The List - July 2015

Lets see how things are going halfway though the summer.  It's a drought-y summer, so it's been a pretty easy summer as far as yard work goes.   We have a new kid, though, and that makes everything just that little bit harder.

Newly on the list:

1. Finish new kitchen chairs
2. Figure out why we have bacteria growing in our well water, and fix it (fingers crossed - we're close)
3. Fix shingles on one shed.  Again
4. Run cable from the upstairs TV to the PVR  
5. Retaining walls at the basement walk-out
6. Build a frame for the drawers below the kids' bunk bed

In the attic:

1. Install two bathroom fans (that move air, and don’t howl) 
2. Fix soffits on the house

Upstairs:

1. Refinish kitchen and bathroom cabinets
2. Fill the nail holes in all the baseboards
3. New door sweeps at front door and back door
4. Paint doors
5. Re-silicone the en-suite bathtub
6. Paint upstairs half bath.

Outside:

1. Patch broken stucco
2. Hand rails at main entrance and garage man-doors (2)
3. Replace deck, as the current one is deck boards installed on top of plywood
4. Build a play house in one side of the play centre. (I'm waffling on whether this is even worth doing or not.  The bases are cleaned up, and that's the key, so this will probably fall by the wayside)
5. Paint garage doors
6. Put siding on sheds (they’re currently painted OSB)
7. Build a shed for garbage (also probably not necessary.  We're doing ok with just the garage.)
8. Designate an area of front yard to go wild, and then plant a bunch of trees and brush to help it along. (Got the evergreens planted, and a bunch of leafy trees.  Next up: shrubs, and then let it go wild)
9. Re-grade under the deck and east side of walkout (In progress.  I've dumped a bunch of sand and dirt in there - now need to build some sort of retaining wall and cover it up.  I also added a bunch of dirt to the east side of the walkout, helping with the grading)
10. Shrouds for west and garden water tanks
11. Add eavestroughs to sheds

In the Garage:

1. Move garage door opener buttons
2. More shelves in the garage (there’s an entire bare wall that could handle shelves for shoes, kitchen appliances, etc.)
3. Weather strips at bottom of garage man-door

In the Basement:

1. Install at least one cold air return
2. Build shelves in the furnace room
3. Deal with the hacked-in wet bar/kitchen in the basement (rip it out and start again?)
4. Build a hearth of some sort around the fireplace
5. Trim glass block feature (in progress – got one side done.  It looks great, but took two days)
6. Drywall under stairs
7. Build bookshelves
8. Install baseboards 

Electrician (or HVAC): 

1. Hook up and/or fix central exhaust fan (Found the wire at the fuse panel – unconnected.  Presumably, that’s the problem.  Update:  Nope.  When connected, we then had 220V at the switch, along with assorted breakers blowing.  More headscratching is required.)

Carpet Layer:

1. Install tack strip at kitchen, hearth
2. Stretch carpet
3. Fix visible seam 

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Total:  40 entries, same as before.

Now, here's the good side of The List.  If I keep at it, the top will migrate to the bottom:

Crossed off (as of July 15, 2015):

1. Build a little TV stand 
2. Fix shingles on one shed.  But then another one blew off.
3. Run cable from the upstairs TV to the PVR.  
4. Trim the basement bathroom light
5. Run internet cable to the projector/PVR
6. Install outlet for garage heater
7. Clear away a pile of dirt (Involved building a bunk to store it in)

Old stuff crossed off:

