Ear ache

Ok, so here is the deal. My ear hurts and I can't hear a damn thing. Is this house related? of sorts. My sisters dad (we are a nuclear family, ok?) well he is 86, Bronze Star awarded for battle, and was involved in 3 major battles in Europe, Battle of The Bulge, The Rhur River Valley and a third, that eludes me. Something french and in a valley.

His house burnt down a few weeks back and he was left with nothing but what he was wearing that afternoon. So my sister came home from Texas to help get him squared away this weekend. So I drive north about an hour from my home and forgot my damn stocking hat, a balmy 7 degrees out all day and I was moving stuff from house to car, to house again. I have had this shivering thing going on for about 4 weeks now, where no matter how many layers of clothes I have on I still cannot get warm (maybe it is that 40 lbs weight loss I endured the last 4 mos?) I sit at work with long johns, and four long sleeve T-shirts and a coat! I work in doors in a cubicle in front of a computer all day. If I have to go into the data center the cold hurts.

So we got everything moved and settled in and my ear hurts. One for the team.

I think I found the craftsman that worked on this craftsman where drunk the day they roughed out this door. They used multiple pieces of 2x4's to finish out the frame (see above).

Now for the bummer part of the blog, but as the title says "an old house rehabbing me" I have been going through a breakup with "my girl" for the past few months, absolutely beautiful person, and I have nothing bad to say and she is still the love of my life. So having said that.......I want to thank Beth my sister, Greg my brother and Bethany from work for listening to me sob and cry the past few weeks. This has been a very difficult time and I think the future is going to be ok. I can see the sun again (I just wish it was warmer) and with the help of my counselor and the love I have been shown by my friends and family I want to thank all. And for Kim, I love you always, don't ever forget that.

Kim brought out a passion in me after we met and I haven't been able to stop since, that is writing. I never sat down and wrote anything that was legible let alone made any sense. Most would still find the way I write pretty amateurish anyway but it helps get the cobwebs out of my head and think things through as to what the next step will be.

There is a good book that I was given called Rebuilding by Bruce Fisher and Robert Alberti, even if you are not having relationship difficulties it is worth the $17 just for the education of relationship building. And as I am writing this, Caddy Shack is just ending and Kenny Loggins is singing, " I'm alright" very fitting!

Bummer part over.

Have a good night all!

I see the light

There is a metaphor there that is for Beth at work. Thanks Beth, thanks for the help and I will continue to bend your ear.

But there is another reason for seeing the light, and it is not coming from the drawer.


I have been secretly buying the CFL bulbs as I see a good price on them at the store. Why secretly? I don't want to be ostracized by the evil, dirty burning coal industry. But Home Depot has been having a regular running deal on the Dairy Queen looking bulbs for a few weeks now. four bulbs for $4 dollars. So I have replaced all but a few of the in the house entirely with the DQ bulbs. Now I am waiting to cash in on all the savings in electricity that I the "industry" says I will save. I am sure the check is in the mail somewhere. The only bummer is it takes a few moments for the lights to warm up and put out their full lumen's.


Took out the other door frame today. I was vacuuming up the debris and I found a old rusty fish hook that came from the top of the frame, it was stuck on the end of the vacuum tip and it hooked my finger a bit when I went to take it off. No blood. But what the hell would a fish hook be on the top of a door frame for? I mean someone had to put it there between the top of the door casement and the rough door frame.

