Newton's Duet with the Multimax

Well, we now know of two things that will reliably make Newton howl. One is, of course, emergency vehicle sirens. The other is, weirdly, the Dremel Multimax. This tool has been indispensable in our ongoing home renovation project, but it just got a whole lot cuter. Enjoy!

Enjoy the Contrast, Yet Again

Usually Alison and I take Rex on our many, many trips to Home Despot. Sure, the CRX is the smallest of our 3 cars by most measures,* but it also has the most usable internal volume. Besides, since Rex is old and beaten, we aren't too worried about minor cosmetic abuse he might incur.

Recently, I stopped at the Despot on the way to work, which meant that I was driving Mia. This is the sight that awaited me when I exited the store:

I suppose I should expect that kind of contrast when I drive my wee little sports car on a weekday to the hardware store favored by contractors. What I didn't suspect, was my parking situation when I arrived at my workplace:

Have I mentioned that I work at a laboratory, not a construction site?

* Length, width, and mass, but probably not height.

(De)construction

It's been fairly quiet on this blog lately; Alison and I have been busy tearing our house apart. I thought I'd post a few photos of our work in progress.

The New House - A Vent

OK...the previous owner of our house was just...unbelievable. I think she did everything as cheaply and as quickly as possible. We have now lived here approximately a month and here is what we have discovered. I will denote with an asterisk the things we knew about before we moved in, but which are worth mentioning:

1. The shower door in the master bathroom does not fit - it is too small. Also, it doesn't close properly. *
2. All of the walls are a mess. She was completely unable to plaster anything correctly. I think she just glopped it on and didn't sand it down before painting. She dripped paint all over. This is so bad that rather than fix the mistakes in the living room, we may just put up new 1/4" wallboard over the old.
   
3. She painted over most of the outlets. Not just the covers, but the actual outlets, too. You have to try really hard to plug things in 'cause there's dried up paint in all the holes.*
4. She painted so badly that there is colored paint on all the white trim and ceilings where she failed to mask anything.*
   
5. The bathtub in the hall bath upstairs is not level. This caused water to drip onto the floor and caused a leak into the kitchen below. The ceiling wallboard is damaged and now has holes in it from the plumber trying to diagnose the problem.
6. The toilet in the powder room leaks from the bolts holding the tank to the base. We already had a plumber fix the water valve from the wall. It had no teflon tape on it and the seal was not seated properly. I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that the bolts that are now leaking do not have teflon tape on them, either.
7. When we took the wallpaper off in the powder room, we discovered that there was old wallpaper backing underneath it that had been partially removed, and painted over. Also, she wallpapered right over a large hole in the wallboard. There is also something funny going on with one of the walls in the powder room. After removing the wallpaper, we found this glossy white paint is peeling off the wall. I like to call this "wall leprosy". It's too hard to scrape it all off, but plaster probably won't stick to it to level it. This means we will probably have to put up a new piece of wallboard there, too.
8. She wallpapered over a hole in the wall in the dining room that contained live wires where a wall sconce had once been mounted. Thank goodness we didn't discover that by sticking our putty knives into it. That would have been "shocking". Haha.
9. She glued her chair rail to the wall. Inevitably, I tore up the wallboard getting it off, which means more taping and plastering. Yay. Thanks, previous homeowner!
10. When the hardwood floor was installed, she did not remove the baseboards before she put it down. Thus, the baseboards are behind the flooring and are extremely hard to remove. Also they were painted to the wall, and she used nails approximatey the size of railroad ties to attach them. Excuse me, previous homeowner....they make something called a "finishing nail". Embrace it.
11. The light in my closet is broken. This is something that was installed as part of the repairs required after the home inspection. How can it already be broken? This woman was magically bad at home stuff, I tell you!

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll keep you posted on all the FUN FUN stuff I find as we continue. Maybe someday I'll get to paint my walls...if I can ever get to that point!