Category Archives: Repair

Repair work just to keep this pile of sticks standing up

Every light fixture that came with this house sucks.

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Ugh

 

Where did they find this crap?  This is shortly before we painted, and shortly after I sliced my finger on the glass bowl that shattered instead of coming out.

The odd thing about this light fixture was it had a switch but it still plugged into the wall.  However, when we got the house there was no outdoor light fixture.  So it was just sitting there, the only illumination on the back deck, with nothing to plug into.  I did put an outdoor outlet to plug it into but it still offended me that I had to plug the light in.

We are very close to having replaced all of the light fixtures in the house.  Just two more to go.

Saying goodbye to the old kitchen faucet.

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It was an emotional weekend.  The lovely kitchen faucet, the one that came free with the house, finally decided it was time to go.  Yes, the poor thing just refused to turn off, letting water leak out and drip unless you wiggled the tired handle just right.  You could hear the flakes of oxidized metal scraping off every time you went to pull on that lever.  I tried to save it, but in the end, there was no hope for it.

It was a fighter, too.  Every nut and bolt was sealed in place by years of corroded metal, calcite deposits and the petrified remains of plumber’s putty.  But in the end, hammers and saws and some brute force were able to gently pull this old fossil out of the sink.

My choices for new faucets were limited to exactly two.  There was the $179 model and the $219 model.  They were otherwise identical.  I went for the one that didn’t look like the box had been opened and scavenged for parts.  It won’t be the same as the old one.  Nothing will ever drop flakes of calcite onto our dishes like that old faucet.  I just keep telling myself that it was meant to be.

Also this weekend I got the garage wired for surround sound.  I don’t care about the sound so much as I just like having the speakers set up in the wall, which means they don’t take up shelf space. Plus, surround sound kinda rocks.

Got rid of the front light fixture (I may smash its top off with an axe and stick it in the ground and plant crap inside it, kinda like that cute little chair we saw in town) (lookit the pics – you’ll see what I mean).  When I went to install the new light fixture I opened the box and realized we were delivered the wrong one.  So now there’s just a couple live wires sticking out of a pole next to the front door.  Home, crap home.

Busy Weekend

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We were awoken at 8 am Saturday to a sharp tapping, as if some madman un-gently rapping, rapping at our front door.  ‘Tis some madman, we believed, and nothing more.

Thinking perhaps it was the sheriff, or some neighbor’s morning mischief, rapping at our dilapidated front door.  ‘Twas some neighbor and nothing more.

But our locale is so rural that we though it was inconceivable that a person would rap so for no reason at all.  Whoever came out here to knock on our front door, came with a purpose.

So we answered with bathrobes flowing and discovered it was no madman but instead a deliveryman who possessed our prized clothes dryer, the undamaged version to replace the damaged one that was delivered to us not six weeks ago.

Joy of joys, we unexpectedly received our undamaged dryer which now sits side by side with its matching washer.  Laundry ahoy!  The photograph beautifully captures the golden hue of the linoleum tile upon which it rests.  And if you look really close, you can see me in the reflection of the knob taking a picture of it all.

Beside that, it was a weekend of setting cement backerboard and measuring tile and stepping on carpenter ants.  Fun stuff.  We did get the tile set by the front door, at least.