The Rug Wizards

When my sister Sue and I took a cruise around the Greek Isles, we spent one day in Turkey, where we visited a carpet store and bought several gorgeous handcrafted Turkish rugs.  The proprietor warned us never to use chemical cleaners or detergents on them, since those would over time deteriorate the fibers and possibly cause the natural dyes to run.  His suggestion was spot-cleaning with soap and water only.

Detail from living room rug

Well, spot cleaning only goes so far, especially since my cat Charlie loves napping on both my Turkish rugs and has oily fur that eventually leaves black blots on them.  When I first decided the rugs needed a full-out cleaning, I was reluctant to try it myself for fear of ruining their lovely texture.  My small yellow-and-blue rug, in particular, feels like silk even though it's actually cotton, and I didn't want to risk messing that up.

After a little research (thank you, Internet!), I found the only place in the greater Phoenix metro area with a professional Oriental rug-cleaning expert - McFarland's Carpet Service in downtown Phoenix.  Their prices, based on the size of rug and type of fiber, are very reasonable, and the results are outstanding.  I just had my two Turkish rugs and a round wool area rug from India cleaned by them for the second time, and the Turkish rugs in particular look absolutely new again.

I've read that millennials don't like Oriental rugs because they are too dark and fusty, but my rugs are light and bright and beautiful, and I will continue to count on McFarland's to keep them that way.

"All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage.  Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them." ~Erma Bombeck

of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/carpet

All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them. Erma Bombeck
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/carpet

All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them. Erma Bombeck
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/carpet

Oven Demo

I've mentioned before that the couple I bought this house from had a tendency to cut corners when they purchased things for their home.  The stove I inherited from them, for instance, has been a source of constant annoyance.

It's actually a pretty good stove.  The oven works well, too, if you give it 15 more minutes to preheat after it thinks it's hit the temperature you want.  My grievance is with the self-cleaning function.

This is one of those ovens that's supposed to incinerate all extraneous material during the cleaning cycle until nothing remains but a fine gray ash.  Alas, it has a tendency instead to turn at least some of the residue into something more nearly resembling lava, which hardens after the cycle is over into little igneous rock formations.  The most annoying of these end up between the layers of the glass oven window.

I am a little OCD, and every time I've looked at the stove for the last 2 1/2 years the gunk inside the oven window has irritated the heck out of me.  I've gone so far as to consider buying a new stove, just to get rid of that dirty window.  Today, however, a minor miracle occurred.

I decided a while ago that I needed cleaning help worse than I needed cable TV, so I turned in my DVR and hired a cleaning service to come once a month.  They were here today, and one of the women offered to dismantle the oven door and clean the window.  She was ultimately unable to take it completely apart, but at least she showed me the possibility.

I guess I'd been assuming the oven door was sealed, although reason should have told me that had that been the case, the gunk from inside the oven wouldn't have ended up inside the window.  After the cleaners left, I carefully dismantled the oven door myself and cleaned both sides of all four layers of glass it contains.  This entailed using almost every cleaning compound I own, but the window is now probably cleaner than it has been since the day it was installed.

Of course, putting the thing back together again was considerably trickier than dismantling it, but I managed.  Now I'm trying to decide whether I should give up on the self-cleaning function, or just plan to take the window apart for cleaning once every year or so.

"We dream of having a clean house - but who dreams of actually doing the cleaning?" ~Marcus Buckingham

Going, Going...NOT Gone

So where have I been for the last month?

Working on my parent's house.  Blowing the yard, replacing light switch plates, cleaning the last few pockets of grime, and...PAINTING.

The house was built at the tail end of the 1970's and the kitchen countertops are then-trendy mauve laminate.  The previous owners embraced the color and installed cabinet pulls with rose (the flower) painted ceramic insets; Mom and Dad replaced the hardware with plain brass, but they painted the kitchen blue, which made the counters look even pinker in contrast.  I said from the start of the selling process that we might end up painting the kitchen beige to make the counters look browner and less dated, but the rest of the family poo-pooed that idea.

Then the stager saw the kitchen.

Three coats of paint and two weekends of my time and my sister's later, the kitchen still looked faintly blue in some lights, but we declared it as good as it was going to get and my parents finally listed the house with the realtor I've been working for.

They received an offer almost immediately (within 24 hours!) and we have spent the last couple of weeks trying to keep the place clean and the plants alive during a record cold snap until the closing.

Unfortunately, due to that record cold, the buyer's inspector was unable to test the air conditioning system, so the buyer wants an A/C service company to test it.  Since we are still in the middle of the cold wave, calling a service company out to look at the system would be an exercise in futility, and Dad refused.  So, the sale has fallen out of escrow and we're starting all over again.

I just hope the place sells before it burns down or the citrus trees are seriously damaged by the frost.  I'm also hoping that the next buyer doesn't look the place over and say, "Could you paint the kitchen blue?"

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” ~Edgar Degas

Preview of Coming Disasters

No, faithful readers, I have not dropped off the edge of the earth, but it's been a very busy month.  My mother's memory problems have escalated to the point where Dad finally admitted she can't be left alone if anything happens to him.  They've put down a deposit on an apartment in a facility with assisted living and memory care options and are scheduled to move there at the end of September.  My sister and I are touring the facility today so we can help them decide what to keep and what to eliminate, and then we're going to their house to start the sorting and weeding.  My mother in particular is overwhelmed by the logistics of moving, but we keep telling her that we'll do all the work and she can just sit back and direct traffic.

And, indeed, I have been doing some of the work already - notifying family members, hooking Dad up with a realtor, reassuring Mom, discussing with Dad which of his possessions (like his van, his golf clubs, and many of his tools) are welcome to live in the empty half of my garage.  Before this situation blew up, my sister and I had paid for a cruise - not the one in November we had originally looked at, but one for the last week of this month and the first week of next month - so I'm having dinner this week with one of my cousins and his wife to give them a copy of my parents' keys so they can be the go-to folks if anything goes wrong while Sue and I are gone.  I also have a date with my lawyer this week to take my parents off my living will, medical power of attorney, etc., and replace them with the same cousin.

Fortunately the contract job I've been working in downtown Phoenix will be over on September 14 and my next online class doesn't start until October, so I'll have a couple of weeks to help my parents pretty much full time with the final flurry of moving.  My cousin's wife went through a similar process a few years ago and I think I'm going to adopt her "day of the move" strategy: she sent her parents off for a nice lunch while she supervised the movers, unpacked all their stuff and put most of it away, and got rid of all the packing materials so they could just walk in and feel at home.  As someone who moved a year ago myself, I understand how depressing a huge heap of boxes in the middle of the living room can be.

Well, time to go pick up my sister and visit "The Home."

Getting old really isn't for sissies.

“Keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles is hard work, but important.”
~ Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

Spring Has Sprung

Spring may not officially begin for another 11 days, but we made it through February without a killing frost and practically every flowering plant in the greater Phoenix area is already in bloom.  My neighborhood is permeated with the smell of citrus blossoms, and the oleanders in my yard are looking good:

"The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size." ~Gertrude S. Wister

Un-Wearing of the Green

I've talked quite a bit about trying to make my house a greener one, but in one area I've been wanting it to be much, much less green.

The house and its neighbors were built in the 1970's when avocado was a hot decorating color, and the builder apparently got a smoking deal on a load of avocado green brick, because our subdivision is full of it.  Hardly a house in my neighborhood has not been afflicted with at least a little of the horrible blotchy stuff, and mine is no exception.  The right side of the front of the house was faced (or defaced) foundation to roof with it.  (The bricks looked a lot like the ones in this picture.)

I could have lived with the color and pretended it was the currently trendy "sage green" except for one thing: the house has desert landscaping, which means rocks instead of grass, and the rocks in the front yard are also green.  A different, clashing shade of gray-green.

Add to this the yellow paint on three walls of the house, the gray west wall, the nasty rose-taupe trim, and the front door with only part of the molding painted (also in taupe) and you will understand why this weekend I invested in some paint to improve the poor home's curb appeal.

The front door, eaves, and  shutters are now "Slate Green," a greenish gray that goes well with the rocks in the yard.  The part of the front of the house that's covered in siding is "Navajo Sand," an off-white formulated by the manufacturer specifically to go with the slate green.  The formerly green brick was painted with a white base, then rolled with the off-white and dry-brushed with the gray-green.  (It looks pretty good, if I say so myself.)  I also bought new striped cushions for the bistro set on the front porch that incorporate the slate green, another dark green, the off-white, and a brown that goes with the quarry tile on the floor of the porch.

