Posts by Chuck Curtis
We made it home last night by 8pm – making it one of our most reasonable ends to a day trip to the city. We ate dinner at IKEA in New Haven and still made it home in time for the boys to read before bedtime. I didn’t get too many pictures on the trip, but here are a couple more.
Today we took a trip to the city. Will and Ben had been begging to go so they could do Christmas shopping for each other. Today was the only day we could go as a family before Christmas.
It is the first of December and the city was already packed with shoppers. Thankfully, we were done in time to catch the 3:30 train back to New Haven. Overall both boys did well – only a little frustration leaving the toy store only buying gifts for each other, and nothing for themselves.
Today finally felt like a normal Sunday. It has been crazy busy her over the past couple of weeks, between my work travel, hurricane Sandy, and holidays. Today we had nothing planned save a few errands to run before lunch.
I decided to take an easy day. I had no major house projects to work on, so I decided to finish up a few small projects around the shop.
The first project was to replace the spotlight on the corner of the workshop. I had installed a motion sensor light several years ago, and it no longer worked. I decided to use one of the RAB lights I had left over from the garage and put it on a timer. I picked up a dusk to dawn timer switch. The timer adjusts for sunrise/sunset and will turn the lights on at dusk and off at a fixed time, and back on in the early morning until dawn.
The second afternoon project was to work on the door to the second floor of the workshop. I have a kerosene heater for the workshop, but without a doorway to the second floor, all the heat escapes from the first floor workshop. I still have a little more work to do on the door, but it is getting closer. I pulled one of the antique doors that had been in the workshop loft. I’m not sure I like the painted door in the middle of unpainted plywood. Maybe next summer I will paint the plywood walls.
The weather this week has been nearly perfect. It has been (maybe) a little cool in the mornings, but the days have been wonderful. We took the opportunity to enjoy the nice weather and did a hike behind the house on Thanksgiving morning. My dad was visiting for the week, so we got to enjoy the woods with him.
We took a little detour from the normal loop that we hike, and took a closer look at some of the abandoned hospital buildings that are adjacent to the trails we hike.
We enjoyed a turkey dinner (thanks to the Sawyer Farm for the turkey – it was wonderful), and Susanna even ate a few bites of the Thanksgiving turkey. Will was quick to point out that the turkey is the only thing on our table that was on the tables at the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving dinner in 1621, but we enjoyed our meal nonetheless.
Yesterday I moved the outlet for the stove from the floor under the window to the wall that we had installed to cover the door. Susanna added curtains to the window.
The plan for the kitchen redo (this time) was to limit the cost and scope of the work. We aren’t replacing the cabinets (just repainting them) or moving major appliances (other than the stove). We aren’t replacing the floor. All of which will need to be done when we finally get around to doing a proper remodel of the kitchen in a couple of years. We are trying to make the kitchen more usable in the meantime.
The space between the end of the counter and the wall is 54-inches. The stove will take up 30 of those inches. We have been talking about filling up the remaining 24-inches with cabinets/counters.
The problems:
– We can’t match the existing countertop or cabinets – so it will be obvious that it was added.
– Any counter/cabinet we put to the left of the stove will only be 15-16″ deep (not the normal 24″ deep) because of the window location.
Our thoughts:
– Originally we pushed the stove all the way to the right, which would leave 24″ for a cabinet/counter to the left of the stove. It would be shallow, and the top wouldn’t match the counter to the right of the stove, but that would probably look fine. The problem with that is that the stove is then 8″ from the sink, and that felt too close.
– Our current thought is to do an even split of the space with the stove. I would purchase a 12″ wide cabinet to put to the right of the stove, and build a 12″ wide and 15″ deep cabinet to the left of the stove. We will put upper cabinets in and a microwave over the stove.
Some questions:
– Will centering the stove make the most sense?
– What color should we make the countertops? I was going to make them out of white oak to match the (planned) island top.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
When we decided to repaint the kitchen, we decided to pick paints from the Sherwin-Williams Victorian Color Palette®. The upper walls were painted with Empire Gold (SW0012). The lower walls were painted with Copper Pot (SW 7709).
I wasn’t too sure on the colors when we looked at them in the can. The bottom looked a little more orange than I had expected. However, in the end, I think the colors are perfect for the room. Now all we need is a better looking floor – but that is for another year.
I can’t believe that it had been nearly a month between posts. It has been a busy month. After my last post, I had to travel for a weekend for work. I had one weekend after my trip before hurricane Sandy came through. I had computer problems that were finally fixed by a fresh OS install this week.
I am still in disbelief about how quickly we painted the kitchen. I typically have problems finishing projects, so it was very nice to have Susanna there pushing me to finish things. I haven’t had a lot of time in the workshop, and I still need to get a door installed to the second floor, so I can keep the heat on the first floor as the weather gets cold.
One of the (very many) discussions Susanna and I have about the house is how to renovate the kitchen. Properly renovating the kitchen is a big project. We need to decide how to allow for plumbing to get to the bathroom that we plan on adding upstairs. The kitchen needs new cabinets (which I would like to build), and we will have to modify the window that goes out to the sun porch (we want to remove the bottom half of the window so we can put a counter under the window.
