Little Things

As of tonight, I have a working fan in the bathroom. For the past several days, I had an open tunnel to a vent in the roof, with the result that the front of my house smells like wood smoke. I am very hopeful that with the fan and its flappers in place, the smoky smell will fade and vanish. In getting to the point of replacing the fan, I have learned that:

• The vast majority of bathroom fans for sale at large hardware stores (Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace, True Value, Dixieline) are side venting, meaning that they blow air out the sides. This is very handy if the fan is mounted next to a horizontal vent.
• Some fans made to vent to 7" vertical ducting are 8" wide. This is fine if you have an 8" opening to mount them in.
• Apparently, 6.5" vertical fans are a thing of the past.
• When remounting a 6" vertical fan to use the appropriate bracket for your ducting, be careful not to bolt it on too tight. If you do, the fan won't be able to spin without a little help, and you will drive yourself crazy trying to figure out why it works when you poke it, but won't start on its own. (You bolted it on too tight. Mystery solved.)

I am now at the stage of many small steps. There are a great many useful things for me to do around here, and several of them are self-renewing. There are so many things to do, however, that writing them down overwhelms me. So I am doing a bit at a time. The oven, for example, is now mostly clean (though I wouldn't recommend looking in the broiler), and one oven rack is mostly clean. That was good enough to make some delicious roasted new potatoes. They are delicious with dinner, and also make a fabulous home fry or hashbrown alternative with breakfast.