Gaffer Tape and Shoe Laces
I’m unfortunately not blessed with home maintenance skills.
I am blessed though to have had a lovely mum who had some odd but imaginative ideas that sometimes temporarily helped with home maintenance needs.
For example: I have a rather old electric fan forced oven (minus a working fan) that has a separate griller attached above, which has a drop down door.
At one point the drop down door dropped down a little too effectively, to the point where it would no longer drop back up.
So my lovely mum tied a shoelace to the griller door handle to hold it closed.
Mum’s shoelace arrangement remained successfully in place for a few years, until one day I decided it was probably about time I did something towards finding a more permanent solution.
So I took a big breath and called a tradesperson. He very kindly and efficiently fixed my griller. He also fixed me a rather hefty bill for the privilege of doing so.
Whilst I was rather miffed at the size of the bill, I was actually more miffed at the fact that, after his departure, my shoelace was nowhere to be found. I’ve never laid eyes on it since.
My lovely mum (and just as lovely dad), many decades prior to my griller door shoelace contraption, had an old Westinghouse refrigerator, inside of which was a small freezer compartment - again with a drop down door.
The same issue arose, this time to be temporarily (read, permanently) fixed by sliding a metal book end under the freezer door. It worked a charm.
Other temporary fix-its that my family has used include:
Clear contact book covering to cover a small hole in a window
Gaffer tape to tie a broken washing line to its pole
More gaffer tape to cover holes in laser light roofing
Another shoelace to hold a washing machine hose in place
A match stick to hold a deck chair together
Sticky tape to hold reading glasses together
and safety pins for - well it’s quite amazing the number of things that safety pins can be used for.
You are more than welcome to use some of the ideas above to “fix” things around your own homes. All it takes is a little imagination - and my lovely mum.
Nikki
