No More Door

This doesn't make much sense without pictures but be patient, they'll be up soon.

So 2 nites ago Chris took off the spare door in the guest room and ripped out the frame. Yesterday he chipped away about an inch of the drywall around the opening to expose the studs. He cut a piece or two of the spare 2x4 to fit the bottom of the doorway to frame it up to nail the drywall to it later. He cut another beam to go in the center of the doorway, another anchor for the drywall. Then he cut the brand new drywall that we bought on Wednesday and it fit just perfectly. We put mud and tape on it by 9pm last night. We were hoping to have at least that much done before his cousin arrives today to visit thru Sunday.

I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and used their coupons to get 2 anti-slip pads for under the two rugs. It was interesting trying to install the one in the master. We wanted the rug to go under the bed frame and stick out on 3 sides. The bed isn't that heavy but its big and bulky. And with a 7'x10' rug, it gets a big awkward. The bed frame has 3 posts down the middle, underneath the bed, to distribute the weight and to allow for more support. If anything, these would be our main obstacle. If we had 3 people, 2 could lift the bed and one would roll out the rug. We only had 2. After removing the mattress, we lay out the pad and pull it under the 2 legs at the end of the bed. I slide underneath the bed (cuz I fit) and with Chris' help lifted up the middle of the frame and pull the rest of the pad under those middle legs. Not bad. Now the rug. Hmmm... do we pull it under from one side? or from the bottom up toward the headboard? But the dresser might be in the way. We decided the later would work best. So we unrolled the rug and laid it in the 2'-3' gap between the foot of the bed and the dresser. But what if, while we're sliding it toward the headboard, the pad comes along with it? Blahh... we'll just deal with it. So that's what we did. Slide a foot, fix the pad, slide a foot, fix the pad, and so on. It actually worked. Just trim up the excess padding and we're done. Beautiful.

Uhh, how do we get to the plug behind the headboard to plug in the alarm clock? Chris pulls the bed out and I squeeze in to plug in the clock. Should we leave it hear so we can plug in the lamp later? Okay. We leave it pulled out. Later, for some reason, Chris looks under the bed. UH OH!!! One of the 3 middle legs is leaning. When Chris pulled out the bed, he only lifted it enough for the last 2 legs to lift off the rug but the the 3rd wasn't and dragged along the rug and bent at the joint. MOVE IT BACK!! I slide back under and we manage to put the leg back at a 90 degree and the bed is back against the wall again. Oh well, we'll just lift it higher if we need to get to the plugs again.

We'll be staying at the house more often now. We just have to move out those fish tanks. *sigh*

Deliveries

A lot happened on Saturday. We got our cable installed and our bedroom furniture finally came. And we went to another wedding. Busy day.

The wedding wasn't until 5pm so we booked the morning for the cable transfer and the furniture delivery. The cable guys stopped by around 10am. And as expected, all the neighbors had to gawk and stare at what was going on at our house. Any abnormalities, like a buy on a ladder messing with cable box, is just cause to gather and stare. Well, only 3 of them this time. The cable guys said the wires were old so they replaced them for us. Aren't they nice.


As the cable guys were doing their thing, the furniture guys came in. We ordered this set from Costco.com in like July or something but they backlogged so instead of a 4-6 week delivery, it was going to be more like 10-12 weeks. And then when they called to set up a delivery appointment, they don't deliver after 4pm on weekdays and on their available weekends, we were busy or out of town until now. So we waited a long time but the timing was good. Chris finished installing the baseboards in that room so it was ready to go. Well, we still need to putty over the screws, but that'll be quick. The furniture looks great and the delivery guys even put our bed together for us. They didn't scratch the floor or anything. The guy in charge asked us if we had those felt pads to put underneath, which we did. They were nice enough to lift the whole bed frame and one of them crawled under to stick them on the middle legs in the center of the bed. Luckily we had the stuff ready.

