1999 Ford F250 Lariat 4X4 CC 7.3

1999 Ford F250 Lariat 4X4 CC 7.3

This will be a short one - just knocking another one off the list. I'm determined to finish this catalog...it's kind of like an OCD thing at this point.

I used to keep a Superduty around all the time. I would just buy one, usually with a lot of miles on it, and keep it until a friend or somebody wanted it and then I'd sell it to them and get another one. I bought this one in 2006 I believe and kept it for maybe a year. It was one of the nicer ones, but I didn't actually care for the leather seats.

Having a truck around if you can do it makes sense. You never know when you'll need one and I used them all the time. My preference was crew cab (a must) and diesel. I preferred the short bed version as well. 

Anyway - another one down.

1999 Volvo C70 Convertible

1999 Volvo C70 Convertible

I had owned this kind of orange C70 coupe and really enjoyed it so when I got rid of it I decided to buy a C70 convertible. I got this black one from some local guy with 39K miles on it and in pretty good shape.

Surprisingly, I didn't enjoy it as much as I was expecting. The coupe had felt like a sports car while this one felt more like a tourer. It never gave me any problems and all in all it was a fine car, but it just never grew on me. The convertible top was great, and it was roomy and comfortable with it either up or down. I thought black was a good color for the C70 as well.

I had a lot of other cars around at the time and I didn't really drive this one too often. When I did, it was almost exclusively with the top down. 

The interior was in good shape and comfortable. The biggest difference between this car and the coupe was that this car had an automatic transmission. Now look, I know I'm a car guy so I'm supposed to be a fan of stick shifts and think automatics are for sissies. Truth be told, in most cases - especially with newer cars - I prefer the automatic. I have a 911 with a 6-speed and a buddy of mine has one with the PDK automatic....his is SO much better to drive than mine! That said, this is one of the few cases where the manual was better. It was just a perfect clutch and stick set up and I would have liked this convertible more if it had been a manual as well.

If you're thinking about one of these today, I would say why not? They cost almost nothing and are fun and functional little cars. The only caution I would point out is that Volvo is a rather odd brand. These old ones can have some interesting issues and they aren't designed the same as other cars so your corner mechanic might struggle to figure out problems. Other than that, go for it.

2003 Ford Thunderbird

2003 Ford Thunderbird

When Ford reintroduced the Thunderbird in 2002 after a five year absence it was a big hit in the sense that everybody loved the retro-styling and praised the car as "gorgeous". I was one of them. I thought it was extremely well designed in the looks department and couldn't wait to find out if it was equally good under the skirt.

I bought this 2003 model in 2004 with about 10K miles on the odometer and in excellent condition. I also drove it quite a bit while I had it. It kind of turned into a 2nd daily driver for me. 

After owning it for some time I would say it was a nice car - not a great car, but a nice car. The engine was responsive but not a real burner. The car was fun to drive but didn't handle all that well. It was also comfortable but not as smooth as I would have liked. It's like Ford couldn't decide whether to go the sports car route or the touring car route and just barely missed on both.

Even though I found it lacking in a couple of areas, I thoroughly enjoyed the car and wouldn't mind having another one. The color of this one was rather elegant, but I think I would go for a brighter color if I got another one. 

When I sold this car, it ended up being bought by a guy in Germany. It sat around in my garage for about three months before he finally got it shipped. On a side note, we bought a '56 Thunderbird this year and it's nearly this same color grey.

I watch these from time to time at auctions. They seem really cheap to me for a classy weekender but I never pull the trigger for some reason. If you like them you should go for it. They're cheap to maintain and I think ageing very well. Most of them come with a hardtop too (although you'll just end up having to store it somewhere).

Let's Build A Bar - Part 4

Let's Build A Bar

Part 4

With our cabinets finished, and while waiting on our soda fountain set up to be built, it was time to start thinking about surfaces. If I'm being honest, this isn't really my strong suit. I'm a very visual person so I have to actually see something to know if I'm going to like it or not. I can take a picture of something I like and then replicate it, but short of that it's just holding stuff up and going "Yep" or "Nope". To compound things, my wife and I don't always have the same tastes or style preferences (I like to say that she has taste, but I have style!). 

We just hit the stores and started bringing home all sorts of options. We don't like our current tile or hardwood flooring in our house but we're not ready to change it quite yet so we needed something that would work without clashing too much. We looked at a bunch of wood-look tiles but nothing really worked.

We weren't having any luck and then I remembered that we had a few pieces of this weird tile we had used for our garage bathroom so I grabbed them. We both liked it and then asked a few other people and the consensus that we got was an almost surprised "actually, that looks really good". Fortunately, Floor & Decor still carried it so we picked it up and put it down.

I've never tiled floor before, and there were some challenges like having to butt up to this curved tile. I bought a wet saw, which is key I think because you're basically building your own puzzle pieces.

I cut all the pieces out and laid them down before I ever mixed up any mortar. When it was time we just pulled the pieces out in rows and started at the back corner putting them down permanently.

  
Nel is typically my grouter, but she helped with the mortar this time as well. 

When we were grouting, Samantha wanted to help so we told her she could pull up all of the little spacers. I'm just supervising at this point, which is my favorite task.

Of course we had to let Sam try a little grouting as well.

It may not be for everyone, but I really like this tile. It reminds me of when you pull wallpaper off in an old house and there's like 5 layers of it, all different. It also reminds me of old linoleum flooring. I'm not sure why those are good things, but it seems fun to me. It also doesn't show dirt which is a bonus. 

We're still waiting on our soda machine and ice maker to be built so all I can do at this point is stone work and maybe pulls. I'm working on the stone now.