Manley House

There is a space behind the garage that grows some very tall weeds, over the windows tall. The end of the first summer here I cut or pulled them all and applied a "ground clear" to the area. The next summer the area was bare and I forgot about it. This year they were back.

A few weeks ago I cut them and pulled them out and applied more "ground clear". Yesterday I rolled out some landscaping weedstop and covered it with some gravel that the neighbors had leftover from some work they did. I need to put more down at some point but I was getting tired last night. I also did the backfill for the ground rods at the house.

Well, MG&E canceled on us this morning due to the rain and other outages that take priority, so I'm scheduled for Wednesday morning at 8am, hopefully I can be in to work by noon.

So, instead of doing the house hookup we continued work on the garage wiring. Pictures are in the gallery, many need to be rotated but the rotate feature seems to be broken. I might re-upload them after editing sometime, just tilt your head to the right for most of them for now.

The trench and PVC is done and the wires have been pulled. The garage panel has been replaced and re-connected and the new air-compressor and welder outlets have been added. When the inspector stopped by today he said the trench looked good and could be back-filled (might do that tomorrow after work). He also said that what we had so far and what we had ready looked good, we just needed to tweak some of the grounding which we have since done.

Tomorrow I'll try and fill in the trench and cleanup some in the garage.

Wednesday after the service is disconnected (at the pole and the meter pulled) we have to (hopefully the isolated thunderstorms are isolated somewhere else):

• remove and replace the wire from the meter and connect to the new main panel


• run the wires and conduit from the new panel to the disconnect in the basement


• separate the ground and neutral in the basement disconnect (remove jumper connector?)


• have the whole shebang inspected


• have MG&E plug the meter back in and restore service so the house has power again

So, woke up this morning about my normal time, with the help of feloniouscat and apocalyptikitty of course. After feeding them I decided to head outside and mark off where I wanted the hostas to go. Since the sun was still behind the garage at this point I removed the sod from the area. Then it was inside for some breakfast and cooling off.

I didn't feel like digging up the hostas quite yet so I grabbed the shovels and started on the other clothesline pole. After 2 hours of digging with stops for water and AC breaks I have the pole free, I just can't lift it.

By then it was time for lunch so I came in and had some lunch and decided to go back out for the hostas. Probably not the best plan as the sun was now beating down, but eh. So I went out and moved most of the hostas over. I still need to move the lillies on the end and get rid of the tree/bush at the back of the garage. There is also a varigated hosta under the bush thing which might get moved to the side of the house by the driveway or something, along with the one by the power pole. The two small clumps that are still by the garage in the middle were hostas that were squished between others and I decided to not move them, not sure where they are going yet, maybe they will go along the driveway too, if they make it that long.

The doors are together, mostly. I should take them back down and add some screws, but they are good for now. Now I need to get the mirror and the shelves. We'll see if we go with the glass shelves or if I make some wooden ones after we get some quotes. I think the wall trim is next on the list, or the doors for the base cabinet, although this afternoon might just be lazy.

So, the frames for the upper doors have been cut. In the picture they are all just sitting there, nothing is actually attached together. Yesterday I made a mortising jig for the table saw, and I think it works rather well. The backs are already rabbeted for the warlon and plexiglas.

Next up is the little stuff, like the notching for the strips that will make up the pattern in front of the warlon. I think those are going to be done by hand after I rip them down to size. Once those are cut then I can dye/assemble and lacquer the parts before installing the plexi and warlon before sticking them in the cabinet. I also need to order the mirror and the shelves for the bottom sections.

I still have to do the doors on the base cabinet but those will wait a bit, I hope to get some of the needed hardware (hinges, drawer slides) at the Woodcraft bag sale next weekend.

Too bad I don't have tomorrow off to work on it, and I'm not sure how much more energy I have left for tonight. I might just have to re-position the heaters to be pointing right at me and setup a single workstation.

Saturday I cut, dyed, lacquered, and assembled the upper wall cabinet. Sunday morning I put the back on it and stuck it up in the wall and cut the spacers. Monday morning I measured, cut, and dyed the trim for around the cabinet assembly. The afternoon was spent lacquering those parts and doing other things around the house like swapping out curtains and hanging pictures. Last night I put up three of the trim pieces and glued up two others. After returning home today, I put up the top trim and it is as you see it in the picture. Next up is the face frame. I already have 4 of the 5 pieces cut to length, they still need the joinery cut. The fifth piece still needs to be purchased as the widest board I have is 3.5" and I need almost 4" wide for the center horizontal piece due to the box for the light.

Much progress today. The lower part of the wall cabinet case is all dyed and some of it just got the third coat of lacquer (still wet in the picture, will dry to semi-gloss). The two pieces in the background will get lacquered tomorrow along with the other sides of the foreground pieces. Before I started with the dye and the lacquer I trimmed the parts to final dimensions and cut the dado and rabbet joints. I also drilled all of the holes for the adjustable shelf supports. Then I glued on the upper and lower tracks and glued and biscuit joined the solid face for the center vertical support to help hold in the shelves and hide the edge of the plywood. The heaters currently have that area of the garage about 20 degrees higher (60) than the outside temp (40), for this project I am glad it isn't a white December yet.

While waiting for glue and lacquer to dry today I also cut and put up a shelf above the West window supported by the two wall cabinets. Not sure what is going to go there yet but it seemed like a good use of that space.