An inquisitive old fart with a camera
The act of making some small changes to something, in an attempt to improve it or repair it.
After struggling with a paint tray—where do you put it so you won’t step in it or knock it over? How do you get paint on the whole roller, instead of just one side?—I consulted the guys painting the front of our house.
Simple, if not exactly easy (bit of a learning curve): use 20-liter can and a piece of wood.
Armed with that knowledge, I tackled the next part of our cochera (carport).
Definitely more efficient. As for my work, the usual: not perfect, but not bad.
Think it might be a good idea to try to clean the discolored plastic that obscures the numbers on the ancient outdoor thermometer? Think again!
On the bright side, we have a new item for the “Things That Should Not Be Taken Apart” category. Live and learn!
In the Faceborg Uruguay “Experts” (Expats) Community group, people complain bitterly about substandard crap sold here. And they’re right. Recently it was vacuum cleaners that last two years before burning out.
However, that is not us in this case: our Electrolux has been going strong for 15 years—with one exception: the filter cartridge, with three little plastic tabs/flanges that secure it in place. One by one they broke. Only belatedly did I discover the reason: my slamming the thing against the top of the trash bucket to shake dust loose.
My original solution involved epoxy and metal washers, but eventually they fall off. I don’t know why I avoided a more invasive approach, but I woke up one morning recently realizing that a mechanical attachment was the answer. A screw. Because there are a gazillion types of plastic, it’s unlikely I’d find a glue that will actually keep everything together. The screw will, and a little epoxy will prevent shear, i.e. twisting.
What to use for material? See top center of the photo above. This is why I don’t automatically get rid of things like a cheap plastic kitchen spatula that was left in the house when we bought it.
Its thickness turns out to be perfect. So, now to replace the other two?
Nah—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
You may think you are looking at a rusting dishwasher that has been used mainly as a drying rack for the last 15 years, and is now useless, since the control panel no longer works and water from wet dishes can’t be pumped out.
But, after a more thorough disassembling than was really needed, and some rewiring, it has now become a rusting 15 year old dishwasher with only one function: the on-off power button now turns on the water drainage pump.
And nothing else.
Yea!
14 years ago, we had a New Year’s Eve party in our parilla, which we had turned into a barbacoa by enclosing it. 10-12 people, and LOUD! Unbefreakinglievably LOUD in that little, masonry-walled closed-in space!
So I decided it would work better as a workshop, and added bits of 2×2″ wood to the L-shaped legs of the dining table I had thrown together for the occasion, raising it to workbench height (you can see remnants of legs lower left).
A few days ago I bought some mostly-clear 4X4″ pine, cut to length, and a 1×2″ strip to create a better overlap on the top front for clamping, and 8cm lag screws (imagine – not just smacking it together with nails as I did before!).
Finally, sturdy support for the workbench.
But it raises a significant question: Why didn’t I do this (at least) 12 years ago?
Last couple months I’ve been spending some time with the little fixer-upper house in the country which we thoroughly redid eleven years ago, briefly lived in a couple times by others, but otherwise gradually regaining its fixer-upper status. as poorly-built structures in the country tend to do.
The last time I had been there, I was painting the rejas, or metal bars over the windows. This time I noticed bits of organic matter in the kitchen sink.
Looking overhead, I saw more in my overhead light fixture.
And more in the refrigerator.
Whatever birds they were had either not gotten very far, or were frustrated with the inadequate environment. Which is good. Nesting birds inside the house just doesn’t seem like a desirable thing.
Of course I made a note to myself: the next time you open all the windows and screens in the house for painting or cleaning or whatever – close the damn things before you leave!
All this before 9 AM. 15 years has a way of making plumbing difficult to get apart. The wall behind was black with mold.
¡Adelante!
Our house guest complained of mosquitoes in the casita (little house) so I had to clear space on my horribly cluttered workbench to slap together a screen insert for the window.
In which process I discovered a rather large, upside-down, and pretty-much dead spider. No idea how or why it got there, nor what killed it.
I think spiders are cool, but yuck.
In my account of tearing out my bathroom furniture, I didn’t mention the glass sink that was attached to it. I didn’t have with me large enough pliers to remove it, so as soon as I got back, even before removing the whole thing from the car, I set about and…clink! The glass sink removed itself.
After 15 years, the connector couldn’t handle the shear stress when I turned the cabinet on its side. Well, I thought, that is not exactly a replaceable piece of hardware. So what to do with a round glass sink? Birdbath? But how to plug the hole in the bottom? Things to think about later. For now, just park it on the table outside.
And then it rained.
Problem solved?
Actually, no: the sides are too steep for a bird bath.
So what do we do with it?
In 2012, about a year before the Cyprus bankers stole their depositors’ money, we decided to move cash out of our European bank account. We purchased a 5+ hectare chacra about ten kilometers inland. For what? That was to be seen. We chose to fix the little disaster of a house, going against everyone’s recommendation. You can see my various posts about the chacra here.
It has been unoccupied almost entirely since. A couple from Namibia stayed there in the summer of 2016, and a local guy and his family the summer a couple years ago. We spent New Year’s Eve 2017 there, only to be awakened at 5:30 AM by 35 dogs barking—boarded for summer holidays by the veterinarian next door (happily, she no longer has that business). We have thought about selling it, realized it needed a lot of work, and I started making lists….
Last few days, bathroom: replaced bath/shower faucet to get it working, replaced float mechanism to get toilet working, needed to remove sink faucet. Close to impossible, so I decided to remove the L-shaped counter with its two drawers. The flexible drain pipe broke as soon as I tried to move it, which was just as well since the counter construction made it impossible to remove except by detaching it from the wall, where it was glued (?!?) to the wall plumbing. I don’t recall how that happened. Anyway, got the whole thing home and took it apart this morning.
My god what a mess! 50+ screws, all kinds of little bits and pieces of wood cobbled together. Who was the idiot who designed and built this thing?
Of course you know the answer.
Encouraged by an American woodworker, I had bought a pocket hole jig from the US (now sold here a dozen years later, I notice) and decided it would be fun and creative to build cabinets for our country place! Well it wasn’t.
(Actually, the pocket holes are cool.)
So what now? Well, I see all kinds of bathroom furniture for sale online. Not particularly expensive, not particularly challenging. And at a certain point that appeals.