Tara's First Home

Adventures of an overzealous first time home buyer with limited skills but high hopes and a strong will.

[tarasfirsthome]

Washing machine geyser!

I decided to do laundry yesterday, on the coldest day of the year. I turned the water on and after some sputtering (and panic from me that my pipes were frozen), the washer came to life and filled. I sat on the couch and began watching the previous night's The Walking Dead. Somewhat into the episode, I heard the washer begin to drain. Then the water sound got exponentially louder and my dog Junior went to investigate. He stood there staring for a few seconds transfixed, which led me to shoot up and run into the laundry room. I was met by a geyser of water spraying straight into the air from the drainpipe. Water was flowing over my lovely laminate floor at an alarming rate. I admit, I panicked. I grabbed the plastic outflow pipe and tried to cover it with my hand, to prevent the water from draining. When that obviously didn't work, I opened the window and directed the hose outside through the screen window before my brain kicked in and I hit the pause button on the washer. The water stopped flowing out. I grabbed towels (I was thankfully going to be doing a load of towels next so I had 4 on hand). My friend raced upstairs and grabbed all my remaining towels and we corralled the water away from walls and began soaking up the water and wringing it out into a bucket. So. Much. Water. I honestly have no idea what happened. After everything was cleaned up, I turned the washer back on and it drained fine. The only conclusion I can come up with is that when the water first hit the freezing pipe, some of it froze and caused a bottleneck situation to happen and as the water backed up, it had nowhere to go but up. I did another load of laundry after that, with no issue. Aaaaah home ownership.

[tarasfirsthome]

I went to IKEA this weekend and bought a display case. It was pretty expensive ($130) which was more than I was looking to spend, but it is pretty and fits perfectly and holds most of my rhinos. I know the pictures are a little dark, because it took me all of Sunday to put the sucker together. Lots of glass, lots of sliding and metal and awful noises when glass rubs against metal. Also I was really hungover, so that didn't help.

[tarasfirsthome]

Radiators have steam in them.

On the day I moved in to the house, I decided to try and tackle a heating issue I've been facing.

You see, I have traditional radiators and baseboard radiatorss in my house for heat. I have 4 in the upstairs (1 traditional, 3 baseboards) and 3 in the downstairs (1 traditional, 2 baseboards). The downstairs is much larger than the upstairs. So the upstairs gets suuuuper hot, while the downstairs is extremely cold.

Not exactly an even exchange.

I spoke to my dad and he said I could turn off one or more of my radiators, to try and even out the temperatures between the upstairs and downstairs. So on the day I moved into the house, I rushed upstairs and turned the one radiator all the way off, to see how it impacted the temperature. After all, we would be going up and down the stairs all day long unpacking and moving and settling in, so if it got too cold, I could always turn it back on or raise the heat.

After I turned off the radiator, I went downstairs to the kitchen and started unpacking. For some reason, the first thing I was unpacking was all my fridge magnets. Words cannot express how happy I am that I chose that box to unpack.

Because as I stood there, putting my Heathers magnets on the fridge, a stream of water began pouring out of the kitchen light directly to my right.

I stared at the stream of water for a few moments before my brain kicked in and thought something like "find a bucket to catch the water!"

My mind was racing. It was snowing. Did I have a leak in the roof? How could the leak work its way to the first floor? What was happening?

I didn't know where a bucket was. I didn't know where anything was. So I grabbed the only thing near me, an empty cardboard box, and put it under the leak.

Then I ran upstairs to see what the problem was.

The radiator, which I had turned off minutes ago, was spurting hot water all over the carpet, which was pooling at the feet of the radiator, and following the radiator pipe down into the floor.

I quickly opened the valve and watched as the fountain of water calmed down to a drip, and eventually stopped completely.

I learned that if you turn off a radiator when it is on and hot, all that steam working to heat your home turns to water. And that water will need a place to go. And sometimes the escape route involves the kitchen.

The drips eventually stopped, the kitchen dried out, and I waited a while until I turned the lights in the kitchen on.

