A Shop Also Rises, Part I: Workbenches

There is no denying that the inside of our home is extremely comely.  Our cute one story brick house has been done up to the eight and a halves (would be "the nines" if only I would finish our bathroom renovation...), but it's low slung brick facade hides a secret.

A menacing secret.

Below our small house hides a HUGE unfinished basement.  Frequent readers of this blog already know that our basement exists, its walls are an ugly green, and it is primarily used for the storage of a mountain of cardboard boxes.  From the very beginning, I knew that the basement had the potential to be more than just a room full of junk, and growing up helping my Dad with "Appalachian" wood projects taught me that a true man needs to have a shop of some kind.  I figured that I owed it to myself to create a shop down in the basement.

Pictured:  Manliness

When I started putting the "shop" together, it mainly consisted of my excellent Ridgid compound miter saw (a wedding gift from college roommates) sitting atop an old desk, so my first order of business was to knock together a couple of workbenches from 2X4s and 1/2 inch plywood.  I built a matching pair to a comfortable height for me with the table top of each just below my elbow. I also added locking casters to the bench on the right so that bench is free to roll across the concrete basement floor.

Mobility = Versatility

 Next, I added pegboard and pegs to the rear of the stationary workbench for storing frequently used hand tools.  I also organized most of my small parts and fasteners that were scattered throughout the basement and placed them in a red small parts bin and set it on the stationary workbench.  I drove nails into the stationary workbench to hang additional tools and accessories.  Finally, I placed the miter saw on the mobile workbench for cutting wherever the project demands!

 With the workbenches done and against the wall, I moved the old desk in behind to use as an auxiliary service and staging area.  Despite what the pictures show, I'm trying to prevent the old desk from becoming simply a place for stashing junk... we'll see how that goes.

There's a shop somewhere under all that mess.

That's it for Part I.  Stay tuned for an exciting sequel in which the shop obtains a new tool!

Seriously, what have we been doing...?

So, what have we been doing, really, during these long two weeks of non-posting?

Short answer:  Nothing exciting

Long answer:  Lots of stuff. 

1.  Cutting down a cedar tree in our front yard.

We are TERRIBLE at documenting 'before' pictures

 

Amputated Stump

2.  Taking out two big, dead branches from another front yard tree.  (this actually brought the neighbors out onto their front stoops...which is good, because we needed someone around to call 911 if things didn't go according to plan)

Carnage

3.  Clearing some brush and vines from the back driveway and pruning our front yard shrubs.

Note that these plants now look vaguely bush-shaped.  They didn't before...

4.  Nursing terrible cases of poison ivy (we had to take prescription medicines to keep from scratching ourselves into oblivion).

Ouch.  Also, Yuck.

 5.  Putting up a pull-up bar in the basement.
6.  Washing Mitchell with his new, fancy kelp and tea tree oil shampoo.

7.  Taking the last step of the US Medical Licensing Exam.
8.  Watching Thor at the movie theatre.
9.  Painting three frames for the office.

10.  Hanging various diplomas and school accolades in the office.

11.  Potting geraniums for the front stoop.

These looked better before they were battered by a tornado-esque storm last night

12.  Going to a Kentucky Derby viewing party.
13.  Repainting a plant stand for the living room.
14.  Trying a last-ditch relocation effort to revive the dying plant that lives on the plant stand.

This guy still looks awful.  Black thumb strikes again.

15.  Scheduling dentist and optometrist appointments. 
16.  Buying a weedeater, lawnmower, and wheelbarrow.
17.  Buying new shoes for summer.

To Box or Not to Box

There are two types of people in the world:
those who obsessively hoard cardboard boxes for some unknown packing apocalypse and those who mercilessly throw them away.

Obviously, I've been a compulsive box-hoarder since conception.  I mean, duh, right?  You never know when you might need to instantaneously move your entire household under the cover of darkness with only a few hours notice -- and when that day comes, I'll be ready.  No Hefty bag packing job for me!

In contrast, Matt utterly fails to see the utility of saving EVERY BOX that ENTERS OUR HOUSE.  He says things like, "they clutter up the basement," "we can buy boxes someday if we move," and "given the general lack of civil unrest in Durham, North Carolina, the chance that we'll have to pack up and leave immediately under the cover of darkness is very low."   A personal favorite of mine was the following:  "there are spiders living in there."

However, we're at a great impasse, because the one thing Matt hates more than my box pile in the basement is cleaning up the basement.  So, looks like this cardboard box Machu Piccu is going to stay put for awhile.

The Green Hills of Earth, Part I

For those of you that have not had a chance to visit our delightful home, I must regretfully inform you that the landscaping will not win any awards (except perhaps any awards given for apathetic mediocrity).  We have our share of bushes, flowers, and blooming trees, but there is no order to the chaos as, despite my complete lack of credentials and a record of borderline flora-cide, I have been appointed Captain of the Landscape and Viceroy of the Out of Doors.

My plan is to glare at the plants until they grow.

Fortunately for me, the responsibilities of my office are quite manageable due to the domination of 3/4 our vast territory  by a particularly robust strain of fescue grass.  Our native tall fescue may not be particularly beautiful and may often be mistaken for crabgrass, but it does have its virtues.  The fescue is 1) tough enough to withstand the seriously hot North Carolina summers and 2) green.

This grass is just spoiling for a fight.

Unfortunately, the other 1/4, and the 1/4 of the yard in the front of the house and facing the street is under the shade of trees and is currently a grass-less wasteland.  It is with heavy heart that I now realize that the Spirit Rover likely never made it to Mars, but is lost in vast seas of sand and rock in our front yard.

My mission is to bring life to that barren rock.  Our neighbors say it cannot be done, that previous attempts to terraform the land have been all for naught.  It is a desperate mission, but one that I must undertake.  I'm sure we'll see results in no time.

Craigslist (Mis)adventures

Given the new arrivals, Matt and I are selling our old living room furniture on Craigslist.


In theory, this service is awesome, right? You have some--let's face it--junk that you want to get rid of, so you post it on the Internet and then someone will come to your house to take it away for you, and pay you for the opportunity. Awesome!


Now, much as with real-life, I feel a lot of pressure to say a lot of meaningful things when I post on Craigslist. But there really isn't much fodder for waxing poetic about books on floral arranging, a TV stand, or some red shoes that didn't fit.

So, I was quite pleased after crafting this literary stunner:

Gorgeous wood and glass coffee table with two matching side tables for sale.

Glamorous curved legs with inset detail.

Very sturdy. Large enough for a big room, but glass tops keep the set feeling light and airy.

Set is in good condition, but does have some minor scratches and one small chip in the glass. I can send additional pictures of these via email. Would be fine as is, or could be sanded/painted for a new look.

Side tables: 21" tall x 22" x 26"
Coffee table: 16" tall x 36" x 36"

$60 for all three.

However, as pleased as I was to have come up with all this stuff to say, I was equally and oppositely DISpleased to receive the following email 20 minutes later:

I would be interested in the coffee table and two side tables. Please E-Mail me with more info!

NO. I can't email you with more info...because THERE IS NO MORE INFO. What more info do you want???? To hear that the wood that comprises these tables was ethically sourced from the arboreal forests of Gabon by a village woman named Idena who has four children and enjoys swimming in the river when she's not busy mounting her one-woman deforestation campaign??? BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW.

All I'm saying is, you wouldn't email James Joyce being like, "Ulysses is a good novel and all, but could you give me a little more info?"

Fourth Family Member

Matt, Mitchell, and I have added a new member to the family:

Meet Toby Tumbleweed

FIGS

Remember my feelings about the mulberries? Well, I have really mixed feelings about these guys...




...that's right. We have figs.

Two huge trees of them.

All I'm saying is, in about 3 weeks, you best leave your car windows rolled up and your front doors locked, because otherwise you're going to find a big box of figs waiting for you when you return. And if you get something in the mail from me, open it right away...leave it out, and it might start to smell.

My Nemesis

Matt and I are fortunate to have a mulberry tree growing in our backyard...and by "fortunate," I mean I hate that tree. It is my nemesis.

nem·e·sis

1. something that a person cannot conquer, achieve, etc.

2. an opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome.

Having one's own fruit tree seems really cool and loving...a little bit of farm-fresh wholesomeness in the suburbs. WRONG. All this bastard does is drop sticky, gooey, smelly berries *all over* the driveway. They stain the concrete, they attract flies, and they look awful.

Bane of my existence.

Now, you might ask, 'well, JLlo, why don't you just pick the berries and eat them, before they fall on the driveway?' Yeah, that seems logical, until you realize that all the berries are in the tallest branches, way out of my reach, or even Matt's. I thought, maybe, that some local birds might eat them, but apparently nature is constantly foiling me, because the birds just look at the mulberries and laugh.



So, I end up sweeping all the berries off of the driveway...which is not without it's own insanities. Mostly, the grass that borders the concrete is so heavy with mulberries, that, if you just touch a single blade of grass with the broom, it somehow catapults like 30 mulberries from their grassy resting place back onto the driveway.

How much RoundUp does it take to put down a mulberry tree?