D and K's Money Pit

New Deck

2010-08-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

We finally got the deck done! Here's a before and after

And from another angle

(this shot was taken before we sealed it)

We're so stoked; it looks great! We went with TimberTech composite for the floor boards and local, sustainably harvested redwood for the fence railing. It seems though as soon as one project is done, another is born. We exteneded it a bit, so the stairs come out further, so we need to add a step at the bottom to even it out. We have a temporary one there for now and probably won't replace it until we do the patio in the back yard. But who knows when that will be! I just want to enjoy having this done and not add anything to the projects list for a while!

Catch Up Time

2010-03-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

Winter at long last is over. No need to rush home and get a fire going every night, we can grill for dinner and not have to do it in the dark, no more roof leaks.... yeah, I'm stoked! An unexpected roof repair added to our list of improvements so far this year. We got the new wood stove in January and it's great! Chek 'er out:

We also finally painted our bedroom a much more pleasing color.

Next now that the weather's getting nicer we can finish painting the outside trim forest green to match the gutters we got last fall. Inside, we want to paint the living/dining room/kitchen area

as well. We started framing and hanging our Fillmore and other concert posters in the hall, so that will probably be the very last area to see any fresh paint!

Our taxes are getting worked on, and we're hoping to get a good return because we need to get the deck fund going. We have lots of friends that have said they're willing to pitch in a help do it, but I'm not sure. It's in the air on posts, maybe 12-15 feet or so, and I just don't feel great about D lifting heavy stuff up and down ladders, not to mention making sure it's done right. Some of our friends have some experience w/ this kind of stuff and so does D, but how much I can't exactly gauge, so that makes me a little nervous too. Although if we keep spending money on concert tickets, we won't have money left!

We just went to Phil's 70th Bday show, yesterday I put in for the lottery for 3 nights of Phish at the Greek and last week we bought our High Sierra tickets as well as tickets for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at Oracle Arena. I really wanted to go see Conan at SJSU but we had to pass on something. Oh yeah, I got a speeding ticket too. I wish I could say it was for going 90 or something, but no... 40 in a 25. At least I get to do traffic school, but the expense still sucks. It's only my 2nd speeding ticket ever, so I guess I was due.

Weathering the Storms

2010-01-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

We've been getting walloped with nasty wet weather for the past week or so. Thunder, lightning (which is pretty unusual for these parts), hail, high winds, you name it! We've had over 8 inches of rain in Ben Lomond since Sunday. Tuesday was the worst... power went out around 5am and didn't come back all day, so we decided to eat out for dinner down in Santa Cruz after work before heading home. When we finally headed up the hill around 6, we got stuck in some of the most horrendous traffic I've ever had to deal with in Santa Cruz. What is normally a 25 minute drive home took 2.5 hours, yes hours!! Both the main roads home, Hwy 9 and E. Zayante Dr, were closed due to fallen trees or downed power lines. Power was still out when we finally made it in, but came back around 9:30 that night. We are so glad we did the tree work we needed done last year b/c I'm sure they would have been a problem. A tree took out our neighbor's main power drop to his house yesterday during a high wind gust and the power co. says it won't be restored for a few days at least. Getting a generator is quickly moving up our priority list!

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

2009-12-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

We finally painted the door trim over Thanksgiving weekend. This is what it looks like....

We still need to do a bit of touch up as the friggin blue painters tape look some of the stain off the door = / And we need to do the interior trim as well, but the outside looks good. We went w/ forest green because our new gutters are the same color. So now that means more trim painting for the windows and shutters once it stops raining.

Also today, the blower in our wood stove went out. We've been having trouble with it, but thought we had it resolved. But today when D went to check it out, we saw a big spark in the back and it won't turn on at all. Since the stove is so old, we're not sure we can just replace the motor/blower/electrical. Considering this is our main heat source, we HAVE to address this right away. Luckily this didn't occur during the record cold we had last week. It was dropping down into the 20's overnight, which I know isn't that cold for most places, but for here it's damn cold. We actually woke up last Tuesday to find our water pipes frozen!! Nothing burst, but it was pretty surprising to have that happen. My succulents took a beating from it as well. I can only hope they recover come spring.

The past several weeks have been ridiculously hectic, so we haven't had alot of time to put into house projects. That will change in the coming weeks though. Interior painting will be next on our agenda. D's parents are coming out for a few weeks over the holidays, so maybe we can put them to work like we did Nando & Jon when they visited!

Rainy Season is Here!

2009-10-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

We got hit w/ the remnants of a typhoon from Japan yesterday and man was it a nasty storm! Ben Lomond recorded over 10 inches of rain in a 24 hour period. I knew when we moved up here that BL seems to get the most rainfall in this area, but damn! There were high winds too, with gusts up to 50 mph. Luckily the worst has past and we just have a few showers continuing right now. The bad thing is that because of all the rain, the roof leaked in a few spots. D has been out of town on business, so I had to ride this one out all by myself here. We had no power for most of yesterday but it finally came back on in the middle of the night. Thank God we didn't lose everything in the fridge and freezer, I just went shopping a few days ago. The roof did stop leaking on it's own too, but I still have a roofer coming by today to check it out. More of that joy of homeownership stuff I tell ya!

But aside from that, everything has been going pretty well. We did finally stain the front door and it looks amazing, I'll post some pics of it soon. We have our gutters on order and those will hopefully be up before the next big storm hits. Next month we have a few friends coming out, so we'll be sure to exploit their labor in exchange for couch surfing! ; )

New Doors at Long Last

2009-09-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

We finally got the doors done and man do they look great! It makes the house look so much different, so much better. We still need to finish them (add another project to the list!) but we are stoked. Check out the pix!

Old Back Door

New Back Door

Old Front Door

New Front Door

Next up... gutters

Fire on the Mountain

2009-08-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

After coming home from work Tuesday, I returned a call to a friend from Maine who heard about the Lockheed Fire and wanted to make sure we were OK. As soon as I hang up after telling her we're in the clear and the fire is almost contained, sirens come wailing down the street.... and they kept coming and coming. We went online to firedispatch.com to see what was happening. Turns out the Brookdale Lodge & Inn, just a few miles up Highway 9 from us, was ablaze. Initially, they said it was a gas leak. It quickly turned into a 3 alarm fire. Flames were shooting up 75 feet into the trees. We heard trucks and sirens come up the valley for a solid hour. Since there were so many fire crews in the area from the other fire, they were able to give it a full assault and got it out quickly. They even had 3 aircraft come and drop water and chemical retardant on the surrounding wildland. We're lucky that this happend when there were so many firefighters in the area, or it could have gotten a lot worse fast. Here's a link to the full story http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_13156098?IADID=Search-www.santacruzsentinel.com-www.santacruzsentinel.com

Santa Cruz Mountain Fire

2009-08-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

We've been getting lots of calls and texts this morning about the fire in Bonny Doon. It's about 10 miles northwest of our house. We are OK, but this could be a bad one.... so far it has burned 1200 acres and is zero percent contained. It's in a pretty rugged, remote area though there are homes out there. It's so dry here that the mountains are just full of fuel. They have the planes out this morning trying to bring it under some level of control. The winds are supposed to pick up a bit today,which does not help at all. Hopefully we'll get some inland fog in the next couple days to help. Here's a link to the latest details: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_13052532

Another Mountain Moment

2009-07-13T16:29:00.000-07:00

So we're sitting at home last week, just chillin, watching TV after we got home from work. It was warm, so we had the windows open. We get a lot of loud trucks and motorcycles on our street, so when we heard some loud tailpipes, we didn't think too much of it... until it kept coming back, and going away then coming back. Wondering what the hell was going on, I peeked out the blinds and noticed several Harleys circling in front of a house across the street. Then I saw the Hells Angels patch on one of the guys jackets. Just as I saw this, D decided he'd had enough of the noise and headed outside with the intention of saying a few choice words. He saw the jackets too and more or less just came back inside! They rode off just as we were about to call the sheriff. They were definatley trying to intimidate someone... not the kind of group you want to piss off!

Out with the old, in with the new

2009-06-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a few before and after shots from some recent projects....

Old windows

New Windows

Old Stove

New Stove

D doing his best Vanna White

It's June already?!

2009-06-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

Damn 6 months goes fast!

It's taken a while but we're finally getting things accomplished. Thanks to our stimulus refund we just got new windows yesterday and doors are on the way. Next week, we get our new stove and bathroom fan installed. We're stoked on the windows, they give the house a much better look, less janky as I call it. I didn't know doors are so expensive, so we're continuing to shop around for those.

In the mean time, here's a few pix of the house a bit more lived in since I last posted photos of it. (The new windows aren't in these, I have taken any yet).

Garden Pix

2009-05-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

We've spend the last few weekends doing tons of yardwork, cutting back years worth of overgrown bushes. You can actually see the waterfall in the pond now! It's kinda fun to watch the different plants bloom, because we're constantly surprised. Here's a few pix of the garden...

Got Wood?

