Gingerbread Building

All 3 kids enjoyed an evening of building gingerbread houses.  This year, we didn't have to bake our own gingerbread - this was a kit from Grandma W.  Kids had a blast as you can easily see:

Clean hands.  Not tonight!

Have to stop midway through for a snack.

Also midway through, we got the call from the school that Kiddo #1 is quarantined due to close contact.  That means all 3 kids will be home tomorrow (Tuesday), but boys return to school from their quarantine the next day.

All in all, it was a real good night with kookie kids.

Bagels

 I whipped up some home-made bagels this morning to try something new.  Pretty amazing good taste.  Yes, they are ugly schmugly, but they are super tasty.

Box Spring Dissection

We have given our 9 year old boy a new box spring and mattress.  He has jumped on his old bed so much that he squashed it in half.  Springs were popping out all over the place.  When we took out the old bed, it actually jingled with all the broken parts inside.  

I did some math:  15 minutes of bouncing per night for the last couple of years yields about 11,000 hours of bounce time.  

From the top down, the old box spring doesn't look too bad, eh?

But, of course, it was bad.  I'm not expert in box springs, but I think the top should be flat.

I cut off the fabric to see what lies beneath.  I found an array of broken springs and wire mesh.  I can also see my previous repairs to the wood stringers are mostly in tact.

Here's another view

I removed all the broken and loose hardware and set it aside.  

It easily filled a 5 gallon bucket.

With all that loose junk removed, the remainder of the box spring looks pretty bare.

I removed all the repairs I did from 6 months ago (which was simply adding some 2x4s to beef up the broken slats), so after this there wasn't much left.  

The good news?  Our boy has strong legs from all this bouncing, and is the fastest runner in 3rd grade.

Next up - dissect the mattress.

Fine Woodworking? A first for me.

I have ventured into the realm of furniture making the past couple of weeks in an attempt to make a coat rack with shelf.  I've always been curious to see and learn more about pocket holes, and hidden joinery, so I splurged and bought a $30 Kreg pocket hole jig.  First impression - Why didn't I buy this gadget earlier?!  I really liked it, and it opens up a lot of potential for ideas.

So, I designed my own "mission style" coat rack for the front entryway.  This is a prototype for a larger style rack for the main shoe-room of the house.  I chose red oak hardwood, and stained it in a similar color.  All joints are pocket holes, of course.

I used keyhole brackets on the back to hide my mounting hardware, so there are no exposed screwheads that are visible.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased, but I would do a few things differently.  I found that pocket holes get a little dicey depending on the grain of the wood.  I should either use an undersized screw, or drill a pilot hole into the piece to be joined.  I ended up clamping the joints in nearly all the axis to prevent splitting.  I don't think that is normal - it just so happens because of my design.

Phase 2 - take what I learned on my prototype, and apply it to a new design that is slightly larger for the main house entrance.  And, I need to find a better (cheaper) source of lumber.  All in all, a good first project and good learning experience.

Hardwood Floor Part 2

We were all so happy with the new hardwood floors in our living room that we started pulling up the carpet in the hallway. 

I'm always amazed at how gross the carpet and pad are when you peel them apart.  This is what 50+ years looks like. 

And at the same time, I'm always amazed at how well the hardwood floor beneath the carpet pad weathered those same years.  It is a little dull, but that is easy to shine right up.

It's not a big area, but it is still a lot of work.  We removed wallpaper and are painting prior to fully removing the hallway carpet.  

All Schnazzed Up

Here is Kiddo #1 all dressed up with her big monster sousaphone.  

She is the only girl sousaphone in the marching band.  

Pretty cool.  I'm very impressed!

New Paint and Hardwood Floors

 We had a rare sprint of home improvement motivation, and started painting our living room and entryway room (what I call the "shoe room") just last week.  Part of this motivation is:

1.  Cleaning up and moving the desk to a more suitable location

2.  Repairing many nail pops in the drywall, and subsequent painting

3.  Pulling out the old carpet and checking out the hardwood floors beneath.

I don't have many good "before" pictures, but below you can see how we have a ton of furniture crammed into a corner as we paint the opposite side.  Not the half-walls which are removed in pictures later.  

The breezeway entryway room.  I call this the shoe-room, but I think it is a formal dining room.  We removed the piano and all the coats and shoes from this room for this shot:

In the living room, the blue carpet was pretty faded.  

