Laziness and Snowblower Abuse.

I think this happens with a lot of folks' home improvement blogs--they have a lot to say and show off at first, but it starts to taper off over time. This is for an obvious reason--there are a lot of big things to do before and right after a move, but once the pressing concerns are handled, there just isn't very much to say. And the blogging gets lazy.

In my case, I find this to be true--we're basically settled in and enjoying life in The Serpico House. Things are cool. But there are still a zillion things to do. We still haven't painted our bedroom, our guest room (I've started calling it "the turtle room" or "Mack's Room") still needs a desk and some other things, we need to replace our dining room's light fixture, the kitchen is awful, etc, etc.

But, for right now, let me tell you how I failed at the technology of living in the suburbs.

I'm guessing most of you are aware that the northeast portion of the U.S. has gotten a smidge of snow in January. Yep, it's true... a couple of minor storms, one big 'un and some icy rain. All told, I think maybe we've gotten about 25 inches of snow or something. I'm not complaining, really. I don't mind snow, and taking some days off due to snow provided us some nice unexpected family time.

Now, due to utter procrastination, we've failed to procure a new shovel for dealing with all of this snow. Yeah, we're still using Mrs. Serpico's old shovel. I should really get a picture of it--the thing is pitiful. It's nearly impossible to move snow with this thing. But we've managed to make it work... sort of.

If the condition of a person's driveway could, in some way, be correlated to the lifestyle or functionality of the relationship of the family that lives in the house behind that driveway... erm... well... let's just say our household discussions would look like something out of a John Woo film.

(My film school friends/former video store co-workers are snickering right now)



In short, our driveway is a mess. It's really a good thing that my car is an SUV with All-Wheel Drive. On the morning of the day after we got our last big snow, the view from our front window was this...


Yeah. That was taken around 6am. We got 15 inches of snow that night. This view would normally show our lovely front bushes and porch. After such snowfall, we just had white lumps that merged with the whiteness on our porch. It was kind of crazy.

When the snow finally ceased, I assaulted the snow on the porch and driveway with Mrs. Serpico's shovel, and I was sure I'd be able to clear enough of the mess to get my car out of the driveway. Well, I made a path to the car, and, foolish man that I am, I tried to back out of the situation. Yeah, that didn't work--I wound up getting stuck around mid-way through, where the snow was higher than my vehicle's axles.

Luckily, my wife's aunt (she calls me her nephew, so I should call her my aunt, too, I guess) has frequently offered us the use of her snow-blower. Now, she lives on a small Philly side street, and her house has a fairly diminutive footprint---I have no idea why she owns a snow-blower... other than that she likes gizmos.

My neighbor, Josh, had wisely paid one of the many roving gangs of snow-removal specialists (snow-opportunists? Snoppertunists?) to handle his driveway and sidewalk duties. However, since we were a bit light on cash (those dudes wanted $60 to do the driveway and sidewalk!), I was resolved to do this on my own.

Josh was nice enough to drive me over to my aunt's place, where we dug out her driveway and sidewalk in return for the use of her gas-powered snow-blower.

Now, not being familiar with the use of things like this (my last lawn-mower was an electric one), there was definitely a learning curve involved in making it work. Josh helped a bit, and we managed to get the thing started, and I found the lever that made the "snow-eater" work. I got into pushing the snow-blower into the huge mounds of snow and seeing the resulting spray of chopped-up snow fly off to the side. Pretty awesome. But... well... it was really hard to push the damn thing. I mean really hard to push it. The snow-blower weighs about 100lbs, and the snow itself was very wet and fairly heavy, so I was pushing it up and down my driveway by inches for an hour, dying from the exertion.

People who know how to use a snow-blower are laughing right now.

I almost shat out my spine before I realized that the wheels needed to be engaged with the motor--the engine makes the nubbly wheels turn and help push the machine along through the snow and ice. I didn't know about that. You have to pull on an extra lever to make it happen. In other words, I was shoving 100lbs of machine against that deep, heavy-ass, wet snow with no assistance from the engine. I didn't get hurt or anything, but I surely felt stupid when I realized how much extra work I was making for myself.

Avy offered to help, but I was so annoyed with myself that I just kept working. I know, I know. Typical male, right?