2009-04-12T21:57:00.000-07:00

We do! Enough to last a few winters now that we cut down 5 trees that were dangerously close to our and a neighbor's house. This isn't even all of it either. We have to let it dry for a year then we'll rent a log splitter next summer and get it ready for burnin'.

What a Weekend!

2009-03-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was a rough one. We'd noticed the clutch in the Jetta was acting weird, so we called our mechanic. Apparently there's an issue w/ the clutches on TDI's, and while it's been recalled in Europe, it has not been in the States. He said we could continue to drive it while we had our order in for a customized racing clutch and it should be OK. Well, after work on Friday while running some errands, it ceased to function in the middle of 41st Ave. Guess that's better than being on the freeway! We had to have it towed and luckily our friend Tree was around to rescue us and bring us home. We got a rental car Saturday, but my awesome boss is going to let us borrow her son's car because he just left for New Zealand on an extended trip and his car's just sitting around anyway. So we're stoked to save some cash there.

After we got back from the rental place Saturday, we had a cord of firewood delivered. We got it nearly all stacked, when we realized it was tilting and then totally fell over!! Like a dumb ass I stood there and was going to try and catch it, but luckily Damian yelled and pulled me out of the way just in time. I would have gotten seriously F'd if I didn't move. It seems comical now, but I was pretty pissed and screamed and yelled and walked away. Poor D restacked the whole cord. I owe him one for that big time!

We're taking a bit of beating financially with all this going on right now. I just got my utility bill yesterday and it was nearly triple what it was the first month we were there. We got an electric dryer and a space heater in the past month so I think those drove up the bill quite a bit. We also had guests for about a week and I think that helped up it as well. I'm so glad the warmer weather is on the way back.

We also now need to reprioritize our to do list. Initially, the deck and rain gutters were to be the first big expenses. But we realized we need to have a few trees taken down that are close to the house before we can even do the gutters. It's about $1100 for the tree removal. Gutters are $1300, haven't gotten bids on the deck yet, but I think we're gonna replace the windows and doors first to help with the heating costs. We need to get our taxes done first though in order to pay for it all, because we qualify for the $8,000 homebuyers credit. We will be doing our part to stimulate the economy!!

Before all this chaos went down, we were fantasizing about going to the Rothbury Music Festival in Michigan this summer, with rumored line up to included Phish, Widespread Panic, the Black Crowes, and possible String Cheese reunion. Needless to say, that is completely out the window now!! Oh well, it can only get better, right???

Hooray for Laundry

2009-02-19T09:58:00.000-08:00

Well, we finally have our laundry hooked up, and I am stoked! It was a bit of a process from the start. We thought we could put the washer where the existing hook ups are in the bathroom, but the washer wouldn't fit through the doorway. Since the dryer hook up was downstairs in the basement, I decided I wanted the washer to go there was well, rather than ripping out the door frame to put the washer in the bathroom, or getting a stackable. So we had water lines and hook ups put in the basement. The hamper was starting overflow, so I'm really glad that's taken care of now.
We also had to put in some new wax toilet rings because the toilet wasn't sealed correctly. Thankfully, D has some plumbing skills so that was a pretty inexpensive fix. It probably cost more in frustration that anything else, as one of the bolts wouldn't sit properly after the rings were in. It took D probably an hour of cursing ,screaming, and being cramped up in a funny position before he got it to stay. But we got to cross another thing off the list!
The stove repairman also came out this week. Since our stove is so old, he may not be able to get the replacement parts, so we *may* be able to get a new stove from our home warranty, which is what we're really hoping for. We should know in about a week, so keep your fingers crossed!

Where Do the Weeks Go?

2009-02-08T21:38:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe, but we've been in the house a month already. The weeks are just blowing by, but it's starting to feel more and more like home.

This weekend, we put up the last of the light fixtures we were changing out and made some more progress on the laundry project, which required yet another (expensive) trip to the hardware store. Hopefully that will be up and running by next weekend, the laundry's really starting to pile up.

Today was a cleaning day, and I'm exhausted. Our neighbor told us how the woman who used to own this house was pretty messy, but the house didn't seem too bad to us, until we started to notice little things. For instance, how the stove had tons of burnt on crumbs under neath the cook top. We decided to tackle that today, thinking it shouldn't take too long. It was so gross once we took the top off, like no one had cleaned under there for 10 years or so. Crumbs, carbon, burnt aluminum foil, rust, spider carcasses.... pretty sick. It took 2 hours to clean the thing! It's 1000 times better, but I didn't go totally crazy on it because we hopefully will be getting a new stove soon with our home warranty. The oven doesn't work, and we found out that the warranty should cover it, as long as we say it just stopped working and not that it never has. So in order to secure our chances of getting a new range instead of just fixing this one, D decided to "crack" the oven window, since he knew someone who got a new stove when that happened to them. So he whacks the window w/ a hammer, nothing happens. Does it again, still nothing.... Third time.... CRASH!!! I walk into the kitchen to see a thousand bits of glass all over the floor. That took a while to clean up, because when we though we were done, we put the door up an more glass fell out. So we had to clean up again, then mop. I swear, it's been like that since we moved in. I'm finding out this is what they call the "joy" of home ownership. Funny how no one mentioned this before.

