Illumination Transformations with the Unhandy Husband

Ever since Jackie and I moved into our new house last March, the Unhandy Husband has been able to relax.

Although we've loved our house from the moment we stepped inside, we were not in love with the lighting over our bar and over the dining room. We jokingly referred to them as "Pizza Hut lights."

The Pizza Hut light in all its glory.

One of the baby Pizza Hut pendants

They were awful...and entirely not our taste. So we set out to change them.

Several months ago, Jackie declared, "We're going to Lowe's." We went and finally found some pendant shades that we liked. It was an easy swap out for the Unhandy Husband to undertake.

New pendant shades

You can sort of see the detail on the shade in this picture

Much better than the Pizza Hut lights!

We were really happy with the new pendants. The baby Pizza Hut lights were banished to storage in the garage.

Apparently, the Unhandy Husband went back into hiding after the mini-Pizza Hut swap out because the big light didn't get changed for a while longer. It wasn't until Jackie and I were hosting a Christmas movie marathon for our friends that we agreed it was time for the big light to finally hit the road.

We had taken the light that we'd installed in the trailer with us when we left, and it had been sitting in a laundry basket on top of our spare fridge in the garage since we moved in. Buoyed by my success of illumination transformations in the trailer and the mini-Pizza Hut light swap out, I told her it would take 10 minutes to do.

This is where the Unhandy Husband jinxed himself.

We wanted to use the ceiling mount part (I don't know the real name for this part) so that it would match the pendants. However, that ended up causing us to have to cobble together bits and pieces of both the old and new lights to make it possible to hang the new light. I kinda felt like Dr. Frankenstein mixing and matching parts.

However, about an hour later, we got everything wired up and working.

Here's the new light. So much better!

That part up by the ceiling is what turned a 10 minute job into an hour of frustration. But it looks great!

And we love it! I wish we'd done it months ago!

The Un-Handy Husband Renovates & Celebrates!

A lot has happened since my last post, so I'll try to play catch up.

With the help of our amazing family and friends, we completed our whirl-wind renovation of Jackie's granddad's old place. Y'all know that I'm not that good at being handy, but this experience has forced me to learn. 

So this was the master bathroom before:

As you can see, we had already ripped off the mirror, which was no small feat. The mirror was glued directly on the wall. Other mirrors we took down had a paper backing and came down easily. This one didn't have the backing, so the back of the mirror was stuck straight to the wall. It shattered as Keith Warren (who is Ingrid's very Handy Husband) and I were trying to pry it off, but still wouldn't come down! We ended up peeling it off one tiny piece at a time. It took forever!!!

Next the flowery brass light fixture came down. And this is what went in its place:

Of course, after Keith and I finally got it on the wall, we could only find two light bulbs... and they didn't even match.

Later, I swapped out the itty-bitty shower head for this bigger one:

 

A couple of days later, Jeff, my super-handy father-in-law, helped me hang the mirror.  You can also see that I swapped out the wooden towel ring for a brushed bronze one that matched the light fixture.

Ta-Da! It looks great!!!

All the renovating took it's toll on Jackie, but this picture gives you a look at the laminate flooring that my Dad, Keith, Jeff, and Matt put down. (I helped, but my contribution was mainly standing on the pieces so they wouldn't move as the other hammered them into place.)

She's napping on a patio chair cushion.

 Like owner, like cat:

Just thinking about remodeling and moving made Smudge tired.

In the kitchen, I swapped out the round, plastic fixture for this chandelier. (FYI: The hardest part was opening and closing the stinking chain links!)

Then I swapped out the doorknobs and deadbolts:

My brother came over and helped Jackie put in quarter-round in the living room and bathrooms. They did a great job. The funniest part was that the piece that gave Zach the most trouble was a small 1 inch part!

After all of the renovating was over, we made a mad dash to get all of our stuff  out of the apartment. On our first day of moving, we had a caravan of 3 cars, 3 trucks, and a trailer. And the forecast that day was STORMY!

After dodging the storms, we managed to get everything unloaded just before the storm hit again. As the winds were kicking up, Jeff moved his truck away from the house so it wouldn't be right under some big trees. No sooner than Jeff moved the truck, the wind roared, and we heard the unmistakable cracks and pops of branches breaking. Matt and I turned around just in time to see a massive branch fall about 60 or so feet right were Jeff had moved his truck.

We didn't know that Jeff was already back in the house, so Matt and I took off toward the truck, fearing the worst. We were so relieved when we realized he wasn't there. Amazingly, the truck suffered relatively minor damage because the branch hit a power line just before it landed on the truck, taking out most of it's momentum.

Where the branch broke off.

The dent over the back door.

The force of the falling branch almost pulled down the power pole near the shed and our house!

You can see the leaning pole at the corner of the shed.

And this is our leaning tower of power. ;)

Alabama Power came out that night and fixed both of them. We appreciate their prompt action!

The next day, we celebrated Liberty Day in Columbiana. It was a much-needed day off from the renovation/moving grind. We had a great time, but it was SO HOT during the day! We met up with our friends that night to watch the fireworks show.

The next day, several of Jackie's cousins came to move the rest of our stuff. Dad also brought over a 16-foot enclosed trailer. They moved so fast we were packed up and unloaded at the new house in less than 4 hours!!! We couldn't have done it without them!

After moving, Jackie's cousin Shane cut down several trees that were in danger of falling on our place and on her grandparents. We're still in the process of cutting them into smaller pieces and hauling them off. Here's the video of Shane cutting down the last tree:

Jackie and I spent the week rearranging furniture and unpacking box after box after box...