Regardless, the upstairs is still hot and the downstairs is still cold, but at least I know I have a warm place to escape to.

[tarasfirsthome]

Sofa fun

Here's a fun little story for your weekend.

I purchased a sofa from Bob's Discount Furniture.

This is the model, but I bought it in black.

I asked to have it delivered on Saturday the 24th, when I moved in. I was told that they couldn't offer me that date until the Tuesday before that Saturday, but I could call on Tuesday and move the date to then. Until then, I would have to pick another day. So I chose Tuesday the 27th instead. I knew I was taking off work that day and figured, worse comes to worse, it would only be a couple days without a sofa and I would be unpacking anyway, not lazing about on the couch.

So the Tuesday before I moved came and went, and I didn't change the delivery date. I was OK with sitting on the floor in the living room for a few days.

Then, on Sunday the 25th, I heard of a blizzard that was going to hit NJ on Tuesday the 27th.

Bob's called to let me know all deliveries on Tuesday the 27th were canceled, but I could use the handy automated tool to reschedule. The earliest the automated tool could guarantee me was Saturday the 31st.

A WEEK without a couch?! I couldn't stand for this. I figured if I spoke with a real human being, I could get it straightened out. After all, how many people were sitting on the floor in their living room with no other furniture?

The offices were closed on Sunday, so I held off on contacting them until Monday, as soon as they opened. I spoke with the lady, gave her my story, and was told the earliest she could help me out was.... Monday February 2nd.

So not only do I have to wait 2 extra days for the delivery than if I had just used the automated tool, I can't even be there when they deliver it to make sure everything is done right. I have to put my trust in someone else.

Talk about an automated tool. Ugh.

[tarasfirsthome]

Moving Day!

I finally moved in to the house on Saturday. It was a long month, and with all the setbacks between the Laminate Saga and the 'too big' threhsold, I didn't get a lot done. There's still stuff to do, but now my stuff is in the house and it's no longer like "let's go visit the house" it's more like "hey I live here now."

So after the bust that was the Auction, as mentioned in the previous post, I spent Friday finishing packing, returning my Comcast equipment (Do you want a story about the hell I had to go through in canceling Comcast? I'll give you one.), moving some of the more fragile things to the house, and attending my best friend's housewarming party. When she told me she was planning the party for the day before my move, scheduled at 8am, I said "you do realize I'm moving the next day... and you have to be there with me.... right?" And she told me not to worry, that she would be there bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Did I mention the snow? Because the forecast on Wednesday said Saturday would be cloudy, then skyrocketed to 6 inches of snow expected overnight Friday into Saturday. On Thursday, it predicted 1 inch for Saturday, and finally on Friday it settled on 3-5 inches of snow expected overnight Friday into Saturday. Well, they got better at guessing as the night went on because on my moving day, I woke up to this.

About 3 inches of snow. Not terrible. I texted my best friend, to make sure she was up and getting ready and heading over, but the snow made her weary and she decided to play it safe and stay home that morning.

The only reason I had wanted her there was because the movers spoke Cantonese, and she speaks Cantonese, and she was going to be my translator. But her mom, who had made the appointment for me, made sure to ask for English speaking movers. So, honestly, it was fine that she stayed home. Safer, for sure.

The movers arrived and took stock of the situation and began shoveling the pathway to their truck. 4 guys showed up to move my tiny 1 bedroom apartment.

They were efficient! They shoveled the walkway and started moving all my stuff. Less than 45 minutes after the showed up and knocked on the door, the apartment was pretty much bare.

It was especially good that they went so quick, because my dog was having a meltdown in his crate and couldn't be left alone without breaking out of the crate or barking loudly in an echoey, empty bedroom directly below my neighbors. I'm sure they loved me that day.

The movers were all packed up, they made sure they had everything I wanted them to move, and we agreed to meet them at the house. We gave them the address and off they went, leaving me to freak out that they would beat us there (even though they couldn't take the parkway so they had to go a roundabout way), which led to me forgetting EVERYTHING I wanted to bring. I made it out with the dog and cat, but forgot all the tools and the pet food and bowls and my soda and all the things I didn't have the movers move because I wanted it to be with me. Forgotten.

