It's raining in our house

I'm just gonna say it. I love home depot's service center.

So we got some rain... and rain means concrete "rug"tests in little man's room since, you know... there's no flooring in there... but after our last downpour, on cement slab was dry dry dry... so we have no idea how long that water was under his tile, of how it got there... but it's not coming from the rain cause we got a really good downpour (like standing water in the bushes, for like 3 days).

But... in the process of all that rain, I thought i'd share one of those "oh really" i'm an idiot homeowner moments.

You see, I found water in my slide door track...

I wasn't aware that water could get into the track on the inside of the door... and that there is a drain that helps remove said water...

So I freaked out and thought something was wrong with my brand new slider doors. I logged into the home depot project website and placed a message about the issue. They had a tech out to my house within 2 days, who then confirmed that our drain hole was clogged, that we had a drain hole, and was super nice about it.

He told us that the real problems were when windows were not sealed right and rain was rolling on the inside of the window...

Well the rain picked up...

and I walked past our bedroom window about 4 hours later... and realized it was raining on the inside of our house. When we press along the seal on our window, water comes out... in addition to the couple of continuous water drips running down the inside of window pane...

I called the tech back, but he was at another job... so I placed another notice on the home depot website for our window job and I'm waiting to hear back... hopefully they are prompt like the first time.

UPDATE:
Next day, tech came out to re-seal the outside of my window!!!!!

We got a new tub!

You can see how much higher the new shower stall is!

So, after spending $234.47 on a bathroom shower rod, curtains, and tub fixtures.... and $500 to resurface the tub... we realized we could no longer salvage our bathroom tub/shower. It got us through a year and then we saw the peeling start... and the fixtures actually break.

While at one point the Hot water actually came out as hot after we did some improvements, but shortly after our hard work, the fixtures we installed broke due to the horrible valves they were attached to.

Hot water was cold.... cold water was hot. When showering you'd go from glacier to boiling because you couldn't move from one water temp to the other easily... or really at all.

Bye bye crappy shower unit.

After looking into options and making a few phone calls we found out that paying $5500 for a new fiberglass tub was not an option. With only a single shower for three people, putting in fiberglass was NOT recommended. We needed something more durable to keep us with the heavy use.

So we paid $150 to have the water shut off in our building and turned back off....

We paid $170.50 for useless permits with our city... (they literally walked in, said, oh that looks nice, and left)...

Our new tub! we did a tub and three walls
that went up to the ceiling!

and we spent $7,740.00 for a new ceramic tub and shower including the following:

• We raised the shower head high so hubs wouldn't have to bend over and duck to wash his hair. The height in his own words is "miraculous." Even his dad loves it.
• We picked a wider and deeper tub for actual relaxing baths... and we didn't have to "move" any of the drains to get a larger tub in there thankfully!
• Took the shower all the way to the ceiling so we didn't have to worry about water hitting drywall.
• Had them re-pipe the tub area so hot was hot and cold was cold -- so an actual permanent fix!
• They fixed and replaced the valves that wouldn't move to allow us to adjust anything... so now we can control hot and cold water with a single finger
• They installed more storage shelves in the shower so we could get rid of the ugly shower caddies.
• And they properly installed a rounded shower rod (apparently hubs didn't tell me ours kept falling down...) 

And its amazing.

It's the best money we ever spent.

I know I say that after every home improvement project, but that's because we aren't spending money all at once. When you live with a problem for a while and learn to work around it and find out what you WANT it to do when it's done, you APPRECIATE it even more when the repairs take palce.

We use this room every day.... and by paying for nice materials, it will last us the duration of our time here, plus the next people who live here after us... which is why we bit the bullet and did this project first, even though it wasn't on our original project list.... and yes, we used Home Depot again.

Since our building has a lot of water issues, we wanted to know if something was done wrong, that it would be made right again... and it was competitive pricing.

Now, every morning, I love my bathroom.

Final look!

Our Ceiling fans broke

I know there have been a lot of home improvement posts as I have been trying to get us caught up on the blog for the stuff we did in 2018 that never got recorded, but alas, we had a few hic-ups already in 2019 which bar more posts.

The original ceiling fans we bought for the condo were crap. The one in little dudes room stopped working 5 months after it was installed. We put a box fan in his room with intentions of replacing it this year before summer.... but then, as fate would have it, our bedroom fan just crapped out on us.

We have noticed a little noise from the fan a few months ago when we turned it off to clean it, but it went away. Well Hubs turned it off to clean it this month and I turned it back on later that night to the inevitable pop.

