Had to make a quick repair this afternoon. I was cleaning up my desk in the basement and realized that it was way too cold by the wall. I started feeling around and realized all the cold air was coming from the window. After further investigation, I found out there were gaps between the sides of the windows. The gaps were hidden by a plastic seal. To fix it, on the right side I cut a board to fit the gap and sealed it. On the left because it was smaller than the board, I filled with expanding foam. Now I am waiting for the foam to dry and will put a plastic seal on top of it.

Kind of embarrassed it took me this long to find the gap. It’s filled now.

I finished the landscaping in the front yard last weekend, but keep forgetting to take a picture during the day. So for now, here’s an artsy-fartsy night shot.

Best thing about the landscape lights is that they’re solar powered and use LED lights. I haven’t stayed up to see how long they stay lit, but I believe they last at least 8 hours.

The front landscaping project is finally reaching an endpoint. See here and here. Planning to pick up mulch next weekend.

We have a set of adirondack chairs for some time now. Students at Sarah’s school made them. One was even painted green. It has been featured in many photos on Gotshoo. The other one was neglected and sat all by its lonesome naked self.

There’s a constant joke between Sarah and I about the chairs. Me: Hey, when you going to paint the other chair. Her: Hey, when you going to finish (insert numerous house projects). Some how I always end up losing that argument.

A guy at work just made us two tables to go along with our chairs, so I have a new found interest in the chairs and sanded down the neglected chair to be ready for paint.

Some how I have been able to overcome Sarah’s kitschy color selection for something closer to base colors and something we both agree with. I want to paint the chairs the same type of red as the New Belgium logo (seen above). I also want to somehow get the logo on the chair.

Just as a test tonight I printed out the logo on thick paper and tried to cut it out with an exacto knife. My skills are a little rusty, and I could see how it could take some time to get it cut out. So Internet, this is where you come in.

Is there a place in town that I could get this made into a stencil, or shipped off to any place on the internet to be made into a stencil? Or does anyone else have an idea?

My expert block layer doesn’t work on Sundays or even days so it was left up to me to finish the other half of the block border.

Who knew all those years playing in the sandbox would pay off?

I had to call it quits before finishing up the side by the driveway. Very close to being finished. Really liking how everything is turning out.

I had a busy weekend with doing some do-it-yourself landscaping this weekend. The front of the house has been in disrepair since last fall when I started to remove all the rock from the front. It was one of those projects that fell to the wayside for other activities.

Yup, nothing pretty about it.

This is what the house looked like pre rock removal.

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I noticed that the drainage pipe was from the blower was loose a while back. Didn’t think much of it till we turned on the AC briefly last week and notice a build up of moisture that would otherwise end up going through the drain pipe.

Afterward, I turned off the AC and removed the external cover to discover that the pipe fitting had been broken off the drainage pan under the coolant coils.

It’s a pretty clean break, and I can push against it and it fits snug. I am wondering if it is worthwhile using epoxy to put this back on. Or should I call in a professional? Any thoughts out there?

Also, this is a carrier AC unit, so I believe someone has to be certified by Carrier or they can’t order parts for it. Any recommendations on an AC repairman?

Today was  a monumental day in the Shoo household for DIY weekend warrior projects. We haven’t had a real kitchen light… in… Well, that isn’t important. The light was the casualty of a previous weekend project long, long, long ago. But somehow the planets aligned, the weather was crappy, and my dad happened to be available.

It was a project that I put off because I knew it wouldn’t be easy and it would be a two man job.

The huge hole you see is where a box of three switches and an outlet was located before. We decided to reduce the chaos to two switches and move it up to the appropriate height. The other box had a modified faceplate to allow room for the back splash.

Maybe we’ll leave the hole for ventilation.

This is what happens when you’re the homeowner and have to run wire in the attic.

This corner actually got piled with more crap as the day went on.

Remnants of the previous light combined with the really old wire. Love it when people paint around light fixtures and leave a tree ring of paint history behind.

This is the kitchen with lights. It looks great. Going to take a while for my eyes to adjust. It’s been a while since we’ve had real light in there.

Thanks again to my dad for giving up his day to help out.

It’s Sunday night and this is about the first real time since Friday evening that I’ve sat in front of the computer. I know, I know, it was barely two days. But that’s a lot of time in the digital world when your job consists of keeping a web based application up 24/7.

Part of the reason for the disconnect was that my Dad came over Saturday to help out on a wiring project. Our house is about 50~60 years old and a lot of the wiring is original and done with aluminum wire. I am told it was cheaper and more readily available when our house was built. It’s also kind of a fire hazard.

(Note: Drawing not to scale.)

Dad helped out replacing 5 outlets. We passed on the 6th for right now as it was connected to the same circuit as the bathroom lights. How that happened, I don’t know. Our two hour project took a whole day, but we’re steadily making progress on rewiring the house.

Sunday I met some friends out at Site M aka Jim Edgar Panther Creek State Park, I prefer Site M, for some mountain biking. A beautiful unseasonable 80 degrees out, but was a great day for a ride. I think I spent four hours out there.

Just a great fall weekend.

I am getting ready to start rewiring the house and I was going through my how-to books and came across a 1984 edition of Handyman. My dad obviously passed it down; looking at the address label.

I would have been three at the time when this came out. I think that was also about the same time my Dad was rewiring our house at the time. Half of my childhood memories are of my Dad working on the house on weekends. I know he put a lot of time into that house.

Got to love the penny-loafers. I think Dad had some too.

It may be 24 years old, but it’s still relevant.

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.