5.19.2007

Makerwork. Cousin of Git-r-dun.

We've been maintaining a blistering pace of work on the house the last week or two, hoping to have it all finished by next weekend.

Whenever you get near the end of these sorts of things, you have the jobs that you've left undone because there was no easy way to do them. In an older house, there are a lot of these sorts of things - odd sized windows, irregular corners, and plumbing fixtures that are no longer used outside of remote Nepal. And then, some of it is our own doing...

There is a floor vent in the kitchen that we sort of doofed up when we tiled. I'm not sure what we were thinking, but the hole for the vent is irregular - in other words, no vent cover ever made in the history of human venting has ever fit this whole. We've stared at it for months, and vented about it ourselves a fair bit. Finally, it was time to cover the vent.

I bought a close-fit at Home Depot and went at it with a coping saw, then sand paper. I think a hack saw was involved at one point too. All I knew was that I had to makerwork....because the vent hole was just not going to grow shut on it's own. I ended up doing what men do best. Fabrication. There's something to be said for the skill of taking the available resources and making something work.

When I was done, the vent cover actually covered the whole and left only a sliver of untiled floor along one side, which I quickly gooped full of grout and called it goodenuf. And I'm going to bed now.

2 comments:

Esther Irwin said...

They call it number 8 wire over here. I personally like duct tape. Fixes anything.

Tracie said...

In my world that's called a "Mickeyfix"
Explanation: My maiden name is Mickey (hold all teasing please), and my dad and his brother can do just that FIX just about anything... and when you fix something with creative means it's called "A Mickeyfix"