Old computer stuff anyone?
I’ve been inspired for the last week or so to finally clear out the office. All of the stuff you see piled in the hallway is leaving our house. Some will be recycled, some trashed, and the electronics will be disposed of appropriately.
A reasonable portion of the electronics may actually be functional, but are so old or abused that they have essentially zero useful value (at least to me).
A well spent Saturday morning.
In the continuing saga of “What were they thinking when they did that?” we’ve discovered another interesting construction artifact in our house. Let’s back up a little.
A few days back K announced that she was fed up with the paint in the master bath and that it had to go. “I’m painting the bathroom!” she said with that just-dare-to-defy-me-this-fundamental-right tone.
“Ok” I said.[1]
So yesterday after work she informed me that my responsibilities in this effort were to:
No sweat. So this morning (as I decided to take a day off to spend with the fam), I quickly remove the toilet tank. [2]
Now time for the mirror…. well, I better remove the light fixture too, I think, otherwise what’s the point. It’s a box style with four individual protruding sconces. There are two screws on top which hold the front panel (and the lights) to the cheezy[3] sheet metal box mounted to the wall. K flips the breaker and I detach it… and the metal box for ultimate painting convenience.
Now for the mirror… it’s simply a rectangular piece of silvered glass with two metal supports on the bottom and two plastic supports on top. Turn the two plastic supports, tip the glass away from the wall and I’m golden. K helps spot me through the door as it’s surprisingly disorienting to be looking into a mirror as you maneuver through a confined space.
We walk back in the room and… there is another random hole in the wall behind the mirror. Wha?!
A week or so ago, I woke up to scrambling and mewing from our hall bathroom. This is the bathroom that we remodeled about a year ago…
AND the one that let loose a torrent of water into our home interior about six months ago…
At least this the excuse for why I had never replaced the piece of plywood that allows access to the wet-wall and shower/tub cut off valves.
Unfortunately, mice discovered that this provides direct access into our linen closet. A warm, fuzzy, dark location that can not be reached by our cats. Not that our cats are such a great deterrent (more on this in a minute), but the mice don’t know they’re lousy hunters… so I’ve always assumed that the smell of the fearsome predators would keep the mice out of the living quarters. As a house in the relative country, the idea of keeping mice completely out of the house is pretty much too much to ask for (especially because the house was well infested when we moved in… there are just too many access points we don’t know about).
That said, we have maybe one incident a year where a stray field mouse gets lost in the interior and our ferocious felines chase it around the house. Often cornering, often swatting, but never catching, killing, eating or removing. Oh no. Apparently that’s my job.
So there I was at 3 AM armed with my usual mouse hunting gear (more…)
This was the sound I heard just after I returned home late this morning (about 11:30AM). I had run out to pick up some Star Wars stamps for our birth announcements. I came in through the garage and was just closing the door when (as the title says) I heard: “Thunk-WHHHOOOOOSSSSHHHH!!” come from upstairs, something like the sound you get when you suddenly release the tub drain… except the rush of water seemed to be under pressure and kept going strong. Afraid that perhaps K has fallen in the shower (she had not), I shouted out and quickly ran upstairs.
Meanwhile: “WHHHOOOOOSSSSHHHH!!”
I got to the top of the stairs and noticed the running water sound seemed to be coming from the hall bathroom (maybe K is in the tub?). I quickly looked in the tub… nothing… except for water gurgling out around the water control knob (we have one of those single knob shower controls) and from… get this… around the OUTSIDE of the tub faucet. “Oooh,” I thought, “that can’t be good.” So skipping most of the stairs on the way down, I sprinted to the basement.
Meanwhile: “WHHHOOOOOSSSSHHHH!!”
(more…)
Grand-dad Schierer made this fine changing table for the baby…
which converts into this beautiful dresser for the child to be (the top comes off):
This was actually delivered over the weekend, but for obvious (read below) reasons, I didn’t get this post up until now.
I sense the relief in some and the panic in others as this title is processed by their fleshy comparators. To those who seek the end, fear not, the construction is complete. TO those who want more, there will always be updates for the purpose of the room… if not the room itself. But enough stalling…
Doesn’t the floor look great! In the sun it just glows. I’m so glad that we didn’t settle for anything less. It’s a solid 3/4″ prefinished northern maple hardwood floor. We got the middle grade for some extra color variation. The tone varies a bit more than I anticipated, but the wood is so warm and rich with beautiful grain that I’m very pleased with the complete look.
This view is looking the opposite direction highlighting the paint pattern that K designed for the raised panel doors.
There are detailed descriptions and more pictures in the gallery.
The flooring is officially going in! Dad (S) and I installed a threshold at the nursery doorway and hand nailed the first four courses. The plan is to rent the floor nailer next week and Eric and I will put in the remaining flooring on Saturday.
Meanwhile we’ve gone from one packed house to another. Last weekend we were at my parents’ house in PA with my sister, Bro-in-law (aka H&J) and their 2 kids. This weekend we had my parents and H&J in last night. H&J were picking up a puppy from a local breeder (you will probably be able to read about that on her blog shortly) so they left this morning. K’s folks and G-Pa arrived this afternoon and are now in house for the night. A local shower (really brunch) is scheduled for tomorrow after church.
Church is going to be fun, because the 2 (and a half) of us will have 6 family members joining us for church. In addition, a friend from work and his family (2+2) may be joining us for the first time at our church. So in all 10 adults and 2(.5) kids. We’ll need to get there early to reserve a big chunk of space.
The flooring has arrived. It’s going to look great. Here’s a very fake sneak preview:
Yes, I know, the floor is out of focus because I’m holding it in my hand, but it’s all about the colors. See!
We’ll be heading to my folks house for a shower on Saturday, then back here for Easter. The flooring needs to acclimate for 3-6 days (depending on who you ask). So I think I’ll be taking some time off late next week to get it installed. Hopefully with some help! (Eric!?)
We have finally finished with the paint in the nursery! And saturday we also got the chair rail up (except for one small piece, cause Home Depot didn’t have enough). Finally feels like we’ve accomplished something on it 
I’m thrilled with how it’s turning out. It’s going to look really nice with the crib bedding we’ve picked out.
Next on the list to finish the room up is:
When that’s done, I think the room will be ready for the furniture.
Well the work continues in making a space for the soon-to-be-arrival. The walls are painted and now I’m working on some touch-up and the closet. I’m out of primer, so I’ll have to get more tomorrow. It’s amazing how much primer you can go through when the walls are as beat-up as these were.
I’m not sure what the previous household did in this room, but its pretty clear that some kind of ill behaved animal was kept in here against its will. The door shows significant claw marks, and there were various awkward looking stains and marks in various places on the walls. Well no more! (I suppose some of the deeper marks on the door can be seen through the paint.)
The trim has been primed and painted but will need another coat. The chair rail will probably go up in the next day or so, with the closet painting happening at the same time. After that the carpet comes up to make room for some kind of wood-like flooring. We haven’t decided exactly what we want yet, but it will probably be some kind of laminate-type snap-in floor boards. Its durable, looks nice and relatively inexpensive. I’ll be putting that in myself. I told K that either we pay somebody to put it in, or I’m getting the compound miter saw. Not that flooring needs miter joints (generally) but it does need a lot of precision chopping. The wall trim will need some miters, so the saw has been acquired.
On the rest of the preparing for baby front, we attended our first birthing class last week. I’m not sure it was particularly educational so far, but there are many more classes. K also has a checkup tomorrow.
Date: 07/12/2008
