Replacing our Sewer Lateral

May 16, 2016

Well, this was done 2 weeks ago, so it’s about time I finally get to it, right?

We knew when we got the house that we were at least going to have to replace ONE of the sewer laterals. There is a new rule in (at least) Oakland where upon sale of a home you need to have the sewer lateral tested to see if it has to be replaced. That’s $800. And you have to do it. Or else you leave thousands of dollars (in our case $4500) in an escrow account. If the test fails, you need to replace it (normally nowadays a seller will already have had it done, but it wasn’t for us because it was a distressed sale). If you replace it 99% of the time the company will credit that $800 test fee to the replacement cost. If it passes the test, woo-hoo, you just blew $800 for like an hour of someone else’s work. It’s annoying.

We had an estimate done when we were in contract and knew there were 2 sewer laterals for our house – a little out of the ordinary. We knew that at least one needed to be replaced, and they would test to see if the other one needed to as well.

When they came two Mondays ago they said it was supposed to take 2 1/2 days, but they were pretty sure it would only take 2. Famous last words.

They started digging on the kitchen side of the house – where they knew it needed to be replaced based on the estimate they had already done (they could tell with their camera that there were breaks in the pipe). They began digging at the clean out, and also where our pipe connects with the city – we are responsible for everything between the house and where it connects to the city, and the city is responsible past that.

The clean out was pretty easy and went without too much trouble because it was only about 2 feet down. But man I felt bad: the connection with the city was 9 1/2 feet down! The spent the entire first day laying things out and digging the clean out hole and this hole

The next day they came out ready for more digging. They first dug out the THIRD hole on the bathroom side of the house (where we only knew it needed to be tested)

Easy, only 1-2 feet down.

But then they went back to the giant hole and worked and worked and worked

I felt bad for them. Digging fucking sucks. And it was hot. It’s their job, and they’re good at this, but that doesn’t mean getting sweaty, dirty, and TIRED digging for 5-7 hours isn’t hard ass fucking work. By late afternoon this is what I saw out the backyard

If you look hard, you’ll see one guy standing up, and the other laying down – with his head in his hands. In defeat. Why defeat? Welp, they dug in the wrong place. And he was EXHAUSTED. He was normally super friendly and nice, but when I went out there to see how things were doing, he couldn’t even look at me. They needed to dig 2 feet over. And 8 1/2 feet down. That fucking SUCKS. And they all knew it

There’s pretty much nothing else to say except that was a really shitty discovery. When their boss came by the morning before and told them where to dig, he was just slightly off. And they had to dig again. I felt so fucking bad for them. Chris gave them a tip at the end of the day because you could tell they were so tired and they basically had to start brand new the next day

So they came back out on Wednesday, and finished the SECOND hole. This time only 8+ feet down. Instead of 9 1/2. Oy

But the good news is that they got all the digging and the replacement done on Wednesday. Hooray! THEN they had to finally move on to the third hole on Friday (Thursday at another job) that they had dug up earlier

Luckily when they did the pressure test there were no leaks in the main pipe, hooray! We did find out with flushing of toilets and showers that there were breaks in the connections right here (above photo) so they replaced those for us so we didn’t have any sewer water leaching into the soil, yay! Once they were all done, they filled in all the giant holes and replaced our clean outs

All in all it took them 4 days (instead of the 2 1/2 they budgeted for) and came in with a price tag of about $7500 – I was afraid both sewer laterals needed to be replaced, so it was less than I was preparing myself for. Hooray! And the good news is that we submitted our paperwork to EBMUD, so hopefully that means we get our $4500 back out of the escrow account soon that they held as a “deposit” to get this work done. All these stupid rules… but, at least we’ve got an item checked off our 2016 to do list, and for a couple thousand bucks less than we were bracing for. Progress!

Selling Your Beloved, Blogged About House

May 9, 2016

I’ve thought about writing this post for a while. Picardy closed about 3 weeks ago. Yes, I assume you’ll have 2 reactions: 1) that happened FAST and 2) why have you waited so long to spill the beans!? I know, I agree with you about both things.

But there was a lot I was thinking about. It’s a tough post to write – how do I describe the adventures? How much information do I reveal? What am I feeeeeeling? A lot of questions for myself.

But I think I’m finally there.

When we were first looking for a house, waaaaaay back 7+ years ago, Chris and I were just breaking into working in Oakland. We had lived here for a year (I had grown up here, but had spent the last 3 years away). Chris had just moved here. I was going back to school to finish college. We skrimped and saved, but still, living in Oakland was expensive. We qualified for a certain amount, but because the housing crash was EPIC and we were in the middle of it, basically no bank would loan money to us for a fixer: we were young, had multiple part time jobs between us and the market was awful and people had received horrendously large sums of money on loans for houses without ever really getting their income verified. It was a good time for us to get a deal, but it was a bad time for young, part-timers like us. We had the income for a loan, but for a giant fixer banks wanted CASH. ALL CASH. And, well, we didn’t have $300,000+.

When my parents were young, they worked hard. They were married at 19, had kids at 21 and 24. One worked while the other went to college. They put their nose to the grindstone. They had the dream of owning a home, but couldn’t quite get there either. My great grandma loaned them money to purchase land and build their own house while my brother was in diapers and just before I came along.

And, so, they did the same for us. Passing it forward. My dad joined the house search with us and we were lucky enough for him and my step mom to help us purchase a house. Chris and I were very lucky – my parents had the financial means to help us out, and they were also trusting of us to endorse the adventure. I know, we were very lucky.

So that’s how we began our Picardy Project. Our rent was the renovation to bring it back to life. It was a financial investment for my parents, and a lesson in our future for Chris and I. As the years wore on we were able to save more and more money as we worked harder at our day jobs and as we needed fewer, large, lump sums to invest into the house. That fortunate situation allowed us to save for our future home – the house we are in now. We were able to save for a large down payment because as I’ve talked about before, the market is crazy now and the more CASH you have, the more people like you, I mean, will sell to you 🙂

I know, we were INCREDIBLY lucky. None of that luck is lost on me. Or Chris. Part of me has wondered if I would talk about how we financially landed in Picardy because I wondered if people would think we somehow cheated the system or got a free ride. I also know that finances are really no one’s business but our own, but I wanted to be honest about the whole experience. We were able to find ourselves a fixer with the help of my family, but we worked fucking hard to get it where it ended up.

So when we put the house on the market, there was a large joint decision that needed to be made. My parents were obviously the financial investment, but they also understood the incredible labor of love that we poured into that house. So we all came to an agreement that it would be a 50/50 decision.

We went on the market for $589. We looked at all the comps in the area and our agent let us know that nothing on the street had gone for over $6 before that she knew of. We were pretty confident with the price and our finishes, but we didn’t want to be greedy. So we thought it was a fair price to offer at. We had two weekends of open houses and there was an absolutely amazing response. Our agent let us know that on a good open house she has 60-70 visitors. We had over 100. We had friends and family visit the house while it was open and they shared all the amazing things people said about it. I know you should never need someone else to compliment you to justify a good job and that you should just simply have confidence in yourself. But I am here to tell you – that was an absolutely wonderful thing to hear. And it made me feel damn fucking good. Like, amazingly wonderful. I cried. It felt awesome to have people pay such close attention to the detail we put in, and have them appreciate it so much. It warmed my heart.

