2019 - My Personal Year in Review

This is generally a political blog, so feel free to skip this post if you like. You ever have one of those things that you never even knew you wanted until you saw it? It happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was browsing through the "Deals of the Day" at Amazon ("Hi. My name is Mike and I'm an Amazonaholic."), and I saw this stainless steel range hood at a ridiculously low price. I already had a range hood that was quite functional, that I hardly ever used. Flipped on the light occasionally, but that was it. It was a kind of sickly lemony color, which may have matched something in the kitchen originally. I hardly ever gave it a thought, so it surprised me how quickly I jumped at the chance to replace it! I replaced the pathetic, barely functional stove top the first year I was here, with a flat ceramic top job. I can't even remember what color the old stove top was.

But, this one was stainless steel, and would match my 'fridge and was clean and shiny and new! I jumped up and measured my range hood, it was five inches wider than the deeply discounted one, but they had a 36" SS model at a fairly decent discount, so I ordered it on the spot! This install was not exactly plug and play, but it was close! Before:

Looks pretty normal, right? The color is a little washed out in this photo. It almost looks cream colored here, which would have at least matched the tile. Plus, under the hood, there was about thirty years worth of crud, so...

Not a huge improvement, but they say that money spent on kitchen remodeling gives you your best return for the money. 2019 was also the year I finally got my kitchen faucet replaced. I had ordered it online (not from Amazon) and always figured I'd replace it when I had a little more time. When I finally got around to installing it this year, I found the packing slip...from 2008! *Sigh*

I also bought a ceiling fan a few years back. Not quite as bad as the faucet. Maybe 2012? But after I hurt my arm on the job in 2014, I was really seriously concerned about installing it myself, not knowing if I'd have any trouble holding the weight above my head to install it. So a few months back, after some considerable rehab, I gave it a shot. I give you, the master bedroom:

2019 was also the year my A/C died, and my water heater was on its last legs, starting to rust through, so I bit the bullet and made a deal to replace the A/C and central heat with a tankless water heater thrown in the deal.

So, 2019 was my most expensive year in a long time, but my cozy California cul de sac home is more comfortable and...pretty! Every time I spend money or sweat equity on the place, I figure in addition to making the place more pleasant to live, I'm enhancing its curb appeal, in case I ever decide I really need to get out of Dodge, or to get top dollar for my heirs.

One way or another, the next people who live here are really going to like it!