So close on the kitchen!

My lovely wife painted the kitchen walls this dark red color, which I'm sure has a name like Delicious Bordeaux or some such thing.  I honestly have no idea.  Then, her dad (who has more or less rebuilt their historic 1860s farmhouse) and I did the plumbing and gas.  My stepdad Jim and I tackled the electrical, and we ran into a few problems...First of all, this room which is our kitchen...it used to be the Laundry, so it had maybe 2 circuits.  Also, this room is at the back of the house, and it's an addition.  So The interior walls are mounted onto exterior walls.  The Exterior walls are, of course, exterior walls, and the one interior wall that actually is an interior wall...is the one wall that didn't need any new outlets.

So, we used old work outlet boxes like so...

And mounted them as deeply into the walls as we could, before we hit masonry, then used this wire routing system and the matching outlet boxes.  Most of it will be covered by cabinets, and when we tile the backsplash up against it, the wire tracks won't show quite so much...I hope.  Hey honey, aren't old houses Charming? ;)

Here is the last shot of the new kitchen, with floor in, plumbing in, electrical done, and gas for the stove!  Just waiting on cabinets.

D&D Table!!

So, about a week after my wife and I got this house, I decided it was finally time to put a flat screen monitor into a table for D&D purposes.

For a few years now, I've been building all of my encounter maps in photoshop, and usually losing hours worth of detail upon printing them out, plus having to constrain my map proportions to 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper.

Having a horizontal monitor to run my miniatures on would pay for itself in printer ink, and allow me to run interactive imagery like fog of war, lighting effects, and discovered items all on seperate layers.


So, after a day of searching on Craigslist, I was able to get a used Dell monitor for 40 dollars,

and a nice, four person table for 50.  Throw in a scrap piece of plexi glass and some wood-filler, and this entire project comes in at 100 dollars.

From here down will be a bit of a tutorial, since I read a number of these table-mod tutorials before starting, and wanted to do the same for future table-ruiners.

As part of the kitchen renovations, we had picked up a dark cherry stain for the kitchen countertops, this seemed like a good project to test out our staining skills, since darker colors will make the monitor look brighter, in comparison.

Using a palm sander, I sanded down the finish, and my darling wife stained the table,  then we measured (and measured, and measured) and drew out the initial cuts for the monitor itself.

After drilling out the corners, I connected the dots with the jigsaw, until we had our initial fit.

My best friend Jeff working on the final fitting for the monitor. We had to sand and test-fit probably 20 times.

It's good to have someone hold the monitor from the bottom as you're checking all the edges,

And then, finally, it fits!

We put in a small 1/4 inch strip of wood around the inside of the hole, about 1/8th inch below the surface, to act as a shelf for the plexi glass.

And here was the very first game night! The four carriage bolts have two washers and two nuts on the underside, supporting a piece of 1/2 inch birch for the monitor shelf.

Meet Nifi Cat!

Hi!  My name is Nifi! I am the cutest, most spoiled kitty cat ever!

Daddy found me in the Lowes parking lot one day.  I don't know how I got there....  He took me home to Mommy, and she squeeeeeed!

I like to climb and chew on things like shoes!

And these things.  I will defeat them someday!

Sometimes Mommy says "No!" to me, but I don't know what that means.

So I just look at her like this:

And then she picks me up and pets me!

D&D Room!

So this next wednesday we're going to finally start on the D&D room!

My wife painted it a few months ago, by mixing two cans of paint two separate times and still getting the exact same shade (!!!)

Now it's time to start ripping out the old shag carpet,

and then we're going to cover the original hardwoods with some stick on tile and a throw rug, until we can get them properly restored.  

Then we'll be installing shelving, bringing in a mini-fridge and a microwave, and of course, the D&D Table!

Going to also work on restoring the 2nd story entrance, so the players can come and go directly through the gaming room,

All that's left is some more tabletop surface and some drink holders!

The work so far!

