All hands on deck

 We had decks installed on the house over 10 years ago.  You are supposed to re-stain them every 5 or so years.

 

But the stain is fussy.  It requires the temperatures to not be above 36 degrees Celsius, and to not drop below 13 degrees Celsius.  It also requires it to not rain or have high humidity for 2 days before, and two days after staining.  This has really limited the days that we could apply it.

 

You are also supposed to pressure wash it a few days before, and not apply on too sunny of a day.  That didn’t happen.

 

But, for the August long weekend, all the stars aligned, and  we got out and painted most of the back deck on Friday.  On Saturday we painted the front deck and the side, as well as the rest of the back deck.  On Monday we put all the plants and patio furniture back.  On Tuesday, it rain again.

 

The stain is odd.  It goes on a honey brown color and, as it is absorbed into the wood, it turns it a dark teak color.

 

It really refreshed the deck.  It looks much darker now. 

Holidays, hobby, health, and happiness

 I just finished two weeks of holidays from work.  More and more, I am liking taking the two weeks containing Halloween and Remembrance Day.   Since we aren’t doing costuming as much or conventions really, I usually take Christmas to New Years, and then these two weeks.  I try to spread my remaining holidays around the year but these two picks mean I usually don’t get anything in the July to August part of summer.

I had hoped to get a lot more hobbying done – both painting and playing some games.  Neither happened.  Well, no figure painting.

I did end up finishing painting the living room and front hall.  We finally assembled the replacement wall unit.  We went with a Besta from Ikea.  The wall it goes on isn’t quite long enough for both cabinets but we replaced the other with a Billy bookcase.  This gives plenty of space for the dvds and knick knacks.

We hadn’t really decorated much inside for Halloween, but we did decorate the yard.  The weather held this year, giving a lovely night for Trick or Treating and we had 36 kids visit.  Not a ton compared to some, but a solid number for our area.

We found time to make it to the local ComicCon, which was the first time since the new owners came in just before the lockdowns.  We didn’t go last year, but since Bruce Campbell was the guest, we were pretty much swayed.  Lea Thompson, who is filming a series locally, also ended up attending as a replacement guest at the last minute for Lou Ferrigno.  She was lovely. 

After Halloween, we transitioned right into Christmas.  We got the tree up and house redecorated.  We managed to get the winter tires on ahead of the snow fall.

My wife had taken the second week off as well and we spend the week catching up on the new season of TV.  Thursday through Sunday though, the household came down with some malaise, likely flu, and we were all just sleeping and coughing, and huddled on the couches in blankets watching TV. 

Even still, it was a pretty relaxing time off.

 

Shan 7 - Trees 1

 When we first moved to our current house I was very impressed that we had nine trees of various types and sizes on it.  My wife, it seems, is not as big a fan of trees as I am.

Shortly after moving in, I almost pulled down a tree in the back yard on top of her.  We hadn’t realized that it was dead.  Since then, the rest of the trees have been numbered.

The one at the very back of the yard was brought down as it gave too much shade to the pool.  The pine in front died out due to the trees on either side choking it out.  We had the one on the side taken down as it was growing way over our neighbor’s house and power line. 

I brought the last one in the back down myself and was very happy that I was able to drop it without hitting the house, fence, or deck. When one of the crab apples in the front broke in the heavy snow a few years back, I also safely dropped that one as well.  The last one on the side of the house was a different story though.

She has been wanting it down for the last few years as it gives too much shade between the houses, scratches on the roof, and drops a lot of seeds every year in May through the whole back yard, especially into the pool.  I’ve been meaning to trim back some of the branches for the last two years but could never get the kids to hold the ladder for me in spring or fall.

When we finally decided to cut it down, my folks and son were going to help.  On the day, they showed up later in the afternoon.  The tree had one branch extending backwards that we cut off.  It had another paid of branches that extended out over the roof.  I had originally planned to trim them back as well but, due to the time, decided we could probably leave them with the tree.

We notched the trunk, and were worked at opening up the notch when the tree tipped slightly and pinned the chainsaw blade.  It had leaned over onto the house.  I said I could go up on the roof and trim back some of the branches but my folks wanted to go to the store and get another blade for the chainsaw.

While they left, I went up on the roof and cut back a lot of the branches using a hand tree saw.  I cut back enough that I was able to move the tree off of the roof. 

Now, this would have been a great time to wait for my folks to come back and help guild the tree to the ground.  But I thought that if I pushed it off of the roof, with my son pushing from below, it should have enough of an angle to carry it down to the driveway. 

I was wrong. 

The tree cleared the roof, but caught the overhang over the front door on the way down, and pulled it off the front of the house.  So, my son, folks and I spent the rest of the week that I had off taking apart the old overhang, and rebuilding it back on to the front of the house.  We were able to get it reshingled, tarred and caulked, and even had time to touch up the paint before we got snow.

 

 

The joy of stuff

I was able to do a bit of a sift on my desk. It took three hours to take about half the boxes off and then put them back in slightly different spots. It only cleared a small spot of table space, but it moved a whole bunch of boxes that I need to go through to the front so that I can access them easier. This should allow me to keep working away at it when I have time.

I do still have a lot of stuff, but so much of it still brings me joy. I am slowly becoming less attached to some older stuff. I have moved a lot in my life, a few times before I started school, and five times since. I am currently in the place that I have lived the longest – at over 16 years.

We still have a few years before the kids move out and we get to reclaim those rooms. Until then, I need to work with the space I have currently. I hope to finally unpack some boxes from 2 moves ago and reclaim my desktop in order to start doing stuff again.

Then I can work at reorganizing the storage locker to make it more of a living storage that I can access and get thing out of instead of an oubliette where things get put in to be forgotten. I will need to get a good shelf for the boxes of books, as well as some of those rolling shelves to allow me to move things to get to the items in the back easier.

spring spray

With spring being delayed a bit this year, we haven’t been able to get outside and start the yardwork. We did have a nice weekend so I was able to get outside and spray some foam.

In an effort to make our house a bit less mouse-accessible (or mousessable), we bought some of the low-expanding Great Stuff foam. I have heard of people using it for terrain and props/costuming but have never used it before.

I had concerns about how much of a mess it would make but it seemed pretty well contained. In addition to some of the gaps around the pipes and windows, I also used it to spray some foam into the chicken wire we have on the tree in the front yard. It puffed up pretty nice. It will to be painted to blend the yellow color and may need to be trimmed a bit. I will also need to get a second can to finish the job.

Step down

There’s a meme that says “If a man says that he will do something, he will. There’s no need to keep reminding him every 6 months.”


Looking back, it was back in July of 2014 when we first rented a jackhammer to break up the concrete step in the backyard. Two years later, we rented a smaller jackhammer as well as an eight pound sledge hammer to finally finish the task.

My son was very helpful with the sledge. We broke up the rest of the step parts, and broke up the landing part enough to move it to the side and remove the metal bits. He also clipped apart the wire mesh of the landing to make the pieces more manageable.

After clearing up, we now are at this point.


We still have a bit from the steps, but that is easily finished up with a crow bar as well as a hammer and chisel. We also have that pole – which will be a bit more trouble

desk achieved

With getting things ready downstairs for the holidays, I have been cleaning my desk. Mostly by a process I call sifting. This is where I take the piles of things that get dumped on my desk and sort them into like groups and package them down. My wife also ‘helped’ me with this – but she did it by taking a lot off my desk and strewing it across the room and leaving me to sift and put it back and then she put even more on my desk.

Even with this, I was able to box things down, organize a bit, and clear out a little bit to make the desk look reasonable. It still has a bunch of stuff on it, but at least it looks more cohesive and less hoardish. I will need to move a few things to be able to work on it, but it shouldn’t be too much trouble to do so.

I remain optimistic about being able to start getting things done for next year.

I still hate drywall

Since we had the supplies out already, we also fixed the holes in the hallway and patched some water damage on the kitchen ceiling. A few days of puttying and sanding later and the ceiling is mostly ready for painting.

While we had the ladder handy I also updated the light fixtures in the kitchen and hall. I had a bit of trouble with the first one but, after rechecking the instructions, fixed the step I had skipped and they went up so much easier. We still haven't settled on the perfect fixtures, but these replace the old globes from the 70s.

I also put the new transition between the hall and bedroom to finish off that part as well. I started to replace more of the edging at the bottom of the siding. With a bit of work, I was able to pull out the nails without too much damage but when I put the new nails in most of the siding broke. Luckily I still had the construction cement to put them back but we will need to repaint them again to help hide the breaks.

So, a few more chores finished, and getting ever closer to the next steps of repainting the kitchen and hall.

One step at a time

It amazes me that they will rent the odd, dangerous tools to those who have no idea how to use them – like chainsaws and jackhammers. Both of these have the chance to do a lot of damage to person and property in a short amount of time.

That being said, we rented a jackhammer last Saturday to break up the stone steps in the back yard. Truly, the internet was right, it was quite simple to use. It made surprisingly short work of the stairs in the 6 hours that we used it. It could have probably done more but it was quite hot and humid that day (felt like 37 degrees Celsius) and the jackhammer got quite heavy at the end. If the kids had been better about moving away the broken pieces we could have seen what was left a bit better.

The kids both tried it, but spent the afternoon tearing down the old shed. Even our neighbor came over to have a try - he used to use one years ago. We didn't get the concrete down to tiny rocks but did I break up as much as I could. There will still be a bit more needed to be done to clear it all away. We joke that the boy can spend the rest of the summer breaking big rocks into little rocks.

