August 2013: Garage, August 4, 2013

After church (and lunch--an older couple invited me to join them for lunch.  They have traveled a lot--which is neat to hear their stories--PLUS they are old enough that they remember World War II--rationing and it being over.  They were children at the time.  One of their mothers was paid to raise hemp for the government.  She recalls her mother telling her brothers not to chew on the leaves.  This wasn't bushy hemp, like we see now as marijuana plants, but tall stalks similar to corn.  Speaking of marijuana today, one of my friends used to have a marijuana plant in her weeds in her back yard.  She had no idea until a neighbor told her.  That inspired her to finally get rid of that patch of weeds that included weed.), I stopped at Menards and bought a putty knife scraper.  This afternoon, I spent another half-hour scraping paint.

As you can tell from the end of the day yesterday until the end of the day today, a LOT of progress was made!  Hooray!  I'm still going to try the pressure washer tomorrow or Tuesday, but failing that, it's nice to know that I have a better option.  One of the chunks of paint ripped off a whole strip of wood along the bottom of one of the siding pieces.  Sigh.  I need to re-do my garage.  I would loooove to put vinyl siding on it, but that's not a project in the budget right now.

August 2013: Garage, August 3, 2013

So, I decided to try scraping the garage.  This is what it looked like before I started:

And after a half-hour of scraping, this is what it looked like after:

You can't really see, but there's still a lot of scraping that needs to be done in that small section.  I put a call out for help on Facebook for a sander, and while I got one, I got many responses telling me not to.  I was told to rent a power washer to take care of it, or scrape it by hand.  On the plus side, it never occurred to me to ask Uncle Dan for help on this.  He's a professional painter.  He should either be able to give me tips, or come and help me do this. 

But I'm going to drag out my power washer tomorrow or Monday and see what sort of progress I make there.  Because this scraping by hand is kinda for the birds.  Which is a dumb saying, because birds wouldn't scrape the paint away!

August 2013: Garage, August 2, 2013

My walk to Home Depot yesterday afternoon consisted in purchasing two things: an electric tester thingy and a new security light.  At this point I'm fairly confident the problem is with the light sensor, based on reviews and the fact that they sell the light sensors separately for replacement purposes.  (Since I wasn't sure of the brand of my fixture, and it wasn't that much less than a whole new fixture, I bought the brand that had the replacement sensor, so in the future I can replace it myself.  I bought the light in hopes that I could return it if the sensor proved that the problem was the wiring.)

See?  New toy!

Yay!  Now I can test electricity when needed.  I first went out and tested the wire from the source box to the light box.  There was electricity a-flowing.  I then went and turned off the breaker (and confirmed no electricity), and took the old fixture off of the garage, leaving the wires connected.  I went back in and turned on the power, and tested the fixture wires.  Power was flowing through them, eliminating the idea that there was a wiring problem.  Drat. 

So, I turned off the power again, took off the old fixture entirely, and got out the new light fixture.

There's all the parts of my light.  I didn't need to use some of them, because I could re-use the old light's pieces, saving me some time.

I then installed the new light.

I was a bit concerned, because while it was pretty awesome that there was light right away, it was worrisome because the setting was on "test" initially, and the lights came on as soon as I screwed in the bulbs (part of the instructions had me turning the power back on before screwing in the bulbs for reasons that probably made/make sense, but I don't recall them right now).  And then when I flipped the settings to a more reasonable light setting, the lights didn't turn off.  Erm, that's going to waste bulbs.  But the lights did eventually turn off (as evidenced by them not being on in the picture.

I have a problem with the lights, though.  You can't adjust up and down.  When I got home tonight, I was excited for the light, but the light facing the driveway blinded me, too.  On the other hand, my entire backyard was lit very brightly by the other light, and the light does brightly shine down the driveway.  My biggest concern is that the houses in this neighborhood are very close together, so I'm hoping that the lights aren't annoying my neighbors!  I hope they let me know if they are annoying, so I can try to figure out a way to adjust them.  But...I had light when I came home!  I could park in my garage without being too frightened by the darkness!

