Clutter on my workbench

I called in a favor from a buddy with a truck and we drove down to take a look. I had $80 in my pocket, but didn’t want to spend that much. When we got there I offered $30 for the good cabinet, and the guy accepted. So we loaded it into the truck. I then low-balled the guy and offered $10 for the broken one, and he of course said no.

So I played hard ball back, and we drove away.

As soon as we were buckled in and around the corner, my cell rang, and the guy said to just come back and take the other one away. Nobody was going to buy a busted cabinet, and he might as well just give it to me. I couldn’t turn that truck around fast enough.

I know these aren’t the best cabinets. The metal is cheap, and they are flimsy, but like I said, I need storage, and they fill the bill. Next step is paint – both the garage, and the cabinets…

Cheap garage storage

Metal garage cabinets

Putting a cabinet in it's place

Both cabinets side by side

A littel rust on the shelf - nothing I can't handle

Driving along I-10 near LA

Craftsman 4-drawer tool chest

I'm posing in my Giant's gear at AT&T Park in San Francisco

After a great game, and some even better Chinese food, we headed back to pick up Pearl, my very first car. I bought her for a song in ’85, when I was only 15, and spent every spare minute working on her. A 1970 Triumph Spitfire with many modifications, I was going to bring her back to my garage in Austin for a full restore.

My Car loaded on a U-Haul trailer

1970 Triumph Spitgire IV

The beige interior of my unrestored 1970 Spitfire

And that’s where my story really begins.

This is where I do most of my stuff - but it doesn't look like this anymore

A bit about me. I’m the son of a hardware store owner. I’m an ex-biochemist, turned wedding photographer – I know, quite a career change. Someday I might explain all that, but as we all know, it’s a different story (and best told over some cold beers). Growing up, I spent a lot of time in my Dad’s detached 2-car garage in Northern California. He had a True Value store back in the ’70′s , and went out of business in the early ’80s when the big box stores began to come around. I can still remember the smell of that place – a combination of cigarettes (you could smoke in there), chain saw oil, and old paper is how I remember it.

Weekends were spent in the 2-car garage. There was never any room for cars inside. It was full of tools, house projects, and extra wood. There was a big chest freezer that doubled as a workbench, and as a place I could fold my newspapers before delivery every afternoon. Me and my friends made forts, go-carts, fixed bikes, and even made a nail gun that could put a 4-inch spike in the wooden garage door across the street.

It was a true tinkerer’s garage, in every respect of the word.

When I moved out when I was 18, it was 22 long years before I would have a garage of my own. Along the way, I collected canvas bags of sockets, plastic bins of power tools, and tackle boxes full of wrenches. I never took the time to invest much in ‘real tools’ because my wife and I were always moving in and out of apartments. We all know what a pain it is to move tools, right?

Fast forward to 2 years ago. We bought a 4-bed, 2-bath 1970′s fixer in Austin, with an attached 2-car garage. Over the past couple of years we have been redoing the inside, and I’ve been both collecting tools to do the jobs I always wanted to do, and neglecting the best room of the house.

Left side of Garage with my '74 BMW 2002 in her usual spot.

Right side of garage - with the door that leads to the Laundry room

As you can see from the pics above, the space is nothing fancy. Room for a couple of cars, and a workbench in the back. But I see there are so many other opportunities for things to do here, to make the space really my own.

I should probably mention one more little item. I have a thing for early ‘70s european cars – while I can’t quite afford the machines I want right now, I do have a ’74 BMW 2002 which runs, but needs both a top-end, and bottom-end rebuild (and a paint job), and most recently I collected my very first car from my in-laws house in California, but that’s the next post…

Spring is just around the corner, this image from last year was taken in my garden.

But this weekend is different. Today’s forecast is sunny in the high 60′s. Drastically different than last week’s freezing weather with snow and ice. The yard needs work. Some of the plants didn’t make it, and need to be cleaned-up. Specifically the Passiflora against the back fence, and the buffalo grass near the deck.

Speaking of grass, the back lawn which is all bermuda grass needs some pre-spring clean up. It’s the middle of february right now, and the lawn is brown and tall. This isn’t unhealthy, it’s just that Bermuda grass goes dormant in the winter in Austin.

To encourage a healthy back lawn I fertilized last fall before dormancy set in with generic bermuda grass fertilizer, and stopped watering it. Slowly it turned completely brown, and looks dead. But I know it’s not. This weekend I’ll set the blade on my American reel mower to 1-inch high, and bag all the clippings. This will expose more of the ground to the warm sunlight, and encourage a nice healthy lawn.

Here’s a to-do list of a few other things we hope to accomplish this weekend:

1. Mow back lawn
2. clean up dead plants that didn’t make it through the freeze
3. a bit of laundry
4. damp-mop the hardwood floors
5. Walk the dog twice
6. visit any sunday garage sales in the neighborhood
7. change the belt on Elise – it’s been squeaking when the engine is cold, and has more than 1/2 inch of play when deflected

I’m nowhere near the first to have noticed Matt, and I’m very late getting on the Lisa bandwagon. But if you are a fan of bespoke, you might just want to take a few minutes to look them up (just use any of the links above). And if you don’t have time to check him out right now, just scroll down to view some of his projects.

Natural Cable Ties

These might just be the most cool cable ties I’ve ever seen. Do you struggle with cable management? Is hiding electrical wires the bane of your existence? Check out these incredible cable ties. Not only are they the recipient of a 2010 Design for Asia (DFA) Silver Award (they should have gotten the gold in my book), but they are the hottest item in home decorating on the web right now.

