Do It Yourself Vacation
by Tony Tone
May 29, 2020

I was off work last week and loved every minute of it. During the nearly 11 years I spent working in radio, I only took one week off. That’s a true story, and the week I was “off,” I found myself tethered to answering work related calls and texts. Last week was different because my current employer (Hy-Vee) encourages us to unplug while we’re off.

At my house, that translated into several DIY (do it yourself) projects being completed. My wife, Kasey, had been wanting to update our bathrooms since we moved into our house last June. We got a head start on the project seven months ago when I had to replace a toilet after our favorite five-year-old got a YoHoo box stuck in it (true story).

Fast forward to three weeks ago, when my friend and flooring expert, James Eich, transformed the bathrooms in a day’s work. It’s incredible how updating bathroom flooring can make the space look so much better. We opted for waterproof click plank vinyl while at the same time updating the trim as well.

My contribution to the bathrooms would come in the form of battling the 90’s faucets and drains. Turns out, those are pretty darn secure to the sink and require quite a bit of elbow grease (and an occasional four letter word) to remove. By no means am I a plumber, but I was able to pickup some useful information via YouTube.

I’m convinced you can find a video for everything including “How to Yield at a Roundabout.” That’s a video that should exist and be viewed by the folks that cut me off on Cedar Street but that’s another column.

Back to the DIY; our house has a fireplace that we haven’t lit yet. I’m very much on team fireplace, I just don’t think I trust my “lighting a fire in my house skills.” Seems like I could do a YouTube search to learn how, but summer is here and the central air has been on already (I refuse to be the person who doesn’t turn the air on until “it gets above 85 degrees.” Why willingly be miserable in your own home?) My wife took our fireplace from 1992 and brought it into 2020 over the course of three days. We removed the stain from the mantle in favor of a new color “Kona” (was the name of the new stain if I’m not mistaken) and then painted the brick.

Does it make me “lame” to be so excited with the finished product of these projects? At 36 years old, I was enamored with how much better our garage ‘beer’ fridge looked with a quick coat of epoxy. That thing looks brand spanking new and keeps beer cold, win-win! We’ve got a few more updates on our list and if anyone has any advice on kitchen back splash installation, or just wants to tell me to hire an expert, email me at TonyToneShow@gmail.com.

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