old mac new life.

So an idea from a post on the totally über-Apple-centric tech blog Unplggd inspired granting an extended life to Julian's now old eMac that Santa gave him when he was six and that he used diligently and dare I say quite expertly - maxing out it's capabilities with Photoshop and GarageBand and thereby earning himself a much peppier and newer iMac. I've bothered myself setting it up (doing a clean install of 10.4.11 to get rid of all Julian's old stuff etc.) and getting an Airport card (didn't do my homework first to discover it is only 401b - not g - so fairly useless but I was only out fifteen bucks) followed by USB bluetooth and 401b/g wi-fi adaptors. And putting to good use the first pair of Apple bluetooth mouse and keyboard since I splurged and upgraded to the newer versions for the Mini setup in the living room -

I've bothered myself with all of that but I'm not convinced how long that 700MHz eMac will sit there (since it's a CRT the screen garbles when the microwave kicks in and it's kind of slow and clunky) - but if we get used to having a handy Mac in the kitchen to stream our iTunes, look up recipes, have our to-do and lists for the store and the constant NOAA forecast and widget games like Sudoku and the NASA image of the day I may have to hook us up with a newer 17" G5 iMac or built-in Mac Mini ... we'll see.

---

And just FYI the online article from Ready Made magazine talks about what it takes to make that Mac Mini built-in.

reality check.

I dunno. Maybe it was the fact North Tacoma got more snow than us and it still lingered in the streets and the lawns and rooftops. The sidewalks unshoveled a guy carrying his groceries on his way home trying not to slip. A view north to Puget Sound. To the west the Olympics. To the east Rainier and the Cascades. House after house after gorgeous Craftsman house. Look at that one over there with the steps leading up from the sidewalk and then more steps up to the front porch!

I used to live there afterall, and it still pulls me back with a definite force - in North Tacoma amongst the alleys and the streets lined with maples Union and North 30th I feel at home. I'd walk to UPS to find an empty practice room long before the Bechstein just to play a bit. Take Julian to the parks. Walks alone down from North 46th to the water along Ruston Way. Saturday afternoons and some weeknights spent toiling at the Mountaineers building learning the ropes of climbing (yeah, haha) and meeting a guy named Matthew with whom I've climbed more or less exclusively since those days ten years ago. The little toy store off Proctor and 26th. Yard sales every summer driving mad-crazy around streets I still remember better than I do around my own house now.

So anyway driving through this afternoon jealous of the snow and the alleys and the streets lined with maple trees and icy sidewalks I was reminded how I ultimately want to live there in a small bungalow with alley access and this Bechstein once Julian has graduated high school and gone off on his own and I no longer have any ties here. So the point I guess at least the point for writing this up here is that I think I need the reality check while I plan out what I am going to all do to this place. Spend a few grand to remodel a disgusting and dated (and well now gutted) bathroom ... okay. Gut the entire back of the house to put in my dream kitchen ... reality check. Maybe not. Maybe just get around to upgrading the appliances and put in a real stone floor maybe some new cabinet door fronts to match more the paneling above the fireplace. Tear down all the remaining lath and plaster in the living room and Julian's bedroom for sheetrock ... no way. The walls are fine the way they are. Install paneling all around the living room ... maybe. Probably not. Hang casing and a crown molding around all the ceilngs ... definitely. I already bought all the solid fir doors so that's OK and I really like the nice antique door knobs like I already got for the bathroom but I'll miss them when I move into another house in North Tacoma no doubt not perfect like I planned on making this place so will take more work.

A neverending process.

But it's good to be reminded. I never planned on living here forever off this pretty busy street. I've always wanted to eventually settle in North Tacoma. So just need to keep that in mind before plunking down thousands of dollars or investing hundreds of hours. I still want to do most of what I had and have in mind but there will no doubt be some things that get scrapped or downgraded from such ambitious plans now with this always in the back of my head.

And I wish it had snowed more here and it was still sticking to sidewalks and rooftops.

fireplace part two.

Okay, so apparently like just about every project I've ever done somewhere along the way I got a groove and figured out what I was doing cos it only took about an hour today to finish up building the other half of the paneling - go figure -

Now I just have to caulk and spackle the staples, prime a couple more things (uhh, those two vertical slats that aren't primed are because I'm retarded and I routed the side that was primed - oops) and then paint it and it'll be done. Oh, and paint the bricks which shouldn't be bad. Then rip out the ceramic tiles that make up the hearth now and put in some slate ones.

Oh, and I found a photo of the original beadboard molding pre-me tearing it off -

I have to say I like mine better. And even back then I had gotten a bunch of slate tiles to see how they'd work (they're in the photo lying on top of the ceramic ones) so apparently I'm still going with that. I wonder if I still have those or did I return them ... ?

fireplace part one.

Let me just start off by admitting I said to myself at like one o'clock or something a couple Saturdays ago 'oh, I'll just knock this fireplace paneling out this afternoon.'

Uhh.

Yeah. No.

Two weeks later I am on day three. And ten hours later on this third day ... I finally finish, but only half-finished.

So it's somewhat embarrassing, but this is how the fireplace has looked since I ripped off the beadboard paneling about a month or two after moving in here four years ago -

So clearly I underestimated, well, how hard this project would be. I've already sworn way too much and I'm only half done. This is way harder than I ever imagined.

First thing to do was to build a frame on which to attach the paneling. Ugh. This is what was tough. Probably the hardest part - trying to attach 1x4 framing boards to an unsquare, lopsided old lath and plaster-covered fireplace. Ugh again. But after two days of nailing (and, yeah, swearing) I finally finished it -

Let me just say this whole thing has been all about drywall shims. Lots and lots of drywall shims. To make everything square, that is. Or at least try. Behind the framing. And again behind the final panels and slats to make sure everything was tight and square.

The other thing I of course had to do was prime all the wood. And do a lot of routing. A lot of routing -

I set the 5/8" bit to the depth (or, rather, height) of the thin plywood I picked up at Lowe's for something like $10 for a 4x8 sheet. The pieces of plywood would then slide into the router grooves when I started putting it together.

And lots of mitering. On the table saw and the chop saw. I wanted mitered corners, afterall. What I still love and appreciate about that Dewalt saw is how precise it is - the key being a tip I read a while back about miters: make sure to flip the saw 90º when mitering a corner instead of just flipping the wood around. That way if the saw's 45º is actually, say, 43.9º - if you just flip the wood the two cuts won't add up to 90º. But if you flip the whole saw, the other cut would be 46.1º and the two will fit perfectly together. So making sure to do that, the first corner looked beautiful -

and I was off to a good start. No carpenter am I, though.

I had to miter the long corner vertical slats on the table saw, but they came out looking pretty good, too (yes, surprisingly). Then - with lots (and lots) of meticulous cutting (i.e. back and forth to the saw I carried out to the front porch to shave off a sliver of an end to get each slat to squeeze into place and ensure a nice, square, tight fit) I started putting the first side together -

To get the vertical slat to contour to the wall, I used a stack of shims that molded to fit the slant of the wall and traced the outline on the wood, then free-cut it with a circ saw. The thin plywood then just slid in the router grooves -

Note the different depths of wood - that was key for me - using 1x stuff for the horizontal top and bottom pieces, then 1/2x stuff for the vertical slats and then the plywood paneling for a total of three different depths that add contrast when the light hits them. And so a cross-section looked like this -

And then ... the first side was finished -

It was sort of like doing a puzzle - the way I was building it meant each piece had to go in a certain way. Or rather, a certain order. Vertical slat. Then slide in the plywood. Then horizontal slot and slide in another piece of plywood. I made a mistake of putting in a second vertical slat before sliding in the plywood so had to take it off. Which wasn't easy - I was using my stapler and let me just say - those staples hold really, really (no - really) well.

Obligatory in-action shot of course -

And then ... and then two panels were done on the front -

Of course that beam isn't centered, either (hey, it's an old house). So I opted to make it look centered - uhh, I mean making each panel width unequal in order to place the middle vertical slat in the middle of the beam, which isn't in the middle of the fireplace (get it?). But that's where I had to stop. After ten hours. And probably another twelve at least between all the routing and priming and trying to install a square frame for nailing. Sheesh. An afternoon haha.

I'm not making any bets on how long it will be to finish it. At least a couple more days. Have to finish the other half of the paneling and then caulk the edges and paint it all. Then paint the fireplace bricks. Then install a slate hearth. We'll see. But despite it being really tough, it's (slowly, very slowly) turning out.

it's all a question of balance.

Or so David Helfgott's piano professor told him when describing his playing of Rachmaninov's piano concerto in D minor.

In this case, though ... uhh, white balance. As in - for matching paint swatches.

All because of the shot I (*ahem*) Photoshopped the wall colour in I decided I would paint just that corner of my living room. Afterall - I was going to be looking at it while I worked so I might as well not stare at a boring white wall waiting for me to actually remodel this living room for real.

So I trucked up to Lowe's to blow twenty bucks on a gallon of Olympic flat paint matched to the beautiful Benjamin Moore HC-85 fairview taupe (the colour I've had picked out for the living room for at least three years). Got home and started cutting in around the window by the Bechstein.

Hmm ... it was too red. That's weird - I'd never had a problem with Lowe's matching Olympic paints to my Benjamin Moore Historic Collection swatches. But the gal that mixed the paint hadn't exuded confidence - hers or mine. And I hate to be 'that guy' but in this case (like I did for the stain I had mixed for the cedar shakes) - I opted to take it back and ask for it to be remixed.

Uh-oh - same girl. Yikes.

Well, this time I watched her go through the screens and when she got to white balance I noticed she picked 'incandescent.' I also noticed there were other options - including 'daylight.' Now the first can was too red compared to the swatch - i.e. too warm. So I asked - why incandescent when all the lights over the swatch areas were daylight-balanced (well, supposed to be was more like it - some were closer than others and every booth had a slightly different temperature but this was Lowe's afterall)? She told me that's what they had told her to do. I sorta wondered if she even knew the difference but quick tossed that aside to settling the task at hand.

OK - could you please go with daylight? I don't really care if the paint matches some incandescent colour temperature - I want it to match in the, you know, daylight. So she did. And it matched the swatch perfectly. And now I know what to ask for the next time I have Lowe's mix up paint for me.

So anyway - with nothing better to do then on a Saturday I figured why not paint that corner?

And, uhh - as long as I was at it - in my typical fashion then why not just paint, well, the rest of the walls?

And Julian - so cute and naîve asked 'so why don't you tape around all the trim?' To which I modestly replied 'taping is for amateurs' (haha).

So then ... something like five or six hours later (with the help of Katie - who meticulously painted the five window stops and a couple of patches on the baseboards where there once were lame baseboard heaters I had ripped out long ago) my living room was painted (granted, these pics were taken the following day, i.e. today and I finished with barely an ounce of paint left to spare) -

Now - since I've gone and started - I have to finish ... the fireplace. I'll re-paint the brick next, then quick throw together some paneling above that I sketched out this afternoon (using a router - I need to remember more often that I have that handy power tool - like, for mortising the doors and to fix the trim in the guest bath) -

And once that's finished - it'd be nice to get the bedroom doors swapped out with the beautiful solid fir 5-panel shakers I have waiting in the wings. Oh - and the front door.

Just like everything - some vast project started cos of one little thing ... good times.