Hayride & Pumpkin Picking 2015

 

Farms View

Wayne, NJ

SUPER LOVE: Gator Strike Plates

First off, let me get this out. This is not a paid post. This is not a paid endorsement deal - as if naman I have enough readership, haha! ;) This is an honest-to-goodness rave about a product.

So we moved to an old house 2 years ago. As with any house, the structure eventually settles and the materials expand and contract due to temperature changes and these result in doors being out of alignment. We have 3 doors that do not latch properly, depending on the season (seasonal lang siya nasasara) - the master bathroom, the one going down to the basement and a closet in the 4th bedroom.

The closet wasn't too bad (it doesn't latch close but doesn't swing open on its own), the basement door annoys me but I use a security bar to secure it anyway but imagine having a bathroom door that would not close. Kainis diba ? Thankfully, it was the master bath and we just close the master bedroom door when we use the bathroom so may work-around.

I've looked everywhere for possible solutions - shims in the hinges, loosening and/or tightening the hinges, ,etc - but I couldn't find a solution that worked for us. I was all set with reaching out to a carpenter/contractor to fix this but it didn't seem like a big enough job. Baka lugi lang ako sa minimum fee.


A few days ago, I came across an ad for Gator Strike Plates. I looked for reviews and Amazon has it for 5 stars (98 reviews), I figured that was enough to make me go for it. I purchased 3.

Tonight, we installed all 3 and they all fit perfectly. ALL OUR DOORS LATCH & CLOSE PROPERLY NOW. How awesome is that ?

I wish I knew about this 2 years ago, it worked perfectly!

If I had to have a complaint, it would be because I couldn't find this product anywhere w/o paying for shipping. Amazon ships this out for $4.99 each plus $1.99 shipping for each one you purchase. I eventually found them on ebay for $4.99 each but with a flat shipping fee of $1.99 no matter how many pieces you buy (this is why I decided to go for it and got 3 at the same time).

Out of pocket $16.96 to repair 3 doors. super sulit!

I feel so happy that I want to call up all my friends and ask if they have doors which do not latch just to recommend this stuff but I won't kasi 10:30p na.

Toy Closet

One of the biggest issues we deal with at home is getting Swe-cha to clean up after himself. He does pretty well if asked to clean up but if you're not around, he tends to want to take out ALL his toys. The end result is that we have toys strewn all over the house.

Not good, especially if you walk around barefoot like I sometimes do.

While reading up on possible solutions, I came across a blog where the mom decided to lock up all the toys in the basement. The kids are allowed to choose 1-2 toys every week. Her husband thought she was crazy at first but it turned out well for her family. The children learned to share with each other, play with each other's toys, they got more imaginative because had to get more mileage out of each toy, they turned to their books and crafting, and the house was much much more organized.

Hubby had long been advocating that we turn one of the bedrooms into a playroom. I didn't think that it was such a good idea because I didn't like the idea of Swe-cha being in the room by himself while I'm doing chores around the house. Reading that blog post (I'll put a link back if I find it again) gave me an idea - sort of a twist on hubby's plan. Since we're not using the closet in my home office, we replaced with door knob with a combination lock (Swe cha is good with keys and finding out our hiding spots).

He does not know this yet but whenever I get the chance, I've been putting his toys back into the original box if we still have it or into small containers and storing them in the closet. The plan is for him to clean up his current toys before exchanging it for another set. Since the closet is locked, there's no way for him to get toys when we're not looking.

Wish us lock!

MBR Updates

My boys painted our MBR last week and I am loving the new color. It feels so much more presko and bright - it was exactly what I wanted.

We didn't get to paint the baseboard heater covers anymore for the following reasons:
- we couldn't find the glossy white paint. I know we still have a can and I didn't want to buy more
- we were iffy about taping painters tape on the newly-painted walls before the paint had time to set in.

As it turns out, I barely notice them anyway. And yes, I realize that they are covered in both pictures I'm publishing with this post. That was not intentional :)

Our furniture arrived as scheduled the week after. The delivery truck arrived first thing in the morning - 7am! And they quickly unloaded the stuff. Ambilis!

Probably took them half an hour to get the stuff unloaded - dresser, chest of drawers, 2 nightstands, a king sized bed frame with headboard, and dual box springs. The bedframe had to be put together during this time while the other pieces already came pre-assembled.

At the time when this 2nd picture was snapped, the mattress had not been installed yet, we asked them not to put it on yet as we wanted to clean the wood pieces first.

I am so happy with our furniture and the 2 year wait is so worth it. I'm glad we didn't buy just for the sake of buying before and opted to wait till we find a set that we really like.