The Ties that Bind; strengthening a union with a biscuit joiner

So the saying goes... A married couple should never....


Bits of wisdom handed down from father to son... mother to daughter... Confucius to fortune cookie scribe. Foxworthian types before me have said it better, and until this weekend past I maintained that the surest divorce would result from a couple trying to back up a boat trailer in tandem (good people my in-laws, but i knew fear that day i saw the tail lights of the Envoy backing down the boat ramp). So in our own way we've chosen not to learn from our parents, peers or dessert cookies and stumbled into our own conubial act of no return - building casework together. And this is likely just the first in a 3 to 4 weekend odyssey.

Chapter 1: Woodshop: Where the Men are Men, and the Women are too.

This project began like all our others... a few grand ideas (hers), a couple of cocktails (mine), a few of considered diagrams (ours)... interlude music... finger pointing and ultimately compromise. We needed a bookcase and the guy who built our bathroom cabinets was too expensive. If one squints just right the diagrams can be seen on the wall just beyond:


We set aside both days of the weekend to collect materials and begin the fabrication. Some 8 sheets of birch ply and 400 linear feet of board later we set to work. Saturday was spent mostly running through the cut list - making the sheets of ply into the shelves and miscellaneous parts. We moved into a corner of the Alexandria Center's wood shop for the mass production. I don't have any pictures of this work but this video should suffice.



Chapter 2: Sunday, Bloody Sunday

With the boards cut to length and width, fabrication could begin. And through it all, the drilling...
the biscuit-ing...
the assembling...
Not one F'ing smile. Hardcore.



wood work is a lonely man's game.
to be continued....

dumpster diving; Or how i learned to stop worrying and love the salvage yard

With another weekend upon us we are tempted to sit back, go easy, and with relish topped meal-in-hand grow fat off the previous weeks accomplishments... But the furniture is covered in dust cloths, and the relish still sealed in it's factory heinz bottle so it's out of the house to the architectural salvage yard we go.

For those not "in the know" an architectural salvage store is another word for junk yard. It's like a home depot where all of staff are on a work release program, everything is used and poorly organized -- actually that is the Home Depot on Rhode Island avenue.... It's a place where houses long ago knocked down have had their parts dismembered and sold for scrap - at a tidy profit, long frequented by the Urban Outfitter's display designers and savvy homeowners alike. Popular sites include:

The Brass Knob in DC
Caravatis in Richmond
Second Chance in Baltimore

as you can see, anything can be found - handrails:

newell posts:

balusters, or pickets or whatever these are called...
church pews for the penetant home:
and the philladelphia bus station ticket booth.
indeed, i think you'll agree that it's time to say good bye to the convential front door, and hello to entry via ticket window.

do try this at home; clever stunts to light up the boring work

With the skylight in place we're back to our favorite past time of finishing drywall. But mudding and taping from the top steps of an unstable ladder is functional if a bit predictable work. Because we work so fast, no single ladder could be expected to keep up-
enter home made scaffolding. Yes, with (2) well used 2x8's and a structural bucket you too can establish a level playing field up to 14 1/2 inches above your level playing field.



i speak confidently when i say that the 3 hours spent making this easily paid for itself in the amount of time saved -getting back those precious few weekend hours is the priority and that's something I think anyone who enjoys their relish can agree on.

Eyes on the sky; getting up to get down and dirty

One of the last nagging jobs to be done was the final skylight over the staircase - it's been in a box in our old bathroom/laundry room/ black hole of tool storage since damn near 2007. I don't relish putting holes in anything - least of all a newly functional roof, but like the aformentioned tasty relish a skylight promises to add a dollop of daylight onto our hotdog bun of urban living.

roof work is like surgery- clumsy, dirty, horrible surgery

necessity may be the mother of invention but i'll add that it's also the taunting older sister of impatience- not bad for a girl who wouldn't even climb a ladder 6 months ago.

The where we are - to the where we were

Like a movie preview last weeks post left the huddled masses yearning for more - and my internet ineptitude dropped the one photo that suggests the current state of life amongst the dust. Please accept this photo in repose.

Progress at 88 miles per hour; looking back to move ahead

Nastalgia sneaks up on you, or if not you, then certainly me. But i've never been one for sneaking, despite my love of new balance sneakers and Spoon's ambrosial "Series of sneaks" album. So i'm in favor of direct confrontation - of staring eye to eye with the past and establishing some bench-marks on this, the eave of our two year aniversary. We're three years married, four years dog owners but the aniversary that indeed carries the most water 'round here is the second year of home ownership. so with that, stroke with me your flux capacitors and climb into the time machine.

October 26 2006...

We honestly looked at this place and got excited - we had fully embraced our middle class fears that somehow we were to be left behind if we didn't grow up now and try to own a house. My realtor assured me "Real estate was going nowhere but up" and with lots of unique financing available we couldn't afford NOT to buy a house. These were heady times and with my almost zero understanding of finance and percentage rates it was win-win no mattter how you read the numbers.




Actually, this was the nicest place we looked at over a series of months - and by nice i mean working toilet and electrical hook-up. The city is ripe with low hanging fruit for those in the fixer-upper market, but that exterior ripeness hides mostly rotten when you actually walk inside most places labled 'handy-man special".






Pictures

I can offer one life lesson and i'll likely offer more, but today that lesson is this: You can learn to fix everything by owning an italian motorcycle. I mean everything - wires, pipes, relationships, anything. All references to high-maintenance women notwithstanding the lesson is that everything gets fixed the same way - you take it apart and put it back together. in that order. along the way you will find the offending item, or the missing part, and you will know alot more about what to do next time when you're done.

Today:

Yes that is furniture, and white paint on the walls, and what this crap photo alludes to is the impending close of Phase 1. time to sweep the floor, clean the windows and wash the dog. it's gravy from here on out.

The Pre 4th of July Friday Pop Quiz

Well dear readers we're approaching another holiday weekend around the corner and as such it's time to snap you out of your complacent observation mode and find out whose really been paying attention with a surprise pop quiz. The three day weekend is to home improvement what the Battle of New Orleans was to Andrew Jackson - a little extra time to make mistakes after you're supposed to be all finished. And it's with Andrews steely visage in mind that we've taken charge during long weekends past. So with that said let's take a look at some partial images from our own historical miss-steps. Simply look at the images and take your best guess on the multiple choice below. A correct answer will show you the complete picture, and incorrect answer will reveal something very disturbing indeed...

This image is:

a: fading vapor trails on lightly cloudy afternoon

b:a keen drywall finish honed from days of practice

c: a demonstration of 100 years of roofing neglect.

d: one of those texas chain saw massacre lead-ins




This coffee is...a: rich and delicious

b: bold and satisfying

c: complicated and subtle

d: straddling space, time, and two means of egress.

e: all of the above



Alli looks pleased because:
a: she sees the value of "sweat equity"

b: she sees the humor of it all

c: she has a renewed sense of pride of place

d: she got the boulder and can now get the f*%# out of the dining room floor.



This man is .....
a: reminding me just how many false promises were made

b: a fellow homeowner sharing that 'knowing' glance of too much appetite, too little meal

c. a concerned citizen keeping me and my ideals at arms length

d. my cousin Brian good Buffalo NY people

The sky is the limit

Casual observers may note the sudden shift in color spectrum seen in the new shower: from the melancholy:

before

to the ebullient:

after

This stunning transformation is by no means of lighting trickery, but rather the final peg in the cracker barrel puzzle that is the master bathroom: a shower skylight.

So I can die a happy man, for the remainder of my days will now be spent showering in the suns full color spectra.

and it opens.

So thank you Biggy, you showed me the way: