Author Topic: One "Odd" chore a day  (Read 164847 times)

Frugalicious

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #750 on: February 17, 2018, 07:24:29 AM »
Today is day 1/9 of my staycation.  I have started the day by cleaning the humidifier.  Plenty on the to-do list to keep me busy.


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kaleidoscopicalkris

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #751 on: February 17, 2018, 12:54:21 PM »
I dug my sewing pile out of the closet this week, and repaired both a ripped lace shirt and my wife's ripped button up! That chore has been sitting for at least a year. It feels great to get it done!

HappierAtHome

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #752 on: February 19, 2018, 11:29:27 PM »
Today: posting a return (...from last year! whoops!).

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #753 on: February 20, 2018, 09:23:11 PM »
Cleaned out my ski bag (from the attic). Made piles of things to keep, donate, sell. Did the same with the kids bags.

frontstepdesign

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #754 on: February 21, 2018, 11:47:29 AM »
Just found this thread - I also have a 100 yr old house and an overwhelming list!

Today I put away the winter duvet.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #755 on: February 21, 2018, 12:29:20 PM »
Just found this thread - I also have a 100 yr old house and an overwhelming list!

Today I put away the winter duvet.
One step at a time! :-)

Drole

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #756 on: February 21, 2018, 07:43:24 PM »
I scraped and painted two walls of the kids' art hut. The sides we see from the house. Now it seems i'll need to scrape and paint two sides of the garage and also do the trim and eaves. I really dislike painting eaves.

Need2Save

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #757 on: February 22, 2018, 07:48:33 AM »
I haven't posted in a while, but I am so proud of myself.  Over the last month I have done a major paper purge! I sorted through about 100+ file folders of papers, consolidated them, decided what needed to be scanned for future reference (tax/IRS related, house/mortgage, and health care mostly), scanned everything I felt we might need access to (especially in case of an audit) and filled up an 18 gallon bin of paperwork that can be shredded!  It's sitting in the corner of my office just waiting for either the shred day at my husband's work or the one that the credit union runs in the spring to come around - whichever occurs first.  I do have a small shredder but the shear volume may be it's death so I decided to just wait for the professionals to do it.  In the process, I was able to get rid of a filing cabinet in our basement that had two broken pieces and was taking up space for no good reason.

Other recent odd chores include:
1. Painting trim in upstairs hallway and the bathroom door.
2. Replacing a few more door handles and hinges (slowly swaping out the whole house).
3. Hubby replaced many more of our light bulbs to more efficient LEDs.
4. Sold about 35-40 items on Ebay.  Hello - we made over $300 reselling old Legos! Crazy.
5. Sorted out the top shelves of several kitchen cabinets that I can't reach without a ladder. Found old sun screen and shot glasses up there. Old eyeglasses my son had when we first moved here (donated those to the Lions Club at the library) Bye-bye to all that!
6. Set aside another 20 or so books to donate to the library as well freeing up book shelf space in the office.

Question for Drole - what is an art hut? Is it like an out-building or shed?

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #758 on: February 22, 2018, 07:53:16 AM »
Wow @Need2Save - that is seriously impressive! I haven't made much progress in February (barely keeping up on non-odd chores), so need to start a list going of things I want to tackle.

frontstepdesign

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #759 on: February 23, 2018, 01:16:00 PM »
I haven't posted in a while, but I am so proud of myself.  Over the last month I have done a major paper purge! ...

I am seriously impressed, and envious. <giving side-eye to basket of overdue scanning/filing>

Today I discovered that I could hang the ironing board behind my office door.  I also found hooks and actually implemented.  My systems-mind is stupidly proud of this, because I sometimes use the board to help sort things, and I can watch continuing ed videos when there's ironing.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #760 on: February 23, 2018, 05:41:00 PM »
Someone spilled a bunch of food down the side of a cabinet near the garbage. Cleaned that today. The entire house needs a good scrub.

Drole

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #761 on: February 24, 2018, 12:03:34 AM »

Question for Drole - what is an art hut? Is it like an out-building or shed?

Art hut (art house/art shack) is formerly very scary storage room attached to garage. Used to be boarded up windows and such. Now it is home to all those Oops colors of paint you find at Lowe's/HD (at least on the inside). The outside is now painted to mat:ch the house.

Runner5

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #762 on: February 24, 2018, 12:50:23 AM »
Creeping out of lurkdom to join in, if I may? I've been ´ostriching' for about 3 years about things that need doing around my ~140 year old house, but I've built up a bit of momentum in the past few weeks (new carpet! finally calling someone out to look at a weird noise the hot water pipes make!), and this thread seems like exactly what I need to keep things going. This weekend's chores will be cleaning all the light switches, and clearing out bookshelves of books with no sentimental value that I'm never going to read again.

