Knowledge You Can Build On — Est. 1998
Can I blame Bill Grumbine?
Kevin J
>When my bathroom doesn't get finished this weekend?
I finally bought his dvd and now, somehow, a wolverine grinding jig came today and my LV ordered talon chuck and curved bowl rests should arrive tomorrow.
Coincidentally my wife and kids leave for a long weekend while I supposedly put the main bathroom back together--new tub, commode, vanity, etc.
What a dilemma....
Re: Can I blame Bill Grumbine?
JL work
>You can, but your wife will still blame you.
Re: Can I blame Bill Grumbine?
Bill Grumbine, Kutztown PA
>Hi Kevin
Blame away! I am already getting the blame in our house for not finishing the bathroom yet! ;-) Good luck with your turning this weekend.
Bill
Re: Can I blame Bill Grumbine?
David
>Piece of cake. Blame your wife. If she were home to ride herd on you, this wouldn't be a problem. The choice, by the way, between turning wood and turning commodes is rather easy when she isn't there standing over your shoulder.
If you would allow a prediction, I go through this from time to time when my wife takes the little one and goes to visit friends where we used to live.
The first night, you will do nothing but revel in the quiet house until about 11pm, when you wander over to the lathe and break the silence. You won't do much this night before turning in.
The following day, you will spend every available waking second spinning wood in complete luxury, with the knowledge that you are safe from chores and interruptions - although you will keep the phone two inches away from the power switch on the lathe.
On the last night, you will have dinner, relax in your easy chair for a few minutes, and then wake up at 11pm because you didn't get much sleep the night before. Over the course of the next hour you will talk yourself into working on the toilet, knowing what you will face if it isn't completed by the time they are home. Tools will be gathered, and you will tear it all apart and make great progress in shorter time than you thought it would take, and you will mildly berate yourself not to procrastinate next time because look how easy it is and how fun it turned out to be, right up until you either break a part or realize you are missing a part at about 2:30am. The next thirty minutes will not be good as you concoct the manner in which you will spin your heroic story of speed and progress on the commode until the unthinkable happened that stopped you in your tracks (broken/missing tool or part). You'll go to bed at about 3am, and fake your way through the next day running on fumes.
BUT - you'll have a heck of a nice looking bowl to show for it!!!!
AND - she'll know exactly what happened, it will annoy her a bit, but she fully expected it to happen this way when she told you she was taking the trip.
Ahh...remember the good ole days?...
tdaniel
>When we had four rooms and a path?
Re: Ahh...remember the good ole days?
JL
>And no hot water except that you heated on the stove? And no heat except for the wood burning stove (if you had one) or the fireplace? And no lathe except for the pole lathe and/or the treadle lathe? How big a bowl could you turn with those?
Bill still does...
Rod Peterson -- Ormond Beach
>...although in fairness, the end of his path isn't an exclusive facility.
Rod
Been there, done that, swatted the flies.
Re: Bill still does...
Bill Grumbine, Kutztown PA
>I tell everyone we have a half bath in the yard, but the ladies of the household are not amused. They were especially not amused last summer when I told them that between the outhouse and the pool, we could go for weeks before I had to have the bathroom done! But recent turning students who have seen the DVD get a big kick out of discovering that I really do have that shape on the front door of my bathroom. ;-)
Bill
Yeah but,
Kevin J
>Bathing two kids in a blow up tub meant for an infant in the worlds smallest stall shower is getting old...
This bathroom remodel started a year ago last october--started with my wanting to replace some caulking. Ended up with a pipe breaking behind the wall (no water gushing fortunately)so we gutted the room...
I'm pretty sure this was on a sunday night thus breaking the cardinal rule of plumbing--never start a job on a sunday night when all stores are closed.
Oh well!
Re: Yeah but,
Stuart Johnson
>My remodel started out with "honey, why is that paint flacking?". Turned out the shower pan was leaking, the water wicked up the drywall, termites just about starved because they had eaten all the framing around the shower stall. Oh the joys of home ownership. On the plus side no neighbor complains if I go out to the shop and turn on the dust collector at 2:00 in the morning.
