March Update

March had quite a number of projects going on all over the house. It was hard to focus on just one because I wanted to do everything!

It all started when I picked up this cute little cabinet off the side of the road. Obviously, it's seen better days. I set it outside on some blocks until I was ready to tackle this project.

The next bit of fun happened when my ductwork broke (again). Because of the wonderful (/sarcasm) job done by the previous owner and the hired A/C company, the transition from the furnace unit to the plenum is not stable, for lack of a better term. The previous tape and paste are no longer sticking and holding the pieces together. Pieces that were incorrectly put together in the first place... One night I went to run the A/C and the house refused to cool off. I FREAKED out, thinking the A/C had finally keeled over and I'd have to shell out thousands of dollars to get the ENTIRE system replaced. I've already been told that once the outside unit croaks, everything needs to be replaced because it won't be to code and/or work with the newer compressors. Something like that. Fortunately for me, it was only a section of this housing that came undone. All I had to do was put more duct tape to hold it back together.

My life is literally held together with duct tape...

My next big idea (/more sarcasm) was to hang another fan by myself! This fan used to be hung at out house before the storm. Mom salvaged and cleaned it up then packed it away. I think technically it's on loan to me...? Either way, Mom insisted it works, and I needed a fan for my bedroom, so I brought it home and decided to hang it up. The other fan went up super simple so I figured this would be the same! Nope. I had a hell of a time getting the fan's canopy screwed with the ceiling medallion in place. And that fan is ridiculously heavy. I ended up calling the parents, nearly in tears, because I just couldn't get the fan up there. I felt like a fan-hanging failure :(  Fortunately, my parents are awesome and they hurried right over and Dad figured out how to screw in the canopy with the ceiling medallion. Yaaaay!

The fan really is quiet!

My next project was the start of WEEKS of working on one room, the bathroom. In fact, I started this project thinking that it would be the one room that I could actually get completely finished. And since it's the smallest room in the house it shouldn't take that long. RIIIIIIGHT. After mom prepped the walls (and I messed them up a bit) I decided one Saturday that I was going to start painting. I tend to paint spontaneously. Mom doesn't appreciate that. LOOK HOW GORGEOUS THIS COLOR IS!!!!!

Optimist Gold

Let me say something before going further. I bought the BEHR Premium Plus Ultra Paint & Primer, in semi-gloss for the bathroom. I chose a Paint & Primer as the Glidden DUO Premium Paint + Primer worked wonderfully in the office, with that beautiful Scuba Dive color. Since the bathroom's Optimist Gold was on the BEHR palate, I got the BEHR paint thinking it would be the same experience. IT WAS NOT. The BEHR paint went on so thin, had poor coverage, and generally was horrible to work with. It took TWO COATS, and half the can of paint, to do that one TINY bathroom. I thought maybe it would be because this is a semi-gloss vs. an eggshell. But I spoke with a friend who used the same paint in satin (or eggshell) she also had to do two coats. Why would I have to do two coats and half a can of paint in the bathroom when I only used one coat and a third of the paint can for the much larger office?! This makes no sense to me, and really upsets me, so I will never again use nor recommend BEHR Premium Plus Ultra paint!

All that mess aside, in the end, I LOVE THE COLOR OF THIS BATHROOM! It's so bright it actually helps me wake up in the morning.

So then I took my turn,
Oh what a thing to have done,
And it was all yellow.…

Since the bathroom didn't come with a mirror, I made plans to hang one of the extras my parents had from their house. The cool thing is the mirror I picked was made in the late 1960's, making it almost as old as my house! But before I could hang it, I had to mark where I wanted it!

And that's where the bathroom remodel stopped for a couple of weeks. Not only was I going to hang a large 2x4' mirror, I was going to frame it! Which meant finding the right molding, painting it, cutting it, hanging it, caulking it, patching it, painting again...

My next project quickly presented itself when I realized that the kitchen faucet was leaking again. Dad had fixed it once, but it was deteriorating faster than expected. This was not a terrible thing, though, as I'd recently received a gift card to Home Depot! It was just the right amount to purchase the new Delta Foundations faucet in chrome that I'd been eying. So, on Easter Saturday, I decided that I was going to tackle my first ever plumbing job! Ha! With Mom's help, we got the faucet off and beheld the damage done by years to decades of a leaky faucet. SMH.

It was gross.

Given the damage to the cast iron sink underneath, I picked up a few extra supplies: rubber and metal washers. I didn't want to damage the iron any further so the rubber washer went against the iron with the metal over that before the nut of the faucet tightened it all down. I felt much better after putting that together.

Now, this is where it gets funny. After buying the faucet (trip 1) then learning that I should replace the water lines, I went back to Home Depot and bought new water lines (trip 2). I bought the same of one of the two lines, thinking I'd need the same length for both even though there were two different lengths under there already. (Math is not a strong point of mine...) Well, that shorter length wasn't long enough to attach to one of the faucets, duh.  So I popped over to Home Depot (trip 3) with 20 minutes to spare to return the 20" and pick up a 30" line. Great, it fit! But... the other 20" didn't fit. Turns out the new 20" length was 1" shorter than the old 20" line (go figure that one). And now Home Depot is closed. At this point, I have purchased two 20" lines, returned one 20" line, and purchased one 30" line. Got dat? Me being brilliant, I decided to measure the remaining 20" line under the bathroom sink which it did. So, bright and early Easter Sunday morning (Home Depot is open on Easter), I popped back over to Home Depot for the FOURTH time to pick up another 30" line for the kitchen and a 20" line for the bathroom. Exactly like the one I'd returned the night before. The guy who did my return found it amusing to see me there again the next morning. *facepalm*

All in the end, I got a wonderful new kitchen faucet!!

My new faucet that I installed myself!

 And my bathroom plumbing got upgraded too!

Bathroom plumbing upgrade!

WHEW! Writing this post was almost as exhausting as doing all of those projects!

A preview for April: bathroom complete? what about that cabinet? what else has broken at the house? what kind of projects have I jumped into next?!