Over the weekend, we finally finished painting our bookcase. The Craftsman orbital sander that I bought at Osh for $19.99 was overkill for just smoothing out the final coat, so I returned it. Now we need to put books in it…

Our furnace filter needed to be changed the other day. I upgraded it from a plain pleated filter to this electrostatic filter which lasts 3 months and was top-rated by Consumer Reports:

Replacing the filter was easy but scary, just because the vent is in about the most dangerous possible location, right over the stairs. Luckily I was able to kneel on our linen cabinets and reach the thumbscrews without falling to my death.

Our home has a water filter for the water supply to the refrigerator but the cartridge hadn’t been replaced in years.

Replacing it is pretty easy; the hardest part was getting behind the refrigerator and shutting off the water valve, which was dusty and sticky. I took the opportunity while I was back there to clean the area behind the refrigerator with a handheld vacuum.

I also installed 3 sliding basket shelves from SimpleHuman in the pantry cabinet in the kitchen. Very nice, with ball-bearing slides. I had a ClosetMaid sliding basket which claimed to be just small enough to fit on our top shelf, but I installed it and there’s not quite enough room for it to open, so I had to uninstall it. It would be nice if I could find a 14″ wide basket that is low-profile; hopefully around 4 to 4.5 inches in height.

Last night, I finally got around to unpacking and hooking up my (Ubuntu) Linux box. Right now there’s an Ethernet cable going across the room from where the DSL modem and router are to the computer. Someday it would be nice to run CAT5 or CAT6 through the house, or at least run the cable under the carpet or around the baseboard.