Need2Save

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #763 on: February 24, 2018, 01:02:44 PM »
Keeping the party going this weekend!  Yesterday I had off work. I was inspired to get a project done since it was supposed to be rainy all weekend. I went and bought some vinyl plank flooring and installed it in the laundry room over the existing old linoleum floor. I carefully pulled up the existing shoe molding so we could reuse it and took the opportunity to scrub all the baseboards really well and purge some things from the laundry closet. Hubby re-installed the shoe molding for me with his air compressor.

This involved several additional chores like buying a new laundry sink and faucet (it was in bad shape from the previous owners and we were planning to replace it anyway) and unhooking the dryer and cleaning it out and installing a new dryer vent on the back which needed to be done.

I think I'll relax the rest of the weekend now. Oh wait. After we do the laundry....(sigh)

frontstepdesign

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #764 on: February 24, 2018, 05:26:25 PM »
Arranged with a neighbor to rehome a crepe myrtle tree - same neighbor identified an elderberry in our yard, saving us from buying one!

Pulled 2 items out of the 'still to be put away from moving' pile and got them cleaned up for mounting.

McNaMoney

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #765 on: February 24, 2018, 06:47:05 PM »
DW and I are totally joining in on this!  I guess we already got started on this by sanding down the mudding that we used to patch our kitchen walls.  Hopefully we'll get to painting it tomorrow.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2018, 06:49:17 PM by McNaMoney »

middo

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #766 on: February 25, 2018, 12:51:55 AM »
I removed the carbonate build up inside our pipe from the bore pump to the tank.  I've never done it before, so it has been at least 15 years, and maybe 30 as the house has been here that long.  So much higher volume from the bore.  It uses to do 10 000 litres in 2 days. Now does it in 3 hours.  Electricity savings and more gardens here we come!

Bracken_Joy

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #767 on: February 25, 2018, 08:11:33 AM »
Cleaned my baseboards in all the hallways and kitchen. Still need to do the bedrooms and bathrooms, though.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #768 on: February 25, 2018, 08:57:12 AM »
Dusted the house, including the bed frames, that were in sore need of dusting through all of the grooves, etc.

littlelykke

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #769 on: February 25, 2018, 11:25:05 AM »
A blogpost about keeping old photo's inspired me to clean out all my digital photo-clutter. Deleted a lot of double pictures & failed ones :)

Tomorrow I'll spend 30 minutes to clean up my various back-ups all in one place again. So that I can make 1 new complete backup and delete all the old ones that I now have to sift through every time I need something.

frugalkristen

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #770 on: February 25, 2018, 12:08:41 PM »
I haven't added to this post in a long time.  Long days at work + cold winter days = not many odd chores being completed.  Today, I needed to tackle something and get back on track. 

I cleaned out my closet and dresser drawers - bagged clothes for donation - and will drop them off tomorrow.

I took out the stain pen and filled in the cat scratches on my bedroom furniture.  It looks so much better!


Frugal Lizard

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #771 on: February 25, 2018, 03:22:59 PM »
It was going to be sunny this afternoon so I cleaned up the front porch - washed the table and the glass door.  By about 3 pm you could sit comfortably in the sunshine streaming into the alcove and it was delightful - especially because there was no dust or cobwebs.  Lovely to have my favourite spot to sit ready for the return of the sun and above freezing temperature.
I also started tidying up the greenhouse that my neighbour lets me use
I also sorted through my seeds to see which ones I need to buy for this season.

RetiredAt63

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #772 on: February 25, 2018, 06:01:19 PM »
It was going to be sunny this afternoon so I cleaned up the front porch - washed the table and the glass door.  By about 3 pm you could sit comfortably in the sunshine streaming into the alcove and it was delightful - especially because there was no dust or cobwebs.  Lovely to have my favourite spot to sit ready for the return of the sun and above freezing temperature.
I also started tidying up the greenhouse that my neighbour lets me use
I also sorted through my seeds to see which ones I need to buy for this season.

I heard on CBC that there is flooding in Chatham.  Hope you are OK down in your corner of our province.

Frugal Lizard

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #773 on: February 25, 2018, 08:34:39 PM »
It was going to be sunny this afternoon so I cleaned up the front porch - washed the table and the glass door.  By about 3 pm you could sit comfortably in the sunshine streaming into the alcove and it was delightful - especially because there was no dust or cobwebs.  Lovely to have my favourite spot to sit ready for the return of the sun and above freezing temperature.
I also started tidying up the greenhouse that my neighbour lets me use
I also sorted through my seeds to see which ones I need to buy for this season.

