Joys of Home Ownership

Garage Flooring Part 2A

Last Friday I went to the RaceDeck website and used their floor design tool. When I was done I clicked the Submit for Quote button. Like last time I did this we have revised the design a couple of times over the weekend, playing with the check size, adding more carpet pieces, etc. By Monday I had still not heard back about the request for a quote, so I started calculating costs based on the pricing I received back 2-1/2 years ago. In the end I have decided to keep those 24 carpet tiles in between the two “designated” parking areas, it didn’t seem like it was worth and extra $90 (in 2017 pricing) to buy the blue and silver free-flow tiles to make one big checked area.

After finalizing the design for the last time, I called the 1-800-NUMBER to go ahead and place my order. Turns out this is sort of a misnomer, the person who answered the phone was just a front person. She took my information and what I wanted to buy and said she’d be passing it along to a Sales Representative and they would get back to me. Twenty-four hours later – crickets… I’m not real sure, but I think this might have been the way it went in July 2017 too.

Garage Flooring Part Two

The new house has a two-car garage compared to our old one-car back in Aiken. When we moved, I packed up the RaceDeck tiles and brought them with us. I had tossed a few of them out that I had to cut up to fit around the cabinets we had in Aiken.

Today we had a nice sunny mid-forties day, so this afternoon I backed the Mini out of the garage and installed the tiles that I brought with us for it to park on. The existing free flow tiles will help hide the water we are bringing in with us when we have been driving on the snowy roads. Because the Miata is just sitting for now, water is not a problem, yet.

Tomorrow we will order the flooring for the other half of the garage. The one side of the garage is deeper than the other because somewhere along the way a previous owner stole several feet to add a downstairs bathroom. The deeper side is even deeper than the RaceDeck flooring will go and that is where there is a workbench and shelving for tools and storage.


This is what it looks like now.

This is what it will look like finished.

Too Many Sweaters

We got around to opening the last few clothing boxes today. How many sweaters does a retired person need? A dozen? Nope, narrowed it down to five. Also kept 2 Hawaiian shirts out of 4, two button down casual shirts out of four and just 2 of 4 Lands End quarter-zip knit shirts. Some needy folks in Klamath Falls will be dressed a little nicer and warmer after we donate these.

We are down to just a dozen book boxes to open up and shelve. After that, it is figuring out where to hang the eleven-hundred framed photos, prints and completed jigsaw puzzles around the empty vertical surfaces. Sometime not long after that, they will come down again as we add color to all the beige walls.

The garage is still a mess, all the tools and what not will be needed, arranging still on the existing shelves in the back. I will also need to figure out how to store our half dozen bikes while allowing easy access to them and the two cars. Then there is reinstalling the RaceDeck tile flooring and possibly adding some more for under the Mini…

A Washer and Dryer of Our Very Own

Better 8-1/2 days late than never. But like most things we have run across in our move, it wasn’t that simple. First off we got another surprise arrival.

Back when the garage door opener was replaced we were told we would get a call telling us of their arrival about 25-30 minutes ahead of time. On that day we decided to walk the mile into town to check the mail knowing that we could cover the distance back in a half hour. So wouldn’t you know it, the guy called while we were downtown, but he was calling from our driveway! So I lied to him and told him we were on our way home (true) and would be home in 10-15 minutes (false.) We quick walked back up the hill and made it in 25 minutes.

For our appliance delivery we were told to expect them between 1:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon. So we decided to walk into town about 11:30 to check the mail figuring we had plenty of time to do that and stop to buy a couple of bagels on the way back. So wouldn’t you know it, the guy called while we were almost downtown to say he was about 20 minutes away! The bagel place closed at 1:00, meaning we didn’t have time to get home, get our delivery and make it back, so Plan B was formulated on the fly. Donna would continue with the walking mission and I would turn around to head home and meet our appliances.

At least they weren’t waiting in the driveway when I got back, but it wasn’t long before the knock came at the door. They were fast and efficient at unloading and placing our stuff in where they belong. The fridge was easy, but the snags reared their ugly heads on the lower level where the washer and dryer go. First off, they brought the “wrong” 240v dryer power cord. Whenever the house was wired for the electric dryer they used a 3 prong straight bladed socket which is now traditionally used for stoves and the cord they had was the usual dryer cord with one blade with a 90 degree bend in it. Staying with the dryer, the flex tubing they brought was enough, but because of the existing tubing location it would be hard to move a junction to connect the new to the old. To top it off, the drain hose on the washer was too short. For whatever reason, the house drain was over on the other side of the water heater, so we would need an extension to make it reach.

I checked the Home Depot website and they had the dryer/oven power cord no problem. The extensions for the washer hose and dryer duct connectors they didn’t have, I could order it and have it delivered to the store for pickup — in a week! We drove to Home Depot and returned the cord and dryer ducting for in store credit. Then on the off chance the web site was wrong we went looking for the three things we needed. Turns out the web site was wrong, they didn’t even have the power cord.

Crap, another trip or two to the local laundromat would be required, but then we remembered seeing ads on TV for a local chain of electrical and plumbing stores called Grover. Went in and explained our predicament at the service desk and within 10 minutes were out the door with all three things we needed. An hour after getting home we were washing a load of clothes.

2 Weeks In

Today was the two week anniversary of us occupying 1025 Pacific Terrace and have technically owned for 6 days. We are still awaiting the arrival of our washer, dyer and fridge. They were supposed to be here last Friday, but I got a voicemail message Thursday that there was a “shipping delay” and the items wouldn’t be here until next Saturday, January 4th. Tomorrow we have someone coming over to give us an estimate on a new roof.

