Sunday, February 24, 2013

No barking from the dogs... no smog.

Today was a good day.

One of the reasons I've been sleep-deprived lately is that my newest pup has taken to barking from his crate very, very, very early in the morning. Last night he didn't. :)

Then we had our therpeutic agility class with our pit bull Robin. She knocked it outta the park. And then she met our friend Allen, who is helping us with some of the house reno, and she didn't bark or growl, or get scared at all. She's extremely shy and nervous with strangers, usually, but she was like a "normal" dog today and that puts a big ol' lump in my throat.

And then, we got a little done at the house. Got the hot water heater flushed... Got all mom's new cabinets into the carriage house and mocked up the space to make sure it all works.



Sink and faucet:



Countertops are a laminate in an uba tuba style:


Friday we got our refrigerator in...


And for adult Christmas-- upright freezer. I haven't been so excited about an appliance since I watched my first load of laundry spin around in our front-loader. 


 So we still have a lot to do-- put together all the cabinets and flooring... and we've got great friends helping out. It's exciting, though, to see it all coming together.


Tuesday, February 19, 2013

More help...

And a couple more questions for which I am soliciting input--

Making ceramic tile anti-slip for people with mobility issues, specifically balance problems...? Any experience with anti-slip coatings or etchings? The tiles are really slick when damp.

And painting over wallpaper-- dos and don'ts.

I'm sure I'll address these more in future... but putting the bug out there in cyberland now. :)

Presidential Pluses

President's Day sales. Best thing ever. We saved over $1000 on some big purchases this weekend.

Got a great deal on a fridge at Best Buy, and bought all the cabinets, countertops, fridge, and washer/dryer for my mother's carriage house at Lowes. Got a new sofa and loveseat at Ashley on unexpected sale, too.

It almost went all pear-shaped, though...

After doing a ton of research on the best sales and prices, and consulting with my mother on what she wanted, choosing cabinets, laminates, deciding on fridge size, etc., I fought with the credit card company to credit my access line to reflect the payment I made in the morning (I'm kind of a miles whore), and finally settled on using the backup payment. I had squirreled away a 10% off coupon, and worked out that delivery of everything would be free due to the purchase of appliances.

I got it all in the shopping cart, punched in my coupon number and credit card number, felt very smug and pleased with my bargain results... and then error messages came up that they couldn't charge the following items to my card-- 11 of 12 items-- but they had graciously charged us for the washer/dryer AND used the coupon.

Awesome. At 10:30pm. The night the sale ended. And I had no more coupons.

I called the number, what I assumed would be a futile effort. I was prepared for having to ask to speak with supervisors-- assuming I got a human being on the phone in the first place. I was prepared to send screenshots to the customer service email, or march into the store. I was getting geared up to have to yell at someone. Now don't get me wrong, I used to work in retail customer service. I know it's a thankless job. But I know how to be pleasant and reasonable and explain to customers what I can and can't do, and I always offered to let them speak to a supervisor. Always.

Imagine my surprise when a friendly, human voice from a man named Christopher came on the line. He not only got all my items ordered in time for the sale, he applied the now lost coupon, and was empathetic, patient, understanding, and apologetic. It certainly helps that he was able to solve the problem, but beyond that, he was the consummate customer service professional. It kills me that he is probably not being paid what he is worth.

Now the only appliance left is the dog food fridge. We feed our dogs raw-- we have a pit, a pit/shar pei mix, and 2 labs. Home prepping food for 4 big dogs is only affordable if I can buy in bulk, so the upright freezer is largely for this purpose, and the extra fridge is for thawing and storing more immediate meals. And beer. Dog food is taking up the entire bottom shelf of our top-freezer fridge, and much of the middle shelf, as well as pretty much all but the door of the freezer, and most of the chest freezer. I currently have a 40lb block of chicken necks in our chest freezer and no good way to thaw them so I can grind them (I grind for a variety of reasons). I'd love to be able to buy 50lbs of chicken frames (20¢/lb, HEY!!), but I got nowhere to put 'em. To get this kind of stuff cheaply, I need to be able to buy in bulk.

And, well... there's never enough room for beer.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

It's coming...

Lots of stuff coming.

We've been fairly busy in general. Our pup had to have a second surgery, so we've been in major recovery and oversight mode with him.

And our shy dog, Robin, started a Therapeutic Agility class for confidence building on Sunday afternoons. This house at least has a nice yard for our DIY minicourses.

But we have purchased a new fridge, and it's on its way. We picked out a new sofa and loveseat, which we're going to buy Saturday. We've picked up some lights and flooring samples for the carriage house.

And most importantly, we got our 10% off Lowes moving coupon, so we'll be stocking up, probably in the next week or so-- washer/dryer, fridge, cabinets, flooring, and more lights for the carriage house; fencing, porch rails, freezer, dog-food-and-beer fridge, paint, and more for the rest of the place.

And that's just the stuff we have to buy. We have a couple of storage units to raid. I'd like to paint an old dining table for the breakfast nook, and there's an antique sofa and high-backed chair that I'd love to drag out and have recovered.

Just a lot of STUFF on the horizon.

In the meantime, we're finally starting to move things that aren't needed every day. First load on my way to work today.

Books.


And a bookshelf. Thinking we'll actually wind up putting a tall bookshelf there. But at least it's in the house. And it fits in my little car, so that's good to know. We have 3 or 4 more of those. We don't own a truck, so the more that fits in the car, the better.


More soon, I hope.