What did you do today?

The cutouts in the bottom of the counter tops are for T-bolts to hold the corner together. You should be able to get them where you bought the counter tops. You also need to glue the corner seam when you install the T-bolts to maintain alignment and prevent moisture intrusion which will cause delamination over time.

Hampton Bay
Miter Bolt Kit


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• Connects miter joints easier than ever
• Provides stability and strength
• Easy to install with step-by-step instructions

Thank you, Fireguy! I looked for those & found a kit that includes the glue for the mitered countertops. I just have to pick them up today when I stop at the store. I was lazy & just added them to my cart for pickup so Lowes employees can have them together for me so I don't have to wander around the store looking for things. It's probably going to be getting late by the time I get there & I'll want to get back home to make dinner.
I had some leftover stroganoff, but I just discovered the empty container in the fridge. My brother struck again.

Making good progress on the cabinets zannej.
Finished up early today, so we took a trip to the plant place, brought some home and stuck them in the ground. Fills it in enough to make it look like we're doing something. We'll probably fill in the rest with bulbs or seeds, this Fall and/or next Spring.

....and this morning at daybreak a bud opened a little, by 10a it was open in full bloom.

Gary, the garden looks great & that is a beautiful flower! My uncle always had very pretty flowers around. He likes to plant the kinds that attract butterflies.

Right now my 4-0'clocks are growing strong. They have gone wild like weeds but they smell wonderful. The weeds have gone crazy in the yard again & I tried to cut some of them down but started feeling light-headed. The heat out there just saps my energy. I was sick last night & this morning. I spent the day getting some rest. My arrhythmia is acting up a bit so I'm not feeling productive. I cooked stroganoff last night & this morning discovered that my brother found the leftovers-- but this time he put the empty container in the sink. My only gripe was that he didn't ask. It's a good thing there was leftover beef stew for me to heat up for Mom. My brother also got to the sour cream so now I'm out.

Wednesday I stained my friend's cabinets but accidentally spilled the bucket on the unfinished floor. I still managed to get good coverage & the cabinets needs some touch-ups & I still need to hit the sides, but I'm waiting until they are set in place properly & countertops are secured before I do that part. He doesn't have a day off until Tuesday to really work on stuff, but I'm hoping we can get the countertops cut sooner than that early in the morning before he has to go to work.

He also wants to see if I have the lumber to make a railing for his steps so my mother doesn't keep having trouble going up them.

I've been to the south rim of the Grand Canyon at sunset, but Gary, that birdhouse you've got out front is one of the most glorious things I've ever seen.

I just had to scroll up to look at the pictures. I didn't even notice the birdhouse. It is awesome!
Today I went into town to get mail & go to the store. Then I went in a 2nd time bc I got asked to go pick up medicine for my friend's grandfather. The usual people who help were injured & the old man was out of his blood pressure meds & needed it tonight. I brought my friend's fiance with me & she helped me at the checkout & loading the car. I'm a bit slow today-- not sure if it's from being sick or from the meds I took for being sick but my brain is just not fully on so I'm in sloth mode.

I'm headed to Florida to help with the hurricane for the Red Cross. I'll be gone up to 3 weeks, depending on how bad and where it hits.

Thanks Flyover & Zannej. The birdhouse number is EF3 South Broadway, remembering the tornado. It gets a smile from people walking by. It'll have to come down sooner or later as the tree is getting softer by the day.

Good for you helping out Havasu. I went down to Buras Louisiana 3 times over 2 years helping after Katrina and Rita. It's an experience I'll never forget.

Got a start on the front entry steps. I'm hoping to get it it close to done by tomorrow. After 20+ years, the steps were starting to tilt out and there's some uneven pavers & low spots. The steps were starting to get a little dangerous in the winter. I put a concrete/rebar footing under the retaining walls/steps, so they should hold up for as long as we're around. I did put a footing under the wall that supports the posts & fence originally , so it hasn't moved. I should've just pored footings under all the steps right from the start. Live and learn.

I love that the birdhouse has images of your house on it.
The steps look like a lot of work. I hope you don't hurt your back working on them. They look good so far.

Havasu, good luck with the Red Cross work in Florida. I'm hoping the storm won't do too much damage, but it's looking like it's going to be nasty.

Last week I hit the jackpot: Went to the thrift store and found a router table with a $3 price tag on it, plus when I got it home I discovered that my router fit in it and that I had some longer machine screws of the correct diameter from an unrelated garage sale purchase, with which I managed to affix my router to the table.

This weekend I took an old MDF shelf I had lying around and made a very simple fence for the router table.
In the second picture you can see the bit quick-switcher I've installed on my router. I think it might be one of the dumbest most useless things I've done. Every time I press the housing down to remove a bit, it ends up being 15 minutes of tugging and cursing before the stupid thing comes loose, and me thinking I might as well have left it how it was originally and just used my 11mm wrench to tighten and untighten it each time like I used to. Anyone else have one of these stupid things on their routers?

