Christmas Lights

When I was a kid I always wanted to put lights on our house at Christmas but my parents would never do it. They put a tree up and such but it was pretty much only inside. I always swore when I owned a house I would put up lights. When Jenny and I bought our first house in 2006 I started out small, with a few strings of lights along the front edge of the roof and around the front porch.

Our old house in 2006.

Every year I added to it and by our last Christmas there I had a more elaborate display with far more lights and a few inflatables and a lighted deer in the yard as well. It was never enough to qualify for the local Tacky Lights Tour but it was more than anyone else in our neighborhood put up.

Even while our new house was under construction I could already envision it's potential. From the time we moved in I looked forward to putting lights for Christmas. I started a few weeks ago and made more than a few "one more trip" visits to Walmart, Target, etc to pick up additional lights. Part of the problem was everything I had for both lights and extension cords was based around the measurements of our old house and I had to adapt everything to much different dimensions of the new one. Below is what I've come up with. It's no where near full on Clark Griswold but it's the biggest display in the neighborhood. And I'm already thinking about next year including buying a new extension ladder so I can reach the top of the house.

It really needs to be seen in person as the photo doesn't really do it justice. But I'm really happy with how it turned out. I may be adding a few more in the coming weeks as well especially if I can catch a decent sale. 

Winterization

With the weather getting colder it's time to do a bit of winterization around the house to prevent problems later.

A few weeks ago I had the company that installed our irrigation system out to shut it down until spring. There wasn't much to it. The technician that came out ran an air hose from a tow-behind air compressor to a valve under the house and blew air through the lines to clear them out. Had we received a frost while water was present in the lines it could have caused them to crack. I'll have to get the company back out in the spring to open it back up and adjust the sprinkler heads.

With a frost warning scheduled for tomorrow morning I also took a few precautions to keep the pipes underneath the house from freezing. The main thing is closing the crawl space vents. I also ran out to Lowe's this afternoon and picked up two styrofoam covers for the outside spigots. They're on a drawstring that fits over the handle and then tightens to form a seal against the side of the house. At $3/each it's cheap insurance against having to repair a frozen pipe.

Crawlspace vent closed and spigot covered.

The last thing I did this weekend was to adjust the dampers in the attic to change the airflow. Like I referenced in this post from over the summer, in the winter time the downstairs damper needs to be wide open while the two for upstairs upstairs need to be half closed. Since heat rises this directs more airflow downstairs.

Fence

I'm happy to say we've finally got a fence up around our back yard. One of the few things I've missed about our old house is the fenced in yard and the convenience in letting our two dogs out to run around instead of taking them out on a leash multiple times a day. Based on a recommendation from a coworker, their stellar Better Business Bureau record, and a competitive price quote I hired Russell Fence Company Inc. in Petersburg, Virginia to do the job.

About a week and a half ago they showed up one afternoon to sink the posts and then came back the following week to put up the rest. We chose a simple six foot dog eared wood fence with a four foot wide gate. It was cheaper than vinyl and Jenny and I both feel like it looks better. The only downside is it will need to be stained/sealed it in the spring (Barring a few days of warm weather this winter which isn't unheard of in Central Virginia) and then every few years after that.

The only small complaint I've got is with our neighborhood HoA. Our lot isn't very big and I would have preferred to have run the fence up to the front corners of our house so the sides would have been enclosed as well. Due to the HoA rules however it could only come up to the rear corners. Other than that we're really pleased with how it turned out and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Russell Fence to anyone else looking to get similar work done. (Edit - Read this post to see what ended up happening with Russell Fence Company. The only recommendation I can offer is stay away.) Our happy idiot cocker spaniel was ecstatic to finally be able to run free outside for the first time in six months.

Someone Screwed Up

If you haven't done so already, add "check the outside electrical outlets for spare keys" to your list of things to do after you've moved into your house. In our neighborhood at least that's where the construction crews like to keep one and in our case, leave it there for us to find five months after closing.

Shortly after closing on our first house years ago we, like most people I'm sure, changed the locks on every door. During the final walkthrough with the project manager on our new house we specifically asked if we needed to do this on the new house as well. He assured us that the locks would be changed just prior to us taking possession so only we would have the keys.

This afternoon I went outside with my older son to put up a Halloween pumpkin inflatable. Just to the right of our front door is an electrical outlet with a clear plastic cover. While I've used the ones on the back of the house a few times for power tools, this was the first time I'd had a reason to access the one on the front. And that's when I noticed it. Sitting inside clear as day was a house key. One that fit the locks on our front door perfectly. Five months we've been in our house now and all that time a key was sitting a few feet from the front door waiting for anyone to access it. To say I was livid (and my wife for that matter once I told her about it) was putting it mildly. 

So thanks Ryan Homes. My home was essentially sitting wide open the past five months for anyone thanks to someone within your company's screw up. Seeing as my next door neighbor mentioned to me that she had noticed every time she'd come by to look at her house prior to closing she'd seen them slip the key in the same spot on her's it must be a common practice to place it there. So any of the work crews around here would have known exactly where to go to gain easy access to my house.

Even though it's a weekend I've already called and left terse messages for the project manager and the supervisor over him. I'm not entirely sure what I expect from them at this point but this goes beyond a simple mistake and someone needs to be held accountable for it.