October 15, 2006
The New Stove
GE Adora™ 30" Free-Standing Electric Range
Yes, we ventured to Home Depot today and selected a new Smoke Detector Initializing Appliance (a new range). Aside from the existing toaster and blender, it may be a while before the rest of the appliances go stainless. Delivery will be this Thursday. With free shipping, disposal of the old, broken down range, 0% financing, and 10% off if we signed up for a Home Depot card, we couldn't pass up the deal.
p.s. Don't tell them I prefer Lowes... they might scratch the stainless!
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April 07, 2006
Drew & Jesse's Wedding
This is probably a little too much self-disclosure, but I wanted to see how it looked...
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March 16, 2006
SLACKER!
"'Wherever I go, there's my bicycle.' The bicycle obsessed pursuits of a Cape Cod cyclist."If anyone (anyone?) was wondering where I have vanished to, and why the lack of blog posts, I have a couple of excuses:
- I have been doing some renovations over at Cape Cod Cyclists' Escape... sprucing things up a bit after a couple of years collecting dust.
- I have been playing with a few of my online addictions:
and a few others I won't bore you with.
With the wedding only a month away, there is obviously much happening on that front as well. Tomorrow we go to the town hall for the marriage license, and Sunday Morning Blog (Dead Bloggers Society, Commute-a-Blog, etc.) will soon be joined forever with Jesse Loves Brady. Amazing!
I'll do my best to keep up with the posts, but at least now you all know what I am up to with my disappearing act.
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February 09, 2006
Blog Recall: Remember When...
Blog rerun (February 2005):
"It will feel good to stretch these blog muscles. Yes, I have been continuing my low-blog diet.House update: the waiting game on the house continues. The mortgage process and planning of the post-tenant restoration are taking center stage. Anyone who has never purchased a house should be warned: the process is terribly aggravating! In a country where virtually everything is about instant gratification, the home purchase and mortgage process is like having the carrot dangled in your face for weeks on end. The end result will be well worth it, however, as housing options on Cape Cod are becoming limited to say the least.
On the relationship front: Jesse and I just celebrated our first Valentine's Day together and a four month anniversary. Hard to believe that four months into the relationship we are so sure about our future together. The prospect of starting a home means so much more knowing we will have one another's company.
It seems like such a short time ago that I moved into my current $500 a month rental in an effort to save money to buy a house. I did not expect to be in this position so soon, especially in the position to buy on Cape Cod. Amazing how quickly things change."
Here we are a year later. Personally, I think I am still suffering burnout from all the work we did to make this our home, but the end result is just what we had hoped for. A second Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and now the wedding day draws closer. Amazing...
Posted by capecodcyclist at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)
August 05, 2005
Home Improvement Induced Insomnia (or, Hiii)
[mood| 
flipping out]
The Bathfitter guy was here until 2:00am this morning! That's right, you heard me... 2AM! You have got to admire the guy's dedication and perseverance. He was here from 10:30am Thursday, until the early hours of Friday morning. What a horrible night's sleep. We were beginning to consider it a good thing that we had recently furnished our guest bedroom, but he left... finally.
This most recent marathon adds to our string of bizarre and poorly managed home improvement fiascoes. The shower, which had previously been Bathfittered in a manner I can only describe as amateurish, now looks fantastic. It took him all day and night, because an overzealous manager told the first installer to come and tear out his work. In the process of ripping his work out, he created a day's repair work for the installer who came to redo the job yesterday (or today, or the last two days or whatever – you get the picture). I can only say that we are extremely lucky this has all happened while Jesse has had some time off – not that she intended this time off for babysitting contractors in our house.
Now, aside from the brand new carpet that was ruined by the first installer, we are nearing completion of the major projects planned for our new home. We are looking forward to a time that we are not haunted by strangers at odd hours on odd days. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I think we need a vacation.
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July 27, 2005
The Bungee Accident
[mood |
some like it hot]
As promised, here is a picture of what can happen with the improper use of a bungee cord. I should mention that this picture was taken twenty-four hours after the incident, so the swelling had subsided. View image <- Click here if you wish to subject yourself to this image. Warning: content may not be suitable for the squeamish. This picture graphically displays one man boob and a work-sweaty chest... a model, I am not.
Posted by capecodcyclist at 06:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 26, 2005
Home Improvement Contractor Woes Continue
[mood |
unsure]
Looking back on this whole process of inspecting, purchasing and renovating our new home, it is easy to see why we just want it to end. Very little, if any of it, has gone smoothly. Yesterday, we added another to our list of let downs.
