Schwim's Blog

Friday, March 29th marked the end of three weeks of home repair hell. The carpenter finished up the wet bar, attached the new soffit vent covers in the family room, fixed some minor plumbing issues and did a pretty decent job cleaning up. The plumbing crew returned to paint, yes paint, the laundry room wall as well as the entire office. By 6pm everyone had left and we were really just left with a little painting to do under the family room soffit (plumbers to return on 4/5 to do it), attach the vent cover and replace an outlet cover in the office plus a lot of dust to clean up in each room.

Next up is yet another contractor coming in on April 9th to replace some of the office’s waterproof floor tiles before that room and the family room can get carpeted on the 12th. So we still have some time before we can finally move our crap back downstairs. The end is definitely near.

Here’s a list of things done to date:
- carpets removed in two rooms
- wet bar removed
- wall behind washer/dryer torn down
- trench cut into floor of three rooms (power inadvertently cut in kitchen and dining room)
- power restored (plumbing co. picked up the tab)
- HVAC vents removed from the floor in two rooms
- new HVAC vents added overhead in two rooms
- new HVAC return added in family room (via crawl space)
- backup drain tiles added and tied into existing sump pump well
- new soffits built in office and family room
- wet bar rebuilt
- wall behind washer/dryer rebuilt
- laundry plumbing replaced and new dryer vent added
- sump pump well covered and sealed (as req’d by the inspector)
- office repainted
- wall behind washer/dryer repainted

A full before and after photo gallery will be posted after the carpet is installed. Stay tuned.

We are now two days into the third week of the project. HVAC was competed last week and passed final inspection. It is definitely much warmer downstairs now. The drain tiles portion of the plumbing was also completed last week including closing up all he trenches with cement. The laundry room still needed some plumbing work and that was done late Monday and early Tuesday (today). Once it was competed, the plumbing inspector showed Tuesday afternoon and much to my displeasure it wasn’t the same inspector as the previous two times. This proved to be a problem as the new guy flagged something that the first guy said was fine. I was not happy to hear that and I was not real friendly with him. Basically I said, “go ahead and fine me, I’m not doing any more repair work.” He explained that he doesn’t do any fining; he simply can’t approve the job. He did approved the sealing of the sump pump well, which the other inspector said we needed to do, but did not approve the plumbing issue he flagged. I explained this to the project foreman and he too wasn’t happy. He said he’d call the inspector and set things straight. Still waiting to hear how that turned out.

Carpentry has been moving along, but slowly. He did get us to a point last week where we were able to do laundry again. However, he has had some interruptions, unrelated to our project, that have slowed him down. The new soffits in the family room and office are basically done. And they look really good. A little drywall patching in the office is still needed as well as rebuilding the wet bar and finishing the wall behind the washer/dryer. Not sure how he is going to finish it all on Thursday.

We are also waiting for another company to show up to replace some of the waterproof tiles in the office, but they can’t come until April 12 that means no new carpet anywhere until that is competed. And that means we can’t move anything back until the carpet is installed. Boo.

So, we’ve definitely had a lot of snags and the lines of communication have not been the greatest with the foreman, but sooner than later this project from hell will be behind us.

New project pics coming soon…

The kids have been troopers during all this. Especially this week as it is their Spring Break. We have managed to get them out to a few activities like Glow-in-the-dark miniature golf, the local library, JumpZone and even an after dinner trip to DQ. Tomorrow we are giving the carpenter the day off so we can go down to Navy Pier and then maybe bowling in the afternoon.

OK, this home repair project is officially a nightmare. Original goal was to trench the floor in three rooms, add new drain tiles, reroute the HVAC and then re-carpet two rooms. This was all due to the fact that we were getting water in our vent wells when it rained. This now appears to have been caused by a crack in the cement below the sliding glass doors in the family room.

Trenching took twice as long as expected when they realized the HVAC vent was a thick cement trough. Thicker than most highways cement. During their cutting they cut through electrical conduit, possibly in multiple places, and cut power to our kitchen, dining room and upstairs hallway.

