house – Page 2 – If we had a Marriage, These Would be its Thoughts

New Couches

June 10, 2016 8:09 pm

After failing to get a new front door we decided to replace the traditional couch & loveseat in the living room with more "sactional" pieces from Lovesac with a new cover color that we could mix & match with our existing pieces.

After an absurd amount of deliberation we chose a nice forest green color as we thought it would go well with the other colors we have in the house. And it does look quite nice.

Lovesac introduced wedge pieces (in the family room picture) and roll-arms (in the living-room picture) in the last few years which increases the versatility and stylishness of the collection. We're quite pleased with the quality, durability, and flexibility of the sactional pieces and covers.

Here are some before and after pictures (I probably should have taken the before & after pictures at the same time of day, but I didn't and I don't feel like taking more):

Living Room:

IMG_20160606_220917as IMG_20160610_074609as

Family Room:

IMG_20160606_220854as IMG_20160610_074451as

Vacation Wall Art

November 2, 2015 4:51 pm

We rearranged the family room a few months back and took down the pictures that had been on the wall. I had an idea to put up in their place and it's finally finished (for now).

I took some deer netting and hung it on the wall to use as a structure to attach pictures to. If I could find a lighter color net I would since the wall is a light color, but I'm not going to worry about it too much.

The pictures I'm going to hang are prints from some of our prominent family trips and I made a travel map for each trip indicating where we went, how we got there, and when the trip was. The travel maps are surrounded by the pictures from that trip.

I like how it came out overall.

The finished product:

The individual travel maps I made:

Consistency!

February 15, 2015 5:39 pm

Along with rewiring the house (and re-arranging furniture to put Heather in what is currently the office) I wanted to get all the switches, outlets, wall plates, etc. in the house to a common style.

When we moved in there were white and beige items with varying styles of outlets, outlet covers, rocker switches, and toggle switches. Now (except for the garage) all of the switches and outlets are a consistent style (rocker switches) and color (white).

Had to replace 4 bags worth of stuff:

But now we have these:

Hooray!

House Rewiring

February 13, 2015 9:28 pm

Crisp and clean.

Had all the telecom wiring in the house ripped out and run fresh. Now every room has a network jack (CAT-6), a cable jack (RG-6), and a phone jack (CAT-5e). And they all start in this box.

Now every jack in the house can actually be used if desired instead of the awful amalgamation of disconnected systems that we had before.

This makes me happy.

New Roof

October 26, 2014 3:30 pm

We knew the house was in need of a new roof when we bought it. And we had been hoping it would make it through a couple of years before becoming a real problem. Luckily it did. In hopes that it will rain again around here sometime we wanted to get it replaced before winter.

Here's the old roof just as work began. It was installed around the time I was born, so it held up well.

Both layers of the old roof are gone (asphalt shingles over cedar shakes) along with the original sheathing:

The new radiant-barrier OSB sheathing is going on here. It's supposed to have some pretty dramatic energy-efficiency properties.

Felt paper is starting to go down. And you can see the hose they used to blow more insulation in to the attic. We upped it to the current recommendation of R-38.

All Done! We used CertainTeed Landmark Solaris Platinum shingles in the Santa Fe color. They have a high solar reflectivity and thermal emissivity ratings. So supposedly they will absorb less heat from the sun allowing the attic space to stay cooler. When combined with the upgraded insulation, the radiant-barrier OSB, and the new ridge-venting along the entire house these upgrades are supposed to save us over $500 a year in heating and cooling costs. This was calculated using Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Roof Savings Calculator.

The energy efficiency upgrades cost about an additional $5000, so they should pay for themselves in about 10 years and then be free money for the remainder of the roof's life (it should have at least a 30-year life).

The work was done by Sonrise Roofing out of Fremont. We selected them based on reviews and ratings from Consumer's Checkbook. We had them and about 5 other companies provide bids. Then we selected Sonrise based on their reputation and warranty.