The New Abode - day 2

So yesterday, I shared pictures of the nicest parts of the house - the kitchen, dining and living rooms - and in the interest of fairness, let's go down and check out the not-so-nice area, the basement.

This house was built in the 1960s. While the living areas have since been updated, the basement is original, so you'll be able to peek at how a typical 1960s basement looked like - design flaws and all.

When you go down the stairs, you will be greeted by this corridor if you turn left. This view was taken from the doorway of the room in the basement ( a room was carved out for use as an office ) and if you look at the bottom left corner of the picture, you should see the bottom step of the stairs.

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a kitchen or specifically, a summer kitchen. The concept is similar to the Pinoy's concept of a having a nice kitchen (for show) and a dirty kitchen where the real cooking is being done.

In the case of typical 1960s households, a summer kitchen would usually be used during the summer when the weather tends to get hot. Basements are typically cooler than the living areas during the hot summer months so the idea was to cook here when it's hot so you don't introduce more heat into your living areas.

I've read that in some instances, summer kitchens also come in handy when you can/bake/cook and need lots of space to spread out your tools & containers.

This part of the basement isn't so bad, really. It's dated but functional. There's a working stove, a range hood to vent out smoke and a working sink. There are also plenty of cabinets for storage and it has a laminate countertop.

The right side provides an area for a refrigerator.

There is a sump pump in the corner (for getting rid of water) and we do have french drains installed.

The sellers also left their full-sized washer and dryer - they're not the pretty, high-tech ones that we dream about but these should do for the meantime.

And now on to the ugly part... see all that lovely (I'm being super sarcastic here) wood paneling all over the place ? Now, wood paneling and basements do not mix. Wood panels are porous, thirsty things that suck up all moisture in the air and basements, those that do not have dehumidifiers, tend to get very humid. They become perfect breeding places for mold.

To address this, we're having this torn down. All the paneling has to go, including the kitchen cabinetry (yay!) - admittedly, we are quite happy with the excuse to get rid of this now.  We got in touch with a Mold Remediation company and got a contract for all these to be taken out, the insides treated and then sealed. We won't have a 'finished' basement after this but it shouldn't be too difficult to put up drywall again once we have the funds.

The ceiling panels will also be torn out - you'll see that they've already been torn out in some places whenever the previous owners needed to access the ceiling for repairs (usually, electrical or plumbing work for the house). In the future, we'll replace this with a drop ceiling to the wires and pipes running through the ceiling can be accessed without damage to the basement ceiling.

We met up with the guys in space suits this morning and they started working with the house. If all goes well, they should finish by Saturday afternoon and at worst, they might have to work into Monday.

the new abode

The family is moving! Yay!

This has been a long process but we knew this house was going to be our home the first time we saw it in February (2013) - or at least, I did, and that's what I told my husband, "This is going to be our house, I just know it" as we were walking away from that open house. The list price was beyond our budget at the time.

I was so disappointed when it went off the market soon after the open house and was happy when the sale didn't push through and it was again put on the market. We eventually offered for it and went into contract in July. The next 6 weeks was spent in painful negotiations as we went back and forth with the sellers regarding different things that came up during the inspection. We eventually closed the sale early October (i.e. this is when we signed the rest of our lives away with the mortgage company)....

... but didn't receive the house keys until today (the sellers asked to rent the place from us while they sorted out arrangements for their next home). So today is really the first day that we can truly call this ours (and the bank's).

We took some photos to memorialize this milestone and so we remember how nice and clean this house was before we moved in.

The rest of the house is pretty much empty yet so we'll take pictures and share a section at a time. Here's a peak at the kitchen... (obviously my favorite place in the house).

This is the view from the living room, looking towards the kitchen and the dining areas.

This is a closer view of the left side of the kitchen. There are granite countertops, built-in double ovens, a built-in microwave oven, a gas-cooktop with a pop-up vent (the type that comes up at the touch of a button and can remain hidden from view when not in use), a pasta arm (a faucet thingie on top of the stove so you can fill big pots with water and not have to carry all that water from the sink to the stove). The cabinets and drawers all have soft-close mechanisms and there is an appliance garage at each corner of the kitchen. 

Here is a closer look at the cooktop with the pasta arm, we didn't think of raising the vent before we took this picture so it's hidden from view.

And over to the right side of the kitchen is a built-in steamer (goodness knows what I'm going to cook there - pressure, pressure!). The refrigerator and dishwasher are "hidden" behind wooden panels that match the cabinetry - a nice touch, no ? The refrigerator has a bottom freezer drawer which Swe-cha will surely love as he can easily get his ice cream now.

And the peninsula (?) houses two additional refrigerator drawers (not really sure what they're called, wala sa bundok namin nyan eh). Swe-ca is going to love these and I can see how he'd get his juice and snacks from these locations - they're the perfect height.

Mommy nga!

Today, I didn't realize that I went to a lot of places - an Asian market, a Vietnamese restaurant, a gas station, a health store, 3 pharmacies, dunkin donuts (twice!), a frozen yogurt place, and the hospital (to visit R) - only to find out when I got home by the end of the day that I had a Cookie Monster sticker stuck to my chest all that time.

We had gone to the pedia dentist for Swe-cha's regular checkup and we had played with stickers. I'm not sure when Swe-cha (or hubby) put it on me or if it was a transfer from Swe-cha's shirt but I was sporting it all day since the dentist was our first stop.

