New Stuff

Sometimes it becomes necessary to get new stuff. While Cheryl has elevated this practice to an art form, I approach shopping very reluctantly, possibly because I have relationships with my old stuff. I have a mini sledge hammer, for example, that has been with me for years, is always ready to work, even developed a crack in the handle but continued to work, etc.

Sometimes a problem pops up and none of your old stuff will address it. During the course of removing the breakfast room floor, I broke a couple of the neighboring floor tiles. I take full responsibility for this error even though I could easily pass most of the blame to the incompetents who laid the floor (over the planks of the breakfast room floor, if you can imagine such a thing! You can see the notch at the bottom right of the photo--dolts!).

Of course, there are no replacements for these pinkish floor tiles, so I thrashed around in my sleep thinking about what to do. The tiles are very wide. I didn't want to take up a whole row. I could cut the tiles in place but this is very tricky and the old dude at Home Depot said I should not even try. I told him my plan: first, use a masonry blade in my circular saw and then, for the pieces next to the wall, use a dremel tool to make the final cuts. He looked at me like a farmer might look at a sick chicken.

I got the masonry blade and Cheryl stood there with a vacuum cleaner to suck up the tile dust as I cut. Beautiful. The dremel tool didn't work at first (floor tile is too hard) so I went back to the store and bought a diamond tipped cutter--more new stuff, but it had to be done. The final cut is to the right. Sweet!

For this foot-wide section I'm going to put in a row of custom oak parquet, running at an angle to the breakfast room floor and with alternating light and dark oak. More on this later.

I bought other new stuff, like a new table saw, which had to done since my old saw is cranky and vexes me at every opportunity. And I borrowed a nail gun from my friend Allen. I am sick with shopping and new stuff. Also we bought two new windows that I will install, but more on that later.