I finally cleared as much snow as I could, dragged the machine into the garage and went inside the house to dry off and warm up. Xavier was taking a nap after a tiring round of snowman building with Avy and a neighbor kid. I changed into soft, warm, dry clothes and took an Advil. I then planted my ass on the couch and went to sleep.

The damn suburbs kicked my ass that day.

Since that day, the snow has been melting fairly steadily, and the driveway has been looking better and better. Nature clears out snow better than I do.

Nothing Post

We've successfully had a few minor gatherings at The Serpico House.

Some family. Some friends. It's worked out well, for the most part. The obvious thing is that we've got a lot more room in the house, so we have space for kids to run around without trampling adults or getting in the way of conversations. Our mostly-empty basement provided a perfect venue for a few rounds of "Duck-Duck-Goose," and nobody got hurt. OK, well... someone got kicked in the mouth, but that's a common D-D-G injury from what I can remember.

I still mostly hate our kitchen for anything more involved than microwaving. The stove is ridiculous. We did manage to bake some frozen pizzas in there, and we've reheated lasagna, but cooking at night is terrible. There are exactly four lights in the kitchen--one hanging monstrosity that creates a shadow on the stove when you stand in front of it, and three in the counter area. Two of those counter-area lights are florescent. I hate florescent lights. I mentioned a temporary fix for this problem in my last post--a clip-on light attached to the exhaust grille above the stove. I plan to take on this project over the weekend.

I also just hate the overall look of the kitchen. The color of the counters is awful--orange/coral.


The cabinets aren't the worst I've ever seen, but the shelves inside are bent, bowed and generally unsatisfactory. We need to simply rip the whole place apart, but that's not economically feasible for us. We're thinking an Ikea kitchen may be possible in the summer... we'll have some money by then.

We'd love to have a white kitchen with stainless-steel appliances. Recessed lighting. Faux tin ceiling. Maybe a gray counter. Perhaps a gray tile floor. Simple, clean, effective. It doesn't need to be fancy--it just needs to be pleasant and functional.

The kitchen is really the only bummer in the house right now. The rest of the place is full of little vignettes that make me happy. Like this one...

Darkness Reigns

I was going to post a picture taken in the kitchen in The Serpico House as I cooked dinner last night, but there was a problem with this plan--the camera wasn't picking up enough light to take a picture that looked like anything other than a mushy, dark blur. It's a good thing that ground turkey undergoes a rather radical color change during the cooking process, because there is a high probability of under- or over-cooking in such light-scarce conditions. I don't like it.

In short, our kitchen is a bleak tunnel of darkness at night. This makes cooking rather problematic, as you can imagine. Grilling on the back patio is no problem because there's a light close to the grill. I'm thinking I will be doing most of my cooking out there.

Also, the stove in our kitchen is kind of a joke. I mean, sure, it works, but... well, let me explain. It's one of those mini stoves meant for a very small kitchen, such as the ones found in studio apartments. Where a standard-sized stove is 30" wide, this one is significantly smaller. I haven't measured ours, but it must be more like 20-22" wide. And if you don't think that bit of extra girth makes a difference (that's what SHE said)... well... you just ought to try cooking with more than one pot on one of these things. Not fun.



Additionally, our stove, much like the one pictured above, has its knobs conveniently located on its front. This is great for ease of use when we decide to cook something on the miniscule work surface, but it's not so great if you've got a highly inquisitive two-year-old kid running around the house, eager to open any doors or turn any handle-looking items in his path. Yes, Xavier has grown rather fond of turning the knobs on the stove just to see the light come on. It's not good.

Luckily, there are these things....They snap over the stove knobs and make it impossible for them to be turned without the clear part unlocked, and (thankfully) Xavier hasn't figured that out yet. This means we have to take an extra step before cooking, but it makes our kitchen safer for the small one, so we'll deal with it.

Meanwhile, I think we'll need to get some kind of clamp-on light to hook up near the stove. I will probably snag one at Staples or something. It's a temporary but necessary measure until we get the kitchen rehabbed.

So mature...

I'm kind of proud to show off the above picture. I like the way our living room looks now. It looks like grown-ups live there. If you walked into our living room, you'd never know that overgrown children usually occupy this space.

Also, you can see the crazy light we get in there...



It's really bright in our living room during the day. Really bright. It's nice, though. Just don't try to take a nap on the couch at noon. It's like napping on the surface of the sun. I'm gonna keep sunglasses with the TV remote.

