One step forward...

Gas line was moved today. Plumber came out around 8:30, and NJNG got here around 12:15pm. Ball valve installed inside so we can turn off the gas inside when adding new pipe for the addition. What made me nervous was after the gad co dug the hole in the street, they put a fire extinguisher next to the hole and then one of the guys was in the hole! If it would have exploded, I'm not sure that little fire extinguisher would really do much. But everything went smoothly (I think- I really wouldn't know) and we now have a shiny new meter. NJNG guy said we could paint it if we want to, but we really don't spend a lot of time on that side of the house. Currently there is still a hole in the street. I still haven't figured out what exactly they did in the street, but oh well. Hopefully they will fix it before some car looses a tire.

Delayed...again

We were scheduled to have our gas meter moved yesterday but the snow on Monday pushed the schedule back a day.

So then we were scheduled for today. We then found out that the time slot was for the afternoon and the GC thought it was too risky to shut the gas off in the afternoon and opted to reschedule for tomorrow.

Hopefully this will actually happen tomorrow.

We will need to remove the red maple tree at the end of the driveway to allow for the back hoe which is fine since it is in the way of our future wood shed anyway.

Coffee table complete!

One coat of gel stain and three costs of polyurethane separated by a day each, and we are finally finished with the coffee table build!

We learned a lot of new things during this project and will use them in future projects.

Most notably with finishing we will try other wood filler techniques like Ana White suggests. We used regular, gray stainable wood filler but it didn't take the same color as the wood and stands out as blotches.

The holes from the nail gun are so small that we might forego the wood filler or use filler that is already colored to match the stain.

We are happy with how it turned out and are looking for an end table design now.

Stained!

Becky stained the table today!  It looks great and we can't wait to get it completely finished so we can use it!

It's together!

Finished the drawers, and sanded it down yesterday. Also attached the top which hubby put together. I applied some stain today and plan is to polyurethane it tomorrow.

Table Day 3

We spent 2 more hours, and got the drawers built and drawer glides in. It's pretty smooth, but needs some fine tuning. Apparently we are 1/16" shy on the width of the drawer which isn't bad, but makes it so we need a shim to get the glide to line up.

Day 2 of Table Making

We spent another 3 hours and got to step 8! The next step is the dreaded drawers. Hopefully we are square, so the drawers slide. The clamps I bought today definitely helped get everything nice and tight. I also bought a hand sander for when we are finished.

Practice makes Perfect

Since hubby wants to try to build the shelves and drawers for the closet, I decided we should have a smaller practice project to see what we are getting ourselves into.

We will be trying to make this: http://ana-white.com/2012/02/plans/benchright-coffee-table

Hopefully it works out so we can get rid of the cheap coffee table I got off of Craigslist. So far we spent 2 hours at Lowes picking up supplies, and about 3 hours on the table. We only got to step 3/14, but learned how to use a few new tools.

In other news: Supposedly digging will start Wednesday! Hopefully the gas meter will be moved by then.

Our Latest Tool Purchase

An air compressor and brad nail gun from Harbor Freight.

Flatustrating

The gas company came back out today to sketch the new meter location because they lost the paperwork from last week.

They originally said the meter must be at least three feet from a window but later said the three foot rule wasn't required if you don't use the window.  They will relocate the meter to the location we requested.

They said the cost would be $600 and it would be 2 weeks before they could move it. (They have to get permits and schedule an appointment to come back out.) They also recommended running the inside gas lines so it's ready for when they come out.

The GC said he would try to speed this process up and plans to start excavating on Thursday of this week.