La Folie de Ma Vie

I should have made this post over three weeks ago.  Never mind, I'm making it now as the year dies down, before the thoughts and sensations that gave rise to it fade away.

Early in the morning of the 3rd of this month my living room renovation was to the point where I could refill the bookcases flanking my fireplace.  And it didn't give me pleasure to get it done, it made me disgusted with myself and sad.

The books had been stored in boxes in the guest bedroom since August of 2008, and in all that time I'd forgotten much of what I had.  Or at least, I'd forgotten the implications of all the books I had.  For once I got them all shelved, I felt empty, disquieted, disturbed. I hardly knew what to do with myself.

For looking at those bookcases was like peering into a window to the past.  There are books on music criticism and music history.  Musical scores I've carried to symphony concerts and scores I've sung.  There are plays and essays and poetry.  Books on art history, church history, secular history.  On art and architecture, ancient, medieval, and modern; on icons and stained glass and Gothic cathedrals.  All the subjects and pursuits that make for a civilized life, sidelined, ignored, for years. The works of so many great, entertaining, and wise authors and composers sat again on my shelves: Tasso and Browning, Shakespeare and Chaucer, Lamb and Emerson.  Beethoven, Schubert, and Berlioz (always Berlioz!).  Eusebius, Schaff, and Chadwick; Ruskin, Conant, and Arnheim. Coulton and Tuchman.  Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright.  Where had they been these past years?  Where had I?

There was a time when I sat down and read those books.  When I sang and played that music.  Back when I had a full time architecture career and felt like I was contributing to the beauty and order of the world.  I was a better person then, before I began to dissipate my energies on computer card games and checking my Facebook Notifications tab every fifteen minutes . . .

 Well.  I kept at the work of putting my living room back together.  By the following Tuesday I had all the tools and debris and the dog kennel cleared out and could see and clean the floor.  By early on Thursday the 5th I had the two-seat sofa moved back in from the front room and the chest of drawers pulled in from the dining room to carry my 1970s-vintage stereo system and the lamp I got two or three years ago and had never used (getting the linen chest out of the dining room clears the way to finish stripping the wallpaper in there).

By Sunday the 8th I was in a fair way of looking at it all and emulating God on the sixth day of creation, standing in the middle of the room admiring my work and thinking it was Very Good.  And since then I've cleaned off the sill of the portal to the 1st floor hall and even decorated for Christmas.

But still.  But still.  I can't shake the feeling that I've screwed up seriously.   It's not that I'm spending time on house renovation instead of reading The Stones of Venice.  Redoing the house is an artistic pursuit in itself.  Rather, I feel I've betrayed the whole way of life my books and music represent. I've made several bad career moves these past few years and I don't think I'll ever get back to my life the way I hoped it would be.

And if I spend too damn much time fooling around on the Innerwebz, I'll about guarantee that outcome.

O Gosh, Such Excitement!

The tall bookcase, the tall-black-used-to-be-natural-teak-Scandinavian-Modern-1978-vintage bookcase, is finally up and loaded.

It only took some drilled pilot holes (through the plastic sleeves), two sets of new black metal shelf supports, a couple ounces of wood glue, a couple-three more coats of shellac, and quite a few whacks with the rubber mallet to convince it to come together.

And even after all that, it was still wanting to gap at the top once I stood it in its corner again.



"Take that!"  

Whack!  

"And that!!"

Whack-whack!!

"And that!!"

Whack-whack-whack-whack!!

Another coat of shellac to cover up the evidence, let it dry a day or so, and by Friday it was ready to receive back all the LPs and books that have been sitting in boxes in my front room the past, oh dear, five years or so.

Of course I managed somehow to put the new shelf supports at the wrong height.

Never mind.  I was not enlarging any more holes so I could change it.  No law said I had to put all the books back the way they used to be (even if I did print out an old picture as a guide). Maybe this time I'd do it more logically and better.

So they're in.  And the walnut veneer bookcase (which used to belong to my grandmother) is in the process of getting levellers on its right end to accommodate my sloping floor (had to paint the white plastic part black.  Looked glaring otherwise).  And last night I stayed up till 4:00 AM cleaning out my workshop so I can go back to cutting trim for the stairhall and new stops for the windows.  Not that I didn't start that task two or three months ago.

My excuse for the slowness is that I'm substitute teaching during the day most days and within a hour or two of leaving school I'm working every weekday evening at the Big Blue Box Store.

If I were truly dedicated to renovating my house, I'd avoid the computer and the Internet and work-work-work on the house until I fell into bed.

