Oh the Joys of Home Ownership

There are fun projects, like decorating, and then there are home maintenance projects (not as much fun).  I obviously prefer decorating over maintenance, but with home ownership, maintenance is inevitable.  We built our home 11 1/2 years ago.  It seems 10+ years is the magic number to have things start to go wrong.  As Murphy's Law would have it, 10+ years is after all warranties have expired. Recently we've had two such issues arise, both of which are being addressed this week.

Issue #1 - This is the sliding glass door we have in our kitchen.  During the winter we noticed that the bottom of the door started to discolor.  At first I thought it only needed a new coat of pain.  Upon further investigation, it seems that  the door had some water damage.

I got out my power sander, thinking I would sand away the damage and fill it in with wood filler.  Unfortunately the damage was much more significant than I had thought.  Once I started to sand I realized that the wood was completely rotted through.  I could put my entire hand in the hole and touch the outside metal part (oh boy, that's not a good thing).  So how did this happen?  After speaking with many people, here is the theory - the sliding door leads onto my deck (now the new patio).  During the winter the snow piles up outside the door.  No one shovels the deck/patio and the snow stays there for months, creating ultimately causing this.  The only solution was to purchase a new door from Pella.

Pella tells me that the new door should not have the same issues as the technology has improved in the past twelve years.  Either way our new game plan includes shoveling the snow around the door from now on.  The new door arrived bright and early this morning.  We can't install it until Sunday, so for now it sits in the middle of my garage.  This is not really an exciting purchase as we had to get the same door (because there is a matching door from our great room to the patio).

 Issue #2 - the lights on either side of our front door completely burned out.  The bulb somehow became one with the socket.  We tried our hand at repairing it with no luck.   Even our electrician took a look at it and said there was no fixing it.  So, while the electrician was at my house today fixing the other landscape lights that were broken this winter, I ran out and purchased two new fixtures.

I love the new fixture, although it was choice #5.  My first four choices the lighting store only had one of each fixture in stock.  I needed two and since the electrician was at my home waiting for me, ordering was not an option.  Luckily they had many nice options so I am happy with my ultimate choice.

I think this complements the stone much better than the brushed nickel did.  The brushed nickel blended into the stone whereas with this fixture there is more of a contrast.

I'm happy to say that we have working landscape lights again as well as working lights around the front door (the house is lit up like an airport now at night).  I would have rather spent this money on decorating, but maintenance is part of the deal when you own a home.  Maintaining your property helps protect your investment.

Although Spring has barely sprung where I live (as you can tell by the bare trees), it's always warm and sunny at my Swing into Spring party.  The link will open tonight at 8pm EST.  Hope to see you all there.

-Judy