The Dryer Saga, Part 3

Who'd have thought? You may have been around when I posted this about our dryer breaking down in January. Then, we were able to replace it with a free one, even though I was pining for a cherry-red, front-loading model. After a few months, it broke down, and I talked about that here. We were able to fix it, amazingly, as dryers don't seem too challenging to understand, once you figure out how to open them. So we were able to keep the free one after investing in a $14 part.

A few days ago, one of our sons just happened to mention that they had noticed the clothes in the dryer were still wet - the clothes they had put in a couple of days prior. They informed me - the dryer is broken, mom. Oh great.

How far do you push a free dryer? When do you throw in the towel and get a 'new' one? When do you throw in THAT towel and buy a really 'new' one from the store that gives guarantees and delivery and hauling away of the old one (or old ones in our case)? Those were the tough questions in our household this weekend.

I was ready to bite the bullet and get a brand new one. I'm tired of taking on other people's problem appliances. Why should I have to learn how a blower wheel works when other people get to watch their laundry spin round and round in their brand new front loaders? Grrr.

Earth to Jill... Remember why you started this blog in the first place??

Um... Yeah. So I started to do some research. The machine just wasn't starting up at all - no juice whatsoever. It could be many things, but we had to start at the door switch. Having learned recently how to open the dryer front, I took it off and quickly found the switch in question. Having unplugged the machine (of course), I removed the switch and set about looking for a replacement. Two appliance parts stores later, we found the part. Now to go home and find if this was the problem.

The part fit perfectly, with a little squeezing of some pliers, and low and behold... it started up. It's been drying all day now - and yes, we re-washed the stinky boy load and everything is just fine now. (Gotta give them kudos for trying to do their own laundry, right??)

What items have you fixed when you could have replaced?

Grouting 101

Way back when, we decided this was the year of the bathroom makeover. I touted that I would do the re-do on the cheap, and of course it's been anything but. But all that aside, I thought I would share my wise words for those of you considering a walk down the aisle of home improvement, especially projects in the bathroom domain. Being that we grouted the tile around the tub today, I thought this post could be ...

All About Grout

1. Do not leave grout all over the floor, the tub, the wall and your hands unless you plan on sanding everything down at a later date - including your hands.
2. Do not use a kitchen spatula to transfer grout from the bucket to the float, especially one with holes.
3. Do not expect happy moments with your spouse if you are both squeezed into the tub trying to grout the walls before the grout dries, and both making a royal mess.
4. Do not... 'ahem'... do not wear a favorite outfit while grouting, especially when grouting with your spouse as grout has a tendency to fly about the room and permanently land on clothing (and the floor, sink, tub, toilet, door, hall)
5. Do not make any other plans for the day. The grouting takes forever, and then you will be too tired to even get up off the couch to go look at your great job done until tomorrow.
6. Please - and I am asking nicely - please do not put blue-green wall tile around a pink bathtub. If you do, the next person will just have to come and rip it out - and then they will have to learn how to grout. Think neutral, people!
7. Do expect very sore arms by the end of the day - grouting is all about the 'push', you know.
8. Do expect that you will either have to miss those very important calls while you are grouting - or expect that your phone will become one with the bathroom wall after you reach for it (not thinking) and inadvertently cover it with grout.

I am grateful for the ability to begin, carry out and complete home improvement projects with my husband. I do wish they were less messy, and hope that the next project could be in a somewhat larger space.

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down!

Ok.  So you may remember from this post a few weeks ago, how excited I was that the neighbor was going to renovate this huge house next door to me, and he gave me carte blanche to dumpster dive.  Well... this morning they came to begin demolition.  I know because all of a sudden on a glorious, radiantly sunny and bird-song filled morning, I heard the shattering of glass and splintering of wood.  I happened to look up to see piece after piece of apartment fixtures flying out the 3rd floor window.  And apparently, no one had bothered to actually OPEN that window - they just threw things out without bothering to make room for the explosion.  I saw pieces of countertops, carpeting, window screens, odds and ends - appliances left behind.  When one of the demo guys (and they were all guys) bumped into the screen door, he grabbed a crowbar and tore it off.  A perfectly good screen door that could have fetched a good $25 from someone needing such a door.  Now it's twisted metal in the back of some guy's truck, laying under layers of ripped wood and tile.  And I have glass where my kids ride their bikes.

Ok.  Now you've guessed my little secret.  I'm on a rant.  A major one.  Not only do I have to dodge the flying glass that falls on our shared driveway, I have to watch as these guys tear into the very heart of this house and THROW IT ALL AWAY.  Not ok with me.  But I feel caught.  This is NOT my house.  I did NOT hire these guys to demo it.  I am NOT paying the bills.  But seriously.  Couldn't someone have come through beforehand and collected the kitchen cabinets and sinks, the countertops and stoves, the old windows and doors?  How incredibly sad to see it all flying out the window, nobody caring one heap of plumber's putty for it at all.  Geez.  Donate it to a salvage yard at the very least.