After everyone left we opened the memory foam mattress.
Step 1: Cut the straps.
Step 2: Use the enclosed letter opener to cut the outer bag along the center as noted on the strip of cardboard inside the bag.
Step 3: Remove the outer bag.
Step 4: Untwist the inner bag and let the air in.
Step 5: Remove the inner bag.
Step 6: Cut the next straps.
Step 7: Let the mattress settle for 24-48 hours.

*Phew* But its looking good. =)

Sunday we grabbed some friends and moved the heavy TV from the apartment to the house. And of course they sat around watching it all day until dinner.

Our next big items are the fish tanks. Does anyone have a 29 gallon tank stand that they don't want? Its on cinder blocks right now and I don't think that'll be too good on a hardwood floor. The couch, dining table, bed, and oversized chair can all stay until later. We don't need them at the house so they'll end up in the cottage. Once we get closet rods and a bathroom door (hopefully today), we'll be set to move in. Oh yeah, and pack our clothes, computers and the kitchen. That's mostly what's left.

But don't let that fool you. We still have lots of work to do on the house... Overhaul the bathroom, close up the extra guest room door, finish painting the laundry room and guest room, add transitions where the tile floor meets the hardwood. That's not including the basement or backyard. We'll be busy for a while.

It Has Arrived

They got it right this time. We actually got the mattress. The box is a little over twice the size of the air purifier box. Its like super duper vacuum packed. It even has like a 10 step instruction of how to open the stupid thing. The box itself is a bit mashed and mangled. UPS didn't take much care in shipping this one. Luckily its just a dense mass of foam. Nothing breakable. They didn't even ring the doorbell. Chris said they just threw it on the porch and drove off. The only thing that tipped him off that it arrived was their noisy truck driving off. What service.

Just in time, too. Our bedroom set comes in tomorrow. That'll be interesting. Its supposed to be their 'White Glove' delivery service. They're supposed to assemble everything for us. They better not mess up the hardwood floor!

AND... our Comcast gets transferred tomorrow too. I wonder when we'll move the huge tv. =)

We're movin' right along.

I found it...

We've been looking for just the right rug to put under our new bed before the furniture arrives on Saturday. The goal is to find a fairly thick rug that's at least 8'-10' wide so it hangs over the sides of the bed around 1'-2' on either side. We're not into the frilly fringe kind cuz those aren't too vacuum friendly... neither are the cheap loopy ones from like Target or something. Actually, we were looking for two...one for the bedroom and one for the living room.

Our first stop was Ikea. They had some nice stuff but still not that cheap for a thin mass produced supposedly oriental rug. And designs were either too busy, too Native American, or too modern for what we're looking for.

We breezed through Target and Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes, Macy's. Most of the ones in the size we wanted were pretty expensive ($400-$1500) or you had to order it custom. We stopped by Tuesday Morning (like a Marshalls or Ross) and we found a nice 5'x8' that would be perfect for the living room. It had a thick nap and they like beveled the nap around the design so it had dimension and depth to it. The colors would incorporate the wall colors we had so it was nearly perfect. It took us a long time to decide. But the $300 price tag was a little much for us. We passed. We decided to do more price shopping.

We went back to Ikea for one of those holiday sales, just in case their rugs were miraculously below $100 with all new patterns and better quality. But alas, still the same cheap looking rugs that they had before. On one of our many trips to Home Depot to our delight, they had rugs for half off. I guess it was their slow moving stock. We found a nice good quality rug for less than $115. SOLD! On to the bedroom rug.

One night we went to Costco for something and they were selling rugs. Well, we found a good size rug with nice coloring and for the right price... $99.97. Keep in mind, these were larger than the Home Depot one we just bought and it costs less. The box showed 5 different color variations but only 3 were in the box... black, beige, and red. We debated about the black one but lint shops up quick on black floors. And the red was a bit too red for the "garden wall" colored walls in the master. So we settled on the beige. We get it into the cart and we see the end is frayed. BOOO. Its the last one. I don't think its a regular item so it might not be stocked for too long. But its the perfect size and colors and quality and most importantly price. That was last week. There's other Costco's around. We'll check what they've got.

