CEF - ya didn't really accomplish anything until you draw blood. Everybody knows that.

Stay safe!

Ouch, Christine! I'm a barefoot girl too.

I'm stripping a table for my Mom. Last weekend DH and I did the top at her house, to show her how Citristrip worked. She was suitably impressed!

I brought the table home to do the bottom and legs. Here is the bottom, and the paint at the edges stripped off without us even trying. yes, the table was two-tome; the legs are tan, and the top and leaves are were gold.

I let the Citristrip work for a day, and this is what it looked like when I took the plastic off. I love it when paint comes off with the plastic!

Owww!!! I'm so sorry about your fingers!

I used to be a barefooted, until my parents built a home out in the country and the carpet was the same color as all the scorpions that inhabit our land, and house.

To this day, I can't step barefooted anywhere. I always wear flip flops.

Annkh- I love seeing that stuff work. I really want to try it but I don't have anything that needs to be stripped. Time to start garage sale hunting...

Get well soon Christine! My first aid kit is sadly lacking too, but thankfully we don't need it terribly often.

Nothing going on here. Hockey and housework. I really need to try making bread! Christina222's bread had me drooling! And Terri aka Donna Reed or June Cleaver or whomever she's channeling makes english muffins!! What?!

Schicksal, I hope the rain stops for you and the insurance people get a move on. The more they stall, the more money they'll have to pay you.

My work boot has been causing me a lot of pain lately and I've been hobbling around at work. I noticed I have a lump or bump or something above my ankle, so I'm going to the Doc tomorrow to figure out what it is. It doesn't bother me unless I'm wearing my work boots. Now, I haven't worn fashion boots, maybe those would bother me too, but regular shoes/runners don't bother me because they don't go above my ankle. I'm hoping I can get a note to get steel toed shoes to wear for a while instead of boots and then I can do my whole job while we get things sorted out and I don't have to be inside all day. I wouldn't mind it but some of the people drive me crazy. LOL

We were working on pavers, as well. But ours are giant, and we are pouring them ourselves. It will be nice when it's done and we won't have so much mountain dirt working its way into the house :)

Oh my that sounds awful Christine. Yeah not much you can do with fingers tore up!
2 years ago I bought really good first aid kits to "waste" Flex spending dollars. Lol one for each vehicle and another for the house.

I have some more Citristrip projects on the to do...just to warm to work. :)

Just dinner and dishes in the kitchen tonight. Easy stuff. Rice, broccoli, chicken, cheese and white sauce layerd, baked and served.

Ouch Christine! I'm virtually never barefoot. The textures on my feet bug me.

The bread did look lovely Christina222. And tasty.

I love seeing the Citistrip projects. annkh this one makes me really want to do my sewing cabinet.

The new high school has gotten scorpions in the room. My friend who moved there this year texted me a pic of a sizeable one in a classroom. Yikes!

Just lots of school work this weekend.

Ouch - just reading that hurts!

Our first aid kit might as well be some whiskey and a strip of lead to bite on. I hate not having any useable bathroom storage. The vanity is a repurposed piece of furniture of some kind, but the plumbing and sink bowls took away the ability to use nearly any of the shelves or drawers. Our conversation is usually
"have you seen XYZ?"
"Nope, not since the move..."

@ annkh - cool looking project. I'm curious how easily the lower layer comes off and how old the paint is?

It rained like crazy yesterday - I was doing 40 on the freeway and the car still felt like it was starting to float around some. It was worth the drive though. I spoke with the roofers in person and it sounds like the supplier's insurance is playing me against them. There were so many documents that say "ground drop" it's not even funny. It's a corner house and there are power lines on both sides that face a street so it's completely unallowable to do a roof drop purely due to OSHA guidelines, let alone the age of the place. Someone could have been fried in addition to what happened.

Kitchen related: The french press came yesterday and I tested it out this morning. I think it's an improvement... the coffee came out lighter than I'm used to but with more caffeine. But I'm still tired. Very confusing...

Sorta kitchen related: The doors also arrived. The shipment was undamaged but one of them was defective probably before leaving the factory. The veneer was damaged in a very odd way. A new one is on its way. Solid core doors are HEAVY and I need to add a hinge to the four dooorways where I am replacing an existing one. I have no clue where to find something that matches. These hinges aren't mortised in and have these sort of fingers that come together.

schicksal: Interesting about the insurance company. Wow.

My interior doors are solid. Someone that was here fairly recently, can't remember who...maybe one of DH's poker guys, marveled at them. I don't think he'd ever experienced solid core doors.

