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.

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).

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.

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.

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...

Brick Columns

The brick columns are in really bad condition. But the one mason is fortunately wrong. The footings are in great shape. More money and time saved! We picked a mixture of brick colors that closely matches the house and salvaged what brick we could in case it is needed to replace broken bricks in the house. Earlier we'd gotten rid of The Stone Pile, now it has been replaced by The Brick Pile!

And officially we are rednecks. There were two trikes under the porch!

On To The Porch

The porch looks pretty rough - it is what several contractors wanted to completely tear off and start from scratch. They jacked up the second floor of the porch and removed the supporting columns. Then started carefully taking it apart. This is the scary part. We have no idea what is behind or under this and therefore what it will take (in both time and money) to get it put back together. The brick columns are in terrible shape. One mason figures that the footings are bad too.

Eviction

The kids have been standing outside shaking their fists at the pigeons shouting, "Your days are numbered!"

We got a call one day from the guys. "War has been declared on the pigeons," was the only thing they said before laughing maniacally and hanging up. When we got home, the pigeon holes were boarded up. It's fun working with people who have a sense of humor.

I'm going to miss being woken up early by the sound of pigeons outside the window. NOT!!!

Replace Only If Necessary

Mostly there was a lot of scraping and grinding. One hundred years of paint couldn't be penetrated by chemical strippers, it was just too thick.

Once the guys got down to the wood, much of it could be salvaged - more than we originally thought. Only a few places required new pieces to be fabricated. Fortunately, much of it could be done on-site, as opposed to being sent to Scherer Brothers to be reproduced. So we're already ahead of schedule and under budget.

Woohoo!

Scaffolding Everywhere!

It's Spring!

Instead of grass seed sprouting, we've got scaffolding. Lots and lots of scaffolding.

There is a lot of work to be done to the exterior of the house. After talking with a number of contractors we finally selected one. Several that we talked to were clearly overwhelmed by the project (they just stood there dumbfounded and never got back to us with an estimate); others had no clue about how to work with the HPC; one wanted to rip it all down and replace everything (obviously at great expense); then there was the sane one who wanted to replace only what couldn't be repaired or restored. He's put up scaffolding to start on the soffit and fascia along the roof line. Some of the dental molding and corbels are in rough shape. There are also a few places that have rotted and left holes big enough for pigeons to take up residence with us! Those darn pigeons are just rats with wings...

Removing Extra Doors

There are a few extra doors into some of the bedrooms. They were useful when you could afford to have servants to take care of your kids...

Needless to say, we can't afford that, don't need the extra door into the room, and the extra door just gets in the way. Here the extra door into the master bedroom has already been carefully removed so that all the trim, frame, and door are undamaged. Later I framed in the opening and patched the hole with sheet rock on both sides. It took some shimming to get the rock to line up with the existing wall and a fair amount of mud before I was satisfied. The finished result is also shown, including the first coat of paint. We still need to patch the missing baseboard and put on the final coat of paint. This color is also a historic color - it looks much better than what was there before...

Carriage House Final Inspection

I recently took the day off of work to stay home and ... work. While waiting for the electrical and plumbing inspectors for the carriage house I installed the blinds in the bathroom. Blind installation was a breeze. That's one less thrill for the neighbors now...

As far as the inspections, the only things I missed were caulking around the base of the toilet and needing to replace a short piece of flexible drain line on the lav (one might wonder why the home centers sell parts that don't meet code, but it's probably because 90% of homeowner performed jobs don't get inspected). Otherwise the plumbing inspector was happy. Final electrical passed with flying colors. The only thing left is to paint the new window trim.

The Fireplace

A while back we'd started looking into the fireplaces. We wanted to know what needed to be done to them to make them usable and compare cost with gas inserts or log sets. Turns out the only one not needing a small fortune to make usable is the one in the carriage house. When we called the insert folks they wanted dimensions. When my wife got to the dimensions of the carriage house fireplace, they paused and said, "Are you sure you measured that right?"

"Yes."

"Now that would be about as wide as you are tall, miss. Are you sure you measured right?"

