Repairs Day: Missions Accomplished.

Aka:  Make Your Dog Nuts Roving All Over the House Day

I thought he had caught on, heh, but he's a mommy-follower.  That's ok, it's sweet.

Making repairs, and home maintenance, yeah, not the most fun a girl can have with her time but hey, these things, they need to happen.  The alternative is highly unappealing.  And for the most part, repairs and/or maintenance are simple tasks.  For the most part.  Which is why they so easily get neglected.

My pal Matt over at my old pal Geoff's office sent me a boatload of work which is what I've been up to, so it's been slow goin' around the house as of late.  But some plans and projects are churning in the works and with fingers crossed, some things will be a-happenin'.  Definitely on the docket?  Mike's deck.  Starts next week.  I know, right?!

In the mean time, it's fix-y fix-y prep and prep.

First up, I noticed that a handrail bracket in the back stair was falling out of the wall.  Wow.  What a shocker.  The flipper's people.  Yeah.  Such quality workers.  pffftttt......

Nice, right?

I should really start keeping track of how many times I go up and down the stairs to get tools.  Seriously, who needs an exercise machine when you can be a DIY'er.  Right?!

Maybe I should turn my office into a work room, move the workbenches up....Nooooooo, that is certifiably crazy.  I can hear Mike putting his foot down wherever he may be while reading this.

This task?  It was a four time down/up the basement stairs gig.  Every time I touched something, a new tool was required.  Heh.

Yeah, this pile took four trips to the basement to amass.  Oy.

Well anyway.  No need to worry about getting those lame a** wall anchors outta the wall this time....

Yup.  That happened.  Everything came out/off when I removed the bracket.  Now you're starting to see why the four trips.

So I located a stud, screwed the bracket in there and damn if the railing isn't the most sturdy railing ever now.  Why that would have been such a hard thing the first time around??  No idea.

I used some a' that mesh drywall tape* which, eh, not the biggest fan of but options were limited in my on-hand supplies.  A schmear of joint compound and that task is 90% done.

Spending time back here only served to remind me what a disaster zone our back stair is.  I tried to think of options, stood and stared, drew too many blanks, so I moved along.

Next up was finally finishing the patch job in the dining room.

After a final sanding and two coats of that spiffy Goodbye Cracks,* it was time to paint.  That stuff, while it's amazingly stinky, sure has been a great purchase (so far).  The crack over the master bath door has not resurfaced, fyi.

And a check and a mark on that.  Yay!  Butt wiggle dance.  But yup, will keep an eye on that as it was such a huge crack and shift.

Horrible photo as it's super sunny out today but as you can see, one of Finn's fave spots to lay, especially when the window is open like it is.  He rests his chin on the sill -- it's painfully adorable.

Potty break time for the Finn-meister and I discover that the caulk under the dining room windows has vanished.  I don't know what kind of caulk they used everywhere around the house but it's crumbly.  Hard and it's cracking.  Everywhere they used caulk.  Everywhere.  Sigh.  (Anyone got a caulk hook up?!)

Caulk, where art thou?

Easy peasy fix.  Splop on some more!

I was feeling hot to trot, on a roll, so I headed upstairs to the master bath.

Doh.  Sad face.

Our hand towel bar has been saggy and wiggly for a while, driving us nutso, so it was time to fix that for good.

It appears I had used the included wall anchors and turns out one was loose.  Out popped the loose one, in went one of those screw-in types.*  They seriously do make a huge difference, those screw-in ones.  Try 'em, you'll see.

Yay, happy face!

Problem solved!

While I was in there, I figured eh, it's been eons since I patched up the holes from changing the toilet paper holder, I bet that joint compound is dry by now.  (eyeroll)

Um.  It's been how long like this?  Um, January.

So heh, I gave that a sanding, another coat of joint compound, sand and paint.  Woo hoo!

Ah.  Way better.  Lovin' that vanity still!

So I may as well get the bath towel bar up finally too while I'm here, yeah?  Yeah, ok, went the conversation in my head.  I strongly disliked the flipper's cheapy crappy one, plus it makes this horrifying blood curdling squeak.

Before.  Yuck.

I took closer a look and noticed that there was no rhyme or reason as to where they placed it.  It wasn't centered on the wall.  It wasn't centered over the toilet.  It was, there, centered in its own universe.

After some math to center the new one on the wall, it was go time.

Biggest doofus in the world though, that's me.  Yeah sure, it's a 24" towel bar so what do I do?  Place the bar supports at 12" on center on either side of wall center.

Omg.  Palm to forehead.  Repeatedly.

Omg.  What an idiot.  I felt so dumb.  I checked over my shoulder several times after boinking myself on the head to make sure no one saw what a dummy I was.

So I ended up with the wall like this after redoing it correctly.  I deserved that.  Duh.

Anyway, so now the towel bar is centered on the wall.  But it looks off center because of the toilet, which is placed well, almost to code's location which is not center...but....ugh.  Frustrating but I kept telling myself one day the whole room will get redone.  Hopefully.

Lastly was kitchen time.

I removed a random piece of base trim from the side of the cabinet holding the fridge because it looked ridiculous and as it turns out, it didn't serve any purpose by being there.  Go figure.  This flipper's people were freakin' geniuses all right.

Yay, no more Finny toys lost under the cabinet!

But, thankfully that useless trim was there as I was able to re-cover the area that blew my mind and made my eyes cross.

Last repairs for the day?  Patching the holes in the cabinets from the crown moulding removal and filling in missing corners.

One of two missing corners.

The winners trimmed out little notches of the fridge cabinet for the oh-so-lovely moulding so I thought I'd try that doesn't-take-stain "behaves-exactly-like-wood" plastic wood patch stuff rather than the Durham's Water Putty* as that dries, well, rock hard and can be tough to sand at times.

To make a mould I used those lil' plastic drawer divider thingies that are meant for those hardware storage bins.  You know, for a thingie like this.

I managed to make a great mould and was quite proud.  In the end though, despite my efforts, I ended up with air pockets.  No biggie, I'll patch those after letting the plastic wood stuff cure completely.

So yeah, many many little things.  A pat on the back to myself for accomplishing so much!  Woo hoo!

What's down the pike, you ask?  Well....

A super duper cute pet project, figuratively and literally, is in the works.  Super cute.

I'm all fired up to buy a Rustoleum Kitchen Transformations* kit in black for the kitchen cabinets but figures, it's eternally on sale except for the time I'm eyeballing it.

A revelatory (future) solution dawned on me for the kitchen floor:  wood-look ceramic tile.  Yeah I know trendy, that which I try very hard to avoid.  But since our first floor is hardwood, the island of light colored tile in the kitchen is jarring; wood-look tile will make for seamless continuity.

We finally got the main floor bath general scheme resolved randomly the other day so time for me to start ironing that out.

And the deck!   The deck next week.

Crazy!

And I need to start buying lottery tickets to fund all these projects!

Happy birthday to my dad and to my sweetest pea who I miss so terribly much.  It's odd, right?, the one who can make you feel better in times of such a loss... not fair, the one you lost.  But, thinking of her on what would have been her 13th birthday, and thinking of my dad today.

*The mesh drywall tape, Goodbye Cracks, screw-in wall anchors, Durham's Water Putty, and Rustoleum Kitchen Transformations are all Amazon affiliate links.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab above for more info.