Baby Dumpling's Poppa

Making Space for Baby

Today after our septic tank was finished we took quick trip over to the Home Depot to buy cabinets for the garage.  My wife's thinking is that we'll see a sale on diapers or we'll need a lot and we need some place to store them.  So we purchased 2 storage cabinets with doors and one shelving unit that can be built into 2 different configurations.  For some reason my wife thinks that I can set it as a tall shelving unit until I need a bench to work on then I can quickly take it apart and rebuild it into a bench.  Maybe I'll have her build it the first time so she will forget about changing it if a table/bench is needed.  Regardless of how it's put together the first time I'm sure that I'll insist that it stays that way.  I can build things and do things around the house, but I'm too lazy.  I really suspect my wife is trying to change me into being one of those guys that get things done quickly.  I do get things done quickly if there is an urgent need for it, but for now I'm just taking my time even with the life changing event happening just 2 months from now.  After the baby is born I might be one of those guys that's constantly fixing things around the house, but that would only be because I want to escape the crying or diaper changing duty.  I don't think it would be hard, my "honeydolist" is quite long so every time the baby needs changing I'll already have a plan that something needs fixing or adjusting.  I'll make it look more complicated than what it really is so my wife will think I'm really having a tough go of it, but in reality I'll be stalling then as soon as the crying and changing is over I'll be done.  Some might think this is mean that I'd leave the changing and calming to my wife but for the most part I'm really old fashion.  Unfortunately I know my wife and I'll get my share of both duties regardless of what I need to get done, but I'm going to try anyway.  So far my plan painting, new floors, roof cleaning, new yard, garage organization and baby room is not going well.  I'm currently almost 3 months behind schedule.  Most people say that when doing all these things it's expected to be this far behind, and I agree to a point.  These things will get done, and I know the baby won't mind sharing our bedroom for a few months while I finish her room.  Just because the baby won't mind doesn't mean the wife will tolerate it.  The wife might be happy the baby is in our room but won't be happy with these projects not being completed.  Maybe I will get lucky and she'll become so pre-occupied with shopping for baby that I won't get an ear full every weekend while I'm trying to watch John Wayne.

Septic Tank Pumping

The remodeling stuff is still progressing.  Today we had the septic tank pumped out.  The guy said that I didn't need to have it done for about 2 more years but since I have already decided to have it done I went ahead with it.  Now my tank doesn't need to be emptied for 6 years if things stay the same.  I am also preparing to have the yard redone with new plants, add top soil then reseed the grass so I asked about risers.  Risers are these tubes that connect to the top of the septic tank so when it needs to be pumped out you don't have to dig a big hole to do it.  Some say it costs less if you do that because the labor involved in digging a hole will be reduced.  Luckily I don't need to do that.  My tank is only 1 foot below the surface.  So if I add 3 inches of top soil I won't have a problem.  I also learned about the pump alarm.   It was explained that the orange box in my garage will sound when there is a problem with the pump and I would have about 300 gallons worth of space before it backs up into the house.  The advice was, "if you hear that sound, call someone immediately."  I wondered about that, so I asked if that is the same as when the water main breaks in the middle of the night and the reply was, "if you call me at midnight saying the pump alarm is going off. I'll tell you not to use the bathroom and go to bed I'll see you in the morning."  That's real comforting.  If the alarm goes off I silence it and wait until morning to call a septic repair person to come fix it.  From what I've heard if the pump goes out you can expect to pay a lot of money to fix it and you don't have a choice.  Well, it's nice to know that I have 1 less thing to worry about until the child is 6 years old.  I wonder if the child flushes something like my watch, wallet, or anything else that has value if the guy would be able to get it back.

Side note for myself:

The pump tank is on the right side of the first tank closest to the house.

