Archive for 'Home Improvement'

Basement Update

The basement recovery continues.
This weekend, I managed to cart an enormous mound of drywall, carpet strips, and drop ceiling components up to the garage for later disposal (thanks Chris – I’ll be borrowing that punch bowl).  After that, I framed in the new bathroom and tied it all together with screws and the Desa 476 [...]

Basement Devestation

There is something liberating about taking a reciprocating saw to a wall within your home. Walls are usually things we take care of…we don’t scratch, dent or mar them without grief. So when you have the chance to make huge, ragged cuts, followed by ripping and tearing, it tends to get the blood [...]

Still Here

Yeah, I know…a bunch of posts explaining the lack of posting is just as compelling as you can get in the blogosphere.
I’ve just been stupid-busy lately.
In November of 2004, my nicely carpeted and finished basement – my dream room…that place I had spent many years dreaming of and yearning for, ‘flooded’.  No, I didn’t have [...]

Kleptobotany

A couple of weeks ago, we had our front yard landscapped.  It looks nice: new trim, extended beds, lots of new plants and so on.  Down by the mail box, we had three examples of Japanese Blood Grass.  They looked really good.
Until I came out to get the mail on Saturday and noted three gaping [...]

A Mote In My Eye

This will be the last entry in the Sink Saga, provided something horrible doesn’t go wrong in the near future.
When we last left our intrepid amateur plumber, he was kneeling under the counter, scratching his head over a steady leak coming from somewhere in the dark recesses. Just when I thought I had things [...]

Plumbnation

UPDATE – That little leak I mentioned at the end of this post?  Well, I worked on it tonight and managed to split the copper pipe right open.  Looks like this saga will continue…
Original post follows:
My last entry on home improvement left off with the kitchen sink project.
Time to finish this sorry tale.
A few months [...]

How Hard Can It Be?

UPDATE – A comment asked about pictures. Here they are…

ORIGINAL POST STARTS – It started when he looked at my hands and smirked.
I make no claims to being a handyman. I’m certain my father’s biggest disappointment in me is my concept of the word ‘router’: I think of a packet router with a [...]