SpokaneFixer

As I was leaving a worksite in Bahrain last week, it started to pour. A fantastic lightning bolt stretched from ground to sky before my eyes. The beautiful sandy landscape quickly turned to mud, and I could no longer see the waters of the Persian Gulf. To use a Dad joke, it Bah-rained on my parade for all of about 10 minutes, and by the time I arrived back at my hotel in Manama…

Visiting Japan was never on my bucket list. In fact, visiting any country outside of good ol’ ‘Merica was never all that appealing to me. I grew up with an unhealthy fear of losing a passport and getting stuck forever overseas, unable to return home. I have no idea how that (mostly) unfounded fear developed, so feel free to psycho-analyze me all you want…

In the first part of this project post (click here if you haven’t yet read it), I successfully dismantled the dark, sad chimney. This is one of those projects that I was asked to hire out. Why? Well, my wife didn’t relish the thought of losing her husband to a bit of gravity and a sudden stop at the end of a short drop. However, I assured her that I’d be safe, as the pitch of the roof made…

We’ve had really great pets. Charlotte the Pug. Toby the cat. Rota the Australian Shepherd. Two miniature humanoid creatures. We love them all, even when they’re pests. Most of them were even invited to the show (perhaps I’ll discuss the addition of Toby in a future post)…

One day, I was minding my own business, throwing volcanic rock off of my roof into the yard below while my wife and children stood well in the clear and watched. No big deal. Just another day in our normal, fixer-upper lives. Our neighbor looked on and must have wondered what I was up to, as he later confided in me that he told his wife “The neighbor had finally lost it.”

If you’ve been keeping up with my posts, you’ll remember that the dryer broke… the repair of which required an entire laundry room renovation. During the renovation, unbeknownst to me, I punctured a kitchen drain pipe in the wall while hanging the 2×12 shelving. I mean… the stud finder said there was something there, even though I knew based on spacing…

A few years ago, we had siding installed on the home. As part of that large project, we decided to have seamless gutters installed immediately afterward. All of the downspouts made sense except for on the front entry. There was no good place to put a downspout, so the gutter contractor recommended a rain chain. I’d never even heard of such a thing, but my wife was all over it…

After the machines were delivered, the pace of the job slowed quite a bit. What’s the saying… If I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it… You don’t have to keep reminding me to do it every six months. Well, I only took five, so take that.

This one we didn’t actually have to discuss. It was a no brainer. We gave each other no push back, there was no discussion of cost, and we didn’t care about design. We both agreed it simply just had to be done on day one in our new home. Our first project on our Spokane fixer-upper…

One day, the dryer broke down. We inherited the laundry machines from the previous owners, and we weren’t in love with them for obvious reasons. I thought – this is not a problem, because I fix stuff. It’s what I do. However, some stuff isn’t worth fixing, and I may have offered only a halfhearted attempt on this fix. I did some research, found a part at a local appliance warehouse…