Sunday, December 27, 2009

Happy Holidays

Saturday, December 19, 2009

The Year in Pictures

We accomplished a lot this year, especially on the exterior of the house. Follow this link to see a number of before, during, and after photos. Many more than will fit on the blog.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Study Chandelier


Life got in the way a bit today, so I didn't make as much progress as I'd hoped. Got some of the plaster patches primed and that's it other than installing a new chandelier in the study. It's much more in keeping with the style/purpose of the room and throws better, warmer light.

Once again, you're never sure what you'll get when you get under the canopy. Every once in a while I have to channel MacGyver...

What should have been a five minute job took quite a bit longer and a bit of fabricating. Cut a little off this, thread it through that, and find that lock washer and nut that I saved from 3 projects ago. I've learned to save everything. I know I'll find a use for it somewhere else in the house.

And because the old chandelier's canopy wasn't removed for painting the last time, I know what color the ceiling used to be in this room... Nothing surprises me anymore. ;-)

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Chair Rail - II

May dad came over to finish the chair rail this morning. We finished about noon. The chair rail has an "egg and dart" pattern above a bead. Getting the joints to mach up was a chore - we averaged about six trips to the saw for each cut. We got everything to match up and it looks really nice. The old plaster walls are a bit wavy, so the painter will have to fill the gaps to the wall in some places. That will be one of the next jobs. ;-)

Chair Rail


I took the day off yesterday to make a little more progress on stuff around the house. My dad came over to help install a chair rail in one of the kid's room. We have more than half of it installed, but we'll have to finish it today. In the picture you can see the chair rail on the right side of the window - none on the left side, yet.

I also made a little more progress on fixing the holes in the plaster from both the electrician and me; installed new light fixtures in the "family room" and laundry; and experimented with paint samples in a few rooms.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Tree Removal


Last fall we noticed...

OK, not really "noticed" so much as it was impossible to walk on the sidewalk in front of the house because of the stench. There are two female Ginkgo Biloba trees on the boulevard. They are beautiful trees, but the females bear fruit. You can see them on the sidewalk in the picture.

The fruit falls and stinks.

No, it really stinks. People out walking their dogs would cross the street when they got to our house.

It smells like a cross between vomit and dog feces.

Change that to: there were two Ginkgo trees on the boulevard. ;-)

Thanks to the guys from the city who did the tree removal. They did a great job.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Cass Gilbert's 150th Birthday

Cass Gilbert was the architect for our house and several less famous buildings, including the Minnesota State Capitol, the Woolworth Building, and the US Supreme Court Building.

The Cass Gilbert Society and Minnesota Historical Society are hosting several events next weekend, November 21 and 22, including a birthday celebration at the capitol and a champagne reception at the Gilbert Building.

Happy Birthday Mr. Gilbert.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Towel Bars



I can't believe we waited this long to put towel bars in the main floor bathroom. It doesn't look like there's ever been towel bars or paper holders in here. Has everyone always acted like a five-year-old and wiped their hands on their shirt?

Both pictures are of the main floor bathroom - one showing the new towel bar, ring, and TP holder; the other showing it's cool leaded-glass window on the curved wall.

I finally finished the conduit to protect the phone lines and CATV - I needed to get that done before winter. And I did a little more in the garage with hooks for the ladders, hoses, etc. The brick walls were a good excuse to get some more power tools (hammer-drill this time). By the time we're done, I'll have one of everything.

I also threw a few bones to She Who Must Be Obeyed by hanging some mirrors and pictures. We'll have to take them down to paint, but harmony is an admirable goal...

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Clean Garage?


Well, mostly...

Now that the major construction is done for the summer, we can get the garage back. Up to this point it has been full of tools, equipment, and supplies.

