Monday, October 20, 2008

This week on this old house....

I came home Friday to a torn up bathroom. Alann had only worked for 2 hours, then came home and decided to finish out the bathroom. He pulled out the toilet, vanity, and old flooring, and laid nice new tile. Then we put the pretty new vanity in. Saturday was spent mostly on the bathroom. We had some plumbing issues, but eventually got the sink plumbed properly and dryly. It ended up being a 4 Lowes project. You know, 4 trips to Lowes (or Home Depot) to buy stuff or make returns. Fun stuff. I installed a new light fixture in the bathroom to replace the old cheap bar light. It's very nice looking, even if I did have to put it upside down. You can't really tell. It was either that, take it back and buy a more expensive bar light, or move the outlet box higher in the wall. As I wasn't feeling up to major construction, we just flipped it over. Alann wanted to be able to open the mirror. He is so selfish sometimes...

While Alann was plumbing, I went ahead and replaced the ceiling fan in the office. I may have mentioned that it blew up a few weeks ago. We have just been ignoring it, not turning it on, etc. Since we were going to have guests over, who may or may not remember not to flip the switch, we decided to replace it. I was going to put the dome light in there that we pulled out of the bedroom, but someone who shall remain nameless (and likes to hang out in the garage and climb on top of things) jumped on the glass and broke it. She's lucky she didn't cut herself. So we bought a new ceiling fan, and I installed it. I found out why the old one blew up. The idiot that installed it didn't bother to tuck the wiring into the electrical box. It blew up shortly after having been running for almost two days straight to dry out the carpets (thanks dogs) because the wiring was sitting on the fan motor and rubbed through the insulation. Live wires making contact on metal = no good! I don't know if the fan would have worked again if I had rewired it, but I didn't really want to find out. I was plenty happy to throw it away and put a nice new safe one in there. I am not the world's best electrician, but at least I know enough to make things safe. I feel much better now that I have been forced to rewire/ replace almost all of the electrical outlets in the house and most of the switches. Whoever did the electrical before us was just plain dumb.

In between and after a nice long day working on the bathroom, we also cleaned the house and I made some potato rolls. They took me forever! They just did not want to suck up enough flour. Then I put them in the fridge overnight and they took 5 hours to rise after I got them out!!!! I made the small batch at half height because we wanted them with dinner. The other batch finally rose enough to cook. Next time I know, you can make them the night before, but take them out BEFORE church. Geez. I have been a bit on a baking spree lately. I've used almost 5 lbs of AP flour and close to the same amount of whole wheat and a dozen eggs. We had waffles for breakfast, then I made potato rolls, wheat bread, and crust for pumpkin pie. By the way, I made pumpkin pie from scratch! It was delicious. It wasn't as pretty or as sweet as those frozen kinds, but even without whipped cream or ice cream (which I totally forgot to buy) it was awesome. I roasted the pumpkin and then made the filling, made the crust from scratch, and baked it all. I want to try a different crust next time, but since the recipe made enough filling for two pies, I will be trying a new crust out. Yesterday's was good, but very simple, and a little too crispy/ crumbly. I'm thinking maybe a graham cracker crust. Or a crust that tastes like graham cracker, but has better cohesiveness. And, I can make the filling in advance, freeze it, and bring it for Thanksgiving at my mom's house. Aren't you guys excited? I know I am.

Sunday was spent mostly cleaning and cooking, and of course church going. We had Alann's dad, brother, sister-in-law, and our neighbor over for dinner. It was fun. Today, Alann's dad is sanding and puttying the bathroom for us (because he was bored, not because we asked). I wonder if he will decide to paint it tomorrow... The bathroom is looking very very nice. It's like a whole new bathroom.

So after all that hard work, my feet and hands are swollen and puffy and sore. I need pity. (JK, that's what I tell Alann to tease him.)

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