But beneath all that blue carpet is a beautiful hardwood floor.  It was in near perfect condition with only a few blemishes.

This is the shoe room leading into the kitchen.  That transition will need a little help.

We painted an accent wall, but I only have pictures of it late at night.  It is dark blue and it is a good contrast to the rest of the "latte" walls.  The patch of white on the wall is from where I removed the half walls that used to divide the 2 rooms.

I'll get more pictures in the days ahead.  But suffice it to say, these are big changes and it really makes the house feel different (in a very good way).

New Tires for the 420

This past week, I bought some new tires for the old 420.  I'm not for certain, but I would venture to guess the old tires are the original tires - circa 1987 or so.  The tire size is 26-12-12.

I measured the tread depth of the old tires, and I measured 0.200 inches - right around 3/16 of an inch. 

The new tires are Carlisle Multi-Trac, and the depth is approximately 0.430 - about 7/16 of an inch.  That is a full 1/4 inch more!  Pretty amazing.

And they look real good mounted on the 420.  I expect much better traction, so I kept my wheel weights off.  That, and all my mole hills are pretty well mashed down anyways.

An Old Tandem Bicycle

Meet Daisy.  This is an early 1960s Huffy tandem bicycle.  If you know the history of our family, you know why Daisy has a special meaning to us.

I bought this dude off Craigslist this past weekend.  It drives real nice, and has been fun for the last couple of days with the kids.  

I hope the kids and I can use it often.  I also hope the kids and their friends use it with each other.  I think it has a certain cool nostalgic flavor.  

Now it isn't named Daisy just for fun.  It's actually painted right on the chain guard! 

  

A Happy Father's Day for Me

As always, the family always make today a super special day...

1. Pancakes for breakfast.
2. Minecraft with all 3 kids
3. Brownies and ice cream
4. Little gifts of candies and cookies.

They always do a great job for me.

A Day at the Shades

We spent a day in Shades State Park in central Indiana this past Friday.  This gem of a state park is less crowded and more rugged than some of the larger neighbors, and it suits us just fine.  We had a good lookin' crew when we started out.

There's a cool log over Sugar Creek.

Lunch is always interesting on the trail.  

This is a favorite trail for obvious reasons.

Hiking is easier with a tiger in your backpack.

By the end of the day, all the kids had their shoes wet.

Sugar Creek was pretty low this time.  You could go out a pretty far ways.

It's a scenic place.

Deep, thick mud is always an inviting resource for these two.

Devil's Punch Bowl was nice and cool amidst the deep rock formations.

Tons of energy to go...

My last picture of the day.  But the fun didn't stop.  Ice cream cones  on the way home were a big hit for all.  It was a very good day for everybody.

Barn Improvements

I have been busy in the barn making work benches and shelves over the last couple of weeks / months.  

It all started with Uncle Jerry's awesome drill press.  The old Atlas drill press needed a permanent location in the shop, and moving it around from place to place by hand was getting a bit crazy.  So I made a smaller work bench specifically for:

1.  Drill press

2.  Band saw

3.  Belt sander

The fourth corner is unpopulated for now, but I can see another old power tool sitting there someday.

And more recently, I've been wanting to play some ping pong with my 14 year old daughter.  The ping pong table in the barn is awesome, but it has also served as a "catch all" over the last year or so.  I made some shelves to house all that junk.

Since we're redoing the garage, I removed all the corner shelves from the garage.  It looks really nice to not have any junk sitting in the corners of the garage, so this new shelf system will also support former garage items like car-care chemicals, gardening tools, and seasonal things.

(Tangent:  How many American garages have 2 cars plus no extra junk in them?)

I also mounted my new planer in a better fashion to be able to use it easier / quicker.  The planer bed is at the same height as my chop saw and work bench, so I can plane down long items and nothing gets in the way.  Likewise, I can put long boards on the chop saw, and use the bed of the planer to support.  

Another project I did a few weeks ago was to make this tool-tote.  I fashioned it after a friend's toolbox from work.  His is much older and has more dents and dings, hence, a lot more character.  He told me all the old ladies at work ask him if they can have it to serve as a planter for flowers.  

Thus, this is my "Old Lady Tool Tote":