So Much To Do, So Little Time

In the last post I mentioned a growing to-do list. Though I usually post our to-do lists around our home-buying anniversary, I thought I'd share with you some of the things I'd like to work on while it's fresh in my head. So here is the list, one month early- nothing major (the windows were our major planned fix for the year) but we definitely need to do some upkeep. Here they are in approximate order of importance/likelihood of getting done:

• Repaint the coffee table. Now that the rug is red, we have to make the table blue so it does clash in a weird, kind-of-matches-but-doesn't way.

• Clean out the dryer vent. It's been over 3 years, yikes!

• Mix up some quikrete to treat some loose areas in our stone walkway
  

• Stop the drip in our main bathroom sink. It's driving me crazy. We leave a contained underneath and use the water for our houseplants, but it is so annoying - especially because this is the sink that guests use and the container above the drain stops air from getting to the drain so it is always damp and moldy. I think this will require a new faucet, but we want to get one from a better store than a Home Depot or Lowes (even though they have the same brands as fancy stores, the parts are cheaper - i.e. plastic instead of ceramic) and we haven't had time to look into where to go or what to buy. I'm especially looking forward to having hot and cold knobs that are oriented correctly (they should point parallel to the faucet when they are on, not when they are off).

• Some light fixture updates: we switched the bulbs in our office to LEDs but they are too big now for the old fixture. We didn't like it anyway...
  

• Power wash the siding (we have no excuses - my parents loaned/gave us their power washer).

• Replace the outside lights - the one at the end of the walkway (now that it works, yay!), the one beside the front door, and the one over the garage (which we never ever use). They are the cheapest, most standard looking ones available and I'd really like to buy fancy ones. (You know what are really cool? The gas lamp ones. Of course we don't actually have a gas line to the house, so those are not an option.)

• Make the basement pretty. This is a big project that involves replacing our pantry shelves with something that nice (like these Fjalkinge shelves by Ikea), painting the wall that the fireplace is on, which still has a spot of bare drywall from our furnace woes three years ago, and maybe buying some spiffy new furniture (I would love to get rid of our college futon but still have a place for people to sleep).

• Door replacements, eventually. Last year I said one of the priorities for this year would be a new basement door and new doorways for the hallway.

How much can we realistically get done with a little one around the house just starting to be mobile and curious? Probably not much. But one can always hope.

Clever packaging

Lowes has some pretty clever packaging. I was confused when this arrived - wondered if it was some weird brand logo.

 But then this box showed up (baby for scale) - a castle?

Yes! A castle! Because who doesn't love to have make-believe adventures using large shipping boxes. I remember some of my best childhood memories are from the time when my parents bought a chest freezer and I made a house out of the giant box.

 If you can't see it clearly, it says "Lords, knights, ladies - the royal family doth summon thee to the palace, forthwith. Yea, verily! Just as King Arthur pulled the sword from the stone, freest thou the castle from this box to create thine own cardboard Camelot. Wield thy sword with care so that no wound may befall thy fair skin." At the top of the box, it says "THANK YOU. We hope you enjoy your order as much as your box."

What was in the boxes? An outdoor rug for our patio and a large flower pot, both from the parents.

They bought us the flower pot in order to make an umbrella stand but we are far too lazy and instead, are keeping an eye on a pretty cantilever one from Home Depot in the hopes that it goes on sale as the season comes to an end (sorry Lowes, you have cute packaging but don't make a model that we like).

It worked out well though, because we've been slowly increasing the pot size for a willow branch that we planted. It's getting bigger and bigger and we hope that if it survives the winter on our windowsill, it will find a permanent home next spring when we plant it outside.

You may have noticed some sticks on our table in the above picture of our patio? What is it? A sawed-off mulberry tree! After we got some help identifying the second of two baby trees growing in our yard, we decided the tulip tree was the winner and cut the mulberry off. We still have to cut it down further. Seemed like the remains will make decent kindling.

A few more gratuitous yard pictures - our lilies and black-eyed susans are very happy (finally!). This fall we have to actually thin out our garden. I can't believe it!

The weather has just been too nice to do much work lately. We've been out enjoying ourselves. The blog will pick back up soon - we have a growing to-do list.

Grilling Time

We have been making do with a $30 grill for few years. It has not aged well. It has been rusting out from the beginning and we decided to upgrade to the charcoal grill that everyone seems to end up with - the Weber One-Touch Gold. It has a larger grilling area, holds more coal, has a neat cleaning system, and has more durable finish. It also has, to my surprise, a built in thermometer. Which is useful. The assembly was a bit more annoying than I expected, since the legs really take a lot of force to slide on and the bin underneath took more squeezing to snap it in than I expected.

