I ran in to an old friend a couple of weeks ago, and he asked me "So, done anything exciting lately?" So help me, the first thing that came to mind was that I'd just gotten the brakes done on my car. Woooo yeah! I told him so, and he offered up that the most exciting thing he'd done lately had been his taxes. We had a good laugh about how our definitions of "exciting" have changed since college. Sometimes I'm a little bothered by how boring and domestic my life is these days, but mostly I really enjoy it. And lately I've been on a real tear, taking care of responsibilities big and small, right and left, and thoroughly enjoying it, even if they do stretch the definition of exciting a bit. Here's a partial list of the exciting things I've recently done:
- gotten the heating system and hot water heater serviced
- gotten a fire extinguisher (we didn't have one in the house, yikes!)
- opened a bank account for Conan
- reconfigured & updated our car insurance
- gotten a load of bark & drainrock delivered
- rented the pottery studio to a new crew of potters
- cleaned out Conan's closet & taken a bunch of stuff to consignment
- scheduled long-overdue maintenence on the overhead shop doors
- septic tank is getting pumped today (rock on!)
I do still need to get my taxes done, and about a million other things around the house, but it feels great to get these things taken care of. Now that Conan's bigger, more independant, and (most importantly) not breastfeeding, I suddenly have much more energy and time to catch up on all the exciting tasks required to keep life rolling along. It feels good. :)
Showing posts with label shop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shop. Show all posts
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Little Yellow Wagon
I have a new toy! A steel flat-bed garden cart, the sides can fold down for moving large things, or locked up as needed. Especially now that I'm pregnant, moving things in the wheelbarrow isn't a good idea. It's really nice to have, way better than a wheelbarrow for moving furniture! This dresser is being moved out to the freshly cleaned shop to get a nice new coat of paint before it moves back into Baby Conan's room. 
That's right, we cleaned the shop! We moved most of the stuff out into the driveway, then swept, vaccummed, and mopped the floor. Then of course we moved the stuff back in, but we sifted out the junk and organized the rest of it so it all fits neatly inside. A new shelving unit really helped too. It's incredible how much open space there is now! Of course, we still have a couple of piles of things that need to be taken to goodwill or the ReStore, but all in all it feels like a major accomplishment. It was a huge job... but now we can move on to other projects, like painting baby furniture. :)
That's right, we cleaned the shop! We moved most of the stuff out into the driveway, then swept, vaccummed, and mopped the floor. Then of course we moved the stuff back in, but we sifted out the junk and organized the rest of it so it all fits neatly inside. A new shelving unit really helped too. It's incredible how much open space there is now! Of course, we still have a couple of piles of things that need to be taken to goodwill or the ReStore, but all in all it feels like a major accomplishment. It was a huge job... but now we can move on to other projects, like painting baby furniture. :)
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Recycling Rocks
This past weekend Bo disassembled most of the "practice space" from inside our shop. Kevin built this 15 x 15 soundproof room a few years back so that his band (two drum kits!) could play music without disturbing the whole north county. It worked, too! But eventually Kevin moved to seattle, and the "lease" on the space transfered to Aimee's band Juicebox, untill Juicebox stopped practicing regularly about a year ago. Since then the room has stood sad & quiet & empty, just taking up space in the shop.
Last Thursday I was chatting with Bo about his current project, replacing a water damaged wall & floor in the upstairs of the Ranch. He mentioned needing additional lumber & materials, and of course the budget for such things is limited. I half-jokingly suggested that he could take apart the practice space and help himself to the materials contained therein, and much to my surprise he thought that sounded great - enough so that when I came home from work on Friday he had already taken the exterior sheeting and the insulation off of the walls. Perfect!
Not only am I thrilled to reclaim the space the room was taking up (and all without me lifting a finger), I'm especially excited that all of these materials are going to be reused - the insulation, the sheetrock, the lumber, and even the screws! Kevin purchased many of the materials from the ReStore when he first built the structure, so a lot of these items are actually going on their third use. This makes me very proud. :)
By the end of the day, only the floor of the room remained intact. It'll take a couple of trips for Bo to haul all the rest of the materials over to the Ranch, and then probably a run to the dump with the carpet & scraps too small or mangled to reuse. But just look at all that extra space! A couple of days of work and we might just (finally!) get the shop cleaned & organized to where we can tackle some new projects... or even finish some of the old ones!
Last Thursday I was chatting with Bo about his current project, replacing a water damaged wall & floor in the upstairs of the Ranch. He mentioned needing additional lumber & materials, and of course the budget for such things is limited. I half-jokingly suggested that he could take apart the practice space and help himself to the materials contained therein, and much to my surprise he thought that sounded great - enough so that when I came home from work on Friday he had already taken the exterior sheeting and the insulation off of the walls. Perfect!
Not only am I thrilled to reclaim the space the room was taking up (and all without me lifting a finger), I'm especially excited that all of these materials are going to be reused - the insulation, the sheetrock, the lumber, and even the screws! Kevin purchased many of the materials from the ReStore when he first built the structure, so a lot of these items are actually going on their third use. This makes me very proud. :)
By the end of the day, only the floor of the room remained intact. It'll take a couple of trips for Bo to haul all the rest of the materials over to the Ranch, and then probably a run to the dump with the carpet & scraps too small or mangled to reuse. But just look at all that extra space! A couple of days of work and we might just (finally!) get the shop cleaned & organized to where we can tackle some new projects... or even finish some of the old ones!
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Weekend Chores
We finally started on the mega-project that is cleaning up and organizing the shop. Between our moving into the house, friends storing their stuff, the pottery studio, and the general craziness getting everything ready for the wedding, things've been piling up willy-nilly in there for a couple of years, and you can see the result: 
It's a big space with plenty of room for everything we've got in there, but we needed to organize to a higher degree beyond "heap on the floor" so that there'll actually be room to move around and work on projects. We didn't finish cleaning it up this weekend, but we made a great deal of progress. One more solid saturday and we might even be able to park inside!
In addition to working on the shop, we also cleaned the chimney in preparation for winter. Last year we burned a lot of green wood, so it seemed like a good idea to scrape out the creosote before we started firing the stove. Brushing out the stovepipe turned out to be the easy part of the job, Cary had no trouble getting up on the roof with the chimney brush and working it down the pipe. Vaccuming out the creosote flakes from the bottom turned out to be really complicated, because there are all kinds of crazy baffles between the firebox and the stovepipe. They make the stove burn nice and clean and efficient, but they sure do hamper efforts to get the shop vac nozzle where it needs to go! Eventually after much cursing I managed to get the baffles out, and then with Cary's help was even able to get them back in afterwards.
The cats had a productive weekend too, as you can see:
Iggy and Sprout really enjoy the picnic table. Sanford prefers to lounge ontop of our cars. Marcel prefers to stay low to the ground, although he actually climbed up onto the observation platform - without any human help - for the first time this weekend, which is quite a milestone.
It's a big space with plenty of room for everything we've got in there, but we needed to organize to a higher degree beyond "heap on the floor" so that there'll actually be room to move around and work on projects. We didn't finish cleaning it up this weekend, but we made a great deal of progress. One more solid saturday and we might even be able to park inside! In addition to working on the shop, we also cleaned the chimney in preparation for winter. Last year we burned a lot of green wood, so it seemed like a good idea to scrape out the creosote before we started firing the stove. Brushing out the stovepipe turned out to be the easy part of the job, Cary had no trouble getting up on the roof with the chimney brush and working it down the pipe. Vaccuming out the creosote flakes from the bottom turned out to be really complicated, because there are all kinds of crazy baffles between the firebox and the stovepipe. They make the stove burn nice and clean and efficient, but they sure do hamper efforts to get the shop vac nozzle where it needs to go! Eventually after much cursing I managed to get the baffles out, and then with Cary's help was even able to get them back in afterwards.
The cats had a productive weekend too, as you can see:
Iggy and Sprout really enjoy the picnic table. Sanford prefers to lounge ontop of our cars. Marcel prefers to stay low to the ground, although he actually climbed up onto the observation platform - without any human help - for the first time this weekend, which is quite a milestone.
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