Spring Projects

We're taking advantage of the wonderful, spring-like weather and working around the house. Scott is here for several days and I've taken time off from work. We've been busy -

• The cars have been washed and vacuumed.
• Scott changed the oil in all three cars, using synthetic oil. This is an important detail, as the local "quick change oil place" uses regular oil which results in lower fuel efficiency. You can get synthetic oil at the "quick change oil place", but that oil change will run you $80.
• The window blinds I ordered two weeks ago arrived Monday. I installed them Wednesday and Thursday. These new blinds have a top down option, which is great. Better yet, they actually function properly (the old ones did not).
• The old grill has been completely dismantled and disposed of.
• The new grill was moved from the garage to its warm weather spot on the back patio.
• Scott instructed Brian on how to use the hack saw to break down the dried out Christmas tree. Normally, the Christmas tree gets picked up by city recycling, but each time they were scheduled to pick up, the tree was buried under a huge mound of snow and ice. Now it will go via the Spring refuse pick up.

Today's project - installing a double drapery rod for our 4-wide bank of windows in the family room. I've always put this off because the expanse is so wide. When we first moved into the house, I could only find rods up to 120" in length - not long enough. Now they are available up to 144" long and available at the local Lowes. I figured the job would take an hour - the instructions stated an estimate of 20 minutes. I'm pretty handy with the power drill, so the mounting hardware went up without any issues. Then I went to assemble the rods which commenced what seemed like the longest, most frustrating 90 minutes of my life.
I won't go into any details, but here are my Facebook statuses that accompanied the experience:

I may have a degree in chemical engineering from MIT, but installing this dang drapery rod is kicking my butt! The instructions suck.

Apparently, I should have studied mechanical engineering at MIT instead.

It took two chemical engineers to figure out the drapery rod installation. We ended up disassembling the rods, finials to get it to work. And we didn't get into a fight while trying to figure it all out!

Now I need a beer or glass of wine!

But I can't have a beer or glass of wine because I have to pick up my son from school. Instead, I'm drinking a green kale smoothie. I feel totally lame....

I had some prosecco after picking up the boy from school and feel much better.

Well, it's done now, so the next step is picking out drapes. Wish me luck!

Photos:
This week's tool of choice - the power drill.

What is it about the high pitched rev of the power drill that makes you feel, well, powerful?

My reward after struggling with something as simple as a drapery rod - a little bit of bubbly Prosecco


Wishing you a nice weekend! It will be warm here and I wish the same for you!