It took longer than I’d expected to break out of my lazy cage this Saturday. That morning I had grand handyman plans to tackle several indoor projects and one outdoor one, but literally didn’t/couldn’t get going on them until way late that afternoon, when Susan and I piled into the Ford Escape and made a sunset run to the Hollywood Home Depot for:
- A new sink faucet for the guest bedroom’s long-leaking (and shut off) bathroom
- A new floatball assembly for the guest bedroom’s long-running (and shut off) toilet
- A couple planter boxes for a unique place along the south side of the house
I hadn’t been a total stick in the mud, having managed to muster the energy enough to fix the first-floor toilet off the landing room. Looong has it always run after being flushed and to stop it required either a lot of jiggling and/or the eventual lifting off of the tank cover to free the flap from its stalemate position against the floatball it inevitably collided with so that it could drop to the bottom of he tank and seal off the water’s escape. In the past I’d attempted simple to adjust the angle of the floatball arm, but it’s never worked. This time? the solution was to twist the tower the rising floatball arm attaches to juuuuust far enough for it to be clear of the descending flap. Why hadn’t I done that sooner? Because I over-complicated it in my mind to be anything that simple. I’m reeeeeeally good at doing that.
But it turns out laziness can sometimes happen for a good reason because had I enthusiastically hit the do-it-yourself palace any earlier, Susan and I would have missed out on serendipitously bumping into one of my favorite artists on our way home.
When we did get home Susan set to making dinner and I adjourned upstairs to the guest bathroom where I was able to quickly and successfully install the fixture and the float, returning that bathroom to a full functionality not seen in three years.
In fact, with the repair made to the downstairs toilet, for the first time in perhaps four years or more all four of our baths are entirely in working order. Yeah, I rock.
As to the third item on my list… well, I got to work on that after we got home from the Sunday matinee of the much-anticipated and entirely entertaining “Super 8.” And here’s how the suspended would-be planter box gardens of basil and cilantro and sunflowers looks at present:
June gloom aside, the south of the house gets the most direct sun of any side, and I figured the best way to take advantage of all that rayliciousness would be to install a couple planter boxes along the handrail at the top of the steps leading to our side door. As an added-value, if the basil and cilantro and sunflower seeds grow as hoped, the greenery will be nice scenery — a nice organic, home-grown and tasty focal point addition to admire when coming down the stairs from the bedroom and looking out the side door’s window.
Of course there will be photographic updates of any growth that occurs.
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