Most people know how to do these things...

... we are not most people.

I will freely and without shame (okay, maybe a tiny bit) admit that I am intimidated by things I've never done before. The anxiety is not usually restrictive, but it does occasionally mean it takes me longer to get around to doing something than normal. I'm one of those people that needs to eye it from the corner and summon a little sisu before proceeding.

Oddly enough (and do feel free to laugh) this applied to changing out our home's air filter. As first time homeowners, there are a lot of new things to try. There are plenty of DIY home projects I've done before, thanks to my parents letting me help out, but changing out an air filter wasn't on that list. And now that I've done it, I see how easy it is! Like, I'm thinking our cats should do it next time, easy. And that would be a fair task considering how much of their fur ends up in those filters!

So, for any corner-dwellers like me, here's the process:

Here's our downstairs one:

 

A close up:

 

 

Take a flat head (for ours) screwdriver and turn.

Ours is held in place by a latch that only requires a half turn to unlock. (The electric screwdriver was all that I had handy but it wasn't at all necessary)

 

There were hinges on the bottom so the whole thing just swings down, revealing the furry mess:

 

 

And side by side with a new one:

 

Ew.

 

So that's it! Replace the furry with the clean, swing up the cover and retighten the screw. Easy peasy nice and cheesy. I love a straight-forward project!

Our upstairs is much like the down, but the filter is in the attic, thus making the pictures a lot less blog-worthy.

An action packed post, huh? Oh the drama! The suspense!! Har. More fun coming your way this week!