House 173

Summer's always interesting for getting projects done.  For one thing, depending on what you're doing, you have to be strategic about timing.  This is one of those projects!  When last we met, almost three weeks ago, the shed had been all primed and ready for painting.  

But then came the weather.  Between work, rain, heat and high humidity, there just hasn't been a good time to start painting.  Until today that is.  I had a day off work, woke a little early (not nearly as mom and dad though, those two wake the roosters!) and tried to beat the humidity.  And it worked - at least for one wall...

For now I'm only painting two walls, as the back and right side walls are hidden by fences, but the left side wall is going to be painted, but the humidity sky rocketed as I was finishing the front wall today, so that'll have to wait.  In the meantime, I got started on fixing up the window.  After replacing the basement windows way back in 1998, I saved the old wood windows…

Fair warning!  This is not an exciting post.  It's not an elaborate, intricate, complicated or grand project - not at all.  As a matter-of-fact, this is one of the simplest "projects" heretofore posted at 173!  It's even easier that some of the little shop gadgets posted back in January!


Come to think of it, this little ditty utilized a couple other scrap wood projects, and this one is made from the little length of 2x4 below:

The story is - last year my dad gave me his AMT Model 4601 scroll saw...

And with it came a whole bunch of saw blades!  The problem was, I could never remember where I put them.  So, today being so incredibly hot and humid outside (and I don't like either), I thought I would take a few minutes to make some kind of storage for them.  After cutting a small piece to 2x4 to length, I bored a few holes to about 3/8 of an inch from the bottom.  Oh, and in this picture you can see a couple of those scrap wood gadgets I made before...

From there, …

This week the entire Northeast is in a significant heatwave.

But last month Europe was under the grips of a Saharan wave that broke all kinds of records...


The thing is, in the years I lived in Germany, I don't think I even saw a single air conditioning unit.  I think there's a couple reasons for this - Germany didn't get so hot for long periods of time, the majority of houses were built of stone or block which helped keep them cool, and most of the windows I saw were casement, making it difficult to install a window unit I suppose.  Nonetheless, if Germany ever needed air conditioning, it was this past June.  It might be a little late for this past heatwave, but with a brand new baby, Nephew is preparing to keep his family cool in the next run of extreme heat by installing a Ductless Mini-Split Air Conditioner.  I've heard of these, but I've never seen one in the wild, but Nephew, a man after my own heart, is installing his himself!  Here's a little how-to fr…

In the last post I pointed out all the reasons it was time to rehab the shed, including the old basement windows I had put mirrors in and put on the wall of the shed years ago.  But, the old window frame had long since rotted away.  It was time.

This week, after having replaced all the trim, I caulked (almost) every seam in the shed...

Which left the shed looking a bit better already.

But I also added frieze boards, as you can see on the side of the shed.  There's a reason for that, and it'll all come to light in due time!

The problem was, the wall on that side of the shed had bowed maybe 2 or 3 inches over the years, so I had to do some serious shimming!

In lotsa places!

And in the end, I was able to close the gap considerably - thank goodness for caulk!

But, as you can see, it certainly adds a little interest to the shed.  But there's more of a purpose, that'll be clear another day!

Then it was time to start priming.  Ever since the shed was built it had been staine…