Ready? Aim....

FIRE!!!

Spring has sprung virtually overnight here in Podunk, Rhode Island. It's been hot out to the point where I am wearing shorts all the time, and the windows on the house (the ones that aren't stuck shut, that is) are wide open to let the spring air in. The trees are starting to get their leaves and the birds are nesting. The flowers that the prior owners planted are in full bloom, and I went out and planted some more bulbs last week and came back into the house drenched in sweat from the early spring heat wave.

But they say about weather in New England, "If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes." Yesterday the temperature dropped, and we pulled on our flannels, fleeces and sweatpants. Todd went out and foraged for firewood, and we built our first fire in the fireplace. We don't even have the doors for the fireplace yet (it's still on order) but we were so bent on wanting to try out our new fireplace.

The house took on a woody smoky smell that instantly made us both homesick--we both grew up in houses that had woodstoves, woodburning furnaces and/or fireplaces. Every time we smell the smoke from one we both comment on how that is the smell of our childhoods. Now it's the smell of our adulthood, as our home now has somewhere we can burn a fire.

:::

Next I will take you to Man Town. One of the more important criteria in our search for a new home was a shed that can be used as a workshop. Todd and I both have mad power tool skills, and we are constantly using them for boat projects and now house projects. The shed at the house is an ideal space for this workshop in that the floor in the shed is raised a few inches to that hoses from a central vacuum system and electrical can branch out to every nook of the shop.

When we were still in the purchase phase of the shop, we saw that there were electrical outlets wired to several spots on the floor, which made it great for putting the table saw right in the middle of the floor without having to run an extension cord to it.

When we moved in we learned that as he was moving out Mr. Doofus McAssholeton snipped every outlet from the floor. Not only did he snip the wires, but he cut the wires flush to the floor so that we cannot use the existing cable to wire up another outlet. We will have to run new wires to install outlets on the floor again. Observe:

Can you believe that?? I keep telling Todd that I am amazed Doofus didn't take all the lightbulbs out of the light fixtures. Anyway, we're handy people and wires can be re-run--we've moved beyond the annoyed and into the amused when it comes to little gems like this that Mr. McAssholeton left behind.

The last 2 weeks we have been working on setting up Man Town. Todd has been standing in the space, turning circles and letting the wheels in his brain turn to help him visualize the perfect workshop--where the benches will go, where the table saw, the router and the miter saw all go. We have constructed some fabulous workbenches and soon all the tools will be laid out on pegboard and perfectly organized.

When ever we have undertaken a home improvement project at our old house I would leave a little grafitti behind in an inconspicuous location. There is a small "B+T" surrounded by a heart on the wall behind the workbench in our old house. There is another one under the laminate wood floors we laid down in the dining room at the old house as well.

Here is my first piece of home improvement grafitti in the new house. It's on the wall just under the new workbench:

And now, I present Todd's fabulous new workbenches, here they are in concept:

Here is the near finished project. He still wants to make shelves under them, so that we can stash more tools, however.