Coffeegoddess Christmas Gift

Coffeegoddess and I went up to Lowes and grabbed some likely color swatches for painting the hallway adjoining the media room and the recently remodeled bathroom. looks like a pale green will be the choice, I think the swatch says "Zen Garden". Might go by there this evening and pick up primer and paint for that mini-project.

We also grabbed swatches for likely kitchen paint colors, and for the center wall that runs about 2/3 the length of the house, from the kitchen, through the dining room and family room. Looks like a dark maroon for the kitchen and some kind of grey for the center wall.

We applied a self-adhesive linoleum that takes an epoxy grout (looks more or less like ceramic tile when completed) in the bathroom, so will probably go with that same flooring in the kitchen.

I've been thinking about storage solutions for my SF/F paperback collection. I lucked into some cardboard trays a local used bookstore uses for their storage and shipping requirements, they are all filled now. I can't purchase any more of those evidently. I've been thinking for a while now about making wood crates that have sides about 4 1/2 inches high (accomodating a paperback book with the spine facing upward) that would hold 4 rows of paperbacks, with some kind of routed egde so I could stack the crates without the books being compressed/damaged. I could also just use bankers boxes, which wont hold books as neatly and would be harder to inventory and find books I want to read, but would be fantastically cheaper. I could use the trays from the bookstore to store books on my "shortlist" to read, and simply put all the other books into bankers boxes with a printed manifest attached to the box. That would probably be sufficient.

I will need to pack and store the SF/F to get the bookcases off the center wall when we start painting that. I've already decided to un-double the shelves in the living room, where my western canon, philosophy, history, and encyclopedic sets are now double-shelved, rather than returning the paperback SF/F to shelves after painting. It will reduce the clutter, and make the books more accessible (plus redistribute the weight on the trailer floor).

Got some new projects added to the list, kinda in the same vein as some of the existing projects. The bathroom remodel is nearly done, except for trim pieces, so I need to finish that up.

For Christmas, coffeegoddess got paint brushes and a gift card to Lowes, so she can pick out some paint for the kitchen, a hallway, and the center wall of the trailer. She's picked some color swatches, and I need to clear the center wall of bookcases so she can start on that when she's ready.

I've started using my Google calendar to schedule and remind me of stuff I want to do or get done. This is week 2 of that. I'm using it more in an "advisory" capacity, rather than fixing a schedule for things. It seemed to help me stay motivated on a couple things last week.

I need to put the photos of the bathroom remodel up, so the results of that project can be shared.

Guess thats it for this morning.

Made the hills

Well, the ride home was pretty awesome!  The cycle computer shows 5.5 miles, from the office parking lot to the end of my driveway. The last leg of google maps includes a very busy and narrow semi-commercial street, so my route home goes slightly out of the way, through a neighborhood behind my house.  Much safer that way, but adds a little distance over Google's estimate.

I was able to ride all the way home tonight, no stopping and walking up hills, Yay!

My legs are a little wobbly though.  The ride time was 37:11.  So now I need to go back to the biking  page and update my goals, I suppose.

The weather tomorrow shows rain in the evening, and I probably need to give my legs a rest anyway, so its the bus tomorrow and Friday.

Bose 501 Series IVs

I restored a pair of Bose 501 Series IIIs last year.  A friend, Elijah, bought a pair of series IVs so he and I will be restoring those.

The Series IIIs have a grill that goes around 3/4 of the speaker (extends to the back of the speaker enclosure on both sides).  On the series IVs, the grills only cover half the sides rather than all of the sides.

Like the Series IIIs, the grills on the series IVs are stapled on.  this pair had one grill previously removed, so some staples had been replaced with tack nails.  A flathead screwdriver and needlenose pliers were sufficient to remove the grills, including the tack nails.

Once the grills were removed, a couple problems were revealed, including the completely predictable and expected need to replace the surrounds on the main 12" drivers.  A previous owner had tried a repair, which we will be removing in favor of a correct foam surround.

Deck Work

A few years back, I used to like to brew beer.  I had an old refrigerator I used as a beer fridge.  Time, a couple moves, and some downsizing resulted in the beer fridge being stored on the back deck.  The deck is covered, but open to the elements otherwise.  The refrigerator had not been used for around 9 or 10 years, and was old when it came to me back in the mid 90's.  It might have been from the 60s.

So, a call to GotJunk and a little over $100.00, and the refrigerator, an old window AC unit, and some other stuff I could not put out for neighborhood bulk pickup went away.

With the refrigerator gone, our wicker furniture evicted from the Media Room now fits pretty well out there, giving us a new seating area.  I used to enjoy sitting out there at night, so I'm looking forward to having that experience again.

Much of the last two weeks, I have been working on removing hackberry trees from the fenceline, and generally performing landscape fixin'.  My neighbor graciously allowed me free access to his property so I could work from his side of the fence as necessary.   $50.00 and a call to the city got an out of cycle brush pickup arranged (it went yesterday).  I have a bunch of stuff left to cut / remove but May has a free brush pickup, so that will work out I think.

One of the decks has lattice in place of balusters, and the lattice has started falling apart.  I have new wood balusters partially stained.  I did another deck last year with the same stain and materials, so this project should go pretty fast.  I figure I'll stain the balusters during the week, and on saturday I'll remove the lattice on one face of the deck (the one exposed to the wind), relocate the 2x4 horizontal supports so the balusters will work, stain the 2x4s and the 4x4 uprights, and mount the balusters.  Should take only 4 hours to do that Saturday.  The top rail will have to wait for materials, but at least no one will fall through the huge gaps in the lattice. 

My '70 Olds 98 has an interested buyer, a recent high school grad.  he and a friend of his were by over the weekend looking at it, and got it running.  It needs some work, so I've offered to buy parts to get it running if they will work on it with me.  We'll see where that goes, but if nothing else it will be running when we are finished, even if he doesn't feel its worth my asking price once all is said and done.

My friend Wendall used to brew beer also.  About the time I called GotJunk, he brought his collection of gear over, and all the beer stuff (his and mine) went to storage.  I may put up an unfinished project for a batch of beer.

My friend Greg has talked us into starting to bicycle.  The wife picked up a Tricycle, and has been enjoying it.  Greg loaned me a Trek commuter bike, which I have also been enjoying.

That's what I've been up to the last month or a little more.

Goodwill Run

Whew!  It has been a hectic couple weeks.  The company I work for has been marketing to some new customers, and we have been challenged to rise to the occasion, with tight deadlines and new development work to meet the requirements these customers have.  The schedule has required me to work weekends the last few weeks.

But, today is Saturday, and I am off work today at least for the moment.  Over the last couple weeks I've been staring at piles of stuff in the back room, thinking about how best to organize what I want to keep, and what would be best in someone else's house.

I have a stereo cabinet that came out of the media room prior to the remodel.  I'm offering that to my Son-In-Law first, then it goes to Goodwill.  I also have an old rolling shelf from a bookstore, used to display paperbacks.  I've pulled everything out of it and have it ready for Goodwill also.

I rearranged some shelving in the back, reutilizing a shelf that came out of the media room, to create more vertical space, and have moved some accession boxes to that shelving at least temporarily.

Today's project is to move all the boxes out of the back room, so I can see what the volume is I'm dealing with.  At least several of the boxes are full of papers needing filing, so that is tomorrow's project, but for today I'm just clearing floorspace and looking for things to donate.

I also have a few boxes from my daughter who is away at college.  Those have already been pulled and will go to the storage unit this afternoon.

Bulk Pickup

In the vein of losing some things I don't need, the debris from the media room remodel went out for bulk pickup this morning, along with a chimenea that was no longer usable (Thanks Greg, for the invaluable assist getting that chimenea out to the street!).

I have a couple bookcases slated for my brother, and a media storage cabinent (circa the VHS tape days, but good for DVDs also) that is slated for a friend's house.

I anticipate most of that going out this week. The media cabinet for sure is going out tonight, the bookcases may have to wait til mid-week when my brother can come by and help me move them.

I've been looking at some industrial shelving at Lowes, and may hit craigslist or something and see what's available in that area this week or next, as I have stuff to take to storage but don't want it sitting on the concrete floor in case something leaks or floods nearby. A gorilla rack makes a bunch of sense if I can transport it.

Media Room Progress

I've been working very hard on the Media Room remodel project.  Since the last post, I have removed and replaced the warped subfloor (thank you very much for your help Wendall), installed the laminate hardwood floor, and painted.  The new couch arrived on the 8th, and looks great!

This weekend I hung pictures, and installed new molding around the entry door.

Mary and I have really been enjoying the new look.

Still to go is molding around the closet door, baseboard molding and ceiling molding, and hanging shelves for the electronic equipment.

Made some progress

So it's not much of a project, but I did have a box of stuff to mail to my mother, and another box of stuff to mail to my daughter. I got those mailed yesterday, yay!

However, it being the first of February, it turns out most of the folks in my area also needed to mail stuff, so it took around 45 minutes to get through the post office. I ended up home at 7:00 with freezing weather already here, and hose bibs unwrapped. Got that done, and started the pool pumps, so another 30 minutes gone there. Then, it was time to work on my project: the media room.

We had pulled everything requiring two people out of the room on Sunday. Now it was Tuesday night at 8:00 and still had a bookcase and a few boxes of loose ends in the room. Got that handled, the room is now empty. Pulled the picture hangers and such out of the wall, and talked with the wife about primer and paint, which was not really in my original schedule. But, if she can put some paint on for me, that will really help the final project results.

So, today's plan is for the wife to pick up primer on her way home and put one coat on, we'll spackle anything she discovers, then try to get a second coat on tomorrow. The paint color will be cranberry or something similar, so one coat of paint Friday night, and one Saturday morning should cover. Once I get home we'll go together to Lowes and select the flooring and paint color. I'll pull the carpet out tonight, and figure out where the joists are based on the nail pattern in the floor. I wont cut the floor now until Saturday when it warms up a bit.

That's the plan for the next few days. New furniture arrives on the 8th, so everything needs to be done by then.

Whats the Point?

My friend Greg and I share a common dilemma.  To judge from the number of self-help productivity books that enter the market every year, a lot of folks have this issue:  Too many unfinished projects.

So, here goes another project:  A blog.


My general notion in this blog is to record in the morning what projects I actually want to work on, then over the day record what I actually do.  I may dull it up with things like time spent, as that may eventually be useful to me, though dull as a board to others.

My big project right now is a remodel of a room in my doublewide, where the floor is warped from a previous water leak under the trailer.  I have the room about 90% empty.  Today's plan is to finish emptying the room, and remove the carpet.