Mando Update
22 October 2005
Sorry, as usual, for the lack of updates. School has kept me very busy, and in our down time we are doing lots of projects on the Mando.
Also, sorry that the formatting, etc is so bad. I would use the excuse that I am working on my CSS and Blogger templates, but frankly just can't be bothered so you'll have to deal with it.
I got 100 on my first chemistry class. w00t! I was also the only one in the class (out of 200 students) to get 100. W00t w00t!
This World is Designed for Crashing Idiots
First, my hosting provider WebServePro whom I have been with for 5 years, was sold to Net 1 Plus. I would like to officially say that Net 1 Plus SUCKS. They are a terrible host - poor communication and aweful customer service, and I can't wait to get my accounts moved to a new service so I can tell them to go shove it.
Second, my old land lord David Kennedy from Sonny Boy Ice Cream in Haverhill also SUCKS. I've been running a bunch of ads to sell my old car, and I have been telling his daughter to give him a bunch of messages. I had one guy who was all set to buy it, and he drove down from MAINE to look at my car. From MAINE - he took like 3 or 4 hours out of his day. Well, he got there and Surprise! My car wasn't there. Seems Slummy MOVED IT and didn't bother to tell me. Aside from the fact that I am pissed that he started it and potentially fucked up my carbeurator (old gas, condensation in the lines), he cost me the sale of my car. Apparently, Slummy needed the space - turns out his daughter never bothered to give him my messages.
What really pisses me off is that he didn't even make any attempt to contact me. When I left I left my e-mail address and phone number. If he lost that, well, his daughter and his new tennant both have my e-mail, plus my number is listed in the fucking phone book. So, really, he was just too lazy to try to call me and thus screwed me out of the sale of my car, and possibly damaged it really badly.
This is also hurtful because when I moved out, I sold some things to his son for less money than I could have gotten. Why? Because I wanted to be nice to Slummy and his kid. I also paid to have the carpets professionally steam cleaned, and I spent 4 hours scrubbing the place. Why? Because I wanted to be nice to Slummy. So when he can't even be bothered to pick up the phone and make a damn phone call, and costs me a $1000 as a result, it really pisses me off. David Kennedy, you suck.
Lastly, we had to do this dumb writing assignment for chemistry, and 3 of our classmates grade us on it. I spent 4 hours writing mine (the average is 1 hr), and really went the extra mile and used html tags to format my text (br, italic, links, subscripts). One of the people gave me a terrible grade (6 out of 10) because "it looks like you coppied it from a web page." Excuse me? The implication that I plagarized is insulting, and the fact that they can't even spell correctly is infuriating! Idiot!
I don't know why, but it really seems like the idiots are coming out of the woodwork right now. Is anyone else having this problem?
OK, onto better things.
LAUNDRY ROOM The laundry is currently in the finished part of the basement. The problem is that it vents to the basement. Blowing hot, moist air into the basement is not so clever. Also, clothes smell WORSE after being washed than before - the smell is an odd combination of sweat, fermented body odor, and moist cheesy feet. Terrible. I can't wear my clothes. So, doing something about the laundry was given the #1 priority.
We decided to move the laundry upstairs to the pink bathroom, and for the past 4 weekends Bill has been working on getting the room ready. He's pretty much finished the plumbing and electric, and now we are deciding on who will do the gas (Bill or a pro). Once that is done, I can paint, we can lay the new floor and have the washer/dryer delivered and installed. Then the new toilet and sink can go in.
We picked out a totally sexy front-loading high efficiency washer and dryer from Sears. It needs to be delivered by 11/23, so time is quickly running out.
Before: Pink bathroom on left; there was pink carpet on the floor. Ewwwwww.
Current: Under the pink carpet was vinyl brick flooring. Sadly, we are not sure if the carpet was an impovement.
This is where the room currently is:
DISHWASHER When we were at Sears, we also wound up buying a sexy new Maytag dishwasher since Bill couldn't stand the suckage of the Fridgedair any longer.
Old dishwasher:
Ski helps unpack the new one:
Bill installing the new one:
Just for Batsy:
Awe, the first load! And, it didn't leak!
Oooooooh. Shiny.
PAINTING: Master Bath Compared to the other 2 bathrooms, the master bath isn't terrible although it's not great either. Namely, the Band-Aid color fixures, rusty medicine cabinet and tacky oak "accents" make it pretty fugly. We made some quick "low hanging fruit" improvements to make it more tolerable until its time for rennovation.
Before:
After:
First, I painted the walls a light blue which goes very well with the Band Aid fixtures. I also painted the tacky oak trim under the windows, and we got rid of the wood towel bars (we have chrome ones to put up)
We replaced the medicine cabinet with a new one, and also got a new light fixture. The medicine cabinet and light will eventually be moved to the green bathroom when that gets done.
PAINTING: Master Bedroom The master bedroom was this peachy pink color which didn't much bother me, until one day I said to Bill, "This color looks like light salmon." And he said, "It looks like salmonella." And I said, "OMG - you're right. It looks like undercooked chicken. Eeeewwwww."
And with that, the salmonella colored walls had to go. We decided on a grayish purple. I was afraid it would look too 8-year-old girl who worships unicorns, but actually I LOVE the color - it looks terrific with the fireplace, and really shows off the trim. I'm contemplating painting the ceiling a pale gray to make the trim really pop.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
PAINTING: Walk Ways
Over Columbus Day weekend we painted the "fancy" entrance way and the pass-through between the dining room and living room. We went with a color that's is like paprika, but a little bit browner. That's the best I can describe it.
Before:
After: Fancy entrance
Pass-through from living room to dining room - I love how the paprika color looks with the green of the living room, the yellow of the dining room, and the rug and picture in the dining room.
Misc
Mando Cookie's made by Brendan:
Mando Chocolates made by Antee Jean, Brendan's aunt (apparently it runs in the family):
We got a Roomba!!! It's wicked fantastic!
The local NBC affiliate here is definately second rate...
My first day of school!
Lastly, I will leave you with a sickeningly sweet picture of me forcing Beaker to be loved.
Comments:
Hi Jen! Yay new blog! Your audience is appreciative.
That sucks about trying to sell Bunny. So are you guys going to become a one-car household, or are you keeping Bill's Saturn, or what?
I like your paint color choices--especially the front entryway. Having a strong contrast with white trim makes it pop out that much more--looks nice!
Actually - not trying to sell the Bunny, I'm trying to sell my 1972 VW Bug.
Thank you for your positive feedback on the paint - I'm really happy with the way the colors came out. I like having the red color in those small areas, it's a nice jolt of color without being over whelming.
I would also like to note - the Sherwin Williams Duration paint is AWESOME. We used it for the bathroom and bedroom (you can't get it in very dark colors). It's nice and thick, and I was able to get away with 1 coat. It's also very very low VOC which was actually my motivating reason to buy it.
For the red color I tried the Sherwin Williams ColorAccents paint and IT SUCKS. I was very unhappy with it... the coverage was terrible, it would have taken probably 4 coats. Luckily we ran out of paint and I picked up a gallon of Behr Premium and it rocked - AWESOME - 1 coat coverage, but was pretty bad on the VOCs.