Frugal Finds and Fixes: Mr. Fixit continues his tightwad adventures

Well, if you've followed the blog recently, you'll know that we had assorted water problems including a wet but not disastrous basement flood due to freakish January rains, and general old-bathroom issues (replacing taps that were as old as the house).  And that Mr. Fixit partly solved the problem of leaky garage doors by fitting them with old/new weatherstripping.  I don't think I mentioned that the plumber's visit could have meant having to completely rip out a fifty-year-old bathroom vanity just to install new taps, if there was no other way to get at the pipes.  But once again we were lucky/blessed to get a creative and smart plumber with the gymnastic skills to work with his head under the counter and one leg halfway up the wall; it's a very small bathroom.  Anyway,  the replacement was accomplished without damaging anything important, including the plumber.

Although the weatherstripping Mr. Fixit found was the right fit for our old doors, the garage floor itself is a bit uneven and there are still a few gaps.  That may straighten itself out in the warmer weather, but for now the holes could still be a problem.  Mr. Fixit was talking to someone a few days ago who said he has a couple of two-by-fours wrapped in old rags that he puts against the doors when it rains or the snow melts--kind of like draft dodgers.

Oh, said Mr. Fixit, suddenly remembering something--so did his Grandpa!  That is, the Grandpa who lived in and helped build this house.  He used to put boards wrapped in rags against the doors in certain kinds of wet weather.  But Grandpa's boards disappeared years ago.  We could have just bought new two-by-fours and wrapped them in rags too, but Mr. Fixit came up with something slightly more elegant and almost as cheap. 

Dollygirl spray-painted a wooden clementine tray that's going to be a doll ottoman, and created a doll dressing table using fabric, duct tape, and an old mirror.(More ideas for reusing clementine or other wooden fruit boxes here.)  She's also been finding things to spruce up her own room, like fabric bows for a quarter apiece at Michael's. She picked up a pair of inexpensive discount-store boots for what's left of the winter--by next winter she'd have outgrown more expensive ones.  And we found her a $3 pair of Old Navy pants at a thrift store.

I used up some last bits of baking chocolate to make a cake.  I also used the rest of my Christmas-gift dried cherries and blueberries to dress up a pan of Budget101's MYO Chewy Granola Bars; I cut them smaller, more like squares this time.  I also refilled our hot-chocolate can with homemade mix, and used a stray can of pineapple to make sherbet.

This week's grocery trip was, again, expensive, even at Food Basics.  But we did score some deals on flour tortillas and frozen fruit.  Cubed round steak was a pretty good deal, turkey breast was a good deal, but chicken was out of sight.  Mr. Fixit cooked up some of the turkey for dinner tonight, and afterwards he said, "I remember sometimes how my mom would make a big turkey dinner or something, and we'd ask her what the occasion was.  She'd say, '59 cents a pound.'"

And that was our week.  How was yours?

Frugal Finds and Fixes: Sometimes it's there waiting for you.

One reason so much water came in the garage last weekend was that the old weatherstripping on the garage doors was past its prime.  After thing started to dry up, outside as well as inside, Mr. Fixit pulled off the old stuff and went looking for replacement stripping.  He bought some at the Large Canadian Chain, but when he got it home and examined it more closely, it did not look like it would fit well on our 1959 doors.  The Big Box place also didn't have what he wanted.  So he tried another place, a smaller chain where he's had good luck before.  This store has two parts: the main store building, and another building at the back for contractors, where you have to be invited in.  When Mr. Fixit explained what he wanted, the hardware guy showed him the regular stuff on the store shelf, and then said, "We have some heavy-duty stripping in the back building--do you want to check that out?" He got the key and took Mr. Fixit into the hardware holy place, and Mr. Fixit kind of did a double take: they had exactly the kind of real rubber stripping he had just taken off the doors.  Old stock, no bar code.  "How long has this been sitting here?" Mr. Fixit asked.  "I guess since before we were bought out by the new owners, so at least fifteen years."

AND the price was at least fifty per cent less than the not-as-good stripping he'd seen elsewhere.

So tell me that's all just a coincidence.  No? I didn't think so.

Winds, weather and water--lots of water

The temperature has gone up, and the thawing and the rain have brought all kinds of water in places where it's not welcome.  Including our basement, which is on the same level as the garage.  In the forty-some years that Mr. Fixit has known this house (it was his grandparents' before we bought it), the drains in the basement have never failed, even in wet weather.  Until last night.  Mr. Fixit is slightly insomniac anyway, and something around 2:30 in the morning told him to go and check on the status of things.

The status was several inches of water in our laundry area and basement entrance, some trying to get into the storage room, and more coming into the garage under the doors.  Mr. Fixit and Mama Squirrel spent about two hours, in boots and pajamas, bailing, sopping, wringing, pouring, and mopping.

The damage so far is not too significant.  All the floor mats in that area will have to be replaced, but some of them were old anyway.  The water that got into the storage room stayed in the middle, so it missed the shelves. The laundry appliances and vacuum cleaner (stored on the floor there) seem all right.  We had to toss part of a box of stuff being packed for the thrift store, and re-wash a few towels and things that got damp (besides all the old towels that we used to mop things up).  There is some concern about the places we couldn't reach to get clean or dry, but we are running heaters and trying to get everything dried out quickly.  It could have been a lot worse.

But we went out this morning and bought a new Shop-Vac.  Just because.