Kitchen Doors at Richelieu

My kitchen cabinet doors below the sink have been horrid since I bought the house 24 years ago.  The cheap builder grade "wood" is heavily stained.  For the longest time I figured I simply had to remodel the kitchen, new countertops, cabinets, etc.  But even then, I might end up with new Home Depot grade wood cabinets, not much if any better intrinsically than what I started with.  And the kitchen remodel would be another $10,20,30k expense.  Simply disconnecting and reconnecting all the plumbing would be expensive, and that's just the start.

So then I though about covering the existing cabinet doors with plexiglass, polycarbonate, or something like that in a white color.  I could even glue cut pieces (if nicely beveled) onto the existing doors.

Anyway, with some random browsing thinking about this I discovered Richelieu Hardware, who sells a whole variety of Cabinet Doors !  (I could just remove the existing cabinet doors and bolt on the new ones!  Hurray!)

They have wood, polyester, stainless steel, Brillante (some kind of plastic), Aluminum frames with glass or plexiglass inserts, Thermoform, and Harmony.

I like the idea of some kind of hard material (like glass) that you know can be easily cleaned with a damp cloth, that stuff can always be removed from later even after hardening, and that wet rag won't hurt.  Stained (as in factory stained) wood fancy cabinet doors makes no sense to me.

I like the aluminum framed doors with either acid washed or Kadricolor glass.  I wonder how the eye catching Fuchsia would look in my kitchen.

My dream version, however, would be frameless, as the aluminum frame is just another thing for dirt to get stuck on or under.

Cat goes back to being Outdoor Cat

Sadly it didn't work out.  Augie, once he recovered from a bad fight after 3 days inside, regained his oats and was becoming a threatening, clawing monster inside.  After 12 days, I was feeling under siege in my own house; I had to constantly wear thick sweatpants and shoes for fear of being attacked (he snagged my pants and shoes by surprise a few times after hiding out in corners, and made a leap toward me as if to initiate a fight several times, but since I refused to engage in any fight and walked away from any sign of confrontation I remained unscratched).  He would sometimes get so hyperactive running around the house at 20 mph and tearing up his weasel-toys as to be frightening.  In retrospect I wonder if he was telling me he was ready to go back outside already.

So I've let him back outside and changed his designation back to outdoor cat (with his own heated house on the patio--which he loves, food, and water).  He was unpleasant to live with inside, but he never caused any serious damage.  He clawed some already clawed furniture, and that's about it.  He somehow knew never to touch my electrostatic speakers--which had been my big fear all along.  He toyed with a lot of wires, which my house is full of, but as far as I can tell never pierced any wires.

He goes outside willingly, and nowadays I'm even a bit disinclined to handle or move him, but when I go out to bring him more food he invariably dashes in.  So I have to have all bedroom doors closed so he really has no where to hide and then, after not too long, he goes back outside.

Unfortunately my "patio cat" idea doesn't work…it's simply too easy for Augie to scale my 6 foot garden walls and be part of a grander area he must consider his territory, though he apparently shares it all with another cat, a white and battle-worn cat I've named Atilla.  Augie lets Atilla come by and eat food, so I will be stocking the bowl twice daily with enough food for two cats, and hope they keep getting along.  The most serious fights have occurred when the food bowl has been empty.  It could be that having an older and tougher mentor cat is a good thing for Augie (though it's likely also part of the source of Augie's aggressiveness).  Anyway, I didn't choose to have Atilla, he was simply there, and apparently the new boss after the disappearance of Alexander, Augies previous sparring partner.

My current standards in USA having an outdoor cat, or even and indoor/outdoor cat, it considered negligent or cruel or something like that.  But it's certainly better than letting the poor darlings starve to death, not get their neutering and shots.  It's probably better for the cat than euthanasia (though not better for birds).  I still hope that well fed cats will be less aggressive toward birds, but I don't know.

Here's an article defending Indoor/Outdoor cats, which accounts for 90% of pet cats in Britain and other places.

No Splash Guard Needed!

The remodeled King's Bath is fantastic!  And now in one more way!  No Splash Guard is needed, water simply doesn't get through the gap between the shower curtain and the tile wall.  On Wednesday I took a long and vigorous shower including both shampoo and conditioner, and there was not a drop of water.  With the 4 inch tile baseboard on top of vinyl flooring, it would much matter anymore if there were a few drops…but there are none!

I had been expecting a Splash Guard to be needed based on all my previous experience, and I had purchased several different kinds.  Prior to remodeling, the baseboard on the right side of the tub (where the spray head is in this shower) so much water had gotten through the gap that the baseboard was rotted out, and even the sheetrock above the baseboard was damaged.  In the Queen's Bath, a puddle consistently forms on the spray head side after taking a shower.  And this is despite using a (not very well attached) splash guard there.

I think this is because of the curved shower rod, and how the ends of the rod curve back in so the front edge of the curtain hangs vertically down into the inside of the tub.  In my previous tubs I mounted the shower curtain rod just in front of the front edge of the tub, to make a more roomy shower.  This was my mother's way of doing this from way back.  In fact, when we moved into this house in 1992, I first installed the shower rods more inside the tub so the curtain was hanging straight down, simply because that looked right to me.  My mother immediately had me change it to be on the outside edge, and that seemed fine, I really didn't know how it was supposed to be done, so I did it that way and forgot about it until now.

I'm lucky it ended up this way.  Actually, I had been planning to mount the curved rod about 2 more inches out.  But I had to move it back so that the rod would generously clear the high cabinet above the toilet and just in front of the shower.  I wanted generous clearance so a damp shower curtain wouldn't be rubbing against the cabinet.

Now while it hangs vertically, the shower curtain doesn't actually come right up to the wall.  There is still a half inch or so gap.  But it still works.  I'm thinking I may use a couple of shower curtain clips on the wall to hold the curtain tighter to the wall, even though they don't seem to be needed.  But I won't be using the Tidee-Tubb splash guard that is glued to the top of the tub.  The Tidee-Tub looked like the best of the lot, and capable of handling the lack of squareness between the tub top and the wall which defeats the generic slash guard I got at Lowe's for the Queen's Bath.  The Tidee-Tub has two pieces that adjust to accommodate any slight wall tilt (and they all tilt, strangely enough).  But why glue something to the top of your high end Kohler bathtub when it isn't needed?

From Back Yard to Indoors

Friday night I came home and put a scoop of food into Augie's bowl on the patio.  As usual he came and ate a few kibbles, then left again.  It wasn't until later I noticed he wasn't looking good: thin, slow, mottled fur.  Then I noticed several blood stains on the Thermo Kitty Pad inside his house.  I let him into my house, and he walked slowly to the living room and sat under the coffee table, and looked at me.  He didn't have enough energy to start clawing.  So I said to myself, as long as he's good, he can stay inside.  He seemed to get the message.  He was good…no more clawing or jumping on sofa or running to the hallway.  Of course he didn't have the energy.  That was another good reason to adopt him as an indoor cat now--while he was showing good behavior.

Late last year Augie got eye scratched, now in April he had bloody wound.  This doesn't seem to be working out.  And Augie is thin precisely because he seems to save his outdoor food for other cats.  I saw this in action earlier this week.  The white cat came over from the side bamboo plant (apparently a convenient ladder to the next door yard) and started eating from Augie's bowl.  Augie sat in his house merely watching, not raising his voice or anything.  I had a few run-ins with this white cat before.  I usually just raised my voice a little and she'd run off.  One time he wasn't leaving so I turned on the sprinklers.  That maybe a bit cruel, but it seemed to keep her away for about a month.

Well this time I just tapped the window and she left.  But 5 minutes later she was back eating Augie's food.  I took a good look at her and felt sorry.  She was chunky looking, muscular.  Possibly pregnant (not from Augie).  And she had a half-bitten off ear.  So this time I watched as she ate and said nothing.  She polished off the entire bowl quickly, leaning into it (and putting some ants in the normally ant proof Fool a Bug bowl).  Then she left.  That was Tuesday.  Then Friday a bad scene of some kind must have happened.

In the meantime I had been thinking it was OK for Augie to save food for his friend.  I'm OK with him having friends.  I couldn't really stop it anyway.  I told my friend and immediately we were talking about having to capture the lady cat and take her to the vet for shots and sterilization.  It would be good to abort cat fetuses if she had any.  Then again, maybe they'd be the children of Alexander, the male cat who was pestering (or being friend?) Augie a few months ago, until he disappeared after a two day freeze.  I might actually feel bad about having all of Alexander's kids aborted.  He was an especially pretty cat, I thought.  Unlike this white cat, who beyond the bitten ear looks like tramp all over.  Chunky muscular tramp.

