Mom On The Run

Dear Home Depot,

We have a beautiful two story, four bedroom, 1 1/2 bath single home on a large treed lot with a pool, finished basement, gas fireplace, central air, large eat-in kitchen, extended pantry and enough parking for 6-7 cars. Sounds glorious right? But it’s a money pit.

We moved in two years ago, and we’ve already:

• Replaced ALL of the kitchen appliances ’cause the old ones were as old as me (fridge, dishwasher, cook top and wall oven).
• Replaced the wooden privacy fence because it too was as old as me (literally)
• Replaced our microwave because the new one we brought when we moved in crapped out
• Called in an electrician to fix the air conditioning two times
• Had the washing machine repaired once
• Had an electrician come in and replace circuits on the electrical board thingy ma-bobber
• Replaced the pool pump (last week)
• Replaced the automatic pool cleaner (kreepy krawler)

So far it’s pretty much been guaranteed that each month something will cost us $400 to be repaired or replaced and we can’t seem to get ahead. With two young children in full-time daycare that costs close to $2 grand/month we can’t afford to fix the rest of the things like:

• Get the pool heater fixed or replaced (that crapped out on us a day after the pump was replaced – anyone want to come swim and freeze their nuts off?)
• Replace the pool liner (it’s disintegrating slowly and has two large holes above the water line)
• Fix the concrete around the pool because it’s heaved
• Replace the wooden deck because the wood is rotting
• Replace the bath tub – it’s leaking into the kitchen
• Repair the kitchen ceiling because the bath tub is leaking down
• Repair the upstairs electrical issues – more than half of the upstairs of the house is without power and has been like that since early June (we’ve been taking baths by the light of a flashlight)
• Screen for the patio doors needs to be replaced – right now the kids and dog use it as a doggie door
• Replace the door to the laundry room because it has a hole cut out of it for the previous owners cat (my kids like to pretend they’re cats and crawl in and out of the laundry room occasionally fighting over whose turn it is to go through)

After we fix all of that we’d like to begin on the aesthetic issues:

• The walls are hospital green – the whole house needs to be re-painted
• The trim inside needs to be painted white – right now the trim is also hospital green
• The blinds in the living room are permanently opened and cannot close
• ALL of my window “treatments” need to be replaced
• The light fixtures were bought in the late seventies (I wonder if that will come back in style by the time we get them replaced?)
• The carpets in each room is different – there is no continuity and for some reason that drives me batty
• The landscaping has not been touched in 9 years (the previous cheapo owner who did nothing, was there for 7 yrs and we’ve been there for 2yrs)
• The driveway needs to be paved and sealed
• The patio stones in front of the house need to be removed and reset because they’re all lopsided

Then, after we fix the aesthetic issues with the house. we have some “it would be nice to have….” projects:

• It would be nice to rip out my kitchen and bathrooms and replace them with modern cabinetry, fixtures etc…
• It would be nice to build an ensuite in the master bedroom complete with a soaker tub…
• It would be nice to put a bathroom with a stand up shower in the basement
• It would be nice to build a porch across the front of the house
• It would be nice to have organisational shelving in our closets and garage

HEY HOME DEPOT! PLEASE HELP! THANKS!

Sincerely,
The Mom On The Run family.

Popularity: 5% [?]

We showered for 3 days in our new house – then bought a plug for the tub so we could give Sierra a bath. 30 min after her bath I got hit in the head by a drip from the ceiling as I reached into the fridge for a caffeine free coke (grrr). Yes it’s leaking to our kitchen. We tried a shower this morning – no drips, then gave Sierra a bath tonight – and voila – drips. The drain drains slowly after a bath – we wonder if this was a known issue with the previous owner – afterall there was no bath plug left for us which seemed a little strange… Paradise isn’t so perfect afterall…

Popularity: 5% [?]

!@(soldsign.gif popimg: “SOLD!”) <—- Is this wonderful sign adorning my front lawn! We FINALLY sold the house last Saturday – as an added bonus the couple who bought our house has accepted the May 31st closing date!

Ahhh what a feeling! In 2.5 weeks we’ll be moving to our fabulous new-to-us house in the “old” part of town. I can barely wait. The time is flying by and I really should be packing right now instead of sitting here typing. But alas, my in-laws called last night at 9 pm to tell us they were about 2 hours away from our house (they live a 5 hour drive away). We had no idea they were coming. So there’ll be no packing this weekend until they leave – oh darn, as if I was looking forward to packing…

I had my 30 week mid-wife appt. on Tuesday. Baby is doing well except he/she has decided to flip back to the breech position. My mid-wife has suggested that I have an external cephalic version (ecv) if baby is still breech at 37 weeks. Not fun. In the mean time I’m walking the dog twice a night and walking on lunch in the hopes that gravity will cause the babe to flip. I absolutely do not want to have a c-section. I am VERY pro natural childbirth – no drugs, vaginal delivery etc… I’ll try the ecv if it comes right down to it. Delivering this baby vaginally breech may not be an option ’cause it’s kneeling on one foot, and the other foot is in a “frank” breech position (foot is up by the face). I’ll find out the results of the U/S I had on Tuesday (to determine the location of the placenta) at my next mid-wife appt. May 24th. I’m going every two weeks now – scary that we’re this close to the end. Before I know it I’ll be on maternity leave in my new house looking after a baby and a toddler! Gah! So much responsibility! Only 32 more working days until I have this baby!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Hubby and I were all excited – a nice young couple came to see our house yesterday and really liked it. They were really serious and were contemplating making an offer. They were going to schedule a second walk through with their parents. Yadda, yadda, yadda. This morning they did a drive by. They decided they didn’t like the neighbourhood because our neighbour stores crapola between the two houses and also because three neighbours park on their lawns… F–k! When the hell is my town going to pass a by-law banning people from parking on their lawns? What a bummer. Hubby has asked our neighbour to move their crap and he was nice enough to agree (we’ll soon see if he actually does it) – but our agent is pissed about the lawn parking. I don’t blame her – but what the hell can we do about it? It’s about as unchangeable as the fact that our house is on the sidewalk side of the street, yanno?

Anyways – the couple that came through last night did have some good constructive criticism. We have a light switch that powers an electrical outlet. Currently I have nothing plugged into the outlet. However, the location of the switch leads one to believe that it would turn the upstairs lights on (a different switch does that). We also have a fan that my husband installed about 3 yrs ago in the dining room. He didn’t ground it properly, so if you flick the wall switch that it’s hooked up to you trigger the circuit breaker and the whole main floor goes dark. The couple complained to our agent that our electrical switches don’t work and our house is improperly wired. LOL! So today, my hubby took the fan down and re-installed it properly – Yay! I’ve also placed a lamp strategically hooked up to the mysterious electrical outlet, just so people can see that, yes, our house is wired properly, ya just got to flip the right f’ing switch! The next complaint they have is from the cracks in the drywall that’s occurred as a result of the house settling and drying out. We’re going to fix that tonight so that along we’ll be all set for our 2nd Open House 2-moro. Gawd – I hope we sell this place soon. Hubby is going to New York City for 4 days this week and 4 days the week after. I’m not sure I can maintain all this cleaning and tidying and de-cluttering all by my lonesome self!

Popularity: 4% [?]