Is it me . . .

Or is it STILL shrinking??? I believe it is alive!!

Duck Shrinks!!

Well, now more about the prior post. First, our plan for last Saturday had been to stain the concrete on the front porch. So, off to Home Depot to buy stain, only to find out that first the concrete needs to be etched. With acid. Since I have not handled acid since high school, and then with spotty results, it seemed to me (and Lisa agreed) that we needed to leave that project to the professionals. So, on to next projects: (a) replace back light with a new one we had ordered and promptly stored away about 2 months ago, and (b) build a new cover for our grill since the old one was hanging on by bare threads. So, that is what occasioned the two photos.

Anyway, for the new grill cover, we tried to find a perfect fabric, but were running out of ideas. Ultimately, we decided on duck - a canvas-type material which, as I recall, us commonly used as sail covers and boat covers. Surely that would work, right? So we bought our 8 1/2 yards of fabric, used the old cover (which we carefully took apart) as a template, and 3-4 hours later had the finished product posted earlier.

All went well, then, until it started raining last night and kept raining. Guess what? Duck SHRINKS!! Hence the new photos of our now over-taught, and far too short grill cover. Back to the drawing (or cutting) table, I guess.

OK. Today in the city, not on the island. Reason: Holidays approaching. MUST GET HOUSE READY! So, two project completed: New cover for grill; new outdoor light by back door. Pictures above. Explanation to follow.

No real work today - just a lazy weekend on the island. Cool weather and good breezes. Had to snap this photo of two best friends out for a boat ride - Peanut's first. She now insists upon being called Salty Dog.

Stealth Project

OK, so the next project which is in the works: The bathroom for Harry's study. This was the red-headed stepchild of the house -- the last room to receive only superficial "help" since we bought the house in . . . .1993? Anyway, this one was done in a devious and totally unethical manner. It's real simple. One evening there I am minding my own business -- probably reading one of YOUR blogs and messing around on Facebook - when it APPEARS (the jury is still out on this) that I am asked by Miss Lisa: "Bing, what would you say to getting _____ to demo the study bath and then getting ____ to replumb it and then getting _____ to install new tile and then getting _____ to finish up with new fixtures?" Of course, glass of wine in hand I undoubtedly said something like, "Sure. Sounds good." Well, la-te-dah come a Monday only a short while later ___ shows up, crowbar in hand! What the . . . .??!! Comes to turn out that my "Sure Whatever" response was met with an immediate desire to hire all of these folks, and now we are completely . .. . demo'd. Pictures attached. Stay tuned as we take you through the process. Next Installment: "Bathtub, bathtub, who's got the bathtub?!"

New Projects

OK, ok, we've been silent. But that's not because we're not trying. Mainly, we've been starting new projects an working from there. Two new projects to report on: Rain gauge and study bathroom. First rain gauge.

The rain gauge is a little device which sits by our irrigation system control box and collects water. When the water over a certain time period reaches a certain level, the gauge tells the irrigation system "brains" (roughly akin to the processing power of a No. 2 pencil, I suspect; I call it HAL) that it does not need to water that day. Great idea, poorly executed. Mainly poorly executed because it does not work. I've looked out the window during howling rainstorm gales and seen the irrigation system irrigating away. So, it doesn't work. However, it looks neat. So, of course, I need to keep it. Anyway, that's not the point of the story. The point of the story is that this gauge was mounted on a board which stuck out above HAL and while ostensibly serving as a rain gauge mainly served as a way to keep HAL from getting too wet. The other day, through the fault of no-one, this board broke. It had NOTHING - nada - to do with the fact that one certain Houston attorney whose initials are BMB leaned on it while doing unrelated maintenance. It just broke. So, I had to re-situate the gauge. Not so that the gauge would work, but so that HAL would stay protected. My solution? A subtle yet effective use of left over floor tile from the island and WonderSubstance (a/k/a Duct Tape). The photos are attached to this blog. Enjoy the beauty and creativity of the simple solution. I now see where my children got their artistic talent, including the talent of the architect.