I started doing it first, but Anne has joined in too. We throw our empty boxes down the basement stairs and watch and listened to them falling down the stairs. It is the simple things in life that makes it worth living.
Guilty Pleasures
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Category Archives: Home
New Air Conditioner
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Tropical Heat Wave
We’re having a Heat Wave,A tropical Heat Wave.The temperature’s rising,It isn’t surprising.—Ethel Waters
Well, it is only in the sixties today. It is raining too, but we are ready for summer now. We have a new air conditioner. Starting at 7 AM this morning, installation commenced. It took six hours, longer than expected because the squirrels had chewed into the outdoor lines, necessitating their replacement and additional labor. I was wondering what those demon rodents were up to, since they have not attacked the car again recently. The new unit has an app. It also has Wi-Fi and can be remotely controlled. It also displays the humidity, which in St. Louis is usually half the summer air conditioning problem. It comes with a trial service agreement, where the vendor comes out to inspect the unit. This is how we got this new air conditioner to begin with, but I want some peace of mind knowing that it will run all summer long, even while we are away.
The other thing that occurred today, was that we were visited by a drive by notary, Pamela. We are closing on the Monterey house next week and things have progressed to the point where the title company is stepping in. So, you know that things are getting serious. The long and short of this experience is that I signed a lot of paperwork. Pamela had a rather laissez faire attitude. Whenever I had questions, she advised that I only fill out the minimum and let the title company complete the rest. Hopefully, I’ll get paid. When we do, Anne wants to flush a bunch of this money down the toilet, in the form of a new bathroom and I would like to have our current one-and-only bathroom updated with a walk-in shower, because we are getting older.
- Infrared photograph of a tropical jungle scene at 720 nm wavelength, where green is turned to white.
Property Management
We ordered a new air conditioner. It will be delivered on Friday. It was a lot more expensive than fixing the old one, but it should last longer. This will give me peace of mind over the summer. In other news, we are planning two trips to the cabin this summer. The first in May, where after a New York wedding, we will accompany Anne’s sisters to the cabin. They have big plans for a new water heater and spraying for powder post beetles. We’ll hangout up north until our new windows are ready, then return to Saint Louis for their installation. Between the A/C and the new windows their costs will blow our home improvement budget.
New Windows on Life
We are buying new windows. Back in 2023 we replaced four and, in this iteration, we are getting eight replacement windows. A few years before the unit cost was just over $500. Now it exceeds $1000. Such inflation is the downside for our phased window replacement strategy. To make matters worse the Biden era tax credit that we enjoyed last time and was scheduled to run for ten years has mysteriously disappeared. Thanks to that “Big Beautiful Bill.” Who knew that windows could be DEI? The of the windows that we bought before are pictured below. This batch will be the same make and model, Simonton 6500.
While our windows will not be as decorative or fancy as any of the others pictured in this post, the three in the living room do include stain glass. This detail like many others is part of this house’s charm and gives it its gingerbread architectural style. We plan on saving those sashes, taking the stain glass out of the frame and then hanging the glass as a decorative window treatment.
Ordering the new windows is one thing but actually getting them is a whole different story. Like before, we are getting our replacement windows from Home Depot, and their process doesn’t trust the salesmen’s measurements. In a week the subcontractor will come by to do the actual measurements. Then in 8-12 weeks the installation will actually occur. That puts us into June. I envision multiple trips to the cabin this summer.
Raking Leaves
Before Thanksgiving, when we last went to Ann Arbor all of the leaves were still on the trees. When we came back home, they were all on the ground. They have sat there until this week. For part of that time the leaves were buried under 9″ of snow, which soon melted, but not before I snow shoveled them around some. For most of that time they served to obstruct the walkways. With the return of warmer, drier weather Anne and I got out there and raked most of the leaves onto the parking strip. Where they still sit awaiting the city’s leaf removal service.