"That's what she said"

Being a kindergarten teacher, it's not often I get to write "like a grownup." When I began this blog, an objective I set was to use this blog as an outlet to write in a grown up fashion. This post does not reflect that goal.

One of the hubs and my favorite TV shows is The Office. We own every season and have watched each episode countless times. Often, we use Michael Scott's (a main character of the show) coined phrase "that's what she said," when referring to something of sexual or ridiculous nature. This proves no differently for our bathroom renovation. Over the last two weeks, the hubs and I have spent approximately 50 or more hours locked in our 5 x 8ft closet of a bathroom. We've needed some comic relief.

The following are actual instances to which we've added Michael Scott's famous quote. If you're easily offended, I would stop reading right about now. If you're open to crass and childish humor, get on it (that's what she said):

" It's too big."   (that's what she said)
" I swear it fit last time." (that's what she said)
" I can't get a good grip on this." (that's what she said)
" Why do I feel like the hole changed sizes?" (that's what she said)
" Oh my gosh, it's spraying all over me." (that's what she said)
" Come on, give it a good whack." (that's what she said)
" If you want it to work you have to do it harder than that." (that's what she said)
" That's not straight at all." (that's what she said)
" I can't get it in." (that's what she said)
" It's so hard to screw this. " (that's what she said)
" It's still too soft." (that's what she said) 
" I'm so tired of being on my knees." (that's what she said) 

And, our personal favorite... 

" Just get on top of it and push really hard." (that's what she said)

I hope you get a kick out of these as much as we did. I know it's silly, childish, and immature, but it has kept us entertained over the last two weeks. Plus, I know we're not the only ones there tossing out the ole' "That's what she said." Are you guilty as well?

Doorknob debacle

After a last minute flight to beat the east coast snow storm, I am back home in Virginia. While I was sad to leave my family and have my time cut short, I'm glad to be home with the hubs, my pups...and you! Virginia was hit with a whopping 10 or so inches of snow, which is a lot for the area! Our little family has weathered the storm with lots of outdoor fun, puzzles, yummy food, Dexter, and home projects. There's nothing like a little cabin fever to get us off our bottoms and start tackling projects that we've been putting off. Number one on our list: changing doorknobs.

Changing the knobs in our home is something I've wanted to do since we moved into our nest. I bought the knobs about four months ago and haven't handled them since. Well, my friends, today was the day to change our knobs. Today was also a day that would test the strength of my marriage as this project quickly took a turn for the worst (yes, I'm going to see how many door knob puns I can throw into this post).

The knobs in our house were brassy, old, and covered in paint. I purposely covered them in paint when I painted the doors so that I had extra ammunition to tell the hubs I wanted to change them. I'm sneaky like that.

Before we could change the doorknobs, it was out with the old! This put a new twist in our story. You see, it took over 10 minutes to pry that stinkin' plate off of the door. We also damaged the door quite a bit with all of the poking and prodding. What's more was once we popped off the plate, we could not fit our screwdriver to remove the screws because the plate was in the way. This called for bending the metal with some cutters.

This worked until the screw came out so far that it hit the bent metal and we could not twist it anymore. I came up with the brilliant idea to cut the screw and then hand turn it. The hubs jumped at the chance to use a power tool and quickly grabbed his sawzall. He cut that blasted screw, which resulted in a bent screw. Now we had a screw with no head, bent, and stuck in the damaged door. It took a lot of hand twisting over the course of 5 or so minutes, but we managed to shout a few four letter words get the screw out.

It was after we got out the first screw, and were ready to fly off the handle, that we made a discovery. Did you know that in the 1960's doorknobs were constructed with a little button that popped off the knob to help make installation easier? Neither did we. Well, once we found that magic button, our nightmare was over. Installing the doorknob was easy!

From start to finish, changing our first doorknob took close to 45 minutes. Once we had knowledge of how to correctly remove a doorknob, the next three knobs were installed in less than 20 minutes. I know, we're dumb as doorknobs.

Anywho, here is our final product. Stay tuned for a tutorial in how to patch a door! Oops!

Now it's your turn! I want to hear about a time you had an easy project that was made difficult because of your lack of know how. Did you work it out? Did you bang your head into a wall like we did? Plus, six gold stars to whoever can find all of the doorknob puns in this post!

It's all about soul

A wise man once said, "the eyes are the windows to the soul."

A wise woman (me) took this a step further and said, "the windows are the soul to a home"

If this is true, the soul over at Casa de Reyes, had crossed over to the dark side. Take a look:

Scary, right? Our windows were not just rotting and filthy, but only one window out of the 19 we owned opened and closed. One. Out of 19. Insanity. These soul suckers were the original single paned windows that were installed when our house was built in 1959. They did not open or close, nor did they block heat or cold from entering our home. To be frank, these windows were sucking the life and money out of us and our house. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of anything sucking the life out of me...except Edward Cullen, of course. My neck awaits you dear Edward.

Since we bought our home 15 months ago, one change we wanted to make was new windows. I'm happy to announce that, as of last week, we finally did it and the soul of our home has crossed over to the light. We have brand spanking new windows. They open, they close, they block heat and cold, and are eco-friendly. They are, unbelievably, and undeniably glorious. Take a peek:

These windows are the best thing we've ever done to our home. The best part, we did not have to do any of the work! A huge, but welcomed, change for us DIYers.

So, for all you homeowners, what major changes, if any, do you want to make to your home? Have you done it yet? Was the result as fantabulous as you expected?