Oui Oui!

First off, we currently have 2 dogs that are free to a good home if anyone wants them.
Secondly, I am only kidding.  However, those two goofballs are the reason for this post today. A little over a month ago, our Texas Heeler decided it would be fun to run full speed into our Lab, who happened to be standing right at our back door, begging to come in so that I could let him outside again, kinda like a cat.  Our dogs decision resulted in this:

Could. Have. Killed him.

Want to see more of the destruction?!  I've got more destruction pictures.

Excuse the gunk on the door, I tried to use wood glue to fix it.
Didn't work. 

Yes, we had to hold our back door closed with a chair. This happened TWO DAYS after our new HVAC unit was installed, all that glorious heat....seeping through the cracks. Tragic.  SO...MORE money had to be spent at Lowe's because of this. Being a homeowner is FUN!!

And like most things go, our old door wasn't a standard size, so it had to be ordered, built, shipped, yada yada yada.  We've had a completely broken door for over a month, a door that anyone, even a tiny little infant baby, could've thumped and it would have opened.  I did not sleep well, or return home alone easily.  The day has finally arrived though, Lowe's is here installing our new FRENCH doors!  Both doors actually open this time, so it's like....legit French.

But in all seriousness, YAY!! Our new doors are here! I don't have to freak out any time the dogs go outside for fear of them running in to it and damaging it further!  I don't have to wake up at 0200 to a strange noise and immediately think the worst (although I will anyway).  My parents built their house when I was 10, I've seen construction stuff, but this is cool to just sit back and watch.  One, the guys installing the doors are British.  Like, 'Ello Govna! Care for a spot'o tea and a biscuit," British.  I love it, I could seriously listen to this all day. (Side note: If I ask them if they've met the Queen, would I only be adding to the stereotypical British nonsense??) Two, it's messy and it looks they screwed up, but totally didn't.

They took everything! 

Like I said, super cool thing to watch.

At this point, the guy in the hat said, "Well, that's all we can do today! See you tomorrow, then!" Haha, you funny Brit, you!  It's rainy, windy as all hell, and there are critters in the backyard!  CRITTERS!  I've already killed a spider that ran in. *Shudders*

The new lovelies!  

The trim and the outside portion of the door is white, we'll have to paint it to match the siding on our house, but hey...we saved $400 by not having the store paint everything for us, so as homeowners with bills and kids...we'll put in the work to save those hundo's.  (If you've seen The Game Plan with The Rock...you'll get this.)  Did I mention that both doors open?!  Who, by the way, buys French-style doors when only one of them opens?!  Our Lowe's guy didn't believe us when we told him only one opened, proved him wrong! BOOM! Take that, Will! 

OH!  And did I forget to mention the doors we bought have blinds on the inside?!  Silly me!  Our last door had those...doohickeys...you can buy and add-on to your existing door, and they weren't installed properly.  Everytime we went to use them it felt like they were going to fall off and break. The only thing I will miss about our old set-up is that the previous owners installed a screen that pulled across the door, so you could open it up in great weather and let the breeze in.  Again, it wasn't installed properly and was broken, *insert psychotic laughter*, but it worked well enough that I was using it when these guys got here.  

Now, without further ado...

TA DA!!!! The paned look is gone, nothing but gorgeous glass to let all the sunlight in!  Like I said, we still have to paint the trim and the door itself, but I am IN LOVE with these doors! Also, the first dog that puts its paw on my doors will lose it. : )  My husband is going to kill me, but I needs me a screen so I can open the doors and let the breeze in, but that's another project for another day.  *MUAHAHA!*  These poor guys worked in the rain to get it done and they were awesome!  One of them actually said to the other, "I could go for a cuppa right now."

Get it?!  It's funny cause it's Sherlock...and he's British.

So, our very unexpected home renovation is completed and we are, once again, as thrilled as can be with Lowe's and their expert service!


BONUS:  What a beautiful sunrise we had this morning!

Adventures in HVAC

Another project was completed today, on one of the coldest days we've had recently.  Our new HVAC system! This was another project started by Lowe's, again, I highly recommend going to them for all your home owning needs.  (They did not pay me to say this, but if they wanted to, I'm open to the idea.  Hint, hint Lowe's CEO.)

