Busy Sunday
Aug. 9th, 2004 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erikredWe woke up late on Sunday, but our enthusiasm was undiminished. This day, we vowed, the Small Home Improvements would finally be tackled.
First, we fixed the bolt on the bathroom/bedroom door. Our bathroom has two doors: one that leads to our bedroom, and one that leads to the kitchen. This is convenient, since it allows our guests to use the bathroom without having to go through our bedroom. What's rather inconvenient is that the geniuses who painted our place before we moved in used a rather thick coat of paint, making it impossible to actually close the bathroom/bedroom door enough to make use of the bolt on the bedroom side. This has been a minor annoyance for quite some time. Fortunately, I happen to have a drill I bought for installing ethernet connections to the kitchen, living room, and office. After a little judicious wrangling with a pencil to make sure the hole would line up properly, I added a hole (subtracted some wood from the door jamb? An odd linguistic legacy item, I'm sure), and voila! the problem was solved.
Next, we got in the car and headed over to Ace Hardware (on Grand) to pick up a new showerhead. We do actually have decent water pressure in our apartment. Unfortunately, our old showerhead has a tendency to get overclogged and reduce the amount of water to a trickle. Can you say annoying? I thought so. Fortunately, Ace Hardware has a modest array of showerheads on display. We picked up a likely candidate and some pipe thread tape and headed off to pick up supplies for the third project.
You see, Yoko has a lot of shoes. No, I'm not talking about an Imelda Marcos-level shoe collection, but in comparison to the half-dozen pairs of shoes I own, Yoko has a lot of shoes. I am given to understand that this is not uncommon for women (and men) of much better taste than I apparently possess. Be that as it may, she needs somewhere to keep these shoes, and piling them up in the hallway probably isn't the smoothest solution. My solution, of course, was to buy a 2"x12"x6' plank and a couple of cinderblocks; Yoko one-upped me quite nicely by insisting that we buy some wood-finish and sandpaper to make it look more presentable. Ace Hardware, bless their little gnomish hearts, does not carry lumber and cinderblocks, so we headed off to Home Depot, where such things are not only carried, they are carried to such a degree that one could easily begin to think that an advanced degree in carpentry is a prerequisite for employment there. We very quickly found the perfect piece of wood and a beautiful pair of cinderblocks to go with it. We had a little more trouble finding the finish, but that's because we're neither of us trained to read the prominent and informative signs that just from every aisle and shelf in Home Depot. How dare they attempt to inform us! Helpful bastards. We even got to use the self-service check-out stand. Damn you, convenient national chain!
Back at home, Yoko got to work sanding away some of the rougher bits and then applied the first layer of finish. I attached the showerhead (excellent water pressure, a joy to shower with) and then applied the second layer of finish. An hour later we moved our new shoe-rack to its new home in the hallway, and it is indeed a thing of beauty. The finish matches our wood floors beautifully, and you can't see the cinderblocks underneath.
We're so excited to be such busy homebodies that we're seriously thinking of building bookshelves to go under the window in the office. More on that as it develops.
First, we fixed the bolt on the bathroom/bedroom door. Our bathroom has two doors: one that leads to our bedroom, and one that leads to the kitchen. This is convenient, since it allows our guests to use the bathroom without having to go through our bedroom. What's rather inconvenient is that the geniuses who painted our place before we moved in used a rather thick coat of paint, making it impossible to actually close the bathroom/bedroom door enough to make use of the bolt on the bedroom side. This has been a minor annoyance for quite some time. Fortunately, I happen to have a drill I bought for installing ethernet connections to the kitchen, living room, and office. After a little judicious wrangling with a pencil to make sure the hole would line up properly, I added a hole (subtracted some wood from the door jamb? An odd linguistic legacy item, I'm sure), and voila! the problem was solved.
Next, we got in the car and headed over to Ace Hardware (on Grand) to pick up a new showerhead. We do actually have decent water pressure in our apartment. Unfortunately, our old showerhead has a tendency to get overclogged and reduce the amount of water to a trickle. Can you say annoying? I thought so. Fortunately, Ace Hardware has a modest array of showerheads on display. We picked up a likely candidate and some pipe thread tape and headed off to pick up supplies for the third project.
You see, Yoko has a lot of shoes. No, I'm not talking about an Imelda Marcos-level shoe collection, but in comparison to the half-dozen pairs of shoes I own, Yoko has a lot of shoes. I am given to understand that this is not uncommon for women (and men) of much better taste than I apparently possess. Be that as it may, she needs somewhere to keep these shoes, and piling them up in the hallway probably isn't the smoothest solution. My solution, of course, was to buy a 2"x12"x6' plank and a couple of cinderblocks; Yoko one-upped me quite nicely by insisting that we buy some wood-finish and sandpaper to make it look more presentable. Ace Hardware, bless their little gnomish hearts, does not carry lumber and cinderblocks, so we headed off to Home Depot, where such things are not only carried, they are carried to such a degree that one could easily begin to think that an advanced degree in carpentry is a prerequisite for employment there. We very quickly found the perfect piece of wood and a beautiful pair of cinderblocks to go with it. We had a little more trouble finding the finish, but that's because we're neither of us trained to read the prominent and informative signs that just from every aisle and shelf in Home Depot. How dare they attempt to inform us! Helpful bastards. We even got to use the self-service check-out stand. Damn you, convenient national chain!
Back at home, Yoko got to work sanding away some of the rougher bits and then applied the first layer of finish. I attached the showerhead (excellent water pressure, a joy to shower with) and then applied the second layer of finish. An hour later we moved our new shoe-rack to its new home in the hallway, and it is indeed a thing of beauty. The finish matches our wood floors beautifully, and you can't see the cinderblocks underneath.
We're so excited to be such busy homebodies that we're seriously thinking of building bookshelves to go under the window in the office. More on that as it develops.
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Date: 2004-08-09 11:03 am (UTC)kindness of strange little monsters
Date: 2004-08-10 01:41 am (UTC)