This weekend we went from EWWWWWWW

to WOOO-HOOOOO.

Unfortunately both of us spent the whole weekend in the bathroom. Fortunately it was by choice (sort of). Saturday morning I came home from work and we tried to figure out what we were going to do with April's last 2 days of vacation. We really wanted to go canoeing, but has just been too dry so I was against that idea. We finally settled on going to lunch, and while we were out we decided to hit Home Depot and pick up some stuff to do some landscaping with. Our yard is looking a bit rough and we wanted to fix it up some.




As we were going in, April told me that the ceiling fan in our bedroom was making an awful racket and needed to be replaced.





They had a nice 52" Hunter on sale, so we put it in the cart.

When we installed the fan, we put some special over the blade filters on it that are supposed to reduce the amount of dust that collects in a room. Since we both have allergy problems, it will be interesting to see how effective these are. If you've ever cleaned the blades of your ceiling fan, you'll know what I am talking about. You are supposed to replace them every 3-4 months, that'll be the hard part, remembering to do that!



While we were inside, we wandered by the clearance isle. That's when we found a faucet for our bathroom that we liked. Ours was dripping and I've replaced the gaskets in it but it was still leaking. Nothing I've tried stops it, so we figured we'd replace it with the nice new one we found.

Our master bathroom was done completely in wood accented stuff (even the handles on the faucet), and we didn't really care for it anymore. We liked it when we moved in but it looks very worn. Since we were getting a new faucet, we figured we'd get a new towel rack, etc. to go with it.

Our discussion then turned to the fact that it now seemed like we were remodeling our bathroom, so we should buy that stuff to paint it too. And that is how we went from doing yardwork to remodeling the bathroom!

This is a sample of the finished product. The new faucet is here, and you can see the new paint as well as one of the new towel holders. We replaced all the wood stuff with brushed nickel. All that remains is a new vent register and the doorknobs. We are really pleased with how it turned out. It is tough to see in the pictures, but it went from a cream color to a color called Mountain Haze, which is a kind of blue green color. It was one of those deals where as we put it on, it looked good, then as it dried we were a bit concerned, but the final dry color is what we wanted. They also mixed it up as a special kitchen/bathroom paint that is supposed to resist mildew and water spotting and be easier to clean.

I'd like to take minute here to mention Tim 'the Tool Man' Taylor, who apparently lived in this house before us. A previous owner seems to have styled himself as quite the handyman, and while I'm not the greatest, I at least recognize shoddy work when I come across it. It seems like every time we do a repair to our home, I have to correct this guy's poor workmanship to do my task correctly. He is not a fan of the 'measure first (and twice!), drill (or cut) second (and once!). In the past when I put in mini blinds, he had done so much damage trying to hang his that it was a real pain.

He apparently was also a fan of stripping his screws so that they are next to impossible to remove. In the bathroom he managed to drill 3 complete sets of holes in the side of the cabinet to hang the toilet paper roll (then he made sure to buy a big enough holder to cover them all, mine was smaller so now they show).

I was particularly proud of the patch jobs I did in the drywall in the bathroom. This is not something I have much experience with and it took a long time, but the end result was better than I had hoped (not perfect, but much better than it was). Tim apparently had attempted to patch some holes, and I'm not sure if he used toothpaste or wasn't familiar with the concept of hiding holes, but he did manage to do a spectacular job of coating the walls in plaster, perfectly highlighting all the imperfections from old nail holes. For the most part I took care of that.

It also bears noting that rather than remove the old border at the top of the walls, he added not 1 but 2!! layers of border over it. That was fun to take down. The really scary part is that the middle layer was golf clubs and golf balls. Who uses that for the border in their master bath?

My favorite (and last story for today) is where he ran power for an outbuilding that is no longer there. He decided his 10X10 shed needed power, so he ran electrical for an overhead light and 4 outlets. Seeing as how the outlet on our back patio was closest, he just tapped into that to power it all! The home inspector was very pleased to find out that the power to that had been disconnected before we moved in. He is lucky he didn't burn his house down. I wonder how many times he had to replace that breaker. In fact, now that I think about it, I need to go check and make sure that the one that is in there is the correct size and not a bigger one.

Anyways, back to the story at hand...


While we were in the bathroom section at Home Depot, we found a showerhead that we liked, and since our old one was nasty and somewhat non-functioning (cleaning it would probably have solved it, but we didn't like it much) we grabbed that and stuck it in the buggy as well.




It has 2 settings, 1 that is like rain and 1 that is a bit more forceful. It has pretty good pressure, even though it is a watersaver, and that is the important part to me (plus it's so shiny I could shave in it, but that's just a nice bonus hehe).



For as long as we have lived in our house, I have hated this light fixture in our kitchen. It is right over the sink/dishwasher, and it is just high enough that I won't hit my head but just low enough that I still flinch if I turn into it too quickly and I am not paying attention. Plus it collects grease from the stove and is just plain ugly and nasty.





So we replaced it with this one we had picked up at Lowe's a few weeks ago for $5! It was a breeze to install, and looks so much better. Again, it's hard to tell in the picture, but there are cutouts of leaves at the top that light up when the light is on. It also has 2 bulbs (we put in halogens) so it is much brighter.



Shiloh, of course, contributed to the whole process by enjoying the new ceiling fan and making sure that the bed didn't fly off into space.




Oh yeah, then for dinner I made some ribs and April made strawberry ice cream. How's that for a busy weekend!





We've been talking about doing some updating to our house for a long time, then we were going to sell it, but with the shape the economy is in it looks like we'll be here for a while, so we have decided to get started on the house. We've been here for 3 years now, and haven't done much, so it is time. We've started in our bathroom and figure we'll expand outward from there. Next up in a few weeks will be our bedroom, then the kitchen, etc. We'll be sure to add pictures as we go.

I did learn a few things this weekend... I don't know what God's plan for me is, but I am fairly certain he did not intend for me to be a plumber! It was very difficult for me to squeeze into the space under the sink and still have enough room to move around let alone get any muscle into loosening the connections. I did also have a little boo-boo that came very close to being highly embarassing. When I took out the old faucet and put in the new one, the new drain wasn't the same size as the elbow. I was racking my brains trying to figure out what was wrong. I finally decided to just measure the elbow and measure the drain and go to Lowe's and ask them to find a pipe that had both sizes so I could get my drain working again. That's when the lightbulb finally lit up... the drain wasn't threaded, so how was I going to make the connection? I realzed that I had probably thrown out something with the old faucet that I would need. Yeah, the connector and gasket were still attached to the old faucet. I fished them out of the trash and now it works just fine. Oh well, lesson learned! We had a good laugh, and I'm sure that had I made it to Lowe's, they would have been telling my story at the staff meeting for a long, long time.

Oh well, sorry for the long long post, but I wanted to make sure I included lots of photos for everyone (and I wanted to share the funny stories with you guys). Take care and talk to you later.