New Stove and Dishwasher

Finally after a month of living without a stove or a dishwasher finally they've been delivered and installed.  I had forgotten from my poor days what it felt like to live with out a stove.  I bought a single burner hotplate but I have lost touch with being able to cook effectively on it.  I remember when I first arrived in the Pacific Northwest I didn't have anything.  All my clothes could be packed into 2 very small overnight bags, I had no job and very little money.  Back then I was very creative cooking on a hotplate, I was able to cook my breakfast and dinner easily.  I was also more creative, I would make things like pasta sauce with shrimp.  I was able to buy a weeks worth of food for $26 at the Post Alley market place.  I hope that experience hasn't completely left my mind, I might need it some day.  I was able to have fresh broccoli, free range eggs, fresh shrimp, sometimes fresh oysters and all the stuff that Post Alley and Pike Place markets have to offer.  Now that I think of it this past month I just bought microwave food, I didn't cook anything fresh.  I hope that I can undo the damage before my checkup.  I can imagine how high my cholesterol is, or my triglycerides.  I should have no trouble getting back into real food cooking, after all I have a brand new stove and I am eager to start cooking.  I also have the new dishwasher to clean the mess after I'm done cooking...

Note to my wife:  I know I said I would clean the mess, but I meant that you will most likely get tired of looking at it waiting for me and you will try the new dishwasher...I love you...

I will have to think of what to cook...too bad it's not Thanksgiving with 15 people on the guest list.  Tonight I will admire my new appliances then tomorrow I'll get back to reality and figure out how I can get Home Depot to deliver the replacement hardwood for my dining room floor.  I've only been waiting for a month.  Maybe by the time the baby is old enough to go to college we'll have the house finished.

Kitchen Tile finally installed

Last week the kitchen tile was finally installed.  It looks good, but the installer missed a 2 inch corner for some reason.  Now I have to argue with Home Depot about how they over measured my floor which means they overcharged me.  I stated in an earlier post about how my floor was measured, and like I said from the beginning I have 20+ square feet of special order tile left over.  That means they over measured my floor by 20 square feet +/- a few.  I payed about $12-15 per square foot that comes close to $250.  Now if that wasn't enough of a headache, I'm left with the hardwood for the dining room which was milled incorrectly.  So it was reordered and finally arrived at the Home Depot.  They insist that I am the one who has to come and pick it up, then have the installer open all the boxes of the rejected wood to make sure they are all milled wrong.  After he's done that I can then return it.  All that would be sort of be o.k. except I don't own a truck, I have a small Hyundai.  My Hyundai is a pretty good car, doesn't cause me too much trouble but I don't think it was made to haul heavy wood back and forth to the hardware store.  I don't know if my back can handle moving that much either.  The last time I did that I was pretty much useless the rest of the day and part of the next.

The Wallpaper is gone

I've spent several long hours trying to get the wallpaper off the walls and I've finally won the battle.  I made a few mistakes along the way but I did learn a few things.  The wallpaper stripping solution and the wallpaper scraper are 2 very important tools.  When I first started I thought I only would need the solution and I could always use the putty knife to scrape it.  That caused a lot of deep scratches in the wall not to mention it was very slow going.  Last week I broke down and bought a wallpaper scraper.  That made the job so much easier and faster.  There were some places that it doesn't work at all but for the most part it scraped the paper without a lot of damage to the walls.  I had a lot less plastering to do when I got finished.  The one problem with the solution is it also removes some of the paper on the sheet rock (the plaster board that makes the wall) if you let it set too long.  But for the most part you can't get the job done without it.  But now that I've removed the wallpaper, plastered the scratches and sanded I'm finally ready to prime and paint the walls.  I've got 1 week before the kitchen tile and hardwood are installed.  It feels good to be almost finished with the painting of the entire house, and it will feel a lot better when the last 2 floors are installed.  Once that's done I get to move on to the next projects which are outside.  I've got just 3 months to finish all the projects before the baby arrives.  I figure that once the baby arrives I won't have the energy, money or time to do large projects.  I wonder if I will even have the energy to enjoy all that I did, or would I be more interested in the baby my wife and I created.  I'm looking forward to next summer when I can just sit back look at my wife and our child playing the the yard.

