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!

My New Favorite Home Improvement Product

Seriously.

If you are using any sort of oil-based paint or stain, you MUST have some Vicks on hand.  I'm a somewhat messy painter, and a very messy stainer, so I inevitably get some on my hands.  Turpentine is nasty and horrible for your skin.  But you know what is also oil-based and gets oily stuff off your hands?  Vicks VapoRub (and the comparable off-brand).

We now have a bottle of Vicks sitting beside the brush washing sink.  And one by the shower.  An absolute must have when working with oil based mediums!


Oh.  And the house stuff is going well, too.  Tomorrow is going to be a big work day - my parents are going to come help us do things like laying tile and re-routing plumbing.

I will take my camera tomorrow.  I will take my camera tomorrow.  I will take my camera tomorrow...

Dumb Things I Did Today

This was a really "off" day for me.  Let's go through the list, shall we?

1) Forgot my camera.  Twice.  Therefore, no pics today.  Sorry

2) Stood on the Idiot Step of the ladder.  I did do this intentionally.  I was so tired of not being able to finish the bedroom paint because I'm short, so I gripped all available molding and hauled myself up.  Interestingly, though - the Idiot Step on my parents ladder felt more secure than any of the steps on my wooden ladder.

3) Missed Lowes by fifteen minutes.  Apparently they close at seven on Sundays.  No new paint until tomorrow...

4) Set off the security alarm.  I forgot that I had it on and took out the garbage - a few minutes later, Casey called and asked if I was ok.  Can we pretend I did that one on purpose as a test?

5) Played with lead paint.  This one is hard to avoid when you buy a house that's over a hundred years old.  The future kitchen had some pretty bumpy baseboards, so I took the heat gun and a little sandpaper to smooth it out.  Yes, I did wear a dust mask and glasses, and I also wiped the areas down with a damp cloth.

I think that's it.  Maybe I can be safer now...

Carpet, Linoleum and Plywood - Oh My!

When we finally closed on our house last week, one of the first things we tackled was the Master Bedroom flooring.  The previous owners had several dogs who spent a little too much time in there, so the lovely carpet tiles in the room had to go.  Casey and I had hoped to find beautiful hardwoods underneath the carpet, but alas...

Three layers - none of which I wanted...

The somewhat good news was that neither the carpet or equally lovely blue linoleum were really glued down, so they came up quickly.  We still detected the faint smell of dog, so the next pic is of the subfloor coated with a layer of Kilz.

We could leave it like this, right?

 And yes, that is a hole in the left side of the pic.  We're still not sure exactly where it came from, as it looked partially cut and partially broken, but it is now patched.  During the process of cutting out the damage, we did manage to find the original hardwoods - in poor condition under the plywood.  Someday you will read a post about how we rip everything in there up and re-do the original floors.  But that will be a few years...

The nail was stronger than my hammer.

Casey was here.

 We decided to go with a really dark, chocolate brown, leaving the trim the existing white.  The molding has about 17 layers of paint on it, obscuring the detail in the routing and leaving what should be sharp corners incredibly rounded, so someday I'm hoping to take it all down and strip it.  But again... That's another post for another time.

If these were normal ceilings, we wouldn't need a ladder.  As it is, they are ten feet tall, so a little extra help is required.

Speaking of ladders... I am now accepting donations to replace this scary, rickety ladder.

Chocolate!

 We've gotten a little further since I took this picture, but it gives you a good idea of what it'll look like when finished.  The wood laminate flooring for this room should come in this weekend!

The dog ate my blog post...

Whoops.  So much for "I'm going to post every day!"

Why have I not been posting, you may ask?  Many reasons.  We're trying to buy a house (I would think that being old and having stood the test of time would be a good thing, but apparently, the insurance company doesn't think so...), I just started a new job (come shop at my store!), my brother got married (the older brother), and after seeing the new Star Trek movie, I had to watch The Wrath of Kahn (and The Search for Spock).

Why is this not in the movie?!?!?!

Now, I shamefully point out that I did not say I re-watched The Wrath of Kahn (and The Search for Spock).  Somehow, despite my nerd-a-licious upbringing, I had never seen it (at least, that I remember).  How did this happen?  I really don't know.  It may be partially due to the fact that I didn't embrace my inner nerd until high-school, and by that point, I was far too busy with rehearsals, school, and other such things to delve into nerd history.

I also haven't seen Office Space, 28 Days Later, Battle Royale, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Crow, Shaun of the Dead, Hellboy, War Games (though this one I have tried so hard to find!), Seven Samuri, Dune, Revenge of the Nerds, the Alien movies, Robocop, Ghost in the Shell, Tron (the orginal (I haven't seen the new one either, but it doesn't count)), Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odessey, and at least half of the Star Trek movies - these are apparently are some of the top 50 geek movies - a list I don't totally agree with, but hey - it was the first Google result for "classic nerd movies."


Back to the Future was strangely not on that list.

Does this make me a bad nerd?  I don't think so.  I think it just means I'm a modern nerd.  I heart heart David Tennant.  I play MMOs.  We're putting a D&D room and a library into our new house.  I'm comfortable with my level of nerd-dom.

The 18 Inch Waist

My nerdisms run the gamut from Star Trek to classic literature to sword-fighting to MMOs.  Sometimes I make an effort to combine these interests, like the time I dressed up a Trekkie for my stage combat final (I was the red shirt, killed by an inept wanna be.  I made my own costume.).

One of my current projects is directing a production of Little Women - the classic tale blah blah blah sisterhood blah blah Beth dies blah blah blah.