Bathfitter, who did a fabulous job on our upstairs bath, was here to do our downstairs shower (same company, different installer). The story goes completely down hill from here. The post-installation problems began with the contractor leaving all kinds of mess (demolition, cardboard, dirt, dust, etc.) strewn all over our BRAND NEW carpet. Why he covered our hardwood floors upstairs leading to our stairs from the front door, but made no effort to cover the new carpet is beyond me. The install did not go as written up and ordered - he had trouble putting the shower in, and had to cut it into separate pieces to get it in. This was only the beginning of the problems. When leaving, he recommended not vacuuming right away, as the dust kicked up would get into the fresh caulking. It looked like he had plenty of dust flying prior, as much of the shower was covered with it. With the bathroom door closed, Jesse was able to vacuum the downstairs landing, outside the bathroom. Underneath the layer of crud, she discovered discolorations and white caulking in our new ($2200.00 new) carpet. Upon further inspection of the shower itself, the trim work and seam sealing was really hacked. I got on the phone to them right away, and after being hung up on three times (by their phone system?) I was able to speak with a representative and report the issues.
To be honest, we have hired people to do much of the work here because we didn't want it to look like I did it. Mr. Home-Improvement-Specialist, I am not. The trim work around the downstairs shower looks like I did it - that was not the look we were going for. A manager will be calling us early this morning. We shall see what the end result is. Resolve didn't fix the carpet... we tried that before even thinking about picking up the phone to complain. It appears we will have to wait another month for new carpet to be special ordered (again). Ahh, the trials and tribulations of home ownership. We are still comfortable and happy here... just wishing everything could go smoothly for once.
Oh, and have you ever seen a person with a perfect impression of a bungee cord on their chest? We will have to take photos before they fade. We were picking up the guest room bed last night and I had a little bungee cord mishap... must be the waning full moon!
Posted by capecodcyclist at 06:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 15, 2005
Hurray for Spay Day!!
[mood|
ecstatic]
Is it wrong to be celebrating that our recently adopted she-cat is going under the knife today? She has only been with us for a couple of weeks, but she has been in heat for nearly her whole stay. It has not been an easy time. She wanders aimlessly about the house meowing, chirping and sporadically dropping to the floor and rolling about. We have resorted to locking her up in the laundry room (not a small room) at night, so we can enjoy some peace and quiet. She is not a stupid cat. She quickly learned how to open the door, and has given us early morning (3 - 4 a.m.) wake up calls on a couple of occasions. We are ready for this surgery. Here is to a new cat coming out of the hospital...
I hope this doesn't make us out to be intolerant parents. We just need some rest.
Posted by capecodcyclist at 06:36 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 04, 2005
Ho Ho Ho
[mood| 
amused]
Could it have been a summertime visit from jolly old St. Nick? Yesterday, I found a small pile of dirt, soot and a leaf in the large fireplace at the center of our “dining closet.” It had been clean previously. Our first theory was squirrels or raccoons. That theory held until this morning.
This morning we struggled to wake up and recover from our Sunday home improvement marathon. As we lounged about the “dining closet.” Jesse sipped her tea, and I brewed my coffee. Suddenly, Jesse screamed... “BITTIE!” She pointed toward the fireplace and said, “Bittie's in the chimney.” Before going to bed last night, I had stopped to pet our little one in the hallway and noticed a spot of sooty gray at the top of her nose. I gave her the third degree regarding excursions into the chimney, and she denied all charges. We were convinced her nose stain was from wallowing in the stuff that had fallen into the chimney prior to Jesse's vacuuming it. We were wrong.
Bittie has taken to climbing up onto a ledge below the damper. In her efforts to record every inch of her new home she has ventured further than we, as homeowners, have traveled. We have properly chastised her for this newfound hideaway. Hopefully, she will take our reprimands seriously.
Today, the home improvement marathon continues.
Happy Independence Day!
Posted by capecodcyclist at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 28, 2005
Cape Cod Home Improvement Network?
[mood| 
slightly perturbed]
I know you may have read a similar rant here recently, but what gives with home improvement contractors? We have not been in our new home long, but already we have witnessed the dearth of poor customer service, broken promises, outright lies and sales bandits that plague the home improvement workforce here. We have been jarred awake by unannounced Sunday morning laborers (early... twice!). We waited a week for someone to return to install the last of our windows. Nobody shows on time, nobody calls, but everyone takes your money. So far, Carpet Barn and the Just Doors guy have been the only exceptions. Door guy didn't take any of our money until he finished the work, and Carpet Barn showed up promptly at the time and day scheduled and provided everything as advertised.
