Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Tag: home ownership

Just having fun browsing.

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Favourite past time of mine is to just go look on Kijiji or FB Marketplace, or some auction sights and browse endless ads for wood piles, tool boxes, bandsaws, air compressors, milling machines and so much more. Day dreaming about how I would fill out my dream wood/work shop if I ever managed to fall ass backwards into obscene wealth. It also helps me to organize my current shop too. Nothing like catching a monster break on a piece of equipment or tool by grabbing it second hand. I do love me some retail therapy, but some shit is just as good used, rather than paying the full MSRP. Need to work smarter now that Greedflation is so high on everything else.

Sliding cabinet saws, awesome, but way too big for my shop space. Still fun to look up & read about. Imagining how easy it would be to finally breakdown a full sheet of plywood without having to bust out a circular saw, straight edge, and my garage floor instead. Looking at the various motor sizes for said cabinet saw. If you go that big you want atleast 5HP, maybe even 7HP, and a 12″ blade on top of all that too. 1HP, 1.5HP, 1.75HP, OR 2HP bandsaws of all shapes, makes and models is another good one to look for. If I had an extra $1,500.00 laying about with no urgent household needs attached to it, I’d be out there in a heart beat, so that I could resaw all this barn dried Ash that I have. I’d love to turn these ten/quarter boards into three quarter or half inch boards to make them more useable. But the reality of our home and appliances says “Not so fast MF!”. Going to need a new fridge in the next few months. The AC will likely need to be replaced in a year or two. Vehicles are aging faster than we are. So the money will go into the household and not my hobby shop. C’est la vie.

Going to need to earn some serious cheddar to get the household straightened out before I can lay out good quality cash for new or improved wood/work shop tools & equipment. Oh well. Such is life. No point rushing to buy something inferior that I’ll need to also upgrade from down the line. Make do until I can meet or exceed my needs in a few months or a year (or 2 or 3).

Most of the fun is in the hunt for good deals and quality items anyway. Spending the money is the worst part! Compare and contrasting items side by side. Agonizing over technical spec’s. Doing a search to see which brand has the easier spare parts to find, order, deliver and the associated price point. Live the fantasy for just a little longer while looking.

I know when I went looking to upgrade my table saw I was able to find six or seven of the same model and the prices varied quite widely. Some folks overestimate the worth of a mid to low tier tool, and others are looking to move it out of their way as they have already upgraded and need the space back. These are the people/deals I’m looking for. They want to recoup some of the cost, but have already purchased something else and aren’t trying to make money on the deal, just soften the financial blow they took, and pocket some cash and reclaiming space. My people! That’s the ticket. “Looking to upgrade” nope, this dude is raising funds, going to be over priced. “Upgraded and need this thing gone“ Yeah Buddy – My Man! Looking for a little cash in hand, more excited about the space waster leaving than the sale price.

Also – side note. Expect everything to be heavier and harder to get to than you think it will be. 200 pounds? Probably closer to three. Take a dolly, wheelie cart, or whatever with you. Pray for no stairs, or too narrow walkways. Ugh. Save your back whenever possible. Bring a friend, or two.

Happy Friday before the holiday long weekend. Have a great Thanksgiving folks. Ciao Bella.

At home, the battle for soft water rages on.

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Awoke this fine Saturday morning in early July to the sound of my water softener running a cycle. Not good. It is programmed to run at 2:00am, so it was stuck flushing, or in some other portion of the cycle. From what I learned before, parts 1 through 3 are fine, but returning to home for the final part 4 it hits a snag, and it goes off. First it was Err01, then Err03, and now we have a return to Err01 again. Fun, fun, fun. I have a box from the supplier with some replacement parts, so I hope that sorts things out. I just need to swap out a block of interconnected do-hickies, and hopefully put this thing to rest. Home ownership, this shit never ends. Softener, heaters, furnace, AC unit, fridge, freezer, on and on they cycle. One after the other requiring service, parts, or replacement. Yikes. Makes me want to scream.

Oh! Now I remember what I was going to talk about. Two updates really. One: weight loss – bit of a slow start to be honest. After Covid I put the weight training down for 3 months less a day, to try to avoid causing Long Covid, seems to have worked out. I was able to start lifting and exercising again on the 12th of June. I’m not at my heaviest, which was around 213Lbs, but I’m not far off at 204Lbs. I would like to get myself down to a reasonable 175-180Lbs range, which I think would suit my frame, and not leave me looking unwell, nor “chunked out”. If I had my way I’d be doing olympic style lifting again, but I can’t afford CrossFit gym memberships at this point. That was full time working me, with no kids, and I’m not earning more than half of what I used to. Plus the local gyms here are all machines. I want free weights, and to be able to clank if I need to clank, you know? I tried very hard to always control my weights & bars, but in a pinch, you gotta clank. CLANG-CLANK-CRASH!  So there we are. I need to buy myself a bar, and some smaller plates, and a bench. We have no room for any of it. So there’s that to contend with too. I want, I want, wah-wah-wah. Yes, I hear it. Riding my bike with my oldest isn’t out of the question, but I’d have to take us somewhere remote so we were unaffected by potential traffic, cars or inattentive drivers. I don’t fancy getting my child squashed because I want to loose twenty five pounds.

And two: I’m finally half way through book fourteen, another Mo Hayder book, with eyes on book #15 by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The third installment of a trilogy. Hope it’s a satisfying end! Can’t wait. But in the meantime I’m reading this sad, suspenseful story about distasteful people preying on children and minors, and I’m not thrilled about it. The book is good, but the subject matter is not exactly what I’m craving to read about. I’m not jazzed to read before bed, which is what I would usually do. Now I find the time to read a bit during the day only. So it’s been slow going. Not like “The Grapes of Wrath” slow, but slow enough. I just don’t want to devote hours of my day to read about the SA of small kids. And definitely not about their murders either. Very depressing. Hard on the soul. I know it is fiction, but still. Ugh.

Well this post is all over the place though huh? Malfunctioning household items, weight training and weight loss, and book recco’s. What a Saturday. Ciao Bella!