"Yes, and it is about as tall as me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Ummm, we don't have anything that size..."

Removing the Closet

In one of the bedrooms there was an old closet that jutted out into the room. It didn't look original to me and we decided to remove it. I slowly began taking it apart piece by piece. It was well constructed and didn't really want to come out. After I had it all removed I found some interesting stuff behind it.

The original wall covering was there - a fabric painted a light green behind 100 years of grime. The color is quite similar to what we used in the carriage house. In addition, the molding was still there as were some holes in the walls from what were probably gas lights. The house was built before there was electricity in this part of the city, so all the lighting was via coal gas.

Later, I also removed the extra door into the bathroom and patched the resulting hole. That will give us a much nicer space in the main bathroom.

The Garbage Disposer

My parents were over last night. My Mom put a bunch of left over lettuce down the disposal. None of us knew the disposer didn't work until this morning. It makes noise, but it doesn't do anything. I got out the wrench to check for jams, to no avail. Off to the store to get a new disposer. Hey, I've already done this recently in the carriage house, so there shouldn't be any issues.

Really, I should just assume that nothing works. Then I'll be pleasantly surprised on the rare occasion where something actually works...

Replacing The Entry Light

"That's just a 15 minute job," said She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Only for someone who has never done it.

The light bulb in the front entry burned out. As the fixture looked pretty bad (it appeared to be a painted metal housing that had long ago lost its glass shade), we decided to replace the fixture rather than just the bulb. We went to Creative Lighting and found a nice fixture that seemed to be the right style and scale. After we got it home we (read I) started on the "15 minute job".

I got up on the ladder and removed the old bulb. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the metal housing wasn't mounted in the expected way - it was held to the ceiling by 2 drywall screws. I should have known right then... I removed the screws and took down the housing to find... a ceramic base screwed into the lath. Now, a single screw can hold a 4 ounce ceramic base, but it's not going to hold up a 15 pound light fixture. Of course, there's no junction box up there either. So, I enlarge the hole so I can put a junction box up there and ... a miracle occurs - the joist is right above the hole. I run down to the basement to look for a junction box and ... another miracle occurs - I have junction box that is *exactly* the right depth to reach from the joist to the surface of the plaster. All I have to do is cut off the mounting ears so it fits through the hole. Actually, everything went surprisingly well and it only took half a day, but now She thinks we'll get lucky and everything will be this easy...

New Bathroom

I installed the lav and toilet. The Clam flange ring for the toilet worked great. The tile was exactly the right height, with the new ring resting on the tile and snug under the flange. We picked a nice Kohler toilet. Installation was pretty easy here as well. I'd received plenty of warnings about being careful when tightening the johnny-bolts. It's good advice - you really don't want to crack the toilet after all this work.

The lav sink was a bit more work. Getting everything to line up right took a while and when I did the rough in, I installed and inch-and-a-half trap adapter. I forgot that lav drains are inch-and-a-quarter. Off to the home center again to get the reducing trap adapter, cut off the old one, and cement the new one in place.

No major problems, but I notice now that there's one tile that I didn't set as deeply as the others. If I don't say anything no one would probably notice, but I know its not right and it bugs me.

New Kitchen

Now that the tile and carpet are done, Frank, Matt, and my Dad can get back to work. They installed the cabinets and moldings, but we had the counter fabricated and professionally installed. I did sink/faucet, disposal, and dishwasher. One minor problem, the outlet for the dishwasher is in the right place, but not for a normal appliance plug. The plug sticks out and hits the back of the dishwasher tub - not allowing the dishwasher to be pushed in flush with the cabinet fronts. Off to the home center again, this time to find a right-angle appliance plug. Neither of the places have everything I need, so I end up at each place almost every day. I'm starting to feel like Norm on Cheers - everyone shouts my name when I walk in the store.

And, "Honey, we need phone jack in the kitchen."

I'm glad we thought of that after all the walls were closed up. ;-) Good thing I have that RotoZip...