I think we have agreed on a basic layout for the new kitchen – but we aren’t ready to start that big of a project this year. We probably won’t be ready for several more years. Which left us at a decision point. The walls are in pretty bad shape, and the color of the kitchen is pretty ugly.
Two weeks ago we talked about repainting the kitchen. We decided to do a quick refresh of the kitchen without doing any major renovations. Susanna and I agreed on colors and got to work 10 days ago. We moved cabinets and a counter out of what had been the pantry and put it in the main kitchen. We knew we were going to lose some storage space in the pantry (we are making it the laundry room). During hurricane Sandy, we both had some extra time (2 days off of work for me, and all week off of school for her), so we made much quicker progress than I had anticipated. Needless to say, we were not bored at all during the hurricane – even when we lost power for 4 1/2 days – we had a generator for light and water, and no power is a great excuse to eat out.
I moved the washer and dryer to their new locations in the former pantry. Last weekend we removed the antique trim, and covered up the door to the pantry/laundry room. The entry to the laundry room will be from the mud room/entry area. The plan will be to move the stove in front of the former doorway, and I will build shelves to go in the corner.
Once the kitchen is done, the next quick job is to redo the entry way/mud room. My dad will visit for the week of Thanksgiving. If we have time, hopefully we can make good progress on that space. It is small (only 6′ x 8′), but needs the plaster replaced on two of the three walls as well as a new wall/doorway for the laundry room. I also picked up some used hickory flooring to replace the ugly glue down linoleum squares that are still there.
The refresh on the kitchen should give us a couple of years before we need to complete the full remodel of the kitchen. The walls aren’t perfect (we just did a quick patch of the wall, no major repairs). The floor is still horrible. We may in the near future decide to replace the glue down linoleum squares with new linoleum squares – we would pick a little higher quality than the tiles that are currently installed. It would be a quick job, not nearly as big of a project as installing proper hardwood floors.
Finally it seems things are back to normal. Or course it seems that normal isn’t very normal these days. Susanna didn’t have to work tonight, and I was able to get out of work at a good time (don’t worry, the next couple of days will make up for it at work – followed by a quick trip to the Bahamas for work).
I had a couple of quiet hours in the workshop. I had been building cutting boards a a group project in addition to a bunch of house projects. The workshop was a mess. Sawdust everywhere. Tools blanketing all the horizontal surfaces.
The first project was to clean up the workshop, put tools away, and vacuum the floor.
I then took an hour to make a coin holder that I promised to a friend – I have an opportunity to give it to him tomorrow, and I had been stalling building it. But coin holders are quick to build, and I finished it with a coat of shellac followed by a water based topcoat.
Over the weekend I had picked up 24 white banquet chairs for a little more than $2/each (no point in renting them for the wedding if I can buy them for less than the cost of renting chairs). A couple of the seat cushions had come unattached from the chairs. Ten minutes of work, and all of the seats were attached.
It is nice to finally be able to spend an evening getting the shop put back together, cleaning up and putting away tools. I still need to spend some time sharpening chisels and hand planes, but that is another night.
Two weeks ago I sent off one of my backsaws (a Disston 12 inch backsaw, 13pts) to Matt Cianci at the Saw Blog to get it sharpened. He received the saw and tonight gave me his estimate to get it sharpened. In 4-6 weeks I should have it back, cleaned, polished and sharpened as a sash saw (should be good for both ripping and crosscutting). I took a saw sharpening class from him last year, but don’t sharpen saws enough to be fully proficient at it. I would rather cut wood with the saws and pay him to sharpen them.
The skeleton of the original electrical system still runs along the walls in the garage – a stretch of individual wires held by knobs; passing though tubes as it goes between rooms. The garage has mostly stood dark for years after a previous owner had pulled the power out – I’m sure long after knob and tube wiring had faded from favor. A long extension cord could bring light temporarily into the structure, powered by an outlet on the side of the house.
Finally, over the past couple of weeks I brought light back into the garage. I’m not quite done, but it is there – controlled by a switch – not plugged into an extension cord.
This weekend brought outlets to the second floor. The lights there still need extension cords, but they are much shorter today – just running to the wall.
Hopefully the next couple of weeks will bring switched lights to the second floor.
This weekend was set aside for smaller projects. The weather today warmed up enough for Susanna to work on painting the trim around the sun-porch. I replaced a nearly broken flush switch on the toilet with a dual-flush system. I also cleared some items off the “honey do” list – okay, maybe only one item – I replaced the hinges on the kitchen cabinet door with self closing hinges. I had replaced all the other hinges on that cabinet years ago… I just had missed that one.
We moved the wicker chairs from their temporary home in the trailer under the garage to their final spots on the newly painted front porch. I also picked up a free end table to go next to the chairs (it just needs painting and good to go).
Yesterday afternoon I got estimates on getting a concrete slab poured for the entire garage floor – we decided to do two pours – one half of the garage in the fall, and the other half in the spring. Now I have to get started ripping out the old blacktop that is currently in the garage.