1. Buy and plant pear and apple trees (we’re up to five apples, three pears, and four cherries)
2. Hook up six water tanks
3. Shroud for east water tank
4. Prune more trees (they've all been done once, now)
5. Re-grade east shrub garden
6. Box for propane and pool chemical storage
7. Install reverse osmosis system in basement
8. Fix loose baseboard installation
9. Get rid of the gravel in the shrub garden
10. Take out an overgrown, ugly, pain-in-the-butt flowerbed
11. Fix stairs to the hot tub (replaced with some old ones to a shed.  They work ok).
12. Re-balance the washing machine
13. [Plumber] Figure out whether in-floor heat, and on-demand water heater are installed correctly (nope!), and
14. [Plumber] Thermostat for in-floor heat (Nothing that $5000 couldn't fix.  But then we got a bit better flow through our lines, and all sorts of crud started coming up and clogging various screens. It seems to be settling down now.  Finally.)
15. Fix the leaking eavestroughs 
16. Install half bath faucet.
17. Hand rails at deck stairs
18. Towel bars etc. at main bath, en-suite, and half bath.
19. Install curtains and/or blinds in the bedrooms
20. Fix the rod in the main entrance closet 
21. Get rid of rust stain on side of house
22. Install cat doors in both sheds (this was more a decision that they’re not necessary than a completed job)
23. Paint basement bathroom
24. Paint basement hallway
25. Get rid of chicken coop (Somebody actually paid money for it!)
26. Get rid of chicken poo
27. Remove old internet antenna
28. Patch holes in wall from internet wire
29. Fix old hot tub electrical box
30. Finish drywall repairs in the bathroom 
31. Install bathroom lights
32. New thermostat for garage heater
33. Oil changes for quad, lawnmowers
34. Shelves for the spice cupboard 
35. Replace stairs on deck 
36. Fix saggy cables in the garage
37. Fix mitre saw table
38. Shelves in the garage (two over one side of the workbench)
39. Shelves under the work bench 
40. Fix lawnmower steering
41. Clean pencil crayon off glass block grout
42. Replace stopper in bathroom sink
43. Hook up kitchenette water
44. It’s nice that this section is longer than the top section, even if it’s just by a little.
45. And the jobs that didn’t stay on the list long enough to register
46. Fix the broken glass panel in the pantry door
47. Stop the deck door from binding on the frame
48. Replace the expired smoke detectors, and install a CO detector
49. Make the toilets in the basement and ensuite flush properly
50. Make the vacuum cleaner suck (more)  - Replaced the canister.
51. Fix or replace the vacuum cleaner sweep plate (with the new canister, it just works now)
52. Install garburator
53. Clean main bathroom light fixture
54. Organize pantry
55. Shelf liners for pantry, pot drawer
56. Touch up blue paint
57. Touch up white paint drips
58. Replace leaky dishwasher
59. Weed/mow/trim/prune 
60. Organize tools
61. Figure out snow removal (bought a blade to go with my quad on the day of a 12-inch dump of snow.  It works.)
62. Clean garbage out of composts
63. Power for garburator
64. Power in kitchen island
65. Touch up ceiling paint in basement and kitchen
66. Plant trees to block off the neighbour’s shed
67. Get hot tub running
68. Get quad starting and running well
69. Organize freezers
70. Replace bulb in microwave
71. Move stones from scattered randomly over the yard to a pile
72. Attach the bathroom fan exhaust hoses to the roof vents
73. Replace bathroom baseboards (removed for tiling)
74. Touch up paint at colour changes
75. Clean fans in boys’ bedrooms
76. Shampoo kitchen chairs, couch cushions
77. Replace screens in boys’ bedrooms
78. Replace weather strip at garage doors
79. Replace weather strip at garage man doors
80. Replace weather strip at main entrance door
81. Clean kitchen lights
82. Move fireplace
83. Fill fishpond (with dirt)
84. Level sandbox (dig into the hill) and then fill sandbox (with sand)
85. Plant lilac
86. Plant oak
87. Finish drywall repairs in basement hallway
88. Touch up red paint 
89. [Gravel truck]Add gravel to driveway 
90. Clean the old place.
91. Clean the new place.
92. Paint (and patch, and re-paint) the new place
93. Pack and move everything from one to the other.
94. Install a new kitchen faucet – the cheapest available, so that the sink doesn’t leak into the cabinet
95. Replace almost every bulb in the place with bulbs that were either not dead, or put out light
96. Put tiles around the ensuite shower and main bathtub
97. Install another new kitchen faucet – this time, one we like.
98. Find the yard, somewhere under all the weeds
99. Find the garden – spray it, scythe it, and rototill it.  Then repeat a couple of times.
100. Unclog the drain in the main bathtub
101. Unclog the drain in the half bath sink
102. Unclog the drain in the ensuite sink
103. Figure out where the water pressure all went
104. Fix the hot water flow
105. Get internet installed
106. Get lawnmower working
107. Fix tire on lawnmower
108. Haul truckloads of junk to the dump
109. Fix leaky kitchen sink
110. Replace under-cabinet lighting 
111. Got the basement vacuum figured out.  Now, upstairs...
112. Paint ceiling at skylight
113. Level sidewalk tiles at shed, walkout
114. Install projector and screen 
115. Figure out basement lights switches that do nothing, and the lights that won’t turn on. 
116. Clean up and/or throw out carpet (under stairs)  
117. Install outlet for water heater
118. Fix saggy ceiling in garage
119. Added a sand filter to our water lines - like, to filter out sand  
120. Fix the fuel leak on the rototiller, and get the starter working
121. Fix the lawnmower - the PTO sometimes doesn't turn off, and there are sparks
122. Install the last two door casing (walk-in closet and pantry)
123. Add small shelves for garage chemicals and such
124. Put a cat door in the garage.
125. Hang Pictures 
126. Install baseboards in the closets 
127. Find a place to hang the vacuum cleaner hose
128. Fix the shelves in the walk-in closet
129. Fix play center and and install a wheel up top
130. Install a faucet that doesn’t get half-turned-off in the basement bathroom
131. Install towel bars, TP holders, etc. in basement bathroom
132. Fix soffits on shed
133. Add a closet rod and shelf in the boys' room
134. Assemble bunk beds. (Much more work than it should have been, involving ordering the thing twice, and several replacement parts on top of that)
135. Paint the window wells in the basement
136. Install a new kitchen sink to replace the constantly-stained white one
137. Rip out all the old water treatment stuff and install something that works.  (Plumber plus $6000 = good water again.)

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Total:  7 + 132 = 139 entries

I might have to add a section for motorhome jobs.  They're adding quite a lot to what I need to do.