We have a couch!

Today we went looking for a couch for the living room. Our backs and butts hurt from sitting on the family room floor with the baby, even though it has a thick pad its on cement slab. We had a few things on our wishlists:

1. Long enough to fill the 136" back wall against the kitchen.
2. Leather, for durability, preferably in a brown tone.
3. (Mike) Arm chair with a recliner, a "media chair" with arm rests on both sides that could face the TV. Although I was opposed to arms on both sides in the middle of the couch.
4. (Bree) Either a sectional or chaise that would extend seating into the family room. Although Mike was opposed to a chaise.

We visited one place, didn't really see what we were looking for since it was a "take it as it is" kind of place. Of course, we went next door to Video Only to price out flat screens. We currently have a 35" old tube TV that we inherited sometime in college. It and the monster entertainment center it sits on that is 10+ years old need to go. Video Only is having a big sale for Labor Day so we will probably go back and get a $60" Panasonic plasma for <$2000.

After that we headed to Bassett furniture, which is where we got our dining room set 6 years ago. We weren't really expecting to see much since they're a design studio, too. We started looking around and got approached by a sales person. She directed us to the sectionals in leather and pointed out a floor model. It was dark brown leather and huge but it was a possibility. We ended up learning more about sectionals while we were there which was helpful. There are different "pieces" to sectionals that you can piece together, like at the right. There are armless chairs, left and right end chairs that can recline, corner pieces that are square or wedge shaped, and consoles with cupholders and arm rests. Some even have "oversized" pieces that are 1.5 or 2 times larger than normal ones.

This particular piece has a right manual recliner armchair, one console, two armless armchairs, one corner wedge and a right hand powered recliner armchair. It was a floor model that was on a massive mark down because the line was being discontinued. Its replacement line was also available and we looked at that, too. We took measurements and went home to feed the baby, get her down for a nap and said we would return later. Once we took more measurements at home we thought it could work! We were so optimistic we dropped off the baby at Mike's parents' house and traded our car for their van.

When we went back and looked at the piece, we were able to get it marked down even more, for a total of 60% off! The sales rep had done her homework in our absence. She had priced out each individual piece both with and without the sale price, written the size specs down for each and worked out a total. She did the same for the replacement line in case we decided to create our own new one rather than going with the old one. The new line was available in leather but only a dark dark brown that was almost black so that nixed that idea. While we were sitting on the sofa, to really make sure we were ready to take it home, we started looking at the arm chair that matched it. Mike decided he really liked it and asked to add it to our purchase.

So we ended up with a 6 piece leather sectional sofa (two reclining armchairs, one powered, one console, two armless chairs and a corner wedge) plus a separate reclining armchair for less than half the original price of the sectional. Even with tax it was all <$4,300! We love that place and highly recommend it.

The only tricky part of our great score was getting it out of there. Since Bassett is a design store, they don't usually have people walk out the door with their furniture. Usually you custom order furniture and it is made in their warehouse, then delivered to your house. Since they didn't have any "warehouse guys," only sales people, they had no one that would help us move it. Apparently every cripple in the place was working that day. The manager came over to assure us that even though we saw a man working there, he was a grandpa and had tendinitis so he shouldn't help. And our sales person apparently visits the chiropractor weekly. They lent us two dolleys and let us move the van up close to the door. Since it broke down into pieces, all less than 3' across, it wasn't too hard to move. Even though the sales people all said they couldn't, two of them helped us get it on dolleys and they all helped with the doors. They were all really nice about it, you could just tell they weren't used to manual labor. Makes you wonder how they rearranged the floor designs all the time?

We managed to get the whole sectional in the van but just. We had to leave the armchair to come back for tomorrow. It was a very packed van. We drove back to our house and on the way we realized that when we left our car at his parents with the keys, we left our house keys. Luckily his parents had a key to our side gate on their key ring for getting the dog. We unloaded everything and with manuevering, we got it into the patio. We figured it would be fine until we came back from dinner at my folks.

