Part 36: Grownup-ness
As you know, I have recently purchased a house. If you didn't know that, please see the post below. In purchasing a house, I have thrown myself into the world of a grownup. At first, I was pleasantly working on my house every evening and enjoying the busyness of being a grownup. You can imagine that wore off pretty fast. I still look forward to getting the place how I want it, but the path there seems steeper than it did at first. I know, I know, I brought this upon myself and so I will continue to slug through it. And, I might as well learn some things while I'm at it.
Here's a sneak peak at my before and after blog post (coming in an unknown future era)
Here are some things I've learned about being in the world of grownups:
- Everything ends up costing more than the contractor bids. My original electrical work bid was $1800. And he said that was including a large buffer for unknowns that might increase the cost. I ended up paying $2300.
- If you pay for a wood floor refinishing company to tear out your carpets before the job and haul them away, they will undoubtedly leave said carpets and pad sitting on your driveway until you beg them to come take them away after the job has long been completed.
- In regards to the previous point: Never ever ever pay for a job that has not been 100% completed.
- If you leave the vent covers off of your heater vents while you are painting the house, a roll of painter's tape is bound to accidentally bounce in there and be forever lost somewhere in the heart of your furnace. There it will enter your nightmares at least once a week; where your newly purchased and updated house burns to the ground in a mass of melted tape goo.
- If you have to use Kilz on your walls before you paint, get the unscented! Being high on Kilz is not nearly as fun as I thought it would be.
- Once you officially become a grownup and have lots of household expenses and responsibilities, that is when your car will decide to mock your lack of time and money by refusing to pass emissions simply because you haven't driven your car enough on your new battery to pass the codes needed. 3-5 time-wasting trips up to Heber and 4-500 extra dollars should do it.
- You start thinking that spending hundreds of dollars a day is going to be the norm in your life as a homeowner. So, when home depot charges you $10 more than they should have on a heater vent cover, you're too lazy to go back and have them fix it.
- Vent cover sizes as listed on the package do NOT correspond to the size you measured your previous covers to be. There is no way to know (from the packaging or home depot's shelves) if it will fit your vent. I think this is the most useful thing I've learned and I pass it on to you. Let me know if you need me to tell you my secret for purchasing the correct size.
There you have it. Those are the most important grownup things I've learned in the last 2 weeks. I didn't think that so many of them would have to do with my home's ventilation.
