June 8, 2008
· Filed under lighting, projects, renovated
I may be a chemical engineer, but apparently I’m still capable of changing o
ut a light fixture. The hideous yellow hanging thing in the kitchen had to go because everyone kept walking into it. The lumpy shade was also cracked, and it was held up with some classy rope and twist ties.
H
ere’s what it looked like half-uninstalled: Pretty scary, but not all that difficult to unscrew the old wires and fixture and insert a new one. Luckily, I picked a new one up at rejuvenation in portland a few weekends back (http://www.rejuvenation.com/ ) which was an awesome store by the way. I got two other fixtures; one for over the sink with two lights that has 4 connection wires and may be beyond my level of expertise.
The other one is to replace the fluorescent chicklet of doom (not to be confused with the altoids more commonly found in dorm rooms at the UR.) I have yet to actually pull that one down to see how it’s attached and whether the new one will fit under it. So yesterday was just to replace the icky yellow hanging 70s thing. And I did, and this is how the new one looks.
Notice how the stripe on the light fixture matches the stripe in the tile (!) And doesn’t look to anachronistic like the ikea light over the sink. I found out it’s from ikea because that was the label on the instructions I found over the sink.
That and some ongoing linen closet painting and such was my saturday. The lawncare has also been overwhelming since I wait too long between mowing and weeding. Yay weekend-not much other news, I’ll go back to unpacking now 
May 24, 2008
· Filed under projects, renovated
Or more precisely, shiny happy dishes. It’s the inaugural run of my GE GLD5960N dishwasher. Everything is all loaded up and running rather quietly (quieter than my previous two rental units at least.) I will let you know just how clean everything ends up. I’m happy about the energy star rating and feel less guilty for running a 3/4 load. They were just piling up too much, so I dug out the box with the dish detergent and loaded it up.
Also(!) All the kitchen boxes are now unpacked. The new cabinets finally have stuff in them, with a decent amount of room to spare. Besides unpacking, my project for the day was mounting the under-cabinet puck-lights for the side island. Teeny tiny screws that I had to pre-drill because my cabinets are made of some devilishly hard blend of particleboard. There was much dropping of the screws and cursing, but everything is finally up. The tile guy set the last of the tiles yesterday (to be grouted and sealed tuesday), so take a look at just how fabulous the side counter area looks:
Note how the mixer matches the stripe (honestly, I didn’t plan that!) I’ll try to get another pic and put it up when it’s not so sunny so you can see just how well lit this area is now. The bonus is that the light-switch on the wall will turn that outlet off and on, so if you ignore the plugged in part, it looks near professional.
This is another thing I have to thank the previous owners for leaving behind. I salvaged it before the demolition of the old cabinets, and think it’s working pretty well. They’re also LED lights, so low power and low energy bill too.
Now I better get back to flattening the unpacked boxes and tackling the next room in the house… sigh.
ut a light fixture. The hideous yellow hanging thing in the kitchen had to go because everyone kept walking into it. The lumpy shade was also cracked, and it was held up with some classy rope and twist ties.
ere’s what it looked like half-uninstalled: Pretty scary, but not all that difficult to unscrew the old wires and fixture and insert a new one. Luckily, I picked a new one up at rejuvenation in portland a few weekends back (http://www.rejuvenation.com/ ) which was an awesome store by the way. I got two other fixtures; one for over the sink with two lights that has 4 connection wires and may be beyond my level of expertise.