Carpet

Ugh. The installers did a good job and the carpet looks great, but we chose a different color carpet in the enclosed office and it does not go well with the paint color. The wall color is completely washed-out. So, back to the drawing board. After some thought, we chose a darker color to take advantage of the "library paneling". The result is a two-tone effect with darker walls and slightly lighter woodwork.

Wow! It worked really well! It was a pain painting at night in December with poor light, though.

Installing Tile

It's Thanksgiving weekend. It's a good time to spend a few days tiling the bathroom and kitchen. In the old bathroom, they'd used plywood as an underlayment, where in the kitchen they'd just glued the linoleum to the sub floor. The linoleum came up easily, but the tile was a pain.

I put down Hardiebacker as an underlayment - it won't blow apart if it gets wet. That's a good thing in a bathroom... I followed the manufacturer's installation instructions with thin set and screws, and finished the joints with thin set and fiberglass tape.

Day 2 - installed the tiles. The folks at the Tile Shop were very helpful. I took a tile installation class one Saturday morning and picked up all the necessary materials and tools. Most of my cuts were straight and the scoring cutter worked like a charm. There were a few compound cuts. I measured and marked everything and took up the manager's offer to bring in the tiles and he'd cut them on their wet saw. More good customer service!

Day 3 - grouted.

It's a good thing I bought knee pads, but my back is killing me. Some Thanksgiving weekend - I give thanks that I'm almost done! Well, we didn't get the carriage house done by Thanksgiving, maybe by Christmas...

Paint

I've always preferred paint from paint stores. Earlier I'd pulled some old, poorly configured shelves out of the master closet in the house. The plaster behind the shelves was... not salvageable. Off it came and in went sheet rock. It turned out really well, but I skimped on paint from a big box store. I regret the error of my ways.

For the carriage house, we're back home again to our friends at Abbott. Much better quality paint. We're also going to be getting a volume discount - there's a lot of painting to do in this house. We've picked a couple of historic colors. I think they'll look nice. We're starting with tinted primer to help with coverage of the old color.

Mud and Tape

Mud and tape.

Mud and tape.

Not very satisfying. I'm trying to get it done but it's slow going - my Dad and his friend Frank have volunteered to help with the finish carpentry once I'm done with the mud and tape. They'll install more moldings, hang doors, and kitchen cabinets (with Frank's son, Matt).

My dad found another great tool, a drywall sanding screen with an integrated shopvac attachment. It makes almost no dust. The only trouble is that it doesn't fit snugly on the shopvac hose, so it comes loose often. That's nothing a little duct tape won't cure... :-)

The Stone Pile - Part 2

We finally figured out what to do with the excess stone from The Pile - works great as the border along the front sidewalk! Sometime next year the existing hedge will come out and be replaced lower growing plants. That's something we wanted to make the front more inviting and the folks at the Historic Preservation Commission agreed. When they approved the plans they made a note that there should be low shrubs along the walk. The folks at the HPC have been easy to work with so far.

In the other picture I'm getting ready to remove the hedges up against the foundation. It was the same plant as what's along the walk, but the ones against the foundation were looking past their prime.

Installing Patios

The guys have been hard at it installing the patios. They'll be fantastic when they're done. The laid out the area and used the bobcat to dig it out to the correct level. The filled with class 5, leveled it, and compacted it. Stone dust as a final layer before setting the bluestone and locking everything in place with a topdressing that was swept into all the cracks. After the first rain, the topdressing will set like concrete and lock everything into place.

Big Piles of Dirt

50 yards of topsoil and 50 yards of compost. That's 5 dump trucks full of each. What little boy wouldn't want to play in this? Boyd and the guys are down for a couple of weekends to layout the borders, spread the topsoil, compost, and mulch, and install bluestone patios. I already sprayed Round-Up on everything to kill the expanse of weeds mostly - there wasn't really much grass. I'll winterseed just before the first snowfall and hope we can grow a decent lawn next year.
Tentative plan is much like at our previous house. Boyd draws up the plan and does all the hard work, then drops off plants for us to take all the glory!

We're also holding off with much of the planting. We'll be doing a lot of work on the exterior next spring and don't need new plants in the way of the scaffolding. We'll start with plants in the beds along the wall, etc. Then we can do the foundation plantings after the dental molding, windows, porch, and tuck-pointing is done.

Stalled

The guy doing the framing and sheetrock has gone to Florida for the winter.

The. Work. Is. Not. Done.

I'm not amused, but Grandma taught me that if you don't have anything nice to say...

Maybe I can get it done by Thanksgiving. That's 4 weeks from now.

The Stone Pile

We met with our landscape guy and he drew up a great plan. There will be beds around the perimeter of the yard that mimic the lines of the home. The beds have stone borders and there are a couple of bluestone patios. The plans have been submitted to and approved by the HPC.

We've been doing some landscape prep work. Our landscapers are coming to do the hardscape and layout the edging/beds. To prepare, we've removed unwanted shrubs and trees, trimmed the ones that are remaining, killed the weeds and what little grass there was, removed hex pavers, and removed the chain link fence that served as a dog run.

The fence went from the foreground of this picture back to the double-trunked oak in the background and along the foreground edging to the corner of the carriage house on the left edge of the picture. Looks better already. We're still working on ideas for the pile of stone.

Rough-in Inspections

Electrical rough-in has been going well. The only exception was finding a live circuit for baseboard heat lying loose in the kitchen wall. I've relocated it so that it terminates in a junction box. It's a good thing I didn't go nuts with the sawzall when doing demolition...

Plumbing hasn't been going quite as smoothly - there's a knack to sweating joints I just haven't acquired yet. I did go to the local home center and attend a class about installing PEX. Now I'm factory trained and can legally install PEX in my own home. A couple of local plumbers were there for refresher training. They mentioned that they had been dyed-in-the-wool copper guys but have completely switched to PEX. No leaks and they can do a job in less than half the time.

We just removed the tub/shower and replaced it with a sink, the there was minimal work to do there. We had to cap the lines where the sink used to be. The only real work was running a PEX supply line for the toilet.

Passed electrical inspection with flying colors, plumbing needs a few small corrections. A little bit of rework on the lav waste/vent lines and new flange ring for the toilet. The old flange ring had corroded to nothing, but the PVC flange was still good. After some hunting, I've found a 2-piece flange ring, called "The Clam", that looks like it will do the trick. Framing inspection passed too, after some minor fireblock additions.

I bought a RotoZip to help open existing drywall for adding outlets, phone, and wired internet. It's an awesome tool. It took a while, but I found the shopvac attachment at Seven Corners Hardware (my new favorite store). It really keeps the drywall dust down.

Fixing Hinges

Back in the day, they didn't use hollow core doors. These are all solid, thick, and large - meaning they are all heavy. Several, including the one pictured, are heavy enough that they've pulled the hinge screws out of the door frame. This one in particular is really heavy. Not only is it thick, but it is the door between the foyer and the back hall. It is mirrored on one side so it has the added weight of all that glass.

Obviously this has happened before - the screws in the hinge plate don't match the hinge. At some point, you can't just keep using larger diameter screws to try to fix this. I picked up some quarter-inch hardwood dowel, removed a hinge, used a quarter-inch drill to ream out each hole, cut a piece of dowel to length, and glued it into each hole with wood glue. I let it dry overnight and replaced the hinge using appropriate screws long enough to reach the jack stud. This door also had screws pulling out of the door itself so the door side of each hinge received the same treatment. I then did the same with the next hinge. It took three days, but was only about an hour of work in total.

It worked well and I no longer have to worry about a 100 pound door falling off the hinges onto a kid.

The Tree Guy

We wanted to remove some of the overgrown shrubs and trim the trees - they were in dire need of it. We got a referral from my mother-in-law who knew a guy that did good work but "was a little eccentric". We talked on the phone with him and he came over on a Saturday. He spent quite a bit of time with us to look things over and understand what we were looking for. He then offered some recommendations of what to keep, what to remove, and what to trim. We asked for an estimate. He responded, "Give me a few minutes to walk the yard again."

