and everything exploded
Everything exploded. Well, not everything. Mostly I got a nasty cut in my left hand and the old refrigerator doesn't fucking fit anymore because the new floor is too high and trying to make it fit resulted in big scars in that self-same brand new floor. I am crazy with rage.
So. goddamn. close. And now it's days more. Most of the scars will be where the replacement refrigerator will go but I am still just crazy with motherFUCKER!
Also my hand will be okay but goddammit.
Anyway, before things exploded, I restored a built-in cutting board. The bottom side here had been the "outside up" part; previously, the other side on that same half had been the "outside up" part. But this old style is made twice as big as it needs to be, so you've got four sides to burn through over a 90-year lifespan.
This is Side 3 of 4, the best current side, so I'm using it. (Side 4 has some scratching, but could be used too without shame. But since I'm doing this idiotic restoration project, I may as well go all the way, right?) This is after sanding:
That's cool and all, but there's no grip, and the edge is just, well, ply edge, and that's kind of fugly. The edge was fugly before, because Mister Fixit was a cheap bastard with no eye for detail. I either needed to route out a groove with a router, or I could install some sort of pull.
My plan had been to get an old-style pull that just screws on, but those aren't really common anymore. Plus I was toying around with ways to hide that plywood edge. And then I realised that L-metal is cheap and easily available in aluminium, and a decently nice standard cabinet pull could be bolted to the L-metal, which I could then screw to the edge of the cutting board. To wit:
I was also careful with my choice of screws, because decorative industrial! And yet also highly functional, which is of course always the goal, particularly with mid-century modern.
I also had to drill some divots behind the pull, so the heads of the bolts had someplace to go. I didn't take a picture of that, but it's just a couple of dents, so not much to see anyway.
Put back in place, it looked really nice right away. Oh, the pull is silver too, just a warmer silver - not brassy like it kind of came out in this photo:
I took a detail shot of the end of the L-metal, attached. I also bevelled the corners - it just seemed like the thing to do. Again, too, intentionally- and carefully-chosen screws, because when doing this sort of thing, details matter, and this kind of detail costs nothing but a couple of minutes of searching through the screw bins at the hardware store:
And open, well, I'm really quite happy with it. It even matches the custom cabinet I made before, in tone, so everything goes together. Hopefully we'll get a good decade or two out of this. That'd be nice. And then I can flip it over, invert the (highly symmetrical) pull fixture, and we're good for another decade or two.
I also put in a new sink fixture, as the old one was leaking. And that has a story, too, because Mister Fixit (or a successor in this case I think) had put in a wide-set style fixture at some point, so I assumed the sink was a wide-set fixture sink.
Okay, some of you won't know what that means. Modern - as in for decades now - sinks come in a couple of standard configurations, "wide set" - where the holes are 8" apart - and "narrow set" - where they're 4" apart. And there are variants, but those are the most common. Go to homedepot.com and enter "bathroom faucets" and you'll get the picture.
This sink had a wide-set fixture on it, and I assumed that meant the sink had wide-set holes. NOPE HE'D JUST BODGED IT IN THERE LIKE A CLOWN ON A HAMMERTIME BENDER. And I didn't discover this until after I'd discovered that the cold-water cutoff valve didn't completely cut off the water supply. I had a bucket, but that still set a timer.
So I bodged the damn thing in too. I shaved the plastic mounting piece so its side-hole inset points were gone, got a couple of brass screws, drilled some holes, and bolted the damn thing into place. I should've left a note saying "VERY BAD DAY WAS NOT GOING TO HOME DEPOT AGAIN FOR ANY REASON BECAUSE FUCK THIS." Or something similar. But I didn't. Anyway, it's solid, just stupid, and here y'go.
Looks perfectly normal, doesn't it? Good. It had damned well better after the shit things put me through today.
Brand. new. floor. Goddammit.
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth.
So. goddamn. close. And now it's days more. Most of the scars will be where the replacement refrigerator will go but I am still just crazy with motherFUCKER!
Also my hand will be okay but goddammit.
Anyway, before things exploded, I restored a built-in cutting board. The bottom side here had been the "outside up" part; previously, the other side on that same half had been the "outside up" part. But this old style is made twice as big as it needs to be, so you've got four sides to burn through over a 90-year lifespan.
This is Side 3 of 4, the best current side, so I'm using it. (Side 4 has some scratching, but could be used too without shame. But since I'm doing this idiotic restoration project, I may as well go all the way, right?) This is after sanding:
That's cool and all, but there's no grip, and the edge is just, well, ply edge, and that's kind of fugly. The edge was fugly before, because Mister Fixit was a cheap bastard with no eye for detail. I either needed to route out a groove with a router, or I could install some sort of pull.
My plan had been to get an old-style pull that just screws on, but those aren't really common anymore. Plus I was toying around with ways to hide that plywood edge. And then I realised that L-metal is cheap and easily available in aluminium, and a decently nice standard cabinet pull could be bolted to the L-metal, which I could then screw to the edge of the cutting board. To wit:
I was also careful with my choice of screws, because decorative industrial! And yet also highly functional, which is of course always the goal, particularly with mid-century modern.
I also had to drill some divots behind the pull, so the heads of the bolts had someplace to go. I didn't take a picture of that, but it's just a couple of dents, so not much to see anyway.
Put back in place, it looked really nice right away. Oh, the pull is silver too, just a warmer silver - not brassy like it kind of came out in this photo:
I took a detail shot of the end of the L-metal, attached. I also bevelled the corners - it just seemed like the thing to do. Again, too, intentionally- and carefully-chosen screws, because when doing this sort of thing, details matter, and this kind of detail costs nothing but a couple of minutes of searching through the screw bins at the hardware store:
And open, well, I'm really quite happy with it. It even matches the custom cabinet I made before, in tone, so everything goes together. Hopefully we'll get a good decade or two out of this. That'd be nice. And then I can flip it over, invert the (highly symmetrical) pull fixture, and we're good for another decade or two.
I also put in a new sink fixture, as the old one was leaking. And that has a story, too, because Mister Fixit (or a successor in this case I think) had put in a wide-set style fixture at some point, so I assumed the sink was a wide-set fixture sink.
Okay, some of you won't know what that means. Modern - as in for decades now - sinks come in a couple of standard configurations, "wide set" - where the holes are 8" apart - and "narrow set" - where they're 4" apart. And there are variants, but those are the most common. Go to homedepot.com and enter "bathroom faucets" and you'll get the picture.
This sink had a wide-set fixture on it, and I assumed that meant the sink had wide-set holes. NOPE HE'D JUST BODGED IT IN THERE LIKE A CLOWN ON A HAMMERTIME BENDER. And I didn't discover this until after I'd discovered that the cold-water cutoff valve didn't completely cut off the water supply. I had a bucket, but that still set a timer.
So I bodged the damn thing in too. I shaved the plastic mounting piece so its side-hole inset points were gone, got a couple of brass screws, drilled some holes, and bolted the damn thing into place. I should've left a note saying "VERY BAD DAY WAS NOT GOING TO HOME DEPOT AGAIN FOR ANY REASON BECAUSE FUCK THIS." Or something similar. But I didn't. Anyway, it's solid, just stupid, and here y'go.
Looks perfectly normal, doesn't it? Good. It had damned well better after the shit things put me through today.
Brand. new. floor. Goddammit.
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth.