Every once in a while, I get presented with unique challenges – some more welcome than others. When you get to be a homeowner, you end up facing quite a few of these challenges at the most unexpected times.
When my water heater stopped working, that was a not-so-fun challenge, but thankfully I received some timely help and was able to get it fixed without breaking my budget all to perdition. It’s a forced-vent water heater, which is supposed to be better overall, but they are also much more expensive than your standard run-of-the-mill heater as well. We ended up replacing just the blower vent unit, which was less than $600 – much better than shelling out $1700 to replace the whole thing.
The other challenge was when one side of the kitchen sink started getting a leak in the drain. Of course I had never done this before, but after watching a couple of YouTube videos, I had a pretty good idea. I got it fixed…….I think…….but watching a couple of other videos made me realize that there are steps I could have done in a better order. Oh well……..if it breaks again, at least now I am armed with the knowledge on how to fix this thing.
I seem to be getting a good drain knowledge database going on – the tub drain leaked again too. I have a feeling that I should re-do it one of these days now that I have found this magic compound called “plumber’s putty”, so maybe if I get a couple of other tools, I’ll tackle that again and get it done all the way – along with some enamel paint to do the bottom of the tub itself. Then that gets me thinking I should replace the shower head downstairs too since the one that is there now is a piece of crap.
Some projects I am not comfortable doing at all – such as the soft spot in our living room floor that I should have reported back when we were still renting the house and had THEM fix, but now that we are owning it, it’s in our court now in order to get that done. At the same time, I need to figure out how to get the floor re-carpeted as well. I am thankful that I have cultivated a few contacts via Facebook who know how to do this stuff, so with any luck, we’ll start getting our house whipped into shape.
The lawn – oh yeah…….that’s a whole other story altogether. I know a company that does lawn work as well as rain gutters, so I’ll be talking with those young gents here soon as well and work on getting more stuff done that desperately NEEDS to get done. I also think I need a lot larger ladder, because I really should get the rainspout connected as well as replacing the bulb over the front door that’s been burned out forever, yet I don’t have anything tall enough to reach it – and no…….I don’t have any platform boots that high.
So yeah….I’m getting more things figured out that I really should know how to do. Now if I only knew how to install cabinetry, but that would mean starting up yet another project, and I have plenty that are on my list already. Oh the fun of owning a house…….yay.