Week Two.

6/7 Thursday – I got up early today planned on a nice day at work to makeup for yesterday. When I was eating breakfast I got a call from a guy selling a standup shower floor basin that I had messaged on craigslist. It’s a Maax brand basin, neo corner, rounded sides, 36.75”. It retails for $400, he was asking $200, and I offered $130 as that’s what I planned on spending for a cheaper one. He said that was fine and I took a ride over to grab it before work. I must say it’s pretty money. After that I headed into work at 11:30 and did some more craigslist surfing. Found a queen mattress and box spring set brand new sealed with warranty for $150. Called a left a message then setup an appointment for 3:30. Went to take a look at it and that set was shit but they had a bunch of others. Really liked the pillowtop set for $289 + tax. Was a little hesitant about spending that much but decided at worst it would be the same deal I’d get elsewhere and Tara is so set on a new set rather than used. I put $50 down on my credit card and it should be arriving in their next load around 6/19. Left there and spent some time at Tara’s before getting back to the house around 7. I had a surprise visit from the lawn mowing fairy. At first I thought it was the neighbors but they were just as surprised as I was. The lawn was like a foot tall so I’m grateful for whoever it was, probably Vic. Went to the basement to patch some of the walls. The patching stuff I bought barely covered anything, what a waste of $11. Frustrated I decided to at least paint some of the walls I had cleaned with the drylock. I used 4/5 of a bucket to cover maybe 25% of the walls, but not to the ceiling. Have to decide whether to buy another 2 gallons and just do that height all around and use some extra interior latex for the rest (the portion above ground level) or cough up the cash for a whole 5 gallon bucket. At least it looks pretty good, basement is a lot less creepy now. To top it off there was $40 duct taped to my door which I think Dann probably left for groceries before he took off for Tarrytown. Now I have to get dressed to go to the bar with Tara. Hope to make it back by 1 because I have an ECMC draw tomorrow morning at 9.

6/8 Friday – Felt like shit today and by the time I made it back from work I wasn’t up for much. Tore down some shelving in the corner of the basement and hosed down a bit more wall. Only a little bit left that hasn’t been cleaned up. Febreezed the couch for a second time and took down the measurements for creating a cover. Got a few things at Walmart/HomeDepot and made it back like 10. Cleaned the kitchen. After that is was too late to really do anything that made noise so I tore up a small patch of carpet in the dining room. Really need to move some shit into the attic to make room before I do more but I bought nails to hammer some boards down tomorrow and I’ll be good to go. Hoping to really crank out some serious work this weekend.

6/9 Saturday – Saturday I spent most of the morning hammering down some boards across the trusses in the attic. Tore up the rest of the dining room carpet and threw a 6’ x 8’ patch of the last of it on the boards I nailed down. Now I at least have some storage space in the attic. I needed to move the last of my stuff out of the apartment by tomorrow so I loaded up my car and Erik followed me back with all of the paint in his. He helped pull tacks while I drew up plans for my work bench and marked off the wood I bought. We tried to drain the pool with the pump but that wasn’t happening. Took a nap after Erik left and by the time I was ready to go again it was too late to use any power tools so I went to do some more drylocking. Two and a half hours later I was out of drylock and over half the basement was done. Another 2 gallons and I’ll be good. Went to move the turtles to the house and by the time I was done it was 12:30 and I was beat.

6/10 Sunday – Went to the Allentown art festival with Tara for the earlier part of the day. Swung by Vic’s to borrow his compound miter saw and a hose after that. Started the pool draining and got to work on my bench with some seriously improved cutting power. I got the bench finished and it came out awesome. It feels good to get something finished even if it’s only a small portion of a larger project (the basement) which is itself only part of a massive entity (the house). The basement is really coming together. Also after drylocking it was the first day the floor under the breaker stayed dry. I went to Walmart and got some miscellaneous hardware, a motion sensing light for the outside, and an undersink water purifier. Cleaned up the shelves that had been in the corner and put them on the wall. Started working on a wall mount for the 13” TV I’m putting in the basement but I need to buy more concrete screws, none of the others would screw into the concrete. I figure another three days and I’ll be finished with the basement. I really like the idea of the paint on floor covering in the basement but the $62 box only covers 250 sq ft and I figure I’ve got something like 650 sq ft. I’ll keep my eyes open for more options.

