Monday, My Mental Health Day

Not only does all work and no play make Johnny a dull boy, it makes him an evil monomaniacal bastard. And that is just not fun for anyone. So aside from a little tinkering around the house and a good mental exorcism, I sat quietly, drank tea, ate a light dinner, took a nap and went to bed. How do I feel now? I feel great! Who knew seven hours of deep sleep could make such a difference?

With that rude little deadline encroaching upon us, how can a justify this therapeutic slackerdom? Easy, we worked on the Devil Queen all weekend. Things were caulked, primed and occasionally painted. And, more notably, Ms. Scarlet put two coats of poly down on the laundry room floor.

Of course, she had to contribute to the scraped vs. sanded wood floor debate after spending several hours crawling around on it. She prefers the drum-sanded look to the scraped look. And, she said the rougher surface of the scraped floor made it more difficult to apply the poly. Not an earth-shattering difference, but enough to annoy her. And no one wants an annoyed Scarlet.

In an attempt to burn your retinas with my sub-par photography skills, here is a close-up of the scraped flooring.

What I'm trying show is the variation in the surface. The photo flattens everything out, so you can't really see it here. In particular, more of the soft wood (light blonde) was scraped away than the dark grain which is slightly raised. To the best of my knowledge, this wood hasn't been wet, so I don't think that accounts for the raised grain.

As part of our family outing on Saturday, we stopped at a cool little junk/antique store in Dardanelle, just over the river from Russellville. They have some pretty incredible stuff there. But, what was I so annoyingly thrilled to find for $6.00?

See, exciting isn't it. In case you have no idea what these rusty, painted smeared bits of metal are, they are latch catches for 3 1/4 inch rim locks. They are a perfect fit too, so I won't have to cut any of the door trim to make these fit. All I need are a few good screws.

For Exhibit #2 in my effort to prove that I should not seek a career as a professional photographer, here is what I used as my excuse for enjoying the good weather and playing with Gideon outside.

These are terrible photographs. Really, it looks much better in person. In case you can't tell from the photo (My eyes! My eyes! I'm blind!), this is a dry-stack (i.e. no mortar) rock retaining wall. In theory this wall is supposed to continue on for another 60-70 feet in front and to the side of the Devil Queen. For the time being, we would settle for getting the section directly in front of the house finished before the appraisal. If the current issue of This Old House can be trusted, having a nice front entry not only makes a good first impression but can add 10%-25% to a home's value, and we need every penny we can get.

In addition to the wall, we're planning to lay a brick patio in the for ground, a slightly raised flower bed in front of the porch, and a lot a flower beds at the top of the wall too. By the time we've finished planting, a lot of the rock should be covered in creeping or climbing vegetation.