The Shore

After finishing a big real estate project, we often find ourselves drawn to the sea. Off to Monterey.

We rode at home on Monday morning and left around noon. By 4:30 we were checked in, unloaded and sipping a beer at Fieldwork. Good stuff.

After beers we ate at a place called Alejandro's on Alvarado Street. We walked right by this place for years and never tried it, and that was a mistake. The food was excellent. We started with the ahi ceviche (ceviche de atún), which was fantastic. The chips come with four sauces, all of which were great. I had the mole enchiladas while Jennifer had a vegetarian chile relleno (chile en nogada). Both were terrific. Highly recommended.

The next day we rode south along 17 Mile Drive. At 54 degrees, the weather dipped a bit below refreshingly cool into grab-a-jacket territory. The June Gloom is real.

Still, what's not to like riding along this scenery?

Later we went to the grocery store. Next to the store was this:

I haven't eaten at a Carl's Jr. in years, and I don't thing anyone will be eating at this one for a while. Burned to a crisp.

The next day we decided to head inland seeking sunshine. As we rode north along the coast, conditions were cool and overcast.

As we climbed into Fort Ord, the blue sky was teasingly close.

Eventually we climbed above the marine layer and it was glorious.

I had a new route mapped out, but we ran into some road closures due to the Army and BLM preparing for prescribed burns. Although it wasn't in the original plan, we climbed up to Laguna Seca once again. Jennifer handled it no problem.

The views from up top are great.

Then we descended back down into the gloom. All told we rode just short of 30 miles with over 2000 feet of climbing.

The next day we rode north to the end of the trail and back, a nice 25-mile ride. We did not see the sun even once. Nothing about the ride really inspired me to take a photo.

That night marked the return of Peter B's, a mainstay of our Monterey dining and beer experience for many years. The restaurant had been closed for four months during a $2 million renovation.

The restaurant itself looked great. The booths and walls were removed from the main dining area leaving it brighter and open.

Unfortunately that's where the improvements ended. The beer menu lacked anything I was really interested in, so I had a Legend of Laguna IPA, the only beer that's always on the menu. It typically falls somewhere between great and awful. (I was far more excited about my new Cal Poly shirt than the beer.)

I rarely complain about my food. I have a discerning palette, and appreciate great food, but I also realize I am not "great food rich." If you frequent breweries, you should be pleasantly surprised by great cuisine, but expect mediocrity. Still, a restaurant promoting an all-new menu should perform.

They did not.

Again, I am not a complaint person. However, they left a comment card with the bill, so I let them have it. I believe "bland, boring and uninspired" was part of my review.

Today we opted not to ride in favor of getting a jump on Friday traffic. Still, we hit a major slowdown on Highway 101 because of construction that cost us an extra 45 minutes of drive time.

Another nice getaway in the books, and some lessons learned: Try new things and be adventurous.

Later.

The Doors

One of the renovation tasks we decided to tackle ourselves was the kitchen cabinets. Replacing cabinets is a very expensive proposition, and it requires a permit. We decided to "reface" the old cabinets instead. Here's the before picture from our old rental company.

Pretty hideous, right?

The first order of business was to remove the doors and drawers, patch the holes, and let our professional painters do their thing.

Going from dingy white to gray was an immediate improvement.

Then it was time to make a door prototype. I watched a few videos about making "budget shaker doors" and decided to use 1/2" maple plywood with a 1/4" maple border. While it came out OK, it didn't have the quality I was looking for.

I also needed to replace the drawers. The old ones were a little small for the cabinets, so I built the scrap wood prototype a little wider so there wouldn't be as much slop and play.

On the next trip to Tahoe we checked the fit and everything was perfect.

Time to go into production.

I watched a few more videos and decided to make true shaker cabinets. We would go the MDF route because it's inexpensive, easy to work with, and the doors would be painted anyway.

I took all my measurements and performed the calculations to build everything.

I purchased the components to build a fairly professional table router setup. It was expensive, but very much worth it.

This allows you to route all the rails and styles with precision.

Unfortunately my trusty old Craftsman table saw bit the dust during this project.

It was replaced with this DeWalt portable unit that turned out to be so vastly superior that I should have bought one years ago.

Assembly went pretty quickly and soon we had a bunch of doors and drawer fronts.

Each one had to be painstakingly sanded to smooth out the seams and round all the sharp corners.

Then it was off to paint, a task that Jennifer handled. She learned quickly and did a great job.

She pre-sprayed all the drawer parts so when I tacked them together, they were mostly painted.

Everything went up pretty easily and lined up well.

I made one calculation mistake thinking I would use 1.5 inch overlay hinges everywhere. It turned out that a few doors needed 3/4" hinges. No big deal, I was able to cut down the offending doors and replace one rail without too much effort.

Installing the drawer fronts was easily the most difficult part. Getting them level and lined up with both each other and the cabinet doors proved tricky.

All that was left was installing the black hardware. It was a piece of cake with the jig I bought.

In the end we were pretty happy with the finished product.

Were they perfect? No. But we learned a lot and next time we will edge much closer to the perfection we always seek with home improvement projects.

Later.

The Wall

After recently finishing the remodel of the Tahoe condo, I thought I would highlight some of the cooler improvements we made.

The bar area was pretty terrible: Tile countertop, hideous gray and pink tile on the wall, and a high bar level which closed off the room a bit.

We tore out all the tile and I cut down the wall.

I installed sheetrock so I had something to glue the wall treatment to.

Unfortunately we didn't quite have enough wall panel. Back to Floor and Decor.

In the end it turned out great. I will definitely use this stuff again for a feature wall.

Later.