They should give me my own home improvement tv show...

As you may have gathered from previous posts, Ma and Pa came to town over the weekend. Their main purpose was to deliver the cedar/walnut chest and the rest of our wedding gifts (that we weren't able to fit in the car after the hometown reception), but I had a not-so-secret plan for the weekend. I needed my father, Doc Al, to teach me how to fix things.


I had specific things in mind, but I was hoping just to gather some basic knowledge. So, the second they walked in the door, we started on our first project. It literally was the second they walked in the door...but only because we had to turn the power off and we were burning daylight.



I wanted to change all of our old, yucky, almond-colored outlets and switches into a nice glowing white. Mom and David were making fun of me...but our baseboards are white and it felt so dated and clashy to me.



So anyway, this pile became...

This. Ahhh. So much better :)

Here, you can see how much better the white is.

So Dad showed me how to do a few...after he was convinced that I wouldn't kill myself or burn down the house, he left the rest of me to do at my leisure.

But we all know that didn't happen, right? I rushed home from work on Monday and got them all switched out. The only problem is that when you turn on the exhaust in the bathroom, it blows the fuse. After a phone call with Dad, I added more tape.

Fuse still blew...so, because it was in the bathroom and light was fading, I threw some tape over that switch and called it off for the night. I'll fix that when I have some more daylight hours.

I am still proud of myself!

We also put Dad to work installing a new porch light (the old one was buggy and gross!)

And evaluating our side screen door drama. It blows open anytime there's a strong wind...which, apparently, caused the door to warp. Dad says we need to buy a new door. Booo. Thanks to our new life on a budget, we rigged up a temporary solution.

Dad is a genius.

I decided that I needed to re-caulk the seams in the bathtub. It sounded easy and fun, but turns out that caulk is hard to pull off....that took most of the afternoon Sunday...but I went from this

To this.

Much better.

Finally, because I can't leave well enough alone, which piece or art is better for our bathroom? I already own both, and neither has another place where I think it fits...

We have an Ansel Adams print I bought in Vegas at an exhibit and we have some flower thing from Garden Ridge. Thoughts?