Your Turn: A Poll on Filing

We found the perfect filing cabinet last weekend at Target when we weren't even looking (that's when you find the best stuff). We wanted a two-drawer filing cabinet, because it would fit perfectly under the window. However, most are either three-drawer or one filing drawer with one little pencil drawer. We had pretty much given up (i.e. Ikea didn't have one) when lo and behold:

Now we have some space to spread out our files from the bottom drawer of our desk. I sat down last night to start loading them in when I realized that I have no idea how to arrange the files. Right now, I'm using some hybrid filing system that puts all the files I use often to the front followed by things loosely alphabetical by topic. So "banks" includes all our bank accounts and "cars" include all our cars, as opposed to filing, say, Honda under "H." What that results in is a system where I can never find anything...

So my dear readers, you've lurked long enough and this relationship is feeling too much like a soliloquy than a dialog. I need advice--if you organize anything on paper, how do you do it. Please take the poll below and leave suggestions in the comments. Anything will be better than my erratic methods.

What kind of filing system do you use?

• Straight-up alphabetical (Providence Bank under "P")
• Alphabetical by subject (Providence Bank under "B")
• Most frequently used files to the front
• Other (please elaborate in the comments)

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Case of the Dysfunctional Toilet

Our upstairs toilet has had a lot of small problems over the last year and D has done a very good job playing plumber and making it work (he's pretty good as a plumber, too). A few months ago, he fixed the flusher by shortening the chain and he adjusted the fill valve so it took less water to fill the tank.

The latest problem in our toilet battle has been that the tank slowly leaked, so that it would be empty by the time we needed to flush (this was compounded by the fact that we don't use this bathroom very often).  So to be thorough, we went to Home Depot and bought a complete rebuild kit (which would require removing the screws to the tank and other scary things) and a smaller kit to replace just the flapper valve. We decided to try that first.

We* drained what little water remained in the tank and took out the valve (both the red plastic flapper and the actually gooey valve seal):

The seal was pretty misshapen, which made us hope that we had found the reason for the leaking water:

D peeled one side of the paper and got ready to squish the new seal into place:

 Then he put the rest of the flapper valve together and reattached the chain:

 We turned on the water, flush, and let the tank fill. Then waited and hoped that the water stayed in the tank (incidentally, the inside of our tank is gross and rust-colored...any ideas on how we should fix that, or if we should bother?):

Then, get this, it worked! For about two days. And then the water started leaking again. D decided that he might not have squished the seal into place squarely over the tube. Fortunately, Home Depot sells just the gray little seal without the rest of the kit. So we took everything apart again and D put in another seal. He felt more confident that he had lined up the edges of the tube with the seal.

And it worked. Temporarily. Again. For a few days, the water stayed in the tank where it belonged. Then, mysteriously, it started leaking out maybe 50% of the time (independent of how long the toilet sat between flushes--sometimes half a day, sometimes several days). And THEN, it started working consistently again. We have no idea what is going on with our mystery toilet. D thinks that maybe the valve seal is settling into place (it is gooey and malleable after all) and that explained the toilet's changing status.

It would appear that now, after about 6 weeks, we've got a consistently working toilet. But I don't trust it one bit and I know it is biding its time to start malfunctioning again (probably at a maximally-disruptive time, like during the holidays when we will have a lot of house guests). At least we have the rebuild kit in our garage, in case we need it. (By which time, I'm sure we will have lost it.)

*By "we," I mean D. I was there to give moral support, pass tools, and take pictures.

Two Mini Make-Overs

I wouldn't quite say that I re-did furniture, but I did make some tweaks to two pieces that live in the bedroom.

Mini make-over one, the lovely reading chair that looks like the fabric was custom dyed to match our room. The legs, however, were awful. They were a fake cherry red in a room full of pale birch. I was prepared to prime them and paint them but was thrilled to find that underneath the stain, they were perfect! Here's what the chair used to look like, as a reminder:

Should I just cut to the chase? Here it is after lots of elbow grease:

Now some of the mess work shots. First I sanded everything with medium grit down pretty far. I could still see some red after the saw dust turned back to natural. I was a little afraid I would sand so hard that I would corrupt the legs' shape, but this was a very hard wood, so I didn't do any damage. After I used medium sand paper, I switched to something finer to make everything nice and smooth.

