I have to say, the past few weeks have been a case study in the inevitable fallout from taking the "ignore it and maybe it will go away" approach a few too many times.
First up - plumbing disasters.
My kitchen faucet was cheap to begin with, and after years of repairing the thing it had finally reached the point of no return and really needed to be replaced. I figured it would take me an afternoon... oh what an optimist I was!
A week later, I was on a first name basis with the plumbing guy down at the local hardware store, and I now know more than I ever wanted to about pipe fittings, wrenches and plumbing in general! Oh, the joys of living in a home with "vintage pipes."
I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say getting the old faucet out was a bit more challenging than I had anticipated. The situation was complicated by the fact that the sink did not have any water shut off valves, so the water to the whole house had to be shut off. Then when a pipe fitting broke things went from bad to worse.
But I persevered and I now have a brand spanking new kitchen faucet that actually works! I also installed shut-off valves so hopefully the next time something needs to be done on that faucet it will be much less of a hassle.
Words cannot express how wonderful it is to have a fully functioning kitchen faucet again. Seriously - the spigot swings easily from one sink compartment to the other, the sprayer functions, and best of all, there's no water leaking out of every crack and crevice!
And I was also quite glad that I make a practice of washing out glass bottles and filling them with water to use in the case of an emergency. Having the water shut off for a few days was much less traumatic than it might have been since I was prepared. Crazy lady to the rescue once again!
Of course in the middle of all this, I noticed that one of my car tires was dangerously low on air. Since I don't drive much I figured I just needed to top it off - which I did, but alas, in a few days it was low again. After a few days of beating a path to the air pump at the local filling station I decided to take it in - whereupon I learned that 10 year old tires really need to be replaced not fixed, even if they only have a few thousand miles on them.
Sooo... I now have a beautiful new set of tires on my car, as well as fresh oil in the engine which was also overdue.
Apparently my bike felt a bit left out though, because the next day I went to prepare for a ride and discovered a flat tire there too. Oy! Fortunately I had already purchased new bike tires since they were due to be changed, but somehow I hadn't anticipated having to do it in the middle of everything else. Oh well.. in for a penny, in for a pound!
Oh... and did I mention it's been raining here in Denver? Seriously, we've been setting records right and left, and some of the 500 year flood disasters of 2013 are already repeating themselves out on Colorado's eastern plains. My how time flies when you're having fun!
CatMan and I went for a ride today along the South Platte, and the river was higher than I've ever seen it. There were places that the bike path was under several feet of water, and we've got more rain in the forecast!
It also snowed a few days ago and temperatures got down into the 20's killing a bunch of tender plants. So, perhaps it was a good thing after all that I was so far behind on the garden!
Anyhoo.... that's the news from the funny farm. I'm sincerely hoping that all of your lives have been much less eventful than mine over the past few weeks! :-)
I'm glad that you've been able to catch up a bit. I'm impressed with your plumbing skills. I have done only very simple plumbing, certainly not to the level of replacing a faucet. And even though he's pretty good at it, my husband hates plumbing because it usually involves trying to bend his body into tight, awkward spaces. He always says that next time he will pay for someone else to do it. But next time, he usually does it anyway.
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, I have plumbing "skills" in the same sense that a drowning person doing the dog paddle has swimming "skills!" But thank you for the compliment nonetheless.
DeleteI was hoping you'd put in a new shut-off valve, too. Yea!
ReplyDeleteAnd the last picture made me laugh.
It's so nice to get things done!
It is soooo nice to get things done, but alas - it seems that as soon as one thing gets crossed off the list, 3 more appear to take its place! Sigh.
DeleteSad. On the other hand, when other things need doing, it's nice to have indoor plumbing again!
DeleteTruer words were never spoken! :-)
DeleteBeen there, done that with plumbing...found that in a 100 year old house, sometimes you don't have full disconnect stuff...the pipe falls right out of the wall once you start touching at it. VERY impressed that you went the extra step to install shut offs.
ReplyDeleteYou should ask someone about the tires. I think there is something about rubber touching concrete that affects them. You may be able to put cardboard or tarps or something under them to extend their life.
Ahhh yes - the old pipe disintegration game - I know it well!
DeleteThat's very interesting about the tires. I'll have to look into it - Thanks for the tip!
Yes, interesting. I also looked into it and read that it's good to keep tires inflated and out of the sun (yet another reason for me to get some sort of covered parking). So this supports the tires-shouldn't-get-too-hot hypothesis. Also, don't let the car sit too long without driving it (some tires are better at handling this than others, but I don't know how to tell). And no matter how little you use tires, they should be replaced after 7, 8, or 10 years (advice differs) because they just disintegrate with age.
DeleteLove the plumbing picture. Whenever there's a plumbing disaster around here, I try to skedaddle, if at all possible. My hubby will fix it ... eventually ... but it usually involves multiple trips to the hardware store and excessive grouchiness. Nothing ever comes apart or connects back up the way it is supposed to. I thought we had a septic disaster, but the septic guy came yesterday and put my fears to rest ... and we had our septic tank pumped out so hopefully we're ok .......
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I am sooooo glad I don't have a septic tank! At least that's one thing I don't have to worry about.
DeleteAnd I think grouchiness is a requirement for doing plumbing work - it lubricates the pipes or something like that! :-)
How crazy. I hope you have it easy this weekend!
ReplyDeleteI was hoping I would too... but it's not looking likely - details to follow. Oy!
DeleteGirl, I'm so impressed with your handiness! And yes, stuff have a tendency to come up all at once. And take longer thatn expected. Even when I try to be realistic in my time-estimates and factor in that things tend to take longer than I think, they STILL take a lot longer than even that "realistic" estimate. At least for me. Grrrrrr!
ReplyDeleteMaria
Ha! I'm sorta thinking I should take my "realistic" estimates and triple them - they maybe I'd be at least close! :-)
DeletePlumbing disaster, car and bike repairs, extreme weather of two different kinds! Wow, you haven't seen four guys on horses yet, have you?
ReplyDeleteWell...
Delete[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RhHVrNeSWnk/T7aykMPorFI/AAAAAAAABm0/R0isdsK1b3U/s1600/4-lolcats-of-the-apocalypse.jpg[/img]
Isn't it funny how fixing one thing can make something else jealous? At least now you've done your three items so you should be good for a while.
ReplyDeleteI was really hoping that would be the case... but things aren't looking good. How have I offended the gods?!?
DeleteHubby and I have a friend who moved to Colorado this winter and she was telling us about the snow you guys got. Crazy! I hope that's the last of it and you just have spring and summer temps ahead!
ReplyDeleteSomeday... warm weather will return some day, I'm sure! :-)
DeleteThe dude in the picture needs some serious plumbing system.
ReplyDeleteHa! Looking at him made me feel better anyhow!
DeleteGeez! I feel badly that I'm not a do-it-yourself home repair person, until I read stories like this. Then I think, as hard as you worked, you succeeded, but I am sure I would have had to hire a professional to fix all my mistakes!!! I'm so impressed with your gusto!!
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, I don't know if you read the next post or not, but it wasn't exactly all smooth sailing from there... But it's fixed now and I've moved onto new and exciting projects! :-)
DeleteBTW - I'm sure you're capable of handling home repairs - it's just like anything else, you just have to keep working at it and there are always plenty of people at the hardware store to help you through! :-)