DIYers: Taking Pride in ‘Doing It Yourself’ Household Projects

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Last Updated on December 1, 2023 by The Smetz Files

When our washing machine broke, the fix was in our hands

It’s the simple things, the day to day routines that end up being a big deal. And when those little things fall out of balance, suddenly it can feel overwhelming and annoying. If you’re like me, laundry is one of those daily things that are essential to keeping us functioning. Before we left for vacation our washing machine was making a strange noise and it just wasn’t getting the clothes as clean. Beyond frustrated I decided to worry about it once we returned and blissfully avoided thinking about it the 10 days we were away. Buuuut, you know what’s waiting for you when you return from a trip???

LAUNDRY!

It was a hectic week after vacation, so we decided to run by the Lowe’s outlet store Friday after work. My brother had recently recommended it because they were looking for a new dryer (is everyone having appliance issues?!). He was right, they had a million options if you could overlook tiny dents or scratches and didn’t care if your machines matched. While we were meandering through the endless appliances, we couldn’t find a good fit and we decided we would buy a new one and call it a day. Technically ours still worked, so we debated selling on the marketplace, just having it hauled away, etc…I hate when these ‘simple’ things turn into a lot of mental energy.

YouTube saves the day

In search of the path of least resistance, on the way home, I convinced Jay that I would search YouTube to see if we could fix it ourselves. To be fair I am NOT the handy one in our family, but Jay is (he took our current home from condemnable to custom in six months). So, if there’s a YouTube video or some online tutorial, he is pretty smart and industrious and I was confident we could troubleshoot our issue if we determined it was minor. Even if it didn’t work, we had nothing to lose, we’d already decided to buy a new one if we got in a jam. After a few quick clicks, I was confident I had diagnosed our washing machine issue and we were going to fix it!

So, Saturday morning, with the ipad in hand we went to the laundry room and carefully followed the appliance repair man’s suggestion to diagnose our problem using our washer’s repair codes. These are super handy and now that I know they exist we can start there in the future. We watched his 11 minute tutorial in full and realized he was fixing the exact problem we had. We needed to replace our washer plate because the agitator had been stripped. Once we had our washer plate removed we found the culprit…a penny was stuck and was preventing the agitator from spinning as designed.

Just like in the repair video! We quickly ordered the replacement piece online and within 24 hours it was delivered (thank you, Amazon!). Jay popped in the new washer plate after G’s practice and voila…we are back in business! Laundry all day everyday! 

Quick fix

We are both pretty smart people and we felt accomplished to have fixed our washing machine for less than $50. Last week we were sailing the high seas, not a care in the world. This week we conquered the world (or at least felt like it!) when we fixed a major household appliance. It’s all about balance! When have you avoided a task that felt dreadful and uninspiring? Was it a success?

Read more of my simple musings of a small town mom!