Plant Bombed, Knob Turners& Disapointing Dishwashers

My weekend did not go as planned.  Although we had a lot of plans...most of which involved hanging out with friends and eating.  And drinking.  THAT all happened.  But getting to L's closet...not so much.

I did her laundry, which, was insurmountable at one point, and I'm now in the process of putting it on hangers and actually putting it away, as opposed to using my tried and true college method of tossing it all in the closet on the floor.

My In-Laws surprised us with two additional plants for the front of the house, and a caddy for the hose.  I'll have to figure out how to fix it up.  I think I have now filled my quota of plants out front.

The other thing that did not go as plan is our dishwasher broke.  I mean, I hear water flowing, I hear it going through all it's cycles, but it is not cleaning anything.  I thought at first it might have something to do with our water's heat, which mysteriously also stopped working.  I sent my husband in to look at the water heater, because

A. I don't know where the pilot light is on it, and
B. I was scared he was going to tell me we need a new one.

What seems to have happened is that SOMEONE (And I'm not naming names) likely turned that very appealing black knob at eye level (if you are about 33 inches tall) all the way to low.  It seems when I cleaned the utility closet, I opened up a hidden world behind the mess.  So, the heat is back on, which is great for our showers.  (I wasn't sure I was going to last through another one), but did not solve the dishwasher problem.

My father in law looked at it, and asked when the last time we cleaned the trap in the dishwasher, to which I replied, there is a trap?  Going to need to locate information about taking care of dishwashers. 

See?  This is the problem when you rent most of your adult life.  And move frequently.  You never learn how to take care of things like dishwashers.  In fact, I hadn't had a dishwasher in a rental ever.  My parents have a dishwasher, but I guess it never occurred to me that they might be cleaning it.  I mean, who cleans a thing meant to do cleaning?  Apparently EVERYONE BUT ME!  I'll get a handle of this housefrau lifestyle yet...

Utility Closet....Check!

I realize that cleaning up the utility closet may not seem like a home improvement, but I think it makes a difference to the people looking at our place. 

"Is it clean and orderly?  Why, it must be easy to care for in a place like this."  It’s not, because it is small and we are outgrowing it by leaps and bounds, but I’m hoping we can fool the next set of people into thinking this place is a breeze to maintain.

So Here’s what I did:

Step 1.  Took two armfuls of stuff out.  Sat down and checked e-mail.  Remembered I was supposed to stay on task while L naps and continued to clear things out of the closet.

Step 2. Took note of what needed fixing.  The rule of the game is if it is in the house, it better do what it is suppose to do.  If it is a door, then it needs to open and close, if it is a light, it needs to turn on and off, etc. My mom/ realtor told us this.  So nothing major.

- There is some funky paint colors in here, perhaps the original yellow (it matches our harvest gold countertop.)



not sure if we need to paint it or not.  Going to have to defer to realtor on this one.

 -One tile is loose.  It is the original light aqua blue.  Kinda retro looking.  In someone else’s home I would probably think it is cool.




  Not here though.  We aren’t trying to be hip or ironic.

- I want to hang the grocery bag holder up on the door.  It is not pretty but it is utilitarian, and I want easy access to it while we are still here.

- Install hooks to hang the step ladder out of the way of L.  I know it sounds crazy, but it drives me crazy when she gets a hold of the step ladder and pushes it around the room, and occasionally climbs it.  Call me crazy but I like my babies on the floor or in my arms, where they belong.

Step 3.  Go through items I pulled out and see what I actually use.  Attachments to vaccums long since retired? Cleaning products not used in the last 6 years? Collection of paper bags? Yup.  We got them.  One bag of note, I thought was interesting- a cowboy hat bag…


Thanks Breck Lorman, who ever you are, for your gourmet western food cowboy hat bag.

I put the cleaning supplies I do use back on the shelves.  But this time, waaaay up on a shelf out of L’s reach.  Eventually I want to switch over to greener products, but for now, I have these, and they work, provided we take the precaution of not letting L drink them down.  The products I won't keep will either be given to people who can/will use them or properly recycled with the city of Tempe.  The cloth grocery bags in the back of my car, where I might actually remember to use them.  And put the cleaning rags and old t-shirts in the cleaning caddy.  Got the steamer, vacuum cleaner back into the closet.  Rearranged the placement a bit to accommodate our recycling bin.

