Spend Some Time Outside With the Kids

I'm not sure what game this is.

 It is that time in Arizona! That time of year when I love being outside, when yard work feels more like a treat than a chore, and when I feel like a kid who needs to be told to come inside. I love Arizona in the wintertime.

Camouflage practice

This past weekend I decided to do some major bush trimming. I have a hedge of oleanders that was getting out of control and it was time to show it who is in charge. So I began hacking away and almost instantly all three kids wanted to be outside. My initial thought was to tell them to stay inside, to keep out of the way, to avoid the dangers of a falling branch or a splinter. And then I realized that I had absolutely no basis for them not to be outside.

We went over the safety rules, which were mainly to ask permission before touching any of the tools that were out. And then something magical happened. Part of me wishes that I could say that the magic was that the kids took over and trimmed the bushes while I watched from the hammock with a cold beverage. Some day...

All hail the queen!

No, the magical part was the playing, the laughter, and the imagination. Listening to the giggles as the kids hid behind branches, or pretended that one was royalty and the other two would fan with branches, or building a mountain of branches to see who could climb up the highest. Listening to these giggles and this excitement and this joy made my chore that much more bearable. At one point my six-year-old asked me if they could go watch t.v.. I told her that I was enjoying listening to them play and I wanted the company, and they stayed out with me for another hour. What a joy it was to have the kids imagining and playing and interacting. Yes, there were branches everywhere that I had to help them pick up. Yes, there were some owies from branches being swung around or stepped on. But the kids were having a great time, and I am so thankful that I got to be part of it.

Chipping up the branches

This made me think about what would have happened if I let them go watch t.v. instead of play outside. I would have missed out on the teaching moments ("Daddy, what's the difference between that trimmer and a chain saw?"). They would have missed out on the fresh air and the sunshine. We all would have missed out on the time together.

Day 2-3 involved chipping up all of the branches using my Patriot Electric Chipper. I started by sharpening the blade, and man did that make a difference. I chipped for three hours on day 2 and two hours on day 3, creating enough chippings for the next year of compost. The great part of this was that the kids again wanted to be outside with me and wanted to be part of what I was doing because the stage was set from the day before. We talked about compost, princesses, garbage trucks, and power tools. It doesn't get better than that.

Spreading chippings around the trees

My six-year-old was again heavily involved, bringing me branches to chip up. She even got to run a couple of branches through the chipper (with daddy's very close supervision), and the smile on her face was priceless.

He thinks he's smiling.

This whole project made me wonder how many times my immediate response to my kids is to avoid the work area. There are times when I want them to help me with a project, but other times when it feels like a hassle to have them around. It would have been so much easier if I had cut the oleanders and left everything in a nice neat pile, rather than having the branches and debris spread all around the yard. I may have even saved a day of chipping if I could have moved at my own pace. But I would have missed out on time spent with the kids. Sure it is more work, and yes there were plenty of fights that I had to mediate (please do not assume that my kids are all smiles when they're playing), but the time spent with the kids, the lessons that they are learning, and the love of doing things as a family make that extra work worth it.

Have a wonderful Christmas, Renaissance Dads and Moms.

This little beauty.

Still working on the pile

Bathroom Lighting Upgrade for Under $125

Original light fixture. Pathetic, am I right?

 When my wife and I moved to Arizona in 2003, we bought a 50-year-old house. I thoroughly
enjoyed the years of updating, remodeling, changing, and improving that house. Of course that was before kids, which puts a strain on both time and money. Fast forward to 2014, and with three kids ages six, four, and two, I have not been as able to remodel our house. But I found a way to alleviate the money constraints that come with remodeling.

In the past, I would get a project in mind and I would go out looking for the materials. Of course I would shop around and look for the best deal, but I always had that certain project in mind. I realized that with a tighter budget (I had no idea what an impact kids would have on a grocery budget. My four-year-old apparently is on the Michael Phelps diet), I needed a different approach to home remodeling. My wife and I sat down and looked at the projects that we wanted to complete, and then I kept my eyes opened for great deals. The benefit of remodeling this way is that I am able to catch great deals when they happen. The disadvantage is that I do not get to necessarily choose the order in which I complete home projects. But, since I love working on our house, this is not that big of a problem for me.

