If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Friday, July 17, 2020

Summer Project #4

Mike tells me that I need to go back to work.  He says I'm finding too many projects!

The other day I ordered a filter for the fridge.  The sensor on the door indicated that a new one was needed.  I thought I had one here and dug around in the pantry looking for it to no avail.  So, I ordered the one I thought we needed.  I took a picture of the tag inside the door and saw that it said Whirlpool.  So, I ordered the one I thought would fit.  My memory told me that the filter required only had one thing poking up and I looked at what was listed under a search for Whirlpool water filters and ordered.  

When the filters were delivered, I thought they didn't look like what we had used before but I also know that my recall ability is not as good as it once was.  So, I went to the fridge and took the filter out.  Sadness abounds.  It was a different filter.  

I went back to the pantry and started pulling things on the junky bottom shelf out only to discover a bigger mess and no filter on hand.  So, I created another project for myself.  However, that is another story for another day.  Today I needed a filter because experience told me that if the old filter was returned to the fridge, the water would be black and we would have to run loads of water through it and throw out several batches of ice.  

I went back to the fridge to get the info again and noticed that the tag on the door says Maytag.  I looked back at the tag inside to find the serial and model numbers and sure enough, it does say Whirlpool. So, I wasn't quite as crazy as I feared.  

I looked online at places like The Home Depot and Lowe's to see if there was a local store which had a filter.  Then, I remembered that we now have a local Ace Hardware store only about five miles down the road.  So, I picked up the phone and called and voila! They had one of the filters I needed and would hold it at the counter for me. Oh happy day!!!

I masked up and entered the store and there were a couple of people at the counter checking out so I did a little browsing at the paint counter to social distance.  Remembering that I'd never painted the laundry room entry door that was installed two summers ago, I picked out a paint color that I thought would look good for our back doors and asked a woman to mix me a quart of paint.

I came home and installed the filter and knew what my plan was for the following day - painting!

I love a small painting project.  It is so fulfilling because there is instant gratification of immediate change - and usually for the better.

I got up early and did my morning puttering.  Then, got a tub of soapy water and washed down the French doors and the laundry room door.  I let them dry and gave them an inspection.  There was still some grungy looking mold or mildew or something clinging to the window trim on the French doors.  I hadn't planned to paint that part because I wanted it to stay white.  

You see, the new door has what looks like window pane muntins between the panes of glass and they are white.  So, I decided that the vinyl around the window and the muntins on the French doors needed to stay white.  I decided that I would try a bit of bleach in water to see if that would clean up the 'woodwork' around the windows.  When I came inside to mix that up, I saw that I had some Clorox cleaner and decided to just spray that on to see how it would turn out.

That is one of the greatest products ever!  I sprayed some at the top of the first window casing and it started to drip down and left a clean path in its wake!  No scrubbing was required.  So, I sprayed all the vinyl really well and came back inside to get another spray bottle of plain water for rinsing.  By the time I got back outside, both doors were shining like new!  I rinsed and left them to dry.

By the time everything had dried well, it was almost lunch time.  I was finishing up the first coat of paint on the French doors when Mike came in for lunch.  He didn't seem too enthused with the color I had chosen but I was enthralled by how beautiful it was looking already and kept mentioning how much I loved the color.  He finally started laughing at me every time I said how much I liked the color.

By the time I had finished the first coat on the second door, the first door was dry.  So, I just went right on painting and added a second coat, exclaiming how much I liked the color every few minutes.

I took a break to eat a bite of lunch and then painted the laundry entry door.  By this time the temperature on the back porch was in the ninety-degree range.  I sat down and had a cool glass of water and by that time the first coat was dry and I painted the second.

I love how sometimes the light will make the color look sort of blue and sometimes it looks sort of green.  The three doors in a row really look fabulous and stand out across all the white on the back of our house.

My project turned out to take longer than I'd anticipated and was far hotter than I wanted.  However, in just a few hours the entire back of our house was transformed.  I just love the color!  (Mike admitted the next day that he really likes the look of it, too!)

By the way, the color is Wythe Blue by Benjamin Moore and did I mention that I just love it?!

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