We checked the San Jose Costco over the weekend with less stock than the first time. On Monday we left the house early to check the Redwood City Costco. They had the super big ones and the small hallway ones. No mid size. Will we ever find it??? Finally, yesterday I decided to just spend my whole evening look for the rug. The furniture's coming in 3 days. I can't slack off anymore. Chris works closer to the house than I do so he decided to install baseboards instead of run around the Bay Area looking for a rug. But it won't fit in my car so he'll have to drive up to help me transport it. So the adventure begins. After work I went to the Costco in South City on El Camino. I needed gas anyway. $2.78/gal, not bad for these days. Anyway, same deal as the Redwood City one, no midsize. *sigh* Next. After having to wait forever to turn right out of the driveway, I head over to the South City one on Airport Blvd.

Side note: We tried to go to this one on Thursday last week but we only know how to get to it from 380 east. We were just across 101 from the place so we got adventurous and tried to just hop the freeway somewhere. Unfortunately we're not familiar with that part of town and we got super lost. We gave up. Sad. But Alias was starting in 30 mins and it takes 20 to get back to San Carlos. Priorities.

Back to the story. Airport Blvd store had one left. The black one. Do I really want to drive all around town looking for the beige one? or will the black one be good enough? I call Chris and ask. "If we get the black one now, we should've just gotten the black one the first time. Just keep looking." AAARRRGGGG!!! He didn't offer to look with me but so easily says to just keep on the quest to drive all around town searching for the one rug. *sigh* Okay. Someone's got to do it.

On the road again. After a bit of traffic I get to the Foster City Costco. If you've ever noticed, not all Costcos are laid out the same. At all the other ones, the rugs are in the middle of the warehouse. It took me some searching, but at this one they were on the side with the kitchen electronics and random tables and vacuums or something. Some obscure part of the store where no one really ventured. And yet, no mid size rugs. Denied again. By now I'm having major rejection issues. Moving on.

By now its around 6:15pm and I have to drive about 10-15 miles to Mountain View, during commute hours, in the commute direction. I don't get there until 6:50pm. 35 minutes to go 10 miles. 20 mph. Sheesh. As I walk around aimlessly in a Costco I've never been in before, farther than the hot dog counter anyway, I spot the rugs from 2 aisles away. My heart starts pounding. "Let this be it. Don't make me go to Sunnyvale." And as the angelic sounds of 'Hallelujah' ring in my ear... THEY HAVE THEM!!! LOTS OF THEM!!! IN ALL COLORS!!!! WOOO HOOO!!! But the only question is now, which one do we want?

I call Chris and give him the good news. It'll take him a good 10 minutes to get here. Scratch that, 20 with traffic. Long story short (yeah right) we get a different beige one with red and green in it. It's purdy. We'll post some pix later. Its still in Chris' car until tonite. One less thing to worry about.

In the mattress news. It should be arriving today. We'll see what ends up on our doorstep this time. Stay tuned

The lastest fiasco...

So we ordered a memory foam mattress from Walmart.com cuz, from our research, it was the cheapest. My friend works there so we used her employee discount. Cool. Its set to arrive on the 12th or something. Chris' folks wait around all day for the mattress to arrive.

I get to the house and see this box. Its about 2.5 feet tall by 1.5 feet wide and maybe 1 foot deep. "What's this?" I ask to Chris, who is installing our first baseboard. "The mattress, I guess." Uhm.. "how can a 10" deep memory foam mattress fit in this tiny box?" "Maybe the vacuum packed it or something."

Well, it can't be the TiVo cuz that one came in a nice orange TiVo box. So I open the box. And much to my surprise, I see this instead...

