Oh Boy, Do I Feel Stupid

Welcome to May! The month is already off to a good start for me. I finished up a ton of little, nagging items in the condo because the airbnb photographer came on Monday. That was awesome because now the airbnb listing will have professional photography (in about two weeks) for free! I'll post the pictures once they're available. The side effect of getting a bunch of little stuff done was really nice too.

In other good news, the washing machine works! So now Broken needs a new name. After my boyfriend installed the new switch assembly, it wouldn't work. Then I realized that the cold water wasn't turned on. Ha, ha. Oh, yeah, so funny. I felt stupid. But now I am happy! Happy and still stupid.

In case you are dying to know, or you have a GE Spacemaker laundry center that is about a bazillion years old like mine with a broken lid switch assembly (the latch thingy that tells your washer to agitate because it "knows" that you have the lid securely down so your sweet little hands won't turn into chomped up zombie bits), you need part WH12X955. That pasted all funky but I'm just gonna leave it. It's like, "Hey, I'm the PART NUMBER. HELLOOOOO I'M GOING TO RUIN A FEW MONTHS OF YOUR LIFFFFEEEE." (Just kidding. I don't take my laundry that seriously.)

My washer specifically is model # WSM2420TBAWW.

This is what my poor lid switch assembly looked like when I removed it:

The plastic part was all torn to pieces. There was even some missing plastic where the screw is supposed to sit so it can hold the assembly onto the side of the washer.

Besides the fact that the assembly wouldn't hook to the side of the washer due to the lack of screw "caves" (what the heck would you call them?), this spring thingy was also broken:

As best I could tell the spring activated some kind of electrical signal that sent a message to the washing machine saying, "Lid's closed! Let's dance!" I found that out because I actually put my fingers on it when the washing machine was plugged in MISTAKE and was shocked. All those warnings on washing machines that say "UNPLUG UNIT BEFORE SERVICING" or whatever? Yea. I don't pay attention.

Here's what our $60 lid switch assembly friend looks like:

Installation involves 3 main parts. Plugging in the assembly (the white part to the left in the picture), screwing in the plastic part (the gray part to the far right), and then installing the ground wire. (Of course you have to do all that backwards to remove the broken one first.)

I'm talking about items 72 and 71 in the illustration below:

The difficult part was installing the ground wire because the nut is awkwardly placed. You have to remove things and use lots of Arm Strength. But we've already established that I have T-Rex arms. So I'm grateful for my boyfriend.

Here he is working on the installation:

And now that the cold water's turned on, it actually works! I haven't told him yet, by the way. Heh heh! Now I'm making chili so I have to run. Here's to clean clothes and May flowers. Except it's like the inside of an oven outside so I'm not sure how well the flowers are doing.

And, oh my god. This is an afterthought. I was looking at that picture above and I think it indicates that you aren't supposed to remove the ground wire. You're probably supposed to cut the old one and reattach the new one...my boyfriend is going to keeeellll me when he sees this. Whoops. Time to buy him a present!

Broken is Still Broken

Broken, my washer/dryer unit, isn't going to be applying for a name change anytime soon. This weekend my boyfriend installed the new lid switch assembly, but now the washer seems to be broken for some other reason. It just makes a faint electrical noise when I turn it on. The dryer works fine. I would rather have the opposite situation on my hands. I could always hang my clothes over the bathtub, European style!

I would consider myself pretty resourceful, but I'm not sure what to do now. So I will continue washerless until I figure something out.

Introducing...Broken and Shiny

A few weekends ago, my boyfriend, myself, and our friend Patrick borrowed a truck to bring the old combo washer/dryer unit from my boyfriend's storage unit to the condo. We'll call him Shiny. (The washer/dryer unit, that is.) This trip was about a one and a half hour drive. Plus gas.

Sort of long story short, no one measured. So Shiny didn't fit in his closet. But the old washer/dryer unit (let's call him Broken) with the broken latch was already in the living room. So for a little while, I had two combo washer/dryer units in my living room. Shiny and Broken. We ate dinner together, watched Gossip Girl, and they sat there quietly while I did my homework. While Broken and Shiny made pretty good company, I was ready to give them the boot.

So I sold Shiny on Craigslist since, even though he worked really, really well and was all pretty and shiny, he just wouldn't fit. As in about four inches wouldn't fit through the threshold of the closet/laundry room. Whoops.

Now I'm left with Broken which was wedged back into his dark, cozy closet.

In case you're curious, the exact measurement of the door opening is 23.5 inches. Broken is 23.75 inches across and Shiny is 27 inches across. So yes, even moving Broken out and then back in again was a struggle. With a lot of chipped paint and dents. Broken is a little bit more broken now.

So now that Broken is back, I can just go back to holding the latch. Except, um, wrong! Somehow during his very short journeys, the latch further broke to the point that I can no longer hold it in place to get it to work. Not even with duct tape. Something about the electrical bit got messed up. So I've ordered a new latch off eBay. It's supposed to arrive later this week. I've never tried to fix a washing machine "for real" (i.e. not using duct tape, erasers, and clear packing tape), so I'll share with you how it goes and provide basic instructions next week. By the way, that latch cost $60. I KNOW! For a ridiculously small, simple piece of plastic and wires. Yuck. And for Broken, who is a VERY OLD washing machine. Very old!

Sorry, Broken. You are officially renamed Super Broken!

Edward is Dead

You heard that right. Remember Edward? Here he is in case you forgot:

Well, he bit the dust. I got him at Anthropologie for $10 (I know, a total ripoff). Anyway, good news is that I took him back and was given a full refund. Since he broke after just a few short weeks of normal use!

I picked up a new knob for only $3:

This guy doesn't have a name. I think he's long sold out from Anthropologie's clearance section. Too bad.

I did like Ed, but this guy was a heck of a lot cheaper. And he's held up pretty well so far. 

Kudos to Anthrpologie for taking responsibility for defective products and giving me a full refund!

More Anthropologie Love and Midterms

I have been super busy because my dad is visiting, I have a difficult statistics midterm on Monday (I'm in my first semester of an MBA program), and of course work work work. But I hate to not keep my blog updated with my condo progress, so I thought I would post a super quick update!

Anthropologie has tons of housewares in addition to their beautiful clothing (for women). They also happen to carry a great selection of hardware in their stores and online. I knew I would want to use their selection of knobs for something. I decided against trying to use them in the kitchen because I think their pretty-but-very-detailed knobs would look too kitschy and busy on kitchen cabinets. But I did think that one knob from Anthrpologie would be a great replacement for this closet/laundry room door knob that came with the condo:

I considered painting it, I mean spraypainting it, a pretty color or even trying to hand paint it a pretty design. But it was just too big and ugly. Sorry, knob! So I tried out a few from Anthropologie, planning on returning the ones I wouldn't use:

This is the Finishing Touch knob in dark gray. It popped a bit too much against the white of the closet door.

This knob is the Sussex Rose in ivory. It blended in too much against the white of the closet door.

And this beauty is the Edwardian in aqua. And it was jusssssssssssst right (like Goldilocks!). At $10 it was not exactly a bargain (ok, definitely not even close), but I like it and it looks great.

Ta-da! (And I do realize that the closet door needs some freshening up. Paint or cleaning or something. And that picture is old, our hallway is now purple. Haha. Saying that never gets old.)

By the way, a little trick about Anthropologie: if you want to see all of the knobs they have in stock, you can't just go to their knobs section. If you want to see the knobs that are on sale, you'll have to go to their sale section to see that selection! Their knobs run from about $8-$12 each full price, but they sell for as little as $3 on sale. And I did return the knobs I didn't use with no problem. Anthropologie has great customer service.

Speaking of Anthropologie, I went in this week with my dad and left with these beauties:

The Ihrin Shirtdress in green by Lili's Closet. I've never purchased a dress by that line before, and I like the quality (good buttons, good side zipper, excellent seam work, etc), however the one downfall that is so common in dresses these days is that there is no lining. The material is very substantial and it doesn't technically require a lining, but linings add a sense of luxury that must far outweigh the cost of a cheap layer of lining fabric, in my opinion. It also needs some sort of gathering in the chest because it was made for a woman built a bit differently than me (Ha Ha Ha) but I solved that by pairing it with a wide belt. (And I even wore it last night to test it out and it worked well.) I also love the sleeve length on this dress. I really do not care to show my arms and as a result I do not care for sleeveless dresses and cap sleeve dresses. I just feel much more comfortable with my arms covered, for some reason.

Yes, yes, those are bugs on that shirt. This is the printed boy tee with bug print by Pilcro. I own one other shirt by Pilcro and I like the quality fine, but their designs are really what win me over. However, their shirts are full price at $40 and I would never pay that much, but that's just me. I always buy them on sale.

In other news, there will be a HUGE dining room update coming soon. And it's not paint. And it may have to do with furniture. Hellllo!!!!! I can't wait to share that with you.