Happy Holidays!

A little late for many of the December holidays but still in time for New Year! We added to our outdoor decorations this year at the request of the pre-schooler, and Mother Nature contributed to making this a cozy wintery scene. Intentional or not, we ended up with a very candy cane-themed yard, thanks to some hand-me-downs (the hanging candy canes and the large ones nearest the house) and some new purchases (the walk way lights - these were by far the cutest inexpensive choice). Our icicles don't twinkle but they do have a white or a color lights setting. The whites, being cool LEDs, just do not seem festive enough (yes, I know they are "ice" but they still need a warm holiday glow). Plus they were so bright that they shone too brightly in our windows after we put the kids to sleep. So we went with rainbow lights - the first choice of said-pre-schooler anyway.

Because only the front two large candy canes actually still worked, we thought that looked weird also so we unplugged them and added them to the candy cane chain lining our flower beds against the house.

We probably should turn the lamppost bulb so that it doesn't stay lit, as I think it was so bright it distracted from the holiday decor. All the new lights definitely lowered the effect of the red and green laser lights - it's so bright around our house that they are barely visible (can you see them in the picture below shining on the house front?).

And an indoor picture - this year we didn't have a chance to get a shot until Christmas Eve, so here is the decor after Santa already paid us a visit. Good thing we remembered to unlock the child-safe fireplace lock so he could get in and leave us presents:

Humidity or Fire Hazard?

In 2010, we bought a Frigidaire dehumidifier for the basement. We started using it in earnest for the last two summers, after realizing that running it constantly set to about 55-60 percent humidity really kept our basement from becoming damp. Add to that a cat that decided to make the entire basement carpet his litter box plus the necessary subsequent cleaning and the basement was damp and stinky without it.

We alternated between putting in the finished part of the basement and emptying the bin and putting it in the unfinished part of the basement and hooking up the hose so that it drained directly into the floor drain. Either way, it ran for a large chunk of the time and we watched our electric bill go from a rating of "great" in comparison to other similar homes to just "good." It was worth it for the fresher basement.

Until last month when a visiting friend happened to notice it and told us that our dehumidifier, which ran all the time including when we were out of town, had been recalled A YEAR AGO because it was a FIRE HAZARD.

Yikes.

So we cut the cord, literally:

The way to get either reimbursed a paltry $90 or so (we don't remember how much we paid but think it was closer to $250) or accept a new dehumidifier of their choice was to cut the cord, write our name and date on the thing with permanent market, and then send in a picture. We chose to take the dehumidifier because even if it's awful, it will probably last at least a couple of years.

It has a comparable tank size and is even energy star, so who knows - might even be an improvement.

We won't know for a while though, since now that it's winter, we're more in the season of humidifying than dehumidifying. Our two humidifiers in the bedroom are running all night trying to keep us from waking up with dry, scratchy throats and stuffy noses. So stay tuned for spring when we turn this bad boy on and see what it can do.

Siding Sighting

Back in May, we had our siding power washed because it looked a little dingy:

 But then this happened in July:

Interior repairs were done a little after Labor Day but you may remember a hint from the end of this post that there were still some exterior issues. Between September when the contractors "finished" their work and November when we made them come back to fix something we weren't happy about, the exterior looked like this. Can you see the problem? It's pretty subtle, which is why I'm posting a bigger-than-usual picture:

Can you find the problem? Does this remind you of those Highlights magazines from when you were 8?

How about now?

They used different siding than what we already had - instead of just coming down just shy of vertical, it comes out at a sharper angle and then goes to vertical. They warned us that they couldn't find identical siding "anywhere" but that they would be able to blend in the replacements. We didn't feel like they blended in well enough and we were pretty annoyed.

So after a bit of finagling with our insurance company and then some scheduling difficulties with the contractor, two months later they were back on the job, to replace all the siding in the whole cut-out area so that it matched.

 We still aren't really thrilled with the results. At least it all matches on all three sides. It doesn't match the siding anywhere else on the house, but there isn't too much and it won't typically all be in view at the same time (remaining siding is on both sides of the house plus some outside our sunroom).

It looks much better than during the two-month interim, and we think that one day we'd like to replace the whole thing with Hardie Board. The thing that made us most mad was this: We didn't actually discuss with them in advance what kind of siding they would use (besides that it had to be white), assuming they were making the closest match they could given the age of our home.  But after they were done the job (which took a whole day, surprisingly) we did a little research of our own and found Home Depot sells siding identical to ours, in shape, if not size (we didn't actually measure). It's just order-only and not in stores. When we mentioned this to the contractors, they made some kind of lame excuse about it not being in stock when they stopped there that morning to buy it. But they knew for at least a month that they would be doing the job.

Well at this point, we're done for now. I don't really want more people wandering around on our slate roof and it looks better than before. But we certainly won't be using the same people again for future repairs. They were nice enough and did an ok job, but just had no eye for detail. At least finally, four months after the tree hit our house, the repairs are done. Now we're just still wrangling with the insurance company for our final pay-out!