Posted On Friday, June 3rd, 2011 By David Veatch
The wife and I have been very busy lately. It’s not yet over, but this past weekend was perhaps the busiest, not to mention heaviest, part of the process. That process is moving. The whole thing started last spring, when we put our two houses on the market. This past spring, a year later almost to the day, her house finally sold and we had the wherewithal to purchase a new house. We packed her house into two POD units and moved them into storage until we had a place to put them. At the same time, we took mine off the market because it hadn’t sold yet, and we didn’t want to take the chance of it selling and us having no place to go. Turns out it wasn’t a concern, because we found the house we wanted to buy within days. We made an offer, they countered, we met in the middle, and two long months later, we took possession. When that day finally arrived, we couldn’t move in immediately because we had too many other family obligations (Jami’s sister graduated with her doctorate! We couldn’t miss that graduation day…). So, exactly one week after we took possession, more »
Posted On Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 By David Veatch
That’s what I want. That’s what I plan to have. The basement of the house we’re negotiating on is unfinished. It’s already framed in (a very nice professional job, too), and awaits only drywall and finishing. However, I want to get the pool table installed now, and finish the room around it later. That means floor first, rather than the typical last. Our plan for the moment is to install tile directly under the pool table and carpet tiles around that. The tile under the table will help support the table, won’t settle the way carpet does, and will provide a beautiful accent. The carpet tiles will grant the luxury of being able to take tiles up, put tiles down and cut tiles to size as I’m finishing up the walls. Then if someone… when someone spills their drink on the carpet we can just take the tile up, hose it down, let it dry, and drop it back into place. They make carpet tiles with a thick enough nap that the seams are invisible, so it’ll look just like a normal carpet floor. Here’s the rough plan starting just as soon as possible after we take possession and move more »
Posted On Saturday, February 12th, 2011 By David Veatch
We’re not completely beat, but we’re certainly tired. Moving our rec room furniture out of one friend’s basement, and into two others will do that I suppose. I hired out the pool table itself, preferring to have someone experienced in dismantling pool tables do that job. It was taken to one friend’s basement, along with two barstools and the light this morning. This afternoon, I, my wife, and the couple from whom we bought the whole set, moved the rest of it into the garage in our Southern Home. That includes the captain’s chair, the player chair, four rolling chairs, a high top table, and a flip-top poker/game table, and a 60″ standing bar. Thankfully, we had a family truck to use, which meant we had to make a couple trips, and put stuff in cars as well, and make two trips to boot, but we didn’t have to pay anything for it. One step closer to having a usable pool table!
Posted On Saturday, January 29th, 2011 By David Veatch
See what I did there? There’s a bit of logistics involved yet, but I finally have myself a pool table. It’s an 8′ table that’s been well taken care of over it’s ~3 year lifetime. It comes with a bar, a high top table, two bar stools, two pool chairs, a poker table with four rolling chairs, a wall mounted cue rack and a light to hang over the table when it’s all installed. Jami is as excited about it as I am, I think. To her, it’s a sign that we’re moving forward and the promise of many fun evenings at home with our friends, or just ourselves. To me, it’s a pool table! I still need to arrange to have the table disassembled and transported to it’s intermediate location where it will sit until such a time as we have a permanent residence in which to install it. That is an event for which I can barely wait. Unfortunately, owning two homes, and with the housing market being what it is, that might take a little longer than we would like. As I keep saying, however, we’ll get there. The point is, though we can’t use it yet, more »
Posted On Friday, December 10th, 2010 By David Veatch
Wherein it is described how one would replace a toilet paper roll, being empty, with a toilet paper roll, being full.
Posted On Thursday, October 21st, 2010 By David Veatch
I’ve started in on the basement again. We’re having an open house this weekend, in an attempt to drum up some interest and, we hope, a buyer or two. That means the house has to be in tip top shape. The upstairs is fine, but there are a few things left to do in the basement. Replace the light fixtures Trim around the support I-Beam Trim around the basement window Trim around the basement storage door Rearrange the stuff so it looks more like a living space than a storage unit Move one of the desks in the upstairs office into the basement to increase the space upstairs, and make the basement more livable Faceplates on all the outlets Clean basement shower Basement bathroom molding Paint basement bathroom ceiling Two nights ago, I worked on the light fixtures. There are only two. But they took three times as long as they should have, because it was one of those “But first…” jobs. Before I could do one thing, I first had to do something else. In order to do that, I first had to do something else again. Before I could do that… well, you get the picture. Those two more »
Posted On Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 By David Veatch
I know this. I’ve known this for decades. Now my finger knows it too. Graphic pictures after the cut…
Posted On Monday, July 26th, 2010 By David Veatch
And indeed it was. I’ll start with Sunday and move backwards, because it’s just easier that way. After a hectic day, I had intended Sunday to be a relaxing day, but as it turned out, I got quite a bit done. First, Jami brought her kitty, Elliott over from our Southern Home to live with us in the Northern Home. He’d been staying down south since the wedding, and we felt it was time to integrate him. He’s 23lbs of Big Baby, and cried the entire drive, and when the terror of the drive was over, he wedged himself far up underneath a table and boxes in the basement. He did, eventually begin exploring with more confidence, and by this morning, he’d all but settled completely in. However, if his shenanigans of last night are any indication, he’ll be fantastic practice for when we have a baby, and a full night of sleep is but a fond memory. He. Was. Restless. It’s possible that my banging around didn’t help him settle in, and served to spook him something good. I can admit that. But I got on a bit of a roll, and didn’t want to stop. The Squanto didn’t more »
Posted On Friday, July 3rd, 2009 By David Veatch
I’ve known I’ve had poison ivy in my yard for a couple years, but I get hit by it rarely enough that I didn’t do anything more than a cursory examination with little in the way of actual familiarity with the vile plant. I got it again a few weeks ago, though, and decided I’d had enough. Today I did some serious research over lunch, and my suspicions grew as to the location… I just checked, and I definitely found it. It climbs up the tree in my front yard pretty far, as you can see to the right, and judging by the size of the leaves, is a relatively old vine. At *least* a few years… more than I’ve been here, anyway. There is more at the base of that same tree growing from the root system that spawned that filthy, horrific vine. An yet it looks so peaceful and serene in that image to the left, doesn’t it? Don’t be fooled. It’s of the Devil. If you look closely, you can see the telltale hairy root feelers that keep the vine attached the the tree. Nasty things. They just look evil. I hates them. I truly do. I more »
Posted On Monday, September 8th, 2008 By David Veatch
Since I moved into my house, I’ve had troubles with the sliding door in to the back yard. It started out difficult, got exceedingly difficult, improved a little with some cleaning, and finally got impossibly difficult. I’ve actually found my shoulders sore from the effort of opening it. I work out. I’m not unused to lifting. Sore shoulders from opening a frickin’ door is ridiculous. So, a few weeks ago we went to Home Depot and set in motion the replacement of the old and busted door with the new hotness that is a new insulated door that… get this… actually slides easily back and forth!! I thought briefly about going for french doors, or just a single swinging door, but for cost, convenience and general personal aesthetics, went with the sliding option. Duder comes over tomorrow morning to get it installed. I cannot wait!