Happy 2014!

First off, I want to wish my readers a happy, blessed and very prosperous 2014 =)

2013 came and went by really fast, ours was filled with lots of blessings - my baby bro got engaged, Mom and Dad have taken countless trips with their barkada (enjoying their retirement, obviously), big sis and family finally getting their permanent resident cards, us moving to a new place (a house!) and Swe-cha starting to become verbal (nothing tops that!).

The latter part of 2013 - starting in October - was very toxic for us as we were spending every spare moment packing and moving. We moved to our new place just before Thanksgiving but we would be spending the next few weekends and holidays in the old place, frantically trying to get it fixed & packed up enough to be put on the market. We finally got that done yesterday, I think, and we dropped off the keys at the listing agent's office this morning. We are keeping our fingers (and everything we can) crossed and are hoping for a quick and smooth sale - please pray for us!

We saw our first big snowstorm in 2014 this weekend. NJ declared a state of emergency so both hubby and I opted to work from home last Friday, it was a blessing because school and daycare were both closed too and it was much easier (with Swe-cha) if both of us are home.

Hubby spent most of Saturday packing up the old place and hauled a lot of our stuff back to the new place. There are still some stuff left, sigh, but he was able to put them away in the hall closet so the house should still be ready to show, even with some of our personal stuff still left there.

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On the (Breezy) home front, we unpacked a few more boxes over the Christmas and New Year holidays so we're doing okay. We're still chock-full of boxes for now but we'll get unpacked eventually. Hubby and I did a quick visit to a furniture shop one weekend and got to see different options but we didn't see a couch / sofa that we we both like yet but, again, we'll get there eventually, we're not in a hurry.

In the meantime, we're still tackling the lighting situation. We got a few more bulbs and switches replaced this weekend. I stopped tallying up expenses a long time ago but if my calculations are right, we have already spent close to $800 on lighting alone. These LEDs and switches don't come cheap =( I'm just hoping that they last long enough for the savings to catch up to their cost.

A few weeks ago I bought a motion-sensor switch for the basement, we always leave the lights on and then forget to turn it off. Unfortunately, the sensor switch didn't work with the ballast-fluorescent lighting currently installed there and since I've already opened the clamshell packaging and the product wasn't defective (we tested it out in another location), I couldn't return it and told hubby that it might be a good idea to install it in the garage instead. He said no and said to just keep it for when we refinish the basement.

Yesterday, hubby came to me and asked if we still had the motion-sensor switch, I said yes and he asked if it  wouldn't be a great idea to just use it in the garage ? Haha! I rolled my eyes, told him about a previous conversion we had weeks ago and he claims to  have no recollection. Anyway, it just goes to show that we do both agree on most things but it's just that sometimes, it takes him a while to get there =)

I love the convenience of being able to just step into the garage and grab a broom and dustpan (or whatever) and not have to fumble around for the light switch. We also replaced the bulb with a 40-watt equivalent daylight CFL but I think the space needs a brighter light, we'll replace that in the future and, yes, the garage needs a fresh coat of paint but this will have to wait till the weather gets warmer.

We also replaced the light bulbs in the master bathroom vanity this weekend. We planned to just get CFLs (cheaper) and replace the switch with a standard switch (cheaper too) but we couldn't find any decorative CFL bulbs that seemed suitable for the vanity light so we went with LEDs instead. The lights turned out to be dimmable so we just put in an appropriate switch. I'm happy to find that the old bulbs installed were 40 watts each (there were 5 of them) and the replacement 4-watt LEDs turned out to be much much brighter than the old ones even though they're supposed to be 40 watt equivalents as well.

All these lighting improvements we're installed make me feel so much better. I have less panic-attacks now whenever I see hubby and Swe-cha turn lights on full blast and leave them on.

LED Lighting

If I haven't mentioned it before, the Breezy house is full of recessed lighting. We counted 27 BR-40 bulbs and some 10+ smaller bulbs. These 27 lights are loaded with an assortment of 65 and 100 watt flood lights so you can imagine my heart racing whenever someone turns lights on and leaves them on.

This afternoon, we went to the supply store and got dimmable LED lights and new switches to replace the ones in our house. Now, we've replaced 11 out of 27 and I'm feeling good. We have all the lights on in the kitchen / dining area and we barely use the power of one of the previous floodlights.

Some things I learned
- dimmer switches for incandescent bulbs will NOT work for dimmable CFL or LED lights
- some switches need some tweaking to make them gang-able. In our case, we got Lutron maestro switches so we have to remove the heat fins, depending on where it will be placed. Have to remember that removal of the heat fins will affect the rating of the switches, the more fins you remove, the less wattage the switch can handle. Documentation in http://www.environmentallights.com/files/documents/0301660.pdf
- If you want a light to be controlled from multiple locations, you need a master switch and companion switches.

2 days to go

It's Wednesday night and I'm starting to feel the crunch, there's only 2 days left before moving day and since neither one of us is taking a day off from work, we don't have much time left. I've been thinking about asking for a day off on Friday but I have such a huge backlog at work that I just couldn't push  myself to ask.... maybe when I get desperate enough.

Freecycle has been my best friend these past few weeks, taking stuff - which we loathed to throw away because it was such a waste - off our hands quickly. So far, we've given out a tv, a microwave, two CPUs, a microwave sterilizer, baby bottle warmer and a bunch of baby feeding bottles. Next on the list would be a set of car wheels, if we don't get any takers on Craigslist. Yes, we held on to these things because... well... we had the storage space and we could. It's also fortuitous that a group in my company held a collection for a homeless shelter and they specifically asked for toiletries, I checked with the organizers if they would take hotel shampoo/conditioner/soaps and they said YES so there went the little bars and bottles I've collected over the years.

