Tag: House

Weekend Update – 4/14/14

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Really good weekend with just a couple of bumps…

Out late Friday night in Toulouse
Slept in Saturday morning
Stamps-With-Foot made yummy breakfast – great croissants!
Surfed the Interwebs and lost an hour or two to Pinterest
Worked on a dining table bench for about an hour
Used smoothing plane and made tissue paper-thin shavings 🙂
Drove to Toulouse for 1st outdoor beekeeping class – waking up the hives from the Winter
Warm sunshine, blue skies, perfect weather!
Hives were in good condition and got to split one hive that was doing really well – already completely filled the hive box with pollen and honey.
Stopped by Lumber store on way home to buy some dust masks.
I can’t be trusted in Lumber/Hardware stores…
Bought 60 Euros worth of lumber, glue and screws
Forgot dust masks…
Came home to cuddle wife
Wife accidentally kneed me in the baby-maker and ¼ of a second later, put weight on the same knee, smashing the boys…
Rolled around on the ground in pain for at least a full minute
Limped outside
Mowed lawn and turned the compost
Limped a little while doing so – boys still hurt.
Helped wife make steak fajitas
Was on guard for any errant knees…
Drank a glass of wine and snuggled while watching 6 episodes of the last season of HIMYM
More Pinterest and sleep
Slept till 10:00 and leisurely breakfast
Went into Village to market and found a very nice oak printer tray for 10 Euro.
Immediately bought it without haggling over the price
Spent an hour in shop patching a small section of bench where plane slipped while joining two boards.
Found where a cat had marked some lumber when garage door was open night before.
Said hateful things about cats.
Had lunch with a friend that is healing from a cracked collarbone
Came home and finished putting together the teak patio
Bought wrong oil for the patio furniture – Grrr…
Fixed one of the broken arms (from move) on the Adirondack chairs
Had coffee in the shade
Hung hammock and tested it out.
Place feels like home now!
Sweet wife made dinner and we ate for first time on our new patio table – first of many meals
Snuggled in hammock with wife and listened to birds, neighbors, bees, etc…

Very happy

Bench for the front entry – Project #4 in France

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We are a “no shoes in the house” family. It is dry and dusty where we live in the summer and the trails near by that I run and that Stamps-With-Foot and Brodie walk on are shared with horses. We don’t want to track dirt and poo into the house. There is a great spot right by the front door to take your shoes off, but no place to sit down to do it. I decided a rustic little 5-board bench was in order. I spent five hours from the initial sketch design to putting on the final coat of polyurethane over a week’s time. No nails or screws were used, just through-mortises, wedges and dowels. We now have a small piece of furniture outside the front door that is functional and matches the house and the style of our other furniture – you never know it might someday find its way inside.

Leaving for France and our MONSTER To-Do list.

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Moving from one country to another, the actual process, is a huge pain in the ass.  So much to do and so many details…  The complexity of our move was increased because we will continue to own our place in Seattle and we had The Nana move into it.  Separating the stuff that would go and stay, fixing small issues like that leaking faucet, winterizing the garden, trimming trees, installing railings and additional locks, and organizing yard and house maintenance contacts was enough to make my head explode.

There were 4 specific and different to-do lists that were drawn up in June and added to as time went on.  I would like to tell you that it all got done, but the state of my backyard, the unsold table saws, the uninstalled basement railing and the incomplete bookshelf in our bedroom say different.

Things that were accomplished:

  1. Trimmed our vine maple (see pictures below of Stamps-With-Foot with the chainsaw)
  2. Winterized the pipes and garden
  3. Installed the front stair railing
  4. Installed a speak-easy in the front door, so Nana would not have to open the door to a stranger
  5. Leaves were raked
  6. The raspberry cage was retied
  7. Junk was removed from the backyard
  8. Bills were transferred
  9. The heating-oil tank was filled
  10. Rebuilt bathroom faucet and valve
  11. Cancelled our car insurance
  12. Trimmed the bushes
  13. New tires were purchased for the car we left for Nana to use
  14. Squeaky doors were oiled
  15. Wired a motion detector light in the back yard
  16. Installed an additional basement door lock and metal security screen
  17. My shop was cleaned and organized
  18. Had extra keys made
  19. Upgrades made in the alarm system
  20. We sold one truck and donated another
  21. My father-in-law planted a fig tree and served as grunt labor during Thanksgiving
  22. I drained and prepped the hot tub for 2 years of alone time
  23. Basement became slightly more organized
  24. I hauled two entire loads of brush and projects-that-will-never-be to the dump (and found a very nice Fender guitar and new oak office chair there, but that is a story/post for another day)
  25. Household paint was retouched
  26. Replaced burned out bulbs
  27. Blackberries were trimmed
  28. Removed rust and repainted the front door railings
  29. Did some final cabinet work
  30. Moved two houses worth of furniture and a storeroom into our basement, first floor and garage
  31. Unpacked my mom
  32. Had Cable TV and a home phone installed (we only used cell phones)
  33. Repaired outside wall where cable installer poked extra holes
  34. I busted some plaster in the living room that will wait until I get back in the summer
  35. Hung the TV over the fireplace
  36. etc…etc…etc…

The images below are proof of some of the work and evidence of what did not get done as well.

From Trash to Basement Built-in

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I was at one of the architectural salvage places in the SODO area of Seattle one fine summer day 3 years ago and as I was leaving with whatever small treasure I had found (picture Sméagol with his Precious…), I spied a bit of white cabinetry and what looked like a paneled cabinet door in their free/meant-for-the-dumpster pile so I went over and looked to see if I could salvage a bit of whatever it was.  The hope was for a door that I could re-purpose or some cool hardware left intact, but I struck gold!  Some idiot used a pry-bar and a Sawzall to rip a built-in painted hutch out of a house’s wall during a remodel.  It was taken to the salvage shop without a back, one side missing, no top, zero trim left, and with rough recent tool/pry marks all over it.  All the shelves were there and the door that I had seen was one of four heavily painted paneled oak doors.  I saw some promise and had an exact spot for it, so I piled the wreckage in the back of my truck, roped it down, and sped away before someone could tell me no.

It languished in the basement for part of a year before I tightened the joints, squared it all up, made a back from pine bead-board, built a matching side panel, reinforced the structure and installed it on one of our basement den walls.  What used to be the open counter-top space between the original built-in base and top, became storage for boots or snowboards or books (which is what is there now).

I wanted to include Stamp-With-Foot in the project, so I took her with me to pick out some trim.  She found a section of fancy scalloped-cut chair rail/case molding that she REALLY liked and I went home and used it in a custom buildup: adding a section of ripped down base molding and a length of popular wood that I ran over with two different router bits to make the top trim.

After getting the piece installed, I realized that I would have a 5″ gap of dead space between the inside top of the cabinet and the finished top, so I rabbited in two shelf lips and built matching hatch covers to provide storage for long or seldom used items in the top of the cabinet.  The hatches were finished with brass ring pulls from a local boat supply hardware shop.  After some light sanding, Stamps-With-Foot and I put two coats of white cabinet paint on it and I had The Ruminator help me install antiques glass pulls and keyed latches while he was visiting for Christmas.   The piece looks like it was built with the house, the top is already filled with mountaineering books, and is a fantastic addition to our basement and home.

Kitchen Cabinet Work Update

/ Matt Talley

There was a flurry of activity to get our kitchen done before our move to France.  I got it 99% of the way – with serious help from Mr. Flood and my sweet wife.  It just needs a little paint on the overhead fridge pullouts, slight pull-out slide adjustment and the installation of the custom milled and matched cove molding.  That will all keep until we get back to Seattle though.  My mom will be able to cook in there just fine as-is.

