4 new entries added after 7/22/08
| So when last we met I was doing some money saving and kicking through a couple more projects to finish them up. Spring Cleaning: Some folks have yard sales, but I went another way with it. I had a number of things that I could return to Home Depot. I packed it all up in the car and drove out. I was happy to find that I was able to return 2 drill bits, a spool of wire for triple switches, a 1x10x6' board, and a back of sanding disks for my orbital sander. All together I was able to get about 50 dollars or so out of that. Of course I bought a few things there. One was a bottle of crab grass killer. Apparently it was leaking so it was all wrapped up in a plastic bag. I couldn't believe that they would even put it on the shelf like that. Regardless, it was marked down to 50 cents. Well worth the ridiculous packaging. One of the items I bought must have come from Lowe's so I will have to return that another time. To get another chunk of change back I sold off an AC unit
that I had bought recently. I just got the money back that
I had spent on it. So essentially it was just like returning
things to the store. The next day I returned a tool I borrowed
from Andrew. He had bought my old table saw from me, so I
was given my payment when I went to visit. Overall I was
able to 'convert' things from around the house that I wasn't
using, into about 160 dollars. I have a few other things
to track down and maybe return. We'll see what I can pull
off. Breaker 2: Breaker two holds all the power in the house MUAHAHAHAHAHAH... well ok not really.. but there is quite a lot of fixtures and outlets on it. 7 lights, 1 ceiling fan with a light, 1 ceiling fan without a light, 6 outlets, 7 standard switches, 2 triple switches (meaning that each control the same fixture), and 1 wireless control switch. Compare this to the remaining total of the house. 14 lights, 22 outlets, 1 ceiling fan with a light, 1 ceiling fan without a light, 8 standard switches, 2 wireless switches. That's 1/3 of the fixtures 1/4 of the outlets, and half of the switches. All ungrounded! So... I made a lot of adjustments to the wiring, not a complete
replacement, but a substantial one for sure. In the end of
it I never removed the last section of old wire. I wasn't
comfortable interacting with that big scary breaker box at
that point. So there was a long coil of wire, enough to replace
the old wire, hanging from the rafters. Tuesday I drug the
old wire out and put the new one to the box. Not a difficult
procedure, but tricky, since the light for downstairs is
on breaker 2. I had to work quickly before the sun went down
and I lost the light from the small basement window. Stain: I had bought a nice mellow natural stain for Liza's cabinet. It went on very nicely. I did some work on the top with some wood putty before I stained that section. I also tried out something new to smooth out the plywood. It's not terribly smooth since it's not a solid piece of wood. I used my hands to smear out the putty all over the wood. Looked horrible at first, but after it set for a bit, I sanded it down to a nice finish. On went the stain and man it looks good. I know that this might not seem like it's in line with finishing what I left undone. But part of that is being proactive with work that I am doing currently as well. I don't want to leave anything off of my new projects to be finished later if I can help it.
More to come! |