Rude Mechanicals Press Blog

I planned to go to the shop today to build my kitchen corner table/counter. I was looking forward to playing with the Festool Domino and a brand-spanking-new band saw blade (what can I say…I’m easily excited).

The shop is 12 miles from my house. The picture above is from 10 a.m. It’s 5:30 p.m. now, and the snow just stopped falling.

Instead, I stayed home and did some stultifying but necessary jobs – things I’ve been putting off for weeks.

The 2-3° back bevel Orion Henderson writes MUST be employed when using non-mortise hinges? Yeah…I forgot to do that when I hung the cabinet doors; they weren’t closing quite all the way, but I’ve been living with the shame. Today, they all came down, got hit with my No. 7, then received a swipe of fresh paint down the edge.

All the toe kick pieces for the cabinet bases are mitered and fit, and the first coat of paint is drying (and I turned up the heat in hopes it will dry in time for a second coat before bed).

The beech backsplash is mitered (87° – what fun) and the Formby’s is drying. Another coat of that before bed, too.

Tomorrow, I hope to find time to get the doors back up and the toe kick and backsplash installed. And as soon as I get that table built, the kitchen will be 100-percent done.

I took down the first old termite-barf cabinet on Dec. 29, 2013, and I’ve been working on the kitchen (albeit sometimes in dribs and drabs) ever since. I won’t know what to do with myself! Although the basement is a tip, my closet needs culling and I’ve never liked the tile in the 1/2 bath on the first floor…and I suppose I should shovel the walk again.

I was so very sure I’d found the right stools at the price point I was willing to pay. But it seems that right after I hit “submit” at World Market, Pottery Barn came out with a new style … that looks a heck of a lot like the $750 vintage ones I liked. Dammit.

I bought two.

A trip to Indy for a sawbench party was fortuitous; there’s a World Market there. So, I loaded my first purchase in my car (along with my bevel gauge and jack plane, because without those, is it really a party?) and headed west. I had to eat the shipping costs, but the store took them back, no questions asked (though there was a punitively long wait in holiday shopping lines).

I’m done. These are the stools I’m keeping. So thank you “toolnut” for bringing the “McCoy Adjustable Barstool” to my attention…now stop with the links, please, so I don’t change my mind again!

Next up – design and build a rack that will a) cover the unsightly phone jack b) have space for hooks from which to hang the stepladder. Plus there’s still the trim to finish, a final set of stub-tenon doors to make and hang for the cabinet over the fridge, one last table/cabinet/countersupportsomething to build to the left of the stove and some more painting.

Place your bets now on whether it’s all done in time to take beauty pictures at the end of February; my Realtor wants to list on March 1. (If you’re betting “yes,” make sure you can afford to lose.)

I could start a shopping advice hotline for counter-height stools. I’m quite sure I’ve looked at every version commercially available in the United States, and quite a few from individual makers. I also considered making the stools myself (but because I wanted metal, that would have required learning welding). Seriously – if you’re looking for a particular style, color, material, price point…I can help.

Following weeks of dithering and narrowing my selections solely on aesthetics to the four below, I went with none of them.

After stacking up some boxes to the right height (24″), I realized I needed a footrest for my Hobbit legs. Only two of the above have a foot rest, so that narrowed it to those on either end.

After reading lots of buyer comments, I decided three-legged stools and my bourbon habit are a bad mix. Down to the one on the far right. It’s $745 (limited quantity and vintage). And I needed two of them.

Back to surfing.

Instead, I got the two at the top from World Market for a grand total of less than $300, including shipping*. Four legs – check. Adjustable seat – check. Foot rest – check. Metal base – check (I think; anyway, it’s powder-coated something).

No, they don’t look as good as the $745 version (or the shiny tippy ones), but they look good enough – and my butt fits on ’em just fine.

Though it’s a good thing I know how not to follow directions.

I find it particularly amusing that the directions have the capital P correct but misspelled Phillips. (And of course, that what is really needed here is a slotted driver.)

* Note: I do feel somewhat uncomfortable with the price; they’re no doubt cheap because they’re made in a country with an emerging economy where child labor may not be illegal. So now Heifer International is getting a guilt-ridden/guilt-written check from me.

In 1997, my friends and I were finishing up the last of our master’s courses and beginning to study for our comp exams. Several of us had no time to spare for Thanksgiving travels. So I decided to squeeze seven people into my one-bedroom apartment (with a two-burner stove and tiny oven, and no dining room) for a proper turkey dinner.

I thought I’d done myself proud. My grandma’s recipe for twice-baked mashed potatoes?” Perfect. Old-fashioned bread stuffing? Delish. “Real” cranberry sauce? Yummy. Fancy salad? Yup…but no one ate it (we were saving room for the “good” stuff). Turkey? Uh oh.

Everything else, I’d made before for various family gatherings. I’d never cooked a turkey. When I started to slice it, I noticed some browned-edge paper-like thing sticking out of the neck end. Oh…so that’s where they hid the gizzards. The bird was edible, but it had a slight aftertaste of toasted waxed paper.

I’ve since cooked a Thanksgiving dinner every year for friends (and now for my friends’ families). And when my kitchen got larger, so did the menu. These days, I have it all down to a perfectly calibrated two days of prep and cooking, with ample time for wine and cleaning breaks.

But this year has been by far the most challenging since 1997 – it’s the first time I’ve really cooked a large meal in the new kitchen. I had trouble remembering where I’d stashed everything. The roasting pan was in the back of the last cabinet in which I looked (of course). My trifle dish and serving platters were in the storage room on my third floor. I gave up on the instant thermometer, and bought a new one on Monday. So naturally, I found the old one this morning.

Plus, I had to put the dining room back to rights…because that’s where all my old kitchen furniture has been stored since I began ripping out the tile and barfboard cabinets last January. With my old kitchen table and two baker’s racks cluttering up the joint, plus the kitchen wares I’ve meant to but not yet gotten rid of, things don’t look as pretty as I’d like.

But hey – the dining table is back in the middle of the room, and there’s plenty of space for the expected eight guests (and me). And I’ve just put the turkey in the oven, sans gizzard packet.

I realized this evening that I already have the perfect island-height stool to tide me over until I find the right ones to buy – and it takes me back four decades.

(I don’t want to make the kitchen stools – I want a brushed metal base to tie in with the appliances, and don’t have the time to learn metalwork and welding.)

This venerable Cosco Counter Step Stool has been in my family now for three generations (though the second generation – me – isn’t turning it over the third just yet). My Aunt Denise tells me she and her older brother, Chuck, used to fight over who got to sit in it; that must have been in the mid- to late-1950s.

And I clearly recall sitting at the end of the table in my grandmother’s kitchen 40-odd years ago in this yellow stool and begging to use the “eye spoon” – a silver-plate spoon on which the plating had rubbed off the back in the shape of…wait for it…an eye. I don’t know why I thought that spoon was so special…except that my younger brother, Ian, wanted it, too. (We also fought over the stool, which made my grandmother threaten to “get the stick.”)

After my grandparents died, most of their belongings were passed down to their three daughters and son (naturally), though I did get a fair number of my grandfather’s tools and carvings, and a bookcase I use as a china cabinet. And I got the vintage Cosco stool.

So tonight, I pulled it out of its usual nook, tossed some rubber and felt furniture sliders under the legs (the plastic protective cuffs have long since rotted away) and gave it a try. Perfect. The yellow even matches the wall – serendipity.

Now I want to know who has the eye spoon.