Sunday, July 02, 2006

The Finishing Touches Went On

Welcome Coot Fans. I am uber tired and my last post wasn't nearly as short as it should have been. This one will be.

After I last wrote, I tried to nap but alas my body is in go-go-go mode. I did manage to lay in my recliner for a while, then in bed but if I did sleep it was lightly and not for very long.

I had a few things left to finish on ye olde porche and I think they were heavy on my mind. With the inspector coming tomorrow I wanted to be DONE tonight just in case I had to redo anything or hit any kind of snag.

One of my tasks was to install a handrail. I didn't want it to look ghetto, so I tried and I tried and I tried to figure out the compound miter to get it right. As it turns out, I don't think it's possible. I cut the bastard at a 45-degree angle and attached it. But before that, I cut it too short.

DAMN!

I had attached one of the hangers so that it would stay put while I measured the other end. I had to take it down a few times to keep trimming a little bit at a time and apparently the last time I fit it, I put in on wrong and my measurement was off by about an inch. Hopefully he doesn't notice that. It looks fine, actually better than it would if it were "to code", so I'm happy with it in that sense but I won't be able to rest easy until he signs my piece of paper.

The very last thing I did was cut off the ends of the shims so that they weren't sticking out for all to see. For those of you who haven't cut a shim before, it's fairly simple. You score it with your knife (box cutter, Stanley knife, utility knife, whatever you like to call it) and snap it off. For some reason these didn't want to snap, so I was cutting the hell out of them when my hand slipped and smashed my finger against the corner of a board. Yup, got a nice bruised nail now. It seems to be going down though, so I don't expect it to look too bad by the morning.

After that, I picked up all of my scraps, tools, trash and so on and put it all where it goes - on the floor in the garage. My task for next week will be to put the garage back together, that is unless I decide to put the skirt around the porch. In which case I might as well leave all of the tools out where I can get at them.

Okay Cooterinos, it's time for me to shower up and hit the sack. I think some Tylenol PM might be in order to make sure I get enough rest.

Over and Out,
Old Coot

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"Something inside of me just said 'Hey, wait a minute, I want to beat him.' and I just took off." -Pre