John Lindal’s Blog

New Furniture

My daughter’s new furniture arrived yesterday. She has outgrown her toddler bed, and we found the perfect bedroom collection at easylife. It was discontinued, so we got the floor model at 40% off. Of course, that meant scratches, and after it was delivered, we discovered that the bottom of one of the drawers was broken loose, but nothing that a few nails couldn’t fix!

Since we want her bed to be against the wall, away from the window, one of the two under-the-bed drawer sets wouldn’t make any sense under the bed, so we put it in the closet. It fits so perfectly that I’m tempted to start believing in Intelligent Design

Working Out

After four years, I have finally moved my Linex workout tower inside. When we first moved in, the back living room was too chaotic, so I assembled the tower in the back yard and covered it with a tarp. Last weekend, the second tarp was finally worn out by sun exposure. My wife suggested selling the tower, since I wasn’t using it, so I hosed it down to clean off the dust and ash from the recent Station fire in the local mountains. Then, during the week, she decided it could fit in the back living room — now that all our books are finally all on the bookshelves instead of in boxes all over the floor — so I wiped it down this morning, took it apart, moved it inside, and put it back together again.

My lower back blew out in the Spring, and once I recovered, I started working out to reduce the chances of a recurrence. Now I can add pullups, dips, and lower-back-supported leg lifts to my regimen!

Gate — Part 2

Our gate finally opens all the way again! After we had it built, I carved out a notch for each hinge, but since then, the wood dried and expanded. Over Christmas, I spent a morning enlarging the notches, but it became obvious that the only way to solve the problem was to remove the vertical (partial) plank from the hinge end of the gate. I borrowed my parents’ circular saw and cut the horizontal trim plank in order to get access to the screws holding the vertical plank. After removing it and enlarging the notches in the 2×4′s on which all the planks are mounted, it opens all the way.

Bathroom Shelf — Part 2

The bathroom shelf is finally finished, and I’m quite proud of it. Originally, I had planned to simply mount the second 9 foot shelf board as two separate pieces, one on either side of the middle clothes hanger bar support. Instead, I managed to mount the board as one piece by cutting out notches for the supports. The notches at either end were easy, but the one in the middle was scary because I never fully trust my measurements and tricky because I don’t have a jig saw. But I managed it by first drilling a hole where the notch should end, then cutting straight in to the hole on both sides of the notch, and finally using my hack saw to square the corners. The board is now screwed tight to all eight brackets, so the shelf is ready to be used!

Bathroom Shelf — Part 1

Our back bathroom is huge. One entire wall is a pair 8 foot high mirror doors, spanning 9 feet. And it doesn’t have a shelf above the clothes hanger bar. What were the remodelers thinking??

Previously, I replaced the shelves in the two front bedrooms. That was easy, because there were already support boards on the walls, so all I had to do was cut to size and add some brackets.

The back bathroom is virgin wall. After a lot of measuring, I decided that the floor was sufficiently level — nothing is level or square in this house — that I could measure up from the floor at both ends to get a rough estimate of where to put the end brackets and build trust that if I mounted one, the other one would not collide with the clothes hanger bar or otherwise be badly positioned. I then screwed one bracket to the wall, tied on a string, ran it over to the other side and through the other bracket, and weighted the string down to keep it taut. After some fiddling, I got the string horizontal, which gave me the location for the other end bracket.

Today, I cut the first of the two boards that will form the finished shelf. Everybody sells 8 foot boards, which is useless for a 9 foot closet. Luckily, DoIt Best sells 10 foot boards, but they are only 7 inches wide, so I need two. Thankfully, the brackets I bought are small enough to not interfere with the clothes hanger bar but still big enough to support 14 inches of shelf.

Total score so far: four brackets mounted on the wall and one 9 foot shelf board in place. Not in that order, of course. I mounted the end brackets, cut the board, manhandled it into position, and then mounted two more brackets near the middle.

Remaining: buy more screws and a 90° screwdriver, mount four more brackets (I already drilled the holes before putting up the first board.), cut the second shelf board into two pieces to fit around the clothes hanger bar supports, screw both shelf boards to the brackets, and install some small brackets to tie the shelf boards to the clothes hanger bar supports.

Second Shower — Part 2

The second shower is finally finished. We originally had it done back in December, but the original mounting for the shower wand proved to be just as flimsy as my wife predicted. After my daughter tugged on it and it fell down on her — just a bruise, but still! — I dismantled it, since nothing was better than a constant danger. A couple of weeks ago, I finally found myself at DoIt Best, and took the time to scour the aisles for something, anything, which would be suitable. I finally found it in the electrical department, of all places. The shower arm we were using to hold the shower wand mount screwed perfectly into a mounting box for a pair of outdoor security lights. It’s not a perfect color match, since the box is white, while the wall tiles are almond, but it’s rock solid.

The scary part was drilling the tiles, of course. After finding several web sites with essentially the same advice (DoItYourself.com, total-ceramics.com), I tested it out on a leftover tile — identical to what I would have to drill — and it worked beautifully! So I marked the shower tile, drilled one, adjusted the other mark due to drift, and got really lucky with the second hole — it didn’t drift much — so the holes aligned and I was able to mount the box.

Now I just have to pray that the tile isn’t under too much stress and doesn’t crack overnight!

Closet lights

I have finally mounted the lights in our back living room closet — one for the closet in general and one for the corner with all my tools — after months of putting it off due to an irrational fear of drywall screw anchors. (I could hear that there were no studs where I wanted to mount the lights.) Now, it’s pretty silly to worry about anchors not holding when one is mounting ultralight fluorescent lamps, but my phobia started back when I was mounting curtain rods, shortly after we moved in. A curtain rod supported only with drywall anchors will not stay up if somebody gives the curtain a good yank. I was very fortunate that almost all the screws I put in went into the wood framing the windows, but one in particular missed, and I thoroughly messed up the insertion of the anchor, so even to this day, that particular screw is just for show. This time, however, I managed to insert all four anchors flawlessly, so the lights are rock solid — unless somebody decides to use one of the lights as a pull-up bar

Gate

We finally have a gate for our driveway that opens all the way and allows our cars to be driven through — again thanks to Peter H. Cease, Lic #687167. The old gate was two sections, and one section could only open partially because the gas meter blocked it. The new gate is a single section, sized to fit the usable space, and a fixed fence spans the remaining gap. My wife designed it beautifully, and Peter built it solidly to last.

Home Theater — Part 3

The optical cable works perfectly. Now our CD player feeds into our Denon receiver. Most CD’s don’t sound right with 5.1, but they work great in stereo mode. And my wife can finally enjoy her Moulin Rouge CD, because it sounds fantastic in “rock arena” mode

Home Theater — Part 2

The JBL speakers sound phenomenal! My daughter loves it. When she watches Shrek, it’s like she’s seeing it for the first time. She gets so excited now, instead of just sitting and watching.

I put the finishing touches on the wiring today. All the audio now goes directly to the Denon receiver, instead of via the TV. The Sony DVD goes directly to the TV, while the Sony VCR and APEX DVD are multiplexed by the receiver, so I can use a single input on the back of the TV for both. This finally gets the APEX DVD off the top of the Sony DVD, so everything runs cooler. If you’ve never heard of APEX, it’s an unknown brand, but it plays anything, no matter how damaged. Sony normally chokes on damaged DVD’s.

The only remaining issue is to connect the Aiwa CD player to the receiver, since the Sony DVD player cannot handle our CD’s. The optical digital cable is on order