Monkey House

So, the ongoing reno project. Current mission: complete the powder room.

Today was baseboard day. I don’t know what it is about me, but I seem to invite disaster, and not always directly related to the actual task at hand. Take today’s experience with the mitre saw for example:

I knew that the blade was dull, but I thought, “it’s only 8 cuts… I should be able to make it.” First cut in, and things were burny and smoky. No good. Went to change the blade, but it needed a special wrench, or so I thought. See, the gap to get at the bolt was narrow. Called my father, from whom I inherited the mitre saw originally, and he confirmed that yes, he still had a special wrench that had never made it to my house. Even offered to drive it over (40 minute round trip) and miss the Sens’ puck drop.

Started cranking off the nut (hee hee) that holds the blade on. Still, the gap was too narrow. I knew that there must be some sort of removable piece that would make my life easier, so I started dismantling the guard. Off comes the guard, and “pwa-taayayayang” away flies some sort of spring. As it turns out, the guard did not need to be removed, but as I was farting around with it, I noticed a small metal shield that comes unscrewed and can flip out of the way. Never did fix the guard (long story short, I have a guard, but it’s not spring-loaded), and it turns out that with the metal shield out of the way I probably didn’t need the special wrench.

Changed the blade, and it was pretty much smooth sailing in terms of cutting. Problem? Walls are not straight. I knew that already, but y’know?

The plan was to use No More Nails construction adhesive (yes, it would make removing in the future a wall-destroying prospect, but that’s OK… better to re-frame that damn room anyhow). Trouble is, you need two relatively flat surfaces against one another for it to work. With all the waves and curves in our walls, the plan was foiled before it even began. However, we stubbornly stuck all the baseboards on with the glue anyhow… and then… nailed it in with finishing nails the way we should have to begin with.

The walls, being NOT STRAIGHT, also required us to put more caulk than I’d really prefer into the top. We’ll see how it looks tomorrow after a paintin’.

Oo oo!

The Monkey House is undergoing renovation. It has been in one way or another since we bought this townhouse last August. The previous owners did not take great care of it and certainly never updated any of it. Luckily, despite negligence the bones are strong and we have the makings of a great home here.

Not sure if I’ll ever take the chance to describe each update (though the dishwasher story is a legend in my own mind) but here’s a short rundown of what we’ve done so far. Let’s call it a checklist for future memories of work done:

1. Painting (of course):
   • Main bedroom in dark brown and a medium (complementary) gray
   • Mama Monkey’s office (banana yellow; coincidence only)
   • Baby Monkey’s nursery (lime green)
   • Hallway including that god-awful tall space in the stairwell
   • upstairs doors
   • trim throughout
   • Ceilings…for each of those rooms…. oh how I hate ceilings
2. Baseboards in 2 rooms… 3rd on the way
3. Replacing switches and outlets throughout
4. Changed light fixtures in the kitchen, which included patching and repainting the ceiling
5. Installed new toilet in ensuite
6. New hallway light fixtures
7. Installed new Dishwasher
8. Changed out kitchen faucet and installed shutoff valves
9. Repaired garage door
10. Added Transition strips to all kinds of rooms that really needed them
11. Fixed (as best we could) bizarre choices made by previous owners
12. Pulled out reams and reams of caulking… folks, caulking is NOT the cure-all for every gap you see

This brings me to the real point of today: The Home Depot money-sponge.

You walk in there, and you can practically feel your pennies being drained out of their bank account one by one.

A few weeks ago, went in for… who knows what? I think it was some plywood and hardboard. Walked out with all that stuff, plus a hand tool (drywall saw), plus a power tool (DeWalt jigsaw). You could argue that I “needed” those things, but as I worked away on my project (using the jigsaw), I realized that I didn’t REAAaaallly need… the jigsaw. My lovely Stanley multi-purpose hand saw would have also worked.

Tonight, I walked in to get… a small amount of tiles (a $15 sheet) and some grout ($6 I was thinking). Walked out with a v-notch trowel (could have made do makeshifting something… I only need it for like, one stroke through the adhesive), adhesive (gotta have that PLUS the grout), grout, and a grout super-sponge (something other than a sponge would have worked). $45 for what in my head was going to be a $20 event. Now, I won’t claim this is the most expensive trip I’ve ever taken there, but it really drove home the point…

I have NEVER gone there and spent what we set out to spend.

But on the other hand, we also got great advice from a knowledgeable employee. I know we’ve all had the sales associate who didn’t know their stuff, but this is the third… fourth?… time that we’ve had expert help. Yeah, it was the expert that got me into the v-notched trowel (only another $3.50… she tried to find the smallest and cheapest one possible), but it’s also that expert who had me leaving the store feeling confident that we’d be able to pull off our first attempt at tiling.

So far? Home Depot is a bane to our bank account, but a boon to our renovation efforts. And not just for the merchandise.

OOoo Ooo!