I started to get super antsy for when offers were going to be due (pretty customary nowadays around here to have a due date). We waited and waited as she slowly let us know that 5 disclosure packets were out, then a dozen, then about 20…and when we finished there were 30+ disclosure packets out. I was flabbergasted. Even my dad was. And he’s involved with real estate investments all the time and has purchased and sold ummm, I think 5 places in the last 10 years (Wendy never thinks she’s going to live somewhere for long…)

We waited with bated breath.

But on offer day, I had a panic attack around noon. I suddenly FREAKED THE FUCK OUT that we were going to have to say “NO” to people. For some ridiculously crazy reason I never thought about that. And suddenly I remembered the fucking feeling of losing out. Of being so amazingly excited to put an offer in, so scared of likely being rejected, but just hoping to be lucky. That feeling blows. It sucks. I hate it. And we were going to do it to a bunch of people. My heart sank. I cried again. Obviously there were lots of tears involved in this process.

At 4pm our agent called us and let us know that there were 25 offers. Yes. TWENTY FIVE. I was completely dumbfounded. When I called to tell my dad (he was at the dentist when the agent let me and Chris know) even he couldn’t believe it. And when he heard the amounts of all the offers he was even a little shocked. I mean, he literally didn’t believe it. Like, he said, “I’m not going to believe it until it closes escrow.” We were all just shocked at the amazing response that it got. We were all very proud of the house and knew it was an amazing space to hang our hats on, but it was just about the most wonderful thing to experience – so many people loved the house so much. I couldn’t believe it.

I had work that night at the A’s, so Chris and my dad went through all the offers with our agent and I conferred on the phone and via text when I could. Many of the offers included letters from the prospective buyers. I was able to read them as well as they were forwarded along and we weighed through everything. Many letters mentioned their appreciation of our attention to detail (which I was so appreciative to hear) as well as our blog (we disclosed that the home was blogged about, so many prospective buyers had read through parts of this website). In the end we chose a buyer who made a great offer and seemed to be a pretty wonderful lady. Her letter was so heartfelt and she seemed like a wonderful person to carry the torch of our first home. And from the perspective of me, Chris and my parents we felt immense pride at the record we set for the street and our neighborhood. It felt incredible.

But then came the hard part of saying “No” to a lot of people. So Chris and I wrote a letter to them. I don’t know if it mattered to them, or if they were angry about it, or if they thought it was stupid, but it made Chris and I feel better. We knew the feeling of losing out and we wanted to let everyone know how appreciative we were of the love they felt for our beloved Picardy house. It was a labor of love and we appreciated their love as well. It was an amazing feeling.

Escrow was fast and without one hiccup at all. It took 8 days. Our agent said she couldn’t remember the last time she had such a quick and easy escrow. I guess it was the universe’s way of rewarding us for the adventure of getting our current house. The day before escrow closed I went back to the house to do a walk through with the new owner and our agents. Chris opted to not participate because he wanted to close the book on the house and had already emotionally moved on, but I definitely jumped at the chance.

Our agent let us know she doesn’t really do that very often, but it really was a passing of the baton and she felt that both the new owner and I would benefit from it. I was scared and nervous, but it ended up being a really good experience. We all spent an hour walking through the house talking about things we had done, memories we experienced and what she was going to use each room for. It was a lot of fun. And it felt like the perfect way for me to close the chapter on the house. I didn’t really know if I ever wanted to go back after we moved out, but it felt like the best experience that could have happened. I loved getting to hear her love the house so much. And I loved getting to tell her how much we loved it. It honestly makes me teary eyed thinking about it again.

So, good bye Picardy house. This blog’s name will never change because you taught us so fucking much and we love you for it. We sweated, cried and laughed inside of your walls. You taught me to have an even harder work ethic, to always see things through to the end and to give back to something what it truly deserves. I hope you loved us as much as we loved you.

A Bomb Went Off

May 6, 2016

This photo that I took of our bedroom yesterday is the perfect example of life right now

Toilet paper: I went to Costco Monday and I still haven’t unpacked the toilet paper for this bathroom

Closets: we’re redoing our closet situation and these boxes have been on the ground for 2 weeks. Untouched

Bed: I don’t think I EVER make the bed

Towel: Merritt spilled a full cup of water all over the carpet, and that towel got soaked

Laundry: we haven’t done the laundry in almost 2 weeks. If you hadn’t guessed it, that means our washer and dryer still aren’t hooked up. And at the end of last week my dad and Wendy’s washing machine broke. Doh! They should be able to have it repaired, so that’s good news for them not having to buy a new one. Phew! It also means we should REALLY get our own washer and dryer hooked up. I have one last pair of underwear. Not joking.

I worked the A’s last week Friday night, Saturday day, Sunday day, Monday night and then Tuesday night. That means nothing got done on the house while Chris was child wrangling and I played catch up the rest of the week on all my other work stuff. Obviously nothing of our doing has happened on the house in the last 8 or so days. Though we are having our sewer lateral replaced at the moment, so that’s kind of progress on something

But if you can’t tell from the body language of the gentleman sitting on the bucket, this project has not gone as planned for them as well. They came Monday morning and declared that they planned 3 days for it, but it should only take 2. Well, as of yesterday afternoon we still had some giant holes in the backyard

I think we should all just get a pass on this week 🙂 Hopefully this weekend will see some progress on things because hot damn I’ve only got clean underwear to last me through tomorrow…

Buh Bye Palms

May 2, 2016

Friday I took this picture…

… And asked the folks of Craigslist to help rid us of them. There was nothing wrong with them, they just aren’t our style. I actually really do not like palms. I’m not sure what it is, I just have an aversion. I’m fine with them lining the street, but I do not like them in my yard. Again, I cannot find any actual reason that makes sense, they’re just not my style.

I don’t like just ripping things and destroying things, so our posting told people that they could have these babies for free if they would just be so kind to do the work for us 🙂 Within an hour of posting we had someone lined up the next morning and 6 others in my email in waiting. Hooray!

So Saturday morning before I left for work at the A’s Mr. Palm arrived and quickly removed two of the three. But then he had a family emergency and had to go. Doh!

I drove to work, Chris wrangled the children and in true Craigslist fashion NONE of the 6 in waiting pulled through to get the last palm. Isn’t that always hour Craigslist goes? So yesterday morning before leaving again for work at the A’s I posted a picture of the last palm and attempted to see if someone would get it and within 90 minutes someone was at our house taking it, yay!!! Craigslist is so weird to me, people are either THE BIGGEST flakes, or just completely 100% on top of it. It’s really only one or the other, nowhere in between. And this guy was pretty awesome. I told Chris I wasn’t married to anything in the planters and he said the guy took two other plants and even gave Chris $20 for it. We said he could have them all for free, so it was kind of great for him to do that just because he was awesome.

It was pretty exciting to get home from work yesterday afternoon though and now have this view

It’s so much more open than it used to be. I LOVE having those guys gone. It just opens up the house SO MUCH

Now there is an openness between the porch and the driveway. The yard and driveway feel like they are part of the house to me now, instead of the house more just being placed in the center of the driveway.

Now the question becomes what to do with the planters. I don’t really like annuals. But I have a reason for it this time: I’m lazy. Annuals are something I’d have to plant every year. And let’s be honest: I’m never going to do that. I’m also never going to water anything. I know this because we’ve had planter beds like this before and I’ve killed everything each year. Because I was lazy.

What could go here? Not annuals. Not anything I need to water. Drip can’t really be set up without noticing it or involving a pump…. SUCCULENTS! Chris actually had the idea. I was stumped and I couldn’t think of anything for the life of me, but Chris just popped the idea out: a succulent garden

I love this idea for 3 main reasons:

1) I can be totally lazy: after the plants have been established they can be ignored 🙂

2) I can use a lot of attractive plants that are low. I don’t want the plants to block the view of the house. I love how open things feel now so I don’t want to take that away.

3) I think I can use a lot of great colors that will really pop against the darker color palette we’re going to go with. Heather, master gardener from Just a Girl with a Hammer commented to me on Facebook that plants really pop against a dark color scheme and that she wished she had gone even darker. Sold!

The big kicker is that I know NOTHING about succulents. So any help anyone wants to give me would be much appreciated 🙂 We won’t be planting until after the house gets painted, so we’ve got a couple months before things will be going in, but does anyone have some great resources on succulents that they have? Or any specific plants they love? Help educate me 🙂

Merritt: 10 months

April 29, 2016

Smiley face is 10 months old now

Comparison pic, duh

Cuties. Both so smiley and goofy. And inadvertently the same sort of range of colors. Lol. I do that all the time on accident.

Merritt is still just one of the happiest babies. Honestly, she is always in such good spirits and is just totally content to hang out and be around everyone. It is such a joy to see a kid that is so easily pleased with herself. And everyone around her. She is just happy as a clam to be around everyone and part of the party.

One of the things that makes her happiest is Zoe. LOVES her so much. And Zoe still loves her too (frequently at bedtime she asks if baby can sleep with her). But the adoration in Merritt’s eyes when Zoe is playing with her is just about one of the best things to see. They’ve started to play together and you can actually leave them alone to entertain each other for 5-20 minutes at a time. It’s pretty awesome. Having babies close together is paying off from time to time lately 🙂

One of Merritt’s FAVORITE things is when she’s sitting in her highchair and Zoe runs back and forth behind her. Merritt just follows along turning from side to side wiggling those feet a mile a minute and cracking up. It happens maybe every other day at breakfast or dinner and I always look forward to the interaction. Zoe laughs so much and Merritt laughs so much. It just gets them both so excited 🙂

Speaking of the highchair: holy crap Merritt L.O.V.E.S. food. I thought Zoe was in love with food, but Merritt takes it to an entire new level. I’m still nursing her about 5 times a day (and once a night), but every morning when she wakes up and she crawls over to the coffee table banging it or looking at me grunting ready to eat. And it doesn’t stop throughout the day. Always the grunting, always the demanding of eating. I joke with Chris that with the amount that she yells at us for food when we’re out I fear people don’t think we feed her. But I will have just nursed her, she will have eaten 2 pouches of food, a small tupperware of blueberries and then she spots you eating some crackers and she just starts yelling and grunting at you demanding to eat some as well. One time I had nursed her, she’d eaten some blueberries, corn and a pouch and then I sat down at the coffee table to eat a sandwich. She literally came crawling over from across the room, stood up at the table, and started grunting at me and pounding the table. It was hilarious. And she will take BITES out of it.

The girl finally got her first two teeth, yay! I was wondering when she’d pop some out. They’re still really bitty and only just broken through her gums. But they have made an appearance!

One thing I’ve noticed about her is that she loves toys with wheels. I first noticed that she liked this little pink car a lot at my dad and Wendy’s house. She would usually find her way to it each week when we’d be dropping Zoe off. But then I started noticing that she would usually gravitate towards the toys with wheels that we have at our house as well. We’ve got several train cars and old matchbox cars of Chris’ and she would find one and just start fiddling with its wheels and running it along the ground. Her favorite is definitely this red car to build with blocks that’s in these pictures. I wonder if she’ll continue with a love of cars and trains. I hope so

No walking yet. Zoe walked at 14 months. She was also standing at 7-8 months. So obviously the two had no correlation for Zoe 🙂 Merritt has been obsessed with standing this month. She’s finally figured out how to sit back down (sometimes), which is good because she would get frustrated with not being able to get down from a standing position. But she likes to stand everywhere. Especially at the coffee table. She was trying to take a step or two for a while when you would hold her hands. But she seems very content now with just standing.

The thing I’ve really noticed about Merritt is that she works really hard to master one task at a time. She doesn’t really seem to like to multi-task. She works on one skill, gets it down, practices it for a while till she masters it, stays content with it for a while, then realizes there’s a new discovery that needs to be made. She’s very focused on learning one thing at a time. I remember Zoe sort of being all over the place is trying to figure things out. Merritt is very methodical and thought out. It reminds me a lot of Chris.

She’s started also understanding how things work a bit more. For instance, she likes to try to put her pouch tops back on. When she gets it she becomes QUITE pleased with herself. It’s adorable. Zoe has a toy kitchen with pretend fruit and veggies that are velcroed together that she can “cut” in two. Merritt will take two of them and sit on the ground for 5 minutes trying to put them back together. It’s adorable to see. She sits there on the ground with this sweet little face she always gets when she concentrates and just tries so hard to stick them back together. I love her determination.

She’s learning lots of fun new skills. In addition to the high-5 she had down we now having waving, blowing kisses and clapping. And she does all of them with a giant smile. Duh 🙂

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine started watching her for a couple hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Merritt is definitely super attached to mommy and in the next couple of months she’ll start going to day care with Zoe. I’ve also become slammed with work now that my brother has started to get busier (he bought a new place in SF and we MIGHT do some renovation on it, it’s still up in the air). It got to the point where just working during nap time wasn’t cutting it anymore, so thank goodness for my friend. It’s helping me get a lot of work done, and it’s a nice ease into Merritt getting used to someone other than mom taking care of her. It helps that she knows my friend and sometimes her son comes to play with her as well, and she really likes him.

Well, that’s how life is going for this 10 month old. Just happy as a clam and loves to enjoy life with you. This little lady has such a sweet and gentle spirit.