Speaking of doors, I need to call the door people. The finisher got married early August and I was supposed to see my doors a couple weeks after that. I think 6 is plenty.

re: door frames (and I don't even know if I'm saying the right thing...the molding that you see that is parallel to the wall, not perpendicular) -- Is it independent from the part the door closes into (the part that's perpendicular to the wall)? We're getting three new doors: front (using existing jamb), kitchen (using existing jamb) and DR/patio (getting pre-hung). IIRC we talked about what molding to use around the DR/patio door. It currently has a fluted molding that most of the doors in the house have. I think I said I was fine losing that. Now I don't think so. The two other doorways in that room/area have that molding and I think it should stay. Should they be fine removing and replacing it?

Love to see pictures of those hinges.

CalQ, yes they should carefully remove the trim to reuse if you can not find a match. The problem we had with a slider install at my mom's a year ago was the new slider fit the hole differently(supposed to be the same size) and when they replaced the trim, the top was a lot lower. So we had to replace all the trim with much wider pieces.

Cleaning up storm damage, large branches off 2 trees, filthy pool.

Running around trying to get old car cleaned and ready for road trip - SO is giving it to his daughter so they will have a reliable commute car.

No house progress - decided to use pro painters to get it over with. Need to call painter.

The casing can be removed from the jamb and wall easily. The only ones I've seen come with it preinstalled are split jamb doors.

Pics to come...

This is the hinge. They're very common in 1950s-1960s houses in the area. One time I got lucky and found two new ones at Habitat. The only marking anywhere is "McKinney."

I found a couple on ebay but the seller must be nuts if they think they're getting $50 out of the pair.

Those are really cool looking! But yeah, I imagine hard to find.

These type of hinges make hanging a door when building it up from scratch with a 3 piece jamb a lot easier because you don't have to mortise them. Prehung doors eliminated that issue since that step was already done at the factory.

This evening I put in the door to the master bedroom. It's embarrassing but we've used a sheet for months now. This is actually the one that arrived damaged but they are sending another over that is already drilled and mortised for hinges, and I will practice learning how to apply finish on this one. I'm very happy with the look and feel though, and that I can continue to put in more baseboards now.

DH and I have been sanding the exterior siding preparing to stain it as soon as it quits raining long enough to paint. Mother Nature is so uncooperative right now!The Behar semi-transparent stain is not supposed to be applied within 24 hours of rain, and of course, all of the nice sunny days are happening during the work week.

DH has agonized over the stain color and after a week of complete indecision, we finally chose one. Much to my surprise, when we opened the cans tonight, it was not the color we thought we were getting! Argh! Turns out the person who mixed the stain color samples mislabeled the samples. So the color we thought we chose is not what we got. Even though the cans say no return, we figured that Home Depot should taken them back since it was their error, but what a hassle! Plus I actually like the new color which is a bit darker than what we first selected. After testing it on some scraps of the siding boards, we have decided to go with the new color. Crisis averted! So the rest of the week, we will try to paint as much as we can after work since rain is predicted for the entire weekend.

Well I sent the counter top slide in range with a used appliance dealer today, he gave my mom credit of $75 on the used washer and dryer set she was buying from him. We went over and hubby installed the dryer gas line after dinner.

Got the bill yesterday for the range gas line tap. $269 plus $60 for the used range. It'll do for a while. :) not the fanciest thing, but certainly affordable.

That's pretty good for a gas line!

@aamichz5 - you'd be surprised. I brought in the cap from a 5 gallon paint bucket and only needed 1 more gallon. They mixed the wrong color entirely (picked one with a similar name) and I couldn't take it back to HD. It may have worked out for the best; at least in my experience I've had much better luck with somewhat darker stains lasting an extra year or two over lighter ones.

Can't wait to get home and put in more doors! I may also finally get to talk in person with someone from the attorney's office today. The paralegal lost the email and pictures/documents in her spam folder and was wondering why I never replied until I finally called their office yesterday afternoon.

Not a bad evening I guess... I managed to get door #2 out of 3 installed, and figured out a small electrical issue on the car that was causing that a/c to not turn on. I could have gotten started with the last door except I framed the opening a little small and adjustments took a while.

The third door worries me a bit because I know that opening is one is just a bit small too. Guess I'll deal with that tomorrow.

So I make light of CEF's injuries and the very next day I cut myself with sharp objects not once but twice, both times standing at the kitchen sink. I feel very bad now.

