Kate's Point of View

The Product of Creative Frustration

Category: house Page 2 of 4

Bad Mood

By

On July 14, 2011

In animals, family / friends, house, rock

Today started off as one of those days where as soon as my eyes opened, bad mood. Snarky, cussing at things (in my head!) and not going at all out of my way to be nice. So, to redirect my mood, some good things to focus on:

  • I took pictures of my sister and her beyonce this weekend and they turned out great. Even better was when she kept telling me I looked so arty, like I fit the role of the photographer.
  • On Monday my brother did some work at my house on the neverending bathroom project. When I called to see how he was handling the heat he also reported in on my cats and cracked me up. “Biggie is an a$$hole.” On a later call, “Biggie is a dick.” I’ve been calling him those things ever since because it’s funny and sort of true.
  • In my photography class on Tuesday the greatest thing happened. At the beginning of class we always show our favorite pictures from the prior week to the teacher and he critiques them in front of everyone. It’s super helpful. When he pulled up my pictures I got multiple wows from the class.
  • Yesterday I was doing some final sanding on never-ending bathroom project but also got to use that time to catch up on old podcasts of All Songs Considered. I listened to one about breaking up with bands you like or liked and when one of the hosts revealed his past love of the Lillith Fair contingent of singers, specifically Paula Cole, I laughed my ass off.
  • This morning my sister called me for no reason and it was nice to talk.
  • Over lunch today I went out for some retail therapy and left with a dress that look kapow on me. I also found a pair of flats that fit me and flats almost never fit my narrow feet.

These are all good things! Now bad mood – you must leave.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

To the People Who Supersize Everything

By

On June 25, 2011

In house

When Wonder Boy and I were shopping for our new washer every sales person gasped at the mere thought that we would choose a smaller than standard washer. We were talked into a larger one, which didn’t fit into our basement. So we went back to the original plan of the smaller washer.

Today I did laundry for the first time in our new washer. Although still small, this washer, at 2.2 cubic feet, is larger than our old washer. (New, supersized washers are anywhere from 3 to 5 cubic feet.) So loading it up was awesome.

To all of the people who wrote reviews about how this washer was good but way too small? Get over yourself. To the people at Home Depot and Lowe’s? You were wrong. I do not regret this new washer.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

As Luck Would Have It

By

On June 22, 2011

In house

2011 has been a stellar year for me and home ownership. First we started bathroom renovation on January 4, 2011, and it is not done yet. We had to fire our first contractor, seek out a new one, wait for him to get started and now we have to do the finish work like painting and putting our house back together. While bathroom updates were being done, there were many weeks that Wonder Boy and I were showering at the YMCA or in the utility sink in our basement with a hose. Yes, in the utility sink.

Last week our washer blew up. Not literally but it wouldn’t finish a load of wash and when we researched it we found out that our model washer was so renegade and cheap that it wasn’t worth repairing. We went out to buy a new washer and when it was delivered found out it wouldn’t fit through our basement door. So we sent it back and selected a new one that was delivered today.

All in all, I’m exhausted and thinking that renting sounds pretty darn nice. Or maybe living in a brand new condo. Owning a 110-year-old house? I’m over it.

There is one highlight to all of this housing cr@p. When we purchased our first washer, the one that wouldn’t fit through the hobbit-sized door to our basement, I noticed a sign at Home Depot that said they would match any competitor’s advertised price and take another 10% off. I’m cheap so that was etched into my brain. When we went back to Home Depot to buy our pint-sized washer, I brought print-outs of that washer for sale on other websites. These were pretty jank websites but they were selling the exact same washer for a lot less money. I was concerned that the salesperson would point out how jank the sites were so I brought several competitive prices and knew that at a minimum we would save $50.

Guess what? It doesn’t matter how jank the site is! We saved $250!!!

So here is the lesson I know now and wish I had learned a little earlier into our home renovations: Online comparison shopping before going into a store is worth it. When you find your item, do a Google Shopping search and print out the cheapest options for the item you want. And voila! You can buy from a store you trust but at quite a savings!

Here is our dainty little washer. Cute, right?



And in case you thought bathing in a utility sink didn’t sound too bad, here it is. Horrible.



