Monthly Archives: October 2008

Pressure Washing the Patio

  By jaguar | October 30, 2008 - 11:45 am |
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Cleaning the patio never really occured to me until one day I was messing around with the hose and noticed that it looked alot whiter after spraying it in one spot for awhile.  Of course the hose wasn’t really strong enough to clean it well, what I needed was a pressure washer.  My friend Greg recently got one and was kind enough to let me borrow it.  The difference it made was amazing.  After a few hours my patio looks brand new.  The only problem is that now I need to edge it, which of course means I need to buy an edger.

Fireplace Door

  By jaguar | October 16, 2008 - 3:47 pm |
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Since we decided not to mess with the firebox, nor replace the rather ugly gas logs, we got a nice door to cover it instead.  The door with its tinted glass looks a lot nice than the bare fireplace did, and hides the old brick as well.   Choosing a door was a bit of a scare.  We first went to a specialty fireplace store, and while they had some very nice doors, the cheapest was at least a grand.  Far more than we were looking to spend.   Fortunately,  Lowes had a handful of doors for around $250, and we liked this one just as well as any of the far more expensive ones.  I’m finding that this is frequently the case, a specialty store will have a better selection, however everything is an order of magnitude more expensive than Lowes, and the quality doesn’t seem to be significantly better.  Installing the door over the stone veneer was a bit tricky, but I was able to screw it directly into the brick without to much trouble.

Cutting Trim

  By jaguar | October 10, 2008 - 2:27 pm |
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I’ve been a bit lax in working on the family room lately, for a variety of reasons.  Firstly we moved the couch and the TV into the room, which of course meant that I could now relax and enjoy my new skylights.  Second, the new TV season has come around and laying on the couch watching TV just seems like more fun.  Regardless last night I finally got off my duff and starting working on the 2nd part of the trim work.  This includes the extension jams for the window, as well as the trim that goes around the pass through to the kitchen.  It’s all been cut, sanded and has a coat of stain on it now.

I’ve been using this sturdy Craftsman tablesaw, that used to be my grandfathers.  My mother tells me that he quit smoking for a year to save up for it, and I figure its getting near to 50 years old now.  I bought a nice new blade for, and it works pretty well, however the blade does seem to wobble a bit.  That means the cuts need a bit of sanding afterwards.  I’m not sure if this can be fixed or not, but I’m going to poke around abit and see.