I feel that the upper cookbook shelf ties the old and new sides together and adds that part of the overall kitchen that was missing.  The shelf also seems to lighten up the space a little as well.  The wine rack was put in specifically for my wife.  It started as a discussion in the breakfast nook one mid-morning, transitioned to a napkin sketch, and four hours later, the carcass was built, bottom brackets cut, and block top was in the clamps with the glue drying.  After the paint was on and top installed, my wife swooned.  It made me smile from ear to ear!

The paper towel holder was a bit of a conundrum.  With low upper cabinets, there was just no good spot either on the counter or under the cabinet.  I toyed around with a couple of ideas before I decided to mount the paper towels on the old ironing board (now spice cabinet) lower door.  I used some scrap popular and turned a section of oak down on the lathe for the rod.  It is inserted all the way through the shelf and both wedged and glued in place.  My grand kids will still be able to use that towel holder when they are my age.  yes, I over built something again…  On the brighter side, the paper town holder bracket, the small round shelf brackets, the cookbook shelf brackets, and the wine rack brackets all match, again marrying all the different kitchen elements together.

Almost as important to her as the wine rack was the trash and recycling can drawer.  After it was in and painted I caught her pulling it open and closing it over and over with a giggly smile.  The curves on the side match all the shelf brackets – I couldn’t help myself.

“New” Midcentury Modern bookcase in the bedroom – left undone

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We are a house of books. Every room of our home – including the kitchen and bathroom – has books living there; on the shelf, tucked into a nook, behind a cabinet door… It feels like there will be a raid from Ray Bradbury’s Firemen at any time. Years ago we shared a home where a huge pile sat at the end of the bed, there were mounds in the living room, and stacks on the kitchen table. It drove my wife insane. Taking a lesson from that, I have tried very hard in the ensuing years to not do that again by building of buying bookcases and shelves aplenty – happy wife, happy life.

To that end, we have a bookshelf that has now lived three distinct lives: it started its existence as a staircase bookcase in our first rental house in Washington State. It was the very first thing I built when we moved back to the US and my wife was amazed at my woodworking ability – she had never seen me really do anything beyond fix a chair or hang a picture. She was super impressed with the recessed dados and the router work. I removed it from our rental and cut it down in size when we bought our house in Seattle, putting it in my wife’s basement sewing room for pattern and costume book storage. I just couldn’t stand to see the work put into it go to waste. It now lives on our bedroom wall, after being cut down once again. It has been painted to match our bedroom furniture and I sheathed the outside in 3/4″ birch recycled from existing shelves with edge banding.  Both will eventually be stained and finished to match our headboard – giving it a mid-century modern look. Reusing original pieces and re-purposing the parts of existing furniture makes my heart happy. It offers about 14 feet of shelf space and keeps Stamps-With-Foot’s Harry Potter and Twilight out of the living-room – sure make fun…. He who is without literary sin cast the first stone…

It was one of the MANY projects that I just did not get finished before our move to France.  The bookshelf is completely usable and when Last I saw it, my mother had filled it with James A. Mitchener, Deddie McComber, and biographies galore.  It will keep until we get back to Seattle in a few years.

Birthday Weekend

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Took the day off from work – yay!!
4:17am: alarm goes off and my 40th birthday weekend begins.
I sing “Happy Birthday to Me!”
Sweet wife gives me a gift – mostly to shut me up
Breakfast out with wife and mother: yummy beignets, eggs, bacon, and sweet coffee
Mother has gift for me and hands it over right away
savage the gift wrapping like I am three years old
More Awesome presents from my wife
Facebook, phone and e-mail fill with birthday wishes
Take shower and get dressed in vest and tie
Off to Bellevue for a haircut and strait razor shave
Really enjoyed shave
Bought a bottle of lavender pre-shave oil
A new leather ISW holster somehow becomes mine – self-gifting is awesome
Stop for more coffee at C&P
Home to get ready for date with wife
Talked to some friends on the phone
Played in yard with puppy
Off to a dinner Theatre Circus show
Very Cool
Really happy
Home to snuggle
Asleep and dreaming by 12:30

Up early Saturday.
Chocolate croissants, eggs, and bacon for breakfast
Sweet wife sick
Fall arrived and the rain started
Ran some errands
Spent a little time in the shop working on some lathe projects
Napped a bit with wife and puppy
Went into basement to get a tool and water everywhere
Water heater blew its seam and was leaking
DAMMIT!!
Shut off water and cleared path from heater to basement drain
Assessed the damage and decided it had to be replaced
Went to Home Depot and dropped $400 on a new water heater
Grumble… Grumble… Grumble…
Went to sleep pissed off.
Slept late in the hope that the water-heater magically replaced itself
No luck
Put on work clothes and trudged downstairs into the depths of the basement to wage war
REALLY hate to plumb
Drained the rest of the tank, disconnected the plumbing and electrical
Said a number of curse words
Pulled old heater out, carried it up stairs to truck, and brought new one in
Tweaked back
Cleaned up mess on old tank platform and placed new one
Connected the pipes and filled the tank
FVCKING pipe above tank now leaking!!
I HATE TO PLUMB!!!!
Trip to hardware store
Installed new sections of pipe
Said prayer
turned on water and tank pressurized
No leaks
HALLELUJAH!
Wired new heater and set the duel thermostat
2 hours later, I took a very satisfying hot shower.
Wife swooned and told me how awesome I was.
Made the hassle and aggravation all worth while
Packed for 5 day trip to England
Went to sleep and snuggled wife and puppy

Up early and off to the airport.

Kitchen Update – September 2013

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We are in the home stretch in getting the kitchen done! Holy crap, it has been a long road. I am so close that I can FEEL the end coming. My hope is that I do not get penalty points from the wife for finishing it just before we move away for a couple of years…

The recycling/trash pullout is 95% done – it just needs paint. The two above-fridge pullouts are in work and should be ready to go in by next Monday-ish – I just need the good weather to hold a little longer. There are 2 toe-kick drawers to paint and install. The new cookbook shelf and the little 6-bottle wine rack (Made block top) that I popped together are complete (wife loves!) and the shelf really marries the two halves of the kitchen together. We have spent 4 years moving a cheap paper towel holder around the kitchen and it is constantly in the way. I decided to build a new one and mount it to the lower spice cabinet door and spent an hour with the lathe, jigsaw, and router to make a holder that matched the rest of the kitchen. Stamps-With-Foot will prime and paint it tomorrow.

I will install the majority of cabinet pulls tomorrow night, but we need 12 more red glass handles for the remaining cabinets so that they match. There is still painter’s caulk and 1/4 round to go on in one spot and I have finally sourced 40 feet of matching cove molding for the tops of the new cabinets – by sourced, I mean I am making it on the table saw. So close….

The Ruminator’s Summer Visit – 2013

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

My son will turn 13 this winter – I feel so old. He came out to Seattle this summer for a visit and I was able to take the whole time off from work due to our pending move and the prep involved. We had the best time together and I can only hope and pray that as he ascends/descends into adolescence that our summers and time together are at least half as good as this summer was.