Please feel free to leave a comment or 2.  Your participation would be greatly appreciated.

I Noticed My Hot Water Heater

Last weekend I had a good plan.  I was going to finish painting the dining room, but with all good plans I didn't leave room for those things that come up unexpectedly.  My plan started out good, on Saturday I was able to wash the walls and get the prep work done so I could put the first coat of primer the next morning.  About 3 a.m. I got up to get something to drink and took a look into the garage just to make sure I remembered to close the door.   As I looked around the garage making sure everything was good, I noticed a couple of streams running through the garage making it's way to somewhere.  It wasn't raining, and my wife didn't do laundry so I started to investigate.  I found the source of the mysterious streams, it was the hot water heater.  Funny how you never think about the hot water heater until either you don't have hot water or you find water where it shouldn't be.  Being the brave man that I am, I quickly went to the bedroom woke my wife and told her that the water heater is leaking.  Being the woman that she is, she came with me to look and then quickly started gathering old towels to soak up the water.  I didn't think of that, but then I'm just a man.  I turned of the water intake valve and went to the kitchen and turned on the hot water so the tank would start draining.   That's not the correct way to drain the tank, but at 3 a.m. it was the best I could do.  Once the water stopped flowing, I started wondering how much I'd be willing to pay to have one put in.  It was a holiday weekend, if I wanted to save money I'd have to wait until Tuesday.  My wife said that it's not a problem for us to go a few days without hot water if it would save money.  We could just boil water when the need came.  I on the other hand started to look at the water heater thinking that I might be able to fix it myself.  The next morning we got up early and went to the HomeDepot to look at water heaters.  HomeDepot does provide installation but it's not arranged at the store, you have to call an 800 number.  So, while my wife gathered the information about the different water heaters I called.  They said it could be installed on Tuesday for about $700, more if they had to bring it up to code.  I told them I'd call back because I want to see if I can install it myself.  With information in hand my wife went back home to discuss what approach we're going to take, and what water heater we were going to buy.  The one we thought about had a 6 year warranty, but my wife suggested the 12 year for only $80 more.  Not a bad idea.  She then said it would be better if they install because I'm not familiar with hard wiring and we don't want to take chances.  I placed the order for Tuesday then we started clearing the boxes from the garage to check the amount of damage.  As luck would have it, with a lot of the boxes in the driveway it started raining.  So everything quickly got moved to the living room.  I then got a phone call from the contractor that installs the water heaters for HomeDepot and they were asking me if it would be o.k. for them to come out Monday morning at 9 a.m. to install.  I asked if that was going to cost extra and the answer was no.  After about 1 second I agreed for the 9 a.m. appointment. I then got to return to the dining room, but only got about half of it covered with primer.  Sometimes good plans don't always work out.  Then you have the joys of home ownership.  But sometimes bad things can actually be not that bad, the water heater was installed on a holiday, we got a 12 year warranty, (HomeDepot says the warranty is for as long as I own my house but I still want to see that in writing before I'll believe it), all for about $1000.  There also wasn't too much water damage to the boxes in the garage. 

Please feel free to leave a comment or 2.  Your participation would be greatly appreciated.

Wall Paper Removal, Is It Wise?

Last night on the way home my wife said we need to remove the wall paper from the kitchen and dining room.  That sounded o.k. because we're in the process of remodeling anyway, but I am not sure if right now is a good time to do it.  Yesterday my wife was having a sad day, the hormone saga continues.  I'm not sure if it was wise to agree when I know my wife is having a sad day.  Is it wise to disagree and risk having her go from sad to mad? 

