Weekend Accomplishments

In honor of posting a to-do list, my boyfriend and I decided we'd get some things done that weren't actually listed. Don't get me wrong, we tried to do a few things on the list. Replacing the heaters seemed like a good place to start. We had actually purchased them on sale in the winter for around $50 a pop for the 6 foot long ones.

This is our living room heater. It's old, and grody. This is actually the second heater we worked on, the first being the one in the dining room. It was my intention of replacing the large 8 foot long heater in the dining room with a 6 foot one, so we'd be able to fit our hutch flat against the wall. We found out the power actually comes out closest to where the hutch is, so for this project we'd have to drill some holes in the wall, which we weren't prepared to do.  Back to this guy, the living room heater.

I'm aware you're supposed to take these apart and clean them. Clearly, we didn't. Gross.

After Victor removed all the screws attaching this bad boy to the wall, it popped right off without a problem. There was a bunch of black stuff behind it, which I was worried was mold. We think its actually some sort of burned dirt/dust? It came right off with a damp cloth, and pretty much smelled like potting soil.

This would be where I show pictures of us installing the new awesome heater that can be centered right under our window! That would be of course, if we didn't buy the wrong heaters, you know, in December. We have electric heating. The heaters we bought? For a hot water system. I think it's safe to say we're the best home owners probably ever (sarcasm).

We'll be heading to HomeDepot sometime this week (which we didn't do this weekend even though it was part of our list). Hopefully we'll be able to at least get a store credit, which will be fine since we have so many other things there we need to pick up. Talk about disappointing though.

Instead, we did a general clean up of the downstairs, ran a lot more stuff to the basement (including new blinds, a shelf system I bought from Ikea, and a bunch of other stuff that should've gone down there forever ago), cleared off our stairs, swept, vacuumed, and cleared out our entry closet.

This is the top of the closet before. Home to tools, power tools, oh, and more tools. Tools that belong in the basement, so that's where they are now. Hooray!

This is the top of the closet now. We kept one generic tool box here (which, if you'll notice, isn't in the before picture, because it was on the floor next to the couch...) some bungee cords, the box containing our floor spacers, and bed risers. Okay, so we're not perfect. Everything but the tool box should totally go in the basement. After seeing this image, I don't get why we left those there to begin with. At least its better, right?

And here's the bottom of the closet. I didn't take any other pictures of the stuff in the bottom because A. it's too embarrassing B. I'm forgetful and C. if I stopped to take more pictures I'd likely have taken way longer or not done it at all. Allow me to give you a quick run down of what I found:

• Potting Soil, from when I actually worked on our garden, the first year we lived there (circa 2007)
• Christmas wrapping paper, from two years ago
• Winter shovel from two years ago (it only snowed twice this past winter, totally didn't need it here)
• My prom dress shoes, from 2003, and my senior dinner dance shoes, 2004
• Retro video game controllers in the white box there. Including the NES Zapper...
• White trash bag with two different pairs of slippers
• TJ Max returns from Christmas two years ago (I'm seeing a pattern...)
• Some door hardware
• Lots more shoes that don't fit, and probably haven't fit since 2007

About 7 pairs of shoes went to donation. Including a NEW pair of men's 16.5US sized Nikes. I should mention here I've never met someone who wears a size 16.5US men's shoe. And the prom shoes. Oh the stuff we hold on to. 3 pairs of shoes were missing their mate, so in the trash they went.

Here is the bottom of the closet after. The shoes we did end up keeping went upstairs to the bedroom closet where they belong (I think we kept 4 pairs?). Looks a lot better though. We can actually shut the door now too. I think that's the first time it's actually been able to shut since we moved in.

Maybe over the course of the week, or this coming weekend I'll actually get something done on the to-do list...