How would you have handled this?  Would you have told the 'guys' to put aside anything they could salvage?  Would you have called the owner?  The contractor?  Would you sneak in during the night to grab what your arms could carry before the 'guys' come back in the morning?  Would you have done nothing as I did?

The whole experience is making me resent the renovation now, whereas before I was looking forward to having a 'new' space next to me.  What about all the people who would have come to take what they needed from the house and left the rest for the demo 'guys'?  Don't contractors know about this resource?  Ugh.  If I get the guts to talk with the owner or contractor, I will ask about this manner of demolition, which is probably pretty typical.  I will put the response here in a future post.

No! Don't Throw That Out - It's A Treasure To Me!

There is a 7-family house next door to me. Recently, it completely emptied of all it's residents as the owner prepares for renovation this summer. He will be constructing 4 condos where the 7 apartments stood, either to rent or sell sometime next year. While I am not looking forward to the crazy noise we are going to endure this summer, I have already become giddy with trash-pickin' delight as my moving-out neighbors began depositing their unwanted goods on the sidewalk for trash pick up. Oh my. I have already benefited from this experience - my son grabbed a punching bag, I found a beautiful, antique oak dresser which I will refurbish, we grabbed 3 sturdy drawers from a broken dresser that will be our first outdoor vegetable planters for the deck (a project blog for another time), and we are now proud owners of a motorized scooter without a key (hmmmm - not sure if that will turn out positive in the long run). And all this without one wall coming down! I spoke with the contractor and owner yesterday and admitted to my trash-picking habit. Really, I was just warning them that I will be looking through their cast-offs the minute they let go of them... They just smiled and said - You'll make our job easier. Wow. Do you know what comes out of an old New England house? Old panel doors. Real wood molding. I can just visualize my 'new' greenhouse coming from 3 floors of old 4-lite windows. I'm thinking about old doorknobs. Beadboard paneling. Old light fixtures. Oh yes. This girl's gonna be dumpster diving pretty regularly this summer. Mmm Hmmm. Can't wait. As I look outside tonight, I see a headboard that might become something else. Oh...there's a small coffee table just screaming to stay out of the trash truck.

Last Monday, I was home with a sick child. As I often do when home in the morning (rare), I watched out the window as life woke up and began moving around in my neighborhood. The trash truck comes on Monday, and my sons had diligently put out the trash cans the night before. As I dazed out the window, I looked at the enormous pile of 'trash' next door - a definite sign of someone moving: an old rotten couch, tables, lamps, trash bags galore, old phone books, old clothes strewn about. I heard the trash truck coming, and decided to sit and watch. I had already gone over the pile with a fine-toothed comb the day before, so I knew that what was left was pretty much trash (so glad I grabbed that antique dresser!). The truck pulled up and CRUNCH went the couch. CRUNCH went the desk and broken dresser. The bags of clothes and trash disappeared. The phone books (which could have been recycled) were tossed in the truck. In a poof, everything that to me represented 10 years of people living next door was gone. Gone. There was no longer any residue of anyone moving out, or living there at all. I looked over at the house, now empty, and felt so sad. Sad that the bulldozers will come soon to rip it's siding off. It's not a pretty house to look at, and a renovation is long overdue. But I felt sad knowing that the work will be done without much thought to keeping and reusing anything. So my mission is to find homes for the useable materials, to the best of my ability (it's not MY house, after all...)
I look forward to posting upcoming projects from the materials I have already gathered. Stay tuned for fun!

Renovation Project #1

I'm giving myself a decorator's challenge: Redo the bathroom!

We have lived in our house for over 10 years.  When we moved in, the house was a decorator's nightmare with pink something in every room.  There were pink walls, tile (in the kitchen!), borders, carpet, I even remember pink paint in the basement on one splatch of wall!

So then, somehow I got a case of paintitis where every paint color I chose to get rid of the horror this house held came out some ridiculous shade - some of them a shade of pink!  My father in law laughed at me as I brought home gallon after gallon of what promised to be my new favorite 'have to have' shade, to then toss it aside for something else the next weekend.  We have a victorian style house, which translates into very tall ceilings.  That's alot of painting. So the bathroom - green/blue tile on the walls and pink...yes, pink fixtures.  I can't stand it.

So my challenge was going to be to redo the bathroom for free: free tile, fixtures, flooring, mirror, etc - of course doing the work myself. But after thinking about free toilet, I was pretty disgusted, so I nixed the whole 'free' thing.  My new plan is to redo the bathroom for $500 or less.  I really want to do it for less than $100, but I have to reglaze the tub to get rid of the pink, and that will cost $400.  So I will scour Craig's List for free wall tile, floor tile, mirror and possibly a sink, purchase a new toilet and reglaze the tub.  I can tile myself - both the floor and walls, so no problem.  I will need to purchase grout, I assume, so there may be an added cost there.  The room will need to be painted, but we have plenty of paint here... I'm sure I can find something that isn't pink!  

Have you redone a room on the cheap?  Tell us all about it in the comments!