We only have a few more things to finish up in the living room... I really need to drill a new hole in the floor for the cable--right now it enters the room near the front door, and I have the wire running under the baseboards, but it's not ideal. I plan to drill a new hole closer to the fireplace and hide all of the TV wires behind the mantle. Ideally, we would prefer to build shelves on either side of the fireplace to house the TV components and surround-sound stuff. But we're pretty sure those shelves would have to be custom-sized and built in, so that will probably have to wait for a little while. On the plus side, we have nothing but time. There are still plenty of other projects in the house that we can do ourselves, so those projects will take priority.

Life.

We're nearing the end of our first week in The Serpico House, and we're definitely dealing with some adjustments.

OK, some of these adjustments involve winter in the mid-Atlantic region. It's cold. It's been snowing a bit. These elements are not particularly debilitating. I'm a good snow driver, and we have a good vehicle with all-wheel drive. And we have warm coats.

And the view is nice.



The township is really good about plowing. Plus, one of our neighbors (nobody seems to know who) has taken it upon themselves to use their riding snow-blower to clear the sidewalks for about a two-block radius. So these things are nice.

However, I now have a longer drive to work, and, in order to complete this drive, I have to negotiate some areas where traffic can be slow or bottle-necked even in good weather. Additionally, Xavier is now accompanying me on this drive every day because his daycare is located directly across the street from my office. Xavier's in daycare every day now because Avy now has a new job. Avy's new job also requires a fairly serious and involved commute with buses, trains and transfers.

What does this mean for all of us?

Well, we all leave the house at the same time every day (around 6:30am, which is early for us all), fully bundled up for our commutes. Our alarm goes off at 6am, so we throw ourselves together as quickly as possible and get Xavier ready to go. He's two years, four months old. He doesn't always want to participate in the whole morning ritual. Hell, none of us want to get moving in the morning, but Xavier is more vocal in expressing his displeasure about being aroused from his slumbers. He usually brightens up rather quickly when cookies are involved, though. Who wouldn't, ya know?

Xavier before cookies.

Evenings are a reversal of the mornings. By the time we wind down and pack Xavier's lunch for the next day, we're pretty much beat. This suburban grown-up stuff ain't easy.

Anyway, the whole adjustment period has us all a little off kilter, and we're learning how to live in our new house. It's not bad, but I can't say we're totally on top of things yet. We'll figure it out, though. We just need to establish some new patterns. Until we do, we're just going to have to deal.

Moving Day!

Ha! Do you like my "moving day" art? Sheesh. I'm corny. We did the moving thing on Friday. It snowed. Because it's more fun that way. The company we used (The Sultans of Schlep) sent a couple of nice dudes to do the deed with a big-ass truck. Let me tell you something--after handling my last few moves with friends and an old van (or a rental), I am quite convinced this is the way to go. First of all, the dudes handle the obviously awful heavy lifting. Second of all, they know how to pack the truck. Third, they do the driving. This means our backs weren't broken, our stuff wasn't broken and we didn't have to worry about renting/returning/borrowing a van. And they got it all done in about three hours.... for less than $400. There's no way we could have done that on our own without hurting ourselves in some way. So... Here's the outcome...


Our living room is becoming the comfy spot we hoped to create. It just needs to be de-cluttered. It's going to take some mature decision-making.

For example, I have to decide where I will put my Kiss bobble-heads.

The clutter in our kitchen is not a joke. We have work to do.

On the plus side, we finally have a real bedroom. This is lovely. We have our bed. No more air mattress. Yes. Having our furniture in the bedroom kind of underscores the sheer enormity of the room. Sheesh. It's a big room.

I found this picture frame in the basement. I'm not sure what I want to do with it yet, but I like it on top of the dresser. I must admit, though, I keep thinking it's a mirror. I tried to look at my shirt in it this morning. Oops.

As you can see, we haven't painted yet. With all the other stuff going (painting the other rooms, ripping up carpet, packing up, etc), we just haven't gotten around to it. We have chosen a color for the room (Glidden Aztec Gold), but now that I have woken up to bright sunlight in this white room, I'm a little torn about it. The white may be a little boring, but it's very nice. Aztec Gold might make things look a little duller.

Aztec Gold is pretty sweet, though.