Yesterday, I had to call Bathfitters to ask what was going on with our order. Apparently the RUSH the salesperson wrote on the work order meant something different to us. After taking a substantial deposit several weeks ago, we hadn't heard a thing from them. This was the conversation after they searched for and located our work order:
Me: “I was wondering about the status of our order. It has been several weeks and we haven't heard from anyone.”Bathfitter: “Some of the parts for your job are on backorder and we are still waiting to hear from Canada as to when they will be in. The tray for your shower is not in yet, but we have the rest of the materials for your other bathroom.”
Me: “Well, we don't want to disable both bathrooms at the same time anyway.”
Bathfitter: “We could do your other bathroom anytime.”
Me: “ Well, I'm glad I called then! When can we do it?”
When were these people planning on calling us? It is not as though this is one job and they were trying to do them both on the same day. The shower install is performed by one installer and another who does tubs. Now that I called, we will be getting the upstairs bathroom finished by next Friday. YAY!
This whole experience has been very eye opening for me. Who wants to join me in starting a clearing house for home improvement jobs? If you can't show up on time, as scheduled... you lose the contract and we start handing the jobs to companies who can. Cape Cod needs some kind of reliable contractor network like this.
So far, I have had triple pane windows demonstrated and sold to me and had double pane windows delivered and installed. The same company did the siding and the windows. Each and every concern we expressed about both jobs were met with: “No problem, we will take care of that” by the salesperson. Each and every one of these concerns was either never passed on to the contractors doing the work, or was ignored by them. We had to monitor their every move, just to ensure that half of our concerns were addressed. The rest of the issues we just settled for so we could get the job done because we were sick of waiting. How frustrating. The bait and switch tactics and “no problem, we will take care of that” comments used by the salesperson will be addressed later. We just wanted new windows first... address the underhanded salesperson later.
Lesson Number One: Investigating a company online is a great means of research, but try to find other people who have used the same company. The Better Business Bureau will now have their second complaint on the books regarding these people.
Lesson Two: Get it in writing! The salesperson may say “No problem” to everything, but if it isn't written into the contract, it probably isn't going to happen.
Lesson Three: This is an old one. If it sounds too good to be true... it is!
Lesson Four: Check the work performed before you sign off and pay for the work. Don't let them pressure you here. Part of the work the electrical workers were supposed to be doing as part of the fuse to circuit breaker upgrade was to check the polarity of all the outlets in the house and fix any that were incorrectly wired. I tested a few this week, and several had the hot and neutral wires reversed. Yes, easy fix, but I intentionally asked that it be done as part of the project and it was written into the contract. I didn't have the means to check this right away, but I should have done more to make sure it was done properly at the time. My siding and windows contract included gutters. This was supposed to include gutters along the entire backside of my house and the partially refinished garage. The front of the house had brand new gutters (two months old) and these weren't to be replaced. Instead, I got gutters along the back of the house, none on the back of the garage and the new front gutters were taken down and replaced with new ones! I didn't notice this until the day after I paid for the work ( I was a little overwhelmed).
Lesson Five: Don't let them bully you. You paid for the work. You have the contract. Make them do the work as promised.
I will be happy when this is over and we only have to deal with the occasional oil burner cleaning.
Posted by capecodcyclist at 06:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 24, 2005
Turn Off your TV!
[mood| 
happy]
With all of the work involved with establishing our new home, I have lost track of most of the current events of the outside world. We have had a down period with no DSL and no TV for about a month. I would have thought that I would be missing the Red Sox games, my morning dose of NECN or at least HGTV, but I am not missing them. In fact, I think I feel better without the clutter of television in my life. Last night, we moved my TV and entertainment center over. It might be nice to kick back and do some DVD viewing, but for now I think we will keep the TV turned off. You don't notice how much time baseball games, NASCAR races and HGTV marathons suck out of your life. The progress that can be witnessed in our house from one day to the next may be attributed to this new found time.
Posted by capecodcyclist at 06:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 21, 2005
Old House - New House
I wish I had many images to share of the before and after of our new home, but we decided the before was bad enough that we didn't really want to remember it in photos or otherwise. I do have before and after shots of the exterior that I have posted in my photo blog. Tonight, I worked on both the downstairs bathroom sink (now functional), assembled the upstairs bathroom sink and vanity (also completed successfully) and laid a few floor tiles upstairs. Getting a little something done each day makes such a difference.
