Simple Things

I tried to knock out a bunch of little projects this weekend. you know, the little things that pile up, and then you have a pile of stuff just staring at you?
I got tired of staring back.
I got the Welcome Cow hung up on the porch again. I got a new curtain and curtain rod for the porch too, and got it hung up (What is UP with the crappy screws included with things lately? Nearly stripped those screw heads too - they had oddly small Phillip's holes for such a large screw head.)
I got more coats of shallac on the second half of the porch coat rack. I placed the baseboard molding in the mudroom, but decided against mailing it down until the wall is built out. I cleaned, and tidied and put stuff away that had migrated to places it didn't belong.
Then I decided to replace the closet handle in the bedroom upstairs. Should have taken 5 minutes.

(It is here that the uncomfortable background music would begin to swell is my life were a movie.)

Here we see the unsuspecting heart-ended country-kitchy modern handle.
Other than the fact that it's black, it doesn't match the style of the rest of the
(painstakingly cleaned) hardware.

I looked and looked, and found this handle at a reasonable price.
(I found a lot of other Fabulous handles too, but I have to choose where to spend my $'s)

But lo!
The old handle screws in from the front!

And behold!
New cabinet hardware bolts through from behind!
And has funny little protrusions that have to nestle into the wood.

That's ok, we'll just drill through... crap.
Right into the cross piece that holds the door together.
Which make it too deep for the bolts.

It's time for tools.
Tools will make this better.

1/2 Spade bit to the rescue. It's not pretty, but I bored a hole through the cross piece
to the front board so the bolt would reach. 

Well, it worked.

New handle! Only took me about an hour.
But the form is much better.

All of the other board closet doors will be getting a similar treatment as I go. All the room doors have Blake #1 Norfolk thump latches. Some doors have been a bit cobbled, and I have to find some replacement parts. I also rehung it's main door, which was an exercise of how barrel hinges are handed, and you should really only remove/clean one door worth of hardware at a time, but I got it done.

I find it really funny that they hung the door this way, with the actual handle on the inside, and the bar side in the hallway.
All kinds of mortises were cut into the frame, so while the complete-est in me wants everything to be nice and matchy-matchy, I left it alone.

Handle on the inside. *shrug*.
Quirky.

This room is 95% done, (just needs curtain rods/curtains, and for me to finish the hole grill).

That was Saturday.
Sunday.
Sunday I tried to address the kitchen faucet. I had called them and let them know that it was grinding, and when it was tightened down the faucet head wouldn't swing. They told me it probably needed a new bearing and cartridge, which they sent to me.
I will spare you the gory, lengthy details, but the end result is today I have no water to my kitchen sink and a very strongly worded email out to Moen. If this doesn't get resolved, (quickly), I want my $ back and I need to get a new faucet.

Bearing wouldn't seat without extreme effort, now the whole thing leaks like a fire hose.

Got it back together, but the water's off. Box is impaled on it to remind me not to try to use it.

I also got paint for the master bedroom. I've decided to go with Van Cortland Blue (this is not my house, but here's an example of someone putting it on the walls.)
Still SuperWhite for the trim, and regular old while ceiling paint.
Photos to come!