Categories
general complaints home improvements

grrrrrr

The mold man came today. I knew he was coming, I gave him a housekey. He told me the offending areas would be partitioned off with thick plastic. And that there would be loud particle scrubbers in the house, one on the main floor and one in the master bath upstairs. I was prepared for this.

When I came home, poor little Havok came down the stairs, crying all the way. He did not approve of what had been done to the house. After some poking around, I decided I did not either.

I have been blocked out my kitchen. So, ok, it’s just aluminum poles, plastic, and masking tape, so I could get in if I wanted to bad enough. But this plastic is protecting me from potentially toxic stackybockus. So I dare not mess with it.

My kitchen is where I keep a lot of important stuff.

Like the cats’ food and water. They have not been able to eat all day.

Like the husband’s heartburn drugs.

Like my zyrtec. My dear, dear zyrtec that I bought at the pharmacy counter at Target after they scanned my drivers’ license so I could be put into the national meth-head database.

Like MY FOOD. ALL OF MY FOOD IS IN MY KITCHEN. I must eat every 2 hours. Or I will surely die. You can ask the husband. You can ask anyone who has ever worked with me. You can ask anyone who has ever lived with me. You can ask anyone who has ever been to the Renaissance Faire with me. I am always eating. I eat a snack when I get home from work every evening. Except for this evening.

Like the answering machine for my home phone. I called my kitchen man over the weekend, to see if he’d come look at my bathroom. And now I won’t know if he called back till Wednesday …

Like the thermostat that controls the temperature OF MY ENTIRE HOUSE. I am wrapped in blankets and freezing. Because this is Virginia, tomorrow it will be 80 degrees. And I will be sweltering. Because I cannot access my thermostat.

If the mold man had TOLD me, oh, btw, you won’t be able to get to your kitchen for 3 days, I would have done some things differently. Like got the cats’ food and bowls out of there. And all the drugs. And some food! I guess there’s not much I could do about the thermostat.

So the husband and I just got back from a shopping extravaganza: cat food, new cat bowls, taco bell/kfc, zyrtec, snacks (slim jims and powdered donettes, mmmm), oh yeah, and DUCT TAPE. Cuz part of the kitchen-blocking plastic fell down. And because we don’t want to die, we decided to tape it back up. (The part that fell did not provide access to the kitchen. Otherwise, I totally woulda gone for it.)

So, yeah, don’t let your house get moldy. There is nothing good about it. The mold men take all your money, so you can’t even rebuild a nice bathroom afterwards …

Categories
home improvements

my custom shower design!

One of my old coworkers tipped me off to google sketchup for 3D modeling, and I have designed a custom bath/shower for my upcoming bathroom remodel!  And the husband has agreed it is a nice design.  Now the question is, is it an AFFORDABLE design?  That remains to be seen …

what a perfect shower    my perfect shower!  

Here’s the google sketchup file, if you wanna see it in more detail: custom shower – google sketchup file

The total length of the shower is 8 feet, 2 inches, which means it’ll fit nicely in the space that is now my shower and bathtub.  It uses a 6 foot long drop-in soaking tub.  That means the inside will be at least 5′ 6″ – meaning I can lay down in it!  I’m not a big person, but a regular 5 foot tub is just not big enough for a bath – there always has to be some part of me that isn’t submerged.  It is NOT a whirlpool tub, because I just can’t maintain a whirlpool tub.  You have to clean those things like every 2 weeks to prevent stackybockus.  And cleaning something I use once every 6 months is really not anywhere on my list of things I’ll ever do.

The walls are lined with marble in my design, but I imagine that I can’t really afford that part.  So it will likely turn into tile.  Or maybe something cheaper than tile …

There is a seat at the end of the tub – probably too far away to use for leg shaving, but perhaps a hand-shower with a long enough hose will alleviate that?

There are shelves at the end of the tub for shampoo and such.  I’d like to think I could maybe keep some towels in there, but the husband thinks they’ll get wet …

I’m not a pro with the google sketchup, so the glass ‘windows’ into the shower are really supposed to be some kind of doors.  Probably the sliding kind.

So that’s my dream tub/shower!  Here’s to hoping I can afford it …

Categories
home improvements

bad bad news from the mold man

The mold man gave his diagnosis, a shower wall and floor full of the oh-so-scary stackybockus

The worst part isn’t the toxic headache and fatigue inducing substance.  The worst part is the price tag for removing it all.  And, after forking over a few thousand dollars, we will be left with a giant hole in our living room ceiling.  And an unusable shower in the bathroom that already has an unusable tub. 

So, it looks like that trip to Italy will have to be postponed, as we get ready to remodel the bathroom.  Which sucks and all, but I do realize I have a pretty awesome life if my choices are: go to Italy, or get a new bathroom?  In an economy where many are choosing between groceries or gas, I’ll gladly take my lumps.

Categories
home improvements

some basement pics

Ok, I’m still sick, but much less cranky now.  So here’s some screenshots of my preliminary basement design.

