The madness begins...

The month of October is going to be nuts for us. We're gearing up for YarnFest, trying to get the new bathroom in shape in time, and I'm looking at a little business travel inbetween. On top of this, my mother-in-law and two of her best friends (JoAnn and Nancy) are on their way to NY as I type this to spend the weekend with us. J&N are practically aunts to Beth & I and we absolutely love having them up to the house. Some of our most memorable travel memories have been with some or all of this crew, so I have high expectations that this weekend will be no different.

Well, in preparation for their arrival, I've had to delay some of the planned bathroom work that I mentioned in my last post in favor of cleaning up alot of my construction messes. For example, the den/bedroom was my construction staging area, so in order for someone to sleep there, it needed some TLC. This was actually good timing though since it forced me to put alot of stuff I didn't need anymore away.

I did get a good start on the shower, but only managed to get the trim work done. The panels each have to be custom cut to fit, so I decided to wait until I had a little more time to concentrate. I only get one shot to get this right, so I can't mess it up. I may get back in there tonight, after I clean the 'working' bathrooms :-)

BTW...the Red Sox magic number is down to 3 after our win & the Yankee loss last night. It's been a rocky ride the last month or so, but at least they've clinched a playoff spot. Now the October fun starts!

Bathroom Chronicles, Vol. 2

Hello all. It's that time again, when I share progress we've made on the new bathroom. I'm actually quite surprised at how it's coming along. The drywall work is done (THANK GOD!) and it came out ok. It's not a professional job by any means, but luckily for me, the rest of the drywall work in my house is awful, so by comparison mine looks outstanding :-)

I had a business trip to Annapolis, MD this week so I didn't get a chance to do any work during the week. However, my wife did (Yay Beth!). She got 2 coats of paint on the walls done so the bathroom looked like this by the time I got back...

Now before you start asking too many questions, it's supposed to look like this. We're installing wainscoting along the bottom portion of the walls (toilet area to the right of the new wall), and shower panels to the left. Now, as for not painting straight lines, you'll have to ask Beth about that yourself :)

I started in on the beaded board wainscoting today since it's the last major item needed before we can have the new toilet installed. The kits I bought are working out nicely. For those of you who are interested, I went with MDF since it's inexpensive and going to be painted anyway. I found these complete wainscoting kits on-line at Elite Trimworks.com. A photo of the toilet area as I left it today (sans paint & toilet) is below. I'm really happy with how it's looking. The entire bathroom will have this installed eventually.

The last few things we did today was install the baffles on the recessed light fixtures and cut a hole for the recessed shampoo shelf that will be installed after the shower panels go in. Beth thought it would be cute to get the obligatory "Where's Joe?" photo. She's taken these when I installed the laundry room window, master bath window, you get the picture...

Tomorrow starts the shower panel adventure. With any luck, the bathroom will at least look like it has a working shower by the end of the day. I'll let you know if it actually works out that way. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. We are :-)

Great Weekend

We had a marvelous weekend. Celebrated E's 13th birthday with most of the upstate 'clam-steam' folk on Saturday. This made up for Beth & I missing the ACTUAL clam steam a few weeks back. The photos we took on Saturday are up on the gallery, plus Beth has a cool post as well. Even better is a URL to our first-ever YouTube video post. Yippee! You can imagine our glee when it worked. I was playing around with the video mode on the new camera and was amazed at how good they came out. I learned a valuable lesson though...640x480 video mode EATS memory space. A 20 sec clip was over 40 MB! Next time I think I'll go 320x240. I'm sure it will look fine for YouTube viewing, and likely won't take near as long to upload.

Even before we headed over for the birthday shindig, I made a new batch of beer. I racked a Fat Tire amber ale clone recipe that I got from Northern Brewer. I can't get this beer where I live since New Belgium Brewing doesn't distribute east of the Mississippi River (they're located in Ft. Collins, Co). It's one of my favorite beers, and I try to have one whenever I'm traveling west. The goal is to have it ready by the time our distinguished knitting guests arrive. It's gonna be close, but I'm hopeful that we'll all be able to enjoy a glass or two together!

I Just Love My New Camera

Here's a few shots I'll taken since I bought the new camera.

This is my favorite view of our house. It shows the porch, the odd collection of roof lines we now have, and our front yard. If we ever have to sell our house, this will be the photo in the brochure.

A view of my windsor chair, taken in sepia mode. I loved how the light was coming through the dining room window. This would be a near-perfect shot if I hadn't failed to notice that the front left leg is levitating...DOH!

Our sweet Cozmo. The poor guy doesn't venture from this spot much anymore. He's a handsome boy, but looks rather sad.

This is a pie safe in our dining room. It's amazing how sepia mode can hide so much...I wish this room looked this good in color.

I'm going to post the rest of the 2007 General Montgomery Day shots up to our Kodak gallery. Hopefully, within the next few days.