Its a $180 Hamilton Beach Air Purifier. I don't think we can sleep on an air purifier. So I call my friend to find out what's going on. She said she'll talk to the Customer Service guy she knows from work and she'll straighten it all out tomorrow. So tomorrow rolls around. She said she's got a return shipping label for me and we just have to drop it off at the post office and they're resending the info for my mattress and they'll send it on over. "So can I keep the fan?" "Is it worth keeping?" "If its worth $180, I'll keep it."

She goes and finds out for me. Comes back to say that they won't send me the mattress until they get the fan back. So they're telling me that I have to wait another week or more for the thing to get returned cuz its not over nite or express shipping. And wait another week or two before I get my mattress??? So we won't get our mattress for another month?????

I asked her what I get out of their mistake? What's stopping me from canceling my order? I don't get some kind of extra discount or a complementary gift card for my troubles? Or even free shipping off the mattress??? I don't even get an "I'm Sorry" email from Walmart.com. If I didn't use her employee discount, I would totally complain and raise a raucous. I know its not my friend's fault but I told her, this happened to my mom and Target.com. She ordered a rocking chair, received a crib. Emailed and complained, she got the chair and no one picked up the crib. So she gave it to my sister and vowed never to shop at Target.com again. Hmm.. Maybe I'll learn from her example.

On the bright side, our baseboards are all painted. They'll be going up today. The doors are another story. First problem is the hinges. 3 coats of paint. So we bought new ones. But... the new ones are slightly thinner than the old ones which makes the door impossible to close. So we had to make a shim beef up the hinge so now it works well. Second problem is the door knobs. Apparently the old door knobs in our house have different dimensions than the new door knobs... the lever thing is longer and wider than the old ones. meaning, the lever won't go thro the original hole and when it is wide enough to go through, its not deep enough. Chris is having lots of fun with that one. Third problem is the slide plate. The hole in the plated on the door frame is set too far back, the latch doesn't grab it. Luckily we have a cool dremel. Chris gets to use it to shave some metal off of the plate so the latch will catch.

Speaking of doors, both doors to the master bedroom are warped. One screw hole for the slide plate is stripped and must be blocked by something cuz it goes in crooked and sticks out about a half an inch and won't go any farther. And when removing the old screw from the plate, it must've been hammered or something cuz it was bent. More to add to the list of "What was he thinking???"

*Update* I just got done chatting with my friend. They sent the info for the mattress and it should arrive this weekend. We'll keep our fingers crossed. But they made me promise to send the fan back. Oh well.

The Final Stretch

The end is nearing. We put more paint on the hard to cover old brown doors. The baseboards are being cut to size. We'll be painting & installing those this week. The roman blinds are up. We're just lagging on the packing. =)

Chris got his wisdom teeth out on Friday. Still on a liquid and I'm sure it hurts a lot more than he's letting on. He's actually doing very well in the pain & groaning department. We took Friday and Saturday off from home improvements so he could recover.


chipmunks

Sunday we left the extra paint in Chris' car and since we took mine, we kinda hit an end. So I painted as many doors as I could until I ran out of paint. Once we install the new hinges and knobs, they'll be good to go.

Chris' dad's been cutting baseboards for a few days now. He initially cut 45 degree angles for both inside and outside corners, but finally looked at our internet research and how-to books and figured out how to cut the inside corners more accurately. They say to have one board cut straight and flush against the corner. Along the other wall, they say to draw & cut the profile of the board at the end so it butts up against the straight cut board to fit like a puzzle. A much tighter joint than the 45's on an inconsistent 90 degree (+/- 2 degree) corner. It seems to be going well.


before the priming
The TiVo and mattress should arrive on Wednesday. The bedroom set on the 22nd. Once we get the furniture, it'll feel more like home.

soon...

Just FYI... there really are pictures coming. I'm just having trouble with the firewall over here. Soon.

Update: In the meantime... look at the progress happening in the garage?

