Roctober First Update

I finished the cap on the Wainscot. I am mostly very pleased except for one part.

Here are a couple of before and after shots.

Here is my problem area.

The joint above was planned. I knew from the start that I had no single piece of the cap that would extend the whole length of that wall. I cut the joint at a 45 degree angle and really worked to fit it into place seamlessly. As you can see, it didn't work. I shall have to try and refit it.

On the wall where the toilet is, I blew my measurement and cut the last long piece I had short by seven inches. So I had a have a joint to extend the run. That joint I was pissed about and didn't work as hard to make it look good. However, it is nearly invisible.

You sure can't see it in the picture above.

It seems that the story of my construction life is that the things I agonize over never work out.

Later today, I'll be trying to fix that bad joint and putting up the corner trim.

Roctober First

It's a rainy first day of October, which threatened to derail my plans for working on the bathroom. But because I am resourceful and flexible, I managed to complete my work in spite of the weather.

I am working on the cap for the wainscoting. I cut all the pieces to length and made some very nice custom fits. Above you can see all the various parts that I have painted. I am waiting to get the second coat of paint on.

In the meantime, I took some pictures outside of the changing colors around the neighborhood.

Since it is the first of October, we brought down one of our guests to start out the season of scary. If you look closely, you might notice him peering through the door.

More Grape Talk

We did some more work on the wine tonight. I pulled the mesh bad out of the must and let it continue to drain. We managed to get about 1 1/2 gallons of juice.

I'm going to go by Jim's Home Brew today and get some yeast and see if there is some sort of container I can get to use as a fermenter for this juice.

I may have to add some grape juice to this to bring it up to an even two gallons. The only problem will be that it will become too grapey. Too Concord Grapey. 

There is some activity going on in the neighborhood from Washington Water Power (Avista), our local utility. Apparently, they are switching out the old Mercury Vapor street lights to new high tech L.E.D. lights. I've been hearing complaints since they started installing these lights that they are waaaaaay too bright.

I haven't had a problem with them so far but I haven't been able to compare them to the light we have next to the house.

It also looks like they are going to replace the power pole in the alley. I've noticed all this painting on the alley pavement that looks like a prelude to replacement.

Gewurztraconcord

We made a little more progress in the bathroom last night. I finished getting the baseboard cut and in place. It doesn't seem like a major step forward but it is another step towards putting in a bathtub.

The final step before the tub get installed is to cut and paint the wainscot cap.

Another step in progress last night was making some really home made wine. I picked the grapes off our Gewurztraminer vine and our Concord vine last week. I got a lot more Gewurzt than Concord so I'm going to blend them and see what we get.

The fun part was actually stomp the grapes. Since I didn't have a whole lot of them, it didn't take very long and produced a good amount of juice. I'm hoping I'll have close to two gallons but it is hard to tell at this point. I'll have a better idea tonight.

Another Visit with Captain Dumbass-Home Repair

After I finished all the jobs I was doing in the bathroom, I turned my attention to the kitchen sink. The faucet has an intermittent leak that we find most annoying.

We bought a very high end faucet a couple of years ago from a kitchen showroom our friend Mark works at. We paid 50 bucks for this Kohler Kitchen Sink faucet. It's easily $350 or more retail. But it had a problem. It was missing a clip and an O ring. Without it, the faucet was useless. 

I went back to the showroom a couple of weeks ago and they got Kohler to send a whole new hose assembly. It's a major part of the guts of the thing.

The installation was difficult and I don't think it went very well. But, I took the faucet into the bathroom and hooked it up to the connections for the bathtub and got it to work properly.

So I went about the task of removing the kitchen faucet. It involved removing all the crap under the sink and disconnecting all the hoses and connections from the old faucet.

I had to go out and buy new valves for the pipes. When I finally got everything hooked up and turned on, I got nothing from the faucet.

I checked it nine ways to Sunday and nothing I did made it work.

By then, it was late so I called it a night and pledged to pick up where I left off in the morning.