Old rusty grill on the left, shiny new grill in the middle, and the coal chimney starter on the right

Fans on the Weber which can be moved with the lever (visible at 6 o'clock) to 1. let more air in and 2. push old charcoal into the bin below. The lid also has a latch to let you hang it off a handle.

The old grill has gotten pretty grungy. I really like how the new grill has hooks on the handles to hang grilling equipment

Thermometer

I have only used it a few times, so I'm still figuring it out how to best control the temperature. I have also had some problems with the coals taking a long time to heat up past 200 F. I found that the ash from previous grilling sessions was clogging the holes and preventing proper air flow.

After clearing that up, I opened up the bottom and top vents and can get the grill over 500 F.

If I close the top and bottom vents, the grill drops to around 300 F. The biggest annoyances are that the top lid handle gets uncomfortably hot when the grill is fully heated up and that the assembly is so fiddly. Fairly minor complaints. The real test will be to see whether the grill will still be going strong 10 years from now.

Barely baby-proofing

I'm not quite sure where July has gone - taken up with summer fun and not much yard or home maintenance. So today's long overdue post is mostly about lack of action. The little one is still, thankfully, mostly immobile. We are savoring these last few weeks (days?) of her being unable to get around by herself and have continued to be pretty lax on baby proofing.

What have we done so far? Mostly just removed the biggest risks in the living room, where we spend more of our time with her.

We moved the fireplace equipment to the breezeway. This piece in particular seemed like a significant baby hazard. Trying to hold on to pull herself up might cause wood to fall everywhere. Metal pokers are sharp, wood splinters, the piece itself is heavy and unforgiving in the event of tumbles, etc. So outside it went.

Our shoe tray also has been effected - we had pebbles in there to keep the shoes off the ground and allow the soles to dry. Pebbles that would be a fabulous "tasty treat" to any discerning baby. Goodbye choking hazard. We're trying to find a long kitchen trivet to put in there to accomplish the same thing of letting air circulate under the shoes, but so far to no avail.

We also got rid of nearly all the cat toys, since their small size made them good candidates for choking hazards. So far though, that's about it.

We bought fancy magnetic safety latches for our cabinets, but they've been laying uninstalled for a few weeks now. We got baby gates at the shower we had last October, also uninstalled (we really should at least make sure we know where they are...)

We've made plans to attach furniture to the walls, at least in the rooms where she would most likely not be under constant supervision like her nursery and the living room, but again, no progress in that area.

So yeah, just a quiet summer of playing with baby and not at all preparing for her future mobility....

Summer Yard and Garden Check-in

In spring and summer every year, I have to check in with a few updates on how our yard is going. It's about that time...

Good growing conditions this year have meant that things we planted a year or two ago that we thought had no hope of returning have come back happy and hearty. In fact, our garden is starting to look downright crowded now that so many flowers and plants have awakened and spread. The good news is that we finally seem to have escaped our early problem of having a springtime garden. Now we have azaleas, camellias, hyacinths, clematis, and lilacs in the spring; hydrangeas, lilies, salvia, and black-eyed susans in the summer; and mums in the fall.  And our greenery - spirea, hostas and boxwood shrubs fill the rest of the garden in.

Yes, black-eyed susans and salvia! I tried planting these for 3 years in a row. And this year, one (or all?) of the attempts decided to return. Finally! And, for better or worse, with a vengeance. Here are the black-eyed susans:

They look crowded under our tree, smooshed against the hostas and the irises (and entirely covering the area where the hyacinths grow - hopefully since they are different seasons they won't affect each other at the root/bulb level). I have a few more scatter throughout this garden and the one on the other side of the house.

I kept ready that since they were a local plant that thrives in our climate, they should be hearty and happy. And now finally, I believe it. Let's hope they don't take over - I have no idea if they spread or not.

Another plant that was supposed to be hearty and wasn't - until now. Salvia. I don't remember exactly which kind. I planted May Night Salvia once, that I'd ordered bare-root from a catalog. This isn't that. Once trend with these plants - the ones that come back seem to be the ones that I plant fully alive. I don't have much luck with the bare-root ones. These also are getting huge - they crowded out the little rose bush that was in between them, so I had to move it. Some heavy rains caused them to flatten out on the ground a little, so they take up a massive footprint.

Our magic carpet spirea continues to impress us in every season. Here it is in late spring. It's a favorite of bees at that time, until the flowers vanish right around now:

Our butterfly bush is waking up despite the fact that we have totally ignored it and the base is overgrown with weeds and grass. And our strawberry seduction yarrow and lilies looks awesome!

Somewhere along the way, we decided to make an effort and buy some solar lights for our path. Two years ago, my parents gave us a rag-tag assortment of lights - some had broken stakes, some had broken plastic, some didn't light. Between them all and after testing several combinations, we put together a set of six:

But fast-forward to this year and most were dead or cracked or something. Seeing a sale at Target for lights that were only one dollar each, we decided to try a few new ones:

They look cute and work (for now). I just wish that Target hadn't put the price sticker right near the top and affixed with very sticky glue. We peeled them carefully AND used baby oil and there is still a sticky spot on each one.

Next onto the trees. The baby's hawthorn is doing ok, but actually came down with a fungus - Cedar-Hawthorn Rust. It's too late to treat this year, but next year there is a fungicide we can spray on before the fungus finds its way to our tree from some (presumably nearby?) juniper.

The spooky thing is that it came down with a fungus around the same time that our little girl did - she caught ringworm (which is a fungus, not a worm). Cue the Twilight Zone music...

But that is the anomaly. The blossoming tree in the front of our house has grown taller for the first time since we moved in. Even our rather sickly looking magnolia tree is in bloom:

And this tree! It has fluffy pink puffs on it. Anyone know what it is? (And if the answer is something like Fluffy Puff Tree or something, I'm going to kick myself for not just searching the internet for the answer.)

OK, that wraps up the post, finally, in lots of pictures. How are your gardens doing?

Why you should buy the real thing

I love finding bargains, but I'm learning that some things aren't worth the savings. The kitchen is a good example. We make moderate use of the kitchen, making most of our meals during the work week from scratch. Our utensils and gadgets get quite of bit of use. For example, we now have three spatulas. Each one gets used about once a week. 

Our first new-to-us spatula came from Crate and Barrel, when we were using up some money from a gift card. I saw a nice looking black spatula that looked flexible and skinny: the Hammarplast AB spatula from Sweden (Design: Karl-Axel Andersson/Morgan Ferm). After about four years it was starting to wear down and lose its stiffness, so I went on Amazon and bought something that looked like it. The Norpro 97 My Favorite Spatula with Holes. 

Hammarplast on top, Norpro on bottom

Hammarplast on top. Much nicer construction.

It looked similar and was a lot cheeper ($5 versus $15) so I didn't think much of it. Three years later I took a closer look at the two and was surprised to see how poorly the (apparently Chinese made) Norpro was holding up, despite being half the age of the Swedish Hammarplast.

Norpro

Hammarplast

The Norpro 97 is flaking off in large pieces, while the Hammarplast is gracefully wearing down. The Norpro is also as floppy as a fish and cannot hold up anything heavier than an egg. Unfortunately I cannot find the Hammarplast online, except in a suspicious Amazon posting that seems too cheap. I assume they are out of production now. Probably because idiots like me were buying the cheap knockoff.

Vinyl isn't just for old records

Sorry to leave you in suspense - life got a little crazy right after our window install, so I didn't have a chance to check back in. I am happy to report that everything seems have gone well and we have new windows. We haven't really opened them very much because we are running our AC most of the time, but they seem fine. Honestly we weren't expecting much - this isn't a dramatic change like our bathroom remodel. It looks like it did before, just with windows that now have screens. Presumably we have better sound dampening, but we live in a pretty quiet neighborhood anyway. But in any case, here's the day, in pictures:

Because our house was built before 1978, the company had to remove the windows according to special lead mitigation processes that the government put in place since the last windows install in 2010. That involved sealing them off from the inside -

 Putting up crazy hazmat signs -

Wrapping up the old material in tight little bundles that look mina like mummies, and even putting up bright yellow "caution" tape around the whole front yard of the house. I felt like I was at a crime scene.

 Here's our giant picture window, sitting all sad and ready to be destroy:

Here's the same view from inside, with the new window being placed with the help of a giant suction cup (now I feel like I've moved from a crime scene to a heist movie - I think those are usually used to climb up the sides of buildings...)

First the installers blew insulation spray foam into the exposed window frames, then they placed the new windows into the frames. Then they caulked and capped the outside and then caulked the inside. The steps were pretty boring, so I didn't get them on film. They claimed the interior caulking wasn't hazardous but the nasty smell makes me think there were at least some VOCs.

Here are some pictures of the finished product. Unfortunately, some paint came up from the large picture window sill. The sill is pretty gross anyway so this is probably a good excuse to paint:

 Shiny new window (looks a lot like the old window but whiter):

Here's the big window - still kitty approved, apparently. You can see that now the white house trim looks incredibly dingy against the bright white vinyl and aluminum.

