True to 'Tom and Heather' Fashion

We are getting AC units this week... THANK THE DEAR LORD!!  The heat just gets sticky, makes me not want to do anything, and sucks for sleeping.  Other than that, I don't mind it.  ;)

Of course, we can't just replace the old with the new.  We have decided to move the hideous monsters from the front of the house to the side.  (the new ones shouldn't be hideous, right)

Do you see the two units?   Right beneath the window (lower level, 2nd one from left).  Actually, they don't stick out too much here but I swear, if you saw them in person you would see what I mean.  And that window is the dining room - so if they were running you could hear them inside for certain.

So, we have this concrete pad on the side of the house, against the garage, and it would be PERFECT for the new AC units.  Don't mind the mess of weeds here.  In this pic, the concrete pad has a tire wrapped in plastic on it.

Guess how much that would cost, extra?!?  $850 to run the new AC lines (condensor, copper, etc. lines) and ~$350 to run new electrical lines... grand total of $1,200.  Stuff ain't cheap, but we thought worth it.

Let me just comment on how many other projects we have... again.  :)  In that pic above, can you see the paint around the wood in the top windows really deteriorating?  And the pic above that, can you see the paint bleeding from the shutters onto the brick?  Ugh.  Don't even go there about my landscaping... :)

Oh, here's another project:

This old playset needs a bit of TLC. 

And in the grass picture on the right, you can see the bicycle tracks of the kids that cut through our yard. Eventually we will probably put a vegetable garden here, maybe a fence to keep the rugrats out too!

Makes you really want to own and old, fixer upper home, eh?!?!  Not sure yet if I would recommend it or not.  Ask me again in 30 years.  :)




Happy Monday ya'll.

Much love,

Heather

STROKE OF GENIUS! ...ah-hem...maybe...

Can I tell you the last BIG project we will work on in our house?  (when I say that, I mean it will be a year+ before we start this one)

Our own bathroom.

Funny.  That happened at our last house too.  Strange.

My stroke of genius was this:    We plan to completely demo our master bath....

Do you see that shower on the left side?  We plan to close that off from inside the bathroom and make an opening from the hallway.  We plan to put our washer/dryer there.  Shower will then be in front of window with a big soaker/jetted (hopefully) tub.  It's going to look great!

Today, I think I've done 9 loads of laundry so far?  (its only 3pm too!  Go mama go!!)  And I did the hand-wash only items.  Its a pain because I have to clean the sinks out first then rinse them in the tub because the sink has the soapy water in it, etc.

I see a lot of 'modern' laundry rooms with sinks in them, and I think that would be nice.  However, the area where we are putting our washer/dryer is literally as big as a standard size shower.  So, we are going to have to stack the machines.

SO - that will leave room on ONE side for a small sink.  And you know what else I see in 'fancy-pants' laundry rooms?  Countertop surface above cabinets to fold clothes on, etc.  

SO - you know what I'm going to ask my ever-so-talented-handy-man husband to do?  Put a sink in there with a countertop that folds to the side of the sink (so the sink can be covered with a countertop or used as a sink).

GENIUS!

Isn't it?  

If I had any time on my hands... I'd make a drawing, measure out the space, etc.

But I don't.

And, I've been slacking on my blog posts.  BIG time apologies.  I swear, we did go to Florida right after my last post, and we were there for a week - so I went MIA from all electronics pretty much.  

BUT we're back at it.  We hired a babysitter last sunday to work on the 4th bedroom.  We are hiring her again this Sunday.

We made BIG time progress in the bathroom, of course, its all underneath the floor so will all be covered up someday soon hopefully... can't wait to share our pics from that!  

But ta-ta for now.  Much love to you and yours!  

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!!

Trials and Tribulations

This blog is about our renovations... but I always find myself blabbling about personal stuff.

The reason is - welp, because all that personal stuff affects our ability TO GET ANYTHING DONE!

Went to Boston last weekend.  

Looking for 'geeses' with Uncle Joey

TWO days of lunch at a park!
Kids table for the adults!

Went to a wedding on Saturday -
It was truly BEAUTIFUL!

AND THEN - got to go to Fenway Sun.  Kid free too!
Uncle Joey and Aunt Steph are AWESOME.

Yes, my husband is an engineer.  :)

\

Went to Ohio wknd before that (and Mary's 3rd Birthday was then).  Wknd before that saw Lady Gaga in concert in Cleveland at the Q with my brother who came in from Indy.  Oh yes, I did.   :)

I was incredibly impressed, actually!  Here are just a small portion of her costumes.

Off to Orlando this Sat. until next Sat.  COME ON SLOW DOWN SOME is what I keep saying to myself.

We will not be going anywhere... hopefully... for the rest of the year.  All that travel costs $ too!

BACK TO THE HOUSE.

and the BIGGEST UPDATE!!!

(at least that we are excited to share)

Do you remember me mentioning our air conditioning unit was from 1980?  Ha.


Hahahaha.  Scary looking, eh?  Scarier in person.

I don't believe I posted about the fact that we also - LAST FALL - had our A/C units checked out so we could have the home warranty cover it if they were bad.  Well, they were bad.  Craft Heating and Cooling told them that.  

They wanted a second opinion.  Metro Heating and Cooling  ALSO told them that.  PLUS they told them our furnace needed replaced.  But, it was too cold at that time for Metro to thoroughly check the A/Cs.  

So, we got our furnace replaced...  $3,000 that we didn't have to pay a dime on... Thank you home warranty people.  Aka Old Republic.

NOW - it finally got warm in Pittsburgh and we had them come look at the ACs on May 6th.  The tech actually got them both to run.  But there is just about everything wrong with them - however, he told me the units could be fixed.  And home warranties usually do that any day over replacing them. 

So, I nudged him a little bit.  :)

Went back and forth with Craft and Old Republic.  Tom did actually, not me. 

AND WE ARE GETTING TWO NEW AC units!!! YAHOOOO!!!

Because, I mean really, these look like they are radiating carcinogens or something... really.



And here are some pics of my kiddos today, boy how I love them both!