So we decided to replace all three with the old brand I installed in my original condo... How did I remember which brand I bought 8 years ago? Because Hubs would often hit the heavy logo'd pull chain on a regular basis. So when he decided the brand he picked was crap, he just googled photos of fans until he found the logo and then told me to find something like I did in the old place.

The result were three LED ceiling fans that give off more light (which is a bonus for little dudes room), and get this... they were cheaper than the crap we originally installed and paid WAY more for. Needless to say we are now forever "fans" of Hampton Bay.

$258.50 for all three fans and hubs installed them since they were going where the other three fans were.

• We originally paid $382.52 for ceiling fans that broke. 

Doors Doors and more doors

Since we were a little remiss in posting in 2018, I have a few home improvement updates to share with you all. The first being, we replace our doors... ALL of them.

The front door didn't close correctly and bugs were running into the light outside our door and crawling under our door to die in our house and attract ants... I even had a gecko find its way under my door. The thing was one good kick away from falling off.

So, what did we replace it with? a steel door and frame. It's awesome. We can put up magnets on the back and hang little dude's art up on the walls that he brings home from pre-school.

We again selected Home Depot for our doors because I'm a fan of lifetime warranties since we plan to be here for a total of 8-10 years, plus we weren't allowed to replace the front door ourselves per the HOA policy.

What it cost: Front Door:

• Installation materials and molding for around the door: $94.59
• Front Door: $280.68
• Haul away of old door: $35.00
• Labor: $392.00
• Credit for measure: $-50.00
• Tax: $29.08

Total: $746.35

We then replaced the bathroom, our double bedroom doors, and the door to little dudes room. We needed the inside doors replaced because the jams were so old in the bathroom that the whole thing warped and would sometimes lock little people inside...  We didn't do a door to cover the laundry room... because the only thing home depot carries in a size wide enough for the space is a mirrored slider door... which hubs doesn't like... so we are back to the drawing board there, but that will be a latter project.

What it cost: the rest of the doors:

• Installation materials: $105.91
• Single door: $151.96
• Double door: $379.32
• Single door: $151.96
• Labor: 498.00 for the two single doors
• Labor: 373.51 for the double master doors
• sales tax: $61.16

Total: 1,721.82

The largest cost was labor, but we didn't know what we were going to get with how old everything was... and it was a good thing we paid for their labor and didn't DIY this ourselves. Despite the professional measure, the master double doors were very difficult to replace because the entry way wasn't really the size that they measured. However their crew was able to still install the doors by modifying materials and swapping out trim.

I still need to paint everything, but New doors! It is so nice to be able to lock the bathroom on purpose then get stuck inside...

Ceilings Complete!

Earlier in the month I had a work event that went after hours and I ended up working a double shift... which meant I needed to take a day off to adjust my hours... and being the productive little bee I am, I decided to take a Friday off work so I could make the most of a home improvement weekend.

The end result?

I'm super excited to say that I won't have to paint another ceiling for a very, very, VERY long time!

My right arm is currently in a state of rebellion, and super sore, but I managed to paint the living room, dinning room and kitchen area all in a single day!

But before we touch on painting, I have to throw a shout out to the savior of the home improvement project... HUBS.

Hubs was a super hero helper and during the week before my scheduled paint day, he and I stayed up late after little man went to sleep, despite having work the next day, and together we taped plastic all over the living room and kitchen.

This is one of those things I will hands down say is WORTH the time spend to put up PLASTIC....

Drywall dust and mud get EVERYWHERE if you don't put up plastic and I had no desire to actually hand wash and clean everything I own in the condo... because it doesn't matter what room your sanding... it will find a way to get into the bathroom and down the hall... because dust carries well in the air and the wind.

Hubs looking like santa after sanding
our newly textured ceiling

We also made a point to put up plastic to block off the hall that leads to the rest of the place, essentially creating a plastic bubble.

So hubs used the ladder to hand sand our whole ceiling with a sanding brick in the middle of the night.

He looked like a pretty epic Santa clause when he was done.

If your wondering where I was during all the sanding, I was sitting on the tile in the hallway petting roxy safely behind a sheet of plastic.

My asthma has been acting up lately to the point where I actually got an inhaler from the doctor and have been using it a couple of times a week because I find myself wheezing late at night or early in the morning... the idea of sanding everything, even with a mask, was unappealing to my lungs and unlike painting, is something anyone can really do with little instruction... (We have a rule in our house that I paint... because I will be the worst critic of someone else who paints and that's not healthy for our marriage).

So, since I was hesitant to sand everything, hubs knocked it out like a rock star with his incredibly long and manly arms... He technically didn't need a ladder and could have used the step stool, but he didn't want me to feel like a shorty, lol.