That looks like a handy table flyover. And for 3 bux how can you go wrong. Good find.

I got pretty close to done on the front steps. Put a concrete footing under the last step early this morning,(in the fog). My back is telling me I probably shouldn't have. Took just over 10,000 lbs. of fill to bring everything back up to grade. Where does all that material go?
Pressure washer sure brought the pavers back to life. I have some concrete sealer on the shelf I figured I'd use up on this job. When that's dry I'll broom in the paver sand. I also have a partial bag of lava rock I think I'll pour around the gas meter, then it'll be a done deal.

27,000 steps today according to the fit bit knock off. But at least it's another honey do project in the books.

@Gary That looks fantastic. I've been teaching my kids (ages 2 and 6) all about brick-laying patterns because I heard it was a dying art form, so now it's something I notice everywhere too. Any particular reason you went with the running bond over a herringbone or basketweave or something else?

Thanks Flyover. I'd like to say I had a grand plan, but in actuality, it was the easiest pattern with the least waste.

That sounds like a really good reason.

I hate to post on here so much, but hilarious stuff keeps happening to me.

This afternoon my wife said "So you're gonna take out that beehive after the kids are down, right?" One of those questions with only one answer. We had a quote from Terminix and they wanted $300 just to remove one hive, plus they were going to spend hours trying to upsell us into some ridiculous kind of quarterly contract where they come out and try to maintain the charade that this isn't the insect's planet anyway. So we'd decided this was going to be one of my jobs.

After I put my daughter to bed I got into my tough brown carpenter pants, tucked a hoodie into those, then put on my camo jacket over that. I synched the hoodie all the way up over my mouth and eyebrows. I duct-taped my leather work gloves over the cuffs of my jacket. I tucked my pants into some tall waterproof boots and laced them up tight. I put safety goggles on over my hood. I put my headlamp on over that. Only my hose was exposed -- a risk I was willing to take, I guess. Then out I walked from my garage, looking like some kind of insane redneck meth cook.

After some digging and not finding the hole I'd thought I spotted earlier in the week, I decided to shove a large rock out of the way, and ZING -- there it was, a hole about the size of a half-dollar with a lot of angry bees pouring out of it, right at me. I sprayed the heck out of 'em until the spray ran out, and then I ran out too! I probably said something like "Get some, muf**kas!" but I don't remember.

I had the presence of mind to run toward the street rather than back into the garage. A few bees had followed me, but they seemed to give up once they realized I wasn't stingable. So after a minute or so I walked back to the hive, sprayed some more just in case there was anything left in the can (there wasn't), then out to the street again, then back into the garage.

In there, I heard one or two buzzes by my head so I waited until the coast was clear, then closed the garage and quickly slid inside the house and shut the door behind me. My wife was standing there in the kitchen grinning. She'd been watching out the front window, said I looked insane. (But she already knows I'm crazy.)

As I was shedding gear, I reached inside the collar of my hoodie where something besides my hoodie strings was rolling between my fingers. A bee dropped out and onto the floor. I wasn't surprised because I figured one or two would get through my armor somehow, but I kind of was surprised anyway. I quickly put a glove back on and squished it to make sure it was dead. I noticed one more crawling on my pant leg but before I had a chance to get it, my wife was already in panic mode, like "Get in the laundry room! Get in the laundry room!" and when I got in there and looked back down it was gone.

Then I realized these aren't bees, they're yellow jackets. And one is loose in my house.

Flyover I had similar experience. Back in the early 70's I was around 8 or 9 at the time. we had a cabin at the lake,it was high on a hill and the bank leading to the dock was covered in large rocks and the yellow jackets had made nests in between the rocks so my dad had the bright idea topour gas on the rocks and light it on fire, well as it turned out that was a very bad idea the yellow jackets flew thru the fire very pi**ed off and begun stinging us. I ran to the dock and jumped into the water, my dad couldn't swim (which I found hard to believe because he served in WW II and was in D-day and various other battles.) he just ran around like a chicken with his head cut off. when it was all over with I had been stung around 10 times and he had been stung 30+ times. needless to say that was the last time we ever tried to get rid of wasps, yellow jackets, bees that way. I can still to this day remember how much that hurt.

