Robert's New Toy

Robert got a miter saw for his birthday (a bit belatedly a couple weeks back) and this weekend was the first chance he had to try it out. He had no project to work on (yet, though I'm told that will soon be rectified) so he just went out and cut up a bunch of wood. The man was positively giddy - I kept hearing little outbursts of "Hee hee!! I love it!!" while he was out there. It must be nice to be so easily amused. :o)




(What the heck is he going to do with that little sliver of wood? "Nothing. But see how straight it is?!!" Yes, dear. It's very straight.)

R.I.P. Spa

As you all know, Robert and I inherited a broken hot tub when we moved into our condo. Neither Robert nor I had any interest in fixing it because: (1) it would cost money and some of us are more *ahem* frugal than others; (2) Robert and I are both fastidiously clean people and wouldn't be interested in a used hot tub no matter what... but the women that lived in our place before us were gross so that feeling was just compounded 10-fold; (3) I have a natural aversion to hot tubs. They make me very hot and I don't like being hot. Who wants to feel sweaty while sitting in water, for crying out loud? Plus, their just big vats of sloughed off skin, hair and other bodily... things that I don't want to sit around soaking in. Blech.

So, the spa has been sitting on our patio, unused, for years now, mainly hiding Robert's woodworking crap (and sometimes doubling as a pseudo workbench for Robert's woodworking crap). I've made inquiries here and there to different people about how much it would be to have someone come in and remove the hot tub but the cheapest quote we got was about $200 and Robert was absolutely NOT going for that. He kept saying he was going to chop it up himself "one of these days" - and I just kept nodding my head and saying "Uh huh." I knew it was never gonna happen.

Well, I must eat my words (or thoughts, as it were) because Robert took two days off last week and spent one of them cutting up and disposing of the spa. I couldn't believe it! I honestly didn't think there was any way Robert was going to be able to cut up the hot tub and dump it in the Dumpster. No way. But, his dad offered to come help, my dad let Robert borrow his Sawsall and he got the job done. To refresh yourself on what the patio and spa used to look like, click here.

Here's Bob decked out in his spa-cutting gear (lots o' fiberglass, y'know - I'm glad they had the face masks!) I wish there was a photo of Robert, too. :o(


First, Robert and Bob skooched the spa out to the center of the patio so as to have more room to maneuver. Then, they started on the wood base.

Then they set to work on the spa itself.


Apparently, the hot tub was chockablock full of spiders. I would soooooo not have been down with that... blech!!


And voila! Done! And they did it in less than 2 hours! Now our patio looks naked... though, you can still see the dirt ring marking where the spa used to be. :o)

Biji came over last weekend and was flabbergasted by the size of our patio now that the hot tub is gone. "It's bigger than your living room!!" Thanks, man. All that did was spur Robert to want to make patio furniture! I told him about how our friends the Stovalls bought a used set and stripped it down and refurbished it themselves. Now Robert has a bee in his bonnet to do that... yeesh. Although if projects keep the man out of my hair then I'm happy to let him at it. He just needs to make sure I don't have to be involved! Basically, what I'm saying is is that if you get invited to a BBQ sometime next year, you'll have Biji and Robert to blame!

Oy... Robert and His Projects.

Robert is driving me NUTS. The man just finished up a project he'd been working on for a month or so and has been desperately searching for something new to work on all weekend. I really want to punch him in the nose! Ack.

First of all, Robert never takes any time off. He has over 30 days accrued (because he's never sick and I alway am and so never have any time accrued - ergo, we never take a "vacation") and so decided to take a day on Friday because he'd had a long week, what with his 16-hour day on Tuesday and whatnot. Then he figured, since he's in a use-it-or-lose-it situation, he'd take Monday off, too. And that's great... only Robert isn't a sit-around-the-house kind of guy and inevitably he will touch my stuff and screw up my piling filing system and I will be forced to hurt him. :o) It's true. And he did. But I digress.

Robert has been working on a jewelry box for me for about a month now, as I mentioned. It wouldn't have taken so long except he doesn't have an actual work bench or anything, so he has to work on our BBQ table and old microwave stand. Oh, and the old spa. So, he's sort of limited in what he can do, even though he has all the right tools and everything. I had seen an earring box in a magazine - basically a square wooden frame around some fabric for you to stick your earrings through - and told Robert I would like something like it. He then got all atwitter and set out to make me something for my earrings. I say 'something' because after it took more than, like, two weeks, I said something to him about it and he said he didn't remember seeing the item I'd pointed out in the catalog. He was going off his "own design." Oh goody.

Needless to say, I had some reservations that Robert's design would encompass what I wanted. "But you only wanted a cloth hanger for earrings - how hard can that be?!" you ask. True. But when I said "earrings" Robert heard "jewelry" and, well, wanted to make something a bit more elaborate than I wanted. I already have a jewelry box, as I pointed out to him, and really just wanted a bunch of holes in something from which I could hang my earrings but he assured me he was taking care of it. Okey dokey. Here is his work in progress and final result:

Before the final waxing

Mounted in its new home

So, you know - it looks good. It does a little more than I asked and it's not exactly what I had in mind but it does have lots of holes for my earrings!! And Robert was so cute - he actually organized all my jewelry on it for me so it was ready and waiting for me when I got home from work. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the best of moods coming home from work on Friday and, as such, I don't think I was as enthused as Robert would have liked... whoops. I know - I suck. But I do like it very much and am very impressed at Robert's woodworking abilities. They've really improved from when he made the TV tray that didn't fold in high school... ;o) In all seriousness, it was a very sweet gesture and I am impressed at Robert's creativity and skill - he really is a sweetheart.

And while I'm posting about Robert's woodwork-ery, here are a few photos of his first project: Gigantor.




As you can see, Gigantor is a DVD rack. A HUGE DVD rack... hence the name Gigantor. :o) (Yes, I really do call it that at home, too.) It is also Robert's own design and he actually finished the whole thing without a router (he has a fine set of routers now but at the time he was without), so his even and symmetric rounded corners are awesome. You can't really tell in the picture but he also mounted it to the wall in such a way that the mounts are hidden, so it's sort of like a floating... Gigantor. :o)

Anyhoo - back to Robert's projects. So, Robert finished up the jewelry box on Friday and started itching to start something new. I got him to do some cleaning on yesterday to occupy his time, then he dragged me down to Expo to look at blinds. Ugh. It did effectively suck up the rest of the day, though, so I guess it was good. Then first thing this morning, Robert starts harassing me about what things he can start working on. First he tells me he wants to paint our bedroom(!); after I told him he'd have to do the baseboards, too, he went off that idea pretty quickly. Then he wants to paint the crown molding in our spare bedroom or paint the master bathroom... he is driving me bananas!!!!!! I finally got him working on something in the guest bathroom - moving our light fixture so it's more centered over the mirror and the sink. (I'm anal - it's been driving me nuts since we moved in!). He jumped right on it and is working on it as I write:

"Don't you love your industrious man?"

He has to do touch-up painting after he re-attaches the light, so I hope that'll keep him busy for a while. I think he's moving on to adjusting our spare bedroom blinds after the bathroom - apparently, they're mounted outside the window and he wants them mounted inside. Whatever. Just stay away from me, my stuff and my TV and we'll get along fine, McCauley!!! Yeesh. I don't know what else there is to do - he has already done the dishes twice, dusted the fan blades and vacuumed - but if I don't get him out of my hair, he's not going to last the weekend.