So, there I was sitting in my office working, minding my own business, happily busy. Then suddenly, out of the blue, I hear it: “Daddy?” Oh no! It’s the nuclear weapon of cute! It’s the WMD of irresistible!

I turn around to see LittlestPage, in all of her just-turned-three glory, standing there with a gameboard tucked under one arm (reaching almost to the floor) and a Tupperware sandwich box full of cards under the other.

“Would you play Candyland with me?”

There is a long pause. I resist for a few seconds. “But I’m… You see sweetie, I…”. The cute is too strong. I can’t possibly resist.

“Of course I’ll play Candyland with you. Let’s sit right here on the floor against the treadmill.”

It’s a vicious, neck and neck game. She gets stuck in the molasses swamp, giving me the edge I need. However, the joy of victory is somewhat dulled by the fact that LittlestPage doesn’t care a hoot about getting to the end of the board. She thinks that the only part of the game worth anything is drawing the “Plumpy” card. The Plumpy square is right near the beginning of the board, so if you get the card it’s like having to start the whole game over again. But that doesn’t matter. She loves that card. If she draws the Plumpy card, it’s a great game for her.

Once again LittlestPage teaches me a lesson. It doesn’t matter what everyone else says the point of the game is, I have my eyes on something far better. Even if it doesn’t look like success to everyone else, I finish happy.

Here’s how to replace a guitar string so it won’t slip and also won’t have a huge ball of extra string wrapped around the tuning peg.

I play guitar with a pretty heavy hand, so I’ve replaced an awful lot of strings. Over time, I’ve found a method that consistently works for me. I hate having 20 winds of string around the tuning pegs, but having only a few winds means that they can slip when you are getting the string up to tension. So, without further ado, How To Replace a Guitar String, as demonstrated on my Ovation 6 and 12-Strings.

First, an important basic: The tuners on the top of the headstock turn counterclockwise to tighten the string, and the tuners on the bottom wind it up clockwise. The strings all run together between the two rows of tuners. This is important. If you wind the strings the wrong way, they will have to bend around the other tuners to get where they are going, and you’ll break them easily, and have tuning problems.

(Click any image to go to a larger version)

<a href="http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/2727067_pD5gz/1#292398181_nMpB2"

So, lets string the guitar. First, cut off the old strings. Use wire cutters and cut them just above the bridge. Sliding the whole string out through the hole in the bridge wears things down, takes longer, and sounds terrible. If your guitar uses white plastic pins to keep the strings in the bridge, cutting the strings lets you reach into the sound hole to help remove the pins. Unwind the strings from the tuning pegs, coil them and discard them. Do that now, because if you forget you’ll poke yourself with them later.

I always start with the bass strings. Insert the string through the bridge. Pull it through gently until the ball end sits neatly. I always line up the ball ends so it looks pretty, but I’m retentive that way.

Turn the hole in the tuning peg until you can place the string straight through it. Insert the end of the string through the tuning peg and tug it straight, but not tight. Check that the ball end is still sitting properly in the bridge and that the string is sitting in the correct slot in the nut.

Trick number one: Tug the string straight, place your finger on the string at the nut, then slide your finger back to the first fret. This should pull the string back enough to give you some slack over the body.

This is just the right amount of slack to wind around the tuning peg a couple of times. Experiment, the bass strings need one fret, the higher strings sometimes need one and a half, it’s entirely up to your preferences once you see how this works. It’s important that you hold the string at the first fret during the next couple of steps to keep the string going where it’s supposed to.

Next, turn the tuning knob so that the tuning peg makes about a quarter turn, like this:

This quarter turn helps make sure you see which way to do the next step. It doesn’t work right if you wind the string the wrong way around the post.

Trick number two: The lock. It might make more sense for you to just do it and see what’s happening than it will when you read it. Bear with me, it’s quite a simple concept when you see it.

Loop the string backwards around the tuning peg and under the string. This is the OPPOSITE direction that the string winds up to be tightened. (That’s why the quarter turn helps, you can easily see which way the string winds).

Tug the string end fairly tight and bend it upwards under the string going down the fretboard. This bent-upwards piece will be held tightly in place by the string once it gets wound a little tighter, which prevents the string from slipping. Even if you only have a half turn of string around the tuning peg, it grabs itself and won’t pull out.

Still holding the string slightly taut against the fretboard, turn the tuning knob to tighten the string.

Keep tightening until it is near the correct pitch. It should look something like this:

Using your handy wire cutters, trim off the extra string as close as you can to the tuning peg. It’s okay if your wire cutters don’t have grinder marks on them like mine do.

And voila! You can see in this picture how the string grabs and holds itself.

That’s all there is to it. Lather rinse and repeat 5 more times (or 11 more times if you have a 12 string, or 3 more times if you have a bass) and you’re done!

Let me know in the comments if you’d like anything clarified.

Those of you who know us will attest to three things:

1) The basement will never be finished. Ever. It may possibly be usable in the near future, but it will never be finished. Until it is finished, stacks of stuff destined for the basement rule the upstairs.

2) We are drowning in clutter. We constantly fight this battle, and we seem to take endless loads of boxes to the Goodwill, but no matter how much we get rid of there is still too much waiting to ambush us when our backs are turned.

3) We’d far rather spend a day planning how to do something, with cool charts, graphs, lists and systems, than actually do anything productive to finish the basement or fight clutter.

So, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you….

The Wonderfulpages.com Decluttering Flowchart PDF

Jocularity aside, this is actually a serious piece of work that is the result of literally hours of discussion. We were discussing with the kids how to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Explaining to a 7 year old which items in his overflowing “stuff” drawer to keep is difficult. Deciding what things in my “stuff” drawer to keep is difficult. Hence, a flowchart. The chart should be good for both items and paperwork, not so good for books. We’re working on the one for books, but that one’s a bit more complex. We care more about some of our books than about most of our stuff.

Sentimental clutter is the big killer. We’ve decided to keep only one item from each important stage of our lives (you decide what the important stages are) and take photos of the rest before getting rid of them. Harsh? Yes. Necessary with 7 bodies in 1200 square feet 24 hours a day? Yes.

Some clarifications:
“Assign a place” means to decide exactly where the permanent home for this item is. If that place doesn’t exist (on the shelf that won’t be hung until after the room is painted) then a temporary specific place is found. Like “in the box for stuff that will go on that shelf”, not “back on the top of my dresser with this other stuff I don’t know what to do with”.

“File or place in secondary storage” means to place the paper in the proper place in the filing cabinet, not in a pile of stuff to be filed later. You and I both know it won’t.

“Display, file or secondary storage after documenting” is for keepsakes. Displaying on a shelf or in a photo frame, filing special papers, storing things you want to keep but not display. “After documenting” means that the reason that the thing is special should be typed or written on a card and stored with the item, or if it won’t destroy the value of the item, written right on the item. (All of our Christmas decorations have the owner, giver and year marked on them in superfine sharpie).

“Discard” means “get it out of my house”. It may mean trash, it may mean recycling, it may mean Goodwill, it may mean the neighbours, it may mean someone else in your family, but get it out of there before you change your mind.

“Will you be able to find it elsewhere when you need it?” means “Can I look this information up on the internet easily if I ever need it?” for paperwork, or “Is there another more generic tool that I also own that can do this job?” for gadgets. You get the idea.

Tell us about your own decluttering methods!