When we got back, Mike managed to get each piece in the house by himself while I put the baby down. We played with a few arrangements but had some sticking points. We don't want the couch to go into the space in front of the stairs into the family room. We don't want to cover the floor register that is in front of the back door to the patio. We don't want to block the door to the patio. We found one arrangement that will probably work. Right now it feels a little cramped but we're used to a completely empty room. We plan to live with it until we are both off again this weekend to see what we think long term. We may opt to take out the wedge and have it all against the wall. I would just have to find somewhere to put the wedge. I think it looks great and we are currently both relaxing on it; which is so much more comfortable than the floor.

We have a fence!

Yesterday our fence posts were put in along the back fence and along the north side. We had to put the fence in front of the existed barbwire fence because the barbwire fence belongs to the rancher. Today the view fence, also known as deer fence, went in along with the horizontal supports. The workers were here early, around 7:30am, dropping off materials so they could go get the wood. They were done around 2pm! It went up so fast!

We still have to have the front gates done and fence added above the retaining wall. We let Beau out, off leash, while we were in the backyard. He ran right up to the top of the stairs and then stood there. Normally that's as far as he can reach on his 30' lead so I don't think he knew what to do with himself. He ended up running around the backyard while Mike removed some trees. There was something with thorns that tore him up pretty bad so he moved on to some less defensive oak trees.

We knew our property was big, but the fence actually makes it seem bigger!

Busy Busy!

After the baby got sick, I got sick. Then we went to visit my little sister for a few days down in So Cal. Mike had the place to himself to work on a few little things. Mainly to fix the sprinkler system.

He ended up having to pull up and replace more pipe. He got all the sprinkler heads working and to a height he liked. He ran wire from the irrigation control in the garage under the house in the crawlspace out to the new irrigation valves at the back of the house. He's got everything wired up and working automatically. We're still doing some extra hand watering trying to bring the lawn back. Unfortunately a lot of the time the sprinklers weren't working had very high temperatures. Even our gardener hand watered when he came almost a week later; that's when you know you have to work on your lawn.

Mike also reattached the wooden baseboard trim in the kitchen. Some of it had been removed so that the painters could remove the wall paper in the kitchen. In the front yard he hung up a wrought iron hose holder onto the brick. With the new irrigation valves in the front the hose couldn't go where it was before.

Another project while we were gone was the entry way wall. The newells that were on there were the first things he removed in the house. He had to sand down the top to remove the depressions then he painted it to match our baseboards and put some trim around it. It still needs to have the edges caulked and the nail holes puttied but its a start. It really lightens up the entry way.

Since we got back from our mini vacation, we've just been trying to clean. Whenever the baby naps I try to get through a box. All of our clothes are put away, I found the last of our sheets and blankets and I think I've got all of our pictures. We're still discussing what goes where. We decided for sure where a few pieces are going to go but then we couldn't find our hanging brackets.

We also couldn't find our second remote, the charger for my camera, the laptop battery (meaning it always had to be attached to the wall) or a working flashlight. Mike had torn through some boxes looking for them to no avail. One day while the baby was napping I got to go through a few "misc" boxes. It had everything from pens and pencils to things that had been on our fridge to cook books, jackets, frames and everything we'd been looking for. All in a bag, under another bag in the bottom of a box, that had drop clothes and a flower Halloween costume on top of it. I don't know why he couldn't find it before. ;) So now we have multiple phones, we don't have to run the remote up and down the stairs and the laptop can actually be portable.

Mike was also working on the garage door. Apparently the garage door remote openers we got for the first door didn't go to that door. It does open when you use the wall button but not via remote; and if it doesn't work via remote, you can't program your car to open the garage door. Details details. He worked on it for awhile, even managed to find the manual online and followed the instructions "forwards and backwards" and it didn't work. He researched a little and found out that that particular remote doesn't actually work that particular door. He found a brand new remote that would work online and got it in a few days. He got it working really quick so now two of our three garage doors work from our cars. Mike loves eBay. The third stopped moving within a week of us moving in.

