Floor Sanding, Home Stretch On Remodel

Attached to this post are a few pictures, before and in-process of the work I've been doing on the floors at Mom's house. The wood floor - Maple I think - was pretty beat up. After working with Jim to fill in all the cracks in the walls and ceiling, repaint the ceilings, walls and trim, I'm now working on the floors.

Getting this floor refinishing job professionally done would have been more than $2500, My cost is around $500 in materials and about 40 hours labor. Not bad!

I rented a drum type floor sander from Schulhoff tool rental in Walnut Hills ($30) and bought sandpaper - 36 and 80 grit, 20 sheets each ($50). The sander is like a lawn mower with a cord that you pull backwards. It's very heavy and it is physically taxing work, but not at all hard to get the hang of. As a novice, I learned how to handle the machine in just half an hour, without doing any damage of note to the floors. You can gouge it if it stays in one place too long. The keys are 1)keep moving 2)work with the grain and 3) Change your paper often. I did two rough sands and one fine sand and it looks great. Photos of that later this week. There are lots of guides online. This would make someone a terrific side business. Wear a respirator, spend a few thousand on the tools and you could make cash hand over fist, I think.

I'm working with my friend Dan tomorrow morning to do the edging.

- Steve

A happy post in a sad week

The 1992 Toyota Corolla base model is the medium brown dog of cars, a true bastion of mediocrity. It was exactly what we wanted, a $425, 200,000 miles on the odo replacement for our 2004 Toyota Camry V6 LE with 39,000 miles on the clock.

I inherited the Camry from mom. It was the nicest car I ever owned. It was hard to let it go, but we did, for $12,500. The day after I sold it, I sat down and paid $6,500 in bills. The IRS, student loans, the tax bill on my mom's house and more. All paid. It felt damn good. Better than a vacation. Better than a massage. The brown dog runs great and we're very happy with scaling down. I do have to say I miss keyless entry. 33mpg will make up for it.

Steve

Dad died.

My father died last week. We're working out plans for his cremation and a memorial service. It will most likely be on Wednesday.

It was sudden, of illness he had for a long time.

More on this soon.

Steve

NICE photos from the Ferrell's NYE party

Less than nice photos are posted below.

Just a quick caveat before anyone blows a cork

The following photos were all taken in good fun and I mean well. Don't look if you don't want to see some of my friends making obscene gestures.


- Steve







Dangerous pictures below this point.





I warned you.

Last set

More NYE party pics

Greetings from the Ferrell's New Year's Eve Party

I love my friends. ;)

Contract renegotiations and more

I'm in the midst of craptastic contract negotiations today on my side job. I hate haggling over money, but the cost of living has increased. I asked for 15 percent and was offered 7.5 percent, but only if I accept paypal payments. Paypal takes about 3 percent, so accepting means I get 1/3 of what I wanted. Refusing means maybe walking. We'll see.

Well, I'm glad that today's the day we brought the car to Kevin's shop. He's fixing some scratches and chips in the paint so that we can sell it. It's a really nice car, we know. It would last us forever, but if we had $13,000 sitting around, we wouldn't spend all of it on this car. So that's why we're doing it. Also, both houses 1114 (my mom's) and 1746 (ours) need work - furnaces, floor sanding and maybe a roof. You can do the math. We could buy an older car and have capitol to get a lot done. My work still does not require a vehicle and I don't expect that it will.

Countercultural aspects of car withdrawl
I have felt a good deal of popular resistance to the possibility of us going carless. Some folks hate the idea even though 1) we're just considering a carless life, though we'd like to do so pretty much for sure one day and 2) we're not asking anyone else to do the same thing. I have encountered some shock and even a little hostility at the mention. a - d - d - i - c - t - i - o - n.

related anecdote
During the '04 elections I was running a bit one night with Justin Jeffre (of boyband 98 degrees fame) and some woman was way into him and he wasn't so into her. She asked excitedly if he and I watched the Daily Show together and I told her, "I don't have a tv. I got rid of it years ago."

"What?!"

"I got rid of it. I don't watch television."

She shrieked, "Oh my god!" She turned on a tack and was gone.

- Steve