CozyNet Blog

General Update v25

Cozy kitchen

It's almost 2026 and I've been wanting to get another blog post out there before it's too late.

With it being the winter season here, I haven't been up to too terribly much when it comes to renovating and restoring the house. My kitchen window project is still incomplete after all these months since it has taken me so long to learn how to make window frames. Now that I've got a pretty good grasp on it, I'm unable to get any lumber because my truck is unfortunately down for the count. The brake pads need to be replaced and its dangerous to drive as is.

This all happened right before Christmas, so every repair shop within a reasonably safe distance is closed until next year, leaving me without a truck until then. So therefore the main quest is on hiatus until I finish this side quest. If it were any warmer out, I'd might attempt to replace the brake pads myself, but I'm one those sort of people who's joints freeze up and become miserably sore if exposed to the cold. The day time isn't so bad, but I really don't want to make the situation any worse either in case I mess it up, otherwise it could be stranded for the remainder of the season. January and March and sometimes February can be particularly cold here in Texas, so I'm thinking it would be best to just drive in somewhere local to have it repaired.

I suppose I should make a small update on the cats and dog. They've all been doing very well with no incidents. Poochie continues to run afoul with fleas because of wild filthy dogs coming up to his yard to visit. I usually bathe him once or twice a month in a flea killing shampoo, then later in the week apply a topical poison on his back and sprinkle his yard with sevin dust granules. It helps, but it's a chore for sure.

I haven't been able to walk him for a very long time due to the sand burs that took over the larger yard late in the summer. The burs are still there in the ground, which poke into his paws. I'm planning to buy a poison for those, which oddly I have to apply around this time of year, then again in spring. It's an expensive poison, but if it works, it would be worth it because those burs are awful. They're worse than stepping on legos!

As for the cats, I've moved their primary room upstairs for now. They were getting difficult to put up when I needed to leave the house, causing me to chase them around just to get them in their room; but it turns out, they just really like the upstairs bed room. I figured they can have it, and so far it's worked out great. They don't play keep away anymore and will go right up to their room when I need them too.

I almost forgot to write about this, but I did some work to restore my vintage General Electric fridge from 1953. I bought it from a guy for $100 off Craigslist in working condition, but it had a terrible habit of accumulating too much ice around the thermistor and condensation which was leaking out onto the floor and building up inside the door.

Upon close inspection, I realized that the lousy replacement gasket that the previous owner installed was actually installed in completely the wrong spot. I had to research some of the mechanics in how the door and gasket are supposed to function, which I found very interesting! The gasket is supposed to fit into a channel, and overlap onto the interior backboard. This is important because the backboard and fitting gasket are designed in such a way that when the door closes onto the fridge, the cold air causes a suction effect that draws the door in tight, compressing the gasket onto the backboard which squeezes it down around the edges upon the channel. The latching mechanism is mechanical and also draws the door in too, so this is all a bit different to modern fridges that employee magnets.

The previous owner at some point tore out the original gasket since it was no doubt old and brittle, then atop the backboard glued down a foam gasket. This left the channel and gap around the backboard exposed to the external environment, which drew in a lot of warm air causing the compressor to run a lot and subsequently produced a lot of condensation. If the foam gasket were applied in such a way that covered the gap and channel, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad...

I've spread open the gap between the backboard and the gasket channel so that you can see what it looks like.

I went ahead and pulled the door off the hinges and spent a week chiseling out pieces of the remaining old gasket which had fused into the channel. I cleaned it all out as best I could and applied a new proper rubber gasket I bought off of Amazon. Unfortunately it was just a hair too thick, causing the door to not shut properly since there was too much material next to the hinge-point. This was really disappointing because that gasket was expensive, costing me $127. I went back onto Amazon and bought another one with a slimmer dimension and this time it worked out a lot better.

Of course the seal wasn't perfect like it would have been with the original gasket since it doesn't compress enough near the latch point of the door, despite my best efforts in adjusting the latch draw distance. Since the remaining gaps around the seal were super thin, I utilized some spare stick on foam tape that I used on my water lines beneath the house. It was just enough material to make a perfect seal, and it doesn't look that too shabby either!

The black foam strip wasn't needed for the bottom and hinge-point.

I also wanted to share my awesome gasket cut profile here. I found that making a perfect miter cut was impossible, so I devised my own profile that tucks into itself with a small over lap. I made the bottom door corners of the gasket in such a way that if any liquid or by chance a bead of condensation were to trickle down the gasket, it would follow over the lap instead of collect into the bottom.

The later image is the door flipped up-side-down since it was off the hinges and I was rotating it to work with.

The fridge now works fantastically, save for the interior light switch not always working. I have a simple solution for that dealing with a motion detector I salvaged from work, but I'll get to it later. As for now, no more condensation build up, and it no longer runs as much either. I recall replacing the original thermostat in it for a newer one because I suspected the condensation and ice build up was possibly affecting it, so I wonder if it would work without issue now? It does still work, but I had trouble with it sticking on which might no longer be the case now that the interior environment is cool and dry. The newer thermostat works, but it's not calibrated for this fridge unlike the original and has a tendency to let things get a little too cold despite having it dialed in on the lowest setting possible.

Anyhow, I love the classic look of this fridge in my kitchen. I hope sometime next year I'll be able to rearrange things to their proper place. The present kitchen workflow and layout are inefficient with everything but the kitchen sink being in the wrong spot.

The first image is the current workflow. The later image is the goal.

There's a space for a dish washer beneath the counter top beside the sink, but I threw out the washer since it was junk. I might buy a dish washer in the future to place there, but I never use em so I don't know. The original spot for the stove is just in a terrible location that would be better fit for a fridge. At present, the space isn't wide enough for my old fridge, so I'll probably have to expand it by knocking out the side cubby.

The great big space presently occupied by a massive non-functioning fridge that was left there by the previous owners is where I want my 50's era stove with a nice big classic 50's era Vent-A-Hood (when I can find one).

Right now I have things a bit crammed into the kitchen and not yet in the right place, but once I can re-arrange it, I'll have a nice area for my small kitchen table to fit between the two back doors. Presently it's in front of a door I don't use.

Right now I'm held up until I get new propane lines and outlets installed where needed. The original propane outlets aren't in the right place and the old line is a permanent black cast iron pipe that broke off as the house shifted since the foundation was displaced from rotting apart (which I fixed back in 2023 and blogged about!) I think it would be best to just start anew, but I might still utilize the original line for some areas so long it doesn't leak.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Date: 2025-12-30