Week ending 7/31/09

On Monday, I spent an hour prepping two windows for shellac and managed to remove some damage from fiasco we had with the window washing company. I also did some prep on shade shim.

I'm really trying to do more on the windows - I NEED to get windows done. Once that happens, the quality of life in our house will change.

On Wednesday, I was dealing with unreliable internet all day. The wiring is still messed up and we're not sure what's wrong. There is a test we can run, but we can't find analog phone which is very frustrating. I so want to be able to find my stuff.

On Thursday, I spent 1 hour prepping the back door and only got two small sections done. There is lots more prep to do just on this door. It will probably be about 4 hours total just to prep. This is one reason why remodeling takes so long! You spend 4 hours just prepping a door. It's only a small chunk of the total time spent on that door, and that 4 hours yields no visible results or improvement in quality of life. I've been keeping a detailed checklist for the woodwork because crossing things off is often the only sign of progress I get even after many hours of work.

I also worked on the slatwall for the garage, and got frustrated figuring it out. Everything in this house is a project. This was supposed to be simple, quick, cheap storage and it is anything but that (well, it's still pretty cheap). I think i figured it out and will keep plugging away. I think when it's done it will be worth it. We'll have a convenient, nice-looking, organized way to store our recreation equipment and that section of the garage will be done. With all the stress of remodeling and having our house in such disarray, it will be nice to have easy access to the stuff we use for fun.

Here is the before shot of the slatwall leaning against the wall where it will be installed. It's in the front right corner of the garage so we can access our fun stuff easily. The white at the top of the picture is the garage door. The walls are so ugly - unfinished studs and black tar paper which is on the inside of the exterior wall.



On Friday, I spent half an hour picking up sand paper. I need a variety to get the back door in good enough shape for shellac. I couldn't do much else on the house today. My big project was to steam clean nasty cobwebs on gates and fencing. I don't know what kind of mutant spiders live here, but they spin a lot of webs and the webs don't come off with a duster, hose, windex or broom. Even when I shot high-pressure steam they still didn't come off that easily.

Total time on windows and woodwork to date: 288 hours