Step 4.  Text the husband to tell him the list of things we need to do to the utility closet this weekend, omitting possible paint project- he hates to paint, which is why L’s room is the only one decorated in the whole house.  Text Mom/realtor to see what she thinks about the paint.  Wait….

Step 5.  The husband pretty much ignores the texts (he is at work, after all), but realtor/Mom gets back to me fast.  As long as the paint is clean and in good condition (ie not chipped, peeling, etc) then to leave well enough alone.  It’s a closet.

Step 6.  Husband gives me the go ahead to fix anything I want (clearly he is not interested in doing the fixes).  So I glued the tile back into place.  I was about to use Super Glue, but then it occurred to me someone may want to actually peel up this stuff, and who am I to make their lives harder?  It had to be something that would hold though…. I fancy myself a crafter, so I did what most crafters would do that have no clue about home repairs.  I hot glued it in place.  There.  I fixed it.  I don’t care if that’s wrong.  It worked, and I'm standing by it.

Step 7.  I have decided rather than hang the step stool in the utility closet, I'm going to hang it in the garage.  Mostly because of my fear of electricity- where I would have hung it is where the breaker box is.  It was giving me the stink eye, so I'm walking away.  I'll come back to hanging up the step stool when I do the garage.

Step 8. I hung up the bag holder.  Originally, I had sticky foam tape holding it up, so I was going to get more of that, but then I thought better of it.  After all, it hadn't worked well before, and I want the versatilty of removing the holder to take with me (grocery bags make good packing material, plus I'm guessing there will be a garage sale or two in the future).  So I used sticky sided velcro. 


I think it was rather genius of me.  I doubt I'm the first to do it, but I'm not a home repair type of person.  Except now I need to be. 


My friend Kelly told me to start small, aim low.  Well, velcro, hot glue, and I'm guessing there is a roll of duct tape out there with my name on it... It doesn't get much more low tech.  And if Velcro is good enough for NASA, then it's good enough for me.

So, it took me longer to post this than it did to take care of the utility closet.  One room to check off my list.  Quite a few more to go.

The Utility Closet

This is the door to the utility closet.  I hate this door.  The previous owner probably had a cat, hence, the small opening at the bottom.  It is just small enough for a quick toddler to slide through quietly to the riches inside...

It is a mess.  Let me just say it.  It's disorganized, and probably dangerous.

Good news is the AC unit is new and the furnace is newish-very efficient!

I'm back with a bucket of excuses

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but shortly after I started this blog, I began using an app on my phone to blog on the go.  And I couldn't remember what e-mail account this was attached to, or what the password was.  I didn't have access simply because my mom brain kicked in and finding the information fell pretty far down my to do list.  Since my last update, we have not moved any further in any home repairs to sell this place.  Honestly, we are the laziest dreamers in the world.  I have continually pinned ideas for the next house to Pinterest (my obsession), and sought out neighborhoods and houses for sale on realtor.com (my other obsession).

In August, we went to more birthday parties than you can shake a stick at.  Also learned that shaking sticks at babies is heavily frowned upon in the baby community.  That and the heat. So we didn't tackle  any home improvement because we were hot and busy.

In September, we went on baby L's first road trip to my old stomping grounds in LA, where I realized you really can't go home again- I just felt like a tourist complaining about the road condition, sweating every time I had to get on the Freeway... But it was nice to see some old friends, meet another baby, and catch up on the on-going drama.  Also, most of September was spent at birthday parties, and getting ready for the next vacation.  again, too hot and too busy.

In October, we took a well deserved vacation to Hawaii.  It was a great way to kick off the month long celebration of all things Baby L.  She turned ONE!!!!  With some major mixed emotions from her parents, we held a "luau" in the park where it was supposed to be 82, but ended up 97 degrees.  It was a beautiful and fun party!  The day after she turned one, she began to walk and quickly proceeded to turn our home upside down.  So, again, October=too hot, too busy, too many birthdays, and oh.  Halloween.

