I had to replace the sink pop-up drain in our master bathroom. Without replacing the entire faucet, the sink pop-up drain was pretty easy to switch out. Although it was not my first time, it took about an hour to complete. Checking the leaks took the most time. The pop-up assembly costs about $24 and the stain-free plumber putty cots $5.
Total cost: $30
When we bought the house, I imagined our basement as an entertainment space where the kids and I watch movies and play video games. We hired an electrician to put in fancy track lights from Ikea and we painted the rooms dark purple. Needless to say, it now turns into storage space with tons of shit. The track lights have been flickering on and off for years, but I refused to change the fixture.
When it comes to electricity, I am shit scared. I got shocked three times for simply replacing the switch. I got shock again yesterday even though I turned off the breaker. This afternoon, I shut off the entire breaker panel just to replace the fixture. I rather be safe than sorry because I am such an amateur.
After about an hour, I successfully replaced the fixture. Turning on the lights that worked felt great. You’re probably laughing at such a trivial task, but it is a huge accomplishment for me. I am starting to like doing small home improvements.
Being a cheap-ass has its advantage. It challenges me to do more things that aren’t just related to the web. Besides, I can’t hire an electrician to do small jobs like this. I can ask my brother-in-law, but I also dislike bothering people unless I absolutely have to. I might as well do things on my own. I can read and follow directions. YouTube has been a fantastic resource. Home Depot and Lowe’s have anything I need. All that I need is a bit of self confidence.
When my father-in-law was still living with us, he tried to teach me how to fix things. I appreciate his efforts and I miss him terribly, but I was not learning much. I need to figure things out in order to learn. I always messed up the first time, but I learned my lesson quick. The second time is always better. There is no shortcut. I just need to do it unless I could depend on my wife.
I envy my neighbor whose wife does everything. I hardly see him outside the house, but I always see his wife outside shoveling the snow in the winter and mowing the grass once a week in the summer. She even patched up and sealed her driveway, something I need to catch up on.
Back to the light fixture, my wife brought the Hampton Bay’s 3-light white ceiling spotlight. It is easy to install and it is perfect for storage area. The design is simple and you get lots of light.
Total cost: $25
I am embarrassed to say that I have put off replacing our bathroom exhaust fan for almost 10 years. The previous one made loud screeching noise, but I was not confident to do it. In the past few days, it bothered me enough to look up YouTube and tried to replace it. To my amazement, replacing the fan motor took 10 minutes. All I had to do was unplugged and popped out the out motor and put the new one in. I am beating myself up for being such a sucker.
Nutone Fan Motor Assembly cost $15.
Just spent a ton of money. Here’s the breakdown:
Total cost: $1,225
This is my second time at C&G Specialty Auto Repair and Auto Body. Its price is fairly high. I don’t think I will go back to it.
One of our toilets clogged up for several years now. I used to have to plunge it every once in a while, then every week, then several days. So I decided to replace it once and for all.
The job was quite simple. All I had to do what place a toilet over the damn hole. Yet I took me a whole day with three tries and several trips to Home Depot and Lowe’s. The first time went almost smoothly, except the color was wrong. My wife wanted the biscuit color, not white. I didn’t care much, but I don’t want to hear her complain for many years to come.
Home Depot only stocks white so I had to go to Lowe’s to get the biscuit color. The second attempt failed because the wax was broken and the water leaked. I had to unassembled everything and tried again with a waxless seal gasket.
The third attempt was getting better but the toilet was not secured tight. I had to open it up again to tighten up the flange.
I must admit I am terrible at this. Given how much time and energy I had spent, it was worthwhile just to pay $150 for the installation. Then again, I have learned how to do it through my failures. The next time will not be as bad.
After my second failure, which I followed the instructions from the toilet’s manual, I looked up on YouTube. This clip is simple and helpful.
Here’s the breakdown:
The last duct cleaning was done when we first moved into our house, which was 10 years ago. Today, we have another duct cleaning service by F.H. Furr. Its inspector recommended the service and we figured we might as well do it before the new baby come out.
Service cost: $455
Just signed up the annual service plans with F.H. Furr.
Plans cost: $167
Scheduled 25 Point Cooling Inspections
Still need to schedule 28 Point Heating, Plumbing, and Electrical Inspections.
I just created a maintenance category to keep track of all the maintenances. I keep lose track of all my receipts and I don’t remember what I have done. So this blog will keep everything in one place.
Our Toyota Sienna 2011 is reaching 120,000 miles and here are what we have done:
Total cost: $1355
Still need to replace shocks. These auto mechanics are milking everything they can. The tires were bought from Costco. The tune-up services were provided by C&G Specialty Auto Repair and Auto Body.
I was at the dental office today to get my teeth maintenance. While the dentist worked on my nasty teeth, I realize that everything in life that you own needs a maintenance.
Your damn house needs a maintenance. If you are suck at housework like me, you will have to pay big bucks for all the maintenance. From the water pipes to the toilet, maintenance costs a fortune. Our HVAC is leaking water. There goes more maintenance.
I took our older mini-van to the dealer for an oil change on Monday, the technician recommended several maintenances that would cost almost two grants. Now I have to shop around to get lower price for a maintenance.
At work, I have to keep a maintenance of our CMS and server. Everything needs to be kept today to make sure that our sites won’t get hack. A huge chunk of my time is to maintain the content of our websites.
Relationships required maintenance as well. Our marriage will break if not well maintained. Our interactions with the people around us will lose if we do not keep in touch. Life is so full of maintenance. How do we get out of it?
I am contemplating on deactivating all my social media so that I don’t have to maintain those interactions anymore. In the near future, I will try to get rid of all the cars so that I don’t have to maintain them anymore. Once the kids all grown, I’ll buy a smaller townhouse so that I won’t need to maintaining the landscaping. The less dependent on all of these things will free me up from all the maintenance.
Since we bought our house, I have resisted to climb onto the roof, which is about 25 feet high from the ground. In 2015, strong winds blew off aluminum trims twice. I was too afraid to climb up to the roof; therefore, we had to pay $375 each time to repair and replace.
I tried to climb up with a telescoping multi-position ladder, but it was freaking scary. I felt useless for a long time and it has been one of the goals for me to overcome. As the wind has picked up recently, I noticed the nails had been loose. Sooner or later those aluminum trims will be blown off again.
On Sunday, I decided to drop by Home Depot to pick up an extended ladder. After watching a few YouTube video, I went back buy a ladder stabilizer. It worked well. I managed to get myself up on the roof to hammer in the loose nails and cleaned the gutters.
It was still pretty scary being 25 feet above the ground. I crawled and lay down on the stomach most of the time. It was such a beautiful day felt so good to finally beat my fear of heights.