Five stages of dealing with a contractor

1. Denial: "We met with her in March. It's June. Why hasn't she contacted us? She must have something personal going on. Maybe she's sick. Maybe her dog died. Something has to be going on, because reasonable business owners like making money."

2. Anger: "What a terrible contractor! What's wrong with her? Doesn't she want our money? If anyone else would come to Claremore, I'd fire her immediately! I'm going to email her every day."

3. Bargaining: "Maybe if we go ahead and give her half of the payment right now, she'll get started on demolishing this stupid pool."

4. Depression: "She's never coming. This backyard isn't going to be finished for our friends' visit over the Fourth of July. Why bother mowing the yard? Who care about weed eating? We might as well let the weeds overtake the yard; I just hope the dogs don't get lost in the jungle. Or maybe I do."

5. Acceptance: "The yard will get done when it gets done. I suppose I don't mind not having a Memorial Day cookout. Or a Fourth of July party. Or spending afternoons reading in the sun. The pond-like habitat of the pool is kind of nice, right? It's like a whole little ecosystem for frogs!" 

Learning About Homeowner's Insurance

Whoa, it's been almost a year since we posted anything on our blog. We almost forgot we had one.

Just kidding. We remembered, and felt overwhelming guilt for not updating it.

What have we been doing in the last year? My two best friends got married (not to each other, gross). We went on vacation to Colorado with two of our friends (who are married to each other) and Johnny rode a horse on a trail ride (without falling off). I quit my job. Johnny got a new job.

Most recently, we learned about homeowner's insurance! Why? Because a pipe burst and flooded half of our house. Super fun.

The weather in Tulsa has been totally insane throughout the winter; for example, yesterday's high was 52 degrees. Tomorrow's forecast calls for a high of 24 degrees and ice pellets. Ice pellets!

WTF are ice pellets?!

Anyway. While washing cars last Saturday, we noticed the water pressure was kinda low. But whatever, we figured it was some wacky Claremore thing. Until Johnny went into the house and immediately dashed back outside to tell me there was water everywhere. Everywhere wasn't a huge exaggeration: all three bedrooms, plus the hallway and hallway closet were underwater.

Awesome.

We drove to Home Depot, naively thinking we could perhaps dry the carpet out ourselves. Johnny called his mother first, who is like, our home repair/DIY/diet/exercise guru. She advised calling in the professionals and even Googled someone for us. She is seriously the best.

The first place we called was totally booked for the weekend, so they sent us to someone else. Jerry was totally awesome and on the scene in like...an hour. With fans. And a dehumidifier.

In Lucky's lair

In the pink room

In the bedroom

Johnny wasn't into filing an insurance claim. His reasoning? "I just don't want to mess with it." Well. After talking to Jerry for like...10 minutes, we decided an insurance claim was a better option than paying $1500+ out of pocket for this mess.

Turns out, the nice people at Progressive can't tell you things like what your deductible is. Is that something you're just supposed to know? Oh...it is? Oh... We read our policy like grown-ups, and discovered our deductible was, in fact, cheaper than paying out of pocket, and that it totally covered water damage from leaky pipes, and that it wasn't really that much stuff to mess with.

So Jerry (who is totally awesome) brought by something like ten more fans, ripped up a corner of carpet in Lucky's lair, and cut out some drywall in the master bedroom closet, the master bedroom, and the pink room to facilitate insulation and stud drying.

Here's kind of a rough timeline of events:

• Saturday: Pipe bursts, water floods half of house. Decide to dry carpet ourselves. Talk to Johnny's mom. Decide not to dry carpet ourselves. Call Jerry. Jerry drops off like 4 fans and a dehumidifier. Jerry convinces us to file an insurance claim.
• Sunday: Jerry drops off like 10 more fans and puts up a plastic wall to prevent machines from dehumidifying the entire house. Checks moisture levels, reassures us the carpet should dry in a couple of days. Noise and heat and smell are so bad that Johnny sleeps on the kitchen floor and I sleep on the sofa.
• Monday: House smells like a wet carpet a dog has peed on, because that's what it is. Area behind plastic wall is 90 degrees. Jerry comes by to check moisture levels. Heat and smell are so unbearable that Johnny sleeps on the kitchen floor again. I sleep on the sofa.
• Tuesday: Party at our house, as insurance claims adjusters, Jerry, Jerry's business partner David, Johnny and I all hang out. House is slightly less hot and smelly, so Johnny and I sleep in the bed. We wake up a lot.
• Wednesday: Plumbers come by in the morning to replace broken pipe. Jerry's son Josh comes by to pull up the hallway flooring and measure the moisture. Josh also drops off carpet samples.
  
