Category: House & Home

Just more remodel stuff

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This blog is boring lately, I know. Sorry! Not really.

I am in such a good mood today because it’s Fall and I adore Fall. I’ve got something on my calendar every weekend now through Halloween. I’m so excited that my favorite time of the year is here and I’m determined not to let work ruin it even though it’s been crazy busy and I’ve been putting in more overtime than I would like. Can’t complain about the extra money, though, which I’ve been finding uses for…

Such as a new ceiling fan that we have yet to install in the master bedroom. I mentioned getting it at Lowes but we actually got it from Home Depot. It wasn’t cheap ($120), but I like it so much I think it’s worth it. We also got new faux wood white blinds for the living room and the kids’ bedrooms. And this weekend we got new vanity lights for both upstairs bathrooms. Why wait for a full remodel to make things look a little nicer? Oh, and we got a faucet for the guest bath and yesterday exchanged the sink we bought for a non-cracked one. Joe painted the wall by the front door so that whole area is done. All he has to do now is fix the wall in the guest bath where the sink’s sidesplash was, paint over the patched areas, install the sink and faucet, and we’re done. I’m hoping that means by next week our guest bath renovation will be complete because I want to enjoy Fall to it’s fullest and that’s hard to do when my house feels disorganized.

In other news, I’m not hating the rats as much as before. It seems the weird moth ball smell only presents itself when the air conditioning is on and since it’s been mild temperature wise, we haven’t had to run it lately. I wonder if the heat will give us the same problem, though. I guess we’ll see if I start hating them again when it gets colder. I feel sorry for them; I bet they are bored most of the time. You should see how excited they get when I come by the cage and then they really go nuts when I let them out. I’m going to Petsmart shortly to get them more food (they are such pigs!) and maybe I can find something to keep them entertained.

Tomorrow should be a good day. I’m working from home and I’m leaving early to run an errand in the city. Woo!

Busy weekend

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Every weekend seems to fly by, but this one felt even shorter than usual because I didn’t get home from work until 7 pm Friday evening after a 12-hour work day, then worked another two hours Saturday morning. This huge project we’ve been working on for months is finally coming to an end, thank god, because it’s killing me. I have no problem working my butt off during my regular 8-hour day, but I’m not keen on working extra hours. Sure, I get paid for it now that I’m hourly, but I’d still rather be at home.

Saturday night we went out with a group of friends to see Robert Schimmel perform at a Comedy Club near where I work. The service there was horrible, but Robert was great! What was funny was he was walking around the audience before the show and no one seemed to recognize him. The second time he walked past our table, Joe said, “Hi Robert, good to see you” as if he knew him. LOL! To his credit, Robert said hello back and put his arm on Joe’s shoulder. :) I did try and get a photo of Robert on stage near the end of the show but the iPhone’s camera sucks and you can’t even tell who is in the photo. I don’t know why everyone loves the iPhone camera – it pretty much blows unless you’re bathed in natural light. In any case, I posted a full review of our night over on Yelp if you’re so inclined.

Today we finally purchased a sink for the master bath!!! Once Joe finishes fixing some issues with the wall, he’ll be able to install the sink and mirror. We still need a faucet but haven’t found one we like yet. We take forever to pick things out sometimes. We did find a kickass ceiling fan for the master bedroom, though. We had briefly discussed replacing the ugly white one that’s in there now and since we were on a roll with the sink, figured we’d check out the fans. We found a beautiful one at Lowes. I will post pictures once it’s been installed. Now I want to replace the ceiling fan in the living room too, as well as the ugly gold chandelier in the foyer. The ceilings are so high we’d need to pay an electrician to do those, however, which is why we haven’t bothered before.

Now it’s time to make nachos for the Bears game!

Update: We actually got the fan at Home Depot. Usually we like Lowe’s selection but not this time around.

Making Progress

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Joe is working on the guest bathroom today since it’s raining out. Yea, it’s still not done, but we’ve run into some issues with the stupid wall. I’m also pissed that the paint color didn’t come out looking like the sample. It looks like purple instead of grey but whatever. I’m so sick of this project that I don’t care what anything looks like anymore as long as it’s done. Seriously, I have no patience for remodeling projects.

In happier news, Friday after work we had friends over which was nice. One of them used to be an electrician so he helped Joe replace the switch by our front door. We couldn’t get it to work properly because it turns out they had the wiring wrong. Nice. Then we had pizza and the guys drank like they always do. I seriously don’t get the appeal of beer. It’s disgusting.

Yesterday we went to see G.I. Joe which wasn’t too bad. After the show we were stopped and asked to take a short survey and we scored two free movie tickets out of the deal which was cool. We had lunch at Chipotle and then walked around downtown Geneva eating ice cream. It’s a real cute area.