Since I don't know what the hell I'm talking about when it comes to these things, I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Lowe's.  Durh.  Is there anyone else?!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we had to work with last summer...

 It got the job done, but just barely.  On one of the hotter days, it was 82 degrees inside our home, we were miserable.  We're more of a 68-degree-in-the-summer kinda family, so yeah.  It was quite unbearable for us.

This is our water heater, those lines running up the attic is what used to heat our house.

 My husband and I had never seen this particular set-up before.  My family has always had central heating and cooling, as has every home we've lived in since I married my husband.  Well, Japan didn't.  The base had total control of your heating and cooling, which sucked donkey balls.  There I said it.  Get a better system, CFAY!  Anyway, I digress.  It took us forever to figure out how to turn our heat on, I believe I posted about that this past Fall.

Our old thermostat, which worked just fine, but still, a "before" photo was warranted. 

 Okie dokie smokie! On to today!  We signed our contract with Lowe's about 2 weeks ago and this would've happened last week if not for all the snow we got.  Lowe's is on top of things when it comes to their install teams, which works well for the consumer (me) and is one of the many reasons they're our go-to.  The guys over at Climate Control, which is the company Lowe's contracts through for heating and cooling in my area, were here at 0800 on the dot and worked their butts off, in the freezing cold and sleeting rain, until 1600.  That's 8AM until 4PM for you non 24-hour clock folks. The house had no heat during that time frame and got as cold as 55 degrees.  They also ran in to a problem with our water heater, a valve broke so water had to be shut off for the entire house, yet they still took the time to fix that for me on top of all their other work.  Stellar dudes in my opinion.

Now on to the photos!  Starting with the one thing I forgot to get a "before" photo of, the furnace, or, you know, whatever the hell this is.

I am kicking myself for not getting a picture of this beforehand because it looked shoddy and extremely old.  Not anymore baby!  WE GOT A TRANE!  I know nothing about it, so let us move on.  "The world has moved on since then,"  a little shoutout to lovers of the Dark Tower series by the great Stephen King.

They capped off the lines on the water heater as we now have heating from our outdoor unit. No longer will we not have enough hot water because it was being used to heat our house!  Now our water will remain hot for as long as we need it!  Late-night baths will no longer be lukewarm and quick!  SUCCESS!

Now on to the big daddy...

Trane XR

The HOSS.  Doesn't that just look a million times better than what we had?  Well, it is and it's great and I love it.

It's heating so much faster than the old way, the heat feels warmer, if that makes sense, and it's amazing and I love it.  Did I mention that already?  It's not the biggest system Trane had to offer, but it wasn't the smallest either, plus this just fits perfectly with what we needed from our system.

Our new, DIGITAL, thermostat. It seems kinda complicated to me, but the guy who was showing me how to operate it seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and if he can learn, so can I.


That's all of the photos and pretty much all of my knowledge on this subject.

Well...WO-man but you get the idea.  We finally have a new HVAC system, which is working wonderfully for heating and I'm excited to see what this baby can do in the winter.

DIY Ideas...oh Lord.

Since I have no journal to write in at the moment, I'm going to bend your ear on the nonsensical musings of a woman with a thousand DIY ideas in her head.

The main thing I'd love to renovate is the half bath that is downstairs.  It's the one our friends use, it gets seen by a lot of people....and I hate it.  I'm not exaggerating, I hate it.  I love the decorative pieces that I added, but thats's all I can say for the bathroom.

It's gold.  The fixtures are gold.  It looks gaudy. I have always been a silver kinda gal.  My wedding rings aren't gold.  I do not own any gold jewelry.  I don't know why, I've just never liked the look of it.  No judgement on anyone who does love gold stuff of course. Silver things just seem more relaxed to me, more elegant. Let's get down to business.

...to defeat...the huns.   (Sorry, I really like Disney movies.)


This is our half bath.

Pay attention to the TP holder. It's broken. Again.
And sorry Mother, I still haven't gotten
any hand towels to hang on the hooks!

Gold.  Gold everywhere. 

