Preservation Brief 22: The preservation and repair of stucco

So when I came home from work tonight, and went in the bathroom and saw the GIANT hole in the wall indicating he had fixed it, I figured it was no problem, no big deal.  I said “so…I guess the electrician was here.”  Thor had been home for a couple of hours at the time and replied “yup, he was just finishing up a couple of things.”  Thor seemed happy with having our electrical work done. I asked Thor if the electrician was done, and he repplied in the affirmative, everthing looked good.  I asked Thor if the two electrical boxes were level now, and he said “huh?  The electrical boxes?”

He then went into the bathroom.

“*Fudge! Gosh Darn it!  Gosh darn child of an un kind woman! What the fudge!  What the fudge was he thinking.  That fudging incompetent unmentionable…” and so on.  And on.

Meanwhile I am in the kitchen wondering what just happened.  I ask him if he’s hurt.  Because if this was about the hole in the wall, how had he managed to miss it the previous two hours while he was home.  To which Thor replied “*Fracking butt eater.  He put a giant hole in the wall.  In my newly dry-walled forking wall!”

I guess he hadn’t noticed.

For the past month we had been able to delude ourselves into thinking that it was not that bad.  We had forgotten about all of the construction debri that was hidden underneath.  The yard is now slowly being revealed as things slowly warm up, and all of the garbage is starting to come to light again.  What a mess.

Ultimately you always want to get value, because our experience is that you can certainly get a piece of junk for a little amount of money, but then you are left with junk.  So there is always a trade-off.

One stop shopping is so key in remodeling, you’ll be doing a project and you’ll need a dozen different things, plus you’ll remember all those other things you need for other projects.  So why not go where they will have everything, these stores include HOBO, Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards.

But do not shirk the local hardware store.  First, they are often within five minutes of your home.  Secondly, they may look small, but they will surprise you in how much they pack in an organized manner that will be a great relief when you’ve walked a mile from one end of a box store to another looking for two things that seem like they are related.

I am a huge fan of Home Depot and they should be a huge fan of us as we have singlehandedly kept Home Depot in the black.  Home Depot has quality products including name brand tools and will often have a range of products varying in quality and price in cabinets, appliances, tools, etc.

For the quality you cannot beat their prices.  Over and over Home Depot outbid everyone.  Windows- for comparable aluminum clad wood windows with a name brand, HD beat the window specialist by a third, plumbing fixtures (all the name brands) beat our plumber’s supplier by a third or a half, cabinets which are crazy expensive at a cabinet specialist were 40% less at home depot (I have heard Ikea has really cheap cabinets too), our granite guy had to give us countertops at cost inorder to beat HD’s price after we haggled with him.

Drawbacks may be customer service.  I go there multiple times a week and they know me, but invariably it takes two hours to get something fixed or an order changed.  The staff is hit and miss when it comes to competency.  If you are going to spend a lot of time at one store find a person you can work with.  There isn’t too much wiggle room on prices, but there are usually regular rebates and discounts and some things like delivery charges can be negotiated.

HD also has a pretty decent website which has a lot of their products and even more than you may find at their stores.  HD at least is a good starting point for price and quality comparisons.

HOBO- is a chicagoland store that has dirt cheap products probably for a reason.  But usually they’ll have a lot of something to take advantage of economies of scale.  They had the widest selection of tiles at any box store that was pretty impressive especially for the prices.  If you are looking for basement floor tiles go there for bang for the buck.

I don’t go to Lowes too much, because it isn’t close to us.  I went there more in my home town.  It is probably on par with Home Depot, but it will not get my loyalty, sorry Mr. Walton.  But at least I will not speak ill of it.

Menards on the other hand will get my full wrath.  On the outside it looks like a middle of the road big box home construction store, but in fact it is a low quality bargain store that finds a bunch of junk and tries to sell it to you.  I tried to put in a handicap shower for Liz’s grandfather and had to purchase the exact same product three times before I found one that a) came with all of its parts and b)worked.  Power tools- junk, organization- horrible, fixtures-junk.  Plus their security guards are notorious jerks who think their western cowboys turned sheriff’s rustling up shoplifters.  One guy (off duty CPD) threatened to arrest me for swearing in front of him (it was really cold outside and he made me enter through the other door half a block away on the other side of the building, pardon me)(look for a current US supreme court case where the defendant was arrested for flipping an officer the bird after a traffic stop)

Menards is a store of last resort.

