Descriptions of project that were already underway will be updated individually. However, I wanted to be able to explain the numerous other fixes my parents helped N and I do this past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I also apologize for not having more pictures of this: we were so busy working, and often working in different areas of the house, that not many pictures were taken at all.
My parents first helped us pick up the vanity from Lowe's, and then later Friday afternoon we added another shelf to the Elfa shelving system in our garage. When we originally bought the house, the garage was a disaster: shelving was put up hap-hazardly around the walls of the garage. Besides removing his car, a shovel, and perhaps a few other yard tools, McVicker left the garage in the same disorder as he probably kept it in for five years. A hundred pennies on the ground, 20-odd gallons of paint (some dried out, others unopened), three different brooms, car cleaning and maintenance liquids, large tubs, three small trash bins, a cat traveling house, tile for various areas of the house (including some funky blue tile that matches nothing), grout, cement, pebbles, an extension cord, and 20 bottles of random gardening chemicals.
Funky blue tile:
Now this bounty was not without its price: some of the stuff left was junk (i.e. busted up gasoline containers, with gasoline in them) and some of the bottles of chemicals were so old they were no longer good, and were promptly thrown away, or leaked the most foul odor imaginable. A cloud smelling like death hung around our house for a week after we disturbed the contents of the garage.
After sorting through the McVicker junk and removing the poorly installed McVicker shelving we then installed some Elfa shelving that my parents were unable to use in their garage and placed only the good items on the shelves, cleaning up the majority of the garage. At the time there were only three shelves to install, but my mother surprised N and I with a fourth shelf for a Valentine's Day present, and we were happy to rearrange things in order to have an extra 6 feet of shelving.
Our next mini-project involved removing an old door handle to install a new one. The master bathroom opens with a French door. One of the two doorknobs is a fully functional knob, while the second door's knob is decoration only, although the second door acts as the latch for the first door. The first doorknob was easy for N to install, but neither N nor I could figure out how to remove the decoration knob. We looked in vain for a secret key or hole that would allow us to dismantle either side of the knob. After a fajita dinner my parents looked at the knob and were stumped themselves. We all pried at the knob with screwdrivers, etc. So, bolstered by the fact that four people couldn't solve this, we decided that the only way solution was to use the Dremel to saw off the plate behind the knob, hoping that a clue would surface then.
And, if you haven't already figured it out, nothing is easy with this house. With the plate removed, we still couldn't see a screw or fitting that would facilitate the removal. So N cut the plate on the other side of the door. At that point we were able to snap off the door knobs, and then pull out the pieces fitting into the door. The way these doorknobs were designed to be put together, it appears that the pieces snapped into place without allowing them to be taken apart without completely destroying the parts. Great design door engineers!
The bathroom doors with handles on:
The difficult doorknob completed:
A third mini-project involved pulling off the baseboard near the door to the backyard, since N and I had noticed some mold on that spot a few weeks ago. Once the molding was removed, however, it became clear that there was an ongoing leak from outside into the house when it was raining. A piece of the backdoor has rotted through. We sprayed this area with bleach and then my mother caulked up the cavity. We intend to recycle a piece of the baseboard in the blue bedroom to install here. However, we will still need to replace the exterior door before too long, as this is only a temporary fix.
The fourth project was actually a completion of a repair begun in November. During Ike the winds whipped the satellite dish that McVicker had left attached to the chimney off the house and into the backyard. Subsequently water leaked through the exposed parts of the chimney/roof and after two weeks we noticed a water stain in the now-orange bedroom. The stain was repaired, and we brought planks to replace the wood damaged in the storm. Measurements were incorrect, and more planks were bought and painted. This weekend we were able to nail the final two boards into the chimney, along with more caulk as a precaution. Yeah!
Those were the mini-projects completed this weekend. Most of our time, energy and money was spent continuing work on Projects 1, 4, and 5. Hurray for my wonderful parents, helping us with so much!
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