I never noticed it until hubby pointed it out to me when I got home, not really sure if others noticed but were just too polite to ask or it might've been lost in the bright floral pattern of my blouse so nobody really noticed.

=)

Costume - check!

Got Swe-cha his Halloween costume already and I'm so excited for him. I showed it to him, he identified it and then hugged it. Hope he enjoys wearing it and becoming the character :)

Project Lutong Bahay

I've been making a more conscious effort to prepare home-cooked meals, we've been spending so much money on takeout / restaurants - it just is crazy, not to mention unhealthy. So let's see how long we can keep this tipid project up:

Monday night dinner + Tuesday lunch baon was penne pasta with tomato sauce.

Tuesday night dinner + Wednesday lunch baon was Stir Fried Chicken.

Wednesday night dinner + Thursday lunch baon was Stir fried beef, just because we still had leftover veggies from the night before.

Thursday night dinner + Friday lunch baon, is braised pork belly w/ adobo eggs. I've been braising this sweet-style adobo for close to 3 hours now and the meat is so tender that you can cut it with a spoon.

AC Good News

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned having trouble with our car's AC before... it started summer of 2012 and the issue was literally on and off. The AC would run fine one day and then suddenly stop working and it would eventually start blasting out HOT air - it got so hot at one point that I even had to stop on the roadside because I was getting dizzy enough to worry about passing out. It didn't help that the outside temps were at 102 degrees F.

We keep bringing it back to the dealership and to our local repair shop and they couldn't find it. The only suggestion we got from both was to load up the AC with freon mixed with a special dye. When it stops working again, we can bring the car in and they can look for traces of the dye and hopefully, find out where the leak is occurring.

By this time, it was already fall and we weren't dependent on the AC anymore so I asked hubby to push this off until next spring.

By Spring 2013, we brought the car back to the shop and had it loaded with freon and the special dye. While it was being tested, the technician happened to hit a wire and the AC stopped working again - that was the culprit! They tried wiggling the wires and found one that was loose and corroded, this was replaced and the AC worked fine after that.

Some months later, the AC started wigging out again. *sigh* Hubby decided to play with the relays one time and found that if he wiggled or pulled out and reinstalled the AC relay, it would jumpstart the AC and get it working. Last week, he dropped by the dealer to buy a replacement relay, it cost us $7.35.

It's been several days and the AC still works. Hubby's theory is that the loose / corroded wiring affected and damaged this relay. I hope this is the end of our AC woes (well, it should be... at least for 2013 as outside temps are currently in the high 60s so we really don't need AC anymore). It is not a good time to be spending more money.

Master Bath Sink

It's been a while since our last DIY post.

This weekend, we tackled the sink in the master bath. We replaced the leaky faucet and the sink drain, it had been missing the drain plug for the longest time and we've had to cover the open drain with a mesh strainer that we buy at the dollar store. The strainer gets pretty yucky so I'll spare my readers and not post pictures of that anymore.

This was a pretty straightforward job. I gathered all the tools and materials we needed days before:

- supply hoses $11/pair - I bought 2 different sizes in 2 different lengths, total of 4 pairs, to make sure that we have what we need on the day itself. I plan to return the unused ones.

- new faucet $26 - it was 2nd to the cheapest bathroom sink faucet I could find in our local Home Depot. We're moving out soon and don't need anything fancy.

- teflon tape $1 & plumbers putty $1

We had a rough start when we realized that everything was stuck - the water shutoff valves beneath the sink, and the locknuts holding the faucet to the sink.

The groovelock pliers (vise grip) and adjustable wrench which were adequate during our last sink faucet replacement just doesn't cut it here.

Furthermore, since we had to replace the sink drain as well, we needed a bigger wrench - a real pipe wrench.

We started the work yesterday (Sunday) and hoped to finish in an hour or two. We knew what we were supposed to do - my confidence level was really high - but if the locknuts and valves were stuck, what could we do ? I did some research and others suggested cutting down the locknuts if you don't plan on reusing the hardware anymore and as for the valves, the best suggestion was to shut off the main valves into the home but as we live in a condo, I have no idea where that is.

Sometime on Sunday night, hubby was able to turn the shutoff valves successfully. With that victory in hand, we decided to put the rest of the project off till tomorrow when we could drive down to Home Depot and pick up a few tools.

$-power

-----

Our trip to Home Depot earlier today yielded some good results. We got ourselves a quick-release vise grip (or locking pliers) for $14 and a 10 inch Pipe Wrench for $11

The locking pliers turned out to be the best solution for turning the lock nuts because the locking mechanism makes it easier to use and maneuver in tight spaces.

The pipe wrench just fit the sink drain lock nut *whew*, we thought about getting the 14 inch one as it was only $1 more and would have more use because of its larger range but as it was so much heavier and we thought it would be more difficult to use.

Now, the sink is done, I'm so proud of hubby (and our teamwork)! I had expected him to give up anytime and I wouldn't blame him but hey, now that he's completed this, I wouldn't let him off easy next time since he proved that he can tackle these types of jobs. Total estimated cost was $64, including the new tools.

Next up, painting the bathroom.
---
I asked hubby to rate the difficulty of this project and he says it was fairly easy once we had the right tools =) I can't imagine why we we chose to live with a leaky faucet and a missing sink drain plug for a long time.