We got to the house less than ten minutes before the movers, and that was with them getting stuck in my parking lot for almost ten minutes. It's almost a good thing I forgot all that stuff, otherwise they would have beaten me there.

I get the dog and cat set up in the bedroom out of the way, lay down some drop cloths and blankets to try to prevent most of the snow melt getting all over my carpet (it was too late for the laminate floor), and I started directing traffic. Upstairs, downstairs, leave it here, etc.

Again, like the magical magicians they are - suddenly they were telling me the truck was empty and I was handing over all the cash I have to my name at the moment. Goodbye, money. Hello, easy fast stressfree (to some degree) move!

I let the pets free and they proceeded to check out every square inch of the house. Junior found his favorite perch already.

[tarasfirsthome]

Auction Time

I attended my first auction 1 week ago. I took the day off work so I could go and hopefully pick up some furniture for the new place. I moved into the house on Saturday (a story for another post), and I knew I'd be a little short on furniture. So an auction seemed like a great idea - where I could get quality furniture and odds and ends for low, low prices.

My friend John knew about the auction and he met me there about halfway through the day.

I tell you, what a waste of my time. If anything was coming up that I was interested in, I would stand by and wait for that lot to come up. And then, even though every other lot sold for anywhere from $5 to $15, the one I wanted went for over $20 (I must have good taste). It was frustrating. It was cool to see the process, and it definitely was a good introduction to the auction world, but it wound up being more frustrating than good.

There was this one group of people there, they had bidder number 1 which I learned is a permanent number, that they've been going to these auctions basically since they started. They were the worst. They had these smug looks on their face and they bought pretty much every lot. If anyone was interested in the lot and got into a bidding war with them, they would just keep raising the price until they finally won or the lot sold to the other person for way too much. They had a team of people who would grab all the lots/boxes they bought (sometimes a whole table worth of lots) and wrap and package them to transport safely. It seems they have some sort of store where they sell these things. I'd be interested to visit their storefront and find out how much of a markup they're putting on these items.

Furniture didn't go up for sale until late. 7pm they started, and thankfully the things I really wanted were being auctioned first.

The curio case I wanted went for over $200, of course. The beautiful solid oak dining room set with 6 chairs (that I didn't need or want, of course)went for $50. It's amazing what sells high and what doesn't.

I got sick of waiting for them to make their way through furniture, even though there were a couple of other things I wanted to look at. It was already 9pm and I had been there since 1. I felt dirty, dusty, and discouraged. I left the auction pretty much empty handed.

There is another one in a week that I will be attending. I feel that since I have the one under my belt, I'll be more ready to deal with what the auction has to offer. Plus I'll know not to show up until furniture starts, since that is really what I'm looking for.

An interesting side note about the auction: if nobody bids on a lot, instead of passing on it or not selling it, they just group it with the next lot in line. I saw someone walk away with 3 lots, full boxes, for $5. You can really get some good stuff for really cheap, or you can be outbid by #1.

Another interesting side note: it's so cool to hear them say "Lot sold to bidder number 195" (that was me). Gives you quite a thrill.

[tarasfirsthome]

Giant Threshold

Since I finally laid down all the laminate, it was time to install a threshold. Air was leaking into the house at an alarming rate, even with a storm door installed. It had been a few weeks without a threshold and even though I didn't keep the heat high, I knew it was wasting energy.

I got a brand new threshold from Lowes. It was metal and strong and seemed like it would hold up better than the old threshold (which I practically ripped in two when I was trying to uninstall it).

I measured the threshold and decided to cut both sides, instead of just the one, so I could have three screw holes still. It didn't occur to me at the time that I could do one cut and drill a third hole. But that's another story for another day.

Still using the kitchen sink to cut, I see.

I cut down the two sides, a very noisy process, with a special saw for metal. I'd been breathing in sawdust as I cut all the laminate, so in the back of my head a little voice was saying "isn't breathing all this metal dust going to be bad for you?" but I ignored it. After all, it's cold outside.

