Friday, March 29, 2013

Stick a fork in me...

'Cause I am DONE.

Done with the new tables for the sewing room, anyway.  The room's not 100% done, but it's at about a 95% solution, which means I can work in there tomorrow and finish up projects for friends.

I'll have to see if I can dig up some before shots, but here are the end results.

The long shot:



The serger table:


Eventually, that shelf will be stained pink.  As soon as I find the pink stain.

The sewing table:



All in all, I think it's a great improvement and gives us way more room to work in there.

Now, I'm going to eat something and fall over.

Nicknames...

Or, since the good Lord knows my real name is all over the internet, I'm wondering if it's funny or silly or stupid to use nicknames.  A lot of my friends from my Usenet days know me as SoldierGrrrl, or SG.  My beloved husband has been JMA, or SapperSgt, or Decurion, or Dekarch or... wait, I think that's all of them.

In my earlier post, I referred to my beloved as Beloved Boy, or Badger Boy (mostly because he was channeling a badger with a rash this morning) but I don't know if I should find funny names, or still with real ones.

Any thoughts?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Getting back in the saddle... I hope! (Picture heavy!)

Lord, but it's a been a while since I updated this thing.  Then again, it's been a while since I did anything crafty, too.

But now, I have a storm of ideas swirling around in my head.  Lots of projects, which I'll try to get better about updating.

First up, at the request the very patient Beloved (Badger) Boy, the back door.  We installed a HUMONGO dog door for the Moose, and well, since the Moose now lives on a horse ranch, the door is slightly oversized for Moxie and Louisa.

For an idea, this is the door, with Louisa in mid-jump:


This is Moxie:



Not only is the door HUGE, but it's about five inches off the ground, and Moxie's not getting any younger so it's getting harder for her to make that jump through the door.  I made steps for her, and she decided she'd rather pee on the floor than approach the Dog Mugging Steps of Doom, so we needed another solution.

Because I am brain-damaged...creative... I thought of the ways would could do this without spending between $250-$645 for a new door.  I mean, it's not that I'm totally cheap, but daaaaang.  That's a fair chunk of change.

I ordered a new, MUCH smaller dog door from Amazon, and then went to Habitat for Humanity's ReStore to see if I could find a door.  Not a whole lot of luck there, but I did pick up a door for $10 as a backup.



It's missing the glass, which caused me to go through some major brain contortions to figure out how to replace the glass without paying another small fortune.

I was thinking about an MDF frame for the inside of the door, with a plywood frame for the outside with two pieces of Lexan, and moulding and this and that and the other thing... when I realized I could do something similar with the hole left by the HUMONGO door.

So, here's the idea.  I'm going to pull the door off the hinges, and remove the huge dog door.  While I've got the door on sawhorses, I'm going to scrub it down really well and tape off the nine-light.  I want it as clean as it can be, and right now, it's pretty...well...it's not clean.  Let's put it that way.

I'll measure the hole in the door, then cut wood to over that (including a bit lower so we can install the new smaller door at a better height for Moxie).  After cutting, I'll put the dog door template on the wood, making sure the two pieces are clamped together so the holes are in the exact same spot.

Then, I'm going to use a heavy-duty construction adhesive, and probably some bolts, to attach the two pieces of wood with the hole for the NEW door.  I'll have to cut some out of the door, because the bottom on the new door will be lower than the bottom of the old hole (does that make ANY sense?), but I can do that with a jig saw.  (I hope.)

Then, I'll secure the new pieces of wood to the door, and insulate the large open area with spray foam.  After that, I'm going to put some paint on the door (because I can), and install the new dog door.

As a recap:

Normal 9-light door:



Our current 9-light door, complete with HUMONGO door:




Proposed door repair:


Yes, those are hand-drawn, so don't laugh at my mostly-kinda-sorta-to-scale images.  It's an idea, at least, and gives me something to show the Badger Boy when he gives me the hairy eyeball as I babble on about yet ANOTHER project...