Pontificating about Paint

April 27, 2016

After Chris realized he forgot his plumbing tools at a job site and couldn’t work on installing the washer and dryer he worked on prepping the exterior for paint (meanwhile I’ve been head child wrangler – so is the life of renovating with a toddler and a baby.) There’s is nowhere near the amount of prep work for this house as there was for Picardy, so that’s awesome. And if course our painters factored in their prep, but there is still some work that needs to be done. So Chris spent Saturday going around the outside of the house and ripping down cable and conduit. The conduit was on the outside because someone at some point wired an outlet by running the wires outside, instead of inside the wall. Fucking people. There are also A LOT of cables alllll over the outside. I of course never took a good picture, but trust me: a lot. Apparently over the years whenever a new phone line, or Internet line, or cable line, or satellite dish cable was installed, they just left every single other thing in place. It was a tangled web of useless wires all over the outside of the house. But Chris was able to get most of them down, so that’s good. There’s still some patching that needs to be done here and there, but a lot of our prep is now done.

And that got me thinking about what color to paint this sucker

At first I was thinking a creamy white. With dark charcoal trim. It seemed pretty safe and a really standard California Ranch color palate

But I love dark houses. LOVE. REALLY LOVE. There was a black house that was around the corner from us on Picardy and for years whenever I went by on walks or morning runs I always admired it. But I was scared. It is a lot to paint a house that dark. And so I pondered the idea on Facebook. The wonderful thing was that in less than an hour so many of you help push me to do it. It was an immediate voice of reason for me: go for what you want and don’t be afraid. I WON’T BE AFRAID! Why was I afraid? Well, it’s a dark color and our eaves are really deep, and so I had feared that it would make the house look even darker

But you know what? Paint color is never going to change how deep the eaves are. The house is always going to look a lot more set back and have a shadow cast. And I actually thought that having the lighter color on the posts, and fascia would be a brighter introduction to the house – that it would really pop off the darker background of the body of the house.

Also, there isn’t a ton of body to paint on the front because of the brick facade

And I think the dark color will really help set off the brick because I really want to leave that natural. Nowadays brick is frequently painted on the exterior of a home, but a really like ours. Part of that is because it’s in a small dose. If the entire exterior was brick, I might rethink that.

What dark color you ask? I’m thinking a brown gray/black. I want a nice neutral that ties into the brick well, brings out the mortar and lets the other colors going on outside (eventual plantings) really stand out. I haven’t looked into paint colors too much, but maybe something like this

This is Benjamin Moore's Carbon Copy — This is Benjamin Moore’s Carbon Copy

Like?

And I’m thinking a BRIGHT blue for the front door. I loved having a yellow door at Picardy, but wish it was a little brighter. So for this house I really want a POW of color like this

The next question was what color for the trim, and do the eaves get painted the same color? On the sides and back of the house there isn’t anything too special with the trim. The eaves are of course all the way around, but what the front also has are all the posts

In order to figure out what the hell to do about all the color choices I decided to use a computer application to upload a photo of our house and then pretend to paint it different colors. I decided to use Benjamin Moore’s program (most major paint companies have an equivalent program, though some don’t let you upload your own photo, and some don’t let you upload exterior photos). I used BM because I love their paint colors, so I figured it would make the noise sense to be able to test out there colors virtually on our house (and BM has no idea I’m writing about them, I just wanted to share my actual opinion about their program). You have to register in order to upload your own photo, but I was screwing around with the program on Sunday night and I haven’t been spammed yet, so it hasn’t proven to be a poor choice yet. I uploaded a photo of the front of the house and started working away. In using the program you basically create different layers and select what you want in that area with a “paint brush.” The program is supposed to be able to recognize objects and help color around them to make your selection, but this function wasn’t working very well for me

I didn’t need things to be perfect any was sloppier than I should have been, but I just wanted to get an idea of what the hell my paint colors were going to look like

I worked at creating all my different layers and adjusted how things were painted. Chris had the idea to have a 4th color (body, trim, door and then a second detail trim color). The only kicker was I wasn’t sure how to separate those two trim colors. Would the window trim, fascia and posts all be the same color, and then the eaves be another? Would the posts be the different color? Ultimately after about 45 minutes of changing things all around over and over and over again (which was actually really helpful) I finally settled on the plan (these are NOT the final color selections, just an idea of the color range I like)

The plan: color 1 is the body of the house. A dark color. Color 2 is the first trim color and it will be the posts and the eaves. It will be a light color. Color 3 is the second trim color and it will be the trim around all the windows and the fascia. It will be a bit darker than color 2. Color 4 will be all the doors. I’m thinking bright blue, but this isn’t set in stone. I like having the link between the window trim and fascia, so neither stick out like a sore thumb. And having the eaves and posts painted the same color will look seamless.

What do you think? I’m looking forward to the actual paint job being a lot less sloppy than this one.

We’re not on the painter’s calendar yet. There is a bit more prep work to do. And we still need to replace this basement door as well

We got a salvage door on Sunday. It’s a really weird size (36 x 70), so nothing in store would work. And we want solid wood, which would be expensive to order. We got a single panel solid wood door that we can cut down without too much trouble for only $100, so that’s not to shabby.

Making these little bits of progress are definitely making me itch to get things painted. It will be such an awesome transformation.

Because You’re Never Too Old to Bring Your Laundry to Your Parent’s House

April 25, 2016

Right? You’re never too old to bring laundry to your parent’s house? I hope so. Because it’s been, ohhh, about 6 weeks. Luckily my dad and Wendy are very understanding that every Monday when I drop Zoe off for the day I also being two GIANT hampers full of work clothes, every day clothes, toddler clothes, baby clothes, towels… like I said, they’re VERY understanding. We were hoping to have the laundry up and running by the end of the weekend, but Chris is working on a bathroom remodel for a client right now and he left 90% of his plumbing tools at the job, just not remembering at all about our house work this weekend. Doh! So Wendy got another load of laundry today at her house 🙂 I hope it’s the LAST one though.

Why do we have no laundry at the new house? Well, the seller’s stole the washer and dryer, but we wanted to get new ones anyway. But the bigger item is that we wanted to move them to another location in the house. The hookups were in the garage and because we really want to have the largest and most awesome workshop space, we decided to move them down to the big room. I know this might not please some people – having their washer and dryer in a living space – but this room is over 500 square feet and having in it the waaaaaay back against the wall doesn’t feel too strange for us.

When we first moved in it looked like this

We wanted that pony wall taken down, so we did this

After we moved in and got the big room painted (partially at this point) it was looking like this

Shortly after this point Chris got started moving things in order to bring the washer and dryer in here. The nice thing about where we’re moving the laundry to is that the line from the garage into the big room is super easy because it goes through the basement which means there are less walls that need to be opened up along the way. But still, obviously a giant hole needed to be opened down here in order to hook things up

First up, the water.

