With all things considered, the op may do well with a shiny new penny. As far as steering repair on these, I always recommend installing a new sector kit. 167903 is the pre-built sector. Off the deck comes, the drag link end, the steering wheel and adapter, the fuel tank gets moved aside- plus4 bolts and the sector finds its way out. The part is ~ 80$. The drag link itself should be inspected and replaced if the joints are sloppy and may pull apart, Of course, that adds ~ 50$ to the bill.You will want to know too that the upper steering bushing has its mounting screws in place yet . The crosslink that runs between the two axle spindles can bend and create a poor steering response too, so have a look at that to ensure it is straight. While you can pull the sector and replace the plastic support for $10. I never do as it seems that the rest also has enough wear once problems develop- that skipping can still occur or it will come back soon enough to bite you.

A simple truth is that your yard could go from mediocre to almost spectacular based on one single change and that is to improve the maintenance of the grass such that it is uniformly green and weed free. If it's a grass that goes blond when dormant, then it should be free of green weeds in the winter. You'll have to forgive my corner-cutting in drawing. I drew a single tree and cut and pasted it everywhere. I'm not suggesting that you should use that tree form everywhere. Just trying to save drawing time. The point I'm making for the overall yard is that the house looks overly exposed -- like a raisin in the sun. It needs the framing and sheltered look that some trees would give. Probably in the foreground of the lawn, single trunk trees, with canopies ultimately raised quite high, would look good ... with smaller multi-trunk trees being closer to the house. Currently your house is smothered all around with shrub balls at its base. Instead of all the smothering, only four shrubs that correspond to four porch columns would be enough. I'm flanking the steps with "color," which could be annual or perennial depending on the details of your needs. Between the shrubs and "color" is a low groundcover that fills in the gaps. At each end of the house the bed is filled with perennials of a height that works with the house and the grade. The ends do not need to match each other. (Daylilies and Siberian iris come to mind if either of those would suit your liking.) In the second picture I'm suggesting that the walk experience would seem much friendlier if there wasn't shrubbery pinching edges of the walk. It would be better set back away from the walk. For the size of house and yard, the walk looks very skinny, which makes it less inviting. You could easily change this my mortaring an 8" brick band along each side, flush with the walk surface. This would add 16" width and an upgraded, decorative edge to the walk. (I'm not illustrating this.)

They did "have" vinyl flooring in the 40's but it wouldn't have been in any ordinary home. When vinyl flooring first was for popular use, it was a very thin sheet of vinyl over a felt backing. Our first home bought new in 1958, built for spec, had that kind of floor in the kitchen. We soon replaced it with Tessera Corlon a vinyl Armstrong product that was 3/16 of an inch of solid vinyl. If you gouged it, you could sand out the mark and polish with fine steel wool and it wouldn't show....at least that's what they advertised. We sold the house 9 years after putting in that floor and it was not even close to showing wear. The OP's floor isn't worn out.....just discolored and dirty.....and dated! Rip it out!!

