Tag: home improvement

Beware

Home improvement shows on HGTV should come with a warning label. Everything going on here is their fault. We watched a bunch of episodes of Property Brothers* and now we’re turning the house upside down.

First it was the bedroom closets. Then it was the furniture arrangement. Then it was the bed. Then it was the end tables. We should be done with this room this weekend. After that it’s going to be the kitchen.

We aren’t doing renovations because Covid, duh. We’re making changes that are simple enough that a klutz with no home improvement skills (me) can pull them off.

The actual renovations will be in the cellar and they will wait until after Covid is cleared out. Pretty much everything in the cellar, from beneath the floor tiles up through anything actually sitting on the floor is so badly water damaged that it’s got to go. The floor and the walls and the drop ceiling all have to go. The HVAC ducts all have to go. I think once Covid is gone and we can let a work crew into the house we are going to take anything savable out of the cellar and put it somewhere. Everything else can be taken out by a junk removal service or something. Then we bring a contractor to take up the floor, take down the drop ceiling, and fix the walls. It’s going to be a nightmare, but there is so much water damage that there isn’t a choice.

The cellar can’t be blamed on the Property Brothers and HGTV, but all the upstairs stuff can. How dare you, HGTV. Put a warning label on these shows. Stay safe, everyone.

*Do you think either of the Property Brothers, or any of the staff and crew who work on the show have ever used the phrase, “property bros. before property hoes”?

Replacement Replacement

The replacement to the replacement headboard was delivered yesterday along with a new set of desk drawers for my work from home nook. My back and my legs are still killing me from last weekend, with a little help from yesterday’s shoveling adventure (oh, and did I mention it’s snowing again?), but it looks like I’ve got some things to do this weekend too.

I haven’t played guitar this week. I was too sore yesterday. Maybe tonight, we’ll see.

Lots to do, lots to do.

Weekend Project Part 11: The Temper Tantrum

The new bed looked perfect. The big wire frame seems strong enough to hold an elephant and a hippo and a tank and me. The new headboard looked beautiful, right up until the moment the support that holds both the leg to the bed frame and the headboard itself snapped like a twig because it was a tiny little piece of super cheap plywood that couldn’t stand the strain of me breathing on it.

There was yelling. A lot of it.

Day Two is Done

My closet has been cleaned out and completely reorganized. I knew it was going to be a pain in the ass, but it was a bigger deal than I thought it would be. The closet organizing insert thing was smaller than we thought it would be, but it still works fine. I also hung some shelves, proving once again that I don’t have the ol’ carpenter/contractor gene. Not even close. While I was doing all of that, Jen was reorganizing storage spaces and closets all over the house. She was amazing. Right now she’s on her computer planning out a hypothetical post-covid redesign of our kitchen and dining room. That’s what happens when you watch too much property brothers. You start getting crazy ideas about knocking down walls and putting islands into your kitchen. As always, she is amazing.

Jen and I are both off from work tomorrow and there should be a new bed frame getting delivered. That’s goal number one. I also have to drive my father to a doctors appointment. That’s goal number two. Goal number three? I haven’t played guitar in days. I have a new wah wah pedal literally sitting on the floor next to me and apart from proving to myself that it works, I haven’t played with it yet. That needs to change tomorrow. Mental health dictates that I get some significant playing time in tomorrow. I have spoken.

Day One in the Books

We started last night by cleaning out the storage in the old bathroom. Today we cleaned out Jen’s closet, took down the shelves, put up a bunch of closet organizing things, and put all the stuff (that survived the purge) back in. Last week we moved a bunch of storage things from the bed room to a holding space in Bellana’s room. All of that stuff has found new homes too. I also hung a couple of little shelves in the office. They were meant for the bedroom, but weren’t going to make the cut so they moved to the office. We also added some new lamps in the bedroom and the office and added to our nearly maxed out collection of Hue lights. Jen was able to figure out why the light I put on the side of the house wasn’t able to connect to the Hue bridge, and now it’s tied into the lights at the front of the house. Sweet.

Tomorrow’s primary project is my closet. That should not be nearly as big a deal as Jen’s. It’s a lot smaller, though there is a metric ton of stuff shoved in there. There’s a shelf that is tearing itself out of the wall. Not good. On Monday Jen and I are both off from work and hopefully we’ll be putting together a new bed. We’re keeping the mattress for now, but its days are numbered. We’re going to see if we can hold out until Covid is over before we mattress shop though. Monday should just be a new headboard and a new frame. That stuff hasn’t been delivered yet though, so it’s all dependent on delivery services holding up their end of the bargain.

I am really tired and sore right now (hello, my name is Mr Out of Shape Man) but I’m proud of what we completed today. Good work, Jen!

Lunch Time Post

Hello and welcome to today’s lunch break blog post.  Enjoy!

There is a lot of stuff going on today.

Last weekend I found two scary looking problems in our cellar.  We have a water leak somewhere and it’s ending up underneath the floor tiles.  It doesn’t seem like a lot of water, but it’s damaging the tiles a little.  I think I know where it’s coming from but I need to get a plumber in to look at it.  While I was investigating that I noticed that some of the HVAC duct that runs along the basement ceiling was actually coming apart.  There was one spot where the duct was detached from the ceiling and it looked really, really scary.  It looked like the ceiling wanted to collapse.  That’s not in any way what was going to happen, but that’s how it looked.

So step one is get the scary looking duct checked out and step two is bring the plumber back.  The HVAC folks came this morning just before I punched in to work.  All set.  It was just a couple of brackets that popped lose and there was nothing wrong with duct itself.  Sigh of relief.  The problem was fixed, some extra support was added, and life is good.

While the guy was here working I heard from my step son that he left his insulin pod at home.  Yikes!  I told him I’d bring it to him once the tech left.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find it.  I looked everywhere.  He said maybe it was in his car and he went out to look.  Nope, not in the car.  I ripped the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, and his bedroom apart.  Nothing.  Where the hell is it?  I retraced my steps and looked everywhere again and finally found it.  It seems like he kicked it way under his bed.  All set.  I had to take a little personal time off from work while I drove up to the high school but that was okay.

When I got to the high school it was a little weird.  A police car followed me into the parking lot.  I don’t mean that to sound ominous, we were just driving along and he just happened to be behind me.  No big deal.  I parked in the front parking lot and he parked in the driveway… next to another police car.  Okay, two cops.  I then noticed that across the lot from me there were two more police cars.  Okay, four cops.  Was something going on?

I don’t think so.  The two parked in the driveway walked into the building together and they were super casual.  Just two coworkers hanging out.  I didn’t see the two cops from the parking lot, but no one inside was acting like anything out of the ordinary was going on.  I wonder if there was a D.A.R.E presentation or something.  Still, given the atmosphere in our country these days, seeing a bunch of cops at the high school was a little bit unsettling.

152/365 - Why so many cops at the high school? I saw these two and two others.

Back to the house, I pulled into the driveway and parked as close to the house as I could.  With a snowbank still on the side of the road, we are parking three cars into a driveway that is more or less exactly the length of the three cars end to end.  We need to park as close together as we can.  No wasted space.

I think I could have gotten a little closer today.

Untitled

And that’s my day so far. Fascinating, eh? Still need to schedule something with the plumber. It will likely be for next Thursday because telecommuting makes stuff like this easy.

Oh yeah, and I setup a trello board for RPM2020.

Tonight’s plans include making dinner for Jen and Harry, WATCHING PICARD EPISODE TWO (SQUEEEE!!!!!), and practicing the effin’ guitar!

HoHoHo, everyone.  Hope your day is going well.  Happy lunch break!