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Last Week’s Accomplishments – Unsubscribing

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

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A rainbow isn’t an accomplishment, of course, but it is nice to see.  Last week was vacation week and the weather was excellent.  We reached 70° one day and well over 50° for a few others, so all of the snow is gone.

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  • Being vacation week and mostly excellent weather we spent a lot of time outside.  The first half of the week there was still some snow.  This is the later part.
  • We went to one kid get together and one adult evening out.
  • We had two skating lessions and one baseball clinic.
  • We two of three spring soccer team assignments.  We have one of two baseball team assignments.  That only leaves the two kindergarten teams.
  • I finished cleaning out the office.  This was a big project.  But, it feels good to be largely done and the painter was able to do his touch-ups without things in the way.  A big part of this was parting with broken & unused toys.  I found four boxes labeled “out of circulation toys,” which means the boys haven’t seen those items in at least a year.  I tossed most of the broken items and I put most of the rest in the donate/sell pile.  I did keep about a box worth that are in between kids at the moment.
  • The painter finished his retouching.  And, the tile guy came to fix the cracks that had appeared as the house went through its first winter cycle.  Things are back to new!
  • I took 15 minutes to unsubscribe from most of the store emails I’d been receiving.  I was reaching the point where I was auto-deleting more emails than I was actually reading.  And, nobody needs daily emails from every store they ever shopped at.  So, I went through my trash folder for the past week and unsubscribed to most of them.  This has cut down my inbox dramatically.  In another month, I should probably do this one more time just to catch those that send emails less frequently.

 

Last Week’s Accomplishments – Mostly Disinfecting

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

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The stomach flu is circulating locally so I decided it would be a good time to buckle down on the cleaning & disinfecting.  So, all the surfaces got a good deep clean:

  • Switches, doorknobs, cabinet pulls
  • Sinks & bathrooms in general
  • Fridge, oven, microwave handles
  • TV remotes & other electronics

While I was cleaning the switches I took the time to get off any remaining construction gunk.  The top three show the before; the bottom three the after.

I also cleaned the construction crud out of the little box the laundry hoses feed through.

Otherwise it was an unusually basic week with not a single non-standard activity.

Last Week’s Accomplishments – The Window is Fixed

17 Tuesday Jan 2017

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Nothing particularly dramatic this week, but

  • I fixed the window!  The weatherstripping had been coming loose whenever it was opened, but I was able to determine that the segments just needed to be re-positioned.  Hopefully its all set now.

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  • Baseball winter clinics started for the eldest.
  • We attended the 5th grade choral concert.  This was the first time he had to wear real dress clothes – tie and all – so it was a big event.
  • We had a few contractors through to adjust things on the punch list – door latches, a chipped light fixture, some switches, etc.
  • I mostly completed the once in a long while cleaning tasks on the first floor.  I should finish those today and move on to the second floor.
  • We attended a birthday party.
  • We hosted a family birthday party for the baby’s first birthday.

Is this It?

08 Thursday Dec 2016

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I forgot to take a before picture, but suffice it to say that the stuff you see in the after pictures was distributed around the entire area under the stairs, covered with saw dust, etc.  There are six paint cans and some wood near the entrance still as I need to touch up those paint colors.  Then I’ll tuck them around back with the extra tile, grout, and other paint cans.  There’s also a bag of cement, but that needs to hit the trash as its already hardening.

Anyway, I moved everything out of the way, vacuumed the space and each item and put it back neatly so we can hopefully use the space to store other items also.  It will either be holiday items (don’t need them very often) or out of season sports equipment (would benefit from the confined space).  In the process, I learned that tile is much heavier than I thought, and boxes of tile become very heavy.  I got my workout yesterday!

I think this is the last batch of stuff left for us by the builder that needs organizing.  That just leaves the remaining boxes we brought from our old house.

Last Week’s Accomplishments – Holiday Season 2016

06 Tuesday Dec 2016

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Things have settled down a lot now that fall sports are done and Thanksgiving has past.

  • We had the last fall Before School Sports – one less morning we have to wake up extra early.  (Math mornings continue.)
  • The baby got her final flu shot.
  • I got a hair cut.
  • We had blinds put on the first floor.  I was trying to do something interesting here, but in the end went with the same basic honeycomb shades we put in the bedrooms.  I may change up the living room eventually, but for now they do the job of privacy and sun blocking, which were getting critical.
  • The older three boys were fitted for skis for their lessons which start in January.
  • We attended one birthday party.
  • The adults went out for dinner.
  • We finished the Christmas decorating – ornaments, village, and outdoor lighting.