Originally the sink was in the corner. So the water hookups are as well. We want the sink to be on the same wall as the washer and dryer all in a line, but because the sink cabinet is going to be in the corner, leaving the lines and drain at the same spot are okay

But Chris tapped into the water line to bring water over to the perpendicular wall for the washer hookups

And you see that yellow tube? Chris also brought the gas line down over here as well for our new gas dryer

Things were looking pretty snazzy! After all the new plumbing was tended to we put up drwall

We used purple board because this will be a wet space. Then it was time for mud and tape. We don’t need it to be perfect because cabinets and the washer and dryer will be sitting in front of the wall, but we still wanted to have things taped up

You might also notice the cabinet in here now, yay! We decided to get Ikea cabinets. We didn’t want to spend a ton of money and were curious about the quality of their cabinets. The cabinets in here don’t have to be exceptional – they just need to hold the sink in place and store some shit. The two cabinets together (a 36″ sink base and an 18″ one for between the dryer and the window) were about $500. Not terrible.

Building anything from Ikea is always an adventure

I hate those stupid stick figure drawings. The nice thing is that we use their closet systems A LOT for clients and so building the kitchen cabinets was very similar and not terribly hard.

We needed to get a pretty large sink cabinet to house our AWESOME new utility sink

The top sink will be the utility sink in the garage. And the bottom one will be the utility sink in the laundry room. I normally HATE double bowl sinks 🙂 but we thought it would be good in the laundry room for pre-washing things, rinsing things off, soaking things, etc. Why are they so dirty? Well, they’ve been sitting in the driveway for about a month, but we also bought them salvage. An experience in the rain that Zoe thought was amazing

It was POURING rain (I had Merritt in my sweatshirt tucked in with me), but Zoe thought it was just about the most awesome thing ever. She was running all over, jumping in the puddles, it was pretty adorable.

We bought the two vintage, cast iron trough sinks for $75 each. They’re very large and sturdy, so we were happy with the price. The unfortunate thing is that we aren’t super thrilled with the quality of the Ikea cabinets. I know they’re a lot better now than they used to be and that they actually get reviewed very well but customers – so we were excited to try them out and see how we liked them. But that utility sink is heavy and unfortunately we have to add some bracing to it in order for it to hold the sink. The backing is also just an incredibly thin layer of melamine. They use the same thing on their closet systems. I don’t mind that for the closet cabinets because it’s just storing clothing, but I definitely prefer a more sturdy construction for kitchen style cabinets. We’re fine with them in this space, but I wouldn’t personally use them for a kitchen.

We’ll desperately try to get the laundry up an running by the end of this coming weekend. It’ll be a bit of a challenge because I’m working the A’s Saturday and Sunday (both day games) and so Chris won’t be able to get a ton done. We’ll probably work some week day nights to be able to get it done. I know my dad and Wendy don’t mind us bringing our laundry over, but I would like to adult-it a little more and be able to do laundry at our own house where our newly purchased washer and dryer are sitting, patiently waiting to be filled with clothes to clean and dry.

Welcome to the Exterior of the House

April 22, 2016

I realize that I haven’t really shared what the outside of the house looks like, so let’s get to it. First, I know you’ve seen the front, but let’s show some more

I absolutely love the porch

Walking up to this house the porch really sold me. I always wanted a house with a giant porch, but I never thought I’d get it, because here in the Bay Area porches aren’t really a “thing” so not too many house have them. But I can’t wait to put some swings up and do some really good hanging out here.

Eventually I would also like to tile the ground of the porch. That’s probably phase 2 of the exterior of the house

I don’t like the chipped paint tile and we could just paint it over, but I think new tile would look pppprreeettttyyyyy 🙂

The patio

We have that little patio area that at the moment is covered in children’s toys. I’m not sure eventually what it will evolve into. But for the time being I think it’s a good place for the toys.

This weird gazebo thing will be going

At one point there was a hot tub here because there are water lines leading up to it. We’ll take this down (it’s falling apart JUST a little), and we’ll build or buy a shed and it will store our outdoor equipment.

Now for the main part of the front yard

Oy. There is a LOT going on here. I don’t like cutting down trees, but this is pretty over grown and they really planted things willy nilly

I think 100% of the bushes will be removed. But other than that I have no idea what the plan is. And we probably won’t work seriously on it for several years. I’ll probably rip stuff out, but I’m not sure any seriously planting or redesigning will be happening for some time.

The driveway isn’t in great shape

We slip on it, so I’ve got to get it cleaned up. It’s cracking and definitely needs to be replaced at some point. We got a quote just to know where we’re at – a repair and slurry is $9500ish, and a full replacement is $11500ish. So yes, it will wait a while. I’m just hoping one of us doesn’t bite it really bad down it.

Garage side if the house

Nothing really that exciting. Eventually this “deck” needs to be replaced because there is a lot of dry rot. But we don’t really use this too much, so it’s not a priority at the moment.

The other side of the house

Eventually we want to construct some stairs to get down this hill

And this door goes to the basement

Yes, strange that this door has no doorknob. You can’t open this door from the outside which is completely weird. Before we get the house painted it’s on the to do list to replace this door. And I actually realize I haven’t blogged about the basement yet either, which I definitely should because there is AWESOME storage down here.

Aaaannnnddd the back of the house

I LOVE the back of the house. It definitely needs some work to get to amazingness, but it’s got potential. You like the exterior “curtains” that are up right now? 🙂 It’s helping to block light into the girl’s rooms as we still haven’t fully finished their rooms and so proper curtains are not up.

But I feel like the back of the house has soooooo much potential. First off, the deck: definitely needs to be repaired

Definitely needs to be ripped down. It’s not in anywhere close to good shape. I’m so excited to tear this down and rebuild. The plan is to build it deeper than it currently is so it feels more like a space that you can hang out on because right now it feels more like a thoroughfare. We also want to build stairs so that you can get to the backyard from the first floor.

The transformation that’s going to happen with a new deck and a new paint job is going to be fucking awesome.

And here’s that view

Ahhhhhh. That’s what we’ll get to see when we hang out on the deck. Loooooooove. We’re probably going to cut down one tree to improve it. I know, I know, I know. Normally I really hate cutting down trees. I am normally 100% against it. And I feel like a bit of an asshole for cutting it down for the view. But that view is fucking awesome and that tree is just shoved right in the middle of it. To pay it back I’m planning on planting a bunch of (smaller) trees in the backyard. Ohhhhh the backyard

Swoon. Well, not really at the moment because it’s so overgrown, lol. But I love that there are about 3 levels to the yard that are each flat. The first area is right off the back of the house

This will be where we hang out. The more communal area where we eventually put in a patio, maybe a playhouse for the girls or a swing set 🙂

Then you go down a little hill and it’s the second level of the backyard

We’re not entirely sure what we’re going to do with this level. But I think the plan is to have more plantings down here – veggie beds, more trees, etc. Just a casual, more natural setting.

Then the third level

This is the back of the property and then an easement. There’s a pretty steep drop into this wooded area so we’d like to build a fence that encloses this area. But it’s nice to have this great wooded area for the girls to go adventuring. Chris and Zoe already have 🙂

Cuties.