Have a helper work on the door knob

Our shower/toilet room only had a single light fixture that poorly illuminated the room, and there was no exhaust fan to eliminate the moisture from the shower. So throughout several trips to my local Lowe's, I found some bathroom light fixtures on clearance. I didn't have a rigid vision for what I wanted to do with the lighting, so these fixtures fit within the parameters. I purchased two recessed lighting fixtures (for use in wet locations), one bathroom exhaust fan (extra quiet), and an exhaust vent for my roof. I had electrical wire and switches on hand, so in total I spent $115, with the regular price of the light fixtures being $195.

Cutting into the drywall

I initially planned on doing this project from the attic. If you have never worked in an attic before, let me bust a myth. In advertisements for insulation installation, there is always a tall guy standing upright in clean air and bright light, with a smile on his face. This is not my experience. Attics are dark, hot, dusty, cramped, and you are required to crawl on your belly through a maze of wires, ducts, insulation, and roof nails. In short, I hate working in the attic. After realizing that I didn't want to spend the morning in the attic, I decided that all of the work could be completed from the bathroom.

One additional benefit of working from the bathroom was that I could have my helper available. He did a great job of tightening the ladder, measuring the piles of debris, and telling me when I dropped a tool on the floor.

Let it snow!

Before beginning, I turned off the electrical. This is very important when working on electrical, especially in the bathroom. I removed the old fixture and cut the appropriate sized holes for each of the new fixtures. Cutting into ceiling drywall is fantastic because it allows you to experience snowing insulation. Please make sure that little helpers are not in the area during this time.

I then started with the fixture furthest from the power supply, running my wires from one hole to the next. Because the fixtures were all relatively close to each other, I was able to pass the wires from one fixture to the next, with the recessed lights joining the source at the exhaust fan. Before wiring everything together and installing the exhaust fan, I took a long drill bit and drilled a 1/2-inch hole into the roof as a marker for the exhaust vent. Please note - when I did my first exhaust fan installation

Nothing like a partner cheering you on

years ago somebody told me that I could dissipate the humidity into the attic. This is a terrible idea and will result in mold and possibly some furry critters enjoying the sauna-like environment of your attic.

With the exhaust fan and lights in place, I turned on the power to ensure that everything was working properly. I then moved to the roof for the vent installation. With the hole as my marker, I cut a hole through the shingles and plywood for the exhaust vent. I reached down and pulled up the duct and connected it to the vent. After securing the vent to the roof, I liberally applied roof caulk to seal up any holes or seams around the vent.

Total cost: $115

Exhaust fan and one recessed light

Total time: 4 hours
Having light and low humidity in the bathroom: priceless

If you decide to take on a project like this, my biggest piece of advice would be to be very careful with your drywall cuts. Making careful cuts with this project meant that I had no drywall repair (I think this may be the first project that I have ever done that did not need drywall repair). The adage is measure twice and cut once, but I end up measuring twice, cutting once, and then shave, shave, shave until I have it perfect.

Recessed lights by window

And speaking of shaving, with these new lights, I'll finally be able see what I'm doing well enough to get a good shave!

Easy Homemade Teeter Totter

Look at that joy!

Remember when you were a kid and parks had all of the coolest things to play on? I remember my uncle taking me to the park by my grandparents house. It had metal monkey bars that erased your fingerprints in the summer, a metal slide that seared through your way-too-short shorts, and long wooden teeter totters that always managed to pepper your bottom with splinters. It also had a merry-go-round type thing with metal bars. My brothers and I would hold on, and my uncle would spin it as fast as he could. Eventually we would go flying off and/or jam some joint (elbow, knee, crotch) on the metal bars. Yes, those were the good old days.

Trust - Will my sister drop me like a bad habit?