August 2013: Garage, August 1, 2013

The stupid garage security light.  Oh, the pain and misery.

I don't know what to do about it.  So, I decided to check the wiring.  The first step?  Turn off the power!  I might be an idiot, but occasionally I have moments of genius!

The person who wired it was kind enough to not only fill out the guide on the door, there is actually a "G" labeled on the break itself!  So, I could easily flip it.

And then I went and checked the connection in the garage, and all the wire nuts were in place.

So I took the light off the wall, checked all the connections, cleaned out a ton of cobwebs, and put the light back up on the garage.  I tested it, and it didn't work.  Drat.  And then I got a brilliant idea!  I went back to the breaker box, turned the breaker back on, and came out the garage, and flipped the switch to text again, and voila!  Nothing happened.  (I later took a walk to Home Depot and bought a new security light, as well as a thing to test for power.  That way I can see if power is getting to the light at all, just to narrow down the problem.)

I wasn't going to let my day end up completely unproductive in terms of nothing changing!  I had some holes in my wall--remember the previously mentioned ants?  I guess the wood peckers in the neighborhood like to eat those ants--or some other bug that lives in the wood in my garage.  I had two beautifully drilled holes in the garage.  See?

The one on the South side (the lower picture) I noticed from inside my garage.  It was a moment of, "Hold that thought.  Is that daylight?!"  Well, alright.  So I took clear caulk from a project this winter, tried to clean out the tip, and put caulk in.

Alas, my hands were too dirty for a picture, but I managed to squeeze caulk out of the bottom of the tube, all over the caulking gun, which resulting in my getting it all over my hands (so I just used my hands to finish filling the holes).  Cleaning caulk off of things is harder than you might realize.  Nevertheless, my garage is now hole-free, and hopefully ready for cleaning and scraping now!

August 2013: Garage Preview

What can I say about my garage?  It really should be torn down and re-built.  But I'm doing everything I can to keep it in decent enough shape until I win the lottery (or something) and can fix it.  The real goal of this project is to get the garage painted.  It needed it last summer, but never happened, and time is slipping away.  Alas, the whole nature of, well, nature is that we can't control it.  If it rains, I won't be able to be doing much for painting it, so I'll also work on some other projects.  Cleaning and organizing it would be one example of work that needs to be done, but it's a lower priority.

Last summer I did replace the windows.  The East windows were broke out two winters ago, and I put in plexiglass where the glass was, but the North window had a crack in it, and the frame was rotting away.  More specifically, we discovered, carpenter ants were eating the frame away.  We--my dad and I--replaced the windows, sills, and moulding with vinyl.  It's a slow process.

But one of my higher priorities is getting my security light fixed.  The placement of my garage--in the far back of the property--means it's very dark.  I'm scared of the dark.  I don't like walking from my garage to my house in the dark.  My dad and I installed a motion sensor security light not too long after I moved in. However, it quit working a month ago.  In a large surprise, we realized the interior lights weren't working, and had to replace those sockets before we could test the bulbs in the security light.  They worked.  However, after checking all the wiring, my dad switched the lights to the test mode, and they turned on.  Fabulous!  Except when it got dark, they didn't turn on.  When I drove up, they didn't turn on.  When I got the ladder out and turned on the test mode, they didn't turn on.  I really need to get that fixed.

But painted.  That garage needs to be painted.  As far as I can tell it either was never primed, had the wrong primer used, or was painted when it was wet.  The paint is peeling off like it's a snake shedding its skin or something.  (Ew!  I hate snakes!)

From my research, the steps I will need to take is to power wash the garage, scrape the peeling paint off the garage (which, as far as I can tell, is ALL of the paint.  I'm not sure any is sticking), prime the garage, and then paint the garage.  No big deal....  :sigh:

So, here's a few before pictures.

That's the front of the garage.  I'm standing by my house there.  There are no lights from the neighbors houses, and with the fences and trees, it gets pretty dark.  Plus, that tree back there?  It really needs to be trimmed so it's not actually touching my garage!

