Armoire Construction

Susan worked late last night so I did some straightening of my lumber pile and then made dinner so it would be ready when she walked in the door.

After dinner we went upstairs to begin "ARMOIRE CONSTRUCTION".

It did not start well. We didn't have any glue and my Allen Wrenches are not metric. The unit comes with a little Allen Wrench but I thought that two would make it go faster. No such luck!

After a quick dash to the store for Elmer's Glue, we proceeded with the assembly. It took a moment or two to get our bearings and figure out what we were doing. Plus, we had to find all the parts. The various top, side and bottom pieces were not labeled. You had to indentify them by comparing them to the drawing.

We got the main case together and we'll finish up tonight. Then we start the staining.

Down Time

With the Summer Solstice Party successfully behind us, we are enjoying a few days to inactivity before we dive into remodeling the bathroom.

We have some friends showing up briefly next week and decided that having the bathroom gutted would not be the best way of saying, "Welcome! Come on in. Watch out for nails and loose boards. If ya gotta go, just pee down that hole."

So we are passing the time by doing little things. Last night, I started cleaning up the big pile of lumber in the back yard. I'm going to cut it into smaller lumber and then throw it in the fireplace this winter.

Later in the evening, we started a batch of wine.

Tonight, I will continue with my lumbering efforts and then we are going to put an armoire together that we bought several months ago at the unfinished furniture store. It's in a large, heavy box and needs to be totally assembled, then stained. We put off doing any of this because it was easier to have the box in our way than an unstained armoire. Now that we are finished with the bedroom, we can figure out the color of stain to apply.

So we will continue with our little projects for a few days and after Independance Day, the bathroom will fall.

By the way, if you were wondering how the Summer Solstice Party was, below is a picture of me taken about 1:30 on Sunday Morning. I think it says it all!

...And the Livin' is Easy!

The Summer Solstice has commenced so now it is time to get down to Summering.

My Annual Summer Solstice Party is Saturday. The deck isn't really in shape to receive a party. It needs to be painted which will not happen before Saturday. I spent last evening doing some wiring. I put five can light into the soffet where the new roof extension is. It went well but I tore the crap out of my fingers in the process. That outdoor wire is really difficult to strip.

But, I must have done something right because the lights came on and the house did not burn down . . . yet!

I must say that I am pleased with my method of routing the power up to the lights. I used the existing wiring that powered a spot light on the deck and channeled it up through the dead bug encrusted soffet and over to the new lights. I put 60 watt bulbs in each can, and boy is it ever bright. I'm going to buy some lower wattage bulbs today. Depending on how that works, I may consider installing a dimmer switch.

Raining from Above and Below on the Homeless

It was a cloudy Sunday that threatened to drop rain all day. That seemed as good a day as any to do some Power Washing on the deck. I mean, if I'm going to get wet, I might as well really go for it. I started about 11:00 and I finished up at 4:00. You would think I could do it faster than that considering how most of the paint was hanging on by a single paint molecule. But some of it was rather stubborn. Plus, I stopped a lot to have a refreshing sip of beer or tell homeless people they could rake my yard. By the time I was finished, I was soaked and covered in white flecks of former paint. As time passed after I finished, I realized how sore I was too. It's hard to hold that wand for all that time.

Anyway, it all worked out beautifully as referenced by the picture below.

Clearly, I still have some scraping to do, followed by sanding, re-scaping, more sanding and then some painting. I also have a nasty rotten spot on one board. You can see it in that dark spot at the top of the second board. I'm hoping there is an easy way to replace it. I have a couple of ideas but I don't know how it will effect the structural integrity of...well...everything.

Back to Homeless People.

At one point, I took a break. I grabbed a beer and walked across the street to the park to sit on the Hyslop Bench and take in the neighborhood. As I crossed the street, I noticed a bicyclist turn the corner at the end of the block and slowly ride up the street towards me. She was riding slowly and looking the houses over pretty closely, as if casing them.

I continued out to the park, sat on the bench, keeping a surrepticious eye on her when she stopped in front on the house and went up to the door. Since Susan was gone with her sister and I was across the street, I had little doubt that anyone would be opening the door.

But I decided to see what was going on and started walking over. As I approached I realized that she was a He. Long curly hair cascaded around his spacey stare.

