It Pays To Be Handy

I'm really thankful that growing up, my dad made me help with things around the house such as re-roofing and on my car, such as changing out hoses and tearing apart the engine. I can't say that I've retained a whole lot of it, and I wish I did. If he were around today I would certainly pay much more attention, ask more questions and really take advantage of his knowledge and experience.

I'm also thankful that I've got a lot of guys around to bounce ideas off of when I'm starting a new project. But being as I don't have a guy around my house, I'm also thankful that I'm not afraid to tackle things when I have to.

I can split wood. Fairly well. And haul in 40lb bags of wood pellets every night or two.

When I got home from Thanksgiving with the fam, I found my back yard fence blown over. With a lot of brute force and a little bit of ingenuity, I hoisted it up and bungeed it to a fence post and the gate. It still stands. Four days and counting.

The toilet in the guest bathroom does not fit and the previous owner put a hole in the wall to make it fit. I switched the toilet with the one in my master bathroom and I think it might just work... except I now have to patch the wall before installing the toilet... and I just ran 16 miles so as it turns out, that probably won't happen tonight.

After my run I went to go get in the jacuzzi... and couldn't open the door. Upon inspection, it would appear that the "expansive soils" that my house sits on has caused there to be pressure on the door which in turn put pressure on the bolt in the door knob so that it would not slide out of the wall.

I removed the door knob which did not help. Still could not pull the bolt out. I tried putting pressure in different directions with screw drivers because I don't own a pry bar.

I removed the pins to the hinges and then was at a complete loss as how to follow up on that move.

I googled the problem. Someone mentioned a vehicle tire pry bar thing...and then I remembered, with my car jack, there's something resembling a pry bar. I caused a little damage to the trim, but managed to pop the bolt out of the wall by prying next to it, and of course forgot that I had removed the hinges and almost ended up with a glass door on my head.

I now have access to my jacuzzi room, but no door knob on it. Oh well. Really makes me think how much work owning an old home is. I'm deciding between different samples of handscraped laminate flooring and discussing with my boss how to go about installing them. He mentioned I would have to remove the baseboards.

People. Big houses mean big work. Removing baseboards in my entire house is going to be a pain.

I have to replace my fence. That's a big job and not one to tackle during the winter.

I'm not even halfway done with painting the outside of my house but can't do anything about it. When it's warm, it's raining and when it's not raining it's too cold to paint.

My house is a mess and needs to be reined in. It's quite the project, although I did just fix my shop-vac so I'm already setting myself up for success.

I've still got to get dinner in the oven, split and bring in wood and bring in another bag of pellets. Then I might clean a little. Maybe. I may need a drink first but for the past half hour I've been trying to decide between a glass of wine and a hot whiskey. Don't worry, that's for after splitting wood.

Ah yes, and one more thing. I've never owned my own Christmas tree, but I've wanted to get a fake one for awhile. I really don't need the hassle of a real one. I'm always gone for Christmas so it's been low on my list. I went into a Habitat for Humanity ReStore (very cool, check them out!) and came across this little guy for $2! I couldn't resist. After all, he needed me.

Behold, the best Christmas tree ever!

 

 

For those of you who don't know, that is an official Charlie Brown Christmas Tree complete with Linus' blankie wrapped around the bottom.