Oh my sander took a crap and I bought a cheapo Tool Shop brand from Menards, and wow! that thing really does the job for $21! I also decided to buy better sand paper than the cheap stuff I usally purchase

Bummer

Not house related, but home related. Sugar had a seizure Saturday night, actually Sunday morning. So the weekend was kind of a bummer. Poor girl. She is such a good dog and to see her go through something like that really sucks, totally broke my heart. I laid with her on the floor a while and then about 2:30 in the morning I took her into the bedroom and let her sleep with me on the bed the rest of the night. Very strange, we had a pretty laid back day so there wasn't anything stress full that I exposed her to. She was just laying there, I was talking to her and bam! she had a look of total panic and a "dad please help me!" then she got the shakes and went rigid. So I am wondering if she hasn't had more during the past nights, because she really hasn't been eating to much. I don't leave her alone and take her to "grand ma's" while I am at work or go someplace where I just can't take her. Other than that she is always with someone and watched except at night when she sleeps in front of the fireplace. I guess a trip to the the vet is due, maybe we can get her on some medication.

Just an update for those rabid followers of mine. It looks like I got the leaks stopped in the basement foundation. The cold weather helped with stemming the flow. So if there is a good reason for below zero weather, stopping the leaks is good reason. Now I am bracing for the gas bill.

Comments, for whatever reason. I do have comments turned on for this blog but they just don't seem to be working. I am thinking it is the template I am using. Not being very patient when it comes to software applications and being more of a hardware guy, I have to take trying to fix the comments in doses. At the top right of the page is my profile information and if you begin to feel warm, tingly, and the overwhelming urge to email me you can. Be nice though, I am sensitive. (hehehe)

Plan, plan, plan

Plan3D, I have been using this program for about a month now and so far have been happy with it. One thing about the program is use subscribe to the program vice buying the software outright. Really for $36 a year, Ifind it fits my budget. You can layout anything that has to do with a house, kitchens, baths, any room. And I think you cn not only layout an entire house, and the yard to. Don't hold me to the yard thing, I haven't dove into the program to deep.


A few years back I worked in a cabinet shop for a few months (until I got laid off on Christmas Eve, but that is a whole nether story) I used to do layouts for the kitchens themselves and the layout for the cabinet boxes to be cut on a 3 axis router. I HATE CAD programs. But I have found Plan3D pretty straight forward and easy to use. http://www.plan3d.com/ for the life of me I cannot remember what the program was called that we did the actual kitchen layouts with. But Multicam was my nemeses for the router cutting.

Here is a view of my kitchen and one layout I am toying with.

Playing in cement

I took a drive down to my nearest Lowes, an hour away. I had to get out of the house and wanted to see what they had in the store, I wish I had about $10,000 and a truck. Of course if I spent that much money, I would hope that they deliver for free. They had about 3 times the selcetion of my local Menards and Home Depot combined. The appliance section was really neat.
I slathered more hydraulic cement on the walls in the basement this morning since the ground is good and frozen and the water was not flowing. Bam! slapped that stuff right on there and got that flowing water stopped good! But being as though I have taken the role of the little dutch boy, I am sure there will be other palces that the water will push through.
Really for a 100 yr old house there isn't much leakage.
After purusing Lowes today, I got some good ideas for the laundry room. Now it will go on the "list". Christopher over at http://shakerheights.blogspot.com/ talks about his 5, 10, 20 and 40 year plan for his house. I think the laundry room will go on my 40 yr plan unless I win the lotto. But wait, you have to buy a ticket in order to win. So doing the quick math, in 40 yrs, I will be 83 with with a cool laundry room.

How you know its cold outside

Why? it is -34 degrees outside and 70 degrees in the house. That is 104 degrees difference. It physically hurts to go outside. How do those intrepid folks in North Dakota do it every year?

Question for all my droogies:
How do you know your in an old house?

You furnace cycles every 5 mins to keep the place a nice balmy 65 .
You can feel half of next months paycheck go up the chimney.
You know your paycheck is gone and you haven't earned it yet.
The dog looks at you like your crazy when you tell her to go out and pee.
The basement windows are frozen over - on the inside.
When you turn on the faucet to brush your teeth, the water is so cold the fillings in your head feel like they are driving themselves through your jaw.
As you walk from one room the next, your heavily socked feet can still feel the temperature difference.
The old knob and post wiring worries you so much about the amperage draw that you won't plug in an electric blanket for your bed to warm it up.
The closet floor in your bedroom is as cold as it is outside. ( You think I am kidding? I have dirty clothes piled against the door to keep the draft out.)
Thats is for tonight. Stay warm.