Susan is not a big fan of the new faucet because it is so big so we decided to put the old leaky faucet back.

However, this project was overseen by Capt. Dumbshit who lost two very important parts of the sink within the span of overnight.

We therefore decided to go to the General Store and buy the cheapest kitchen faucet they had and go with that for now.

So that is where we are at this point.

In the bathroom, I got the trim for the door and window up.

Next, I get to finish the baseboard and the wainscoting cap.

Church & Home

I started the morning bright and early (7AM) and got myself to church for a Men's Repair Day. My project was to loosen the screws on a row of pews and move the pew three inches forward. We are trying to create some legroom for a more inviting liturgical experience.

That whole process went surprising fast and not a single screw was difficult to remove.

Now I am home and ready to get some work done on the bathroom. I picked up the new lights yesterday and installed the overhead. 

Looks great, don'tit?

My first project is to get a coat of primer on the door and window trim.

It has been five hours since I put the primer on the door trim and it is still tacky. I fear my primer might have turned. It had a hard skin when I opened it and stirred it. It coated kind of streaky too.

I got the sconce lights up as well.

They look good too. We are still waiting on the glass but I may move the glass from up above to the sconces.

My next project is to get baseboard in this area.

Okay! Success!!

The Equinox of Autumn

We are heading into a big weekend. It's big because I want to accomplish some bathroom stuff. Once that stuff is accomplished, we can move on to the BIG accomplishment of installing the bathtub. So you can see why it's such a big weekend...at least for me.

The things yet to do in the bathroom are finishing up trim on the door and window, laying the last of the baseboard, and getting the cap on the wainscoting.

It's not all that much to do but it does involve ME doing it. I was too sick last weekend. While I am not back to 100% (or even 57%, where I usually operate) I'm going to get this stuff done!

But first, we have the Greek Festival to attend tonight. That is one of those events that definitely signals the beginning of Autumn. We are now a good twenty-four hours into the Autumnal Equinox and I haven't seen any falling leaves...yet. But there has been football,

Puttering Around the House

Susan has to work this afternoon so it's a casual kind of work day around the homestead.

I finished a project with the caps for the wainscoting. We ended up buying base trim and then I cut a notch in the bottom back of the trim in order for it to sit on the top panels.

Next I will cut them to length and then we will paint them prior to nailing them into place.

Then I got to work on cleaning up the trim for the door and window. The window trim is not in as bad of shape as the door trim. I had not planned on striping them down to bare wood but it turned out to be essential. They where coated with sooooooooooo many layers of poorly applied paint that in some places, the paint just peeled away.

I'm pretty much through the two side pieces and I'll get some work done on the top piece tomorrow.

Once I get the cap in place, we will be ready to install the bathtub. That will be a grand day indeed.

By the way, did I mention that we purchased lights for the bathroom? Last Saturday, we went downtown to Revival Lighting. We looked at a number of reproduction vintage style lights and picked a nice sconce style for the mirror times two, and a matching three bulb overhead light. The total was just over $700.00. 

Nope! That's not a misprint. It seems outrageous to pay that much for three relatively simple lights. However, there is nothing else out there of any kind of quality that matches the style we are going for.

I have never regretted paying for a quality product. You only pay once. You forget about it tomorrow.

Wall Paper Finale

Summer is winding down but we are in full tilt "Git-Out-Thar-and-Git-Ur-Dunn" mode. (Yeah, we speak stupid when the Summer is winding down.)

Yesterday, Susan made great progress in the bathroom with her wall papering. She expects to finish up today. I'm going to try and place some of my wainscoting panels but I don't want to get in her way. 

Therefore, I'm holding off and working on a couple of other projects which I will show you in the amazing paragraphs to come.

But first, we went to a baseball game last night. The Spokane Indians were playing the TriCity Dust Bastards. As we drove up to the stadium at the end of the second inning, the score was 0-1, the Dust Bastards were up.

By the time we got to our seats, the score was 0-6.

The final score was 9-3 with the Indians losing. But I got some pictures.

Here is one of my pal Jerry, taking pictures from far across the concourse.