For quality hardwoods- lumber stores are often the best place, because big box stores will usually only have a medium grade of pine and oak.

A shout out to our hometown light fixture place Wabash Electric, find them online and ask for Mary in Elkhart, IN.  Everything you need for a good price.

I think Kitchen and Bath places are good for ideas only because they are pretty expensive, but usually can take care of all of your needs for one room.  So if you want to have everything taken care of for you, go there.

Overstock.com has been a nice addition, we just got our cabinet knobs and pulls from them.

For appliances we go to Plaas Appliances which are all over the chicagoland area.  They have quality for a good price and very knowledgeable sales men that aren’t pushy at all.  Occasionally your appliances will have a problem invariably and you will need someone to check it out.  Home Depot won’t come to your house, but Plaas will.  Plus, they are willing to cut you a deal.  However, we did get smaller appliances, microwave, hood, and washer and dryer for cheaper at HD.

Feel free to add your two cents, we are always looking for good deals.

Here are some favored products after our research

Cabinets-Kraftmaid, Thomasville

Windows- Jeld-Wen, Pella

Fixtures- American Standard, Kohler

Appliances- Frigidaire

This is more than a blown fuse.  Did we even have fuses any more?  I call Thor, and he has no idea, but suggests maybe ComEd came and switched our service.  I go outside, and sure enough, the meter had been removed and the original power lines that fed into the house had been cut.

We were pretty hesitant to try and turn the new electrical panel on ourselves.  We vaguely recalled being warned about messing with “something” that if touched could basically blow the house up.  So what followed was a series of phone tag between myself, Thor, Matt, the head electrician, and then the guy who has been working on our house, and a few frantic calls to the power company’s various voice mails.  The result was me sitting in the dark and cold in-between running out to the car to keep my phone charged up wondering why in the hell the electric company hadn’t let us know that they were going to switch our power.

The electrician finally showed up (he had been dragged from his sick bed by his boss), it turned out to be a pretty simple matter of first checking to make sure the connection to the old box was off so the house didn’t blow up.  Then as he flipped the on switch to the new panel I could hear the furnace rumble to life, and the rest of the house turn itself back on.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2009/01/the-glassy-airport-terminal-from-the-former-meigs-field-and-post-world-war-iihospital-buildings-likely-to-be-demolished-as-pa.html

The bathroom and kitchen look like what they’re supposed to be now, and I know that we are so close to utilizing them for their actual purpose.  In a few days I can (or Thor can) wash dishes in the dishwasher and not the tub.  The countertops in addition to the microwave that Thor and Matt installed last weekend are turning the room into a usable space. The microwave was a bit more trouble than we thought it would be because the electrician put the plug a little too high and at first we thought a part was missing.  All the worry was for nothing and eventually it went in.  This increased our quality of life also because we were able to move the old microwave out of the office and are able to start to use that space for its true purpose.

I think I am most pleased with the bathroom.  It is a remnant that we choose in the middle of a snowstorm on a Friday afternoon.  All of the slabs of granite were frozen together and it took 6 guys to pull them apart so that we could look at this piece.  It looks awsome with cabinets and the slate we already have in there.  There was definitely a moment of worry when we chose it because we didn’t have any samples with us to make sure it matched, so I was doubly thrilled to see how good it looked.

The kitchen is thrilling too.  We were finally able to settle the debate over whether the countertops were black or not.  They are not.  They are green with black, gold, and white flecks.  After this weekend it will work like how it’s supposed to too.  As I type, Thor is in the kitchen installing the tambour (appliance garage) in the kitchen corner.

When we bought the house in August, the credit crunch was in full effect and interest rates were their highest in almost a decade at 6.8%.  We also had to pay PMI, because we went with 10% down because we new we were going to be using the money to remodel so we kept more cash on hand.

A refinance will drop our monthly payment by at least 100 bucks and the closing costs will pay for themselves in 6-8 months.

Appraisers require that the house be “habitable” which they mean to have sinks apparently.  Little do they now how accomadating Liz and I can be.  So, in three weeks when the countertops and sinks are in we’ll be ready to refi.