Didn't do anything on the house tonight, I just logged on to bitch about the weather.

My first!!!

Well I have my first official follower!!! Thanks Christopher! I can't wait to dive into your blog and read about your trials and tribulations on this thing we call restoration, or insanity. Here is is blog site http://shakerheights.blogspot.com/

I am watching one of my favorite movies this afternoon, the Hunt For Red October. I remember reading the book when I was in the Navy. I spent 10 years hunting Soviet submarines sitting in the back of a P-3 Orion aircraft (about 3200 hours worth) playing chess with Soviet submariners and honestly we kicked their asses all over the Pacific ocean from the time they left the motherland until they went home for good and the wall came down. I miss my crews I flew with, but not the bullshit we had to do when we weren't flying. Oh well, again from the heart and to the guys that are still on station and never came home for a post flight and a debriefing it was an honor to serve with you and you are the ones who made the ultimate sacrifice doing what you did best and loved. Sorry for being sentimental and mushy.

Ok! onto the house.I reinstalled the door jamb and baseboards this afternoon. The following 3 pictures are of the process and final install. I had a hell of a time nailing the door jamb back up. The nails kept hitting "something" and bending over. I screwed the pooch on a few of the nails and messed the wood up...some. Maybe when I get a door installed they (the nails)won't be noticeable.


The last picture is of the room in the basement that I am going to make into the laundry room.



I was going to (one day) get some stackable washers and put them in a closet off the bathroom, but have since decided that I am going to take the closet out and add that extra 4' to the bathroom and open it up a bit. The gain is in the interior (with-in the confines of the existing walls) length of the room vice width. I dunno, I will probably change my mind again in a few weeks.

Staging

I staged the door jambs and baseboards just to get a feel for what the boards and wall colors are going to look like together. Sorry for the dark pictures, no matter how many lights I turn on it just still looks dark no matter how I adjust the phone camera .




















Pretty different from the painted pony that was there originally.

More is the word for Monday

More snow, only 3 inches at my place but it dumped in about 3 1/2 hours. There was a few times I played gopher at work (popped my head up from the cubical) and looked outside only to see white out conditions. Below is the final coat of the door jamb I took out between the kitchen and living room. the "white" stuff on the boards is the wet poly that I put on just before I took the picture.

After work tomorrow I will put the door jamb and trim back on the walls and start on the next one. Yeah!?

The bank had an appraiser come over today. Being a smallish city, the appraiser told me this was the third or fourth time he had been in this house over the years (and most of the houses on the street for that matter) so my walk through was all of 15 mins. He already had a floor plan and the past appraisals in his folder. The short time I talked to him he told me what the past appraisal numbers came out as, and also the story of "Rhonda" and how she trashed the place. I guess it took him months to get into the place and only after the bank foreclosed. I am going to venture a guess that the value of this house has plateaued and it will be after I am long gone that it will move up in any value, significantly.

For the hundreds of my rabid readers and followers of my blog, I am not certain if I told the story of "Rhonda" and how this old house turned into the corner drug store for a number of years. So the stories go, it was so bad that the rest of the street was getting afraid to come outside for fear of a drive by. I would be willing to bet there is a bit of midwestern exaggeration in all the stories told. The neighbors have also told me, this place had quite allot of foot traffic at all hours of the day and night. I would also bet there was allot of bubbling water from bongs over the cricket chirps that could be heard on a clear summer night if one listened close enough.

But Rhonda and her "family" are gone and there will be stories of me to be told in the future, without a doubt.

An irony, (speaking of appraisals) I am watching House Hunters on HGTV and they have people looking at 1.5 million dollar homes. I would place a bet that this house is going to come in at way under the numbers that are being showed on TV.

