Early Birthday Dinner at Bavette’s
I started off the meal with a martini and a dozen oysters. Had a second martini with my steak, and it was quite delicious.
Posts Tagged "liz"
A Day in Valparaiso (That Also Included Chickens)
Liz and I met up with Julie and Bob this morning, in Valparaiso. We had an early brunch planned for 9AM, and after that… we were back at their house for the day.
Saturday is Basement Painting Day
By the time we finished, we had hit our goal of four rows. Anything more, I think, would have been too taxing… as Liz and I were both moving slower and slower towards the end. So at least now, we have a solid sense of how much work we can reasonably get done in one “session,” whether that’s a week night or weekend day.
Painting the Basement Joists
So far, I’ve been doing the cutting and Liz has been handling the main areas with a roller. We’re planning on two coats, given how much paint the joists soak up – so the work is steady, but slow going. The crazy thing to keep in mind is that we’ve already painted these joists… but the paint just gets soaked up by the wood.
Patching the Basement Floor and Bricks
Today for our house day, Liz and I continued working in the basement. We had a few big tasks on the docket: patch up the cleanout with cement, repair some of the brick along the baement walls, and start to bring back a few items we moved out when we cleared the basement, in December.
Craftsman Cabinet Assembly, and the Start of the Basement Priming
On Friday, the Craftsman 41″ 8-Drawer Rolling Cabinet we ordered came in. It’s been sitting in our entryway for a few days, but we got around to moving it to the basement late Sunday evening.
Prohibition Era Cocktails at Koval Distillery
As part of a birthday gift for Bob, Liz signed the four of us up for some cocktail classes, held at Koval Distillery. After meeting up after work for a quick dinner at Lady Gregory’s, we headed over for our class at Koval.
Basement: Before and After Epoxy
After letting the basement epoxy dry and cure for several days, Liz and I finally went back downstairs today to take a look.
Final Cleaning and Washing of the Basement Floor
We went back and forth a bit – with Liz putting down the mixture, letting it sit for about 5 minutes, then scrubbing the areas. After that, she rinsed the area with the powerwasher as I helped clean up everything with our shop vac (a tool I’ve grown to really love, these last few weeks).
Fixing the Basement Perimeter and Cracks
Liz, suited up and ready to work with some concreteready repair. We’re working with this stuff because it sets very quickly, and can have epoxy applied to it in a short amount of time (versus a multi-day curing time for regular concrete).
Happy New Year
I woke up at one point in the night, when Liz gave me a slice of cheesecake. Which I ate, and then promptly went back to sleep. Woke up again shortly after midnight, when someone in the neighborhood set off some firecrackers. Kissed Liz. Then fell asleep again.
Powerwashing the Basement
We’ve done several runs to paint stores, to try to track down the epoxy we need. And I also went back and forth to our local Ace a few times, trying to put together a MacGyver-like apparatus to enable us to use both hot + cold water for the power washer. The apparatus ended up failing, so we had to go with just cold water (which honestly wasn’t too bad).
Dinner with Jake and Anais in Hyde Park
Met up with Jake and Anais tonight, for a night out in Hyde Park. We gave them a quick tour of the house, and headed over to Jolly Pumpkin, which Liz and I had yet to visit.
Dinner and Chocolate in Geneva
It was a Friday, with perhaps more traffic than usual. We had a lot of snow in the afternoon, and a lot of accidents on the route we were on. We crawled along I-55 for a good while, and want to say we ended up walking in the door about two hours after we left.
Clearing the Basement
With us having just gotten back home yesterday, Liz and I were reluctant to suit up and begin work on the house again. But after a late breakfast, some Star Trek, and a review of our Google Calendar plans… we realized we had a strict schedule to keep to.