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.