Ugh. I so don’t feel like blogging lately as you can tell by the lack of updates. I don’t know what it is… maybe spending so much time in front of a computer at work has started to make me hate sitting down in front of my computer at home. The last two weeks we’ve had working lunches so I’m completely behind on my podcasts and reading because I never have time to do either.

I’d rather be on the couch on my iPhone than sitting at my desk. I did want to write an entry about some of the cool iPhone apps I’ve discovered lately but I lack the motivation to do much of anything lately. Joe and I even discussed hiring a maid so I don’t have to clean the stupid bathrooms anymore but I doubt we’ll do that because I’m too cheap and now that our wireless bill has doubled, I don’t want to spend any more money than I have to.

Oh, we’re going to run to the store and get a light for the guest bath. Hallelujah it might be done soon.

* This entry was brought to you by a cranky Nicole

Sold

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While we were off work we managed to get rid of two things taking up a decent amount of space in the garage – my old damaged rims from my Jetta (which are 5 years old) and Joe’s motorcycle.

We posted both on Craigslist but the rims didn’t garner any interest so we ended up taking them to a recycling center and got some money for them.

Only five minutes after posting his motorcycle on Craigslist, Joe had a few e-mails. The person who e-mailed him first ended up buying it the next day. We almost sold it to a dealership a few months ago but their offer was far less than it was worth so I’m glad we held off on that.

It’s so nice to get to some stuff in the garage that used to require me climbing over the motorcycle. Part of me will miss it since when we were first dating I got to ride on the back of it a few times. But mostly we’re both happy to see it go. Joe hasn’t ridden it in years so it was just getting in the way. Now we have to decide if we want to fill the empty space with a deep freeze or not. I’m kinda enjoying having less stuff in our lives and I’m not sure I want to buy anything new right now unless it’s cute and furry. ;)

Two Memorial Days are better than one

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I’ve been so busy since our vacation started that I haven’t had the time, nor inclination, to update, so here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve been up to.

Saturday was spent running errands and cleaning the house. Joe also finished painting the molding around the hall closet and front door. The guest bath still needs work, but at least the foyer area looks good.

Sunday we celebrated Memorial Day early at my parents’ house. We got there early to work on Brother #2’s computer which is infected with a trojan. Even after reformatting his hard drive and reinstalling Windows, it was STILL there. Joe spent a good two hours working to try to eradicate it and was unsuccessful. It’s preventing my brother from being able to do Windows Updates so he’s probably going to end up buying a new computer. Just as well seeing how his is several years old at this point.

Monday we had our own BBQ at our place with friends. The weather was rather uncooperative, but the rain let up long enough to allow me to grill burgers and hot dogs. We played Pictionary and because Joe and I were on opposing teams, we both lost! It was a travesty. We also played a new game one of our friends brought over called Phase 10. It was pretty interesting, but with six people, one game lasted nearly two hours! By that time it was late so everyone took off since one of the couples weren’t off work the next day like the rest of us were.

Yesterday we got our license plate stickers and tried a new restaurant for lunch, then walked around Cosley Zoo for awhile. They have a really cool tank in their gift shop that has poison dart frogs inside. Oh, and I got this short video of a Baltimore Oriole chirping. He’s quite a bright orange!



We had a plumber come over at 1 pm to look at our damaged water spout outside. Unfortunately the part we need has to be ordered so he wasn’t able to fix it yet. We also wanted him to relocate the gas line behind the stove since it is preventing us from pushing the stove against the wall, but he was able to twist something back there to allow us to move the stove back without having to do all that work. Best of all he didn’t charge us anything. I really like that guy! He installed our water heater earlier this year when our old one died.

After the plumber left we had a quick lunch and then went to an afternoon showing of Star Trek which I really enjoyed. I was not thrilled with the three rude teenage boys sitting down the aisle from us, however. Who pays to see a movie and then instead talks the whole time, actually raising their voices during the loud parts? Joe and I both gave them a verbal lashing after twenty minutes of their bullshit and they finally shut up.

After the movie we stopped at Petco where I decided to get a Betta fish who has yet to be named. I came across my old 2-gallon tank the other day so I figured I’d fill it with something. I was originally going to get a goldfish but decided against it since the ones I like aren’t recommended for novices. I’d rather stick with a fish I know how to handle instead of killing one with my inexperience.

Here’s my Betta swimming around in his new tank this morning.



Today we just ran some more errands since it’s been raining off and on. We’re supposed to attend a beginner’s archery class tonight but at this rate I think it might get cancelled. I guess we’ll see.