The Miata is still in transit somewhere, but no word on an ETA. We now know our household goods are at least on a truck, because Mayflower hit the charge card for the $5,000 deposit. Their original estimate on transit was 10-12 days, so we should have less than 2 weeks to wait at this point. It is time to start thinking about driver’s licenses and registering to vote to make us official Oregonians.

Took a little walk this afternoon that included about 3/4 mile of trails that reside up above our neighborhood. We were going to wear just sneakers, but at the last minute switched to our hiking boots. It was a good call as the trail was sneaky muddy. It didn’t look like it, but it was wet and slippery and slowly built up a heavy layer on the bottom of the boots making walking difficult. Even with scraping on rocks and walking on sidewalks the mile back, both pair of boots are still so muddy they are sitting in the garage awaiting the next sunny day for cleaning.

It is a long way off, but last night we started planning for spring. Not only thinking about next years Moss Motoring Challenge, but maybe repeating our South Carolina Post Office Extravaganza here in the Beaver State. I found a list of the population of the 355 cities in the state ranging from Portland at 653,115 down to Greenhorn at 10. In South Carolina I used the USPS site and located post offices in a 25 mile radii, but here in Oregon most of the towns big enough to have a PO are much farther apart than that. Then I got lucky and found a website called Postal Locations which appears to list every town with a post office. From my calculations this state has about 378 Post Offices in it 98,466 square miles compared to South Carolina’s 454 in 32,020. Probably going to take us a lot longer than the approximately 4 years it took to do South Carolina.

Really, That Long?

On Thursday morning I called around looking for a doctor to get a tetanus shoot and to establish a relationship with. I’ve got a few prescriptions that I’m going to need refills of in January and I think our old doctor in Aiken is eventually going to catch onto the whole I’m just visiting in Oregon thing.

My first call was to the Adult Medical Clinic at the local hospital. They were listed on the BCBS of Alabama website. When I called I was informed there were three doctors and only one was accepting new patients and the next available appointment was in July 2020! The nice person who answered the phone said I might try something called Cascades East, when I called them they said the waiting list is 6 months! I had them send me the forms to get on the waiting list.

In the meantime we could avail ourselves with the services of Basin Immediate Care, a walk-in clinic that takes anyone who can pay or has insurance. So guess where we spent 2-1/2 hours on Thursday afternoon getting a tetanus shot and a band aid?

This afternoon we had a shiny new 3/4 horsepower, kevlar belt drive garage door opener with two remotes and a wireless keypad installed. So much smoother and quieter that the old chain drive unit. Now it has got us thinking about replacing that old heavy wooden door. When the installer took the old unit down we looked at the date of manufacture on the sticker and it read 1995. Twenty-five years, so it had a pretty good life, but who knows how much longer it would have noisily gone about doing its job if I hadn’t accidentally killed it.

Fixing Up Our Christmas Present

Neither of us had any presents under the Christmas tree (which we don’t have anyway) this year because all that kind of money is going into furnishing and resupplying the one big shared present, 1025 Pacific Terrace.

The last owners of our new home were only in it for 2 years. I’m mildly curious as to why, but whatever. In those two years I don’t think they ever really cleaned. They must have done some sort of quick clean before they left because the place was habitable when we moved in, but a deep clean, not so much. We are on our second box of Swiffer cloths removing dust and cobwebs from nooks and crannies in every room. We are also on our second container of Clorox wipes removing various stains and dirt spots from the walls and ceilings. In the Master Bathroom there were lots of black hairs stuck to the walls and ceiling from the previous owner blow drying her hair.

I have replaced between 15 and 20 light bulbs throughout the house. I don’t know what the reason, to conserve energy or just plain laziness. I betting it was mostly the later because there was a burnt out bulb in almost every 2-light fixture. The light on the front and back porches had bulbs, but the one on the pole in the front lawn for the stairs didn’t. The light in the bottom of the microwave that illuminates the stove top was out. The light on the garage door opener was burnt out and this was vexing because the garage is really dark when we get out of the car at night.

On Christmas Eve I decided to replace the bulb in the garage door opener. It worked fine using the wall switch, but when the garage door would go up and down the light would flicker like a strobe light. I opened up the light compartment again and noticed the the bulb socket was held in place by some tabs, thinking maybe it was loose wire I pressed the tabs and pulled the socket out from the opener body. FLASH! CRACK! It was a loose wire and when I pulled the socket out the two wires touched and shorted out. Now we have to manually open and close the door until I can find someone to install a new garage opener.

I don’t think the previous owners used the two car garage for cars. I have been sweeping out dust and cobwebs from all over in there too. There was a long bench along one side of the garage that I decided to take apart today to make room for the imminent arrival of the Miata (supposed to be sometime this week.) This thing is big, about 2 feet wide and 8 feet long. Sturdy too, it is made up of 2x4s and half 1/2 plywood screwed together with deck screws. There are about a a dozen nails in one end. I figure whoever made it started hammering it together and realizing that that would be an awful lot of work, then switch to screws. I was about 90% through disassembling it when I accidentally stepped on a nice long nail. OUCH! Went right through the sole of the sneaker, my sock and probably a 1/2″ into my foot. Direct pressure stopped the bleeding after about 5 minutes. Thought it might be a good idea to go to the Emergency Room , but then thought of the cost, so just cleaned it out with some alcohol and dressed with a band aid and some polysporin. I’ll try and get a doctor to give me a tetanus shot tomorrow even though the nail was clean and shiny having spent who knows how long inside that 2×4…

I think I need to reassess my handyman qualifications…