Sore and Tired

Today we shoveled and raked and leveled 7 yards of soil.

The yard looks great.

The children need showers.

We can’t move.

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The bake element in our Maytag stove burned out last week. MrsPages was getting ready to cook brunch for company (and we had company coming the next morning too) when there was a bright flash and *foom* *fizzle* the element died.

MrsPages ingeniously managed to cook the meal by turning the broiler on until the oven reached temperature, then turning it off, then turning it on again when it cooled. What a pain. So without further ado, I present:

How to replace the lower bake element in a Maytag Oven

You’ll need:

• A replacement element. I got mine for $35 from Reliable Parts. Any generic appliance store should have them in stock. The same element is used across many models, so they’re pretty common.
  

• A Pair of pliers (I used needlenose)
• A medium philips screwdriver (cross shaped head)
• A small slot screwdriver

Step 1. Unplug it. If it’s wired in to the wall, turn the breaker off.

Step 2. Make sure it’s unplugged. Don’t laugh, go double check. Really.

Step 3. Make absolutely sure it’s unplugged. You really don’t want to be messing with 220 volts. Honest.

Step 4. Pull the oven out and remove the half dozen or so screws that keep the back cover on.



Step 5. Find the wires that connect to the lower bake element.

Step 6. Remove the clips from the element. You’ll likely need a pair of pliers. Be gentle, just take a firm hold and wiggle while you tug the connector off.

Step 7. Open the oven door and remove the 2 screws holding the element in place inside the oven.

Step 8. Inside the oven, remove the broken element (just pull it straight out of the holes in the back oven wall). If the element is badly broken there may be white dust coming out. Be careful, this dust is apparently rather toxic.

Step 9. Insert the ends of the new element through the holes in the back oven wall and replace the two screws to hold the new element in place.

Step 10. Back behind the oven, using the small slot screwdriver, slightly bend open the crimped part of the connector on the wires. You might not need to do this. If you can manage the next step without it, don’t bother.

Step 11. Slide the connectors on to the ends of the new element and lightly crimp the connector with the pliers. Give the wire a tug to make sure it’s on securely. Lots of heat and electricity flow through this wire, and a loose connector can work its way off and be dangerous.

Step 12. Replace the back cover and all the screws that hold it on.

Step 13. Take this opportunity to clean the dried crud off the sides of the oven.

Step 14. Plug the oven in or turn the breaker back on and test it. Use an oven thermometer to check that the oven reaches the proper temperature and stays there.

If it doesn’t work at this point, call a repair person. The element burning out can damage the thermostat or other components. At least you’ve saved yourself the cost of this part of the repair!

If it does work, pat yourself on the back for having avoided $100-an-hour labour costs and 100 percent parts markup for a 10 minute do-it-yourself job!

No pictures today, because they’ll be the same as yesterday morning’s.

Painting went so much faster with Snowy and Ash and myself and the five LittlePainters, but yesterday and today it has been just me. I got the first coat of ceiling paint on the main section of the ceiling. I got two-thirds of the second, and last coat, on today before I ran out of paint.

The LittlePages have been real troopers this week. Page1 made lunch and dinner on Thursday, Page2 helped with the LittlestPage, Page 3 helped Dad with some framing and Page4 lended his cheerful chatter to keep us all going. All five of them chipped in to help paint the walls. But they are pretty much done with amusing themselves for such long periods of unsupervised time. A child left to himself brings shame to his mother. It’s time to get back to regular routine!

And so as we end the week long attack, we are both excited about what has been done, a little defeated by what still needs to be done, and sore all over!

We’ve talked about trying to get up a little earlier everyday and try to maintain the momentum, but we’ll see.

A painting is never finished–it simply stops in interesting places. (Paul Gardner)

Whoohoo! Ceiling in the main area is finished and thanks to Snowy and Ash’s unceasing paintitude, there is primer and a first coat on walls and ceiling! That’s a bigger job than it seems because painting the tongue and groove pine involves a first trip across with a brush painting the grooves, then a trip across with the roller.

The place looks brighter. The ceiling looks higher. I can almost picture moving bookcases and furniture in…. We couldn’t be more thrilled. Six years of waiting and working coming to a head!

MrsPages and the LittlePages are going to be sanding, filling and painting today. (And much of next week, likely)

Here’s the bit of ceiling that I have left to put boards on, at the bottom of the stairs. Hopefully finished today, but the corners and angles make for slow going.

The ceiling is simply Behr Ultra Pure Flat Ceiling White. The walls are a beautiful barely-off-white Behr PPL-50 “Table Linen”. It’s just tinted enough to see a difference when it’s up against the white ceiling and trim. It really warms the place up nicely.

I made my goal for yesterday, which was to get the ceiling up in the main area. I have a narrow strip to fill at the edge, then the ceiling in the little area over the stairs. That’s the goal for today.

Snowy and Ash are on their way over to help start painting! Whoohoo! We’re painting the basement!!

Pics, before paint prep:

Note the rebounder exerciser that the kids have been expending energy on while we work… (”Hey Dad! I can almost touch the ceiling!”)

A slow start yesterday, after discovering that the table saw was mis-aligned. The blade was perfectly square to the table when it was vertical, but when it was tilted to 45 degrees (to cut the ends of the ceiling boards) one end of the board was a 16th of an inch longer than the other, so no two cuts matched up. I spent at least 2 hours attempting to adjust my not-very adjustable saw and got it to within a reasonable tolerance, I think.

Mid afternoon the ceiling work started up and I got a good amount finished. Hopefully get the main area done today.

Pictures:

Looks worse than it is. In the first shot the white plastic drawer-things are going to the church tomorrow and the plywood is getting picked up by some happy FreeCycler as soon as they get here. Hooray for people taking our junk away for us!

“He who wants to change the world should already begin by cleaning the dishes.”
Paul Carvel quotes (Belgian Writer and Editor, b.1964)

Or perhaps by cleaning the basement; which is good news because that is what we spent yesterday doing. Hopefully we can pull out the hammers today.

Day Two Photos:

And here’s the pile of stuff to go to the Goodwill so far:

We bought a fixer upper ten years ago. We hoped that by now it would be all fixed up. It’s not. Life happens and somehow spending time with friends and family and church and mission seemed and still seems far important than hammering and painting.

That said, we are a growing family and half of our house is not currently usable. The basement has been in progress for about six years. We ripped it out when we discovered electrical fires in the walls.

This week MrPages has taken time off work so we can see what we can do. The calendar appears clear. Friends and family know we’ve tried to guard this week for work. So we’ll give it a go and see what the Lord might help us do!

Day One Photos:

… finally having enough clamps.

Lee Valley has a sale on boxes of 10 clamps, and I broke down and bought some.

I can’t believe how much easier it is to do basic tasks when you have the equipment for it. It took me less than an hour to put this crate together, from first cut to dry glue. That would have been a multi-day job with the 2 too-small bar clamps I previously owned. This is a storage box / bench seat for the Living History weekend camp coming up. I’ll cover the nailgun holes with some putty and paint, and we’re good to go.

We live in a home that needs a little TLC. It’s been about ten years. It still seems to be suffering some self-esteem issues.

As the Pages grow, the main living space seems to shrink. We’re trying to get serious about finishing off the basement. It’s hard though. Life intrudes, and really, who wants to demolish and rebuild a forty year old home when there are Fringe Festivals and Ballet in the Park waiting to be enjoyed!

Today, however, we put noses to the grindstone and hit our ToDo lists:

MrPages:

• cut melamine for three sets of drawers for the new cabinet he built last Saturday
• hung four new lighting fixtures in the basement
• replaced the front door hinges and screen that were wounded in an encounter with small boys
• cleaned out seven or so dead PC’s, two boxes of recycling, and a bag garbage from the home office
• designed and partially built a new cross-cut sled for the table saw in anticipation of future cabinet building
• a few loads of laundry
• vacuumed up after MrsPages’ mess (He’s my hero!)

MrsPages:

• completed the scraping of the peeling paint in the back hall (This is an entire separate saga in and of itself!)
• spackled the damaged areas in the back hall (Who attacked the ledge with a machete?)
• sanded the back hall
• re-spackled areas that didn’t pass my hyper-sensitive inspection
• re-sanded the back hall
• removed old tiles off the back hall landing
• removed sticky vinyl squares off the back stairs
• removed some indestructible linoleum that was hiding under the sticky tiles (Can you still buy this stuff? I need some for my kitchen!)

Together:

• Took the LittlePages out for ice cream!

All in all, not a bad day!