Well…as I sit here finishing up my coffee before I get to work on the kitchen, I decided to try to order my 4 free covid tests and it was the easiest damn thing I’ve done in a while…just went out to covidtests.gov and it only took about a minute to enter my address and hit the order button…and that was it…no insurance information or anything else was necessary to get it done and they will be shipped in a week or so…not sure if I’ll ever need them but with going out this weekend, if it’s not snowing, it will be nice to know if I’m sick or not…order the tests, they’re really free….more later…
Tag Archives: life
January 19
Well…3:30 and 5:54, and that’s all I’ll say about that…slept pretty crappy with lots of tossing and turning and I hope that’s not the new pattern like the old pattern that I struggled with for years and years….I know I talk a lot about sleep but you don’t know what it’s like unless you’ve lived not being able to get any….just wears you right out…but hey, I’m not as sore as I expected to be after the work yesterday so I guess that’s something….and I really hope to have the cupboard work done today but I think it’s going to take until tomorrow…damn, just saw that there is a winter weather advisory in effect from later today through Thursday with at least 6 inches of snow and possibly more and there is a gale warning to go with it so there will be some drifting…glad I’m going out for groceries this morning and don’t need to go anywhere til Saturday…there is a reunion of sorts of the old gang I use to hang with in GR on Saturday but I won’t be going if it’s snowing…I am a little torn about it anyway with being in an enclosed space with people who aren’t wearing masks and omicron still tearing through west Michigan….not sure if it’s worth it to take the chance…sure don’t want to get sick….not much to do today…just the grocery run and a stop depot to get some more filler and some plaster tools since I need to get at the bad plaster patch in the kitchen…think I may buy a big bag of plaster this morning since it is so much cheaper than the filler I have been using and I do need to learn how to do skim coats with the bathroom ceiling needing a complete redo….and it’s only 20 bucks for 20 pounds which should be enough to do everything around here…and more work on the the cabinets in the kitchen to get ready to start painting them…so, I’ll be damn busy again today…just like every day…more later…
Four hours and I’m sore…
Well…a body this old is not supposed to be pretzeling itself into tiny little cupboards…it just isn’t…but that didn’t stop me from doing it for 4 hours today to sand and fill and I am damn sore from it…have only one more to do on the side of the kitchen near the sink along with the cabinet over the stove that is probably the worst one….and I am going to try to get both of them done tomorrow so I can do the final sanding Thursday and set myself up to start to paint the interiors Friday…and that is about a week earlier than I had planned but I can’t string a job out when I have work to do…and that is going to unleash huge clouds of dust in the kitchen that will have to be cleaned up before I can start to paint…and I know that there will be other repairs that will need to be made as I go along…as old and decrepit as the kitchen is, I know I’ll miss something and have to come back to it to fix it…but I am losing patience with everything that needs to be done…the cupboards probably should have been torn out and replaced but I just don’t want to spend the money for the next owners of the house when I can live with however the kitchen comes out…after all, it will still be 100% better than it was and clean….I wonder if it will help if I just put the shop vac running in the middle of the floor when I do the finish sanding? At least the airlock is doing it’s job to keep the dust in the kitchen…but it will be tested Thursday….I’m sore…..
Not a bad winter so far….
Well…as I sit here finishing my coffee before I get to the kitchen, the thought came to me that this has been a pretty good winter so far…we’ve had some snow that hasn’t been bad to shovel and I just looked at the weather and, while it’s going to be cold for the next week, there is not a lot of snow in the forecast for the rest of the month…maybe a couple of days with snow showers but that is about it…and that only leaves about 6 weeks where we can potentially get some big lake effect snow storms….but, if they set up, we could get feet of snow so I guess I shouldn’t be happy yet….one strange thing with how cold it’s been out here is that the lake ice is at the lowest in almost 20 years…and I do need to get out to Lake Michigan to take a look at the shore ice and wander around on it a bit…I do need to get a new phone so I can take photos again without dragging my tablet with me…okay, back to work….