He is at the age where he is starting to take direction well and can stay on-task for a bit, so I put his little butt to work. We had a mountain of stuff to get done before we leave for France and his extra set of hands was incredibly helpful. We shopped for steel fence and stair rail, installed a speak-easy in the front door, cut and primed two stair rails, I taught him how to used an HVLP spray-gun to paint furniture, we stained table legs, used the router, he learned the first steps in using a wood lathe (he helped make his own carving mallet and made his mother a honey dipper turned from European beech), and he helped me measure, mark and chisel hinge pockets in the kitchen cabinet doors. My toe-headed son helped dig the two 18″ holes for the front entry stair rail, dug a hole up front, outside the fence, and helped replant a root-bound rosemary there. Since he was in mole-mode, we went into the back yard and he helped dig the hole for a new receptacle and motion light power pole near the back fence. We then squared and leveled the pole, braced it, ran conduit for the wire, and mixed & poured concrete. It was a long day and he was a tired little puppy after the digging and concrete work. I guarantee that he slept like a rock that night – I did.

The Ruminator also learned about how to properly use hand planes this summer – he loved them. Left to his own devises, he would sit in the shop for hours banging away on scrap with the chisels and making piles and piles of long, curly, paper thin wood shavings. He was channeling Roy Underhill and I was so proud!

It wasn’t all work though – I am not a slave-driver. There were bike rides, visits to the park and the beach, movies at the theatre and on the iPad, Austin Powers and South-park voice impressions (much to Stamps-With-Foot’s dismay), ukulele playing around the fire pit, and he is probably the first kid in his hometown to have ever been indoor skydiving.

Knotted “survival bracelets” are popular right now and the one we tied up last year is now too small or was unraveled and used on some woodland adventure, I’m sure. We stopped at Home Depot on the way home from some outing and he picked out the paracord color and stainless steel shackle. We sat in the back yard with Stamps-With-Foot, chatting with a family friend while I tied a new bracelet. It fit perfectly and he beamed with gratitude. This was the summer that the Ruminator went to his very first Major League Baseball game – Mariners vs. The Red Socks – and had the whole hot dog/roasted peanut experience. We had great seats 23rows up on the first base line and the Mariners won. I was so happy to be there with him and it made my heart happy to see his face shine when a bat made contact and sent a ball into the outfield.

Probably the highlight of his trip though (for him) was when we went to the Washington Gathering of the Clans and he got a sword. A shiny steel Viking sword. Thinking back to when I was 12, I would have given up anatomy for a sword! I would have slaughtered vegetation, hacked fruit and veggies gruesomely, sheared branches, cut myself at least twice, tried to wear it to school, and gotten into some semi-serious trouble of some sort before my blade would have been taken away and put in that unknown place in my parent’s house from which there was no return – propped up next to my first pellet gun, beside that awesome surgical tubing slingshot, and near that box full of fire crackers. Anyways, I made him promise, not to do what I would have surely done – we will see how that works out. I bet he spent his first week back twirling the thing around like a mini blond Conan – to the annoyance of his mother.

He has been promised that if he does well in school and minds to a considerable degree, doesn’t act up in class, and helps around the house, he will get to fly to France for the summer next year. It is an amazing opportunity and I am looking very forward to showing my son France and Europe! Hiking, cycling, road trips, climbing, food, culture, language, all of it!

Kitchen Cabinet Doors

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I am super trying to finish up the kitchen cabinet doors and get them painted and hung. I was putting the last coat of paint on them this weekend and the cat decided to help… I said dirty words – loudly. The cat didn’t care and looked away like I was insane for questioning her right to sit in fresh white paint. Had to let the door dry and sand cat hair off and repaint. I said more dirty words. The cat didn’t care and laid on her side in the grass, I am sure thinking: ‘Ima gonna do it again, jus ’cause. Dirty pink bald monkey…’

Fvcking cat.

Getting ready for our move to France – first round

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We/I have some serious work to do before we move to France for two years and we have a list of stuff that needs to happen. Here is the initial “to-do” post:

The Lawn:
The Nana is going to be moving into our house and will be puttering around the yard, planting flowers and the like, but there is no way that she will be pruning trees, cutting the lawn, weed eating, edging, or pulling pine needles out of the gutters. There is a little time, so we have contracted a crew to start taking are of the lawn now so that any kinks will be worked out.

In the spirit of full disclosure, the timing of this yard work transition was set into full motion only when my lawnmower blew up. Really, really – kaboom! As in there was a silver dollar-sized hole in the side of the piston housing and oil spewed everywhere. Right up until that moment the lawn caed transition was just a good idea. After it died, I threw it in the back of the truck, so it wouldn’t leak anymore oil on my grass and called the lawn service. There were a couple of things after their 1st visit, that I would like done differently, but on the whole, so far so good.

Projects:
The Kitchen HAS TO BE COMPLETED. I have stopped working on my Basement of Doom, the Campaign Camping Furniture, wood turning and a couple of refinish projects until the kitchen is complete. I will work down from there and not take on ANY new projects. I have two chests of drawers and a Duncan Phyfe Table that I want to complete and sell so that I am not storing them.

Shop:
I hate my table saw. I am going to out the beast on Craig’s List along with my contractor’s saw (Just collects spiders and sawdust), 12″ band-saw, small joiner, small drill press and the miter-box saw. None of them will work in France (50Hz vs. 60Hz power issues), so I can’t take’em with me. They are all old and have had a good life with me. It is time that I pass them on to new homes where they will see less use and live out their golden years making soapbox derby cars and bird feeders. I am planning to use any money made to invest in both some quality carving chisels and I will save part for the down payment on all new, cabinet shop-quality, power tools when we return to the US.

I can’t not build stuff, so I am taking the Anarchist’s Tool Chest route and am taking a rebuilt an old ammo/tool box (see evolution in pictures below) into a more useful tool travel case and will then show up in France with planes (22 of them), carving knives, mallets, hand saws, chisels, etc… The plan is to make smaller more detailed items, mostly by hand, while I am there (I will be sourcing a lathe and doing some bowl work though…).

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Some Big News…

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So… My J-O-B has made us an offer that is very hard to refuse: a two year stint in the south of France and they will fly us home 3 times a year. We get to keep our house and I get to come back to my job in Seattle when that period ends. THE SOUTH OF FRANCE!! Warm weather, amazing wine, spectacular cheese, lavender, honey, the French vacation plan. We would be living outside of Toulouse – the third largest city in France. It sits at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains, is an hour from the coast, has one of the 10 best Saturday markets in Europe (so says the interwebs), and has more sunshine in 6 weeks of summer than Seattle has all year. We are so freaking doing this!

There is some red tape that we have to cut through, namely a work permit. Since around 27% of the French population under 30 is out of work, getting a permit right now, even in the aerospace field, is tres difficile. Fingers crossed. If this happens, then The Nana will move into La Maison du Talley, pay the utilities, and keep the zombie horde away. Visualize a sweet grandmother rocking away on the front porch with a shotgun across her lap. Add a Marlboro hanging from the corner of her mouth and you will have an accurate picture of The Nana.

I will miss my shop and my yard for those two years, but I will plug the hole in my heart with Cote du Rhone, Comte, a day trip or 6 to the Mediterranean coast, weekends in Paris/Rome, sunshine, and a yearly vacation to Morocco. I will be taking a chest of hand tools and am planning on making some small detailed pieces while there. I also plan on scouring the flea markets over that two year period for planes, chisels, and joinery tools.