One of my favorites was the teeter totter (or seesaw for my readers across the pond). All kinds of fun games came from those, but unfortunately since most of those games ended in a cracked head or a broken arm they are seldom found in parks now. So what is a Renaissance Dad to do...? Make one, of course.

Before I go on, I need to give the standard warnings. Like anything that kids get their hands on, they can get hurt on a teeter totter. They can also get hurt having a pillow fight, putting rocks down each others' pants (yeah, that really happened), or jumping from the couch to the coffee table while playing "The Floor Is Lava." So please use discretion and supervise your kids.

While this is not an instructional, step-by-step as to how to make a teeter totter, you can see by the pictures that the design is quite simple. It is made from two eight-foot 2X6 boards and one eight foot 4X4 redwood post. I used the redwood post because redwood is naturally moisture resistant and insect resistant, and I figured that if it can handle those two things, it should be able to handle my three kids. This also means that it does not need to be painted. The 2X6 boards were painted using some left over exterior paint.

Note the decorative chalk designs

Two boards make up the legs and two boards make up the uprights. There are two spacer blocks between the uprights to give space to the post, which is attached using a threaded rod with locking nuts holding it in place. Two board cutoffs make up the seats, and the handles are made from 2X2 scraps with round dowels running through the tops. You will also notice in the picture from the side that there is a hole above the pivot point. When I originally built this that upper hole was the pivot point. Then I realized that my then three-year-old was about five feet in the air. I modified and moved the pivot down, which lowered the maximum height. I can still move it up to daredevil level in their older years.

The whole project took me about two hours to cut and put together, not including the time to paint it. One thing I realized is that the handles do not work really well. The kids put so much torque on the handles that they regularly break off. A little more engineering with longer lag screws, anchor sleeves, and some wood glue solves this problem. However, if I had it all to do over again, I might choose simple rope handles. All of which leads me to this realization: some projects, especially ones that are tested out by kids, need to be fixed and modified on a regular basis. This is part of the wonderful world of engineering for kids who operate outside the realm of normal physical constraints. This is part of being a Renaissance Dad. 

Why I Chose Cloth Diapers: A Dad's Perspective

My two-year old son is in underpants, and our family is officially done with diapers!! While  no amount of exclamation points can indicate how joyful I am to be done with that phase of parenting, I felt I should take this occasion to reflect on diapers. We used cloth diapers for our three children, and I have to admit that the initial desire was 100% from my wife. Let's face it, who wants a bin of dirty, poopy, smelly squares of fabric sitting in a bin and then going through the washing machine? Not this guy. When my wife suggested using cloth diapers, I was not interested. She was concerned about the environment. I was still not interested. She said it would be healthier for our baby. I was still not interested. She said we could save money. Hold up. I'm listening...
 

I am a money guy. I shop sales, I look for deals, and I try not to spend money when I don't have to. So when I looked at the initial investment that cloth diapers required, I just about threw up. Was my wife seriously expecting me to drop $500 up front on diapers? That is insane. And then the logical side of me took over. The average American family spends between $1000 and $1500 per year or more on disposable diapers, depending on the brand, with organic or green brands being even more expensive. That means that in three years of disposable diapers, a child can easily burn $3000 or more. So $3000 spread out over three years for disposable diapers, or $500 up front cloth diapers? This was my turning point, and the moment I realized that I could handle cloth diapers (I wasn't even calculating the savings for kids two and three. Cha-ching). My wife and I decided that, if we were going to use cloth diapers, we would want to purchase a new washer and dryer and remodel our laundry room. And you know what, that initial investment was still less than what we would have spent to keep Big E in disposable diapers for her first three years.

So I still wasn't completely on-board with disposable diapers, but the logical, financial side of me realized that this was the way to go. I was worried about the smell. But I quickly realized that the diapers were not smelly when kept in a Simplehuman Slim Plastic Step Can with a washable pail liner. I realize that is overly specific, but if you are considering cloth diapers, trust me, the can is a game-changer. If we ever felt they were smelly between washings we could just sprinkle a cup of baking soda over the diapers to absorb the smell. Easy.