I went back to the apartment today to get the ice packs we forgot in the freezer and to turn in the keys. I was SO glad to climb those 32 steps up to the third floor for the last time!!!

Our new place already feels like home, and we are so thankful that her parents are letting us live here. We have been truly blessed by the Lord. We look forward to spending the next several years here. And I've already laid down the law about our next move: It cannot and will not be during the summer!!!

I am still awed by the fact that we accomplished a total renovation and move in less than a month. But we owe much of that credit to our amazing friends and family. We owe them big time!

I'm also thankful for all of the handy people that helped me along the way. Maybe this Un-Handy Husband isn't so un-handy afterall.

Another Tale From the Un-Handy Husband

As I recently blogged, Jackie and I are moving to her granddad's old place. And that means we are remodeling... everything.

The first thing we tackled was ripping up the emerald green carpet. And it was everywhere. The living room. Hallway. All 3 bedrooms. Every closet.

Even the bathrooms.

Adios carpet!!!

For the most part, the carpet came up easily. After that, we took up the pad and hammered down the staples. There were hundreds and hundreds of staples, and there was often no rhyme or reason to how the staples were placed. You could go several feet and not find one staple, but then there would be a patch with about 20 staples in a space about the size of the palm of my hand.

Working in the hall

After sending the carpet from the Emerald City on down the yellow brick road, we had to paint over the faux marble walls, which meant that every single square inch of wall space was going to need paint.

My future office/Star Trek room/man cave

After picking a color at Lowe's, we got to rolling...and rolling...and rolling...

After a long day of inhaling paint fumes, I serenaded Jackie with my own version of the Reading Rainbow theme song (Butterfly in the sky... I'm feeling really high) and a new twist on Carrie Underwood's "Jesus, Take the Wheel" (Jesus, take the roller. Take it from my hands, cuz I can't paint this wall on...my...own).

You call it a duster. I call it a hair piece... a bad one!

Once all the walls were painted, we turned our gaze upward to the light fixtures, which were originally all ugly, round, plastic fixtures. My brother-in-law Matt showed me how to change them out for new ones. And my brother-from-another-mother Keith Warren helped swap out the ceiling fan in the living room.

Today the estimator from Lowe's came by to measure for carpet, and I also hauled almost 20 boxes of laminate flooring from my parents' house to our new place.

After the Lowe's guy left, I decided that I could tackle replacing the light fixtures over the kitchen sink and by the back door. I was worried that the Un-Handy Husband would really screw it up, but it wasn't too bad.

This has GOT TO GO!

So far so good.

Yikes! We've passed the point of no return!

Looking good!

Much better!!!

I still have one more ceiling fan to change out (one in the master bedroom). And we have to lay the floor in the living room, but things are looking good for the Un-Handy Husband.

Jackie and I also owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to her parents for giving a place to live rent-free and for helping us so much, to my parents for the laminate flooring (and my mom for painting and my dad for staple duty), Jackie's brother Matt for his help and time, and to our friends (that are family to us) Keith and Ingrid Warren for their unending help and support.

That's it for now. I'm sure the Un-Handy Husband will have a few more adventures before this remodeling adventure is over. So stay tuned!

A Tale From the Un-Handy Husband

As I mentioned in my last post, Jackie and I bought some furniture last night. What I didn't tell you was that it wasn't assembled. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor. I'm more like Bruce "No Assembly Required" Finklea.

Today, I decided that I was going to try and tackle the smaller cabinet by myself. We bought the small cabinet for extra food storage. We love our apartment, but it has a very small pantry that just doesn't give us the storage space we needed. When Jackie spotted this cabinet at Big Lots, she said that it was exactly what she wanted. (She also suckered me into buying a huge bookcase, too. I'll try putting that beast together later. I wanted to start small to build my confidence.)

Here's the box before I opened it:

After pulling out all the pieces, I figured that this would be pretty easy (even for the un-handy husband). The door is designed that it can be hinged on either the left of right side. The left side was what we needed, but as I started looking through the instruction manual, it only gave instructions for doing everything based on being hinged on the right-hand side. This meant that I had to keep reminding myself to reverse the instructions for any step that involved the hinges and door, which was about a third of the steps.

 After opening opening the bag with all of the screws, nails, and other turny-twisty things, I had a light bulb moment and used one of the pieces of Styrofoam to organize them. I stuck the screws and nails into the foam to keep them from getting lost. (At this point, the Un-Handy Husband was feeling pretty good about his handyman skills.)

Finally, the pieces began to resemble something similar to the picture on the box!

When it came time to hang the door, I realized that it is ideal to have a second pair of hands to help with this part. However, because Jackie was gone, the only hands I had were mine. This is when the Un-Handy Husband had his second light bulb moment: I got creative and used some library books to prop the door up while I screwed it in. (This is the most I've done with these library books during Spring Break!)

After hanging the door, I had no problem finishing up installing the shelves. And then it was finished!

This is where it's gonna go in the apartment. It's close to the actual pantry, which is to the right of the fridge:

As with any "some assembly required" project, there were some leftover pieces. I double checked to make sure I hadn't forgotten to screw these brackets on, but it looks like we just had four extras!

Jackie hasn't seen the cabinet yet, but I'm sure she'll be happy that it's together and ready to be stocked! After I finished, I felt pretty proud of myself. This is certainly a win for the Un-Handy Husband!