Discontinued IKEA shelves

Today I am starting something I have contemplated for a while. I am writing my first retrospective blog. Stephanie wanted to hang some shelves she found in the IKEA catalog but was disappointed to find out they had discontinued the brackets. They looked simple enough, so I made them! They are far from fine furniture, but if you like the slightly rugged look and can handle a dark stain (hides imperfections better), these were easy and inexpensive to build! I used standard 2x2s and 2x12s. The pictures really show about everything.

I know I have really awesome MS Paint skills. I am not sure if it was the best call, but since my walls are super thick (sheetrock over plaster) I used 4" toggle bolts to secure them to my wall. The shelves are heavy enough that they don't need to be attached. Stephanie, Thor, and I leave for the FLY Convention tomorrow, so we will be writing to you all when we get home!

Haier Air Conditioner Makes Watery Noises (fixed)

Most of the people who currently read my blog are immediate family members. I don't imagine any of them being entertainedby posts like this one. This is for the people out there who bought the same air conditioner and are wondering if they can make that awful water noise stop. You can. It is far from rocket science too. I dismantled the thing and as I suspected, the water that condenses on the coils is caught by a pan on the bottom and then when it gets deep enough the fan blade splashes through it endlessly. Most air conditioners drain the water. I don't know why Haier doesn't. Initially, all I did was drill a hole in the bottom to let the water out. That worked, but the water was continually dripping on my sill and I thought that over time it could cause some damage. So, I purchased a grommet and some tubing at the local hardware store ($.69) and piped the water away.

Voila, no more puddle for the fan to splash in, and a tube that constantly provides me with distilled water!

Archaeology

I borrowed Andy's edger the other day to spruce up my sidewalks. It led to an archaeological dig. I carefully and meticulously unearthed 8 feet of sidewalk I never knew we had! Again, I would give anything for a before picture. I used to think they just quit pouring. Nope. The sod monster had been claiming inch after inch for only God knows how many years.

Summer Projects

I am not quite positive why it has been so long, but I am going to blame it on summer projects. I have a huge list of things I want to get done this summer, and it is never too early to start. I already have checked one off of the list and am kicking myself for not taking any before pictures. I NEVER remember to take before pictures! My north gutter has had problems since day one. The home inspector even told me that the gutter sags in the middle. He misspoke. The house sags in the middle. In fact, it sags 3 inches in the middle of a 30 foot span. Since the gutter was essentially an elevated pool, it would drip for a good 4 days after every rain. The drops were eating away at the pavers below, carving out the grout in my footer, and slowly eroding the substrate beneath the pavers. The continual moisture and lack of sunlight also make that side of the house prone to mossy walls. one fix would take care of everything.

I took the gutter down and tore off everything down to the rafters. A lack of drip edging had allowed lots of moisture to get back in there and rot away quite a bit. Andy came over the following day and we made pretty quick work of the whole deal. We had to get creative with the flashing but I am pretty happy with it all. It functions perfectly.

The only problem is that it looks kind of silly. My roof is low in the middle, and my gutter needs to be high in the middle. My brain plays a trick on me and makes me think that the gutter is super sloped, but the gutter only slopes a half an inch on both sides. The stupid roof is the problem. Anyway, it was exciting to accomplish and it was nice to scrub the siding and know that the moss won't be back in 6 weeks.