The day after the rain came

Here are two images of the closet door for the bedroom. Nothing really to talk about. The hinges and door hardware shinned up really nice with the brasso after using the Zinsser stripper.



Below is the closet off the kitchen. It originally had five shelves going up the back wall and was kind of boring. To get my mind off the pipe breakage I thought that this would be a cool Butlers Pantry. So using some left over wood, I framed up the bottom portion of the closet. Underneath the "box" is really a 45 degree slant, starting high on the back wall and sloping towards the front if you are standing in the doorway looking in. Beneath and behind the wall and floor are the stairs that go down to the basement. By putting the box in there I am really hiding the slope and actually gaining some space.
The top is 3/4 ply, and the front is a piece of bead board left over from the front porch project. The bead board piece will flip down on a hinge, just cause I can and to add a small bit of storage space for paper towels etc. My intent is to have a small refrigerator on the right side. That will give me about 19" to have either a small cupboard on the left or a small row of drawers, or small shelves with hanging baskets that can pull out. I can take the wood from the shelving and frame in the fridge and put a decent counter top for a small workspace. Then to carry on I will add some cabinets or open shelves above it all for storage. Ambitious, maybe but I think with the extra wood I have laying around it will only cost time.



Well with the rapid thaw of 6" of snow and ice, then some heavy rain yesterday the basement started leaking. So off to Home Dep-oh again to find some hydraulic cement to stuff into the cracks. I spent another $13 but didn't get the water to stop totally. I did stem the largest flows but it is still weeping and I will have to wait until the water slows a little bit more.

Has anyone been appliance shopping lately? my gawd what a rip off! I have been to every home improvement store, appliance store and outlet store in the area and just cannot believe what they are asking for prices. When I find something decent, I come home and check ConsumersReport.com only to find CR recommends the product but the comments left by people leave something to be desired. I am having a real hard time forking out a $1000+ for a fridge and then have it take a crap on me, only to dump another $300 for a compressor.
Washer and dryers? another scam. I am needing stackable units to fit into closet off the bathroom. Again the prices are crazy. GE and Kenmore Elite series are just crazy $1200 + per unit. For those occasonal drinkers, that is over 2400 beers! How is that for putting it into context?
Cooktops, again crazy and it doesn't matter if it is gas or electric. Ovens and stoves, a cursory look again is a $1000 plus. I can see how the average kitchen remodel runs $25k plus if your not careful.
Cabinets, haven't really looked into them to much but I am definitely going with the RTA (Ready To Assemble)versions already. I worked in a cabinet shop for a short time and from what I have seen that passes for quality is not quality just because you put a stamp on the front. I have a hard time seening people pay big dollars for cabinets and then throw marble tops onto presswood frames with plastic corner braces and drawer runners.

So that is my rant for today, I am sure I will find some more later on in the week.

Oh the last picture is of Sugar after her spa treatment. She was getting a good rubdown from Grandma cause she thought the "shug" was still to wet.
Sometimes I wonder who is the dogs owner.

Princess Sugar wrapped in swaddling clothes

Divert all power and compansate?

So I am watching this Star Trek movie and is amazes me for the 24th century that the handheld phaser rifles they use are are the most inaccurate weapons ever developed. You would think that they would have some sort of built in tracking mechanism, but that wouldn't make for a good movie then.
So what does that have to do with home improvement? not much really. But I got a busrt of energy late last night and FINALLY got the bedroom door rehung! Whoo Hoo! Now being the only person that lives here, I don't have and real reason to shut the door, but it is still a neat milestone to reach. So I guess I did divert all power and compensate and I did get it done.

Found two gallon cans that were half empty and they are a kind of a celery green color that was used by a PO in the second bedroom, so I mixed them together and decided that I would try and paint the front sun porch with what I concocted. At first it kind of looked a bit to pale of a green and then went into it's darken stage.
I was kind of worried that it was gonna get real dark and defeat the purpose of being a "sunny" room. Actually the paint turned out ok . If I get some Boston ferns in there (being a north facing set of windows) they should do nicely and add something to the room. I really am holding off on the trim, it just kills me knowing underneath the white paint is some really nice poplar wood under there screaming to be let out, although a nice bright glossy white trim would really set the room off. The other train of thought, is that with the light color would the natural trim look ok? being so dark? I also was thinking of adding some beadboard and maybe that would help tie it all together and lessen the impact of knowing there is some cool wood under there.

Post pigout day

Here are two pics of the door hardware. The first is the before and the second is the after. I think they turned out pretty good, I used brasso and some scraping to get the last of the paint out of the cravases.

I mostly worked on the backdoor again today, I added more weather striping and a threshold gasket. There was a half inch gap between the door and the threshold and the door seep that I bought broke after two days.

Up to my ass in goose shit again!?

Sure does look like goose shit, don't it? This is what the paint looks like after I scrap it off the wood. It really looks like a goose visited the basement and left a calling card.

The door; this damn thing has kicked my butt for 3 weeks.

This is a stained only picure. I did get the first coat of poly on the door today and cleaned the hinges up a bit by just letting them sit in the same stripper that I use on the wood. They cleaned up pretty good but I need to get some brasso to give the brass a good polish. I started looking at the windows in the basement today, just anotherproject to add to the list. None of the windows close properly and you can feel the wind coming in around the sashes. So I just calked all the windows shut, covered the panes that were broke or in one case there was one pane that was to small for the frame, why even put a piece of glass in the hole in the first place if it isn't gonna fill the void all the way? So I bitched a bit and filled the holes. Thats it for the weekend.