Not much going on this week other than work and some self-imposed home improvement projects. The Chase Freedom Card has 5% off at Lowe’s Home Improvement stores these next three months so I figured it’d be a good time to get my house in order, especially before the bulk of summer arrives.

I invited LaDante over to see if he wanted to have dinner, I wanted to make meatloaf since I haven’t ever made it. I’ve only had it twice before and once was by Lori and the other was by Lindsay. Each with it’s own style, but I decided to follow the recipe in my “Best Recipes” cookbook. It turned out really great! I roasted some brussel sprouts with bacon and also made mashed potatoes. I just bought a food mill and really wanted to test it out, so this was the perfect occasion!

My dad had given me a ceiling fan that they weren’t using anymore, that they replaced from the vacation house, Given the Dinner party I was going to have next week, I decided to install it since I wasn’t going to be around this weekend when he wanted to help me with it. I enlisted some help from Dante, and after vowing to not electrocute ourselves this time, we started our project of dismantling my closet and installing the ceiling fan.

We stopped by Lowe’s and grabbed some supplies for dismantling my existing closet. It took some effort, but we got all the 1x2s and old shelving out. It was not easy, they were nailed in and painted over. It took a lot of effort, and we put a few holes into the wall during the process. Afterwards we took a break and decided to move to the ceiling fan.

We spent a good hour being idiots, because after dismantling the fan in my dining room, we could NOT for the life of us figure out how to get the new fan up. There was supposed to be a ceiling mount and we couldn’t out where it was. Turns out there’s just this simple little plastic lip that you can just unsnap off of the top which reveals how to unscrew the ceiling mount. I discovered this and we both felt really stupid. Live and learn. We got the fan up in less then 20 minutes after that. It looks great!

We went to work patching the holes we put in the wall, and also the cavities left by the wood framing we took out. It turns out the joint compound I had from my dad was not enough, and also I screwed up the mixing of it. So at 11 PM or midnight, LaDante and I went back out to Meijer and got joint compound and some larger spackling knives or whatever they’re called. Roundabouts 1-2 AM we finished our work, and I was pretty pleased with how everything turned out. I sanded the wall and looked like I had aged a couple decades. I had a nice dusting of white all over me.

Next up, priming the wall! Probably will just get white paint/primer leave it at that.

-Evilmanta