It just won't let up.
The rain that is.
We've had so many f'n days of rain that I'm hesistant to begin on the outside work.
And the 10 Day forecast basically is calling for rain 7 out of the next 10 days or so.
You should have seen me putting the deck furniture in the pack of the truck douring the downpour yesterday. It was so fun!
I gots new patio furniture today!
Something that is a helluva lot nicer than those resin tables and chairs we've been using for 5 years.
But that's not my yard.
And I didn't get the umbrella yet either.
So yes, there's more money to be spent.
And yes, I'm keeping the resin stuff for as-needed use.
I managed to get the yard quickly mowed and while I was putting the mower away the downpour started.
Can't tell if it is a microburst or not but the thunder keeps rolling overhead.
At least the morning wasn't a total waste.
Apparently we are due for storms again tonight.
Damn you sky gods and your accursed attempts at one-up-man-ship!
There's nothing quite like being awakened at midnight with massive amounts of thunder and lightning above your house.
There was godfight in the clouds last night and man was it intense.
As usual I'm not quite sure who won but of course, us mortals have to deal with the fallout.
The Clintonhood tornado sirens kicked off around 12:05 or so and lasted about 30 minutes.
While the rain was incredibly intense up this ways, the major rotating cell that triggered the tornado warnings was over downtown Cowtown and German Village to the south.
It was moving fast and you could almost coordinate what you saw out the windows with what The Dean of Central Ohio Weather was broadcasting. Within 30 minutes this major insane cell was already visiting Fairfield county so it was moving pretty damn fast.
It never stopped until 2 or maybe 3. It just kept raining with occasional thunder and lightning for what seemed like many hours.
There's supposedly a lot of flooding around due to the amount and intensity of the rain.
However there's no water in the basement at all. None even in the spot where it came in during winter.
I've spent a good chunk of the day realizing that I owe quite a lot to George Carlin.
I was 11 or so when I found Class Clown and An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszoat the Toledo Public Library and well... let's just say that exposure to his observations at such a young age was quite a turn.
I'd have to say that indeed, he shaped my general outlook on life and most of all especially my distrust of religion.
Funny when ya put the pieces together and you realize the things that influenced who and what you are.
The robot thing? I firmly lay the blame on The Cousin for that!
So I went to a clambake last night a few blocks over.
A few weeks ago, while at M's cookout I learned that Lisa and Biz live 4 blocks south of here and also, that they finally decided to get married.
Anyway, this was sorta-kinda their wedding party/bridal shower in the form of a clambake. Who knew?
Turned out to be a great evening.
Funniest thing I'd have to say is I ran into Rick and his wife, two former bartenders/servers at Mac's from way back in the day.
And what's hilariously funny is even after all these years he still remembered I can't eat raw tomatoes!
And in retrospect, he's probably been one of the best restaurant servers I've ever encountered.
So I dropped some cash down on a Canon EOS Rebel XSi SLR today.
Battery is charging up.
Of course, being that is is a higher-end camera, it doesn't take AAs like all my point-and-shoots have.
I bought a second battery too ($50 frigg'n dollars) but she gave me the wrong one so it'll have to go back tomorrow or later today.
I'm in that weird post-purchase guilt phase that I slip into after buying any single one thing that is more than $20 or so.
I know it'll pass in a few days... but I always hate it when it hits. Not like I haven't been planning this for a while.
So Giga's definitely got something wrong going on.
"You know, medicine is not an exact science, but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like his was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Giga is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in his stomach."Personally, I'm inclined to suspect the dwarf.
And then I read...
An an Oriental-themed, tricked-out parlor, Nicholas, his friends and a bevy of prostitutes would party and have sex for days - abusing cocaine, laughing gas and other drugs, as music from such chart-toppers as Led Zeppelin and Phil Collins played, according to court papers and a former employee.
Phil Collins?!?!?!?!?!
So it took 6 hours to get the shelves assembled.
Six hours!!!
And I won't go into how 2 of them broke and how I hopefully repaired them enough.
The shelves are actually incredibly cheap. Thankfully there were on clearance and I'd say that they are probably worth that.
So much shitty partical board! Crap! Crap! Crap!
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The space is a little tighter than I imagined.
