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.