Category: Home improvement

I have made it no secret that I am not a fan of doing any home improvement that involves electricity. I think this goes back to the time some 20 years ago when I once tried to change out a light fixture. I thought I had turned off the breaker but I had clearly not, as the shock I received clearly reminded me.

When we had several fans and lights installed recently, I hired someone to do it. My wife and I agreed that this was a good investment because (a) there were quite a few, and it would have taken me about a week straight to get it done and (b) electricity was involved.

I know plenty of you out there are shaking your head wondering what the big deal is. It’s simple! You just need to know what wire to connect where, and be mindful of the electrical set-up, which means being a masterful wizard of the invisible energy force that is electricity, the thing that can nearly knock you off a ladder when you don’t turn off the correct breaker.

For some reason unknown to me, I decided I could handle the task of changing out an outdoor light by myself. I wanted a motion sensor light in my backyard so that when I take the trash out in the evening, the light magically comes on. (To those of you saying it’s not magic, I disagree. It’s magic.)

But I figured this was pretty straightforward, and I had the better part of an afternoon to spend on what would take most competent electricians about 10 minutes. 

I went to the home improvement store and began to shop my options. And there were A LOT of options. And some of them were very expensive options. I didn’t want fancy. And I certainly didn’t want expensive. I wanted a plain, basic outdoor light that came on when I walked in the backyard, and with easy access to the bulb when it came time to replace.

That was a needle in a haystack. First off, tons of the lights have what appear to be a very complicated manner of replacing a bulb. I wanted to reach up into an open area, unscrew a bulb, and screw in a new one. And I wanted a motion sensor. Eventually, I found my options, and it was a whopping three different lights, and only one in the color I wanted. This actually worked for me, as it was also the cheapest option, and that’s usually my number one priority on things like this.

I got home and turned off the breaker. This should be a breeze, I said. It was not a breeze.

For starters, the old light was really old. I am convinced the light was installed in 1923, and the house was just built around it. After fighting with rusted out screws, I eventually got the old unit off the wall. 

I looked at what awaited me, and I saw something pretty simple: A black wire, a white wire, and a grounding wire. I still have no idea what a grounding wire actually does, but I know it’s gold and important and maybe stops my house from burning down?

I attached the respective wires to the new light. Learning from previous experiences, I did not fully install the whole fixture. Rather, I turned the breaker back on and went to test the light. There is a little tab you can switch that says “Test” that lets you see if it’s working even when it’s still light out. So I flicked the tab and turned on the light. I waved my hand in front of the sensor. Nothing.

I called my wife (yes, she was just upstairs, but it seemed like a long walk) and told her it wasn’t working and we’d need to call an electriciation. She suggested I ask a neighbor to help, as several of my neighbors are far more handy than I am. I conceded that was a good point. 

I turned off the breaker and went to pull the light down, and decided I would try and reattach the wires one last time and give it a try. While I was fumbling with the fixture, I felt a little click. And I realized I had not, in fact, turned the light to “Test.” Sigh.

I cut the breaker back on and waved my hand. Magic!

I called my wife back and told her that the light was working, and there were only a few sparks. She said, “There were sparks?” The fact that she did not get that I was joking tells you the confidence she has in my electrical work.

So the light is now installed, and it lights up gloriously when I go to take the trash out. I feel very accomplished, and can’t wait for the next electrical project I have. So I can hire someone competent to do it.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

Here’s a fun redecorating trip for anyone wanting to make their home feel like a tropical getaway – cover every bit of the inside of your house in plastic, wait for the air conditioner to then break, and voila! The inside of your house feels very much like the tropics – temps in the 80s and 800 percent humidity. Hey, I never promised you tropics with an ocean breeze.

The whole ordeal started a while back when we noticed we had some leaks in our attic. We could see at least four, which, in the short term, meant positioning buckets right under the leaks in anticipation of rain. Eventually we had a roofing contractor come out to review the damage. Turns out we had fairly extensive hail damage. Further inspection found that the leaks to the attic were not the only ones. Leaks had begun creeping onto the ceilings of three bedrooms and a main hallway. 

Getting the roof itself changed was no problem. This was just a matter of not minding the constant pounding of hammers and nail guns and making sure not to be surprised when you look out a second story window and see some dude walking past you on the roof.