I am not that virtuous or disciplined.  But millimeter by millimeter, inch by inch, I'm getting things done.

By Christmas 2014, I may even have the wallpaper in the dining room stripped.  Now that would be excitement.

Wheel-Spinning

Sitting in its corner, pretending to be done

It will probably shock you to learn that the tall living room bookcase I started to redo in black last Christmas still isn't done.

No, I guess it wouldn't shock you to learn that the tall living room bookcase I started to redo in black last Christmas still isn't done.

Oh, it's refinished, finally.  Took forever to strip off the crummy oil-based black paint job over white primer, but sometime this summer I finally got that done.  And about a week ago I finally got the black shellac to the point where I like it.

Give it a couple-three days to harden up and cure, and it should be all ready to reinsert the shelves and put the books back in. Right?

But what do you do when you can't remember where you put the shelf hardware or how you even held up the shelves in the first place?

This bookcase has had many shelf-support solutions in its long career.  It came with these bent heavy-gauge wires whose ends fit into little holes in the sides of the bookcase.  Grooves were routed into the side edges of the particle-board shelves to receive the bent part of the support wires.  Trouble is, that method didn't keep the bookcase sides from pushing out from the pressure of all the books and records I keep in it.

The round piece is brown under the shellac, of course

So back in the '80s a woodworker friend of mine retrofitted the shelves each with four plastic disks that receive a screw which fits into a plastic sleeve sunk into the carcase sides.  This did a good job of keeping the whole thing together, but didn't allow for any adjustments to the shelf spacing. From photos I took before I unloaded this bookcase I know the shelves didn't all correspond with the sleeve locations.  And I definitely remember there being some brass shelf spoons I took off.  But I couldn't remember where the aitch I put them last December.

By Thursday or Friday of this week I found them, in the tray of my toolbox.  But only four of them, enough for one shelf only.  And I can't find but three of the twelve black screws I should have for the other three shelves.

And maybe it doesn't matter whether I can find any of this or not.  Because . . .  because . . .  even with some replacement screws I found (intending to paint the heads black, no problem), with the black finish I can't see to get the screws into the sleeves in the sides of the carcase!!

I've been trying the last three days, and it doesn't matter:  Night, day, with a worklight, without a worklight-- with my lousy eyesight I simply cannot see where anything is.  And yes, I shellacked the white plastic sleeves black as well.

Dig the scratches.  And the plastic sleeves I can't seem to hit.

I've already made a mess of my new shellac finish, since the plastic cams or whatever they are that are routed into the shelves have a little protrusion that fits into the sleeve on the bookcase sides.  That didn't matter when it was finished natural teak, but now that it's shellac, I've got scratch marks all over.

Actually, the only reason why I'm not throwing tools across the room and screaming at the top of my lungs is because it is shellac, and therefore repairable.

But I still can't get those screws lined up.

So what should I do?  Get my friend Hannah* to come hold the worklight so maybe I can get at least two of those screw-in shelves in, and thereby return the favor for all the weekends I helped her with some computer work she had to figure out?

Maybe I should invest in some more packs of black metal shelf supports and put all the shelves on those. Oh, and Dremel off the protrusions so they slide in smoothly.

But then the bookcase might go back to falling apart on me once it's reloaded.

Or maybe I could solve that problem by working out something with wires and turnbuckles that'll go behind the books and keep the sides together.

It's too damned complicated having to do all this for a 35 year old Scandinavian Modern particle-board bookcase.  After all, isn't my time worth something?  Better I should have just chucked it and bought a new one.

But I've been online again looking at the price of new ones, and my time isn't worth what they would cost me.  $300 and up for things that aren't built as well as the one I've got.

Maybe I will look into turnbuckles.  It'll give it a high-tech industrial feel.  Just right for my Victorian/Arts and Crafts living room.  Right.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling very, very stupid.  And spending a lot of time I don't have just spinning my wheels.

OK, So Where Were We?

Oh, yes.  Up to the first weekend in May, recounting this spring's not-so-lightninglike progress.

Eh bien.  Nous recommençons.

Saturday, 11 May 2013:  Dare I admit that nothing got done on the house this past week?  Too much sub teaching, too much working in my least-favorite department at the Big Blue Box Store (Home Décor-- booooorrrrrrinnnngggg!!!), too much rain, and too much watching TV late at night on the computer.  But this morning I Made Myself get out to do something about the weeds in the flower beds in the front garden.  Even though it was in the lower 40s and freezing.