So there you have it, a little introduction to the exterior of the house. As we work on each project I’ll of course get more into things, but this feels like a good intro.

And speaking of getting more into things: I’m HOPING that we’ll get started on the exterior paint in the next month or so. We were waiting while we had to pay for other things, sigh. But now I think we’re just about ready, which is pretty awesome. We’ve got to take down worthless wires, replace that basement door, etc. Then it’s time. Yay! It will be super exciting for this transformation. I can’t wait, eeeeeeee! 🙂

2016: House Goals

April 20, 2016

I thought that because I talked about the not-going-to-happen-for-a-while-kitchen on Monday, that today I should talk about what we actually plan on doing this year. We’ve got goals!!! I used to do a post about this each year and I would have a little sheet up in the kitchen so we could check shit off – the joys of checking shit off 🙂 But I don’t even know if we did one in 2015. And we certainly didn’t do one to start off 2016. But hey, January or April – it doesn’t matter. We’ve got goals!

Here’s the list (in no particular order)

Get this house painted!

I cannot wait for this! This is both needed, and just selfishly wanted. The paint is failing and so we definitely need to get it done sooner rather than later – that’s the part that’s practical. But we also really WANT to paint it. It’ll be a really great impact and make it feel fresh. We wanted to do it right when we moved in, but we had to wait to get some other projects done first.

2. Ohhhh the sewer lateral

This project is not glamorous or exciting – but it has to be done. There’s a rule in Oakland, that is something along the lines of if your sewer lateral hasn’t been replaced in the last 10 years and you buy a house, you have to replace it (don’t quote me on how exact it is). Annoying yes. Especially when you have to leave a deposit in escrow that you don’t get back till it’s done, and you only have a specific amount of time to get it done. Our sewer lateral does need to be replaced despite this rule because things drain REEEEAAAAAAL slow. But it’s a pretty hefty chunk of change (at least $10, we have TWO, ugh). I’ll of course document the experience, but I’m sure it won’t be very riveting.

3. Get a couch for the downstairs

We’ve got the TV hooked up now, and it would be pretty nice to have a couch in here to sit on while we watch it. I don’t know about you, but sitting on the concrete floor does not sound too appealing.

4. Remedy our master closet

I really don’t like this closet. I don’t know what the hell it is (well, there are several reasons), but really my distaste is a little severe. I mean, this room isn’t terrible. But it just makes me itch. I dislike this area for our clothes storage. But I’ve got plans. Obviously – it’s a goal this year 🙂

5. Organize the other closets in the house

This might seem like a weird goal for some. But a nicely planned out and organized closet just makes my heart flutter. We have the foyer closet

sorry for the COMPLETELY blurry pic – the foyer light went out and I took this early this morning before the sun was really up

This one will just have some drawers and shelves for shoes, hats, bags, etc. Then some room to hang jackets. And a little nook to the side for the vacuum and broom.

The utility closet downstairs in the big room

Just shelves in here. It’s right next to the future laundry so it makes sense that this will be where the cleaning supplies live.

And the last one, the art/office closet

This is the closet in the big room where the furnace used to live. It’s right by where our desks are, so it makes sense that our office supplies live here. And, I don’t know if you know me, but I’ve got a lot of art supplies 🙂 So this is where they will live. We can’t get all the boxes unpacked in here because there isn’t any shelving. It’ll be nice to get that in here. There will be a lot of patching and repairing to do in here, but I can’t wait till this closet looks nice and snazzy.

6. Finish Zoe’s room

Ugh. I really wanted this room to be done before we moved in. And clearly that didn’t happen. We still need to patch a little here and there, texture, then paint. After that it’s the little/fun stuff like hanging her artwork and rearranging some things a little bit. She’s very excited to show anyone who comes to the house her “new big girl room!” So it’ll be nice to actually have it be done 🙂

7. DECK!

I realize I need to write a post about the outside of the house! When I posted about the house I had barely any pictures of the exterior. At least this little tease is something 🙂

When we first moved in we knew that the deck needed to be replaced. It is VERY old. The railings are questionable, there is moss all over it, and it definitely is not structurally sound. We’ve had long talks about what material we want to use, what size it will be, what kind of railing…etc. This will be a BIG project. I really hope we’re able to tackle it this summer and fall. Right now we don’t let the girls on it, and we don’t go in the backyard as much as we should because we just don’t like going all the way downstairs to get outside. We play in the front a lot as a result. It will also be AWESOME to just sit out on the deck in some chairs and take in the view at night. Watch the girls play in the backyard…I can’t WAIT to tackle this project. I’m so excited!

8. Organize the garage!

Getting the plywood up, building all the shelving, building all the work surfaces, putting all the tools away…there’s a lot that will go on in here, but it’s definitely VERY necessary because at the moment it’s pretty hard to find things.

The last two are maybe/hopefully projects.

9. Install ceiling lights in the living room

There are no overhead lights in here. At night we use a work light. Zoe hates it. So it’s usually dark in here. We still haven’t put in a lamp – because we’re lazy. It will be great to install some recessed lights. I can’t stand when there are no overhead lights.

10. Build the living room built in

Please note the smattering of toys and crayons (the little one is obsessed) that are litering the floor

Right now we’ve got random furniture serving as our “entertainment unit.” And we’ve currently got about 15 boxes of DVDs downstairs that are waiting to be unpacked. We have shelving that Chris built 10+ years ago, but we have more DVDs than will hold them, so we don’t really want to set those up. We’d LOVE to have a built in span the entire wall of the living room. We’ve calculated how much room all the DVDs will take up and building the entertainment unit will be enough. It’s just a time issue. Well, and a plan is needed. We’ve tossed around ideas of what we want it to look like, how it will be constructed, what it will be built from, what the finish will be, etc. We still haven’t nailed it down yet.

So there you have it. A year with house goals! It feels so good to have projects to get done. What are you excited for? Any words of advice? I feel like it’s been so long since we’ve had a niiiiiiiiice LONG to do list 🙂

I Fucking Hate this Kitchen

April 18, 2016

I hate this kitchen. I was going to write another post about the progress of getting our washer and dryer installed (spoiler: we’re still taking our laundry to my dad and Wendy’s). But when we were driving home from getting ice cream with the girls…

… Chris and I somehow got started talking about the kitchen. My secret that I didn’t want to tell Chris was that I HATE the kitchen. There are SO MANY projects in this house and many will take priority over the kitchen – both for cost and time – so I haven’t really wanted to stress Chris out with another thing I want to tackle that we don’t have time for 🙂

But Chris told me, “I don’t know about you, but I’m already sick of that kitchen.” HOORAY!!! I cannot tell you the joy I felt in hearing that. It made me so happy – HE HATES IT AS MUCH AS ME!

But don’t get too excited yet. Sadly we likely won’t be able to really sink our teeth into this space for another 3 years or so. Why? Well, we estimate that it will probably cost about $30k. We want to do about 90% of the work ourselves, but we also really want to do the job exactly how we want it. There will be a lot of cabinets – probably $10-15k in cabinets. There will be a lot of countertops – probably $5-8k. We’ll take out the tile and install hardwoods. We’ll need a new cook top and oven. A GIANT sink. There will be a lot of tile for the backslash… You can see how things pretty quickly start to add up. So the project will be something we need to save for.

