What up boo?

Chairs and Stuff

The boys upstairs have been slaving away at the old casa for a few months now. Mamma Kass gave us the gift of two brand spankin' new chairs for our living room! They are beautiful and perfect for game night. The bathroom is coming along nicely too. Expect to see complete before and after photos soon but in the mean time check out the progress pending panorama image.

Time Stamp, 12:29 AM

In the famous words of Austrian journalist Karl Kraus, "A journalist is stimulated by a deadline. He writes worse when he has time." That certainly applies to our tiling efforts. Stimulated, indeed. With visitors coming for a wedding over Labor Day weekend, we had to have a proper toilet and shower. The shower in the basement, which is oh-so-very San Quentin, is not up to snuff for hosting guests. Ditto for the outhouse below. Reminds me more of Jame Gumb's split-level hell ("It puts the lotion on the skin...") than the shiny thrones at The Drake.

Thus, late nights ahead. Sawing tiles in the dark. Caulking during the Cubs post-game show in WGN radio ("This is the year!"). Post-work beers at 1 AM. The deadline was met. The trim plumbing was installed. The guests could refresh and relieve in real facilities.

Beyond Subfloor

Uncle Mark, remodeler extraordinaire, brought his tools, energy and vast knowledge to help us lay down our hexagonal tile.
The toughest part was setting a pattern. We bought one square of black and the rest was white so we could establish our own black-white pattern. Yikes. What a pain in the arse. After a long discussion worthy of a mathematics seminar we established one black dot seperated by 8 white tiles north, south, east and west. We wanted just a touch of black to bring in the black bar and the light fixtures without loooking like that Tom Petty-cum-Alice-in-Wonderland video. I think we accomplished a nice balance. We like.

Grouting was suprisingly time consuming for such a small floor area. Well, there's a boatload of grout lines so of course it makes sense in retrospect. Like all aspects of this remodel, it took at least twice as long as we thought. I scoff at our "We can knock this out in a couple of hours" fantasy speak. HA! August 1st we were so naive, and now in early September, our awareness has grown with regards to the frustrations of updating a room.

A double-shout-out to Uncle Mark. He would not let us get a picture of him to post on the blog. Something about his SAG card being out of date, so we sniped this one without his knowledge. Nice caboose, Mark! Toot-toot.

Drwall Drama

Our drywall guy, A________, was bad. Well, I suppose that's not true. He was good for someone who was doing a fairly precision job under the influence of several beers.

He showed up late, left early, took lots of breaks and what was supposed to be a 2 to 3 day job turned into 5, with happy hour starting on the 4th day at around 10:45 AM. It was stressful, frustrating and disappointing. We just wanted the dude out of our house. What's so stupid is we agreed to a flat fee and so the longer he took the less he made per hour. We thought maybe he just wanted to come over.

After he finally finished, on a Sunday morning, he had the cojones to ask for the remainder of his payment in cash. HUH? He said his check cashing place charged $5, so we gave him a fiver and said hurry up and get the heck out, fella. Or something along those lines. He said he'd come back to sand down the joints and we said when hell freezes over...

So we sanded, with the help of Treavor. And the walls were ready for painting and tile. YES.

The beauty of sanding is the dust gets carried on any air flow and settles on everything.






Naturally, Karen and the compound's new favorite toy, the wet-dry vac, went to town. Karen makes cleaning sexy!

From the Outhouse to the Penthouse

We love grilling at the Compound. Always have. Our grills, though, have not always been up to the standards we'd like in order to produce the food we really want to eat. But we've managed.

First you have the classic Li'l Smoky, which worked hard and served it's purpose. Though squatting over that grill-ette on the gangway at our previous place on a cold January evening tryint not to burn my first homemade sausage was a challenge I'm glad I'm beyond.

Next came the Aussie Walkabout (Mate!). Only $40 at home depot. You can roll it to the lake front. You see these all over the place near the beach on a summer day. Very serviceable. Definitely more room and can hold more coals (read: more heat). But the grate was too thin and had a weird cross pattern so you couldn't get those powerful grill marks. But still, not having to squat down anymore, we could hardly complain.

And now, we have reached the pinnacle of grills. Dale and Donna have facilitated a little trip to the charcoal promised land. A couple of sundays ago they brought the Weber Performer. (Cue the angel choir).

I just can't do a gas grill. You can't get that same smoky flavor. Of course the lazy detractors say, "It takes too long to get the coals started and its messy." Tasting better never takes too long. Pure gas grills are merely outdoor ovens that make men feel like they are "grillin'". Come on! The Performer's got the best of both worlds as it uses gas to light the coals, but the coals do the cooking. And look at the room on that side table for your beer, or whatever else. There's a nice bin for your coals and hooks for your tongs and spatulas. Direct heat, indirect heat, hot smoking, you can almost do it all. Plus it's called The Performer, which is cool.

Much thanks to Donna and Dale for not only getting us the grill, but bringing it over ASSEMBLED. A bonus gift.

Operation New Latrine

Progress continues. We are edging toward the finish line. Thank god, cuz look at our current facilties. Yes, the blue tape was removed, but what kind of a low-rent bum would actually enjoy making mud on that throne?!




That which does not destroy me only makes me appreciate a pristine porcelain crapper that much more! Oh sweet American Standard! Sloan, Sloan, wherefore art thou? Toto, why hast thou forsaken me? Crane, come to daddy! Poor Treavor is clearly running out of patience...

Interesting plumbing info of note: did you know that Toto makes a toilet called the Guinevere? What does that say about Arthur, or Lancelot for that matter? The best named sewage facilitator the Japanese comode concern produces is called the "Neorest". "Neorest".

Let it sink in. Calming, isn't it?

Surely a place the Dalai Lama himself could visit to see a man about a mule.


















Anyway, enjoy the progress pictures and thanks for your prayers, tea and sympathy.






For more weird outhouse info see:

http://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm