So, funny story. Some friends who own a 19th century house were having trouble with the lock on one of the kids’ bedroom doors.  They’d gotten a replacement key and had locked the door, but couldn’t get it unlocked. Knowing that I enjoy picking locks, they called me up. We talked about it, and I even examined the lock via FaceTime. After thinking about it and seeing how the key wasn’t moving, I asked “Does [the other kid] have the same kind of lock on his door? Have you tried the key from that one?” 
 

That’s right, folks: the only problem was that they’d accidentally switched the keys. 

8 hours ago, MeltedSocks said:

It was a fascinating experience,

A few years ago my dad had one put in by the VA up in Detroit. He was not sedated either and the operating room had a huge screen on the ceiling so that he could see everything the doctor could see. 

Good luck on the drive, hope it is no worse than Vacation.

I haven't had time to do any blacksmithing for a long time.  I'm too busy with a huge cabinet job, and I'm also having to convert the space above my workshop from a finishing room to a living/work space.

My 63 year old worn out, limping, and hurting body hauled 18 sheets of drywall up a flight of stairs, installed it, then started taping/mudding it.  I called a drywall gal who is a master of her trade to get an idea of what she'd charge me to do the hard part.  The electricians could butcher up drywall by moving recess can lights, switches, and outlets, and this gal will come in and in a single day and make it perfect, including the texturing.  I knew of her from all these remodeling jobs we work on.  Eight hundred dollars, cash, for level 3 finishing.  She's coming Monday and Tuesday with 20 minute mud.  In and out quickly. 

I'll do the texturing.  I'm pretty good at that.

In the meantime, I jointed one edge of, cut to width, and planed down 45 cedar fence pickets.  It was the cheapest way to do a real wood shiplap ceiling.  I'm going to do a light grey, semi-transparent stain on the cedar, paint the walls light blue with some unopened paint I scored for free five years ago (hope it's still good), and install a grey-ish/brown-ish LVT floor.

Last thing will be a mini-split system.  I'll install it and let a friend of mine do the charging. He's kind to me when he presents his bill.

It's 12' x 24' approximately with a 90" ceiling height.  When I ordered the trusses, the rep suggested raised-heel attic trusses instead of standard trusses.  So thankful for that advice.

The florescent lights will be replaced by can-less recessed LEDs.

Heck of a lot of work Nate, looks great!!

--Larry

Thanks, Larry.  I haven't planted a garden in two or three years because I was waiting for whatever forever herbicide that was in this compost I spread all over my garden to be diluted down enough to not kill my plants.  I tried a garden last year, but the plants shriveled and failed to thrive due to the suspected aminopyralid contamination.

I got a late start this year, but decided to try all these seeds that had been in my shed for two hot summers.  Things are going great, so far.  From left to right, I've got a row of Seminole pumpkins, a row of zucchino rampacante, then a row containing cucumbers, arugula, Chinese cabbage, and cilantro.  Next is a row of green beans (bush), then a row of okra, then a row containing tomatoes, an eggplant, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, carrots, radishes, and sorrel (only one seed out of a 500 germinated ).  I didn't intend to plant the row on the far right, but all these okra plants started sprouting from the ones I planted last year (tilled under a few pods), so I planted more arugula and put pine straw around the okra plants.  There are also a couple of pepper plants that popped up, too.

Lastly, I've never showed off this garden hoe I made a few years ago.  I copied one I saw in an advertisement.  It gave me the opportunity to do a forge weld, too.  This is one of my favorite homemade garden implements.  Lay it flat to skim the weeds off the top.  Use the point to surgically remove weeds.  It works great.

Here are the stained cedar boards I'm going to use for the nickel-gap ceiling.  Drywall gal is doing her thing as I type this.

Fingers crossed for your garden this year but it looks to be off to a great start! Interesting hoe design, may have to try something like that at some point.

--Larry

Almost finished the nickel-gap ceiling today.  I'm happy with how it is turning out.  $150 for the cedar pickets.

I'll fabricate some matching cedar trim for the drywall-wood transition, but will do that after I'm done painting.

The drywall gal did a great job.  I paid for level 3 but she basically did level 4 (she just can help but being good).  I used an inspection light and did a couple rounds of touchup mud and sanding.  The result is almost as good as the level 5 drywall on this old Victorian remodel I'm working in. The dried mud absorbed the primer differently than the paper on the drywall, so you can tell where the seams and screws are, but that should go away with a couple layers of paint.

