Tag Archives: home improvement

Married Life, Uncategorized

HGTV Gone Wrong

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Ross and I are pretty much like every other 30-something couple. We go to work. We have a baby. We own a house. And, we love HGTV.  It is with a heavy heart that I must confess HGTV has gone horribly wrong and betrayed us all, at least where Ross is concerned. There were a few things that led to the dismantling of my husband’s love affair with the home improvement channel.

Flip or Flop – I’m not sure why he loves this show so much. But he does. He even watches it when I’m not around which I still find amusing. Anyway, when the news broke that Christina and Tarek were secretly separated and getting a divorce, the show took on a whole new perspective. Christina’s side eye glances became mocking instead of endearing. The holiday commercials with the two of them and their kids talking about how they like to spend their days together watching Christmas movies were a joke. At one point, Ross shouted at the tv, “Stop lying to us”. I never laughed so hard in my life.

House Hunters – it was one of the conversations we were having about Flip or Flop that I brought up House Hunters. The conversation went a little something like this.

Me: Well, you know House Hunters if fake too, right?

Ross: What do you mean it’s fake? (Please envision a horrified expression gracing my poor husband’s face.)

Me: I read it’s fake too. I read somewhere that some of the houses they look at aren’t even up for sale. But I mean it you look at it, you can tell. Their reactions are a little too stilted. 

Ross: WHAT? Don’t tell me that! That just ruins the show for me.

This leads to the last nail in the coffin…

Fixer Upper – During the same conversation, I brought up the easy, go to Saturday marathon filler, Fixer Upper.

Me: Do you even want to know about Fixer Upper then?

Ross: (with a heavy sigh) I guess. What?

Me: I read that the house has to already be in contract before they’ll start filming so the whole fist portion is staged. I’m not sure why they need to do that. Nobody really cares about that segment anyway. Just have the people come in and say, ‘hey, we bought this house and want you to rehab the shit out of it.’ That would work just as well, if not better.

Ross: I can’t take any more. 

And so, the wool has been lifted and Santa has been revealed to my poor husband. That doesn’t mean we don’t still watch it. Christina gives the best side eye EVER.

Married Life

Who Remodels a Laundry Room? I do! That’s Who!

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So let the tears, swear words, and gushing blood commence! That’s right folks, we’re remodeling again.

For several reasons, we’ve decided that it’s time to tackle the laundry room/closet. Mainly because our clothes are now in three different rooms, the washer and dryer really need to be replaced (especially the dryer which started making weird noises a few months ago. – The damned thing sounds like i’m drying a brick as it tumbles around and around the cylinder. I’m not of course, but the racket is ridiculous.) I would also like to be able to see when I get dressed in the morning. Right now, I can’t see shit since most of the time since Ross is still sleeping. To prove my point, the other day during a break in class I discovered that I did – in fact – have my underwear on backwards. I couldn’t see the tag and definitely didn’t feel a difference with the lace cheeky panties. But there you have it. I need to be able to see in the morning and if my clothes are in the laundry room, GASP, I would be able to see and put them on correctly.

Our first decision was…”We need a new wardrobe.” That quickly morphed into:

“Do we need to paint?” 20843744

“What if we replaced the utility sink with a real sink”20843444

“We’re going to need a new washer and dryer soon. You know, before we get blown the fuck up.”20843444

“Maybe we should replace the door too. Have you been on the fire escape lately? Anyone could kick that thing in.”20843744

“Well, damn. Now, where are we going to store shit?”20843444

And yes, i’m very aware that I’m the only one swearing in this conversation.

This is going to be a longer process than I would like. Mostly due to the fact that we are poor and can’t afford a new wardrobe unit, plus the washer/dryer, and sink replacements all at once. What this means is that one half of my laundry room is going to be AWESOME, while the other looks like shit for a little while longer. Maybe I can convince the ‘rents to help out with the W/D purchase as part of my graduation/birthday present…here’s hoping! And yes, I do expect presents for all major life events. I don’t care how old I am.

Then there’s the door.   20140116_192541  He’s right though. That thing doesn’t look very safe.

And the sink. 20140116_192536 Classy…I know. Don’t judge! The last owner was an artist there are a lot of things in this house covered in paint splotches.

Here’s my conundrum.  The previous owners painted the register! A vintage brass register and they painted it…LIME GREEN! 20140116_192552 I don’t think there’s anyway of salvaging it or even restoring it. *sigh*

So, let’s end this on a positive note with some positive affirmations. I am not going to fuck anything up this weekend! We can do this on our own! This will not cost us a small fortune…

Yeah right! How many trips to the hardware store will we make? 6? 10? My bet’s on at least 8. We’ll see.

Uncategorized

Welcome to the Slanty Shanty

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About 3 years ago, my husband and I bought our first house. We looked at alot of houses. I don’t like the suburbs. Having grown up in the country, I wanted to be as close to the city and downtown as possible. We looked in Grandview, Clintonville, and finally German Village. We ended up getting our first home just outside of German Village in Shumacher place.

We like to call it “ghetto adjacent”. But we are downtown, we have a yard the size of a yoga mat, and we have 2000 square feet in a lovely victorian brick home.  Upon moving in, we discovered several things.

1. None of the floors are level. They slope and curve as the house has settled. You may say, “So what.” This however, has several implications. First, a line of bookcases along the wall do not sit evenly. Each one of them needs to be shimmed at different levels. This makes the bookcases, at best, precarious and at worst, dangerous. The last bookcase, we got at a different time because we couldn’t fit them all in the car. The repercussions of this is that we couldn’t bolt it to the rest. Below is the result. Also, that’s right. Those are my Minnie ears. And you know what? They’re not my only pair!ImageImage

2. There is no subfloor. This means that if the light is on in the basement, you can see it through the slats above in the dining room. HA!

3. The walls are not flat…any of them. They are plaster and who ever did it must have been cross-eyed to the point of double vision. This means that hanging pictures or, really anything else is difficult. Let’s be honest, impossible.

So, we took this house on, understanding that there were some updates that needed to be done. So far, we’ve replaced about half of the windows (we couldn’t afford to do all of them), replaced some plumbing in the downstairs bathroom (it was galvanized pipe and wouldn’t fit any of the shower fixtures we bought), we’ve redone the kitchen (during that process we discovered one wall didn’t have studs – just two sheets of dry wall and then brick), and now its time for the garage.

The shenanigans have already begun. We’ve had to replace the door since we “accidentally” broke the window in the entry door. Glass is at this moment precariously situated in the door with painters tape holding it together as we wait for Lowe’s to come and install a new door. Although, its not like the thing was keeping out intruders or robbers before the glass got broken.Image Next, the garage roof which hasn’t been replaced in…oh, I don’t know – since the house was built in 1880. See all the up turned shingles…Yeah, that should be fun.Image

Stay tuned for the next installment of Adventures in the Slanty Shanty!