Stained Glass II

We met Eileen (the stained glass artist) who is creating the piece for above our door. The piece will contain our house numbers. Her website is: www.martinglasscreations.com She is such a joy to work with and we cannot wait to have our finished piece. The picture here is a mock-up of the design we have decided on (so far). (No, stalkers, those are not our real house numbers).

What lies beneath?

So, here is a video of what I found under my carpet.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on FIRE!!!!!

On our way back home from Lowe's today, I saw a plume of smoke from the highway. It looked like a huge fire. But, since we were a ways away, I wasn't so sure. As we drove closer, it was looking like it was closer and closer to our house. Talk about getting your heart going. Since we just made our first mortgage payment the day before...not a good thing to think the house or neighborhood is on fire. Though I suppose any day is a bad day for your house to burn down. Turns out, we were right - the fire was really close to our house. OK, not really close, but about 3 blocks away. Too close for comfort. We drove home and ran down the street to take some photos. It sure was a stinky and throat burning adventure. The building on fire was a tire company. Not a good place to have a fire. Looks like it might take a long time to put out. Here are the pictures and video I took from our walk over.

Don't go chasing waterfalls...

Feeling inspired by my bathroom accomplishments, and having a nice faucet already purchased, I decided to take on the task of installing the faucet. I googled the different methods and found most labeled as "beginner". No problemo, I thought. This was my first mistake.

I took out my wrenches of varying size and proceeded to peer under the sink. Aha! Nuts, bolts, just like the pictures said. Cake. Yes, this would have been the correct evaluation had the sink not been child sized, leaving me 4 inches of space to work in. I painstakingly removed the old faucet feeling a sense of glee to be taking apart plumbing fixtures, and seemingly correctly at that. Now, to install the new faucet.

Because of the space predicament, some parts of the new faucet would not work - thankfully I could rig them with the old faucet. After a decent amount of cursing, wedging my face into small crevices, I had it in. However, I couldn't tighten the bolts that connect the water line to the faucet. The wrench would not fit in properly and so I hand tightened to the best of my ability and prayed.

I turned on the water and presto! It worked! Extremely pleased with myself I tidied up my tools and proclaimed to Dan that the sink was now in working, and stylish, order. I plunked down on the couch to relish in my handywork.

An hour later:

Dan is shrieking "It's leaking, Oh My GOD, it's leaking!!! Water is pouring out! What if it gets into the apartment downstairs! Water Damaaaaggggee!"

Uh-Oh.

I got up and walked over to find a small leak, and perhaps a 1/4 cup of water on the floor. Someone, was overreacting. However, there really was a leak. It was coming from my nemesis - the bolt I could not tighten with the wrench. So, I was back at it. I tried every angle to get in there that I could ... no luck. I left the water turned off -- I would need to get one of those tiny handled wrenches they make for just this thing. Surely they make this.

The next day the hardware store tool aficionado told me there were no such thing as tiny handled wrenches. WHAT!!! He gave me the smallest adjustable wrench he had. I felt hopeless and was back to square one.

I finally figured out that if I took it all apart, I could angle the pliers up and tighten the bolt. Then, I would have to put it all together again.

For now, it seems to be working correctly.

Houston we have a problem...

I have pictures and video to post, however, my home pc is broken. We should have it fixed by the end of this weekend.

Stand by . . .