And then there's the thermostat; which, if you come to visit, will probably be  the first thing Mike shows you for awhile. The thermostat was in the family room downstairs and didn't really heat or cool the house the way we would want. The downstairs family room stays cool in the summer so the thermostat doesn't realize that the upstairs is hot and the air should come on. He moved the thermostat to the landing at the top of the stairs so that it more accurately read the whole house. The old one was also replaced with a brand spanking new one. Its so cool, it has its own app. Not only can you set a low temperature for the heat to come on at and a high temperature for the AC to come on at  (which compared to our old one is cool), it can be remotely controlled. Via the app you can check efficiency, the temperature, turn it off or on, etc. You can use presets for efficiency, then adjust it from there. Mike thinks its very, very cool, just ask him about it.

A busy few days

The baby has been sick - which means we have not slept well and didn't get a lot done on the house from one day to the next. Over the last few days we did get a bunch of little things done though. Today with the help of our parents we got a lot more done.

1. Swag dinette light over - Mike had replaced the light in the dinette a while ago but we kept hitting our heads on it. We have a rectangular table not a round one so every arrangement was awkward. Mike got a hook and it was a quick fix to get it a bit higher up and centered over our table.

2. Cleaning out the chemicals, still - The previous owner left a lot of chemicals around the house. I've been collecting them from around the house and garage and putting them on the side of the house. Some of the cans are so rusted we can't even tell what they are. There are multiple cans of Lysol, Windex, Comet, Raid,  garden fertilizers, pest controller, paint, spackle, car cleanser, etc. The pile just keeps getting bigger. I finally had the time to pull out what was actually useful (and not expired) so I think what remains (below) can go to hazardous waste finally.

3.  New Hallway lights - The gaudy old crystal lamps are gone! This two lamp set was only $20 and totally worth it. We don't know if we want to replace them with recessed lighting or not but now that they look so much better we're really not worried about it.

4. Cleaning out the garage - We can not fit two, yes two cars in the garage! Anne came to help me for several hours today and we were able to get a lot done. First we were able to get up into the rafters in the garage and clear out the junk left there. There were tons of empty boxes, (no Playstation in that box like we hoped ;) and a bunch of other finds. We pulled down:
  
 1 vintage 80s step exercise kit and an old Zip drive kit ...

An old bike rack and fireplace grate (which is odd since we have one in our single fireplace already?)...

And this jewel (right) was wrapped up in a towel and a piece of the old blue carpet in a Mervyn's cloth bag. I'm totally sporting it in the patio. Wrought iron and solid glass body so its heavy as hell.




Perhaps the strangest thing was all the luggage. There were eight different suitcases in the rafters. Many are old enough to count as "vintage," the old hard Samsonite type. Maybe someone wants them for decor??

After we got all of the previous owner's junk out of there we were able to get ours up. The rafters in the garage are partially covered in 1/2" plywood across the beams. There are several 4'x8' sheets of plywood and the highest point of the garage can hold up to 4' worth of stuff. It took a lot of manuevering but we manged to get Mike's old wood bunk bed set and an extra mattress up there. We also got the extra pieces to the baby's bed, all our holiday stuff, extra carpet, extra insulation and most of our memory boxes up there. Its seems almost full already but there is still room. Its a little hard to get up there but its definitely usable space. The tricky part is getting around all the garage doors and their supports. I couldn't reach all the way back onto the 4' plywood so I had to use a stick to maneuver everything around. That "stick" was actually an old shower curtain rod so every once in awhile the spring function was not helpful. 

After lots more moving, sorting and compiling Anne and I were able to get everything that remains in the garage into one bay. All of our tools are spread out everywhere so we really need a workbench and tool box to hold it all. Once we have that we can get the rest of it put away. We also have some heavy boxes we can't put away yet of CDs, DVDs and books. Mike has to finish the media closet before the media can go away and we don't have a bookshelf which makes the latter hard to store. But its close! So close!

While we haven't done it yet, there is now space for two cars in our garage! You can also see that we were able to store our extra baseboards up at the top above these two bays. I'm a little concerned about the integrity of the shelving though.

5. Retaping the air return - Mike and his dad had planned on moving the thermostat today. It is currently in the family room which is usually colder than upstairs. When we run the heater at night we often end up boiling in our room and actually closed our vent. Mike had hoped to run the wires up and over the stairwell to come down into the stairway across from the return.