Stamps-With-Foot is not concerned about logistics or housing or much of anything other than “How is Brodie going to handle that long flight?!” She feels that we will be taking Brodie back to ancestral homeland and has spent some amount of time talking to the dog about this possibility – trying to get him psyched about the proposition…

Hanging out in our ‘hood this weekend

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We had a quiet West Seattle weekend: Friends over on Friday and we all drank no small amount of great Italian wine and ate the last of our French Comte cheese. I worked around the house and in the shop (me and the lathe are friends) Saturday morning while Stamps-With-Foot nursed a touch of a hangover and snuggled with the Brodie – He didn’t complain. Sunday was lazy with Brunch at Meander’s in White Center (Go For the Chicken and Waffles!) and afternoon coffee at C&P. After coffee and reading, there was a trip to Trader Joe’s, home for left-overs, some quality hottub time, and then we finished the evening with glasses of port, sitting in front of a fire.

Weekend Update – Spring flowers, Lincoln Park, and thoughts of Arborcide

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Oh Seattle… Why can’t you be pretty and green and sort of warm all year? I keep telling myself that Summer and early fall here make the crappy six month of fallwinterspring all worth it, but that is a hard pill to swallow right now. This has been an especially dreary winter: rain, cooler than normal temps, very few sunny days (I remember 4…) and it didn’t really get cold enough to kill the mosquito eggs, so we are looking forward to a buggy spring. Oh Joy. On the bright side of things, the lawn and garden at La Masion du Talley are erupting with jonquils, tulips, cherry blossoms, the begonias and the dahlias are just coming up, there is green on the espalier apples, new raspberry canes are shooting up, my rose bushes in the back are leafing out, I saw a couple of honey bees out foraging, the grass is lush and green, and the first hints of the lavender up front are coming in. I spent the weekend splitting my time between the inside of the house and the yard. In the last two weeks I have been in Tokyo, Orange Co.., CA and Las Vegas, so my part of the household chores had gone unattended to. Here is how it all went down:

Slept late Saturday.
Breakfast and coffee while sitting next to Brodie.
Washed a load of whites and a load of colors.
Thought about going for a run.
Lost two hours of my life to Pinterest instead…
Put dishes away – some of them anyway.
Stamp-With-Foot took Brodie to new vet.
Got dressed and picked up living room and office.
Wife loves new vet. Brodie, not so much…
Finished a couple of small house projects.
Got ready to take Brodie for a walk in Lincoln Park
Started raining.
Started hailing…
Canceled trip to the park.
Brodie went back to sleep on the couch.
Went downstairs to work on my Workbench of Doom in the basement.
Heard water running outside… SHIT! Gutters overflowing! Downspout Plugged!! FVCK!!!
Ran outside, put ladder up DURING hail storm, dug pine needles and holly leaves out of gutters on both sides of house.
Water started moving down drainpipe.
While on top of wet, slick ladder – wished I possessed The Force – would kill neighbor’s trees and lift them out of the ground like X-wing fighter…
Said loud dirty words about gutters, pine needles and neighbor’s trees.
Squinted eyes, pursed mouth, and made mental note to buy copper nails, a large auger bit, some Drain-O, and a vile of the poison that coated the blade that Bilbo was stabbed with for that hateful tree.
Climbed down slick ladder with frozen hands prayed for a single bolt of well placed lightning.
Went inside, threw wet hat down and stomped downstairs to plan a crime.
Stamps-With-Foot made me coffee.
Felt better & cleaned the basement a little.
Wife took me out on Movie Date.
Had a nice time.
Came home and sat in the hot tub for a good long while – nice light rain fell.
Wife all for me taking a hit out on the tree.
Fell asleep looking at Pinterest again.

Up at the crack of dawn on Sunday: 9:00am
Coffee and breakfast.
Wrote some e-mails and sent a few pics to Instagram
Wife left for appointment and Brodie and I went to C&P Coffee.
Brodie tried to eat a black lab the looked funny at him while I was ordering coffee.
Being French, he has a Napoleon Complex – Really, really.
I grabbed him in mid air and other dog looked like he wanted to tinkle on the carpet: hid behind owner
Brodie looked hard at that dog whole time we were there.
Stopped by Home Depot on the way home and got moss killer for the roof and yard.
Noticed the moss while unstopping gutters.
Came home, cut the grass and spread some Weed&Feed that will lead to the eventual demise of all the dandelions, clover, and nettles that dare to take root in my yard.
Mwahahaha…
Felt happy.
Edged and mowed the front and back yards.
Found a couple of ferociousness dandelion patches.
How had I missed them?!
Got out the instant death weed killer and murdered me some dandelions.
Giggled like Buffalo Bill as he put the lotion in the basket.
Other neighbor walked by told me that I had a beautiful yard.
Beamed with pride and tried not to look like a weed serial killer or that I was hatching a plan to commit arborcide!
Wife came home and helped me spray the roof for moss.
Took off overalls and went with wife and Brodie to Lincoln Park – pretty end to the day!
Went to Trader Joe’s for the week’s worth of groceries.
Stamps-With-Foot made dinner while I worked on some handmade Christmas gifts (starting early)
Looked at Pinterest and Instagram again.
Stole wife’s phone because her pics of Lincoln Park were better than mine.
Heard noise outside.
THE WAS A FVCKING RACCOON ON MY ROOF!!
Thought about getting The Ruminator’s pellet rifle.
Decided I did not want to be on top of ladder and at eye level with mad ‘coon that had just been tagged with a pellet.
Turned the water hose on and ruined his night.
He jumped off roof and into the hated pine tree.
I thought about the pellet rifle again… decided to let the raccoon and tree just have each other.
Came in and wife was asleep and the dog was snoring like a 75 year old alcoholic with sleep apnea.
Wrote a couple blog posts.
Turned off lights, set alarm, and went to snuggle with wife.

A giant sealed dome over our place would solve most of this….

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

There are some days where I want to just drop everything I am holding, turn off the lights, lock the door, and go on an extended vacation involving a sugar-sand beach and copious amounts of fruit laden alcohol.  This Saturday was one of those days.

I decided to work on the kitchen cabinet doors, cut some plywood sheets down, and tackle a bench top while the sun was shining.  I opened the shop, brought out a plastic truck-bed toolbox to cut on (my 4 sawhorses are currently being used elsewhere), pulled 3 full-sized sheets of ¾” and ½” plywood out of the lumber rack and drug it all out into the backyard.  After marking the first sheet, adjusting my saw blade depth, lining up my rip fence, and checking for clearance – I started my first cut and immediately ripped a 6” long kerf-cut into the top of the tool box that the sheet was sitting on.  Dammit! I cut the rest of the plywood up without incident, but grumbled thinking about the mistake (I will fill and patch it with molten P-Tex plastic at some later point).  After stacking all the assorted pieces of ply back into my cluttered shop, I man-handled the 170+ pound beech and maple in-work bench top from the basement and placed it on the now-damaged toolbox – trying very hard not to either herniate a disk in my bask or tear what is left of my shoulder.

