A rose by any other name.

You probably know that rose bushes have NAMES. I love the "Peace" rose, but it doesn't grow well in my yard. Over the years several different roses have been tried. Soil was amended to help, but in most cases the aphids and black spot fungus take their toll.

However there is one rose that I absolutely LOVE and it's name is "Rio Samba." I had one about 10 years ago that just grew and grew without insecticide, without fungicide, and pretty much without watering. Then, a neighbor had a tree company come cut down one of his trees. They let a limb SMASH through the middle of that gorgeous rose bush and it never recovered.

Maybe 2 or 3 years ago I saw a new one for sale and scooped it up. It has been planted in the same spot and has just been thriving. Again, very little help on my part.

From the picture I hope you will see why I love this rose so much. The blooms open up yellow, mature orange, and die red. And all of these colors are on the bush at the same time. If you click on the picture you will see how many buds there are waiting to open.

BIN there, DONE that.

Finished the construction of the trash/recycling bin. So how come none of you suggested that I move the BACK of the bin forward by an inch to account for the cabinet mounting strip? That allows for the height to remain the same and the recycling bin to be a little shallower. That thought came to me while trying to fall asleep one night.

I spent a couple of hours making the cabinet modifications. It is now narrower so that it slides in and out correctly. And the back part was shortened by an inch as mentioned above. Then I cut and installed the plywood dividers. Also I cut a strip of wood to hold down the plastic bags where they come together at the center, and it just wedges in place.

This is the completed bin:


If you look carefully you can see that the bottom "tray" is a little longer in back than the bin part above it. THAT is what allows for clearing the cabinet back mounting board.

And here it is, inside the cabinet:


The front edge of the bin now fits behind the back edge of the cabinet face frame.

Still need to get and mount drawer slides.

Measured once, cut twice...still too short.

I goofed in two ways, but it can be fixed.

First, here is an idea of what the slide out trash/recycling bins will look like. This is just the framework and there will be thin plywood panels separating the two bins.


Now the goofs. First, It is too wide. The width should be 1 inch less than the face frame opening so that the drawer slides can be mounted in the cabinet. I was counting on bottom mounting the slides, but bottom EDGE mounting will allow for a little more height.



Second, I hadn't counted on the back mounting board (marked with red lines) of the cabinet. The bin has to be shorter so it can slide all the way back. When it was just a "tray" there was no problem, just when it became 3 dimensional.


So, now I need to take the unit apart (thank goodness it is all screws), make some cuts, and reassemble. Second time should be a charm. And the next bin (for the spice rack, etc) will benefit from THIS mistake.

Now that I think about it, since lowering the height of the bin leaves more room at the top, I could make a slide out CUTTING BOARD to fit in that space. Good future project.

Idol chat 2

Alright, dawgs, so listen up, yo yo, check it out!

The voters disappointed me. I was so hoping for Jordin and Melinda in the finals. But I hadn't counted on the female population and their attraction to Blake.

Melinda is a tremendous singer and she has such a nice personality. I truly hope she has a long and successful career.

Jordin is such a sweetie, sings beautifully, and has such a bubbly personality. I hope she wins.

I think that Blake won't have much of a career. His singing is marginal, he HAS to embellish it with all that vocal imitation of a scratching record player (read: GIMMICK) and he has a limited range of robotic dance movements that he does repetitively. I'd seen enough after one performance. America will take it a little longer then lose interest.

A little kitchen progress

I had my son over the weekend. By Friday I had cut pieces of plywood as the bottoms of the slide out bins for the kitchen cabinets. On Sunday I cut some pine strips to add. JP fastened the strips to the plywood, which made them "trays". I predrilled holes and he did the screws. The trays will be built up into bins soon. Then the bins will be mounted with drawer slides.

The left one will be for grill tools, spice jars, and other things that are not used often, yet storable in a narrow cabinet.


The right one will be for garbage and recycling.

Apropos "Pearls Before Swine" comic

Hopefully the cartoonist won't mind. Will take it off if asked.

More kitchen upgrade

I left off with my mom having painted the cabinets and we had removed a trash compactor, leaving a hole where a cabinet is to go. I bought a cabinet that is similar in design but not quite right for the space, so modifications had to be made. Over the past few days I have gotten the cabinet ready to be painted.

Here is the hole left by removing the trash compactor. The dead corner cabinet had the door and drawer removed so the compactor would fit. I closed up that space in the event something wanted to slip through the small gap that would remain.


The new cabinet was actually built for a door and a drawer. I needed to remove the door, drawer, a fixed shelf, and the upper two face frame rails. The sides, back, and vertical face frame pieces needed to be lowered a bit too. Here I am getting ready to mark the vertical parts for their finished height.


The toe kick area was not exactly the same as the other cabinets. Before doing the face frame modifications I added strips to the bottom and to the front of the toe kick to match the rest of the cabinets. This got the bottom face frame rail to line up and the new baseboard (later) will be right across all cabinets.


Finally I slid the cabinet into place. Note the gap between the new cabinet and the one on the left. When the previous homeowner installed the trash compactor he/she butchered that face frame. There are two things I can do. One would be to take my time and carefully chisel away that frame piece and make a new one to fit. The other is to make a very thin strip of wood to cover the gap and paint it to match the cabinets. I will opt for the second idea, at least for the short term.


What is remaining is to screw the cabinet in place, paint, make and install a new door, and make the slide out mechanism for the trash and recycling.