Home Sweet Home - Balcony Canopy

The biggest addition to our new patio is the canopy and it's contents. We have created a second living room, which our cat, Nicolette, thinks is all hers. She has asserted her squatters rights on one of the chairs. As I have previously mentioned, the patio has spent the last thirty-five years as a huge wasted space. When my mom passed, I wanted to buy a canopy and decorate the patio, but with all of the other repairs I made, the patio fell to the bottom of the list.

The impending visit of Dan's parents kicked our home renovations in high gear. We had wanted to do the patio and with their visit and end of summer sales, it was perfect timing. Our Smart Cars are fantastic, but could not do the type of large hauling that we needed to get the new patio stuff home. We went to Uhaul and rented a small moving truck. Even with the small truck, we had to empty our load to get all of our new things home from both Lowes and Ikea.

Lowes in Burbank was great, especially after all of our problems with Home Depot. The Lowes staff was helpful and easy to track down. They approached us to see if we needed help, rather than the employee hide and seek game that you play at Home Depot. Lowes also had a much better selection of both canopies and garden furniture.

We found a canopy and furniture that we both loved within ten minutes. Easy. The hard part was getting it home, as I was zero help with carrying the heavy boxes up to the patio. Dan put a lot of muscle and sweat into getting the patio all set up.

Here is a picture that I took of the canopy parts.

Before we can have a canopy, we have to create a huge mess.

There were lots of bits and pieces. Luckily, Dan was very patient with me as I tried to help him with the set up. I may have accidentally unscrewed some bolts and slowed down our efforts. Although, once I got the hang of things, I think that I was a help. It took us several hours, but it great team work activity. I actually thought it was fun to build it together.

Here is the finished frame.

The frame.

And here it is completed. In the picture you can also see our fire-pit to the right and our giant waterproof box to the left, for storing the cushions and gardening tools.

Finally, all finished and furnished.

Here are a few snaps of the furniture.

Nicolette is enjoying her outdoor living room.

Outdoor living room.

All of the corners have shelves that will eventually be filled with plants.

Another sunny day in Glendale.

Lastly, Dan put garden lights around the interior of the canopy. So pretty at night! The good move is that the lights are mostly on the inside, so that bright lights don't disturb the neighbors.

Pretty lights.

This new addition to the house has really made a huge difference. I can't help but smile each time I walk by the patio and see how pretty it looks. It has been a little too hot to comfortably sit out during the day, but I think as fall sets in, the patio will be used often.

Home Sweet Home- New Windows and Home Depot Rant

The new windows are finally all installed. Last week, the installers came out and did all, but the living room window, because (surprise, surprise) Home Depot got the order wrong. Here is my rant about Home Depot. We will never go back. Never. I have used them for many projects and nothing has ever gone smoothly. I think the key problem is the people who work at the store. Even if you make an appointment with "Specialist" they have no clue what they are doing. I think they need to change their slogan to "You can do it, we will screw it up". I will get into specifics with other projects in a different post, but here are some key issues we had with the window install.

First, they sent three different people to measure and still got it wrong. The initial measure was done by the Home Depot Rep who facilitated the initial sale of the windows. He was nice enough. We played the waiting game of having them call us for the next step. Even if they say they will, Home Depot will NEVER call you. It's a case of the squeaky wheel gets the oil. The customer needs to be proactive and even with that, we got the run around. It's beyond frustrating.

Several weeks later, we found out that we needed a second, more detailed, set of measurements taken. It had to be done by two separate people, because one company was to install the patio doors and one for the other windows. Fine. It was a hassle having to make two separate appointments. We were told that Home Depot would contact us and they didn't. Also, both of the install companies made comment about us having picked the wrong type of windows- "Didn't Home Depot Tell you..."...no, no they didn't.

We finally went into the Glendale store and contacted an employee named Shaun. He was nice and seemed competent, certainly more so that any of his coworkers. He helped process our order and told us that we would be contacted to set up the install appointments.

Didn't hear back for a few weeks and finally contacted them. Shaun basically told me that we were no longer his problem and that we would need to contact the store inventory manager (not the correct job title, but something like that) about making sure that the windows that we ordered were in stock. I have no idea why they didn't just do this directly through the installation contractors, who were picking up the windows.

We called the guy several times and showed up at the store. Over a week passed and we got back in touch with Shaun, who informed us that the manager's grandmother had passed away and that is why we were not contacted. Okay, I understand family emergencies, but I have no idea why someone from windows didn't contact us. So frustrating.

Finally, about six weeks or so after the initial order the patio windows are installed. I blogged about that earlier. It looks great, but the guys were completely unprofessional.

The other windows were installed a week later. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the installation company and since they are contractors for Home Depot, I couldn't get a card, as it would be a conflict of interest. It's a shame that these guys contract under Home Depot, because they were great. They showed up on time and unlike the patio guys, they laid down protective coverings and cleaned up all of the dust. They took care of our house. They were also fast, taking about a third of amount of time that they alloted.

Unfortunately, The first time that they came out, they discovered that Home Depot had given them the wrong size window for the living room. This led to a week delay before the windows were completed. These guys were so good, that I felt terrible that they had to come back to finish the job. They came this morning, showing up a little early and finishing within forty-five minutes. It looks great.

Here are some before and after pictures.

The guest bedroom used to have a giant black railing for safety, which has been removed, because now the window has tempered glass.

Old windows and the ugly bar that have always been in my childhood bedroom.[/caption]

Pretty new windows with tempered glass, so the bar is gone!

The bathroom, which is a small part of a complete remodel...a post coming as soon as we get one more element done! The first picture is old from the outside and the second is the new windows on the inside.

Old windows/view of the front of the townhouse.

New bathroom window..so much better!

The old kitchen and living room from the outside.

Old kitchen window.

Old living room window.

And finally, an outside view of all of the new windows!

Everything new and pretty!

Home Sweet Home- New Patio Doors

The patio doors have been broken ever since I was a little kid. It never seemed to be a big deal, since we never used the patio. However, now that we are fixing up the patio ( pictures still to come) and having the other windows in the house replaced (yet more pictures to come), it was imperative to have new patio doors. We went through Home Depot for the windows. Using Home Depot has been nothing short of a disaster, but I need to hold off on a blog rant until the window job is completed. Home Depot used two different contractors, one for the patio sliders and one for the other windows. The patio sliders were done by a company called Adan construction and although they did a good job, I felt very much slighted by the head builder, who would direct everything towards Dan. I was also upset that they did not bother to cover any of the work area with tarp to minimize the dust. The head guy basically told me that it would be very messy and it was. A fine layer of dust covered the entire master bedroom. Every other contractor that has worked on the house has placed plastic coverings to lessen the mess. I expect there to be some clean up on my part, but I thought the mess that Adan construction left was unacceptable and unprofessional. If they were not going to make efforts to cover the work area, I wish that we had been warned when the appointment had been set up. Ridiculous. Here is a picture taken mid construction.

I do think that the new sliders look great and I am happy the job is done. Here are some pictures of the 1970's sliders that were original to the house. One is located at the top of the stairs and the other is in the master bedroom.

A close-up of the really old door handle from inside the master bedroom.

The old sliders were ugly, old and didn't even lock! We also had vertical blinds and decided to go with horizontal blinds that are between two panes of glass. This means no more cleaning blinds, a big win in my book. The new sliders are not only practical, but look so much better in the space. They have thick, white molding that frames the sliders and makes it look modern and pretty. Here are pictures of the new windows.