The big problem was going to be the ceiling repair. We have a popcorn ceiling, which I was unaware I was supposed to hate with a white hot passion. Apparently popcorn ceilings are really loathed by a lot of people. I have always felt rather indifferent about my ceilings. I feel like unless you’re going for, you know, the Sistine Chapel or something, a ceiling is just kind of a ceiling.

So we had to have it de-popcorned before painting, which, I was told, was going to make all the difference in the world by multiple people. In order to de-popcorn, the entire inside of the house was wrapped in plastic, and guys on stilts walked around doing whatever it is they do to make the ceiling smooth. It’s rather loud, and it churns up a ton of stuff in the air.

Which led us to our AC problem. Apparently, our AC is a fairly finicky creature, and it does not do well when all of the vents are blocked and there is a ton of stuff in the air. After a few hours of the house being sealed up (on one of the hottest days of the year), I heard a sound I’d heard before. In the hallway, ever so faintly – Drip. Drip. Drip. I knew exactly what it was. Our AC had frozen up and thus stopped cooling. And it had begun melting into the intake duct thingee where the filter is. I turned the unit off and vacuumed out about an inch of water. Once it appeared to have been done dripping, I let the unit sit for about an hour more. I cut it back on when it reached 80. It ran for about an hour. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Great.

We knew we had to get our air guy out, who confirmed that the coils were really dirty, and that he could clean them, but it would probably be best if we waited two days until the crew was done de-popcorning. He suggested we change the filters often. Like, every few hours.

So every few hours, I would turn the unit off, vacuum it out, and change the filter while the house got warmer and warmer with each passing minute.

On the day of the repair, I went into work. My wife, however, was at home, and she was giving me regular updates on the temperature. For each degree the temp climbed about 80, it was clear by my wife’s texts that I would be doing good not to share that it was actually a little chilly in my office that day. “It’s 83. I. Am. Dying. Here.”

Then, after our air guy had been working on the repair and the painters were long gone, I got a text of hope. “IT’S FIXED! IT’S COOLING OFF!” Still probably not a good time to share about the chill in my office.

So now our popcorn ceiling is gone, and I have to say, I can actually tell a difference. It looks really nice, and i’m glad we had it done. And I’m glad I spent the day in my chilly office on the day it topped 85 inside.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

I am pleased to say I can now turn on the hot water in my kitchen without using a pair of pliers.

I had been operating in this capacity ever since I made the mistake of attempting to turn off the water one day, and snapped the handle off clean. I tried several times to reattach it, but with no success. While most people would think the next, obvious thing would be to replace the faucet, I did the slightly lazier thing, which was to grab a pair of pliers so that I could turn the nozzle when the need arose. Perhaps I was utilizing my long-trusted medical strategy of ignoring things and hoping the problem miraculously fixes itself.

Shockingly, the handle did not magically reattach itself. After a couple of weeks, my wife and I agreed we needed to replace the faucet.

While I never look forward to anything plumbing related, I was excited about the prospect of getting a new faucet, as our existing one had some flaws. And I don’t mean the recently added one. The main flaw, in my book, was that it did not have one of the spray hose thingees. Just one direction of water right down into the sink, stealing from me the satisfaction of spraying down the entirety of the sink. Life’s little pleasures…

My wife and I went to the home improvement store and began shopping for a new unit. On this particular purchase, we were fairly unified in what we wanted, and it took a surprisingly short amount of time to pick out the perfect choice.

When we got it home, I immediately disassembled the old faucet, installed the new one, and we were up and running in 20 minutes.

Oh, wait. What I meant to say was I set the box by the cabinet and it sat there for the next week as I occasionally stared down at it as I used pliers to turn off the hot water.

Eventually, I knew I was going to have to install it. But I also know I have the plumbing skills of an armadillo, so there was a good chance I would just back matters exceptionally worse. It turns out, I did not even know how out of my league I was.

I texted my neighbor, who is in the plumbing business, to see if he could give me a hand. In short order he was at the house, tools in tow. He assessed the situation and identified the first things that needed to be disconnected. Even I could handle this part. I snugged up under the sink and used a wrench to get the water lines free. Easy stuff.

He then got under there and began inspecting what the next step was. “Hang on,” he said, and left my house.

A moment later he returned with a large metal device that I have never seen in my life. I said, “I have no idea what that is.”

“It’s a basin wrench,” he said.

“I still have no idea what that is.”

Apparently a basin wrench is used to get those pesky bolts up under the sink that holds the faucet in place. My neighbor wriggled with it for a few minutes, and soon had it all free and clear.

“I think the basin wrench was a good call,” I said, clearly still not knowing what I was talking about.

The new unit installed without the use of a basin wrench, as it has the little cup thingee that fits up under the sink and tightens up to cinch it to the faucet. I am hopeful that the inventor of that thing made billions, because it seems like a real time saver.

The new faucet is installed, and it works like a charm, including the spray hose which is something that I did not I missed as much as a I did. I am very thankful to have a friend and neighbor who can help me with projects such as this. And I’m really thankful he had a basin wrench. Whatever that is.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

I froze in my tracks when I saw it. There it was. Perfection that eluded us for so long. I pulled out my phone and took two quick pictures and sent them to my wife. I knew – I just knew! – she would be just as excited as I was about this kitchen trash can on sale at the store.

Perhaps it’s our age. Perhaps it’s a pandemic. Perhaps it’s a combination of things. But we have been on a quest for a new kitchen trash can for a while.

I know what you’re thinking – Mike, why not just go and buy a trash can? Might I remind you it took us about six months to find the perfect bowls (bigger than soup, but smaller than chili, but perfect for, say, Buddha bowls. We both know what we want, and we will definitely not settle.

Also, I’m not saying we are cheap, but I am saying we are not spendthrifts. We don’t buy a lot of things. It’s not our style. We are currently looking at getting a new TV, and I am guessing we will be pulling the trigger on that some time well post-pandemic.

But back to the trash can. The reason we needed a new one is the current one we have was designed by someone who hates us. I do not remember the origins of this trash cans, but I believe it may be when we moved into the house a few years ago, and I made some purchases without supervision. The, I believe, is the last that needed to be corrected. (Previous correction: The horrible microwave that most college dorms would have been ashamed to even have.)

The biggest problem with this trash can is the lid. It is one of those swinging tops you push, revealing the trash can. But for some inexplicable reason, the one has a little indentation right at the lip, about half an inch deep and two inches wide. Dumping out coffee grounds? Why not deposit some in that groove. Scraping our plate after dinner? Maybe some leftover potatoes can fall in there. Emptying the vacuum? Yay, for a little collection of dust and dirt!

But search as we did, we just couldn’t find the right trash can. And we certainly were not about to pay $200 for one. And if any of you have a $200 trash can, I’m not judging you. I don’t get to spend your money. That’s solely your call. But I do get to spend our money, and oooooh, boy. I would not want to see the look on her face if I bought that. Messing up and buying a $29 microwave is one thing.

This trash can was well within the price range we had set, and there were probably a dozen left. My wife did not immediately respond to the text, and anyone who knows me knows how good I am at being patient. (Hint: Bad.)

I got the items I needed and headed home. When I got there, I asked my wife if she had seen the pictures. She had just seen them, and said, “What are the dimensions?” I said, “It was … trash can … size?” 

Because my wife is good like this, she said. “Our current one is 10 and a half inches by 17 inches. I’d like to get the same size, so if it is, let’s get it.”

I didn’t head back to the store until the next day, but I am glad I did, as there was but one trash can left. It was a miracle. 

OK, maybe that’s a little strong of a statement. But it sounds better that “it was supply and demand and retail economics and product placement marketing doing what it does.”

So far so good, on the new trash can, which even has a fancy sensor you can wave your hand over it to open. (A feature, I noticed, is NOT on the $200 model. So there.)

Now that we have this purchase over, I guess we focus on the television. And the most important part, if my calculations are correct, the moment that bad boy arrives is the moment we know the pandemic is done!

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

Here is my current station in life: My main bathtub is filled with old high school annuals, photo albums, a box with all my shoes, and wrapping paper. There is a parakeet in a cage in my guest bathroom. My guest room bed is disassembled and leaning against a wall, and is also where my home office is where I have worked remote for much of the last nine months, so my desk is currently wedged in a small open space where my chair barely fits since the bed now takes up the place where my office used to live.