Not the worst of it, either

But as soon as I opened the gate from the back yard, I knew the grass in the Snow Carpet roses in the front border was going to live another day.  The box shrubs and the golden cypress growing along the walkway along the east side of the house had burgeoned so prodigiously and grown together so enthusiastically that I could hardly get myself or the garden cart through them.  So, change of plans.  Clipped shrubs instead.  I might have gotten to the flower bed weeds after I was done with that, but I got an opportunity to make some money that afternoon and evening and couldn't say No.  I had to be grateful I at least got the walkway shrubs into a presentable shape.  And got most of the clippings raked and swept off my walkway and the neighbors' lawn.

A little too friendly

Couldn't use my electric blower/vac.  I lost the nut for the impeller somewhere in the backyard leaves the other day and it won't work without it.  Plus the impeller has worked its way up the bolt it spins around and won't come off or go back down, either one.  Stuck.  Hope I can get it repaired.

Monday, 13 May:  Excitement unimaginable.  This afternoon, in the interval between getting home from teaching and heading for the evening job, I finally, after all these years, got the stringer moulding for the main stairs nailed back up.  Hooray!!

Friday, 17 May:  Eve of the annual Borough Large Item Pick-Up.  Not much from me this year, but I did get rid of the old white pine painted quarter round put up by the previous owners two back.  I'd been keeping it thinking it'd be useful for something.  But having watched enough episodes of Hoarders . . . 

Saturday, 18 May:  Took the electric blower/vac to a small machine repair shop over in Industry.  Yes, I can repair it, for $16 worth of parts.  If I can't find a wingnut or something that will function to keep the impeller on, I'll have them order them.  But I have to try the cheaper option first.  The guy at the shop worked the impeller off for me, no charge.  It's plastic, and he figures it got too hot and melted to the shaft a little.  Could be right.

Then at the grocery store I picked up some eggplant and broccoli plants on sale to put in in the front garden.  Yes, the front. I have some  ideas about that, which I think I'll regale you with in a separate post.

Later, got out front and cleaned out the crape myrtle bed.  Pruned off last year's seedpods, shaped up the branches, cleared out the winter cover (old leaves and pine branches), and laid down some shiny new black cedar mulch.  Happy to see the two "New Orleans" crape myrtles and the One-That-Was-Supposed-to-Be-a-"Bayou Marie"-But-Isn't are all leafing out.  The One-That-Was-Supposed-to-Be-a-"Pixie White"-But-Isn't is still just bare branches, though those branches are green inside.  (Oh, didn't I tell you?  Naughty me for not posting.  Early last December I got fed up with the pink, oversized, so-called "Pixie White" mugging everyone who tried to come up my front steps and switched it around with the so-called "Bayou Marie."  The latter, the smaller of the two, took the transplanting just fine.  The former apparently is still thinking about it.)

Sunday, 19 May:  More front yard work.  (Watch this space.)  That evening, took the liquid refinisher/stripper to the tall bookcase.  Looks pretty smeary.  I think it's because I'm trying to be too stingy with the steel wool pads and using them way too long.  Guess I have to put them on the shopping list whether I want to or not.

Tuesday, 21 May:  Didn't get called in to teach, for a change, and I was going to get all sorts of stuff done, yay, me!  Instead, I spent most of this very warm day trying to figure out, remember, recollect, work out, etc., etc., how the heck the operator for my kitchen door transom works.  Finally cut the Gordian knot by unscrewing the guide that holds the transom rod to the jamb casing and pulling it through.  Having experimented with it, I think you push the bottom tab up to make the rod go up to close the window, and you push the top tab down to make the rod pull down to close it.  I think.

Other than that, spent a few minutes out in the back garden trimming last year's dead leaves off the hellebores and mulching around the blueberry bush.

Maple mulch composting since October 2008

And I cut a piece of oak chairrail trim to cope for the south wall of the 1st floor hall.

Also contemplated cleaning up my basement workbench.  There's no room to do the cope till I do, and besides, I can't find my middle-sized nail set and I need it to countersink the stupid nailgun brads that are still protruding out of the quarter round trim in the living room and hall.  Maybe it's in all that mess.

Wednesday, 22 May:  Got a wingnut at work (after work) that fits the impeller shaft on the yard blower/vac and it's all back together.  Haven't tested it yet, but I expect it'll function again.

Saturday, 25 May:  Worked on getting the last of the oil-based primer off the carcase of the tall living room bookcase, until I ran out of refinisher.  Found a whole bag of #0 steel wool in the basement the other day and yes, using cleaner pads does make a real difference.

