Too much, too little

Here are some nice pottery that Maezie put together for the front porch. Some spiky stuff and some cabbage looking stuff. All in all the stuff looks pretty good. She even spray painted the pots. I don't want to take away from the hard work by saying stuff, she did a great job and it has been something that I thought about doing for some time. But when you have $50 to spend on building materials, or plants? Well enough said.

I have written about this a long time ago, but here I go again. There is a closet in the kitchen that was used as storage (duh) but was just kind of strange being there. I have postulated that it was originally built as an access to build stairs up to the second floor, if the home owner (a) could afford to have it constructed when the house was commissioned or (b) when the home owners family grew he could add the stairs at a later time. My neighbor told me when she moved into her place 40+ years ago she had the same setup with the exception that she actually had stairs already in place but they ended topside in the unfinished attic. Over the years she and her husband finished it off and made a large bedroom. Simple and nothing extravagant.

Having said all that, We took the time this weekend and set about "finishing" the closet and transitioning it into a full fledged butlers pantry. Don't get me wrong, the room is a closet. 4 ft deep and 3 ft wide, so there is nothing at all fancy or spacious about the tiny room. It will consist of two large bins to hold Sugars food, a shelf above that, then a microwave and coffee pot, then more shelves above that.
You also have to keep in mind that as picture two below shows (looking up), this is the only way to get into the attic. A nice and tight little hole eh?

The box like shelf below is really the only way I could hide the sloping wall beneath and still square the room out. Why does the bottom 2 1/2 ft slope in? Well on the backside of this wall there is the stairs that run down into the basement. On top is where the doggie bins will sit.

Originally, many moons ago, I had made a false panel on the front of the "box" that one could push in and the panel would pop out. why? I dunno, I thought instead of having a dead space underneath, although sloping I could store "stuff" in there. Maybe some liquefied potato's? (inside joke)

Me doing something and looking handy with my tape measure hanging on my pocket.

So having tried to kill myself the last two days to get this room going I am paying the price of ambition tonight. My body is killing me! I feel like I went 5 rounds with Mike Tyson (in his prime). Notice I didn't say 12 rounds? I would be dead, and Mike probably still could whoop some ass even with that crazy tattoo on his face.

Only 6 more weeks and I am leaving for 5 weeks. To little time, to much to do.

I did splurge and bought a HP mini netbook this past Friday. I am still on the fence as to if I really needed this thing or not. I mean, I could have bought a neat power tool or something for the same money. I still have a need for a large planer or sander and then there are those bills.......... But having said all that, it isn't to bad. See my laptop of 5 years is dieing slowly, the hinges on the lid are broke clean through and it is just slow as hell. You can't even watch midget porn on the thing without it chopping the video and heating up so badly one would thing it was going to spontaneous combust. I also thought while I was away on Army training this winter it would be a hell of alot easier to carry a netbook around that a 12 lbs laptop.

I don't know, we will see if I even have time to use it while I am away. http://www.notebooks.com/2009/05/26/hp-mini-110-netbook-introduced/ don't let the pics fool you, it is tiny! the screen is 10" diag and wieghs about 3 lbs? about the size of a notebook or a day planner that people use to carry around. I was going to do the Verizon wireless deal that they have but after I got looking at the numbers of a 2 yr contract? you really need to have a use for that type of service bad. Other than that? You are going to spend about $1200 for a $300 netbook in the long run. They have a 24 hour plan that will give you access for $15 a day as needed.

I'm a slacker

Sorry I just have not kept up with the blog as much as I should. This is not an excuse but just been doing other things and not to much of it has been house related.

Anyway the roof is done, looks good to. I just hope I get more than 10 years out of the damn thing.

So does anyone remember Delta Force with Chuck Norris? Is there anything that guy can't do?

Here is the premise, some Arabs are high jacking an airliner out of Greece. An Arab looking guy with long hair and a beard shows up late for the flight and causes a ruckus (go figure?) two other Arab's that made it aboard are wearing nice suits, white ties, white belts, white shoes, red shirts, and big aviator mirrored sunglasses. Now this was way before profiling was not PC, you think someone would have caught on to this earlier in the movie. There is an airplane full of Jews and these guys are dressed in bad suits, a setup for a really bad movie right?

We have George Kennedy (as a priest) and Shelly Winters (with a chicken leg in her mouth), Lee Marvin and of course Chuck!

So one of the first scenes is the terrorist pulls a pin from a hand grenade with his mouth, he hollers to have the cockpit door opened, the door is thrown open and it hits the guy in the face and knocks the pin out of his mouth! (I can't make this shit up!)

