Monday, June 15, 2009

Pros and Cons of Owning a House!

We have had quite an awaking to ownership and even more of an awaking of the shotty job people do to get a house sold. Below I will share some of our experience thus far.


unfortuneately for your viewing pleasure I was not able to take a picture of the nasty bug filled florensent lighting that was in place previous to this track lighting that we installed in it's place, sorry the picture is not to clear, but I wanted you to get the effect of what it looks like turned on. The blubs used in these track lighting fixers unfortuneately cost between $5 to $12 each, luckily for me I found some on clearance at Shopko for $1.24 each!

We were given a surprise a couple of days after we started staying at our house as we had one of the toilets clogged, as we inspected it we found that the water had been shut off to the toilet, when we turned it on to our surprise we found that it would not stop running, with a little closer inspection we found that the hardware in the tank did not match each other and thus it would not turn off.....sooo we did our first fix by putting a new value system in the tank, now not only
does it shut off, but it uses much less water.



Our front bathroom had been an add on to the house and was designed with all new brushed nickel fixtures except the faucet which was the ugliest comercial grade faucet you would find in any public bathroom. I found on Clearance at Lowes a Peerless brushed nickel faucet for $16 and installed it! not my bathroom is finished!
Our Kitchen is quite large, but until we can afford to put in an island with a dishwasher, we have virtually no counter space, so we decided a hood microwave was a must, since we had a hood installed already, we figured installing a hood microwave would not be too hard. we did some price shopping and found we could get a decent one for about $199, but when we were ready to buy it we found the floor model at Lowe's on sell for $109, it was a stainless steel upgrade worth $349. When we got ready to install the hood, to our surprise the old hood had been jerryrigged, by just splicing the electrical cord out of the wall to the wires in the cord of the hood. So I got the pleasure of putting in a new socket in the cabinet above and then we drilled the holes for the hardware of the Microwave and installed it. It has been nice to finally have a microwave again and eventually we will upgrade our stove to Stainless steel too.

6 comments:

eBN said...

Oh the joys of home ownership! In the two homes we have owned we've had:

-leaky sink
-faulty prv which meant flooded basement
-faulty air conditioner
-grout failure in the shower so it leaked in the master closet
-super moldy window sill in shower
-tub that wouldn't drain until I pulled out a couple crusty band aides from the drain

It gets a little better, but it's always work and there's always opportunities to jimmy rig stuff.

Theresa said...

i love your new faucet much nicer and so is the microwave. We thought of switching ours, but there's a spot for the microwave built into the cabinets so it hasn't been a necessity yet. :) the toilet is a hoot,.. fix that duh,.. I was thinking of coming to visit you yesterday but we were on a short trip. Maybe I will stop by on 4th of July when we come up to visit the grandparents,... will you be home? will anyone be visiting? I'm going to spend the fireworks at the grandparents, but I thought I could stop by and see your new house and visit for an hour while we're there or something.

The Watts said...

Yeah it has been frusterating dealing with the incompetance of others, but fixing things on your own is very fulfilling and rewarding. I think we should be home on the 4th, we have no plans to go anywhere yet, but if we decide to go somewhere we will let you know!

Earl and Vickie said...

Look'n good! The joys of fixing up stuff. When we bought Grandma Adam's house, we did a LOT of fixing. For so many years things had been done there to make it affordable for Grandma, not necessarily the "best" way.

Shayla said...

Way to find such great deals on everything. That's gotta feel good! I'm impressed that you're tackling all these jobs yourself. I make Brent do everything. I'm not a fixit kind of girl. I look forward to seeing your house firsthand (August maybe?)

Cynthia said...

Wow, everything is looking good! Keep up the great work! Don't forget to give yourself a break!