In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, September 11, 2026 15:29
VIEWED: 338648
PAGE 691 of 834
Hey Sigs,
Your husband ever build stair banisters from scratch?
Just wondering if he's got any advice for a first-timer. 
I'm going to make it out of wood. I'm not going to use closet poles as thick as the ones I used for the overlook for the posts in the middle. I figure I'll get them about half the diameter, or whatever is the thinnest code-compliant size. Likely 2 of them per step, making sure the width between them aren't against code.
I already figured out how I want to install these "spokes" too. It will be similar to how I did the overlook, but it should be easier because it's not going to be installed in an enclosed space. I'm going to make very decorative "blocks" for each step that will have the two holes for the spokes. The blocks will all be the same size for every step going up to the 2nd floor and down to the basement, and they will have nice beveled edges that I make with a router. These can be firmly affixed to the steps and then the spokes can be glued in and hit with a few brad nails on the bottom.
On the top I would have my hand-rail. I am going to stain this piece and hit it with several coats of poly because that will hold up a lot better to human hands over the years than white glossy paint will. But I figure underneath this top piece, I will also have a white glossy piece that I will be drilling all the holes into for the top of the spokes, where they can also be firmly attached to the rail at the top.
My only real sticking point on how I want to go about doing this is what to do about the load bearing posts, and how I'm going to make them. I think I can buy them already made, but I think that would be prohibitively expensive compared to making something of my own. Even if it was just a good quality 4x4 and a decorative cap that I put on top of it.
I dunno... I think I'm going to have to go through some photographs online and see if I get any inspiration.
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I probably do in some way. Don't really know why. Maybe it is because this is the first time in YEARS that I have actually been able to get at my stuff and see what is what. You know like what do I need to keep and what can I donate or what has to be plain chucked because it useless to me or anyone else.
My other problem is is this is a small one bedroom apartment and there is only so much room for my stuff. And so some of it comes down to rearranging things again to make the space more usable for me.
Yeah... My problem is that I keep taking stuff in and I've got way too much space to put other people's junk so I don't have to make decisions... Until I start noticing that my space doesn't belong to me anymore and it belongs to the stuff. By then, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. We're not exactly there yet, but I can feel it coming on if I don't start going through things and throwing most of it out.Quote:
I've been looking at something to put my nails and stuff in to. I've got my dad's old nail can and his hammer sitting on top of the fridge but in a side thing with shelves, on the floor is some nails and other stuff I have bought over the years for various reasons. But I can't really get at them because something else is in the way.
You just said the problem right there...
You can't get at something because something else is in the way.
That's how it is in my garage right now. I had that thing perfectly organized a few years back with a few dozen modular shelving units I built from discarded lumber. I knew where everything was and never had to move anything to get to what I wanted. But if you don't put stuff back where it belongs or clean up after a project AND you're taking in other people's crap, the space fills up and becomes pretty unusable, fast.
That's also how it is in my livingroom. But that's for different reasons like I said yesterday. I just need to remove a bunch of stuff that is useful and worth keeping to a different room where it's out of the way and I can get to it on the rare occasions that I need it. Then I can use that space for things I do in there every day or at least much more frequently, and I can keep the clutter out of sight when I'm not working on it.
The other major thing that comes out of this after you get your space working for you and you keep up with it is that you never lose anything anymore. No more going through the entire house and garage to look for a tool until hours pass and you've checked inside your refrigerator 3 times.
Quote:
I hear you on the laziness. I've got my files in a plastic thing and it is right in the middle of the living room and I have to walk around it to get at my Victrola on Sunday. Been meaning to do something with those for a long while.
That's funny you mention that. One of the things I have in my curio cabinet is a plastic tote with the most important paperwork that I've got. Things like my birth certificate and my High School diploma. Stuff I've had to use in the past for things like applying for jobs and what not.
But that's just a great example of what I mean here. I've had that curio cabinet there for probably 4 years now. I know I've been in that box at least one time, but right now I can't look back and visualize the 2nd time I was in it in 4 years. I do remember the one time that I did go through it that I took time to go through everything in there and decided some of it could be thrown away. But it's a big plastic tote taking up some prime real estate when it could be put in a closet upstairs where it's not taking up room that would work much better for me if I had it doing something else.
If you absolutely have to bury something, make it important things that you rarely need to get to.Quote:
Like my kitchen table. It has become aNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Yeah... I think so too, Brenda. Why don't you start working on it tomorrow.
Even if you don't get it finished, pull it all out so you can look at it and think about how you want to put it all together.
What's wrong with the dresser? It sounds like anyone who's seen it says that it doesn't belong there...
It's not poking into a door entry, is it? I mean, it's not partially in the way of getting into the bathroom, the kitchen or your bedroom where it's sitting, right?
Do you have another place in mind for the photo of your folks and your grandparents? Maybe between the other two or something?
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yeah... I think so too, Brenda. Why don't you start working on it tomorrow.
Even if you don't get it finished, pull it all out so you can look at it and think about how you want to put it all together.
What's wrong with the dresser? It sounds like anyone who's seen it says that it doesn't belong there...
It's not poking into a door entry, is it? I mean, it's not partially in the way of getting into the bathroom, the kitchen or your bedroom where it's sitting, right?
Do you have another place in mind for the photo of your folks and your grandparents? Maybe between the other two or something?
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
Your right and I've got nothing holding me back today from doing that frame up.
Nothing is really wrong with it. It's just told and bulky and in the last part of the Z hallway. So no not blocking a door or the bathroom or the kitchen. Just going by it is a little tight is all. I've got thing on top of it that have been knocked down. Like my some old hearing aides that you can recharge. I've also knocked over a collectable. On the other wall is a family crest with the family motto on it. My mum had it made years ago.
