Frieze...The Latest

There is a special place in you know where for the inventor wall paper and wall paper borders. I grew up in a house where every room had wall paper and for obvious reasons; to conceal the endless cracks in the plaster. In "modern" homes it's purely decorative but it ages quickly. Nothing says "1997" like the flowery border that was in this bathroom. The same border is in our master bedroom. Seeing what a soul crusher this has been to remove I'm going to leave that as is in our bedroom. At least for the time being.

The "freshening" of our master bath vanity is a back breaking ordeal that has me mixing curse words that would make The Old Man from A Christmas Story proud. The removal of the old wall paper border was a fairly arduous process, particularly the border that was placed around the useless "soaking tub" but it is what it is. My plan for this week is to get one if not two more coats of "skim" up on the top of the room. The "soaking tub" work will take a little longer because I had to remove a bead of caulk at the top of the pieces of marble on top of the outside of the tub. Three if not four coats of skim will finish that off.

Then, next Saturday, my plan is to sand the room and prep for paint on Sunday. Once this major project is done I will be moving to expansion of my workbench/work shop area. I need to expand it to make it more a better work area. I need a better work area and more storage undernearth to work on various projects around the hourse but most importantly I need an expansive area to fabricate, "The Frieze".

Le Frieze and Le Delays

The concrete "Frieze" on the renovated (1976) Yankee Stadium is the inspiration for my want of whimsy

The temperature has plunged across the country lately and particularly here in Cleveland, where on average it's a good 7-10 degrees below the rest of the country. Brrr. Hello, feetie jammies. The nip in the air tells me that I have to get a move on with my projects because I do not want to be working on "The Frieze" in the dead of winter.

10 years ago, this little 10 inch TV ran us, including the funky cantilever mount, over $700. Kid ya not.

The big time sucker and obstacle to the start of my delightful whimsy of the Frieze in the garage has been the updating of our master bathroom. Grant did away with Lee with greater ease than it's taking me to finish the bathroom "update".

Nothing is ever as simple as it looks

Adding our old 10 inch, 10 year old LCD TV to Janet's side of the vanity area took "just" a Sunday afternoon. These simple looking projects are never that simple. I always budget double if not triple the time I think it will take to do a job. This job included splicing cable, running the line down behind the wall, tapping into an expanding an electrical box and finally mounting the TV in a location I knew Janet would be happy with. None of this was easy.

There's a special place in you know where for the person who invented wall paper

It's removing the wall paper boarder that has me reaching for my good buddy Jack. That little amount I have down already, resplendent in its having pulled down the first layer of paper on the sheet rock glory, took me the entire second half the Giants whooping of the Browns last weekend. That, soup to nuts, is probably two hours of neck straining work. This is going to take a while.

Except for paint and the Mrs. suggesting an expansion upwards, this is finally done

Furthermore, I had to finish, "The Stoop" out in the garage just west of the work bench. I finally finished this after weeks of delays and doing it piece meal. It came out ok. I ain't no finish carpenter. My plans for The Stoop include now painting it Yankee blue and white to go with the Frieze/work bench project. That paint job will also include tubes and tubes of sweet painters caulk to cover up my sins.

Gonna miss the Corvette

Meanwhile over at the work bench, expansion has begun. This expansion has to be done so I can start several moulding jobs that need to be done. I don't have the room on my present set up to this correctly. So, larger the work bench gets. I've removed the rake and shovel racks and moved them to window wall (above) here in the garage. Looks dicey having all that stuff hanging so close to der Vette but that stuff is lashed down very well. Besides, "Sweet 77" is going into storage in a couple of weeks (boooo!) so if something falls off the wall it will hit Janet's (company car) Camry. ROFLMAO.

This looks better already. Above is with the racks for rakes and what not that's not on the window wall to the left of the Vette in this pic. Funny, the older I get the more allergic I find myself to clutter.

When I built this originally I built it small because I didn't want something overpoweringly large. Well, so much for that. This weekend she doubles in size!

The expansion itself of "The Bench" will be simple enough. With all the rakes and shovels now on the window wall the right field lower grand stand expansion shouldn't take too look to build. I also plan on adding four outlets and peg boards. And a place for my storage box. And radio speakers. Shouldn't take but a couple of hours Sunday morning.

