My down-sizing pics.. Anybody else have any you want to share?

Time to get busy clearing out stuff from inside the cottage again. But I have noticed something has to be done on left side porch and the steps I've had temporarily in place for 10 years now.





This walk-way is 40' long! Sure is an optical illusion in this picture.


















My 2nd Heaven;

I have been planning to put vinyl siding on it for 20 years or more. I've done quite a few siding jobs in my life, and I know how easy it is to do. Just don't nail the siding tight or it will buckle like he**.

I was siding a small house and an inspector man shows up to look around. He leans over a deck handrail and asks me, why aren't you nailing the nails all the way down? I told him politely and he says, hum, that makes sense, and he left me to go look at other things. He was kind-of young and new at his job I'm sure.

I was new at siding in my first job and I didn't even know that one panel overlaps the previous one. Or the laps overlapping the nailed one should be toward the front of the building so you can't see the overlap from the street view. Tricks of the trade knowledge stuff. I read the instructions on the box before my first panel was hung and still didn't understand the overlap scale of about 6". He**, I left the panels butted together. I knew it was wrong but only did the 2 panels and I stopped because it didn't make sense. My boss showed up in a few minutes and shook his head. He said he thought I was smarter than that.

After I could afford to do anything cost wise, I decided to put ceiling boards on the inside of the cottage's rooms first BECAUSE bugs would show up once in a while and I hate roaches and spiders bigtime.

I bought new homeowner scaffolding to put the ceiling boards up first and I knew I would later use them to put the siding up.

Not long ago, maybe last year, I bought a 3rd scaffolding to reach the peak in the back of the building. I acquired a safety cage with one scaffold purchase, so I will probably use it on the back side. The back side, if I fall off, I'd hit a chain link fence and at a corner section at that. A corner post point in my back scares me as bad as the razor-like top rail of the fence attached to the top rail. That would skin all my skin and muscles off of my skeleton on one side.

I just looked at the local stock of siding here in H.D. and Lowe's H.I. night before last. I wanted a pastel green color to match my house but it's not available at either store. I then thought "Cream" to match my shutters and doors on the house. No Cream either.

They have plenty of "white" siding. I could go white very easily but I think I search again. Maybe a real siding installer could do it for me and be able to get either color I wanted too. I'd have one heck of a job moving my lumber hoard off of the side porch, but I could do it in 2 days easily since I organized it last fall.

Lastly, I looked at the 3'x4' thick panels of vinyl siding "shake-look" siding. It's very expensive but I can afford it. I read where this kind of siding gets $$$$4 on the gable ends. Maybe I could use cut-offs from one end and put them on the other end. Front to back seems plausible.

Lastly again....
I'll be in the shade for 3/4 or more of the job whatever I decide to do.

I got started on the left side porch of the cottage but got derailed by the tiller purchase and usage. But before that, my old friend giving me those speakers and receivers and eq. took up some time listening to those speakers off and on during rest periods.

I might make a walkway along the porch with a bunch of short decking boards I've been saving for decades. I'm also contemplating trying to grow grass there again.


The short boards are in the center of this picture.


I stayed up VERY late the other night removing the old Cerwin Vega woofer surrounds. I just kept moving onto the next steps with each woofer. My wife got up a few times and just gave me the "LOOK" each time. I cleaned the old off and glued the new surrounds to the cones. Went to bed at around 3:30am.

They turned out pretty good.




















Oreo was watching me off and on from one of his resting spots.










The old...



The new...




I sure like re-foaming surrounds.

Well, My PC told me ( with the pop-up of pics taken on this date over the years thing) it's been 2 years since I regained a lot of space in the cottage. The music is still AWESOME anytime I'm out there. I'm truly blessed!

I've enjoyed my ability to ACCESS most anything I own with little effort for 85% of what I own. The rest just takes some effort to move stuff out of the way like that TETRIS game a member here described.

I got really tired after rotating the wife's car tires so I took a long vacation and got the rest I think I needed.

I got to thinking about rearranging the back room some more and so I went at it the other night. Then another night. Into the 2 am hours both times. Got a lot done too. I enjoy organizing every time. I have music playing on great systems and speakers while I work. A Nakamichi receiver w/DCM TF350s sounds amazing!

Well, I've been thinking about my chess table legs that need 1 1/2" + risers added ( for chair arms clearance so they can slide under the table) and I thought about hollow brass cup extensions like a fellow here or on the chess collectors site mentioned to explore. I looked quite a few times and then the other night, I thought maybe I had found the leg foot base cup/w/wheels that I needed. 10.00 ea. or 25.00 each for nicer ones. But...

I then went to bed and before I fell asleep, I thought about some "Polished Brass Caster wheels" I had collected over the years. I had them in a purple Halloween bucket for 10+ years or more.

I had organized my back room pretty well, knew where the bucket was and went right to it the next day. They would work but they don't lock. I'll figure that out later. I took out the old leg feet and made the Casters fit tight. I like it. I thought maybe the Blue Painters Tape wrapped around the Casters when I want a stationary table. The blue tape can be easily removed afterward. Anyway, here's what I did.

I hope they work out. Cost ?... Not much I'm sure. Probably free.