My Shop/Garage is pilled deep and high with lumber, hardware, undone winter projects, wood shavings, tools, sawdust,  flotsam & jetsam, etc….  I spent an hour trying to set up my router and in all the clutter and mess I couldn’t find a ¼” collet for one router and the other does not have an integrated fence, so using my big monkey brain, I improvised a fence.  All I really wanted to do with the top was to route channels for t-track and thoroughly sand it down before taking the beast back into the bowels of the basement to apply stain and a tung oil finish.  All was going as planned and my first cut was perfect.  The second cut went just the same, but at the very end of the third cut my improvised fence failed and the router wobbled – gouging the top that I had spent a month building.  Jesus H. Christ I was pissed! – Mostly at myself, but there was some vitriol left over for the machine in my hands.  I said dirty, hateful, vile things while resetting the fence and making an adjusted cut.  I moved on to make my last cut in the very front lip of the bench and while the fence held, I stood up mid-way through the pass and the router wobbled, making the bit chew into a section of wood where I did not want it to go.  I gritted through the rest of the pass and finished the cut, but the second I was clear of the wood, I wanted to throw the still running router on the ground and beat the electric life out of it with the pruning shears that were leaning against the garage wall.  I had to walk away, hand over my mouth, and just breathed deeply with my back to the offending router, my own incompetence, and the damage they had both wrought.  My moment of reflection was short lived because just as I turned, I felt the first drop of rain fall from what was minutes ago a blue sky that had ominously darkened while I was focused on my router-rage (I swear it happened just like that – strait out of a hip urban dramedy…).  SHIT!!  I ran for something to cover the bench top.  The only thing I could find was a pink tent fly and a sheet of cardboard.  I covered everything and retreated into the shop, right eye twitching with disbelief/confusion/anger.  I spent the next hour drinking coffee laced with sawdust and moving piles of crap around in my shop.

When my sweet wife got home she MAY have found me in the shop muttering to myself, pacing, covered in saw dust, contemplating the logistics of building a giant sealed dome over our entire lot.  She talked me off the ledge, helped me put the top back into the basement, patted me a little, told me I was pretty and smart and a good boy, put me in some fresh, sawdust free clothes, and took me out to see a movie.

I got up the next morning and after a yummy breakfast of flaky croissants, bacon, eggs and two cups of coffee, I went downstairs and chiseled out the offending screw-ups, then cut and glued maple patches in.   After calming down some and after a good night’s sleep, I felt better about the whole thing, but me and that router are still not on speaking terms.

The Never Ending Hutch

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment
Right after we bought our place, I saw an add on Craig’s List for a huge hutch.  It piqued my interest and I went by to take a look at it.  A builder had pulled it out of a church school in Queen Anne, but it had been in the rectory library before that.  It was in really bad shape: paint splattered here and there, broken and missing trim, missing glass, dents, dings, scratches, etc…  Even with all that, I saw potential.  After some surprise haggling, I loaded it on my truck and brought it home.  This was right after I had shoulder surgery for the fourth time, so I would not be man-handling two 8 foot by 4 foot sections of furniture…  I picked up some laborers in the Home Depot parking lot by the house and had them load it into my basement where it sat taking up space for three months before I felt strong enough to tackle the job.  Below is the truncated build process in 67 easy steps:
  1. Looked at hutch for too long and decided to get it done.
  2. Started with bottom section – doors removed.
  3. Stripped off all old paint and varnish from outside with “environmentally friendly” orange stripper.
  4. Scraped and scraped stripper off.
  5. Cussed “environmentally friendly.”
  6. Put more stripper on.
  7. Scrubbed off again.
  8. Wife helped for 40 minutes, hated it and didn’t touch either section again.
  9. Shoved a 1″ splinter under one of my fingernails.
  10. Said the “F” word 5+ times, bled on base & floor and thought about cutting it all up for firewood.
  11. Washed whole thing with paint thinner to stop the stripper residue from working any more.
  12. Let dry and sanded whole case with 120 grit.
  13. Sanded with 220 grit.
  14. Sanded again with 220 grit.
  15. Stained with a crazy pricey, but color-matched mahogany tinted oil-based stain.
  16. Used wife’s special dish gloves.
  17. The old, old fir had issue with the stain and was a little splotchy in some really key spots.
  18. Was grumpy for two days.
  19. Second coat of stain used to blend some areas.
  20. Put on first coat of wipe-on poly acrylic semi-gloss finish.
  21. Wife found stain covered dish gloves and I got in trouble.
  22. Went to store and bought wife new gloves.
  23. 24 hours later, scuffed finish with white 3M pad and applied finish coat 7 more times.
  24. Spent HOURS on the final coat.
  25. Repeated all above steps with the four raised panel doors.
  26. Installed 100+ year old glass pull-knobs on doors.
  27. Whole process took two months.
  28. Moved base into finished side of basement for use as a media cabinet and LCD TV base.
  29. Went downtown to Chinese-owned granite shop on Seattle’s 1st Ave and haggled over granite for top.
  30. I am a poor negotiator in Chinese.
  31. Left and came back with Mandarin speaking co-worker.
  32. Got GREAT deal on custom top.  1/12th of the price that I was quoted at Home Depot – really!
  33. Built A-frame jig for back of truck to haul granite.
  34. Picked up top and hauled home.
  35. Bribed 4 neighbors to help move it into place.
  36. Neighbors won’t answer my call anymore…
  37. Four months from start to finish.
  38. Two weeks later I started the top section.
  39. Decided to make top section into a living room “built-in.”
  40. Built, painted and installed new 8″ base for the top section in our living room to match existing trim.
  41. Removed the doors, hardware, and hinges.
  42. Repeated steps above with the exception of splinter under nail and use of wife’s gloves: I learned my lesson the first time.
  43. Cut hole in back for outlet already on wall.
  44. Had other, unsuspecting neighbors help me move the top section up.
  45. New neighbors called me names after it was all done.
  46. Hole for outlet 1″ off to the left.
  47. Said hateful words.
  48. Grumpy again.
  49. Calmed down and used Dremel tool and coping saw to remove section from one side and glued it to other side.
  50. Trimmed out outlet hole.
  51. Stained and finished outlet trim.
  52. Had wedding and took 30 day break in the rebuild/refinish process.
  53. Started looking for matching trim and crown molding at reclaimed lumber yards.
  54. No Luck.
  55. Had crown custom milled at high cost by a shop in SODO that had 90 year old machines running on their floor (shop closed about a month after I was there last 🙁
  56. Started the process of refinishing the doors.
  57. Installed crown molding.
  58. Shot nail through molding and into palm on final piece of crown.
  59. Bled on top of hutch – no dirty words.
  60. Installed refinished doors.
  61. Built two interior shelves out of 80 year old fir floor boards.  Stained and finished – look original!
  62. Smacked the back of my head when installing shelves and almost knocked myself out.
  63. Sourced and purchased piece of wavy restoration glass to match original broken pane.
  64. Stained and finished the crown.
  65. Put final coat of trim paint on the new base.
  66. Installed the one missing glass pane.
  67. 5 months after base installed the top is done and looks like it has been in our place since 1928.
Never again.

Wooden Nightstand Build

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

My sweet sweet wife has issues with the color green – most shades. While living in Hamburg, we had a tiny bedroom that Stamps-With-Foot wanted to paint “sage green.” She bought the paint at Max Barr (a Teutonic version of Home Depot) brought it home and painted a little swatch on the wall. It was kinda dark, so she painted the whole wall. Still kinda dark. She then painted the whole room. I came home and my bedroom was Olive Drab, Army Green… It took me two coats of primer and three coats of paint to banish the darkness.

Flash forward a few years to Seattle. We have replaced all of our MDF particle board IKEA crap furniture with real wood pieces with the exception of our night stands. I hate them. Hate. I traded my mother a couple bookshelves for a former dressing table/vanity that was deeply scratched in places and had a couple of drawers that wouldn’t budge. It was in two pieces already and I shortened the legs, stripped off some of the old finish and prepped them for paint. Stamps-With-Foot wanted the pieces to match our 1930’s bedroom set, which has a sage green accent color. The plan is to have the bodies painted green, use a soft sunflower yellow for the accent and to completely strip the top and drawer fronts and coat them with a polyurethane so that the natural color and grain would pop. I had primed them, sanded, primed again, and grabbed some color swathes for her to choose from. She chose a fine green and I had it custom mixed at my local Benjamin Moore store (friends don’t let friends buy paint at Home Depot). I had two smooth coats sprayed on before my sweet wife decided they were the wrong color green. I tried in vain to talk her out of making me swap the color. I tried really hard – I even mentioned the Hamburg incident. No dice, the color WOULD be changed.

