Back to normal-ish

Our sliding glass door finally is fixed. We finally just bought our own sealant for $12 at Lowe’s and had them take out the door, remove all the sealant (Jeff ended up doing some of the work), then put the door back in with the sealant that we bought. It was instantly fine. I can’t believe how easy it was and how cheap it was, and how much time and energy and everything was wasted because there was something wrong with their sealant and also with the way they used it. But it is fixed now and we are enjoying having our house back.

My trike is also working again, and we went on a little family hike in a nature area today. It was lovely.

Linden is learning so much and growing so much and discovering how to be hilarious.

All in all a good week.

Nothing new

Nothing is new this week, and none of our annoyances are resolved. But here are some pictures from playing in the backyard, a playground that is about an hour from our house (which we went to not because it is great but because it is somewhere we had never been before and we needed to see something new), and Linden’s first ice cream cone (which she dropped the ice cream off of twice before completely losing interest).

Too many new normals

We are still having problems with sealant/caulking stinking up our family room where the new sliding glass door was installed, so we still have that room sealed off from the rest of the house. On Tuesday it will have been four weeks that we have been dealing with this. We are getting used to the “new normal“ of living without the biggest room in our house and having toys strewn about the rest of the house, and we are also getting sick of it. The original installer of the sliding glass door has come back three times to try to fix the problem and the problem is not fixed, so we are having someone else come in the hopes that they can fix it.

In addition to that, my trike, which is my main form of mobility for getting out of the house with the family, going on walks, etc., is out of commission. It’s a relatively simple problem (a problem with one of the bearings, which I probably could normally fix myself) but because of rust it is turning into a bigger problem. And the bike shop that we took it to was so busy they didn’t even look at it until more than two weeks after we dropped it off there, and basically they said they can’t fix it. Fortunately one of the volunteers who helped to modify the trike for me in the first place is going to help. I am getting used to not having it, but I want it back because I want to be able to do what I’m used to being able to do. This weekend we would have gone on a little hike, but I couldn’t go because I don’t have my trike. It is frustrating.

In the meantime it feels like summer is melting away. How can it be halfway through July? There are so many things we would like to do this summer, but it feels like we are not able to do them because we are constantly dealing with problems (the squirrels, of course Covid, now these problems).

But really we are not doing badly at all. It’s all about perspective, and remembering what we are doing and what we can do instead of the opposite.

We are getting outside, spending time as a family, and watching our daughters learn and grow. We are fine. And Linden can be oh so cute:

Still unsettled

Our house is still in a bit of a state of disarray because our sliding glass door still isn’t fixed and because of that we still can’t use the biggest room in our house. Last Tuesday the company that installed the door came back and scraped and sanded until all the spray foam was gone, but the stink didn’t go away. It was never the spray foam. It was/is the sealant that they put around the door and all over everything else. We don’t know whether they used the wrong sealant, or whether the company that makes the sealant made a bad batch, but either way, it still stinks. They are coming back tomorrow to hopefully fix the problem, and I really really hope that it actually works this time.

Meanwhile, summer goes on. Yesterday we took a trip to our local ice cream shop (we can walk or bike there), and they happily have started carrying vegan ice cream. Maren got a cone with sprinkles, I got a custom sundae, and Jeff got a custom milkshake.

We didn’t get anything for Linden, but I think we will next time. She really seemed to like Jeff’s milkshake, and they now have baby cones which I think would be just the right size for her.

We have been going on lots of family bike rides, and I have a new bike (technically a trike but upright like a regular bike) and Linden has a new bike seat that attaches to my bike in front of me and she loves it.

Today we also went to a nature conservation area right in the city that we didn’t know existed. It is relatively small, but there are lots of wildflowers and it’s actually quite a nice area. Maren got scared because she thought we were lost even though we were definitely not, and she was also hungry and had to pee, so the trip could have been more pleasant, but we had a nice time.

Seriously??

We have yet another bad smell in our house. This time it is related to getting a new sliding glass door put in. Our old one was about 30 years old and probably was not a great door when it was put in. Back in January we started having to stuff towels into gaps around the edges of the door to keep the bone chilling cold out. So in January, we call a company that orders and installs sliding glass doors and they said it would be about six weeks. After many phone calls, they finally installed the door almost 2 weeks ago. We noticed a smell immediately.

We waited two whole days before calling to say that something was wrong. The smell was intense, and hasn’t gotten less intense. It is a strong chemical smell and we have had to block off the room and open all the windows and the sliding glass door and keep them open. So there is a huge room in our house that we can’t use at all, and if we close the windows or the door the chemical smell permeates our house. We have called over and over again and they tried a quick fix which didn’t work at all.

On Friday I finally called an indoor air quality investigator (a profession I did not know existed, but now I am grateful for), and he indicated that he is 99% sure that the problem has to do with improper use of spray foam. They used to spray foam all around the door, and they basically sprayed it too thick, or didn’t let it cure for long enough before spraying a second layer. According to the indoor air quality investigator, once spray foam is improperly installed, there is no way to stop the smell (and health hazards that the chemicals causing the smell are associated with) except by completely removing every last speck of the foam. In our case this could mean removing all of the wood framing the door and building a new door frame. In some cases where people have their entire attic spray foamed for insulation it can mean tearing down the entire house. We will never allow spray foam into our house again.

We are still dealing with getting this fixed, and it will probably be a while before we do. In the meantime, we are enjoying lots of time outside.