Well, wife survived her second cataract surgery yesterday. Everything looks good so far. Have a few more days of this and then I can go back to my normal routine. I did get some more trim started in the workshop last night, but this is going very slowly as I only have an hour or two a day to work on it and it takes a half hour just to get something started.

MTdoug that'll teach you I wouldn't wish that on anyone. It just plain hurts until it doesn't. You just gotta wait.

It looks like I'll lose my nail, given when I tore my fingers back, it crossed the base of my fingernail. I have no idea what kind of scar/nail I'll end up with, but so far it looks like a badly done skin graft.

But. Neither rain, sleet (I wrote "sleep), snow, dark of night or laziness will prevent me from accomplishing something in the yard.
Last night I mowed 1/2 my lawn.
The last 2 days I dug out a raised bed and am loading it with more indigenous, somewhat clay-y soil, pearlite, potting soil, and as many leaves as I can rake up. I'm going to permanently plant some hosta, heuchera, etc., into this bed, along with the 4 JMs that were placed last fall. Getting things out of pots. This bed will get a thick layer of wood chips. Of course, right now I'm procrastinating.

I've also mulched/chipped about 100' of fenceline, where I've dug out the 2 spindly, nonproducing lilacs and the Japanese cariea beds. It's so open and clean I LOVE it again.

I still have a huge lilac, 3 spirea, 1 quince, and some trees too big to cut down myself. But progress is evident!

My neighbor and I will continue the new fencing tomorrow. We get about 5-6 8' sections done each time.

I might have a line on some gorgeous slate. Not flagstone, but slate. About 50 pieces roughly 3x3' to 3x4'. I could do my entire back patio (about 18x37') and use the flagstone I've been collecting for the front porch.
He said, "Make me an offer."
I replied, "I don't want to insult you, so please remember I'm a waitress rebuilding her home alone."
He said, "I know. Go ahead."
I said, wincing, "$200?"
He said, "Call me tomorrow. I'll see if the new owner wants it." He's selling the house he built and used this for the entire ground floor. He knows of me through my next door, fencing-helping neighbor.
So cross all your fingers for me.

That's all. Gotta go do something or I just won't.

We had to replace a section of the original fascia since it had started rotting.

Its been needing to be primed and painted (I know, I know, I should have done it the day we put it up)

Well, its 2pm on a Thursday afternoon, my two oldest are at school, 2 youngest taking naps and I just finished putting primer on it. Yay! Bonus is that you can also see the siding in this pic.

I know stark white isn't the most interesting color but its easy to match and I just want it done so we are doing ultra pure white.

I've also been trying to gather every single toy in the house and sort/organize them so we can get rid of what we don't need/use anymore in a garage sale. Tonight, more toy sorting, tomorrow (hopefully) I'll get around to grouting the breezeway floor. The tile was laid almost 2 weeks ago, just haven't grouted yet.

Nothing that I've accomplished, but we finally got the last appliance installed!

Drawer below is a little too tall. Installer said he could shim the Speedoven up, but would rather not. We've already had plans to have the drawer front shaved down a little, along with the door next to it, so we didn't have him shim it.

I freaked out for a minute there. The guy first said 'This is supposed to be ready to plug in.' I said yeah, it's got the same outlet as the dryer (of course, I never looked myself, but the non-HD contractor did it when he cut/prepped the cabinet.) Turns out it's sort of a weird arrangement because the box that the power for the island outlet power is higher/more visible than the outlet for the speed oven, but it was down there. Whew!

Finally it's not over 100 degrees. The past many days have been brutal. Hopefully I'll start getting some energy to get some stuff done!

Greyish outside...sun was hit and miss, rain yesterday..
Cooler here too, which is nice.

Just vacuumed the house, well I have the guy room yet to do.

No big plans for anything. I could do some sewing, some baking, some reading.

I could build a kitchen in the Ikea planner.

I might just put on my sneakers and walk to the football field. Hmmm...

Lots of coulds and mights..lol

Doug, I'm sorry about your owies.
CalQ, lovely...almost there!
TG, your sky looks a bit like mine right now. The white is bright. But why not?

Ouch Doug!

Frustrating day here. Furniture was delivered for the guest/sewing room and the sofa didn't fit through the hallway door. I was assured it would fit when I bought it. I'd provided all the measurements. They picking it up Wednesday, its currently,sitting in my living room, where it is surplus to requirements.

schicksal,

Thanks for the feedback. We started staining and it is looking good. Since I wanted a darker color to begin with, I'm pleased. I also got to be right about something. I suggested using painting pads, which were recommended in the instructions, but DH insisted on using brushes. Well, we have brush marks showing despite our blending efforts, fortunately in place that will be eventually covered by the deck. Anyway, he went a bought some painting pads today and found that not only does the stain go on more evenly, it goes on faster! Woo-hoo onward and upward.

