Maybe it’s the heat, but Steve and I just haven’t been as ambitious about the home improvement projects the past few weeks. We got a gas stove last week but haven’t had it hooked up yet. I really don’t plan on doing any baking in the very near future. We need to get a gas dryer but I am going to wait until fall. I really like drying my clothes on the line. Nothing makes your clothes smell like fresh air and sunshine than fresh air and sunshine.
Last weekend we went to MOCAD, then took a ride to Ann Arbor. Both were great.
Steve finally got enough correspondence in his name at our new address so that he could prove his residency and get a Michigan driver’s license. Now we have to take on the dreaded task of getting car insurance. I think that the cost will probably be about the same but the process should be less annoying than in Massachusetts. I haven’t seen inspection stickers on the cars here, so I don’t think there is a yearly car inspection, but I could be wrong.
We’re going to check out AAA for car insurance and maybe sign up on one of those insurance comparison websites. I don’t get nearly enough spam in my email and this will bulk up my inbox nicely
Next, I have to figure out how to get health insurance. I got rejected by HAP. Even with a huge deductible, high monthly premium and copays I was considered too much of a risk. BC/BS is supposed to be the insurer of last resort, I can’t wait to see how much that’s going to cost.
I told Steve that if I get seriously ill he should drive me over the Canadian border and toss me by the side of the road, making sure that I don’t have any ID on me of course. I would do the same for him.
Here is a video update of our progress in the kitchen. Lesson learned, Ikea may cost less money than custom professionally installed kitchen cabinets, but they really tax your sanity putting them together
We discovered after we had the entire base unit assembled that the bottom piece was upside down (Thanks Ikea for the heads up, not!). So the problem with this was that the trim on the front bottom rail was about 1/2″ above the bottom panel, so the doors wouldn’t fit.
My solution was to rip the trim off, flip it upside down and nail it back on. Nobody will notice the nails holding the trim on because the closed doors cover it. It remains to be seen how long my fix will work, I imagine the trim will drop off in time.
A long time ago in a land far away, actually 1998 in Tucson, AZ . While dumpster diving I found some mid-century recipe cards. l was amused by the presentation of the food and appalled by the ingredients. They were from a time before cholesterol was a health concern.
I created a web site called “The Reluctant Gourmet” with the premise that the frustrated housewife forced to entertain her husbands friends and boss actually new how bad the food was that she was serving. Maybe it should have been called the “Homicidal Gourmet”.
Here are a few recipes and comments from the site. I will try and recreate it in full at a later date.
What kid wouldn't want a cake like this? No chance his/her friends would torment them about for the rest of their childhood.
The word “Stool” should never be associated with a cake like this.
Raw bacon anyone?
If you look closely at this dish, it appears that the bacon is raw! Bacon, calves liver, fat back and eggs to hold it all together are the main ingredients of this recipe.
We got our windows done and that makes the place seem so much more like a home. Getting a window in my office meant that I could put in a window air conditioner. Then we moved the portable ac into the living room. The heat is becoming a factor in our home improvement projects. It’s nice to be able to escape to an air conditioned room and cool off for a few minutes.
I managed to knock our chain link fence over with my car I was backing out and clipped the fence with the passenger side front bumper of my car. I don’t think the fence was very firmly anchored as I didn’t notice that the post was falling over until I looked over to the front passenger side of the car while backing out. The gate fell off the first time I tried to open it when we first moved in, so it was probably ready to get replaced anyway. Another project for the list.
We fixed the power outlet in the kitchen behind the refrigerator. We also discovered how “Mickey Moused” most of the outlets in our kitchen are. After much sweating and swearing on both of our parts we were able to wrestle a new outlet into the wall. It looks like hell there wasn’t a stud anywhere to be found the junction box was just shoved in the wall. We managed to nail a new one in but it’s at a crazy angle and there’s no way we can patch the drywall around it. There are several randomly placed outlets in the kitchen, that don’t work. It looks like we will be hiring an electrician one of these days, but not until we get our heat system installed.
Today is Sunday and for our own sanity we are not doing any home improvement projects.
The crawl space was gross but there didn’t seem to be any live spiders only lots of cobb webs and lots of dirt. I got filthy but I did manage to shove the pex hot and cold water supply lines up through the kitchen floor. Steve had to widen the holes slightly because the crimped capped end on the pex was slightly wider than the existing holes.
