Mia Jones and my old friend Scott Hollingsworth invited Lauren and I over for the World Cup final today. Apparently, it was Mia’s ambition to fatten us all up for the kill. Tons of food, all quite good, follwoed by Lauren’s homemade Peach Pie. The game went as expected – and if a bit anticlimatic, it was a good afternoon spent eating, drinking beer and flapping our lips.

None of this particularly helped finish off the second bedroom, which is nearing it’s final stages. After a post-beer coffee shop run, it became clear that it was far too early for bed, and far too late to start anything major. Which of course led to me starting something major – like laying the cork flooring in the second bedroom’s sunroom. We managed to get all of the more complex cuts out of the way tonight, so that tomorrow it’s a straight march back into the main section of the bedroom.

Lauren thankfully took “before” photos of the sunroom, so we’ll have something to show for our work, mid to late week…. I hope.

A side note: 12 miles this AM keeps me on track for marathon training schedule.

Kelly had come up for a friend’s band, and we figured we might finish up the long standing shelving project. We were cranking through the shelf assembly process. We were quite enamoured with the makeshift clamps  engineered out of 2 x 4s, twine and discarded shims. We repaired a few slats of cherry, re-planing them successfully, and glued all the pieces into shelves. Sweet.

The time had come to check the joists in the ceiling above. I should point out that these are to be hanging shelves, conceived from an exhibit I saw at the Tate Modern in ’04. My life would have perhaps been much easier had I skipped that particular exhibit. But I didn’t, and these are to be hanging shelves. As such, I needed to match the support beams for each shelf with the joists.

Stud finder-check. Wax pencil-check. Straight edge – check. We go front to back and side to side (and no the Boyz-n-tha-hood reference isn’t lost on me). But the stud finder is losing it’s damn mind. Clicking and beeping and beeping and… that’s what is was doing, really. Truly. It looked like there was a joist or a cross beam in the ceiling running only about half way out, and then front to back in two different place, about to thirds the way out. We drill a few pilots to see if there’s any grip. Nada.

What the hell? The stud finder still insists that there’s something up above. Kelly sits and stares. She offers a few thoughts. I’m already deeply in thought, wondering what course of action to take. And then it dawns on me. I could sit here trying to be clever all day – Christ, all week, and not get a damn thing done. It’s kinda my forte. But I’ve been on a mission to change my ways.

Fuck it. I see the hammer to my left. Ten seconds later, plaster and bits of lathe are flying everywhere. twenty seconds later, my sisters is fleeing for safety and a mask.

Some joker had just laid scrap wood on the topside of the lathe. To the stud finder, it appeared solid. To the drill, not so much.

I quickly reverted to my overthinking ways, debating options for hanging the shelves given new situation.  No true joists, nor any true support from the adjacent door frame (there’s one hidden behind the dry wall). And the realization that the support that is present, is there for the turn in the staircase above. Now, I’m certain that doubled-up 2x4s toenailed in to the 2x6s we found in the ceiling could hold the shelves.

Post plaster removal

Even fully loaded. But what about that 300 lb man bounding up the stairs while the shleves are fully loaded? Not so sure. An most definitely sure that I don’t want to be sued by a fat house guest for falling through my stairs, through my kitchen cabinets, and landing in my basement with a can of black beans up his or her ass.

This meant that the shelves needed to be supported from the floor. Sigh. I had to order more cherry wood. Fortunately, I found Fingerlelumber, who were pretty fanastic. I had my cherry 2x6s on my doorstep 3 days later.

And that’s where we stand today. The weekend ran out, Kelly went home, and I had to return to writing proposals for work. But I’m pretty damn glad I didn’t :

1. Obsess about what to do without actually doing anything.
2. Try to hang the shelves without inspecting the insides of the ceiling.
3. Glue on the support beams before opening up the ceiling.
4. Freak the fuck out, becuase the kitchen shelves still aren’t done.

I can promise that two of the four list items will never occur. The other two, all bets are off.

But for the first time in quite a while, I have a clear idea of what needs to happen next, and exactly what the difficulties will be. I can probably even tackle ‘em this weekend. Maybe. The front and back yard both seem to call for my attention.

As with everything else in my life, my documentation of the remodeling project is a bit behind. A few months ago, I set about to restore the main staircase. The project began innocently enough – I was on the phone and I absently began chipping paint off the trim. I found beautiful, dark stained oak underneath the white paint.

For the next few weeks, I chipped away at the paint – I pulled this and that piece of trim off – I even sat with the heat gun from time to time. But I hadn’t really committed to the idea of restoring the entire staircase. With so much else to do around the house, it seemed like unnecessary complexity.

I walked past that staircase a thousand times. The loose paint was becoming scarce, yet the woodwork still looked like shit. So in a fit motivation and obsession, I pulled out the pry bar and the rubber mallet. My friend, Paul, asked me “why the hell did you do all that?” Well, my answer is “I’m a bit crazy, and I bought an old house – why would I want it to look like a Home Depot rehab?” He answered , “yeah, you gotta do it, don’t cha’?”

Yep. I sure do. Here’s a video documenting the restoration and reassembly of the staircase. There are definitely some major omissions is the video (“and then some magic happens” moments). If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line here or at my blip.tv site, homedespairs.blip.tv.

The living room. The largest room in the house. With massive holes in the ceiling. It’s time to tackle this beast. I’ve already opened up the kitchen – the first thing I did was tear out the wall separating the two. The bar is in, the walls are plastered. But that ceiling has gotta come down.