Projects / Game Day

              Saturday was the big home game against LSU. It was a late game not starting until 7:00 p.m. I started out the day early heading to Homo Depot before things got too crazy. I needed to get some lumber and odds and ends for this latest project.

Arrg…. a lot of prep work needs to be done. There was some drywall tape that had bubbled out that needed to be repaired along with a bunch of popped nails.

Before I do the main room, the bathroom will get a make over. I have paint left over from the downstairs bath I did after retiring from Corvette. Pretty much all I’ll have to provide is the elbow grease. The shower curtain is so ugly.  Because this hangs at an angle I had to hem it up so it would drop right. Not really using this bathroom it did not matter that much. Now it does! I will have to break down and get a decent looking curtain. How I hate shopping for that kind of thing. This current shower curtain came from the big yard sale of 1998. A group of us combined our stuff for a huge sale that fall. Tommy and Lee had bags of clothes, shoes, and linens they were getting rid of. Those boys spent more money on clothes. Even after selling much of what they had, I went away with bagfuls of designer clothes getting first pick before the thrift store. It was years before I had to buy socks or underwear. I’m still wearing the sport coats and shirts from them. They had small feet so I could not use any of their track shoes. If we had the same size foot I’d never have to buy track shoes again. Bags of shoes went to the thrift store.

Saturday afternoon was spent gluing up the shutter panels. The wood is that real dark 1970’s era finish that was so popular with the heavy pine furniture. I’m hoping that dark will contrast well with the with white painted window trim. I don’t want to paint or do any refinishing on the shutters.

Once I get the drywall patching done the ceiling will get painted. Then I’ll tape off the trim and paint the walls, and finally the woodwork. When this “side” of the upstairs is done, then I’ll concentrate of the opposite end which originally housed the kitchen area. I sold the electric stove from this upstairs at the yard sale. The upstairs refrigerator was moved into the kitchen as the other refrigerator that was supposed to be included with the sale of the house was sold at the house sale the kids had.

There is a low sloping area which separates the kitchen and sleeping area. This is a dormer which ends up at three low windows. When I first looked at this house in 1996 the student living here had a mattress in this spot. If I were younger I could relate. Not at my age! LOL! Also, I have cracked my head too many times where the dormer joins the main sloped ceiling.

I really need to get this project finished up and organized by next spring to allow me rent this space out for games next season. It is unreal what fans will pay to be walking distance to the stadium. Ideally I’d want older alumni who would not tear the place up.

It feels good to have projects to work on again. It is not like they were never there; I needed to get the motivation.  

Things were crazy in my neighborhood all day. The partying started early in the morning. There were hordes of Alabama fans streaming past my house all afternoon before the game wearing the requisite crimson red and black/white hound’s-tooth. By the time it started getting dark a lot of these people were pretty unsteady on their feet.

Game days have me feeling like the only sober person at a drunken orgy. Everyone is having so much fun where I can’t connect. I’ve never cared much for sports, let alone build my life around a team. College football is a religion in the south. Coach Nick Saban here at Alabama has a higher standing th

an Jesus.

It feels good to have projects to work on again. It is not like they were never there; I needed to get the motivation.  

Let me get off this computer and get to work.