Sunday, 26 May:  Borrowed the neighbor's spare electric edger and tackled the encroaching grass growing over the back walkway for the first time in maybe two or three years.  As a machine it's better than nothing, and I certainly don't want to be an examiner of the mouths of gift horses, but getting much done with it is, well, arduous.  Maybe the problem is that it hasn't rained for awhile and the grass is holding on for dear life.  Thankfully, my neighbor says I can keep it as long as I need it.  Did all I could reach on two extension cords then did the same on one side of the front sidewalk.  By then, I had no stomach for rustling up a third cord.  Time to clean up and pack it in for the night.

Monday, 27 May, Memorial Day:  After work at the box store, got downstairs and made progress cleaning out my workshop.  Haven't finished the job; the stuff on the shelf above the workbench still needs going through before I can put things away, but the bench itself is clean.

Say goodbye to the mess!

Well, I tried.  Stoopy kamra!!

No nail set.  Don't laugh, but a lot of the inside work is being held up because I can't find it and smack those brads down.  For want of a nail set the progress was lost . . .

OK.  Maybe.  I guess.  But stay tuned for the big project that's developed this month.  As indicated, it's not an inside job.

Bits and Pieces, Dribs and Drabs

I was right, and I wish I weren't.  Working two jobs on weekdays plus a little freelancing whenever I can get it is definitely not leaving me much time to work on the house.

Nevertheless, I manage to sneak in a little DIY on weekends, or every so often between the end of school and the time I need to clock in at the Big Blue Box Store, or after I get home from selling other people the supplies they need for their projects . . .

Let me see.

Wednesday, 24 April:  Worked on getting the last of the black oil-based paint heat-stripped off the tall teak bookcase.

Sunday, 28 April:  Shellacked quarter round for the 1st floor hallway, several coats. 

 And finished heat-stripping the bookcase.

The black spot is a scorch mark.  Oops.

 Monday, 29 April:  Totally fed up with only being able to do one quarter round cope per evening before the battery power in my Dremel would run out, I gave in to temptation and bought a corded Dremel 3000 kit once I got off work this evening.  With the markdown and my employee discount, the price wasn't too bad.  See, I'd found out that I'd cut the quarter round pieces for the south wall of 1st floor hall too short (well, they were fine until I overdid the copes!) and figured my time is worth something.

So I ran home and recut them out of new stock (I'll resize the shellacked pieces and use them in the dining room or maybe the 2nd floor hall) and with my new toy-- I mean, tool-- got both of them coped (both ends) and ready to shellack the next day.

Tuesday, 30 April:  Got two or three coats of shellac on the replacement pieces of quarter round, and applied the finishing coat to some of the other pieces. 

Drilled the 1st floor hall newel post to receive the pegs that are now going to hold it and its cap together.

(rotation fail to be corrected asap)

 Wednesday, 1 May:  In the morning (I taught only a half day that day), slapped more shellack onto the new 1st floor hall quarter round.

And got out into the back yard and ground up some more of last fall's leaves with the rake/vac.

Late in the evening, using a rubbing on tracing paper, I transferred the position of the peg holes in the newel post to the underside of the cap, and drilled the holes. 

Yes, the pegs fit, but no, they weren't straight, and no, the cap doesn't fit on the newel post.  It's what I get for not using a jig of some sort to keep my drill bit perpendicular.  I couldn't get the pegs out, either, even with no glue.  Never fails.

Thursday, 2 May:  After school, pretty well finished sucking up and mulching the leaves in the west back yard border.  Discovered that someplace along the line I'd lost the plastic nut that holds the impeller to the unit, but it made no difference since the impeller was stuck to the bolt shaft anyway.

Friday, 3 May:  Didn't have to report to work till 10:00 AM or so, so I was able to nail in some of the 1st floor hall quarter round and a piece of the new chair rail.

 This little piece tickles me because it ties into the bottom of the spacer between the stair stringer and the wall on the upper part of the stairs.  It's what determines the height of the new rail trim all around the space and on up the stairs.

 The curved quarter round is a resin product.  No way was I going to kill myself cutting kerfs in the oak material, once I learned this stuff exists.  Not looking forward to figuring out how to cope the piece that'll run into it.  Probably just a matter of simple geometry, but my head's not into it yet.

Purchased two more pegs for the newel post.  I figure I might have to cut at least that many flush and redrill.

The next day, Saturday the 4th, I'd intended to get a ton of work done on the house.  But my nephew whom I hadn't seen for over five years unexpectedly was in town, and I had to visit a farm to see about a new source for the raw milk I've become accustomed to, and then on the way home I came across fresh strawberries for 75c a pint.  So what could I do in the evening but make jam?