I showed up at the paint store with a picture frame for them to color-match, ignored their snickers, bought all new paint, went home, sanded, and resprayed both pieces with two coats of the “new” green. I painted the accent color and rubbed the color into the cracks before washing it off the high spots. The tops were polyurathaned, drawers were fixed, dividers installed, fronts refinished, 100+ year old glass knobs bought/installed, and then I carried them up to our Master Suite and my sweet bride gushed over them. Her delight made my heart happy.

In my heart of hearts I know she is still second guessing the 2nd color choice, but I have sworn to myself that if she changes her mind again she will be banned from deciding house/furniture/accent colors for the term of one year and that I will turn the basement into a mountain chalet-themed man cave- which might happen anyway, I am just really looking for an excuse to belay my guilt.

Weekend Update – 1/7/13

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My son was here for a week+ for the holidays and we did cool stuff as he is the Igor to my Dr. Frankinstein. He left on Friday morning and to keep myself occupied so I wouldn’t mope around all weekend thinking about how much I missed him, I busied myself with a few on-going projects:

Underbed dresser – 95% done
Letterpress drawers made into occasional tables – 50%
The never ending kitchen remodel – 85%
Sofa table rebuild – 20%
Bathroom drawer for wife – 50%
Candle box – 100%
Glass cabinet handle installation – 45%
Hall mirror – 22%
Helping a friend move – 50%
Etc…

While fitting the final pieces of the under bed dresser (built from an 1980s $4.00 garage sale upright five drawer) for our room and I transposed  two numbers and cut something a touch too long. Grumble… Grumble…  I went out to the shop, measured for screw clearance and put it on the table saw to rip down just a touch. I missed one screw, but my $56 carbide tipped cabinet blade didn’t. Sparks and bits of carbide flew. I said dirty words and came into the house to drown my sorrows in a Mexican coke, Jack with honey and an old Clint Eastwood western while propped up in bed with my grumpy face on.

Weekend Update

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We had an eventful, rain soaked weekend. Lots of stuff got done, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that great novelists write thought provoking prose about. Maybe a SNL skit though. Details below.

Friday:
Home from work and into jammies.
Sent some e-mail and web-surfed.
Yummy pizza for dinner.
Finished watching season 6 of Dexter – Debra KNOWS!!
Heard weird water noise outside of basement window…
SHIT!!! Gutters clogged!
Ran outside, pulled ladder out, said DIRTY WORDS.
Up on rickety old wooden extension ladder after midnight in a rainstorm…
Prayed for the death of my neighbor’s pine tree.
No, really. Prayed for the tree to die or for neighbor to sell me his house so I can have the pleasure of turning it into mulch.
Dried off and apologized to Stamps-With-Foot for snapping at her while 15′ in the air, digging out leaves from the clogged downspout.
Off to bed.
Passed out and dropped Kindle on the floor -still works.

Saturday:
Up at 10:00 – no time for coffee – grrrrrr…
Drove downtown with my mother to see a talk by Clay Jenkinson – a Jefferson and TR scholar – my two favorite presidents.
Coffee and half a cookie for brunch – health food…
Presentation was great – funny and enlightening.
Took Mother to grocery store then home.
Called The Ruminator and chatted about Christmas lists and school and stuff.
Cleaned living room floors and rug.
Cussed the neighbor’s tree again – pine needles everywhere.
HATE that tree.
Took sweet wife to see shiny vampire movie instead of new 007 – we suffer for those we love.
Snuck food and cookie into movie.
Came home and obsessively checked gutters for clogs and basement for water for the next 24 hours.
Cursed tree – shook fist at it like an old man.
Spent some time in the hot tub in the rain relaxing/fantasizing about a chainsaw, limbs on the ground, and wood chips everywhere while laughing maniacally.
Went to look at Pintrest “for a minute” before bed – closed iPad 4 hours later at 3:45am.

Sunday:
Slept late.
Breakfast.
Skype/FaceTime call with friends in Germany.
Miss them.
Worked on mid-century modern style bookshelf for bedroom.
Poked 20ish holes in wall looking for a studs. Stud-finder worthless on plaster walls.
Threw stud finder.
Hung shelf in a partial stage of completion. Will paint later.
Worked out Christmas budget with sweet wife.
Re-arranged living room to make room for Christmas tree.
Set iPad on top of built-in hutch to keep it out of the way and “safe.”
Watched helplessly as iPad slipped into crack and fell 5 feet and between hutch and wall.
Stared at wood, disbelieving.
Said foul, vile, hateful things.
Paused to collect myself.
Said foul, vile, hateful things again.
Contemplated getting the sledge hammer and splitting maul out.
Had to walk away before I broke stuff.
Went to Target: mood did not improve.
Shopped for Christmas tree in driving cold rain: mood still poor.
Found a nice, full 7′ tall Noble Fir.
Let tree air dry a bit and put it up in living room.
Worked on Christmas cards with sweet wife.
Wrote some funny stuff on cards to friends and family.
Went out to my little shop and cut two long 1/2″X5/8″ sticks of fir & popular.
Attached L-bracket to the ends.
Fished iPad out using the chopstick technique.
Wife so impressed, she bragged about my big ol’ brain on Facebook.
For just a second, I thought “When McGyver spends alone-time with a bottle of lotion, he is thinking of ME….”
Remembered that I was the dumb-ass that dropped it there in the first place and decided not to let me ego run rampant.
Mood improved.
More Christmas cards.
House smells like Christmas.
Hottubing.
Taught cat to hop onto edge of tub.
Fought internal demon to keep from teaching her to swim.
Also resisted the urge to splash.
Shower and shave – need new blades
Read kindle.
Dog snored like a 70 year old alcoholic man with sleep apnea.
Put him on wife’s side of the bed so they could snuggle.
Night-night time.

Needing to Catch Up…

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I have been out of pocket the last couple of months and just haven’t found the time to post anything. Home repairs/maintenance, a really long sleepless trip to China for my J-O-B, local elections, the presidential election, deadlines and long hours at work, laziness, etc… have claimed all my waking hours.

I am spending the weekend with my lovely wife getting the house and yard ready for winter, drinking coffee, unclogging drains, and wading into my long neglected to-read piles of books beside the bed and in my office. I will take a couple of hours and finish some long ago started posts, organize some pictures and work on drivenoutside a little. I have some AMAZING pictures from China, a hysterical Brodie-related story to share, a few shop projects complete, some nice shots of our fall garden harvest, a long overdue trip report from a summer trip with The Ruminator, 7-8 videos highlighting thing that are hand crafted and a couple that are just beyond words that I will post.

Kitchen Cabinet Build and Remodel

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When looking at the house that we now live in the one room that had us on the fence was the kitchen.  it had original cabinets, but it was dark, dated, there were no outlets, and one wall was just a hodge-podge of appliances.  I have spent the better part of my very limited free time trying to fix those issues.  I have added a dishwasher, a knife rack, lots of paint, cranberry glass handles/pulls, outlets, pullouts, switches, a microwave, under cabinet lighting, build drawer organizers and am in the process of finishing hand made, period and house perfect cabinets for what was the ugly wall.  It has been a very long and laborious process.  I would never be this detailed in a house I was building for someone else – I would lose money.

