Beauty and the "Beast"

Remember that ugly old stove that used to sit in my kitchen? Well, it's gone now and guess what has replaced it? A sleek new black stove. It did take some time to get this stove to it's final resting place as there was a "platform" that was infringing on it's ability to sit on the floor. But, Ma & Pa H have a new friend, Handyman Dave, who brought his supercool "Sawzall" (a reciprocating saw) that did the trick! He had the wooden platform out in about 20 minutes, even with the battery dying on his tool. They asked him to come back in a few weeks to help with the attic vents.

How to Save $175 Plus

1. Get a "Do-it-yourself-home-wiring" book
2. Have determination and guts to cut holes in the drywall of your house
3. If the electrician tells you "no," do it anyway...

Well, that is the premise for how Pa H put in the wiring for the living room ceiling fan. Ma H didn't get too mad at the four holes that were left in the walls since they saved money on it anyway. (Except that she will have to paint the living room too, now.) And, oh yes, the electrician did come, but he had less to do thanks to Pa H's nifty new skills at home wiring. Pa H also put in a new electrical outlet in the kitchen that will be dedicated to the new space saver microwave. The electrician's estimate was 7 hours of labor and he suggested against it, due to $70/hour for his workers. But, Pa H was undetered and put in the hours himself to run a new circuit line to the kitchen. Needless to say, where there's a will, there's a way.

The electrical work is mostly done now, with new outlets in both bathrooms rounding off the improvements. The next big HIP will be the insulation that needs to be added in the attic. Pa H has been working pretty hard in my attic lately, drilling vent holes, and sealing up the cracks. Yup, this is going to be a good winter, I think. Everything good and sealed with a warm blanket of new insulation to keep my family warm.

9 Gallons of Paint, 4 Ceiling Fans and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Well, it's not Christmas yet, but there sure is a lot of shopping going on. I have seen Ma and Pa H come home with stuff from Home Depot at least 3 times this week! They bought paint & primer for about half the house, ceiling fans for most of the rooms, another garage door opener, and lots of other little things. The wallpaper has come down in the master bathroom. with pink paint learking underneath. Even the wallpaper in one of the spare bedrooms is coming down and it has been on my walls since the 60's. Oh yeah, lot's of changes still to come.

Just today, I think I saw Santa Claus come through the house. Ma & Pa H are looking at getting some electrical work done, so they had a guy come in to do an estimate. He had a long white/gray beard and was a rather rotund fella, so I don't know how he will get around up in the attic, but somehow I'm sure he'll manage. Also, a young fella came and gave us an estimate on insulation for the attic. Looks like we can get up to R38 fairly easily.

Oh by the way, Ma H's camera broke, so there may not be too many pictures for a while until she gets it fixed. The End.

Houseguest

Surprise, surprise, Ma and Pa H had thier first houseguest come and stay with them this weekend. His name is Mr. Iba and he is a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. He is visiting while his Master, Ma H's brother, is out of town this weekend. He is housebroken (thankfully) and doesn't bark too much, except for when he gets locked in his cage and left alone. He loves to run outside and play with a little orange ball. He follows Pa H all over the house and whines when he goes into the garage or somewhere little doggies shouldn't go.





One other thing you should know about Mr. Iba is that he likes to eat small metal objects. In just the past few days, Ma and Pa H have found screws, paper clips, bobbie pins, pennies and a variety of other little things in the mouth of this guy. I guess he thinks he is not getting enough iron in his diet or something.

I think this will be a good learning experience to help Ma and Pa H decided what kind of dog they want to get when things settle down a bit with all the house projects. It would be so fun to have a little friend around while the H's are gone most of the day at work. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy....

Saying Goodbye

The same time that Pa H was busy with his projects at Coolidge, Ma H was scrubing down and cleaning out their previous home, a duplex on Murdock street. "This was the first home we knew as a married couple, and so it is kind of special to me. I remember when we were looking for a place to live just a few months before the wedding. This was one of the first apartment/duplexes we looked at. I knew it when we walked in that this was going to be our new home. It was very surreal and exciting all at the same time. We looked at a few other places, but nothing had quite the same charm as this little home and we snached it up right away! I think I'm going to miss it a little," Ma H said of the place. Pa H was not as sentimental and as he was already thinking ahead to all the projects to be conquered at the Coolidge home, and didn't have much to say for the place. So here is one last glimps of the Murdock duplex were good times were had over the past year and a half. Goodbye!

HIP #2 and #3

Just a few days after Ma and Pa H moved in, they noticed that the shower heads were not quite adequate. In the master bathroom, the shower just drip, drip, dripped. Not so much fun to shower under. The other shower head spewed water out around the shower head, not through it. So, yes, the next project (HIP #2) was to fix the showerheads so Ma and Pa H could get a real good cleanin'. The master bath showerhead was a really simple replacement. Unscrew the old one, screw on the new one. Easy as pie. The second showerhead was not to easy. It was originally just a bath that had been converted to a shower, so there was a pipe that ran from the faucet up to the place where the showerhead comes out. Unscrewed the old one, but this time the threads came out of the pipe too. Uh-ohh. Now what? So, Pa H spent some time trying to figure out what replacement was needed. Lukily, the handy hardware store, Sutherlands, is only a short 5 minute bike ride away. Sutherlands had a complete shower fixture replacement, including a new showerhead, faucet and pipe...not exactly what Pa H was looking for. Ma H had a really great idea though to just replace the end piece with a threaded adapter. They found the right piece, used a little plumber's epoxy... and walla, the new showerhead is now working. Yeah!!

In the meantime, Pa H did a fantastic job on HIP #3, the garage door opener. Ma H was really impressed with her husband's skills at installing a gararge door opener. It took several hours, but Pa H said the instructions were very straightforward and easy to follow. And now, the North garage door opens with a push of the button! The South garage door already has an opener, installed in the 70's, they think. It will be the focus of a future project to remove it and replace it with one similar to the other side.