[Note: you may want to go ahead and defrost that Thanksgiving turkey, as it's been a wile since my last post.]
OK, it was my good intention to live up to the list I shared "way back when". Specifically, the kitchen back splash job, aka the inspiration for starting this site.
OK, so some things got in the way, starting with the landscape light project, which BTW was initially slated for summer '06 until the in-laws had delivered the jungle gym, unassembled, in eight boxes in my driveway. (There was also the whole thing about needing an electrical feed to the outside of the house, as featured in the 7.30.2007 post.) And the fine-tuning therein, adding lights (see 7.31.2007). For those of you visiting this site frequently, you saw the progression of the light arrangement in the sidebar, as I posted shots after each addition. It's pretty much stable now, so you can register the current shot to memory. What you can't see are the adjoining wires that still need to be buried. (Translated: flagstone needs to be lifted, and 3" trenches need to be dug.)
Then, there was the whole Barry Bonds/Tom Glavine/A-Rod milestones.
Then, the fraternity alumni need their database cleaned up (a 3-year back sweep) for a month-end mailing.
And then, there was the Rose-of-Sharon in the backyard that has been an eyesore in terms of landscape color coordination (the whole adjacent vs. complementary color-wheel coordination debate, in which I side with complementary). Anyhoozle, when I bought the Rose-of-Sharon in '03, it was a clearance item, looking all Charlie Brown Christmas tree-ish. but the label read "Rose-of-Sharon...white [flowering]". And most important, $5.99 (3-gallon; normally in the $20 range). So, I took it home, and planted this problem child that no one wanted. Flash forward to '06, and I see its first bloom. Ahhh...f--k! It evidently caught the lavender fever from the lilacs because it was looking pretty blue. Like the blue Rose-of-Sharon at the 805 rental I've been trying to replace. Like the blue Rose-of-Sharon at my mother's house, which she pulled out of the ground last year and both my brother and I declined. (BTW, anyone want a blue Rose-of-Sharon? It's in a pot, ready to take. Free. Anyone?). It wouldn't have been so bad if the surrounding specimen shrubs and plumb tree weren't so not-blue. Burgundy, green (ivy) and powder blue is not my cup of tea. Had it been yellow and not blue, I would have been OK. Regardless. Two days ago, I saw the Moana Nursery's marquee in the distance: "Sale ... #5 shrubs...40% off". And they had two red hearts (white edge, red center; what I wanted all along) left. This time, I made sure to purchase one with the blooms still on the plant -- I even did an extra peek underneath to make sure they didn't tape the white/red flowers onto the stem, trying to pull a fast one on me with another blue Rose-of-Sharon. So it's all good.
And then, it was Lisa's 9th 29th birthday yesterday. On the way home from dinner, I was driving through the old foothills in rural South Reno along Huffaker and came across a public grove cattail grass and had to get myself some for the pond out back. I had no tools, so I tried to pull some stalks out by hand. No dice. So I committed the spot to memory and saved it for a weekend drive. Then, there was this dog, a terrier/pointer mix, scurrying up the road. I got into the truck, and the dog proceeds to pretty much usher me from the corner of Huffaker and Olive to the corner of Huffaker and Lakeside. I have my hazard lights on, waiting to get to a driveway or turn-off, with cars piling up behind me. The first chance I had to get out, I coerce the dog to get in the back of my pickup while I call its owners. Five minutes later, I get a call, and bring the dog back to its home on Olive, tell the owners how/where I found their dog and how I was trying to get me some cattails but had no shovel. Long story short, they hand me a shovel and say "Here. Go get yourself some cattails." Karma. Good stuff.
I'm sorry...where were we? Oh yeah, excuses.
And while the market value of my excuses are spiraling downward faster than property values nationwide (more on that in another post), there was the bathroom remodel that needed tending to. You see, we used to have a built-in medicine cabinet along the bathroom's back wall. And it crossed the tile line along the wall. We didn't want to tile around it, so we covered the part that would have crossed into the tile area, did a 3" patch up the wall, and left the remaining 18" for a built-in, dark-stained, Pottery barn-like candle box. I'd be very happy with the results if:
- The original plaster job up the wall wasn't so free-form (i.e., not plumb), thus requiring a little caulk and wood fill along the now plumb moulding around the box; and
- The moulding (spelled so as to not be confused with the invasive green stuff) around the (entry) door didn't need some more fine-tuning
The problem with the door moulding is that the door to the linen cabinet cannot fully open before it hits the moulding, even though I put a 1" spacer between the cabinet and wall. And why, you may ask, did I not put a 3" spacer between the linen cabinet and the wall? Simply put:
- That would compromise the equal distance between the vanity/toilet and toilet/bathtub (remember this is a standard 6'x8' bathroom, so we don't breathe the rarefied air of those in newer construction); and
- The moulding measured out 1" from the wall, and there was enough clearance to open drawers and doors before (operative term here) I installed everything
Or was there enough clearance? No, %%$#^-ing &*^*-it! Because -- you guessed it -- the wall was not plumb. Should I have checked the wall for plumb? Hey, F.U.; that was the plaster guy's job back in '54. Plus, I had only a week to do the remodel (demolition, construction, installation, consternation, intoxication) while Lisa and Nic were at Disneyland, and this didn't include double-checking those things we hold as true -- like level measurements. Fine, lesson learned.
So...the affected moulding strip needs to come down -- again. The first time, it was because the drawers were hitting the moulding. Fine; I took out the shims that kept it plumb with the beveled top edge, fastened it. (Seeings how the plaster guy can do the wave up the wall, so will my moulding). Only to find that -- and you probably saw this coming -- the effing cabinet door is brushing against the moulding enough to rub its brown stain against the white moulding. Fine; this weekend I will be running a utility knife along the outside edge of the moulding up the wall, chisel out the aberrant plaster until I get a plumb measurement from the floor up, and feather the top moulding strip. Long story short, give us 2 weeks on that for the caulking, putty/filler, painting, and we'll have before-and-afters to share on the bathroom remodel.
And while I had the chop saw out, the door to the garage (replaced last winter) needed newer, wider moulding, requiring the floor moulding to be chisled a bit to accommodate.
So, here we are. The landscape lights' wires still need to be buried 3", and the kitchen back splash still need to be scraped/grouted. Since payday is tomorrow, I think I'm going to take a short drive along Galetti Way near the DMV on Saturday and bring me home 3-4 day laborers to handle these hanginging chads for me while I go out back and clean out the pond and mow the lawn.
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