Old Things Made New

We have a L-shaped sofa bed that I probably bought 20 years (it still has one of the more comfortable beds in a sofa bed that I've slept on). For some time now, the built-in recliner has had a mind of its own. You can be sitting there comfortably, and then *bang!* the footrest flies up. We'd (sort of) gotten used to it, but last week we had some of Katarina's visiting Swedish cousins over for dinner, and one of them got the randomly-firing-ejector-seat treatment. So yesterday I decided to see if there was anything I could do to fix it. After carefully pulling back the cloth (and layers of dust bunnies) from the bottom, I quickly determined that there was a broken spring. (I cleverly deduced this by having it fall out when I pulled back the cloth.) Fortunately the spring was broken near the end, so by bending it a little I was able to reattach it, et voilà! We can now safely sit in the recliner without fear of ejection. As an added bonus, the footrest now comes up at a more sane speed than it has for a while. Of course, the upholstery still needs cleaning again, but it's nice to be able to sit in peace.

On house-related matters, Katarina and I painted most of the exterior a while back. But there's been a section under the eaves on the back of the house, above the bedroom windows that is a pain in the patooky to reach because the base of the ladder has to sit on the side of the hill, and with the windows, there's not much room for the top of the ladder to scootch around as things shift. I considered getting a Little Giant or the like, but some of the positions on the other side of the house would challenge even that. And then there's the fact I've already got 3 ladders (an extension ladder, a longer and heavier extension ladder, and a medium step ladder) and didn't really want to get another one. So I looked around and ended up getting some ladder levelers, and in the way that well done online shopping sites can incite one to do, I got a stabilizer, too. Today I installed the levelers (it requires removing the existing feet and drilling some holes in the legs of the ladder) and tried it out, and between the two, it's like having a new ladder. It's never been this stable before except in those few places where the ground is perfectly level. Good stuff!