There are lots of colors available too. Enough to match any decorating style you may have:

• Light Green (Emerald
• Dark Green (Olive)
• Brown (Expresso)
• White (Reindeer)
• Teal (Kingfisher)
• Red (Scarlett)

LufDesign Leaf Ties

Green Leaf Cable Ties

Decorating Cables

Colored leaf cable ties

Decorating with cable ties

You can find these at the LufDesign store.
I’ve already ordered a few sets, and in the coming weeks you will see these green cable ties appearing all over my office.

The Homies

I think I got the DIY bug from my parents. My Dad was a hardware store owner, and no project around the house was too big or small for us to tackle. Inspiration would come from hundreds of magazines that my mom would collect, and then flag with dog-ears, bookmarks, or by taking notes on a legal pad. Magazines like Sunset, Architectural Digest, Decor, and Domino would cover the dining room table, open to pages with paint colors, bathroom fixtures, or creative storage ideas.

Today, all I have to do is turn to the Internet to find amazing home decoration ideas, inspiration and how-tos. And sites like Apartment Therapy make it even easier. Every year, they accept nominations for the best Home Design Blog, and then readers get to vote on their favorites.

This year, the field was outstanding. Over 250 incredible house blogs were nominated (view the complete list of shelter blogs here), then the editors of Apartment Therapy narrowed down the field to 9 finalists:

Door Sixteen
Freshome
Our Little Beehive
Remodelaholic
7th House on the Left
Slim Paley
The Steampunk Home
Table Tonic
Young House Love

Each of these websites are incredible (I’ve added all of them to my RSS reader in Apple Mail). But only one could be the winner, and it turned out to be the incredibly easy to read Young House Love. Congrats Sherry & John. You guys deserve it!

Today it’s a bit different.  Some of you know that my day job is to be a wedding photographer.  That means I’m busy most weekends, and during the week, I have a bit more free time, but still have to edit photos, make wedding albums, and meet with clients.  I share an office space with a cake baker and a great caterer, and today we are putting a new floor in the kitchens and offices.

Yes, it’s going to be a big job.  There are refrigerators, stoves, and ovens to move.  Sinks and cabinets to relocate.  It’s going to be a lot of work.  But since I’m the guy with the tools in our social circle,  I’ve been bribed with a professionally catered dinner sometime in the future in exchange for my attendance.

As I begin to prepare for today, I wanted to share with you the tools I’ll be taking with me to put in a new floor using press and stick tiles.

• Box knife
• extra blades
• jig-saw
• kneepads
• cordless drills
• prybar
• sharpie
• gloves
• screwdriver
• channel-lock pliers
• driver bits
• extension cord

I’ll be throwing all these into my canvas tool bag, and heading out the door in a few minutes.  Check back tomorrow for some pics, as well as a more complete write up.

Decor Star Waterfall Roman Bath Filler

First I looked at Decor star.  The price was right, but then upon reading the reviews, I decided that I wanted something a little more substantial.  Less flimsy.  You get what you pay for, right?

Asian inspired tub spout

This one was cool, and has a great Asian style.  It’s a contender.  The American Standard – Green Tea Deck Mount Tub Filler for round $375.

There are lots of different kitchen faucets that I like, but after a little research maybe I could use a kitchen faucet to fill a bathtub.  But after a little research, I learned that it would take an hour to fill a tub, and for me that’s way too long to wait.  Besides the water would get cold by then, too.

One thing to consider – the keywords you use to search for are super important.  Do you want a wall mount or a deck mount filler?  Using the term Roman Tub will also give different results.  And if you toss in the phrase modern tub, you will get all kinds of varied results.  After spending a couple of hours using Google and Amazon, I settled on a great little website called Allmodern.com.

Modern Bathtub Faucet

And the winner?  The Hansa  Four Hole 2 handle Roman.  Why four holes?  Because I want a more Euro style tub, with a handheld shower.  This will be going into the guest bathroom.  We very infrequently have guests stay overnight, and the main use of our guest bath is during dinner parties.  But I’m thinking about making it more spa like, so my wife can take luxurious baths.  And this $350 modern bath faucet is just the ticket.

Spa bath inspiration

After looking around the web for a little bit, I found a list of the things they check at the annual inspection.  For the last few days I’ve been working on each of these items to make sure they all work, and reliably at that.  Most of them are pretty self-explanatory.  But a few like Gas Cap have me wondering: “Are there cars out there without gas caps?”

1. Horn
2. Windshield Wipers
3. Mirror
4. Steering
5. Seat Belts
6. Brakes (system) (Parking – beginning with 1960 models)
7. Tires
8. Wheel Assembly
9. Exhaust System
10. Exhaust Emission System (beginning with 1968 models)
11. Beam Indicator (beginning with 1948 models)
12. Tail Lamps (2); (1) if 1959 model or earlier
13. Stop Lamps (2); (1) if 1959 model or earlier
14. License Plate Lamp (1)
15. Rear Red Reflectors (2)
16. Turn Signal Lamps (beginning with 1960 models)
17. Head Lamps (2)
18. Motor, Serial, or Vehicle Identification Number
19. 1988 & newer – inspect for window tinting or coating
20. Gas caps on vehicles 2-24 model years old.

Also, before I head over to the tester, I need to make sure I have current Proof of Insurance, otherwise they won’t even spend the time to check the car.

Finally, an emissions test is requied if the car is 2-24 years old.  Since Elise is 36, she is exempt from the tailpipe test, I think.

Let’s all hope  that the puffs of white smoke coming out the tailpipe are ignored, and I get my windshield sticker…