I should've also gotten a picture of the cabinets, they're a huge reason I'd like to renovate this space, but oh well.  They are old and generic, not at all what my family and I are like.  We're fun, Southern and traditional.  Not to mention we're young. So what if I have 10 months until I turn 30! I'M STILL YOUNG DAMNIT!  So, we've established there is too much gold and the cabinets are old. I can't forget to mention the toilet, I'd really just like a new seat, not a brand new toilet.  Although, if they were free...I'd get it.  Know what I'm sayin'?

Here's what I'd love to do to our cabinets:

Thanks Pinterest!

They basically look just like the before photo, just a tad bit older. I'd love to have that dark color with silver fixtures and a bigger mirror. It's always amazing to me how cabinets can either make or break a room, really make it pop you know?  Like I said, it's a half bath, so we're not working with a lot of space here, so I'd love to do something to make the room seem a bit bigger and really reflect our style. The website makes this seem so easy, but this is me we're talking about. I can barely draw stick figures and I have been known to make a mess of things from time to time.  I should also point out that my husband has no idea I'd like to do this, so surprise babe!  I looove youuuuu!!!

I like keeping our current cabinets, just painting them and updating them.  It also saves us money, so boom goes the dynamite.  We're all for saving money and yet still getting "new" stuff.  Of course buying new fixtures is what's going to cost us.  Painting = time consuming.  Fixtures = money.  This is especially true when you think of the cost of new lighting, but if we look at it as an investment in our home, it's a great thing.  Maybe in the near future you guys will see a new post talking about how awesome our "new" bathroom looks with pictures of what we did along the way.

Ew.

     As I'm writing this, my skin is still crawling.  In truth, it's more like my skin is running far, far away from my body instead of crawling.  My skin is in a marathon of grossness and it's trying its damnedest to get to the safety of the finish line unscathed.


     Since moving in here, we've really only seen ants inside the house, and that was only when it rained A LOT.  Ants are annoying, but I can deal with them fairly easily.  They don't make me sick to my stomach is what I'm trying to say.  Even spiders (AKA Spawns of Satan) are something I can deal with.  Sure, I go in to a panic and breathe like I have actually ran a marathon, but I deal with it.  A few months ago while shampooing my carpets, I saw a lizard in my living room.

Representation of the real culprit.

A lizard.  In my living room.  How did it get there?  How long had it been there?  Why do I feel like I need to pass out?  All normal questions one would have when they see something like this in their home.  Luckily I had two shoe boxes that I strategically placed on both ends of the couch where it was hiding, and once reinforcements arrived, we were able to shoo it into a box, which I promptly closed and ran out of the house with.  No lizards were harmed in the capture and he was released back in to the wild, right near a pond where I'm sure there was food galore for him to gorge himself on.  Yes, I walked away in triumphant victory, with my head held high.  I was only a tiny bit ashamed at how bad I was shaking, but a win is a win.

From that time on, I really hadn't seen anything in my house that didn't have permission to be here. Not even an ant really. And just when I think all is well with my little world...last night happened.  

No but seriously...picture it: My home, yesterday.  I was in my daughters room vacuuming, not a care in the world, when out of the corner of I eye, I see something moving.  I immediately go to investigate, praying it wasn't what I thought it was. I moved her toy box, shuffled things around a bit and saw nothing so I thought I was just seeing things and I went on about my business.  Fast forward to around 8:30 last night.  I'm in my bedroom getting ready for bed.  My box fan and TV were off so it was totally silent in my room.  It is a sound that I cherish because...kids.  Am I right, moms and dads?!  While reveling in the silence I heard paper rustling.  Knowing it wasn't me, nor my dog seeing as how he has no thumbs and certainly couldn't be catching up on his great American novel, I hone in on where the sound is coming from, while remembering what I thought I saw earlier in the day.  Behind our dresser was a piece of paper that must have fallen back there, I went and grabbed the broom and started pushing the paper.  Nothing.  I saw nothing. Then my loyal dog went on high alert, pointed straight at the dresser.  

I really started messing around back there and there it was....a freaking mouse.  A teeny tiny, little brown ball of disease.  IN MY HOUSE. 

And cue high pitched screaming.  I drop the load of towels I had just folded on to the floor, went and grabbed my other dog since the first one just stared at it.  Once my other dog saw it, he was like, "Master brought me another playmate!  THANKS, MASTER!!!" They were zero help. God forbid  our doorbell ring, but they'll allow vermin to be inside, no problem! 