The wife has decided to use the medium pieces to edge her garden, and is currently thinking of putting the rest of the rocks under the front deck. Both ideas sound good as it means that we don't have to make a trip to cart away the pieces.

Wide screen - in 3D

We don’t really have the same kind of Black Friday sales up here (since we like to spread out our turkey dinners and have Thanksgiving in October) but they are starting to pick it up to keep people from shopping across the border. We managed to pop out and picked up a 50” LG 3D smart TV at Best Buy. Or so we thought.

We didn’t set it up right away as we didn’t have room for it on the old wall unit. Due to the size of the TV compared to the space plus the size of the base, I had to cobble together a piece to sit on top of the old space but jutting out a few inches farther to allow the base something on which to rest.

When I finally did have time to set it up, we noticed that it was the wrong model – without the 3D. A quick call to Best Buy, followed by a quick trip to exchange boxes, and we got the new one set up. Aside from the mix-up originally, Best Buy was pretty good about the exchange and fixing their mistake.

So it all worked out in the end. The wife really likes the new TV. Now we can finally get a blu-ray player to make the dvds look better. Plus we'll need to get a new unit or mount it on the wall later once we get rid of the old wall unit - but that's future David's problem.

Desk top achieved

I’ve been needing to work at my desk for a while. When we moved my stuff out of the spare room and the boy in, time was more of a crucial factor so I didn’t have the time to properly sift through things. With the extra space in the storage unit, I needed to go through the boxes already on it as well as the extra 6 months of stuff that has been piled up on top of that.

With the holidays coming up, I’ve had a bit more impetus to get it done. I have taken everything off my desk and have been working at sifting it and putting some of it back. Some of it will go back on and in the desk, some will go in storage in the back room, and some will go in deep storage in the storage unit.

For a first pass, I've gotten it back to a reasonable mess. The wife may disagree.

Been Busy - part 5

October has been a very busy month - mostly with chores and renovations though.

We finished painting the outside of the house, including the trim.  The kids were very helpful with painting.  I also managed to paint the exposed platform of the new shed - which  should help it last a bit longer through the weather.

We replaced the fascia on the back of the house - which included painting the boards before putting them up.  Changing the lower fascia involved removing the eavestrough and putting it back.  I was concerned that this would very difficult but it went quite easily.

My brother came over and replaced the outside lights with motion sensor versions.  He also replaced some of the loose switches inside.  Being a electrician, he swaps them out without pulling the breakers which always makes me a bit nervous.

I was able to get to the storage locker and spend about two hours sifting the contents.  I pulled out a bunch of the boxes and restacked the plastic tubs together and put a bunch of the cardboard boxes on a skid.  I was also able to move some of the more needed boxes to more handy locations to make them easier to get as needed.  This should allow even more boxes to be stored.

It stayed warm enough for my dad to come over and help replace some of the trim which had rotted with flashing and new boards.  If the weather holds later this week, I hope to get a layer of paint on it before the snow comes.  While he had his table saw here we also cut the wood to put together a bench for the shed. This should let me stack things better and move more stuff out of the old shed before the squirrel settles in for the winter.
Sifted storage locker.

been busy - part 3 - moved storage

On Saturday morning, we got the kids up and moved everything out of our old 10’ x 10’ storage locker into a new 10’ x 15’ storage locker. With everyone’s help it only took about 3 hours and, in the resifting, we were able to stack a lot better. 

I will still need to spend some time moving around what’s left in there to better stack the rest of it, and the wife wants to move more out of the basement storage and hallway to free up some extra space so that we can move more off of my desk to be able to use it again. 

Been busy - part 2 - daughter's room

At the beginning of July we took everything out of my daughter’s room.  We took the bunk beds apart and took them over to my folks.  We removed the carpeting, curtains, and baseboards.  I washed the walls and filled a bunch of the holes with drywall putty.  

My dad came over and helped again as we put in laminate flooring.  We painted the long walls a lighter blue and the short walls a dark blue.  Both short walls have the windows so it helps with the darkness.

We also popped into IKEA and picked up a pull-out daybed for her that we assembled.  We added back the baseboards and new curtains – having to putty and paint to repair the new holes as we repositioned them.  She has almost finished putting all her stuff back.

I am painting a board to hang her coat hooks back on and need to repair the window crank on one of her windows plus any painting touchups need from that.  She has to decide where she wants all her wall hangers and where her new bed netting will be.  Then we will be done for now – except for having to keep fixing her dresser drawers – as she has a tendency to keep pulling off the faces and pushing out the bottoms.

Been busy - part 1 - new shed

It’s been a flurry of activity this summer. My dad came over and we built a new shed. Well, more accurately, we assembled a new shed. Our old one has been getting progressively worse – with the roof becoming more leaky as the shingles warp, the door sticking as it settles into the ground, and becoming a winter home for the squirrel. The wife didn’t want to spend any more money on it however, so it has been deteriorating over the last few years.


