December Daily - December 2

We had carpet installed today! Whee!


We got all three of the kids room re-carpeted today. The carpet that was in the new baby's room (Claire's old room) and Claire's new room (Anaya's old room) had been in the house when we bought it...it really needed to be replaced. The same carpet is still in the master bedroom, but we just have too much furniture (and stuff) to want to replace the carpet up there. Anaya's new room is in the basement, so it just had concrete.

I was a little worried about the color. It isn't exactly what I had planned on when I thought about it in my head. But we wanted the faster install and they only had one color of each variety for the fast install. It's a little darker, but I think it will be fine. And it Claire's room it gets a hint of pink because of her walls which is kind of interesting.


Now I can FINALLY start working on the baby's room...kind of. We have the dresser in there, but it is still full of Claire's clothing since it is her old dresser and she doesn't have a new dresser yet. The crib is at my mom's house...and I think I'm getting our glider back from my brother.

30 Days Of Lists
Around our home...

• too many toys!
• cats (three of them)
• lots of stuff where it doesn't belong (because we're in the process of moving the kids rooms)
• computers - we possibly have more computers than people...
• new carpet!

I'm joining in on the 30 Days of Lists - December Edition challenge.

A New Water Heater

It is amazing the difference a new water heater makes. We knew ours was old - original to the house - so about 18 yrs old. And that we were slowly getting less hot water and the water we did get wasn't as hot, but you know, it was gradual and so we didn't notice how bad it had gotten until it had gotten REALLY bad. Plus we have extremely hard water, so we figured a portion of our tank was full of sediment build up.

As my mom and I started talking about Christmas presents for this year, she asked if we wanted her to get us a hot water heater, which I kind of agreed to and then thought about and then said sure and then thought about, because we needed one but with a new baby coming there are lots of things we need (like a car seat) that are important too. But then I started paying more attention to how much hot water we really got from our hot water heater. First it was the showers in the morning that rapidly cooled off even though ideally it would be full of hot water since none had been used since the night before. Then it was not having enough hot water to fill the tub for Claire's bath.

So, we decided that a hot water heater was necessary. Mom was researching how to get Home Depot to install it but we weren't in a huge hurry because it was only October. Then last night, I was washing dishes and had to heat water in the microwave to get the water HOT instead of half a sink of lukewarm water. After which I called my mom and asked if we could please have our hot water heater NOW.


The installation company had an opening today (Friday), and now we have hot water. Lots of hot water. Lovely awesome amazing hot water. And actual HOT water...not just lukewarm water.

So the lesson is, hot water heaters are not really meant to last 18 years. And when you notice that you can no longer fill the tub before the water gets cold, it's time to replace that thing because it much such a difference!

New Windows!

Oh my gosh, I am SOOOO excited to have replaced some of our windows!

The windows in our house are original to the house (approx 17 yrs old) and most of them are perfectly fine. But due to settling or whatever, the windows in our living room are drafty. We have a loveseat that sits in front of the windows in our livingroom. It was drafty enough that we eventually rolled a blanket up and shoved it under the loveseat to keep the draft from freezing our feet during the winter!



We got our new windows from American Exteriors. They happened to have a guy in the neighborhood when we were reaching a point of being fed up with our current window. I did a little looking online and most of the reviews were positive so we decided to give them a chance. Their sales process is to send a guy (or gal, or two) out to your house with a sample window for a sales pitch. They do offer "that night only" discounts based on your location and your willingness to promote their business*. We debated a while if we were going to go with them because the windows are not cheap (although from what I've heard from friends, they are comparable to other professional installed windows). Obviously, if you're trying to go cheap be like my brother and just buy the window at Home Depot and install it yourself. I'm not that skilled, so we went with a professional installer.



We did have a few small snafus in the process of getting our windows. Our sales guy forgot to ask us what color of aluminum wrap we wanted for our window. Which meant two additional trips out to sign paperwork approving the change since having a colored trim increased the cost slightly. Luckily the sales guy made the trip out to our house, at our convenience so it wasn't too bad. Our installer was also worried about wood rot when he came out to do the measurements for the order. We did not end up with any wood rot, but American Exteriors did offer to cover it for us if there was any since the sales guy didn't say anything about it the night that he was out.



Our installation date was also pushed back a couple of times. Originally we were supposed to get our windows in late November, but since we had a specialty window (half-circle) they windows didn't get in until the first week of December. We got a call from the scheduler saying that would could have them installed during the following week and said to call them back to set up a specific date/time. We got a message from our scheduler setting up the appointment for Wednesday, December 11 at 8:30am. The following day, we got another call because December 11 was actually a Tuesday, she had mis-read the note from the installer. We didn't particularly want to have them installed on a Tuesday due to our child-care situation, but that was the only availability they had so we took it anyways. Then the morning of our installation but we got a call about 20 minutes before the installer was supposed to be at our house, he called to postpone the installation because they hadn't received our colored aluminum trim. Instead of installing on Tuesday, it was pushed to Saturday. None of this is particularly American Exteriors fault.



However, in the little less than a month since the windows were installed we have had NO problems. The windows are doing their job much better than our previous windows. If we notice any other windows in our house getting drafty, we will definitely be using American Exteriors again. And they are so much prettier than our old windows! We also have a train that is about mile west of our home and the difference in the sound from our livingroom with the new window vs another west facing window with the old windows is amazing! So much quieter!

* I did receive a slight discount on my windows on the promise of writing this blog post, however, the experience and opinions are all mine.