Okay, let's talk about today.

Here is one of my many projects for today.

There is supposed to be a post to hold that gate closed.

I decided that I should get a nice coat of paint on it before I replace it,

In between painting, I decided to drain the hot tub. The heat has been off for the last couple of months because we just don't use it in the summer. I have totally neglected it and was very surprised to open it and discover that it had not turned into a thick green slim. All it had was a bunch of leaves and detritus material.

I went across the street and borrowed Lou's sump pump. If I where to attach the hose to the drain nozzle and let it drain that way, it would take hours. With Lou's pump, it takes about half an hour.

It makes quite a mess of the yard though. I kind of flooded neighbor Ted's driveway.

It was a nice warm summer day so I kind of enjoyed cleaning the hot tub. I got in there with my swim trunks and scrubbed the sides with comet. Then I filled it about a quarter way full and drained the water. Another rinse and drain. 

It worked well and the tub is back in service. It will take it a day to get back to temperature but I think I'm going to tone it down to the nineties, at least for the next month or so.

I got the repainted post installed as well.

While I was out in nature, Susan was sequestered in the bathroom finishing the wallpapering.

Here she is laying the last section of wall paper. I think she is mostly happy with the finished product but has some issues with a couple of things. 

One problem is that nothing in the room is square. The wall paper highlights that fact if you look carefully. 

So don't look carefully.

Wayne Scott & Tile

Susan continues to fuss over cleaning the tile whilst I am doing a variety of little things here and there...preparing for tonight's' bottling, watering the lawn, stoking the beer cooler with ice, things of this nature.

Frankly, I don't feel very helpful. I think I shall return to my work on the wainscoting. I'm very close to completing it.

Okay, we did okay. I got my five pieces of wainscoting cut, including the two panels that have electrical outlets in them. Next I need to paint them and then nail them into place.

Susan is mostly, sort of satisfied kind of with the shower tile, in a way. She prepped the area around the shower and is ready to wall paper. Unless she's not.

We have now had a delicious steak dinner on the front porch except for the part where Susan likes well done and hers was more like medium rarish.

Next on the menu for the evening is to bottle our Tempranillo. Here we go!

We got 23 bottles out of our re-bottle but, it is now something we both like and can drink without reservation. Plus, we now feel much better about entering it in the fair. Whether or not the judges agree with us remains to be seen. We have 22 days until we find out.

The Cost of Bailey's

Despite my dumbassery, the sprinkler is motoring along. I'm happy to have it back.

It's another beautiful day with the forecast predicting temperatures to hit the nineties...again. We are planning to do stuff around the house. One of my planned jobs is mowing the lawn.

This will be made extra interesting by the fact that I am wearing a heart monitor. I have to wear it for 48 hours, which expires around 4:00PM today. I thought it would be a good idea to have it record me while active. I have already noted a bike ride on Thursday.

I'm also sitting around this morning doing some ciphering. We always enjoy a bit of coffee with our Bailey's Irish Cream on the weekends and I decided to figure out how much it costs per cup. We go through a 1.75 liter bottle ($42.00) in two weekends. I figured that a 4 ounce pour of Bailey's costs just under $3.00.

My ciphering continues with figuring out my average weight, blood pressure and heart beat over the last 28 days. (I've been keeping notes) That information is over on my health blog, www.porkymccorpulent.blogspot.com.

For now, I need to get some breakfast going and prepare for the many tasks ahead.

10:30AM: Breakfast is finished, Susan has left for a hair appointment, and it is time to mow.

12:58PM: The mowing is in the rear-view mirror and I have survived it with no issues to speak of. I have some lawn watering going and I'm going to go out and try to put some paint on the primed siding. We primed on the 6th so I think it has had time to cure.

3:19PM: I got down the first coat of the green but if you look close, it's streaky. It needs a second coat, which I'm about to go out and put down.

5:16PM: Susan has been working on the shower tile, tidying up the edges so the wall paper will lay cleanly and flatly. 

