White Coat Down ...

E! was busy slapping, er rolling, the final coat of paint onto the wait station walls. Myself I built the trim for the entrance to the bathroom hallway.


I neglected to tell you about news on the septic / water front. This week we finally received the results of our water tests, and for most part they were good. There were three areas which were off with respect to the limits acceptable for using a UV system, one of which being that we now have much harder water than before. We're going to run the results by the health department on Monday and see what they think about it.

Dirk

Roller Girl ...

The wait station is coming along, today it saw its first coat of (real) paint. Tomorrow there'll be a second coat and then it's trim work, floor work, (and a few other little things I can't think of right now), and then we'll move a lot of furniture and equipment into its final resting place.


In case you wondered what I have been up to lately (not that you would, and I really only write this to fulfill my obligations as the secretary of the company - or was I the treasurer) I have started getting the little hallway to the bathrooms ready for plastering.


Aside from that I have been bogged down by the lemons life throws you, like a broken lawn mower, a broken lawn tractor, a flat on the truck. Life was never meant to be easy, but nobody said it's supposed to be a thrill ride. Oh well, lemonade anyone?

Dirk

Prime Time ...

Now that the walls in the wait station are as smooth as a babies bottom it is time to put some paint on them, and that's what E! did today. Well, it was only primer, the actual paint will go on tomorrow (not that you'd see a difference, because both primer and paint are plain white, but I know you love pictures, so here you go).



Dirk

Sand(ing Wo)man ...

E! finished the spackling and sanding of the wait station today, which is usually the most difficult and annoying part of drywalling, priming and painting is just icing on the cake (and if the cake turned out rectangular instead of round, the icing will emphasize it).

Tomorrow is prime time, and hopefully by the end of the week the wait station will be painted.



Dirk

Heavy Equipment ...

In every commercial kitchen there are at least three kinds of large-scale equipment: cooking, refrigeration, and ware washing. Although we already have most of the equipment in all three categories, we went out today and bought a dish washer and a refrigerator.

Hold it, you say, I can see that there's never enough refrigeration in a restaurant (and I say, I taught you well), but don't you already have a dishwasher?!

Oh you clever readers you, who read every word I write ... grrr!!! Yes, we already have a dishwasher, but when we bought it we were young and stupid (today we're old and stupid), and didn't realize that albeit the dishwasher was 3-phase (in its previous life) it had been converted to single phase, in particular the 3-phase motor had been replaced with a single phase motor. The amount of money it would take to convert it back to 3-phase (by replacing the motor) is prohibitive, in fact you can by a used dishwasher for just a few bucks more.

Aside from the 3-phase issue, our present dishwasher would have required a booster heater, and, let's face it, it's more than 30 years old! Our new dishwasher doesn't have any of these problems, it's 3-phase, it has a built-in booster heater, and it is only a few years old.



Dirk

Back At The Mill ...

We came back from our week-long vacation to the Hamptons yesterday, and today it was back to the mill. Nothing had changed at Gunk Haus, no elfes or fairies had been busy picking up the pieces we had left behind (maybe I should start believing in fairies again, and of course Santa, not sure if the Easter Bunny would be helpful, but if he's a hard worker I'm going to put him on my list as well).

E! was busy in the wait station sanding the joint compound. Soon she'll start priming and painting, if not tomorrow then by Tuesday.

As a warmup exercise I engaged in my favorite pastime, digging trenches. I had already dug one out in the Biergarten to divert the gutter runoff onto the street, but it was pointed out to me that this isn't a good idea, because ice could form on the street in the winter (I already knew that because we had this problem last winter).

Originally I wanted to drain the water out on the western side of the Biergarten (don't ask why I didn't stick to my original plan), and today I implemented the original plan.





Dirk

Gunkation ...

First and foremost I would like to apologize for the long break (sometimes I take a daycation from blogging, either because I am really tired, somewhat or completely annoyed, or there's nothing worth telling).

Sometimes Gunk Haus needs a break, and so do we. So we went to the Hamptons (if you've never watched Seinfeld, nor are familiar with New York's geography, the Hamptons are on the east end of Long Island), actually Montauk, which isn't the Hamptons, but it's where the Hamptons go to relax.

The Hamptons on a weekend in July are a mad house. The only reason why you would want to come here is that you are young and stupid, want to be seen, want to get drunk, or you have a house here and feel compelled to make a showing once in a while (alright, it's more than one reason, but who's counting). We came here for none of these reasons. E!'s sister (and husband) had rented a house here, and they had asked us whether we would want to tag along, and we did.

Being at the beach is quite relaxing, sticking your feet in the sand, listening to the sound of the waves, watch the seagulls carry away your neighbor's bag of chips. Ahhh, what a mind-cleansing atmosphere.

Dirk