Sunday, April 03, 2005

New Computer at My House.

My darling little brother Cary ( 46) is a Genius. He built me a brand new everything you can imagine computer, with a shiny black with neon lights cpu case, with a gig of something and 160 gigs of something else that makes everything instantaneous.

He also downloaded all the tunes in the entire history of recorded music and they are of the MP3 variety which means I can now start thinking about another piece of electronic gadgetry to add to my already outlandish collection of stuff that never gets used.

But wait! That's not all!

He also lives in a house that is always under construction, a major factor in the 'why he has never married' equation. He bought a perfectly good house that only needed a new roof and proceeded to rip out and rebuild three bathrooms (only one is functional at this time) a refinished basement/wetbar/pool room/ and now storage space for drywall sheets.

He hates removing wallpaper so instead he will remove the wall and replace it with new drywall. While he is in the midst of doing that, he decides to install a gas stove top and a water faucet above it for the occasional filling of a pot of water. The gaping hole in the drywall for this procedure remains unfinished, but the faucet is working perfectly.

His home projects philosophy is: If the weather is nice, it is time to garden. If the weather is nasty it is time to start a new project (not finish anything previously started. Whaddya nuts?).

So when he invited me for lunch/to build a new computer, I should have known something was up and running and he needed to show off... We are so alike.

He built these wonderful new stairs, because one can't have too many ways to get to the basement. They were just pine the last time I saw them and he said the edges were going to be covered with oak veneer and trim and he said he would have a carpet runner down the center, covering the pine parts. OK sure.

But here it is. FINISHED.

But wait! That's not all!

The stairs of course are taking up the valuable space where the water softeners are contained. I say softeners in the plural because he has well water and it is 95% iron and 5% H2O. There were softeners connected to softeners and more softeners. Still his water had the odor of last year's trout custard and enough pressure to qualify as a mist. Just as he finished the stair project the water softeners died. Or so he said. I have a feeling that was just a bit of theatre to up the drama quotient on this reveal.

Are you ready for this?






ta da!

Notice the water softener hiding in the inner sanctum? The new and improved single beauty makes the water taste like it came in a fancy bottle and flow like tears at the end of Casablanca.

Hopefully this heralds a rash of completed projects that will culminate in that roof replacement, before the tomato seedlings get planted.

I dream.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:46 PM

    YOur brother is a genius. It's a good thing he and I didn't get together....NOTHING would ever get done....I decided yesterday that I needed to mud the patches I put tape over in the drywall....mind you, I put the tape up sometime last summer. Well, I opened up my tub of mud and...it's as hard as a rock. I guess I didn't get it closed as tightly as I thought I did. So, I added water and let it sit; then I used my mud spreadder (ask your brother...I can't ever remember the name of it) to cut slits in the somewhat softer mud (relative term here). It's still sitting. Want to place a bet that, tomorrow, or sometime in the future, I will decide it's easier to run to the hardware store and buy a fresh tub??

    Oh, and I need to get these holes patched so I can finish the kitchen/hallway painting project I started how many years ago???

    Have I mentioned the curtains i am making for the living room? Or the ones on my bed (2 of 4 done)?? I love home improvement projects....at least, I love starting them....

    teri (your brother's long-lost twin....)

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  2. Nice buns on your bro!!

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  3. Buns!? I was looking at that little animal in the corner and finally figured out it was a cat. At least I hope.

    Your brother reminds me of Russ, has to do everything so well and extreme that the other stuff never gets done. He tore up our old house (while we were living in it) so much that we finally got sick of it and moved. Oh yeah, and then my allergies went away when I wasn't breathing all that sheet rock dust and insulation.

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  4. Fabulous stairs/water softener closet! I'll have to show this to my husband, then maybe we will start another project after we...replace the patio door, reframe the front window, rip out the front walk, take out the dishwasher and build a storage space in its place, finish remodeling the downstairs 1/2 bath (I did the drywall a couple of weeks ago and won't go back in there for a month), and on and on. I think the incomplete repair of home projects is a very sexy quality. How can a woman not appreciate that?

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  5. OK...I said "OOOOOOOO!" when I got to the photo where the staircase lifted up! COOL! I hope the kitty came back out before it was lowered again though, LOL. Home projects are so much fun, aren't they?

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    ReplyDelete

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