Happy Worldwide Pinhole Photo Day!

This is my zero image submission to the WWPPD site this year.


An alternate. Fake flower in a puddle left over from a Mexican wedding.


The weather was really too grey this year. I like pinhole photos that are either really contrasty/greyscale or super saturated with color.

2009 pinhole image (since I never posted it here). It's a reflection of the sun in a puddle on my driveway.


The good news. I am slowly mastering printing!

Where are all the rest?

After we do a bunch of photos, this is what she asks me. I don't know. Most people don't understand the difference between good and bad light. Here are some in bad light (since she went through the trouble of humoring me while I snapped away).

Granola girl


Ruler of the Underworld in Pink Hearts


Serious play time

Day Off: Homeschool

Sometimes I like to give her a day off from the public school madness and do something that actually seems meaningful. We went to Wright Woods for a nature hike, wrote some friendly letters to relatives, did "book club", and watched a video about volcanoes. Some things we talked about on our hike...

Pollen, fragrance, bees


Why do vines grow on those rocks in the middle of the woods?



Glaciers


Why some flowers have "hair"


The symmetry of webs


Reasons these are shaped like umbrellas


How a fern and moss are different



Life sprouting from the dead


Poisonous?





How many types of fungi there must be



Fall leftovers


Tip ups make good animal homes



Late bloomers


These


Reasons animals we thought were nocturnal are out


Can cameras record reflections?


And then to the park for recess.

Project finished!

My kitchen project is essentially done. Yesterday was the final day of plumbing after the countertops were installed. Goal complete: a modern, budget friendly, functional, easy to clean kitchen. I have one last piece of trim and then I'll touch up the walls.


The Kitchen Weeble spread her fairy sawdust and made sure the contractors did well by her. She's been on my window sill for a few years now. Has anyone in the house even noticed her?!


Because integrated sinks are so coolly hygenic and ergonomic at once...

Dishwasher Bargain!

The new dishwasher was delivered yesterday. Got it from Abt. It was the Consumer Reports best buy of the year two years in a row which is good enough for me, as doubtful as I am about these things. Fully insulated! Now we can watch TV while it runs. The installer guy did a nice, clean job.

Got a great deal. Waited for a $30 price drop + the 15% off Energy Star Products Day. Paid about $70 less than usual price. AND... I'm sending in my $25 rebate today so that's a good deal!

Before


After


It looks like the Home Depot in Vernon Hills wants my money for countertops. This morning I picked up some sample colors. Here we go...

Toe kick pieces - done!

I finally finished it! (I have one tiny piece left to do, but that'll come after dishwasher installation next week.) I had to go to the store a few times for different nails until I found ones that worked, but overall it went well. Need nails? Need a little scrap of oak veneer? Call me.




Here's how I did it. Measure, remeasure. Score veneer on front and back with razor knife. Crack it. Check edge for smoothness. Sand down a bit. Measure where cabinet edges will poke through. Mark veneer. Cut notches. Dampen veneer backside. Apply Gorilla Glue. Drill pilot holes. Hammer in gigantic Ringshank Underlayment 1 1/4" nails. This is the only stuff that would hold it to the "hard board" junk beneath it.

My cabinet restoration is done. My part of the kitchen rehab is pretty much done. Now, we call in the professionals for the dishwasher and counter/sink.

A project stalled...

for just a short time. This week I'm sick. I wanted to tackle the toe kick board issue earlier. Today's Wednesday. I made it to the gym for a whopping 10 minutes. Too boring. I went home and skated for 45 minutes. An excellent time! I love that my little girl skates, even in snow.


Enough slacking. Sickness is no excuse. I had a few ideas about how I could finish off the toe kicks. See this ugly brown board at the bottom of the cabinet? Why would Mr. C. have installed THIS? (I just call the previous owner "Mr. C." because he shares the name of the dad from Happy Days. If you remember, you know it!)