If I put all the shelves in here, I'm not sure if I can put my desk/computer back in here.
I may have to remove a shelf for that.
Or I could leave these as is and just rearrange the front bedroom and keep it where it has been in there since I started redoing the room.
I'm also back in the hallway today.
The last work in here was back on February 20.
On the baseboards that are painted, I'm installing and painting the shoe molding.
However, most of the baseboards here are stained.
I've purchased a stain-grade pine quarter round and I'm going to get some stain test samples to see what will work against the baseboards.
Back to the office today.
Now that everything is moved back to the main bedroom, I'm going back and installing the final shoe molding.
Even from the photo above you can see how bad the trim lines in this room turned out.
But other than minor touch up I will not waste more time on this room.
So the NalaMatka and the NalaOjcieic went into contract on a new pad in Glass City.
While not a house I could ever live in, it definitely sounds like it is exactly what they need now.
Plus... it is in a part of town the Matka's always wanted to live in.
However... there's something special about the place that I don't think I've ever come across in the hundreds of homes I've looked at over the past few years.
Oh yeah baby!
I do believe my folks are buying a house with what can only be described as "The World's Ugliest Basement".
And it has like a 9 foot bar too!!!
I think I'll be sleeping downstairs in the basement when I visit!!!
The new Transformers Animated Grimlock is awesomeness in Dinobot T-Rex form!
There's just something beautiful about the new design aesthetic and how it brings about so much personality in his dinosaur mode.
Don't get me wrong... I'll always love me the original 80's Grimlock (above).
But man oh man... he's so damn purty... and just as belligerent!
2.5 very sore hours later the former owner's compost heap has been moved creating a new hill for Hoonts (below).
Thankfully, I was able to borrow my neighbor's wheel barrow which made a big difference. My old one was broken and I decided to pitch it prior to the move to Clintonville.
As I suspected, putting a compost pile against the garage was a retarded idea.
Compost/dirt spillover was inevitable due to the pressure of the weight and the rain/weather.
At least the first two boards from the base of the garage are rotten and will have to be replaced.
And unless I learn how to cut wood to match, they'll be something that barely looks right.
Ok.
Nala's done and hurty!
But a new project has begun!!!
And then I read...
"You have 422 unused vacation hours (52.75 days) and 2 unused floating holidays."I gotsta figure a way to get outta dodge for a bit.
I'm already having a "I loathe my job!" morning.
So.
With the installation of 2 temporary blinds (until I decide on final window treatments such as just valances or full curtains) and some minor floor cleaning it came to an end.
Is it perfect?
No.
Is it better than when I started?
Most definitely.
Could I have done better?
Most definitely.
I learned a lot more about working with mud and I know that the next bedroom's repairs will be even better.
I learned that I suck the balls with trying to work in confined spaces with a hammer as can be seen one really looks at the shoe molding.
But... that'll improve the next time.
I should have spent an extra day on the ceiling and walls but alas, my back and shoulders couldn't handle it.
So now all that's left is...
... to find a head board for the bed
... decide what pictures or art will go on the walls
... find 2 new side tables
... get a new 30" LCD and a piece of furniture to hide it
... rewire the entire room in the future and run cable up here
OK.
Time to spend a day or two resetting and cleaning up my mess, finish some minor stuff in the hallway, and then get started on Project 6 - The Garage Repair and Painting!
So while the stuff outside dried I sprayed some foam sealant under the baseboard area. It should expand and hopefully close up any gaps.
I know there's definite problems because while changing the outlets the other day I could feel a draft every time a gust of wind hit the house. Not good at all.
One the trim all dried, I was able to cut the new shoe molding to fit. I've used quarter round since it will look relatively appealing.
I'm proud of how that all went down. The cuts are ok and overall, the seams where I had to marry up 2 pieces should look ok.
I also reinstalled the top baseboard trim and encounters all kinds of problems.
Man oh man I was wishing I had not removed them to fix the plaster.
I had hoped that I could just renail them up and they'd be flat against the plaster repairs.
WRONG!!!
There was just too much shifting of the walls over the years before I removed them and even though I knew it when I took them off, I don't know why I wasn't thinking about it when I was putting them back on.
Some areas created massive gaps between the walls and trim (above).