Surprise, Surprise!

*What I hear of a phone conversation between Chris and his dad.* (about 7pm last night)

-Hi Dad.
-We're at the house.
-Leaving for where? *bewildered look*
-Really? *shrug*
-Are you serious? *anguish*
-You'll be here at 1am? *helpless sigh*
-Melissa says we won't be at the house tomorrow. And I'm getting my wisdom teeth out on Friday.
-I told you that. *frustration* Me to Chris:Ask how long they'll be here.
-How long will you be here?
-TWO WEEKS??!?!?!?
-Okay. *silent scream...NOOOOO!!!!*
-Okay. *acceptance*
-Bye. *defeat*
*hangs up*
Chris to me: My dad said if they don't come up now, they won't have time to help us until next year. He said by the time he's done, we'll be able to park in the garage.

Side note: The garage is like the last thing we were worried about fixing. The living space takes priority. The garage is like a shack. No electric garage door. Maybe no electricity. We're talking big bucks to fix it... or at least to the standard that I'm imagine. We don't know what his dad has in mind. *sigh*

<--chris interjecting on the sidenote-->
My dad asked me a while back what else I wanted him to do with the house. I told him the next big thing was the garage because I know he won't paint and the driveway will have to be contracted. What else would he do now? Do you know how to fix the garage? I don't either.<-- end interjection -->

*Conversation between Me and Chris later*
M: Why didn't they tell us sooner?
C: I don't know
M: Didn't you call them yesterday and ask when they were coming?
C: Yes. They said they didn't know.

*A little later*
C: When I talked to them yesterday, I told them we took off all the doors to paint, right?
M: Yes. They always ask where we are and what we're doing whenever they call.
C: Hahhahha. They don't have a door on their bedroom.

I guess you know what we'll be doing for the next two weeks.

Almost done...

with the paint.

I find that I'm a lot more tired these days. Therefore, my posts have been VERY few and VERY far between. The day in the life of Christopher goes a little something like this:

• 6:45-7:15 Drive to work.
• 7:15-8:30 Work out.
• 8:30-4:00 Work.
• 4:00-4:20 Drive to the house.
• 4:20-~8:30 or 9:00 Work.
• 9:00-9:45 Drive to the apartment.
  Fun.

Okay. Enough of the whiny baby shtuff.

Today, Melissa has put her foot down. I'm posting something to the blog.

We're 95% done with the peeeeint.

Today we started and and are in the middle of cleaning up and priming the doors. I foolishly thought this would be a one day thing. You know... a little sanding, a little priming, a little painting. HA! NO FRACKING WAY!!!

Step 1: Removing hardware. This includes doorknobs, hinges, staples, tieracks (yes, multiple) doorstops, various random screws (who knows?) and because on of these was a door with a window, brackets for about 3 sets blinds (yes on one door). I WISH I had the forsight to take a picture of what some of the hinges looked like before and during this process. The worst hinge (just one) took me at least half an hour to take off. It was covered in 2 extremely thick layers of semi-gloss paint. I couldn't even see the grooves in the screwheads.

Notable quote courtesey Melissa's brother:

"Did you guys buy new hinges? Did you know that none of these screws match?"

Step 2: Putty the holes. Putty the many many many many many many many many many many many many many holes. All shapes and sizes (but mostly the shape of a nail or screw).

Step 3: Scrape/sand/peel. Strange how many blemishes can appear on a door throuought the years. This group of doors show various degrees of degradation. ALL of them weren't previously primed before they were painted so they're in various stages of peeling. Also there there were a variety of materials unceremoniously painted over such as scotch tape, staples, bugs, random nails... etc..


sand the thing down.

Step 4 (where we are now): Prime. These doors are painted brown. The primer is white. Just proves the rule. One coat of primer is a only a dream in this house.


purty. maybe they should all be like this?

Step 5: Peeeeeeint.


we done yet? what time is it?