but we will make you beautful, organized, and useful by the end of this weekend.
Then it was time to start the REAL labeling, none of this blue tape nonsense.
I started taping off a label area. Normally I would have gotten all nerdy and measured out the same size label area on every box, but I know Chris just wants to get this project done, so I gave in and didn't get out my ruler and right angle.....damnit!
Then I got out our tinted primer (regular primer mixed with all of the sample colors we don't use) and put on a coat
And THEN I got out the chalkboard paint and put on two coats, 5 hours apart with light sanding in-between, waited a little while and peeled off the blue tape and VIOLA!
(I left the small pieces of blue tape at the bottom of each box so I know quickly what's in each one when I REALLY label them)
Now, all we need is some chalk.....who would have thought with all the CRAP we have that we don't have ANY chalk? Well, at least it's an excuse to get some fun colors :)
The plan was to refinish these while they were still hanging out in the backyard and then rehang them when they were done. But they were REALLY heavy and so there was NO WAY I was going to be able to help Chris rehang them, so the guys at BAU were thankfully able to help us. We've been working on many other garage projects, so we've sorta forgotten about the doors. Until yesterday.
Before I went into work yesterday (day 17 of 17), I started refinishing the doors
So I got out the palm sander and got to work
After about 45 minutes things were looking good
I've still gotta get the sandpaper out and hand sand the moulding (bleh, not my favorite task), and I didn't get a chance to sand the front because of the rain.
The goal today is to finish the interior side (finish sanding and hopefully paint and install the handles), and get the first sanding done on the exterior (it's supposed to rain on and off today). I'm hoping over the weekend we can FINISH the doors, which includes sanding and painting the outside and installing these AWESOME big ol' beefy handles we got
(on the left all of the large clamps with be hung, in the middle will be a "counter" and a small peg board above, and on the right will be larger bags of stucco, concrete, etc.)
And of course, I couldn't forget the labels
Alas, my productivity was short lived however as I was so very very tired from work. But we almost completely finished organizing the first wine box tower (I think only one or two more boxes left) and I have a plan for some better labels :) So stay tuned :)
Chris did a great job, it looks amazing!
(don't worry, we'll put in two seams for cracking. Chris was going to do that when it was wet, but figured it would just be easier to wait until it was dry, and then cut it with the concrete blade on the skil saw)Sunday it wasn't totally dry, still a little delicate, but Chris got started on installing all the shelves we built and putting together the wine boxes. I helped a bit after I got back from work at the A's, but I was only good for about 90 minutes before I started to get delirious from being so tired (day 15 of 17 with no days off, SERENITY NOW!). But more on that tomorrow.
I planted these flowers almost a year ago from random bulbs we found all over the backyard when we moved in, and this flower popped up out of nowhere. I don't even think it was budding a couple of days ago when I was tending to the veges. There are even two more flowers about to pop.It was a pretty little sight to see.
Now comes the task of organizing all of our tools and crap that are strewn all over the house
(at least that couch isn't there anymore, it's found a home in the TV room)Last night while we were watching the basketball playoffs Chris got started shifting things around and organizing the wine boxes and what exactly will go in each of them
There's still some fine tuning, but it's looking pretty good. Now I'll just have to think of a cool label to do on the outside of all the wine boxes (because you KNOW I love labels)
After clearing out the concrete there was a significant height difference in the dirt across the ditch. We wanted it to be about 3" deep all the way across for the concrete to fill in, and we clearly weren't there yet
(that's a big gap) So we took two of the bags of small concrete pieces and emptied them into the ditch....
...and spread out the pieces to make sure the ditch was 3" deep all the way across and to level it all out. We decided to go with the ditch being 3" deep because we calculated the space and figured out that if it was 3" deep we'd only need to buy one cubic yard of concrete from a local landscaping place call Larm's
And yesterday when I got home Chris had laid down the rebar
We'll have to carefully schedule a time to do the concrete pour as I'm only on day 9 of 17 days with no day off.
(this x3 - Chris' truck can only take a ton, so we had to take 3 trips)
Most dumps don't take concrete, so we were kinda stumped about what to do. We had asked the guys at BAU where they took their's when they hauled it away for people and they said a place named Syar out in Vallejo. They had a pretty good rate, $65 for a day and you could take unlimited loads, but hauling 3 loads of concrete to Vallejo would take a lot of time, and we were trying to get rid of it before I had to go to work at the A's that afternoon.
So Chris twiddled around on that handy dandy thing called the internet and found a place in Oakland, about 5 minutes from us called Aman Environmental Construction. They do all sorts of demo, construction work, and hazardous waste management. They're based in Covina, CA, but have offices all over the country, and a concrete crushing site in Oakland off of Hegenberger. The best news of all? Each trip you take to drop off your concrete is ony $10!!! Doesn't matter how big the load, it's $10! VERY exciting. We took 3 loads total, so it only cost us $30. And we FINALLY got rid of all of our concrete in the backyard, yay!
Aman was pretty cool. The first time we got there they were running their concrete crushing machines and I watched as Chris went in to pay. The next trip we took I brought my camera so I could snap pictures of everything in action, but they weren't running them anymore
And, another cool thing...when you leave, you drive onto a grate that WASHES YOUR CAR OFF
(sorry for the crappy pic, I was trying to hold my camera out the window and not get it wet while the wash was going)
So we LOVE Aman: they're cheap, they reuse the concrete by crushing it up and they wash your car when you leave. Awesome.
With the line now cut all the way across we would break up all the concrete to the RIGHT of it. We both weren't feeling too hot that day, and we figured out that if you sat on a bucket and swung the sledgehammer, it was a lot less work for your body to do because you only had to lift it, after you got it up, you pretty much just let gravity do it's job. It took longer than normal, but it used a lot less energy
After breaking it up...
...we got out the sledgehammer to loosen it up so we could clear it out
Then came clearing it out of the space and shoveling up the loose bits, and boy was there A LOT
It took A LOT of work (thank goodness we did it in pieces, if we had done that all at once while we were sick, it would NOT have been pretty). But we got it all broken up and cleared out.Next post I'll tell you how we leveled it all out to prep for the concrete pour and where we took ALL of that concrete we cleared out (AWESOME $30 spent).
Of course with our garage in disarray and our tools everywhere, I couldn't find our garden shears, so I improvised
The kitchen knife ended up working quite well actually
I followed the directions (that I didn't know at the time but looked up later - I know, quite responsible), by cutting the artichoke about 1"-3" down from the fruited plant
After about 5 minutes I had cut off 5 plants
I left the GIANT one because it had already started opening too much and I wanted to see what the flower would look like. Last night we boiled them up for eating
The verdict: not really very good :(
There is VERY little meat to eat as the leaves are pretty tough :( and there isn't a lot of flavor (although later there is a much more intense sweet after taste than with store bought ones. At least, that's what I thought, Chris seemed to think I was crazy).
Does anyone know how we can remedy this? I was so excited to have artichokes to eat, but they're really not tasty. I'd like to figure out if we're doing something wrong or if there's some way we can make them more tender so there is more meat to eat off of them (and they were cooked all the way because the leaves were coming off of the plant extremely easily).
Any suggestions are GREATLY appreciated!!!!