I heard on CBC that there is flooding in Chatham.  Hope you are OK down in your corner of our province.
We are safe.  It has just been so scary.  Thanks for checking in.   But our area is ok.  Water is down significantly.  The ice is all gone.

LindseyC

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #774 on: February 26, 2018, 06:49:00 AM »
Been awhile since I posted as well (in my own thread lol)

Yesterday I fixed the waistband on two pj pants. I lost some weight so I took out the regular band and added an elastic one that I can keep pinching in if I need to.

Replaced the laces in my hiking boots.

Mudded the wall I am repairing in my office.

I am going to get back to reporting to this thread daily. I am coming up on the busy time at my job and making sure I stay on top of odd chores is going to be important. I don't want to slack off.

everinprogress

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #775 on: February 27, 2018, 07:49:16 PM »
Ok, I really need to join this thread- old house and two small kids mean so many random things to do.
Today, cleaning random things out of bathroom drawer. And for tomorrow, hopefully getting some numbers to put on our garage, so that people can tell it's the right one from the alley.

ElizaStache

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #776 on: March 02, 2018, 12:08:23 PM »
It's funny I only ever feel like cleaning when I'm stoned, yesterday I decided to deep clean the couch. Having 3 cats, eating diner there sometimes, and my husband making a nest there when he plays video games adds up to a lot of grime in the upholstery and under the cushions. I make an all purpose cleaner spray bottle with 2c water + 1/2c vinegar + 1t Dawn + 2T baking soda, and sprayed it all down to deodorize it and wipe some spots off. I used almost the entire spray bottle. I do my best to not get nose-blind. My $50 Goodwill couch will last a little while longer!

Need2Save

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #777 on: March 04, 2018, 05:38:15 AM »
This week we relisted a few items on Ebay and a couple new ones (good bye scrapbooking albums, new in packaging from over 10 years ago!). Two Lots already sold with 'buy-it-now' - I love that feature! We've sold over $700 in the last 2 months of stuff on Ebay so I don't feel bad spending a little money on the laundry room floor project accomplished last weekend. And yesterday, I made a master list of the remaining door handles/hinges we need to finish replacing the main two living areas of the house (to match). I'm not too concerned with the basement. If the ultimate buyers of our home are concerned about door handles in the basement, they can replace themselves.

Hubby returned a few supplies to Home Depot that we didn't end up needing for the laundry sink & dryer last weekend. I found some unused shelf brackets to return from 4 years ago as well and they took those back (for store credit).

I wanted to do some more trim painting this weekend, but I have no more white paint left. However, I have assembled the supplies needed to freshen up our mailbox on the next good-weather day with some black spray paint and fresh numbers which I found in our kitchen cabinet from the last time. Should look like new with a fresh coat of paint and new numbers. No money to be spent since we had these supplies. Come on spring!

Picked a few random decorative items that I no longer 'love' and put on the yard-sale pile. Not sure if we'll have one this spring or wait until the fall.

I also double-batch cooked a couple dinners this weekend to put in the freezer. We are not good about doing this often but I like having a few options in the freezer for those crazy weeks.

The bad news is that the weekend wind storm took off several roof shingles from the house.  We have a notorious bad spot on one part of the roof that we've patched several times, but this time a few shingles came off from other parts of the roof. It may be time to do the whole roof. House is only 17 years old.

lexde

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Re: One &quot;Odd&quot; chore a day
« Reply #778 on: March 04, 2018, 07:01:45 AM »
I polished all of my kitchen cabinet faces... I wouldn’t have thought to really do it, but the difference now is quite noticeable. Between fingerprints and dust, putting in some elbow grease really made them shine.


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everinprogress

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #779 on: March 04, 2018, 03:03:03 PM »
Getting rid of so many baby things! Bulky baby stuff like a swing and bassinet to someone having multiples, bunch of baby cloths to some friends, putting maternity stuff on local buy/sell group to go, and same with any remaining baby things I find :)

Frugal Lizard

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #780 on: March 05, 2018, 06:59:51 AM »
I wipe out the lazy susan cupboard. Man that was a dusty grotty mess.

Frugalicious

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Re: One &quot;Odd&quot; chore a day
« Reply #781 on: March 05, 2018, 07:11:12 AM »
I painted the mailbox post yesterday.  It has been on the list for a while but it’s been raining most weekends.  Doesn’t look new, but looks so much better.