Well I am not going to ruin the rest of the movie for you, but you can just imagine the high kicks and karate chops, Chuck dodging bullets etc.

Back to the house.

I installed the water softener last night, and with every damn plumbing project I always make multiple runs to the home improvement store. First to get the basic parts, then after I take the water filter off I noticed that the O ring some how got distorted and I had to run back and find some replacements. I had water flying everywhere until I figured that little fiasco out.

It has taken a week but I can tell you that it has made a difference in washing clothes, dishes, and clean up around the sinks and tub. The build up is gone or going.

Also, Beth calls me up and she tells me she found another deal at Home Depot, a $1000 GE dishwasher marked down to $265. The old Maytag was still doing its thing but was so full of lime from the hard water it just wasn't really getting the dishes clean. So replaced the dishwasher.

Did some work on the neighbors house yesterday and today. She needed some repainting around some windows. Well as with any of my projects it turned out to be longer than I thought. I just cant do a half-assed job and walk away. Got her windows scraped and primed though. The "it took longer than I thought" is because the windows are on the second story and there is no way to get to them from a ladder easily or from the roof. So I kind of hung out the windows and did what I could and the rest from the ladder, doing a reach thing.

Roof layover

The roofing materials showed up this morning. I wasn't home but the driver did give me a call to let me know he was there. I gave a shout to the roofing guys to let them know everything was waiting in the driveway and they were there banging away when I came home from lunch. The one thing I forgot was the ridge cap. I need to go hunt some down tomorrow and get it over to the house.
From what I saw in the light the roof is looking good. I went with an architectural shingle vice the 3 tab type that are currently on there. The rain started on the way home after work and the roofers were wrapping things up by the time I got home. By the time I finished making diner and cleaning up a bit it was dark and I really couldn't see anything in the waining light and cloud cover.

Been awhile

Been a couple weeks since I posted.
I think last Saturday I started to install the crown around the tops of the kitchen cabinets, I only got two uppers finished. It takes me a long time to visualize the angles out in my head before I make any cuts. I guess I am overly cautious and want to make sure I don't mess up and waste the wood I am cutting. I bought two new saw blades for the chop saw, the hickory is so hard to cut and I could see that only after about 5 cuts the blade was having a hard time getting through the wood. I think there are about a dozen more cuts to do then I should have the crown finished.

Today, I caulked and painted the six windows on the backside of the house. Two are the original and the other four were put in about eight years ago. The original windows I caulked shut. There was quite a bit of air coming through and around the frames this past winter. I just figured until I can get them replaced, and I don't open them, I thought I might as well just seal them as best as I can.
The other four, are about 8 years old but the wood surrounding them is still the original wood, and in bad shape along with the caulk it was separating pretty good causing a few good sized gaps between the window and the wood frame. I used Behr exterior paint. A bit more expensive but I think it is worth the money.
I have to say that it went on really well and soaked in pretty good. Guess that is an indication of the old paint being just beat to death by the west sun and weather. I also used colored caulk (brown) to help blend in better. The rest of the house had all the windows replaced about six years ago and the company that did them wrapped all the exterior wood in aluminium. So those don't need any repainting. They still need some touch up with caulk to fill in the gaps that are drying out. I want to get as much done on the exterior before I have to leave for training this fall and get the house sealed. Don't need any worries about heating the outside again this winter.

