2005-02-21 09:22
Yesterday was pretty productive on the basement clean up and reorganization front. I actually started the project last week when I dissambled a set of large crummy shelves behind Lexi’s kennel that the previous owners left behind (with paint and other building supplies) when they moved out, but the big task of moving and reconfiguring kennels remained. My plan was to dissasemble Gitte’s oversized kennel, swap its position with Lexi’s smaller kennel and then push it into the corner and against where the shelf I removed used to be. I also had to figure out how to get a large workbench by the two kennels in a fairly narrow space, but it didn’t end up being two difficult, just time consuming.
Unfortunately there was one casualty during the process: the sloppily installed phone line that supplies our DSL modem got caught on Gitte’s kennel and got pulled apart at a splice before I realized what had happened. I was able to fix it with a very cheesey temporary splice after I finished the rearranging process, but it added another twenty minutes to the project.
With the main reorganization project done, I turned my attention to repairing Gitte’s kennel door by canniblizing some chain link from one of the two panels left over when I downsized her kennel. Gitte, when motivated, has been able to bend and break the smaller gauge chainlink fencing material in her kennel and for whatever reason chose the door for most of her chainlink assaults leaving it a patch ridden monstrosity that was all function and zero form. Thankfully, Lexi’s arrival gave us a good three month reprieve and thenMary was home for the summer. Alas, now that Lexi’s getting older they both seem to be getting interested in breaking out. At any rate the integrity of Gitte’s newly repaired door is now slightly better and I was able to remove al the horrendous wood patches I used to shore things up. I will probably get some half inch square grid chicken wire to line the inside of the door in the near future. That should hopefully prevent Gitte from being able to get her mouth around the chainlink and creating new escape holes.
All in all I’m quite happy with the new reconfiguration. The new workshop space is plenty big enough to support the kayak building projects that I’ve put on the back burner for the last four months and I’m really looking forward to getting started on them again.