Last week

making wallets, bro in the house, dave at pinkberry

Console Cabinet

Found it on the side of the road. Almost threw out my back lifting it into the car as the previous owner watched from his porch. Tore out the old turntable, wiring, speakers, and amps. Built new speaker frames from the trusty pile of fence scrap wood and covered them with a houndstooth remnant piece. Re-secured the legs. Cleaned and polished.

Total cost:

3 hrs

3 Advil

$5 for hardware

$5 for fabric

...

...and the shame of going to Jo-Ann Fabrics on a monday morning....

...and waiting with a quilting group for it to open.

minus 40 lbs

Old Covers

Some would call it boredom, I'd call it... well boredom I guess.

I finally spruced up rack-mount case; added casters, handles, and built an attached box on top to hold a hard-drive and other equipment. Luckily it only cost me the wheels and a few hours since Grant had everything else leftover from the fence he built.

This was more out of necessity than anything else; I could see the concern growing in Lindsey's eyes as all the gear began to pile up in her living room corner, and I guess it mine as well look good if it's going to be used so infrequently... and yes I will get to the Taylor Swift covers soon, enough with all the requests! You think this is easy with Blake 4 hours away?

Lights

These are from a light fixture project I did recently: rewiring, new sockets, cleanup etc. There are about 20 or so total but these are a few of my favorites. I'm terrible about getting before pictures. I always think... "Why would I want a picture of that?" also they remind me of the cheesy part of all those shows where the couple comes home and says something like, "I can't believe this is the same room," and then the star of the show stands there with a look on his face like he just pulled a kid and his dog from a burning car.... that being said... I included a few...

cause I'd rescue the kid

and probably the dog too if it wasn't one of those little ones that yip all the time

BMW R50/5

Before the 5 of you who read this start to get concerned that this is becoming a bike blog, or that I've run out of Nick-a-Likes, or that I bought a leather jacket, or that I listened to Springsteen on the way to the coffee shop this morning... ok that last one is true, rest assured that there is more cheap humor to come soon. But I've been getting alot(2) of requests for some pictures of the BMW. So here it is...

notice I said "it." Had I said "she" I would see how your concern could be warranted.

It's a 1970 BMW R50/5. A previous owner installed R75 barrels on though so it comes in around 740cc and weighs about twice as much as the Guzzi. I got this from a guy in California who put on the dunstall pipes and the shortened magura bars. He also cut holes in the breather box to allow for more airflow, but in reality its more for show (when you have the seat and battery removed and you can actually see it... its a joke) Im not above smilies but when one happens to fall at the end of a phrase in parentheses... it just looks awkward : ))

He also had the tank and fenders painted by BMW and they used the smoke gray found on their cars in the early 2000s. I chopped off the rear fender, added new hardware to mount the plate and rear brake light, and did some electrical work to get it to inspect (handbrake light switch, horn, and blinkers which I later removed) Chris at Limey rebuilt the carbs, added a master cut switch, and fixed a few gasket leaks. It really does run well. Other than having to get a bonded title, I couldn't be happier with it. Like I stated in the previous post, this is my 3rd early 70s /5. Christian drives one around Nashville now and the other sits in my Mom's garage (in multiple locations). I'll try to get some pictures for a later post. Thanks for looking. I'll get back to the jokes later this week.

Lamps

Here's a few pictures of lamps I've built over the past few months. They were all in the previous post about my house, but these make them a bit easier to see.

I've tried about 50 variations on this steel pipe hanging lamp. I like this version the best so far. I'll probably paint it... color suggestions?

60's electric chord organ that is a bit too out of tune to be useable. I love the look of it though, so I decided that if I painted it and gave it some lights I could justify keeping it around.

top of a column from the old front porch

painted electrical pipe

House on the market

Heres a few of the pictures Sam took of the inside...

minor upholstery project. nobody freak out

A chair I found at a furniture store where everything is $5. It used to be a horrible light brown leather but I decided to reupholster it last week and it seems to be holding up okay. Still waiting to get my sister Lindsey's approval. If it doesn't get the stamp I'll be removing this posting and redoing it in herringbone (which she is a sucker for)... or just burning it for firewood... cross your fingers.