So You Think You Can Strip

I’m amazed that I’ve managed to find time to strip some of the trim on the front of the house since I’ve had to deal with the apartment so much over the past week. I should probably have been finished with it at this point, but as it is, I’m far from being finished. I can feel the summer just slipping away, thank you very much apartment.



Here’s where I’m at. I’ve got all the trim around the front porch window stripped, along with one of three corbels – or is that a bracket? I’ve always thought of corbels as being thick, meaty, solid wood things that are just under the eaves of the roof. Anything else I’ve called a bracket. Last year when I went before the Preservation Committee to have my house added to the Local List of Historic Places I was corrected when I called it a bracket. I was told that is a corbel by one of the esteemed members of the committee. I never got a straight answer when I asked what the difference was between a corbel and a bracket. Maybe it is one of those “I can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it” sort of things.

When I bought the house this corbel/bracket was the mounting place for the cable TV hook-up. Can you believe they just screwed cable right in to it? The house had 8 cable runs streaming all over it and they all converged on this spot. It was just a rats nest of cables right there by the front door. After about a month in the house I called the cable company to complain. The guy I talked to was familiar with the house and sheepishly admitted they don't do that sort of thing anymore. He said it would be a while before they could get a crew out to clean it all up.

We went back and forth on it and I finally convinced him to have a guy come out and give me a new drop from the pole with a new service entrance. They could abandon all the old cable and I would clean everything up. He had someone there in an hour! I was amazed. Sure enough, I got a brand new cable from the pole and then over the next week or so I stripped out 100s of yards of coax cable from the house.

Anyway, I hoping to pick up speed on the paint stripping once the new tenant is in. I picked up the new carpet today and I’ll install it Saturday morning. After that I just have to fix a hinge on the bathroom door and that baby is done. This assumes that the old tenant is coming back for her last few remaining things that are in the apartment. She moved 90% out a week ago but she hasn’t been back since. I sense there may be a dump run in the very near future for me.

Oh, and as for the show I alluded to in the title, “So You Think You Can Dance”, I’m amazed at how much I like it. My exposure to dance is very limited. Fifteen or 20 years ago I very briefly went out with a woman who was taking modern dance in college and went to a few of her recitals, and to be honest, it did little for me. Then when I worked at the local PBS affiliate for a short time I had to sit through a few Ballroom Dance competitions and that did even less for me. For some reason, though, this time I’m really enjoying it. Maybe my tastes have matured.