When my dad gets into town, home improvement just happens at a crazy pace. I wish I would have such a drive when it comes to getting things done around the house, although in which case my house would probably resemble more of a palace than a house, which might look ever so slightly out of place in the current neighborhood. Anyhow, here are just a few things that we got knocked out of the way. And by we, I mean mostly my dad with my help that probably was less than stellar at times, but every little bit helps when it comes to home improvement. Anyhow, first we tackled the back side of my house where recently I had some repairs done around the chimney and roof. Plenty of painting had to be done, but with good weather on our side we knocked that out rather quickly. Next we tackled the patio door, which was quite a project. We replaced several rotten wood pieces, fixed up the insulation, fixed rusted areas on the door, and did quite a bit of caulking. This was all in addition to the middle part of the French door that we set out to fix initially, but that’s how it goes sometimes. When you set out do something, do it right and do it all the way, that was the mantra. But wait, there was more: We also finished up the upstairs guest bathroom. All the wall painting was done; all the towel hangers and toilet paper holders were installed, caulking around the vanity and bathtub was done, and finally a repaint of the baseboard and door finished it all. I have to say it looks very nice and modern; the only thing needed is maybe an accent shelf or pictures to make it come alive a little bit. Of the four rooms upstairs, two are now completely renewed. Finishing the studio is next on the agenda. The studio requires mostly some more paint and definitely new blinds since the current ones are absolutely hideous. Finally, in a spectacular one day effort, my dad managed to replace all the trim around the chimney, which was in a rather sad state. Overall, I think that by now we have addresses just about all the issues that were noted by the inspector when I purchased the house a little more than a year ago. Now don’t get me wrong, with a house there are always a million more things to do, but at least we got some of the major ones out of the way.
miscellaneous
quick life update: overhoused
If you wonder where I’ve been, given the lack of updates, you’re not alone. I’ve actually been wondering the exact same thing. After a quick review of the past two months, I’ve coined a new term, “over-housed”. The meaning of the term is quite simple: busy with so much house work that one is incapable of doing almost anything else. To give you an idea of the transpiring events over the last month or so, here is how it pretty much went down:
The previous homeowners of my new home leased the home back from me for a few months. When the family finally moved out, Tina and I had only a few weeks to begin renovating the two-story home, and here are some of the things that we managed to either do ourselves or with professional help in the span of just a few weeks: Hardwood installation on entire first floor with the exception of the kitchen, entry, and bathrooms; Interior painting of entire property; Replacement and installation of major appliances such as the refrigerator, dish-washer, washer, and dryer; Purchase and assembly of new dining room table; Repainting of all cabinetry interiors in the kitchen; Re-framing and door installation of washer and dryer housing to accommodate new appliances; Removal of all previous shades and blinds, and the replacement of all switches and contacts in guest room. These were just some of the major tasks, I won’t not even mention all the little things that we had to take care of to make this house feel like a home. Nor will I go into all the things that we still plan on doing, for the list is endless and getting longer almost every single day. A Big ‘Thank You’ goes out to my Dad, who flew down for a weekend and spent several days helping us out with all these tasks, and then came back a week later to surprise me and helped out some more. I have no clue where he gets all his energy from, all I know is that I simply could not hang with him. Regardless how many coffees or red-bulls I consumed, I beat him to bed most days. At least I feel that Tina and I are single handedly rescuing the American economy, or at least the home improvement and home services sector! Needless to say, I’m in need of a vacation, so I’m packing my bags and heading to Salt Lake City, Utah this Friday for some snowboarding and much needed relaxation.
The previous homeowners of my new home leased the home back from me for a few months. When the family finally moved out, Tina and I had only a few weeks to begin renovating the two-story home, and here are some of the things that we managed to either do ourselves or with professional help in the span of just a few weeks: Hardwood installation on entire first floor with the exception of the kitchen, entry, and bathrooms; Interior painting of entire property; Replacement and installation of major appliances such as the refrigerator, dish-washer, washer, and dryer; Purchase and assembly of new dining room table; Repainting of all cabinetry interiors in the kitchen; Re-framing and door installation of washer and dryer housing to accommodate new appliances; Removal of all previous shades and blinds, and the replacement of all switches and contacts in guest room. These were just some of the major tasks, I won’t not even mention all the little things that we had to take care of to make this house feel like a home. Nor will I go into all the things that we still plan on doing, for the list is endless and getting longer almost every single day. A Big ‘Thank You’ goes out to my Dad, who flew down for a weekend and spent several days helping us out with all these tasks, and then came back a week later to surprise me and helped out some more. I have no clue where he gets all his energy from, all I know is that I simply could not hang with him. Regardless how many coffees or red-bulls I consumed, I beat him to bed most days. At least I feel that Tina and I are single handedly rescuing the American economy, or at least the home improvement and home services sector! Needless to say, I’m in need of a vacation, so I’m packing my bags and heading to Salt Lake City, Utah this Friday for some snowboarding and much needed relaxation.
presidential election finally over with
I’m seriously glad the presidential election is done with for this whole spectacle has been going on for way too long. Sure, some amazing history has been made in the process, but the actual debates and issues discussed can be summed up with one word - boring! When I look back at my blog posts in 2004 I was actually following the debates quite closely, not so this time around. The first debate was lackluster, and I did not even get through the second and third one. Now that this political circus is over with, congratulations president-elect Obama, hopefully all the other politicians will get back to what they are supposed to do: work for the people and this country. There are plenty of issues to fix, from the economy to energy policy, to the education system, and America’s competitiveness. One thing that will be interesting to watch is whether all the people that turned out for the election, will actually stay involved in politics and improving this country. Or whether, due to the ever decreasing attention spans and even shorter visions of college graduates and CEOs alike, they will declare this election a victory and go home to doing nothing, rather than seeing it simply as a starting point to create something better long-term. And while all this will be happening, I’ll go back to what I do best, waste a lot of time tweaking a few new components that I just installed in my home PC, namely the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core processor and the Zalman CNPS9500 AT cooler – the chip might be expensive but it absolutely tears through anything that I can throw at it. Rather than overclocking the chip I will most likely see how low I can drop the voltage in order to keep the temperatures inside my case reasonable.
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