Now you also know why it makes SO MUCH SENSE that I’m posting about this now 🙂 But I’m just really excited about my dissatisfaction with the kitchen and Chris sharing that feeling that I’m going to get 3 years ahead of myself. M’kay? 🙂

First off: I FUCKING HATE WHERE THE LIGHT SWITCH IS

I always walk into the kitchen turning tightly around the fireplace. And then I realize the kitchen is dark as fuck. So then I need to walk back out of the kitchen and into the dining area to flip the switch. And then walk back into the kitchen. Yes, I know that’s not that big of a deal, but I do it several times a day, EVERY DAY. Sometimes I wonder why people don’t pay more attention to where switches should be. That one drives me insane.

2. The cabinet doors never stay closed

Always. Open. Never. Closed. Always.

Those fucking upper cabinets are open all the time because they never god damn stay closed. Always. It’s so annoying. I’ve smacked my head into the doors several times. And it feels really sloppy having the doors falling open all the time.

3. The counters. Oooohhhhh the counters

I cannot tell you how much I FUCKING HATE these counters. First off, you already know the ceramic tile is my least favorite counter material. They just feel dirty ALL THE TIME. And they’re not 24″ deep. Which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when it’s a couple inches short and you’ve got a drying rack, or fruit basket and you’re trying to put a cutting board in front of it and it doesn’t fit – it’s pretty aggravating

Ooh, and there’s this ridiculous lip on the front of the counters

So the cutting board never lays flat. And the plates don’t either. Ughhhhhh.

4. I HATE DOUBLE BOWL SINKS

Ooh my fucking god I HATE having a double bowl sink. I HATE IT. It makes washing anything bigger than a plate such a fucking bitch. We cook at home a lot and washing pots and pans is highly annoying. We had a giant single bowl at Picardy and boy do I miss it.

5. I really love having a big pantry, but when you’ve got a toddler having it all open isn’t so great

The pantry at Picardy was tiny. So it was always a challenge trying to fit everything. This pantry is probably a little more than twice the size. That is AWESOME. But Zoe can also see where all the food is. And likes to constantly take it down from the shelves and go “grocery shopping” because it is always completely accessible. This is both adorable and annoying because I’m constantly wondering where the hell the baking powder went.

6. I’d love to change the cabinet layout

There is actually a shit ton of cabinet space in here, which is pretty great. We actually don’t have most of the cabinets completely full (probably only about 75%)

but it just feels a little awkward how things are laid out. I can’t really put my finger on how it feels strange to me, but it just has a really chopped up feeling to me.

7. I can’t wait to make things feel more open

I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS! I loved how the kitchen was more open to the family area at Picardy. I really got tied to that more open floor plan. Now when Zoe yells at me that she needs something or Chris is watching a basketball game I have to holler that I can’t hear them and then come running around the corner. It’s like a teaser of an open floor plan. The kitchen is around the corner from the living room, but there’s a super thick brick wall separating the two so it’s hard to really hear what’s actually going on. I can wait to rip out that pantry wall and have the kitchen open to the living area – he peninsula will go bye bye and instead we’ll have a floor to ceiling pantry cabinet and the fireplace will stay – don’t worry! 🙂

8. It just feels dirty

I think we just have PTSD from when it looked like this

The previous owners left it SO GROSS. In the photos you can’t see the grime EVERYWHERE. It’s certainly 100% cleaner now than it was. But it just feels so dark, dingy and dirty.

So there you have it, my whining post 🙂 I just forgot how awesome it is to constantly be cooking and living in a kitchen you like. We gutted Picardy the second we moved in and then had a working kitchen 9 months later (yeahhhh, took us a little while 🙂 hehehe). But for almost 7 years I never had to deal with these little annoying bits. It definitely made me spoiled, yes, I know. Very spoiled. And I can’t wait to get back to that point. A cleeaaannnn and functional kitchen that feels more open to our living space so we can all hang out and talk while we’re cooking, the kids are playing and there’s a baseball game on TV….. ahhhhhh, the dream 🙂

Merritt’s First Baseball Game

April 15, 2016

It’s that time of year…….BASEBALL SEASON!

Baseball is a big deal in my family. I played for 7 years before switching to softball (and hating it), my brother played for MANY years, Field of Dreams is one of my favorite movies, we went to COUNTLESS games growing up, the A’s are the best around, and there’s nothing like day baseball in the summer time to make you have the best day. Now I get to work for the A’s too and it’s pretty much a dream – getting paid to watch my favorite sports team, ahhhhhhhh 🙂

Many people at work and who I’m friends with wonder when will be the first game that I take each girl to, and the answer is very simple: Opening Day. I go EVERY year with my dad like religion. So it’s only fitting that such a special game with my dad becomes a special game for my girls. 2 years ago I did the same thing for Zoe

And last year she went to Opening Day as well. I’m hoping to make it a tradition to take the girls every year. We shall see if I can keep it up.

But back to Merritt! 🙂

Last Monday was Opening Day, and therefor we made the pilgrimage to the Coliseum. I was a lot more nervous for Merritt’s first game than I was for Zoe’s – Merritt REALLY likes her 6:45 bedtime. She can be pushed to 7, but she usually likes it earlier. And she’s like Chris – a lot of stimulus makes her very tired and overwhelmed. Naturally I was a bad parent and took her anyway 🙂 I got really lucky and her nap schedule got all messed up that day. She took a long morning nap, then fussed going down for her second nap, so she didn’t fall asleep for nap #2 till about 4:30. Normally I would have just said fuck it and had her not take the second nap because it was so late, but this was perfect – my dad picked us up at 5:30 and we headed off.

When we went with Zoe we ate at the restaurant inside the park and got there early, but this time with Merritt’s nap and the parking fiasco (we were probably among the last 20 cars that got into the stadium before the lot was full) we walked into the stadium with only about 20 minutes before the game started

We got lucky with some seriously awesome weather. Hooray!

We got to our seats and settled in

Look very closely next to my dad – that is a DRUNK ASS 70 year old. Like, SUPER drunk. And a bitch. She had both elbows on the armrests and my dad was basically sitting sideways to not bother her (because she was so annoying) and she kept insisting that he was elbowing her the whole time. When my dad had Merritt on his lap making sure she was facing us, the lady was positive that the baby was kicking her. She also told him that we had no business bringing my kids to a baseball game. WHAT?! Listen you fucking bitch, BASEBALL IS FOR FAMILIES AND IS FOR KIDS. My dad finally told her really politely when she kept harassing him, “Why don’t you have another drink so you fall asleep.” BAHAHAHAHAHA. I love my dad. Luckily she left in the THIRD INNING. Obviously SHE has no business being at a baseball game.