I put the threshold over where the door closes. It fit perfectly, if not a little short. I shrugged that off, figuring I could install some weatherproofing around the door to keep the drafts out. I tried to screw it down, but the screws weren't long enough. So I beat it down with a hammer a little. After all, it's floor then laminate then threshold so it could probably use to be flattened a few inches. After beating it down, I realized part of the threshold was curling up instead of flattening down. Angrily, I hit the curl with a hammer. It did nothing.

Mind you, this is after 8pm and I know for a fact the neighbors have 3 small children. So I'm sitting in front of my open front door, banging away at metal with a hammer, cursing and yelling at the threshold, after cutting in my kitchen for twenty minutes.

Well, I finally got it in to place. I screwed it down and closed the door, to make sure everything fit.

I'm sure you see where I'm going with this.

The door closed about 6 inches before getting caught on the way-too-high threshold.

So what do I do?

I bang the shit out of it with a hammer, trying to force it into place.

I unscrew it from the floor and pull it up to see what the problem is. It seemed like part of the laminate stuck out farther than the other parts and was preventing the threshold from sitting on the floor properly. So I grab pliers and try to flatten the part of the threshold that was hitting the wood.

That's where the laminate stuck too far out and you can see the threshold was trying to basically break a piece of it off.

I flattened the piece of metal preventing me from installing the threshold and put it back into place. I didn't flatten enough. I picked it back up and tried again. Three times I did this before it was finally flattened enough. At this point, the threshold is covered with hammer marks and the piece of metal that was curling up is even worse. I try to correct that with the pliers, and it made some seriously ugly marks.

At this point, I realize I’ve gone too far. The threshold looks terrible, plus it just doesn’t fit. It’s too tall. I remove the threshold for the last time and threw it in the garbage pile. Talk about a waste of money.

The garbage pile, with my banged up threshold, their banged up threshold, their weather stripping, and a doorsweep which I will actually be returning. I should probably remove that from the garbage pile.

[tarasfirsthome]

The Laminate Saga Part 3

This is part 3 of the story. For part 1, click here. For part 2, click here.

A trip to Lowes and a week later, I was walking into my new house, ready to complete the floor project. I had been doing research nonstop on how to install transitions into the floor and replacing the front door threshold.

This is what I walked in to. I had already cut the smaller piece of laminate I needed for the bottom left piece, all I had to do was cut the other piece of laminate with my brand new saw (for laminate!) I had purchased. It was already marked out, I was ready for it.

I got to work in the kitchen, cutting over the sink and causing sawdust to fly every which way. I cut out my weird angled piece of laminate and it snapped into place like it belonged there. It was marvelous.

The piece next to it was another issue.

I had to undercut the door jamb (fancy terms I learned from the internet) in order to get the piece of laminate in, but since I couldn't tilt it up, due to the door jamb, I was going to use the old "pull bar" method (thank you again, internet).

Of course, it didn't work.

I actually wound up ruining that piece of laminate, trying to force it to lock with its brother. I even knocked the floor out of place with my forceful attempts to snap them together and had to reposition the whole large floating floor. It was a nightmare. Thankfully I had a spare scrap I could use and, after cutting it down to size, I knocked another half an inch off the door jamb. That allowed me to get the proper tilt for the floor to snap together. I don't know what to do about all that space, it's right by the front door and I'm concerned about air leaks and various insects/critters looking for a warm place to stay on a cold night. But hey - it worked. I was able to install the final two pieces of laminate, and it looked ok.

I cut down the carpet to the length it needed to be, and decided to install that transition another day. The final four pieces of laminate took much longer than I was expecting, and I was worn out. I laid the transition on top of the break between laminate and carpet and snapped a picture.

Did I mention I cut the transition piece too short? Only a few tenths of an inch, I figured if I laid it evenly between the two baseboards I would be OK. Still, though. Get it together, Tara.