I really need a new garage door, but for now, I'm going to try to fix it as best I can.  In positive news, the other parts of the garage door seal were falling, and I've managed to glue them up with construction adhesive.  When I finish with the adhesive, I'm going to use some caulk to seal out the moisture in hopes of making the garage door last longer.  If I'd paint the garage door and trip, it would only be because that color green doesn't do anything for me.

You can see the peeling paint in this picture.  Plus the branched hanging from the gutter (which I removed after taking the picture--I still need to clean the gutters, though!  I'd like to add some leaf catchers on the gutters so they don't get jammed up and need cleaning regularly.  I'm lazy!).

I don't know what this is.  Maybe the garage door used to be bigger, and they just made it smaller by adding a piece of plywood.  In fact, I'm fairly confident that is the case: it was a larger door, and rather than special ordering, they changed the opening for a standard sized garage door.  But, even that needs painting!

I've got my work cut out for me.  Join me on my wild ride!

July 2013: Cleaning the House, Wrap-up

I wish I could say that my house is now pristine and ready for tours.  It's not.  It's still not even close.  But at least now I can get it semi-presentable in a reasonable amount of time, and if someone were to surprise visit me, it would look like normal-person messy, rather than complete and utter slob messy.  I'll take that.  I'm happy with what I've accomplished, even if it wasn't everything I wanted.

I still need to learn to let go of things.  I'm getting better, but I still have a long ways to go.  I suppose the habits of a lifetime don't disappear in a month.  It's frustrating.

I need to keep working on these things.  Perhaps in the future, I'll spend a month on a single room at a time, to get things where they belong.  For example, more time in the living room might've included making a slip-cover for the couch.  Or reupholstering the couch.  And building a better chair than the one I have.  Who knows.  Then again, I didn't finish the living room despite the time spent on it, so perhaps I'd just actually get it completely clean.  I guess perhaps someday we'll find out.  But for now, my house is cleaner.  And I need to keep working on it, even if I won't be spending a half-hour every day on cleaning.  (Incidentally, I don't count doing laundry or cleaning as part of the time anymore--only the first days of doing the kitchen, or the first time I did the bedroom.  I still get behind on both of those.  I need to get a system in place.)

And now...onto new and different adventures...but sticking close to home!

July 2013: Cleaning the House, July 31, 2013

As it's the last night, it was hard to know where to go.  There's still so much that needs to be done.  Alas, rather than a dramatic ending, it kinda falls flat.  (If I wanted to show dramatic, I'd show the before and after of the table.  Sadly, that would be a reverse, since the table is now filled with things that need to go elsewhere in the house.)

Here's the small shelves in the sewing room, the left side.  The top two were done yesterday, but the other three visible ones were worked on today--perhaps not as in-depth as I'd like, but at least something was done with them.

I didn't even move the chair to get a picture.  I started to clean around the chair, but realized that was useless, and moved it.  I have moved it back where it belongs, though.

I've removed a lot of fabric that was just sitting piled on top of things.  You'll notice that I've added some plaid fabric to the upper left cube, but that fabric belongs with the patterns and other fabrics there: the fabrics there are to sew shirts (some of it practice fabric), and this is fabric I would like a shirt out of.  I'm not entirely sure what style, since a plain plaid shirt would not be thisisbeth's style at all, but the colors are pretty much like something I'd wear.  Anyone have any ideas?  I don't, so I'll move onto the right side of the bookshelf.

I hope you can handle the drama of the after picture...

Ta-da!  Look, you can't see inside the boxes.  The beigy colored box on the bottom left actually was full of all sorts of random stuff, as were some of the shoe boxes in the upper right.  Those now only have things that belong in the sewing room, and all the stuff that belongs in the den or the family room are in a pile on the table ready to go downstairs.  So, really, the drama is missing.  However, one positive thing is that many years ago I bought a kit to make these tote bags out of some purple floral fabrics.  The bags were just gorgeous.  However, I started the bags, and the pieces got all separated.  Now, however, the pieces are all together.  Now, when I actually find the pattern again, I can actually finish them!  Of course the pattern wasn't with either of the two parts!  What sort of logic would that be?!