6/11 Monday – Didn’t get out of work until four at which point I headed to Home Depot. After looking at options for coating the basement floor I was a little discouraged since the epoxy coating solutions were at least $40 per 250 sq ft (I’m looking to coat like 650 at least). There was an epoxy additive paint that was $25/gallon but I decided I’d hold off. Then I scored big at the Oops table. There were two gallons of concrete stain for $5 each. One was grayish black and the other brown but I figured I’ll just mix the two together and go with whatever color results, I’m not too concerned about the specific color of the basement floor. Harbor freight after that for a push broom and some rollers then it was off to Vic’s to try and get some help picking up the $50 electric stove I lined up on craigslist. Aunt Janet took a ride with me to pick it up and we left it in my backyard. Her arm has been bother her and I wasn’t about to ask her for help bringing it inside. Got my car from her house and had just enough time to have a glass of water before going to grab a dehumidifier for $75, another craigslist score. When I got back there was just enough daylight to install the motion sensing halogen lights I got in place of the standard outdoor light, well almost. I didn’t have enough time to mount it totally flush but it’s in place and working. It was about 9:30 and I needed to get the stove inside in case it rained. It was a lot of work but I managed to haul it into the kitchen myself. I got super discouraged when I plugged it in and had nothing. At this point I didn’t know if it was the line or the stove or even how to tell which was at fault. To top it off the shop light by my bench wasn’t working and I had it pegged for even more electric troubles with the house. Frustrated and exhausted I went to Tara’s for the rest of the night.

6/12 Tuesday – Got out of work at 3 to hit the doctor because I have an ear infection—awesome. When I got back I the first order of business was trimming the hedges with the trimmer I borrow from Vic (the neighbor mentioned they were having trouble seeing over the growth when they pulled out into the street). Took an hour or so but I got the hedges cleaned up really nice. I also took it upon myself to cut the hedges from the other neighbor, who I’ve yet to meet, where they were growing over into my driveway. From there I tested the 220 line for the stove with my volt meter and had no readings to mater what I did. I headed to the basement to pull off the breaker cover and investigate further. Pulled off the breaker cover and almost laughed. The 220 line running from the kitchen was cut just after the point it entered the breaker housing and wasn’t hooked up to anything. It makes sense as a 220 line should have a double slot breaker and the only one of those was for the main electric in. It was the same deal with the 220 hookup for the drier too, good to know. Although I feel confident enough to install a 220 line, breaker space is getting a little tight so I’ll probably just resell the stove and go with gas appliances, it will be cheaper in the short and the long run. While I was at it I traced the line for the shoplight. The circuit actually used the light as a pass through and the light further down the line was still working. By the process of elimination it had to be the ballast. Must’ve been a quirk that it went the day after I got my bench setup but it is what it is. I went to Lowes to return the paint roller that snapped in half on me and pickup some electric supplies. A brand new lighting fixture, ballast included, cost half the price of the ballast alone—go figure. I got the new fixture as well as everything I would need to run a 20 amp line to my work bench. I figured with the current power tools can draw I’d be better off playing it safe @ 20 amps than going the cheaper route of a 15 amp setup. The light was actually the wall socket plug-in variety but I cut the AC cord and proceeded to hard wire it into my existing circuitry. I was super pumped when after an hour or so of installing it I flipped the switch and it powered right up. I rock. Day light was fading so I wasn’t going to get a chance to wire the new line into the breaker (I need to kill the electric when I do it and would be left in the dark) but I installed the outlets and ran the cords over to the breaker so that it should take all of 10 minutes to finish tomorrow. I’ll have 4 outlets right above my bench and a supply of all the power I could feasibly be drawing. I did manage to finish the wall mounted TV stand without trouble. After tomorrow when I hookup the line I’ll have a work area to be proud of.

6/13 Wednesday – Left work today and came home to finish hooking up that 20 amp line, it went flawlessly. From there it was time to replace the rotted out base board under the sink. I got the old one out fine and it was a mess underneath. There was a ton of rat feces among the other mess. Luckily the neighbor had informed me that there was a rat problem a while ago but had been resolved since the town switched to the garbage totes so it was nothing to be too terrible concerned about. I cleaned up the mess and measured for the replacement board. I cut up some more of the birch plywood, took off the sink, and layed it in. Then I decided to hookup the under sink water filtration system. I spent an hour or two with it trying to fix all sorts of leaks before I snapped a fitting in half. I called it a night and headed for Walmart on the way to Tara’s. They had two more in stock but both had been returned so I figured it probably wasn’t a good system. I got a new hose instead. I looked up some reviews and found a Culligan under sink system with fairly good reviews and ordered it from the Sears across town.