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NoraLenderbee

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #782 on: March 05, 2018, 01:23:22 PM »
Then there are the odd chores you didn't plan to do, liking fixing the front door knob because you can't get into the house.

Poundwise

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #783 on: March 06, 2018, 09:13:46 PM »
Then there are the odd chores you didn't plan to do, liking fixing the front door knob because you can't get into the house.

Sometimes nothing is easy!  :~(



middo

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #784 on: March 11, 2018, 08:31:48 PM »
I washed lots of windows yesterday.  I did most of the outside of the house, but now I can see how dirty the inside is! 

oneday

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #785 on: March 11, 2018, 11:17:54 PM »
Re-screened 4/5 windows.  If I have enough gumption, I'll finish that last one after dinner.

Frugal Lizard

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #786 on: March 12, 2018, 07:40:21 AM »
I put new candles in all the candle holders.  Cleaned and dusted all the candle holders.  I also cleaned all the liquor glasses that I inherited from my grandmother.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #787 on: March 18, 2018, 03:03:13 PM »
It's been awhile since I've tackled an odd chore, but today I did the following:
-Opened the cupboard/storage area where we keep our DVD player, and noticed the nasty amount of dust. Cleaned that.
-Discovered some of the slats on our doors (they our louvered?) we're crazy dusty from when we had our flooring installed. Cleaned 4. We have many in our house, so this was just phase one. :-)
-Noticed someone spilled coffee when loading coffee cup into the dishwasher, creating splashes on the outside of the cupboard. Got that cleaned up.
-And, assigned my older son to spot mop a few high traffic areas. Even better - leveraging the kids! :-)

littlelykke

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #788 on: March 23, 2018, 08:54:33 AM »
I did a lot today:

- Deep cleaned our oven
- Called several firms to give us a financial overview for 'rebuilding' our house.
- Contacted the city council to get approval for removing 2 huge trees in our yard.
- Already packed two boxes for moving day.

lexde

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Re: One &quot;Odd&quot; chore a day
« Reply #789 on: March 23, 2018, 08:51:03 PM »
• Deep cleaned my home office.
• Used my shop vac to go around the baseboards and get all of the dog hair that has built up forever in my home office since it could really get into the edges and corners.
• Deep cleaned my bathroom: pulled everything out, bleached everything, put it all back.

Doing the same thing in the bedroom and living room tomorrow. Tomorrow AM will be a cleaning frenzy since we have company coming.

littlelykke

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #790 on: March 24, 2018, 11:26:26 AM »
Spent the whole day at our new house and basically deep cleaned everything (well, that is, we cleaned as much as was possible).

End result: we can now actually park our car on our drive way, because we trimmed back the bushes. We also used a water pressure apparatus to clean the tiles of said drive way and discovered that they were in fact bright red (not dark gray, as we thought). We also brought away two vans full of junk to the dump & brought a third load to the goodwill store.

So yeah, pretty good day :)

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #791 on: March 24, 2018, 01:43:01 PM »
I did a lot today:

- Deep cleaned our oven
- Called several firms to give us a financial overview for 'rebuilding' our house.
- Contacted the city council to get approval for removing 2 huge trees in our yard.
- Already packed two boxes for moving day.

NOOOOOOO, don't cut down the trees!  (Unless they are dead or diseased.)  They are so good for the environment.  And the new owners might love them.  I live in an area with lots of mature trees, and it seems every time someone cuts down a tree,they move.
Then the new people say "we would have liked that" when I tell them what used to be there.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #792 on: March 24, 2018, 02:25:12 PM »
Cleaned the grout in our shower with a small brush + vinegar. Worked perfectly. However, the silicone (clear plastic) sealant around the edges is still black. Need another solution. I'm planning to use bleach, because that's the best option I can find. What a hassle.

littlelykke

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #793 on: March 24, 2018, 03:30:15 PM »
I did a lot today:

- Deep cleaned our oven
- Called several firms to give us a financial overview for 'rebuilding' our house.
- Contacted the city council to get approval for removing 2 huge trees in our yard.
- Already packed two boxes for moving day.

NOOOOOOO, don't cut down the trees!  (Unless they are dead or diseased.)  They are so good for the environment.  And the new owners might love them.  I live in an area with lots of mature trees, and it seems every time someone cuts down a tree,they move.
Then the new people say "we would have liked that" when I tell them what used to be there.

Sorry, I know it doesn't sound great. But this is for our new house that we just bought and intend to live in for many many years to come. Those two trees are huge (15+ meter high) and they stand really close to our house (less than 2 meters). So not so great, when they fall on top of our house. They really just need to go, former owner didn't do much in terms of gardening, so we really have to remove some things in order to keep everything safe and clean and a bit open.  I like trees, but I also like sun ;) And it's not just the height and fear of falling on our house. But also the fact that the roots might damage the foundation of our house & the fact that the leaves are not so good for our roof. They are just too close by and way too big. So they have to go unfortunately.
But on the bright side :) Our new garden is huuuuuuuge and contains at least 30 other trees, who are just as nice and big. They get to stay, because they're not so absurdly close to our house.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2018, 03:33:24 PM by littlelykke »

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #794 on: March 29, 2018, 12:01:44 PM »
I haven't accomplished much in the past couple of months. I'm nursing a sprained knee and a flare of plantar fasciitis on the same leg, so just concentrating on regular cleaning and chores.  But today I mixed up a bunch of craft paint to match the metal supports of a drop ceiling.  We had our sump pump discharge pipe rerouted outside a couple of years ago - the pipe runs in the ceiling over a finished bathroom with a dropped ceiling.  The idiot plumber forgot to unplug the sump before cutting the pipe.  Cue the flood, and rusting the metal supports in that area.  It's been unsightly, and now looks so much better.

Next up - our still functional track lights in the kitchen have a plastic canopy over the box that has discoloured.  We're not ready to replace them yet, so I will mix up some paint to touch that up too.  Not permanent, but will hopefully not be such an eyesore in the meantime.

Frugal Lizard

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #795 on: March 29, 2018, 08:14:26 PM »
I did a lot today:

- Deep cleaned our oven
- Called several firms to give us a financial overview for 'rebuilding' our house.
- Contacted the city council to get approval for removing 2 huge trees in our yard.
- Already packed two boxes for moving day.

NOOOOOOO, don't cut down the trees!  (Unless they are dead or diseased.)  They are so good for the environment.  And the new owners might love them.  I live in an area with lots of mature trees, and it seems every time someone cuts down a tree,they move.
Then the new people say "we would have liked that" when I tell them what used to be there.

Sorry, I know it doesn't sound great. But this is for our new house that we just bought and intend to live in for many many years to come. Those two trees are huge (15+ meter high) and they stand really close to our house (less than 2 meters). So not so great, when they fall on top of our house. They really just need to go, former owner didn't do much in terms of gardening, so we really have to remove some things in order to keep everything safe and clean and a bit open.  I like trees, but I also like sun ;) And it's not just the height and fear of falling on our house. But also the fact that the roots might damage the foundation of our house & the fact that the leaves are not so good for our roof. They are just too close by and way too big. So they have to go unfortunately.
But on the bright side :) Our new garden is huuuuuuuge and contains at least 30 other trees, who are just as nice and big. They get to stay, because they're not so absurdly close to our house.
I am another tree advocate.  Get an arborist to look at the trees for their structural integrity.  Have them pruned to reduce risk of catastrophic failures or cabling.  Tree roots don't damage foundations, water does and tree roots go seeking the water.  Leaves don't damage roofs.  In fact the sun is harder on a roof and the shade from the tree will increase the life of your roof by protecting it from the sun when the radiation is most damaging.  I will take down a weed tree but a good canopy tree should never be removed because you want more sun.  You should have bought a different house.   

Drole

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #796 on: March 30, 2018, 11:10:43 AM »
Cleaned the exterior of the car. Kids helped. Used up a random, smelly cleaner.

Win-win-win.

Nederstash

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #797 on: March 30, 2018, 01:12:26 PM »
Cleaned the grout in our shower with a small brush + vinegar. Worked perfectly. However, the silicone (clear plastic) sealant around the edges is still black. Need another solution. I'm planning to use bleach, because that's the best option I can find. What a hassle.

Bleach didn't work for me... now planning to get all the silicone out and get fresh silicone in. Apparently it's a super annoying job... anyone got any tips on how to make this easy?

Goldielocks

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #798 on: March 30, 2018, 03:33:26 PM »
RE- silicone caulk -- to make it easier, plan a treat / reward for yourself when you are done. A nice one.  If you would like to come over and do mine too, I will reward you with dinner, homemade dessert, and drinks.   :-)   

Oh, and use the mildew proof silicone for the replacement... I didn't for my kitchen counter, and now a spot behind the sink needs to be redone only 4 months later.. 

GoConfidently

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Re: One "Odd" chore a day
« Reply #799 on: March 30, 2018, 04:49:57 PM »
I ripped out the carpet and baseboards in my living room. I've been wanting new flooring forever, and since it's a holiday weekend I just thought why the hell not get started. I might regret it, but I'm going to learn how to lay new flooring. No excuses and I can't ignore it anymore since it's already done.