New Little Treasure

This was Meg's grandma's love seat. Pat gave it to us for Christmas, and it wasn't even meant to be a Christmas present! We love it.

New Bed, More Room. So Much Joy!

We got tired of our humongous king sized bed. It barely fitted in our bedroom and the mattress was too soft.



We then got a nice little queen bed from D.I., and it's amazing. We bought it new (yes, they also have new stuff at D.I.), and it is actual wood, not that pergo crap they sell at Ikea. I like Ikea, but there's a reason why it's so cheap...



We have so much room now, that the bedroom looks kind of empty. I put a wooden bench that Geoff and Any gave us for Christmas between the bed and the closet, and we still had room to spare.

Bedroom Closet

We remodeled our bedroom's closet. It was pretty ugly before. It had like four different colors, and the bar was way high, so it was hard to hang our clothes there.

The doors were alright, but most of the time they were hard to open.

All that stuff in the back isn't part of what we did. That's how the closet looked!

We replaced some boards on the base, which were pretty ugly and didn't match at all, lowered the bar and put a shelf right above the bar. We also painted white the wood between the drawers and put some nice molding underneath the top drawers and in the left side.

We finally painted it white, and voila.



We also removed the doors and Meg made some curtains for it.

Big One Three: The Kitchen (or How Geoff Saved Christmas)

Our kitchen was the ugliest thing in our house. It had dark green cabinets, an old gray stained plastic countertop; an old, stained, cast iron sink; the windows were crappy (like in the rest of the house), and the walls were brown.


When Geoff came from Washington to visit, he helped us with it. First we ripped the countertop, the backsplash, and the sink.


Then, Geoff got us some white tiles for the countertop, and helped us install them

It was way fun, especially when we hammered the crap out of the sink.

We then painted the upper cabinets white, and the bottom ones black, and changed the handles. We sealed the tiles, and painted the wall light yellow. Very light yellow. We also removed the doors from the upper-right cabinets, filled up the hindge holes, and turned it into shelves.

New Windows

We replaced five of our ten windows. We changed both windows in the kitchen, both windows in the bedroom, and the bathroom one, which, by the way, was incredibly nasty. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Old window. Not only dirty, but the sealer around the glass is coming out, they are impossible to open, and some of them were pretty rotten, like the bathroom one:




New window. These are really nice. They are not wood, so they won't rot. They have a double pane, and, what I love the most, they are guaranteed for life:

Front

We did this a while ago:

First, I made a little pathway between the fence and the porch. I thought it would look cool, but now I'm not sure:

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And, we painted the metal columns in the porch, which were just the original metal color (you can see it in the picture above).

Our Only Hope

Pump House 2.0

We have a well in our backyard, right next to the shed, and there is a pump in it. Actually, there is a 7 feet deep squared hole with an ancient electric pump, and in the bottom of that hole there is another hole, 3 feet wide, under which the water is (this was a very grammatically complicated sentence for me... I'm exhausted.)

On top of the squared hole there was a construction that covered it and that looked like a huge dog house. It wasn't so bad, except that it was as old as the house, and it was rotting. When you opened the door of the pump house, you could see spider webs and earwigs everywhere. Nasty.

So, we decided to tear the dang thing down, and replace it with some kind of cover, and maybe put flowers pots on top of it, so it would look decent. Actually, most of the garbage we had the other day was from the pump house.









We tried to cover it the best we could, but we are not experts at this, so we tried to build a couple of cover doors out of 2X8's, which we thought would be strong enough to put stuff on top of it, and then attach it with hinges to the concrete. That part was harder than we thought: we bought special drill bits for concrete, but they didn't go very far deep; so the bolts are there, attaching the hinges, but they are not very stable. Anyway, the thing is there not, and it's steady enough for now, and at least it looks alright.

In Which We Finally Get Rid Of Our Crap!

So, we heard that ou neighbor who lives two doors down has a truck with a big trailer, and man, was it a big trailer.

