Our Olde House – April 2024
My new bathroom wallpaper was wrinkled and peeling off the wall, as it has done in many other locations, but this time it was in the one inch space between the sink cabinet and the shower wall. I tried to coax the wallpaper to stick using a yardstick, but this did not work and was probably flirting with tearing the wallpaper, so of course this means that I will need to remove the sink cabinet in order to fix the wallpaper. But I will not need a ladder.
I removed the stuff from inside the cabinet, disconnected the drainpipe and removed both water lines at the shutoff valves. As I tried to lift the cabinet I noticed it was screwed to the wall, up high behind the sink. Great, I went to find my stubby screwdriver to be able to reach it, and tried to figure out why and how I managed to install it the first time. Realizing my basically lazy nature, it occurred to me that I would not have done anything that difficult, which made me remember that the sink was not glued to the cabinet. I lifted the sink off of the cabinet, easily reached the screw holding the cabinet to the wall and removed it.
Two pieces of wallpaper had come unglued on the edges causing the wrinkling. I found my trusty glue stick which I used to fix all of the other places where this has occurred, and put glue on the wall and used the plastic thingy to smooth the wallpaper back onto the wall with the glue. My glue stick ran out, but I bought three, and I was actually able to find another new glue stick quickly. I finished putting glue on the wall, smoothed the wallpaper back into place, and retrieved the sink cabinet and screwed it to the wall. I put the sink on top of the cabinet, reconnected the water lines and drain pipe and ran the water; no drips, runs or errors. I let it age for two days, still no drips, before I put the stuff back into the cabinet.
Spring means that my gutters will be full again and need to be cleaned. My daughter told me that the guy she hires to clean her gutters uses a leaf blower. Huh. That sounds a lot cleaner and easier than using a little shovel. I tried this in the back gutter with an electric leaf blower I found in the tool shop. It has a snoot that fits inside the gutter, and has a variable switch calibrated from Cat1 to Cat6. Much easier. I used it to blow out the gutter in the back and the front with great success. Both of these jobs require using a ladder, actually two different ladders, just in case you thought I was having a ladder-free Spring.
I decided to use the blower to clean the front porch since it should be easy, but then I discovered some flaws in the design, or in the user. Yes, the leaf blower does blow most leaves directly away from it, BUT it also launches a considerable portion of leaves straight up and behind me. After several passes over the same areas I was able to get 99% of the leaves where I wanted them.
The motion detecting lights in my carport apparently wore out, or more likely froze last December, because they stayed on all night. I went to the hardware store and bought a replacement unit that used the same light bulbs as the old one; most of the new ‘security lights’ for sale now use some weird bulbs which I am guessing are expensive. Replacing this fixture of course involves a ladder, and I selected one of the five ladders I have best suited for this location. After turning off the circuit breaker, I went up and down the ladder about twenty times in order to remove and replace the fixture and light bulbs, but I completed the task without falling off of the ladder, so it was a success.
While up in the air on this ladder I remembered that I wanted to change the aim on two other motion detector lights also attached to the carport. Of course, this ladder was too tall to be able to reach these lights, so I retrieved my step ladder, my favorite ladder of the five, but this ladder was too short for these lights. I got my tall step ladder from the backyard which turned out to be just the right size; three ladders later and a flashback to the three bears, I had all of the lights properly aimed.
When I taped my water pipe heater to the faucet in back to keep those pipes from freezing, I intended to leave it there year around. But I took my other think and decided that the summer sun probably would destroy the rubber coating the pipe heater so I removed it. Hopefully this act will not trigger some deep freeze in April, and I can wait until December to put it back on.
I had some ants and unkles in the kitchen, for the first time in almost a year. The conga line called for liquid bait instead of spray, and the little buggers were gone in a day. Or so I thought, apparently they moved to the other end of the kitchen and reformed their conga line across one wall. More liquid bait but this time it took three days for all of them to disappear. Persistent, but I am still bigger.
In case you were wondering if a static electric charge from your hand to an electronic lock on your safe will affect it, I believe the answer is yes. Rumor has it that the static charge will erase the current combination and the lock will revert to the factory combination. Of course, if you have the emergency key shipped with the safe somewhere other than inside that safe, you can use that key to open it. Don’t ask how I know this.
