January 2008


House30 Jan 2008 12:08 am

For a change I think we had a good day around the house.  The day started off with Culligan coming in and installing our water softener and chlorine filter.  The water is very hard up here in Stouffville.  Calcium build-up on our faucets, dishes, etc., plus every time you use the water your hands become dry and scaly.  The installation went fine and so far we have already noticed a slight difference.  It will take a day or two as we need to use up first whatever is still in the hot water tank, but then it should be paradise. :)

Then over the weekend we picked up our window shades and blinds.  Seven pleated shades for upstairs, one aluminum blind for the bathroom and a vinyl blind for our sliding door.  I’m not the handyman by a long shot, but I thought I’d try this one out on my own as we were getting tired of having nothing covering our windows or having old blankets instead.

I tried one window in our guest room and that seemed to go well, so then I tried another, then another, … etc.  Anyhow, three hours later I had put up the seven pleated shades in all our rooms (plus redoing one window as I messed it up).  We are very pleased with the way they look and I think I did a pretty good job seeing it was my first time.  Maybe I will try the last two blinds in the days to come, which I think will be more of a challenge.

Anyhow, I think it’s been a good day, hopefully there are more to come.

House22 Jan 2008 12:23 am

So if you read one of our previous posts you would know the trouble we are having with SEARS and our appliances.  Last Friday a repair guy came again with the 4th dishwasher door.  Brand new and out of the box, it was the worst of the lot, with big scratches throughout the door.  At this point it is getting rather humourous how inept these guys are.

Even better, the repair guy calls me over the weekend and says all the doors are on back order so we won’t get a new one until the 2nd week in February.  Makes you wonder if they are on back order then who is getting the good doors, cause we as sure as hell aren’t.

This Friday another repair guy comes in to try out the new freezer door, hopefully this time it is the right door for our model.  Stay tuned, as we’ll keep you informed.

House15 Jan 2008 12:13 am

This weekend is the Metro Home Show at the convention centre downtown (Metro Home Show link).  The price is $12 per person, but if you buy online it is $10.  But, you can get further discounts by using the following promo codes: VITAMINT (2 for 1 admission) or HGTV ($9 admission price).  Enjoy!

House10 Jan 2008 11:49 pm

For the house we got brand new stainless steel Whirlpool fridge, stove and dishwasher; very nice units.  The day of delivery was a joke, as the delivery guys didn’t want to come into our driveway so they decide to unwrap the appliances in the middle of the street filled with slush and salt.  When we asked them to be more careful they decided to go off about how they don’t have to do this delivery and could go home.

After they left we noticed that the freezer door was scratched and this very sticky tape they use to keep the doors closed wouldn’t come off as Aleen broke a nail trying.  Then a week later when we setup the dishwasher and took off the wrapping we saw there was a dent in the door.

We called SEARS to complain and they said a technician would come out to take a look (last week).  The morning of we get a call and the guy goes over with me what is wrong and asks if anyone ordered the parts.  I said no and he said he might as well order us a new dishwasher door and freezer door.  He would call me back to let me know when he would come by to deliver.

Days went by and I heard nothing, so I decided to call SEARS to check-in (on Monday).  I was told that the technician was scheduled to come by on Thursday…thanks for the heads up.

Anyhow, he comes today with 2 dishwasher doors, a freezer door and 2 freezer handles!  He takes the freezer door off and then realizes the new one ordered doesn’t fit.  We noticed that the model they have on their paperwork is different then the model I have, but they don’t have my model number in their system so they can’t order the correct door.  Now they had to go directly to Whirlpool to check what should be done.

Even better, both dishwasher doors that were ordered were also defective!  One had a dent again, while the other had some glue stain that wouldn’t come off.  Like come on now, this is getting to be ridiculous.  So now they said they would come back end of next week for the dishwasher door, but no word yet on the freezer door.  What a joke.

Wedding08 Jan 2008 11:39 pm

Finally after a long debate we decided on our photographer for the wedding.  Aleen is very picky and touchy about her pictures so she wanted to make sure she weighed all her options before choosing.  We saw a couple of different photographers, but we always liked the people who did our engagement shoot.  We got a lot of positive feeback from our friends those photos. 

It’s a husband and wife team and they made us look great so we hope they can do the same thing for the wedding.  Their name is Cupido Photography and they liked our photo shoot so much they even added a couple of our pics to their samples web page.

House03 Jan 2008 11:43 pm

We hope everyone had a good holiday and wish everyone a Happy 2008!  It’s been a while since our last post.  A lot has happened with the holidays and what not, but for us the time finally came for our closing date.  After 12 months of waiting our new house finally closed.

We got the keys December 20 and the following day, Friday, we had Leons, Sears, Sleep Country, Rogers and Bell all come to the house.  Add in a duct cleaning too and it was a party indeed at our place.  Most of it went fine except for Sears, where we had some problems with the delivery guys and we are still working out some of the damage to our stainless steel appliances.

Saturday we rented a moving truck and we moved all my bigger stuff from my parents place in Lindsay and also some of Aleen’s things.  The weekend we just spent cleaning, unpacking and setting up.  Wow, so much stuff to do it’s insane.  You really take for granted all the things that come with house ownership after living so long at home.

We took a break from the house and had Christmas Eve dinner at my parents’ place.  We slept over and then had Christmas Day lunch there too.  Right after we came back into town and went to Aleen’s parents’ place for dinner with her entire side of the family.  It was a long and exhausting few days.

As the year ended we pretty much setup our first floor the way we want it, minus a dining table and it looks pretty sweet.  My den is still a mess with boxes still left to be opened, but at least I got my computer setup, which is one of the reasons why I haven’t written an entry in a while.  The guest room also needs to be finished up at some point.

We celebrated New Year’s at a friends place and then our holiday was over and now we are back at work.  The fastest two weeks I think we have ever gone through.