My parents were gracious enough to come down and help us with some of the more complex projects this weekend. (Mom and Dad used to own a hardware store, they are both very handy, and Dad can figure out how to fix pretty much anything.) We focused on the projects from our inspection report that were safety related, or needed to be updated. We also had Dad teach us a few new skills - toilet and electrical outlet repair.
In less than 36 hours, the four of us collectively:
- Extended the upstairs bathroom fan vent out of the attic (where it was putting moist air straight into the insulation, a perfect mold breeding ground) and vented it through the roof.
- Changed the condensation drain so it didn't interfere with the washing machine drain
- Converted the downstairs toilet to a dual flush system (it had a leaky flapper and wasn't pumping correctly anyway)
- Added a dimmer switch to the family room
- Converted an ungrounded outlet to a grounded outlet. We were originally going to convert the ungrounded outlet to a GFCI (because we'd have to rewire things to ground it), but we found a ground wire in the outlet and could just convert it to a grounded outlet. Score! Let's hope some of the other outlets are as easy to convert.
- Added safety cables to the garage door springs, so they won't damage anything if the springs ever pop.
- Added a new door lock to the garage, and rekeyed all our locks to one key. Went from four different keys to one!
- Installed a programmable thermostat
- Rebuilt a desk (my mom's office was getting rid of solid oak desks!)
- Set up a few Ikea bookcases
- Unpacked some boxes
- Cleared the vegetable garden of weeds, found our first two zucchinis!
- Trimmed overgrowth in the garden
- Spray painted an outdoor swing the previous owners left behind
Swing, before:
Swing, after:
Total trips to Lowe's: 5
Total cost: $308.45
Total saved on not needing to hire a contractor and learning new skills: a lot!
Whew! What a productive weekend! Glad we were able to relax poolside after all that hard work. Thanks again to my parents for helping us out! Next weekend, Matt's family stops by...perhaps we can convince them to help with more gardening?!
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