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Building a staircase wall

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There’s been a lot of work done on our house in the last few weeks. The current project that my husband and I are finishing up is a living room wall. It’s one that we knocked down a few years ago between the upper and lower stairway. Yes that’s right .. we’ve had a big opening between the basement stairs and the main floor!

So we’re building a wall now, but not a full wall like it was before because we enjoy the light that comes down from the upper floor that we didn’t get when there was a full wall in the past.

I think tomorrow we’re going to do the wiring for the light switch to the basement stairs and an electrical outlet in the wall. We had been using a cable raceway to hide the electrical cords going to the area in the past but now that the wall is going up we won’t have to do that.

It’s going to be so nice once the wall is up and I can finally look at the wall and the staircase as complete. Believe me it’s been years since I’ve sen the area looking finished! Next is the living room dining room ceiling and then a whole lot of painting throughout the house.

I need to replace a ceiling fan

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Some time in the next few weeks I really have to shopping for a new ceiling fan.

I know some people don’t like ceiling fans, but they really do help cool your house and save you money on your heating and air-conditioning costs if you use them properly.

We have a few ceiling fans in our house and naturally, the nicest one, the one in the living room the one with the three speeds, reverse, remote control lighting and a dimmer switch on the light just stopped working in the Fall. Now that we’re well into Spring and the weather will be getting warm soon I’m definitely going to want a ceiling fan in the living room that works – let alone a replacement light. I’ve been missing that light too!

I plan on looking at Hunter ceiling fans first, probably because that’s what the old fan’s brand is and I really like the style. It lasted 11 years and was used regularly so I don’t think I can complain that it wore out too fast.

Do you use ceiling fans in your house to stir the air in order to cool or warm your home?

House getting gutted

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It looks like there’s going to be a lot of work done on a house down the street from us. It’s actually a house that I used to complain about when we had bad renters beside us … because the bad renters used to go to that house all the time to do “illegal” things if you know what I mean. We called it the crack head house.

Luckily the owner of that house wised up and kicked his renters out about a year ago as well and now it seems he’s going to either gut the house or tear down part of it. I saw a skid steer parked in front of the house earlier today so I think they’re going to bulldoze part of the house.

With renters in the house for so long I wouldn’t be surprise if the inside is in bad shape.

When did changing a light bulb get so hard?

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I went to walk into my kitchen a couple of hours ago and it was in complete darkness. The light in the oven exhaust hood finally went out.

Off I went to find a new light bulb for the fixture. I knew it took a normal light bulb but what I didn’t know was that I was about to have a lot of trouble getting the light in place! All the have just a little bit of light in the kitchen without having all the overhead lights on. Sigh … In the end I had to get a screw driver and take out a couple of screws and flat washers just to get at the area with the light.

Now I’m not happy with the light that I put in. I put in CF bulb and I think the box said “day light” color .. but my kitchen now has a greenish light cast and I HATE it. I don’t think I want to use the rest of the lights in the box. Too bad they’re so expensive! Maybe I can trade them for some I like better.

Great deal on a new microwave

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It seems like just about every Monday is shopping day. I’m sure most people have their shopping day on a Saturday or Sunday, but for our household it seems to almost always fall on a Monday.

Yesterday was a particularly busy shopping day. The night before the microwave died as I was making dinner! Ahhhh! No I wasn’t making “microwave dinners” or anything like that, but I do tend to use the microwave pretty much daily when I cook. I use it to heat things, steam vegetables, cook foods – it’s a well used appliance. I couldn’t live a day without my microwave or at least I didn’t think I could.

So … after doing the usually things like picking up some of my prescriptions (man I hate having Crohns!) and then getting groceries we started looking in a few stores for microwaves. I didn’t want a tiny microwave. Our previous one had been a 1.6 cubic ft microwave. Yes- big enough to put a good size dish, bowl or plate in. See I told you I cook in it. Unfortunately most of the stores that we went to had only .9. 1.0 or 1.2 cubic ft microwaves. I never realized how hard it was to find larger ones!

Finally we found the one we were looking for in two different stores – we’d gone back and forth doing a price comparison since the stores were close together. The store we eventually bought from had the microwave that we wanted listed at a higher price, but when we told them the other store had them for about $25 cheaper they immediately told us they’d match the price … then they said that oh .. the only ones we have of that model are in open boxes. So .. they said that if wanted an open box microwave that they’d drop the price a further $50 and then add a 3 year store warranty. We looked at all three open boxes and picked the one that looked like it had only been opened in the store. I’m so happy we got that deal! It was easy on our debit cards – that’s for sure!

The microwave worked just fine when we got it home and set it up so so far so good! It was a busy shopping day as I said .. but a very successful one!

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