He spent a few minutes walking around the yard, gesturing a bit toward various flora, and talking to himself. Then he came back and asked us to walk along with him so he could explain what he planned to do. Mostly his plan was good and he was clear about what I should do (cut down the small volunteer trees and the mostly dead apple) and what I should leave for him (trim the big firs, oaks, and maples). He also recommended waiting on the oaks until they were dormant later in the year - trim oaks only in months ending with "r" was his rule of thumb. Then he gave us the estimate. I was shocked - it was considerably less than half of what I expected. I tried to hold back my excitement and asked when he would be able to do the work. "Well," he started, "I think I can get to it on Monday afternoon."

I was flabbergasted. "Sounds good. Is there anything else you need before then?"

"No. I'd just like to say thank you for letting me care for your magnificent trees."

I just about fell over. To top it off, he came when he promised, did what he said he would, cleaned up when he was done, and again thanked us for the opportunity to "care for our magnificent trees".

He's not eccentric, just passionate about his work.

Now there is a customer service lesson.

Urgent Care

I spoke too soon. While pulling off some metal corner bead, a piece punctured my leather glove and the pad of my palm between my pinky finger and wrist. Not too bad and no stitches, but I will need to take a few weeks off from golf. I won't be using *that* technique any more.

Remove The Only Working Shower?!

Brilliant idea.

Remove the only shower that works well - not to be confused with the shower that leaked. That one is in the house, this one's in the carriage house. (See shower through door in picture.)

Are we nuts?!

We're going to do it anyway. We're going to turn the full bath in the carriage house into a half bath. There's not much plumbing work to be done. Just remove the tub/shower and move the sink to that location. Easy peasy.

Yeah, right.

That tub was the bane of my existence for a day. Advice from several contractors was just to take a 10 pound sledge hammer and break it up.

The first whack shattered the porcelain, but didn't dent the cast iron. My heart sank. Now it's not longer usable and it's still too heavy to move.

Whack!

Whack!

Whack!

After an eternity, it finally cracked. Whew! Another hour of breaking it into pieces light enough to move and I was done. Plenty of exercise for the day and no cuts from the shards of porcelain flying everywhere.

Oh yeah, and now we're re-tiling the bathroom...

The Leak

I noticed some paint on the floor in the foyer one morning. We'd seen the water stain before we bought the house, but now know it's "active". A quick diagnosis showed it was the valve stem in the tub/shower on the second floor. The o-rings on the stem were shot, causing water to leak out and dribble down the wall to the tub spout where it flowed back into the wall.

I went to the local home center and found some generic o-rings that seem to work. While I was in there, I also replaced the washers with some generic ones that seem about the right size. Hot water pressure was weak in that entire bathroom and now we don't get any cold water in the tub/shower, but it's better than no hot water!

Demolition Begins

We're turning the second floor of the carriage house from an apartment into a home office. The space is basically one large open room with an enormous fireplace. Off the left edge of this picture is the bathroom; off the right edge, open to the main space, is the bedroom; in the center is the kitchen.

The range and range hood have already been removed (note the hole in the wall next to the sink - it's where the range hood was). These are the only interior walls in the space (except those that enclose the bathroom) and they are being removed and replaced. The tape on the carpet shows roughly where the new walls will be, creating a smaller doorway into the kitchenette and creating a much larger enclosed office where the bedroom was.

"There hasn't been a car..."

Six weeks or so after we moved in, the floors were done and we were able to move in to the house. We hired the same movers to move everything from the garage and carriage house into the house - some of our stuff is getting too heavy to bribe friends and family with beer and pizza!

After a few days of moving stuff around and getting settled, I was ready to spend a weekend cleaning up the garage so we could get a car in it. By mid-afternoon I was ready...

Opened the garage door.

Got in the car and started it up.

As I started to pull in, a neighbor, Kit, came running over excitedly to watch. Really.

I'm not kidding.

After I pulled the car in, turned off the ignition, and climbed out, he was standing in the doorway with a big smile on his face. Before I could say anything he exclaimed, "I had to see this! There hasn't been a car in this garage since 1974!"

Living in a neighborhood with history and great people who know it is so cool...