Andrew's View of the Week

Decisions

Posted on 04/06/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

All day today I’ve been trying to think of what to write about but there is really only one topic in my life right now – remodeling. It’s likely that the house will be torn apart for weeks, maybe months. Hopefully not years, but I’ve been afraid of that at times.

In the last week there has been some progress but I am nearing decision over load (actually think I crossed it once or twice). When I started this project I thought it would be great to be able to sit down and start picking out new things for the house. Okay, the first dozen choices were kind of fun but somewhere around one hundred, I started to lose enthusiasm. Now when the contractor asks, “Where do you want this?” a wave of terror overwhelms my brain and I have to fight the urge to just run away.

Where did the fun part go?

When they tore out the kitchen, one of the crew asked where are you going to cook. I told him that I was going to get the camp stove out. “Oh, it’ll be just like camping for you.”

Sure, except for the part where I don’t get a campfire and s’mores every night.

I will admit that some of the stuff is cool – even if overwhelming. Things like LED lighting. I remember the days when there where just two kinds of LEDs in electronics – small red and big red. Now the choices are mind-boggling and I’ve been learning all about color temperature, lumens and angles of dispersion. I thought I knew a lot about electronic and electrical systems, but wow, there’s a whole new world of stuff to learn.

I am on a bit of an LED lighting kick. LED has a number of advantages, low power and long life are top of the list. Then add to that the ability to choose the color of the light and be able to shove a lot of light into a little package and you got this old technician excited.

The part of me that does decisions isn’t so thrilled. I don’t do decisions well. It’s a problem I’ve had all my life. Look at a menu and I have no clue what to order. I think restaurants should have just three choices – small, medium and large.

I’ve never completely understood the psychology of decision-making but I think it really gets down to the fear of choosing the wrong thing. For example, say there are four kinds of ice cream, chocolate, mint, lemon and rocky road. We’ll, I hate rocky rock that brings the list down to three. Three good choices. Chocolate is good but mint is great. Lemon is a real favorite of mine, but if I pick that, I can’t have the chocolate because you’re only allowed one.

My usual response is to fret over the decision until the ice cream is all melted and the only thing left is stale cake.

Till next week,
Andrew

Posted in General | Tagged decision making, decisions, kitchen remodel, LED lighting, remodeling | 1 Comment

Wednesday Woodworking – planning the office

Posted on 04/02/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

There’s been no real woodworking going on around here. Spending most of my time just dealing with all the decisions that need to be made and then making sure the contractors do the right things. Then there’s no kitchen, my shop is filled with old cabinets and electrical parts. About the most I managed that can even come close to woodworking is that I did some design work. Since every room in the house is basically undone, we got a great opportunity to set up things differently. Years ago I built our desks in the office and I’ve redone them a couple of times trying to perfect them. Well, I am at it again. Sat down with sketchup and have come up with another design for the office. This one uses narrower desks and incorporates a shelf over the desk. As computers evolve, they are getting flatter and don’t require as much depth so I am able to make better use of the floor space.

Here’s the current concept drawing:

Concept for the remodeled office.

If you need me – I’ll be in the shop.

Andrew

Posted in woodworking | Tagged remodel, woodworking | Comments Off

Suffering from Remodel

Posted on 03/30/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

No real post this week as I have a bit of an illness. I have a bad case of remodeling and am suffering from, “Well, if you’re going open up that wall, you might as well…”

Friday we lost our kitchen. All of it, except the refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker, toaster and tea kettle. At least some small vestige of civilization remains – tea and toast. Most of the other forms of civilized living are gone – the stove, oven, walls and even the kitchen sink has been thrown out. Here’s what’s left:

At one time a stove was here.

The sink use to be here.

Our office has been reduced to two small desks, two chairs, a lamp with a long extension cord and plastic covering everything. Once I finish writing this post I’ll have to pull the plastic back over the computer so tomorrow’s demolition doesn’t fill my keyboard with drywall dust.

All of this just so I can make tea and toast at the same time.

As with any home renovation project you have to plan for the unexpected. Thursday I got a text message that they found a water pipe leaking in our home office. Our plumber agreed to come out Saturday to fix it. Which was a good thing because on Friday the crew found a second leak in a kitchen wall.

The joys of having the construction trades in the house.

I am hoping that soon we’ll be able to start some kind of a recovery but until then, we’re cooking on the back patio, washing dishes in the laundry room sink and wondering if we’ll ever get all the dust out.

Till next week,
Andrew

Posted in General | Tagged kitchen remodel, remodeling | 5 Comments

Wednesday Woodworking – The entertainment Center

Posted on 03/26/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

Preparations for the electrical project are in full swing and I’ve had no time to work in my shop this last week. Instead I dug through some older pictures and found this one that I haven’t posted of the entertainment center Heather and I finished a couple of months ago in its new home. I did the cabinet work while Heather did the finish with three coats of brushing lacquer. We like the way it turned out. We have the new internet TV on top and the DVD, VCR, turntable and sound amp below. The big empty spots are now filled with Heather’s collection of vinyl records and the drawers hold our VCR and DVD collections.

The only thing I wasn’t complete happy with was the fit of the drawers. Yes, I know they look okay but I was trying for a level perfection I didn’t achieve. It the kind of thing a guy like me thinks of. Over all I am happy with it and think it’s one of my better works of cabinetry and the first time I’ve done drawers that I’ve let come into the house. I find building drawers a bit difficult since I don’t build them much. This time I felt I did alright.