So...
I ended up having to caulk all those gaps because it would have just looked awful.
And I of course would end up staring at them all the time getting angry with myself for not having closed them up.
So... I've got more touch up to do when I have to create a new line between the trim and the wall but I think it will be better off in the end.
So I'm trying to save some money by reusing the old part of the baseboard molding.
It has a little damage, but overall should be ok.
I've scraped off old adhesive and old caulk and removed most of the old flaking paint.
What sucks about pine is that you really almost damage it more when trying to prep it since it is so damn soft.
The 13 ft pieces of baseboard molding are hard to work with. Hell, I couldn't even find 13 foot shoe molding (left things).
I found it easier to support them all on boxes and prime them and get a couple of coats of paint on them this way out in the yard.
Any drips on the grass I'll just mow up later.
Living in a 80+ year old house always brings up some issues and one of the main ones involves the covers for heating vents.
Their sizing doesn't equate to anything you can buy at a big box retailer.
I basically am trying to clean them up and repaint them.
I mean... where the hell and I going to easily find replacements.
Today was the annual Victorian Village Yard Sale.
It was pretty hot and sticky most of the day but thankfully it didn't rain at all.
There was a lot of walking traffic, but there was something missing this year.
I honestly forgot about it until just the other day. And with all the work I've been doing on the bedroom I wouldn't have had time to really plan it anyway.
As usual, we were set up at Pam and Paul's house. Mary Beth set up next door at Nancy's.
Neither we, nor Pam had much to sell really. However, a lot of it did go.
Giga sold the porch swing that came with the Domicile, the broken lawn mower sold for $10, and other miscellaneous shit.
One thing that I realized was that I really miss The Vee who used to do the sale with us.
I got wax rubbed into the hardwood today.
It'll be nice if I ever get around to having 1) the entire house hardwood refinished or 2) laying new floors down over the existing ones.
But for now, waxing this old wood will have to do.
I got a lot done today.
The light is obviously fixed, the outlet and switch plates are up, and the touchup painting is finished.
I may touch up here and there but otherwise that painting is done.
I spent about 90 minutes scrubbing the floors.
Much like the previous rooms, I really didn't clean these well when I moved in so this is really the first cleaning. The finish is about equal to the other rooms which all need to be refinished.
Tomorrow I'll scrub up this furnace grate as well as the other bedrooms and get them primed and painted flat black.
I need to pull the top baseboard molding out of garage and get it cleaned up and painted.
I also need to buy shoe molding and get that painted.
And... tomorrow I need to get 2 coats of wax on the floor.
S'gonna be a fun weekend ahead.
Not perfect.
But it'll do until I can fix the actual problem to allow me to put up any light or fan I wish to.
I just got this spam entitled "A pussy that smells this fine" and of course, I immediately thought of Chester's oft stinky meowy butt.
Oh well.
So I ran to Lowes on lunch and got one of those cheap dual-bulb fixtures that is ceiling flush and pretty basic. I used one in the small bedroom at the House of Love III.
I also got several t-bars and other hardware.
I was able to chisel back a bit more plaster and found 2 holes that are part of the current ancient light box.
I think I'll be able to get this cheap fixture up but I'm fairly certain that the one I bought that I really like just won't work with the current light box. There's just not enough depth for the screws that are required to mount this.
I'll try and take the more expensive light back to the Depot of Homes along with some misc. parts I bought in case I needed to jury-rig the light mount even more.
I'll have to wait until I have the house completely rewired to put in new ceiling boxes where appropriate, at least on the 2nd floor since the attic is accessible.
That way, we can easily put up any kind of light, or even fans, if need be.
More light work and other paint touch up tonight.
I'm gonna pull the top baseboad moldings out that I removed back on April 19 and see what I can salvage.
Any area where money can be saved has to be explored.
So I found this light fixture that I kind of like.
However, due to the ancient light box in the ceiling (below) there's no way I can figure out how to mount this at all.
I've managed the other 3 rooms with new lights but this one... I'm just not seeing it.
So the light fixture is on the old knob-and-tube circuit.
The problem is, the previous light fixture was actually jurry-rigged onto the ceiling.
I have no idea how to mount the new one on this ceiling box.
