Scattered Thoughts . . .

I think I had previously written that our big, high end and relatively new refrigerator (I think almost six years old) bit the dust late last week.  The icemaker was defective and has been a problem for a few years and that ended up frying our compressor.  There was also some other damage to another part that is not replaceable.  In the end, Sheila and I ordered a far lower end refrigerator which is scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday.   We had to compromise quite a bit in our selection of a new refrigerator.  There are not too many choices when you need a refrigerator as soon as possible.  The pandemic has put a hurt on the market as well so inventory is far lower than normal too.   As we wait for our new refrigerator to arrive, we moved all of our salvageable frozen meat to a cooler and secured it outside in the sub-freezing temperature.  We moved all of our refrigerated items to an unheated storage closet in our back hallway.  Fortunately, this happened during the winter.  If it w

I've moved on to the second phase (and unplanned phase) of our garden window project by working on refinishing the window sashes for this window.  Our homebuilt garden window has a couple of removable window sashes that we can insert into the frame for colder weather. In the warmer months, I will leave the sashes out (as seen in the photo to the right) so the view is wide open with no obstructions. These sashes were in pretty lousy shape. It seemed silly to design and build this nice new garden window and then just install the same old worn-out sashes when the weather cools down and during the longer part of the year when we need extra insulation. I've been experiencing this throughout our renovations... you know... when you make a clean spot, everything else that didn't look so badly before you made a clean spot suddenly appears horrendous... I needed to do something about these window sashes.  I also needed to replace the window sill... something else I hadn'

This week, I've been working on building a garden window that I designed. There were a few setbacks but the window is now closed in and in a finished state, finally! We had some lousy weather... first far too hot and humid which is particularly catastrophic for my health and that did affect my health. The sun and heat actually caused what appeared to be hives (according to Sheila) but it didn't feel like hives... regardless, my skin did not look pleasant. One day this week was so humid that I couldn't breath so I went back indoors and laid in the air conditioned house for the remainder of the day. Then we had intermittent rain causing some more delays.  Near the end of the project, I needed to use my drill press. I don't use this benchtop tool often so I had to dig it out of the shed and dust it off. Well, I needed to do more than just dust it off... it was seized up completely.   Clamping down the straight edge for cutting glass. I opened the lid to the dr

As has been the norm here for the past few months, it is dark and dreary outside this morning. I'd like to get back to working on our garden window but I'm not going to pull all my tools outside when it appears as though it will rain at any moment.   On the positive side, it is far cooler out there today! The humidity seems to be at far more tolerable levels too!   I should be able to get out there to do some work in another hour or two... I'm looking forward to making more progress on this window project.

I've been a little bit busy this week with a new project... finally!  I've been putting off a bunch of projects lately due to ongoing rainy, hot and humid weather, poor health, and medical appointments for both Sheila and me, but mostly due to the absolutely abysmal weather we've had this summer. I needed to get going on at least one project before the snow flies! I decided to start on a to-do list of about 20 items (most of which I'll never get to this summer) with building and installing a garden window over our kitchen sink. We've been talking about buying a garden window for quite some time but the prices are absurd so I opted to design and build my own. That's my answer and resolution for most things, actually... but this garden window is something new to me.  At this point, I have most of the wood cut and painted with at least one coat of white paint. I still need to cut some wood to length for the frames of the glass panes for the sides of the wi