Things Are A-Changin' Around the YFNN House...

Our house had some pretty gnarly pine trees at each corner of the house. Likely planted when the house was built (in 1986), they’d grown to over 20 feet tall and were ridiculously close to the house itself. They weren’t even all that attractive. Check out the pictures.















This caused some problems. First, every time the wind blew, the trees would sway a bit and rub against the house siding, or the windows. This always made some noise, usually annoyed us, and occasionally spooked our bossy dog. In addition, they were close enough to the house that their root systems were getting to be a concern for our basement and such. Then, last year, we got bagworms, and despite their manual removal and treatments, they slowly started to kill the trees. So, we decided that the trees had to come out.

Since the tree folks were going to removing at least four pine trees, we also had them remove an additional white pine that was diseased and encroaching on our deck, a large half-dead cherry tree in the center of our back yard (yeah, it was as dumb as it sounds), and a terribly unruly shrub that no matter how much we cut it back decided to take over an entire side of the house, preventing access to the lone outdoor hose spigot.















So, last Tuesday, the tree guys removed it all while I was at work. Apparently it only took a couple of hours and they left no damage and no debris. They did, however, leave the stumps, but those should be ground out shortly.

The next phase of the project includes reseeding certain areas with grass seed, planting new plants (of the placement and type I am unaware, but trust my wife’s judgment entirely), and finishing with mulch and such. That work should commence next week.

Right now though, I’m just looking at some stumps and bare dirt around the house, but I can already see that it’s going to look MUCH improved. The fact that it’s going to be less work, less worry, and give us more usable yard is even better.

YFNN

The Great Closet Adventure, Part Two

I wanted to make sure that the closet I designed was efficient, functional and most importantly, flexible. I wanted the ability to move shelves and rods around as our closet needs changed and evolved. To me, this meant that everything needs to be installed on standards. (standards are the vertical beams that brackets attach to). That would allow anything to moved up and down in approximately 1.5" increments.

Flexible. So, I started installing the standards I had purchased on every stud in the room. All told, I installed 22 seven-foot standards. When I was done, looked a bit like a prison, with white bars even spaced every 16 inches.

Next, I referenced my parts list and double checked some measurements. Then I started cutting my shelves to length. The shelves I purchased were heavy-duty ClosetMaid shelves that were 12 inches deep and had an integrated hanging rod for clothes on hangers. Even though they were available in 4, 6, and 8-foot lengths too, I purchased the 12-foot lengths to reduce cost. I had a cut sheet drawn before I shopped, so I knew exactly how many lengths to get and how much waste I would have. I pulled out my DeWalt sawzall (my favorite power tool) and got to cutting the shelves to the correct length.

As I cut them one-by-one, I wiped them down and installed the plastic end caps to cover the rough ends. Then I moved the upstairs and installed them on the brackets in the standards. Before long, everything was cut and installed. I made some minor adjustments to the shelf heights and lengths, and at the end I was left with a total of only 18" of scrap shelf, in three pieces. Not too bad.

We spent the rest of the day putting the clothes back in and sorting and re-organizing my wife's clothes. When we were finished, we had gained about 7 linear feet of hanging space and another 12 linear feet of shelf space. We were able to get all of her clothes and all of my clothes in, and still space left over. Efficiency is beautiful.

My wife was amazed. Not only was there more room, but everything was still easily reachable and organized. I was referred to as the "closet magician" the rest of the weekend.

All in all, it was a lot of work, but the wife is happy, the baby has a closet, and I don't have to trek to the basement to retrieve my khakis in the morning. Complete success.

YFNN

The Great Closet Adventure, Part One

I lost my closet.

My closet has been taken over by an unborn child. You see, when my wife and I married, I got the closet in the spare bedroom upstairs for my clothes. The large walk-in closet in the master bedroom was inefficient and, um, full. My little closet was tight, but adequate. I even built some shelves to better utilize the top space above the hanging rods. Even though I had to go to a different bedroom to retrieve my clothes in the mornings, all was well and we were happy with our closet space.

However, when we found out that my lovely wife was pregnant, the spare bedroom upstairs was quickly deemed "the nursery'. At first, I thought "No problem. Baby clothes are tiny and don't need hung up anyway. My closet is safe." Boy, was I wrong. Through the nesting process (learn about that bit of fun here), I was firmly informed that baby clothes are indeed hang-able and will take up a lot of space. They even sell baby clothes hangers, which are basically miniature versions of adult hangers at higher prices, but apparently they're very important. Ask me how I know.

Anyway, I was also informed that under no circumstances was I to enter the nursery every morning at 4:30am to retrieve my clothes. So, I was ousted from my closet and had to come up another solution. The basement bedroom was out (too far), the office closet upstairs was out (full of office-y stuff), and the coat closets downstairs already house, well, coats.

So, that left me with reorganizing and increasing the space efficiency of the master bedroom walk-in closet. So this weekend, we set off on that task.

The master bedroom closet is a pretty big space, although oddly-shaped. The existing shelves and rods were installed by the previous owner and were in rough shape. They were the cheapest plastic-coasted wire shelves you could buy, supported by plastic wall hooks and flimsy sheet metal brackets. Nothing was screwed into studs, but used plastic wall anchors in drywall. Many shelves had started to droop and the anchors were starting to pull out of the drywall. To top it off, it was ridiculously inefficient. All the shelves were hung at approximately eye-level, leaving a three-foot space of unused space above them, and another 2 foot space underneath the clothes that hung off them.

Since the closet was already full of my wife's clothes, belts, and shoes, there was absolutely zero space for my items. Add that to the near-dangerous hardware, and it was clear that I needed to rip everything out and start over.

On Friday (I only work four days a week...more about that later, I suppose), we moved all of her clothing to a couple of portable closets and out of the way. Then we spent the remainder of the day removing the existing shelving.

Apparently, the previous owners were not engineers. Nor were they efficiency experts or likely even high school graduates. What they were, however, is lazy. Complete home improvement hacks. They were the type of folks that wire light sockets backwards so you get zapped with you change a lightbulb. Or the kind that add lights to the garage by looping wires over existing wires and just taping them up. Dangerous home improvement hacks.

As I stated, not a single screw in the closet was screwed into a stud. Screws were either screwed directly into the drywall (which means they did essentially nothing) or used plastic wall anchors of varying sizes. What's more, no less than eleven different screw sizes and types were used. Eleven! Apparently whatever they had laying around sufficed. They ranged from 2" deck screws to 4" wood screws and even some machine screws. Some had flat heads, some had round heads. Some required a Phillips screwdriver, some required a flathead. Some of the brackets were even secured with nails pounded into wall anchors.

Yep. Nails.

When we were finished removing the old stuff, I was left with an empty room with 64 holes the drywall ranging from 1/8" (screws directly into drywall) to 1/2" (BIG plastic wall anchors). Did you see that? Sixty-four holes. None of which lined up with a stud. Zero. I can't believe the whole system didn't collapse under the weight of Wifey's stuff.

So, I used an entire small container of putty and patches and got to work. Four hours later, everything was spackled, dry, sanded, and smooth. Since the putty matched the paint, it didn't even look too bad. I took some measurements of the room and grabbed my green engineering grid paper (yep, I'm a dork).

I made scale drawings of the room from all angles and optimized the space available with the parts I knew were available at our local hardware store. Before long, I had six scale drawings of the closet from varying angles with every shelf, rod, bracket and standard in place, along with a complete parts list.

90 minutes, $700, and one scary car trip later, I had every piece of hardware needed laid out in the garage. I set up my WorkMate (which are awesome) as a portable vise and went to bed. The rest would be tackled in the morning.

More later...

YFNN

Controlling Junk

A few nights ago, my lovely wife and I purged some junk from our living room. Accumulation of meaningless stuff has always been a constant problem. It's incredible how stuff just starts to accumulate. You pick up a brochure here, get a catalog there, and before you know it, you've got a whole trash bag full of things to recycle or throw away.

The major issue with us is paperwork and such. With my wife recently getting laid off, we're getting inundated with paperwork for COBRA, severance payouts, investment rollovers, and unemployment information. And, that's on top of our standard mail of business magazines, political advertisements (thank God that's over), and regular bills and mail. The real problem is that we don't want to deal with it as it comes in. I don't want to file that COBRA paperwork away since I haven't gone through it yet (and don't want to forget about it), but I don't have the time or desire to deal with yet, either. The same thing happens with day care brochures, unread magazines, and other important but not-time-sensitive materials. So, it stacks up. Typically on our dining room table or the small table behind the sofa.

What to do? Well, the real solution is to take care of that junk immediately, as soon as it comes in the house. I do okay with some items. Junk mail and most catalogs quickly meet up with the recycling bin, and vitally important items are dealt with promptly, but dealing with the other stuff immediately is just not realistic for me right now. After getting up at 4:30am and working a 10-hour day (minimum), the last thing I want to do when I walk in the door at night is to read over insurance statements or the latest day-care documentation. So, it stacks up until we get so sick of it that we can't stand it.

I'm going to try to do better with this. I'm going to try to take care of these items immediately. Not only will it help with keeping the house more clutter-free, but it'll help my wife's sanity, too.

YFNN

Reducing Dust on the Cheap

My lovely wife and I got a dog nearly 4 years ago. Shortly after he joined our family, we noticed the dust levels in the house increased dramatically. It's just one of those effects of having a pet I guess. We toughed it out for several months, dusting several times a week just keep things looking good.

We bought some small air purifiers, which helped quite a bit and kept the air in the house moving, but it didn't solve the problem completely.

What did help dramatically was changing our furnace filter once a month rather than the every three months that is sometimes recommended. We also set the thermostat to run the blower on the system 24-hours a day. This provided a constant air exchange throughout the entire house, and the exchanged air was being filtered non-stop. This made a huge difference in the dust levels in the house. We have to dust way less often now, we breath easier (especially during the winter), and don't wake up with sore throats and stuffed up noses.

Are there any drawbacks? Of course; there's no such thing as a free lunch. First, the cost of changing our furnace filters over the 12-month year tripled. But, the filters we use are only $10-12 a piece, so going from $40 a year to $120, wasn't exactly earth-shattering. Also, theoretically, our electric bill should have gone up slightly, and it likely did, but the extra buck or two goes completely unnoticed on a typically $100 bill.

I also chatted with our furnace repair man about the change and asked him about the added run time shortening the life of the blower. He told me that it likely wouldn't hurt it at all. Many times it's dirt and dust that kill blowers, and we're reducing those levels. And, much like a car's engine, it's easier on the motor's bearings to run constantly, rather than starting and stopping several times a day.

Obviously, there's been some trade offs, but the dust levels in our house are now pretty low, considering the size of our dog, and our indoor air quality is improved as well.

So, if you're battling indoor air quality in your home, consider changing your filter more often and running your forced air blower all the time. It certainly helped clean up our house!

YFNN

Reader Question #001 - Household Outsourcing

As I receive questions (or should I say if I continue to receive questions) via email or comments on the posts, I'll do my best to answer them to the best of my ability. I can't say that I'll answer all of them, but I'll definitely try to get to especially interesting ones. If the question is asked in the comment section, it'll probably be answered in the following comments. If I think it warrants its own post, that's what it'll get!

Anonymous writes:

"I am glad to see that YFNN is back to blogging. I especially enjoy your consumer tips, whether they are about kitchen equipment or how to put together a decent budget. Could you write something about hiring out jobs (like carpet cleaning, window washing, and installing appliances)as opposed to doing it yourself? Where's the tipping point?"

There are quite a few jobs that my wife and I outsource, so to speak. Carpet cleaning and appliance installation are some good examples. We determine whether or not those household jobs should be outsourced by evaluating the total cost of doing it ourselves vs. the total cost of outsourcing. What you've got to keep in mind is that your cost of doing something is not limited to the dollars that leave your bank account. It's also the time you spend doing the job. It's the cost of the equipment needed to do the job correctly. It's the cost of the education required to do the job right. Finally, it's your mental health or opportunity cost - I like to call this the "hassle cost". All of those costs need to be considered before a prudent decision can be made.

Here are some examples:

Changing oil in the cars, motorcycles, and lawnmower.

• Task cost - If I do the job myself, it costs about $10 in oil, a filter, and rags.

• Equipment Cost - I've already got the wrenches, drain pan, and funnel to do the job right, so my equipment cost is $0.

• Education Cost - $0 and zero time. Thanks to lots of experience, I've got the know-how to do things properly.

• Time Cost - It takes me about 20-30 minutes to change the oil in one of the cars if I move at a relatively relaxed pace.

• Hassle Cost - Low. I enjoy working in the garage and getting my hands dirty. At this point in time, the opportunity or desire to do something else is relatively low, since I have adequate time with my wife, my work, and my family already. 20 to 30 minutes in lost opportunity time isn't very critical right now.

So, my total personal cost for changing my own oil is about $10, 30 minutes, and low on the hassle cost. With the price of an out-sourced oil change up around $30 or more and close to the same amount of time, it's worth it to me to do it myself. When our child is born however, my hassle cost may increase, since I may prefer to spend that time with our family. At that point, I'll have to re-evaluate the total cost and make another decision.

Here’s another example:

Washing and ironing my dress shirts.

• Task cost - A few pennies per shirt for the cost of water, laundry detergent, starch, and electricity to run the washer, dryer, and iron.

• Equipment Cost - $0. We've already got a washer, dryer and iron.

• Education Cost - $0 and zero time. I feel that I know how to launder and press my shirts adequately. No books, videos, or training is required.

• Time Cost - I'm a slow iron-er (ironer? ironworker?). Even so, it probably takes about 10 total minutes to wash/dry/iron a shirt – 6 minutes in the washer/dryer and 4 minutes ironing (obviously, the per piece time is low when you wash a dozen shirts at once).

• Hassle Cost - This is where my cost is high. I dislike laundry and hate ironing. Hate, hate, hate ironing. I feel like it takes forever and it never looks quite as good as from the cleaners. There are also a ton of other things I'd rather do with that time, like scrubbing toilets and reading tax law.

This means that my total personal cost for washing and ironing my own shirts is about three cents, 10 minutes, and ridiculously high on the hassle cost. The cost for me to have my shirts taken care of at the cleaners is about $1-2 per shirt. From a strictly dollars-and-cents point of view, I'm a fool not to do my own shirts; it costs 30-50 times more to take them to the cleaners! But, once everything else is factored in, that $5 to $10 a week is VERY well-spent at the cleaners for me.

Obviously, each individual person's cost for a particular task is going to vary widely. The important thing to keep in mind is that your cost is not just your out-of-pocket dollar cost. The all-important hassle costs will vary greatly from person to person, as will equipment and education costs. All need to be weighed carefully before you can make a sound decision about outsourcing a job.

What are some of the tasks you outsource and why?

YFNN

Heat Yourself With a Fan?

MLB and I operate our ceiling fans in the winter. We run them most of the time, actually.

"What?! Is he crazy? Ceiling fans in the winter?"

Yeah, crazy like a fox. Here's why: Ceiling fans can actually save on heating costs in the winter. The temperature of the air in a heated room varies in layers; it's stratified. Because warm air is less dense than cool air, the air near the ceiling is warmer than the air near the floor. A ceiling fan can help push the warmer air that is trapped near the ceiling back down into the room, de-stratifying (or breaking apart) the layers of air. This way, the warm air is circulated where it is needed (to the middle and floor of the room, where the people are), and the heating system doesn't have to work as hard to warm the room.

"Okay, I'll just walk over here and turn it on..."

Not so fast. It's not quite that simple; it has to be running the proper direction. Have you ever noticed that there's a small toggle switch on your ceiling fan? That switch controls the fan's direction, making it spin either clockwise or counter-clockwise. But, there's a catch. That switch isn't labeled with a "forward/reverse" sticker on most ceiling fans (none of ours, for sure). You have the beauty-conscious "form before function" folks to thank for that one.

"Great. I'll just flip that little toggle switch and..."

Hold your horses. It's a bit more complex than that. The direction the fan needs to turn is dependent on the height of your ceiling.

"Now I have to measure my ceiling? I'm all about saving money, but not if I have to do math. FNN, this is getting too complicated!"

Hang in there. I promise to keep it as simple as possible and you won't need a calculator. Basically, if you have a standard height ceiling...

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. A 'standard height ceiling?' Now, I'm a contractor?"

Alright, fine. Stand up. Stick your hand up in the air. Jump. If you can touch the ceiling, or almost touch the ceiling, it's a standard height ceiling, typically eight feet. If you can't touch it, and your tallest friend probably couldn't touch it, it's greater than standard height. See? No math required.

Anyway, if you have a standard height ceiling, then you want the fan to run in the reverse direction. Specifically, the fan blades should be running with the lower edge being the leading edge into the air. Having the fan run in this direction will pull the air in the room upward, which will push the warm air near the ceiling outward and force it to mix with the rest of the air without creating turbulence that you can feel. While it seems to be common sense that running the fan in the forward direction (as you would in summer) would also push the warm air down, it also creates a breeze in the room, which gives you an undesired cooling effect, much like wind-chill. Running it reverse avoids this wind-chill effect, but still mixes the air.

However, if you have a tall ceiling (greater than eight feet or so), you want to run your fan in the forward direction. Specifically, the ceiling fan blades should be running with the upper edge of the blade being the leading edge. This pushes the warm air near the ceiling down into the room. But, because the fan is far enough from you, the breeze that is created is dissipated before you can feel it.

"Okay, I got my fan running the right direction. So, how much can I save?"

Well, according to the manufacturer of the ceiling fan I installed last year, you can save about 10% of your heating costs in the winter. That's nowhere near the 40% you can save in the summer, but still noticeable. These savings are more noticeable homes with high or vaulted ceilings.

10% in the winter...and you didn't even have to do math.

Who's crazy now?

YFNN

Single-Wides and Disappointment

Last week, I wrote a post regarding a plot of land that MLB and I were semi-interested in purchasing for our future homestead. Well, yesterday, I had opportunity to drive out to see it in person and scope out the surrounding area.

I can sum it up pretty succinctly with one word: disappointment. DD and I drove out on Sunday morning, stopping off at the dog park along the way for some exercise. DD had a great time running around and chasing tennis balls in the snowy grass for a while, and then he and I packed into the family truckster again and headed off to the property in question.

On the way there, I noted how long it was taking to get there. The numerous stoplights and small towns made the 20-mile route provided by Google seem nearly forty miles, but my odometer confirmed Google's assessment.

Once at the property, the real disappointment set in. The property itself was a squarish lot, but not on a corner as the map suggested. On each plot on either side of this property was a single-wide mobile home with a carport. The lot seemed much smaller than the property map suggested, and while it had the numerous trees the realtor's description mentioned, none of them were taller than six feet or so.

Most disappointing though, was the building itself. Perhaps I had myself too hyped up on thoughts of a well-kept building for use as a workshop. Although the garage was a fairly recent build (1998), it appeared much older, and was definitely not well-kept. The wood siding was rotting everywhere, the garage doors were dented and rusting, and the roof was crumbling. Apparently, the realtor's listing used a rather old picture.