We spent much of the weekend sorting through and cleaning stuff up out there so that we can get a car in there this winter. The nice heavy-duty shelves I picked up at Menards are already full of stuff. As you can see we're close - we have only a few things left to sort through. I still have to move some of the old hooks around and probably get some others so we can more stuff up off the floor. A bunch of this will end up in the house, too. This house is almost the opposite of our old house - here we have plenty of storage space in the basement but little in the garage.

Patios



Several folks have asked for pictures of the completed patios. Here you go!

One of our projects yesterday was to cut off the posts that extended well above the back wall (see previous post). According to the neighbors, these used to be part of a very tall privacy screen along the back and south side. Apparently the screen was put in two owners ago, but only the posts remain.

She Who Must Be Obeyed held the top part of the post while I did the cutting (the family Sawzall is getting a lot of use!). Everything was going well until... the blade made the the final cut. She was surprised by the weight and how top-heavy it was, and then lost the piece over the wall into the neighbor's yard. No one got hurt, but she looked puzzled and asked, "Now what?" I just grinned back and said, "You walk around and get it."

On the second post I gave her the opportunity to make the final cut while I held the post. No problems, but power tools are now back into my domain ("You hold it like a toooy"...) and the remaining posts went without incident.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Old Phone Lines - Part 2


Techs from Qwest came over today to hook up to our underground lines. They got quite a kick out of the old lines.

A while back we'd noticed that the lines running from the pole were not anchored to the house properly. They went though the branches of a large maple and then through a hole in the window frame of one of the second floor bedrooms. It's bad enough that it went through a window frame, but it also wasn't anchored to the house before it went through the window frame... ;-)

The tech anchored it properly and gave us the card for his supervisor, who we should call when we were "ready to replace this mess and do it right", as he put it.

I finished the inside wiring a while ago and finally got around to calling the supervisor this week. He got quite a chuckle when I told him that there were binding posts on the inside of a bedroom window frame. "How did it get like that?" he asked. "I dunno," I replied. "We've only lived here a year, so it has probably been that way since Alexander Graham Bell installed it."

He was very responsive and came out quickly this morning to check everything out. Later in the day another tech came to remove the old wire from the trees and connected a new line to our buried cable. The tech was quite amused too at the way the cables draped into the tree and then to the house. He saved a piece of the old line for us just for fun - note the splices and broken strain relievers in the short span. It's no wonder it stopped working every time it rained. I'd already connected a phone so as soon as he punched down the lines we got dial tone. He was really excited and told my wife, "Hey, hangup and let me call you!" He took out his cell and dialed, but... the phone didn't ring. They looked at each other for a minute and then realized... the ringer was off!

I'm happy with Qwest's response and customer service and glad we could provide fodder for their "shop stories".

Thanks Shawn!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Busy Neighborhood

The neighborhood is crawling with people today - it's the bi-annual Ramsey Hill Association House Tour. It will take us at least a couple of years before we're ready to be on it.

I'm splitting time this weekend between plaster repair and yard work. Several people have already stopped to ask about the house, even though it's not on the tour. When I was out early this morning several neighbors commented on how pleased they are to see the improvements in the house and yard. Being in the middle of it, I sometimes forget how far we've come already - I tend see how far we still have to go. It's nice to get reminded of how far we've come.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Overseeding


Despite this being one of the worst years on record for growing grass from seed, the yard actually doesn't look that bad compared with earlier in the year. The bare spot where Bill and his guys were working has started to fill in nicely. There are still a few little bare spots and thin areas, along with where the trench was dug for the power lines. So, I took a little time to overseed the lawn over the long weekend. In theory this should be the perfect time to seed and seed was on sale. We'll see how it looks later in the fall.

We may have to overseed again next year, but I still think seed is the right way to go with the dense shade that we have. Sod just won't survive without lots of sun.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Study/Bath Door Frame


OK, here's a good one. This is the door from the study to a cool little bathroom under the stairs. This is a fantastic door!