• Thursday: Johnny and I are watching TV at half the max volume. Animals have given up, are spending almost all day outside. Josh comes by the measure the moisture and drop off carpet samples.
• Friday: Jerry comes by to remove all equipment! HALLELUJAH, THANK GOD. It's eerily quiet. Animals are deeply confused.

Now, the good part of all this is that we are getting like...home renovation. The rooms in which drywall was removed will be repainted when the new sheetrock goes up. The carpet in all three bedrooms will be replaced. (Thank god, because that pink carpet is HIDEOUS and Lucky's lair is covered in urine.) We'll get new flooring in the hallway. All for the cost of a deductible!

Homeowner's insurance, y'all. It's kind of awesome. (Fans are not awesome. At all.)

Continue Reading...

Stephanie Uses Power Tools

As you may or may not know, my work hours were recently slashed in half. This means I'm working 10 hours a week, leaving me with nothing to do for the other 158. If you subtract time I spend sleeping, eating, riding the horse, driving to various locales, and generally lounging, I currently have approximately 30 hours a week of free time. Some of you might be envious. I can hear you thinking, But Stephanie, you can exercise! You can start knitting! You can train the dogs properly! You can take naps and watch Food Network! You can spend your time baking fresh cookies for your loving boyfriend who's currently paying half of your bills! Gentle readers, I know. And a chunk of this free time is definitely spent napping and watching Food Network and doing the cleaning and laundering of the nice co-author of this blog. But friends, let me tell you, that shizz gets old. One can only spend so much time every day browsing the online sales at Dover Saddlery, Bit of Britain, and LL Bean. Or watching old episodes of Eureka and Doctor Who. 

So, feeling both motivated and guilty, I decided to tackle some house and yard-related projects that have been unpleasantly lingering for months. (Sort of like that weird smell from the garbage disposal.) Yesterday, I mowed the front lawn. It'd sprung up, all bright green and lush from the rain, and was way too tall to look neat. When I was finished, I decided I might as well get out the weed eater and do the trim, too. When that was finished, I figured since I was already sweaty and gross and covered in plant matter I should probably go ahead and trim the hedges. The result? A very neat lawn! But not neat enough. Our crepe myrtles all seemed to die in the unusually harsh winter. All of a sudden, they blossomed a few weeks ago. It seems they've sprouted a ton of new growth around the dead stuff, which makes them look really, really ugly. They used to be beautiful- tall and full and colorful. Now they're half dry, dead, brown branches and half pretty green foliage dotted with pink blooms. 

I tackled the removal of the dead branches on one of the plants today, using Johnny's Milwaukee reciprocating saw. The dead branches are thick and hard- too much for the little hedge clipper. Using advice from Southern Living's Grumpy Gardener, I trimmed back all of the dead growth I could find. It wasn't too difficult, but I was then faced with a new problem: the new growth had been supporting itself on the dead branches. Without them, it was too weak to hold itself up. It drooped to the ground, making the majestic myrtle look more like a weeping willow. I made the executive decision to commit crepe murder (I think of it more like assisted suicide) and trim the fresh branches. There are still a few tall branches supporting themselves, and a slew of small growth toward the bottom. I'll be reading a bit more on trimming these suckers before I get the pruners out. 

Frustrated with the garage's work bench, I spent the rest of my morning reorganizing it. I discovered the jackpot of power tools stashed in there. Johnny's got a circular saw, two drills, a jigsaw, the aforementioned reciprocating saw, and a belt sander. Lucky for me, I was a proud member of FFA in high school and learned a lot about how to properly wield power tools through agriculture classes. (Not saying I was the best welder or built the greatest rafters, but I got by.) 

So, what does Stephanie + power tools equal? Who knows? All I have on my agenda thus far is jump standards. Once I've acquired some 4x4 pieces of wood, training for my upcoming horse trial is going to kick into high gear! 

Other projects on my radar: repainting my bedroom furniture, building Johnny some sawhorses, installing a toilet, and repainting the hallway bathroom. No promises on taking pics or blogging, but I'll do my best.

Continue Reading...