1.06.2007

A Hole, Lot Better.

Well, our work-around-the-house day began with a two and a half hour walk-around-the-depot, finding all the stuff we'd need for the workathon coming up this week.

We bought three quarter inch quarter round. We bought a gargantuan star trek light for our dining area to match the microstar trek lights over the island in the kitchen. We bought paint and tile and vent covers and more.

Oh, the vent covers. Oh the humanity!

Those of you who have been in our home know we needed them. You see, our Dixie Chickesque Wide Open Spaces floorplan was not always so. Built in the fifties, our home was a series of dinky little rooms. The prior owner said "Walls? We don' need no stinkin' walls, Lucy!" and opened up the living, dining and kitchen.

It looked great, but one of the walls had four cold air returns for the furnace. He ended up with four gaping holes in the floor and for whatever reason, constructed boxes that were not of standard size...so he MacGyvered four vent covers from hardwood that still had inch and half gaps in them (large enough to swallow Matchbox cars whole, I assure you).

In the last few years, one of them managed to break, leaving - you guessed it - a hole in the floor big enough to plant a size 8 Doc Marten. I've stepped in that hole more than once. Recently, I was coming out to make Zoe a bottle about 3am and went in all the way to my knee. I did not say "Praise the Lord."

We brought home vent covers today, and I set to work to make them fit. I got to use a coping saw, which turned out to be an excellent coping mechanism. I used the old MacGyvered vent covers to make frames for the new ones and popped them in. It looks great, and our floor won't swallow your feet anymore!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You gotta buying an older house in the Mid West, The one I just bought, looked very nice until I started working on it and found all of the "MacGyvered" things. For instance i pealed back the wallpaper in my dinning room and found a gaping hole between the walls about an inch thick. I guess he decided wall don't need to touch! Oh the Humanity!