Random postscript:

When my new washer was delivered, part of the deal was that the delivery guys would haul away the old one. Wonder Boy and I were blessed to have inherited an old random washer in the basement so we paid $15 to have that taken upstairs. (Well worth the money since it has 1/2 inch to spare getting through the doorway and they sweated their behinds off getting that thing up our steep flight of stairs!) I asked the guys to put it on the tree lawn in the hopes that a scrap metal collector would pick it up tonight since tomorrow is trash day. It lasted five minutes before someone picked it up. Beautiful.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Heat

By

On June 9, 2011

In family / friends, house, travel

When I travel I tend to target warm countries. (Ghana, Costa Rica, Australia and New Zealand since it was the summer there, Ecuador, Vietnam, Cambodia, Spain in the summer) I like heat. Winter is like a houseguest that overstays its welcome and when summer comes I rejoice. There is, however, one significant downside to summertime.

I like hot in the daytime but find sweltering heat during the nighttime to be miserable. I can’t sleep and I just lay there at night, slick with sweat. Wonder Boy and I don’t have air conditioning. We’ve made lots of improvements on our house (kitchen, bathrooms, water heat, windows) and making the investment into AC is just financially stupid. So we make do and are pretty good about it. Every year we hold out well past what most people would consider unbearable before we put in our window units. We dress light. We have all of our windows and transoms open and run ceiling fans. Our old house was made to take advantage of a cross-breeze.

This summer got hot so fast and we, very unfortunately, have a digital room thermometer. I don’t look at it. Ever. But Wonder Boy? He gives me regular updates. Last night one of our rooms measured at 89 degrees. The ceiling fan in our master bedroom, in addition to being a little on the ugly side, is broken.

We had a window unit running in our bedroom and got the room down to a frigid 86 degrees. It also makes an aggravating clicking noise. I tried to make light of it. I laid there on top of the bed sheets and played WordFeud on my phone. Wonder Boy was couldn’t take the heat.

First he suggested turning off the AC and running a fan. This might have actually been a decent idea but seemed like a waste of the electricity we had used to cool down the room over several hours. (That 3 degrees we cooled the room down by took 5 hours.)

Then he decided to go get the heavier duty window unit and run that instead. He carried it down from the attic and put it on the bed while he took out the smaller AC unit. I helped him pick up the bigger unit to put it in the window and we heard this loud noise. It was the noise of a huge hole being ripped into our bed sheets. We persisted and got the AC unit into the window only to find out wood braces we have to keep the window shut when the AC is in were the wrong size.

In the end we put the smaller AC unit back into the window. I went back to playing WordFeud. And for what it’s worth, sometime in the middle of the night I got cold enough I had to cover up with my blanket. All of this also resulted in a plan of action: Wonder Boy is buying a new AC unit tonight and I am buying new bed sheets.

Next plan of action? Hiding that room thermometer.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Bathroom, the Saga Continues

By

On May 26, 2011

In house

When Wonder Boy and I bought this house we knew we would have to do work on the bathrooms. They started to crumble almost immediately after moving in but we made do. Last July one of the showers broke. But that’s why you have two, right? So we continued to make do.

Then the upstairs bathroom started to wear down with increasing speed and we began looking for contractors. After a few false starts, work on the bathrooms started in January. Because of where the bathrooms are located and in order to minimize dust, things in the house are moved around quite a bit. We purchased most of the things for both bathrooms on our own and were seeing real progress on the upstairs room. Then, in March, right before we left for Ghana, we (and by we I mean Wonder Boy because I am a chicken and he has guts) fired the contractor. He was terrible. I’ll go into more detail on that later. I am scared to describe it now because I don’t want to jinx anything.

The thing I don’t want to jinx is how things are going with our new contractor. It’s May. Almost June. At best, our bathrooms will take six months to complete.

I’m already plotting the party I intend to have when they’re done. I am going to tell everyone to come to our house with full bladders. The current theme of the party is #1 and #2. That could change but I like it.

There are pluses to the craziness. While work is being done on the rooms we are shower-less. Again. Our workaround is to shower at the YMCA and going there without working out seems silly so Wonder Boy and I are getting in shape. Honestly, that’s the only plus I can thinking of because this mostly sucks. But in a few weeks, assuming no more hiccups, we will have mold-free, smooth-ceilinged bathrooms with dual flush toilets.

I cannot wait.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

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