Saturday, January 16, 2010

Owning a home bites sometimes ...

... especially when you're doing "home improvements". Lately, I've been trying to tweak little things in the house, before I start my major projects. Things like changing all my knobs so they're not these drab beige things which are found all throughout my house. So now I have some rooster knobs in my kitchen (going with a rooster theme), and some pewter knobs in my bathroom, along with different patterned knobs throughout the rest of the house (Hobby Lobby rocks). I also have been hanging more pictures and things in my rooms (which had been pretty sparse until this point), as well as fixing the tiny little things which have worn down but I didn't give much thought to. For instance, replacing a couple missing screws in the screen door frame, gutting my toilets and installing new flush kits, taking down some ugly ceiling fans and putting new lighting in.

All these things were not much of a problem, nary a hitch. I should have known the gremlins could come pay me a visit sooner or later though. Little did I know they'd all show up today. So I decided I wanted a peg board above my washer and dryer. Not a big deal right? WRONG. So very, very wrong.

Went to Home Depot, bought the plastic peg board (two 16" by 16" panels) along with all the relevant hardware. Bought anchors to put the boards up too. So I drilled the first set of holes and planted the anchors. Put the peg board up against the holes and started to drill, only to see the anchors and part of the sheet rock pull away. Argh! Tried another --different -- set of anchors only to see a similar thing happen. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

Call up the dad to ask him what the hell to do. He informs me that the studs should be 16 inches apart (duh) and if I find those, that I can just screw them into the wall. Go back to Home Depot, grab deeper (2 inch) screws and putty, return home, place putty into the holes I had drilled, and then screw those peg boards into the wall. Peg boards attached, I step back to look at my handiwork. Something doesn't look quite right though. Take out the tape measure and measure both ends. Guess what? Damn thing droops a quarter of an inch at one end. Argh!

To hell with it. Damn thing is going to be crooked until the next time I paint that laundry nook. With that decided, I get ready to push the dryer back into the nook. Look at the dryer vent hose and see that it's pretty worn. Run back out to Home Depot and grab a new one. Return home and go to pull the old hose up out of the floor. Yes, it runs through the floor. Foot after foot this hose pulls out, with no end in sight. Finally figure out that the hose runs through my entire crawl space to the vent outside. Lovely, oh and guess what ... I've never ever been in my crawl space. *sigh*

So, no laundry is getting done tonight, and tomorrow I need to crawl under my house to attach this new laundry vent hose up. Oh, and did I mention it's raining?

3 comments:

soil mama said...

good thing it's a 3 day weekend :)

when we got a new dryer, we were told that the length and type of dryer vent hose makes a big difference in the efficiency of the dryer. if there is a shorter path it can take, then it may be worth trying, or if it is a long vent, then use as much smooth metal "hose" as possible... maybe you know all this but it never occurred to hubby and me.

Mad Hatter said...

Hmm...I think this would be the point where I would pay someone to fix the problem! :-)

Tom said...

Guess what, it gets even better!