Sleep now has an entirely new meaning. With that thought... GOOD NIGHT!
Posted by capecodcyclist at 10:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 18, 2005
Making Progress
[mood| 
ecstatic]
Top Ten Reasons Things Are Looking Up
1. We have DSL!!!
2. We have wireless!!!
3. The painting is almost done.
4. Almost all of the new windows are installed (just one more).
5. The new siding has been installed (less one gable and vent).
6. It feels more like home each day.
7. We are another day closer to wrapping up the renovation.
8. It is hard to picture what this house looked like a few weeks ago (and that is a wonderful thing).
9. Bathfitter, Lowes and Home Depot
10.We are now the authors of our future here and we can always call Cape Cod home.
Posted by capecodcyclist at 10:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 31, 2005
Renovation Frustration
[mood| 
stressed]
Yes folks, we have the new hit Do-It-Yourself series... "Renovation Frustration," or "What They Don't Show You on HGTV!" Were the cameras rolling at our place, one would see hard evidence that my only prior construction experience is in side walling. I've got the demolition part down anyway!
In this week's episode we see the frustrated homeowner holding his pounding head in both hands, as he tears out tufts of hair. Paint peels and we show you how to make the flaking stop. We also update last weeks mirror vs. porcelain sink debacle.
Click here for Step by Step instructions on how to perform this weeks project of cutting access into an attic WITHOUT cutting into live wires in the ceiling.
Stay tuned as the fun continues and we reveal what home renovation is really all about.
Posted by capecodcyclist at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 27, 2005
Show Me the Sunshine!
[mood| dampened]
This morning I did a Google for “Mother Nature.” I am not sure what I was looking for – maybe an email address or some directions for how to request sunshine? One of the results was a site with resources to help parents research the circumcision decision. WTF? I should have just done a sun dance or something. My vacation was supposed to have been this past week, but luckily I had changed it to this coming one. Perhaps the weather will change for the better.
Things on the home front are steamrolling forward. Jesse has been doing most of the paint renovations and things are looking great. Last night we went to the Depot of Home to round up our remaining colors for a weekend of paint and moving. We will be in our new home before we know it!
In the meantime, I hope Mother Nature hears our pleas to bring us out from under this blanket of fog, rain and clouds. April showers are not supposed to come in May. Bring us the sun!
Posted by capecodcyclist at 06:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 25, 2005
There's No Place Like Home
[mood| overwhelmed]
I have been paying rent for eighteen years of my adult life. Today, I mailed out my first mortgage payment. What a feeling! Yesterday, we had my sister and her husband over to check the new place out. It is great to have something we can call our own and take pride in. The work ahead is a little daunting – the finances even more so. However, to find the means to own on Cape Cod in this real estate climate is a huge feat.
This week, Jesse has been utilizing her break to work her tail off: cleaning, weeding, digging, sledge hammering, spackling, painting, and shopping for appliances. Next week, I am on vacation and the renovation will continue forward at breakneck pace. The hard work and late-night hours will be worth it. We will be settled in before we know it.
I will try to post before and after photos on the photo blog by this weekend.
Posted by capecodcyclist at 06:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 22, 2005
Let the Project Begin!
[mood| 
melancholy]
Ding-Dong the witch is dead - or gone at least. Yes, she has officially removed herself from our home. In the process, she took everything but the kitchen sink. Everything was gone except the dog hair, dirt and garbage left to rot in the garage. We were expecting the range to remain at least, as it is ALWAYS a permanent fixture of a house, but I guess that is another purchase to add to our growing list. Our theory is that she only left because the water heater bit the dust. Luckily, we had already contracted to have it replaced. The list gets longer...
What should have been the first weekend at the new house, began with my having to work. This wouldn't have been a big deal (we are only open 8-1 Saturdays), but yesterday was inventory day in Falmouth. After wrapping things up in Hyannis, it was off to navigate the rainy-Saturday-Cape Cod traffic, down(?) 28 to Falmouth. Inventory went by quick enough. Aside from the late lunch pizza break not sitting well in my stomach, things went rather smoothly. I was out of there by 5:30 p.m. And off to rid the garage of its garbage and its rotten stench. Jesse, her grandma and my mother scrubbed much of the house clean yesterday. It was a huge and noticeable improvement over Friday night's late night forray. The Nissan's bed is piled to the roof line and expects to be first in line at the dump this morning.
Today, we begin painting and get more cleaning done... the beginning of our next month's work.
Posted by capecodcyclist at 06:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack