Old House Handyman: New icemaker and flooring make for romantic Valentine's Day
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and to show what a hopeless romantic I am, I just followed my bride’s wishes and installed a new icemaker in the freezer of the refrigerator in our kitchen.
And that came after we worked side-by-side a few weeks ago to install new flooring in our upstairs bathroom – fulfillment of a gift I picked from her Christmas wish list.
How many ways can a guy say, “I love you?” Next up: Car parts!
Actually, I did that once. Shortly after we were married – 40 years ago in August! – she drove over a curb and knocked the exhaust system off the sweet 1972 Chevy Caprice she had inherited from her grandpa.
We could hear that V-8 rumbling from across town, which would have been way cool for a high school dude trying to impress his buds, but it was a little embarrassing for just-married kids trying to make their way as respectable adults.
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Anyway, she was not amused or impressed by my gift, even though I wrestled that pile of twisted metal under her car and installed it myself. Lucky for me, I also gave her gifts of clothing and other things that she actually appreciated.
After 40 years, though, an icemaker and a new floor seem to rank pretty high on the “not a bad husband” list of potential gifts. (Note: I also gave her clothing, kitchenware, and movies (!) for Christmas. And don’t tell her, but she is going to get the world’s largest bouquet of roses for Valentine’s Day, which is a very special day in our house, because we met the day before Valentine’s Day in 1982 and married a year later.)
Back to the amazing gifts: Let’s break down these projects, starting with the icemaker, because it just happened, and it was remarkably easy. First, all the credit for the success of this project goes to my bride, who is the Online Research Queen in our house. She is relentless in pursuit of model numbers, parts catalogues, and installation manuals. And - huge bonus - she actually reads them all!
The original icemaker had sprung a couple of leaks. Little drippy leaks can be tolerable for a bit if they happen in your kitchen faucet, but when an icemaker leaks, it produces impenetrable stalactites. These little icebergs allow the leaks to dribble into the ice-cube tray, transforming it into a block of ice that would keep an old-fashioned ice box cold for days.
I don’t use a lot of ice cubes, but my bride has them with her one miniature Coke each day for lunch. And it’s awkward when the one available ice cube is 10 times the size of the glass for her Coke. So, she was in a hurry to get this fixed.
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The box of parts, which cost a little under $100, arrived on our doorstep like everything else we buy these days, and it included a book-length set of installation directions in at least three languages, none of which was Common Man language. Fortunately, there were many drawings, and I soon had the old stalactite maker out and the new device ready to install.
Except that the electrical cord that was supposed to plug into the back wall of the freezer was too short. Muttering under my breath, I noted this to my bride, who also watches how-to YouTube videos when researching such projects.
“One of the videos said that might happen. Take the cord off of the old icemaker and put it on the new one. Here’s how,” she said, showing me a clip from the video.
It worked! And within a few hours, we heard the first cubes clunk into the tray and a valve open to send more water in to freeze.
I wish I could say the bathroom floor was as easy. We installed a vinyl floating floor and it looks pretty sharp, but it took a very long weekend on our knees to get there. That’s mainly because we had to make a lot of cuts – around a vanity, a toilet flange, a shower stall, a linen closet and two doorways.
But it looks good, my bride is pleased, and come Tuesday, a hopeless romantic will have delivered 41 roses and her favorite chocolates to the kitchen counter.
Alan D. Miller is a former Dispatch editor who teaches journalism at Denison University and writes about old house repair and historic preservation based on personal experiences and questions from readers.
@youroldhouse
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Old House Handyman gifts wife icemaker, new floor for Valentine's Day
