I’ve lived in our house going on two years. (I bought it before Mrs. Shoo and I were married) I have a honey-do list about a mile long, but I’d like to think I am making ’some’ progress. The last two weeks I’ve been working on removing rock from the front of the house and transplanting it back by the garage. Why do such a tedious job? I’ll tell you what I told Mrs. Shoo, because I have no where else to dump it and rock is expensive.
I really wish I had somewhere to dump it, but again it’s expensive and I am essentially recycling rock. I hear the prices are double that of oil. j/k
This is what the back of the garage used to look like when I bought the house. Pretty, huh.
This is after a day’s work of ripping out overgrowth, leveling dirt, putting down a border, and two Chicago Boxwood bushes.
A little liner.
Buddy agrees that I am doing a good job. In fact, so much so, that he decided to take a dirt bath before I put the plastic liner down. Gotta love that dog.
Roommate Steve moved out a few weeks ago, so I’ve been working on the upstairs. We’ve put a full size bed up there but had been unable to get the box springs that go with the mattress up the stairs. It’s a winding staircase. I had convinced myself through trial and error that if I just modified the outset of the ceiling above the door jam that I would be able to squeeze it up.
Before:
After:
Well… I didn’t get the clearance that I’d thought I get, but on the bright side I removed the unsightly sheet rock. The stairwell was already on my honey-do list to repaint. Now, I get to do a little drywall.
Anyone looking for a box spring for a full size mattress? I can make a great deal.
Remember the 3D mock up I did for the stairwell skateboard ramp shelving under the basement stairs? Well, I built the shelves this weekend.
Below is how it turned out. Didn’t take a before picture, but just imagine the space below the stairs with no shelves - you should be able to come up with an idea of how it looked.
These are also ‘green‘ shelves, the plywood is from a water bed frame that GTG’s parents were discarding.
Eventually I’ll close them in with some wood paneling and doors, but that is for yet another DIY weekend.
Notice the extra amount of wire. There will be no need for an extension cord. I even busted out the level for this project, and GTG wonders why I get excited about tools.
Close up of the hole I made. I got GTG to stick her hand in there to pull up the wire. Talk about hilarious. She lasted for like 3 seconds.
I took the scroll saw to this hole to make it larger. It’s fun cutting plaster.
I should have put down a drop cloth but the Shop Vac works just as great. And we’re eventually going to get rid of this carpet. This outlet does not have the built-in extension cord.
Note: I finished this project last weekend (all outlets work without shocking anyone). This coming weekend I will be working on the stairwell skate ramp.
This weekend I am planning to build some shelves under the stairs heading to the basement. I could have just busted out an 8 1/2″ x 11 sheet of paper and mocked up a version of the shelves under the stairs, but where would the fun been in that? I instead went the geeky route and downloaded Google’s SketchUp, a 3D CAD program.
I’ve got a little experience with CAD having worked at a truss plant doing house plan designs and truss designs. There are two flavors of SketchUp: free and pro. I used the free version of course which comes with the basic features to build and edit 3D objects. The program has an option to start up with a tutorial, but me being the confident geek I skipped right on by to the program. It took me about 15 minutes to get the gist of the functionality.
The program does take some mastering, but once you get the basic idea everything is a snap.
More DIY. I’ve started wiring the basement with new outlets. It arose as more of a necessity after Roommate Steve brought down his computer and I had a power supply go bad in my computer then the computers started to get a charge as they were not properly grounded. It would feel like a joy buzzer if you touched the case.
I’ve got my system plugged into the circuit with the basement lights till I get the outlets finished.
I finally put on the last coat of polycrylic! Boy, it looks good.
Things I’ve learned while refinishing the floor.
Lot’s of elbow grease required.
Take your time and do it right. I took a quite bit of time. Taking a vacation in the middle of everything didn’t help.
Close the door if you don’t want to see the mess.
DIY is much cheaper in the end. I probably spent $150 in supplies and that includes the scrappers, adhesive remover, sand paper, renting a sander, and finish. Time wise I took much longer than a professional.
Picture doesn’t do the floor justice, but it looks good.
I am using a U-Sander, a four disc non-directional sander. Rented it from True Value. Non-directional means that I don’t have to worry about staying with the grain. Because I had stripped so much off with the adhesive remover, I started out with 60 grit paper then moved up to 80, 100, and finally 120.
The floor is very smooth and slippery. If all goes well tomorrow night, I am going to try to get the first coat of polyurethane down. I am going for a recommended three coats.
Remember when I was working on the floor? Well, while we were in Colorado it didn’t magically finish itself like I had planned. Yes, I should have finished this a long time ago. This weekend GTG and Roommate Steve were both out of town. That left me to 100% of my time being focused on finishing the floor… and eating Double Stuffed Oreos (bad GTG for leaving me with snacks).
The floor is now ready to be sanded. I spent the rest of the weekend pulling carpet staples which are worse than trying to find WMD’s or brushing your teeth and then drinking orange juice. My BFT’s (best friend tools) for the weekend: pliers, hammer, and nail set.
I have (and mean it) to get the floor done this week.
GTG and I rearranged the living room today. Something about too much clutter. The dogs walked in and about freaked out. Clancy kept pacing back and fourth comparing the living room to other rooms. Like he walked into the wrong house. Finally they calmed down. We came home this evening to both of them snuggled up on the couch.
Excuse me for the pun, I’ve been abusing it all weekend. Well, I am doing what I didn’t want to do; resurfacing a wood floor. But as they say ‘It will build character!’ The character building has been stretched out over a few weeks as I find other higher priority items like planting a garden. It’s been two days and I still don’t have fruit!! Thankfully the Country Market is around the corner.
I stopped about 3/4 of the way on the floor because I got a terrible knot in my back. Yes, my body frame is meant for remedial key pushing. But once I get the remaining 1/4 done, I am going to go over floor once again to remove the remaining lacquer and glue.
So far so good.
As for refinishing, I am going to have to read a book or watch a podcast. My best guess would be that I will need to sand down the floor, clean, and then apply a combo stain + lacquer and wait 6 hours for it to dry. Okay, my best guess may of come directly off the can of stain. But it’s a start.
My big project for this weekend was to dig up and plant a garden.
The photo doesn’t do it justice, but there are three tomato plants, two green pepper plants, strawberries, asparagus, and a watermelon sprout. Most of the work was transplanting the grass to other areas in the back yard. I got some sun and a little workout. Ace Hardware store also made a small profit off me as I made over 5 trips to the store. Thankfully it is right around the corner.
GTG planted some flowers and herbs.
Bud spent the weekend working on his tan.
Clancy spent the weekend getting the piece of fuzz off his nose.
This is the fruit pizza GTG made to take over to my parents tonight. It was excellent!
I have been busy the last few weekends so I haven’t had much time to work on the back room. Finally took up the rest of the carpet today. It looks like I am going to have to refinish the floor. The good news is that I checked underneath the carpet in the hallway and there is no glue on the wood. Hopefully the rest of the house won’t be like this.
So, earlier I was kidding about GTG having to get rid of her shoes when she moves in– well, I was kidding. She’s actually getting a whole room for her shoes and clothes. The closets in the house are only about 3 1/2 feet wide. Typical closets in a new house are around 5-6 feet wide. So to make up the difference, GTG is getting what is currently my office to turn into a dressing room. You’d think we were rich or something!?
Per her request, she wanted to paint the room “purple”“blue-grey” “lilac.” I kidded her all weekend about the color.
Here she is artfully touching up around the edges. You may notice that there is no drop cloth. We’re tearing up the carpet after everything is painted. I put the finishing touches on the walls last night. I am going to paint the ceiling (which I found out after the walls were painted that we should’ve painted the ceiling first) later on this week.
So after the ceiling gets painted then the carpet comes up. I’ll pulled up a larger area of the carpet to get a better idea of what the floor looks like.
More glue than I anticipated. I’ve experimented removing the glue by mostening it then scrapping it (gently) with a puddy knife. It’s going to take some time, but I think the floor will pretty good after it is done.
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