Itty bitty projects around the house

In comparison, these projects were pretttty insignificant, but they definitely made me happy.


I found this lamp in the "for free" pile of garbage sitting on the curb in front of the house across the street. It had a gross shade, which I pitched, and only occasionally turned on (and flickered a lot when it did). Dan was quite vocal with his skepticism and attempted to throw it away several times, especially since it sat on the floor in the middle of our kitchen for quite some time before it moved to a slightly less obtrusive spot on the dining room table. Every time he bashed it I smugly retorted, he simply did not have the vision and he should just keep talking because he will later make a delicious and bountiful feast of those exact words.

I ordered a lighting kit from Amazon to rewire the light and then spent one of our last warm days priming and painting the lamp body. It was quite pleasant and fun, actually.

Dan hates brass. It seriously clouds his vision/judgement.

There was a little rust too...nothing some primer can't fix.

rust-inhibiting primer. White lamp looks kind of nice too.

navy blue! I'm thinking it's for the master bedroom, eventually.

 Bought a new shade...

Dan says his words make a yummy meal and his belly is stuffed full of them.

The other mini project I did on a freeeezing day before our warm spell (cut me some slack, y'all, I'm from the South, doncha know? Definitely not from Massachusetts). You see, when we bought our house, a few old-timers drilled into our heads several mantras: "old house' got rights" (thrown out to excuse all sorts of undesirable characteristics, like sagging floors, uneven doorways, water stained hardwood, etc.) and "house' got to breathe in the summer", which means open all windows, especially basement windows, in the summer. Being good homeowners, that was the first thing we did when we moved in - build new screens for our basement windows. Well, now that it's cold, breathing house is not so great, so these same screens had to be insulated and weather-proofed.

 

screen in basement

screen

styrofoam insulation board. R value is 7.5, not bad.

 Insulation was cut to fit inside the screen's wooden frame. Smart, right?

It was so cold, I worked with Dan's hobo gloves inside my house.

 I then wrapped the whole thing in 6mm thick plastic, for weather proofing.

Shoved it into place, and done. It makes quite a difference in the basement temperature, surprisingly.