Handy-Woman

I have been learning to be a handy-woman lately. After replacing a bunch of electrical outlets, I replaced a doorknob. That sounds easy enough, but it isn’t. First you have get the parts all lined up just so, and then you have to use a screwdriver without being able to see the screws. Still, it got done.

Next was replacing the two showerheads in the house. I needed Glenn’s help for this; I could not wrench off the old shower head despite trying for hours, and he got it off in one try.

Then it was time for a new microwave. The old one came with the house and was a very good microwave. It suffered some damage when Corin, at around 3 years of age, microwaved popcorn for a good twenty minutes or so. It’s wall-mounted, not a counter-top one. I got the old one off mostly by myself; I needed help with the last screw. My favorite feature of the old microwave was the ability to turn off all sounds, so I got the same brand (LG) again. The salesperson said she had never gotten a request for a silenceable microwave before. I can’t believe that.

Installation for the microwave was $150, nearly as much as the microwave itself, so I declined that. It took Deven, Glenn, and me all working to get it installed. The old mounting brackets were still usable, so that was good, but the screws at the top (going through a cabinet) were in a different place, and we ended up drilling a few random holes while attempting to get it just right. YouTube made it look a lot easier.

Later, our electrical system needed replacing. We needed a new breaker box and grounding rod and things I’d never heard of. That was very expensive, and we did not attempt any of that work ourselves.

After that, I decided to paint the kitchen cabinets. They were a dark wood with lots of shades of grain in them, and I needed a change. I painted them white and got new black knobs. YouTube explained how new cabinet doors just pop right off, but I do NOT have new cabinets; they are ancient. Those doors were not coming off, so there is some paint on the hinges, and I don’t care. The knobs were made in China, which meant that half of them were not drilled deeply enough, so I had to hunt for screws that were an eighth of an inch shorter than the screws I had. (The old ones and new ones were the same length.) It took a few months, but the kitchen looks brighter now.