I squeezed a $1000 refund out of Ace Atlas, by pointing out that they didn’t even bother to find us a truck until after the promised delivery date of our stuff. We decided to apply that money directly to some home upgrades we’ve been meaning to make. Specifically: A garbage disposal ($135), a ceiling fan for the bedroom ($89 + $30 for a remote control), paint for the porch / windowsills (~$100), and a new refrigerator ($the rest). Spent a lot of yesterday powerwashing and then scraping the paint on the back porch. I suspect that after another hour or so of savage scraping, it’ll be ready to paint. The powerwasher still rocks.
The refrigerator is needed because ours keeps freaking out and allowing ice cream to melt and milk to go bad. I suspect that it needs a “recharge” of the “coolant,” or else that it’s “hosed” and needs “replacement.” Already tried vacuuming out the heat exchange coils, moving it away from the wall, adjusting the thermostat settings, etc. I figure that by the time we got a tech out here to evaluate the repairs, we would be in for $100, plus the cost of the repairs ($50 – $200). Given that the replacement fridge we want is either $400 or $500 (depending in whether we go for the brushed metal finish)…it just doesn’t make sense to do a fix that according to the web will hold for a year or two at best.
The garbage disposal will be fun. It claims that all you need to install it is plumbers putty and an adjustable wrench. Riiiiiiight. Still, I haven’t had a major home improvement train-wreck in a while. It’ll serve to keep me humble.
Also got a new shredder, after the old one burned out. Having recycled eight years of paper copies of Science I have turned my attention to the filing cabinet. I have bank statements from my freshman year of college. This is not cool. I’m keeping annual summaries forever, but monthly statements only for the current year. Ditto with phone / utility bills, etc. It’s really mentally refreshing to just shred a huge pile of paper and know that you’re fighting the obsessive compulsive demons.
Picked up a cat door which will go in the basement door. This will allow us (with a suitable training period) to move the litter boxes and food downstairs. Hadn’t done that before because we want to keep the musty basement odor in the basement, and the way to do this is to keep the door closed. This means that I get to saw a large hole in a door. I’m psyched.
Departing for the epic adventure in Alaska a week from today. Woot!
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