Finally, warm weather has arrived. (Well, kind of. We hit freezing temperatures in Indy last night after enjoying a week of 70-plus degrees.) After spending all winter getting my house spruced up on the inside, I’m ready to dig out the gardening supplies and get to work on further improving my home’s value. At the top of my list of outdoor home improvements is the demolition of a hideous red deck the previous homeowner haphazardly installed. It’s gigantic and eats up nearly half of my already small yard. That, and it sits way off the ground, allowing my neighbors a full view over my fence (which is painted a matching hideous red, of course). Continue reading ‘Pave the way…’
Archive for April, 2008
I am not a runner. With that being said, I’m about to embark on a journey that’s leaving most of my friends and family wondering about my sanity. In just five days, I’m running the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini-Marathon.
Go ahead and giggle. Roll your eyes if you must. Goodness knows I’m laughing on the inside at the thought of running 13.1 miles and living to tell the tale. I know there are some who might not think running a half marathon is any sort of challenge. But, I hark back to my previous statement: I am not a runner. Continue reading ‘Feet, don’t fail me now!’
I’ve been an Angie’s List member for more than a year, but I just submitted my first two reports a couple of months ago. Because I have an apartment, every time a problem arises, I call the same service provider — the apartment management.
In the year or so I’ve lived there, they’ve fixed a variety of problems, including a leaky faucet, the dishwasher, the heater, and, most recently, the air conditioner. They’ve been reliable, helpful, and trustworthy, fixing all the problems without a hitch. If they were a handyman, I’d give them an “A.” Continue reading ‘Angie’s List for renters’
It finally happened. My brother got married. After six months of bachelor parties, annoying questions from friends and relatives, and watching my brother’s poor new mother-in-law slowly pull every follicle of hair out of her overburdened head, my brother tied the knot with his grade-school sweetheart. Yes, people, they’ve been together since grade school. Continue reading ‘Should a wedding make you feel guilty?’
Reading through the Blue House Blog has given me comfort — I, too, have landscaping and lawn woes. However, unlike Tristan, I want to cultivate grass, not destroy it.
Last spring, my partner and I hired a contractor from the List to install a new sidewalk leading from the back door of our house. The goal was to get a walk that sloped away from, not toward, our house. To that end, we got what we wanted and were pleased with the result.
However, we were not pleased with this contractor’s liberal use of his Bobcat. While “grading” the ground around the walk, he seemed to have held some sort of Bobcat Demolition Derby in our yard. That result: A dirty gray-brown lawn devoid of any grass. Continue reading ‘Oh, how I know now …’
I know I already wrote a blog post today, but I wanted to add a quick one to say “Happy Earth Day!”
The Angie’s List Tree Hugger Society was formed by Angie’s List employees to encourage environmentally friendly efforts on the Angie’s List campus and its surrounding neighborhood, and the Society, along with members of Angie’s List’s Handy Helpers volunteer group, celebrated Earth Day at lunch today with the kids from IPS School #14 here on the Near Eastside of Indy. Continue reading ‘P.S. - Happy Earth Day!’
In an effort to save money, my fiancee and I recently downsized and moved into the most affordable apartment we could find. Before the move, we inhabited a circa-1920s home that measured about 1,600 square feet total. We now live in a 1940s-built apartment that’s roughly 750 square feet.
It’s a great deal: our monthly rent was reduced by about 40 percent and, thanks to the pinnacle of 1940s boiler technology, we’ll no longer have hefty gas bills in the winter. In fact, the only utility we pay now is electricity. The trade-offs are less space, no longer having a fenced-in yard for our dogs, paper-thin walls and competing for parking spaces. But, with less than six months to go before our October wedding, the savings are a godsend. Continue reading ‘Doing more with less’
I was thinking about writing something else today, but my free time over the past week has been consumed by yard work, and with the spring weather, I’m sure it’s been the same with many Angie’s List members and contractors, hence this post about yard work (containing a rather long intro sentence.)
Like Kristy, Staci, Jackie, and “Flipper,” I’ve been having issues with my lawn lately. When my wife and I moved into our house about a year and a half ago, we had a blank canvas to work with: the front yard had some taller-than-me fire bushes concealing half of our house, there was a small rosebush on the side of the porch, and the backyard had a mass of flowering vines climbing along one side of the fence, but that was about it. There was some grass in the backyard, too, but overall our landscape wasn’t much to look at. We’re hoping to change that, one small step at a time. Continue reading ‘Grass, grass, please go away, I don’t want to mow you another day’
Friends and family arrive at my front door and their first question always is: “Where’s the landscaping?” I smile and sigh. I’m wondering the same thing since my fiancé, Matt, owns a full-service landscaping company.
The saying, “A plumber’s pipes always leak” holds true, I guess, for most service professionals. I’ve come to the conclusion if you spend so much time working on other people’s homes, the last thing you want to do is work on your own home in the little spare time you do have. Continue reading ‘Living with a professional landscaper’
I’ve got a lot going on at the moment — auto repairs, wedding planning and personal fitness are all at the top of “Eric’s List” right now — but today I want to talk a little bit about travel.
I’ve been speaking with travel agents recently about how to get a good deal on a trip. These travel pros often have stories about about some truly fascinating place they’ve been, which has me thinking about my own travel experiences. Continue reading ‘So much to see, so little time …’
