Well…after eating dust for another day and finally getting the drawers painted with two coats, I can say I’m almost done with the kitchen…kitchen cabinets that is and will put the handles on them tomorrow and put them in their places…and I even got the last set of blinds today and can clean the window and install them tomorrow…and then two weeks of cleaning up downstairs and up here since I can leave trails in the dust everywhere and that can’t be healthy for me after the rashes I got from dust exposure the past few days…I did have a nice lunch with my brother today and that in itself was weird…went down to the no name saloon just down the street where you can get a burger, fries, and a beer for 6 bucks for lunch and I even picked up the tab…talking about the two new houses going up across the street, he mentioned that he thinks my house on this double lot is worth 140K now…and if that’s true, I’ve made 50K on this place since I bought it a year ago…. and that gives me almost 90K in equity…and that’s not bad with being broke 3 years ago…and that gets me well over my goal of having over 100K in assets that I thought I wouldn’t get to for a few years at least…so that makes me pretty comfortable and I am really looking forward to the week off after I clean this place up….life isn’t bad…
Tag Archives: life
February 8th
Well…the pain in my hands has finally gotten to the point that it is keeping me up at night even with taking an ibuprofen to try to make it tolerable…and I have one last day of abuse to load on them to finish the drawers today…I have decided to take a week or so off after today to let them heal up and the place needs a huge cleanup anyway with the dust I spread around fitting up the doors yesterday…I am looking forward to tearing down the dust room downstairs and getting that cleaned up in the next couple of days…the last set of blinds for the kitchen are out for delivery so I may get them today and that will be a project for tomorrow to install them but that means I need to get the window inset cleaned up and wash the window but I’ll wait til I get the brackets up before I do that so I only have to clean once…okay, that’s enough about the house…this is a little weird but I find myself enjoying going out to shovel the snow and getting some fresh air while I use new muscles that I don’t use working on the house….it seems just so old fashioned to have my sidewalks clear and not done with some kind of power equipment…I am thinking about buying a work bench to put downstairs so I can mount my vise to it and have a place to work on things…not sure where I’d put it but it could go in the space I’m using for the dust room or in the bike room…I saw a nice one online for about 150 bucks with two levels and other features that would make it handy….but, I burned a couple of grand this month with paying my property taxes and my house insurance along with all of the stuff I needed for the house so that will have to wait a while…not much to do today…just the drawers and starting on cleanup…and I think I’ll start putting the food back into the upper cupboards but it all needs to be sorted and cleaned first…and I need to toss stuff that has been in there for a year….more later…
Still drinking coffee at 2pm..
Well…I came to a decision today…I am not doing another house…after doing my son’s for 15 months and getting straight into this one for a year now, it has me drinking coffee at 2 in the afternoon after working on this place for 5 hours today…but I am down to one more day of eating dust and I am really happy about that…made a damn big mess today fitting up the last 4 doors in the kitchen..I didn’t remember how bad they were when I took them off and I probably should have fit them up before I painted them…had to use my grinder and a flap disc to take off enough wood to make them close so that means I need to repaint the edges of the doors where I had to cut them down to make them fit…but, not today…I made such a mess in the kitchen with all of the dust and wood chips that I had an hour of clean up to do after sanding the big patch and some other filler…I am worn out and in pain so I am going to finish my coffee and take a break for a bit…looks like another one meal day since it’s too late for lunch and too early for dinner so I may just make some rye toast and call it good…I’ll be back later for a political one….I hope…
February 7th
Well…damn, I slept hard last night…felt like curling where they keep shouting “HARD” while someone is sweeping in front of the stone…okay, I get it, most of you won’t get the curling reference but if you have the chance, watch a little at the Olympics and you’ll see what I mean…I think I’m going to take a week off after getting the last 4 doors hung in the kitchen today and finishing up the drawers tomorrow…I really need to clean up the dust room downstairs and put stuff away and I need to rest my hands since they hurt so badly and have cuts and bruises all over them that I can barely move them…and the pain has moved into my right elbow, shoulder, and back. and I know that nothing will help that except for rest….so a big push over the next two days and then some time off….and then back on the kitchen for the ceiling, walls, and trim to finish it up…I was a little stupid yesterday and only had one meal and some toast to eat and that will change today since I know I’m going to feel it later…when I was sanding the doors in the dust room, the dust made the cobwebs visible and, even though it was a little gross, it looked cool, too and I have to remember to vacuum them up as I tear it down…lots to do today….need to get on the bike here in a few minutes and then fill all the flaws in the drawers so I can sand and paint them tomorrow….and I do have to sand the big patch in the kitchen and do a little detail sanding so the corners look finished and then clean up after that…and that should be the last of the big dust and my skin can use the rest…more later…
