Saturday, September 12, 2009

Bragging on my husband

I think we can officially call him "Mr. Fix-It."

Now when we first moved in, he did some standard projects: changing the locks, hooking up the washer and dryer, and even fixing some faulty electrical outlets.

But now he's tackled some pretty intense projects.

First there was the drip in the shower. It was through that dilemma that we discovered that in San Antonio you can't turn your water off inside the house. There's a shut-off by the street that requires a special wrench. Once the water was off, he went to work disassembling the shower. That was enough to impress me, but he got to a part that wouldn't come off the way that it should. The Home Depot expert's advice? Figure out a way to get it off. Which Ryan then did--with sheer strength (thanks to basic training? ha ha). And then it was just a part or two later and our shower was in working order again.

Then there was the mailbox. Should be simple enough. Except the nuts and bolts were so rusted through that no traditional tool was going to get them off. Out came the steel chisel, and he stabbed at the rusted box for hours one evening. When he came in that night, I didn't even want to ask, but I did: Did you get the new mailbox on? "Yes," he replied. Phew.

And then the garage door. It was a manual one, which required quite a bit of manpower to open, and got stuck frequently. After looking around and reading, Ryan decided this was a project he could handle. After getting the garage door guys out last night to balance it (not a project for the do-it-yourselfer), he was ready. Today he and our friend Adam spent the day sweating in the garage and now we have a working garage door: It operates with a button! Many of you take this for granted!

See for yourself:

2 comments:

Larry said...

Great job Ryan and Adam.
After today, staining the fence will seem like a non-event.

Susan Leatherman said...

He must have gotten it from his grandfathers, they are both very handy...