January 18th
Well…up at 4:30 again but was able to get back to sleep until a little after 6 so that is the new pattern and I don’t mind it a bit….I am really sore today after working on the cabinets yesterday and I have new pains I haven’t had before so I think there will be ibuprofen before I get going on them again today….I’m sure it’s going to take a good month to finish the kitchen if I do everything including painting the walls but that can’t happen until I do the ugly patch they did on one of the walls and re plaster it and sand it…all they did was slap plaster on it and then paint it without sanding…another instance where the repairs were done half assed around here…it’s never going to be smooth like a professional plasterer would have done but it will be better and I have to remember this is an 82 year old house and it’s not going to be perfect…and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life working on it….other than all the work, it was a good day yesterday and I feel marginally better after my 15th day of being good and I am starting to entertain the idea that I could make no cocktails permanent but I’m not sure if I am ready for that yet…I do like the idea of saving all the cash I used to spend….a hundred bucks a month is not a little money living on SS and if I keep it up, I will have saved enough by spring to buy a kayak and that is pretty cool….not much to do today…just going to get on the bike here in a few minutes and then get back to working on the cabinets…need to put in at least 4 hours a day to make the progress I need to make and I want to get everything ready to paint so I can do all the white in one setup and only use one roller to do both coats…hoping for next week for that and doing the grey interiors…then I’ll get on the doors…work, work, work….more later…
Rethinking the range hood…
Well…since the first time I saw the ugly white range hood in the kitchen when I bought this house, I had planned to buy a stainless steel one since I like the way they look…but the prices of them have ballooned to the point that the cheapest 30 inch stainless one is almost 100 bucks and that is a bit much…and, my range is black and the rest of the door hardware is going to be black to go with the grey doors…so, I thought about it today and think I’m going to buy a black one to go with the rest of the kitchen…and a black one is only 62 bucks so that will save me almost 40 bucks and I think it will go better than a stainless one…so now it looks like I have everything figured out and just need to get at it and get the kitchen done…
Found my hardware…
Well…after finishing up working on the cabinets for the day, I thought I’d look for the hardware I need to modernize them to see what it’s going to cost…so, I looked on Amazon for the hinges and the problem with them is you have to buy either 10 pairs or 20 or more and I only need 11 of them…and the door pulls came in sets of 15 or more when I only need 13…so, I decided to look online at depot and they had nothing in stock for me to actually go out and look at…so, I tried Menards and they have the hinges and pulls in stock so I can go out and look at them to see if they are what I want…and I can buy exactly what I need since the hinges come in packs of two for 2.26 and the pulls are only 1.36 each….and I can buy one of them to fit it up and see it I like it and if it will fit the holes that are in the doors…saving me from having to re-drill all the holes for both the pulls and hinges….so, a little bit of good news for a change and it makes me want to work on the cabinets all day tomorrow….and I just might so I can get to the doors and maybe have them put back together in two weeks…but then I need to get at all of the plaster work done along with the trim and painting the kitchen…and I should order the new range hood…I can get an open package one for 40 bucks off at Amazon so I think I’ll order it tomorrow…
Found a good car wash..
Well…damn, have been busy since 7 this morning when I got on the bike…and one of the cool things that happened was that I found a good car wash to keep the salt off the car…lots of pressure and soap but it is 2 bucks per run so it costs me 4 bucks to do a wash…and it was not busy at all with three open stalls…and they had dollar changers that worked….and it was clean and well lit so that was cool…after I got back here, I got started on the kitchen cabinets and got one set sanded and filled and then gave up since my thumb is really hurting after all of the sanding…and they were in such poor shape that I used a half a tub of filler so I’ll need to get more on the grocery run wed to finish up the kitchen…I probably won’t be ready to do the final sanding until next week since it is taking me longer than I thought…so I won’t get to painting, either, and I still haven’t even started on doors and I think that will take 10 days or so to do them…and I still need to find hardware for them since I want to use black hinges and pulls but I want to see them in person…not buy them online but depot and Menards doesn’t stock any of them…what a pain…
January 17th
Well…up at 3:04 this morning for the first time but I was able to go back to sleep…fitfully….until a little before 6 and had the apocalypse dreams again where there was some reason that everything was going to hell but that part of it was never revealed…but I know it was depressing when the water and electricity quit…last night was 14 days of being good and one thing I noticed yesterday was my eyes were really blurry most of the day and I can’t figure out why that would be…other than that, I feel quite a bit better than I have in a while but I’m still pretty damn tired from not sleeping well…oh, well…I really like taking Sundays off and just doing what I want with no schedule or guilt from not working on this place…although I did start to repair the floor of one of the kitchen cabinets that looks like it had water damage from leaky drain pipes that have been replaced with pvc and that would have been cast iron when the house was built…but, I’m not going to replace it since the repair looks okay and new paint will make it look good enough for me…as I said, I’m not going to make this place perfect for the next owner….I do have to get out to wash the car this morning and then hit depot for drop cloths to cover the stove and make a little airlock to keep the dust in the kitchen before I get started sanding today…I’ll have to remember to take some allergy stuff before I get started or I’ll be miserable all day…not much to do today….I do have to hit the dollar store by depot to get some rollers since depot charges 4 bucks each for them and that is a bit much when I can get them for 1.25….but that means I can’t get started until after 8 since it doesn’t open until 9…so, I have time to read some news before I get on the bike…I did get over 100 miles on the downstairs bike Saturday and it looks like I won’t get anywhere near 500 miles before the trails clear up in the spring…..but I started at zero in the spring last year and still made it to almost 5K miles….more later…
Going to get a lot of house stuff for the next couple of months..
Well…as you can see, I have been writing a lot about the process of rebuilding this house over the past month or so and the reason for it is that it is taking up my whole life right now and I am amazed at how half assed the repairs to it have been..just yesterday, I took apart one of the three drawers that I needed to repair as part of the kitchen rehab and that left me shaking my head…it wasn’t enough that they just nailed the drawer head on with big nails when it came loose at some point in the past…but when I removed it to see how to repair it, there was another set of nails under the head that they just pounded over and into the drawer sides so they could nail the head back on…they didn’t remove them…nope, just pounded them over so they could take the easy way out and do a half assed fix…and that fix split the drawer sides that I guess was okay with them…and since the surface the head mated to wasn’t even, when they nailed it they warped the head all out of shape…so, I removed the bent over nails and took my angle grinder with a 60 grit flap disc and smoothed the mating surfaces and the head so I could do it right and glue the head back on with wood glue and then glue and clamp the sides back together where they had been split by nails…and then I put my heavy tool box on top of it to hold it while it dried overnight and now I have a nice drawer that can be sanded and painted how it should be…I still marvel how everywhere in this house, they not once did a repair right…always taking the easy way out instead of the right way…and that makes so much more work for me….