This morning I found the answer to those questions and a few more.  I woke to the sound of paper tearing.  I walked into the kitchen looking for coffee and discovered that my wife has started removing the wall paper.  She appears to be very happy doing this.  If she has a sad day, should I expect some sort of demolition the next so she will be happy again?  For now it seems to be working, the wall paper needed to be replaced anyway.  I wonder if she has an idea of what she's going to put there, maybe she's not interested right now in the replacement, just the destruction.  I think the safest thing for me to do right now is drink my coffee, tell my wife I lover her very much.  Tell her she looks cute destroying the kitchen/dining room and I'll clean it up when she's done.  This is the Poppa2b, Father2B, Daddy2B's chance to show how much they love their pregnant wives, allow them to destroy the house without getting upset then volunteer to clean it up.

Kitchen Tile Installation

My wife and I are in the middle of some major home improvement projects.  We're getting all the floors done.  First was the carpet, everything went well the carpet looks great.  I still don't understand why I had to pay installation on an extra 25% even if it's not installed.  I understand buying an extra 25% because of the cutting and matching stuff, but paying for 25% extra to be installed and not having it installed is kind of a rip off I think.  I guess it doesn't matter now because it's done and it does look good.

Next we were going to have hardwood put in the dining room, but I came up with the brilliant idea of having some real nice looking tile installed in the kitchen.  The nightmare began a trip to Lowes hardware.  Everything seemed o.k., the measurer came out and measured and we went in to get the final price.  My wife loves math so she calculated the entire cost before we got there, as the girl across the desk totaled up the numbers my wife was happy that her numbers matched.  Then the salesgirl entered the numbers into the computer so she could get the print out with all the correct numbers.  The computer printed out the estimate but it came up with an extra 40%.  My wife asked where did that increase come from, and the reply was, "I don't know" that's just what the computer prints out as the price.  Before signing anything, my wife got really upset and we left promising never to buy anything from that store again because they are cheats and liar.  So off to Home Depot we went.

At Home Depot we explained our experience at their competitor and the salesperson gave us a price list and told us this is exactly what we would pay for what we're having done.  We liked that and since we knew already what size our kitchen floor was we went ahead and started the process.  In case you are going to change vinyl flooring Home Depot requires an asbestos test before they'll start anything.  So asbestos test was order, and 3 weeks later the results came back negative.  Back to Home Depot to order the measurement.  The measurer came out and much to our surprise our kitchen floor has grown by 30 square feet, I knew my wife was pregnant and growing, I was unaware kitchen floor was also growing.  I did manage to challenge the measurement and someone else was sent to do it again.  The kitchen floor must have been on a diet that week because it lost 4 square feet.  Although it doesn't sound like much, but they add 15% to that footage then charge you over $10 per square foot to put it in, plus all the little extras and $1.05 per sq. ft., plus $2.49 per sq. ft. By the time your done with all the little extras it's costing almost $15 a square foot.  We have a small kitchen, the surface area of the floor by Lowes measurement was 105 sq. ft and my measurement was 103 sq. ft.  the first Home Depot measurement was 131 sq. ft., the second was 127.  Although Home Depot didn't try to sneak in an extra cost at the end, they justified it by having the measurement added at the beginning.  So now I've gotten and estimate from a general contractor, the diet must be working because the floor is now under 120.  I've been wracking my brains trying to figure why these professionals can't read a simple tape measure and do simple math I came across the home improvement explanation.  When you measure round up to the nearest foot.  So if you have 10 feet 2 inches length make it 11 feet and if you have a width of 12 feet 7 inches round it to 13 feet.  Now you multiply 11*13=143, makes sense if you do it that way, but when you're paying $12-15 a square foot that can add up to a lot of extra money.  My math is more like this, 10 feet 2 inches=10.16 feet and 12 feet 7 inches is 12.58 feet.  That equates to 10.16*12.58=128 square feet.  Now you have to add 15% and that comes up to 143*15%=165 and my fuzzy math is 128*15%=148.  That's a difference of 17 square feet at a cost of $12 a square foot is $204 difference in price.  I really don't mind buying the extra material, material is cheap, it's the installation charges that are expensive.  You buy a $2 square foot tile and you pay $14 to have it put in.  I will admit that Home Depot, Lowes or a private contractor gives me the feeling of swimming with hungry sharks and having a big tuna hanging from my neck.