Recently in Home Improvement Category

Since we moved into our house, Danika and I had planned to have some of our windows replaced. When we bought the house a number of the windows were aluminum, some of which were quite old and only single pane. We finally got new windows put in last August which was followed by a very long period of problems. A few of which were:

• the wrong door was sent with our windows and the correct one never showed up
  
• handles for the double hungs that we were promised took months and several visits from the installers before they were finally installed
  
• two of the windows came with broken hardware
  
• once it started raining several of the windows leaked
  

Finally in April (nine months after they were installed) we believed all the issues had been resolved. Well, unfortunately we discovered yesterday that was not the case. The picture window in our living room is leaking. So it begins again. I am going to send the installers a message to let them know. Hopefully we will be able to resolve the issue in less time than it took previously.

Update (11.24.2009)
Someone from the company that installed the windows was out today to take a look. He believes he knows how to solve the problem. He said they will call today to schedule a time when they can come out, fix the issue and then do some testing.

I had a rather long list of things to do while I was away from work for three weeks. Number one on the list was to get to know Graham (obviously). I didn't expect to get many of them done, but I was hoping to get a few of them done. Also on the list, as mentioned in some of my previous posts was to get some yard work done. I had not paid any attention to the lawn or garden and both had become quite overgrown. I managed to get the lawn cut before I went back to work, but wasn't able to finish the garden. Well, tonight (one day after I had gone back to work) I finally managed to finish the garden. So, I was able to get nearly two things done on my list while I was away from work. Hopefully I will be able to slowly eat away at the other things while continuing to spend most of my time with the family.

When we bought our house we decided the size of our lawn did not really warrant anything more than a reel mower. So far it has worked pretty well, the only thing I do not like about it is that if I let the lawn go more than about a week, the grass gets a little long in places and the reel mower does not do a very good job of cutting it. Now that Graham has arrived, I am not sure I will have time every week to cut the grass. I already had to borrow someone else's lawn mower to cut the grass this year. I decided that if I could find an electric mower for $50 or less, it would be a good investment. I have been watching Craig's list for a while now (apparently used electric mowers are a hot item in Seattle) and am happy to say I finally managed to get one -- and for only $35 too! I tried it out on the lawn of the person I bought it from and it seemed to work just fine. It looks to be in pretty good condition, and for $35 I figured I couldn't go wrong. We'll see how it does on our lawn... most likely this week.

Today was a good day. I feel like I got a lot accomplished. I got my hair cut, I made a fair amount of progress on Graham's photo gallery and this blog, I went for a walk, and I got a plumber over to fix the leak in the pipe. Danika watches a few blogs and recently the Greenwood Mom's blog had a discussion about plumbers. There was one that was highly recommended, Butterfield Plumbing. I called him (Herb Butterfield) to see if he could come over and fix the pipe, and fifty minutes later he was here. He give me a price, I accepted and about forty minutes later the pipe was fixed. He answered all my questions and pretty quickly assessed my level of plumbing knowledge. He didn't talk down, but he also gave a level of information I felt was useful. I would definitely recommend him. Best of all the pipe no longer leaks, and I was able to maintain the house's "construction free zone".

I have had two kegs of beer (I homebrew) sitting in my basement since 05.20.2009 (before my son was born) that I have been meaning to put in the kegerator. The only problem is I need to defrost the kegerator and clean the lines that the two empty kegs that are in there were using. Danika's mom was nice enough to stay over tonight and spend time with Danika and Graham so I could finally get the kegerator cleaned out. I was nearly done with everything when I noticed that I was being splashed with water. I looked up to determine the source, thinking something was messed up with the kegerator, and instead was surprised (and quite frustrated) to find that one our our copper hot water pipes is leaking.

The pipe was covered with foam insulation and the water was dripping from the end of the foam insulation, so I pulled it back and wiped the pipe dry to try to find where the water was coming from. There were a number of "ugly" solder joints that I thought one of which would be the culprit, but upon investigation it appears that the leak is coming from a place where it is just clean looking copper pipe. What happens to copper pipe that makes it start leaking? Anyhow, yet another thing on tomorrow's to do list, call a plumber. I am pretty sure it is something I could fix myself, but Danika requested we have someone else do it and keep the house a "construction free zone" for a while longer. At first I disagreed, but now that I have thought about it, it probably is best to have someone else come in and do it even if it is going to cost a bit more. My lack of sleep and over all stress level would not bode well for a "quick" and "effective" repair. Now to find a plumber...

Originally I wanted to set this blog up a while ago and keep track of some of the things we were doing to get ready for the baby. Since that did not happen, my new plan was to create a number of entries and back date them based on the photos I have taken of the various projects/tasks, but I have not had time to make that happen either, so instead, I am just going to make this one post with some dates and photos.