John Piwaron
01-11-2006, 9:14 AM
Grrr. SWMBO has me on a home improvement project that's consuming far too much time. She wants carpeting removed from the stairs to our attic bedroom, a crack fixed in the living room ceiling and all of that stuff painted/refinished.
The carpet was an all in one kinda thing, the back is the pad. Dried out, some crumbled to dust, some still stuck to the steps. 15,000 staples held it in place. And that's just the steps, not the whole upstairs. That's a project for another day. The finish on the steps was in bad condition, so I had to strip it off the treads. I thought I could just paint the risers between the steps, but that didn't work, the latex paint just alligatored. So now I'm stripping that too. It's all slow and time consuming.
The stair treads are being stained and varnished (they appear to be maple) the risers are pine and will be painted.
And, get this, the hand railing which is mounted on two stand offs broke at a finger joint near the center. Why couldn't it wait a couple of months when I'll replace it with a new new architechtural piece? I did a bad thing with that. Since the joint is what opened, I just slobbered some new glue in there and pushed it back together. I also put a small steel plate across the joint on the bottom 3" on either side to help hold it together.
These steps have taken a solid 2 weeks of my life and I'm not even up to the crack repair and painting part yet! Much less the living room carpet removal phase of the whole work.
This isn't as much fun as making a new cabinet or bed I can tell you that. My turning tools cabinet was about 75% done, and now it looks like it'll be April until I can finish it up the way things are going.
The carpet was an all in one kinda thing, the back is the pad. Dried out, some crumbled to dust, some still stuck to the steps. 15,000 staples held it in place. And that's just the steps, not the whole upstairs. That's a project for another day. The finish on the steps was in bad condition, so I had to strip it off the treads. I thought I could just paint the risers between the steps, but that didn't work, the latex paint just alligatored. So now I'm stripping that too. It's all slow and time consuming.
The stair treads are being stained and varnished (they appear to be maple) the risers are pine and will be painted.
And, get this, the hand railing which is mounted on two stand offs broke at a finger joint near the center. Why couldn't it wait a couple of months when I'll replace it with a new new architechtural piece? I did a bad thing with that. Since the joint is what opened, I just slobbered some new glue in there and pushed it back together. I also put a small steel plate across the joint on the bottom 3" on either side to help hold it together.
These steps have taken a solid 2 weeks of my life and I'm not even up to the crack repair and painting part yet! Much less the living room carpet removal phase of the whole work.
This isn't as much fun as making a new cabinet or bed I can tell you that. My turning tools cabinet was about 75% done, and now it looks like it'll be April until I can finish it up the way things are going.