Joe's Home Improvement Week: 1 Win, 1 Loss

I'm sure everyone out there on the Internets can't wait to hear the conclusion of my gripping tale that is the plasma tv saga. Well Peaches fans, wait no more. I present to you, the finished product:

I'm not the one watching Rachael Ray, I swear.

Also, note the old-school NES. That's how I roll.

Victory! The TV is up with the cords deliciously hidden behind the wall. In fact, it's been on the wall for five days now, and it still hasn't come crashing down. I think I'm in the clear.

While most of you are likely unimpressed with my "ability" to accomplish a very simple home improvement task, there are probably two or three folks wondering how I got this done. First, I purchased electrical boxes better suited to my needs -- the new ones secured themselves to the existing wall pretty well. Then, I attached the switchplates directly to the plaster with self-drilling screws to give the electrical boxes a more finished look. With the help of the future brother-in-law, I was able to lift the TV onto the bracket.

At that point, the job was finished, except for one thing. There was no functioning power outlet near the TV. There used to be an outlet there, but it was on a knob-and-tube circuit that was removed before we moved in. It was my mission to run a new outlet to that spot. First, I had to enlarge the existing hole in the baseboard to make way for a new, code-approved electrical box. This was easy with my pocket saw--until the saw handle broke. Ugh. I was determined to finish the job without another trip to the hardware store, so I just put on some work gloves, grabbed the saw blade sans handle, and hacked at the baseboard until the hole was big enough. Surprisingly, I accomplished this without hurting myself or any bystanders.

Then, I tapped into a functioning circuit in the basement, ran the wire up to the electrical box, and connected the outlet to the wires. This was the first significant electrical work I had done to the house (there will be a future poston all the electrical work I have done so far--oh, I am such a tease). I flipped the breaker back on, and everything is working perfectly.

You'll notice the title of this post -- 1 Win, 1 Loss. The high of getting the TV up was quickly diminished by the low of my experience with the thermostat. Last Saturday, I purchased a programmable thermostat to replace the old one. I figured it was the right thing to do in that we would save some money, and also do our part to reduce our impact on the planet, being the conservationist that I am.

Installation was a snap (just a matter of connecting wires to screws) . By Saturday afternoon, everything was great--it was all programmed and running. We were saving money. We were saving the planet. I figured a congratulatory phone call from Al Gore would come at any minute.

Then, on Wednesday morning, the temperature in the house was 65 degrees. I fiddled with the thermostat for probably an hour that morning, but couldn't get any heat to come out of the registers. Not wanting to take any chances (with it being the dead of a Missouri winter and all), I called a heating and cooling guy to come take a look. He diagnosed the problem as a faulty thermostat--that fancy programmable one just wasn't sending the proper signals to the furnace. He put a basic, non-programmable one back on for us, and by the time I got home on Wednesday evening, the house was nice and warm.

Final tally for my thermostat misadventure, including the service call and the price of the (now useless) programmable thermostat: $190. Ouch. It's not like we'll go hungry or anything, but I would have preferred to just have kept the old thermostat and saved the time and money.

So, final score for the week: Joe 1, House 1.