We're definitely going to paint the bedroom, though. That needs to happen. We had to spackle a ton of holes after taking out a pile of nails and removing the weird chair rail in there.

Our dining room table and chairs are in place. Funny thing about having more space--this table took up a ton of room in our condo. In our dining room now, not so much. Luckily, the table has leaves. Looks like we'll be using them.

If our room seems large, Xavier's room seems enormous to us. Granted, we still need to put his crib in there. We think he's old enough to use a "big-boy" bed, so we have to reconfigure his crib... in the meantime, he's been snoozing in a pack-n-play thing. In all honesty, he could have the pack-n-play, a crib and a bed in his room and still have more space than he could possibly want. This is good, though. We want to get him an activity table and a few other things, so it's good to have the space in there.


And the crown jewel. My grill. I need more propane, but I can't wait to fire this thing up.

The Return of Ol' Painty Pants and Gray: How Much is too Much?

Happy new year, folks. As you can see, Xavier was grooving on the snow. He spontaneously decided to make a snow angel in the Serpico House yard. The kid knows something.

So, we got some more work done.

Some of you may remember the dining room paint project: burgundy red above the chair rail, toasted white (satin finish) on the wall below the rail and toasted white (semi-gloss) on all of the trim.

When we first looked at the place, the dining room looked like this...


Shades of beige. Carpet.

As of our departure last night, we had this...


Please to be excusing my not-so-wonderful photography (and the painting tape.) The colors are not quite as blotchy in person. Promise. The burgundy part, admittedly, does still need touching up, but it's close... I think one more coat will do it. Of course, I said the same thing before the last coat went up. Still, I find this to be a big improvement. Looks fresher with the new paint. Duh. New paint=fresher.

We want to add crown molding. This room should be a good place to try it... after all, it's a square. No outside corners. Just inside ones. That should be easier. Can we use a regular miter saw for that, or do we need a compound miter saw? I hope we can do it with the former. I don't really think my little neanderthal brain can work with multiple angles and a sharp cutting implement at the same time.. blood will almost certainly be spilled. Mine.

Also, we managed to get the office finished. It's gray.


I specifically angled the camera to avoid showing the funky little table in the middle of the room. This room also offered my first insight into the wiring of this house... it's not going to be fun to re-wire this place. There was a "mystery panel" on the wall about three feet below the light switch for the ceiling fixture. It looked like a regular outlet box, except there was no outlet on it... just a metal harness for a light switch over the exposed braided (!) wire to keep you from getting shocked when walking past. I hit the local Tru Valu hardware store and bought a blank cover for this slightly frightening outlet. I kind of shuddered after I finished putting the last screw into the cover plate thing. Yikes. Braided wire. Where's the "ground"on that? Where's the positive? Where's the negative? Shit. Where's anything? I don't think it's gonna be fun to put up new light fixtures. Just a prediction. I foresee a lot of DIY electrician YouTube videos in my future. And, possibly, spending money to get an electrician to get shocked in my stead.

Oh yeah, check this out... we bought too much gray paint. Turns out we only needed one can to do two coats on the office. Actually, it took less than one can. Live and learn, right? So, we had this extra can of gray paint. Well, since we had that gray paint, we decided it made sense to put it to use. We hooked up Small Bear's room...

Yeah, it's gray like the office, but the walls are nice and clean now. We're considering adding a light blue band around the middle of the room, but, honestly, the gray is kind of mellow. I think it'll look really good once we have all of Xavier's stuff in there. We're also planning to add a brightly colored, interlocking floor mat thingy... like this one...


With that on the floor (along with various cars, trains, stuffed bears and whatnot), his dark wood bed set and perhaps a few Yo Gabba Gabba posters on the walls, I think Xavier's room will be pretty sweet... but definitely gray.

Having said this much, I'm not sure we dare paint the non-tiled portion of our upstairs bathroom gray as well. That's probably too much gray, right?

Anyway, at least we can sort of see the light at the end of the paint tunnel. I mean, sure, we still have to do the bathroom... and our room... and finish the hallways... and install quarter-round everywhere. And... move our furniture into the place. And clear out all of the garbage from the carpet removal from the garage... and change the lighting in the dining room... and get a new light/ceiling fan for Xavier's room... and figure out what to do about the non-functional 1950s thermostat in our bedroom with the extra switch that apparently does nothing... and um... you know... just a few other things. Sheesh.