I'm screaming, the dogs are barking happily, the kids are banging on my door wanting to know what was going on, it was chaos. The thing finally ran out and hid under a towel that I had dropped and without thinking, I went to town.  I beat the ever loving shit out of that towel, and essentially, the mouse, with my broom.  I screamed like a wild banshee, literally the whole time. It would've been funny had it not been happening to me. Upon realizing the mouse was dead, more panic set in because I knew I was the only one there to get it outside.  I lost a good towel in the process, and I was in full on panic mode while getting it to the garbage can outside, but I did it.  In my mind I was thinking, "This thing isn't dead, it's playing me.  It's going to pop out of the towel and run up my arm and into my hair, and I'll die."  Seriously, I was thinking this while flying down my stairs to get outside. I'm a runner, I workout regularly, but I probably burned more calories from sheer panic last night than I did the entire week. 

I don't think the thing suffered, I hit the towel the first time and I didn't see any movement, but I wanted to be sure...so yeah.  I felt bad about it for like, 2 seconds once I knew I was safe from it's little reign of terror, but ultimately, I had to defend my home.  This morning, all the closets were gutted and cleaned. Under the kids beds were cleaned again.  I was petrified I'd see another one scurrying around but I didn't.  I'm thinking this one might have come in from the garage 2 days ago when I was going through boxes.  Silly me left the door to the house open, so I might have scared him and he ran inside.  That's the story I'm choosing to go with. I've cleaned everything I know of and can clean, and nothing.  No droppings anywhere, no nests or chewed up places.  Please let that be the only one!  I don't keep a dirty house, I clean daily and hard clean problem areas twice a month. We're a clean, nice people!  

So that's my drama for now.  A while ago, I could've picked up the phone and called maintenance to come take care of this problem for me.  But now?  Now I am Homeowner! Here me ROAR! 

Deep Thoughts with Haley Homeowner

In an effort to stay more up-to-date with the blog, I'm writing, probably about nothing of any importance, again! Sometimes when I write with nothing in mind, I get a really good post out of it. Other times it's a jumbled mess of words that make no sense so I'll do my best to keep that from happening. I make no promises though.

Being a homeowner is fun, it really is.  I recommend it to everyone who can afford it and make it happen, it's a great investment for a family. What's not fun is being responsible for anything that breaks, but that's mainly because I don't like spending money on broken stuff.  I'd rather spend money on fun things, things we WANT to do instead of things we HAVE to do.  Make sense?

RUN LITTLE HALEY JOEL OSMENT!!! RUN!!!  

What probably sucks the most is that all of what we (I say we, it's really more of a 'me' thing) want to do comes with a hefty price tag.

- Windows, I'd like them replaced with more energy efficient windows.
- The carpet, I thought I'd like berber carpet, but you know, we have dogs so I don't like it anymore. Snags - snags everywhere.  I'd love to update the carpet throughout the house.
- Our back door is pretty old, I'd love to take it out and put in French doors.  We also have a screen that pulls across the doorway so we can keep the back door open in nice weather - broken.  It's broken.
- Our front door and the screen door.  The door is just old looking and the screen door is shot.
- Blinds.  The majority of the house has excellent blinds, venetian blinds, I love them.  Our kitchen however has black blinds that just...don't belong. I'd love to update those to venetian blinds to keep them the same as the rest of the house. The fan in our kitchen is also black, it doesn't match anything...
- The ceiling in our dining room. It's got to go.  There was a previous leak and then we had our own mishap a while back, it just needs to be replaced.
- Landscaping in our front yard.  We got a quote from a lawn care service to fix our irrigation issues and then to take care of our yard and do some landscaping out front.  Yeah, that's not cheap.
- Our oven.  There's nothing wrong with it, I just WANT a new one because I'm weird. We also want to take out the cabinets over the oven (for a short girl like me, they're the devil,) and add in the microwave/vent thing.  We have no space in our kitchen for the microwave at the moment.  It's sitting on the floor in our dining room.
- The kids bathroom.  All of it.
- Our bathroom.  I'd love to update the Jacuzzi tub.
- Caulking.  We have some caulking to do.
- Our fireplace.


See?  I don't want to do much in our house!