Note the missing doorknob however - don't lock yourself in! ;-)

Now, look more closely at the close-up of the door's frame. That's right, it's split and held together (sort of) by transparent packing tape and scotch tape. Apparently there was a shortage of duct tape at some point in the past... ;-)

It took about 5 minutes to fix this, the right way. Maybe I'll save the door knob for later so I can take the rest of the night off...

It's amazing what you can do with a hammer, a nail set, and the proper sized finish nails.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Done for the Summer!


Bill and his guys finished and installed all the second floor porch screens last week. That was the last of the big outside work for the year. He also got all the little missing pieces of molding installed around the tops of the porch columns and took down the last of the scaffolding.

Now "we" can do other little projects, mostly around the inside, while we save up for the next set of big projects.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Back Hall Closet


My next project is fixing all the holes the electricians and I made. This is the back hall closet where Bill and his guys removed some old, non-functional shelf brackets and added some new shelves and a bar for hanging coats, etc. The holes in the walls are the ones I made to get plumbing access to the laundry room that is directly above this closet.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Porch Screens


Bill's guys have been hard at work restoring the screens for the second floor porch. We'd found the screens down in the basement a while back and thought it would be nice to restore them so that it could again be a sleeping porch.

Some of the frames were salvageable, but others were in pretty rough shape and needed major work. The frames have some intricate cuts here and there (especially in the top corners) to fit around the crown molding on the posts.

A completed screen is installed in the second opening from the left. Behind it and to the right you can see several others that are complete and awaiting installation.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

New Phone Lines


That's much better. Now no one can get electrocuted when the phone rings...

I installed this structured media panel from Leviton yesterday. This is the smallest of the panels and we still have plenty of room for expansion later. It's in the basement rather than being attached to the window sill in a bedroom. :-)

This morning I ran and punched down the phone lines (upper left). I also ran the wired internet lines, but just used plugs at this end (coiled cable at the lower left) that will go to the switch - a patch panel is overkill for what we need. I also ran the CATV (upper right). Later, I'll home-run the CATV outlets and they'll terminate here, too. Right now the demarc for those is just a splitter on the outside of the house and the coax to each outlet runs on the exterior of the house. Sound familiar?

Friday, August 14, 2009

Old Phone Lines


Ha! Check this out!


This is the old network interface for the phones.


It's in a bedroom. I'm not kidding.


It works (but only after it's had a day or two to to dry out after it rains) like this:


Run the wires from a utility pole that's about to fall over, through the branches of a 50 foot Maple, and tie them to the side of the house. Then, drill a hole through the window sill, screw the terminal posts to the trim, connect a bunch of wires, and you're good to go! Oh, I forgot - send some extra back out through the hole, down the outside of the house, back in through the open Study window so it won't close properly, and connect another bunch of wires to another terminal block screwed to the baseboard. Then just staple all the station wire to the baseboard cap.

You go dude! Just lick your fingers, grab those terminals, and I'll ring you up! It'll be fun!

New Storm Windows


Allied came installed the storm windows over the past few days. They have a windows that the HPC has approved in the past and it works well on our house - including a stock color that is nearly identical to our trim color. Again, we sailed through the HPC approval process - it's easy when you stay within their guidelines.

It's nice to be able to open the windows and not get bugs in the house.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Carriage House Lights


I installed the carriage house lights earlier in the week. The old ones were getting a bit tired - missing various screws and nuts that hold them together, etc. The only tough part of the installation was getting the new lights to lay flush with the stone. I have some old stone mason tools from my great-grandfather that helped me chip away most of the high spots. One of the lights still isn't quite flush so I'll have to do a little more work on that one...
This picture should also satisfy those of you who've been asking for a better photo of the carriage house.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Back Hall Bench












This week, Bill and the guys built a bench in the back hall. There's not a lot of closet space and we're going to need a place to stick shoes, and park stuff when we come in. It still needs to be painted and maybe later we'll find some fabric to make a cushion for it. We also plan to get some interesting hooks to hang jackets, backpacks, and other stuff.

