Thursday, July 19, 2007

Rainy Day Project

So as soon as I get a couple days off from all responsibilities (i.e., my children), it starts to rain. A lot of projects have been building up, because it’s been a pain in the butt to find most of my more esoteric tools and hardware parts. So after 12 months in my Adams House (oddly, that’s the name also of the dorm complex I lived in for 3 years, 20 years ago – must have been fate that sent me here), I finally got around to organizing my tools.

Naturally, this meant a peg board, as I had in my last (Natick) house. At Greenberg’s an 8’ x 11’ piece of 1/8th inch peg board was $11. Add in about $12 for peg board hooks and such (most of which I already owned), some lumber (mostly scraps I had), and a half-dozen hours of labor, and here’s the result so far. (I took perhaps 90 minutes to cut and set up the board and lumber, the rest of the time to go through cardboard boxes, tubs and tool boxes, peg things to the board, shelve larger items, and perhaps most important, hook up some old yard-sale speakers to an equally ancient amp, so the iPod and CD Boombox can be properly cranked with Woodstock-era rock and roll music.)

Now I can instantly find my plumber’s snake (for the slow shower drain) and my small screwdrivers (to fix a lamp cord-switch), and all my other projects will go much more quickly. (Just 10 minutes for the shower drain which has been plaguing me and my understanding wife for months.)

Do any of you have any exciting rainy day projects, done or as yet undone, to share?

4 comments:

Greg said...

If your workroom stays that organized for more than a project or two, you are a far better man than I, Gunga Din.

We're still working on the exterior while the weather holds. Hopefully, soon, we can resurface the slowly deteriorating ceilings in the Dining Room and Family Room.

DWPittelli said...

Ceilings are tough. Are you a plasterer? Or do you use sheetrock? I've plastered areas up to about a foot square. Over that, I cut in sheetrock. Not exactly an authentic restoration, but serious plastering seems to require more skill than sheetrock or painting and such. (I was a painter for 4 summers in High School.)

Greg said...

Sheet rock. I'm not that crazy.

Southview said...

Just a word of advice from someone that has extensive knowledge of the subject.....KEEP the GIRLS OUTTA YOUR WORKSHOP! Although you seem like a workshop neatnick you will find that when involved in any sort of project the workshop becomes messy with tools scattered about along side various screws, nuts, bolts, and a sundry of hardware and other stuff. While trying to be helpful the GIRLS will see this as a messy situation and, because it is in their nature, will descend on your project and workshop with a vengeance. In their endeavor to be helpful they will neaten things up for you to the point that you will not have a clue where anything is for six months to come. Although you will be able to tell anyone exactly where every nut, spring, washer, bolt or tool is, from the comfort of your living room easy chair at the present time, I guarantee after the "GIRL STORM" you will be lucky enough to find your workshop... not to mention the stuff in it!