My parents, and anyone who has ever owned a home, say that you never stop building your house. I can see how that would be true because of all the things we'd like to do and change in ours. It will take time and unfortunately, money to do it but that's the beauty of it.  We have the time, maybe we're not rolling in the dough, but eventually...as soon as we rob that bank.  When my husband retires from the military, we don't HAVE to leave like we would in government housing. We can stay here until the kids graduate high school if we wanted.  We can sell the house and move to Timbuktu if we wanted to.  It's ours, we'll do what we want.  To pay respect to the late, great, Stuart Scott - BOOYA!

I really do love being a homeowner.  It's easy to get down on things and complain when something breaks, but let's face it, no one likes when something doesn't work properly.  I've had a more positive outlook on things since I posted about Murphy's Law back in November.  It's a great thing to own a home, it's a massive responsibility but it's one I'm excited to have.  Plus I have a pretty good partner in this home owning adventure, so that helps.  I've really been thinking about it lately, the responsibility of it, the highs, the lows.  It's a normal thing that everyone experiences multiple times in their homes, I'm not alone. Truth be told, I wish we could've bought a house years ago. We're older and wiser at this point in our lives though so it's probably good that we took this long.

Now, in closing, since I titled this post "Deep Thoughts," I'll leave you with my favorite quote from Deep Thoughts, with Jack Handey:

It has nothing to do with owning a home...

I'm a terrible blogger.

The title speaks for itself.  We haven't done anything major in the house since the roof, so I haven't thought to update anything.  We did have a lot of "firsts" though, so that's something right?


For my husbands birthday we put in a fire pit in the backyard, which has been awesome.  The whole 3 times we've used it.  In our defense, it's like, done nothing but rain here lately and our backyard looks like a swamp.  It's fun to sit around the fire with good friends and good beer though.  The kids also get some enjoyment out of it by roasting marshmallows and hot dogs.

We got a bird! Well, one of my kids got a bird but I've kinda commandeered her because she's the coolest bird that ever freaking lived. Her name is Tango because she's a dancing queen!  My other child got a fish, a little Betta named Scooby-2, but like Perry the Platypus, he doesn't do much.  There's a little something for the parents out there.   And please, lets all have a moment of silence for Scooby-1, who tragically lost his life after I cleaned his tank incorrectly.  Fortunately for Scooby-2, I now know how to do it the right way.  We're 3 cleaning's in and he's still going strong! 

We had our first Christmas in OUR HOUSE!  Not a military home.  Not someone else's home.  OUR HOME.  I had the house decorated all cute and the husband hung our lights outside. We even bought a ladder and did it the "safe way" this year, so I guess you can say we're pretty adult now. 

We bought a new dishwasher!  Out with the old, in with the new!  The old one was probably in the house since '93, it had mold problems and didn't clean or dry our dishes very well at all.  We lucked out and found a display dishwasher crazy discounted at Lowe's, and now she's ours.  I think I'll name her Alice.  Anyone get the reference?!  Alice?  From the Brady Bunch....because she cleaned...

Oh well, I thought it was funny.  Alice was installed today actually and for the first time ever in my life, I am looking forward to doing the dishes tonight. Someone might want to get some holy water and come make sure I'm actually ME and some crazed, dishwashing-loving demon/alien thing.  

I may or may not watch a lot of Supernatural...

Our next purchase that we'll be doing is a new AC/heat unit.  Lowe's has already been out and given us a quote (YIKES) and shortly after we get our taxes back we'll be moving ahead with that install.  We have forced air heating at the moment, and while it's done it's job (ish) it's not the most efficient source of heating.  Since it uses the water from our water heater to heat the house, anytime we use the hot water, the temp in the house drops, which also means we don't have a lot of hot water for showers and such.  So we'll be paying a little bit extra to have the heat coming from the central AC unit, to me it's well worth it if it means we'll have enough hot water. 

So that's basically it.  Nothing else has really been done, unless you count us cleaning out our garage. Once our new budget plan starts to reflect itself in our bank accounts, we're hoping to do more updating and changing around here. 

I'm throwing the white flag...

This post is full of whining, complaining, and is quite frankly, bitchy.  If you're not in mood for such things, please read no further.