Someone needs to show me how to relax…
Well…as you know, I really do try to take one day off a week and let my poor old body the chance to rest some and stop hurting…but I really don’t know how and someone needs to show me…as I said earlier, I did start putting stuff back into the cupboards this morning and washed all of the dishes and food that are going back in there….and I really should have stopped there…but no, can’t do that…so I went down and started to put the hardware on the 5 small doors that are on the sink side cupboards…and once I did that, I decided to mount and fit them since they were just sitting there…but, these doors were in such poor shape that they took a lot of work to get them to open and close correctly…and I now understand why they had magnets on most of them to make them stay closed….and the last one closes on a part of the frame that is at least 3/8ths of an inch set out from the rest of it from how out of square they are…and now I get why it kept popping open even with a magnet on it…so I had to make up a 3/8th shim to put under the hinge so it didn’t have stress on it when the door closed. Yeah, big pain in the butt but at least it closes and stays closed with just the pressure from the self closing hinge now…okay, it’s almost two and I am taking the rest of the day off…I need it…oh, and I did laundry, too, and I’m now waiting for it to finish so I can put the bedding back on my bed and put the rest of it away…darn…too damn much work…
Just couldn’t do it…
Well…even though this is a Sunday, I just couldn’t sit here and do nothing…so I got the two totes that had my spices, staples, and dishes emptied and washed everything before I started putting it away….still waiting for the dishes to dry and that won’t happen for a couple of hours so I’ll have to wait to put the dishes away…I cleaned up my silverware caddy, too, since it really needed it and I hadn’t cleaned it in years…yeah, I know…ick….will probably still use a towel to make sure they are dry before the go in the cupboards….I really like how the food looks in there with it so damn clean and finished off and it makes me happy that they came out so good..better than I hoped and now I won’t cringe whenever I look at them….the new blinds for the last window will be here by Wed and I am gradually, bit by bit, getting the kitchen toward the finish line…when I get the blind, I am going to clean all of the windows and other blinds that are still covered in dust…I probably should wait til I do the rest of the sanding on the big patch and probably will do that tomorrow….and I may put a couple more doors up later this aft but there are races that start at 3 so I may just finish the dishes and call it good…more later…
February 6th
Well…man, I really like Sunday mornings…it’s the one morning of the week that I can do what I want without any guilt…okay, I’ve talked about that before so that’s enough…slept okay last night but was up at 3 and that was a little annoying…didn’t get up til coffee o’clock, though, so that was a successful night…I did inch up toward having cocktails last night with even putting some materials in the freezer to reward myself for getting the first two doors up in the kitchen but I really think I’ve decoupled that reward system and was able to resist and stayed good for over a month now…and that gets me toward the goal of two months off at least and maybe more….I am surprised how well the doors fit when I put them up…before the work on them, they wouldn’t even close at all and stayed open about 4-5 inches unless I pushed them closed and even then they wouldn’t stay closed…but now they close to the point that there is only a half inch gap left and that is from the warp in both the cabinets and the doors and I can live with that…not sure if I’m going to work on putting the rest of the doors up today or if I’m going to put the dishes in them along with all of my spices and staples like flour, sugar, salt and cooking oils…but all of that needs to be cleaned since they do have a fine coating of dust on them and I can’t put them in my nice new cupboards without cleaning them up…there is still a lot of work in the kitchen and it should take maybe 4 weeks to complete it but then it will be clean and modern looking and all I’ll have left to do is the floor but that may be a project for next winter…I really do need to take some time to just live after finishing it up to let my beat up body heal….not much to do today…just going to read the news and have more coffee with no plans other than to take it easy for a bit….but, you know me, if there is work to be done, I can’t just sit here and not do it…more later…..
