Have Tools, Will Travel

Due to circumstances, I need to bring in a hired gun to help me with some stuff around the house.  My hired gun is my brother, Michael!

Michael is the go-to guy for a lot of people.  He is so good at this that his van is always packed and ready.  Some people pack a lunch, some pack an overnight bag, Michael packs a tool bag!

A few months ago, my kitchen sink started spewing water everywhere!  What a mess I had to clean up that day.  Michael came over after work, seriously, spread out so many tools he took up my entire counter and went to work on my sink.  Come to find out, a hose just came loose so he didn't need any of his tools but better safe than sorry.  He came prepared!

So now I put all of my odd jobs onto a list and when the list gets big enough, Michael is nice enough to donate an afternoon to my odd jobs.

Today, Michael came over and unloaded a goodly amount of his tools.  This included a cool multi level, multi positioning ladder, a power drill, more drill bits than I've ever seen and boxes and boxes of different colored and sized mollys.  I swear he giggles a little laying out all of his tools.  This was just the tip of the iceberg!

But it was a successful fix-it day.

I have a glider on the front porch that turns into a shelter for my outside cats for the winter.  We wrap it in a tarp, bungee cord and strap it all together, fill the underside with straw and call it good.  We had tarped this glider about a month ago, but it wasn't "right".  So first thing was we unwrapped what was done previously and futzed with it until it was perfect!  Then I put a bunch of fresh straw under neath and they will be as warm and dry as I can make them.

On to my dryer.  This took an additional trip to Home Depot.  No home repair is complete without at least ONE trip to Home Depot!  Living in my first home, there is still so much for me to learn.  My dryer really hasn't been drying well and my friend Chuck had come over to tell me that the vents coming out of the dryer were sooooo clogged.  He cleaned out what he could from the first part but the second part was just going to be easier to replace than to clean out.  Michael took over the repair on the second part and got that vent replaced for me.  That sounds easier than it was.  I think the worst part is this vent goes through the old coal room in the basement to the vent outside.  I hate that coal room!  You have NO idea how many spider webs are in that coal room!  That means it's also full of spiders!!!  See why I never want to go in there?  Anyway, Michael has no fear of spiders and he got me all fixed up.

He shut the water off to my outside water spigot, and we weather protected the spigot for winter.

I've blogged recently about changing the batteries in my smoke alarms to find out the smoke alarms were outdated and needed replaced.  I have four new smoke alarms plus one new carbon monoxide alarm that needed installed.  I spent a little more but these new smoke alarms have lithium batteries that are supposed to last the 10 year life span of the smoke detectors, so no more changing batteries.  Sweet!

So that was enough for one day.  Unfortunately for Michael, my list just keeps growing.  As long as we're at Home Depot, I always have to look at chandeliers.  I have hated the chandelier in my dining room since I bought this house.  I keep looking for a replacement and I think I've finally found it!  That's now on his next list!  I also hate my kitchen faucet so I'm always on the look out for one to replace this one.  It will be on the list soon!

Thank you my brother.   It was a fun afternoon (for ME anyway!) and a lot of stuff was knocked off my list.  I'll let you know when I recharge my Home Depot card and I'm ready to shop again!