DIY Home Repairs

With Casey being gone, I really thought I would get a TON of house repairs done. Usually I can light a fire under myself, and really get down to business. But for some reason, I really haven't done a whole lot. I think I might have finally pin-pointed the reason:

If you have an old house, you will totally understand. When fixing anything in an old house, it will always end up being a bigger project than you first set out to fix. For example: Since we were re-doing the front porch light, I wanted to replace the wiring from the light fixture to the switch as well. Easy enough plan, right? All we have to do is pull the new wiring through, right? WRONG!! After taking a good look at the wiring set-up, it now looks like the safest bet would be to pull down the bead board on the porch to get a good look at the ancient-wiring inside. To do that, I would have to buy new bead board (not exactly cheap), and install it. And while we looked at it, we might as well start looking at replacing all the wiring in the attic...which means we have to pull out all the insulation...and buy new insulation...all before it gets cold...way to big of a project for me!

For now, I'm just sticking with "easy cosmetic" fixes...and I'll leave the big projects to Casey when he gets home!

So a couple weeks ago, my father-in-law came over to help me remove the ugly light fixture from the front porch. The light bulbs had all burned out, and I had planned on replacing it. After taking a good look at it, I decided that I could salvage it, but that it would need a new coat of paint and some major cleaning...

This is what it looked like after we got everything taken apart. Everything was covered in grime, dirt, and dead bugs....EWWW!

So I cleaned it! And painted it! And we finally got it put back up:

Talk about a total change. It is SO bright now. Especially since the glass was cleaned off! The metallic paint also helps reflect the light better too!

Another project we got done that day was to replace my old, worn-out mail box. This thing had seriously seen better days, and the hinges were completely rusted out. There really wasn't a way to salvage it, so I went and bought a shiny new one!

Here it is all pretty and ready to go!

So the next step for the front porch is really to replace all the wiring. Which means I can't paint it until then. But I did grab a handful of paint swatches to figure out what color I want to paint the ceiling. I'm going for a smoky-blue color. Hopefully by next summer it will all be finished, but who knows what will come up next!