Friday, August 17, 2012

What I've Been Up To

Mostly I've been chasing Porter around non-stop, but occasionally I get some other things done too. I'm slowly working through the list of things to make the house our own. I've painted the master, the hall, living room and office. Still need to paint a little more in the living room and the kitchen. These are a few of the working on the house highlights:


Had the old cabinet shop build my entertainment center. They gave me an unbelievable deal, slightly more than it would have cost me for just the materials. The door panel is short in this picture, but they've replaced all three panels there and I'm just waiting to put them on. I still need to fabricate the top, the plan is a nice piece of black concrete, but I'm not yet tooled up for that, maybe in the next month or so. Also need to put hardware on but I'd rather wait until Porter isn't quite as curious to do that.


Replaced the non-functioning ceiling fan in the living room with this nice Modern Fan unit. It sits a little tighter to the ceiling than I would like but I left enough wire to accommodate a longer downrod in the future.


Turned the formal dining room into a large office with three work stations, all the carcasses are in place as are most of the finish panels. I've got all the material I'm going to need for the drawers all ready to go, just need to start working on them. The desktop was cut on the CNC at the cabinet shop, my understanding is that it was among the last things run out before the CNC was sold, I'm going to miss having access to that.


Added shelves to the opposite corner in the office. Each shelf is a single piece of 3/4" Appleply, also cut on the CNC at the same time as the desktop.

We've got a whole list of other projects to come as the money comes available. Of the big ones, the master bath needs some serious help and the kitchen really needs to be redone, it's big but is rather poorly laid out and has no room for two people to work due to a poorly planned out island.

Some of the other things that have been happening:


I had to give the pedo-van back to my cousin, so I picked up this '94 F-250 for all of $1200. It's not quite time for the Element to go and I really needed a truck for hauling trash and materials. When I found the truck on Craigslist I thought it was too good to pass up. I've put around 400 miles on it so far and I don't yet regret buying it.


Michele's aunt, uncle, and niece came out for a week.


My mom came out a couple of times, as well as my dad for a few days.


Michele's mom braved three days on the train each way to come stay for a week or so.

We also had visits from Tim and Lucy and my brother Pat and my niece Kayla. Star, Eddie and Gavin will be here from Japan just after Porter's birthday, my parents are coming back soon, and Pat's coming back up for the sprint boat races next month. Shit we're busy.


Porter approves.