In the interest of making more room in the garage, I’ve been thinking about how I can set up a shelter out behind the structure where I can get steel parts and other things out of the rain and snow. The cheapest and easiest solution would be a lean-to or covered roof with open sides, so I started sketching out what something like that might look like.
The basic plan would be to build a basic frame from 2×4’s and extend it off a ledge below the existing roofline. I’m thinking 4′ deep by 16′ wide would offer me ~64 square feet of space. I’d cover it with clear corrugated plastic so there’s light underneath, and scrounge up a couple more pallets to get things up off the ground. That should be enough to cover the hood and tailgate that’s out there already, along with other bulky sheet metal taking up space on the floor. As of last count, I’ve got three C-series fenders and two C-series grille assemblies in the way, along with a Scout 80 windshield frame, a Scout tailgate, and a Scout hood that take up a ton of space. There’s also a spare tire I’d love to get out of there.
The first thing I have to do, however, is pull the ladders off the far and back walls, scrape any flaking white paint, and spray them the same blue as the house. Doing some quick back-of-the-envelope math, I figure this might cost around $250 all in, and perhaps a full day to install everything.
I had grand plans to get lots of long-standing house projects accomplished on Saturday, but was ony able to finish one of them. I’d finished hanging all of the under-cabinet lights last weekend but still had to do the four cans in our glassed cabinets on either side of the sink and the facing wall. I’d used plastic-friendly spray paint to paint them black and after a week of curing, the paint was ready to handle. With all the practice I’d had with the other lights this went pretty quickly, and within an hour or so the lights were in place.
Next up was the bathroom heater, which has been suffering from a faulty thermostat for years. I got the oscillating saw out and trimmed out the edges to make it easy to remove, then unboxed the replacement I’d gotten at Lowe’s only to realize it was 1″ smaller in each dimension (the measurements were for the cover, not for the box). After a trip to the internet I learned the original manufacturer isn’t carried by the big box stores anymore so I’d have to spend $180 plus shipping on a new one, or $80 for a replacement thermostat from Amazon. Wisely I chose the latter. It won’t be here until next week, which sucks.
Sunday we got dressed up and walked across the street to the church, which was hosting an Iftar dinner at the end of the Ramadan fast. This is the third Iftar dinner we’ve attended; they are organized by a local mosque and Turkish cultural organization who promote interfaith events. We met a nice woman during the opening remarks who sat on the pew next to us, and I invited her to sit with us at the table we’d staked out. She and her husband lived in China for 15 years before moving to the US; both have a PhD in linguistics. We were fascinated to hear of their time in China; her husband wrote the first Turkish to Chinese dictionary. I was seated across from a nice man who came to America and taught STEM in middle and high schools until COVID hit, and then pivoted to his own business laser-engraving headstones. It was lovely to meet new people and learn about their lives, as well as Muslim tradition, and it’s something I look forward to every year.
Meanwhile, my ribs are almost back to normal. I can walk stairs two at a time again, lift most objects, and get out of bed without feeling like I’ve been shocked with a car battery. I spent most of Sunday crawling through a couple of cars in a junkyard, and with the exception of yanking the dashboard cover out of a Nissan Versa with my hands, I didn’t feel it at all. Even standing up from under the car wasn’t hard—I felt it more in my knees than my ribs, which was a nice change.
In 2004, Jen and I had a choice to make. We were planning out our new kitchen, and we had to make the most of the space we had, as well as our money. I’d taken out a home equity loan to front the cash, so we were on a fixed budget, and that prevented us from doing the obvious thing, which was to blow out the wall between our dining room and the kitchen to open the space up. We worked with a kitchen planner and they helped us fit a set of cabinets into the space we’d inherited, but the critical choice we had to make was this: whether or not to sacrifice a cabinet for the radiator that was shoehorned under the existing rental-grade countertop. We decided, correctly, that storage was more important, and removed the radiator. But we’ve been living with the fallout of that decision ever since, and it’s never been more apparent than this past week of single-digit temperatures.
It sucks to be out there when it’s cold outside. To the point where Jen has turned the oven on just to stay warm while making food. Even when the radiator was there, it was never any great shakes; the kitchen is at the very end of the closed-circuit loop in our steam heating system, which means that it and the bedroom above get the least amount of heat last. But walking in there after just having gotten out of bed to get some coffee started is like walking through a snowbank; it sucks.
Contrast that with the Schluter radiant floor heat system we put in the master bath, which is like walking on a warm hug. In the morning, when the cats are freed from their prison (they sleep in the basement, otherwise they rattle the bedroom door and keep Jen up all night) they make a beeline for the bathroom and lay around up there all day. I can’t say I blame them; there have been days when I’ve wanted to shove them aside to take a nap.
Looking around the interwebs, I found a radiant floor retrofit kit for houses like ours, where the entire thing is essentially a roll-out mat sold in various lengths that are attached to a central 120V controller. You staple them to the joists under the floor with about 2″ of void space, and then tuck insulation up underneath. Something like this would go a long way to making things more livable out there, and we could move the big, bulky Edenpure heater my Mom gave us out of there for good.
Given that interest rates aren’t going down anytime again in my lifetime, and we’re going to need to make this dump more livable for the future, $2K in materials + electrician visit to hook it up wouldn’t be disagreeable.
This weekend was a busy one, mainly because it was Jen’s birthday. So that meant it was good busy. We started off Saturday morning with a walk down the street for coffee with the dog, and circled back home to shower and change. I had several surprises planned so I told her to dress casually and I’d take care of the rest. I drove the girls into Columbia and we stopped at a new health-food restaurant for breakfast smoothies, and then I dropped her off at a spa on the lake for a manicure and facial. Finn and I went over to the giant thrift store and then a used book store to kill time; I could easily have spent another hour looking through CDs.
Jen emerged from the spa with a healthy complexion and pretty pink nails (one of which caught on the zipper of her purse and had to be repaired later). We got a brief lunch at the Whole Foods and then drove into Baltimore and Second Chance to find a matching lockset for a closet door I just hung in the bedroom; the door came without hardware so we browsed the bins of old guts until we found a match, and then pored over a giant display case of crystal doorknobs until we found a matching pair we liked with setscrews.
Second Chance is expanding, and they’re growing their collection of Old Baltimore artifacts: they have the original City Pier signage from Fell’s Point (the City Pier is now expensive condos, which was invevitable, I suppose) and the small U from the Domino’s Sugar sign in Locust Point—which is probably 10 feet tall and very impressive.
By then it was too late to do anything else before dinner, so we headed back home and took our time getting ready. I had reservations at a Spanish-menu restaurant in town, and it wasn’t until we pulled into the parking lot that I realized it was in the building I used to work in before I moved to WRI. Dinner was delicious even though the place was a bit overwhelming, and we left feeling stuffed and happy.
Sunday we took our time getting up and moving. After walking the dog I took Jen back to the spa to have her nail repaired and we went back to the smoothie place to try out their sandwiches, which were also healthy and delicious.
Back at home, I gathered my tools and pulled our failing 20-year-old microwave off the wall above the stove with Finn’s help. When we got it out of the way I disassembled a wooden baffle in the upper cabinet covering the vent hose and measured the cabinets once, twice, thrice, and four times before being comfortable with the position and orientation of the mounting bolts and electrical cord. Saying a prayer, I drilled three holes in the cabinet and had Finn help me heave the new unit up into place. By some miracle, all three holes lined up perfectly, and we had the new unit powered up in place in minutes. I re-assembled the baffle with the nailgun and covered the hose back up.
From there, I cleaned up the kitchen and all of my tools and headed upstairs to pull the closet door off its hinges. The house is out of square just enough that the bottom of the door scraped the floor when it was about halfway open, so I put it on sawhorses and trimmed 1/4″ off the bottom. Back upstairs I rehung it, tested the swing, and then installed the new(used) lockset. Finally, I thinned out the paint and brushed a final coat of high gloss white on both sides. It’s the first time we’ve had a door in there since we moved in, and it took a little getting used to. But it looks good, and it fits the house. It feels good to knock these projects out quickly. And it’s nice to have a little less chaos inside the house. Happy birthday, Blondie.
Heh heh. We weren’t at the parade this year (we were somewhere over the Atlantic) but the local ABC affiliate posted a film crew across the street from our house. My sister in law is waving in the background at 0:40 and our car is behind the biker at 1:30. I’d embed it here but the dipshit media has disabled playback on other websites.
A couple of years ago we got word of a new invasive species around here, and were told to kill any examples we saw. The spotted lanternfly hails from China, eats crops, trees and ornamental plants, and has no known predators here in the states. The first one I remember seeing in the flesh was actually up outside of Philadelphia buying steel with Brian for the bus project; we saw it flitting past us and land on the pavement in a parking lot. After squishing it, we reported it to the local hotline and went on our way.
Last week we began noticing small bugs on our grape arbor and trees; black with white spots, they weren’t familiar to either Jen or I. A little research revealed they are spotted lanternflies and that they love grapes. There is no good way of killing them; you have to smash them when you see them, and the little fuckers jump when they see you. The arbor is covered with them. There’s no commercial pesticide that will kill them. So, I guess we’re screwed.
So about that pious feeling I had last weekend, the one where I was crowing about getting rid of stuff?
Well, Hazel and I hit a community yard sale at the church down the street and I spied this beautiful leather midcentury chair off to one side. I inquired as to the price and was told it was a donation, and if I wanted to donate to the church, I could take it. That was the easiest decision I’ve made in a while. I’ve always wanted a set of chairs like this but they’ve been priced out of our reach, so this one was a fantastic find. And as it turns out, it originated from the church across the street; it had been in their garage for a while and they wanted to get rid of it quickly. Now it’s taking up space in the living room until we can figure out what we’re doing with it.
And, by the way, everything I did put out at the curb was gone by lunchtime.
There’s rain pattering against the windows right now, in spite of the forecast that called for cloudy skies but no rain. I’m waiting out the wet stuff so that I can go back outside and continue truck-based activities in the hope that I can wrap things up this weekend. I took the day off yesterday to rest up a little bit and cover some errands, which was a good strategy in hindsight.
I had a set of new Invisalign trays waiting for me to pick up for a week; about a month ago I put in a new top tray and it clearly Did Not Fit, so they re-scanned my mouth and made some new ones for me. I’ve got 27 more to go, which means I may be done with these (barring any adjustments) by October or so.
Sometime in January I noticed the wood threshold between the office and living room had shrunk, leaving wide gaps between it and the floor planks. The mice in the ice room have been busy despite the bait I’ve left them, and our terrier mutt has been worrying at the gaps for several months now. I have a thin strip of oak I have to cut down to set into these gaps, but I have to wait until she can go outside, as the table saw in the basement scares the crap out of her. The other night she woke me out of a sound sleep to jump off the bed into the darkness. Groggy, I got up to investigate and found that Bella had caught a mouse, brought it upstairs to show us, and was releasing it to play when it snuck under the door to escape. Following her instincts, Hazel immediately chomped it. I picked it up with her empty water bowl and hurled it out into the backyard. Hopefully, now that it’s warming up, the mice will evacuate and we can go back to normal levels of anxiety.
Meanwhile, I had the radio on in the garage the other day and this song from the ’80’s came on, and now it is stuck in my head and it is not even the best song on this album and I am kind of in hell:
I was in DC today preparing for WRI’s yearly stories to watch event, and I got several emails from the school telling us they’d cancelled after-school activities. this was shortly followed by more emails letting us know that they were dismissing students early in light of the storm system coming up the coast. I saw several flood warnings appear across my news feeds in the mid-afternoon. By 4PM it was pretty clear I wasn’t going to make the express train home and Jen and I traded texts: she told me all of the houses around us had lost power, and water was leaking into the basement through the hole drilled for the electrical service to the greenhouse. Alarmed, I had to put that out of my head and focus on work. I caught a 6:30 train and Jen came to get me at the BWI station, which was being whipped with sheets of rain. We got home and assessed the leak: steady, the size of a straw, but not increasing. We dumped the water in a pan Jen had set up to catch the inflow and blotted some errant leaks on the floor with towels.
A row of houses behind us, who share power with us from the line that bisects our yards, are all lit bright. Everywhere else, the houses who get power from the lines on our street, the church opposite us, and the school down the street are all dark, and generators hum into the night.
Jen and I were talking about something completely unrelated a couple of days ago and she pointed out the sobering fact that we’ve now been in this house for 20 years. We bought it at the middle point of the housing boom that led to the 2008 collapse, and paid a premium for the location (and, frankly, too much for the house). I have my issues with it—probably more than I’ve mentioned here, but we’ve put a ton of blood and sweat equity into this place, and have made it our home.