Terri- I don't remember your exact location but yes, we have been gray and dreary off and on for the past two weeks.

While I'm thankful for the moisture, I am NOT used to overcast days. Bleh. The news tells me we are getting hit with the remnants of tropical storm Odile. Kind of crazy since I'm 600 miles inland.

CEF, Terri, Christina222 - I've been duly chastised :) Actually, I make light of hand injuries because I've been a bad boy over the years. 57 stitches just in my hands at last count, yet my hands still feel fine and everything works. Pretty amazing body parts (CEF, if you do lose a nail, you gain my deepest sympathies. I've never managed to accomplished that, at least that I recall).

Took a rare day off working on the house today. I'm not getting enough sleep so I'm off to bed early. Hope to get stuff done this weekend. I need to figure out my "secret" door into the storage space off the bedroom before I go too much further. Plus the wife nixed my cream-colored limestone over the chimney in the bedroom. I even found some honed tiles for $2.50 sf. Too yellow, she said. Oh, well, back to square one, but I need to get that started, too.

TG, I live in the interior coast of WA. The Puget Sound has many a day any time of the year that has grey skies. Thankfully this summer has been exceptional, if not at times a bit to warm for my "mossy" backed self. So the grey days are a welcomed repreive for now. In about a month, it'll be every day for a good stretch, grey, wet, soggy, damp.....gloomy....

@cal quail, what is even left to do at this point? You must be near the end.

@Texas_Gem - good for you for replacing the siding! I've been getting on my parents since the late 1990s about replacing the pieces they didn't repaint quickly enough. They'll do it someday I guess.

@ Christina222 - any ideas about how to get the furniture in the room? Through a window?

I miss gray days. Today I'm NOT feeling good. Too much Yuengling and too big a burger, too late in the evening. Also the cat wouldn't shut up about wanting the dog's water. There's always water in the cat's water dish and it's clean but it wants what the dog has for some reason.

I have one more door to finish putting in, then I need to make the replacements (for the replacements the previous owners put in) that go in the other bedrooms/bathroom go away until I'm ready to install them. They are not a part of this project.

This weekend I plan on experimenting with finishing the damaged door to see if we like the color and playing around with the car some to make it stop stalling already.

Shicksal, tummy woes suck, especially at work! Hope it passes quickly!

Lol at the cat. I love kitties, but am glad I am not a cat keeper any longer.

Terri - I recently saw a graphic on one of the weather web sites of days of measurable precipitation per year in major cities around the world and Seattle sat right at the top with around 150-160 days a year. Once you subtract our three months of summer, it would exceed raining every other day. It's true that once the fall rains start nothing dries out until the next summer.

CEF - Did you get the slate?

The window has been suggested Schicksal and I'm willing to have it done that way but the furniture store will not. If I do that I'm going to have to hire movers or something to do it. I have no idea how much that will cost or even who to call to do that.

I love gray days, but it's probably somewhat of a grass is always greener thing. The grayest places I've lived are a couple spots around the Bay Area. Mostly I've lived in so cal.

I'm at school/work waiting for students to finish a quiz. I'm advisor for Academic Decathlon this year, I can't believe all these students volunteer to study and take quizzes. Amazing.

My top of my head list of what's to be done by the HD GC:
Finish crown
Fix existing crown
Install floating shelves
Install remaining furniture base (was back ordered)
Install all light rails
Install 3 fillers
Fix drywall which was broken out around 3-gang switch
Fix door frame that they put 15 staples into
Get faucet flowing properly (it's about 1/3 if what it should be)

Then there's the whole end panel situation (got call today that it's arrived), which means coordinating them, the floor guys, and the SZ guy)

Still missing some shelves and ancillary parts, I delayed pushing those because I wanted that ordered only once.

Our other GC and local cabinet guy-Frame and plank (some have called it a canopy) need to be built and installed with the pendants{{gwi:807}}. Got estimate earlier in the week and gave asked for a written plan/design sketch. Local cabinet guy is not quick, we know, which is one reason we didn't go with him for more. But he will also shave down the door and drawer necessary.

Oh and innermost rep was getting me some side to side adjustment capable drawer hardware and a few other things.