Snowed Under

Had quite a bit of snow today, I think about 6" or so.

So I was looking at the door jam between the front room and the kitchen and I got this great idea to try and strip and sand the door jamb in place. Not my first idea that didn't work out.

I ended up taking the door jamb out and hauling it into the basement for a "strip" search. 6 coats of paint plus one of varnish. When I pulled the door jamb off the kitchen side of the door I found the wood is pine vice the birch that is in the rest of the house. I also found that the original color of the kitchen and door jamb is a dark flat green, which from what I have read about A&C homes, brown and greens were used to give a sense of more "earthyness".

The first pic is of the door jamb, out of all the colors of paint on the wood I like the peach color the best. The picture is kind of crappy and doesn't really show all the paint layers. The second is where a carpenter must have gotten pissed and took an axe to the framing and hacked out a good section of the 2x4 in order to get the door frame square. You can really see the chop marks in the wood.

Not really a surprise, but I found the two layers of linoleum on the kitchen floor. I had to peal back some to get the door frame out.

Tuesday

I found this picture on a blog site that I losely follow. http://www.projectkraemerlane.net/ Is this a killer kitchen or what? Now this room is something to aspire for.

And this is a bathroom in the same house. I really like the subway tile and the wall color.

A cool idea

I was looking at www.howcast.com and ran across this tip. If you have the patience (and I don't) and are feeling like you need to to something green, this is a great way to strip paint from door hardware. A crockpot, dish soap, water and a couple hours of "cooking".
Check out the video! the link is below.
http://www.howcast.com/videos/3692-How-To-Strip-Paint

Striping will set you free!

That is what I keep telling myself, and telling myself, over and over again.

The first picture is of........my feet, size 11's thank you. Actually it is a terrible picture of a piece of base board, but basically I am trying to show what the boards look like after 2 applications of stripper and the heavy tan paint that is denying the inevitable, it will be sanded off.

The second and third images, are a question: why would you paint over such great looking wood? Look at that grain! I just hope someday, someone else will appreciate the time and energy I am putting into all this trim and doors. If they don't? they can always paint over them.

Sunday

Did allot of sanding this weekend on the door casements for the front room. I also stripped all the trim I pulled out a week or so ago. I put some shelf brackets on the wall in the basement to stack all the boards after I finished stripping all the paint. It helps keep the boards off the floor and from under foot.

When stripping these particular boards I found there was 3 layers of paint plus the original stain and varnish. Someone painted a "tan" color. This looked like a heavy enamel and I mean heavy! not only was it thick I am almost certain it was a lead based paint. The second coat was a lovely coat of Forest Green color. Horrible pukey color. The last was a flat white that flaked right off. I had to strip each board 3 times because of the tan "base" that just would not lift off the boards. When I picked up the paper and striped off paint it must have weighed over 20 lbs.

I also did some finger painting with some hydraulic cement on one wall that was leaking last week after the quick thaw and rain we had here, turned out ok. I hope it stops the leaking.

Sugar was pretty lethargic yesterday and I think she actually had a doggie virus or something. She slept hard all after noon curled up so I wrapped her up in a blanket and she barley moved and stayed like a babushka the rest of the night. Today she seems fine and was running around the park like she was on fire.

Blue Monday

Called around today and got quotes on replacing my windshield, not as bad as I thought but $222 is still allot in my book. So I am going to have it replaced in the morning.
I did my last round of the appliance stores today and am in the same holding pattern as I was yesterday. I mean the best deal I can find is at Home Depot right now. I checked everywhere online Lowes, Sears, etc but HD is so far the best. The only thing is I am not to sure of the Maytag brand. I know it isn't what it used to be as far as quality. But like anything else there is good and bad in everything.
What I think I am going to do is just buy a plainer, and a small fridge. I got to costing out the stripper and as much as I am going to be using I can buy a plainer for $200 and really cut down on the stripping and sanding. You should see the pile of baseboard trim that needs to be redone. And I am not including the trim that is still attached to the walls and around the doors. I will still have to do the crown by hand though.

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

Postpartum Christmas

Man I tell you this has been a crappy week. I have tried real hard to make merriment with Christmas and all, but the gods have allied against me. We have had some crappy weather lately, with some below zero temperatures, snow, freezing rain, then we have had 40 + degrees, melting snow, and now real heavy fog tonight.
So during the real cold weather, my windshield cracked in 3 nice places and there is a pretty spiderweb crossing the windscreen. Still with me? So, I get up this morning and was doing some running around, paying bills etc. I am at Menards looking at just about everything. I really only needed some tack cloth, some Poly Minwax, and some Zinsser stripper. And I ask the girl in the paint department if she might be interested in going on a date, denied! (actually I had asked another girl late last week if she wanted to go out, denied! and three months ago my girlfriend told me she wanted to be "alone") Well after embarrassing myself badly I forgot the tack cloth and stripper, but did get out with the polyminwax alive, and with some dignity.

Ok, so I come home and get ready to seal the door I have been working on the last few days (more on the later). I was able to get the first coat on one side with no issues. So while I am waiting for the first coat to dry, I jumped into the next project. The area where the washer and dryer hot/cold water pipes come down the wall in the basement were half-assed installed. And I was not looking for a cosmetic change, the pipe themselves were hanging, yes hanging and leaking. The walls in the basement are concrete and brick, and the piece of wood that was holding up the pipes, was also hanging and jury rigged badly in of itself. I took the nail gun and a piece of plywood, nailed that sucker to the concrete for a nice place to reconnect the pipes to the wall, one pipe is CPVC, and one galvanized. I rehung the CPVC, no problems. The galvanized? well the freaking pipe was rusted through and at the "T" joint it broke, water came flying out like a firehose was turned on, and the back half of me was soaked! I ran to the other end of the basement and turned off the water supply coming from the city. So there I am wet, pissed, and looking at what was going to cost me $70 to fix, that I don't have.
The first two pictures are what was installed for water pipes. Not! Now from the city, the water is copper, then goes to galvanized, then CPVC, then back to copper, then CPVC, and back and forth between 3/4" to 1/2" and everything in between. what a fucking mess. The first two pics are what was originally installed. In pic two where the pipe broke, see the "T" to the right of the dripping one? well more on that. So I am standing there, wet ( I think I said that already), got out the hack saw, and could not cut that pipe for nothing. Off to Home Depot (cause I did not want to show my face in Menards again today) bought a saw zaw ( $29.95) , some CPVC and misc. parts I thought I needed. Whip out the new tool and blast through the pipe in 10 secs flat. See that second "T" ? I put the pipe wrench on there and snap the CPVC connect that goes to the tub above. Right where the galvanized and CPVC pipes come together. Christ, back to the store. The guy at Home Depot was very help full, we were both sitting on the floor in the middle of the aisle with plumbing parts laid all over the place. People would start down the aisle with their carts, stop, look, turn around and go the way they came. Kind of funny, considering it has been a shitty week.


Now this is another learning experience, and I hate plumbing. CPVC and PVC are different. The diameters are different, 3/4" PVC is measured from the inside and 3/4" CPVC is measured on the outside. And nary the two shall fit. So back to the store for the third time! I mustered up the guts (the plumbing and paint Departments are next to each other) and went back to Menards luckly I found the exact parts I needed, without help. I headed home and gathered everything I had purchased and assessed the disaster area. Until I get this done, I am not taking a shower, that is what I assessed.

Below is what I was able to cobble together. So far no leaks. The little stub with two 90 degree elbows was originally galvanized with CPVC attached to the upper part, that is what snapped off and resulted in the second trip to the store.


Zinsser, let me talk a bit about the brand of new stripper I found. This stuff is great! No smell, doesn't burn your skin if is gets on you and the clean up is great. It kind of sucks all the paint up, and makes a congealed paste out of the paint and old varnish. What I also found best about the product is that it really gets into the cracks creavasess of the trim and lifts the paint out and makes it kind of fluff up. There is no extra scraping that I have to do and no use of dental tools to get the left behind paint out of the cracks. Very cool and I highly recommend. One of the few bright spots this week.

The person who invented the flat bar

I want to personally thank the person who invented the flat bar. This has got to one of the best tools a person can own when redoing a house. I slammed through peeling off the baseboards and crown in about 45 mins. I cracked a few boards but nothing that will be any show stopper later on and when I reinstall the boards no one will ever know cept' me.

So being single and Sugar not being very talkative most of time, I usually have the TV on for white noise. Well tonight it was the SciFi channel and the show was called Apocalypse. Great movie, NOT! ok here is the premise, A large earth quake is going to split the country in half, from North Dakota (ah jezz) all the way to the Gulf. I suppose that is something that could be dealt with if just left alone, but oh no! there are two back stories that deal with rescues, and yes love. Just freaking great! But with all that going on and the country being split in half that just wasn't enough. There is a nuclear power plant in Texas that sits right in the middle of the path that the fault is splitting the ground towards. AND but wait! there is a large gas line that goes right by the Nuke plant that the "scientist" blowup just in time to cause the fault to go around. Success! yeah! they saved the nuke plant! But wait there is more drama, Houston was split right in half! I mean right down the center of downtown, that poor Enron building.

And oh yes, there is (cue your best Dr. Evil voice) hot magma in fault line. Once it hit the gulf it back filled with water all the way North the the Hudson bay. I am sure there were sharks with lasers on their heads that swam north to Canada and just devastated the entire Eskimo population while they hunted for seals. But they ran out of time to cover that part of the story.

So anyway, I hope I saved you from watching the reruns of that movie. You can thank me later.

Here is a picture of the trim I pulled off tonight. The baseboards are a full 7 1/4" wide, you can't buy that kind of wood anymore, and not in poplar.

I wish I had the money for a planner, it would save so much time stripping and sanding.

Here are a few pics of the before and afters:

And my last note for the night, I have been looking at programmable furnace thermostats, I was walking through Walmart and saw this Hunter brand for $26 dollars. It seems to be working so far, I set it for 64 degrees during the day and 70 at night. So we will see if it saves on the gas bill.

Monday

Well I just couldn't take the "pumpkin" look anymore. I showed a few folks at work the color I painted last night and they said "just leave it, it will grow on you" well I came home tonight, took a piece of trim that I had stripped and refinished and laid it against the wall to get a feel for what it would look like side by side. I stood there in the frontroom and looked, went and stood on the front porch and looked through the window, stood out in the side yard and looked through the east windows, I looked, I looked and looked some more. About 20 minutes in all, it just wasn't doing it for me. I like the color alot, it isn't made for this room. So off I went to to Menards and bought another gallon of paint and this color is called "Amber Stone". It is hard to tell from the pictures but it is like a dark wheat color vice the "pumpkin patch" color I had before. I think I might use the pumpkin patch somewhere else in the house later on.

So below is the before, after and after pictures.

Here is a picture of the two colors side by side, pretty big difference

and here is the Amber Stone with the the trim laying next to the door, personally I like it and that is all that matters.

A well diggers arse

A well diggers arse is not near as cold as it is outside today. Now I have never known a well digger let alone know or have checked the tempeture of their arse, but it is cold today.

I got the porch finished today but ran out of paint so I had to go and buy 1 quart to finish the project, that took an hour. But the porch is done. Complete.

I popped the door casings, baseboards and crown molding off the door to the kitchen from the front room and painted the wall with Butterscotch Candy, I don't care what anyone will say, but I am living on the inside of a pumpkin! and not to sure that the color will stay.

Here a couple of before and after shots.