Yay! for new carpet!

Yes, we are getting new carpet, and we a ton of stuff we have to move out of the way, and disassemble some of the beds in the house. Our guest bedroom has a poster bed with slats that was my wife’s grandmother’s, and it would apparently cost us an extra $60 for the installers to move it. Thus, the temporary inconvenience. We didn’t even bother to ask what it would cost to move a shelf that was anchored with boxes of old photos and albums.

My wife and I originally talked about moving everything downstairs for the installation, then we both remembered that we have stairs and not an escalator, and so we started trying to find as many places upstairs when we started moving stuff. 

We started with our main closet. First step was to package up all of my shoes. Now, I am not a big shoe guy. Or so I thought. I have a few pairs of shoes for work. And then a few nice dress shoes I can wear with a suit or tuxedo. And then some hiking shoes. And some tennis shoes. And some boots. And cleats. And suddenly I realize I am becoming Imelda Marcos. (Congrats to me for a joke that would have really zinged on a late 1980s talk show monologue.)

Next I moved on to a shelf we have in the closet that has a bunch of old photo albums and high school yearbooks. Fun fact: Those. Are. Heavy. I am not sure what they made high school yearbooks out of in the late 80s, but iron was clearly a major component.

Once I moved all of these boxes to our main bathroom, I set my eyes on our guest room closet. Our guest room closet has become a convenient storage place for a few things, namely gift wrapping paper. As I hauled bag after bag to the bathtub storage facility, I told my wife, “OK, most of this cannot go back into storage.” She agreed. If everyone who reads this column would like us to wrap their presents, we can probably accommodate you. I mean, we won’t, for myriad reasons, but just saying we COULD….

We are getting close to having the floors prepped, and once the new carpet is installed, we will be looking forward to putting things back that deserve to be put back. Gift wrapping paper will most likely be pared down substantially. My shoes? Probably need to do some soul searching about whether I need three pairs of cleats still, seeing as how I haven’t played competitive sports in years. And the parakeet? Probably should move that back into my son’s room.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

If you were to present me with a choice of getting some extensive dental work or doing some minor plumbing home repair, I would need to get back to you after a lot of thought on which to choose.

Of all of the home repair things that can face a homeowner, plumbing is by far my least favorite of all tasks. Dealing with anything electrical would be at the top of the list, but since my wife has already made it very clear there is no need for me to ever even attempt such repairs, I don’t even have to consider that an option.

But when plumbing repairs present themselves, I can’t plead, “I might set the house on fire so we better call someone.” Such was the case recently when the toilet in our bathroom broke. It was fairly easy to detect that something was broken, because generally when you flush a toilet, you should not be holding the handle free of the tank.

Alas, that was how we found ourselves, when the handle snapped clean off. I did the sensible thing, which was to turn off the water to the toilet, place the tank lid on top of the closed seat, and tell the rest of the family, “Sorry, folks, but we no longer have a functioning toilet in our bathroom.”

Apparently this was not an acceptable decision. (Granted, I did manage to kick the can down the road for two days, which, quite frankly, I consider quite the accomplishment.)

I went to the home improvement store to pick out a new handle. To my surprise, I found out that they could be bought for a mere $2. When I returned home, I put the new handle in, connected the chain, and quickly found out why it cost a mere $2, when it immediately snapped. Chalk that up to a $2 lesson in the pitfalls of frugality.

Prior to heading back to the store, I noticed that the little plug thingee that keeps the water in the tank was looking a little ragged. Might as well fix that as well, I thought. Because when you are doing something you hate, it’s always good to double up the effort.

I went back to the store and grabbed a slightly hardier handle. When I went to get the plug thingee, I glanced at the options hanging on the wall. Some said they were for particular brands of toilet. I am like most people on the planet and have no idea what kind of toilet I have. However, I did see one choice that read, “Universal stopper. Fits all toilet brands.” Winner, winner. Or so I thought.

When I got home, I went to install the stopper. And I quickly saw that it was not fully plugging the hole in the bottom of the tank, which pretty much defeats the whole purpose. I returned to the store to exchange the item. When I went back to the Wall o’ Stoppers, I noticed that the first “universal” one I got was the two inch model whereas what I needed was the three inch version, which also marketed itself as being “universal.” Cue my inner Inigo Montoya. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

I brought the two new repair parts home and set to doing my home plumbing. First, I put the three inch universal stopper in, which I was surprised to see actually worked, because I am cursed at home improvement and I expect everything I do, in particular with regards to plumbing, to result in more problems.