I’m not going to lie – the game was stressful. Zoe was really excited to get to go because she knows that, “Mommy works at the baseball game!” But it’s hard having an almost 3 year old sit fairly still (we put her in the seat between me and my dad so that if she was flailing all about she was only whacking into us and not bothering anyone else). Merritt was happy as a clam to sit on my lap

Or to have Zoe play with her

But I wondered how long she would be able to last. Zoe was totally fine falling asleep in the Ergo, but Merritt loves her crib – she hasn’t fallen asleep in my arms since she was about 1 month old. She’s very particular about where she likes to sleep. I resolved that I should be very pleased if we got through the 6th inning (about 9 o’clock). I should consider that a crazy success.

Zoe needed a bit of coaching to get there

But once my dad took her inside to the bar she was very happy. Yes, the bar. She liked being inside a lot more than being outside for some reason – normally in life for her it’s the opposite and nothing makes her more happy than being outside.

Merritt happily sat on my lap and we enjoyed the game together for a an inning or so by ourselves. It was actually a really nice moment. Much of the game I had been stressed out taking care of the kiddos, wanting to make sure my dad had a good time, annoyed at that bitch bothering my dad (I was telling my boss about her at work the next day and he said I should have texted him her seat and he would have gotten her kicked out, hehehehehehe). It made me wonder if I’ll keep taking them to Opening Day each year. I treasure that game with my dad. Baseball is really special for me and my dad. I loved playing baseball growing up and having that bond with him. I loved playing with the boys and feeling tough and having my dad support me so much. I loved going to games with him. I still love going to games with him. It’s a tradition that many people who know me know about. Baseball + my dad = happiness. And I want to pass that tradition on to my girls. But man, it is HARD to really enjoy a game when you have little ones with you, and I wonder how much THEY enjoy it. I’d love for Zoe and Merritt to be able to say they’ve been to EVERY Opening Day their whole lives. But I also don’t want them to feel burdened by that. If they end up not liking baseball it’ll make me sad – but I really don’t want them to feel forced to like something because I love it so much. There are also 80 other home games every season, and although I work A LOT of them, I can always go to other games with just me and my dad. Because even though I’m 30, I still like my father/daughter time – that guy’s the best 🙂

I hope my girls like it too.

Our New Furnace

April 13, 2016

When we were in contract on the house we knew that we would have to replace the furnace. It was really old, not efficient, had asbestos ducting, didn’t work in some places….you get the idea. We could have spent money repairing it, but in the near future it would need replacement. We’ve resolved with this house – because we want to live here forever – that we just want to do things once. We don’t want to do “quick fixes” or put band-aids on things. We want to save up, and put our money where our mouths are and do things right.

That was a tough pill to swallow in the case of the furnace because this house is about 2500 square feet and on two separate floors. We wanted things done right, so we wanted to make sure we had the new system on two different zones (one for each floor), we wanted a good air filter, we wanted a coil for the air conditioner we would put in at a later date (it doesn’t get hot ALL THE TIME, but there are definitely times during the summer that we would want one). It wouldn’t be quick, easy, or cheap. But we wanted it done right.

We put together a spreadsheet while we were in contract of things we wanted done and researched who we would call for getting quotes on the furnace. All 3 contractors came in within the span of 3 days to give us quotes. Two came in around $12k and the third was a little over $14. We had thought it would be around $12, so we were right on target (it helps being in the trades when you’re budgeting for this stuff!) We disregarded the highest bid and went back to fine tune the two around $12k. Each had made different specifications on their estimate, so Chris clarified things, made sure they were going to do certain things, etc. We finally settled on a company called ASAP Heating and Cooling. They had a really good Yelp reviews and we liked that the owner was always communicating with us very quickly.

The timeline got pushed out a bit because the asbestos remediation took longer than we thought it would. They were supposed to have all the work done before we moved in, but instead they got started on moving day. That kind of sucked. It made things a bit crazier, but you gotta do what you gotta do. The good news is that this giant furnace taking up almost an entire closet got yanked out on the first day, hooray!

I had high hopes for this company because of all the great reviews, but Chris and I weren’t impressed unfortunately. The work was supposed to take 2 days, MAYBE 3. It took 4. And every 4 hours each day it felt like they were telling us, “Oh, the end of the day today,” and then, “Oh, it’ll be done tomorrow morning…” It was frustrating. ESPECIALLY because it was such a noisy process and because I have Merritt with me each day I had to take her out and drive her in the car for naps because we couldn’t stay home because the work was loud (totally understandable). And she only sleeps for 30 minutes (like CLOCKWORK) in the car, so I had a VERY cranky baby on my hand for several days.

They also weren’t very clean. I know this is really being nit picky, but I really pay attention to that. Whenever Chris and I work for a client we always want things looking at least AS CLEAN if not CLEANER than when we got there. I feel like that’s just a polite thing to do when you’re in someone’s space. But they were pretty messy. And with the madness of the move having their shit everywhere on top of that was frustrating at times.

Part of the plus side of replacing the furnace was getting a rebate from the state for things being more efficient. One big bummer we discovered while working on the project was that our water heater wasn’t pitched properly and causing some problems for the new furnace and therefor we wouldn’t be able to get our rebate unless it was fixed

That sucked. ASAP said they would fix it, but they quoted me and Chris two separate prices (WTF?) We resolved that we would rather spend about $1500 for a new water heater than spend $400 to fix the old one, only to have to replace it in the near future because it’s on its last legs anyways. Another tough pill to swallow, but we really want things done right the first time.

So on the last day that the furnace guys were here, they were only able to do our testing for the ducting

This test proved for our rebate to go through that the ducting was efficient (I believe it has to be above 82%, but I could be wrong), but in order for us to get the full rebate we would have to wait until our water heater replacement was complete (something we’re currently working on, and almost done with).

We were very happy that our furnace passed the test, but we discovered that night after they were all gone and their job was “done” that in the process of their wiring the furnace they disconnected power to 1/2 of the downstairs. That was an annoying discovery. Half of the big room had no power, our bedroom had no power, and our bathroom had no power. To find that out at 10:30 as you’re trying to get ready for bed is a little annoying. Luckily, we have Chris around 🙂 He was able to get power working to our bedroom that night, and then rewire things PROPERLY over the next several days so that all the power in the big room, our bedroom and the furnace were all working properly. It would have SUCKED to have to have called them and waited till they could get out to fix the problem. It was annoying enough that they fucked up so that our power didn’t work, but luckily we were able to fix the problem ourselves. I always love paying “experts” for things, and then they break something else.

In the end though, once our water heater is replaced we’ll have a new water heater, a new furnace, an entire closet back (that is now filled with artwork that needs to go up all over the house…)

…and a rebate check. It still sucks having spent almost $14k total (furnace and materials for the new water heater we’re installing ourselves), but it’s also really nice knowing that we’ve got brand new, working systems in place that will last us many decades – a cost we have to pay for up front, but will definitely save on as time goes by because they’re much more efficient.

« Previous Page