This week we’re sharing the curious story of how half the power in our house went out just as we were about to leave the country for vacation. We also catch you up on the highs and lows of getting our bathroom nearly finished, including how a bout of the flu, a surgery, and a sudden deadline kept us scrambling. Plus: an illuminating update to our upstairs hallway and some practical takeaways about “life admin” and how to manage it better.
You can also find this episode on your favorite podcast app, like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, and Spotify.
What’s New
- If you missed last week’s episode and our big duplex news, you can listen to it or read a full transcript.
- Sherry referenced an earlier episode about how we were reducing the stress of our bathroom renovation—one strategy was not having a firm deadline (lesson learned).
- To illustrate why our plumber’s sudden deadline felt like a kick in the pants, here’s what the bathroom looked like when we learned we effectively had three days to get it ready before his surgery. It seemed close, but we hadn’t even planned our box molding treatment yet.
- You can read more about our mostly finished bathroom in the related post, and find step-by-step details on how we installed the molding treatment in last week’s project write-up.
- For good measure, here’s the GIF Sherry mentioned—us trying to coordinate everything so mortar, grout, caulk, and paint had enough drying time while still meeting the deadline.
Can We Just Talk About Life Admin?
- We mentioned the book Life Admin in today’s episode. If you prefer an audio overview first, the author’s interview on NPR’s Life Kit is a helpful introduction to the topic.
- And if you listened through to the outtake, you’ll recognize the reason we included that old photo of Sherry with Fonzworth Bentley.
We’re Digging
- We swapped in new drum shade lights for the upstairs hallway and they instantly opened the space—the ceilings feel a foot higher. If you have a dated flush-mount light in a foyer, hallway, closet, or entryway, swapping to a drum shade is an easy, impactful change.
- You can see the original lights that came with the house (small photo) and the oversized black lanterns we replaced them with in a post from 2014.
- If you want to see how those black lanterns looked after we added board & batten and crown molding, that project is documented in another post.
- Also: my friend gifted our kids a personalized “Where’s Waldo” book that features your pet. They offer hundreds of breeds for customization, and the kids loved spotting their dog in the scenes.
If you’re trying to find something we’ve recommended in a past episode but don’t remember which show notes to open, we have a master list of everything we’ve been digging across past episodes. We also keep a Book Club page with every book we’ve suggested.
Finally, a big thank you to Agility Bed for sponsoring this episode. They were offering a Presidents’ Day deal with savings on their mattresses and free cooling pillows on qualifying orders. After the promotion ends, you can still use their discount code for a reduced price on hybrid mattresses.
Thanks for listening!
*This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.