I said, "Hi, I live here. Can I help you?" A fatal mistake. It turns out that I could help him.

His name was Brian and he began to tell me his hard luck tale of Woe. He needed some money to hold him over for a couple of days and wondered if he could do some yardwork for me. While I was impressed with his initiative, it was at that point that I realized he was riding down the street, looking at houses, stopping only when he came to a place that looked like it needed some yardwork done.

In my defense, all I can say is that this is not the Year of the Yard. We have lots of work to do out there, but for now, I keep it watered, mowed, raked and free of dandilions. Beyond that, the Yard is the Yard.

I told Brian that I would pay him $20.00 to rake out the beds and pull the weeds in front of the house. I figured that was fair for a couple of hours of work that I didn't really need done.

I got out the tools he needed and then I went back to work on the power washing. I had been working for about 45 minutes when Brian appeared. I climbed down from the ladder and he told me he was feeling kind of queasy and needed to quit. He seemed earnest and really wanted to return to finish the job the next day. I gave him $10.00 and told him he would get the rest when he finished.

I kind of doubt I'll see him again but he did get everything raked up into little piles. He even got a couple of the little piles into the garbage can before the queasiness kicked in. Perhaps he is allergic to work.

We shall see what developes from this.

Before & After

I'm very big on before and after pictures so here's a big one of our first finished project in about two years.

I cannot for the life of me, figure out why this picture is coming in so poorly. I tried re-uploading it several times in various resolutions and it always looks like this.

Oh well, you get the idea!

Nothing to Say

I have been on such a great roll lately with posting to this site that it seems a shame to let a day go by without some sort of report. Almost as big a shame as wasting somebody's time to read this.

Prepping for a Sister Visit

We have been on a mad cleaning jag for the last few days in preparation for a weeklong visit from Susan's sister, Margaret. Well, Susan has been on the "jag". I have been trying to do little touch up projects and get the bedroom and landing finished. There are still a few things to do but they are minute and it is going along nicely.

Margaret arrives Friday so we still have a couple of days to get everything done. I think we are doing fine but Susan seems to disagree. However, we also have a continuing disagreement on the definition of "clean".

Because I am just doing small touch up and clean up jobs, I am officially declaring that the Landing and Master Bedroom Project is complete.

Next we will be tackling the upstairs bathroom but that will not start for a couple of weeks.

Approaching the Finish Line

It was a long and busy weekend with many accomplishments to talk about.

Friday, my niece Samantha graduated from High School. She attended a small Christian Academy and there were se7en graduates. The whole family went to dinner and then the two and a half hour graduation ceremony. It was a little long.

We got home around ten and that pretty much was the end of the day for us.

Saturday was our annual neighborhood yard sale. This was the third one that we took part in and it was pretty successful for us. We made just south of $100.00 and got rid of a lot of crap.

What we had left over went to Goodwill on Sunday Morning and what they wouldn't take went to the Dump.

Then Susan went into "Operation: Massive Cleaning" in preparation for a visit from her sister, who is coming for a week from Iowa.

To keep out of her way, I went to work on the Landing and Bedroom doing all the little finishing touches. I wanted to be sleeping in our new bedroom on Sunday night and I was not going to be deterred by anything.







There were lots of things that tried to deter me. I was four feet short of baseboard for the bedroom. I ran out of nails for my airgun in the middle of putting in the baseboards. I ran out of beer. However, you can see from the pictures that I prevailed.
So now, we have just minor items to take care of. Most of those items involve the trim and some touch up painting. My plan is to take care of that tonight and then be able to help with Susan's "Operation: Massive Cleaning".

Working Out & Finishing Touches

Last nights' activities involved the installation of baseboards in the Landing area. Since I am not a professional, it required a great deal of effort and ciphering on my part to accomplish this arduous task.

I placed the chop saw down on the front porch because I didn't want to create a mess on the landing or risk scratching the new finish. So for every board I placed, I had to measure it and then put it in place to make sure it fit. Then, when it didn't fit, I had to run downstairs, re-cut it, run back up the stairs and then place it again.

I figure that for every board, I had to cut it three or four times. With 17 pieces, that means that I went up and down the stairs a minimum of 51 times.

I had been upset with myself for not having run lately. If I have any more nights like this, I should ripped in no time.

Everything is on schedule and I am still planning on moving furniture on Sunday.