Retail Silliness

I decided that yesterday was the day that Beth & I got a new digital camera. Our old one still works, but it 6 years old and has certain personality disorders that drive us absolutely crazy when we're picture taking. The worst of which is a 1-2 sec shutter lag that cost us a personal memento photo with Robin Williams, not to mention countless other shots that passed us by before the damn camera was ready. Well, no more! After doing a bunch of research, a lot of wishing, and a lot more waiting, I decided to buy a Canon S5 IS. It seemed like the perfect mid-point between a point & shoot and an SLR. Plus the price was in the palatable range. I'm quite the novice photographer, but am interested in getting better. Having several friends who are quite good provides added inspiration to take better shots as well.

OK, now to my retail story...After looking at many many websites, I realized that Circuit City had the best price. An added bonus is that they allow pick-up of on-line orders at their stores, which is nice since I have one a few minutes from my office. So I ask myself a simple question..."If they allow on-line pickup, then they'll surely honor the on-line price in the store, right?" WRONG! The same camera was on the shelf at $50 more than on-line. I ask a few of the floor sales people WTF? They told me "why don't you just order it on-line at this computer? You'll be able to it up in 5 minutes from the counter." Needless to say, I stood there dumbfounded. Being the engineer that I am, I stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out how they could do this and stay in business. I think I've got an explanation but won't bore you with it. :-) Bottom line, I got it at the price I wanted so that made me happy.

The silver lining is that the new camera ROCKS and I can't wait to post a few new galleries with it. Today is General Montgomery Day in the village, so there will be plenty of opportunities.

Bathroom Chronicles, Vol. 1

If you read Beth's blog, you're at least familiar with the trials & tribulations of the master bath remodel we're currently doing. Well, since the whole woodworking and home improvement slant is supposed to be MY thing, I thought it was about time that I blogged about it.

We're currently in the middle of putting up drywall, which has turned out to one of the most significant tasks to overcome. I've done drywall work before, but never an entire room from scratch, from sizing and screwing up the sheets, taping and mudding the joints, and the sanding. Drywall sanding is kinda like paying taxes, just when you think you may be done, there's more- lots more. Well, we started doing the ceiling last night and luckily, we rented a lift to provide the muscle. A machine like this can save a marriage, and I'm convinced that if I hadn't rented it, Beth and I would have ended up killing each other while trying to do it ourselves.

The photo may not show this in great detail, but several of the ceiling joists have wood shims installed over them. This is because back in the day, there was no need to ensure your framing was plumb & square since you could make it so when you applied the plaster. Well, it's not quite so easy with drywall...if you don't want walls that look like wavy mountain roads, you must shim the low spots, one by one, until all studs and joists are even. I cut sets of 1/8", 1/4", and 3/8" shims on the bandsaw so that the 5 joists from left to right would be level. Each wall had to be handled the same way, which is why it took me several weeks to get them done. It's tedious detail-oriented tasks like these that make me want a new house.

Another recent completed task is the new vent fan (shown below). We got a Panasonic whisper-wall, a direct vent model which true to its name, is very quiet. A major advantage to a complete remodel is total control over where to run the electrical. With this in mind, we went with the new fan, recessed overhead lighting, and three times the number of outlets and switches we had before. This photo also shows the new window, which is another major upgrade :)

Up next is taping & mudding the ceiling drywall, refinishing the oak floors, and priming everything. Before long we'll actually have a working toilet again (after 6 months or so) and a second shower (after 2 years). Geez, it's amazing what you're willing to live with. I've got a deadline of October 18 for finishing everything (anybody know why??), so the next 6 weeks ought to be quite busy...

Magic Number = 17

I just love this time of year. Pennant chases in baseball, college football is back (Go Ga Tech and Fla Gators!!), and the weather is cooling as we head into fall. For all these reasons, it's hard for me to feel sad on any day between September 1 and December 1.

Back to baseball...I've really become a big Boston Red Sox fan over the last few years. Alot of it has to do with my hatred of the Yankees (i.e., the evil empire) as well as my being a lifelong fan of those other perennial losers, my hometown Cubs. I can't really explain why I identify with the Red Sox, but I just do. I'm not that vocal about it in public since I live in Yankee hell, and a Yankee fan would just as soon run you over if you have a "B" on your hat...

But I digress...the good news is that the Sox are up 7 games with 23 to go, which gets us to the title of this post. I'm losing faith that the Mariners or Tigers will close the gap in the wild card, but that's OK. The playoffs are actually more satisfying when the Yankees are involved (and lose) >;-D

Can I get an Amen????

I heard a story from NPR yesterday in the "This, I Believe" series. Usually, these stories are testimonials of someone's convictions and/or experiences. This one is no different, except for one thing...It was about barbecue! That's right, kids. Good old fashioned barbecue. While I was listening to it, I found myself nodding, smiling, and sharing the joy. For all of you other barbecue lovers out there, you must listen to this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4827993

I couldn't have said it better myself. Makes me want to go fire up the smoker! Happy Labor Day All!