Here's a normal window from the outside. I wish I had thought to take a "before" picture. For me, it's one of those instances where you know it looks different, but you never paid enough attention to the previous view to really be able to place exactly how and why. Besides the bright white vinyl, I think the aluminum capping is broader.

We didn't lose any actual window or sill, though we did lose some of the frame (we have to completely reinstall the blinds to the outside instead of within the frame now). But at least now when the weather is nice we can open them up! We opened up the two side windows of the picture window area a few nights ago and it was nice to have a breeze.

Now if only the guest room and office weren't still in such a disarray from having to move all the furniture...

Here I wait...

The current state of the living room:

Let's home the full installation takes place in one day. Preferably a rather short one so I can go get the little girl from daycare early or at least on time. Since they are doing lead-mitigation because our house was built before 1978, she wasn't allowed to stay home and hang out with me while I babysit the installation. Not that I would want her here in all this craziness.

It's weird how echoey a room gets the second the curtains and blinds come down. I don't usually think of window dressing as a sound damper but it most certainly is.

Windows again

Back in 2010, we replaced all our upstairs windows. The home has all its original 1950s windows with the exception of 3 in the back of the house that got added when the previous owners updated the kitchen. While we were still living on the first floor of the house, we got new vinyl, triple-pane windows upstairs, so they'd be waiting for us as we moved ourselves upstairs. We don't open the windows too often but at least now they have screens in them so we can when we want. Plus they offer some better energy efficiency and, icing on the cake, we got a tax refund for them. Unfortunately, I remembered to blog about the process of getting estimates and some follow-on work, but seem to have completely forgotten the most interesting part (from a photographing perspective) - the installation.

Well we used up that tax refund but this year we decided it was finally time to update the main floor windows as well. We decided - due to our minimal free time thanks to the baby - to only get 2 estimates: 1 from the company #1 who did our upstairs windows (we did have some issues getting them to replace the screen but in all we are very happy with the windows) and 1 from company #2, our second choice company from 2010. We were 99% set on using the same company but wanted another estimate for comparison. It was a surprise to us - we ended up deciding to switch companies. Time will tell if we made the right decision. In the end, the two companies had identical prices (last time, #1 was cheaper by about $100 per window) and similar products. #1 offered us triple-pane to match our upstairs and #2 offered us only double-pane but with almost comparable energy values. There are way too many values to compare easily- it had a higher U value (good), similar solar gain and light transmission, but higher air infiltration rating (bad). The results of our energy audit, however, indicated that windows do not represent a significant source of energy loss.

There were 3 deciding factors:

1. Most important - the vinyl edging felt more sturdy and welded together and looked a lot prettier. Almost like wood trim. While the upstairs and downstairs will not match, we thought it was more important to have a more "wood-like" look for the main floor since it is more visible. Our upstairs window frames are more hidden by aluminum siding (rather than standing out from red brick) and, obviously, higher and harder to see.

2. We liked that they are going to install tempered glass in the bathroom. We got into a little discussion with #1 over whether tempered glass should have been installed upstairs during the first round of new windows. When #2 came to give us an estimate a few weeks ago, they said we definitely need tempered glass in the bathroom to stay within code, because the window is close to the tub. #1 says we don't, because the window isn't in the shower/tub, but confirmed with #2 that the actual rule says that you must install tempered glass if the window is within 5 standing feet of the shower/tub. To my mind, it is - actually both bathrooms are. So maybe they are interpreting the rules differently. Either way, better safe than sorry and I wish we had pushed the issue in the upstairs bathroom.

3. The biggest question we had was how to deal with the giant picture window with two smaller windows in front. #1 suggested making the two smaller windows casement windows. #2 wants to keep them as regular double hung windows, which we prefer. The only problem with going with #2 is that they would charge a few hundred extra dollars if we break the installation into two phases (i.e. doing the regular windows this round, then the picture window plus side windows in another year or so). #1 didn't charge extra to come back again later. We didn't necessarily want to get it all done at once, purely because it is so expensive. But we might as well bite the bullet and do it all together - that way they all match and we deal with the mess of installation only once.

Which brings me to the last point - remember that we did the upstairs before we had any window dressing or furniture...Even though I knew logically that it would be more complicated this time around, I groaned yesterday when they called to schedule the installation and reminded me that I have to remove all blinds and curtains AND move furniture 4'-6' away from every window "or as far away as you can." Yikes...:

Well I guess I know what we're going to be doing this weekend. Sigh...

But hey, at least this window that broke over 4 years ago is finally going to get fixed:

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