Thursday, January 7, 2010

Upcycle: Old T-Shirts

I had an "omigosh - me too!" moment while checking out a blog post at Re-Nest: turns out I'm not the only one with unrealistic emotional attachments to t-shirts and a closet full of them to prove it.

Over the years, duhMan & I have purchased or received t-shirts on purpose, as participant swag on bicycle rides, vendor freebies (back when companies were allowed to give out freebies in academia). We have piles of them. Most clothing items I don't mind giving away when they cease to be useful for us, but t-shirts...? They don't last well, and for those with true sentimental meaning, well, they're just garbage for anyone else. So I keep them.

Turns out there are other people suffering from the same issue, and they're smart enough to come up with solutions. I'm only smart enough to use their ideas (and give them credit).

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Silly Excuses: The Range

Today we had our first visit from a professional technician (a.k.a. the oven guy). We called the cavalry after we tried using our oven and smelled something between gas and burning insulation mixed with cleaner - something wicked this way wafts. The smell was noxious - bad enough to make your eyes burn and wonder how fast you could run. Our home came with a "warranty" purchased by the sellers to cover things like appliances over the first year of owning the home. So we called.

He turned on the oven, smelled the same smell, and proceeded to tell us that the oven flames were burning off the paint and primer fumes in the house, it being winter here in Wisconsin and the windows were all closed.

Right.

The full extent of our painting consists of: three 2ft square swatches of paint on the kitchen walls for colors we're trying out, one bathroom cabinet painted with the exhaust fan running (it's on the same circuit as the light, so running is not an option for the moment), and two cabinet doors. We're using water based primer, and we've only gone through less than half the quart purchased. These have been painted over the last two weeks during which time we've been holding the doors open for extended periods while moving in our stuff.

Paint fumes indeed.

What little I can glean from searching for answers online is that it might be an ignitor going bad. At any rate, the oven itself is rusting out through the bottom (!) and is probably not worth the estimated $200 for a new ignitor.

It would be time, though, for a new range. Definitely more exciting, but more importantly, much safer.

Then we can paint all we want.