[tarasfirsthome]

The Laminate Saga Part 2

This is part 2 of my Laminate Flooring Saga. For Part 1, Click here

Armed with amazon.com packages and Lowes purchases, I felt confident and prepared to begin laying down my laminate floor. When I got to the house, I opened my packages and looked at all the fun supplies I had picked up. But before I could use any of the fun saws or utility knives I had purchases, I had to remove the tile floor.

So I grabbed a hammer, a putty knife, and a set of needle nose pliers (for the carpet padding staples and any other use I might find for them)

Surprisingly, the tile came up easily but slowly.

See the pink needlenose pliers in the top of the picture? My boss bought me a pink set of tools including the pliers, a hammer, a utlity knife, and a screwdriver. They were hilarious and sexist at the same time.

Although I didn't have a working vacuum, I had a broken one. So I was able to vacuum up the sawdust bits and pieces of floor that didn't want to sweep up, so I could lay the vapor barried paper down and start installing the floor!

I bought a coping saw, at the advice of the internet, to help me saw the laminate floor boards. It was a long task, but the laminate didn't chip when I cut and the saw was small enough that I felt comfortable sawing over my kitchen sink. It's cold out!

The laminate, after I figured out how they snapped together properly, installed pretty quickly. I had one piece where I had to cut out a half cicle, and the coping saw took care of that perfectly.

I was bustling along, installing the floorboards, when I started to notice the packs of boards were emptying and I was coming up to a section of floor that required a long strip to be cut away. I definitely couldn't use the coping saw for that, I needed a regular hand saw.

Frustrated that I couldn't finish the project that day, I packed up and began writing a new Lowes shopping list with items like "saw" and "entrance metal thingy." I think my brain was a little fried by that point.

[tarasfirsthome]

The Laminate Saga Part 1

One of the first things I knew I was going to change in the new house was the entranceway near the front door. The front door wouldn't open all the way, it got caught up on the carpet and made it very difficult to open and close. The carpet pile was too high, and it drove me crazy.

When I bought the house, I gave myself a window of time to get projects done before I had to move in. My lease isn't up until January 31 and I bought the house December 30. I gave myself a full month to complete a bunch of projects before I had to move anything in to the house.

The best laid plans of mice and men, amirite?

The first fiasco I ran into was the gas being turned off by the previous owners. I don't know what they were thinking, having the gas company come and completely turn off the only source of heat in the house, but that's what they did. So the first week of home ownership was a very cold one, my mind plagued with fears of frozen water pipes bursting and it becoming a very expensive first month of home ownership.

Thankfully, the pipes did not freeze or burst. The gas company told me they could come out on Friday, 3 days away, and gave me a window of time. I brought my pup with me so he could see the house for the first time. It was a very cold day.

During those 3 days, and for weeks afterward, I did a lot of research on installing laminate flooring. The previous owners had put down laminate in the kitchen and left two full boxes of boards in the basement. Freebie! I thought to myself, as I learned the ins and outs of installing a floating laminate floor.

Armed only with my set of keys, I decided to see what I was looking at in the flooring department. I grabbed the edge of the carpet, with no knowledge of phrases like "carpet stretching" or "floor transition" and I pulled up all the carpet in the little entranceway.

Peeling back the carpet, I found some tile. Not quite the "hard wood floor" that everyone dreams is sleeping under their carpet, but an interesting find. I might have even just kept it like that, except it was missing a big piece and had staples all over from the carpet pad.

I had been worried that the floating laminate was just as high as the carpet and I wouldn't be able to install it. So I grabbed a piece and placed it on top of the tile, in the path of the door. I opened the front door and it swung all the way open, banging into the baseboard. Oops. But good. The door totally cleared the laminate, even with the tile (that I knew I would be pulling up) down.

Satisfied, I left the house and began building a Lowes/Amazon shopping list.

[tarasfirsthome]

I bought my first home in December of 2014. It is an old home and needs some work. This blog will document my journey through home ownership and DIY projects that I am severely under-qualified for. Join me as I tackle projects like painting and installing laminate and changing front door thresholds without measuring door height. As I complete projects, I can see this blog transforming into something different - hopefully easy maintenance of completed projects. I'm in over my head, but I'm up for the challenge!