Last, but not least, we're about 95% sure that HD paid the GC without us signing off. We paid quite a bit for permits, and only a lighting permit was pulled, and if course it's not inspected or anything yet. When the HD KD and innermost rep were out 2.5 weeks ago, it sounded like we might not be dealing with THAT GC again. Now that the panel is in, it's time to go chat with HD and find out.

This post was edited by cal_quail on Fri, Sep 19, 14 at 18:31

That sounds like a lot but the pictures make it look really far along at least.

I put in the last door today only to realize later that what looks good on paper may not be convenient to use. The half bath will be about 4' deep. That means that at most we can have a 20" vanity. To open the door and get out someone will have to step to the side a bit. I need to pull up the drawing for our old place because I thought I made the dimensions within 6" of that half bath and we never had problems there.

Finding a 20" deep vanity may also present a challenge. It would be custom to cpordinate with the style of the house but the sink and faucet must be bought from somewhere.

If bad comes to worse I can spin the door and frame around so it opens into the family room.

This post was edited by schicksal on Fri, Sep 19, 14 at 19:28

Well I WAS going to grout the breezeway floor today.

I got up, got the kids off to school, then prepared to go to the store. Opened the garage door, pulled out, pushed the remote to close it and it wouldn't close.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the tension cable somehow came loose on one side and when I tried to close it, it caused 3 of the bearings to come out of the track on the opposite side, wrenching the door completely out of whack.

So I ran my errands, came home, fed the kids lunch, put them down for naps then went out to work on the door. Of course its raining today, some pretty hard downpours scattered between drizzles. And my garage door is broken. In the open position. With no one here to help me.

Its still not fixed. Hubby got home and I just finished feeding the kids dinner. I'll have to get them in bed and then the 2 of us will have to tackle it together. The door is just too heavy for one person to hold it in the right place while putting the pieces back on.

Sigh, and I was so looking forward to a nice, relaxing Friday night.

Cal- I don't know that its necessarily a grass is greener thing, I've lived here (Texas panhandle, pretty dry and warm) my whole life and I HATE gray days. I don't mind rain, moisture, etc. But this day after day of gray? I can't seem to wake up in the morning, I feel depressed, I need my sunshine!

I think some people are just meant for certain environments.

My town: Annual rainfall about 20", but that does not include all the days it just drips from the clouds due to the heavy marine layer.
159 sunny days a year (most of those are July- mid October)
Typical average July high 72F, average January low 34F. (High 38)

Have the windows and doors open..bit sticky today.
Dinner...dunno yet...should probably figure it out!
Football game at 1 tomorrow. No official must dos planned for the weekend.

I'm most motivated to do stuff outside when it's gray. :)

Glad the GD is repairable, even if it takes two.

The kitchen is entirely functional, which is what's important. The slow water is annoying as is the last few missing shelves/rollouts, so there's still stuff in the dining room and on the counter above the W/D.

Eventually, we'll also have to agree on a BS. ;)

So I am really leaning towards all drawers and no uppers. I was googling sink bases with drawers and came across some words of wisdom from Christine.
So Christine please weigh in on how to "hack" a drawer base to fit an apron/farm house sink.

However another option maybe a drainboard sink. But still drawers for the bases.

Hubby is not totally sold yet on no uppers. He's leaning towards at least two door uppers on each side of the range hood. We may compromise and do the range wall having uppers.

Hopefully the new Sektion will have a door style/color I like.

Hack.
Well, I took a base cabinet and cut a square out of the front where the sink face/apron would sit. A bit smaller, so the sink covered the opening.

Then, I checked the width under the sink itself, between the bowl and the apron. It was exactly the size of a 2x4". With my Kohler sink weighing 150lbs, and the reuse cabinet being iffy at best, I took an 7x10" and put it inside horizontally, across the face of the of the cabinet, where the sink would be actually resting on that. I screwed it in from the outside, then toenailing the board from the inside. Brackets would work, too, I guess.

Since I'd torn off the face frame, I made one (love my pocket jig) and made the horizontal cross piece from a 1x2" (which is 1.5 in reality) which would be juuuuust under where the bottom of the apron would cover the top of it.

Then I got lazy and bought a drawer from Barker and the rest is history.

Today. I transplanted about 32 plugs of yarrow into the yard, where the back hoe (from the Hugoculture digging) tore the crap out of my grass. I was Not. Happy. However, turning crap into flowers, I took it as an opportunity to continue my lawn replacement efforts. It's still warm, but only in the upper 70s - lower 80F, so I think I'm in good shape.

Doug, I'll know more about the slate tomorrow! Thanks for asking.