Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Wir haben uns shelfen!

Many of you guys are Facebook friends of mine, so this project might not be new to you, but it was a big project, so it needs its own post!  We built a shelf using the reclaimed wood from the shed that we tore down, and the crazy shelving that we tore out of the basement.  The two large supporting beams we got from Second Chance (an amazing home-building second hand store much like Habitat for Humanity Restores).  Peter and I both put up the two large beams and then I cut, sanded/planed all of the shelves, screwed it all together, and then varnished the whole sucker.  It was quite a learning experience for me, as I really haven't regularly used a lot of power-tools in my day (only a few times in high-school under strict supervision by a responsible adult), so has been really exciting to say "look what I made!" and look up proudly at the towering rustic beauty.

And the bookshelf has many functions!  Yes, it does!  It is also is a room divider, and a home to stray shoes and coats.  Check it out!

Here it is as a bookshelf.

Oh wow!  Coats!  And this photo demonstrates the room division.  Living room/"foyer."

I was really pleased with the rustic hooks I found...

And the happy little shoes!

The rest of the room.

From the other side.






Sunday, October 7, 2012

Hmmm...why does our sink smell like poo?

UGH!!!!!!!!!!

Hello, all.  Yes, another stinky project.  Thank goodness, this was actually a project that Peter pretty much took over.  Plumbing is not my forte.  But a little history...

Above, is a photo of our sink a few weeks ago.  Notice the poop-colored water.  Yeah, that didn't ever really go away, and if it did, it took hours.  And, not only did it look like poop, but it smelled like it, too.    My friends, this is what happens when you have a garbage disposal that doesn't work (or drain).  The water would just rise and rise, and smell and smell.  Whatever had been stuck in the disposal for all of this time (it's never worked as long as we've owned the house) would float out of the disposal and into the sink.  I would try to stick a long stick down there to try to manually make something move in the machine so that it would drain just a little bit--but it never really worked well.  It was obvious.  We needed to get rid of the garbage disposal.  

So Peter got ambitious and bought a whole bunch of pvc, took the garbage disposal off all while I was sleeping in one Saturday morning.  By the time I woke up, "we" were deep in a plumbing project that needed fixing.  There was all of this problem solving that we had to do about how to re-route the piping so that it could join back up with the rest of the pipe, but also have a little "nipple" (hey guys, serious plumbing lingo here--*giggle*) for the dish washer to hook up to.  As two non-plumbers, we needed some help.   

This is kind of unrelated, but does anyone know what this thing is for?

On to our local hardware store we went we went to get all of the fixings.  And while we were there, we received some excellent help from an employee, Ben (who is now our friend because of that trip).  It was a close friendship borne on the fact that we snickered when he said we needed to get a j-pipe with a "bung-hole" (also a very serious plumbing term), and also for the fact that he thought it was hilarious that we brought our stinky j-pipe from our sink (it seriously smelled like something died in it) to the store and made him hold it for a while as he found one to replace it. 

Blue and purple--so pretty!!!

We didn't instantly trust our newly installed plumbing (hence the bowl underneath), but it works just fine!  No drip-drip!

Here's the end result!  Look how pretty it is!  And--ta-dah!  It drains, and doesn't leak.  AND, it most importantly, the sink doesn't smell like death anymore.  It's pretty much the perfect plumbing job.