On top of dealing with all the house stuff, the social calendar's been pretty booked the past few weeks as well. Last Friday was Hot Buttered Rum at Moe's which was alot of fun. I really like those guys with drums. Then Saturday was Amy's surprise 30th, which I had such a good time at, I was down for the count by 10:30! Sunday we spent at the Lipperts for the Super Bowl, then D's uncle Mark came down to stay w/ us Monday night because he was working in the area Tuesday. This Friday, we took our mortgage broker and our realtor out to dinner at Cafe Vida as a thank you for all that they did for us. It was alot of fun, the food was great, and we found out we can refinance very easily and free. With our type of mortgage if interest rates drop, we can get a better deal and get some money for energy efficiency improvements like dual pane windows, so we were stoked to hear that. Last night was another birthday party, this time pirate themed. And they say you don't have a life once you own a house! ; )

Making Progress

2009-01-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

Well, we managed to accomplish a few small tasks this weekend!

We put up smoke detectors and some trim around the front door- which makes such a huge difference. It was looking pretty janky without it. Now we just need to fill it in, sand and paint it to make it perfect. We cleared out all the stuff hanging out in the hallway, so now we don't have an obstacle course to get to the bedroom. We got our electric dryer purchased and delivered.( We don't have gas, just electric, hence the need for a new dryer.) We got the phone jack in the office fixed so we no longer have to run a long phone line from the kitchen, down the hall and into the office. We got a new stained glass light fixture hanging in the kitchen, which is a massive improvement from the ugly brass-and-glass one that was there, and got schooled on how to change the wiring to put up another nice fixture in the office. Of course, all of this required about 12 trips to the hardware store! At least there's one close by; I feel like we will be on a first name basis w/ everyone there soon.

Welcome to the Mountains!

2009-01-18T22:25:00.000-08:00

We came home from work the other night, and noticed some cops and firefighters at a house 3 doors down. We found out the details the next day in the paper...

Cops and Courts: Jan. 16, 2009
Ben Lomond
Fire bomb thrown during fight
"Someone apparently threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of a Glen Arbor Road home during a fight outside the house Thursday evening, according to emergency dispatchers.
The incident occurred around 5:10 p.m.
A woman who was involved in the fight called 911 to report the fire on the 9200 block of the road. Ben Lomond Fire responded, but the flames were out when firefighters arrived. Sheriff's deputies were also dispatched to deal with the brawl, according to dispatchers."

Still Unpacking

2009-01-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

So I thought it'd be a fun idea to start a blog to keep everyone who's not in the Bay Area up to date on what we're doing w/ the house. I decided to call it D and K's Money Pit since that's where all of our funds are going and because of the 80's movie with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, which D and I both love. (Not that our place is anything near that bad, purley comedic) Here' a little clip to jog your memory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSGMDHMAJrY

We moved in last week, after much hassle and stress with the escrow company at the end. If you have a choice, do NOT ever work with Integrity Escrow. We were supposed to close by the end of '08, and due to their incompetence we didn't close until Jan. 7, which was our very last day to be out of the condo. Talk about down to the wire! The escrow company lost the deed, which prevented the transaction from progressing until it was replaced. They didn't bother to mention this to us until we kept pressing them to close the deal. Thank God Gail, my boss and realtor, was all over them or else it still wouldn't have closed. Such are the hassles of buying a foreclosed property I suppose.

The notion that we actually 'own' a house is starting to seep in more and more, especially when it comes to fixing things! No more easy calls to property management. At the same time, it's nice to know we can do whatever we want. Pros and cons as usual.

One of our biggest challenges right now is keeping the fire going all night so we aren't freezing our asses of come morning. We have electric baseboard heaters in the bedrooms, but not in the living areas, so we're totally reliant on the fireplace for heat out there. This morning it was 47 degrees in the living room. The cold makes us really motivated to get out the door for work in the morning. At least the car heats up quickly and we have seat heaters!!

I put together a virtual tour of the house which you can see here: http://www.visualtour.com/show.asp?T=1772406&prt=10003
I will do another one once we're all settled so you can see what we've done w/ the place.