We got a sink from home depot and with some help from a really knowledgeable plumbing associate we were able to attach a shut off valve to the pex and then the shut off valve attached to the supply lines to the sink faucet. The problem we still have is fitting the drain pipe from the sink drain to the drain in the floor. There’s not much room for the p-drain since the sink is rather low (we are using a utility sink for now) there’s not enough room to do a normal trap style drain.
We also dragged the table in the cellar up stairs. It’s very battered and has lots of character, it looks as old as the house. My plan is to sand it and paint it. I may leave the top as is, if I can put a clear polyurethane to make it safe for food preparation. I don’t plan on cutting directly on the table but I don’t know what kind of paint is on the table top now, could be lead based. Here’s a picture of the table:
The paint is done and the floor is almost finished. It looks even better than I expected. Our floor undulates and the vinyl bends with it so hopefully it won’t crack or come up anywhere, time will tell…
Next, the pex piping that the plumber installed for the kitchen sink has to be brought up from the crawl space under the house up through the holes in the kitchen floor where the old kitchen water pipes were. It’s a rather small entrance into the crawl space, BF will definitely not fit, and I am not so sure I will.
I will be vacuuming my way into the crawl space as it’s really gross. If I get spiders in my hair I will freak out.
The reason I am doing this is to see if we can figure out how to connect the pex piping to our freestanding sink. From looking at how to videos on the internet it doesn’t look to hard but will involve a crimper or an expander, and a cutter. The tools will cost around $100, but will still be cheaper than the plumber. Even if we don’t try to do the connections ourselves, having the pipes pulled up into the kitchen will save on labor charges from the plumber as he won’t have to go under the house and do this.
We have gotten an amazing amount of stuff done in our short 2 plus weeks. We have working plumbing the washing machine is hooked up. This weekend we painted the kitchen and BF started to put down flooring today.
Here is a youtube video of the kitchen so far, without the floor..
I have met several of my neighbors and they are all great. But they make me realize just how sedentary and out of shape I am. I don’t think I can keep up with the social scene here without working on my diet and exercise.
Not that I’ve ever done this, but if you mess up an ant hill the ants will methodically begin to rebuild it. Steadily and without complaint, they work until it’s back the way it was. I am kind of like that only with much complaining and not so steadily. But I know why they do it, order is just better than chaos.
This weekend I hope to at least get my office back together. Right now I am working in the bedroom with my small monitor (actually a small LCD TV) on a wooden TV tray, my printer is on another TV tray. I don’t really need to print anything but I have to scan in some of the BF’s documents so that he can apply for jobs via email.
The HVAC contractor stopped by today to let me know what could be done about getting a heating system in here by winter. It turns out that the giant iron thing in the hole in the dining room floor was all the heating this house currently had. I was sure that there was a boiler down in the basement at some time, but there wasn’t This gas heater just pushed out heat in the main room of the house and everyone just left their bedroom doors open. I gather by all of the duct tape and staples around the windows that it gets pretty cold here in the winter and that the windows aren’t very good.
He was very helpful in offering different options and as a worst case scenario we could just replace the current gas dinosaur heater thing as a cheap solution. But the best solution is to put a gas forced air furnace in the attic and run all of the duct work up there. We can also provision for air conditioning at the same time, so that maybe next year or the year after we can have central air too.
Next week the plumber will be putting in the drain for the washing machine. Yay clean laundry!
We should have all of our windows replaced, the heating system replaced and maybe more insulation installed by winter.
I learned a valuable lesson when driving a 16ft moving van, never try to use a regular gas station for cars, always use the ones on the thruway or truck gas stations.
My truck grazed the gas pump barrier when I didn't turn wide enough.
I paid extra for the insurance. I hope it covers this.
We returned the truck this morning, whew, no more damage or accidents.
We had moving helpers to unload the stuff out of our truck, it was worth every penny ($140 for 2 hours, plus tip).
All of our cats and our stuff is here, now we just have to get organized.
I was backing out and clipped the fence with the passenger side front bumper of my car. I don’t think the fence was very firmly anchored as I didn’t notice that the post was falling over until I looked over to the front passenger side of the car while backing out. The gate fell off the first time I tried to open it when we first moved in, so it was probably ready to get replaced anyway. Another project for the list.
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