I gotta show these responses to the wife.
Basil
>Prove to her that I'm not the only one that procrastinates.
"Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow". That's my motto.
This reminds me of a couple of funny things. One was a cousins' bathroom that her uncle the contractor was supposed to have already remodeled. I worked for him way back then. He had been putting her off for months. She called every morning wanting to know when he was going to start her remodeling. On one of the coldest days of the year, she, in her flimsy gown, and the toilet fell thru the floor, several feet into an old root cellar under the house. Her remodeling job started that morning right after her usual but this time very heated telephone call.
And the other one was a joyous, fun loving old man with a huge farm that I throughly enjoyed working for. He had a duck hunting pond my daddy built 50 years ago. An unusually large springtime downpour had broken the dam. He wanted it fixed, the damn raised 4' and widened out on top to 20' so he could drive accross it safely. He lived 35 miles away and understood that caused me some slight sheduling problems. So he called just time it happened and told me he wasn't in a big hurry but wanted it done sometime before duck hunting season (late fall). I told him, "I'll be down in a little while and do it".
He called about once a month all summer long and asked when I thought I'd be down to fix his pond and each time I'd tell him, "I'm running short on help but I'll be down in a little while and do it". He heard that same line several times during the summer and early fall. Late one night on his way home from somewhere, he stopped at my mother and fathers house. He and my parents were good friends from way back.
He was laughing when he gave my mother a calendar and some instructions. He told her, "If and when you next see that worthless son of yours, give him this calendar. Tell him to mark on there how long a little while is and mail it to me so I'll know when to look for him".
I got my my daddy to volunteer to help me.The next morning we loaded up a dozer and pan, went on down and started. I laughed the whole time we were fixing his pond.
Basil
OOPS, I forgot to tell you.
Basil
>She was locked out of the house. The root cellar was so deep that my cousin couldn't climb back up thru the floor. She had to walk about a 1/4 mile to the neighbors house to borrow some clothes and make her usual morning phone call...... LOL
That was 40 years ago. They're all gone now and robbers burned the house down a few years ago but that inscendent is still funny to me.
Basil
I gotta ask...
Rod Peterson -- Ormond Beach
>This probably slid right by most people, but as an amateur genealogist it jumped right out at me:
One was a cousins' bathroom that her uncle the contractor was supposed to have already remodeled. I worked for him way back then.
Hmmm, that description could mean that your cousin's uncle was your dad. Was it? If so,...
He had been putting her off for months.
...then it's hereditary, huh?
Rod
I don't know where mine came from.
Basil
>My mother and father niether one put off anything. If my dad had anything needing doing, he was hell bent to get it done, NOW.
And after thinking about it a while, the male contractor and female toilet pilot were first cousins. He about 20 years older than her. Their mothers were sisters...... Hey! maybe that's where it came from, my grandmother was also a sister to their mothers...... nope, that whole family was workaholics and it went way back.
My great granddaddy would get all of them up a 3 am to start the day. They'd feed up, cook, everything before daylight and be standing in the edge of the field waiting for the sun to come up so they could start farming cotton. They would however take a 2 to 3 hour break mid day to rest the mules before going back and working 'til dark. But kids were a different story, I've heard them say he'd tell the kids after lunch, "Get your hoe and we'll work the garden while we're resting".
I guess that work gene just finally wore out before it got down to me.... or maybe I'm just a mutant.....LOL
Basil .......... who has worked some long hard hours when he had too.
That sounds just like my Dad!
John Trant (Baltimore/DC area)
>My Dad was a great one for having me do something while I was resting up from doing something else. During the summers, I workd construction from 7:00 am to 3:30 and then work in his metal shop from 4:00 until 8:00. After dinner, he would want me to follow him so that he could "show me something while I was resting". That resulted in another chore that would take up the rest of the evening.
He was a true hard worker but not a classical workaholic. I never remember him taking a typical type of vacation. I think it would have killed him. He tried to retire a couple of times but "it just wouldn't stick". He died at 78 due to a surgical error to fix his hernia that was messing up his golf swing. He had walked 18 holes of golf the day before the surgery.
John
