Home Fixing

Corey and I are doing lots of home maintenance. Well, more home making. No... home fixing? Something along those lines. He joked that now that he has a "real" job with benefits, now we can finally start our family. And when young couples decide to start their family, they usually begin with the nursery, right? We haven't decorated the nursery with any of our 12 babies, so we're doing it now! Only some of our babies are teens and young children. We went together to RC Willey two Saturday's ago and the beds we ordered arrived today. I just had the delivery guys put them in the garage, cause the rooms are a mess. Today when Corey got home, he got to work and put together a bed in Mel and Abi's room, cause their room was actually clean. This triple bed is for Owen (top) Mel (middle) and Daniel (bottom).

It's super close the ceiling, but it works since a toddler will be on top. But they aren't allowed to use the fan in there now. If they did, Owen could get hurt. After Mel leaves for her mission in September, then we'll move Peter in there on the bottom bunk and it will be the little boys room. As for now, and since Peter is still nursing, he will be stay in our bedroom with us me (...on the floor.)

So, through us actually doing house shopping together, I'm learning that Corey and I have our opinions, and they are not the same. I've kinda been doing the home furnishings on my own for all these years, and I usually go the classifieds route. I fully recognize that I am not good at home design. I have now learned that he hasn't liked the "mish mash" of furniture in different styles. He'd like it more streamlined. "Mish mash?!?!" Excuse me, all of these are white metal! That is not that mish mash. Ok, I guess it is, since we've got full sized mattresses, toddler mattresses, and twin mattresses. But we can make it work. we're losing kids, not getting more, we have plenty of sleeping arrangements and options for the kids we have. We don't "need" new beds. What about "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" huh??? I should be grateful that Corey's eager and wanting to help now, but instead I've been fighting thoughts of: "Wait... what's wrong with that bed?" "So... you're basically saying that you don't like how I've put together the kid's rooms?" "Hey, I painted that bed! I've put little parts of my heart and soul into what we've got here!" Along with thoughts of I don't want new beds because: "Uuugh... I don't want to try to take apart that bed, the screws are stripped and we're gonna need a metal cutter or something..." "We're throwing money away by tossing these mattresses..." "I don't want to have to put things in storage" and just blah blah blah went all the voices in my head. After trying to understand my thoughts for the past week, I've decided it's okay, the white metal bunks have put in their time, Corey isn't doing this cause I'm bad at home decor. This isn't about me. I should be grateful that Corey is wanting new beds, and that he is participating and willing to spend his hard earned money on this. (I fully recognize that gratitude is not my strong suit) So.... today is the beginning of the end for the "mish mash" of furniture years for our family. But I still don't want to take this one apart. This is the bed that I painted. It used to be red and I DIY'd it white after we got back from Costa Rica/Chile. This has been Wesley's bed (top) and Ethan's on bottom for the past few years. The bottom left screws are the ones that are going to be a problem for you tomorrow, so good luck with that sweetie.

When I do the stuff on my own, I feel like a champ (like when I took the car in for repairs). I'm sure Corey feels like that too with these beds. He sees a way for things to be improved, he's going for it, I should support him. Yesterday I was super proud of myself when I fixed the leaky kitchen faucet. I discovered that it was leaking last Sunday (5/3) when I was in the basement picking up winter coats all over the floor, and then I got a flick of something wet on my hand... I thought maybe a glove was still wet from winter time or something? But that couldn't be it, so my radar was on as to where the water came from and then I got hit again and realized it was dripping through the floor. Ugh... I hate water problems! I put a bin in the basement to catch water there, then went upstairs and started to stress and vent to the ceiling as I cleared out under the kitchen sink to see where it was coming from. I had it controlled and didn't get to calling on Monday, but finally called a plumber that  my mom recommended on Tuesday (5/5) and they had an opening on Thursday (5/7). It was a great guy named Ben. He told me that we needed a new braided cord. The hard water in our house ages the cord. He said we need a new faucet for him to fix it today, OR we needed to find and order the hose part. ...but the Moen sinks each have different kinds of hoses and he didn't have any with him. So... they could order it and come back another day after it arrives, or they could do it now but only if they replaced it all by getting a whole new faucet. Well a new faucet was going to be $200+, cause that is how much it cost last time, plus $ for his labor. Hmmm, I called Corey for counsel, he said we should try to find the part. That would be new territory for me though. Ben, the nice plumber, told me it was actually a super easy fix, he thought I could do it, I just needed to get the right faucet hose. He was so nice - he didn't even charge me for the visit, he just wrote up an estimate of what it would cost for them to come back if I wasn't able to figure it out on my own with a hose - $200 to install a faucet if I bought it or $475 for them to buy the faucet and install it. I took a deep breath as I told him thank you and then prepared to try to figure this out. I went to Home Depot to see if I could find a buy a Moen faucet hose. They didn't have any, but I took some information from a Moen faucet that looked similar to the one we have.

Duralock Quick- connect... that is the similar to what we have.

I wrote down their "excellent customer service" phone number just in case I felt lost as I searched the web. But after 90 minutes of googling research, I felt confident enough to take a $30 risk and ordered a hose from supplyhouse.com. I narrowed it down to two hoses, either model 150259 (that's the one I decided to order cause it's 68 inches like our current hose) or 159560 which looks like it has the right connectors but is only 55 inches long. So today it came! And I was able to attach it right away! So I guessed right!! So what could have been a $475 fix I was able to do for $30! Thank you Ben at Stott Plumbing for being so nice and helpful!!! We will call them again. And for my own future reference (when the hard water ruins the hose again in 2.5 years...) try to order the Moen Pulldown Hose 150259 (replacement hose kit, part # 187108 from supplyhouse.com)

Another thing that is in the beginning stages of being fixed is our front porch. I also replied to a guy to get a quote to replace it. I have been trying to find help for this for 2 years. I even emailed our friend Bo who built this house years ago, and he and his wife were so nice and even came by to look at it, but he doesn't know anyone doing logs anymore and was at a loss as to who we could contact. His wife suggested maybe people in Heber or Park City, who do more rustic looking things. So I googled for that last week and on the 6th emailed a company some pictures of our porch and asked for a quote. He replied asking for measurements, so I replied to him with that info.

Seriously this porch is barely hanging on. It's hanging by a thread. This porch has spent the past 2+ years being held up by a clear fishing line (or what is that string made of, Corey? and has it been 2 or 3 years?) If you zoom in on the pic here you can see the line going from that center post to the house for support...

It needs help. Put it on the list! The rest of today was spent putting stuff outside that I want out of the house - we are getting ready for bulk clean up on Monday. I've been so sad that Deseret Industries is still closed cause I've been feeling increasingly desperate to get rid of stuff. I was very happy to find out yesterday that Savers just opened this week, so tomorrow I'm going to go drop off all the stuff I put out on the curb today

(and I hurt my toenail doing it when I slipped on a stack of stupid cardboard boxes. I'll spare you the photo of my toe, but I did get pleasure out of showing it to the kids. It hurt and looked bad, and all the kids were amazed that I wasn't crying. I'm tough.) I'd feel bad to just throw this all away, but I was feeling desperate enough that I had to put it out there. I need it GONE. I long for order. I hope we're making progress. Abi and I took down the tent last night, Corey spent the evening yesterday after work fixing the sprinklers. And yesterday I went by Skyline. I needed to turn in Ethan's chromebook, AP Environmental Science textbook, and to pick up his graduation cords. I sent him a package yesterday to California with his cap and gown, so that he can take a picture of himself for the virtual graduation. He should get it tomorrow.