I fits, I sits!

Mary Oliver it turns out is one of those cats-if there's a container she fits in, she sits in it.  We've seen this with big boxes and laundry baskets before, but yesterday she tried it with something more form-fitting.

Hail to the King, Baby!

Today was another epic day of puttering-my kingship is definitely secure.

It started far too early this morning with a kitten wake-up call, but at least that translated into motivation to do things on this beautiful day!


First up was loading up all the old pipe from my plumbing project a few weeks ago...


In the process of doing that, I got inspired to fix the way our garden hose hangs under our porch...


Then after a quick run to the dump to drop off the pipe, it was off to the car wash for a long overdue cleaning for Sharkey the Honda.
Before:

After:


Add in a trip to the Library to drop off books, a trip to the Farmer's Market, and a stop at the SPCA to drop off some extra cat food, and it was an epic morning of erranding.

Also, in wandering around cleaning up the pipe, I noticed that our fence behind our garage was in pretty bad shape, so after swinging by Lowes (oh how I've missed you-it's been two days since last I was in your hallowed halls) the afternoon was spent making a new fence and cleaning up the garage.
The old fence:

Midway through:

The new fence:


While I was at it, I also changed the air filters in Sharkey-5 minutes that saved me $50 from the garage (they definitely needed it!  The in-cabin filter actually had leaves in it!)


So after a quick shower and some dinner is was time to paint the trim (the original plan for today, but when the puttering bug calls, it's hard not to answer)


I consider this day well seized again!

Another house mystery revealed

Our kitchen stove is an incredible workhorse, but a couple weeks ago we tried to use the cleaning function and it wouldn't engage so we thought it might be on it's way out.  I wanted to give it a try to see if we could fix it (plus it was a great excuse to put the effort into moving it out from the wall!)


It had not been moved in a while...



After opening it up (a truly ridiculous number of screws and interlocking panels later) it quickly became apparent why appliance repairmen are paid so well...


I checked all the connections to the motorized oven lock, though, and apparently one must have been loose, because the clean function started working again once I got it put back together-so that's a win for random button mashing!

An interesting sidenote, though, in the process of cleaning under it, I discovered that at some point in the past, someone had covered up our lovely hardwood floors with institutional linoleum tiles-glad that change was reversed (though the tile definitely made it easier to slide the stove back into place). Believe it or not, those tiles were actually visible in that first picture of under stove up above-and we clean our floors almost every week!

Bathroom Reveal!

So a couple weeks after the actual completion, but here's the finished bathroom mini-makeover!

What's behind the newly painted door #1?


The scrubbed and painted view!


I really like the way the new trim and repaired lights work (you can see the new trim around the door in the mirror).


It's a little hard to tell in pictures, but the new gray is a lot crisper and cleaner than the old one (but it still matches our art :).


The little touches matter too (the TP dispenser's been broken since Christmas!)

Mini bathroon make-over

Patching the ceiling fan hole has turned into another whole project.  Spackling went fine (though it took a couple coats):


But once the spackle was up, we should repaint the ceiling and replace the fan:


If we fix the fan below, though, we should fix the vent in the attic:


Oh, and if we're repainting the ceiling we should repaint the walls:


And if we're repainting the walls, we should fix the connections between the light sconces and the wall:


And if we're repainting the walls, we should finish the trim and repaint that too (technically tomorrow's job):


All that adds up to two days without a shower, a big mess in the bathroom (mostly cleaned up now) and very confused kitties).  But definitely worth it to have a polished bathroom-after the trim gets fixed, it'll be time for a deep clean and a final reveal!

King of the Putterers

So another weekend of home improvement and puttering!  Today was an epic day of getting going on some outstanding projects.  First on the docket-fixing the fan in the bathroom!

We had to replace the fan last spring, but the hole was too big, so I patched it with duct tape (hooray for temporary measures that last for a year!).  It's definitely time to make a real ceiling again, though!















Darth Drywall to the rescue
!
The hole is patched (after a LOT of dust)


Time to spackle!















While I'm at it, time to replace the framing around the door (it's never lined up with the tub well).

Also time for some miscellaneous electrical repair (broken faceplate and surge protector)

We also needed to repot some plants (thanks Gandalf for peeing in them)

And a few other miscellaneous woodworking projects...

And to top it off-fixing the drain from the kitchen sink and sealing off the wall from the cistern (hopefully no more bats!)


Definitely a day well seized!

Adventures in Home Ownership: Plumbing Edition

A couple weekends ago, I got the opportunity to work on a big house project that I've wanted to do for years: replacing the galvanized pipe in our basement plumbing system.  The 1928 year old pipes were mostly choked with rust, we had a few small leaks appearing and our water pressure has been decreasing for years.  Add to that the fact that our furnace hadn't been at the right pressure, we couldn't use the outside faucet on the front of the house, and our water shutoff was an original-to-the-house screw valve and it was long past due to update.

A few pieces of the system had been replaced with CPVC by some of the previous owners, so I decided to continue using that product.  Copper would have been nice, but also four times the cost (and my solder skills are...okay).

Steph went to visit her roomates for the weekend, so with that window for shutting off the water, I jumped in.  First, a good breakfast (it was eggs)!


I spent several days planning and inventoring and felt pretty well prepared...

But of course the first thing I did led to a trip to Lowes.  My fears about the main shutoff were well founded-once I closed it and cut open the pipes, I found out the valve was leaky and wasn't able to hold the pressure.  But with a quick trip and a compression linkage, I was able to get the new ball valve installed and actually cut off the water-whew!

The rest of the morning was spent in full-force removal mode.  I ended up with a couple cuts, a lot of dirt on my hands, and an impressive pile of pipes.

Also as suspected, many of the pipes were mostly cut off with rust


While I was tearing things apart, I also decided to reposition our hot water heater (new last fall)


Saturday turned into a 14 hour day, but at the end almost all the old pipes were removed and I was ready for a day of epoxy on Sunday (with the help of Indiana Jones on in the background)

Steph was coming home at 7:40 that day, but at 5:30 I was finally ready to turn on the water!
The moment of truth!



And miracle of miracles, it pretty much all worked!  I even had to solder some copper pipes around our furnace and kitchen water systems and they're holding great (thank you Richard on This Old House for good TV solder advice ;)  I had to replace two junctions that started dripping and had to do new laundry hook-ups, but it actually wasn't bad and by Monday night we had a fully functional system back.  Our water pressure went up 10psi (we can have more than two faucets open in the house and still have good pressure!)

This was a big project, but even though they were long days I never felt outclassed.  It's definitely good to be able to understand how all our systems fit together in the house.