While discussing the plan, Bob opened the air return and didn't like what he saw. Like much of the house venting and ductwork, it is taped up in asbestos tape. As long as its not disturbed its okay for most people. Bob wanted to remove it all which required wetting it so that it didn't become dust and scraping it off. At the least, he planned to retape the area with silver duct tape (actual duct tape meant for ducts). He also decided to bend some sheet metal to close in the box a little more. He and Mike found one hole that was covered up with cardboard that they had to fix. When it was all done its sealed up pretty well.

6. Fixing the back sprinklers - Mike has been looking at the back sprinklers and noticed that the sprinklers don't rise high enough to water as they should. The grass is well established and is turfed really high. He decided to pull up all the sprinkler heads up in order to attach longer ones. Some of them he was able to replace easily. Some were more difficult. When I checked on him today there was a a big hole (1'x2') in the middle of the grass. He said that one was being "stubborn." Apparently at the bottom of the sprinkler body, where it should attach to the main sprinkler line to get water, there was another strange 90 to 90 angle connection that he thought was leaking.

He also decided to completely eliminate one sprinkler in order to replace it with two others along the same edge of the lawn. He's hoping that will help distribute water more evenly. After he got everything connected he tried to run water through it but found one sprinkler failed to pop up completely which means it doesn't have enough water pressure. Which means the water is leaking, somewhere. He also discovered he broke a pipe somewhere, he's not sure where. That's where we stopped for the day, we'll have to take it up again tomorrow. The "Sprinkler Whisperer" may be getting a call tomorrow.

Offending sprinkler found

After the water meter box flooded we started running experiments to try to find out the cause. I have a tendency to experiment systematically I guess.
1. Operate the house water (showers, washing machine, etc.) with no irrigation.
2. #1 + Run the back irrigation only.
3. #1 + Run the front irrigation only.

We have not been able to recreate the leak. In between experiment #2 and #3 I dug a hole to the dirt behind our brick mailbox at about the same slope as the water meter box. My thought was that if the water was seeping from the ground into the hole due to our water table then theoretically it would in this second hole as well. It was just a dirt space so I figured it was worth a shot. No water in either hole through the experiments.

So today, since the baby actually took a nap, I figured I would run the front irrigation and take a look. There are two sprinklers in the plant area but only one works. The one that works is actually a lawn sprinkler and puts out too much water for that area. It is the one closest to the water meter box so that may be part of the problem. I think the majority of the problem is actually the other sprinkler that does not work.

It spurts water as pressure builds up in the system and it bubbles out. But once the sprinkler rises completely up the water stops coming out of the sprinkler. I dug around the offending sprinkler and found water building in the space around it, highly suspect. The view to the right was after I already chopped back that bush. It was an old growth bush that needed to go anyway. It is now in pieces on our driveway.

In order to get the sprinkler out of investigate it more, I had to remove the whole bush. The root system was the tricky part. Every time I dug my spade in I hit another root that I would have to excavate so that I could cut it back. A round tip shovel gave way to the narrow tip irrigation shovel which gave way to a hoe. I could only get down an inch or two before I would hit roots and clay. By the end of it, I had made a mess again but I didn't feel like I got much accomplished. There were decorative rocks and natural rocks to deal with in addition to the root system. Then there was an outpouring of ants; apparently I disturbed a colony.

Oh and the purple shovel is there because the baby decided she wanted to "deg deg" too.

When Mike got home he had a chance to help me dig. I had noticed the sprinkler head was loose and he discovered why. The sprinkler actually met a 90 that attached to another 90 then to another pipe. Given the direction of that other pipe we think it goes under the driveway or just up against it. We took it all off since it was loose and leaking anyway. We hit Home Depot and got a cap for it so that we can run the irrigation while we work on the area. Mike wants to put a smaller sprinkler on there and possibly dig up the mystery pipe a little more.

The other, active, sprinkler we will also replace with a smaller sprinkler. We hope that by repairing the leaking connections and using two smaller sprinkler heads, we've fixed the problem. Since we have been unable to reproduce the leak we still don't know for sure what caused it. Until it happens again though, we think we've located it.