We were unable to get rid of our old toys, we tried to drop them off at the nearby Salvation Army but they only accept unopened (brand-new) ones and used toys have to be brought over to the next city, if they accept it. It seemed a waste to throw them out because, after all, someone paid good money for these so we're holding on to them. Maybe we'd get more use out of them if we're blessed with another baby.

I've packed up most of my and Swe-cha's clothes - work clothes already hanging in the new house since last weekend and I took care of my house clothes today, leaving just enough to wear for 3 more days. I did pack up our towels and sheets as well.

Confessions

I just realized that the best way to get someone to confess is to be as vague as possible :)

Last week, hubby bought an ice cream cake for my birthday, we cut it up into serving sizes before freezing it so it would be easier to to eat. Swe-cha loved it so much that he would look for ice-cream-cake every single day. He ate the last piece last night.

Tonight, he kept looking for more ice cream and would make me help him rummage through our freezers (we have two). I kept pointing out that there were none left, he'd be okay but 10 minutes later, he'd pull me to the freezers to help him look again.

So I decided to call hubby.

Me: May malaking kasalanan ka sa akin.

There was a pause and he started asking... confessing, even. Is it the bathroom ? Did I leave it open ?

Me: No, isip ka pa. Malaking kasalanan! Malaking-malaki!

and he confessed to a few more things.

I did let him in on the joke... eventually :)

Paint job

While we were house-hunting, we had always talked about getting whatever house it was that we eventually got a nice coat of paint before we moved in. We weren't buying a brand-new house so we felt that a nice coat of paint would help make things feel fresh and new.

It wasn't until we started getting work estimates when we realized how expensive labor was and so it was that we hemmed and hawed about getting the paintwork done. Eventually, we decided to spend the money to get the living areas done for the following reasons:

- it's a huge area, definitely not something we could finish in a few days

- we can't close off any of these areas because of the house's open layout

We contracted our fave guy, Jeff, to do the paint job for us. As we are repeat customers, he gave us a good deal. We gave him a deposit and lent him a set of keys to the house (we will have everything rekeyed after 

While waiting for the space-suit guys to finish the cleanup last Sunday, we decided to give Jeff a head start and started taking out the electrical switch faceplates. This picture does not give what we did justice. In hindsight, I should've taken a picture of the long wall in the living room because it must have at least 5 outlets. Admittedly, we did this because despite his promises that he would take them off one by one, we were still skeptical. 

Jeff and son started prepping the house up for painting today. They would've done more if I hadn't asked them to sneak in another job (will do a separate post on that). 

Yes, they did come through on their promise and taped up all the edges and pulled out all the receptacles on the recessed lighting. I don't have an exact count of how many recessed lights there are in the foyer and the kitchen-dining-living area but I wouldn't be surprised if the count reaches 20. Yes, there are a lot.

They said that tomorrow, they will start painting the ceilings and the wall. They have to come back on Saturday to clean up and put up all the fixtures again.

Boxes and boxes

So what's going on over here in the condo ?

We've boxed up a lot of stuff - most are in our basement - but the ones we've boxed since October are just scattered around the house. Most are left in the general area of where it was sealed. We didn't mind at first since there was really nowhere to put them but we were fast running out of floor space so today, hubby cleared one corner of the house and we started stacking the boxes in that area.

The picture friend A posted of her Home Depot moving boxes comes to mind as I stare at ours. Apparently, she already has 2 people lined up for her boxes (to inherit them after she's done with her move). I wondered then why nobody was asking for my boxes after I'm done with them and this picture kinda answers why - who would want this bastardized collection of moving boxes saved up from online / webstore orders and diaper boxes ? They're not exactly photogenic... but hey, who cares ? Whatever saves me money :)

I also thought of printing out labels to clearly define where each box is supposed to go in the new house. So far, we have Basement, Kitchen, 4th bedroom and Garage.

Not really sure if we'll have time to label the ones in the basement but it shouldn't be difficult to say that all boxes that were previously stored in the condo's basement storage space automatically goes the new basement in the new house.

And to organize my labels, I improvised a clipboard out of a piece of cardboard and rubber bands. I numbered the labels so we can have a final box count of how many are supposed to go in each room. As you can see, we've designated 6 boxes for the basement, 4 for the kitchen and 2 for the 4th bedroom as of the time I snapped this picture.

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Final box count for the day:

Basement - 10, these are boxes for long-term storage

Kitchen - 5, food and small kitchen appliances used often

4th Bedroom - 5, boxes with personal stuff currently in use such as clothes, shoes, books, toys

Garage - 0, boxes with stuff that will be used soon so these we have to unpack right away.

The basement - day 3

The guys in the spacesuits work fast.

We were told that they'd take 3-4 days but by the evening of day 2, the basement already looked like this.

That machine covered with plastic tarp with the tube running to the window is an air scrubber and was left running for 3 entire days, it's cleaning out the air inside the basement.

All the wood paneling are out. Thankfully, the mold situation wasn't bad and the framing on the walls (studs) were clean - in fact, they looked like new! No stains at all. Everything was treated with Microban and was sealed with mold-resistant paint that contains a mildewcide (Zinsser).

All the ceiling panels and kitchen cabinetry (top & bottom), including the kitchen sink were all torn out and disposed of. That plastic-tarp covered stove is all that remains of the summer kitchen.

The guys will come back again tomorrow to remove all the plastic sheets and refuse. 

We now have a mold-free basement that is unfinished - it does have all the framing intact so it won't cost as much to finish the walls. Methinks we might give a stab at putting up drywall ourselves (and by this, I really mean I would supervise while hubby supplies the muscles).