home improvements

Terry and I have been very happy with the house we bought here in Hemet seven years ago. One thing that has not been great, however, is the way the house retains heat in the summer. We finally decided that it was time to do something about that.

Our contractor suggested that we install a whole-house fan. At first that seemed like a good idea. But when we consulted with his electrician who installs them we realized that would not solve our problem. The idea of a whole-house fan is that you turn it on when it is cooler outside than inside. So that wouldn’t help with the house retaining heat in the afternoon.

What we decided to do was to replace the insulation in the attic. At first I didn’t think it made any difference, but as the weather got warmer I realized the house was staying cooler later into the day. That is until the sun hit the northwest facing windows late in the afternoon. To solve that problem we ordered a set of patio blinds to help insulate the house that time of the day. They should be installed in a few weeks.

While we were at it we decided to have our air ducts cleaned. We hadn’t had them cleaned since we moved in, and who knows how long before that it had been since they were cleaned. That may or may not be helping with the efficiency of the air conditioner, but Terry and I are certainly sneezing less and we are using a lot fewer Kleenex. That is a Good Thing.

Now, just waiting for those patio blinds to be installed.

home office lighting

Terry and I decided it would be a good idea to have a housecleaning service once again in advance of her upcoming knee replacement surgery. The company she selected has done a good job and we have been happy with their work.

One a recent cleaning day one of the team members went to Terry somewhat upset, holding the disintegrated remains of the lampshade from the floor lamp next to my computer desk. She was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing: dusting it off. That it fell apart in her hands was no surprise. I have had that lamp for a long time, more than ten years as best as I can estimate. The plastic shade was old and brittle.

The lamp had a long history. It originally used incandescent bulbs, which I replaced with CFLs, and finally with LED bulbs. In that lamp and throughout the house I have been quite happy with the light our LED bulbs have produced. In the bedroom I had to replace a floor lamp a while back, and I did so with a built-in LED floor lamp. It has worked out very well.

Knowing that there would be no way to find a replacement lamp shade, I went to Amazon looking for a new floor lamp. I focused on floor lamps with built-in LED lights, given our satisfaction with the bedroom lamp. I found one that I thought would be ideal, which you see pictured here. Assembly was simple and I plugged it in.

I have both floor lamps in my office connected to the plug operated by a wall switch. Since my new LED floor lamp uses a remote control, I wondered whether I would have to turn it on separately. I plugged it in and flipped on the wall switch. It came on with a delay of about four seconds, but without my having to touch the remote.

The new lamp brings another improvement. Despite the pandemic winding down I’m still on Zoom regularly. My face is now no longer in shadow when I am on Zoom. With the old lamp I had to scoot way over to the left of my computer table to get out of the shadow. Now I can sit comfortably in my normal position and my image appears clearly.

One of the nice things about these new LED floor lamps is that you can adjust both the brightness and the color of the light to suit your preference. And the remote? It has a magnet, so I have it on the side of my file cabinet, completely out of the way.

That’s a really nice outcome resulting from a disintegrated lamp shade.

new things around the house

We have some new items to make things simpler and easier around home.

I first saw these Swedish cellulose sponge cloths in Bon Appétit magazine. They looked as if they made a lot of sense, and Amazon had them in a variety of packaging configurations. The best way to describe them is to say that they are large, flat sponges. They work really well and can be thrown in the washing machine and reused. The best thing about them is that they have allowed us to cut back drastically on our paper towel usage. That is a Good Thing.

Then there’s our new compost bucket. A few years ago our trash and recycling company allowed us to include food waste in our yard waste Toter when they opened a new state-of-the-art facility that turned all of that stuff into natural gas and fertilizer. (Another Good Thing.) At the time they provided food waste buckets for the kitchen counter. Ours worked serviceably but was always somewhat awkward and unwieldy.  It finally reached the point where the lid would not stay upright as we were scraping food into it. I found this composting bucket on Amazon and bought it along with a roll of one hundred compostable liner bags. Simpler, cleaner, and easier.

Finally, there was that floor lamp in the bedroom. It had two circular fluorescent tubes which were a pain to replace, and it was not always easy to find the replacement tubes. When one burned out recently Terry suggested we replace the lamp. There was no argument from me. I found this LED floor lamp on Amazon which has a remote control and allows me to control both the brightness and the warmth of the light. It produces a brighter, cleaner light than the old fluorescent unit. I really love it.

A few little things that make domestic life easier and a little more pleasant here at home.

not what we had planned

Terry and I were perfectly happy with our over-the-range microwave. It worked well and did everything we needed it to do. The vent cover was broken and held together with tape, so Terry went online to the Whirlpool parts store and ordered a replacement. Before it even showed up, however, our microwave experienced a sudden and unexpected death.

I was minding my own business on Sunday morning, fixing breakfast before it was time for online Zoom morning prayer with my friends at Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd. I put my bacon in the microwave and set it for one minute. The microwave started, the turntable turned, the light came on, and the timer beeped. My bacon was uncooked. I tried it again with the same result. Oh, and there was the distinct smell of burned electrical components in the air.

On Monday, therefore, Terry and I ventured out, wearing our face masks, to our locally owned Appliance Showroom. Owner Larry Soares is, one might say, politically incorrect and perhaps something of a redneck, but his staff is loyal and he sees that his customers are well taken care of, as we have experienced first-hand more than once. This is far from the first appliance purchase for which we have visited his store. I briefly toyed with the idea of buying a countertop microwave to use until we were past COVID-19, but our counter space is so limited as it is (we still miss that remodeled kitchen in Gilroy) that we decided to do the right thing and replace the over-the-range unit.

There were three models of the over-the-range type available in white. We selected the middle-style mama bear option (think burgers at A&W drive-ins). The woman who helped us was able to squeeze in our installation for Tuesday, as our old microwave was completely nonfunctional. We appreciated that as the next proper open slot was Thursday.

The two installers showed up around 2:00 p.m. yesterday properly wearing masks and social distancing. They set about the task while we took the late lunch that we had just begun out to the patio, Tasha accompanying us. They made quick work of the job and departed with the old microwave and all the packaging and packing materials from our new one.

We’re pleased. It looks better than the old one and has a larger capacity. It has all the capabilities we need.

We have now replaced three of the four major kitchen appliances that came with the house (where we arrived five years ago today, by the way). In those five years we have replaced the refrigerator (twice), the stove, and now the microwave. The dishwasher is still going strong, knock on wood. We hope it keeps going for a while.