little things make a house a home...

Our weather has been extreme lately...hot humid then torrential storms with all sorts of lightening and heavy rain...my plan was to have my deck back together by now....but it has to wait for the wood to dry out!  Will that ever happen? Meanwhile I figured out the issue of the mystery switch that turned on a light it was NOT wired to? HOLY HOT WIRE--batgirl....

So one of my "gifts" is to figure things out.  It means I'm a good tracker, I can look for signs and lead to conclusions, not always the right one...but 8 out of 10 yeah,  I'm channeling Sherlock...I dunno.    So the switch is one that has 2 switches in one box...shown here..

So the top switch turns on the overhead light in this is room, the lower switch turns on an exterior light.   So when I turned on either switch both lights came on!! WTHeck? So I tried hard to recall when I installed this switch...That's when I remember the insert card in the packaging and how it said in order for this switch to work  independently you must break out the little brass connector---DID I do that??

  

SO I took off the cover (after turning off the breaker) pulled the switch out far enough to see and there was the little culprit, so I wiggled it back n forth with needle nosed pliers until it broke off  I turned the breaker on and tried it before pushing it back in and it worked perfectly!! So that was an easy fix! 

Another project I was happy to get done is making a trap door that drops into place in the attic space.  no longer have the "black hole" in the middle of the ceiling!  I decided to not put in a attic ladder right now, since I can reach anything I need to by using my step ladder.  

I was happy to get that hole covered in! I had some big pieces of cardboard covering it but that did little to keep my conditioned air from escaping into the attic.  I glued some rigid foam insulation onto the backside of the trap door so it is now insulated and the difference is amazing! I probably should have put 2 layers of insulation come to think of it!! And I could spray glue some regular insulation to it as well 

A couple of other small inside projects is installing a wireless doorbell...people tend to sneak up on me....and some rollers for a trunk I keep in the bedroom, it needs to be painted and I want to put rollers on to make it easier to move around, and one of the ceiling fans needed a 3 speed switch...got that done.

The cabinet project in my bedroom is finished....there was so much oak in the room, the floor is oak, the night stand is oak, then an oak dresser and these 2 big oak cabinets SO I decided to give the cabinet and dresser a white wash to tone it down some..

before:

After 

I like this desert washed look. These cabinets are full of books, photo albums, and all sorts of memory albums I love to make...and since this "unit" would only work on this wall that means the bed ended up on the odd wall---with a window that is not centered due to the closet so I made up a window treatment to offset hopefully balance it 

used my crafting table for its first project...framing up 2 watercolors I made way back in 2010...about time they got frames...this table has a history! It's Vermont maple.  When I rented my unfurnished basement studio in Brooklyn, I had no furniture! The wonderful thing about NYC is people put all knds of things on the curb when they no longer want it...I found this table in that way.  I used it for the 5 years I lived in that apartment as my eating table.  I had it stored since my move back to SC...I'm so happy to bring this little piece of that life I had there into my life here.  

here is an old photo of it in that studio...I found the chairs too but did not bring them to SC...

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.