When you have time on your hands

Since I have some extra time, but no extra money I have been trying to complete some of the less costly tasks around the castle which have been languishing on the TODO list for TOO LONG. An example was the stripping of the kitchen and hall doors which I did back in June.

Which brings us to the current time consuming task, stripping of the dining room table top. Cue the music. The finish on the base was fine, but the top was horrible.

We could have just used a table cloth, but then they get stained and then I have to shear more sheep and weave more cloth, it’s just exhausting.

The base is made up of 8 sections and 2 joints needed to be glued. I added a plug at the top for additional strength

and added a cover on the bottom for the same reason. I attached the cover with screws for when I need access to the leg bolts.

 

I stripped the table top using just sandpaper and used a chisel as a scraper for the curved edge of the table. The top is a veneer and I didn’t want to chance damaging it by using a power sander or chemicals. After sanding, I cleaned up the dust from the table and the surrounding area and went over the table top with a tack cloth. I used several thin coats of Minwax clear gloss spray polyurethane, waited 24 hours, sanded with super fine steel wool and put on a final coat of poly. Initially I purchased 2, 11.5 oz cans, but then needed to get a third because as the spray can got to about 1/3 full, the poly started coming out in an irregular manner. The horizontal orientation of the table was the issue, but I didn’t want to deal with runs. I hate nuns. OK, I don’t hate nuns, they just freak me out a bit.

Here the table is bare after stripping.

Then after first thin coats.

Here’s the table after a quick going over with steel wool and the last coat.

I know, just as interesting as watching paint dry.

Here is a list of some other things I have done with my extra time. I have left off job search because that pretty much goes without saying. Depending on what I find, it can take 5 minutes to check out the results from the search engines or it can take half a day. Researching the companies, writing cover letters ( I have quite a collection of cover letters) and occasionally tweaking the resume. Then I update the job search table and then move on to non-work-search tasks.

OK, here is a partial list of some other things I have done with my time.

• spreadsheet of the flowers around the house, when they bloom, location, color (57 types)
• organized the loose photos
• work related webinars and OOD/TDD blogs
• IEEE meetings
• segregated books on the book shelves by author
• shined brass knick-knacks on the book shelves
• cleaned the basement
• cleaned the desk
• tin ceiling in kitchen
• painted kitchen walls
• replaced water pump and hoses, days before trek to college
• replaced car battery, 2 days after trek to college
• rust repair on the 63 Land Rover
• installed basement window (other location)
• installed valve for dishwasher (other location)
• sink washers/toilet repairs (multiple other locations)
• did some wash (61 documented loads)
• read some books from the public library (more were pleasure than work related)

If I didn’t have to find a job, this quasi-retirement would be quite enjoyable. I would have read more, watched more movies during the day and taken a few classes for fun. Bookbinding sounds interesting.