Saturday, February 28th, 2009
I have to post this for my father. He wanted to see pictures.
I am not sure I told you this already, but for the longest time, I was using a big 36″ wide solid door as a desk. It was mounted on 4″x4″s. It was huge and worked well, but I needed to grow up and get a real desk, so I took the door desk apart and put the parts in the garage. I tucked the 4″x4″s away in the corner nicely, and leaned the door against the front wall. It was kind of in the way, but not all that much.
Poor Laura has been crowded for a few months now on her side of the garage. It seems as though the ride-on mower, the push mower and the snow blower were all in her car’s way. She was able to pull the car in the garage, but it was a tricky maneuver each time. The main culprits were the ride-on mower and the snow blower. When she tried to walk in front of the car, the push mower’s handle would jab her in the stomach. It was hard to watch. It was even harder to receive those wicked stares during those times I did decide to watch.
A few days ago, I decided it was time to clean up the garage and get rid of that door. It was just sitting there. I figure that if I disassembled my home-made shelving unit, I could replace it with a “door work bench” that could park the push mower and the snow blower right underneath. You’ll see in the photos.
I just want to say that I am a master carpenter when it comes to these types of projects. I even use a level. It’s simply amazing.
To do this project, all I needed was a miter saw, a circular saw, a few 2″x4″s, some screws, a stud finder, a tape measure and a level. It was pretty easy. Let me show you the photos, but please ignore all the items on top of the work bench. I haven’t organized them yet.
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Work bench in the garage
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Showing 2″x4″s underneath work bench mounted in the walls
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Shelf mounted above the work bench in the garage
As you can see from the photos, I simply mounted some 2″x4″s against the side and back walls. Then, I cut the door to size and placed it on top of the 2″x4″s. I used one of the old desk legs for the last corner. Remember, this is a thick, heavy, solid door. Also, since I had an extra piece of door left over, I decided to use some shelve brackets I had hanging around to put up a nice little shelf. I keep a bunch of stuff up there and even drilled holes in it to use some old hooks. Now, I get to hang extension cords and stuff like that.
See how nicely the push mower and snow blower fit under that beauty? I moved over the ride-on mower a bit, tucked those two under the work bench and now Laura is all smiles. Plus, I got rid of the door.
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Monday, February 2nd, 2009
That’s two down and a bunch more to go.
I really don’t like painting. It’s not that bad once I get into it, but getting into it is the problem. I have found that doing short bursts throughout the day helps. If I put it off for a few days, I am in trouble. I won’t want to start again.
So everyone knows that pretty much the first thing to do when you move into a house is paint. In our last house, we had to paint over the smoke stained walls. That was nice. There were also many problems beyond that. It took me weeks just to prep one room. Everything came out nice in the end, but the whole project took longer than I would have liked it too. Just as I finished every last thing I could have done to that house, we moved.
This time, there really is no prepping. In this last room, I had to spackle 4 tack hole that I put there. It’s refreshing when people don’t smoke, have holes in the walls or wallpaper on the ceiling. Oh, the good ol’ days. I remember laying in bed a few years ago saying, “Pumpkin, we have wallpaper on the ceiling.”
Painting the red room didn’t take long at all. In just a few weeks, it was done. Most of that time was my procrastination. We closed out the era of the dark red and painted on a brighter blue/gray. Again, this is one of those paint colors that changes color throughout the day. I am sure all paint does that.
The dark red was okay, but we wanted to change up the wood grain trim and make it white. We also wanted to room to appear slightly larger. Brighter paint will do that.
I have said many times before, I love white trim. It’s bright and cheery and easily repaired when damaged. Just touch it up. My heart breaks when I paint over this nice wood, but it’s something that I have to do.
Here are some before and after pictures:
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Red room – before it was painted
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Red room – after it was painted
I think the toughest part was all the taping around the windows. I wanted to maintain the wood window frames, but paint all the trim around it. That way, they don’t get painted shut and they will look more natural. Also, taking the door off the hinges and closet doors down (and painting them) took a while. Other than that, everything went well.
