we came back from a week away while much of region was plunged in subzero temperatures. the result? the pipes that supply water to our laundry machine in our poorly insulated mudroom froze. yay (not)!
we’ve had some experience with this over the years and if we know it’s going to get -10F overnight or colder we proactively bring in a space heater to keep the room warm enough to prevent freezing. no such luck at being proactive this time since we were out of town but i thought i’d give it a try only to remember we very cleverly sold our Super Awesome Space Heater. why would we do that? apparently so i’d have to run to Wally World in the freezing cold to check out their selection. SPOILER: their craptacular space heater didn’t unfreeze the pipes.
How’s my first day of 2018? Sub zero temps froze water lines in mud room so laundry machine is not working. Aaaand we have huge pile of laundry. Bought a space heater at Wally World that didn’t work so packaged it up…
when the pipes have frozen in the past ( has happened a couple of times even being proactive with a space heater ) we’ve used a hairdryer to unfreeze them. i was going to do just that today ( but with a more powerful paint removing heating thing ) but made the mistake of googling around and reading horror stories of people heating up frozen pipes that were busted, unleashing A Very Bad Scene when the frozen water becomes a gushing liquid geyser. the frozen pipes are in an inaccessible area under the mudroom ( I KNOW! no access from the basement. who would build a mudroom in wisconsin with water pipes basically running outside exposed with no easy access? who? WHOOOOOOOOOO? ).
do i just go for it and heat them up as i’ve so cavalierly done in the past?
dear internet friends – WWYD ( what would you do )?
getting house painted while on vacation and at last minute before leaving, i realized we don’t have any good “before” pictures! no time to get all 4 sides.
our 100 year old stucco has needed paiting and repairs for 10 years and for past five Kris has waited as I said “oh I’ll do it next summer” while prioritizing building a sauna, chicken coop and treehouse movie theater.
so now kris made it a priority to get someone else is painting the house which is probably for the best anyway 🙂
now we’re under the gun to pick a color, have looked at dozens of samples on the house AND NOW IT’S THE VERY LAST DAY TO MAKE A DECISION!
decisions were decided but we went with a tricky blue and we’re still not 100% sure it’s the “right” blue!
after a week away, we arrived home at 10pm after a seven hour drive to find a Good Samaritan slow blowed our 100 feet of sidewalks and our 100 foot driveway!
they didn’t leave a calling card, but i think i know who did it. THANK YOU! Mightily appreciate not having to come home and dig out of 8 inches of snow that fell while we were gone.
for nine years, replacing this window in the kitchen of our hundred year old house has been the “first domino” that triggers a series of projects leading to a complete remodel of much of the first floor of our home. today, it’s getting replaced which is awesome but my project list is going to get a lot longer. quickly.
we’re putting it with a new, shorter, much less drafty window that will allow us to move the kitchen sink under it. and moving the kitchen sink will make it possible to take out the wall between the kitchen and dining room ( hopefully it’s not a load bearing wall! ) which will lead to a new, larger open kitchen/dining space with an island. and lots of painting.
when the phone rings, it delivers a satisfyingly old school BBBBBBRRIIIIINNNNGGG! BBBBBRRRRIIIIIIINNNNGGGG!
the only problem is you can’t dial out because our phone company upgraded the phone tubes and no longer supports “pulse” dialing, so i need to get one of those pulse to tone converters.
we have a similar model from my grandparents home in maine, but it doesn’t ring so it needs some restoration work.