The second coat of paint went on rather quickly, as you might expect. The unfortunate thing is I used up all the paint and am unsure as to the correct formula for more paint. We shall have to search our records.

After getting the second coat on the siding, I went upstairs to fold some of my laundry. I course of doing so, I discovered that the time had run out on my Heart Monitor and I was Free At Last!

This meant I could have a shower. After all the dust and grime I threw into the air whilst mowing, and having gone 48 hours without a proper cleaning, I was ready. And it felt GREAT!

8:15PM: We have just returned from a delicious meal at the Cathay Inn and we are ready to further adulterate the Tempranillo wine.

Susan purchased three more cans of grape juice. We will be starting by adding half of one can.

Later: We ended up adding the whole can and stopping there. We are now satisfied and this will be as good as it gets.

Bottling is tomorrow.

Tampering with Tempranillo.

We are doing some wine work tonight. We have our 2014 Tempranillo ready to enter the fair. We bottled it about 2 or 3 months ago. We tasted a bottle recently and were not happy.

Last Monday, we uncorked the whole batch, about 25 bottles, into a five gallon carboy. Tonight, we are adding some grape juice concentrate to try and improve the flavor.

The trick is to figure out how much juice to add.

We pulled out one cup of wine and added one tablespoon of juice. That did not seem to do much so we added a second tablespoon. We liked the change. Now we have to extrapolate of numbers into a measurement for five gallons. According to our calculations we needed to add a half gallon of juice. That did not seem right. Susan purchased two 12 oz. cans of Old Orchard Grape Juice. We added one can to the carboy, tasted and added the second. We have decided to add one more but will have to wait until tomorrow because we have to purchase more.

Giant Dumbass

I am a Giant Dumbass!

I got a delivery from UPS the day before yesterday from Fiskars USA. It was the stuff I ordered for my Tractor Sprinkler, a new transmission and a new sprinkler rotor.

I have already done this repair once and that sprinkler was stolen shortly afterwards...as chronicled here.

I started the repair for my old sprinkler that has been sitting in the garage for the last three years. This one will not get stolen because I will not allow it to happen.

Anyway, I got my Dremmel Tool out and ground the wheel caps off the axles. That allowed me to remove the wheels. Then I got my power driver out to remove the screws that hold the transmission on the body.

Two came out quite easily. The other three were locked in pretty tight and would not budge. I tried very hard to get them removed and had no luck. 

I went so far as to use my torch to heat up the metal body, hoping the heat would loosen the screws. All that managed to do was melt the old transmission housing.

Here is why I am a Giant Dumbass. I was so focused on trying to find a Phillips Screw Driver large enough to give me enough leverage to budge the screw, that I completely failed to notice that the heads were little bolts that I could put a ratchet to.

When I brought the tractor body in to work today and asked Gary if he had any ideas on how to loosen the screws, he looked right at it and said, "How about using a socket set?"

I'm a giant Dumbass!

Float Day

With all we have to do around the house, we chose to chuck it all and go canoeing on the Little Spokane River. I don't have any pictures other than some cliffs.

Can you find the face in the rocks?

How about here?

It was a great afternoon and we are beat.

Good Night!

Saturday Stuff

7:53AM: It's Saturday morning, almost eight o'clock. I have just come downstairs to the smell of coffee. I occurred to me what a wonderful sensation that is. 

It looks like it's going to be nice day and there are a number of things I want to get done this weekend, all the while fitting in some enjoyable activities as well. 

Things planned for today are take Willy to the Vet, do some painting around the house over the priming we did last week, water the lawn, perhaps some work in the bathroom, visit the Garland Street Fair and listen to Sammy Eubanks, take samples of wine and beer over to Jim's Home Brew for an evaluation,and drink some beer. 

How successful I am at accomplishing these tasks will be chronicled here.

But first, off to the grocery to get some eggs...after I get my coffee.

8:21AM: I am back from the store. The hoses are running in the yard and I'm going to settle down and read the paper.

10:25AM: I'm back from the Vet. We felt we needed to take Willy in because he is so boney. He has clearly lost weight but it turns out to be only 1 1/4 pounds. But that can be a lot for a cat.

I had a little trouble getting him into the Cat Carrier. Once he saw it, he knew there was trouble ahead.

There was a little trouble for me as well.

Now I'm off to the paint store with a stop at Jim's Home Brew.

11:29AM: Jim's was very little help in determining what we should do with the wines and beer. That is because we entered them in the fair and they (Bob & Gary of Jim's Home Brew) are among the judges. It just would not be fair. 

We bottled a Tempranillo a couple of months ago. we loved it when we bottled it but are not so thrilled with it now. Our Lemberger is from last years trip to Prosser. We have not bottled it. It tastes okay but we are wondering if there is something we can do to make it better.

They did taste my Shummer Sandy Lemon beer. They both thought it was okay but I told them I'm adding some more Lemon flavor to it. They did not respond either way. We all agreed it is a good drinkable beer.

Next, we are off to the Garland Street Fair which is just up the hill from us. The Sammy Eubanks Blues Band is playing and we love them.

1:35PM: We're back from the Sammy Show and the Garland Street Fair. That has really turned into a great event. They have Garland Street shut down from Monroe to Wall, covered with Vendor Booths and even a couple of side streets.

After listening to Sammy for a while, we walked over to Rick's Ringside pub and had a couple of beers.

Unfortunately, Susan has to work tonight so we left to come back home and give her a chance to decompress prior to going to work. I'm going to do a little painting.

4:03PM: I'm nearly done with the painting. At least, this little bit of painting. The painting I'm doing today is to cover the priming we did last week on the dark green trim around the base of the house. I found the old can this morning and pealed off a half inch cap of gelled paint. There were lots of chunks in there so I went to the General Store and got a couple of cheap strainers. It really slow going. It helps to stir the funnel and force the paint through. There's a certain amount that is just going to go to waste. But I'm trying to use as much as I can.

In any event, I happy with the results.

7:05PM: I'm back again! This time I have been back to Jim's to get s'mor CO2. I needed it for mine beer. My last $17,00 bottle bled away.

Then I stopped at the Hub Tavern for waaaaaaay too long. 

But I'm home now and since I'm on my own tonight, I'm going to cook me some dinner. I purchased a nice piece of meat and I shall throw on the barbecue.

9:09PM: I've had myself a nice dinner and am now trying to settle down for the evening. I was hoping to try and put a little paint on the deck siding but it has gotten too dark. 

I'm planning to get a pit fire going before Susan comes home. It seems like a good night for a fire. In the meantime, I'm watching old episodes of Star Trek on Netflicks and doing a few little chores around the plantation.

10:57PM: There is a burning ban throughout the state of Washington so the picture below must be from my archives, even though I appear to be wearing the same clothes I was wearing today.

In any event, it was a lovely way to wind up the day.

Primer Day

It's been a week now without my Lawn Tractor Sprinkler and I am moving on, but still pissed. I spent $25.00 on one of those wave sprinklers and it is doing an okay job for me. The problem of course, is that I have to attend to it every half hour or so. The Lawn Tractor just moved across the space of the lawn and then turned itself off at the end.

In the meantime, we are still trying to be productive.

Here is our productive work for today.

From this,

to this.

We got a coat of primer on the new siding. Tomorrow we will try to finish up with a nice finishing coat of sage green.

The amazing thing is that it used to look like this.

And while this is not a great shot of the same angle, here is a picture of what we started with.

F.S.L.L.S.H.P.o.C.T.B.

I got up around eight this morning, got myself dressed and headed out the door for a brisk walk. I included an errand into the walk and made my way to Yoke's for some groceries.

Before I left, I decided to set my sprinkler and get a good early start on yard watering. So I went behind the arbor vitae to grab my Nelson Industries Traveling Yard Tractor Sprinkler, and it was gone. I had left it there only last night...at about 11PM. I can only surmise that it ambled off into the night to water the lawn of life.

