Tag Archives: updates

Out with the old.

I don’t know what happened, but when my part-time job ended, I decided that it is time for us to start working on the projects that we’ve discussed seemingly forever. Among those projects are:

  • Replacing the ceiling fan and light fixture in our living/dining area.
  • Install vinyl plank flooring in the basement bathroom and replace the sink and toilet.
  • Replace the counter and sink in the main floor bathroom.

The basement bathroom project revolves around us agreeing on which vinyl plank flooring pattern to use which may take a while. Kenn likes lighter flooring, I don’t – especially for the basement bathroom. The basement bath is between the half of the basement that serves as Kenn workshop and the half where my video game consoles are set up. As such, that bathroom sees a lot of muddy boots (Kenn’s) which, in my opinion, are not conducive to a light colored floor. I think he now sees the logic behind going with something a little darker, but we haven’t found exactly what we’re looking for yet.

Our next door neighbor has his own counter/cabinetry business, so replacing the counter/sink in the main floor bath is only a matter of getting on his schedule. We purchased the sink/counter combo for our master bath from him, so we already know what pattern we want – no decisions to make here!

We usually replace ceiling fans and light fixtures on our own, but the ones in the “great room” are going to require a professional with a scaffold or something due to the twenty-foot ceilings. I will dust the ceiling occasionally, but that’s where it stops for me.

We recently undertook a smaller project. Well, it was a smaller project for me; I don’t think it was even on Kenn’s list. We replaced our mailbox. The Cabin came with a rustic mailbox. (Shocking, I know.) The cedar mailbox was great for our rural location and rustic house, but it required too much upkeep for me. The mailbox looked like a house and the previous owners had stained the sides and roof of the mailbox to match those of The Cabin. They had even painted the “doors and windows” on the mailbox green like those on The Cabin. I played around with the idea of repainting the mailbox “door” yellow after we repainted our front door, but… no. The mailbox roof had faded and needed to be restained; it also had moss and lichen growing on it. I mentioned it to Kenn, and he was enthusiastic. “We can clean it and restain it!” However, I strongly suspected that that “we” meant “me” and “me” had no interest in taking on that task. I’m not a high-maintenance person, and I don’t want a high-maintenance mailbox. So, I bought a basic bronze mailbox and we installed it a few days ago.

The original mailbox.
The new mailbox.

While we were installing the new mailbox, we were also waiting for an air conditioning technician to arrive. Our A/C had stopped working the previous day, and it was time for us to find out if the existing unit could be repaired or if it would need to be replaced. Based on the date written on the unit, it’s twenty-two years old; I couldn’t help but feel that the odds were not in our favor. However, we dodged a bullet. A new switch and capacitor got the unit back up and running. We know it’s at the end of its lifespan, but hopefully, this fix will keep it running a little longer.🤞

Are you a DIY-er or do you prefer to hire a professional for your home improvement projects?

The Great Toilet Conundrum

A couple of years ago we updated our master bathroom which, among other things, included replacing the hand-painted toilet and sink. (The original owners had hand painted flowers on the cabinet doors and carried the theme onto the sink and toilet.) While I appreciated the effort and love that had gone into the painting, the overall effect just screamed “SEVENTIES!” So, we put the old sink and toilet in the basement to deal with later, as one does. By the time later actually rolled around, we had added a second toilet to the collection as we had replaced the plastic toilet in our travel trailer with a ceramic one.

The day eventually rolled around when Kenn asked The Question: “What should I do with those old toilets? Sit them out by the road?” My answer was a resounding NO! I refuse to be those people that have a toilet (or in this case, two toilets) sitting in their yard. Admittedly, at our last house, someone might have picked them up but I still wouldn’t have put toilets in the yard. Our current neighborhood is a little nicer and in all the years we’ve lived here, I haven’t seen a single free-range toilet in search of a new home. Toilets also seem to fall under the definition of “household debris” that the city won’t pick up. So, we left the toilets in the basement to ignore a while longer.

Kenn is the one who ultimately came up with the solution to our excess toilet situation: Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore. He had helped his brother find a “gently used” replacement sink for his office at a ReStore so, hey, maybe they would take our old bathroom fixtures. We loaded up the truck and drove to our local ReStore where there were a few raised eyebrows at the flowers, but they took everything. Whoo hoo! (Thank you Habitat for Humanity!)

Fast forward to this year when we are updating our guest bath. One of the first things to go was the hideous green toilet with its even more hideous wooden toilet seat.🤢 (At least the green tub/shower unit can be hidden behind the shower curtains.)

Goodbye and good riddance

One weekend we went full Beverly Hillbillies, loaded the toilet in the bed of the truck, and headed out to run errands. The toilet accompanied us to the recycle center, Goodwill, the grocery store, and finally to the ReStore where we learned that even “gently used” has its limits. The green toilet was so bad that the good folks at the ReStore refused to take it!😂 So, we took ourselves out to a late lunch – still with a toilet in the truck bed – then went home to regroup.

My suggestion for dealing with the green monster was to take a sledge hammer to it and dump the pieces in the city trashcan for pickup. (The old “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” method.) Once again, it was Kenn to the rescue. We both have part-time jobs at a local agricultural center which happens to have a convenient dumpster. The next time I worked, I drove straight to the dumpster and called Kenn who came and helped me offload the toilet into the (also green) dumpster. Less than an hour later, the dumpster was emptied and the Great Green Toilet Saga was concluded. Sweet, sweet success!

So, tell me dear readers, how would you dispose of a toilet?