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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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. ;-)

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.

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.