It’s nice to be a homeowner, but it’s also a lot of work. The new gnomestead is slowly coming together. We’ve accomplished most of our “move in” goals, although we’re still searching for a good local (Seattle) contractor to help us with a few of those last mile tasks. Seems all of the good ones are busy! We had the House Doctors come out and assemble a bid, but they wound up asking for twice as much as what it might normally cost. They’re reliable, but I don’t know if Ponzi and I are really in a position to pay a premium for that.

This past weekend, the live studio audience saw me install a wall-mounted ironing board. I was supposed to attach it to a couple of studs, but there were no beams where my wife wanted it to go. I did my best with their installation kit, but wound up hitting Home Depot for some angle brackets. They looked pretty damn ugly! Eventually, I decided to paint the entire thing – since it didn’t match our white trim, anyway (even though I thought I had ordered a white one in the first place).

So, then we painted and chatted and set up a conference call and chatted and painted and watched paint dry and chatted some more. Actually, it was me who was painting – and everyone else who was discussing my painting technique. I think I did a pretty good job, all things considered. I’m also happy to say that someone forgot to hit the Record button to document the entire ordeal. I had several “Oh, Fudge!” moments – only I didn’t say Fudge.

Weekend Projects