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<< Previous: Maybe It WAS The Fly... | Next: Home Improvement II >>

Home Improvement
Saturday, 2005 August 20 - 11:40 pm
It's a never-ending saga. Fortunately, at the moment, no one has to live in this house but me.

Man, I worked my ass off on my house today. I have no ass left. And I still only accomplished a third of what I wanted to get done.

First, I installed new smoke detectors. I'm pretty sure the old ones haven't been working for about five years. The one near the kitchen would always get overwhelmed with smoke from my cooking, and after a while it just said, "Why the hell do I even BOTHER?" I hope the new ones are a little more understanding.

This job turned out to be quite a bit simpler than I expected, despite having to change the electrical wiring harness and the bracket. So I had time to take this exciting picture:



Next, I put up a new light fixture in the downstairs lavatory. Anna had taken the old one down while she was painting, and she absolutely REFUSED to put it back up because it was so ugly. You know, this fixture has been up in my house since I bought it twelve years ago, and I guess I'd become oblivious to it. But yeah, looking at it now, I don't know how I've put up with it for so long:



So here's the new one I bought from the Home Depot and installed today:



This job was rather tricky because I kinda needed three hands: one to support the weight of the fixture, and two to connect the wires. My eventual solution was just to wail so loudly that the wires just voluntarily connected themselves, out of pity.

The final job was to replace the horrible $20 sink hardware that had also been infesting my house for the last twelve years. I purposely left it dirty before taking this picture, to dramatize the difference. It's kind of like the way they have people squint in the "before" pictures of wrinkle-remover infomercials.



The new fixture is a Kohler, the same fine folks that make the Hatbox Toilet.



This is the project that took me all day. I had to make two extra trips to the hardware store. One was to buy "plumber's putty" (which feels exactly like Play-Doh, and that makes me wonder if I could have just used that instead). The other was to buy a big-ass pipe wrench, which is a menacing seven-pound hunk of iron.



This, by the way, is how I see myself... because the picture was taken in a mirror, not because I view myself as a pipe-wrench-wielding killer. I hadn't intended to have the camera flash glare in the photo, but after I saw it, I decided to leave it in for the effect. It's like, not only am I going to club you with this wrench, I'm also going to blind you with my Searing Light Ray Of Death.

Anyway, I learned all sorts of things during this project... like, don't put your finger inside an old p-trap that has accumulated the funk of forty thousand years, unless it's a finger you never intend to use again. Also, make sure you've tightened ALL the feeder line connections before turning the water back on. And finally, when your head is under a sink and you unexpectedly get sprayed with a blast of water, don't attempt to stand up to escape.

I didn't get around to changing the sink hardware in the upstairs bathroom... or installing a new light fixture in the kitchen, or putting new quarter-round moulding in the foyer, or putting in transitions to cover gaps in the floor. Sigh. It looks like I'll have no ass tomorrow, either.
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Posted by Ken in: life

Comments

Comment #1 from John C (Guest)
2005 Aug 21 - 8:07 pm : #
Those plumbing fixtures take forever. I speant a whole day in the kitchen with a buddy fixing one once. 4 trips to the hardware store. Took more time than the time I pull my kitchen cabinets down.
Comment #2 from Lisa V (Guest)
2005 Aug 22 - 12:31 am : #
NICE light.
Comment #3 from Lisa V (Guest)
2005 Aug 22 - 12:32 am : #
I meant the fixture, not the flash.
Comment #4 from Nicholas (Guest)
2005 Aug 22 - 8:28 am : #
Plumbings a pain. Most projects necessitate the purchase of a new tool. That is my method building a tool box.
Comment #5 from Jenn (Guest)
2005 Aug 22 - 12:50 pm : #
That picture of you reminds me of Clue for some reason. It was Ken! In the bathroom! With a pipe wrench! And light ray o' death!

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