Ms Fixit :)
Little projects…. they don’t take that long but life always seems to get in the way so those 20 min projects start to add up. My list has seemed to have grown way too long to the point that it’s getting a little intimidating so tonight I finally decided to knock a few things off it. We replaced the kitchen countertops and re-faced the cabinets last year and the only thing left in the kitchen is to replace all the light fixtures and outlets. I figured this should be easy enough to do so I went out to the fuse box to flip off the power to the kitchen. Now this should have been easy but when your house is built back in the 80′s you begin to find all the problems as you start to update things. The wiring leaves a little to be desired and I couldn’t find the right fuse for some of the outlets. Getting very frustrated I started turning off everything and even tried the garage fuse. Nope that didn’t work either. So about to give up I decided to switch gears so I could actually get something accomplished. (I’ll have to leave the light fixtures for another project night) Since I had the power off to the garage I was able to fix a few things out there. The pull cord to the ceiling fan had broken awhile ago so we couldn’t turn the fan off. This was a simple fix but again just had to take the little bit of time to fix it. I found a new switch at Home Depot and it had detailed directions on the back to swap out. All I had to do was open up the bottom of the fan, unhook a few wires and connect them to the new unit…. and it’s as good as new! (and finally cleaner too)
The next project was again a small one but just need the short time to get it done. The old unit to open the garage door had gone on the fritz….randomly we would walk into the garage and mysteriously it would be open and it seemed that the unit had a short circuit. No problems here thanks to a friends great idea… a doorbell!! What a simple but genius idea! He said to buy a simple doorbell button and you could easily connect the garage door opener wires to the back of the button and voila! It worked!
I will need to drill a new hole for the second screw but I’m not able to find the drill at the moment so that will have to wait. At least it works and finally 2 small projects I can cross off my list! Now it’s time to relax since tomorrow morning is going to be a long 20 mile training run =)
Enjoy your weekend!
** photo overlay from Pugly Pixel **
Garage sale time!
This has definitely been a long time coming and we have finally gotten to that point where we have officially admitted we have too much stuff lol. We have a 2 car garage but do you know how many cars we park in it? None! Yup we tend to keep everything thinking we’ll use it “some day”. From sporting equipment to a couch, lots of books and kitchen stuff and so on. We didn’t realize how much we had accumulated over the years. It probably didn’t help that once we bought our house the first thing my parents did (well, after they said congrats) was pack up one of those large storage containers of everything I still had at their house and shipped it down to us. So with no kids but boxes of leggos, matchbox cars and transformers we figured it was time to pass things on and let someone else enjoy these.
This is the start of things from the kitchen and it’s going to take some time to go through everything. At least Dusty is hanging around to keep me company. (He’s my little buddy)
It’s been a bit overwhelming as to where to begin so I’ve been busy making lists and trying to get things organized. I pulled out one of my To-do lists which you can find and print one for yourself here and have started to get to work. Anyone have some ideas for a first time garage sale?
House Projects
Hi guys! Just checking in as I’ve been a bit MIA the past week. Things have been crazy around the house. It seems like one thing after another keeps breaking since it’s an older house (I miss having a landlord that you can call to fix things). Looking out in the backyard the other day we realized our grass was pretty much dead and yet our neighbors was nice and green. We haven’t been getting a lot of rain but that’s why we have sprinklers… or so we thought. I woke the next morning to the sound of the sprinkler pump but upon walking around the house realized that the pump was running dry… no water. oh no!
Being the stubborn person I am, I was determined to try and fix it myself instead of paying someone. After talking with a friend I was able to figure out where the sprinkler pump is and how to re-prime the pump. Hooray! Ran the cycle through and thought I was successful. Waited a couple days and decided to test the sprinklers and then put them back on the timer. wait… not working. Water was dumping out of the extra zone pipe that it’s supposed to bypass. After a few more phone calls and some old school banging (yes I literally took to banging on the pipes) I think we are good to go.
Finally can check one thing off the house project list!
Have you been working on any projects at home?
Fall decor
After some searching I found the perfect fall welcome man for our front door. I had been seeing these scarecrows all around as decorations and love how cute and friendly they looked but hadn’t been able to find the store that was actually selling them. Finally among my errands yesterday the Michael’s by my house actually had them. Yeah! He’s a very cute welcome to warm up our entrance.
I always seem to be searching for something as last year my search was for a Welcome sign. The only one we had has little snowmen on it and it just wasn’t working to leave it up year round (which we did anyway since we didn’t have a replacement at the time). Don’t mind the old door though as that will be a project for next year to either refinish or replace it.
One of things I miss from homes up north are fireplaces and mantels. Chris from Just a Girl always has the cutest decorations and her new mantel is just as cute as ever! I absolutely love the witch silhouette (below) and her whole scene fits perfectly together (I’m still a bit mismatched).
Previously I had made this wood block which I painted and then used some of my scrapbook items to create a fall collage. I still have a few other blocks to create when I get some free time. I’ll definitely have to finish them up since Snoopy looks a little out of place here… haha.
Oh and I found a perfect mini man to go along with my welcome scarecrow for indoors (of course I notice now that I have to remove the label).
Share the fun! Leave a comment, I’d love to see what you’re doing.
Happy fall!
Kitchen Remodel
After what has seemed like over a year our kitchen remodel is finally almost done!! With this being our first house it was a little older and even though it was in good shape it definitely needed some improvements and updates. Both bathrooms and the kitchen were covered with dreaded wallpaper (which has now been added to the deal breaker list for any new houses). This was our kitchen before with very dated cabinets, counters and appliances, awful wallpaper, and I’m not even going to go there with the hotel-like drapes.
Yes I know that removing wallpaper is never easy but when you find that you have layered wallpaper over wallpaper to remove it becomes that much more of a problem. I did all kinds of searching online for tips of removal and it made me laugh when they say “It’s easy, start by peeling off that top layer of paper.” Peeling that top layer? Riiiight… that could be done with the top layers but only to find our bottom layer was from back in the 80s and was a different kind that didn’t separate.
Well luckily we have some great friends who happened to have a steamer that we could borrow so many weeks (or months) and many containers of DIF gel later the wallpaper was finally removed. Yeah!
I’ll continue to post more pics of the transformation over the week with the full reveal to come soon. Stay tuned for the final reveal…
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