I connected the handle, and then linked the chain to the handle. I cut the water back on, fully expecting a full-on geyser to erupt in my bathroom. The tank filled. I flushed. And it … worked. Just as it was supposed to. 

Perhaps I have somehow exorcised my demons of the most basic plumbing tasks that present themselves. Maybe I have finally conquered that mountain. Maybe it’s time to branch out and see what else I can do. Except anything involving electrical stuff. I feel pretty certain my wife won’t budge on that edict.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

Not to sound hyperbolic, but I have accomplished the two greatest plumbing successes the world has ever known.

I base this on the fact that I did two very minor plumbing repairs that (a) only required two trips to the hardware store and (b) did not result in having to call a neighbor for assistance (or, worse, an actual plumber who needs to be paid actual dollars).

Now, you may be saying, Mike, how does that make you the architect of the greatest successes ever? Answer: because after two decades of plumbing missteps, errors and abject failures, accomplishing these two feats with my level of skill is unprecedented in history.

I have tried to learn. I have watched as friends who were adept at plumbing, deftly helped me fix things (and by “helped me fix things” I mean “fix things”). I have talked at length to folks at the hardware store prior to repairs. I have watched YouTube videos, but that usually ends up with me getting distracted by the more interesting videos in the menu on the side, and I abandon the tutorial so I can watch “Alton Brown reviews Amazon’s dumbest kitchen gadgets.” (That’s a real video that popped up. And way funnier than a leaky kitchen sink repair tutorial.)

But for whatever reason, this time, I launched a two-game winning streak. The first plumbing issue was when a set of metal measuring spoons went down into the garbage disposal without me seeing them. I turned on the disposal a while later and it made a frightening screech of a sound that will no doubt haunt my dreams for years to come, and then just kinda stopped grinding and instead emitted a high pitched whir. (Quick note: before you say, “That’s not a plumbing issue” – It’s attached to the sink. It’s a plumbing issue in my world.)

I said to my wife, “Well, I guess we don’t have a disposal anymore.” It was Christmas day, so there was really nothing we could do about it anyhow.

That evening, while bored, I googled “disposal stopped working.” Lots of videos. I clicked the first one. And made myself promise not to look at any of the other videos it was offering. The video was only a little over a minute, which probably helped.

Turns out, there is a little bolt thingee underneath the disposal, and if you pop the right sized allen wrench in it and turn it back and forth a few times, it magically fixes everything. Side note: Make sure you get the rest of the metal spoons out of the disposal once the magical fix is in lest the screech return. I was unable to do that with my mitts, but fortunately my wife has little squirrel-sized hands and could get in there and root out all of the metal. (Note: Her hands are much smaller than mine, but are completely normal sized hands and would make a squirrel kind of terrifying.)

A few days later, I went to get some napkins from under the same sink. When I grabbed the bag, my brain said, “Hmmm. Napkins usually don’t weigh several pounds…” When I pulled it out, the bag was also dripping. Great.

My wife and I pulled everything out from under the sink and saw we had standing water. We put a towel down to sop it up. “Must be from the disposal,” I said, closing the cabinet door and standing.

My wife, who is WAY smarter than I am, turned on the water and let it drain into the sink. She opened the cabinet. “It’s an active link,” she said. And apparently, completely unrelated to the disposal.

I got down underneath and began to assess the situation. Indeed, the link was active, and it was pretty clear where it was coming from – a metal connector between the sink and a pipe had begun to break apart, and water was trickling out around it. My wife stood behind me. “Let’s just call a plumber,” she said.

Not with this hot streak going.

It only took me two trips to the hardware store to get the right part, which surely is a record. After I finished threading the connector in place, I cut on the water and peered below. Nothing. Not a single drip. I said to my wife, “I fixed it.” Her response: “You did!?!?!?” I don’t blame her.

So I await the next plumbing challenge. I am emboldened by plumbing victories. I feel as if I can conquer anything. As long as it’s the most basic anything possible.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.