The Carport

2010 story #2

Wanting to put the Christmas decorations away, I went down to the storage unit to grab the boxes. I opened the door and first noticed a smell, second saw the rust colored water.

A little background: Our condo was built in the 70's and has a sprinkler system installed throughout all the buildings. A short while after we moved in and remodeled the sprinkler in our pantry leaked and left a stain of rust colored water on the ceiling, walls, etc. After trying to remove the stain countless times, we painted over it and installed new shelves.

The sprinkler supression system for our building is in our carport and it was leaking. I cleared everything out and noticed that Ryan's baseball glove had very conveniently soaked up lots of the water, and was ruined. We mopped the floor but of course could not get the stain out. We placed a bucket under the leak and called the HOA. They came and fixed it.

The Christmas decor is now put away and I get to redecorate. Is anyone else as indecisive as me? I still never know where to hang things and our house still isn't quite the way I want it. But there are bigger fish to fry, right?

The Hole

Flashback 1 1/2 years ago. We were remodeling our bathroom. We layed tile so we had to raise our toilet.
Our neighbor tells us that the ceiling in the carport (right under our toilet) is wet. He cuts a hole in the ceiling and confirms the insulation is wet. We check and it is dry. HOA fines us because we do not fix the hole, which we didn't make.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago.  Said hole is still a hole. Ryan takes a shower and the tub doesn't drain. Our neighbor tells us his tub filled up with water and he thinks the drain pipes are frozen. He installs heat tape and the tub drains. We go back and forth with the HOA on getting the hole fixed. They say it will cost us $80 to fix. Meanwhile I shower, the tub doesn't drain. 1 1/2 days go by with heat tape. Tub does not drain. We call a plumber. $218 later tub is drained, pipes are still frozen. Calling this an emergency situation we tell HOA we are fixing it. We call my dad and he helps us fix the hole for $30.

Initial Problem: the seal on our toilet broke and our toilet was leaking water.
Problem led to: a hole which caused the cold air to freeze our exposed pipes.
Which caused: zero drainage and lot's of frustration as well as $248 bill.
Lesson learned: fix the problem as soon as it happens instead of waiting a year and a half.

Busy

Sorry I've been a slacker lately. It's been bugging me that I haven't blogged for so long. We've been really busy. Here's some of the things we've been up to:

After a long hiatus my friend and I were able to go to Stampin' Up again and make 4 very cute cards. Pictures will be posted soon...
My in-laws took the whole family to Body World's. It was very interesting and informative. Really creepy though. I'm just glad our outsides are more attractive than our insides.
On a very happy note, my best friend in the whole world is having her homecoming in a week and a half. She's been serving her mission in Peru. Her family is there right now touring around with her. She'll be home Thanksgiving weekend and I CAN'T WAIT to see her!
After studying our brains out, Ryan and I took our Life Insurance tests yesterday. He passed and I...well, didn't do so well. Here's to attempt #2!
After helping with tearing down our complex tattered and broken wood fence, they finally got a new vinyl one finished yesterday! It looks so nice! Hopefully the property value will go up...probably so will the crime..now that we're completely boxed in. Down side? It will probably cost us a fortune to pay for. (They haven't said how much yet..)

Swimming!

We snuck out of the reception early and took the girls with us to go swimming at our pool. We had a great time, if you can't tell by the pictures, and a sleepover!

Icovia

I've been dreaming of the day when we can afford to buy some new furniture. I came across this cool thing at RCWilley.com. It's a room planner and you can add furniture and move things around to get a visual of a room. I've been playing with it for hours and thought I'd share what I'd like my living room to look like right now.

A girl can dream, right? Go have some fun daydreaming! http://www.rcwilley.com/RoomPlanner.jsp

Virtual Tour

Our condo now has a virtual tour and pictures up online. Now you can show your friends! Go here or to www.obeo.com/457964

22!

Good morning! I took a half day off for work on Tuesday and a full day off on Wednesday for my birthday. We spent the day tiling the bathroom, and that night I went to see Emma Smith for Enrichment. We bought this tile the same time as the kitchen, but after doing the kitchen we were sick of it. Now that we're moving we decided we'd better finish the job. Ryan did such a good job with our kitchen that he took the bathroom on himself! Here are some step by step pictures of our project:

1. Wrip up lanoleum squares

2. This is what we found underneath!

Step 1 Prep

Step 2 Lay tile-Mortar

Step 3 Grout

Tada! Isn't

she perdy?

