Tim aspires to automating every inch of the house, including the two gates, one on either side of the property. As a fellow geek I am keen on never having to unlock another gate again. As a South African though, I didn’t like the fact that the gates had no locks and the locks themselves were pretty old and rusty.
Notice all those holes? Well any new fixtures to those gates is not going to fare well if they can’t be screwed securely, and besides all those holes look ugly. Good thing I have discovered the amazing properties of wood filler.
This stuff hardens in a few hours, it sands and holds screws just like normal wood!
But after the initial exuberance, I had my next challenge: what kind of paint to get.
Which one of the following common colours matches the grey on my house? If you guessed none of them you would be correct! Turns out the grey of my house is called “space capsule” which doesn’t strike me as an original choice for a house from the dawn of the 1900’s.
That said, you can’t argue with a perfect colour match.
I had to get just a little bit creative since I needed at least 2 coats of paint and the rain threatened to ruin my day.
Still, I managed to get it all working in the end.
Uh… let’s try that just one more time.
You might think me paranoid, but wouldn’t you know it, only a month after I had the gates properly secured with locks but the security was tested by some guy coming in off the street, but more about that story later.