Fence update and Light up!

Over the weekend Mike and his dad worked on adding an overhead light to Katherine's room. We took the one that was up in our old house so it was nice to get it back up. We only had a small table lamp and at night her room was like a cave. His dad crawled up into the attic and after some measurement issues they got the box right in the middle. The trick was drilling down through the top plate of the wall so they could wire it to the switch. We have a few more holes to patch and paint now but now her room is really bright!

Mike and I have both been working long days with a lot of obligations lately so we've been getting home late. We noticed the other day that our fence had been fixed, but we haven't been home when its light out yet to snap a picture. Because today was Halloween I got home early and was able to get a picture.

We wanted the fence to be have a bit more of an arch to it but it looks good. And the top has been flattened so that it meets our other fence a little more cleanly.

We've got shutters! And a split.

We ordered nice plantation shutters months ago but they have to be custom made for your windows so they were just finished up. Bob came by yesterday to watch the installers and the new windows look great. (ignore the fact that the pictures were taken in the dark)

We got three windows. The living room (left), dining room (right) and our room (below). We have the option of adding more at the great discount within a certain time period so we may be adding more in the next few months.

While Bob was watching the installers he helped out with a few little things. Mike had installed new stop valves under the sinks he had replaced (our bathroom and Katherine's) and he had bought two more. Bob added similar stop valves to the two upstairs toilets. The stop valves are meant to easily turn off water to the sinks or toilets in case you need to do work on them.


Mike had added a few support brackets to the porch outside so that it was more secure a few weeks ago. He finished adding the rest of them last weekend and wanted to add them to the two support beams in the garage that support our bedroom. One of the beams had a piece of plywood over it that Mike pulled off across the top so he could add the bracket. When he pulled the plywood off he discovered that there was a large split in the beam on the south side. The split seems to be at least a half inch wide and runs the length of the beam. Bob took the rest of the beam so he could get a good look. We're going to have to call a contractor to jack up the roof and replace it. At left is the split visible above the plywood on the beam. 

Things we forgot we did!

We apparently accomplished so much since our last blog post we forgot that we had done more.

Last night Mike got the cable upstairs fixed last night and has plans to play with the excess wire tonight.

Our sink upstairs is fixed ... again. After a long battle with some small o-rings Mike got it working. But it still leaked. So Mike pulled the sink apart and we were sinkless for a little while. Yesterday he was able to mess with it and was able to replace the whole thing with a new one, that doesn't leak.

And our heater works! About three weeks ago we woke up on a chilly morning to discover that our heater doesn't work. We called our home warranty and got an appointment with the company they contract with. They could only come out a week after our original call and of course, we were at work so Anne had to go by to open up the house for them. Somehow the technician that showed up thought we needed our air conditioner looked at and that's what he evaluated. He said our air conditioner was "brand new" when its really 10 years old. Once we realized it didn't work we called the company back and tried to set another appointment, a week later. This time, Mike was there and made sure the technician that showed up was actually looking at the heater. He did and lo and behold he needs a part he didn't have. In the meantime we had to buy a space heater for the baby's room and brought down the flannel comforter for our room.

The technician was supposed to go to the warehouse the next day to get the part, then call Mike to set the appointment. I got a call that day from the company and when I answered they said they called me because Mike had hung up on them. I said, "Yep, probably because he's probably pissed." My guess was right, they had called to tell him that they couldn't get the part until the following week. I told them we'd had to get a heater for the baby, and it would have been three weeks without a heater by the time they got the next appointment. They were very apologetic but it wasn't going to get it done any faster.

When they did come the next week, the same technician that Mike had met came back and got it fixed. Mike still called and complained to the company though, after each disappointment. When he looked them up on Yelp it turns out the heating company had 1.5/5 stars. Boy, I wonder why.

Media closet & a real fence!

Its been a while, we've been busy. Fall has hit me hard with the new school year and Mike's been picking up overtime which means our projects are going slowly. Very slowly.

Our last major accomplishment was getting the TV on the wall. There was still a cable issue and we had two wires running across the room for a long time. In preparation for the finished product, Mike sheet rocked the media closet, fitted it with a three-gang and two-gang outlet box. The boys finally got it hooked up right, without cables and we could walk across our floor in the dark without fear! Of cables at least, toys and blocks are still a hazard. For a little while we still had the power cord down to the outlet below it until Mike rewired the box behind it.

He had to spend a long time with Steve trying to get his infrared system to work. Mike wanted all of our equipment (cable box, DVD player, receiver, etc) in the closet under the stairs near the bar area. In order for them to receive signal from the remote, they had to add an infrared receiver under the TV that was wired through the wall (luckily extra CAT6 had been laid in when the rest of the wires were run) to the closet and sent out of an infrared transmitter in the closet that sends the signal to the devices. Once that was hooked up, Mike could sit on the couch and control the channel of the cable box, the volume of the TV, the volume of the receiver controlling the speakers, the DVD player, etc. If you come over, he'll show you - he can also control it on his phone. There's an app for that.

After everything was wired correctly, Mike built shelves for all the components. He still wants to have it taped up when our painter comes but it works for now. He didn't want me to include a picture of it because its not "done," but its such progress! Our cable upstairs has gone back to looking like it needs rabbit ears though so somewhere along the way we goofed. Mike was able to fix the occasional digital hiccups downstairs by removing a power cable splitter and replacing it with an un-powered one. Go figure.

We also got the green house window replaced.  We had gotten an estimate on replacing the pane that had a broken seal from one company  and wanted one for replacing the window itself with a flat one from another but the company didn't want to replace it because of the vinyl siding. When we replace the vinyl siding and windows in another ten years (and go into debt probably) we'll have that window changed out. Now we can actually see into the backyard which is helpful with the baby.

And today we got our fence finished! We had the single wrought iron gate on the south replaced with a straight redwood one (right). On the north side, we replaced the double wrought iron fence with a double redwood one and built a fence along the slope up to our neighbors fence (left). We had asked for an arch along the top so we have to email him back and check on that. But for now, Beau can go into the backyard, unsupervised! He can't see into the front yard to bark at cats in the neighborhood and we're hoping he can't jump  a six foot fence on an incline. Time will tell on that one I guess.