Ecce! Romani!

My goal last week was to get a new Roman shade for my window.  That didn't happen.  After doing some pricing at Lowe's, I realized that I should be confident in which style I like.  My parents wouldn't like it if I decided to get another one for $300 after deciding I didn't like the first one.

Which do you like?

There are so many styles to choose from, so I'll hold off for now until I decide, but I do need to decide quickly because I took down the blinds and curtains, which will make it a lot hotter in my room.  I didn't reach that goal this week, but I got a lot of other things done:

• shelves built for my mom
• shopping at Lowe's
• six registers replaced
• curtains removed from my old room (sounds like a five minute job, but I am am proud of it because there were over 20 screws in awkward positions holding all the hardware to the wall)
• watched every episode of Pawn Stars

My mom is a teacher at the local middle school.  They have moved to a new school, which is about a mile from our house.  It is nice for her work to be so much closer (it was 15 miles away), but she has to move all of her stuff to her new room.  At this time she is almost finished getting it ready, but the last couple weeks have been busy.  My dad and I have been helping her around lunchtime for a couple hours.  The only problem with the new room is that there isn't nearly as much storage as the old school.  So, my dad and I built and painted shelves for my mom.

I went shopping with my sister at Lowe's on Saturday.  My parents aren't going to replace some of the things around the house, so decided to take the bull by the horns.  We spent over five hundred dollars. Worth every penny.  I (my mom) bought a ceiling fan for my new room, five registers, three smoke/CO detectors, two lamps, a kitchen chandelier, and two flush mount lights for the hall.  I also bought a new paper towel holder from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Before we went shopping I started to inspect the registers around my house.  They were disgusting. Just disgusting. Rust (and maybe mold?) were all over them.

When I was removing the register in the dining room, I saw two hair like fibers protruding from the vents.  I feared the worst -- a roach.   I carefully removed the register paying strict attention to those two little hairs.  I got it to eye level, and there it was! Ugh! 

I found another one on a different register only after I finished removing the others and going back to admire my pile of rusty aluminium.  Inside the ducting on the first one I took down, I saw something that looked like a string.  Naturally, I pulled it.  I discovered it to be the bones of a tail.

Meet Scully

I am happy to report that the kitchen register was pretty clean. It was just ugly, so it had to go.

Before

After

The paper towel holder has seen better days.

Before

After

My dad complains that these new ones are too low.  They shine in his eyes when he stands near them.  I think they are an improvement, but my parents might take them back to get the large version of these mediums.  We'll see.  Next, I need to convince them to get a new couch.  That'll take some work.