Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
The joy that is home ownership
Why is it with house maintenance it just seems to keep going and going and going?
We actually have two different contractors working on the house right now. There is progress being made, but it sure is painful at times. Of the work started in May (I think), we still have the doors to replace, the windows to cap, and a floor vent to be installed in the kitchen. As long as it's done before winter I'm cool with that.
The second contractor (much more timely) created a vent for us from the basement so we can install our new dryer (more on that in a moment). He also replaced the trim around our basement back door as it was rotting, repointed the brick around our outside faucet and replaced the circa 1920 faucet (pretty cool mechanism to deal with the winter actually). Of course, when he did that I noticed that there is quite a bit of repointing necessary on that wall so now he'll be coming back before November to do that.
I probably should have blogged this earlier, but we had a bit of a situation with our clothes washer. It was a pretty cool device, if a little cranky. I however, managed to break it (sort of). We were planning to move it downstairs as we now have stairs (woo hoo, I might add) and so I was doing a little plumbing. Now, the plumbing went fine except that when I turned off the main, I did not turn off the taps into the washer (I still don't think that should strictly be required). In any case there was a bit of a shock when we first turned it on (physical shock, not electrical). This caused leak due to a pipe coming undone inside. We had that maintenanced and about three days later the thing starts smoking. Not just "oh, I smell something weird" or "is someone smoking rubber in the back yard", but rather billowy "oh, shit" smoke. Short story is it would be $500 bucks to fix and the maintenance guy said we'd probably just have more problems. So we are now the proud owners of a new washer and dryer set.
Well, after all this, what could possibly go wrong?
We actually have two different contractors working on the house right now. There is progress being made, but it sure is painful at times. Of the work started in May (I think), we still have the doors to replace, the windows to cap, and a floor vent to be installed in the kitchen. As long as it's done before winter I'm cool with that.
The second contractor (much more timely) created a vent for us from the basement so we can install our new dryer (more on that in a moment). He also replaced the trim around our basement back door as it was rotting, repointed the brick around our outside faucet and replaced the circa 1920 faucet (pretty cool mechanism to deal with the winter actually). Of course, when he did that I noticed that there is quite a bit of repointing necessary on that wall so now he'll be coming back before November to do that.
I probably should have blogged this earlier, but we had a bit of a situation with our clothes washer. It was a pretty cool device, if a little cranky. I however, managed to break it (sort of). We were planning to move it downstairs as we now have stairs (woo hoo, I might add) and so I was doing a little plumbing. Now, the plumbing went fine except that when I turned off the main, I did not turn off the taps into the washer (I still don't think that should strictly be required). In any case there was a bit of a shock when we first turned it on (physical shock, not electrical). This caused leak due to a pipe coming undone inside. We had that maintenanced and about three days later the thing starts smoking. Not just "oh, I smell something weird" or "is someone smoking rubber in the back yard", but rather billowy "oh, shit" smoke. Short story is it would be $500 bucks to fix and the maintenance guy said we'd probably just have more problems. So we are now the proud owners of a new washer and dryer set.
Well, after all this, what could possibly go wrong?
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Like the Wind
Inspired by my sister, I've decided give biking to work a go. Lets hope this goes better than the running! I recently found out that I probably have the easiest bike to work in the city. I get on a bike path at the end of my street and get off at the end of the street I work on. It's about 10 K and mostly flat. Who can complain?
So on Saturday, GB and I went to a local bike shop and picked up a couple of new city bikes - 30% off no less. I didn't have one to begin with and GB's current one is 15 years old and weighs a tonne. So him getting one was a little treat to himself :) Plus we now have a spare for when people come to visit.
I was a little wobbly getting on the bike for test drive but after a couple of minutes, it felt great. I had forgotten how wonderful it feels! I'm looking forward to going on weekend bike rides with GB just like my family used to do when I was a kid. No pop-a-wheelies gone bad this time though - I know better!
Today I took it out to check out my route and I did what I think is about 2/3rds of the way in about 20 minutes. Looks like my bike ride to work will be a lot faster than TTC, and I'll be getting in shape to boot!
Wish me luck!
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Weakness
The heat has damn near killed us this week. We finally caved on Thursday night and put the window air conditioner in. It was my first good sleep in a few days.
I've got to believe the AC's that we have are very inefficient, though. They are about 20 years old. We are going to see if we can find something more reasonable (and lighter) to replace them with.
I've got to believe the AC's that we have are very inefficient, though. They are about 20 years old. We are going to see if we can find something more reasonable (and lighter) to replace them with.
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