I've seen the light

... and it's ugly.

We have begun to tackle the lighting in the house. I removed the hallway light fixture to reveal a large, gaping hole. Whoever installed the previous fixture had cut a very large opening around the electrical box and covered it with the base of the fixture, a kind of non-descript brass n' glass thing from the cheap rack at Ye Olde Big Box Home Store.

So now I get to make a trip back to said Big Box Home Store to get materials to patch the hole and install our modern Ikea fixture we took from our apartment.

I would like to get a set of the Cove from Satellite Modern Lighting, but cost may put them on hold for a bit until we're more flush with cash.

Cove




















Original crappy hall fixture.












Hole left by original crappy fixtue

Painting continues

We have decided on Valspar Woodlawn Silver brook for our main color throughout a good portion of the house. It's not quite silver in the traditional sense, but has more of a blue tint to it. It's a lovely hue. It will be complemented on the opposite wall by another Valspar color called Nostalgia, a kind of slate blue.

Here I am painting the back wall of the living room. Yes, I am wearing rubber gloves and yes, I used tape to mark the edges so I get a nice crisp line.

The Great Ought Nine Grease Fire or I Almost burned the house down

Like everyone else who runs a blog, I'm going to apologize for the lack of updates. No, I haven't been away nor have I been too busy. No excuse really, just lack of motivation/interest.

Anyway, last Saturday I almost burned the house down. My brother, sister in law and nephew were over for brunch and I was cooking bacon. We had bought Plumorse brand thick cut which created a ton of grease. Really, like more grease than I've ever had to contend with.

In typical fashion, I'm going to blame the fire on something other than myself. See it's the electric stove we've inherited. Turns out I don't really know how to regulate it so well. It seems to get cumulatively hotter and hotter the longer it stays on, even on lower temps. I was on the second batch of bacon strips when the grease overwhelmed the side of the shallow pan like water coming over a 9th Ward levee. The grease hit the hot burner and immediately caught fire. I tried to dump some of the excess into a soup can I got from the recycling bin but the drippings were making things worse. I kind of quietly asked Amy to come in from the other room and help. She saw the flames and started yelling something about baking soda and running around opening cabinets. I reached down into the cabinet under the stove and got the fire extinguisher. Now, this thing is old but thankfully it still worked. I kind of blanked for a minute about what to do, so I'm standing there trying to figure out my next step. Amy was yelling something at me, but I couldn't really make out what she was saying. Meanwhile the flames are inching up closer to the hood. It finally came to me a few seconds later - I undid the latch holding the trigger, pointed and shot the base of the fire. It went out immediately but the force of the pressurized shot sprayed the grease all over the place. The ammonia nitrate powder from the extinguisher was all over the counter too, we had to dump everything I had out to cook - 10 eggs, bread, bagels etc. It took 3 dishwasher loads to clean everything up. What a mess. We went to the diner which was much better anyway.

Pics of the wreckage below.

The Great Grease Fire of '09 - Aftermath













The Great Grease Fire of '09 - Aftermath 2