Like he's never said THAT before.

Rawk.

The Great Frieze Project Update - "The Stoop"

I found this plastic facsimile online that I can purchase for $59.99 per section. Each 12 X 8 section  runs $59.99.

 

Progress has been slow. Actually...non existent. What with my work schedule and other commitments work or otherwise, we've made exactly zero progress on putting a Yankee Stadium esque Frieze above the work bench in our garage. What's more, with other home improvement projects taking precedence, there's little precious time to do anything approaching frivolity. And the The Great Frieze project is, if anything, frivolous. What better reason to do it?

Back in January, in an attempt to reduce clutter at the back door I decided to rebuild the steps by expanding them and using the expanded part as a shoe rack.

 

What little time I have had has been spent freshening our master bathroom and rebuilding the "stoop" in the garage.

I guess my plan was to move the spigots? I don't remember but I will tell you that with this set up the spigs were useless.

Will and I built this ridiculous back "stoop" in the garage back in January to be a combination "stoop" and shoe rack. However, as much is the case with anything that I do, I grew increasingly discontent with my work because, for some reason which escapes me, I built the stoop/shoe rack under the garage water spigots. While I've never used these faucets, (hot and cold water? Wow!) I knew from almost the minute I finished this thing  that I'd either have to move the plumbing or rebuild this monstrosity to remove "the quirk" of having blocked water spigots.

Stage 2 of the rebuild of the rebuild. This is probably about hour six of a 90 minute project.

Naturally, I opted for the total rebuild. Go big or go home. Don't just waste your time; lay waste to your time over and over again.

Note the shelves in to the left front of our Corvette. Something bad was going to happen. Luckily, the worst thing that did happen was a colossal expenditure of my time.

That also included rebuilding the craptacular shelving that I had built adjacent to "The Stoop". They were really bad. Sagging under the weight of cases of water and Gatorade my concern was that something was going to roll off my pathetic dilapidated hunk of junk and hit the Corvette. Even a bottle of G2 hitting the soft fiberglass would leave a painful mark on "Sweet 77". That wasn't going to happen so off I went with crow bar, hammer, table saw and jig saw to rebuild something that I had only built not nine months before.

Will helping out during those happy, simpler times back in January when all we wanted was a place to put our shoes.

What I thought would be a 90 minute or at most three hour project now has stretched out over three weeks. Chalk this protracted project to building something with no plan, tearing apart something that Janet did not like (the original rebuild of the rebuild had a funky dog leg set of steps for additional shoe storage that Janet said we would trip over. I didn't argue. She was right) and just the amount of time it takes to really build something right. Which I should've done in the first place. If I recall correctly, in the original rebuild process, I had run out of lumber and was too cheap (and lazy) to go back to Home Depot to purchase additional supplies. Mistake! The mother of failure is cheapness. So. True. I know I knew better but built it anyway. Lou-zer.

It's coming together. I'm not happy that the top of the show rack under the shelving is not level but I'll fix that. Add the kick plates top and bottom and we're done.

Well, "The Stoop" is almost finished and in my humble opinion is quite handsome. The accompanying (also rebuilt) shelving adds a nice touch. 

This looks worse in pictures that it does in person. As big as this is it's just not big enough for all my stuff. Nonetheless, the clutter will get fixed. When I have time.

The master bath freshening is nothing more than a repaint and some trim changes. Oh, and the installation of a TV in the vanity area. After all, every bathroom must have a TV. That TV install will no doubt take most of a weekend afternoon to install. Then there's the much need expansion of the work bench itself that probably should come before the Frieze gets built. Sigh. Good times.

3 sections, almost three feet of plastic Yankee Stadium awesomeness, runs $179.99! Crikey! At that rate that's almost as much as the real thing!

In the meantime, "The Frieze" awaits.

1978 Chevrolet Impala - Good Luck, Grandma!

Us "car guys" of a certain age tend to appreciate some of the same vehicles or the same type of vehicles. Those "types" of vehicles being rear wheel drive, V-8 powered full or near full sized (despite whatever classification they might have been in) cars of any vintage.  And in particular, these down sized GMers of 1977 vintage. Why? I'm not sure but it could be a combination of nostalgia combined with our appreciation for solid, well designed and engineered American iron.

