Sorry I’m not posting as often. We’re in the thick of a couple of art shows so I’m scrambling to get art done, get stuff done around the house, and work my regular job. Oh and attempt to maintain my sanity while minimizing my dependence on alcohol.
I promise once this art show is done, I’ll post more often, work on my “honey do” list, pick up a golf club and maybe even go to church on Sundays. Until then you’ll have to live vicariously via old posts, while the wife trips over empty cabinets, my clubs collect dust, and god solves crossword puzzles while, patiently, waiting for me to show up fashionably late.
When I’m not battling the 90 degree heat and the worst drought in recent memory I’ve been spending my free time working on art as I said, but also working on hanging the cabinets we got from Lowes. There’s an office area in my studio that we can wait to get cabinets into. This will go a long way to getting us organized. I can’t stress enough, if you are building or remodeling a home, go for it and install all your storage up front. We always make the mistake of saving stuff to finish off later in an effort to save money. Even if you do it right after you move in or do it yourself to save a couple bucks, install storage and organization stuff as soon as you can. We have mail, computers, bills, etc. strewn all over the freaking place. Our ultra contemporary kitchen looks like a hoarders paradise. Granted the dish drying rack from Wal-Mart isn’t helping the situation but we won’t talk about that…
I’m slowly making progress assembling the cabinets and hanging them. The wife is a huge help in lifting the cabinets in place. I’m not to worried about nicking the walls, eventually they’ll be painted. I don’t have the pictures in front of me but I learned a lot about cabinet screws, especially which ones to use and which ones not to. I’ll share with you soon I promise. It also pays to have a table saw; ripping down filler boards is tough with a regular hand power saw. I bought an inexpensive sonic tool to cut the baseboards so I can tell you bout that after I use that.
I’m excited to finish the first batch of cabinets but they’ll have to wait until after the art show.
Outside the drought is killing us figuratively but our water supply is holding and our plants are mostly surviving. I’ve given up on the baby trees and grass. Nature will have to bear that life and death scenario out herself. Average temps are in the 90’s for about a week and a half now. We’ve set the “air conditioning” to 72 degrees, now raised to 74 degrees. I’m not sure how often it’s cycling on and off, but the house seems to hold temperature and repel heat. Generally speaking no direct sun enters the house this time of year, even in the large south-facing windows. I just paid an electric bill and we averaged 1,000 KW hours in June and July bills. In the old house we maxed out around 600 KWh per month, so I’ll have to keep an eye on energy usage. There are probably several culprits: the high temps, more light usage (esp. incandescent bulbs), and we’ve probably got the house set pretty low. Also our water and sewer systems run on electric across the board so there’s probably more overall load than at the old place. The usage I was looking at at the old house was also just for two of us. So the moral is we’ll have to wait and see.
Ok, back to working on art. Catch ya later.
wall cabinets clamped and screwed together, ready for hanging.
This is what an art show looks like.
nine apple trees 