July 13, 2014
After 20 days of hot summer weather, I finally went out and bought a thermostat to replace the old one. It got taken off the wall during the painting of the stairwell, and I couldn't find a thermostat for sale in a brick-and-mortar store to save my life. Sears did not have them. Best Buy did not have them. OSH did not have them.
Could have ordered hundreds online with next-day delivery to the store. Of course, I'd have to drive 20 miles each way to get to the store (Home Depot or Lowes). Then, while online yesterday, I took a chance and just entered "thermostat, pasadena, ca."
Lots of repair and installation services popped up and then, Target.
I am not really big on Target, but I will say that the local store has amazing selection (including a supermarket now) and, by gum, after asking three or four store employees, I actually found the wall thermostats, and the one I was looking for was there.
So I went home and read through the instructions over a sandwich, then took about half an hour uninstalling the old one (which was still wired into the wall) and replaced it. It was really rather straightforward: Pull the old wires and label them with the connection they made on the old thermostat (red on red, green on green, white on white and, for some reason, black on yellow). A couple mollies in the wall, connect the wires to the base plate, screw it to the wall, then pop on the new thermostat.
It's programmable. I searched and searched the instruction booklet to find out how to just turn the damn thing on, never mind programming it for seven days of temperature cycles.
Found out how to do that. By this time I'm sweltering, sweat rolling into my eyes. Finally, I got it to turn on and blessed cool air has been my reward for the last hour. And right about now is when I usually open up the house and let the cool evening breezes take over. But just a little while longer with the cool manmade breeze before I open up.
July 24, 2014
Weeks whip by. It seems just yesterday that Kittie and David were down here helping with the remodel with Dave doing a lion's share of the work. We got all the door handles swapped out, the kitchen pulls installed, most of the light fixtures up, and got started on separating/packing stuff for the final clean up.
Of course, Kittie and David left on Sunday (four days ago), but it seems like only yesterday they were here. They're planning a "ninja run" (down to visit and back in 24 hours) this Saturday not just to check my progress, but also to take in cousin Robin's new play at the Odyssey Theater.
On Tuesday, the stair guy showed up to finish off the stair work. Didn't happen. Still have the upstairs thresholds and the stair edge caulking to finish.
This afternoon the electrician is here, putting in the three-way switches (since neither Dave nor I could figure out which wires went where without a voltmeter) and putting up the pendant light over the kitchen sink.
Then next week, Roni will come by with the "finishing guy," who I assume will take care of all the "little things" that are left. (I don't consider replastering a crack in the office ceiling or repainting the bedroom ceiling as "little," but there you have it.
Luckily, I've had Doug and Bob over to check out the work, and they spotted stuff that I had overlooked, so the finish list has gotten a little longer.
Next Tuesday is my 61st birthday. It would be a nice present to have all this work done and have my house back, so that I can sell it to someone else.
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