Posted By Erik Mowery on January 11, 2012
Rank it right up there with how the end of a cord always manages to find something to get caught on when you try to wind it up and what makes socks disappear in the laundry—what makes appliances grow in between the time you measure them at the store and the time they arrive at your home? I’ve experienced this phenomenon myself and I assure you it’s real. The refrigerator that would fit perfectly under the cabinets suddenly becomes an inch too tall or the dishwasher grows in girth by the time it’s delivered. This morning I’m off to help yet another victim of this curiosity. I’ll be reworking his cabinets to accommodate his new frig. Standing with you until a cure is found…
Category: The Carpenter's Bench, Uncategorized |
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Tags: cabinets, Mysteries, refrigerator
Posted By Kathy Mowery on August 2, 2011
Learning curves that is…I spent the morning trying to figure out the best way to use Google Adwords and fighting the temptation to impulse buy all the little items that Vistaprint wanted me to add to my cart. Such deals and they all had my name on them. My clicker finger stayed steady and I managed to only get what I’d intended to buy. Okay. I confess. I did splurge $2 to get the blank back sided business cards, but that’s it. Honest.
Category: The Carpenter's Wife |
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Tags: Google Adwords, Vistaprint
Posted By Erik Mowery on August 2, 2011
My family and I spent Saturday afternoon roaming around downtown Kernersville. Being downtown and talking to the shop keepers always reminds me of how much I love living here. It also makes me want to have a store front and shop downtown. I wonder if all the sawdust would be bad for business…Thoughts anyone?
Category: The Carpenter's Bench |
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Tags: downtown, Kernersville, shop
Posted By Erik Mowery on July 25, 2011
Regardless, they both get to stay. This morning’s job is to rework a deck that has a tree trying to occupy the same space as it is. I’ll put in a new post for support and rework that part of the deck to accommodate the tree. What is it with me and trees lately?
Category: The Carpenter's Bench |
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Tags: deck, tree
Posted By Kathy Mowery on July 25, 2011
After much knob turning, perseverance from Erik, some insight from a neighbor, and encouragement from a Taco (which I now know properly pronounced rhymes with Waco as in the city in Texas, and does not sound like the food you eat) representative who encouraged Erik to fix the pump himself, we have water that puts an instant hot water fixture to shame! It makes these hot and humid days a little more bearable knowing that it’s just heating my solar panels!!
Checking out what appeared to be a leak but was actually just a way for air to escape the line
Category: The Carpenter's Wife |
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Tags: Eureka, hot water, solar panels, Taco
Posted By Kathy Mowery on July 22, 2011
The foreclosed home we bought two summers ago has solar panels on it for supplementing the hot water heater (I guess from all the pipes and the mysterious box in the closet). This is not to be confused with all the wires and funny little Radio Shack parts we found in another closet that appear to have something to do with cable. Anyway, I digress…
We’ve tried several times to figure the solar stuff out and have spent lots of time on the internet looking for stuff that looks like ours. There aren’t any model names or numbers on the equipment and the only sticker belongs to a company no longer in business.
I tried to post to an expert plumbing board only to find that I couldn’t because I needed a URL for my pictures. Finally got one of those and then found I couldn’t post because I’d posted less than 10 times on their board. Sigh…
So Erik is over there turning knobs and I’m tapping keys trying one more time to solve our little mystery…On the off chance that one anyone reading this is a solar hot water expert, here’s what we’ve got…
Category: The Carpenter's Wife |
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Tags: solar hot water heater
Posted By Erik Mowery on July 19, 2011
Working in the shop gets even better when one of the kids helps
A good day starts with a good cup of coffee. I got hooked on roasting my own beans awhile back and now nothing else will do. Kathy says I’m a coffe snob. I’m okay with that.
My latest project lets me draw out my morning routine. As of today, coffee grinders by MoweryCraft are for sale on my site and on The Captain’s Coffee website. I am so excited about these grinders. Instead of the traditional grinder base with a drawer, each base is made one solid piece of wood. At first I thought they’d be mostly decorative but when I ground my beans in one I couldn’t believe the difference! The design lets the beauty of the wood really stand out. I might have a hard time letting some of these go!
Category: The Carpenter's Bench |
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Tags: Coffee, coffee grinder, Green beans
Posted By Erik Mowery on July 19, 2011
Volunteered at Cherokee Cove and found myself helping to build another tree house!
Well, it seems that the first tree house was just prep for another! My family and I volunteered last weekend at a retreat center and wouldn’t you know they ask me to help build a tree house. This one was screened in with a spots for hammocks on the roof. Wish I’d have had one of these when I was a boy!