To top it off, the lot is essentially unusable as a location to build a home. The garage was placed absolutely dead center on the lot. You couldn't put a house on the front portion of the lot because it'd be far too close to the road. You couldn't put a house on the back portion of the lot because it'd be blocked by a big garage. Placing a house on either side of the structure would place you far too close to a couple mobile-home dwellers that couldn't get their kids to fetch their big-wheels and toy shovels out of their yards before winter.

All in all, it was a pretty wasted trip, except in the mind of the little guy in the back of the car. DD had a fantastic time; he loved going for the ride and looking out the window at all the trees and hills. Getting the opportunity to run around like madman for a while and sniff a couple of doggie-butts I'm sure was a welcome break from the house. It's gotta get old sleeping on the floor in the office and pushing dog toys into my lap, trying to get me to play.

So, the search continues, or maybe not. We weren't actively looking for land; this property was just a timely opportunity. I'm sure MLB and I will discuss it, and we'll come to a better understanding as to what our focus should be. I did learn, though, that 2.5 acres isn't enough for what I'd eventually like to call home. Ten is probably closer.

Darn expensive privacy.

YFNN

Rant: ARMs and Due-Diligence

The following post is a YFNN rant. You may find it offensive, crude or just plain wrong. Get over it.

due diligence
n.
1. the care that a prudent person might be expected to exercise in the examination and evaluation of risks affecting a business transaction

As I putt around the house on the weekends, I listen to the news of the week, either via XM radio or downloaded podcast on my iPod. Today, I happened to be listening to XM Radio, where a discussion was taking place regarding the number of foreclosures in today's housing market. The majority of the talk was regarding the big, bad mortgage lenders that provided adjustable-rate mortgages to folks looking to buy a house. These adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, most of them anyway, are past their fixed periods (1-5 years typically), and are now, as their name suggests, adjusting. Wow, who'd a thunk it?

Apparently, there's a significant amount of people out there that are getting burned by these loans, which, in my opinion, is largely due to their own ignorance. This radio program actually had a soundbite of someone that said their payment doubled from a manageable $1200 a month to a payment of $2400 a month. They went on to say that they "couldn't afford the payments anymore" and "didn't realize that their payment would change." Several others were quick to jump on board and blame the lenders. Quotes like "I didn't know what I was signing," and "I never thought an adjustment would make my payment increase," were abundant.

I have a couple of points to make to these people regarding this, all of them pretty well summed up with the statements "Why did you not think or do research?" or "Why were you so lazy?"

First of all, at the time the vast majority of these loans were written, mortgage interest rates were at all-time lows. Let me say that again and really make sure that I'm absolutely crystal-clear:

All. Time. Lows.

If mortgage rates were at all-time lows, which direction did you think the variable interest rates would go? Maybe, um, up? I can understand that there are situations where ARMs are smart loans, but in nine loans out of ten, why would you take that risk when fixed rates were so low? I just don't get it.

I guess it really comes down to people buying into more house than they could really afford, which is stupid. If the only way you could afford the payments on the house was to go with an ARM, or worse, an interest-only loan, it's gotta be a pretty big red flag that you're almost certainly buying way more house than you can afford.

Second, I have absolutely zero sympathy for the people that claim ignorance and blame the lender in these situations. One of my number one rules for investing is to not get involved with an investment that I do not understand, and I think that rule definitely applies here. It's not like the lenders are hiding the information from the borrower. Every loan has their conditions clearly stated, and the information is easily available via the internet, bankers, or others. It is the responsibility of the borrower to perform due diligence and fully understand what you're getting into. If you need to, get a lawyer or a non-drunk friend (preferably someone that can read) to look it over and explain it to you. Claiming you didn't know what you were signing is yet another way of blaming someone else for your irresponsibility. It's your duty to understand it! Nobody is forcing your hand to scrawl your name. If you don't get it, don't sign it!

I guess what this really boils down to is that I'm just tired of people not taking responsibility for themselves, which has certainly become a disappointing trend in recent times.