Heater Grate Update

The heat source in our master bathroom is an in-wall electric heater with fan mounted on the outside wall between the toilet and the tub - highly visible.  It is controlled by a thermostat on the wall just inside the bathroom door, which explains why there is no knob on the hole in the lower left corner.  

I'd like to say it doesn't matter to me what the grill over the heater looks like, but I care a lot.  And this thing makes me sad, especially since we put down a beautiful marble floor and are installing a claw foot tub with classic brass filler and so forth.  This thing just doesn't go.

But not to worry, I am prepared.  I was at BIG NYC a few weeks ago and I spied a vintage cast iron heat register grill with lovely scrollwork.  It was downright cheap so I bought it figuring I would find a use for it.  Looks like it will have a place in our house much sooner than expected.

I am thinking I will paint it off-white and mount it about a half inch off the wall, just in front of the existing sheet metal heater grate. I don't want to get rid of the existing grate because the holes are smaller and I don't want any little fingers getting in there through the big holes in the scrollwork grate.  Yes, I know that the existing heater grate shows through the scrollwork, but that is just because it is white - I intend to paint it flat black so that (hopefully) it looks empty behind the top grate.

First Night in the Tube!

I went up to the house on Sunday with another car-load of stuff.  We (meaning I) have to stop taking stuff up there now - it is to the point now where we are going to have to shuffle things from room to room in order to do the work we need to do now in any particular room.  Ugh.  My fault.

Anyway, so I slept in one of the downstairs bedrooms on Sunday night - no bed (just an air matress), no AC, no hot water, no wife, no nothing to make it a happy experience.  Just two things made it tolerable:

Since it was Memorial Day weekend all the stores were closed by 7PM so I had to go twice as far to find a gas station that sold beer before sunset.  It seemed a little ridiculous at the time to rush around stressed out looking for a beer so that I could properly enjoy the sunset from our deck.  But it was worth it.

This fine gentleman was an invaluable yard sale find ($5!) on Sunday on the road to the house.  It seems to be a fifty year old GE oscillating fan.  It blows pretty strong and made my night in that hot room doable.


Then on Monday morning, after a drive to Schenectady to pick up that big, old planer I posted a while ago, I stopped at a yard sale and made a new friend.  Hello stress relief!!