The Joys of Home Ownership...

Ahhh, the American Dream--to own one's home.

And, we should actually own our home in about 24 years, but in the meantime, it feels like our home--with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities pertaining unto.

That, dear readers, translates into YARD CARE, LANDSCAPING, MAINTENANCE, REPAIRS, UPDATES, FIX-IT JOBS, REPLACEMENT, REMODELS, ETC.

All summer we've been adding to our "To-Do List," a.k.a. "Projects to Put Off to Another Day (or Year.)"

At the top of our list (for the last five years):  

1.  Stain the spindles of the west deck.

Actually, we've been staining the deck, garage doors, wood trim and front porch since we arrived in 2011.

That summer we hired a professional crew to sand and stain ALL the exterior wood, which turned out to be a considerable investment $$$$ despite living in a stucco home.  

All the wood EXCEPT the spindles, which everyone knows is a huge even more labor-intensive job and would have added even more $$$ to the job.  Hey, we figured, we can do the spindles ourselves, afterall... 

Well, turned out this is one of the EASIEST jobs to put off!  

We also learned that the "lifetime stain" used in 2011 lasted less than two years!!!  So, in addition to SPINDLES, we found ourselves in the continuing cycle of re-staining a portion of the deck and gazebo ourselves.  The SPINDLES not only fell in ranking to "least important of re-staining projects," they became invisible--to us, at least!!

This summer, Ken, brave man, stepped up to the job of STAINING THE SPINDLES.  And, he did it in small blocks of time consistently over most of September--a couple of hours here, three hours there.  Amazingly, I was busy elsewhere--making my art deadlines, painting at my easel and NOT outside in the 90+ hot sunny days. I am happy to report that he has COMPLETED ALL THE SPINDLES with the first coat.  And, like every good fairy tale, we tell ourselves the second coat will be so much easier and go so much faster! 

 This is where I should confess that Ken and I have NEVER EXPERIENCED "EASIER" OR "FASTER" IN ANY HOUSEHOLD CHORE--EVER!

For instance, consider the next chore on our list:  2.  REPLACE TOILET PAPER HOLDERS IN TWO BATHROOMS.

In order to replace the toilet paper holder in the main floor bathroom, first we had to REMOVE the old holder, which appeared to be hanging on by the thread of a plastic screw insert, but turned out to be reluctant to leave the wall after all. Of course we couldn't find the right sized tiny wrench required to loosen the tiny screw to be able to remove the metal holder from the attachment. Eventually, exasperated, we just yanked it out of the wall.

Therefore, my next task was PATCH THE WALL, which, fortunately, I like doing.  Give me a spatula and some good spackling compound and I'm off and away!  

After letting that dry, I needed to re-paint the patched area, which meant I had to excavate the 5-gallon paint container from the depths below the work bench in the garage, stir it with my mixing attachment on the electric drill and lug it into the bathroom with a touch-up brush.  THAT job only took 30 seconds, but then back to the garage to attempt to replace the container in a space that seemed to have shrunk.

While the paint dried, we thought we'd tackle an "easy" couple of tasks:
3.  REPLACE LIGHT BULBS IN OUR CLOSET, and 4.  REPLACE FLORESCENT LIGHT BULBS IN GARAGE.

Off to Ace Hardware we went, list in hand, and realized, once we arrived, that we forgot the darn florescent bulbs. Having them in hand means we buy EXACTLY the size we need and we get to leave the burned out bulbs with Ace for recycling.  We finished purchasing our chore supplies, drove home, got the bulbs and returned to Ace.  Good news is that we're about five minutes away.  (This is important as the story continues.)

After returning home after Trip 2, we sadly realized that even after replacing all the bulbs the florescent light still didn't work!

After a good Google search, we determined that it was likely the "ballast," a part of a florescent light I had never even heard of!

This required Trip 3 to get a viable voltage tester and Trip 4 to try to get a replacement ballast--at which point we learned that this is "old technology" (words that strike fear in any home owner's heart!)  Translation:  You will never find an exact replacement!

After talking with three different lighting companies yesterday we now realize we have a couple of different options:  

1.  Modify existing four florescent lighting fixtures to accept LED lamps.
2.  Replace all four florescent lighting fixtures with newer fixtures.

It's about this time in every home fix-it project that I ask:

In order to feel like we accomplished "something" while we pursue the "replace florescent bulbs in garage," we focused on the task at hand.  Never been so proud.