For Sale

We're selling our home! If you know anyone that is interested in a nice condo, let us know! We're moving to Cedar City so Ryan can go to the National Pilot Academy. We'll be there about 16 months. Ryan will be a Certified Flight Instructor in 4 months (about 280 hours) and will be able to get paid while getting his hours. After he gets all his certifications and multi hours he can get hired with an airline. He is taking an extended leave of absense at his work so once he get's all his hours he will be guarenteed an interview with SkyWest. We're so excited to finally be making a huge step forward with his career. Ryan's twin brother lives there too, so we're excited to know somebody.

Mixed emotions

I hate to even blog about this because I feel like all I do is complain. This shouldn't surprise a lot of you, but our car got stolen...again. We were lucky enough the first time to get it back, but we don't feel like we will this time. We've moved since the first incident (which is partly why we moved) but apparently we're still being victimized. It doesn't help that we live a hop away from the freeway, by the time we knew the car was gone they could've been to St. George already. After much thinking we decided if we do get the car back we will sell it for parts. If not, our insurance will pay for its market value. We have a biff with our HOA because they say the parking lot is their property, but we are responsible to keep it safe. How does that make sense? Something has got to be done. At our annual meeting we discussed several options which are being presented to the board in 3 weeks. The good part of all this is we got a new car! We wrote down our "musts" and found a great deal on a car we both love. After a long day running around yesterday we were able to relax and join my sister and her husband at Kingsbury Hall for the "25Th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." It was fun to laugh and take a break from our crazy lives.

What a way to start the new year part 2...

Apparently our storage unit wasn't the only thing to get broken into. Yesterday, we went around looking at everyone elses locks in our community. Lo and behold, about 6 others had been clipped or ripped off the door. Our friends upstairs (refer to part 1) also got camping equipment and some other things stolen. Walking by my car on our way up the stairs, I noticed my car seat was all the way laying down. Looking closer I realized, once again, it had gotten broken into. Again, they attempted to steal the stereo, but couldn't. They took the faceplate, my car charger, some Cd's, and everything out of the glove box and console which wasn't anything per say, just lots of papers, car and insurance papers. Luckily, the accused were smarter and got in without actually breaking my window, which I'm very grateful for. We called the police, and of course, they just filed a case, but nothing can really be done. This morning I got in my car to go to work and it wouldn't start, didn't even turn over or make a sound. I didn't have time to look at anything under the hood, not that I would notice if anything looked askew, so I took Ryan's car to work. My bet is they stole something from the engine. We are so frustrated. This is the 5Th time in a year that we've been victims of break-ins/burglary. Our association pretty much doesn't care and says the door is our responsibility. Don't worry, we'll be at the next meeting.

After!!!

This was my Christmas gift this year. It's finally finished! Thank you to all who helped. We love it.

Before....

Picture taken of our old kitchen before we bought it...

What a way to start the new year...

This morning I was getting ready to mop the floors. Ryan had put the bucket in our downstairs storage unit so I went down to get it. It still had our paint brushes and rollers in it full of water, so I decided to let him clean them out we he gets home. Walking back up to our house I tried the door and it was locked. You know that panic you get when you know you're in trouble? I checked 3 or 4 more times just to make sure. Realizing I was in my slippers and jammies, didn't have any keys or my phone with me, I thought of what to do. We don't have a spare key hidden anywhere for the car or our house. Let's see, I could call my dad, but wait, no phone. Standing on the front steps, I ran up 2 flights of stairs to my neighbors house. Luckily, she was home. Embarrassed, standing in my pjs at her front door, she kindly let me use her phone to call Ryan. Then, she drove me to the airport to get his key. Lesson learned: We need a spare key.


P.S. While I was looking in our storage unit, I realized our pad lock wasn't on the door. When I looked inside I also noticed our luggage wasn't there, and also our tent and sleeping bags were gone!!! After this whole incident I called Ryan to see if he had misplaced the pad lock. He hadn't, so I informed him we had been robbed...again!! I'm so tired of being burglarized. Maybe we can blame this one on the Association and get a new door...

Heater

Ryan and I have been living without heat for a couple weeks now....off and on. My wonderful dad has come over 3 times to try different things. We bought a new thermostat to see if that would solve the problem, and it didn't. Finally, I called the heating company and they came this morning and fixed it. Our 'mother board' had gone kaplunk. More than $400 later, we have heat! We're so excited!!

Countertops!

No, this is not ours..one of Ryan's colleagues asked him to store it for him for awhile. He has a couple others also. Ryan is happy and can play whenever he wants. Let's hope the neighbors don't get too mad! It looks pretty good though, right?



Take a look at that beauty!



Our countertops finally got installed today. I love the undermount sink!



The color's a little different than I thought, but still looks good with the tile. We're going to have to paint the walls a different color than we planned on to blend it all together.



