Coming Up Short

Four yeas ago, or so, when I pulled down the 2 story addition, I salvaged most of the old redwood to use for various projects around the house. This was probably one of the smartest things I ever did. I have saved thousands and thousands of dollars in wood over the years because I was able to use all of this old wood in various projects.

One of the things I did with the 2X10 floor joists was to have new head blocks made for the ones that the idiots sawed off when they put sheetrock in the parlors. For those who don’t know, a head block is a very fancy, high-Victorian corner block. Most corner blocks are square with a bullseye or rosette in the center. The head blocks on the first floor of my house have an additional crown and rail detail to them. They stick up about 3-inches above the header casing. The bozos who sheetrocked over the plaster in the parlors felt it was too much trouble to sheetrock around the crown, so they sawed them all off. Thanks guys!

So I had these beautiful, old-growth redwood 2X10 floor joist that I took down to the Blue Ox Mill and had them make up a bunch of these head blocks. They weren’t cheap so I counted carefully what I needed and then I ordered 2 extra just in case. Well, I ended up using the 2 extra, plus 2 more in the bathroom and mud room. I also didn’t plan on the partition in the butler’s pantry, so I’m now 4 short. I need to get 4 more made for the butler’s pantry. I think they were around $25 each and I supplied the wood. This is proving to be an expensive little room.

Even though I still have a lot of the salvage wood, most of the good stuff for finish work is gone. What is left I need to save for the dining room cabinets. So today I went and bought clear fir to make the cabinet doors for my cabinets in the butler’s pantry. I needed some other supplies so the total was nearly $90. On the way to the lumber yard I stopped and put $51 in the gas tank. On Thursday I bought a gallon of primer, a gallon of paint, and a new brush for $62. Of course, I needed the Buffy The Vampire Slayer 7 season DVD collection for $140. No butler’s pantry would be complete with out that. Then another $40 in miscellaneous networking and paint stripping supplies on Friday. The one gallon of paint I bought is only for the woodwork, so I’ll need another gallon for the plaster. There’s another $30. Tomorrow I’m going to price the tin ceiling. I have no idea what that will cost. I think that will be the last big expense though, but it just goes on and on. There will be numerous trips to the hardware store where I’ll spend $10 to $50 at a time.

Fortunately, I got a letter today from the IRS telling me that my Economic Stimulus Check is in the mail. The letter said I should receive the check by the 11th and that’s less than a week away. I’m not sure why they didn’t just send the check instead of a letter telling they are sending the check. Anyway, I guess I should thank the Chinese for loaning my government the money so they can give me some money so I can go buy some Chinese import goods and then I can pay back the Chinese loan with interest through taxes.

Thanks….I guess.