Murphy's Law states:  Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

And it has.  At the moment, I am regretting buying a house while my husband is still in the military. Often, I'm here alone and as all military wives know, Mr. Murphy and his stupid law come in to play as soon as the ship leaves or the boots leave the immediate area. It is in full swing here and the white flag is up and waving in hopes that it will leave me and go bother someone else. When my husband is home and something breaks, I deal with it until he gets home and then 9 times out of 10, he knows how to fix it.  Me on the other hand...I've been spoiled all my life with my dad or Navy housing fixing things. I know how to fix SOME things, but plumbing is one of things I know nothing about.

The house we bought was built in 1993, so while not brand new, it's not crazy old either.  But EVERYTHING IS BREAKING.  If it's not something breaking, it's me not knowing how to work things.  Like our heat, it's forced air, I had never heard of it until we bought this house.  It took DAYS, phone calls/texts, and my parents coming to visit for me/us to figure it out.  Attic unit...turn it on...open 2 valves on the water heater. Done.  I wish our inspector had told us how to turn it on because I was incredibly frustrated.  Lowe's is coming out to give us an estimate on a new AC unit soon, and I'm going to ask about changing our heating up as well.  I want a heat pump on our AC unit, like every other home I've ever lived in has.

We had a flood in the upstairs bathroom.
The tub  faucets in said bathroom are shot, we couldn't even run a bath, only a shower. Then the drain plug wouldn't work.  (Thanks Daddy for fixing that!)

In our kitchen sink, the sprayer nozzle started leaking.  Then it eventually became stuck open and then slowly the pressure left our main faucet.  It's only in the spray nozzle now. I've been told by a friend that we need to change our valves and I've been told by my dad that it could be a clog in our line/faucet.  I don't know.  I'm so freaking afraid of plumbing stuff that I'll deal with it until my husband gets home.  I just know I'll break something off and won't be able to use my sink at all.  At least now I can wash dishes with some difficulty via the spray hose.

Our fireplace is a death trap apparently.  Somehow, our inspector, who is paid to tell you the things wrong with a home you want to buy, missed it.  He said it needed to be cleaned, that there was damage to the flue, and when I asked him if we could use it before cleaning, in case an emergency arose, he said, "Absolutely."  Turns out that if we had built a fire in our fireplace, we'd have died or the house would've burnt down.

See those cracks in there?  Our chimney sweepers said carbon monoxide or one tiny ember could've gotten trapped in those cracks (there are more than this one) and more than likely would've caused my family to die of CO2 poisoning.  We contacted our realtor to let him know about this "mistake" the inspector made, because for God's sake, this is dangerous, someone could die. He was kind enough to send another company out to get a second opinion and they agreed, our fireplace is totally worthless. However, they said it would cost $1,800 to repair instead of the $4,000 the first company quoted us, but still.  This was something we were told worked properly and doesn't, we were not expecting to spend money on it.  And further more...I was looking forward to building a fire in our fireplace and snuggling damnit.  There goes my winter!

Everything just keeps coming and coming and I'm ready to see the light at the end of the tunnel on home repairs. We'll always want to fix stuff, or upgrade, but we JUST bought this house and it seems that we've had problem after problem. One thing I do know for sure though is our next realtor will probably hate us.  We were so blinded by the thought of owning a home that we missed so many little things when we looked at this house.  Our next home will be newer (I'm actually hoping to be able to build) and we'll be checking so many little things that we overlooked here.  Tub faucets.  Screens.  HEATING.  PLUMBING.  It will have a newer roof and a damn good AC unit. Newer appliances. Weather stripping. I know even newer homes have issues, but maybe not as many as this one is having.  Not to mention, the next time we buy, my husband will be out of the Navy and home every night to help if something does go wrong.

I am going to do some research, maybe see if Lowe's or *gulp* Home Depot offers classes on home repair because this is getting old. I got really down on myself yesterday, I just feel stupid because I don't know the first thing about fixing some issues here, and those who know me best know I hate feeling this way.

Now that I've had time to reflect on things, I do not regret buying a house. I regret that we didn't further our search.  We wanted our kids to stay in their school district, and here we are.  We have a great house, it just needs some work.  Unfortunately, at the moment, it's work I know nothing about, but hopefully I can change that soon.