Building a better mousetrap, or toilet

Innards of the Super Toilet. The
white ring around the green
doohickey is the flapper valve. 

 One of the good things about having a blog is that I have inadvertently created a timeline of projects that I have completed. This helps we when something fails and I can go back and see when I fixed or replaced it. So, back in 2019 I replaced the sink and toilet in the bathroom. I recently noticed that the toilet was running randomly, a sure sign that the tank was leaking into the bowl. So, being the Amateur Plumber First Class that I am I removed the tank cover and literally looked into the problem. I was immediately reminded that I had purchased a Super Toilet, one that could apparently flush dozens of golf balls at once, a useful feature at times. One thing that was a hidden feature that this mad flusher possessed was an increased difficulty of repair, and more expensive parts. For those of you that have reached my lofty status of Amateur Plumber First Class, you know the most common cause of tank water leaking is the flapper valve, a rubber gasket that seals the tank after the flush and the doohickey (technical term) drops back into the tank. Apparently, these flapper valves have an engineered life of a few years before they fail to seal properly and allow the tank water to leak out. Now, why would a rubber gasket last only two years? You would think that buying the American Standard Super Toilet capable of flushing dozens of golf balls would also include higher quality components. However, similar to buying a high end luxury car, you may get a more comfortable ride, but repair costs and intervals are shorter.

As an aside, I haven't noticed an increased efficiency or flushing ability of the Super Toilet. It needs a the normal amount of "courtesy" flushes of any other toilet. I still haven't tested American Standard's golf ball claim, which I assume hasn't been tested by other home owners, for good reasons. Consumer Reports, are you listening? 

Anyway, the replacement of the flapper valve was not as easy as it would be in a normal toilet. After my first attempt, the toilet leaked even worse. At first I thought the leak was coming from someplace else, reenforced by my mistaken confidence in the Super Toilet that the flapper valve wouldn't fail so quickly. But after a time I realized that I hadn't reassembled the doohickey correctly allowing the water to continue to leak. The Super Toilet now stands ready to flush dozens of golf balls, should the need arise.  

A pretty morning in Saratoga

In other news, we had a pre-Christmas shopping trip to Saratoga Springs which was great, except that a block from our hotel, a guy lost control of his Jeep in the snowstorm and hit our Toyota head on. We were stationary at a traffic light and were unhurt. Luckily the car was drivable I wont bore you with the details but eventually his insurance found him to be 100% at fault and we can finally proceed with repairs. The estimate I got yesterday was $4100, less than I expected. They do not expect to begin repairs until March.

So now we enter what I consider the doldrums of winter. Short cloudy days, long cold nights without the benefit of Holiday lights to brighten the mood. Cindy and I are looking into possible winter escapes to sunny locales to help move the grey season along.

Happy New Year!

Cheers!

Yes, late, I know, but better than never. Same as this blog I suppose. The last entry was back in August. As usual, plenty has happened, and projects completed, but I just haven't taken the time to sit down and write. My writing has become more spotty since retirement, which is exactly the opposite of what I expected. I think it's due to the complete lack of structure in my life now as there are no looming work shifts on my horizon. Retirement has afforded me a "What shall I do today?" daily outlook, and somehow blogging really never comes up. I continue to photographically document our travels and projects, and I use those almost as a daily diary to see where we have been, and see where I left off.

Custom cabinet door. 
Note the stripped 
floor.

On the home improvement front, I finished the pantry, with the help of Cindy. All of the chocolate brown paint has been stripped off the walls revealing the beautiful bead board. Then I put on a polyurethane sealing coat so they can be easily cleaned.  I repaired the holes in the walls enclosing the half bath, stained and sealed the door frame, and built a nice access door to the bathroom plumbing. Finally, I unassembled, stripped, stained and sealed then reassembled the pantry shelves.  Finally, I painted

Cabinet.

the door we installed over 3 years ago. I did strip a small section of the floor, but it was just too much work. We will either have it professionally done, or repaint it. I'm really pleased with how it all turned out.

