Recovering Baptist

Blood and sawdust

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

Things were going great in the kitchen. All the faceframes are up; the drawers are custom built and all but two are installed; the undercounter lights are installed. Our four year-old was off at a friend’s playing today, so it seemed like a perfect day to rip some maple and start creating our twenty-plus cabinet doors. I was working on the router when I looked over and saw my wife jumping around.

Jumping is not something you want to see when someone has been running a tablesaw. I saw her let go of her thumb long enough to remove a board from the saw so it wouldn’t take off; she also managed to turn the saw off. Then came the questions. What happened? How bad was it? Was this a hospital type of cut, or was it just a little nick?

Five minutes after thumb met blade we were on the road, two year old in hand. We threw him out the door as we drove by a friends’ house and headed to Northside Hospital where we figured out a couple of strange coincidences. First, this was the last day that our insurance was officially covered by my company before COBRA kicked in. There’s something a bit strange about going into a place like that and telling them that you’re unemployed. Second, our friends first baby was born 13 hours before my wife’s accident, and they were on the other side of the same hospital. How often does a new dad get the call, “hey, we just happened to be at the hospital today, too. Mind if we drop by and meet your new daughter? Oh yeah, never mind my wife’s bloody hand or that we’re covered in sawdust..” Maybe it’s best that the need for drugs was stronger than the desire to meet a new, little person.

My favorite line of the day came from yours truly. The nurse practitioner asked what we were doing, and we explained that hiring someone to remodel your kitchen costs and arm and a leg. To which I added that doing it ourselves only cost a thumb.

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When tools attack

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

It took Fox a long time to be accepted as a “real” network. If you watch Simpsons reruns, you’ll hear the occasional crack at their own network. And, let’s be honest, it’s hard to take Fox seriously when it airs shows like “When Cars Attack!” Too bad the cameras weren’t rolling in my garage yesterday.

I’m still in the process of becoming proficient with the router table. I used a bit like this to route the slots in the sides of our new drawers. Tongue and Groove Router Bit That’s the same bit shown twice. When set up like on the left it creates a slot, and when set up as shown on the right, it creates a tongue which fits into the slot. I was feeling pretty good that I managed to set things up to create a nice, consistent slot for the plywood bottoms for our drawers. After switching bits to route the tops of the drawer sides, I put the tongue and groove bit back in the router to experiment with it some more.

We’ll be using this bit for our doors and drawer fronts. We’ll create a slot in all four sides of the door and then reconfigure the bit to create a tongue so the top and bottom pieces of the door fit snugly into the sides. It’s a nice look. And I needed to practice getting the bit set up right. The guy at Rockwell made it sound so easy; everything is supposed to just line up. But it wasn’t. After ruining about 10 pieces of scrap I was getting frustrated. I should have stopped, especially when I noticed the router sounded a bit different than usual. But who wants to be beat by their own tool? I made another adjustment and started routing yet another piece of wood when the router bit went airborne. You know those kids toys where you pull the string and a disk flys like a helicopter? Think of that, only with a very, very heavy and sharp router bit. As soon as I realized it wasn’t on the table any more I hit the deck and covered my head. The bit landed 6 inches from my head, maybe less.

I changed my shorts, grabbed a beer, and called it a day. Fox’s producers would have loved it.

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I’m such a geek…

Monday, May 19th, 2008

One of the many annoyances of losing my job is that I’m losing my laptop. That’s a shame, because it’s a killer machine. So what to do next?

I thought about buying a laptop, but even my killer laptop has some quirks. And if I want something portable, then I want it very portable. I considered something ultra tiny (I found one cool HP machine with a 9″ screen and no moving parts). But I also need something with enough horsepower to edit audio. And I’d like my desktop to look totally awesome.

Since I can’t afford a Mac, the only way to have a great computer experience is with linux. Specifically I plan on using Ubuntu’s latest Hardy Heron release. From everything I’ve heard, it’s as pretty as, if not prettier than, Mac. And it’s free. Want to upgrade the OS when it comes out? $0 Want some new software? Free Need some support? Plenty of help online.

I just placed an order for the parts for my new computer. I’ve never built one completely from scratch, but I’m looking forward to trying it. And I’ve got plenty of time on my hands these days. And for those Mac nuts who are going to say that PC and Mac work out when you consider what you’re getting for your money, that’s not true when you build it yourself. Assuming I got all the parts I need (I might be missing a cable or something stupid like that), the total for this new machine is $454, and it’s completely loaded. I can’t wait to get it up and running, but while I’m waiting for the parts to arrive, I guess I’ll work on the kitchen. Time to climb into the attic and run some electric cables…

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And the kitchen sink, too

Monday, May 12th, 2008

This weekend was pretty productive. How else would you describe a weekend when you connect a dishwasher, install two hand-made lazy susans, replace the internals to a toilet, and paint a room? Oh yeah, my kitchen sink is now in my front yard, and that’s a good thing.

Yes, my life is very, very weird.

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I want my office back

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Actually I want my house back. House house has 5 bedrooms (four bedrooms and one office), 2 dens, a living room, a kitchen, a dining room and three bathrooms. Right now we have three bedrooms which are usable for their intended purpose. Everything else in our house is a disaster.

The kitchen is in progress. It looks good, but we’ve got a ways to go. The dining room is full of stuff from the kitchen, as is the living room. At least this stuff was of our own choosing.

Our dens and my office have no floors thanks to a pipe backup. I had to take the toilet out of the bathroom on that level so a guy could put a video camera down our drain. The toilet is in the shower. If you’re at my house, please, just go somewhere else. I recommend the ivy out back.

My other toilets need to have their internals replaced. One runs all the time and the other won’t flush.

Right now from my temporary office I hear four kids. Ours are playing just outside my door and our neighbor’s kids are crying outside. I don’t know why I’m bothering to pretend to work today. I need a weekend and the Scotch tasting that comes with it.

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Just call me Dr. Doolittle

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Despite working at home my wife and I still do most of our communicating via instant messenger. It gives that sense of distance that helps me avoid getting sucked into many home-related issues. But once in a while I’ll get an IM like this: “There’s a chipmunk in my kitchen!” A couple of days ago I just heard a yell of “Help!”

You see, many, many years ago, long before we had kids, I wanted a dog. My wife wanted a cat. So we got two - a fat one and a little one. The little one caught a robin once. Scared both of them enough that the cat hasn’t really hunted since, and I’m pretty sure the bird learned its lesson, too. The fat cat, on the other hand, has never caught anything that big. He prefers moles. And chipmunks. Which explains those IM’s that I get.

You’d think that by now we would have learned to keep our front door closed, but that’s hard with little kids. And it just seems mean to close the cat door. So we find the occasional chipmunk carcass in our living room. But it is certainly more exciting when Fatso carries the live ones in, because then we get to chase him. Last night we finally gave up and waited for him to show his head sometime after dinner. I mean, just how do you get a chipmunk out from underneath a piano??? I thought the cat might be useful; perhaps if I showed him the chipmunk he would catch it for us, but he only likes to chase them OUTSIDE of the house. This is, after all, the cat that’s so lazy that the lizard it brought inside the house found it safer to hide under its fat than scurry away to sure safety.

This morning’s excitement, however, had nothing to do with cats. As I walked into our garage I heard a chirping. Yep, there was a bird in our garage. Now a smarter person than I would have ensured that he kept the door to the garage shut tight. But no, not me. I walked downstairs after a conference call only to hear a chirping in my den. After a ten minute chase I was holding a juvenile cardinal in my glove-covered hands. The poor thing was exhausted and scared; we could hear it “talking” to its parents outside. So I carried it outside and removed my top hand. It just sat in my hand for a minute before figuring out which was was up and then flew off for a reunion with both of its parents. On the one hand it was pretty cool to observe aviary familial relations. On the other hand, I think it’s time to close the doors for the rest of the spring…

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Quality

Friday, April 4th, 2008

Every industrial engineer at some point studies quality. We learn about six-sigma and also learn how often the quality engineer should pull a widget off the production line to check that it meet specifications. Before this week if you had asked me how important quality was in something like a porcelain tile I would have told you it’s not that big of a deal. Really, how much damage can be done if an 18″ tile is, say, 1/8″ off?

As it turns out, that one eighth of an inch almost ruined our project.

We were laying tile in our entryway. The entryway is long and narrow with a single step down into the living room. If the lines are off at all it’s going to be very obvious. And it’s critical that the tiles next to the living room be in a perfect line or the bullnose between the two will look all wrong. We were half-way through the entry way when we opened a couple of new boxes of tile and couldn’t get them to line up. That’s when we discovered that sometimes the tiles are sized slightly differently, and often by 1/8″. And when you get two of the larger tiles next to each other it’s impossible to keep a straight line. Argh! Fortunately we figured it out and only had to pull two tiles.

We’ve made some serious progress, though. We’ve now got tile all the way to the front door, and it look great. I’ve got one more row of tile to lay, a few more cuts to make, and then we’ve got to install the pieces we cut the other night.

Even though the tile isn’t done, we’re going to start a new phase tonight - cabinet refacing. We could have painted the cabinets; we could have stripped the cabinets and restained them. But none of that would do. Nope. We’re ripping all of the facing off the cabinets and replacing it with new maple. It’s going to be gorgeous, and since we’re doing it ourselves, we’re getting a $2,000 cabinet refacing for less than the cost of having the cabinets painted.

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Mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm tiley!

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

My hair is full of gunk. I’m cold. My beard is white and my face is more pasty than usual. Everything tastes and smells like drilled teeth. And I want windshield wipers for my goggles. Yep, I’m cutting tile tonight.

There’s one good thing about a kitchen compared to, say, a shower. A finished kitchen will have trim; a shower doesn’t. And that’s a good thing, because I can’t cut a long, straight line tonight. I’m kind of mad, because I’m usually very proud of my cuts. Oh well, at least the sub-par cuts (yeah, I’m off by 1/8″ so shoot me) are going to be hidden. Hopefully I’ve got all my bad cuts behind me before I help our pastor with his backsplash; or may he’ll hire someone for more than a couple of pints of beer.

But hey, at least we’ve got good progress, and everything’s looking great. The new kitchen light rocks, too. This place is going to be beautiful, even if I’m not at the moment.

Posted in Family, Fun, House | 2 Comments »

Thirty three

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Thirty three tiles; seventy four and a quarter square feet. That’s how much tile my dad and I managed to lay today. We’ve now laid a total of 59 tiles and covered a total of just over 132 sq ft (for you keeping score at home, my calculations earlier this week were wrong). The wild thing is that for most of this week the tile work didn’t start until just after 9:00; I’m sitting on the couch and feeling like I ought to be laying tile despite having spent all day finishing the uncut tiles in the kitchen and breakfast area.

All in all it’s gone pretty well. I’m pretty proud with how the tile is looking so far. I think there are maybe three tiles that I wish I could redo, but I’m too picky about my work.

So we’ve still got the entryway and all of the cutting (which I actually like), but at least we’re more than half-way through with the floor.

As if reporting on the status of my floors isn’t boring enough, I’m going to write a little bit about tips on tiling. This is for me to refer back to and not really for my three or four readers, but you’re welcome to keep reading if you’d like. Laying tile consists of spreading mortar, placing the tile on the mortar, and then ensuring the tile is properly oriented and level. Spreading the mortar requires the right trowels. Orienting the tiles is best done by first snapping a chalk line so your initial tiles are straight and then using spacers to keep thing square and properly spaced. Leveling the tiles is the difficult part, and that’s where the right tools come in handy. When the mortar is spread too thick the best tool is body weight. You can simply push down on the tile and watch the mortar ooze out, but when you push down on one corner the opposite one will rise up, so proper balance is important. But when you need to raise a corner there are only two tools to do the trick. You can use a pry bar, but there are times you can’t get the bar in there, and that’s when the secret tiling weapon is used - a paint can key. You know, the one they give you for free at Lowe’s when you buy a can of paint. It takes a lot of strength, but you can use the lip of the key to grab the edge of the tile and lift it straight up without pushing the other corner down. If you ever lay tile, especially on an unlevel floor, you will thank me for this tip.

The other banal detail is how I’m spreading the motar. Since we’re using 18″ x 18″ tiles, we’re taking extra steps. To spread the thin set, fist spread a very thin layer over the backerboard. Then back butter the tile by spreading a thin layer on the back of the tile so all of the little squares are filled. Then trowel the thinset in the place where the tile will be placed. If leveling is an issue, then it is better to spread the thinset too thick so you can push the tile down than trying to place additional mortar under the tile once you put it into place.

So, for the one reader who managed to get through all of this, thank you for reading. Maybe it will help you some time in the future. If it does, please let me know. Heck , if you’re a personal friend of mine and you read this whole post, let me know and I’ll buy you a beer. You’re obviously in need of something interesting in your day!

Posted in Family, Fun, Friends, House | No Comments »

Tile!

Friday, March 28th, 2008

The good news is that we laid about 20 square feet of tile last night. It took a while to get our technique back; heck, it took us a while to remember which end faces up. But after a few tiles we were able to pick up the pace.

The bad news is that 20 sq ft represents about 10% of our 200 plus sq ft of tile to lay. And we didn’t even make any cuts! By my math we’ve got another 45 hours of tile laying to go.

Anyone who hasn’t done this sort of work probably doesn’t realize just how physical it is. The next time you hire someone to remodel your house, just remember that the pain of writing the check probably pales in comparison to the pain you would have in every part of your body if you were the one carrying 75 lb buckets of mortar up a flight of stairs so you could then bend over for what feels like an hour to get a single tile to sit in the stuff just right.

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Recovering Baptist

Archive for the ‘House’ Category

Blood and sawdust

When tools attack

I’m such a geek…

And the kitchen sink, too

I want my office back

Just call me Dr. Doolittle

Quality

Mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm tiley!

Thirty three

Tile!

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