8:40 AM
The new fridge is delivered. Chop-chop, empty everything out onto the counter tops and stand back. This is the first appliance we’ve installed that did not require a panicked dash to the garage to make or modify something to allow the install to be completed. Camille loves it, but all I care about is that I can have as much crushed ice as I want. George and Donald from Albert Lee were kind enough to move the old fridge to the garage, so there is now plenty of room for my stash of Häagen-Dazs.
10:00 AM
Camille’s son Bob is coming by to paint the upstairs hallway, so I have to fix the floodlight he has been using. One of the lamps failed, and it took a total disassembly to figure out one of the internal connections was loose from the factory. Increasingly, as things fail, I look to see where they were made, and the worst shite always comes from China.
10:15 AM
41 out of the 58 lamps in the house were blown or missing[1] when we took possession, which makes me wonder. Did they not know how to change light bulbs? Or did they save a bunch of bad ones so they could take working bulbs with them when they left? The weird part about that question is that the sellers were supposedly leaving the country the day after closing, so what did they do? Invite their friends to come by and help themselves?
There are many mysteries we will never be able to divine, and it’s really just as well. The only thing that matters is how I will make everything better. Fortunately, I still have a soldering iron and a spool of rosin core. I rebuilt a fixture from parts of two and now the downstairs hallway has a functioning light!
11:00 AM
Now that we are living here, I see that I need to adjust the height of the top shelves in the walk-in closet. [2]
It was a small nightmare, because the left hand wall has a pocket door, so there are no studs, and mollys cannot extend more than an inch and a quarter into the cavity or they will hit the door as it slides inside. No matter. Improvise, adapt, overcome.
I moved the top shelves up another eight inches, patched the holes and dabbed them with paint. Thank you Jay-zuz for my new laser level! If you didn’t know where to look, you’d never know I executed a “change order.” Of course, I’m not going to show you the pile of clothes I took out of the closet and loaded onto the bed that reaches halfway to the ceiling.
12:45 PM
While the paint is out, I’ll catch a couple of places that needed touch-up after I replaced the master bath light fixture a couple of weeks ago.[3] Jeff came by and helped with that one, and we’ll be talking about it forever.
It probably would have been faster and less complicated if I had rented time at a glass studio and a metal shop and made my own fixture.
1:00 PM
Time to hang one of those wire racks in the shower that holds soap and a few bottles of shampoo. You can read about this adventure in all it’s tedious glory here.
While I’m at it, the glass shower doors have swung loose – after someone bumped into them with her knee and sheared the spacer assembly off.
I won’t mention any names, but her initials are Amy. 😀
2:15 PM
OK. I just need to sit down for a few minutes. Enough time to run through Satriani’s “Tears in the Rain” a couple of times, and promise myself that I will find more time to play in the near future.
Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!
2:20 PM
Camille is back from Costco.
I just love how her trips to Costco sometimes result in puzzle for me that was made in China.
The old shoe rack (the white one to the right) was a piece of crap that she bought in a hurry to have SOMETHING by the front door for guests at our last place.
Truth to tell, I’ve never come up with a design I was happy with, so I still have not made something to really get the job done well. 🙁
2:45 PM
Time to reinstall some switchplates where the paint has dried. I’ve found that the best thing to clean decades of filth and schmutz off these things is – wait for it – Scrubbing Bubbles!
Yes! The stuff you use to clean soap scum and lime off shower fixtures and unmentionable scum off toilets!
3:15 PM
At last! It’s time to play with some POWER TOOLS!
I need to make a custom piece of trim for the master bedroom closet, and it’s finally stopped raining so I can drag the saws out onto the driveway and make some noise and lots and lots of sawdust! As my friend George Wnek would say, “There he goes again. Making big pieces into little pieces.”
Another cool tool is my 23 gauge air nailer, which tacks tiny things into place without splitting them. Yes. 23 gauge – nails that are as thin as sewing needles.
Here, I have mitered the ends of a piece of MDF millwork, and I need the pieces held in place while the glue dries. This would be almost impossible to clamp – except with very large rubber bands, I think.
I actually managed to avoid nailing my fingers to the workpiece. Bonus!
Slapping paint on the trim, it will be ready to install in the closet tomorrow.
These munchkin paint rollers are pretty cool, because they allow you to get the rolled texture on trimwork without loading up a nine-inch roller, which wastes about a pint of paint.
5:15 PM
Chop sawing studs to use as spacers under garage shelving. Nice and loud, for the neighbors who work nights.
Camille helped me for about four hours, moving boxes around, shuttling things to the crawl space storage, unloading keep boxes. We made quite a dent in organizing the garage, which is one of my two top priorities – immediately after crisis management, that is.
9:45 PM
Yippie Ki Yay!! I survived the day! And yes, as the T-shirt says, “In Dog Years, I’d Be Dead!”
Of course,there is a looong list of things I did not get to, a list named after a guy called Hugh Jass, but tomorrow is another day.
Time for a Mojito.[4] Or two. Or six.
[1] For those of you playing “Peep My Ghetto Style” at home, that’s 71%.
[2] It irks me that I didn’t get it right the first time, but hey – my crystal ball was in the shop.
[3] Yes, sometimes I deliberately work barefoot, because I get more information about what I am standing on. As in, is it stable? Deforming under my weight? Falling apart? It’s the “four paws” approach, frowned on by OSHA. This also gives you a clue about my Google avatar.
[4] The Best Mojito:
Pour 1 ounce mint-infused simple syrup into a tall glass.
Add a handful of mint leaves, and muddle it together. Add crushed ice. Muddle some more.
Next, add 1-1/2 to 2 ounces of light rum, depending on the kind of day you are having.
Squeeze in the juice of half a lime.
Add a splash of club soda and stir. If you don’t have club soda on hand, try Sprite.
Garnish with a mint sprig and a slice of lime.
For a higher octane rating, a little Absolut Citron helps speed you along your way, and you can sugar the rim of the glass with a sponge soaked in Rose’s Lime Juice.
Simple Syrup:
Mix 1 cup water with 1 cup sugar in a saucepan and heat until boiling. Stir until the sugar dissolves (about a minute), then turn off the heat. Toss in a handful of mint leaves and let it steep (off the heat) for an hour or so. Strain out the leaves and store in the fridge till you’re ready to use it.
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