Red saw dust from the cherry stain. It ended up everywhere, including in my nose. Probably should have worn a mask...

Then I learned that even "crystal clear" polyurethane (I used water-based "poly-acrylic" which isn't supposed to "amber" the wood) darken the wood. This is a little exaggerated from the flash, but you can see how the leg on the right is much darker.  At first I was disappointed, but in the end, it still matches well. It basically made the wood look the same as when it was wet. I put on 3 coats, using a fine sandpaper between layers. (You can see that all I did to protect the chair was to shove some cellophane on where the leg meets the frame. I probably should have done more but I was very slow and careful while applying the polyacrylic.)

Mini make-over two, a cedar trunk that the previous owner had already painted blue (and that an amazingly nice friend drove over an hour to pick up for me). Even though the blue matched our room perfectly, it was flat and boring. So I decided to mess it up. Fortunately the seller included the can of paint with the chest, so I figured that if I messed up too badly, I could repaint it again.

It started out as boring matte blue.

I spent some time distressing it with sand paper, trying to make it look worn in at the corners and near the lock. I was too chicken to try anything more "distressing" than that (to the chest and also to myself, emotionally). Then I lightly coated it with a tinted stain, Minwax satin stain tinted to slate. It went on a lot more opaquely than I imagined, so next time, I will choose a gray that is a little lighter. I used one rag dipped in stain followed immediately by a clean one to wipe off the excess. I worked with the grain of the wood but got tripped up on the lid, where I followed the direction of the paint brush strokes along the shorter dimension. I think if I had to do it again, I would have followed the long edge. Either way though, I think it looks much more interesting now:

Here's a close-up of the corner, so you can see the texture:

Once it was done, I immediately filled it with warm, cozy sweaters in preparation for winter. Can't wait for the cold weather so I can have an excuse to use them. At least the cats gained another surface to lay on. Now that it is in the bedroom, they like to lounge on it.

Tug-of-War

We spent much of September trying to clear up some of the ivy that has infested our backyard and threatened to eliminate what little grass we have. It was a multi-day and multi-trash-can project (ivy cannot be composted so it, like bamboo, has to be included in the regular trash and not the yard waste).

How did we do it? Well, we generally hate using chemicals for tasks we can do with a little muscle, so muscle is what we used. First, D took the lawn mower to it, to get rid of the surface leaves and make it easier to get to the vines.

Then the real fun began! Pulling up ivy is a lot like playing tug-of-war with the ground.  Find a vine (or 10 or 20) and PULL! It's quite a work-out. We did a lot of work reaching down into the dirt to find hidden runners, so I'm pretty confident that the part we "cleared" really is clear. For now, anyway.

(I spent a few fun afternoons doing this before D got home. I figured it substituted for a more traditional workout.)

Each time we cleared a swath, D would finish things up by rototilling it (thanks Mom and Dad for the rototiller!). We worked really hard for a few weeks during a dry spell and then decided it was time to lay down some grass seed just before the forecast called for rain. Here's how far we got:

The ivy continues under the tree and to the left, but we've sort of lost steam and moved on to other projects, especially because it's gotten wet and pulling up ivy through mud doesn't sound very appealing. At least we've recovered some lawn.

Here's the lawn this morning--you can see that we've successfully grown some grass! D just overseeded it last week to fill in some of the gaps.

Thanks to this project, I've discovered that I don't hate working outside, I just hate growing things. I'm pretty good at destruction though. So I'll leave the seeding and planting to D and continue to rip up the stuff we don't like. More to come, once the yard dries out.

In other outdoor news, we have a few mystery plants. Can you identify them?

Here's a pretty flowering plant we have in our back yard. It's obviously a late-summer/early-fall bloomer and loves shade, since it's in the shade of the house all day. I'd like to buy more or learn how to split it up, to put it in a few other shady spots:

And last, our border grass seems to have grown berries! What?! Do you know what this is all about?