Below is a gallery of the progress up until this point:

No cats in the house

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We have a new resident living at La Maison du Talley:  Izzy Osborne the cat.  My mother recently moved from a house to a smaller apartment and her cat went nuts.  Screaming, scratching, and peeing on everything and everyone.  The Nana was beside herself with anger over the mess and with worry about what would happen to her kitty.  This cat and I have history.  For the last 7 years she has attacked me, drawn blood, hissed, growled, spit and slapped at me almost every time I got near her.  There was an air of loathing in her yellow eyes every time she looked at me.  Mean is an understatement!  I have repeatedly teased The Nana about the cat being the Devil’s own and that her kitty brain was busy plotting evil, hate, and plague.

Stamps-With-Foot and I grudgingly agreed to bring her to our place to live in the back yard (I refuse to have a cat in the house – refuse) because I didn’t want my mother to get even more upset.  Izzy wanted nothing to do with us for the first few days and even walked back to The Nana’s old house a couple of times.  We went and got her – visualize armor made from a catcher’s mask and welding gloves – and once she figured out that we would feed her a couple times a day and not let Brodie use her for a chew toy, I guess she decided to stay.

She is a whole new cat…  She purrs when I feed her, she will let me touch her, hasn’t attacked me even once, and her look of revulsion toward me is gone.  While sitting in the yard on Sunday, she got into my lap and demanded some scratching – it was shocking.  I was even able to pick her up yesterday without pulling back two bloody stumps from where my hands used to be.  It is like she has experienced a complete reversal of personality.  The thought has crossed my mind that she is just trying to lull me into a comfortable place, biding her time until she can corner me in the shop and eat me or catch me napping and come at me like the face-sucker from the Alien movies, but I will give her the benefit of the doubt for now, pet her when I feed her and pay her some attention when outside.  You never know, she might earn her keep and find a mouse or two trying to invade the yard.

Sawdust and paint fumes

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It has been roughly eight months since my shop was robbed.  It is just now that I have found the will and desire to start building furniture again.  I have let projects and repairs pile up and let my garage shop digress into a sawdust filled junk-room.  There have been parts for Adirondack lawn chairs in my basement and shop since December.  I finally got around to gluing them up and screwing the pieces together when my son was here this summer.   That little project led me to start cleaning the shop and find all the stuff that has been waiting on me.  I dabbled with a couple of boxes, then started making pieces and organizing tools and supplies to tackle the larger stuff.  Below is a list of current projects that are in work:

  1. Painting the Adirondack chairs
  2. Re-build of my father’s 1971 bookshelves
  3. Kitchen cabinet doors
  4. Misc. Lathe tasks
  5. Kitchen cabinet pullouts
  6. Camp Kitchen box build and paint
  7. Campaign furniture for luxury car camping
  8. Hall mirror
  9. Copy of a 12th Century Abby oak door
  10. Fireplace surround and mantle
  11. New Kitchen cabinet pulls and knobs
  12. Garden tool shed
  13. Christmas gifts
  14. Garden table

The above are started and in-work.  I have plans to also build the below items soon:

  1. Small basement work bench (reloading and winter projects)
  2. Rebuild bookcase in master bedroom
  3. Murphy bed for my home office
  4. Box ceiling for master bedroom
  5. Home office bookshelves
  6. Chicken coop
  7. Ornamental planter box
  8. Cookbook shelf in kitchen
  9. Rebuild my standing desk
  10. Basement stairs rebuild

Ignoring the yard and building stuff

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Horror of horrors, I did not touch my yard this weekend. My lush, Ireland-green grass (I am a wee bit narcissistic about my grass) was left to grow and stretch toward the sky in the weekend sunshine. I spent all available daylight hours outside and didn’t even attempt to take the mower out, turn the compost, or battle with my creeping nemesis – the dandelions. Stamps-With-Foot did a little weeding on Saturday, but the bulk of our weekend was committed to getting the kitchen cabinets done enough so that we could do a test fit and install.

Success! My wife was a priming and painting machine: taking care of the microwave cabinet, the lowers, and the drawers. The lower cabinets were positioned into place and their rock-maple tops fitted (waiting on the drawer fronts and pulls to be finished). I cut all the frames for the doors, assembled the fridge cabinet, installed it with my wife holding the thing up in the air (hehehe), tacked together the trash/recycling slider, and cut the shelves for the microwave cabinet. When completely done, our cabinet space will increase by more than a third, will include al the latest and coolest amenities (slides, organizers, spice racks, pullouts, etc…), and the new cabinets completely match the original 1928 built-ins, both in construction and style.

I need to finish the fridge top cabinet, install the drawers, add a corner cookbook shelf, tack up cove-crown around all, and one final coat of paint. SOMEDAY, this will all be finished and we will have the most awesomest kitchen a tiny, period appropriate, craftsman house can have!

I added a pic of Brodie lounging in the sunshine, just because.

What I Want Thursday – 3/15/12

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment
Time again to reflect on some crap that I have been obsessing over for the last couple of weeks:

1.  To be in Hawaii on vacation with my wife and OUT of cell phone range
2.  To organize and back up all my computer files and pictures from the mess of harddrives and CDs/DVDs
3.  For my shop to be back up to 100% after the break in
4.  A fantastic sport coat
5.  For it to be sunny and 70 degrees outside my house
6.  A Midi-Lathe to complete some house and garden turning projects
7.  A sliding tool box for my truck
8.  A set of 2010 leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica
9.  To get a real, hand written, paper letter from my son and daughter
10.  To never  worry about the IRS or April 15th EVER again.
11.  I want to ride my bike like I did when I was 12:  aimlessly and all day!!
12.  More time…

Hot tub installation and emergency preparedness

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I bought my sweet wife a hot tub for our wedding anniversary. We had been looking for a while for just the right used tub, but most that were out there on Craigslist and the Inter-Webs were utter crap or cost almost as much as a new one. We found a machinist who wanted to sell his immaculately maintained soaker so he could put in a lux outdoor kitchen. It is an older tub, but he had all the maintenance records on it, the interior looked brand new, it worked great, and we paid about what it would have taken for him to have it hauled to the dump. I hired three giant Pacific islanders to deliver it – money well spent – then dug the trench for the electric and ran the wiring almost right away. I then made five trips to Home Depot and bought 2,450 pounds of gravel and sand to make a base – my back ached for a week from carring and packing it all into a solid foundation.  The the hot-tub movers were absent on installation day, so I used my big monkey-brain and with the help of my nephew, I moved the tub into place with rollers, planks, a lever, and wedges.   It is within 1/2 inch of where I planned it on paper and is almost dead level – 1/8″ up on the west side.

Due to my homeowner’s insurance restrictions, I was not allowed to wire into my main panel – it voids my fire coverage (yours probably says the same thing…), so I hired three successive electricians to tie it all in (one showed up high, the second was a complete no show, the third finally doing the needed work). While the third and final electrician was there and since I was paying for his time, I had him install a generator transfer switch, an exterior generator plug and a grounded exterior outlet.   I reasoned that when the power goes out, I can crank the generator and we will still have the fridge, lights, TV/DVD, and heat as long as we have gas.

Stamps-With-Foot LOVES the tub. Given to her own devices, she will sit in it all day like a Japanese snow monkey. It was great when the snow storm hit us this year in January.   We sat in the tub with snow piled all around, reflecting the city lights off its white surface.   I will build a deck over our existing concrete pad, from the house to the tub this spring, which will make her doubly happy.

