Sitting at the airport...

I'm in Medford, Oregon sitting at the airport. I got here early, expecting a big Thanksgiving crowd and arrived to find my flight delayed by 1 hour and 45 minutes. That left me 3 hours before my flight took off. Looking at my layover in San Francisco, it's possible that I might still make my connecting flight.

There's a news camera set up outside the security check-point and it makes me laugh. Every year, all the news stations cover the crowds at the airports. Every year it's the same: there are crowds at the airports. Hmmm.... big news. Look, it's a crowd at the airport! Fast forward a year or so: look, it's a crowd at the airport! Our society is lame. The sun came up today. It'll probably come up tomorrow as well, whether or not I'm here. I wonder what a news station would be like if it only covered news that made any difference. News at 7 pops up and the news caster says there's no new news today, here's a free movie in our place, see you tomorrow. Interesting concept. We might all adopt a more laid back lifestyle.

So after spending a weekend up in the Bend, OR area visiting my friend, Gwen, I've got some new ideas about dealing with the projects around my house.

First of all, the trim in the old half of the house is a finished wood. Believing it had some sort of historical significance, I didn't want to paint over it, but it needed to be refurbished. Refurbishing old trim is a "dirty bear" (haha, inside joke, sorry). So I put it off. I stare at it every day and it irks me. Not only that, but all the trim in the new half of the house is white, so it doesn't flow so well. The house needs flow.

A week or so ago, I was in the work shop in the back yard and found an unfinished corner block for the trim. It is certainly not 100 years old. More like 5. Which leads to the conclusion that the trim in the house is not 100 years old. Since it has no historical value and looks old and weathered, it will now be painted white, without any sort of guilt on my part, and the house will look refreshed. Yay!

My toilet conundrum. I probably mentioned it in a post early on in my house move. In the guest bathroom, the toilet is not the right size for the space so someone cut a hole the size of the tank in the wall behind it and it is now embedded about a inch into the wall. And of course it isn't done neatly, it looks like crap. So I decided I would have to buy a new toilet, get rid of the old one, patch the wall, texture and paint the patch, and then I can go ahead with painting the bathroom.

Gwen has a toilet that sits too far from her wall. We got the great idea that I would go home and measure the toilet and if it fit hers, we would switch.

I measured it, and it is not a standard measure...well the bolt to the wall is not. The toilet is standard, some one installed the drain in the wrong spot, by about an inch. Stumped again.

I sat down to watch DIY network for awhile. It allowed me to clear my mind a bit. Sometimes when you have a tough problem to solve, walking away and forgetting about it sometimes helps.

It did. My mind wandered around the toilet issue while watching whatever his name is crash some lady's backyard.

I have three bathrooms.... three toilets... the toilet in the master bath sits too far from the wall...

I jumped up off the couch, grabbed my tape measure and ran to the master bath. Bolt is 12 inches from the wall....the back of the tank lid sits 2 inches from the wall...12 minus 2 = a 10 inch toilet. Bolt to wall in guest bathroom... 11 inches. Ha! Bolt to back of tank on guest bathroom toilet- 12 inches... so if I switch the two toilets, they should both fit in their new homes! I grabbed a few different size crescent wrenches, turned off the water supply to the toilet...and then decided I should probably google how to do this. I watched a Home Depot video and figured out I needed two new wax rings, but other than that, it's a very simple thing to do. Yay!! I'm saving that for after Thanksgiving.

Gotta go see the gate agent about my connecting flight.

Oh, and by the way...I've been looking at wood floors, and am excited to find out that handscraped laminate flooring is a fraction of the price and looks and feels the same! I ordered some samples.