Joys of Home Ownership

I’ve wanted to update the two entry lights (front and side) for a while. Today was the day. I started my search last week. I went to Lowe’s first because it is the closest place to go look. I didn’t see anything they had on display, so I came home and went online. My first search term was “entry lighting,” and it resulted in over 27,000 choices, but it was all indoor lights.

The next search was “exterior wall lighting.” I now had a mere 6,200 to choose from. Now we’re talking. The majority were black, and I wanted something in silver. Keeping it at less than $100 each narrowed it to thirty-two choices. I ordered them, and 5 days later they arrived. The front one would have been fine, but I forgot to take into consideration that the porch door swung open past the light, and these stuck out too far. I returned those lights and resumed the search.

I then picked some nice cylinder lights, but you had to buy bulbs, and their description of what bulb it required was vague. I found a similar cylinder, but the bulbs it required were $30 apiece, so it meant 2 bulbs for 2 lights, which came to more than I wanted to spend.

Amazon to the rescue. Cheapish Chinese cylinders with built-in LEDs. Arrived yesterday and installed today. I still have to caulk them to the wall and paint the caulk, but I’m pleased with my effort.

My house number has always been this plain faded black metal number 1 ever since moving in and I always planned to upgrade it somehow, but never did. I thought it might be funny to tack one of those giant foam fingers that say “WE’RE #1” on the post, but Donna wouldn’t let me.

Today when I went grocery shopping this morning I added a can of white spray paint to the cart. My plan was to paint an oval around the 1. I already had a can of black (and now for the life of me can’t remember what I needed it for) to touch up that number 1. When I got done I used a giant black sharpie to out line the oval.

This is the before, hover over the image to see the after.

Wasn’t until I was through that I noticed a bunch of over spray, it was a bit breezy this afternoon. Don’t know I’m going to do about it because I don’t have any of that gray paint left over anywhere. You know one of those giant foam fingers would cover that all up…

We are converting, and when I say we I mean we hired some professionals, our fiberglass step in shower enclosure to a roomier, roll in tiled one. Seeing as we are sprucing up elsewhere in the bathroom as well we bought a new toilet for it. We also bought a second matching toilet for the hall bathroom too.

They came from Home Depot so they are a Glacier Bay brand with a vacuum-assisted flush that can clear 7 billiard balls on the first flush. I would like to give that claim a test but I’m afraid that even though the toilet could get rid of those 2-1/4″ solid orbs the house’s plumbing would probably explode.

The inside of the tank looks like under the hood of a modern car, you can’t see the workings because they are under a plastic cover. But I do know there is no old school chain on the handle that goes down to the flapper at the bottom of the tank, so no more jiggling the handle to stop the toilet running. So instead of a three inch throw on the flushing handle this takes a inch to activate. It is sort of like a short shift kit for your manual transmission sports car.