the cedar option.

Just checking out what it would look like with the planned ripping off of siding (cos I could actually use that siding on the side of the house where I'll be doing some window renovating) and replacing with cedar shakes stained a dark brown to match the porch floor -

It needs a porch light similar to the one I just installed below. Hmm, undecided though ... If I did it I would do the same thing to the garage.

And ps - the new house numbers are on their way ...

back door light.

Rejuvenation McKenzie porch light

So on Sunday I set out to do some electrical. Yes, the electrical I should be doing is figuring out why I still don't have power in my bedroom. That's next. But first - wiring up a new back door light.

It actually was pretty easy - just had to figure out what the heck wires were doing what inside the electrical box. And I really want to find out what the third switch on the right does - I think it might switch on a light that used to be on the garage but is not anymore. Anyways ... five minutes later and I had the neutral and hot wires figured out and spliced into them with a new wire to lead out to where I was mounting the new fixture.

Here we have the old light hanging above the door -

Yeah - a thing of beauty. CFL and all. And then - post-removal - of the fine craftsmanship of the previous owner -

And mine -

Well, mine at least stands up to, you know, code and all. I had initially cut the siding thinking I would center it between the back door and window but turns out that nail on the right is buried in a stud. Well, studs rule so over to the left it went.

And then the two of them compared before installing the new one -

Hmm - I have no idea why I decided to upgrade ...

And since I'm wrapping my mind around the somewhat mindblowing job of painting my whole house - uh, myself - I quick Photoshop'd what this would look like with the new paint color and trim -

It is much better. Yeah, the paint color, too haha.

espresso.

So during the couple of years of having an espresso machine I have always hemmed and hawed about whether or not to splurge for a burr grinder. I couldn't ever rationalize it (it's funny what we can rationalize from a spending standpoint ... ) so never got one until I had a build-up of Amazon gift cards and realized that it would only cost me the tax and shipping - I splurged.

What of course is funny is that the day I got it we went to the annual Lake Tapps Island garage sales and, uhh, the first garage sale I found a flippin' burr grinder for $5! Go figure.

But I kept the one I got from Amazon and am trying to figure out the perfect grind/tamping method to pull that perfect shot.

palette.

So I finally got around to measuring all the possible swatches for my house (well, the ones I like) using a free utility called i1Share. It measures the L*a*b* values (for non-color geeks those are values as close as possible to what our eyes see) for each swatch and then exports them to a file format that Photoshop can use and that I can grab from when trying different painting options. Go ahead and click on any of these images to see a larger version.

The current dilemma then ... choosing the colors for the outside of the house (I need two + white) so I can paint the new stair railings, treads and the new lattice I'm going to be installing. So a while back I took a photo of my house and masked out all the different trim and siding and stuff (using the brush tool for those that know Photoshop) -

After probably an hour or so I was finished. So, for example, here's what the channel looks like of everything that is currently painted light brown -

Everything that is white will be colored whatever I choose while everything that is black will not be affected. And then as a mask (so you can see the rest of the photo) -

Then it was just a matter of selecting the various channels (and combining multiple ones as needed) and applying a color. So using the palette I measured above, I can just take the eyedropper tool, pick a color from the swatches palette and apply it to any of those masked areas to see what color it will look like.

The layers palette in Photoshop begins to look a little crazy but I name them all something descriptive so I can tell what each one is doing and sort of keep it sane -

So then I can just turn them on and off to see the different paint options (and there's a layer comps feature which is also super-helpful that allows you to group lots of different layer options together and toggle on/off with just one click).

So here's a layer comp called 'now' showing my house in its, well, totally crappy current state -

Then a comp using HC-109 sussex green for the siding, HC-111 nantucket grey for some of the woodwork, white of course for all the trim and a dark brown (TBD) for the porch floor, lattice and stair treads -

The possibilities are sort of endless. Like maybe the stair risers are too white and should be the nantucket gray color? Or the siding should be a different color. Or the trim. And on and on.

And I guess I have to admit that yes, there is actually quite a bit of Photoshop trickery that must happen to retain all the shading of the original photo and to actually match the swatches with the colors being applied in the photo so it's not as easy as I made it sound, but once you know how to do it it's actually really pretty cool.

I haven't landed on anything yet but will play with it for the next few days so I can get some paint and get those railings finished. And to help with the ol' curb appeal I plan on updating my house numbers to these. Or maybe these.

bathroom faucet woes.

I hate plumbing. And I do not like to use that word. 'Hate,' not 'plumbing.' Well, maybe 'plumbing' too. This bathroom sink and faucet were the worst hell I have experienced remodeling my house and it has never worked really. Well, it did for a little bit. Then the cold water supply started leaking from where I had used a compression fitting to attach the rigid supply line to where I had cut off the supply going to the fixture. So I shut it off. No cold water. I do not even want to think about how long ago that was but it was at least a (*cough*) year.

Then about a month or so ago the same thing started happening with the hot supply. This is why I hate plumbing. Hate hate hate.

So I knew I had to buy a new faucet. Trouble is the one I bought two of (that's part of this long story that never seems to end) had gone up from something like $80 to $150. And it was never my first pick. The first pick was a Kohler Memoirs Stately faucet that would match the shower faucet I installed with the guest bath remodel. But that one ran $300 and for some reason I could justify spending whatever I did on the shower model but not the sink one so I got a Pegasus one that was pretty similar.

But realizing I needed to fix this no working sink in the bathroom situation I went to Amazon and totally by chance some individual was selling that Kohler faucet for half price because their design plans changed! I totally grabbed it that night.

It came the other day, and after probably four or five hours it is installed. I did not bother with rigid supply lines for this install - I will make sure when I do the plumbing for our Jack & Jill bath and the new bath during the kitchen remodel to put the supply lines coming out of the wall lower to accommodate rigid lines and ignore the stupid Kohler instructions (that also did not account for a wide-spread faucet).

Anyways - it is not leaking now and was much easier to install with just braided steel supplies (although they don't look quite as nice). I of course am not convinced a leak won't pop up and I'll have to fix something but for now I have cold water. Yea!

front porch railings.

So this weekend it was back to trying to finish up the two pairs of railings for the front porch. I had everything primed so I just needed to cut and assemble each railing. So around noon or so on Sunday I headed out.

Step One - chamfer the edges of the 2x4s to match the original porch railing design (which involved plunking down flippin' $30 for a router bit although as I was routing them I thought to myself it could have also been done on a table saw rather easily ... ) -

Step Two - bring the chop saw somewhere convenient rather than way back in the garage -

Then start measuring. And cutting. And measuring some more. And doing some math to figure out what sort of spacing to leave on each end of the vertical 1x4 slats. Which involved breaking out a calculator. Then cutting some more. I just did one to test building it before committing to cutting everything down. Brilliant.

So Step Three then was pocket hole drilling. I figured since I dropped twenty bucks on that bad boy jig I'm going to get some mileage with it -

So I drilled each vertical slat. Twice. On top and bottom. Well, I tested to see if one pocket hole would hold and it was a little flimsy cos the slat could move around so quickly chose to take it up a notch. Then I drilled the underside of each of the ballisters -

That jig really is awesome and I am serious when I say that I'll get some mileage with it. Pocket holes rule (in this case, it meant no brackets necessary to attach the assembled railing to the posts as well as to attach the slats).

Then onto Step Four - start assembling -

So I clamped a 1x4 to the 2x4, pre-drilled then screwed in some 2" screws. Then another 1x4 on top of that to make what resembled an I-beam. Then drilled in all the pocket hole screws to attach the slats to that -

Then Julian wandered out and grabbed the camera to take some shots of me working (apparently - I found these on my camera). Good times -

I was told to keep this pic for when I am old to look back on. Uhh, so I will.

Then the fun part ... seeing if all my measuring worked out by trying to fit the assembled railing in between the existing porch post and the one I buried in concrete two weeks ago. For this first one it was close - I had to cut some thin wedges for the bottom ballister to make it tight up against the original post but after it's all painted it won't be noticeable.

And then you have a railing on your stairs -

It's so much nicer I realized doing this kind of construction instead of furniture cos you can get away with hacks like that to make up for things not working perfectly. And using crappy, cheap lumber cos it's just painted and, well, outside. I have to lop off the top of the post at the exact height I determine and then install a cap that I have to build out of a 1x4, 1x5 and 2x6 (all cut into squares) that will match the caps on the original posts. And then do the other three. Well, I finished installing the other one on the left side of this and built the other two, but held off installing them on the smaller stairs cos I am also replacing all of the stair treads and kicks cos they look like total crap next to brand new railings and they'd be in the way on that set of stairs if I installed them. That and it was 8:00 and it was time to relax, pop in Avatar and eat some pizza.

A good day though. And my neighbor jokingly told me this was something that improved the value of both of our houses. Well, maybe not but it sort of helps the look of my pretty-crappy-at-the-moment-house.

bed part six.

Finishing (part two) and final construction ...

So it was time to finish this thing already. Let's see ... I started it about two months ago so yeah, time to finish. I just had to put on the last coats of varnish (I put on a total of three) and then I could start putting it all together.

I used a satin varnish from the same company that made the stain - making sure to pour the varnish I was using into a separate container as I worked cos it would get slightly contaminated with the stain and this kept the rest of the varnish in the can pristine -

Once it had a chance to dry, I glued the posts to the headboard and footboard using some clamps -

Then screwed in the pocket hole screws for good measure -

Those didn't really matter because the headboard and footboard construction is all just cosmetic - no structural anything about them. But whatever.

Then a couple days later I got to putting the whole thing together - it took maybe an hour or so and then it was done.

To attach the siderails I cut a 2x4 into two pieces each to the height of the base of the headboard and footboard off the floor (which were the same) and then drilled in the three pocket hole screws on each end. I am still impressed with how strong three pocket hole screws can be - I think I read somewhere on the Kreg site that the strength of a pocket hole joint is somewhere around 700 pounds! The self-tapping screws are sort of the secret and they apparently exert an enormous amount of clamping pressure (compared to about 450 pounds of a mortise and tenon joint). Yeah, with three screws per post this bed is absolutely rock solid.

The rather unfortunate thing was I was stupid for the last step and cut all the 2x4x10s I had gotten for the horizontal mattress supports too short. I had neglected to take into account that the siderails were indented (on purpose of course) out from the inside edge of the posts. I had cut them all to exactly 54-1/2" (the width of the headboard and footboard) not taking into account the 3/4" offset so they were all 1-1/2" too short. Oh well. It turned out OK cos I'll use those for the porch railings and when I went to Home Depot to get more lumber I found some awesome cedar 5/4x10' stuff so the bed now smells like cedar and they look much, much nicer than the 2x4s (and were only something like fifty cents more per 10' length) -

Two screws per board to add rigidity to a bed that - with the pocket hole screws and a lot of glue - was already rock solid but now even more so -

And that was that. I had gone to Sleep Country on Memorial Day to get a mattress and was reminded of how random mattress shopping is. Like in the fact that, well, I had gone to Sears first and thought I'd at least check out another place so headed over to Sleep Country (where I bought my mattress). After being almost attacked by a salesperson it became clear that all they really had in the full size were total crap mattresses that would probably fall apart in two years and then 'luxury' mattresses that didn't seem to really fit for a ten year old. But I eyed one that I really liked even though it was about two hundred dollars more than what I surmised was a comparable mattress at Sears. So I told the salesperson this and she nearly-instantly said she could not only match the price I spewed out with absolutely no proof (it was the truth of course) but that she could beat it by 5%. Sold! And it really is a nice mattress - my goal being that Julian will take it with him when he moves out (along with the bed) cos both will have stood the test of time. Well, that was the goal anyway.

Some organic sheets from Target (which are really actually super-soft and were cheap) and a quilt that I found at a random garage sale when I was back in Missouri a few weeks ago that Kathy was kind enough to mail rounded it all out. Then Julian had to try it out -

The next step is to totally super-duper clean his room (and take the quilt to the laundromat's ginormous washers) and then I'll try to take a real photo of it to post to the knockoffwood bragging wall.

Overall it turned out looking really pretty good. I learned a few things along the way that I'll put to good use in future (yes, future) woodworking projects which of course includes building my dream canopy king-size bed.

changing gears ... again.

So my laundry room still sits half-mudded. My bedroom still missing walls. But I built a bed for J and one morning sitting on my front porch with coffee it struck me whoa, I could build porch stair railings! Uhh, not really helping those other projects but I got excited about the idea of building and doing more woodworking. Much more fun than mudding drywall.

So I plunked down eighty bucks on lumber a couple of weeks ago and had Julian prime them for me. Finally, last Saturday evening on a more-like-normal-but-this-year-abnormal-almost-summer-like day of sun and slightly warmish out I decided it was time to install the posts. I needed them in place before I could measure and cut the 2x4s and other lumber to make the railings.

I had borrowed Trevor's post hole digger to dig the holes - worked great. So step one then was to roughly cut the 4x4 fir posts to the height they would be when buried 18" in the ground so I'd be able to hack them off to the precise height with my circ saw once I got to that point. Then, mix concrete - yea!

It's a lot like making brownies. Really heavy brownies. In a wheelbarrow. With a shovel. OK, OK but the consistency I was after was about like brownie mix. So there. I poured some dry mix into each hole, plopped the posts in and poured in some concrete. No sweat. It was kind of fun and now I can add concrete work to my resumé of remodeling chores.

I used some scrap 1x4 trim from the stuff I tore out of the laundry room to hold them level after making sure they were with my trusty 4' level. Easy peasy. Then did the same things for the front staircase -

And wallah - posts for new railings -

The design will match the existing porch railings which are built out of 2x4s and 1x4s (it was the realization of how simple the design was that prompted me to say I can build that!) and the only conundrum is the fact I do not want to paint the new railings the ugly tan/brown combo so I'm not sure how to deal with that. I'll have to revisit this photo and see what color scheme to use - likely the vertical 1x4s will be a contrasting color and everything else will be painted white. So it won't match - for now. Oh well.

Anyways - it will be fun to build the railings.