New Shut-Off Valve & TV Wall Mount

A while back I discovered that the hot water shut-off valve under the kitchen sink wouldn't shut off all the way. It was a multi-turn valve which just wore out as they tend to do. It is a dual outlet valve which feeds both the sink and the dishwasher and since the lines coming into it from both are a not-very-flexible metal that I'm sure would have broken if I tried to bend them into a different position I needed the dual-outlets to be positioned at a 90 degree angle to each other just like the original valve. Additionally, I wanted the replacement to be a quarter-turn valve so it would last. I couldn't find what I needed at the local hardware stores but of course Amazon had it. Not only that, but they had one which can shut off the water to the dual outputs independently, so I can just shut off the dishwasher or just the sink if I so desired. I spent a couple hours getting that installed yesterday. It really shouldn't have taken so long but there is just so little room to maneuver under there with the garbage disposal and all the pipes in the way.

The day before that we installed a wall mount for our flat screen TV in the living room. That went surprisingly smooth. We already had the studs marked from when we tried to do it several years ago only to find the wall mount we had bought didn't fit our 24" studs. Stud finders can be such a pain so it was nice not to have to do that again. I didn't install an electrical outlet or low-voltage wire pass-through to hide the wires. That'll have to come later. For right now we just put a plant in front of the wires along with a few action figures.

Mr. Fix-it

Last Sunday when I was over at my grandparents' house to wash their windows my grandma told me that their kitchen faucet was leaking under the counter whenever they turned on the water. I checked it out expecting to find a loose connection or a worn washer but found that the hose in the pull-down faucet had split open. Home Depot didn't have a replacement so I ordered one on Amazon.

The next day my grandpa called saying that his toilet was broken, so I walked over to check it out. Sure enough, both the fill valve and flush valve assemblies were broken. Old plastic that just wore out over time. On top of that, the metal shutoff valve was also broken as it was an old multi-turn valve that wouldn't shut off all the way. I headed to Home Depot and got a quarter turn valve but they didn't have the other parts so I ordered those on Amazon. I installed the shutoff valve that day which didn't take long. I've replaced a couple of these compression fittings at my house so I knew what to do.

The other replacement parts arrived yesterday so I went over and installed them. I had completely replaced both of our toilets not too long ago so I knew how to install these parts. Still, it all went surprisingly smooth. Usually something ends up going wrong. The biggest problem I had was that the chain that attaches from the flush assembly to the flush handle lever was too short. There was an extra link included on the chain to make it longer, the problem was disconnecting the hook from the handle lever. The hook is so small and you have to keep that one part pressed in while trying to maneuver it out of the hole with very little light and very little space to work in. I think it took me like 10 minutes to get that sucker off so I could re-adjust it. At any rate, they were happy to have everything working again and to not have shelled out a fortune for a plumber.

When I came over I had also brought with me a hearing aid that I recently got to give to grandma because even though she knows her hearing has gotten bad she always refused to go to the doctor to get one. This wasn't one of the tiny bluetooth ones my mom has, this was a larger one that fits over the ear which I think would be easier for her to use. She tried it out and said it definitely helped, so we'll see if she'll continue to use it.

Visiting the grandparents

This afternoon walked over my grandparents house for a visit. Grandpa and I watched a movie that was playing on TV called A Face in the Crowd from 1957 starring Andy Griffith. It was quite good and I was surprised by how relevant it still is even today. There is a scene near the end which is very reminiscent of a scene near the end of UHF, which I'm sure was done on purpose seeing as how UHF parodied a ton of different movies. While I was there grandpa gave me a wrist watch of his that he has had for a long, long time, since he was in the service. It's a wind-up watch with no battery that still works. It means a lot to him and therefore it means a lot to me, so I need to find something nice that I can store it in, preferably something that I can hang on my wall as a display. Do they make picture frames for wrist watches?