Honestly, my favorite part of rehearsals so far has been making the girls wear hoop skirts and corsets.  It's pretty hilarious watching them try to sit down.  Some of the girls are quite taken with the idea of wearing a corset, so today's rant post will be about corsets.

I'll spare you the history lesson, but suffice it to say that corsets have been around in some fashion or another for hundreds of years.  They typically include the following elements: a non-stretchy fabric, "boning," and a sturdy lacing.  Corsets as a standard lingerie item fell out of fashion in the early 1900s, but have started coming back as a fashion item - primarily as an over-garment   This is probably somewhat due to the Steampunk* trend.  They're often seen a lot in lingerie stores in satin or silk finishes (neither of which are adequate structural fabrics, but anyway...).

My feminist side can't decide how it feels about corsets.  Part of me says, "Curse the misogynistic bastard who says that women must wear restrictive corsets because he finds tiny waists attractive!"  And then part of me says, "My stomach disappeared!  My bulge is gone!"  And then I realize that I'm stuck judging myself by society's view of beauty.  And then I have to wonder if I care, because by most standards, I am beautiful (at least, when I try).  And then I have to wonder if my daughter will be considered pretty, or if my son will make a girl cry when he jokes about her weight.  And I know that these things shouldn't be ok, but am I perpetuating the lie that you have to be skinny if I put on my corset?


*Steampunk - if the Victoria era used a lot of steam technology and had nifty gadgets and lots of compasses.  Think Hugo, The Legend of Korra.**

**Whatever happened to The Legend of Korra?  I thought it was going to have a second season....

They Made a Musical About What?

Tony nominations came out today.  I'm a little disappointed in myself for not knowing more of the shows this year...

Anyway - I've put together a brief guide for those who (like myself) are a little out of the Broadway loop.

BEST MUSICAL

Bring It On: The Musical

Based on the horrible movie.

A Christmas Story, the Musical

Based on the cult classic movie.

Matilda The Musical

Based on the cute movie based on the book.

Kinky Boots

Based on the British movie based on the true story.  A failing shoe factory turns to fetish footwear to keep themselves afloat.  Music and Lyrics by Cyndi Lauper ("Girls Just Want to Have Fun") , but it still got 13 nominations.

BEST PLAY

Lucky Guy

This is about Mike McAlary, who apparently was a pretty famous journalist in the late 80s through mid 90s.  He exposed a lot of police corruption before succumbing to cancer at the age of 41.  Starring Tom Hanks (Nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Play).

The Testament of Mary

Yep, Mary mother of Jesus.  This one-woman show is about Mary in her old age, though be warned Bible Belters - in this version of the story, Mary doesn't believe her son was the son of God.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

So, Vanya and Sonia live in their childhood home, having never really seen the world.  Then one day their worldly movie star sister, Masha shows up with her boy toy, Spike, and then hilarity ensues.  What interests me about this play is that 1) David Hyde Pierce is in it (Nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Play) and 2) it is written by Christopher Durang.  Community theatre activists might recognize that name from the popular comedic one act, "The Actor's Nightmare."  V&S&M&S also plays a lot on Chekhov, which could use some livening up.

The Assembled Parties

Not even Wikipedia knows what this play is about.  Something about Jewish people and a non-Jewish person who could crumble their way of life.  So, basically, it's about everything that's ever happened to the Jewish people...

Also, Roundabout Theatre Company apparently revived The Mystery of Edwin Drood this past year, which I'm really sad I missed.  It's based on an unfinished Charles Dickens novel, so since we don't know how it's supposed to end, the audience gets to choose!

If anyone remembers Laura Osnes from the Grease casting reality show (yeah, I knew it was a long shot), she's up for a Tony this year for her portrayal of Cinderella and the R&H revival.  Apparently, she actually has a career!  Not so much for Danny boy...

But He Needs a Home!!!

I am a cat person.  This is probably no surprise to those of you that know me.  I wish I could say the same about Casey, but alas, he not only dislikes cats, but is also allergic to them.

This does make Casey the best husband in the world though, because he has agreed to let me get a cat once we move into our new house!  The only problem with this is that we don't even close on the house until the end of June, and I'm already combing Petfinder.com for the most perfect, precious little kitty!  And there are so many!!!

I know - I sound like a twelve-year-old girl right now.  And as my mother likes to tell me, I'd be perfectly happy with a little puppy instead of a fuzzy kitty that makes Casey sneeze his lungs up.  Either way though, I've got to wait it out - so if any of you need someone to come pet sit in the next few months, let me know!

I do sometimes get to visit my parents - aka I get to visit my cats who are enjoying their easy lifestyle in the country.

Emmy should be a small cat - but she's fat.  Like she ate a bowling ball.

Felix with his usual look of haughty derision.

I would like to note that Felix is named after Felix Mendelssohn the composer, not Felix the Cat.  But hey, it works.

Which brings me to the last point of this post: What should we name our new cat and/or dog?

Some suggestions have been:
Snarf
Davros
Sherlock and Watson
Crookshanks
Wishbone
Donut
Spot

Let's Start at the Very Beginning...

See Casey.

See Christina.

See Casey and Christina get married.

See Casey and Christina be nerds.

And dorks.

See Casey and Christina buy a house!

See Casey and Christina blog about their house. 

And their kitchen remodel.

And random nerd stuff.

And just random stuff.

*Wedding photos by the fabulous Jennifer van Leeuwen -  http://www.jennimarie.com/