That, or some fucking scumbag, low-life, shit hole, piece of crap, turd ball decided it was more important for him (or her) to have it than me, the guy who paid for it.

I am really getting fed up with these fucking scumbag, low-life, shit hole, piece of crap, turd balls. I really want to set one of these assholes up and pummel them lifeless. (I'm looking forward to the day when this post will be used against me in a court of law.)

The most infuriating thing is that the aforementioned fucking scumbag, low-life, shit hole, piece of crap, turd ball is going to get $5.00 for my $75.00 sprinkler.

Well, I have finally come to the conclusion that I cannot leave anything out. If it is something I want, and I leave it outside for any fucking scumbag, low-life, shit hole, piece of crap, turd ball to lay his hands on it, then it is my fault.

So here is a notice to all you fucking scumbag, low-life, shit hole, piece of crap, turd balls that may be having someone read this to them.

First of all, FUCK OFF & DIE! 

Next, you are welcome to everything that isn't nailed down...like I had to tell you that. I know you already feel that you have the right to everything in the world that is not currently yours.

Lastly, FUCK OFF & DIE!!!

Gnat Night

I have looked back through past posts and I cannot find if I have described the event I'm about to describe. Susan and I both experienced this event last year. It seems like it happens on one particular night, which happened to be tonight...for this year.

The event is the amassing of the gnats.

Here is a picture looking west from our front porch. If you were to zoom in on that large tree, you would see what appears to be a bunch of dots all over. Those dots are bugs...I am calling them gnats, but I am not sure about that.

This picture is a zoom in of the tree and a better depiction of the dots/bugs/gnats. I think you can see them a little better.

We noticed this conflagration last year and were mesmerized by it.

As the sun was setting, it lit up the area in front of this tree to reveal thousands of bugs swarming. Every once and a while, a small tornado of bugs would swirl into a tight ball and move through the swarm until it dissipated.

I tried to get a video of the tornadoes and I think I could have captured it. However, my lack of knowledge about how this camera works turns against me.

My problem might have been that all my batteries were nearly dead and I just didn't have enough power to record the video.

In any event, I have now recorded Gnat Night for 2016. We shall see if it recurs this year or if we have to wait another year.

Wall Paper - The Beginning

I hope you have been keeping up with my health issues over on the other Blog. However, this Blog is for the house and all things house related. So here we are!

Susan is getting started with her wall papering in the bathroom. This is an area where I stay out of the way. She is the paper hanger in the family. It usually involves lots of muttering under her breath, a little cussing and and a lot of me staying out of the way.

So I'll snap a few photographs and then commence to staying out of the way.

She made progress. In fact, she made damn good progress.

She worked all afternoon and has just finished up for the day.

Now we are walking to a near by Italian restaurant for dinner.

Heart Health Has Household Hobbies on Hold

I had a doctor's appointment this morning to follow up on my defib implant from a month ago. As I write this, I am in a hospital bed in Room 625-2 of Sacred Heart Medical Center.

To get more information on "wazzzzzzup", visit
www.porkymccorpulent.blogspot.com for this date.

That way, I don't have to tell the story twice.

Solstice Report

It has taken me until Monday to report on the events of the weekend. It hasn't been particularly hectic, but we've had other things to do.

What was hectic was the hour prior to the start of the Solstice/Birthday Party. Susan felt she was waaaay behind which caused her great stress which was transferred to me.

Once the first guests started to arrive, Susan finally simmered down and had a beer.

Mom and about eight of her friends arrived by Limousine.

We figured out we had about 55 people at the house and at one point, they were all at the house at the same time. Then 9:00 arrived and we were down to about 15 folks. We all kind of puttered around and cleaned up. Before you knew it, everything was fairly tidy. We then settled down on the deck to drink and chat.

The great part of the party was the attendance of many of my cousins. Cheryl and Kerry Roberts, and Karla Peyton as well as all my sister Sherry's kids.

Sunday was a very mellow day which started with Brunch at Mom's.

We all met for one last time before everyone had to hit the road. Again, great to see EVERYONE!