Sanding Round One

We finally got back to work in the Living Room. We started the dreaded sanding portion of the project. This is Round 1 as we have more plastering to do. 

We tried a new method that was recommended by one of my construction gurus at church. Wet sanding! I took a block of wood and stapled a piece of terry cloth to it. Then you just wrap it around the block and get it pretty wet. Not so it's drippy but almost. It works really well on the mud over the screw holes. not quite as well on the tape. The mud saturates the cloth quickly so you have to rinse it out a lot. The nice thing about this is there is very little dust.

The main problem we had was that we are old. We both got a little nauseous up on the ladder, looking straight up while sanding. Susan is napping right now to try and work off the nausea. I'm not feeling great yet but I'm feeling well enough to consider opening a beer.

I will say this. To the boys on Itineras who were smart enough to get out of their life time remodeling project and onto the water, get bent!

Saturday in Suburbia - Does Living in Spokane Count as "Suburbia"?

It is early evening as I sit down at the computer and begin this post. The plan is that what you are about to read is compelling, humorous and indicative of what can occur when words are put together in no particular order with no particular agenda.

It's a sloppy January day in Spokaloo and Susan and I enjoyed it to the best of our poor time management ablities. I started the morning by watching a bunch of PBS Home Improvement shows without performing any actual home improvement. Then I went out to the Carriage House to sand some living room trim as well as perform some secret security work. (I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to talk about the secret security work as it involves some security matters and the secrets surrounding it/them.)

I managed to completely sand the trim pieces and get a coat of stain on them.

My victory for the day was finding my cell phone that I lost about three weeks ago. I had just charged it up and put it in a pocket on my backpack. All of the sudden, it was gone.

I found it on the edge of the driveway by the Arbor Vitae, kind of up against a little chunk of snow. It was off when I lost it so I was hopeful it would be okay. I am pleased to report that it appears to be okay. Yea!

I'm brutal on phones and cameras.

Mud Day!

Mudding and taping continued today and we got through it. We had some issues with our Venetian Plaster walls and Susan did some touch up work which we hope will suffice. There is still a lot of sanding in our future. Then more mudding. Then more sanding. 

And so it goes.

Weekend of Mud

It's Saturday and there is a lot to accomplish. So what better way to start the day than to sleep until 9:30. Then a big hearty breakfast of Biscuits and Gravy. Now you have the stamina and strength to work through the day.

Susan got to work taping and mudding the ceiling in the living room while I did everything I could to avoid taping and mudding. I'm not very good at it and Susan is like a Mudding Savant.

I accomplished some secret security work and then defrosted the freezer. 

Susan got about half the ceiling done before she called it a day.

Then we met Mark at Jack and Dan's Tavern for some Gonzaga Basketball. The Bulldogs of Gonzaga played the Bulldogs of Butler in the Butler ZepplinDome. It turned out to be one of the closest and best games I've ever seen...although the Zags came up short by one point in the last six seconds.

Afterwards, we returned home and vegged with a DVD Movie, "Flight". It was okay...not great. The plane crash portion of the movie was pretty intense. Then the relationship portion took over and stalled.

Dry Wall Friday

It is another Friday off for me and today I must try and get something accomplished. Last week, I went skiing on Friday. While I think I accomplished something, Susan may not necessarily feel the same.

So my goal today is to get the living room ceiling dry walled. For too long it has looked like this.

I'll bet it has been three years since we put up those support  strips, which we in the business call "Furring". So, I was hoping that by the end of the day, the ceiling would look like this.

And surprisingly, it does!

The next step is to drink a beer, which I am doing now. Then, after that, you have to let that drywall hang and cure...to be sure it stays in place. I'm thinking about three more years. Susan is not thinking that...unfortunately.

Snow Day

We awoke to a load of snow on the ground. I estimate five inches fell at our house. I got up and got to work.

My neighbor Lou was moments ahead of me when I fired up the snow blower at about 6:30AM. He was half way down the sidewalk on his side of Wall Street with his snow blower when I lumbered onto my driveway and began conducting a symphony of snow throwing with notes of the heavy snow flying this way and that.

I have a lot of ground to cover and I was out there for about an hour. I didn't get to everything that I wanted to but I knew I would be back that evening to clean up and touch up.

I ended up being about a half hour late to work. The drive was pretty smooth considering the amount of snow that fell and the number of idiots that are out there in my way. I traveled out to Liberty Lake at about 50 miles per hour on the freeway. When the speed limit allowed me to increase to 70, my speed fell to 40.

Idiots!

Saturday, January 5th, 2013

9:29AM: Got out of bed. It is fabulous to sleep in. The sun got so bright in our room that we were finally forced out of bed.

9:45AM: Made a couple of Peppermint Patty's and sat in the hot tub.

10:15AM: Got out of the hot tub. I took a shower and got dressed.

10:43AM: Came in here and started writing this Blog Post. I shall continue to update throughout the day.

10:55AM: Added chemistry to the hot tub. I changed out the water the day after Christmas and had not added any chemistry yet, so it was well overdue. I also added some Coconut Mango Oil to augment the smell of the water, which smelled like two week old hot tub water.

11:05AM: I found it is much easier to remove the lights than to put them up. I had a string up on the balcony that I forgot about. Fortunately, Susan reminded me this morning. So now that's done!

12:30PM: I cleaned out the cat box and have done some assorted stuff. I am now heading out to purchase a few needed items, like a new filter for the aquarium and a new blade for my hack saw.

1:57PM: Returned home to learn that Mom had called and her new computer was ready for pick up at the Apple Store. So we drove over and picked up Mom and went downtown to Apple-Topia.

4:12PM: We have returned after getting Mom her new computing machine and then we went to P.F. Chang's for a late lunch. Her new computer is pretty cool and we have just played with Facetime, the video conferencing dealie on the computer.

7:something PM: We walked over to the Hub to watch Gonzaga play against Santa Clara. Mark joined us over there and we watched the game through half time. Then we came home and watched the end of the game. 

It is starting to snow now. Looks like we're in for some winter.

Well, that's the day. What an exciting life we live!

Twenty-Thirteen

We welcomed the new year with a downtown adventure.

We rode the Spokane Party Trolley. This peddle powered cart seats about 15 people plus a driver, plus a bartender, if needed. 

We got to ride around downtown for free because the owner is the cousin of my friend Jerry and she wanted to get out and get some publicity.

She has had a hell of a time getting approved by the various city and state entities she encounters. She has paid a shitload in permits and she still is getting the run around. 

Anyway, Jerry and Janet invited us to join them and we had a great venture around downtown as First Night Festivities were going on. We peddles the trolley to four downtown bars. Fast Eddie's, O'Dorherty's, Soulful Soups, and Luigi's.

We slept past 9:30 this morning. What a great way to receive the new year. Even with our late morning, we managed to get Christmas put away. I have one item on the balcony to take down and then it is done.

In honor of our accomplishment, here is a last look at the tree. Please make note of the ceiling with all those tacky strips of wood up there. That will soon be covered by a smooth wonderful layer of drywall as we commence on our next project. We thought the living room would be a relatively easy makeover, but then Susan started seeing stuff and adding stuff and making my life...well...my life.

I didn't pay any attention to how many posts I made last year so I didn't make a big run up at the end of the year to make more posts. As such, I made under a hundred posts last year. I don't consider it good or bad. Just what happened.