Je Suis MacGyver

Putting an entirely new house together comes with some challenges.

First Challenge:  Shower

Our shower room has a shower and a sink.  The shower has a shower curtain and liner, but the way that the basin of the shower is shaped, the curtain doesn't really keep the water in on the sides.  It falls down on the outside of the basin and runs off onto the floor in front of the sink.  This is less than ideal.

Flat Sides Cause Run-Off

You would think that there might be some sort of solution for this poor design.  However, that would require me to go to a hardware store or the French equivalent of a Home Depot and try to explain this problem to someone in French.  As I don't yet know the words for flat, run-off, and "block the water!" I was required to innovate.

What supplies do I have that might help solve this problem?

Vinyl Shelf Paper

Staples

Some Super Glue to Prevent Leaks

Now the water is re-routed into the basin.  Seriously, who designed this shower basin?!


Second Challenge: Kitchen Cabinets

Our kitchen cabinets are not the highest quality.  They are quite wobbly and not quite aligned properly.  Sometimes this misalignment causes drawers and doors to bump into each other, causing loose connections.  In one specific case, the cabinet door hit the utensil drawer and the drawer front came loose from it's sides.  This was held together by dowels.  Additionally, the slide that the drawer goes on was not connected fully on the front side.  Every time it got opened, it put a little pressure on the slide and it broke.

Broken Drawer Removed along with Broken Left Slide

 What supplies do I have that might help solve this problem?

Sticky Pad in Place of Broken Drawer Slide

Look! an IKEA Bag Clip, My Favorite Kitchen Item

Pliers to Modify Clip Inside

Screwdriver to use as Smoothing Chisel

More Clip Moidifications

Stick Clip on Side and Secure with Screw 

After reinforcing the drawer with some wood glue on the separated dowels, the cabinet was back in working order.  I also added screws to all of the other drawer slides so that they are all more stable.

Still a little out of alignment, but functional

More Challenges?  Bring them on.  Or not.  Living with completely working household items is also quite nice.

French Challenge - Water Meter Reading

When living in a foreign country, simple tasks present new challenges.  

Notices are posted at our apartment fairly frequently.  These include things like, "Please register your door remotes" and "I am having a birthday party but will try to limit the noise."  Recently this notice was posted on our exterior door.  

Bright Yellow might mean important

The basic gist was that there was a water meter, the water meter reader needed passage into all of the apartments and that this would all go down on January 19th.  One of my options was to stay at home all day on the 19th and wait for the meter reader, then awkwardly try to talk to them in French.  It looked like the note said that if I wasn't going to be home, I had the option to email the meter reading to them.  Not sure.

But then, another option revealed itself!  My neighbors started posting papers on their doors.  I saw this one first:

Two numbers separated by a comma.  Apartment number written on top.  Good, I can do this.  So I searched for my water meter.  Fortunately it was in an accessible cabinet inside one of our toilet rooms.  We also have two locked doors that have hot water heaters or some other utility related thing inside.  But I am not sure since they are locked!

Accessible Cabinet with what appears to be a meter

Something is being metered

The meter itself was a little difficult to read.  But manageable.  So I needed to put two numbers on the paper and tape it to my door.  Yes!  I can do this.  My neighbor's paper had a four digit number and a five digit number.  So that must be the slowly moving numbers in the middle top (four numbers) and the red dials on the bottom (five numbers).

But then, my other neighbor posted this:

What?! It also listed two numbers, but they were an 8 digit number and a four digit number.  So what numbers needed to be communicated?!  If the people who can read the French notice are not being consistent, what am I to do?

To cover all bases, I posted a picture of the meter itself with the difficult to read numbers written above them in pen. (Because while I have no furniture, at least I have a wireless printer.)

All the numbers!

There were no complaints on my answering machine or nasty notes on my door.  In fact, my meter picture had a check tally on it when I returned home later that day.

Success!