Our bathroom "uba Tuba."



Looks great! Now we just need to fill in the green....

Remodel Day 5

Tiling! How fun! It's very unfortunate that our floor was so crappy. My dad came Monday night to look at it, and decided we'd better buy some backerboard to lay down first. So instead of the whole thing taking two hours, it took all day. But, it looks great so far! Ryan and I calculated wrong, so we didn't have enough tile. We ordered more boxes, which won't come in until next week, so our deadline draws nearer still. There's a picture of our new carpet, which we got a free pad upgrade on, and our cabinets that are all painted now. Toni came over on her lunch break to see the Condo, and then she came over after to help lay the tile. Last night we had dinner with my family to celebrate a late birthday for Ryan. (It was on Sunday)

Remodel Day 4

Goodbye countertops! This is the last picture taken of them. After struggling to get all the screws off, Ryan managed to pry them off. It was a little hard to get it out of the house, but Ryan finally broke it in half.



The bathroom countertop was a little more difficult. Ryan came to the conclusion that it must have been the kind that was pre-packaged, you know, the vanities that you can buy with the countertop already on? He had to buy a chizle and hammer to pry it off, but we got the sink out no problem!



Struggling to get all the pipes off the sink so we could throw it away!



This picture's late, but it's our new microwave! Yay for more counter space!



Here is our kitchen floor. Ryan finally got all the sticky laminate squares off, so we're ready to lay the tile on Tuesday! Ryan picked it up yesterday, and we dropped the boxes off at the Condo last night!



The bedroom carpets will be laid on Monday. We took the tape off, but we're a little disappointed with how it looks. The paint leaked, and it's kind of uneven. Go figure though, the room Ryan taped looks perfect...



These are all the drawers that Ryan's sisters' painted for us. They look so wonderful! Now we just need to paint the kitchen, and the cabinets.....argh! Will it ever end! Our dead line is in two weeks....

Remodel Day 2 & 3

Ryan's sister, brother and parents came down Tuesday to help with the condo. We were lucky to have Janessa with us all day, and she was such great help. We finished taping all the walls, cutting in two rooms and painting some cabinet doors. We were so glad to have their help and they even brought us dinner! After they left, we completely finished both rooms and the bathroom. Ryan started painting the front room and I got some of it cut in. Ryan wripped up almost all the linoleum, took out the range hood and moved the cabinets up two inches. It's looking great!



Last night Ryan's parents and the girls came down one last time to help. They got all the drawers completely painted, put in our new over-the-range microwave, took off the tape and got the front room completely cut in. The girls also took advantage of the pool, but got themselves kicked out for being too loud. The carpet guys are coming Monday to measure, and the tile is on it's way. One more day down....

Day 1: Remodeling

We started our remodel project today. First things first, paint. We decided to start with the bathroom, mostly because I couldn't wait to see the color on the wall. Here are the before and after pictures.




Isn't that color awesome! Please note that it's not finished yet. One more coat to go, and obviously the blue tape will come off. Remember, this is just the first day.



This is our guest bedroom. We were both surprised a little by the color. It always looks different on the walls, but it turned out great! Plus, it looks beautiful next to the bathroom color. Pictures don't do justice...




We started running out of blue tape before we could finish our bedroom, but here's a sneak peak!




This color was Ryan's choice. I wanted blue, but he pursuaded me otherwise. So far, it looks pretty cool.

Prior to today, Ryan wripped out this ugly carpet that we think has been in the Condo since it was built in 1970. We're going to try and match the new bedroom carpets, with the existing living room one, which is great.



Ryan started to wrip up the linoleum today, but it's hard work!! This is a picture of the kitchen linoleum that we're replacing with tile. Sorry it's hard to see! Use your imagination.

Our new place!

We've become fed up with our living situation so we looked into buying a house/condo. After deciding it would be best to get a condo, we looked for two days before finding "the one." We looked at it Friday, put an offer on it Monday, and closed that night. It's been really quick, but everything seems to be working out perfectly for us. The closing date is Friday, the 13th. Our lease ends Aug 31. We're going to get a new countertop, replace the kitchen linoleum with tile, as well as the hallway, and replace the bedroom carpets before moving in, so it will be great timing with our move out date. Here are some pictures of it: The kitchen is huge (13'x13.5') and it has laundry and a huge pantry also, which is the main reason we fell in love with it. Two beds one bath...and a fireplace!! The parking is underneath the building and has a storage unit there too. We get 4 total parking spots, so we won't have to fight for a good spot. It has a big patio which you can get to from the master bed or the living room. Also, cats are allowed. So pretty much, we're very excited! We plan on having a house warming party in a few months, so we'll keep you updated.