Creating Work For Myself

Yesterday I managed to create more work for myself. I was steadily checking things off my list that we had made the other night. Placing some items on the top shelf of the pantry I was standing on a dining room chair. When I went to move the chair back to the dining room table, the chair managed to hit the wall at an angle that sent plaster flying everywhere. This was of course after I had patched, sanded and touched-up all 3 floors yesterday. I was once again confronted with another area to patch, sand and paint.

Touch-Ups

Kevin and I made a pass through the house the other evening to assess what still needs to be done. I was pleasantly surprised to learn a lot less needed to be done than we originally thought!

A lot of the tasks that are left involve touching up, which I marked with pieces of blue tape. (If anyone reading this owns a painters tape factory I can tell you that we're making you rich. We've gone through over 20 rolls of this stuff a least!)

Otherwise, there are a few lights left to be installed and/or bought. We still need to purchase blinds for the back of the house, Kevin needs to do a little more grouting and we need to get started on his office. But all in all we're moving along. We'll be having a house warming before you know it!

Two Very Likely Heroes

You know who one of the heroes is...my Dad. But this time, Kevin really stepped up to the plate. Our shed door has an uneven latch on the outside. In other words sometime over the last 15 years that we weren't here, the shed doors have warped and the latch on either door no longer lines up.

Thus the door is not securely fastened and this results in an annoying blamming noise outside when its windy. The door flies open hits the fence and repeats enough times to drive a normal person insane.

This weekend, Kevin and my Dad endeavored to realign the latch. No small task as the one side was fastened with a square hole (we have this special tool) bolt. The bolts were rusted from years of weathering the elements. Somehow through sweat, grunting and determination Kevin was able to remove the bolts. My Dad refastened the latch in the right place and our shed is securely latched!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

I thought I was so brilliant. A remote controlled smoke detector! No more flapping of towels in front of the smoke detector as the puffs of smoke from my burnt dinners billowed out in to the living room. I would just have to hit the TV remote and turn it off!

Well, not exactly.

We installed the smoke detector and were watching TV when a commercial struck. I switched the channel and "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!"

Kevin leaped up and starting running around the room yelling "Turn it off!" Kevin has a long and ruthless history with smoke detectors. The sound is like nails on a chalkboard to him and he immediately starts screaming at it.

Fortunately for us I had read the instructions and I knew what button to hit to turn the alarm off. I had also read that we probably had our TV too close to the smoke detector and we would most likely be setting it off or "testing" the alarm frequently as the instructions put it.

Needless to say this smoke detector has joined the leagues of the other detectors - on the floor in a pile.

Happy Birthday To Me

Yesterday was my birthday and my parents came down to visit. You know what that means - I had my Dad and his handyself. We ordered new blinds for the living room last week that had arrived and were laying on the living room floor anticipating his arrival.

These blinds had become an absolute necessity since our Christmas tree was taken down and Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) had been plugged in. I believe I mentioned before that every time I started to play DDR I kept craning my head around at the imagined sound of neighbors creaking open their lawn chairs to enjoy the entertainment. We now have beautiful white wooden blinds to match the ones in the front of the house on the second floor.

However, the back of the house is still open to Peeping Toms.