Cleaned up my inlaws vacuum cleaner, so SWMBO can use it. She’s helping clean out the house. Cleaned the beater bar, put a new bag in. Tested it, seems to work fine. Was reported as “not sucking”, but I dunno. It’s an Oreck. The only thing it has is a power switch, a motor, a belt, and a beater bar. There’s very little to go wrong.
Cleaned everything out of the living room. Carpet installers coming in the morning. That will mostly wrap up the living room remodel I’ve been working on since early January. Looking forward to being done with this one.
Started a minor thing, cleaning up the drapery rod for the living room. Was supposed to be easy, just wash up everything and reassemble. No.
On disassembly, the “master carrier” things were completely worn out.
One side, the plastic slide part is half gone. Those pieces fell out while taking it apart. Both sides, the plastic is worn away, and it’s cutting in to the mounting rivets,
Spent most of the afternoon trying to track down a replacement. No idea on the brand name / manufacturer. No idea how old it is, but probably over 40 years. It came with the house, and we’ve been here over 30.
Talked to several “drapery rods are us” places, nobody recognizes it, or has anything like it. One guy said he’s been in the drapery business for over 40 years, and has never seen one that looked like this.
A sane person would replace it. But that’s not happening. I have no special attachment to this rod, but the mounting holes for it are in the plaster wall I just finished painting. And the new drapes measured to fit this rod and those mounting holes are arriving next week.
I have 40 new rings to install, so I scrapped a couple of the old ones. Cutting the rivets didn’t work well, but heating them with a soldering iron did. I salvaged four of the plastic slide pieces from some that weren’t badly worn.
I cut the rivets off the carriers, and removed the remains of their slides.
A trip to the hardware store netted me four 4-40 x 3/4” screws, washers, and nuts. I’m not sure this is going to work, or last, but I think it will. Assembled the carriers with their new bits & pieces.
Cut the hardware off two of the new rings, and mounted them to the carriers, like the old ones were before.
And I have a workable solution. Rod needs to be cleaned up and restrung with some new cord. I should get that done tomorrow, then I can mount it on the wall before the drapes arrive.
So much for an easy and quick clean up.
