It’s been here for a few months now, but I hadn’t seen it myself. This one is copper, hoping that it will last a bit longer than the previous iron ones, that had a tendency to rust away in 2 years.
Texas Humor
I bought a bottle of local single malt whiskey from this store, aptly named whiskey business:
Besides an excellent selection of whiskey, they also had some funny T-Shirts like this one:
This wouldn’t work in Amsterdam as Beer is actually the Dutch word for Bear.
Beer caddy
So I had to get a cedar board to replace the one on the siding. As I only needed half of it, I was left with a piece of cedar. Combine that with nice weather and my fondness of making stuff from cedar, I made this little beer caddy
It fits a six pack of bottles or cans. I’m not likely to use it myself, as my beer usually goes directly from fridge to glass to mouth. Cheers 🍻
Getting my head into the gutter
When I installed the rain gutter, it did not come with enough kit to prevent it from leaking a little at the seams. So as it’s nice weather, I decided to setup the scaffolding and fill the gaps from the inside of the gutter with some silicone kit.
It’s much easier to do this with the scaffolding.
Grill upgrade
The old Huntington grill that Mart gave me when he visited back in 2017 has finally given up. After replacing the burner, ignition and hose in March, it just wouldn’t burn anymore now. So it was time for an upgrade.
Kept it very modest, but this one does have three burners instead of two. And a temperature gauge and a tray to keep things warm.
But it’s stainless steel only for the front plates and the tray, so we will see if this one holds up 7 years too. First test will be tonight, Christmas Eve with a nice big steak. 🥩
Update: it’s officially approved. 🤠
Toilet Repair
The floating toilet upstairs somehow got its support frame inside the wall bent. I suspect someone with more weight than is healthy managed to do so. In order to prevent it from bending even further, I gave the toilet trunk support;
I used the part I cut out of the wall to put the pellet stove outlet, as that has about the same curve as the toilet bowl. Although it’s no longer floating, it will support even the heaviest people.
Deck repair
About 5 years back, there was a period with frost and the deck boards on the east side were snow/ice covered for a while. As the sun doesn’t reach there, these boards suffered more than on the other 2 decks. I replaced the boards worst damaged and gave them a Federal Blue stain coat.
The lighter ones have been replaced.
As you can see from the picture below, some really weren’t very solid anymore;
Siding Repair
The siding boards were cut by the cabin builder Neil Buie, and some of those cedar boards weren’t top quality. So one decided to split in half. So today I replaced it with a new board.
It stands out now because it’s not stained, but as I’m out of stain that will be done next time I’m over, when I will probably give the logs a fresh coat of stain too
Home theater setup
With the speakers being where they are, it was time for a home theater upgrade. The old 32 inch Samsung TV is now in the master bedroom. The new TV is 55″, which I felt was the best size considering the short viewing distance.
The TV can be rotated horizontally so that it’s good to watch from the couch and the chair.
Onyx is the new Black
The speakers received their first couple of coatings of paint;
It’s a satin gloss onyx color, which I chose to keep it in line with the pellet stove and TV colors. They will need a couple of more coatings to become evenly colored.