Friday, August 7, 2009

New Back Porch Lights


The back porch lights and carriage house lights came in yesterday. We picked them up today and I installed the porch lights tonight. They fit the period of the house well.
The carriage house lights will go on later in the weekend when there is enough light to see what I'm doing.
There was no drama during installation. The electrician had already run new wire and installed new junction boxes when the porch was being restored. It made my life easier...

Laundry Remote


I thought so, too.

Because the washer and dryer were year-end closeouts, they threw in a "remote" monitor. We can plug it in anywhere in the house and see the status of both the washer and dryer - whether they are on or off, what cycle they're in, and how much time remains before the load is done. It's pretty cool, but I'm not really sure it's that useful. And I don't think I'd have paid extra for it.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

New Washer and Dryer


The new appliances were delivered yesterday. Shortly after, I received a call from She Who Must Be Obeyed.

"I have good news and bad news."


"Good news is the washer and dryer have been delivered and they look great."


"The bad news is I hate the color of the walls."

Ugh!

At least it's only paint. We're re-thinking the color and will try again. We also have to get a base cabinet, laundry tub, etc.

Despite that, the appliances were hooked up today and we're doing laundry. I'd forgotten what some of our clothes looked like now that I see them when they're clean...

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Painted Laundry


I made it!


At work I have several colleagues (Noor and Sudhakar) in town from India and managed to squeeze the painting in before and after dinner with them. It actually worked out well because the first coat needed to dry for several hours. I also did the finish electrical and capped the washtub drain temporarily.


The appliances are supposed to be delivered today. That's good because it is getting hard to navigate around the mountains of dirty laundry. ;-)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Laundry Room Sheetrock

After finishing the plumbing yesterday, I started patching the holes. We have to get it back together for the appliance delivery early in the week, so I used a quick setting compound for the first coat. Then I put on the second coat last night. It's not quite dry this morning (giving me time to write this blog), but I'll get the third coat on today and paint Monday - just in the nick of time.

Hope is not a plan, but I have a plan and I'm sticking to it.

Laundry Water Supply


Is it any wonder we weren't getting water? As you can see from this 3/4 inch elbow, there's no room for the water to get through - the pipe is completely filled with mineral build up.

Really. It's not just a smaller diameter opening. It's completely blocked. If this was one of my arteries, I'd be dead.

The old galavanized pipes were completely plugged as well. As you might expect, the unions where copper and galvanized were joined together were the worst because no dielectric unions were used. This would be a good practical example for a high school science class.

As of yesterday, it has all been replaced with PEX. I'm seriously looking forward to doing this to the rest of the house, too.

Slow Laundry Drain


Last weekend we figured out what was causing the slow drainage in the washtub. The vent pipe was blocked. A while back we'd noticed gurgling from other fixture drains when the washtub was draining, so we new there was suction being created somewhere. As you can see, the vent pipe was completely plugged with rusty scale. I cut off the bottom 3 feet of the pipe which was totally plugged. Even above that was plugged, but it hadn't packed into a solid mass. Some careful probing with a long screwdriver loosened much of it and then 5 or 6 whacks with a hammer loosened the rest. I bet we got 5 or six pound of debris to fall out of the remaining vent pipe. Now the vent pipe is clear and I've tied into the remaining pipe with ABS. Should work like a charm now.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Laundry Demolition


Two weekends ago I tore into the laundry room walls. The trap for the washtub was pretty clean, so that's not the source of the slow drain. The supply lines are wonky though. There is 1-inch copper in the basement for this branch on the hot side and 3/4-inch galvanized pipe on the cold side. For the riser, though, both are 3/4-inch galvanized - until they get to the floor of the laundry room, then they are 1/2-inch copper with ancient shutoff valves that are frozen open...
I stopped there for the weekend to plot how the waste and vent needed to be routed - I wanted to get the washer stand pipe into the wall and use a washer outlet box so we don't have to lay on the floor to shut off the water supply when the washer hoses burst...

The Laundry Room




A few weeks ago I decided I couldn't take it any more. There was no hot water in the laundry room, just a trickle of cold water, the washtub drained like the water was frozen, the washer half-heartedly agitated, and the dryer dried, but didn't shut off. Warners Stellian had a big appliance sale and we bought a nice set.




Problem was, we needed to fix the plumbing issues before we take delivery of the new washer and dryer.




So I began demolishing the laundry room...






Knob and Tube

This stuff is really interesting. Now that the plaster is gone from the basement ceiling we can really see what's going on. The old knob and tube wiring is quite a trip. Whoever put in the electical originally did a good clean install. Most of the outlet circuits on the first floor run through conduit in the basement and then go up through the joists only when the need to. They also don't branch off often within the walls. That's going to make it much easier to bring them up to code later.
Though here's one example of where someone later loomed in another fixture. Note the large chunk of missing insulation, the new branch wire wrapped around, and soldered to, the main wire. I'm glad this was replaced!

New Electrical Service








The electricians finished up the new service this week. The buried the lines in the yard so we no longer have wires running through the trees, across the carriage house roof, and a mast that wraps halfway around the porch. The new mast is attached to the carriage house and everthing else is out of view. They also buried low voltage (phone and cable TV) so that we can get those out of the trees, too.

When upgrading the service they removed the old panel, which was a nasty mess, and replaced it with a new panel and sub-panel in the attic - ready for future remodeling. Now that the ceiling is clear, thaty were also able to cleanup some of the old knob & tube in the basement and replace it with romex.

Friday, July 31, 2009

The Basement Ceiling




This week the guys have removed all the plaster from the basement ceiling. It was a nasty, dirty job. They filled a huge dumpster with all the plaster and lath.

Now we have clear access to the joists and can easily see where everything goes from an electrical and plumbing perspective. And we'll be able to tuck replacement wires and pipes up in the joist cavities so they're out of the way - then I can heal the goose-eggs on my noggin'. :-)

Monday, July 27, 2009

Master Chandelier


The electricians have been here on-and-off over the last few weeks doing some prep work for upgrading the electrical service. We've had them remove some sconces that were in odd places, add a couple of ceiling fixtures for chandeliers, add switches to comrol some existing lights, and add a few outlets. They've also done some stuff as required by code (e.g., add GFCI outlets in the bathrooms).


This photo shows the new chandelier in the master bedroom - note the absence of the sconces from previous posts! The ceiling still needs to be painted now that we've removed the old fabric that was falling down.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Broken Glass

There has been quite a bit of progress since last week.

Except for the back screen door, all the trim and windows have been painted. The first floor of the porch and "Wizard of Oz" doors have also been painted, but in a contrasting color to the trim. While the trim is a cream color, the porch floor and cellar doors are a light sage green. It really works well with the trim color and the brick. The lumber for the new floor on the second floor porch has been delivered, so that should get installed soon, too.

Most of the broken or cracked window glass has been replaced. Meaning all the flat glass has been replaced. There is still some curved glass that needs help, along with some leaded glass. The leaded glass next to the front door may take a while - we're still "working" with our friends at the St Paul Pioneer Press on that. Let's just say they've been less than cooperative in fixing the 114-year-old leaded glass window that was broken by their paper last Labor Day...

However, we've received approval from the HPC for the new storm windows, so things are moving along!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The National Register

As I mentioned in some earlier posts, we have to abide by the Heritage Preservation Commission because the house is in a historic district. The house is also on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Downspout Extensions


Shortly after moving in, we noticed a little water in the basement every time it rained. Last fall we had Boyd and the guys re-grade around the foundation so that the yard sloped away from the house - using gravity to your advantage should be one of those common-sense things, but I've found that common sense isn't that common...

