Toddgenuity is in da house

TP & The Wall
Originally uploaded by JaseMan.

"May I have your attention please. There are six emergency exits on this house including the door through which you entered, the back door (tee hee) and the garage. Unfortunately you can only escape fires and falling ceiling tile. But you can not escape the honey-do list you created when you first toured the property."

I finally bit the bullet and got some home improvement activity rolling at the ranch. Actually, I just set aside the weekend. Los Pedros really kicked things into gear by threatening to stop my QT with KP unless I shifted from Park (it on the couch cushions) to Haul Ass (down to Lowe's).

There isn't really a part of FPR that doesn't need some sort of love. Yet, choosing the first project was super easy despite my long standing affliction of analysis paralysis. I can't decide on anything quickly for fear of making a choice that I will lose comfort with even before I make it. But, the den needed to painted so that I could buy a couch that actually fits in the house. No, I didn't want to buy one and then have to deal with stressing about getting paint on it.

The den paint job seemed super straight forward. Fix the crappy install on the molding. Patch the existing nail holes. The 220 outlet in the right third of the wall kinked up the works. Ain't no way I was having that eye sore in the wall.

No paralysis this time. I decided to yank the outlet from the wall, but only after I took the necessary precautions.

The three tenants that one must heed when working with electricity is: 1. it can kill you, 2. make sure the power is NOT flowing into where you're working and 3. make sure the power is NOT flowing into where you're working one more time just to be safe.

Done. Done. Done. I flipped off (tee hee) the breaker for the outlet and disconnected the output wire just to be safe. I even waited for the residual charge to dissipate. Apparently, it takes about two minutes longer than I allowed. I got a jolt while removing the socket.

The tricky part was figuring out a way to patch the chasm without created a mesa on the wall. Luckily there was Toddgenuity available for use. The same mind that brought the world "Will Spoon for Breakfast" and Mormons at Halloween developed a nifty approach to patching the socket.

We were able to patch the hole very effectively. Unfortunately the gap filler may not dry until 2010.

Anyway, the important things to know are: no one's been seriously injured, and the primering is finished. Perhaps the room will be finished by Easter so that I can hurry and get a couch on which to lounge until my KP QT quota is in jeopardy again.