Trenching in the office exposed a sewer line that the plumber is unable to tie in to so if the HVAC were to remain in the floor, we’d need a second sump pump, which we definitely don’t want. Instead we will reroute the HVAC overhead and encase it in a soffit. This will make it easier for the plumber to get one set of drain tiles to the existing sump well.

Meanwhile, we still need to figure out how to best fix the electrical as we still do not have power in our kitchen or dining room. Thankfully, our fridge is plugged in to an extension cord in the playroom.

Let’s not forget that we have a carpenter coming in to rebuild the wet bar, the wall behind the washer/dryer and now two soffits.

Friday will bring just about every contractor to the house. Hopefully, we’ll get power back. The HVAC and drain tile projects will also finally make some headway as huge chucks of cement and the old HVAC vents from two rooms were finally hauled away late Thursday afternoon.

Can’t wait to have our family room, office, laundry room, dining room and kitchen back to normal.

I’m not a proponent of guns, never have been. However I am a realist. Let me start by stating the obvious. Something I assume we can all agree on. For all the tragedies in the past years. A person with a gun (or guns) killed innocent people. The gun didn’t act alone nor did the person. It was a group effort.

That said, if we took an extreme measure and banned all guns and demanded that everyone turn in their gun, that wouldn’t solve the problem for many reasons. First, no one would agree to a complete ban and it would be a complete impossibility to expect all guns to be turned in. Now that’s an extreme that I know no one is actually suggesting. I’m just using it as an example. Making it harder for the average Joe or Jane to buy a gun may help, but again I don’t think that’s the real issue either. Someone who feels the misguided need to kill others will try to get their hands on a gun any way they can. Stricter laws won’t have much if any affect in this case. The person could steal a gun, obtain one illegally through some sort of black market or decide on a different weapon. Bottom line is that all these tragedies sucked for all involved. No one can question that. Would stricter gun laws have prevented any of them? Perhaps.

I think we may need to take a different approach and look to technological advances to make guns harder to use. This may sound silly and far fetched, but think about this. If the person involved in the Sandy Hook shootings couldn’t figure out how to actually use the guns due to some high-tech locking mechanism or biometric pass-code, maybe the outcome would have been different. Maybe not. Either way, as much as I deplore guns, I don’t think more gun-related laws are going to help.

Just my 2¢.

I also can’t disagree with Samuel L. Jackson who said, “I don’t think it’s about more gun control. I grew up in the South with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone. This [shooting] is about people who aren’t taught the value of life.”

Laura and I took our daughter Hannah to the movies early today to see Wreck-It Ralph. We all enjoyed it, but this isn’t a review of the movie. When the movie was over, we left the semi-crowded theatre and headed for the bathrooms. I held their coats and while they were gone, I saw a winter hat in the distance that someone accidentally dropped on the ground. As I watched, a family of three walked toward the hat, looked down at it, stepped over it and then continued walking out of the theatre. A moment later, a father with his two sons walked toward the hat. He said “someone dropped their hat” to his sons. One son proceeded to step on it as the three walked towards the exit. I was half expecting someone to pick it up and bring it to Guest Services. That someone turned out to be me. I turned the hat in and afterwards I saw a lone father walk past me back towards the theatres. I had a hunch that this father was going back to the theatre I just left looking for his kid’s hat. When Laura and Hannah came out of the bathroom, I asked them to wait a moment as I wanted to see if this father would return. About 20 seconds later he did, empty handed, and I stopped him and asked if he was looking for a winter hat. He said he was and I happily told him that it was at the Guest Services desk. He thanked me, retrieved the no-longer-missing hat and went on his way. For me, I just smiled and felt good at my good deed that took just about no time and very little effort. I’d do it again and will teach my kids the same. You never know when it will be your hat that goes missing.

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

For our kids’ second trip to the Winnetka Children’s fair, you couldn’t have asked for better weather. Click here to see some of the pictures. Hannah loved the rides while Tyler loved the games. And we all loved the SnoCones!