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Projects

This month I'll be celebrating 2 1/2 years in my townhome. I have loved being a homeowner. When I first moved in, there were a lot of old fixtures, and minor jobs that needed doing. I've upgraded the majority of the lighting, installed shades to replace most of the blinds, replaced some windows, added insulation and installed a new water heater. I'd love to be able to rest on my laurels, but there is still a lot of work to do. And for some time now, upgrading my home has weighed heavy on my mind. It just has felt like it needs to be a priority. So with the few extra bucks left over from my tax refund, I got down to the Home Depot and went on a little bit of a spree.

The fixtures on my upstairs bathroom are a mix of modern and not-so-much. And knowing that there is a lot of return in investing in bathrooms, I need to get that completed. So yesterday I replaced the existing chrome toilet handle, as well as the hook on the back of the door. Here is the finished product:



Well, with that done, the brass knob and hinges on the bathroom door looked so out of place, that I figured I should move on to the doorknobs. So it was off to the Home Depot again for some doorknobs and hinges.

I got home and started on my bedroom door. But I was obviously in over my head, to the point that the lock mechanism fell apart and got that door stuck closed. Thankfully I could get out in to the rest of the house through the extra door in my bathroom, so while it was plenty comical, it wasn't quite the scary situation it could have been (visions of my mummified body found in my bedroom weeks later). But it meant a call to the brother, who was having his own home improvement dilemmas yesterday, but was kind of to come help me out. He got the lock out and the door unstuck, and proceeded to walk me through a few until I could handle the rest on my own. After 6 knobs installed, there's only 8 more to go (they went a little door crazy when they built this place), plus still needing to do the hinges. Here's a little before and after:




And that's just the doors. There's still more to go elsewhere - a new faucet and more fixtures for my bathroom, new handles and hinges for the kitchen cabinets, and my dear brother and sister-in-law are going to help me replace the remaining vertical blind eyesore with a rod and some curtains. And of course replace the existing sliding glass door.  But hopefully I can get that all done before visitors arrive in April.

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