Pentimento

Finally, Something Useful On the Internet!

Thank goodness this guy does the demo slow enough so even I could catch on and copy him!

2 Second T-Shirt Fold!! - video powered by Metacafe

Indoor UFO's?

It arrived on Thursday. We knew it was coming, but it was much more amazing than we expected. Glowing all day and long into the night. Long after sundown, close to 8 PM it was still there in plain sight. Oh, OK, it's our new solatube we put in the family room. We plan on walling off one end of the family room and making it into a laundry room/half bath eventually.

When we went to a home show a few weeks ago the company we used (Hanley Construction) for our new roof was having a promotion where if you signed up at the home show for a new roof that they would install one of these light tubes for free. I called and asked if we would be able to take advantage of that offer even though our roof was completed the week before. At first, I was told "no", even though I pointed out that we had just paid them $15K for the new roof. They came back with a counter offer where we would pay $400 and they would do the labor for free. I was really hoping for the home show deal, and told them so, but we talked it over and I called them a couple weeks later to see what had been decided.

During the time of the roofing job someone had accidentally broken our hose reel on the back side of the house, and to replace it would be around $50, so I asked Hanley if we could take $50 off the $400 price and call it even. That was agreeable, and the appointment was made for the solatube install for April 9th. The actual tube that was installed was a CrystaLite, not a Solatube, but they are very similar in application.

Just a little side note to this story. One young man showed up to do the job and he was right on time, polite and got right to work. He did have some tools in one hand and a coffee cup in the other, but he put the travel mug down and got going. The day before my husband had done all the measuring of approximately where we thought the tube could go (we have a French hip roof, so the ridge had to be considered, as well as the ceiling beams, etc.) and gone into the attic to move the blown-in insulation out of the way, put down boards for the guy to kneel on, ran a drop cord for his electrical tools and moved everything out of the way to make the job go easier and faster for whomever might do it.

The young guy was here by 8 AM, and as I said, got right on the job. About half way through though, as he was making several trips up and down the ladder I noticed he had his cell phone up to his ear. It obviously was not a "work" call because those are usually short so the guy can work. I hate to be negative about any of this particular job because the kid was so nice and did good work. But I question him going up and down an extension ladder with one hand (or none) with this cell phone. I believe in working smart, even in a small job like this.

The other thing that I noticed was that when he cut into the ceiling in the family room he used a reciprocating saw. I have watched enough home improvement shows now to know that there are ways to cut down on the mess and dust, but the main concern I had was that this guy had NO dust mask on and he hadn't even opened the patio door to allow some of that dust to blow out. I happened to look in the room through the passage door from the kitchen and saw all this dust and asked in a friendly but astonished tone, "Where is your mask?". Hell, I don't know if there is asbestos or something in the popcorn ceiling and maybe I have been exposed to it now too!? But what about him working this way all the time?

A Rant About Roofing Contractors

One of the things I have always hated about roofing contractors is that you are at the mercy of their schedule. Rain or shine, they do as they please and seemingly have little or no concern about anything but making the big bucks.

Last night, about 10:30, we had a little squall go through our area and the result was a loud bang and jangled nerves. Why? Because the roofers had left something unsecured on our neighbor's roof and it had blown off. They began this job last Friday, which happened to be a day with drizzling rain. Contrary to what everyone thinks, we do not have rain here in Washington all the time. In fact, we had been enjoying some warm and sunny weather. That is until the day the roofers showed up next door to begin their job.

Saturday was a wonderfully cool and dry day, but no, the roofers were not working because the contractor chooses to not pay them to work the weekend. That, to me, is just ludicrous. This company would rather take a chance on being sued for creating a hazard (debris flying off the roof and potentially hitting someone or something) rather than pay a few hundred extra dollars. I sure as heck hope they do a good roofing job. We have worked with this same company before (Hanley Construction of Port Orchard) and but it was years ago.

My message to the company is that they need to be a bit more professional and careful with the stuff they leave on the roof when they break for the weekend. Whomever is in charge of this particular roofing job should make it a point to come take a look over the weekend just to make sure everything is ok.

The Old Folks Do Gardening Favors

It was a bright and sunny day yesterday, and not too hot temperature-wise, so I had this bright idea that Jim and I would 'help' the neighbors by planting some roses for them. These roses had been sitting on their front porch for a while and, ever the worrying- nosy-busybody, I hate to see plants just wither and die, so I convinced Jim that it would be a nice thing to do for George and Mary.

We have more gardening tools than you can shake a stick at, so we got a good many of them out and after getting the go-ahead from Mary, we proceeded to dig the bed, weed it out and get those puppies in the ground. Each rose bush was a different type, and there were four of them. Our plan was to plant them in front of their picture window in a row of three, and the fourth one would be planted by the street to fill in where another bush had been taken out in another planting area.

Everything was going fine....we got the three rose bushes planted up by the house, and were ready to put the fourth one in the bed by the street when I discovered that I had planted the wrong one up by the house and it was the one I wanted by the street because it was a shrub rose. So....out came the mis-planted rose bush and it was soon in the ground in its proper spot.

My next "plan" is to see if they would like some free ground cover for around the roses. Right now, my pink and blue phlox are blooming, as well as the lithodora. I have two colors of lithodora: blue and blue and white, and the neighbor's house is blue with white trim. Maybe they would like some of the blue and white lithodora? We shall see...

Yesterday's Gardening Projects

This time of year, I am all about getting the backyard spruced up. It takes me all day to just plant flowers, which is what I did yesterday. I think you can see the hanging baskets along the left edge of the deck. Four of those have vining red geraniums in them. And one in the middle has a nemesia - 'Angelart Pear'. There are window boxes on either side of the patio doors (both sets) and I planted trailing lobelia, a trailing yellow flower called "sanvitalia - cuzco" and some celisosia - kimono cherry red . I think you can see right below the closest window box is a zonal red geranium on a small table.  To get the full effect of the yard though, you would have to hear all the birds out there.  My husband has about three feeders and he puts out thistle seed in a hanging mesh bag that attracts the finches (including willow goldfinches, our state bird) and black-capped chickadees.

Out on the front porch, I have three shelves in the corner and in two pots for there I put some more trailing blue lobelia, and one pot with a combo of the sanvitalia and the celosia. I am not sure if those two might crowd each other out...if so, I can always transplant them! Also on the front porch is a big planter with a grass-type plant (can't remember the name) and so at the base of that I put in some trailing red petunias.

It is currently 67 degrees F at 11 AM, and there is sunshine and blue skies. God is in his heaven (or my backyard) and all is (somewhat) right with the world.

Getting Our Ducks In A Row

We are currently in the very early stages of this year's planned home improvement projects, which hopefully, will lead to our being able to sell our house for a profit and enable us to move somewhere we would like to relocate. My task then, is to get all of the financial records in order so that we know where we stand on loans, mortgage, etc.

We have lived in this house since 1992, but we didn't come to own it until 2001 when we bought it from the owners. The owners were/are our friends and gave us a very good deal. That was their repayment for us being good renters. It worked out well for us all, and in the end we are still good friends too.

We have made many improvements over the years that we have been here, while renting, and as owners. Understandibly, most were done when we became owners. We remodeled the kitchen and put in all new cabinetry, counters, flooring and new appliances.

We added a new deck in 2004, which is 30 feet wide and 16 feet deep. It spans the area between the two patio doors in the family room and dining area of the kitchen. We love being out there in the summer, and a couple years ago we even hosted a family reunion and the extra seating really came in handy.

Other projects haven't been so visually obvious, but they have either been necessary or cost effective: a new furnace was installed; the kitchen wiring was upgraded, and the service panel for the house was changed from 50 amp. to 200 amp.; extra insulation was added to the attic and in the garage walls and ceiling; we have an outdoor storage building, and the house has been painted inside and mostly outside, with some touching up to be done yearly.

The only remaining projects to do then are to bring the laundry area into the house from the cold garage and make the one end of the family room into a half bath/laundry room. We also plan to update our existing bathroom too. Luckily, Jim is a pipefitter who will save us lots of money in plumbing costs, and he knows how to build things also.

This may be a year long saga, so don't be surprised to see articles about it now and then.