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Thursday, December 13th, 2007
I finished up the sanding of the joint compound last night. Two nights ago, I used the power sander…the little palm one. That was great to do the first major sand with. Then, I reapplied the joint compound and sanded by hand. Overall, everything came out pretty nicely.
I was excited to get some paint on the walls. Paint means the major dust of the project is gone. I put up plastic in the doorways to keep the majority of dust from the rest of the house. Also, I used my new safety goggles and the new respirator I bought yesterday. I must remind you that one of my least favorite activities with remodeling is sanding joint compound. I really hate it. There is such a temptation to just paint over the compound before it’s sanded. I didn’t do that and things are really smooth.
We (I mean “I” – Laura was a little shocked) went with a light gray/blue color for the paint. This was a little bit of a surprise. It looked different on the one and a half inch by two inch tab from the paint store. It is growing on us. I think, with the light colored floor and dark cabinets, things will look great.
I didn’t sand and paint the spots where cabinets would be. I bought one gallon of paint, so this worked out nicely. Any spot that I don’t have to sand is a good spot. Also, apparently, I used an overhead projector marker to mark the areas that needed to be cut for an outlet or a switch. Let’s just say that I have put about eight coats of paint on those marker lines to only see the green of the marker bleed right through. Don’t use an overhead projector marker to mark sheetrock.
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Friday, December 7th, 2007
Today, after I brought the cat to the vet, I ran down to Lowe’s for a few things. I had to get some outlets, switches and face plates. I also had to get some joint compound. When I was leaving, it started to snow. For a while, it was coming down pretty good.
I thought I would get a picture of the front of the Lowe’s in Middletown that I always go to…
The snow got worse on my ride home. I took the opportunity to grab a nice shot on one of the back roads pretty close to the house.
I got a little further with the kitchen walls. Now I have two walls done. Well, they have the first layer of joint compound on them. They still need to be sanded and then another layer. I can’t wait to get them all done and painted.
Just a few minutes ago, I brought the floor cabinets out to the front porch for Paul to take in the morning. He wants to use them in his basement for a workshop. I then took the last wall cabinet down. Things are pretty messy upstairs right now. I brought that cabinet downstairs to use for my stuff. Now, I have a nice wall’s worth of cabinets down there, hanging from the ceiling. It’s good to keep things off the floor.
There is only one more cabinet in the kitchen and that’s the one with the sink in it. It’s a long sonofabitch, so I am not sure of my plan yet. I have to move it out to get to the wall. Maybe tomorrow, I will move it out, do the wall and then move it back.
Just for giggles, I thought I would show you the wallpaper that one of the previous owners decided to put on the walls.
Can you say, “crack head?”
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Saturday, December 1st, 2007
Ok, I am sure you all think I am rather crazy at this point. If someone told me they wanted to use a belt sander to sand their walls, I would think they were nuts too. That’s why I am writing this post. To show that actually, you are the crazy ones. Just kidding.
I went to Lowe’s this morning to get what was on my list (previous post). I got everything, except for the respirator. I found my old one downstairs. The best things I got were the shims and the Dewalt Belt Sander. I have to say, after talking to the guy who works in the tool department, I was a little nervous about this whole belt sander thing.
Well, here’s how it went. I got home and unpacked the sander. I found a nice spot on the wall that requires some sanding. I plugged the sander in and put it against the wall. A small part of me thought it was going to go right through the minute I hit go. Well, it didn’t. It did a very nice job of finding the high spots and lowering them. Here, take a look.
This is a before shot. I am sure you can see the imperfection in there.
This is the after shot. I spent just a few minutes sanding this. Can you see where the high spots were? Also, this roughed up the paint enough to let the skim coat of joint compound stick better.
What, you can’t really see what I am talking about yet? Take a look at the next picture and tell me you still don’t.
Uhhhh, can you see that? I have no idea how the people before us did that. I also have to say, the paint is like cement. It’s hard and slippery. The sander works much better once it gets through that tough surface. This thing is going to make this job much easier.
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