National Automatic Garage Door Awareness Week

I'm declaring it such after spending a week opening/closing the damn thing myself. having a working automatic garage door is a minor thing in the overall scheme of things, but damn is it a nice daily convenience.

props to the gf for calling around for estimates ($300-400 to replace an opener?!?) until she got someone on the phone who not only correctly diagnosed the issue over the phone, but charged a fraction of the other estimates to do the repair (worn gears, plus they replaced bushings, lubed everything, and did a bunch of other stuff i can't recall).

Here's hoping my 14 year-old opener goes another 14 years. and kudos to Liftmaster for making an easily-repairable product with a long MTBF, even if that failure was during the middle of winter.

basement rehab continues

this phase includes cleaning up the brickwork -- the skimcoat can be seen clearly in the pic -- including fixing up the windows. the rear downspout has been re-routed from spilling into the yard to going into my catch basin. the rear corner under the stairs, where i was getting a lot of water due to the downspout, has been ripped up.

frighteningly, there was a good bit of mold forming under those stairs. that's been cleaned up, the 2x4 landing supports will be replaced with metal studs, and the old wooden steps are gone to be replaced by wolmanized wood. when it's done, it should be much drier and much more presentable. i'm having new electric run to that area so i can keep a de-humidifier going year-round.

enbluening: complete!

aside from the new treads and risers on the steps, the ironwork has brand new footings and is very solid now.

porch rebuilding!

completion of the bluening of the house is dependent upon completion of the porch.

the bluening of my house has begun

not too shabby...

taking a poll

which color palette looks the best? the main house color will be blue. the white primer (ignore that) separates the two palettes. the palette on the right also includes two existing house colors: the mahogany around the window and on the door, and the cream accent in the door.

this was taken with my iphone, so the colors are just a little more muted because of that. but the right-most palette is definitely the brighter of the two.

thoughts? current backyard-voting stands at 2-2.

update: left: 6, right: 6

(please note this is a non-binding vote)

update 7/2: saw the colors at night -- the blue on the right looks almost black! bit of a negative for me.

my basement is now kicking ass

vs.

dirt floor!

though i've had a dirt floor in my basement for only a few hours now, i would like to extol the virtues of a dirt floor:

1. it's like being outside, only cooler
2. i feel rustic
3. no more worrying about if moisture is under my floor -- i can see it now
4. not tempted to store things down there, i'll just bin them straightaway
5. get to look at dirt and sand that no one's looked at for 108 years

i also have a trench on three sides of my house. not sure it's as cool as a dirt floor, though.