In November, I needed a breather from the exhaustion of a vacation and birthdays galore.  But then Thanksgiving came and we had three separate Thanksgiving celebrations.  I made nine pies.  Anyone care to hazard a guess why I am quickly gaining weight?  So, no home improvements in November, unless you count the wafting smell of pumpkin, apple, or salted caramel pie wafting through the air.

December.... Christmas.  Need I say more?  Ok, how about I decided I was going to make Christmas presents this year.  Sound like a good idea?  By the end of December I was getting pretty sick of my excuses.  After all, millions of people have toddlers and can get their houses prepped to sell, AND manage to maintain a life.  So I made a plan, I put all my to-do's on a calendar and entered them into my new iPad (Thanks, Santa Honey!) and made it so Google calendars would alert me whenever I needed to do something... starting January 1st.  2012 was to be the year of fun AND productivity.

That lasted a week.  I injured my back, and have since found out I have arthritis and two bulging disks.  Happy birthday to me!  So January, February, and now half of March had been devoted to recovery.

I'm back now, baby!  And I have a new plan!

All excuses aside, I decided the only way I'm really going to tackle the major laundry list was to enter every room in the house into a bucket drawing and tackle them one by one.  Husband in agreement (mainly because I think I will be doing 90% of the stuff) I drew a name this morning.  First room of the house to get showcased will be.... *draws name out of little yellow bucket*

The Utility Closet!  So tomorrow I should have some kind of update about the condition of the Utility closet.

Dreamhouse on Hollyhock Street

There is a house in my neighborhood for sale. I'm in love with it because it
reminds me of the homes in my neighborhood growing up. It's a midwest looking house to me. It was even built in the 70's so definitely of the same era of the homes I grew up around. It's listed at $186,000. So I had realtor mom look it up. A short sale (duh- most of the houses around us sell for around 300-400k) with an offer on it. Oh well, I thought.

Then I got a phone call.

"There's a problem with the offer and it may not go through. The realtor said he is going to allow showings on it. Wanna see it?"

Oh, ask me twice!

Funny when you build up a fantasy in your head, how reality comes crashing in.
I'll say this: it has good bones. I love the layout. Formal living room, dining room, huge L- shaped kitchen, and a tiled family room screaming for playdates. It had a wet bar. Can you imagine those playdates??? A WETBAR! My margarita fueled playdate fantasies were still dancing through my head when I saw the first sign of trouble. My mom had been saying something about exposed wiring (I couldn't hear her over my imaginary blender whipping up some cool frothy drinks) when I stepped into the bathroom. Oh my. Now forget that it had not been redecorated since 1987, (something I can live with) there had obviously been some kind of horrible flood. I'm going to keep telling myself that was mud on the side of the toilet because it was certainly a layer of mud on the floor. It had a large, deep empty pool in the backyard, save for a few inches of green water with McDonalds cups floating in it- an oasis for the Mosquitos building their west Nile virus HQ in my pretend backyard. So, the pool would have to be covered up. Going up the stairs to the bedrooms I saw the aforementioned exposed wiring. And I could feel how the stairs were beginning to give way- a thought that frightened me as I held the baby a little tighter.

The 4 bedrooms upstairs were enormous. The right side of my brain was keeping track of the tally of fixes necessary to make this place livable & the left side of my brain was painting each room and deciding if you could put 2 kids in one room and have a playroom/ office AND a guestroom/office.
When all was said and done, I estimated there had to be another 75k worth of fixes to plumbing, carpentry, electric- all areas I'd be afraid to tackle as a first time buyer.
Replace a ceiling fan? Sure can do! Figure out what went wrong here? That's beyond my abilities.

I brought it up to my husband. He didn't say much. Of course, I didn't expect him to- we hadn't even listed our place yet. Did
I think he would want to move in and make an offer?
Later that evening, I sent him a text with the one item I took a picture of at that house:





This was in the family room where I pictured all the little guys playing.

He called me-
"is this the house you wanted?"

"well, yeah. Those lion heads do come down, you know."

"We can't move there."

"Because of the lion's head???"

"Yeah. You see, we are of the house of Stark and those are of the house of Lannister..."

Damned Game of Thrones coming back to bite me in the butt.

I'm glad I got to see this house. Even though as I live in my fantasy world & my husband lives in his, I would have always
Wondered about that house and why it was selling so cheap. Now I know.