But after this blood stain, I decided maybe the relationship wasn't actually that good.  Augie let her eat his food because he had little choice: eat or get beaten up.  This lady was collecting her protection money daily (that's why Augie wouldn't eat much) and if it came a little short, as it had done on Friday when I didn't put out a second scoop at 3pm (bowl was still over half full at the bottom (about 2/3 scoop) because Augie himself wasn't eating much) she gave no forgiveness.  I forgot to add more and was also expecting my friend to add more (but she missed Friday night, in fact she had missed the entire week because of her husband's hospitalization).

So now we see how my cat neighborhood works.  Alexander had been doing likewise, eating Augie's food and Augie wasn't putting up much if any resistance (after the first month or so, when there had been some apparently bloodless fights).

And it doesn't look good for a young backyard patio cat.  My 6 foot walls don't keep cats out, so Augie was vulnerable, and apparently not up to the task.  He's still just a young cat…no more than teenager according to the charts, and other cats, even feral cats, may be bigger, stronger, tougher, and meaner.

So now I've adopted Augie as an indoor cat.  He's a nice and very smart cat in many ways.  I've been afraid of him clawing apart my electrostatic speakers mainly.  But I play classical music through them, and he loves classical music and seems to understand what the speakers do, and he seems to respect them.  I'd noticed that before, which made me warm to the idea of having another indoor cat roaming freely, something I had not though possible until this weekend.

I hadn't strongly wanted another cat, though interestingly this week I had come across photos of my previous indoor cat, Kitty, 1991-2007.  I had loved kitty dearly…she slept with me through some of the most important transitions in my life.  I missed her, but also remembered the hassles, grief, and primarily the endless worry.  So I was not planning to have another cat despite missing her.  And the biggest fear would be that another cat just wouldn't work out, especially now that I have electrostatic speakers and work all day.

It's been pretty good so far.  Augie seems to be gradually losing bad habits, becoming less likely to swipe at you with his paw.  Last night she sat under me at the table and, as if to show me it was safe, rested her back paw on my foot.  There was no claw, it was perfectly soft.

On both Sunday and Monday nights I sat on the back patio as Augie played in the yard.  He had previously seemed unwilling to venture far into my small back yard, but after it was mowed on Sunday he was happy to follow the laser toy to the far ends.  And on Monday he just liked to sit in the grass for awhile.

He's insisted on sleeping with me, and we've found ways to make that work, but he also made himself a small bed where my weights are as backup.  I made that bed a bit nicer with a foam piece, and he's happy there about half of the night, and then the other half finding spaces in my bed.  On Saturday I put him on the left side, which would be good.  Of course he didn't go back there again until he had rediscovered the left side himself, as he did on Monday night.

The New Palms

Poor old palmie never rooted well and was leaning over.  Probably not planted correctly, possibly pushed over by kids, possibly got too damp from nearby sprinkler head, possibly damaged by freeze or strong winds.  Palmie was dug and cut out of the ground a month ago, lay near the sidewalk for almost a week, and then someone carried her off to an uncertain future, but at least better than straight into the trash.

I had already been thinking, almost since the day of planting almost 3 years ago, that palmie was planted in the wrong location.  Even if palmie had good roots, a transplant operation would be very expensive (to have professionally done, by professional tree service at $250-$400 per hour).  It would have been cheaper simply to buy new palm and have nursery plant it.  Or it would have been dicey for me and my friend, who know little about such things.  Dicey means it could end up like last time or worse.  All this to save what was a $29 tree.

By my lights, Palmie was too close to the street and sidewalk at only 3 feet from the sidewalk.  My chief concern was visibility when pulling out a car, and also not blocking the sidewalk with fronds.

Buying a new palm to have nursery plant is the plan now.  My friend suggested having way back from street this time, and the same distance as the existing tree from the street.  She further suggested having the new palm very close to that old tree, which is well past its expected lifetime anyway and lost several major  branches last year.  We don't expect that tree to last much longer anyway.  She felt this was a good location because the existing tree is at the top of a gentle rise, and so there would be better drainage.

I resisted the idea of planting close to the old tree at first, but now I see it is essential.  I plan to widen the driveway by about 6 feet.  The palm should be an additional 6 feet minimum from the new driveway, or at least 12 feet from the existing driveway.  I had been thinking about allowing some additional margin and making it 14 feet from the existing driveway.  The old tree starts around 16 feet from the existing driveway.

Further, I'm now thinking of having at least 2 palms.  One 12 feet from the street (that almost lines up with the old tree) and the second 24 feet from the street.  There are about 50 feet to work with from the sidewalk to the front door.  I could have 3 palms at 12', 22', and 32'.  Here's one of the few links I've found on spacing Washingtonia Robusta palms, which suggests a mere 6 foot spacing (minimum).