Category: The Carpenter's Bench |
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Tags: hammock, Tree house, volunteer
Posted By Kathy Mowery on July 6, 2011
Quest number gazillion in how not to spend money to fix stuff…When we moved into our home two summers ago, we hung a curtain “temporarily” in our dining room. Even though it didn’t really go with the room, it was low on the priority list. Then we got used to it. You know how that works. Occasionally we’d notice it had not miraculously morphed into something different and I’d tell myself I needed to remember to watch for curtains on clearance. Yeah, right. The other day my unloved curtain caught my eye again. Not wanting to have to actually buy something I started looking around the house and realized I had the perfect thing–the bottom of our living curtains!! Those curtains were actually window scarves I was using as curtains and so the extra length lay puddles in the floor. I measured and sure enough. The extra length was exactly the length I needed to make two panels for my dining room and since the dining room and living room open to each other it made perfect sense to have them match. A few hours and pin pricks later I hung up my “new” curtains. Wish I’d have thought of that sooner….
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Tags: Curtains, repurpose, Reuse
Posted By Erik Mowery on July 6, 2011
I spent the day framing out a tree house for a customer. They bought the plans and wood and then realized they just didn’t have the time to build it. It’s different to be building something using plans designed by someone else, but it’s also interesting to see the different ways folks design. The house is 8′ up so that means tomorrow I’ll get to hang out up in a tree as I put the decking down. I wonder how many boys are out there building a summer tree house, thinking it would be a great way to make a living when they grow up. They’d be right!
Category: The Carpenter's Bench |
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Tags: Tree house
Posted By Kathy Mowery on June 30, 2011
A few mornings ago I set out to finish a project that mocked me every time I passed it. The hardest part about it was going to be just getting started. I took a deep breath and decided to plunge into it.
My task? Painting the roof and replacing some screen on what had been my play house when I was young, and my father’s when he was a boy. The small house had been built by my Grandfather and survived decades of winters and car trips from Pennsylvania to various spots in North Carolina until finally it landed in my back yard. The kids had painted the outside walls to resemble a park ranger’s station and all that remained in it’s renovation was me replacing some torn window screen and painting the roof. I decided rolling it would be fastest, um I mean best. Oddly enough suddenly all our paint rollers and pans could not be located. With a sigh I voyaged to Lowe’s to get the cheapest set I could find. Even their $4 set seemed too much but that was the cheapest to be found. I got it and headed home. As I got ready to pour the paint into my new pan knowing that it would be used but moments and take several times longer to clean, but also knowing I didn’t want to toss my newly purchased pan, inspiration struck. I wrapped the paint tray in the plastic covering it was packaged in before pouring in my paint. Since it was made to fit the tray, it conformed perfect. A few minutes later I tossed the painted cover and still had my “in like new condition” paint tray. Now if I can just keep up with it until I need it again..
Plastic covered paint tray
Category: The Carpenter's Wife |
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Tags: painting tip, reuse paint tray
Posted By Kathy Mowery on June 25, 2011
My grandfather was a carpenter by trade, my father a carpenter in his leisure time, my husband a carpenter by choice. I didn’t know my grandfather well, but most of my memories of him involve either watching him tinker or playing with a toy he made. Precious are the times I recall hanging out with my dad as he did a weekend project. At 5 years old, Dad let me use his hand saw and a knife to whittle away at what was to be a masterpiece but remained a bare, awkwardly shaped stick.
Today I got to spend the morning with Erik as he made “scrap art.” My reward? Using a nail gun! I know that wouldn’t be every wife’s dream come true, but I bet spending time with her husband doing something together would be pretty high on their list.
Erik and I have 4 beautiful daughters. My current quest is to find ways to cut costs and ways to make money together so that I can quit my part-time away from home job.
I don’t make diaper covers from old shower curtains (though I bet someone out there could!) or feed my family for a few quarters a day, but the tricks I know I’ll share and maybe we can get this thing worked out together.
Category: The Carpenter's Wife |
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Tags: Stay at home, thrifty
Posted By Erik Mowery on June 25, 2011
I love my job. I love working with wood. When I don’t have work, I still work with wood. My house and yard are full of things made on my “days off.” I’ve been known to buy an extra piece of lumber that I then have to store simply because the grain or color is amazing. I guess that means I’m in right line of work.
My new favorite wood is cypress. I bought some cypress to make a pair of outdoor deck railing planters for a customer. He wanted something that would weather well. I figured if cypress worked for Noah, it would work for my customer, too.
I found a scrap in the garage this morning and ended up making a stop for one of my saws. My wife eyed the rest of the scrap–she’s a wood junkie, too. I guess that means we’re a good match.
Category: The Carpenter's Bench |
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Tags: Cypress, planter boxes