Look what I found mom...

I'm darth vader...

So, since hubs sanded everything, I wanted to make the most of an entire day off of work while our little dude would be chilling at daycare with his little peeps.

So, I told myself I had a single day to paint the living room, dinning room, and kitchen area.

Ambitious, yes, but do-able.

I've learned a few tips and tricks since I've really dented the painting of our condo.

• If you wrap your roller or brush in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge, you can avoid cleaning it for WEEKS and then just re-use it...

Yup, I've had a paint roller in my fridge for around 6 weeks now... or whenever I finished the ceiling in our bedroom. Took it out of the fridge for a minute or two to warm it up to room temperature and then continued on.

He loved the home depot car and
didn't want to leave so he tried to
hide from us.

• When painting a ceiling, you don't need painters tape. 

Your supposed to always paint your ceiling before you paint your walls because even the BEST painters tape with "leak lock" and easy clean technology won't prevent drips from the ceiling touching the wall by getting under the tape... 

I know this because I've taken the time to tape it out.. and have bought the so called leak lock pricey rolls of blue tape... and it doesn't make for a clean line.

So it's really not worth it to tape it off until you actually go to paint the wall... (and even then, I don't really use painters tape. I take a very small art brush and hand paint my "edges" to get a constant line that looks clean because in these older condos, the walls with the texture just don't allow you to get a straight line to work with.) 

In other homes where your lines might be cleaner, the tape is nice so your roller doesn't hit the newly painted ceiling...  but if your careful and if you paint your own edge it's not really needed.

But the ceiling is FINALLY one single color... not four different whites or yellows... and it looks SOOOO much better in person. Pictures just don't do it justice!

Windows...

We got our windows installed today in the condo, and oh my what a difference! I can stand in the kitchen window and not feel like I need sun screen because the heat reflecting in was unbearable!

BEFORE SLIDER DOORS

 

We had to tape up little dudes room last night so the morning sun and evening lights from the neighbors wouldn't keep him up. They looked the same as the ones in the living room, but without the paper they were not "lookers." We actually used moving paper we had left over that we saved. (We plan to use the rest of the roll for Christmas gifts with some yarn or twine ribbons :)

BEFORE WINDOWS

It's hard to take a good shot of a naked window with light, etc... but original windows from the 70s or 80s when the building was first put in.

THE JOB

I was given an arrival window of 8-10 am. At 9 am I received a call from Home depot to see if the installers had arrived. I told them they hadn't and by 9:40-9:45 they were onsite with the windows ready to go! I loved that I didn't have to call them to see what was going on and they came in the actual arrival window... huge kudos there. I'm already loving Home Depot!

Amazing awesome bonus.... When they removed our living room slider, ants when everywhere... The ants aren't the bonus, the team home depot sent is!!! Now, we have struggled with ants at our new home, have complained to the HOA (I have a petition in to the board to have the outside of our building inspected and for entry points to be sealed at their expense because spraying common areas isn't the problem when there are cracks in the foundation letting the evil critters in and multiple units in my building are having problems still and its fall.) So when the installers removed the old frame, ants crawled everywhere.... because they were living there... 

Instead of freaking out, the installer asked me if I happened to have any spray. When I presented him with a gallon container and an easy to use spray handle, he killed them all for me, sprayed into the outside area.... then cleaned them up, and kept processing the install once he had created a clean area for my windows to live in. 

AMAZING! I officially love Home Depot. Crew was polite and neat and did a good job.

When one of the windows wasn't sliding right, he spent 30 minutes insuring it rolled correctly and quietly before moving on to the next one. When I pointed out a few areas that needed some touch up caulk during our final walk through, they took care of it.

I can't wait to have home depot do our floors... Such a great experience!

We did receive a defective latch on one windows, so the installer contacted home depot and a rep insured me that they placed an order for replacement and that it would be approved by the manager and someone would contact me in 2-3 days to schedule for the new panel to be installed.

We paid a 10% deposit ($690.03) when we booked our window and slider replacement job, so we paid $6,210.27 at the completion of the job today. This quote was $1,000 cheaper than the private company that came by to quote the job and comes with a lifetime warranty. So if Little Man, Hubs, or another family member walks though a screen door again, they replace it for free, for life...

So happy!

For now, we are purchasing some double curtains rods off of Amazon with some Grey black out Curtains accompanied by white sheer curtains for the windows to cover them. We want to make sure we have enough funds in  our remodel budget to take care of the larger projects (Like flooring and air conditioning) before we consider the sliding door shutters that I installed in our old place. :) So $320.42 later, we will have things to cover our new windows for privacy :)