Home Maintenance- 5 things that drive me crazy
By Barbara Schmidt
If you want weekend warrior ideas just ask yourself what drives you crazy about your home. It could be something in disrepair or maybe something that never worked in the first place.
Most of my crazies are things that don’t work – either they were never designed correctly in the first place or something was never set up right. Try to tackle these items “bird by bird” as they say so that a little sanity can creep into your daily life.
Lights on Lights off.
The winters in the New North (Minneapolis) are long, cold and dark. We used to rely on a motion sensor to turn on our lights when driving up to the house. The sensor would get cloudy so that after a year or two it wasn’t very responsive so we’d be coming home in the dark.
I was out on a project in LA when I ran across the timer duplex switch from Lutron. I love this switch because we can program it turn on and off by the amount of daylight streaming onto the sensor inside the house.
As the days get shorter and shorter the garage lights come on earlier and earlier. The switch allows for manual operation as well.
2. Migrating Toilet Seat
That’s right, our master bath has a toilet seat that stays tight for one or two tries and then migrates back and forth just to make those middle of the night trips to the bathroom really perilous.
I asked around – spoke to a photographer friend of mine who suggested going back to old stock toilet seats but they fit round fronts not the elongated front toilet we have.
I asked at the wholesaler where the toilet came from and they didn’t have a suggestion either. My husband complained and complained about it until one day it came up at topic of conversation in our of our remodeling projects.
Finally I’m in a meeting at Aspire Showroom and the local representative for Bemis tells us about STATITE® the professional hinge fixing system. Well, I felt vindicated – obviously we have an issue that many other homeowners have had as well. So hallelujah! We now have a toilet seat that stays put and the toilet seat itself is slow close from churchseats.com.
3. Organized Flatware
Admittedly I do not have this problem solved yet but I have big plans. Every year at KBIS I see the Hafele booth with their drawer organizers and I proclaim my intentions to fix our flatware drawer.
Sometime in 1994 someone had the great idea to use a plastic molded drawer form to rest our silverware on. The big problem is that silver and plastic are slippery so every time you open or close the drawer the silverware slides forward or back and after a few times the entire situation is a jumbled mess. Felted bottoms would be great and sections so that we can keep my chef husband happy and at peace.
4. Dingy Bath Towels
We are having family over for dinner in a few weeks and all of sudden I noticed how worn and sad our guest bath towels look. They are embarrassing so I’m on the hunt for some better quality bath towels in a grey or charcoal.
It’s funny how we miss things everyday and then all of sudden they cross that line needing replacement. No one should have to dry off with a questionably clean towel. Come to think of it my husband did ask for new bath towels that are “fluffy” and bigger.
5. Wall Marks
We move a lot furniture in and out of our home for photography so it’s not surprising that we have a lot of marks on our white walls. Once a year I try to take Mr. Eraser to visit all the high traffic areas in our home to freshen up all the dings.
In the meantime I look at each wall ding as a sort of birthmark of each my projects. Do they drive me crazy? Yes but on the positive side it’s so satisfying to rub them out of existence.