Good choice of colors for the kitchen..
Well…before I got the two doors hung this morning, I was a little concerned about my color choices of white for the cabinet frames and a subtle grey for the doors with black hardware…but, now that I have doors up so I can look at it, I really like how it modernized the look of the kitchen and made the 82 year old cupboards look like they are only 40 years old…okay, that was a joke and they do still look old but now they are clean and they have no runs or drips in the paint anymore and I like how the self closing hinges hold the doors in position when I open them…I feel a lot better about all of the work I had to do to get to this point…and I’m now excited about finishing the kitchen and getting everything else painted…still 3 more weeks of work to do and I have to remember that I really don’t have a schedule that I have to meet so I don’t need to stress out about progress…I mean there is only one person in the world who cares how long it will take to complete and that is me…and I’m a bad boss at times…maybe I’ll fire myself…
Got the two big doors hung…
Well…yeah, things have changed in my schedule today once I got to working on the drawers this morning…they need so much work that there is no way I’ll get them done this weekend…had to remove the head of the small one since it was so cracked and I couldn’t get to the cracks with it still attached…so I had to re-glue it after I did the repair and now it’s drying with my heaviest toolbox sitting on the face of it…and I had to remove all of the partitions in it which took a heck of a lot of work…I did get the two big doors hung but had to take my grinder with a cutoff wheel on it to shorten the screws so I could tighten the door handles…both of the sets they included were way too long and I wasn’t going to go out and buy all new screws for them…the doors actually close now but they still bind a little but they wouldn’t even close before so I’ll take it…a little paraffin rubbed on where it binds helped a lot…I don’t think I could have gotten them to work better since both the doors and the cupboards are warped…but I probably should have waited til Monday to let the paint cure since it is so soft that I peeled off a couple of spots that I’ll have to touch up later today….I am done for the day…abused my hands again and peeled my knuckle open that had started to heal and my thumb hurts like crazy every time I use it to hit the space bar…3 1/2 hours is enough for a Saturday and I am going to take tomorrow off completely to let my hands and back rest…but I will be back for a political one after I take a break…I forgot that the circuit that I have my microwave and toaster on temporarily won’t take running them both at once so I had to go downstairs and reset it while I was making breakfast for lunch…can’t wait to get them back in the kitchen where that doesn’t happen….
February 5th
Well..I gave up at 5:37 this morning when I lay there for a few minutes and quickly realized that I was not going to get back to sleep…but, I went to bed at 10:30 from boredom so I guess that’s okay….feel okay this morning and that is from resisting the urge to have cocktails to celebrate finishing the cupboard doors yesterday…I am a little disappointed in my work on them when I missed some obvious flaws in them that should have been repaired…I guess I can say they look like distressed antiques since they are 82 years old…and I still fall back on my idea that they are okay since they are now clean and that’s really all I wanted…and with what I had to work with, they are okay….still pretty darn sore from all of the work I’ve done this week and I am glad I get to take the day off the bike tomorrow…I am going to get on the drawers today so I can have them done tomorrow….they built some really crappy dividers in the top one and I think I’m going to remove them since they are so half assed and I need them gone to get at the bottom of the drawer where it looks like they just poured paint in them….so, it looks like another all day work day to get the drawers ready so I can paint them tomorrow….not much to do today…going to get on the bike early to get my miles in and I may start cleaning my dishes so I can start putting them away since the insides of the cupboards have had 10 days or so for the paint to harden….but maybe not…the drawers are in such sad shape they could take all day…more later…