Category: House stuff

Unlike the tens of thousands that decided to spend the weekend hiking up and down the new Cooper River bridge, we decided to spend the weekend finishing off the flooring in the office. The first room is all done now with the exception of the transitions between the bedroom, closet and hallway. It’s taking a little longer than I expected but I think we should be able to get everything finished off by the end of the week now.

Really. End of the week. I’m sure of it.

Roofing felt went down on the floor Wed night in the office and the hallway and last night we unpacked 3 boxes of floor boards and racked them up. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The boards come in pretty random lengths from about 1 to 7 feet long. So you pick out pieces from random boxes to mix and match the wood tones and lengths so the joints between boards don’t all line up.

Today the wife is off to find an appropriate flooring nailer to rent and with any luck we’ll try nailing down the first boards tonight. Either that or we’ll take up the carpet in the other room and prep that one for the felt paper and floor boards. Then with any luck we’ll be able to get just about everything nailed down and looking good by the end of the weekend!

The headlong plummet into the home improvement world began yesterday with us taking up the carpet and associated materials in the office and hallway. Pulling up the carpet was easy. Pulling out the staples and tackless strips was the hard work part.

Next is the planning stage. Measure out the room and closet dimensions, plan out where all the gaps will be and where we’ll need strips and mouldings and mark down where the baseboards belong and label them (so they go back in the right spots). Then we take up the baseboards and lay down some roofing felt. Snap a few chalk lines so we know where to start and end, rack up the boards and let them acclimate.

I figure we should be ready to start nailing things down by the weekend. By the end of the weekend, we should have new flooring put down!

If anybody needs about 170 sq ft of light tan berber carpet, just come and get it. Free to a good home.

This is the space we’re putting the hardwood floor in for Phase 1 (excluding the bathroom). Total square footage (including wastage) is about 360 sq ft. If this phase goes well, then the master bedroom is next in Phase 2. Phase 3, the biggest, will be the great room/dining room but depending on finances, it may not get done until next year.

With summer heating up and an empty back porch, the wife decided we needed to have a grill to do some outdoor cooking and entertaining with. So this weekend with the leftover house money we bought one of these. Assembled it Saturday, and had our first cookout yesterday. Nothing fancy, just a few burgers and some chicken. And boy, does it ever put out some heat. It was a little tough getting burners adjusted properly so I didn’t burn the chicken to a crisp, but everything came out quite tasty.

I have a feeling I’ll be getting plenty of practice getting things just right on this grill.

Anybody want one of these outdoor ceiling mount light fixtures? I have (will have after this evening anyway) two of them of them that I took down to replace with ceiling fans. Nearly brand new, installed a couple of months ago. Comes with all the mounting hardware and bulbs too. Bugs not included.

I also have a bunch of incandescent light bulbs that have been accumulating as they get replaced by fluorescent bulbs. More expensive than regular bulbs, but much more energy efficient and longer lasting. If anybody wants these incandescent bulbs, drop me a line. Free to a good home!

Maybe I need to have a garage sale…