“Handmade will always be punk rock”
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Case in point, this jacket by Carolyn (do I need to learn foundation paper piecing?):
Tuesday Garage Roundup: Almost Done
I’m crossing so much off the Garage Beautification List! Shelves are hung, footings are painted, stair treads are glued down, and even posters that hung in my work office 10 years ago are up, because why not decorate your garage?
The shelves were from Costco and came with the hooks the hiking stuff is hanging from (I think they’re meant for bicycle storage). And I am inordinately pleased with the stair treads and risers. I found them at the amazingly-named AMERICAN STAIR TREADS DOT COM and they were easy to trim down and exactly the size promised (it’s not their fault the builders made the bottom step 36.5″ instead of the standard 36″).
There are some little things still on my list, of course: Paint the door, put up ladder hooks, and hang one of those fancy retractable extension cords from the ceiling. But the last major thing to do is new lights; I just need my dad to teach me and a weekend morning that’s cool, so we both don’t get heat exhaustion. (PS to Dad: I have a plan to get the conduit behind the shelves, don’t worry.)
Getting Offline
This is a text I sent to Doc after a day of presentations about how AI can do our jobs:
So we went and I put myself in the water and was immediately happier.
The trees don’t care about effective prompting. The lizard we saw has never heard of an AI agent. The long grasses have no idea that the creative industry as we know it is threatened. (Oh to be a long grass…)
I stayed offline Saturday, hanging shelves in the garage (photos tomorrow); Sunday we went to the pool. Sometimes you just have to be reminded that “there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo.” (And it’s worth fighting for.)
Friday Links
1. It’s a weird time to be in the creative industry; I hate how accurate this is.
2. This reminds me of all the best things on the Old Internet: niche subject, obsessive research, just posting for the joy of it: “Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail”
3. A fun scroll: “Little People,” David Gilliver’s miniature photos.
Cake Books
I saw a Retroist newsletter post talking about collecting Wilton Cake Decorating Yearbooks this week and realized I never shared the one I got from my mom. I loved going through this as a kid–they combined cake plus catalog plus a craft project, as Retroist says:
Wilton was showing people what could be done with its products, then providing everything needed to recreate the results at home. Each page served as both inspiration and advertising, though it rarely felt like a hard sell. You were being invited to take on a project.
The Retroist post has a great array of pictures, so click through, but here are some of the cakes I fixated on as a kid going through my mom’s copy:
The Secret (Very Hot) Garden
I’m watering for my friend again. It’s a magical garden with high walls (which helped his fruit trees escape that late frost we had) but it’s a beast to water when the days are 100 degrees. But it’s certainly photogenic!
Tuesday Project Planning: Last Of The Summer Sewing
We’re coming up on Lughnasa, the cross-quarter day marking the last six weeks of summer. This year I started making a list of stuff I want to sew by season, so the minute the epoxy was curing in the garage, I went back into the sewing room. This is what’s left on the “Summer” list, organized by serger thread color:
There’s two pairs of pants in there for me, three undies and a shirt for Doc, a couple Zoom tops, and a pair of hiking shorts for me that I decided to start first:
These will be the Road Trip Pattern Co. Sierra Shorts, aka a Patagonia dupe. I hope the fit works out because I’m in love with those front cargo pockets.
One Month Later
The major parts of the garage are done and we were able to park on the epoxy with no problems yesterday–WHEW. There’s still a list of things to do (hang shelves on those pristine walls, add more lights and an outlet, install the stair treads, and paint the footings to match the floor [regular paint, not epoxy]) but the hardest work is over. ALSO WHEW.
I had fun doing this project (except the ceiling) but I didn’t truly realize how much work it would be. But I got ‘er done! And it looks pretty good, especially in photos.
When I pulled the car inside, I realized I painted the floor to match. Color coordinating custom garage!
Friday Links
1. I will always read something about the heyday of printed catalogs. “Longing” is such a apt word choice here:
As a form of media, mail-order catalogs themselves were a story of longing and aspiration that came to define shopping as an American way of life. What you bought and where you bought it from was a statement about who you were and who you could be. This was as true of the inch-thick catalogs from department stores like Sears (whose holiday-season edition was upgraded from mere catalog to “Wish Book”) as it was of the thousands of specialty retail catalogs, from J. Crew and Tweeds to Swiss Colony and Fingerhut, that followed its lead.
(What I wouldn’t give to have saved the mid-90s J. Crew and Tweeds catalogs!)
2. It’s So Hot That Japan Needs a New Word for It: “kokushobi,” or “cruel heat day,”
3. Now that the floor in the garage is done it’s time to start organizing stuff (and painting the footings, and maybe the door, and then adding more lights). This will be me rearranging the tool cart:
I Think It Worked!
I rolled epoxy on the thoroughly rinsed floor yesterday morning. Last year I tried to fill some low spots in the concrete with two-part epoxy (I was already planning the Great Garage Beautification) but one spot didn’t set up for months, so I was extremely anxious about putting it on an entire floor.
But this time I timed the mixing and set a timer for the pot life and generally followed the instructions as completely as only a person with generalized anxiety disorder can do, and I think it worked! It’s handling foot traffic just fine this morning; tomorrow I’ll try the tool chest on it and then Saturday night it will get the car test.
I understand now why the epoxy garage floor is so popular with suburban dads–it looks so good! Especially with the matching stair treads I found for the unfinished steps (not installed yet, I just had to preview them with the floor color). Maybe I too am a suburban dad…