House Design – Two Ovens?

01 Thursday Dec 2016

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I went into the house buying process with the goal of getting two ovens in my next kitchen.  It was by no means the reason for moving (we could have renovated the kitchen), but if I was going to move it was something I was looking for.

I had assumed that this would be stacked wall ovens, which one sees in most new home construction.  But, I didn’t want the range in the island and that meant a distinct lack of wall space.  So, I went round and round evaluating different options.  Some newer models come with a second oven instead of the storage drawer at the bottom, or have divided the full height into two ovens.  This wasn’t going to help much as my goal was to cook two larger items.  Then we evaluated side by side 48″ ranges.  These offer a standard size oven and a small oven.  For us this was an improvement on the horizontal divider, but since my cookie sheets didn’t fit in the smaller oven it was not ideal later.

Mr. Google led me to the idea of two ranges and eventually to this blog which showed side by side Frigidaire ranges – http://www.chrislovesjulia.com/2015/09/idaho-home-full-kitchen-reveal.html.  This could solve our problem!

We went with Kitchenaid instead, as we had already selected their fridge.  In the end we swapped the dishwasher for the Kitchenaid model also giving us a full suite.

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As you can imagine, once I requested this there were many questions – from the appliance guy, builder, inspector, plumber, electrician, etc.  And, Kitchenaid wasn’t quite as forthcoming as the blog asserted Fridgidaire was in endorsing this arrangement.  But, everyone agreed there should be no issues and we moved forward.

It has been a great decision.  These are 30″ dual fuel ranges (electric ovens and gas cooktops).  When one switches from gas to dual fuel, Kitchenaid switches the storage drawer to a baking drawer so we actually have 4 ovens!  The lower ones are very small and I’m still not sure of the value of them.  You can’t do much more than a lasagna, but I guess you’re not heating up as large a space.

I have run both simultaneously.  I really appreciate the extra space on top to put hot items fresh from the oven.  One doesn’t quickly identify them as two ranges.  There’s a seam in the top section and two clocks, but that’s about it.

It turns out two standard ranges are also significantly less expensive than dual ovens plus range, even the dual oven wall units.  Two of these are also less than either a 60″ or 48″ range, even by a similar grade manufacturer.  All in all I think we got great functionality for significantly less cost.  And, if someday we want to upgrade to a professional 60″ range, it should slide right in.

Last Week’s Accomplishments – New Decor

22 Tuesday Nov 2016

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After a bit of a lull, we had a busy week last week.

  • We had two dentist appointments.
  • I went to the preschool parent/teacher conference.
  • The older boys saw Fantastic Beasts.
  • I finalized our Thanksgiving menu.
  • We discovered a problem with the siding.  Thankfully, this will be fixed under warranty.  Apparently there was a change in the manufacturing process, which didn’t work out well, so they went back to the old formulation.  In the spring when its warm enough to paint again they’ll replace the siding.
  • We finally got around to hanging the artwork in the front entry.  We’ve thought about getting some metal sculpture for a while, but we didn’t want to catch ourselves since they tend to protrude from the wall.  This location was perfect as its recessed and the sculpture is just the right size.

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  • I finished sorting/hanging all the hand-me down girls clothing.

House Design – The Mudroom

02 Wednesday Nov 2016

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I think a mudroom is critical to a house.  The ability to get out of the wet and cold, but abandon all outside items before coming in is important.  It keeps out the dirt.  It can keep out the cold.  It limits the stuff that naturally collects in the kitchen.

Our previous house had a huge mudroom.  Not the best laid out as one had to  walk the diagonal to move from inside to outside, but huge.  We had a table, an extra fridge, shelves, and room to spare.

This house not so much.  It’s plenty large for a few people.  But, at about a third the size of our previous one, and with all of us, we have to be rather vigilant about the space.  In relatively neat pictures, here it is full and empty (most folks out for the day).

Above the hooks are two shelves which hold out of season goods, hats that aren’t hook friendly, soccer shin guards, etc.  Next week we’ll be adding winter jackets.  There are plenty of hooks, but it will add to the bulk.  At some point we’ll have to figure out winter boots.  They may live in the garage, but that’s still up in the air.  Corralling the winter hats and gloves will be another issue.

So, the space is fine.  A little bigger would be nice, but this works.