Funny, I was just thinking about something like that last night.
More thought to have.
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Out in a bit in a wander in the rain.
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All done in the rain.
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Oh, SIX. I got that frame up and 3 of the pictures have dates on them which is amazing. One though is a negative but I can guess at the year or the next year it was taken.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Oh, SIX. I got that frame up and 3 of the pictures have dates on them which is amazing. One though is a negative but I can guess at the year or the next year it was taken.
Wow. You already did it? Good for you.
How long were you sitting on that one?
That's one of the reasons why I think it's good to write things down. Probably one of the reasons I'm still here instead of posting stuff into the void of Twitter too. We couldn't have a real conversation like this on any of the main forms of social media except for chat places like Discord. And I kind of prefer this posting format compared to the realtime nature of chat.
Sometimes writing things down is all you need to get your mind in the right gear to get something that you've been meaning to get done finished.
I still haven't done anything with my living area yet. It's not that I'm not busy... I'm still working on that computer project to the exclusion of almost everything else. Made some major finishing touches on some big things recently, and before I decide what else I want to do I'm in the process of doing some neglected file cleanup and maintenance.
When I get to this point on certain aspects of the project, I need to take time to sift through all of the debris that I kicked up along the way and decide what can be discarded, and what should be held onto in case I or anybody else in the future wants to make any more improvements. One big aspect of my project is preserving what may not always be easily accessible otherwise someday, and so I don't want to just delete everything that I didn't use just because I didn't use it. It's probably mostly useless things if a perfectionist like me didn't see fit to use them, but one of my hopes always was that if the main work had already been done, other people down the line that might have tried building something similar themselves no longer need to, and maybe they'll use some of that free time improving or making minor additions to it that wouldn't have been done otherwise. This is meant to be something that evolves over time, and part of my goal is to also keep collections of things that I didn't use in a way where they're easily accessible if somebody else wants them, and they're organized in such a way that it would be easy to find if what they were looking for is saved in there.
But the cleanup and archiving have to be done while it's all fresh in my mind, otherwise I'll forget exactly where I was and what I was doing and then I'll be too afraid to delete anything or make any real decisions on it unless I dive headfirst back into all of it. I don't want to leave a bunch of landmines all around that could trigger me back into this project work after I leave it in a state that I'm satisfied with. Everything that is in the project will work flawlessly and look and navigate perfectly. Everything that is not in it will be archived and warehoused, likely only ever to be looked at by me again if somebody makes a request.
And until I go through all of this and make the decisions, I'm wasting a ton of hard drive space before I purge everything that is no longer necessary. That's all space that is going to be used to make a 4th backup of everything once I get it all purged out.
I got a lot of cleanup to do. Better get back to it.
I'm glad to hear that you got your frame up and it's cool that there were dates on them. Just some small thing that somebody thought to do years ago that really means something to somebody else all that time later.
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Oh, SIX. I got that frame up and 3 of the pictures have dates on them which is amazing. One though is a negative but I can guess at the year or the next year it was taken.
Wow. You already did it? Good for you.
How long were you sitting on that one?
That's one of the reasons why I think it's good to write things down. Probably one of the reasons I'm still here instead of posting stuff into the void of Twitter too. We couldn't have a real conversation like this on any of the main forms of social media except for chat places like Discord. And I kind of prefer this posting format compared to the realtime nature of chat.
Sometimes writing things down is all you need to get your mind in the right gear to get something that you've been meaning to get done finished.
I still haven't done anything with my living area yet. It's not that I'm not busy... I'm still working on that computer project to the exclusion of almost everything else. Made some major finishing touches on some big things recently, and before I decide what else I want to do I'm in the process of doing some neglected file cleanup and maintenance.
When I get to this point on certain aspects of the project, I need to take time to sift through all of the debris that I kicked up along the way and decide what can be discarded, and what should be held onto in case I or anybody else in the future wants to make any more improvements. One big aspect of my project is preserving what may not always be easily accessible otherwise someday, and so I don't want to just delete everything that I didn't use just because I didn't use it. It's probably mostly useless things if a perfectionist like me didn't see fit to use them, but one of my hopes always was that if the main work had already been done, other people down the line that might have tried building something similar themselves no longer need to, and maybe they'll use some of that free time improving or making minor additions to it that wouldn't have been done otherwise. This is meant to be something that evolves over time, and part of my goal is to also keep collections of things that I didn't use in a way where they're easily accessible if somebody else wants them, and they're organized in such a way that it would be easy to find if what they were looking for is saved in there.
But the cleanup and archiving have to be done while it's all fresh in my mind, otherwise I'll forget exactly where I was and what I was doing and then I'll be too afraid to delete anything or make any real decisions on it unless I dive headfirst back into all of it. I don't want to leave a bunch of landmines all around that could trigger me back into this project work after I leave it in a state that I'm satisfied with. Everything that is in the project will work flawlessly and look and navigate perfectly. Everything that is not in it will be archived and warehoused, likely only ever to be looked at by me again if somebody makes a request.
And until I go through all of this and make the decisions, I'm wasting a ton of hard drive space before I purge everything that is no longer necessary. That's all space that is going to be used to make a 4th backup of everything once I get it all purged out.
I got a lot of cleanup to do. Better get back to it.
I'm glad to hear that you got your frame up and it's cool that there were dates on them. Just some small thing that somebody thought to do years ago that really means something to somebody else all that time later.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
Yeah, got to it this afternoon. Just made up my mind to do it.
It would have to have been months, since I am not sure when I bought the frame. Like said end of last year or January of this yea
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