Our Olde House: August 2025

I decided to cut down some of the larger wild trees in the backyard because they were starting to encroach on the grass. These were too big to feed into the chipper, so I piled them up on the curb and Miss Sherry called the City to have the claw come and pick up the pile. On the second day of this project the weather decided to heat up to life threatening levels, so I cut this task short and waited for the claw to come. I pride myself on arranging the pile of limbs so the claw operator can grab and remove all of the limbs in one smooth grab. The claw stops in front of our olde house for less than five minutes, including putting down and lifting up the truck’s feet. 

Against my better judgment, I said out loud that I was pleased with the new floor in my bathroom. Now in my experience it is fine to admire one’s work, but ONLY as long as one keeps it to oneself; saying anything positive out loud is essentially asking for bad things to happen. I needed to reset the house internet power box which is easily reached only after opening the side door in my bathroom which opens into the adjacent bedroom. 

The new floor material in my bathroom apparently is slightly thicker than the old flooring, so when I tried to open the side door it scraped on top of the floor and of course would not open. I thought, no problem, I will just plane a little off the bottom of the door and it will open fine. Mistake number two, but at least I did not say it out loud. I found my plane, tapped the hinges out of the door and immediately remembered that I needed to open the door slightly in order to remove it from its hinges. I put a screwdriver under the moulding next to the door edge and stood on it to push the floor down, which moved it enough to allow the door to open and be removed. 

This interior door is old, and therefore solid wood and pretty heavy, so I put some rugs down to keep it from scratching the floor. Since this door was too tall to fit through the other door, I had to lay it down on its side, after removing my fan/light fixture which was in the way. I pushed the door out of the bathroom and partially into the sunroom where I decided was an excellent place to plane the bottom. I planed to door bottom slightly so it would clear the floor, pushed the door back into the bathroom and put it back on its hinges. Success; the door now opens, the internet box power was reset and the door was closed.  

Miss Sherry’s toilet was apparently feeling neglected after the floor upgrade in my bathroom, so it decided to keep running a little after each flush. The toilet valve needed to be replaced so off to the hardware store I went. I found a toilet valve like the one I used in my bathroom, and even picked up a new flapper hopefully to save another trip to the hardware store later. I installed the new valve, with the this-side-up side of the nut up, replaced the flapper and turned on the water to test. Major leak from the toilet hose.

Back to the hardware store to get a toilet hose. I did not realize that toilet hoses came in so many different sizes, so after some thought I just picked one and hoped it was the right size. Another swing and a miss and back to the hardware store this time with the old hose in hand. I found the correct connector size and length and went back home. I installed the new toilet hose and hand tightened it; small drip. I hand tightened it tighter and the drip stopped.

I flushed the toilet a few times, adjusted the flapper chain to stay open longer and declared victory. The flapper had a very small leak into the toilet which usually happens with a new flapper until gravity has a few days to make a perfect seal. Two days later the leak stopped and the toilet was back in working order. The job took three trips to the hardware store, which for me is average for any small task. For larger projects I purposely do not keep track of the number of trips to the store needed to complete it.