True Story, For Reals

Whenever my friend Jennifer-A makes a declaration that might be met with skepticism, she begins by saying, "True story".  Faced with the same situation, I end my declaration with, "For reals".  So if, for example, I had an absolutely stellar day, an almost unbelievably good day, it might warrant using both "true story" and "for reals" at the same time.

Like this:

True story.  I accomplished more today (Monday) in restoring hardware than I have in the past two years.  For reals.

And, I owe all of this incredibly good day to a brand-new reader, DaveS, who commented on my last post (written in the wee hours of this morning when I had reached the limits of my frustration) with a solution for freeing the screws on my transom and door hardware from their paint prison.  Dave said, "A utility knife works very well for getting at painted-over hardware. You can use it to cut around the edges, to burrow down to the screws, and to clean out the screw slots. Once you get the blade down into the paint, it generally will flake off just by twisting the tool."  Genius.  I read that Monday morning (and by "morning" I mean a little after noon) while eating my breakfast.  I nearly knocked over the kitchen chair jumping out of it.  I even left a peach half-eaten on the table, and usually wild horses can't drag me away from a fresh Missouri peach.  Ten minutes later I had two sash lifts off the windows in the front parlor.  Sash lifts that I've been trying to remove for two years.  Bless your heart, DaveS, you have my undying gratitude.

An hour or so later I plopped all this into the CrockPot.

Five sash lifts, a hook & two hinges

And a few hours later, after a long soak in the CrockPot and a little scrubbing with a wire brush, that icky hardware was beautiful again.

I wish those two sash lifts weren't broken.  It occurs to me, though, that if you have a jackwagon mentality such that you'd blob paint all over original Victorian hardware, then you're also stupid enough to yank on a stuck window until the sash lift breaks.  The hook is broken too.  There at the top of it should be another hook. 

It's still beautiful, though.

Hello, gorgeous.

No way is that hunk of hardware gonna be hidden away in a closet again.  I'm putting it away someplace safe for now, and then this hook and its unbroken twin will have pride of place in the re-done bathroom.

And now, if y'all will excuse me, I have to go scrub the last little bits of paint off those hinges and check on the transom hardware that's soaking under a thick coat of CitriStrip.