, so I couldn't convince him that it was possible to have a dual-tuner and still only run one line into the house. So now we have two cables running thru our siding and into our fireplace. I know, it sounds weird, and it is one of the few things we think is odd about the house. At least I can watch the Lions every weekend, thanks to the Sunday ticket. I don't know why I torture myself so.

We learned that one of the prior owners had a swingset in the back yard, which explains the odd, square-shaped, flat area back there. Most of it is a smoothly graded hill, kindof like a crowned football field, but not where that swingset was. I spent a few hours one weekend filling it in with topsoil. I can't put too much on for fear of killing the grass. So, I put on just enough so that the grass can peek out above the soil. I'll let it grow out again before adding more. I read about that technique online. It takes a bit longer that the option that involves a sod-cutter, but I figured we have time. It really doesn't look that bad, and it only bugs me slightly. So, I didn't want to go all out on this project.

Here's a picture of the bridal staircase in our foyer. A few weeks ago, I ripped the runner off of it. We knew we didn't like the carpet that was currently on it and that it had to be done. Let me tell you, ripping up carpet from a room is about 20 times easier than it is ripping it off of a staircase... at least an oak one. You see those 16 steps? Each one had about 30 carpet staples either holding the carpet or padding down. I later figured out that you can buy a mini-crowbar to make it easier, but I used pliers to rip each one out. It took me about 3 hours to finish, and about 3 days for the pain in my hands to subside. I keep telling myself that it probably helped my golf grip, but I can picture myself having arthritis in about 10 years thanks to it. Carrying the carpet wasn't as hard as the large rolls, but there were a lot of staples that stayed in the carpet. One punctured the middle of my right palm. With all the improvement projects we have planned, I should probably get a tetanus shot.

We had planned on starting things like painting and hardwood floors, but we quickly realized that we are a bit overwhelmed when it comes to picking that sort of thing out. So, we decided to bite the bullet and get a home decorator. We're working with Jamie at JS Interiors. She's been great so far, and we've made a lot of progress picking out family room furnishings. Hopefully we'll have paint and hardwood colors picked out soon so I can start on those projects.

Carpet removal

If you've never done it, removing carpet is quite therapeutic. The first weekend after our move-in, I ripped out most of the upstairs carpet. It was either an ugly blue carpet seen in this picture from before our closing date. Or it was a boring offwhite carpet that was like burber and just not very soft.
The process basically involved a carpet knife and a lot of pulling. I cut the carpet and underlying padding into strips that were about 4-5 feet wide. I then pulled them away from the baseboards and tacking strip until the carpet came off. Then it was a matter of just rolling them up. After carrying the first roll into the garage, I soon discovered that I shouldn't roll the whole strip up from one wall to the other. That made it quite heavy. So, I had to unroll some, cut them in half, then roll again. That made carrying them manageable, especially considering that I had to carry them downstairs before going out the garage.



I said the process was therapeutic, but that was only the case while ripping away the carpet. Well, that and the fact that I was able to get out of cleaning. You can really take your aggressions out on it. I only had to be careful to make sure I didn't rip up the tacking strips, because we plan to carpet again and don't want to have to pay for that part of it.
All in all, it took me about 6 hours to rip up about 1500 sq ft of carpet, and we still have 2 piles of carpet rolls in our garage (I manage to squeeze about 4 rolls into the garbage every week). Here's a picture of the end result. Coincidentally, one of the first things we unpacked were our slippers.

Welcome to our home

Jen and I are now home owners. This picture was taken the day we closed on the house (July 31, 2008). I wish I had a pitchfork for the picture, but alas.

We loved living in the city, but we really love Libertyville, and our house (which we think we got for a great price). Based on what some of the other houses are going for in the neighborhood, we think we can safely spend about 100k on improvements. That's not counting furniture, artwork, or anything that wouldn't stay with the house if we decide to move.

I am pretty new to blogging, so I'm not sure if this is going to work the way I want. Basically, I want to blog about a few different kinds of things. Home Improvement is one of them. I'm sure I'd also like to blog about Vacations and Family Events as well. I'm going to try to use Labels to handle the breakdown, but we'll see how that goes.

I probably won't be posting many Family Events entries any time soon. It'll likely be a heavy dose of Home Improvement, and some long-overdue Vacation posts. Someday, the Family Events will start to occur, which may mean the demise of Home Improvement and Vacation posts, but I don't want to worry about that now.

Consider this post a mix of a Home Improvement post and a general Welcome to the blog.

On the Welcome side, well thanks for reading.

On the Home Improvement side, this is the "before" picture for the outside of the house. The outside picture, besides the potential for a few color changes and me hopefully being thinner, will look basically the same. We don't plan on doing anything to the outside of the house besides possibly removing those shudders or painting them a better color. There's a slight chance we'll be putting similar ones on the other windows, but I doubt it.