Flyover, the router table & the fence are cool! I always think it's awesome when people find a good deal. I like to hoard scrap materials & I hate to see stuff thrown out. The other day I stopped my friend from throwing out some scrap 2x4 pieces. I said he might need it for something so he said "Fine. I'll keep it" and tossed it on the side of his house. Today we were working on multiple projects at his house. First we pulled off the baseboard & trim. Found lots of bugs hiding in there & found an old card from the Grand Casino tucked behind a baseboard. The floor had been built up after the baseboards were in so we had to pry them up & out. With the baseboards out of the way we were able to get the cabinets flush against the walls-- unfortunately the walls aren't plumb-- they lean back a bit. Got the cabinets leveled & tried to connect the countertops together but we need a tool to get the t-bolt thingies secured. Trimmed the edge off the long countertop & ironed on the edge trim. In between the edge trim though we tried to fix up the back of his house. It was just open where there had been sliding glass doors that fell off. He'd covered it with clear plastic. Moved a bunch of junk & then got some lumber & some concrete blocks. The floor under the doors had fallen out so we were putting a temporary piece in underneath to put the glass doors back on (although the bottom track is long gone). There wasn't enough material to lift the 2x6 up high enough so I ran and grabbed the scraps I had my friend keep. He muttered about how I got to say "I told you so" on keeping them. Used them to shim & then ended up having to use a floor jack to hold one side up bc we need to get another concrete block & some 4x4s. But at least for now it's closed up better. Then we went back inside & worked on the countertops. They still need more work. The adhesive didn't work perfectly so we're going to use some gorilla glue in spots where it wouldn't stick.

Another day when we have more hands available we're going to do more adjusting. In the back room that had the glass doors we found a little folding tv tray table. I'm going to sand it & stain it to match the kitchen & then use some polycrylic seal on it. I still need to do more staining but we need to put in a toekick cover for the gaps. I'm going to find my clamps & see what I have in terms of filler so we can clamp the cabinets together properly. But that will be a project for another day. Probably would have had the countertops done today if we'd had an extra set of hands available. But, we made some progress, which is good. When the countertops are off I'm going to do touch-up stain where I missed spots & stain spots that are now exposed due to adjustment. The corner cabinet doesn't go all the way back-- it's smaller than the others so we recessed it a bit to get more space. We made sure the door for it doesn't hit the other cabinets when fully opened.

I also lugged in 4 cases of water & 25lbs of cat food (at my house). My brother was supposed to help with that but he didn't feel like it.


I don't mind bees but I hate yellow jackets. Those things are a-holes with wings. I'm glad you didn't get stung, Flyover.

Tuffy, that really sucks. I've been stung by those things a few times. My father used to make them angry & they would always come after me for some reason. But at least I'm not allergic like my brother is. He got stung right between the eyes just before his 18th birthday & it was all swollen up & he looked like a neanderthal.

A couple newsbits...started my new job yesterday. I like it, and I know it will get better, and I'm very excited about the work I'll be doing. Two frustrations are 1) the onboarding process sucks; they don't even have a desk for me yet so I have to squat in cubicles of whoever's out that day. And 2) I got spoiled by my last job where they had a fitness center right there on the ground floor. Now I work in one of the biggest most "state of the art" office buildings in the country and come to find out there's no gym in it! But that's really silly, I'm lucky to have a job I like, to be paid well for doing I'm interested in, and to have coworkers who I respect and who appreciate me.

Back at the thrift store last week I picked up a belt for my bandsaw, so now it's ready to become operable, for the first time since I've had it. I just need to build a stand for it, so that's officially my next project. I designed the stand, and figured out I can use the 8-foot 2x4 I've got in my garage (those will be the verticals); I just need to buy two 8-foot 2x3s (those will be the horizontals) and a new set of caster wheels. So, a $15-$20 project.
(If you'll recall, I destroyed my old set of caster wheels trying to get that 250lb red maple trunk section down the sidewalk to my house earlier this summer.)
I can bring the price down further if instead of buying 2x3s I use some of the old 4x4 fenceposts I've got in my shed. But that might be excessive, and not leave enough room for the motor.

Flyover said:

A couple newsbits...started my new job yesterday. I like it, and I know it will get better, and I'm very excited about the work I'll be doing. Two frustrations are 1) the onboarding process sucks; they don't even have a desk for me yet so I have to squat in cubicles of whoever's out that day. And 2) I got spoiled by my last job where they had a fitness center right there on the ground floor. Now I work in one of the biggest most "state of the art" office buildings in the country and come to find out there's no gym in it! But that's really silly, I'm lucky to have a job I like, to be paid well for doing I'm interested in, and to have coworkers who I respect and who appreciate me.

Back at the thrift store last week I picked up a belt for my bandsaw, so now it's ready to become operable, for the first time since I've had it. I just need to build a stand for it, so that's officially my next project. I designed the stand, and figured out I can use the 8-foot 2x4 I've got in my garage (those will be the verticals); I just need to buy two 8-foot 2x3s (those will be the horizontals) and a new set of caster wheels. So, a $15-$20 project.
(If you'll recall, I destroyed my old set of caster wheels trying to get that 250lb red maple trunk section down the sidewalk to my house earlier this summer.)
I can bring the price down further if instead of buying 2x3s I use some of the old 4x4 fenceposts I've got in my shed. But that might be excessive, and not leave enough room for the motor.

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Congrats on the new job!