My generation (I straddle the line between baby boomer and Gen X'er) generally has a negative opinion of domestic makes. And with good reason. Much of the domestic stuff we grew up with was horrible and with fantastic stuff washing ashore from Asia and Europe it left us with a bitter, salty taste in our mouth that what came out of Detroit was junk. No matter how far "we've come" over the last twenty or thirty years perception is reality; our stuff just doesn't cut the mustard like the imports do.

Some rare exceptions to that rule include the these GM full sizers that came out in 1977 as the first wave of the Good General's massive wight loss regimen. These cars were delightfully smaller and much cleaner in design than the dreadnoughts that came before them. Nice job, GM!

I saw Grandma's car here in the parking lot of pretty good pizzeria near where we live. I was out with our older boy the other night picking up dinner there when I happened upon it. I sighed a gentle sigh with a long, low whistle as I drove slowly past it. My son's response, "Oh, God. No. Not again." Ya see, friend, my family does not share my penchant for these things. The "FOR SALE" signs all over only whetted my appetite. I was giddy with excitement and I had my blow torch awesome Samsung Galaxy S3 on me so let's have it!

When I was 14 my parents were on their inexplicable "Cadillac kick". Mother had to have one and Father lovingly obliged. We of course shopped for a used Caddy and where settling on a block long '72 deVille out of the used car lot attached to a Chevy dealership. In the new car showroom sat a loaded, light blue Caprice coupe just like this that caught my eye. I really liked the simple yet handsome styling and most importantly, I fit behind the wheel of it well and felt, with a certain degree of confidence, that I could drive it. That was not the case with Mother's dreadfully huge Cadillac. I knew that any wheel time spent by me in that land locked cruise ship would result in fire hydrants getting knocked over and tree bark getting scarred. Too big. Way, WAY too big. The brand new smaller, gentler, kinder Caprice was sized just right. But at more than five thousand dollars there was just no way that was going to happen. Besides, Momma wanted her Caddy.

The manageable size was part of the appeal of these cars. They were dramatically smaller on the outside while retaining all of the room of the larger cars they replaced. Genius. Plus, being much, much lighter and available with reasonably powerful V-8 engines (we are talking 1978 here), these cars performed appreciably better than the cars they replaced. Win. Win. Win.

Just look at this thing. There's a reason why this pretty solid '78er is sitting (languishing, rotting, dying) in this parking lot not being sold. It has all the trappings of a vehicle that has been sitting out here for a long, long time. For starters it's filthy. Secondly it's filthy. You can almost smell the must through the rolled up windows. Then there's the failed finish (even the bumpers are rusting) and finally there's this. The price. Wow.

Asking this much for this car is like trying to make a deal on a $100,000 Mercedes when you've only got 10 grand to spend. The asking price is so nose bleed high that you know you're wasting your time by negotiating anything close to what you can afford or want to pay. Not that I'm in any position to buy Granny's car here but if I was I can't imagine paying two grand for this let alone more than twice that amount. And if I wanted to drop two large on this I'd offer a grand first and then run for cover.

But oh, what fun I'd having hopping this thing up into a one magificent sleeper. Rowr!

Good luck, Grandma!

1969 Mercury Marauder Plundering in Search of Gas Pumps

My 15 year old loves old cars which is, newsflash! Great by me! His taste in these things though is not nearly as broad as mine for when we both found this lovely beast in the parking of a strip mall in Elyria, he wanted no part of it what so ever. Oh, kids. They don't know what they're missing!

What is this? Well, let's start by saying that to say this is fine, fine old land yacht is rare is an understatement. "Ladies and gentlemen, a fossil from the age of the muscle car, please put your hands together for a 1969 Mercury Marauder!"

A what? A "Marauder", by definition, is one who plunders in search of booty. I think the only plundering this thing has done in its long, long, long-long  lifetime has actually been more like plowing around in search of gas pumps. Nothing screams single digit  fuel econony and frequent, painfully expensive fill ups like a two ton, 390 cubic inch, late sixites vintage Ford. Sorry. Mercury.

There are many cars that are syled derivatively; that meaning many (at the time) design influences. These days the upcoming Chevrolet Impala looks oddly like the current Ford Taurus. Mercedes Benz and BMWs are tough to differentiate. It's been going on for years. Here, this '69 'Rauder has plenty of '66 Dodge Charger or '67  Impala it. Most casual car observers probably couldn't tell you what it is other than "a hedious old bomb.

Love me some "sugar scoop" or "tunnel ram" too. Utterly pointless and whimsical but as the great Willie Wonka once said, "A little nonsense every now and then is relished by the wisest men." 

Up front though it's all standard issue full size Merc with all the intrique of a cow pusher. I do like the slim,  pre '74 bumpers that look almost delicate. But, ugh. Concealed headlights. Who knows how long those wretched head light doors have been stuck open. Y'know, there's only one thing worse than head light doors that get stuck open. Head light doors that get stuck down.

I've never been able to figure out exactly Mercury was supposed to be. Fancy Ford or down market Lincoln? Classic middle child (car) syndrome. Cars like this mixed up Marauder couldn't have helped either. Wonder how GM was able to field all those divisions and have the general public make sense of it all. Perhaps it was because they did such a good job of keeping those brands seperate from one another that they were able to pull it off. Until they too, like Ford and "Lincoln Mercury" blurred the lines between their makes and models. If you recall, Ford yanked Mercury at the end of 2010 model year. No doubt that middle child identity crisis had a lot to do with it. Too bad because Ford built some pretty cool Mercs over the years.

When I was a kid the block I grew up on teaming with big V-8 brutes like this. When junior would get his hands on dad's hand me down one of the first things he would do was by a cheap set of rims and modify the exhaust. To be different, some of the cooler cats would end their exhaust back here. The louder and more obnoxious the almost mufferless the exhaust the better. It was a right of passage to take the old man's ride and "fix it". Then the gas crisis hit and that was the end of that.

Depsite the interior that looks like the Russian army camped out in it and a body that could be in worse shape, this Rawder is in decent shape. Which is remarkable when you think about it because back in the day when this car was new, a forty two year old car would be a 1928 model year. You think 1928 model cars where roaming around parking lots in 1970 as daily drivers?

Still not impressing the 15 year old, though. Sigh. Kids today.

The Great Frieze Project

"A little nonsense every now and then is relished by the wisest men." -Willie Wonka

 



"The Yankee Stadium" in 1929. The Frieze was the Stadium's most notable architectural detail and without question what the Stadium structure itself was most famous for.

 

 

The original Frieze was made from copper, painted white and from the looks of it, based on this 1955 Life Magazine photograph, required a lot of maintenance.

 

 

When Yankee Stadium was "modernized" in the mid seventies the roof (and Frieze) supporting pillars went into the dumpster. No pillars meant no more obstructions but it also meant no more Frieze at the top of the ball park. Cheer up, Joe. It gets better.

 

 

A concrete version of the Frieze was placed along the center field wall of the renovated stadium.

It was actually quite nice despite what critics and fans of the original say.

 

 

When the new Yankee Stadium was built a steel Frieze was placed at the top of the stadium attached to a small roof. No pillars and a Frieze? Win-win.

 

 

However, while it most certainly is handsome it's not nearly as nice as the original Stadium's or even the concrete version on the renovated Stadium. Compared to the original(s), the new Frieze looks like something you'd find in an amusement park. The entire interior of the new Yankee Stadium looks like a Disney World interpretation of what Yankee Stadium would like.

 

 

This section the concrete Frieze from the mid seventies Yankee Stadium now proudly resides across the street from the new Stadium in Macombs Dam Park II. It's known as "II" because the new Stadium now was built on top of the original Macombs Dam Park.  

 

 

So, what is the "Great Frieze Project" exactly? Well, by opening day of the 2013 baseball season, if not sooner, the boys and I will have completed a (reasonable) facsimile of the famed "Frieze", or facade, of Yankee Stadium. It will adorn the top of our work bench in our garage outside Cleveland.

 

 

I'll blog our progress. First, the planning. How we doin'? Say, do I see The Mick in that wood grain?