It was also only 6’ x8’ and the new one is 8’x9’. The old one was wood though and the new one a resin. This makes it a bit more tricky to hang things on the walls like we did in the old shed. I started to make a wooden table and shelves with the extra wood I used from the base but haven’t finished yet.

Summer yardwork

I’ve been busy for the last few weeks – mostly with yard work. We ended up taking two loads to the dump – the old deck, old pool and older pool tubing, and leaves. We set up the new above ground pool, a new shed, and a base for the new shed. We took down part of the chain link fence and the fenced-in area that the previous owners had for their cat.

I was also able to clean up a bit downstairs. My desk is still quite the cluttered mess, but the table beside it is now able to be used. We took the four boxes of VHS movies to storage, and dropped off some clothes, shoes, and small toys to the thrift store.

dog days of summer

It looks like this might be one of the last really nice weekends before the weather starts to turn. I should take advantage of it and enjoy the outside – maybe get some fibreglassing done on D3’s ODST helmet.

Instead, we’ll probably be doing a bunch of yard work like closing out the pool and garden. We should burn down a bit more of the branches and rake up more of the crabapples. Add a bit of driving around getting fabric for Gee’s costume and that should eat up the weekend.

I am hoping to squeeze in a bit of time to get to a few of the comic book store for Heroclix though. Maybe even a bit of time to play one of the new games.

I should get in some good time cleaning up my desk and sorting out if there are any parts to keep from the old computers but those might have to wait until mid-October when I get some days off.

Shopping for Tron

So I finished cleaning up my stuff out of the kitchen last week and moved it downstairs. But I just didn't shift the mess, I also sorted a bit more so I now have my stuff contained. I'm still in a bit of a pile on my desk, so I need to move a few boxes before I can work and move them back when done.

While shopping last week I picked up a Tron Recognizer on Tuesday for $15 at Zellers and the Tron racetrack at Winners on Thursday for $10. This now gives me 4 of new light cycles for the racetrack game.

I also picked up Light Bikes online. It looks simple enough but not quite what I was looking for. I'm still going to modify my SNAFU rules.

I also popped into Games Workshop. It seems that, even though I have a subscription, I had missed the June issue. Mark was nice enough to hook me up with one - at no charge. I picked up a water pot and would have snagged some liquid green stuff but they were out.

Pre-halloween plans

I was able to get a bit of sifting done on the desk over the weekend. Shan wants more done in the pantry so that will need to be completed as well.

Aside from that, I am now transitioning into pre-Halloween mode. Gee’s costume this year should be pretty basic. Presently, she wants to go as a Sock Monkey. Shan found instructions online about making from a sweater and sweats. As long as she doesn’t change he mind in the next three weeks, we should be fine there.

Shan’s thinking about getting together a steampunk look, so that should be fairly easy as well. I might have to work at some bits and bobs for accessories as needed.

With the room-switch, I even found some of the pieces I had been collecting until critical mass was achieved on the Human-Spider costume. Now that I have the red balaclava I can sew the pinstripes on the blue sweats and paint the sweatshirt. This shouldn’t prove to be too difficult either.

I even told one of Shan’s coworkers I could make her a Resident Evil 3 backpack/holster. That shouldn’t take too much time.

D3 is going to be more of an issue though. At the beginning of the year he had wanted to be the Green Hornet which would have been a simple trip to Value Village for a green suit and coat. Then a bit of leatherwork for the mask and some quick building to a gun would have completed a light year of costuming.
However, he has changed his mind and now wants to be a Halo ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper). Normally this would be too much to do at too late a date but with everything else being so light, this isn’t impossible – merely very difficult. The other point in his favor is that there is a lot of good help online with this through the 405th – which is the Halo version of the 501st – which does Stormtroopers.

pantry, table

I picked up some metal rack from my folks and set them up in what used to be the comic storage room. D3 and I then moved over all the canned goods from the pantry shelf to the racks in the new pantry. Then I was able to clean off the table in the family room by moving stuff to the shelves.

That opens up 3/4 of that room at this point. By clearing the table we can now get to the games behind them and even play them on the table. It also gives me an extra space to clear the desk albeit very temporary as I need to keep it clear at the end of the night.

We picked up a new dvd player (as the old one went to G with the old TV) and hooked that up as well. I confirmed it worked by watching the first disc of Red VS Blue season 6.
We took another small load to the storage unit. We are getting pretty close to our limit until I resort the skid of extras. I also packed up another box of books.

Now I just have to sift my desk to clean it down enough to clear out the stack in the kitchen. I’m hoping by the end of this month – maybe even by the end of the weekend.

Then I can start ramping up for Halloween costumes.