Which took a lot longer than I'd expected.  And I see this post is getting to be a lot longer than I'd expected, too.  And I will be in in a jam if I don't get to bed ASAP.  Later on,  I'll go on pretending I've actually gotten anything significant done.

One Step Forward, Several Steps Back

This is a retrospective post, started a good five or six weeks ago.  Why it wasn't finished then, or even on the official post date, will become obvious as you read . . .

It began in my first apartment after I graduated from college in the late 1970s.  After a year of so of stacking my LPs against the wall, I was finally able to afford a bookcase to hold them.  Tall and narrow to fit the available space; Scandinavian design with real teak veneer over particle board, very simple and modern.  My tall teak bookcase has accompanied me from apartment to apartment, getting dinged and losing pieces in the process, and finally has ended up here at the Sow's Ear.  But what looked good or at least all right in other settings simply doesn't work now that the red William Morris wallpaper is hung in my living room.  I'm not really keen on painting natural wood pieces, but the teak finish looks shoddy and cheap in my repapered living room.  Buying a new bookcase isn't an option right now.  Best solution?  Paint it black to match the mantlepiece.

I wanted to do it in oil base paint, since books and album covers stick to latex.  Took awhile till the semigloss black was available at the Sherwin-Williams, but at last, a week or so before Christmas, I picked up a quart and set to work.

This is when the trouble began,and trouble that's all the more troubling because I deliberately and foolishly overlooked it at the time.

The oil-based primer didn't brush on smoothly.  I ought to have deduced something from that.  But no.  I had the sillyassed idea that somehow the black top coat would even things out.

It didn't.  More streaks and ridges.

Well, maybe it just needed a second coat of black.

Oh, dear.  Streaks, ridges, drips, sags, and blobs.  It was terrible.  A friend who saw it said it looked great, but I couldn't agree (I think she was just being affirming and wanted to save me work).  Could I sand it down?   Yeah, right, and bring up all the white primer undercoat.  Sure.  No, the paint simply Would Not Do.

Did I feel like a wastrel and an idiot?  I did.  The behavior of the primer should have told me what would happen with the paint.  Should have returned the can unopened and gotten my money back.  Though maybe I was optimistically thinking of the decent job I achieved with white oil-based paint on the bookshelves up in my study.  That was SW paint, too, and it levelled out fine.

Decided to do what I should have done all along:  Refinish the tall bookcase in black shellac.  Ordered some black aniline dye powder from Shellac.net.  But did nothing on the refinishing for over a month, being busy with the hallway floor.

But now the paint and acrylic topcoat are done in there, and I needed to allow it time to get good and hard before I take down the baby gates and allow traffic on it.  Good time to deal with the tall bookcase.

Weapon of choice?  The heat gun, of course, followed by a rubdown with the Western Wood Doctor refinisher.  Started with a couple of the shelves that were loose.  Then I managed to get another pair of shelves free and set to work on the carcase itself.

Didn't take as long to get the paint and primer off as I'd expected.  Things were going along pretty well.  Only trouble was, I had the thing on its side with my head poked into it and the heat gun kicks up a lot of dust and fumes.  And I wasn't wearing a mask.

Why not?  Well, because I wear glasses.  And if I wear a dust mask, especially in the winter when the temperature in the house is lower, my glasses fog up and I can't see.  Can't see, can't work.  Makes perfect sense.

But the Sunday before Presidents' Day the fumes really started getting to me.  I mean, my throat and sinuses hurt.   Stopped for the night before I'd intended to.

Where I've left it

Next day, it hit me, "Idiot! you have that special mask you got when you were cleaning the fiberglass insulation out of the attic!  It's got a gasket!  Why not use that?"  So I did, and what do you know?  No fog, no fumes, everything was fine.

But everything was not fine.  Too late!  The day after that I had a bad sore throat. After a few days, that gave way to some sort of full-on respiratory ailment.  Aren't I clever?  I know the tagline of this blog is "I'll make a silk purse out of this house if it kills me," but that is not what I literally had in mind.

Finally took myself to the doctor's yesterday.  Yeah, I've got the flu.  They prescribed me an antibiotic, the five-day kind, which seems to be doing some good . . .  But no work on the house till I get over this.  I barely have enough energy to drag myself to work, and I do that only because I have no sick leave.  I've set myself back and I'd earnestly kick myself for it-- if I were well enough to care.