May 2009

There's a lot to do right now because of the wedding coming up in 1 month, so I really haven't been all that busy. I decided to try cleaning up the grout in the kitchen and dining room again even though it really didn't do a lot last time. A few harsh chemicals made it a little whiter, but the floor was still a nasty concrete gray. Then I decided to grind into it a bit and sure enough it came up a bright white. After doing half the kitchen I remembered I had a can of white grout left over from the last house, and this was taking a long time. I'm sure you can tell where this is going...

It turns out that it's easier to just spread new grout than grind up the old stuff anyway. Enough of the old stuff has worn away so that the new grout is thick enough to stay around anyway. The difference is huge - I should've done this ages ago.


Snowy the Dog approves of this project.

I've also been busy running around trying to make the place more energy efficient. I was up in the attic above the garage for who knows what reason when I felt a draft of cool air coming up along a wall. Nothing a can of foam insulation can't take care of so I did that, and popped off every faceplate in the house to seal around those along with all the plumbing fixtures and lights I could get at. Anything that makes a hole in the sheetrock on the inside or the brick on the outside (excluding weep holes) was sealed up. It should have the added benefit of keeping bugs away.

I discovered as part of this that you're not supposed to run the furnace fan 24/7. Apparently that doesn't really circulate the air very much and also makes whatever drafts there are worse. The electricity bills should drop however much because they're not on all the time anymore. I'm almost looking forward to getting next month's electricity bill to see just how much lower it was this year vs. last year.