About three weeks ago I had the roof leak in the valley above the front door. I called a guy to come look and see if he could patch things up to get me by for a while longer. Well it rained again two weekends ago and I still had leaking, this time in another room. The front room has a basketball sized bulge in the ceiling and now the front porch hallway has some bulging going on now. I planned on replacing the front room ceiling but did not want to do the hallway. Fucking sucks. Now I am looking at a roof replacement.
The insurance company was of no help and only offered to patch the roof and patch the ceiling. Just what I need, another freakin patch job by some hack that only State Farm approves of. Maybe it is my agent but they have fallen into the "they suck" basket as far as I am concerned. I will be parting ways with them soon.
The last week I have had three guys come look at the roof and give me quotes. The fourth never showed up. One isn't bad on price, the second wants to do a total tear off and replacement, and the third I had to do some price bickering to get him to come down a bit. It is still going to cost over $6000 and that is just a layover and not a tear off. The high side bid was over $10000, way out of my range.
Wednesday I stumbled into Home Depot and caught a sale on 30 year shingles, but the sale ended that night. I ran across the street to Menards and their cheapest shingle was still more expensive per bundle than the ones HD had. So I plunked down $2300 that night, and another $400 or so for the rest of the stuff, nails, starter strip, flashing, etc. Really sucks! I was hoping to get another 10 years out of the roof.
When the last roof guy was topside, he said he saw where who ever last put the roof on that they had cut other shingles on top of what was already laid down and sliced right through the flashing and shingles creating a pretty good sized gap for water to seap in. This last rain also showed another leak around the chimney where the flashing has failed prematurely from improper installation.
The neighbor did warn me that some gin heads and druggies did the last roof install. They also tore out all the copper flashing for good measure in case a normal person would want the rain to stay outside vice coming through. The guys are suppose to start Monday on the layover, so I am hoping that everything gets sealed up before the next rain, which is suppose to be Monday!
To take some frustration out over this past weeks roof "event" I moved 10 wheelbarrows of white marble rock across the street to my neighbors house. I had a ton of it around the house from the PO and this was the last of it and by far the biggest area to be removed. A few months ago I saw him and his wife outside pulling all their rock up, cleaning it, putting down a weed barrier and replacing what they had. I watched this for a weekend and thought I would go ask if they were going to buy more to add to their "pile". George and Brenda are nice people, I offered my white marble up and would even haul it over if they would take it. Deal struck! So all in all they got about 15 loads from me.
It saves me from having to pay someone to haul it away and they can finish their landscaping. How cool is that?! Now I need to work a deal out with someone to pull the lilac stumps out. Any takers?
Wish I took a picture of their front sidewalk, 10 loads of rock sitting in front of the house. That's where they wanted it!
Sunday? I need to tear a wall out in the basement and get it into the pile in the garage. I found a guy to haul all my debris away this coming week and he said to get all I could before he comes again.

Counter Tops

Finally had the counter tops delivered and installed today. They turned out pretty good.
All I have is a camera phone and the images are pretty shitty, sorry about that. I went through a local guy that is actually part of a franchise called Kitchen Solvers. Marty did a great job and was in and out in about 1 1/2 hours. I can't say that they (Kitchen Solvers) are the cheapest, actually he came in on the high end but I didnt have to deal with cutting a hole for the sink, or mess with the out of square corners on the walls. So, for me, it was worth the few extra dollars to have someone else make the mistakes. I did check Home Depot, and Menards on pricing and like I said Menards came in way below, but just didn't give a shit about after the sale service. Buy it or "what ever".




This is a shot of the plumbing after I got the sink reinstalled. The next pic is just a shot of the cabinet that might be sitting to high and not allow the crown to fit properly. I don't know yet will have to see how things pan out this weekend when I put it all together.

Sugar doing what she does best.

Found some pics on my phone that I took Fathers Day weekend after a storm blew through. Although the pictures don't do justice to the way the colors were just jumping out of the clouds. It was about 8 pm when I took these out on a farm north of where I live. Man it was quiet out there.

The first thought that struck me was in the winter the wind and snow must blow through here with a vengence. But it was quiet.

Here are a few shots of my nephew stuffing his face the weekend that my sister came back for a visit. He was getting ready to cry cause mom left the room.

Picture update

Not much really done this week but just wanted to update with some pictures. I called around, and around and all I heard was the same story, 2-4 weeks for counter tops (have I written about this? Sorry to be redundant) So instead of doing a cookie cutter counter top and trying to cut things myself I went with a guy that does counters for a living and decided to let him do the hard cuts, because all the walls are no where near square. And I really did not want to attempt to cut the hole for the sink.

I did get the stove in last night and working.

And I bought a piece of 3/4 plywood for temporary counter tops, cut a hole and placed the sink and faucets in. It is nice to have a sink again. Now I don't have to wash things in the bathroom sink anymore.

Just a shot of the cabinets before they went in.

Color Pallet

I took a vacation day Friday and had me a four day weekend. And promptly spent the entire weekend in doors and enjoying the nice weather from inside. It was kind of nice setting up the tools outside in the driveway. Saved allot of running up and down those basement steps. I finally finished the nook walls and ceiling. Here are a couple of shots of the breakfast nook ceiling.

Mazie spent her entire weekend helping ME! instead of working on her house. She has been allot of help this weekend and a real trooper. I finished the ceiling late Friday night. We got a call late from Home Depot saying they didn't have the tile I bought the night previously. So we cleaned up and headed down to Bloomington to take a look at the Home Depot down there for tile (it is a bigger store that what we have here) and also stopped at Lowe's. I had decided the night before to skip the floating vinyl floor and go back to the ceramic tile.

Found a cool tile at Lowe's, they had enough for the kitchen and we loaded up and headed home.

Sunday, I spent most of the day caulking the joints on the nook ceiling and cut a few pieces that I left hanging the night before. Mazie told me to call it a day around 3 and some friends came over and we had a cook out, drank a few beers and promptly crashed in the bed at 9:30.

Today, Mazie did a ton of painting while I tackled the tiling of the kitchen floor. I almost got the floor finished but my body just gave out on me and had to call it quits. Again Mazie did all the painting and cheered me on through out the day.

Now I know you are asking where was Sugar all weekend? Well she was at Grand Ma's and spent most of the rest of the weekend hiding in the bedroom, keeping the bed warm, and staying out of the kitchen fray.

Still allot of work to do, and two weeks until the cabinets are delivered. The biggest thing is I won't have cabinets sitting in the living room when they do get delivered. But Sears keeps calling me to come and pick up my stove that has been sitting at the store for 3 weeks.

The Kitchen Marathon

Maezie and I did a marathon on the kitchen this weekend starting Friday night after work and ending tonight. Friday we worked until 2 AM and got up early Saturday and worked all day again until 10. Got some sleep went to church, back at it again until dinner. Exhausted is the only adjective that comes to mind right now. I did get all the laundry done, and mow the yard today also. Maezie is a trooper and I really, really, really appreciate all the help, But if she thinks she is going to use MY kitchen she has another thing coming. Ok maybe she can use the kichen a little bit.
Here are a few pics from Saturday. Pic 3 is just blue board (green board) on the wall where the stove is going to be installed with glass tile on the wall up to the ceiling.


Below is one of THE best tools that I have ever used when it comes to doing fine trimming. There were a few (actually more than a few) places that I needed to do some fine cuts on the trim work. It beats working upside down, on a ceiling trying to make fine cuts with a box saw.
This little do-dad rotates 3 degrees side to side and has a speed control on the handle. It literally cuts wood like butter. It also does sanding and acts like a chisel, but I haven't tried those attachments yet. Saved alto of time, I mean alot of time and headaches.

Pic 1 is some of the trim cutting that I had to do. Although the picture does not do justice, the first coat of the Ruskin Room Green went on today.

A shot of the tile with the wall paint. And finally just a few shots of the rest of the room.

That's all I have for this evening, just to tired to really put sentences together.

The Picture

I added a new picture to the right side of the page and above for your viewing pleasure. You can double click on the image to get a better and bigger view.

This was given to me for my birthday and is a collage of The 454 House. This collage is by far the most meaningful gift I have ever received in my lifetime. Truly an amazing image and unsolicited. I was totally taken back when my Home Depot insider gave it to me the other night.

I hung the picture above the mantle and it will make a permanent part of my home. Very, very, very cool. I was also given a large Frank Loyd Write book with tons of pictures, a short timeline of his life and history of homes and buildings he designed and built for clients. An amazing person.

But the picture is still tops on my book!

Sunday

Fastened trim and caulked most of the kitchen ceiling today. Oh I did do loads of laundry in between and did some cleaning. This place is a pigsty from all the dust floating around and Sugar has been adding to the ghost turds by starting to shed the rest of her winter fur coat.

Here is a picture of the picture of the center light piece that I am fabricating for the kitchen ceiling.


The next picture is of the "cleat" that I fastened to the ceiling. I still need to get some lolly bolts or butterfly bolts into the 4 corners to help hold the entire contraption up, I predrilled holes into the 4 corners before running a couple of drywall screws to temporarily hold things up . I thought of prefabricating (we will just call it the box from now on) the box downstairs (in the basement)but after thinking about it for a few seconds the thought of then trying to lift and hold it all to the ceiling while simultaneously attempting to fasten everything upside down and over my head, a big NO WAY! crossed my mind (actually I had a few choice words that a Sailor uses in almost every sentence used in daily conversation).

The next image is of the pieces I have laid out and and have dry fit together, I still need to cut a few more chunks of wood and trim to get it all together first, and then hump it all upstairs for a final install.

I cut groves on the inside of the side pieces so I can slide 1/4" plywood into the center. once that is in place, I will fasten some trim to make it look purdy. The box is basically 60" x 16" and sectioned off like the picture above with 3 pendant lights hanging down. So a 1 foot square on each end and a 3 foot rectangle in the center. Make sense?