November 20, 2010

What a Day.

This is just a mishmash of things that happened today.

I want to start with a product review.  Ok, maybe not a product review, because I don't know the name of this thing.  So it's a thing review.

Brownie gave me this thing for my birthday.  It's like a flyswatter on steroids.



She got it for me because I love tennis, and I thought it was one of those novelty items that would never work.  But it does.  It works like a bugzapper when you press two little buttons on the handle.  The "strings" just have to touch the bug and it's a goner.

Just two words of warning.  No, more than two words - two warnings.

First, once you zap the bug, release the buttons.  If the bug remains on the wires while the buttons are held down, it will continue to fry, and trust me, that smell is bad.

Second, don't use this in front of other people unless you want to be the star of a comedy on youtube.  Bugs that bob along the ceiling are hard to hit and this isn't as limber as a flyswatter, so there is a lot of swatting at nothing.  However, if you buy this for someone else, be sure you bring your video camera the first time they use it.

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Update on the cat.

He is doing fine.  I don't think he's left the yard since Thursday.  Today he even let me pick him up, carry him around, and put him in my lap.  If he is trying to get me to let down my guard, it's working.  He is still trying to spray though.  We put some blankets on the deck and he slept there a couple of nights, and tonight I moved them to the "dog room" inside the shed.  I don't know if he will sleep there though.  (Hubby assured me the dogs have been gone long enough that there is no dog smell there to bother the cat.)

Hubby, who has never been a cat lover, has been seen feeding choice pieces of chicken to the cat AFTER he told me the chicken was for us, not the cat.  

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What we did today.

Is there something in Murphy's law that when something bad happens, it should be at an inconvenient time and place?

We were supposed to have a day out today, but that didn't happen.  While Hubby mumbled and grumbled doing plumbing, I escaped to the garage to work on picture frames for Brownie.    We made two trips to Big Orange and then Hubby needed another plumbing something-or-other, and we thought we'd throw some business Big Blue's way too.

A couple of months ago, our dishwasher became just an expensive dish drainer.  It had been leaking around the door quite a while before I noticed.  Yeah, I'm that observant.  I didn't really want to replace it until the kitchen makeover was done so I've just been doing dishes by hand.  I really hate doing dishes by hand.  My hands hate doing dishes by hand.  Even with hand lotion by the sink and by the bed, my hands are always dry and cracked.  So this week, we gave up waiting and bought a new one.

Last night, Hubby pulled the old one out.   Then there was a mini flood when it leaked all over the floor, but after we got that cleaned up, we saw that the old one had leaked so long that it had taken the finish off the cabinet beside it, stain and all.  Years of abuse had done a number on the sink cabinet finish also, so I decided to refinish the cabinets around the dishwasher now and do the rest later.  Not the best plan, but then Murphy never gives much notice.

Oh and if you noticed that there is no tile in the dishwasher opening, I've got the tile to do that too.

I didn't remember to take a picture before I started sanding, but it was only a little less bad than this:


This is the pantry to the left of the dishwasher. The bottom corner is where the water dripped out of the dishwasher.

With so much of the bare wood showing, I wasn't sure the gel stain would cover evenly, so I did a trial run on the inside of the dishwasher hole where it won't show later.  It was a little darker in those areas, but the color was the same.  That's a good thing when trying to cover 1980's orange-y oak.
After one coat of gel stain:


And this is the sink cabinet to the right of the dishwasher.  It has also been sanded.


I was going to paint inside the sink cabinet before I stained the outside, but it is still too wet and I don't want to seal moisture inside. The bowl is there just in case the new line drips. So far, so good.


With one coat of gel stain:



Just last week I was thinking of getting rid of the dehumidifier because we hadn't used it in such a long time.  I sure am glad I didn't!  It's getting quite a workout drying this cabinet, and I hope it will make the stain dry faster too.

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And last, our find of the day.  We started the day giving away our old dishwasher on craig's list.  It was claimed by an appliance repairman who thought he could fix it easily.  We ended the day with a free desk.

As we were driving home from our third trip for plumbing parts, we saw the desk in someone's yard with a FREE sign on it.  Didn't look bad, so when we got home, we jumped into the beastmobile, and headed back to get it - if it was still there.  It was, and here it is:


It's not perfect of course, or it wouldn't have been free.  Probably the reason they were getting rid of it was from water damage, of all things!  It's a Bassett desk, but don't be too impressed, it's made of MDF with a thin veneer, not even hardwood on the stiles.  So no surprise that a little water did this to it:


I think we can replace that board and then paint or refinish the desk.

Until next time, may you have blessings and projects to keep you busy,
Marti