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).

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.