The whole box needs to be replaced into something modern.
Not sure what I'll end up doing here.
---
However, I did take the time with the power out to get all the outlets and switches replaced.
Unfortunately, the plates I bought were for the other room, and I put different styles of switches in so I've got to find some more that fit. Need 2 more outlet ones too.
I've spent time trying to touch up all the littles paint areas on the molding that are problematic.
I really can't get these damn crown moldings cleanly painted.
Alas, I'll keep touching it up until I can at least find it acceptable.
Got another coat on the windows too.
The inner parts of both windows still need at least one more coat.
They aren't pretty... but then they are really messed up.
It was too much to hope that all that extra meticulous time I took trying to carely make stright lines with the tape along the crown molding would making an f'n difference.
BUT NO!!!!
Same shit! Different room!
I so hate trying to tape and paint this crown molding.
If it was all one color it'd be fine but I want it white against a darker wall!!!
I so hate this shit!!!
But I refuse to paint it the wall color.
If it takes me an extra 3 days of tiny paint touch-ups I'm going to have it white in this room!
Everything got taped today and the 2nd coat of paint is on the walls.
While I was at Lowes this morning, at the very last minute, I decided to change colors and not go with the Heavy Cream.
Been there. Done that.
So... I went with one that has come up many times for other rooms but never been chosen.
It is called Milk Toast, a warm cafe au lait tan I suppose you could say.
---
Anyway, I got 2 coats of paint on the ceiling and the crown molding done, 2 coats on the trim and baseboards, and 1 coat on the walls done.
I really really really love it and am glad I decided to change.
I'm shocked this has turned out as well as it has.
All that extra work on the walls really has paid off.
I wish I could have done the same on the ceiling.
There are only a few minor areas I either overlooked. Some will be hidden by the top baseboard trim pieces when they are reinstalled.
And the new corners? Oh my god! They look fantastic!
Tomorrow while I'm waiting on the dryer repair man tape off the trim and crown molding and get the rest of the walls done and then a 3rd coat on the baseboards and start on the inner windows.
I still haven't found a light fixture. Lowe's doesn't have much at all in the way of ceiling-flush 2/3-bulb fixtures.
Ok. I'm dead and my back and neck are killing me.
But man oh man... this was a weekend of accomplishments.
I should have all of this wrapped up by the end of the week.
Bow down before the power of my low-end compound miter saw!
Went to M's house for a party last night.
Imagine my surprise walking down into the family room to see the one wall covered with photos and there's the one of me holding Andi's photo!
That Andi-80s-Molly Ringwaldesque photo is one of my most cherished possessions.
And I look surprisingly happy back in this photo too.
That's actually the end of the summer when I lost the 90lbs.
I wish I could be back at that moment again.
So one of Max Power's co-workers was giving away day lillies and hostas.
I'm all for free landscaping materials!!!
Anything to save money in one area so it can be applied elsewhere has got to be done here at The Domicile.
And there's so much landscaping to redo!
This is the moment I really love.
The moment when everything gets a coat of primer and once it dries you get the first glimpse of how successful the wall repairs might be.
Thankfully, the multiple cleanings seemed to have really helped with any lingering dust affecting the paint. I see no bubbles at all.
Sure, there are a few areas that could probably have used more work, but they are mostly little dings and such that I didn't notice previously.
The ceiling could use a shitload more work but I'm not going to do it.
Hell. We are the only people that come in here anyway to see the flaws.
Hmmm... perhaps that's what Chester screams about at 2am all the time?
Ok. I'm calling it quits on the repair stage.
I just can't do any more work on the ceiling. it really needs it. But I just have to leave it where it is for now.
And the same with the walls.
Another example of why we tape things when we paint.
You can see where some previous paint job did not tape the shoe molding.
Look at that!
Unacceptable that they didn't tape.
Even more unacceptable that they did not clean up the mess afterwards and now, Teen Jesus knows how many years later, I'm having to deal with it!
Out of all the rooms in this house this one has the worse floors so far.
The entire room looks like it had been painted without drop clothes. Multiple times too!
I'm not sure how much of this I can clean up since it is likely a mix of solvent-based paints, latex, and who knows what else!
Time to clean things down once more and get on with this program.