Traveling continues to be limited due to the pandemic. We did attend a beautiful wedding in the Chicago suburbs. I was lucky enough to be the best man for my brother and his lovely bride. We wish them all the best. The wedding allowed us to have a day in Chicago. We hadn't been there in quite some time and it was kind of sad to see how the pandemic had decimated the downtown business district. The Miracle Mile is not what it used to be. We also had a pleasant trip to Wildwood and Cape May. Out third of the year. Our general plan of attack is to monitor the weather, an when a nice stretch seems to be expected at the shore, we pack up the car and take off. The benefits of retirement.

Finally, we took another quick trip up to Saratoga Springs, for a bit of Christmas shopping, eating and drinking. Saratoga is a place that everyone should try to visit during the holiday season. The main shopping district is a throwback to the old days of small, shops, friendly service, and beautiful decorations. There are numerous restaurants and taverns, many cozy with working fireplaces and relaxed atmospheres. Our favorite, The Olde Bryan Inn, was built in the 1700s. That place alone is worth the trip. Pro tip: Avoid the area during racing season. Standard hotel rooms can go for $800 a night and everyplace is packed. 

Our favorite seats at the Olde Bryan Inn. Yes, I am a mug club member. 

A quick getaway while thinking about paint, and, winter continues, again

Love this room, but a little goes a long way. 

Slow progress continues in the hallway and now stairwell. Two coats of paint have been applied to the stairwell ceiling in anticipation of painting the walls. Painting the walls of the stairwell and upstairs hallway is dependent on us deciding on a color, which is something we continue to struggle with. When choosing subtle colors for a room or hall, you kind of have two families to chose from, the blue/gray/green spectrum of colors, and the brown/yellow/red spectrum. Of course, there are bold and bright colors that are good for a feature wall, but even those are some derivative of the primary colors. We did go bold in the guest room upstairs, but the hallway should be a bit more subdued, without being too dark since there is only one window in the hall.

Paint samples. Subtle, yet important
differences. 

The downstairs of our home is painted with colors in the brown/yellow family and we think it would make sense to continue that theme up the stairs to the second floor and in the hall way. Well, we got up to about 10 samples on the wall and they are all either too dark, or too light. We also would like have it stand off a bit from the creamy yellow of the living room which connects directly to the stairwell wall. We gave it one more try and finally came up with a winner. "White Mocha" was the choice and it seems like a nice compromise between being too dark and not gray. I spent the day on a Saturday painting both the stairwell and the vestibule and they came out beautifully. I'll add some pictures in the next blog.

While we were struggling mightily with the paint color, we decided to escape to one of our favorite getaways over spring break. In years past we would head to the Jersey shore near Cape May. It would not be swimming weather, but certainly walking and relaxing weather. Well, maybe not. The endless winter continues and forced us to rethink on our destination. We decide to embrace the bad weather and head into the teeth of it.

Cindy enjoys a Martini by the fireplace at our favorite
 restaurant, The Olde Bryan Inn.

We headed north to Albany and the southern Adirondacks near Lake George. It's built for cold there and there's plenty to do despite the awful weather. The most relaxing part is hitting our favorite restaurants, including The Olde Bryan Inn  in Saratoga and The Log Jam in Lake George. Both are classic, cozy northern woods restaurants with plentiful servings of steaks, seafood, and comfort food. You got to love a place that will serve lobster or a grilled cheese with equal care and cheerful service. We spent our days wandering, shopping and finding places to grab a quick bite. If you haven't been, the Saratoga Springs and Lake George area is beautiful, and in my opinion, best visited in the off season, which is roughly from November 1st through about Memorial Day. After that, hotels become very pricey and everything is packed. Plus, even in the Adirondacks they do not light their fireplaces in the summer.

I gave up on the 17th and lit a fire. It was snowing again. 

Winter really dragged on in April. We are now near the end of the month and we have finally seeing some milder weather, but the first half of the month was truly miserable, with snow falling everyday for the first 10 days of the month, and another couple inches falling in the middle of the month. As we now approach the end of the month, there is snow in the forecast again for the last weekend of the month, as if April has one more bad joke to pull on us. The disappointing spring weather we see around here does have a silver lining in the gray clouds though. It really leads us to a beautiful summer, usually not too hot, and very green. We had a summer visitor from Oklahoma to my office a couple of years ago and he couldn't get over how green it was around here, despite being the middle of summer. I'll take that as a huge compliment, without mentioning the price we pay to enjoy that.