I found a few imperfections after priming the drywall, which I'll take care of before painting, but otherwise, it looks really good.  I'm glad I didn't have to texture it.

I found some LVT at Lowes that compliments the ceiling.  Hopefully, I'll get that done this week.

Well okay.  I learned something new.  Unless you do a level 5 finish (everything skim coated), the mud will always show under the paint.  The light from the window and door grazes the surface, making the difference very noticeable. Bummer.  Now I have to spray orange peel texture. 

I've sprayed texture before on my own DIY projects, so I know how to do it, but I was wanting to skip this step due to time constraints.

I like to texture with a roller and then knockdown.  Pretty subtle texture with minimal cover needed.  I really enjoy the knockdown process and the look too!  

I painted on two coats of flat on the slant.  That fixed the problem.  Very happy with how it looks now.

The pic angle and lighting makes the angled part on the right look like it is bubbling down. 

Pretty cool though and definitely not something i would attempt. 

Nah.  It's flat.

This was actually in the shop, but in my defense, it was someone else's shop. I'm in Maine on a business trip and had enough time in my schedule to drive up to Vassalboro and meet bladesmith Nick Rossi. Very cool guy, and we had a good chat. I left having acquired a new friend and a serious case of Beaudry envy.

I'm doing the LVT flooring today and hope to be finished tomorrow.

I finished the flooring, did a little trim work, then pivoted to installing the mini-split.  I need to get that room cooled off before I do much more work in there. I have a friend who is a semi-retired 70-something year old HVAC pro who is going to cut off the flare fittings on the indoor unit and silver solder the the lines together (more reliable) and do the vacuum/gauge stuff.

The garden is producing nicely.  I love the whole farm-to-table thing.  Tonight I'm making an arugula salad, sauted zucchino rampacante, blanched and sauted green beans, and a protein to go with them.  Maybe cornbread.

I spent today making an attic access door.  I think you'd call it a single hung door?  It took all day figuring stuff out, but tomorrow, the second one should be quicker.  These will be airtight like exterior doors, and insulated with a few inches of rigid foam insulation. The door itself is just doubled up 3/4" cabinet-grade plywood.

I'm getting near the finish line.  Just some painting and outlet covers.  I sprayed the baseboards and quarter round before installing it, but the rest needs paint.

My semi-retired, 70-something year old HVAC friend who only works when he wants to work blew me off two days in a row...no show, no call, no text.  Luckily, I had a gut feeling he wouldn't come through, so I ordered an installation kit from Amazon ($150).  It was pretty straight forward.  Lots of videos on youtube on how to install these mini splits.

I ran another 230V 30 amp circuit for this, too.

Over the past several days we worked on Debi's raised herb garden, filled the Black & Decker frame with dirt and I made a trellis for her climbing roses. Digging the rather deep hole for them was a job in our rocky ground then filled it with good potting soil. All in all a good day.

I can’t control the wind. All I can do is adjust my sails. ~Semper Paratus~ USCG 1964-1970

Went to the Aman Amarth DethKlok concert last night with my youngest and her and boyfriend.  Forgot I'm pushing 50 and landed on my knee in the mosh pit.   It's sore today but no swelling.  DethKlok managed to break the venue, causing an electrical issue that ended the concert early.   

I was sitting on my porch this weekend and stood up. About blew my knee out and had to sit back down for about 20 mins or so then limped into the house for a cold drink. No way on God's green earth would i willingly get into a mosh pit again. 56 and those days are long behind me. 

A blacksmithing-related item, OUTSIDE the blacksmith shop but INSIDE the yarn shop:

I had been discussing a railing project with some folks here in town several months ago. They had liked the original sketch, but wanted to see a scale drawing. A whole lot of life (and other projects) intervened, but I decided to start a half-scale drawing while I was helping cover the yarn shop over the weekend (Lisa being out of town). Sunday afternoon, I had just finished the basic drafting (apart from some details of the decoration) when the couple walked in to get some yarn! They liked the drawing, and things are moving forward.

Congratulations on the commission! Have you done a railing before? 

Have I what a what?

But to be clear, I don't have the commission yet. I still need to do a test piece of the decorative detail and come up with a cost estimate.

Haha, I should have remembered those!