Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
Up to yesterday, I have had this gift card that Laura gave me for Christmas burning a hole in my pocket. She told me it was for a tool, not for some basic supplies like molding or something like that. By the way, how the heck do you spell molding? I have found it “Molding” and “Moulding.” They both seem correct according to the internet. From now on, I am going to use molding. That’s the way Wikipedia spells it.
Anyway, since I had to do some molding work in the kitchen yesterday, I thought it would be good to have a very handy jigsaw. I had one, but unfortunately that one was far too weak to really cut through anything. I needed to cut around some things that one wouldn’t normally have to cut around when hanging molding.
I took a trip down to Home Depot to get me a jigsaw. Ye Haw. I had decided earlier that I would get the Bosch model for about $129. Bosch is a good name. When I got there, I was happy to find a DeWalt model for about $99. I played with the two of them for a little while and decided on the DeWalt because it was a bit lighter than the Bosch. Really though, either one would’ve been fine.
I got home and put the blade in. Then I fired her up to see what she could do. I guess I really never used a good jigsaw before because this one slid through the wood like a hot knife through butter. The trigger controls the variable speed, which was nice. The harder I squeezed, the faster the blade would move. There were a few things I had to careful of…if I kept the blade going too slowly, the wood would splinter. If I kept the blade moving too quickly and didn’t move the saw fast enough through what I was cutting, the blade would wander slightly side to side. I found a good mix of speed and speed after a while and my molding came out superb. I said SUPERB!!! Also, the blade I was using was kind of wide, so it didn’t do a good job going around corners. I will have to get some thinner blades for this type of work. But, that would be the case with any model jigsaw. I just hope I don’t burn this one out, like I did with my belt sander.
Now, I now have another good tool to add to my collection.
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Saturday, January 26th, 2008
I had a few things to get done today. One of them was to go to the appliance store and buy a dishwasher. The other one was to fix the windowsill in the kitchen and to hang some window moulding.
I did buy the dishwasher. I went over to the store, walked in and told the guy I wanted a cheap (inexpensive) dishwasher. He led me to two inexpensive ones. They were about $279. I picked out the Frigidaire somethingorother. I put up a little fuss about the price and he gave it to me for $230. That’s not bad. Lowe’s sells the same thing for $228, but this place delivers for free. That’s the kicker. It should be here in about a week. They didn’t have a black one in stock so they have to find it. The whole visit took about ten minutes and the majority of it was waiting for him to come over and say hello. What the heck do I know about dishwashers, besides the fact that I don’t want to pay a lot for one?
I also fixed up the window in the kitchen. I had to trim the windowsill about an inch, because the counter top was a little high. I also hung the moulding around the window. Here, take a look at my handiwork…
This is the before. Eeeewww…how ugly.
This is the after. Wow!!! How beautiful. And I’m not just saying that.
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Friday, December 21st, 2007
I have a certain affinity for threshold moulding. I am not sure why. I think because maybe the first time I put some in, it looked good. Maybe it’s because I got lucky and matched the color stain I picked out to the floor…the first time. Who knows, but I do.
Anyway, today was the day to install the threshold moulding for the kitchen entryways. There are two of them, one about 30″ wide and the other about 70″ wide.
Yesterday, I picked up two oak theshhold mouldings from Lowe’s. They were about $10 and $22, respectively. I thought that was a little expensive, but who am I?
Today, I cut them to their proper lengths and drilled holes in them for the screws. I have to use screws this time because the tile is already installed. I really didn’t feel like smacking large finishing nails into the floor about an inch away from the new tile. That’s all I would need…me hitting the tile with the hammer or the vibration from the impact of the hammer hitting the nail head loosening the tile. Geeesh.
There were some extra steps I had to take to install this moulding. First, I had to cut a slice off it. This moulding is tapered on both sides, with about a quarter inch step on the edges. Since we installed half inch cement board, instead of the quarter inch stuff, the floor is a bit higher than it would’ve been. I had to take that into consideration with this moulding. I cut about three-quarters of an inch off of the whole length of the board, so the edge would sit flush with the tile.
Also, I had to drill holes through the moulding, so the screws could slide through. That was easy. The hard part (which I learned during the bathroom install) was to drill out a tad bit more with a larger drill bit, to countersink the screws, so they lay flush with the moulding. I did this with a little tool I made.
I grabbed a scrap piece of windowsill that I just cut. I put the drill bit that I was going to use, in the gun. I measured exactly how long the scrap piece of wood should be if I wanted the drill bit to stick out just enough for a tapered countersink hole in another piece of wood. Then, I cut the scrap wood to that length. See the photo above. To drill the holes, I just kept the bit through the scrap wood and went around drilling where the screws were going to go.
The tool worked perfectly. I stained, polyurethaned and waited for the moulding to dry. Then, I screwed it down to the floor.
Everything worked out just grand.
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Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
In an unexpected surprise, the tile guy was able to come over a few weeks early to install the kitchen floor. I greeted him with open arms. Anything we can get done early, the better.
He came over around 9:30 this morning. He called beforehand to see if I minded using 1/2 inch cement board instead of 1/4 inch. I didn’t mind, because the thicker stuff is stronger. The lumber place he goes to was out of the 1/4 inch board. The 1/2 inch board created more of a step, but the floor moulding will take care of that.
Here are some photos for you…
This is the before picture I took this morning, completely empty and fully swept.
This is us putting down the cement board on top of the thinset mortar. I say “us” because I helped him bring it into the house, lay it down and nail it into place. Yes, I got to use the power nailer. I am now somewhat of a legend around here. It was quite fun. I like the nail gun.
This is just a fancy view of the previous shot. Feel free to print this out for your scrap book.
This is all the cement board down and nailed in. I did all the nailing after the second piece. Yes, I did that.
This is the partial installation of the tile. The two doorways weren’t exactly square, so he had to do some fancy work. This is where the project would’ve turned into a mess if I was doing it alone.
This is the finished tile install, minus the grout. He is coming by tomorrow to do the grout.
The tile seems a bit lighter than I remember, but I think it will work out nicely with the cabinet color.
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Friday, November 30th, 2007
As you may be aware, we are starting to remodel the kitchen. Yesterday, I removed most of the floor and moulding around the doorways. As I was removing one piece of moulding, I noticed some 60s looking wallpaper underneath. I immediately put my hand up to my forehead and slid it down my face. I am not sure why it’s 60s looking wallpaper, since the house was built in 2000.
This is what pisses me off. Let me get this out in the open. If you are going to do something to your house, please do it the right way. There is no reason in the world why you can’t remove wallpaper from the walls before you paint them. I just removed the top piece of wallpaper (not painted over) that went around the entire room. It took about an hour. All I did was to pull the shiny coating off and then squirt the paper part with some water. I waited for it to soak in and then pulled that part off. Again, it took about an hour. We removed an entire bedroom worth of wallpaper in less than a day. That included the ceiling…yes, the ceiling.
I have always wondered why the kitchen walls were so lumpy. Now, I have to spend about a week scratching and removing, scratching and removing and scratching and removing. It doesn’t help that the paint these people decided to put on is as thick as plastic. It’s like pulling taffy.
So thank you. Yes, thank you to the people who owned this house before us. Thank you for taking the ten minutes out of your lives to paint the kitchen a beautiful gray. You could’ve saved me a lot of time if you had just left the kitchen the way it was…with the wallpaper.
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Sunday, November 25th, 2007
Well, that wasn’t so bad. A few weeks of a bit of work here and there and I have gotten myself to the point of (almost) completion. All I have to do now is caulk and paint the moulding that goes around the inside of the bathroom door.
I did a few odds and ends yesterday. We really needed a shower caddy. Laura suggested that we not get the usual one that hangs from the pipe to the shower head. She said they get disgusting with the water dripping on everything, making stains and all that. I had to agree. If I didn’t agree, she would have belted me over the head with a wiffle ball bat. So, we wanted one that the water wouldn’t hit. Here is the one we got…
Now, THAT’S a shower caddy. I have never seen anything like that in my life, but I will tell you that it holds everything. There is no more mess standing on the edge of the bathtub.
Also, just recently, the “hot” side of the bathroom faucet decided to start leaking. When I would shut off the water, it would drip and drip and drip. I decided to get a new faucet. I wasn’t going to mess around with the guts of the old one. Here is what I installed yesterday. It was a little tougher than I thought.
Lastly, I put down the threshold moulding for the doorway. I had to screw this down because I thought that hitting big finishing nails into the floor so close to the new tile would have a harmful effect. It’s ok…I kind of made a mess of things while drilling the holes in the center. Those new drill bits I got are really sharp.
That’s it. One last thing to do today and I am going to start on the kitchen. But this time, someone else is doing it.
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Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
The tile guy came over at 8AM this morning to finish up the tiling. All he had to do was the grout.
I must’ve gotten up about eight times last night for various reasons. I do this all the time when I am expecting someone to come over early in the morning. I heard a bump at about 6:30AM and I hopped out of bed. It wasn’t him, but I just stayed awake.
He did a really nice job. We both put the toilet back in (of which I bought the correct bolts). Then, after he left, I put the vanity back in and hooked up the plumbing.
All I have to do now is to hang the door moulding and installed the threshhold moulding on the floor in the doorway. It should look nice. After that, THE KITCHEN!!!
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Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
…and I hope it stays that way. I hate surprises.
Just a nice day to writet a post about what’s in my head. Nothing too much has happened today. I am starting to have some issues with the second server with the horrible hosting company I choose not to mention. The server was unavailable for a few minutes today, so I sent support an email. I got two replies with the canned response…”We are working on it.” If I believed them every time they said that, I would be out of business.
I already set up two domains today, to move over to the new server. These domains matter, so I want them taken care of. I also plan on getting a fifth server for two other websites. Yeah, this is getting to be fun. I just need to get these sites away from this company.
In other news, I finished sanding the bathroom ceiling and walls last night and gave them some paint. The ceiling is white, so there were no surprises there. The walls were supposed to be a “bone” kind of color. We wanted them to be very neutral, so the dark furniture would offer a nice contrast. As I was putting the paint on the walls, I was pleased that the green was being covered up. After I was done, I stepped back to view a semi-pink bathroom. Laura even thought so. The good news is that the pink turned into more of a bone color after it dried. I wanted to get up the crown moulding last night too. No such luck. I plan on making the cuts tonight and getting that done. Then, I need to caulk the gaps in the moulding and paint it. After that, I need to get in touch with the tile place down the road and pick some colors. We also need to go shopping for a vanity and a mirror. It should be good.
That’s about it. Laura gets home late tonight, so I hope to have this done before she gets home. I hate surprises, but I love to give them.
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