Saturday, July 07, 2007

How I spent the Fourth of July

Well I spent the Fourth of July starting the second summer of DIY/This Old House - Cleveland edition.

My railing on the porch has been in bad shape for some time now and I finally decided to do something about it. The first order of business was to try and salvage the mailbox. It has sentimental value since it has my dad's name on the top of it in metal letters. Well I fought with that thing for over an hour trying to get it off the railing. Ummm considering it was attached to the railing for at least 40 + years it was not budging. I finally got the top of the mailbox off the rest of the mailbox and had to be satisfied with that.

I forgot to take any pictures pre-demo so we only have after pictures today.

The railing was really easy to get off (helps that it was rusted out where the rails met the steps) and I had no trouble getting it to the curb. Happily it did not actually leave with the garbage men on garbage day. Someone came by with a truck the night before and loaded it up to take to the scrap yard. Of course once I had the railing off I decided the carpeting that was on the stairs also needed to go. It was pretty much falling off the bottom step and was very torn on the second step.




Of course once I got everything off the steps it dawned on me.... I no longer have anywhere for the mailman to leave my junk mail (trust me - that is most of my mail). So it was off to the Home Depot to look for new railing and a mailbox. The railing they had (which I had looked at last week) turns out to be a bit longer than the railing that was removed so I am waiting for that until I do some more measuring.

I did get a mail box and a post. There was much swearing involved while installing the post (it's still a bit wobbly) since the screws (provided) don't fit well into the screw holes (predrilled).



I was thinking about painting a sheep on the side of the mailbox to go along with my knitting obsession. Which is why I have a black mailbox on a white post (plus it was the only not REALLY REALLY expensive post they had at the depot).

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