The re-grading helped quite a bit, but we've still had some water seeping in the front corners of the house when it rains. Of course, the downspouts ended about 3 feet short of the corner; dumping rain water right up against the foundation.

Friday was a day off, so I finally decided to jump to that part of my "Honey Do" list and went to one of the local home centers early in the morning. I found just what I needed, almost...

I was looking for 2-five foot lengths of downspout, but they only had 10-foot lengths. No problem, I thought, I have a hacksaw and tin snips...

Well, I purchased it and the sheet metal screws to hold everything together. Then I walked out into the parking lot and realized...

I have my car. Ten feet of downspout isn't going to fit - even sticking out the window (OK, it would, but it would stick out the side rather than the front and take out everyone on the sidewalk on the way home...) So I called She Who Must Be Obeyed to bring the Family Truckster (and the grill's propane tank for exchange - I'd forgotten it, too).

The rest of the project was uneventful. And the extensions worked well with the big rain we had yesterday afternoon; no water in the basement!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Painting Windows


This is short week with the holiday, but the guys have been busy painting windows. They are already about three-fourths done.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Scraping Windows

It was really hot all week so the guys took a bit of a break. They did scrape a bunch of windows and paint a few as well. This one hasn't had anything done to it yet.

We had several places come out and give estimates for replacing windows. The prices didn't seem to be too bad except that only Marvin could do the curved glass windows at a ridiculous price per window - of course, we have four.

As you can see the windows are in pretty good shape - there aren't any places where the wood has rotted. They just need to be scraped and painted.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

New Plants



Boyd dropped off some plants Saturday afternoon two weeks ago. I spent the rest of the weekend planting them. They're all good-sized so we won't have to wait for them to "grow up" before they look nice. We're just planting along the wall for now. We want to keep the foundation and areas around the house clear until the exterior work is done.

They guys are making good progress. All the soffit and fascia is done - all that's left are some final touches on the porch. They've removed the old combination storms and begun on the windows, then we'll get the mason in for tuck pointing. After that we can install the foundation plantings.

As you can tell, the grass is a bit thin. The guys used an area for work space and this has been a really dry spring. Now that they are done needing the yard as a work space, I can overseed and sprinkle with fewer limitations. The little bit of rain we've had recently has helped.

Additional Note:
All the posts up to this point have been about past events. Now that I'm caught up, the entries will occur in more-or-less real-time. Also, the pace of entries will slow a bit to perhaps once a week (unless there is something interesting that warrants more frequent posts).

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Reinstalling Railings



Here we have before and (almost) after pictures of the porch. The old railings were in pretty good shape, but the spindles had been replaced on the lower level. We've restored the lower level banister to its original appearance so that it matches the upper level.

In the after picture, most of the trim pieces have been installed, but there's still painting to do. The lattice between the brick columns is also new. The old ones were falling apart and couldn't be salvaged.

The old handrail on the stairs was removed - it didn't really fit the style of the house. We're still working on what we'll use to replace it.

The power lines have been temporarily moved to the ground while all this work has been taking place. We plan to have them buried and upgrade the electrical service soon. We'll also have the cable TV and phone run underground at the same time.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Putting The Porch Back Together



New decking has been put on and primed on the first floor. The columns have also been refurbished - all the old paint has been removed, re-primed, rotted portions removed, and new wood has been spliced in where necessary. The columns have also been re-installed. The big corner columns have had the same treatment, but they stayed in place rather than being removed. New bead board went on the ceilings as well.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Perfect Joists



More time and money saved! Many of the porch joists are in perfect condition, especially on the second floor. They're straight and true, close-grained old growth. They don't make lumber like this any more. ;-)

The bead board ceiling and deck on the first floor need replacing, but everything else is in good shape. We've had the electrician run new wiring for pendants on the first floor. We've also had him run wiring for fans on the second floor so we can return it to a sleeping porch. There is a big pile of screens in the basement. Some of them look like they may be the screens for the porch...