I suppose it was churlish of me to do away with the green just before St. Patrick's Day, but I don't often have two days straight that I can take off completely from working on the computer.  I hope I can squeeze out some more in the near future, though - that's one side of the house painted and three more to go.  I believe the odd gray wall is destined to be the next to go.

"If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there'd be bodies hanging from every tree!" ~Sylvester Stallone

Going Greener

My programmable thermostat is already helping me to save on my electric bill.  The heat pump now runs from 8AM to noon and then doesn't run again until the next morning.  My "smart meter" transmits my energy use information to the electric company, which publishes it on their website so I can track my progress.  In the two weeks since I installed the new thermostat, my overall energy use has gone down and my use of electricity during peak hours has almost completely stopped.  This has encouraged me to go even further.

This weekend I had the ductwork in my heating and cooling system sealed and a solar-powered water heater installed (Arizona is the perfect place to put in solar).  Tax credits and rebates should pay for about half the cost, and I expect to save the rest within the next four years.

I can already feel more air coming from the registers and it's warmer than it used to be; the difference should be even more marked during the summer.  In addition, the duct sealing should cut down on the allergens entering the house, allowing me to cut back on the use of my effective but noisy and electricity-guzzling air purifier.  I'm also looking forward to having more hot water available all winter.

Of course all this energy conservation should be good for the environment, too, but I doubt I would have made the investment if the payoff had been 20 years down the road.  It's great to be able to feel that I'm doing good and will also be saving money in the foreseeable future.  I wonder why Kermit the Frog says it's not easy being green?

"The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun." ~Ralph Nader

Planting the Limon Tree

A couple of years ago Barry and I bought some small lemon and lime trees that we kept in decorative pots in the backyard.  Most of them died, though, in a hard freeze last winter.  Barry (who did most of their watering and upkeep) was sure the one that lived was a lime.

When we put the house up for sale last spring, the stager told us to get rid of the survivor because it registered as "clutter."  I took it with me to my parents' house and then to my new place.  The poor tree originally had five fruits this year, but by the time it arrived here only one was left.  I had no clue when it would be ready to harvest, so I just left the tree in its pot on the barbeque pad out back and ignored it between waterings.

Lo and behold, about a month ago the "lime" at the top of the tree suddenly turned bright yellow.  Apparently my tree was one of our lemon trees rather than one of the limes - which is fine, because I don't think any of my established trees is a lemon (although the mystery tree could surprise me yet).

My father thinks this is really funny and has been referring to it as the "limon tree."  That's OK, though, since today he helped me plant it.  This was more work than it sounds like because (1) the soil here is caliche, which is a real bugger to excavate, and (2) we had to extend the in-ground sprinkler system to reach the tree's new location.  The whole project took us about three hours and two trips to Ace Hardware, but it's done and the tree is much less likely to suffer damage if we have a bad freeze this winter.

Of course, this still leaves me without a lime tree, which I really wanted.  The big question - can I convince Dad to help me plant another one?  And if I can't, will it take six hours to do by myself?


“When life gives you lemons, squirt someone in the eye.”  ~Cathy Guisewite

The Picking Party Is On

I've been writing lately about the size of my impending citrus harvest.  If you thought I was kidding, think again.  Here are a couple of pictures from the back yard that illustrate the problem pretty well:

Grapefruit

Navel Oranges

I floated the idea of a fruit-picking party past my friend Jo today and she thought it sounded like a winner, so I've invited as many friends as my house can reasonably hold for wine, cheese, and all the oranges and grapefruit they can carry away. I set the date for next Friday so with luck I can finish uprooting all the ugly myoporum from the back flower beds before everyone gets here. (Nothing like a firm deadline to spur me to finish distasteful projects.)

The harvest is not actually as plentiful as it could have been because the trees weren't really getting enough water this summer while the house was for sale. If this party goes well, maybe I can make it an annual event; once the trees get used to being properly watered and fertilized, I should really see some bumper crops.


“So far I've always kept my diet secret but now I might as well tell everyone what it is. Lots of grapefruit throughout the day and plenty of virile young men at night."  ~Angie Dickinson

The Save-A-Bucks Strike Again

When my sister first moved to Phoenix, she bought her house from a man named Ed.  Ed quickly became known to our family as "Save-A-Buck Ed" because he had obviously cut every possible corner - and a few we would have believed impossible - in the maintenance and repair of his home, to its long-term detriment.  He was the ultimate Un-handyman.  Sue (and my Dad, during the winters) spent years re-fixing Ed's improbable DIY improvisations.

In a post-Barry resolve to be kinder and less sarcastic I said that I would refrain from complaining about the previous owners of my new house, but this week's adventures with the heat pump have only confirmed what I already knew - they were Mr. and Mrs. Save-A-Buck, spiritual heirs of Save-A-Buck Ed.

My first inkling that this might be so was the pre-purchase inspection report.  Replacement faucets had been plumbed backward (the "hot" control actually controlled the cold water and vice versa).  Electrical outlets had been wired with reverse polarity.  The hot water heater relief was plumbed to code but unsafely.  The garage door opening mechanism was installed too low so the door doesn't open properly.  When I demanded that the most critical of these items plus the roof be fixed, they hired unlicensed contractors to do the work (NOT what I had asked for).  Their main criterion for hiring repair people appears to have been whether they belonged to the same church, closely followed by "are they inexpensive?"

When Dad installed the thermostat this week and the fan ran but the compressor apparently didn't, I called in a professional who climbed up on the roof and announced that the heat pump (replaced during the previous owners' tenure) had been wired incorrectly from the get-go.  I was not particularly surprised.  The Save-A-Bucks strike again.

This afternoon Dad is coming over and we are going to raise the garage door mechanism by a couple of notches.  That should finish the repairs due to the Save-A-Bucks' stinginess, with one possible exception.  They bumped out one side of the kitchen to make an eating nook, and the tile over the join with the rest of the room is cracking ominously.  Eventually I plan to replace all the tile anyway, since it's only a year old but already badly chipped (can you spell CHEAP?); I just hope the breakfast nook doesn't fall off the house in the meantime.

The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pumping Heat (or Maybe Not)

Back in September I talked about buying a programmable thermostat.  Three months later I actually got around to doing it.

What took me so long?  Well, mainly it was trying to decide what kind of thermostat to get.  I needed one for a heat pump, but was my heat pump a single stage or mult-stage unit?  I didn't know.  The previous owners didn't leave me a manual, and the heat pump itself is on the roof, where I DID NOT want to go.

I spent a lot of time looking at HVAC forums online and finally concluded that my heat pump was probably single stage, so I ordered a simple 5/2 digital programmable thermostat (one setting for weekdays, one for weekends) for a single stage heat pump.  It arrived this week, and today Dad and I tackled the installation.

Everything went fairly smoothly until we were finished and the heat kicked on - except we were getting cold air from the registers, which didn't seem right to Dad.  I told him that the "heated" air from the registers always feels cold to me, but he was sure the heat pump wasn't working correctly.  He was worried enough to eventually reinstall the old thermostat.  Heat kicked on.  Cold air from the registers.

I went online and checked around until I found documentation that said the heated air from a heat pump is only about 90 degrees Fahrenheit so it will usually feel cool compared to the temperature of a human body.  This convinced Dad to reinstall the new thermostat and leave.

After he was gone, though, I started second-guessing myself.  What if I ordered the wrong thermostat after all?

Finally, with EXTREME CAUTION, I crawled up onto the roof and checked the model number on the heat pump.  Back down the ladder, back onto the Internet.  Of course this particular model is no longer available from the manufacturer, but after some creative searching I found (and downloaded for future reference) an archived technical manual for it.  According to the manual, the new thermostat is the correct type AND the air from the heat pump on the Heat setting is significantly cooler than the heated air from a traditional furnace.

So here I sit, listening to the heat pump cycling on and off and waiting to see whether the new thermostat maintains the temperature it's set at.  If not, I guess I can switch on my space heater overnight and think about putting the old thermostat back on tomorrow.

"A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days."~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude