Joys of Home Ownership

68,000 Sharp Edges

It is time, well actually past time, to replace our backyard garden shed. I have spray painted the doors with rustoleum a couple times and we have garden decorations on the side to disguise its decrepit appearance. It was here when we moved in 30 years ago, so it is at least that old and although I doubt the shed is as old as the house (63) it has got to be close. The previous owner left us a folder of stuff about the appliances, etc and in it was the brochure for the shed. It is a 10′ x 9′ Sears Lawn Building Model No. 696.60157 and the line drawing on the front cover is right out of the Mad Men era, very mid-century.

We ordered our Arrow 10′ x 8′ replacement from Home Depot. Went with the Ship-to-Store option because that was free instead of the $55 to have it dropped at the end of our driveway. I always say, “A Miata is as good as a pick-up truck on a sunny day.”, but in this case it just wouldn’t do the trick. The box it came in was 3′ x 7′ x 0.5′ and weighed 150 pounds. This time we needed an actual truck (thanks Doug.) Donna and I started to assemble it this afternoon and managed to get some of the bones together in the 2 hours we worked at it until I cut my finger on one of the 68,000 sharp edges and decided it was time to call it a day.

Somewhere around St Matthews, South Carolina on the way home from beautiful Rockingham, North Carolina the CTBNL passed the 68,000 mile mark.

17,000 Square Inches of Leather

About a month ago I talked of buying leather seats and since then I have placed a set of them in the shopping cart at GoMiata.com…twice…and couldn’t pull the trigger (or click the buy button.)

The first time I did it, I paused just before clicking. I had looked at the image they have on the site and thought I needed to order the body style, but the ordering page said it was unavailable for my vintage Miata. Unsure what to actually order, I called the folks at GoMiata and asked. Turns out that I needed to order the combo style.

The second time was the next day, now knowing what to order (combo style, black with smoke perforated inserts, black stitching and no piping), I paused just before clicking again. The total, with $75 for shipping, came to a nickle less than $700. And I still needed $30 minimum to get the hog ring pliers with some rings, so it was starting to sound like real money and I just couldn’t drop my forefinger that last inch.

Besides, we could really use that $700 towards something else made of leather. Our just shy of 5-year old living room couch looked like leather when new (its not), but now the faux leather outer layer is separating from the polyester base fabric. We’ve tried to extend its life span some by covering the cracks with some tape. Not silver duct tape like Martin Crane’s recliner on Frasier, but by using some Realistic Red Brown Leather Repair Tape. That repair tape is pretty good looking, but unfortunately it is not flexible enough to withstand being sat on.

Today we got in the Mini and hightailed it over to Augusta to buy us a real leather couch from Ashley Furniture. It is very similar in color and look to our current shedding couch, so it fit right our living room. Plus it will fit right in our horse town because right there in the description it says it has “equestrian style.” We opted to call this our Christmas present and splurged by buying the power reclining model. No more having to awkwardly pull at a handle to pop up the footrests, no more having to forceably push down & back to get it to latch closed and we can stop the recline at any angle we want.

Sometime on Saturday, on a different trip to Augusta, the Landybug, which has Carbon Black Leatherette seating, flew past 17,000 miles on her odometer.

What UPS Left Me

They showed up at lunchtime yesterday. Donna called me at work and asked if I’d come home and move them into the garage. So I did. They had to go in the laundry room for now because that was the only place those big ol’ boxes would fit and not be in the way.

Last night we went to Home Depot and bought the landscaping fabric for underneath the tiles and I’m hoping to put them down on Sunday, but I have a couple of other things on my honey-do list that have to be done first.

  • First thing I need to do is cut up the long pieces of junky press wood I used to test my 1/2″ is enough to get over my personal speed bump theory and put it in the outside trash can.
  • Second on the list is to hook up our new garden hose reel for the backyard.

About a week ago in the middle of the night I heard a loud thump outside the bedroom. My first thought was a a tree branch falling and hitting the roof, but in the morning I looked on the front roof and ground under neath it and found nothing. I went around back and looked over the deck area and on the deck and found nothing. Walked around the gable end of the screened porch and because of the angle and trees I couldn’t see the roof, but when I looked down I saw what was left of the garden hose reel that was attached to the wall. The back and one side were still up, but the other side and the 150′ of hose on the reel was on the ground. I guess 25 years is the lifespan of a plastic wall mounted hose reel.