November 2013 Update:

The tub ran like the German rail system for over 2.75 years. The water was always perfect, the heater and pump worked just like they were supposed to. I had a plastic fitting crack while switching filters that cost me $250 to have replaced, but that was it for maintenance. We ran the tub year around, turning the heat off in the summer for a nice cool soak on hot nights/afternoons. In the preparation for the move to France, I winterized it by shocking the water with chemical treatment, then I drained it completely. I vacuumed out all the lines as best I could – any water left should grow mold due to the shock treatment. I built a 2X4 platform and put the cover on it so that any accumulated snow or rain wouldn’t cause a cave in, before shrink-wrapping and tarping the whole thing to keep out any and all errant moisture. The cover has had it, and we will get a new one when we return to Seattle in a couple of years. My hope is that the tub springs back to working order and we have more trouble-free years together.

An update on the removal of the giant outdoor cat litter box.

/ Matt Talley / 4 Comments

As mentioned before, the previous owners of our home filled what used to be a cascading koi pond with a couple of years worth of used cat litter.  The removal of this “gift” was a project that I was NOT looking forward to, but it had to be done.  While it was officially still winter, I started the spring prep in the yard/garden and the litter box was the first project on my list.

I dug the bed out and hauled the old liner and kitty-nuggets away.  I had thought about turning the area into a raised root vegetable planter, but the thought of any leftover cat poo getting into my food gave me the shakes.  Stamps-With-Foot has been eyeing my vegetable boxes with intent to “ maybe add some flowers” so I decided to give her some space to plant non-edible flora in the backyard, which by agreement is my gardening domain.

There was already a course of interlocking wall block down, so I rearranged the foot print and after a trip to Home Depot for material, I laid four more courses down to give her a two foot tall planter with about  fourteen square feet of planting space.  (As a note, I have mad masonry hammer skills.)

After finishing the walls and filling the new planter with topsoil and a fresh layer of compost, I soaked the blocks with water and added moss bits from the old wall/garage roof to the seams because my little wife really likes the mossy look of old walls.  I blended some moss up with yogurt that next weekend and spread it on to assist the growth process.  By next summer the planter will look like it has been there for twenty years and the odd floral planting will not “happen” to show up next to my veggies.  The pics below show the original ivy-covered state and how it looked up until late summer.

Sometimes I am too damn handy.

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

I have, for years, prided myself on my ability to make or fix just about anything found in our home or yard. Instead of having to hire a repairman or contractor, I have just done it all myself. That sounds smug, but I don’t mean for it to be – bear with me and you’ll see where this is going…

In the years since I met my wife, I have made: squirrel feeders, two loft beds, cutting tables (sewing), bird houses, 5 cutting boards, bookshelves, 2 hutches, kitchen cabinets, a hall tree, reupholstered chairs, refinished countless pieces of furniture, designed/built drawer organizers, patched walls, made a bat house (?!), hung drywall, sewn dresses, painted countless rooms (one with 5 coats of paint…), unclogged toilets & sinks, said some dirty words, welded a bumper, made a working boomerang for my son, etched glass, rescued old furniture from the burn pile, repaired a ukulele & 2 guitars, built window box planters, installed crown molding and fancy trim, bound books, constructed pellet gun targets, fixed printers/plotters, organized crap, made many of my own hand tools, hung doors, planted a garden, cleaned gutters, reseeded lawns, planted a mini-orchard, baked bread, made 2 yards Ireland-green, hung light fixtures, split firewood, soldered pipes, installed irrigation systems, pulled dents from two fenders, cut down trees, built 2 decks, sharpened countless kitchen knives, BBQed like a spatula wielding God, crafted raised garden boxes, installed 4 wireless home networks, baked turkeys, epoxied stuff back together, framed pictures, made pies, rewired lights & switches, changed automotive oil, installed shocks, brewed beer, hung about a 1000 pictures, replaced an intake manifold gasket, rewired the TV and remote, built-up 8 bikes, re-glazed windows, built PCs, replaced/rekeyed locks, and have been the entire family’s Computer Help Desk – on call 24hrs a day...

While this has saved me a few bucks here and there, it has had a couple of unwanted effects as well. 1: While I CAN fix this stuff, I don’t have the time to work, write, see the kids, snuggle my wife, and walk the dog and still take care of all the crap on my list of stuff to fix or build. 2: My wife knows I can do it all and so she is forever finding new tasks for me AND she breaks shit constantly. Now, the first thing is just one of those parts of married life that one has to just accept. It is like the 9th unwritten wedding vow: Do you, __________, promise to trap mice, carry grocery bags, repair the little things on the coming honey-do list, and put the toilet seat down, so long as you both shall live?

The second issue is more an unconscious development than a malicious attack on our household goods. Some examples:

  1. A cutting board gets left in a sink of water overnight and warps/splits. “It’s OK, you can fix it right?” She says when I find it in the morning and make the grumpy face…
  2. Kid who worked at the grocery store puts HUGE dent in car door with a train of shopping carts. No report is made. “Can you smooth that out?”
  3. First day in our home in Seattle… Me: Don’t use your hair dryer upstairs, the old wiring can’t handle it. Her: OK. After two tripped breakers when she plugged it in anyway the next morning, I found myself at the bottom of the stairs, crumpled in a ball, with a dislocated shoulder after I fell down said stairs trying to turn the breaker back on.
  4. Me: “Where is my bike lock cable?” Her: “Oh, that… I used it the other day and it fell off my bike somewhere and I didn’t notice.”

It is my fault, I have trained her to be this way – it is a learned behavior. If we had to pay cold hard cash for all the little/huge messes/dents/dings/cracks that seem to follow Stamps-With-Foot she would be more careful. I love my wife. She is amazing in so many ways – in most ways, but I swear the very next thing time I have to fix around the house (caused by her own personal tornado), my lovely/girly/sweet wife is going to get covered in sawdust, mud, paint, goo, putty, primer, glue, stain, and gunk – just because.

The dishwasher that ate my March

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Stamps-With-Foot hates doing the dishes.  She has about as much appreciation for dirty plates as the Dali Llama does for Chairman Mao…  Since moving into our 1928 wonder, we (mostly she) has been hand washing the pots, pans, silverware and plates and letting them dry on our limited counter-top space.  When discussing kitchen options a dishwasher was her number one priority.  There was some huffing and foot tapping…   I did as commanded and cut out a cabinet beside the sink (GOD! It hurt to alter the original cabinetry!), planned for plumbing and wiring, worked out the floor build up, cut access holes, made trim pieces, marked off measurements, etc…

For insurance reasons, I brought in an electrician to run the new power line back to the panel and while he was there, I had him install three outlets above the counter (there were none), move the stove power line and add a receptacle for our future over the stove microwave.  That sounds fairly simple, but there was some drywall to remove, some 420 time, weird access issues, and a stove cord he drilled through…  It took him two visits over a three week period to complete the needed work.  The plumber (I don’t plumb, I suck at it and old galvanized pipes scare me!) was easier to get a hold of, a nice guy, knew his stuff, and completed his part – two valves and line installation – in just a single morning.  I do recommend the later type of contractor instead of the former!

So, after maybe 6 hours of my labor and $1200 (washer price + craftsmen), my wife now has a dishwasher and lots of outlets to plug crap into.  Now, I can get on with the rest of the kitchen remodel – 9 feet of new cabinet build and installation.  I won’t need any additional professional assistance, so hopefully the rest goes smoothly and quickly.