So, I get enough courage to go and talk to the guy and explain my situation, and he points at the truck and tells me to take it, that it's just fine, and all that. The trailer was so big that I thought that I wouldn't fill half of it. Two or so hours later, I was done, and the trailer was completely full! So the guy tells me that I might as well take it to the dump myself.

Taking it to the dump wasn't a big deal, but backing it up once I got there was way hard. I had never driven a truck with a trailer before, let alone a huge one like this. I finally did it, though, and I thought that it would be a nice gesture to fill the truck's tank. Let's just say that it would have been cheaper to rent a Volvo convertible and do the dump rounds on it... But I can't complain, everything worked well, and we are finally garbage free!!

In Which Meg Finishes the Sofa Cover

We have a big sofa that Geoff gave us a while ago, and it had this blue cushions, which were nice, but a little too dark for our taste.



So, Meg chose a material with a nice red and white patern, and changed the whole thing in like two weeks!

In Which Our U-Haul Motor Explodes

It was Saturday morning, and we finally decided to get rid of our massive pile of crap (rotting wood, branches, smelly armchairs, asbestos-ridden insulation, etc.). We just wanted to do it the fastest way possible, without having to bother anyone, so we rent ourselves a U-Haul pick-up truck.

First we went to the closest one on Washington Boulevard. When we get there, we ask the attendant: "Do you have any pick-up trucks available?" to which he replied "no." Which surprised me, because he looked like he ran out of words years before. We were completely unsuccessful in eliciting any kind of helpful response from this dude, just nods, head shakes, and grunts. We gave up, and went to the next U-Haul location, which location was the only useful information we got from him.

In the next location we waited in line for fifteen minutes, while listening to repeated, non-stop, renditions of the theme for Super Mario Bros 1 on the cellphone belonging to the U-Haul employer who was currently on her break. When we finally reached the counter, things appeared to begin moving in our favor. We secured ourselves a small U-Haul truck, and waited outside for the lady to come out with the keys. Ten minutes later we wondered where the heck she was. We went inside to ask her what was taking so long, to which she replied "Oh, yeah, you come to get the truck for your mom, right?" We answered no, so she said "Oh, ok, you are returning one, right?" No again. After explaining her in detail what our situation was, she remembered. We finally got our truck, and went on our way to the dump (after taking our car home).

But alas, this was never to be (dum-dum-dum-TADAAAA).

While driving the U-Haul, we noticed a knocking sound that progressively grew louder and louder, to the point that we couldn't hear ourselves think. While pulling onto the freeway, this knocking sound worsened, and suddenly stopped. It was at this moment that smock and steam (I couldn't tell you which was which at this moment, but there were both...) began billowing out of the vehicle via each possible crack and hole. We knew we must pull over and abandon the vehicle ASAP. We wanted to call the customer service, but we couldn't find our cellphone, which only made Megan and I grow closer together than we've ever been. Yeah... That's how it went... I'm pretty sure...

We then walked five blocks to the closest gas station, and called U-Haul from a pay-phone. Luckily, the number was toll free, so the call didn't require any money. We had no cash, no car, and no phone!!!

The first person who helped us was extremely patient and understanding. She assured us that she would be in contact with a U-Haul mechanic, who would come to our rescue soon. Unfortunately our situation required a call back to the pay phone to verify that we were really at that location. She called back, and when Megan answered, the operator asked to insert 50 cents, which Megan hurriedly did. Alas, the phone call was paid for, but there was no voice on the other end when the call went through. The dang phone ate our money and we were really sore out of luck with absolutely no more change.

We called back half an hour later, and you can imagine Manuel's frustration when he had to explain the entire situation yet again, this time to an employee of U-Haul's customer service who apparently was experiencing his first real day on the job. The employee's supervisor could be heard on the other end directing this poor kid's every move. The new representative denied that anything could be done to help us, or that a contractor could even be reached in order to help us. WHAT??? We were apparently being told that U-Haul assumed no responsibility for the nightmare that had just occurred!

We were finally connected with the mechanic who was supposed to come pick us up, and he told us that at the current moment he was in Brigham City, and that it would take him an hour to come pick us up, and asked us if we had something to write down his number. Megan replied that we didn't, to which he answered asking us for our cellphone number. Megan explained to him that we had forgotten it, and in that precise moment, our cellphone begins ringing and sending threats to us from Meg's purse (that's a funny ringtone, by the way).

After talking to the mechanic guy, and having over an hour in our hands to relax and enjoy the view, we went inside the convenience store one more time, and had lunch. When the guy at the sandwich store inside the gas station asked what did we want in our sandwiches, Manuel leaned in the glass in order to see the toppings better, and asked very enthusiastically "Is that pickle there!??" To which the guy, who had a Mahwah and black finger nails responded "yes. Please don't lean on the glass." We seated to eat our lunch, and the other attendant, a woman, came and wiped our neighbors' table while she complained about having to actually having to do something at work, and how much life stunk. In the meantime, our truck's emergency lights blinked in the distance...

A little over an hour later, the mechanic calls and tells us that, unfortunately, he won't be able to make it, so he decided to send his friend in a yellow AAA truck to come pick us up, and that he should be there in five minutes. Fifteen minutes later, a guy in a yellow AAA truck comes into the gas station, and Meg waves her hand at him. He waves back and drives right through us. A few minutes later he comes back and says "Sorry, I guess you were the guys I was looking for."

The AAA guy takes us to our U-Haul truck, attaches it to the yellow truck, sneaks through the window and says "Do you want to know what happened to the truck? Out of curiosity? The motor blew up!!"

This guy took us to the U-Haul store where we got the truck, which is, according to mapquest, 2.95 miles away from our house. So, it is 4:00 PM, and we are walking home under one of the hottest days of the summer's sun. Life can't be any better.

Oh, I almost forgot. The garbage is still there...

Big One Two: The Power Thingy Is Finally Done

After we moved, we realized that the power cables that came from the street pole were about to fall into pieces. Piece of crap. The cable must be old as the house (and according to the neighbors, who try to demonstrate the historic importance of the house, this was one of the first ones in the neighborhood!)





When I called the city to see if they could replace the cables, they said "yeah, sure, no biggie. There's a problem, though. Your meter doesn't comply with the code, and you need to move it to the west side of the house." It's a "wesside" meter now. The problem was that these cables shouldn't turn around a corner of the house as the old cable did (first picture up there), and it has to be at least 30 inches away from any window, and these cables are like two inches above two of our windows.

It took the electricians three days to finish the thing. They removed the old meter and installed a new one. Then they had to connect the meter to the switchboard (which was also replaced), and it wasn't easy, since they are in opposite sides of the house now. Anyway, it's done, it looks better, and above all, now I know that my power cables won't fall apart any minute now.

The red bubble shows the old cable from the pole to the part of the house where it goes around the corner. The old meter was in the back of the house (south side):


The new cable is in the red bubble, and the green circle surrounds the new meter. You can see where they cut the old cable. For some reason they left a little bit of it:


Old/New switchboard. We still have to cover that hole on top of the new switchboard, but we have like 200 projects to complete first...

The Nastiest Shed Ever

These guys used to have a dog in the shed. The shed was covered with straw, and surrounded by a kennel.





Problem: there was poop in the straw. Lots of it. The shed was so stinky, it wasn't even funny. So, after a few hours, and a bunch of garbage bags, later, we were done.



The shed now shelters our garden tools, and after having bleached the floor, thoroughfully sprayed the place with Fabreze, and letting two of those nice smelling cones that are supposed to di-stink rooms, the shed still smells like a zoo. Gosh, I hate that dog... Yeah, it was all the dog's fault...

It's doorless for now, but as soon as someone gives me a door, I'll fix that.