Spring is Springing...

"Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I

And hailed the Earth with such a cry

As is not heard save from a man,

Who has been dead, and lives again.

About the trees, my arms I wound;

Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;

I raised my quivering arms on high;

I laughed and laughed into the sky"

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I And hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky, - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15416#sthash.7WJiWPTz.dpuf

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I And hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky, - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15416#sthash.7WJiWPTz.dpuf

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I And hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky, - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15416#sthash.7WJiWPTz.dpuf

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I And hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky, - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15416#sthash.7WJiWPTz.dpuf

Happy Spring from the House of C and E!

Catching Up...

Ok, it's been too long since we've posted anything to the blog, and we've heard you.  The BOTH of you (you know who you are).  But message received and before another season passes, here are the latest updates on recent projects:

Project #0: H.A.L. - COMPLETE
This project is getting the "0" designation because it was never really a project, at least not in the regular sense that projects tend to go in this house: long, drawn-out, potentially over-thought endeavors.  This "project" pretty much came together quickly and was executed relatively effortlessly.

We needed a new thermostat.  The one that came with the house was an old school mercury dial switch.  Classic. However not programmable (which isn't a deal breaker) and not calibrated.  When we first moved into the house and the first hot weather hit, we turned on the AC.  The dial was set to about 72 degrees and we went to bed.  When we woke up the next morning, the house was a frigid 60-something degrees.  Over the months, we've deciphered the conversion factor relating the temperature that we'd like to the temperature specified on the thermostat.  And we were ok with that arrangement until last fall when I got bit by the techy-gadget bug.  The culprit: the Nest learning thermostat.

I saw it at a Lowes months prior.  It looked so cool.  Then I saw the price tag: $250.  How the heck can you justify spending that kind of money when there are perfectly good programmable Honeywell thermostats sitting right there for $75?  It was a pass on the Nest.

Then Black Friday hit and I got an email from Lowes saying that the Nest (first generation) was going on sale.  And we had gotten a gift card from friends for Lowes.  Those two money-saving opportunities made the Nest much more competitive in price.  So we bought one.

Installation was a breeze.  When I removed the old thermostat, which had a bigger footprint on the wall, I had to paint the wall first before I could mount the Nest.  Even with that extra step of painting, it took almost no time to install the Nest.  Once it was mounted and powered up (and connected to the WiFi) it immediately updated to the latest version of software.  That's too cool.  And then the learning began.

After about a week of us just using the Nest like a regular thermostat, it learned enough of our habits to program a schedule for heating, etc.  It makes recommendations for lowering/raising temperature settings to help save energy and money.  It gives you daily reports of how much energy the house used the previous day.  It even senses when people are home.  That's almost too creepy to handle.  Therefore we named our Nest thermostat (yes, you actually have to give your Nest a name when setting it up): H.A.L.  When a glowing red eye on a wall wakes up when you walk by and gives you suggestions about how you should live certain aspects of your life, you must name it H.A.L.

Here he his, keeping all systems nominal:

I'm half-expecting to come home one day and find that none of my keys will unlock the doors.  And then through a window I'll call to H.A.L., telling him to open the doors.  And he'll reply very calmly and coldly: "I'm sorry, I can't do that."

Project #1: Dining Room - COMPLETE
As you remember, we got the table and chairs last October from "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Roy Martin" and they're just lovely.  We finished all the painting - white chair rail and below (see the post on how to get clean straight lines) and hung curtains in the windows.  We're pretty happy with how the whole room came out:

Project #2 - Kitchen fume hood/microwave - COMPLETE
We've been itching to replace the fume hood/microwave shelf over the stove since we moved in.  It provides good light and ventilation, but it really does protrude into the space over the stove.  Using some Christmas gift money, we found a great microwave/fume hood replacement.  Here's the old hood:

It was more difficult to remove than I was expecting.  The hood was supported by hangers mounted on the wall and the fan/exhaust extended up into the cabinets above it.  After much tinkering combined with simple brute force, we got the hood out:

The new microwave-range needed to mount into framework of cabinetry above it.  Since our cabinets were facade only, we needed to build some framework into the fake cabinets:

And we had to wire in an outlet box so we can plug the microwave to a power source:

Once the framework was in place and mounting holes drilled, it only took about three attempts to get the microwave mounted:

It really has freed up counter space.  So nice.

Project #3 - Painting the Powder Room - STARTED, IN PROGRESS
One project I wanted to finish before classes started up in January was to paint the powder room.  It's a very small room, almost closest-like.  How hard could it be?  As you can see from the status, it ain't done yet.

In the past, when trying to determine the color to paint other rooms, we usually would get about 10 samples and paint test spots on the walls.  I didn't want to do that much work for painting such a small room like the powder room.  So, we went to our local hardware store, got some paint swatches and brought them home.  We decided on an aqua-blue-ish color.  The next day, I bought a quart of said blue paint, brought it home, and painted some of the walls.  Nope, not a good color.