Pretend the shark is a turtle.  In a giant rubbermaid tub.  I’ve been doing some research, and apparently it is downright cruel to keep a tortoise in a clear enclosure – they’ll continually try to walk through anything they can see through.  So it looks like it’s rubbermaid for poor tortellini – though I think I’ll spring for a new one with the basement remodel, she’s probably tired of blue by now.

Oh, and pretend the series of desks in the corner is really one sleek corner desk.  The furniture selection in my software leaves much to be desired.

And also the hideous CRT monitor is really a 19″ LCD tv.

Floorplan:

basement floorplan

Some screenshots:

basement - standing on the kami desk

basement - standing in the fireplace

basement - standing on the exercise bike

basement - standing on the husband’s desk

Categories
home improvements

basement remodel

The husband and I have run into a dilemma with our basement remodel.  Namely, the fireplace.

We have never used the fireplace; it’s just too much work.  Plus we’re not really fireplace people; we had a gas fireplace in our old apartment that I used all 3 times – and all I had to do was flip a switch. 

The fireplace is also very outdated.  The house was built in 1992, and it’s really starting to look it.  The brass accents on the fireplace door and the marble hearth were top-notch, I’m sure, when the house was born – but it really doesn’t jive for me today.

We use the basement as more of a den; it is where the desks, computers and books live.  Oh yeah, and an exercise bike.  Oh, and our old set of couches that we can’t seem to craigslist so they’ll be going out for trash pickup one of these Thursdays.  Oh, and that’s where the turtle lives.  In a giant rubbermaid bin.  Oh, and I can’t forget Jimmy

So we want a multi-purpose room, but we’re having a hard time placing everything.  What with a fireplace in one corner.  A fireplace with a mantle, so we’d have to tear it off to, say, hide it with bookshelves ….

We’re also having a hard time picking a paint color.

And also a hard time figuring out where, exactly, you stop painting a room when it is just a large open space whose last wall goes up the stairs.

The husband just wants to dump the couches, buy himself a new desk, paint, replace the 13″ tv/vcr with a 19″ lcdtv, and call it done.

While I’d like to turn it into something less … eclectic.  And with recessed lighting!  And a fancy new fireplace!  And an actual terrarium for the poor turtle!  And with fancy bookshelves with little doors on the bottom!  And fancy leather seating!

I’ve been doing some 3D modeling, but I’m sick and cranky right now, so I don’t have the patience to take screen shots to post … so they may or may not be coming later …

Categories
home improvements

hot water heater misery

I like hot showers.  I mean, really hot, where the skin on my belly is pink-red when I get out.  Two degrees before blisters hot. 

If I don’t get my hot shower, my hands and feet turn blue.  For real, my body feels the lukewarm water, freaks out, and shuts off blood flow to the extremities.  I know that’s not a normal physiological response, but what can I say, my body is really quick on the draw for that hypothermia stuff.  Good thing I’m not a caveman, I never woulda survived to adulthood.

So, last winter, I discovered that my hot water heater wasn’t cutting it.  With the heat level set to ‘A’ (what does that even MEAN?  The available settings are 1, 2, 3, A, B and C) I did not get my hot morning shower.  I dreaded getting out of bed into my cold house (the husband likes to keep it at 66) just so I could jump into a shivery blue-handed shower. 

So I cranked the temperature up on the water heater, to ‘B’.  There’s a huge warning on the heater about how setting your hot water temp to more than 125 degrees could result in FIERY, BURNY DEATH for the hapless soul who turn on STRAIGHT hot water and JUMPS IN without testing it first, with, say, an expendable pinky toe.  I vaguely wondered how hot ‘B’ was, in fahrenheit degrees, but figured it didn’t matter too much since only adults and non-opposoble-thumbed animals live in my house.

That increased the temp slightly, but my hands were still blue-ish.  I came to discover that some mornings I had hot showers, while other mornings I had mostly warmish showers – and eventually correlated it with my dishwasher-running schedule.  If the dishwasher had run the night before, I got a toasty nice shower, and all was well with the world.  If not, it was blue hands for me.  Through some trial and error, I discovered that my hottest showers happened when the dishwasher ran at 3 am.  Addicted to hot showers, I would even schedule a 10-minute quick rinse cycle on no dishes days.

It would seem, though, that my last-winter’s water extravagance caused a drought in Loudoun County over the summer.  So this winter I’ve decided to not be a water waster – and instead the husband and I have turned the hot water heater up to the last notch of ‘C.’

I had a few nice mornings, with wonderfully hot showers, but this afternoon I discovered my basement full of water.  After using all 10 of our towels to mop up half the mess, the husband consulted our how-to plumbing guide – to discover that water leaking from the pressure valve can mean that you have the temperature set too high.

So that’s it for my hot showers, at least until I can get someone to come out and look at my tank.  If nothing can be repaired or adjusted, it may just be time to replace it.

Categories
home improvements

I fought the law …

And I won! It has been approved! I can now go rebuild a modified version of my original rock garden. It will have more “green”, including one section of moss. Since there will be actual living things in my garden, that means I’ll have to work harder at making sure everything stays alive, but, I suppose I’m up to the challenge. And, if not, I can always just buy more plants …

I think there were 3 factors in getting my HOA to relent:

I showed a willingness to work with them, and let them be involved in the “design” process. Everybody likes to feel like they are part of something; no one likes to feel like something was thrust upon them unexpectedly.

I played the race card. And it wasn’t even that hard! Once I made mention to one HOA member that I built the Japanese rock garden “in celebration of my heritage,” he passed along the sentiment for me. And everybody got the hint that “celebrating my heritage” meant that I didn’t mind calling up the ACLU to see how they felt about my situation.

I joined the HOA Architectural Review Bard. Yup, that’s right, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Just the threat of me being at the meetings every month, as a peer, was enough to soften their hearts. I had every intention of submitting a new “plan” for consideration at every meeting, until they gave in. And if that didn’t work after a few months, I was gonna start making “motions” at every meeting to repeal the “no rocks in landscaping” rule. Hmm, I actually might still do that. Because, honestly, who even cares? Why make silly rules when you are the people that have to enforce them?

So, I guess fighting the good fight does sometimes work out. And I hope that as a bona fide HOA ARB member, I’ll be able to help others fight the good fight as well.

Categories
home improvements

my bathroom, revised

Ok, so I’ve been playing with my bathroom. I have not yet come up with any designs that involve moving the closet wall; those are next. 🙂

I was doing some reading online about bathroom remodels, and it turns out that moving plumbing can be difficult to impossible, depending on your house. So these three designs try to keep the toilet in the same place (the most difficult plumbing to move), and keep some of the other plumbing in place.

option 1 This option keeps the toilet in the exact same place, gives up a sink, and trades the existing tub and shower for “corner” tub and shower units. I believe that all existing plumbing could be easily used with this option.

This option also moves the door from the bedroom to the bathroom a teency bit, and doesn’t require that the closet door be removed. (I removed it in this diagram, but mostly cuz I was moving stuff all over the place before I settled on this.)
(I know that pedestal sinks are the new rage, but I got to have my counter space, as well as under-sink storage.)

option 2 This second option sorta keeps the toilet in the same place, it just rotates it. The extra-long, double sink vanity is maintained, and the tub is moved from one side of the bathroom to the other.
The shower is traded up to a slightly larger corner shower.

This requires moving the closet door to the bedroom wall, and moving the door into the bathroom just a teeny bit.

option 3 This third option rotates the toilet, gives up a sink, and requires moving both doors. The gain is in getting a larger corner shower, as well as getting a corner tub (not any larger, but perhaps fancier looking).

Votes? Comments?

Categories
home improvements

my bathroom

Apparently, my bathroom was a point of discussion with my husband and his coworkers today – and so it has been requested that I post 3D pics of my bathroom in its current state.

I would like to remodel my bathroom, and am open for any suggestions! Doors can be moved, and we only use one sink in the vanity, so I don’t see a need to keep the double sinks (unless it helps with resale value). I also don’t use the tub (mostly because it’s a whirlpool tub with completely moldy nastiness in the jets), but having no tub in the bathroom reduces the bathroom to a 3/4 state, and I suppose it’s never a good idea to downgrade the status of your house.

master suite Master suite floorplan – I included the whole thing, so you can see where you might be able to move doors to (i.e., the walk-in closet door to the bedroom/closet wall).

The bathroom measurements are about 8′ x 11′.

Here are some 3D views:

bathroom 1

bathroom 2

bathroom3.bmp

bathroom4.bmp

Categories
home improvements technogeeky

home designer

A few weekends back, I was at microcenter helping my husband find the elusive G7 mouse, when I stumbled across some home design software.

I had been using some free demoware, that you could use for 30 program-runnings. And if you liked the product, you could buy it. I had just decided to buy it when I went to the website and discovered it cost $500. For a 2D floorplan maker! It did have some neat libraries full of furniture and fixtures, but, still, not $500 worth.

So when I saw an $80 3D home designer package at microcenter, I was intrigued. The pictures on the box promised some neat results, and so I took the plunge.

It took me several hours to transfer my house from my old demoware to the new product, but when I finished – wow. It’s my house! In 3D! With the right textures and colors for everything! I have a brick front, and siding everywhere else. My house is on a slope. The walls have the right colors, the floors are made of the right materials. My kitchen has gray tile and dark granite countertops, just like in real life. The ceiling even has recessed lighting! It’s – wow. That’s all I can say. It’s a real live model of my house.

Which means – I’ll be able to virtually remodel my house before I do the real deal! And I’ll know what it’s gonna look like. And if I hire someone to do the work, I can show them a 3D picture of what I want – and not just a magazine clipping with a “general idea.”

I love my new 3D house. 🙂 I’ve just finished with the basic floor plan and permanent fixtures. Next up: actual furnishings!

kitchen