Of LEDs and Edison Bulbs

21 Friday Oct 2016

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Last week there was a post on another blog I read that touched on the light value of LED bulbs.  I commented there, but thought I’d expand my comments and add pictures here.

First, let me say that I am so glad that fluorescent (of all sorts) are basically out of our lives.  We wrote that into the contract for the new house as I don’t want to be dealing with the mercury and other chemicals those entail.

We’ve had many LED bulbs.  These days one can use them for any sort of lighting fixture, but you do have to choose more carefully that I feel like one had to with incandescent bulbs.  Today one can buy many fixtures with integrated LEDs.  We have a bunch in this house so hopefully they’ll last a long time as I’m not entirely sure if one replaces the entire fixture or just the bulb when they do finally fail.

Regardless of location/type, the Kelvins are critical. For us, 4000 K is too sterile; we like 2700 K or thereabouts. I also feel like many of them are just ugly – whether its the cooling base or the shape of the LED itself.  In the picture below, I put a typical incandescent bulb, my favorite LED bulb (though they’re out of business now since they had leaking problems with other models), and a more readily available LED bulb.  The Duracell is on the cool end of the spectrum and has too industrial looking a base for me – though I’ve seen worse.  But, it will be fine when we need to replace the bulbs in the garage and I only have a few.  The Switch bulb is the level we prefer, we have lots of them, and have had no issue with ours leaking.  We also only have a handful of free standing lights that don’t have integrated LEDs so I expect our Switch supply to last a long time.

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We use Edison bulbs in all the fixtures that don’t have integrated LEDs.  By some trial and error I discovered that it is a bit challenging to find a dimmable, LED Edison light bulb.  Adding to this problem, antique-styled bulbs come in many shapes and filament patterns.  We preferred Edison squirrels nest.  On the left I what I bought first.  It was accidentally not LED, and its not dimmable.  But, we’ll use it in a few locations until the bulbs give out.  The center is the dimmable LED I found, which we’re very happy with, and its box.  On the right is a chandelier bulb, which we tried and found weird in our chandelier because of the short cylinder shape the light emanates from. We don’t have another chandelier so I’m not sure if/where we’ll reuse these.

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I tried to take a few pictures of the bulbs in their fixtures, both on and off so you can see the differences.  As you can imagine it is challenging to take a picture of an on light bulb, but here they are.

The kitchen light fixtures have the incandescent Edison.  When on, its just a ball of light.

We put the LED Edison’s in the dining room after discovering the incandescent bulbs didn’t support the dimmers.  As an aside, it turns out non-dimmable bulbs can overhead the dimmer even if they’re fully on.  As you can see, with the LED bulbs, the “filaments” are more distinct when on and more visible when off.

A couple of other miscellaneous notes.  I’m not sure they make sense economically for three way bulbs as 3-way LEDs are very expensive.  It is possible they’ve dropped in price since I looked a few years back, but they were way up there at the time.  I don’t have any three way lights anymore so this is now a non-issue for us.

Some people do notice a flicker with LED bulbs.  I don’t, but I have been told it is the case.  I don’t think its enough to cause problems, but it can be an annoying revelation.

House Design – The Fireplace

14 Friday Oct 2016

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Now that we’re more settled, it seemed like a good time to share some of the design elements of the new house.  Much is standard, but I will share some of where we were able to make changes or design choices.  I’ve posted a few already:  the pull-out bathroom trash and walk-in pantry.

I wanted small tiles around the fireplace, so this is what we went with:

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The paint is Benjamin Moore Cabernet (purple) and Mascarpone (white).

The tiles are Loft Super White 1×2 for the surround and Living 12×24 Black for the hearth.   One thing we learned is that the best solution for the exposed edges of glass tile is to purchase some 1×1 tiles and fit them in rather than cutting the glass.

I also mentioned that I had hung the mirror over the fireplace.  Unfortunately, it fell and broke so its not in the picture and we need to decide if we’re going to replace it.  I was trying to use Command strips for hanging in this house.  I had used them with posters in the previous house and they removed very easily without marking the paint.  But, two items have fallen days after being hung using the Command strips here.  Now, neither had a finish like a standard picture frame.  But, both had many more Command strips than the packaging recommends by weight.  And, both fell because the Command strip separated from the item – not because the velcro failed.  So, I’m going to revert to nails going forward as I don’t want to be dealing with further breakage.  All in all, not a positive experience.