Then I had to overcome the thought of dealing with poop on diapers. Again, not something that I miss at this point, but something that I realized was not too bad. My father-in-law and I fabricated a diaper sprayer by connecting a good old-fashioned kitchen sprayer to the toilet supply line. After changing a poop diaper, we held on to the cleanest corner we could find and sprayed the poop into the toilet. No big deal.

Now the most magical benefit of all. When Big E was 18 months old, we were visiting family. She looked at us and said, "Pee pee." I questioned her, she repeated herself, and I took her to the potty. She went! No prompting, no trying to persuade her, no bribery (although that came later). She took the initiative. And all three of our kids have potty-trained by two-years old. Why? Try strapping a soggy towel to your mid section and see if you don't want to get out of it as quickly as possible.

While there are other benefits to cloth diapers, for this Renaissance Dad the biggest benefit was the financial. I eventually came to realize the other benefits, but the financial advantages were what initially convinced me. I would encourage any other parents out there to look at the benefits, weigh them out, and e-mail me if you still need to be convinced. 

By the way, part of our good experience with cloth diapers was due to Meredith at Go Go Natural. She has a huge selection of everything imaginable related to diapers, and she was really helpful in guiding and advising us when we were first learning the ropes. If you are even considering thinking about considering cloth diapers, I encourage you to chat with Meredith (by the way, she doesn't sponsor my blog. Just giving a shout out where it's due)! 

My Front Load Washer Smells Bad: How To Save a Service Call

Use a long bit to get to the screws

My wife and I got a front load washer six-and-a-half years ago, just before Big E was born. We replaced our old washer and dryer, knowing that with the money we would save with cloth diapers we could buy a more efficient washer/dryer combination. We decided to go with a front load washer, knowing that we would save money due to the low water usage, and anticipating having our kids entertain themselves by watching the washing when they say, "I'm bored."

However, as anybody who has ever owned a front load washer can tell you, there are times when the washer starts to smell...a little bad. There are things that you need to do - keep the door propped open, occasionally wipe down the gasket - just to keep the washer from smelling funky. However, even when following the washing machine protocol, there are times when the washer still smells bad.

In more than six years of owning the washer, there have been three times when the smell has affected our clothes. Each of these times I have considered calling somebody to come service the machine, but have decided to troubleshoot the problem myself. And each of these times I have discovered the cause and have been able to easily remedy it myself. The first thing to try is running a load of hot bleach water. If the machine needs more help, run a cloth over every nook and cranny you can find, especially on the inside and outside of the rubber gasket at the front. My wife found lots of hidden stinky slime with this technique. If the smell still remains, it's time to get out the power tools.

Look for the clean out

So here is what to do if your front load washer smells bad and cleaning it following manufacturer's recommendations doesn't seem to work. By the way, this is for a Maytag Epic front load washer, but my research has shown me that many front load washers are similar in design.

1). Locate the screws holding the lower front panel on. Remove these screws using a long bit on a driver, or using a long manual socket driver. For my washer, there are two screws on either side of the bottom of the lower panel. Set the panel and screws aside.

2). Look for the clean-out. For the Maytag, it is a simple quarter-turn cap.

Wow. That slime smells as bad as it looks

3). Place a towel under the washing machine to catch the water that drains out. Turn the cap, remove the clean out, and find that sock that has been missing for months. Yes, occasionally a sock, a coin, or other treasures make their way through the screens and end up in this catch. This is typically where the bad smell comes from.

Please note, depending on how long this sock has been in the clean out, you may not want to do this right after eating. The smell can be overwhelmingly wretched.

4). Return the cap, making sure it is secure. Replace the front panel, return the screws, and enjoy the smell of fresh, clean clothes.

5). Brag to your significant other about how you de-funked the washing machine and made the whole house a better place to live.

Total time for this simple repair: 10 minutes or less

Cost savings: $60-$150 service call

A missing sock with a bonus coin

Feeling of satisfaction at finding the culprit for the stench: Priceless.