Stud Finder

I have a lamp to hang near my newly assembled cutting and work table. It is a lamp that I have not used since I sold the house and moved to a smaller apartment. Right now it is just sitting on my new table taking up space and not being useful. I have even purchased a wall bracket so I could hang it from the wall instead of the ceiling. The ceiling has a surface that will be harder to repair than two screw holes in the wall.  

I asked my son if he could help me hang the lamp bracket, but he was reluctant because of the possibility of electrical wires in the specific wall. When I paid the rent I asked the apartment manager and she said it would not be a problem as long as I found a wall stud. When I relayed this information my son said we still need to have a stud finder. I asked if he knew what they cost and he said about $30.00. The next question was do we know some one who would lend us one and the only name he came up with was my brother who is 700 miles away.  

Zircon Stud Finder about $50.00

I looked up stud finders on the big box store web-site and found out that they carry stud finders in a wide range of prices. The highest on the web site was the Zircon Multi-Scanner for just under $50.00. This same brand had models at prices all down the line to about $10.00. There was one other model, the Johnson Stud Finder Plus, for less than $3.50. The plus is an on-board level. In all of my years, this is not a tool I have ever needed. I think the lesser model will be fine. I just don't want to have to go to a big box store, well, a big box mostly guy's store and have to ask for a Johnson Stud Finder. Who names these things?

Johnson Stud Finder about $3.50

Catching Up

As promised, I went into the mountains last week.We saw pretty color changes, but the haze from fires in the northwest is passing right through Colorado so instead of pictures of crystal clear mountains, I got photos of haze that fades the colors in the distance.

In June I told you about waiting in the dealership to find out what was wrong with my car. What I did not tell you was that after a couple of hours, they came back and told me it was tensioners, a belt, and the seals by the timing chain. They also quoted a price about double what I had hoped it might cost, then explained that the car was in no danger of a break down and the repair could wait. With the extra time, I checked with my regular mechanic. His price quote was much more reasonable, but because his shop is not open on the weekend I took a day off to get the repair. I worked on knitting a pair of baby booties for a boss's new granddaughter. Here they are fresh off of the needles and ready to be sewn together.

When I back up you can see the other projects on my table.

Booties on the right, lamp to hang on the left, fabric to cut in the middle, tracing paper and patterns in the center.

And I finally built my cutting table from the IKEA Lack Tables.

Look at all of the wonderful storage space, the cutting mat has room to spare and the height is perfect. Now maybe I really can catch up.

Close up of the finished knitted Maryjane booties on the table.

It's Fall in the Mountains

Aspen at Molas Pass -7News

I really should write a longer post. I have a long list of things to do today, however, even though it is still getting into the 90s almost every day, the aspen trees have turned gold in the higher elevations. The weather is warm and sunny making this peak viewing weekend.

It is nothing like the maples in the northeast or the multicolored forests in the middle of the country, but the stark differences between the evergreens and the golden aspen leaves with the Colorado blue skies and mountains as a back drop are really nice to view.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

Rearranging a Small Work Area

I am happy to report that I am making progress on moving things around in the apartment and at the same time sorry it is not going faster. The smaller the place the harder it is to move everything. It is a lot like working one of those slider puzzles that reveals a picture once you have correctly moved all of the tiles to the proper spots.

It all started with moving a few things then needing to clean the carpets. Now the carpets are all clean and dry, but I am still moving things back into place or finding new places for them. The plan is to move all of the sewing equipment and supplies out of my bedroom and into a larger area of our apartment. The trickiest part is finding enough storage space in a tiny living space for big interests.

Right now, the table that holds the sewing machines is folded flat and resting against a wall. It will be just a little longer before that can be relocated to a more convenient place, still, it is progress.