It's been awhile since we posted here, other than finishing up my old Lowes post,  So this morning we snapped some pictures of all the things coming together, projects reaching their finishing elements, and the beginning of us actually moving in,

We took out the work sink and toilet from the original laundry room,

And put in new porcelain tile,

Today, before work, my wife and I sealed our new tile floor, and are waiting on our new cabinets, arriving on Wednesday!

Lowes, or "not all swear words are four letters."

So...

My wife and I just bought a house, and we've been planning this huge renovation, rerouting the entire rear end of the house.

We applied for a Lowes credit card for the five percent discount, and to keep track of all of our purchases and rebates, et cetera...

We have a healthy renovation budget set up for these projects, so it's less about financing as it is about tracking budgets, getting the discount, and managing returns...

One of the first things we bought was a new dishwasher.  It was a fairly nice model that was on sale, plus a 30 dollar rebate program, plus the discount I mentioned.

I buy the thing on the website, but it doesn't apply my discount.  I call Lowes, and they re-do the order, at the proper price.  It's all handled before the Misses gets home, so I'm pretty happy about the entire thing.


The problem comes when it's time to deliver the dishwasher, no one at Lowes knows what I'm talking about regarding the order.  The sales lady in our Lowes can find the original, cancelled order, but can't find the new order.

I get a few lectures throughout the week on how they don't deliver cancelled orders.  A few of the people I feel horrible for, as my frustration mounts, because most aren't rude, and this is not their fault.

Finally, I get a call about the dishwasher being delivered on Sunday! Great!

Then they say our new washer and dryer are in!  Okay, bring those Sunday, as well!

So Sunday comes, and the Lowes truck brings the washing machine, the new dryer, our new microwave/hood...and the dishwasher, right?

...Right?

"Sorry sir, we don't have any dishwasher on the list."

''...The dishwasher was the original item.  The other stuff was just being dropped off WITH the Dishwasher,"

"Well, not on our list."

So, I call up the deliveries area, and they do happen to have a dishwasher that's the exact model I ordered, with no delivery scheduled on it, and they ended up having about half of my wife's first name on it, with half of my last name written on the box.

Luckily the people at this Lowes were fairly trusting, and I finally get the thing delivered, a week later.


Now to handle the rebate...

The Lowes rebate website says to write in the item number after your online order is delivered.

There was no such sheet with the Dishwasher.  So I go to Lowes to resolve it.

Oh that's right, they can't find my dishwasher order, remember?

Honestly this was a few months ago, and I have no idea how I got the rebate filled out.  I think I dug through ALL the possible active Lowes rebates, which are available in a database online, until I found a few that could have worked.

After finding the right one, I submitted it, a few weeks later it got denied, but they gave me a grievance number to call.  FINALLY!

So I call the number, and after explaining the full story to the lady at the rebate center, I read off the serial number from the dishwasher unit itself, and she approves my 30 dollar rebate.

The rebate comes in the mail, and all ends well!

Now...now we are about to start the kitchen counters, and our policy is to buy it in the store, take it home from the store.  If we don't have a truck that day, we don't buy anything.

Wish us luck! We're on the final big projects, and life is starting to get back to normal, just a bit!

Off Topic: Pinterest

Oh, Pinterest.  How I love and loathe thee.  You open my mind to so many new and wonderful ideas, but you also suck out my soul and all my spare time.

But to the point...

Most Pinners have a craft board.  I have 13 : Art, Cosplay, Craft Flowers & Bows, Craft Ideas, Craft Organization & Materials, DIY Clothing, Holiday Crafts, Jewelry, Make Little Boxes, Printable & Lettering, Quilting & Blankets, Sewing Crafts,and Yarn.  These boards have a combination of 590 pins as of this writing.  I have a compulsion where I don't like for my boards to have more than 100 pins - hence the many specific boards.

I was just looking through another Pinner's "Craft" board, and she had over 700 pins on that single board.  How can you possibly find anything on a board with that many pins?!?!  Not to mention, I noticed that she had several duplicates through the board.

So maybe it's ridiculous for me to have my 2600 pins spread over almost 60 boards, but hey, I can find stuff.

Okay.  Random tangent finished.  I'll be back to posting about the house next time, promise!