erika_sanely

The unpacking of the house is going great guns, thogh I am sure that the boxes are breeding behind my back. I had finished unpacking the kitchen, and the next day I went out to the garage to grab another box to unpack. And what did I find but FOUR more kitchen boxes. FOUR! The day before there was none! The kitchen was completed I tell you!! At last count there was still about 10 - 15 boxes to go. Of course, I don't unpack when I'm working, so if they are breeding there's a good chance that there will be about 30 to unpack by Tuesday.

I have found a lot of things I've doubled (and even tripled) up on, so I see a garage sale in my near future.

One thing I did unpack that I was excited to find was my tool box. It's an IKEA tool box that has the bare minimum in it. One hammer, a pair of pliers, a spanner, and a screwdriver with interchangable heads. So I can now start to do small stuff around the house! Yay!

When I first moved in, I didn't get enough keys. I got one front door key, and four screen door keys. I didn't get a key for the back door, a key to the tilt-up garage door, or a key for the garage. This worried me somewhat, as they house had been through the family I bought it off. The lady's parents, sister and brother had all owned the house at some stage, so there should by rights be a hell of a lot more keys than one front door key. So, last weekend I hopped into my car, and went down to the local hardware store. I bought three new lockable door knobs, with two of them having the same key type so the front and back door are the same. And with my trusty toolkit I spent an afternoon changing the locks.

My parents came over for a visit, and Dad was pleasantly impressed by my handiwork. I had told them that I'd changed the door knobs, and by the sound of it, Dad was thinking I'd done a ballsup of a job. But he went around all the doors and tested the locks, and deemed them worthy. He thought one may have been dogdy, but it wasn't. Not only had a done the doors, but the week before Mum and Dad had bought me a five shelf cupboard thingy, and I had put that together as well. (That though took 5 hours, a lot of swearing, some mild violence towards the shelving and a longish break because if I didn't take a break I was going to smoke and entire carton of smokes. To hell with being an ex-smoker! The shelves were going to make me smoke!!!!) Both jobs impressed the pants off the oldies.

Y'see, the original parent-approved plan was for me to pay someone to put the locks in. I thought to myself that I'd try the garage door lock myself, and if it was easy I'd save myself some money and do it myself. It was, so I did. All up the locks cost me $75. I can only imagine what it would have cost to get someone in to do it.

So yes. I'm feeling rather clever and proud of myself at the moment. I'm slightly disappointed that my parents were surprised at my handiman-ness, but not surprised. My father is very anti-handiman (having lived in a house that was renovated by a handiman who didn't know what they were doing.) Dad won't even put picture hooks in the wall; he gets the builder who lives next door to come over and do it for him. I know my limits, and screwing things into existing holes isn't hard. I shall, however, never ever own a drill. Because that would be asking for trouble.