Tag: Home Improvement

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A Rude Wake Up

Heard several firetrucks go past the house early this morning and they woke me up from a fairly deep sleep. This is a pretty rare happening for this quite neighborhood, there are not all that many houses out this far and along our road. Strangely, the firetrucks returned in a few minutes going the other way, still with their sirens blaring. That makes me think they were having trouble finding the right house.

When we first moved here we found that by law we have to display our house number so that it is visible from the road at all times of day or night. The number cannot be obstructed by bushes or flowers, and if the numbers are on wall address plaques, they must be lighted numbers or you must keep a light on them all through the night.

Now folks, that is just plain common sense, and as most houses have a rural route mail box at the end of their driveways, you would think this is not a problem. But evidently it was a serious enough problem that my good neighbors decided that it had to be a law. We have a mailbox at the end of the driveway, plus added address plaques and numbers to the front porch and the side door. We keep the porch light on all night anyway, so finding our house should be easy for anyone who might be looking.

I really think that home address plaques add an important element of style to your home, just as the exterior lights and window shutters add color and style.  I love the rustic farm house style, with white painted numbers and a black, wrought iron background.

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So Many Knobs

Do you have any idea what knurled knobs are?  I didn’t but found out that the thing I needed that my kids lost that goes on the back of my office chair to keep the back at the height I like it, is called a knurled knob.  I have to admit that’s a strange name but when you don’t have one, who cares what it’s called as long as you can replace the missing one.

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New Bathroom Flooring Is In Order

My bathroom flooring has become such a disaster that I’ve had just about enough of it and have got to buckle down and find the right replacement bathroom flooring. My brother-in-law, bless his heart, installed the flooring that is in there now and just like everything else that this man gets his hands on, it was a disaster right from the start. He didn’t use the right materials, nor the corrects tools and now I am stuck with the nastiest looking and feeling (yes feeling, it is all uneven, cracking and breaking up) bathroom floor that I’ve ever had the displeasure of stepping on.

This morning I could have sworn that I sliced my foot on the tiles in front of toilet. Thank goodness it didn’t really break the skin, but it came darned close. Having a cut on the bottom of your foot can really ruin your day, that’s a hard place to heal (excuse the pun, if you will) and band aids don’t want to stay on anywhere on feet so I consider myself very lucky that it didn’t go that far.

I am thinking that this time I should stay away from tiles and look for something that comes all in one piece that just needs to be  rolled out, cut to size, along with some hard core glue to keep it from coming up and go from there. Instead of running around all over town looking at the various home improvement stores to find what I want and what I can afford, I’ll be spending my time looking online instead. Sounds like a plan to me.

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Do It All By Myself

It’s a well known fact that people are fixing up their homes rather than buying new ones. The fact that people can spend up to $20,000 on new kitchen cabinets just blows my mind considering how bad the economy still is. But there are people out there that are doing just that. Myself I am looking at a rta cabinet project. RTA stands for Ready To Assemble for those not familiar with some of the dyi terms. DYI stands for Do It Yourself.

I have a lot to research, and a lot to learn, but I enjoy working with my hands and learning new things and new tools, so it may take a bit longer than “normal” but I’ll get it done. And if I need some help or guidance along the way I have a few friends that I can turn to, but I really want to diabm, as much as possible. DIABM stands for Do It All By Myself.

 

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A Clock For Behind the Bar

Back when I was a kid, I went over to a friends house after school. She lived in a really neat old house that I remember quite well. In the TV room, where we spent most of our time, they had the most unusual clock that had the numbers placed on it backwards and it actually ran backwards. It made an impression on me and I always look for one like it, to no avail, sigh….

There are tons of wall clocks available these days, wish I could figure out where to find one that runs backwards, it would be perfect behind the bar area that I have in the basement. A good conversation piece, wouldn’t you say? I was looking on the Internet the other day to see if I could find this type of clock once again, when I ran across a blog that was about a man whose goat had eaten his clock, his prized mantel clock at that, a Tiffany & Company one that he was very distraught about. Kind of reminds me of the dog that ate the kid’s homework, ya know. Man that has got to hurt coming out of that darned goat!

Although I couldn’t find the wall clock that I was so hoping to find this time, I did find one that would look great behind the bar. Think I’m going to put it on my next years Christmas wish list.