A note from the cleaners...

Probably TMI, but here is a note from the cleaners today. I feel horible! Lucy tends to puke in the middle of the night when we are sleeping upstairs. I think I may need to tip them as I am sure they didn't assume they would be cleaning up dog puke today...

A leak is never a good thing.

So, I have noticed that one of the outside-facing walls of our guest bedroom closet is not looking good. I've aways thought there was a problem with this wall. It is a corner of the closet where two outside walls meet. The gutter above this area does not seem to drain well and we always get huge brown spots and stains in this area on the siding outside. It makes the front of our house look horrible! I have it pressure washed every other year and we get out the ladder and clean it off, too. But now I fear the problem has moved indoors. :(

I mentioned as much to Todd about a month ago. He finally had time to walk by a look at it today. (I am so in trouble when he reads that.) Anyway, all he could do is agree with me. Not good. The walls on the inside of the closet all the way down to the baseboard are turning very brown. Not good. There is also some brown around the decorative window in the closet. Not good. I also pointed out a spot in another room I am worried about where this is some brown stain on the ceiling due to possible leak on roof. Not good.

So begins my search for a contractor who is good, and can fix my house really well without charging me an arm and a leg. Any suggestions? Please, please send them my way. I joined Angie's List for a month and didn't get much info on there. Not enough people around Monroe County with ratings. I have one possible lead and I may call him tomorrow to see if he knows where exactly the problem might be, how extensive the damage is, and what it will take to fix. I keep thinking about all the rain we had last spring and I just get a pit in my stomach. It has gotten exponentially worse the last few weeks and I can only imagine if we get a lot of rain how bad it could get.

I've always said this house was built rather shoddy. It has been proven now with problems in mass quantity. I have a feeling the summer vacation has just been downsized...

New Decking

Well, we finally decided to put on a new deck this year. We had always known the deck on our house was not well-built and it was falling apart. The previous owners never stained he deck, so the wood was water damaged and cracking. We stained it twice in the last four years, but the damage had already been done. I didn't really want to spend money on a new deck, but during the demo you could see how horrible it was, how pieces were falling about, and how it could have pulled away from the house. Lovely. The posts were not even sunk in with concrete! So, I guess it was needed for safety reasons.

We spent months decided what type of material we wanted to use and finally decided on the composite wood - no maintenance and more difficult for the dogs to tear up. Overall, I like the deck, but it was not built without drama.

First of all, let me mention that I will NEVER spend any of my hard earned money at Lowe's EVER again. Horrible. It took us days to get the materials delivered, and then they were not delivered on time. From Thursday through Sunday we waited to start building and trying to organize getting the materials from them. I even tried to rent a truck to pick everything up myself. First they told me it was okay and then they said it wasn't because the wood was too long to fit on the truck and it would be a safety hazard. Okay, you know my order, so why did you say it was originally okay and make me wait an hour to hear it was not possible?!? Parts of the order were not correct or missing. Then, when we tried to return some spare pieces (about $200 worth), we were not allowed because of how THEY ordered it. We ordered 6 posts, but they put it in the system as 2 packs of 3. So, since we weren't returning the how package, we couldn't get our money back. But, they will sell them individually and can look up an individual price, not too mention we did not ask for the materials to come as a package, we asked for individual pieces. UGH! Let's just say that I had to leave Lowe's so I wouldn't go over the counter ate strangle the stupid people working there.

It is nothing spectacular, just a 12x12 deck. We only increased it by about 2 feet in width. The railing is a lot better than before. But, the stairs are an issue for me. I do not like the stairs. We originally wanted an octagon shaped stair that would come off the corner of the deck. At some point, we changed our minds and decided on regular old steps coming straight off the deck down to the grass. But, I didn't realize until the stairs were under construction what was going on. Todd had decided to go back to the octagon shape, but they are not symmetrical. In my opinion, it does not look right. Also, because of how the yard slopes, we had to add an extra step to one side because it would have been too dangerous of a step down to the yard. So, we have two sides of the stairs with 3 steps and one with 4 steps.

Another issue is that we have nothing going around the bottom of the deck. We were going to put up skirting and we have also talked about the trellis-type material. So far, we have nothing. I would like to put something up. We would have to leave an opening for the dogs as they like to hang out under the deck when the weather is bad. They stayed outside during the recent 90-degree days and stayed cool laying in the dirt under the shade of the deck.

The other problem is that half of the patio was torn up to put in the new steps for the deck. I have been wanting to get rid of the patio and just replace it with grass, but for now, everything is just sitting there waiting for us to do something with it. Great, another project.

A Review: 3M Scotch Fur Fighter

I was skeptical, but willing to try anything at the same time. So, I purchased the Scotch Fur Fighter last time I was at Target to try removing pet hair from furniture at home. I vacuum it often, but for the times in between or for the hard to get places, I have been looking for something to pull pet hair off quickly. This thing is amazing! It really works well and meets my high expectations for a product of this nature. You literally attach a microtrap gripper sheet to a handle and brush across the furniture. It traps all the hairs in the gripper sheet, which you can pull off the handle and throw away. The downside is that the microtrap gripper sheet does fill up with hair quickly. I had just vacuumed the day before, so the hair on the chair I tested this on was fairly light (I guess this depends on your definition of heavy vs. light shedding. My definition changed after Murphy!)

The initial investment includes a handle and five disposable microtrap gripper sheets to attach to the handle. The cost is approximately $10. After that, the refill sheets cost $5. So, it might be somewhat expensive, but I won't use it everyday, just periodically. For more information, see the Fur Fighter website at http://www.3m.com/brands/scotch/furfighter/index.html. For a $2 off coupon, go to http://static.oprah.com/images/ads/ffighter/ffighter_web_coupon.pdf. (I wish I had the coupon, but didn't find it until after my purchase!)

February Update #2 - The House

We haven't done too much work on he house this winter, we did re-finance. That was a project in itself to keep on top of all involved in the process! But, we were able to lock in a great rate and re-finance the house for a 15-year mortgage. Thanks to the drop in the rates, we will save a ton in interest over the years and pay more towards the principal each month. Now, we just need to figure out what to do with the deck, which is falling apart around us thanks to shoddy work and two dogs!