Here were my ideas:
Idea 1: Strip the weird brown paint. Stain the right color.
Effort: Failed. The brown stuff is unstrippable.

Idea 2: Take the boards off, flip them over, sand, and stain them.
Effort: Failed. Cannot remove boards. At all.

Idea 3: Go to home improvement store and see if they have toe kick veneer to tack onto ugly brown boards. Turns out the ugly brown boards are made of "hard board" and they are available to purchase. Why would anyone want this in their house? It's ugly. And hard.
Effort: Put on hold. They have the veneer in stock and it's not too much - two pieces @$17 each. Fine. I decided I was too sick to make a purchase today and that I needed to return home and remeasure. Head is too cloudy.

Saturday is dishwasher buying day. See you at Abt.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you. May all snakes or druids or whatever be driven from your town in a timely fashion today.

Cabinets... cabinets... patience!

Home improvement takes patience. Something I'm not known for. This cabinet project took 4 days.

I was tired of looking at my dirty beat up cabinets and wondered how I could improve them rather than pay $10K to replace them (not worth it in my case whether we end up staying here another 6 years or get to move next year). Anyhow, it turns out a lot of older folks are totally into oak cabinets. Who knew.

I bought 22 cabinet pulls, laid out my tools, held my breath, and started drilling the first set. I used my templates to mark the holes, drilled pilot holes, drilled final holes, and then screwed in the handles. It turned out great! I did most of the work on the first day and it took me about two hours.

The door template. (I heart geometry!)


The drawer template.


Luckily there were only 2 doors and 2 drawers that needed to be removed, sanded, and restained. This is how I did it: sand it, stain it, sand it, stain it, sand it, polyurethane it. Whew!

Original condition of the one door. So sad.


A sad, scratched up drawer.


Cabinets with drilled holes.


A drawer with the pull installed.


The restored cabinets with the pulls.

Ta-da!

After the cabinets were finished, I made a pair of little curtains to give us some color and privacy. They actually look good!

Boob Lights

I saw some swanky HGTV design program where a pregnant designer and her fancy male sidekick balked at installing boob lights. You know what these things are, right? The first time I saw one I shielded my child's eyes. Did you? Anyhow, this stupid designer was dumbfounded that people would actually buy these things.



Dear swanky and vacuous designers,
Do you want to know why people buy boob lights? Because they are $13 for a 2-pack at Home Depot and normal people who PAY THEIR OWN BILLS and have children don't have time to comb through thousands of lamps at second hand stores for $200 lights that they will have to repaint anyhow! Also, it's a ceiling lamp that you will only turn on 5 times a year and that no one is EVER even going to notice, much less YOU. Also, did I mention it's a ceiling lamp? If you think you will lose sleep about having a boob light you probably need to get out and do some volunteer work, pronto!

By the way, my husband is credited with installing these. And I am appreciative. Goodbye for now. The boobs are currently off.

Handy: Being versus learning

There are some things that are logical. Patching walls, for instance. But cabinets? Everyone seems to have their own way for fixing them. I decided to degrease and then try some Formby's. We'll see what happens. The degreasing alone took 2 hours. I also bought 22 cabinet handles to install. I don't think they'll look the greatest, considering how the cabinets look to begin with. But after I spend all this time rehabbing the wood it'll save them in the future.

For the next two weeks I'm full steam ahead!

I've stripped the wallpaper and then patched and painted the entire kitchen and two hallways. Handy rating: 4.5 out of 5. I could have done better if I'd worked slower, but I'm too impatient. it was exhausting!


I ripped out the weird hallway door, camouflaged the holes, and installed some organizational stuff since we don't have a proper mud room. The door stopper stays for spontaneous kitty play. I even carried that darned door out of the house by myself without any damage! Handy rating: SUPER handy!


You'd never even know there was a 2 inch hole here. Would you?! Handy rating: not even needed - I'm a natural now.