Hi, all! My own garden is winding down, as I'll be moving the old roses to the cemetery when places for them become available. My landlord had to have work done in the front "yards" of my house and next door -- we're on the same lot, both owned by him -- and that meant ripping everything out from there. Roses went to the cemetery in Autumn, and I've been waiting for him to replace the sidewalk before putting things back together there, but then all the COVID-19 stuff happened, so it's just sitting there looking barren. The back needs attention and simplification, because spending so much time and energy on three gardens is wearing me down. Again, because of the COVID-19 stuff going on, I haven't been able to get it mulched, and it's not "picture-worthy" at the moment. Eventually, as the last of the roses move to the cemetery, I'll be making it a simpler garden, probably filling the gaps left by the roses with edible things. Since I'd like to move in the next couple of years, I want to leave nothing behind that I can't easily replace, and also leave it simpler for the landlord to maintain. The cemetery is moving along slowly now, being as I changed jobs and don't have overlapping time there with Mark, who would drop wood chips for me to spread in the garden areas. When I was starting this, I had off on Mondays and Tuesdays, so we were better able to coordinate things. But this will be changing, since Ellie has asked if I'd be interested in working there part-time, and leaving my one-day-a-week restaurant job. This would mean that I'd be listed on the cemetery's employee insurance, and that would allow me to use some of the equipment to get things done when I'm there on the weekends, while Mark is off. Once the paperwork and finances are finalized -- again, delayed because of COVID-19 concerns -- I'll be able to do things like use the Kubota cart to move mulch myself, or use the pick-up truck for moving other things. Over Winter, I ordered many, many packets of seed for date-appropriate perennials and self-seeding annuals, but, again, COVID-19 has delayed me getting that started. It's not for lack of time -- it's more because I'm leery of venturing into stores, but I found someplace nearby that carries the seed-starting mix I want, and allows for requesting and paying for it over the phone and drop-off at my car in the parking lot. I will be doing that tomorrow. In the meantime, bulbs planted last Autumn have been blooming in the beds I made in 2018 -- if you're on Facebook, I posted pictures in the album for the cemetery, and took some videos which seem to all go into the same "videos" album regardless of subject. I haven't uploaded them to the cemetery thread on the "other forum" -- maybe I should get that done this week. Last year I started working at a public park, taking care of the rose garden there. That's my "work garden" -- 1 acre fenced, in a formal layout, with HTs, Floribundas, and Grandifloras in central beds, and various species, OGRs, and shrubs in the outer beds. One of my tasks at the end of 2019 was updating and reorganizing the garden's inventory, which is linked as a PDF on the rose garden page. I also put everything onto the HelpMeFind listing for the garden as well. If you look carefully, there are a handful of discrepancies -- the PDF file contains everything actually there, whereas the HelpMeFind listing reflects a few things that will be replaced, and a few new things that were ordered for this year. Since the latter is easier to update, I use that as a reference for the annual update of the PDF on the park page. Working at the park has been a joy, even if also a bit exhausting. There are about 3,000 roses in there, and because my position wasn't filled for a couple of years, some big old species, OGRs, and shrubs in "the back forty" were in need of some work. They looked fine from the public's perspective along the paths, but when I'd get up close and personal with them, I saw things I wanted to clean up. My boss is amazing, and she had my job before me, but after being promoted to supervisor, she simply wasn't able to be in there as much as before. She did a great job of keeping it beautiful, but one has to prioritize when one isn't able to spend eight hours a day in there because there's so much else that needs to be done as supervisor for the team. And so now that there's one person dedicated to the garden again, those lower-on-the-list things have been getting checked off, bit by bit. I'm actually rather proud of several areas in there which I've attacked, but unfortunately COVID-19 has come into play again -- the park was closed to the public as of last weekend, and the annual Rose Day Festival for June was cancelled, along with all other programs. On the one hand, this means that I have more time to focus on the picky stuff that might otherwise be lower on the list because I have to do things like keeping the paths clear after a storm, planting and tending to the annuals that won't be coming now because the park commission lost revenue from the closed golf courses and cancelled programs, or other considerations I'd have when I know people will be walking through the garden every day. But on the other hand, it means that what I get done won't get seen by the public for the big first flush, since it's possible the garden will stay closed until well after that. Right now at my "work garden", the first of the early roses have buds that will probably start opening when I return on Monday -- things like the Spinosissimas and 'Canary Bird'. All the bedding roses have been pruned, thanks to the rest of my team and our one dedicated volunteer helping me out. I, of course, still want to be my fussy self and touch things up as I have time, but in terms of being "ready", the garden is there. Since I finally updated my cell phone, I'm once again able to take pictures regularly -- and they're much better quality now. I'll make another album of my "work garden" on Facebook and post them there. Posting pictures here has still been a bit of a headache for me. Sorry to hijack the thread with this post, but I just wanted to answer what was asked about me. :-) ~Christopher