June is turning out to be a busy month! Well, busy for us, that is. :) Got the garage door opener and water heater installed, two vet appointments so far – old cat and kitten stuff. This week is a long overdue hair appointment on Tuesday; a delivery of more media storage on Wednesday, as well as the Princess Bride Quote-Along; and Saturday is a Drew Curtis (FARK) book signing at BookPeople. If that weren’t enough, I get to go to the circus later this month as well! I’ve got goooood seats – center ring, about 4 rows from the front. Close enough to smell the elephants, not close enough to attract the clowns. I’ve already threatened Rob with bodily injury if he does anything to attract the attention of the clowns.

So at almost 7 years in this house, we’ve finally got a garage door opener installed. It’s amazing – you push a button, and the garage door goes up! Push it again, and it goes down! No more getting out in the rain making Rob get out in the rain, no more having to go in through the house to open it because I never could get the bloody key to work properly – at least without struggling for a minimum of five minutes.

Doesn’t take much to make me happy. :)

And in more important home improvement news, we’ve replaced the scary burned looking water heater (see this post) with a new shiny one. We didn’t get a tankless because it was going to take quite a lot of retro-fitting and more money than we wanted to spend, especially since we have never run out of hot water, even if we both take showers. And as far as simultaneous showers and dishwashing, well, that’s just wrong. <grin> I doubt there’d be pressure enough for that to begin with.

Next up, fence and roof estimates. Yay.

But you can rollerskate in my garage now! If I had rollerskates, of course. Here’s an “after” picture:

Half of that stuff on the left is for the theoretical garage sale we’ll have after we get through at least some of the junk room. Hopefully.

More pictures on how we spent a four-day Memorial day weekend after the cut!

This was actually partway into the project. There WAS a car shaped hole in the middle, and the sides were piled higher.

Just a few boxes to start with.

Halfway there – Car fits again, but has to be way over on the side because the dumpster blocks more than half of the driveway.

PLENTY of room for the Beast now. And I can finally get that garage door opener I’ve been longing for!

Wow. I can’t believe we filled it. I’m REALLY glad we didn’t have to get another one!

I mean, I know we haven’t been able to actually get to the water heater in… well, let’s just say far too long and leave it at that, ok?

But I’m not really liking the look of the bottom of the water heater at all. Gas heating/cooking makes me nervous, though it’s certainly cheaper, and better for cooking too. Still… <shudder>

Need to replace that asap. Hmm. Should we get a tankless? And maybe put a water softener/filter in as well.

Off to Home Depot for the parts – and no plastic arm thingy this time! We shouldn’t have to replace that part again, anyway. ‘Twas blissfully easy to replace and no one got hurt. I didn’t bother with the whole intake valve whatsit though – it seems to be working fine, so I’m not touching it.