The Home Stretch

The floors on the second floor Landing and Master Bedroom are now complete. They are not perfect, but they are one helluva lot better than they were. I am happy!

With any luck, we will be sleeping in the new bedroom on Saturday Night. Actually, no! That would be pushing it. Let's say Sunday Night.

In order for that to happen, we need some smooth sailing for the next three days. That means that the baseboard installation in both rooms needs to go well. The touch up painting on the walls in both rooms needs to go well. The Neighborhood Yard Sale on Saturday needs to go very well and then be ignored in the afternoon.

With precision timing, steely nervousness and some luck, I think we can make it all happen.

Stage C, Part B

It took us just over an hour last night to lay down another coat of varnish. Tonight will be the last coat. Then it needs about three days to completely dry before we start putting furniture on the floor. During that time, we have some minor touch up painting on the walls and the baseboard can be installed.

We have noticed two spots where there are glaring gouges that we missed when we filled with wood putty. One is right in the center of the landing floor. It's going to be covered by a carpet but we can't believe that we both missed such an obvious repair spot. The other spot is in the bedroom, right at the door. it is less obvious. It's more of a waviness in the floor, presumably caused by sanding. It just didn't stand out when the floor was naked.

It seems odd after two years to consider the possibility that this project is almost over. And yet, I'm willing to consider it!

Reflections on Polly (polyurothane)

With Stage Two (the Staining) out of the way, we were able to proceed with Stage C (the Varnishing) last night.

The whole project took us about two hours. Most of that time was spent preparing the floors. That involved a good thorough vaccuuming, followed by wiping the whole thing down with tack cloths.

To apply the varnish, we used lambswool pads on a mop pole. We started together but it went so fast that we ended up with Susan doing the application while I looked on and drank beer.

Actually, I had to mix up each quart can of polyurothane we had. We had purchased quarts because "the Depot" had a sale on them which made it cheaper to buy quarts than gallons. What we didn't consider is having to mix up a quart every 10 minutes. There's a thick goo at the bottom that must be extensively mixed in as thoroughly as possible. We used a gallon for the first coat.

With all the imperfections (Character) in this floor, I am very happy with the result. We have two more coats to put down which means two more nights of sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the Living Room.

The pictures I took don't do justice to how good the floor looks. However, here is one anyway. The urothane is still wet so it looks much more glossy than the satin finish it dries to. I like this picture because I have never seen this floor reflect anything!

The Adventures of Susan & Stan the Stainers

Both Susan and I had to work at our various and assorted extra jobs on Saturday. So not much was accomplished by us during the day. However, we got ourselves geared up to stain on Saturday night. It took us about two hours to get through 500 square feet of staining.

We got up the next morning and I was not very happy with the results of our first coat. We had some repairs to do before we put down another coat. The repairs required using the belt sander to remove blemishes, paint drops, and over flowing wood putty.

Once we fixed the boo-boos, we went to work putting down the second coat. This we did in much less than two hours and I was much happier with the results. The picture above shows the bedroom half way between coats one and two. I could almost argue for another coat, but that might make it too dark and then we would have to start over. The photograph below shows one of the repair areas.

The second coat filled the whole house with fumes so we left for a little bit and went to ArtFest. ArtFest is annual event held in a park with lots of artsy craft venders. I actually made a purchase of a hanging hammock, which I intend to enjoy on the back deck. Some day!

When we returned, we found the house still full of fumes (don't light a match) and the floor still kind of tacky. We had hoped to put down a coat of Polyurothane before the end of the night but that was not to be.

So, that is our goal for tonight. Get down a coat of Urothane. Then, we have to completely block off access to the upstairs from the cats and ourselves and sleep on an inflatable mattress in the living room.

Tune in to our next episode to see how we do.

Stage One Complete

The final sanding went smoothly. Get it! Sanding?! Smooth! Golly, I'm good!

We had a slight problem. The wood putty was somewhat resistant to the fine grit sand paper I was using and I didn't see fit to purchase any of the heavier grit paper.

So, Susan went off to "the Depot" while I continued sanding with the one sheet of 60 grit paper we had. I manged to get the bedroom completed while she was gone and got started on the repair section pictured below. That was the most difficult area to sand away as we had completely coated that area.

I think it looks pretty good and once it's stained and covered with a rug, it'll look fabulous.