solarbird | The only joy is the joy of duty. Work, work, work. John Whorfin will lead us to victory. Work, work, (Reply)

tinlail have been coming over the last couple of days and helping with Din / apartment two. Cheryl's mostly been responsible for the removal of boatloads of spackle dust and more paint splatters than I'm happy talking about; Joe's done a lot of all sorts of things, in particular, wrestling with the Contact Paper Nemesis and reattaching radiator covers.

It's been a lot of work on and off for years now, but we're kind of at the "last 30 minutes" phase on Changing Rooms, only for a much larger space and without the off-camera set of builders helping out. But regardless, people other than me can finally see where it's all been going.

spazzkat made me giggle when he looked around while stopping by and said Thom would be proud.

There'll be pictures, of course. Oh yes, there will be pictures. And commentary. There's been a bit of improvisation and a lot of working around problems and oh yeah, I need to get two experimenter's boxes at Radio Shack tomorrow, because the undercounter lights are set up to be wired by people who understand extension cords and not much else. That's probably for the best, really, but I won't have endless bundles of wire running everywhere, and I also need to remember to stop by Stone Way Hardware and get more bronze-plated screws, before I forget to mention that somewhere too. Hopefully they have more in stock, now.

I'm really pleased with all sorts of little things, now that they're finally being put in place. I couldn't get the drawer pulls I wanted in bronze, so I got them in lacquered brass, got that stuff off using the MOST TOXIC SUBSTANCE I'VE EVER USED IN MY LIFE (heavy-duty chem gloves REQUIRED, outdoor use ONLY), and aged them to nearly black in an acid solution - and now they match the bronze door pulls perfectly. I couldn't get new hinges for the cabinet doors - of any kind, they're not made in these shapes anymore - so I boiled the several layers of paint off the old ones, wire-brushed them clean, and hit them with several thin layers of metallic hammer-texture paint - and it worked. (Four kinds - some chrome, some stamped steel, some two different kinds of brass - now look kind of like they might have been meant to go together, even if the shapes are totally different. It's neat.) The head-height outlet in the breakfast nook set into a surface-mounted metal box matched by another, blank-faceplate surface-mounted metal box on the opposite wall have been replaced with lights again, for the first time in, I'd guess, 45 years; but since there nearly wasn't the depth necessary for even a shallow box behind the plaster, I had to come up with something to add wall depth and build it using a table saw...

Right. I'll wait for the pictures. It's just neat that other people can finally see it, instead of just me. ^_^

In other news, 5026 was on the market as of yesterday, and we've got someone interested, at least a bit. So that's nice. We'll see if anything happens.