House Project Update

I am having trouble uploading my eight month pictures so I decided to post what we found that will solve some big issues we have been having with the house. We were at a standstill with these projects until we went to Costco yesterday. As we left with our usual purchases a nice woman handed us their May Specials booklet. Usually there isn't anything we are interested in but Brian found three things.

1) Kitchen:

As with most people we have very little counter space and storage. We also have this wonderful Kitchen Aid mixer that we have not been able to use because we have no where to keep it once it is out of the box. If we could empty one of the cabinets we can keep the mixer in there on a rolling drawer which will allow for easy access and easy storage. The rolling draw will hold the mixer and when we want to use it we will pull it out and the mixer will end up at the same level as the counter. Easy access, easy storage. The issue? Clearing out the cabinet.  We have played with several options to remedy this problem. The first idea was pot racks so we can take the frying pans out of one of the cabinets and then move everything over. Given our budget and available space for a pot rack, this unfortunately worked. We thought of finding a table that could be on wheels. The top would be butchers block and the bottom of the table would have shelves so it would as a portable island as needed. That idea is not fitting our budget either.

The first object he found was this:

It is normally around $85 which was in our original budget but was on sale for around $65. It is the perfect height. Will hold all of our frying pans, lids and will help clear things off our counter and will create more space in the pantry. It will look great in the space and not take up too much room. The only real downside is that it will go where the trash can goes so I have to move a picture and find a new home for the trash can. We cannot wait for this to arrive!

2) The second issue we have been having is fitting everything we need in the garage. We have a two car garage and it fits two cars and not much more. Due to Brian's awesome packing abilities we have been able to fit several other things but it is a mess and we are definitely not using the space wisely. Thanks to all of our past projects we have paint cans on the floor, brooms and shop vacs, dirt, etc that could be stored easier. We have had the idea to get a shelving rack for awhile but they are just so expensive. A shelving rack will save room, provide more storage and provide easier access to the items we need to keep in the garage!. I may be able to take a few things out of the laundry room and store them in the garage as well! There are other things we want to do in the garage but shelving rack will get us a lot closer.

and guess what Costco had!

This was normally $220 which is still a good price for the size and weight capacity that we found but we got it for $180. It has 5 shelves that can each hold 600lbs (I don't know if we have enough to get 600 lbs total but we wont have to worry about things being too heavy) and is 60" W, 24" D and 77" H with the casters. It fits perfectly where we want to put it and I will have an easier time getting in and out of the garage.




We have already purchased the above two items. The sale paper said it started May 1st but when I went online to confirm measurements and things we noticed that the sale actually started early. Once we confirmed that those two items were what we hoped they would be we went ahead and ordered them. We didn't want Costco to sell out of them.




3) The third item we have been discussing getting is an attic fan. I know when we were up north our attic fan helped keep the house cool a lot and that was up north where we didn't have the heat we do down here. Our attic gets really hot and while the door to the attic has weather sealing/proofing I really think the upstairs A/C would have an easier time keeping the upstairs cool if we had the attic fan. A/C having an easy time hopefully means less in our electric bill. Brian is on board. We haven't done it yet because Brian wanted to do some research on how much electricity the attic fan would use to see if it would make a difference. If it costs $5 to run the attic fan in electricity and it is only going to save us $5...maybe it wouldn't be worth it. Plus how much the fan itself costs and how much it would be to install it. We liked the idea but we had a lot of research to do before we jumped in.











Well Brian found a solar paneled Attic Fan in the Costco flyer! It does have some electrical parts but it will only cost $2 a year for that aspect. There is a 30% tax credit for it as well!. Because it is solar paneled it is on the roof and we do not need to get anything approved by the HOA or anything like that and the description says that people can install it themselves! We obviously won't but that just proves how easy it is to set up, no electricians needed! It also has a remote which will allow it to still run on cloudy days or at night which is great. It is high wind resistant, it will even help in the cold, wet winter. (yes we are not supposed to get snow but it does rain and we have had snow and it will be fine with snow).

We haven't purchased it yet because we do have to have to find out how much it will cost to install as we aren't doing it ourselves. We have a call in to the manufacturer to see what their certified people will charge and we have asked another friend who may be able to do it to see what he would charge. If the installation quote is what we are expecting then we will go ahead and purchase it.! It is $350 before the sale and $300 after the sale. Well within what Brian and I were thinking. Brian was budgeting $500 for the fan and installation so as long as installation is $200 or less, which it should be, we will be golden.

Another great thing about the sale? Shipping is free! I will post before and after pictures of all the projects once we get there.