New Hardware for Sideboard

My mom got me a gift certificate to Rejuvenation for my birthday. (Thanks Mom!) Today I finally figured out what to spend it on. I got some new knobs for the sideboard to replace the Queen Anne teardrops that were on it. I went with the Mission Pyramid knob in oil-rubbed bronze. The shape echoes the knobs in the kitchen without being to "matchy-matchy". I like the way the black is offset against the white. I still need to replace the hinges with some original style ball tip hinges, but that will be quite a bit of work so I'll save it until I refinish the whole sideboard

Quick Tip: Skewer Your Caulk

Ummmm, yeah....



I like to use a bamboo skewer from the kitchen to puncture the inner foil seal on new tubes of caulking. Then when I'm done, I use it to seal the tube. I find it works better than the little cap that sometimes comes with the caulk.

Giving Props to the Garage

If you read my last post you might have asked yourself "Where did all that crap come from?". Well, about 1/3 of it came from the garage. The other 2/3 came from the basement demo that I started 2 years ago. Here's a shot of the garage interior. Notice the different colored ceiling joists? If you look closely you can see the white ones are sistered with the other ones, but none of them run the full width of the garage. It was always a mystery to me until one day I was looking down at the floor, which was only visible because most of the crap was now in the dumpster! It turns out my garage has had 2 additions. I always knew it was expanded in depth, but I finally put 2 & 2 together and figured out it was also widened at one point. They didn't bother to put in new full-width joists, instead opting to cut the original joists in half, spreading them apart and using a few nails to sister the white boards to the old ones. Needless to day, after time they started to sag.

Solution: Jack up the sagging joists, drill holes all the way through, and bolt them together. It's not as elegant as actually having full-width boards, but it will have to do.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I know I've been absent for quite a while, but I promise you haven't missed anything. Back in June I told myself I'd get loads of work done on the house this summer, but it was not to be. I had too much fun on vacation, and then when I got back I had to go all-out to get a massive systems upgrade done at work. Well, we "went live" this weekend so now work is off my back for a while.

Here's a quick photo journal of what I did this summer.

Sorry for the blurry photo, but this is one of the few house-related tasks I got done. I filled this dumpster (by myself!) with crap from the garage and basement. Unfortunately, I've got enough stuff left over to fill another one or two.

After I got the dumpster filled, I got to spend a week on a boat. A really BIG boat! Here we are anchored in Jamaica. Yeah Mon!

And here we are anchored at the local beach bar. (I'm the one enjoying a nice "domestic" beer and a jerk chicken sandwich. Yummmmmm.)

While in port at the Cayman Islands, we were captured by pirates. The kids were forced to swab the decks.

And take the Pirate Oath.

We managed to free ourselves from those scurvy-dogs and get back onboard the Conquest where we gorged ourselves on copious quantities of mediocre buffet fare for the next 2 days. Finally we docked in Galveston and the fun was over. Back to the grind.

100% Done with 50% of the Dining Room

I put the finishing touches on the paneling on the North wall of the dining room this weekend. Overall, I'm very happy with the results. One thing I will do differently in the future is to not use a roller to put on the primer if I'll be using a brush for the final coat. It took a few thick coats on the recessed parts of the wall to get good even results.


I need to either get a better camera or learn how to use mine better, because these pictures are way too grainy and the red color doesn't look anything like it does in person.