So we decided to give the sample-free swatch method one more go.  Changing gears, we settled on an orange.  And this is ORANGE.  On paper, it's looks like it's too vibrant to look good on any wall (but if you're going deer hunting, then you're in luck).  The color is called 14 Carrots.  And I really liked it.  I just didn't know if it would look good on a wall.  The powder room is a small room so we figured it was worth the gamble.  It took a few days of looking at it, but we're digging it now.  I still have to finish up some edging work, but here's the (almost) finished product:

We realize the intensity of that orange can be overwhelming so if nature calls while you're here and this color is too much, rest assured, we do have another bathroom at your disposal.  As long as you don't mind walls that have been stripped of their wallpaper.  Failing that, we have some nice trees out back.

So that's a quick rundown of the latest projects.  There is another painting project we hope to get into the works in the near future.  And hopefully we'll post about it before the next Pope is elected.

If I Have Seen Further...

It's been a while since I've afflicted the interwebs with one of my posts.  I was thinking of posting about how I fixed the sagging dryer exhaust tubing running along the inside garage wall.  I just removed about 2 feet of tubing and pulled the tubing taught.  No dips for lint to gather.  Much better.  Here's the exciting photo catching all the...umm...excitement (I also ascertain that you might be jealous of my...ascertanity):

But in more exciting news (at least for me), I finalized one of C's Christmas's presents yesterday.  The headlight lenses on her car were terribly clouded over.  It's quite impressive how foggy they've gotten over the years.  Essentially, her car has the automobile equivalent of cataracts.  Here's what they looked like yesterday before I began working on them:

Really bad.  Honestly, when driving at night, the light that is projected from those lights is anemic.  Following the advice from our favorite mechanics (and in our opinion, the best mechanics in the business), I used a lens repair kit from Meguiar's.  This one:

After following the straight-forward directions carefully (it took about an hour), here's how they turned out:

They look brand new.  These photos do not do justice.  I am completely blown away as to how well this worked.  I really don't mean to sound like I'm shilling for the man, but, holy cow, I didn't expect the lenses to come out this good.  Then again I also get really excited when someone brings in free donuts to work.

So, there you go: perspective.

Merry Christmas!

Sandy Sandy-y Why-y-y-y-y

Truth be told, we were extremely lucky during Superstorm Sandy. Being quite distant from a major body of water helped immensely, and being in a town, as supposed to a more isolated subdivision or rural area, afforded us a power loss of only a matter of seconds. Overall, we lost a few shingles and one non-major branch off our largest tree. Mind you, I imagined much worse as I drank a restorative while trying to concentrate on an episode of Sherlock, mostly because the wind was blowing directly at the wall we were facing and it surely sounded as though the wall was coming down or the roof, off.

Anyhow, before the storm came, I tried to take a few photos of the fall scenes around our property that were shortly going to be, forgive me, gone with the wind, for the most part.

The Table Comes First

I haven't read this book – The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food – but I heard an interview with its author in which he said that one of its (and his) most basic sentiments is that the first thing a newly married couple should buy is a dinner table.

Well, it wasn't our first thing.

But we soon realized how much we needed one.

We had two very small tables from our respective apartments, but they didn't inspire regular dining room use or serve much of a purpose when people came over.

A few weeks ago, we went to the annual chili pepper fest a few towns over and met a woodworker named Roy Martin who specializes in dining room furniture. We had planned to go to a furniture chain store after the fest, but an hour of talking to Mr. Martin (or as he has inexplicably become known in our house, Ladies and Gentleman, Mr. Roy Martin), we were ruined for commercially produced tables. That combined with C's late, furniture-store-owning father's voice ringing loudly in her ears, saying "No veneers! Whatever you do, no veneers!", led us straight back to the Martin workshop in a matter of days.

It was a bit frightening to order something so custom. We're used to picking from a selection, not picking which leg goes with which apron with which chair with which stain...anyway, it was a heady and nervous-making experience, but Mr. Martin made us feel confident. And the table came Monday.

We'll add some better photos as we can, but here's some initial ones because we're too pleased to wait:

Do what you can to ignore the detracting surroundings. I think we did all right, don't you? Plus, we were fortunate – the maple Mr. Martin bought included pieces of tiger stripe maple, which has a particularly pretty grain. He lucked out, so we lucked out – he didn't charge us any more.

Edited to add this note/correction from Wikipedia:

“Flame maple (tiger maple), also known as flamed maple, curly maple, ripple maple, fiddleback or tiger stripe, is a feature of maple in which the growth of the wood fibers is distorted in an undulating chatoyant pattern, producing wavy lines known as "flames". This effect is often mistakenly said to be part of the grain of the wood; it is more accurately called "figure", as the distortion is perpendicular to the grain direction. Prized for its beautiful appearance, it is used frequently in the manufacturing of musical instruments, such as violins and bassoons, and fine furniture. Another well-known use of the material is its use in guitars, especially the venerated Gibson Les Paul. The Gibson Les Paul "Standard", initially manufactured from 1958 to 1960, sported a flame maple top finished in a cherry-red sunburst on a mahogany body. Today, these instruments are some of the most prized on the vintage guitar market, and as such are unaffordable to most musicians.

"During the westward expansion of early settlers and explorers into the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, curly maple was often used for making the stocks used on Kentucky rifles.”