Yak Shaving

Have you ever set out to do a task and discovered that in order to do it you needed to do some other task first?

And then had that same thing happen to the second task?

And the third task?

And ...

Pretty soon, in order to complete the first task, you're shaving a yak.

That's what happening here.  Although it looks like it, that's not actually yak hair.  It's wood shavings from that (formerly) square dowel.  It's my yak shaving for the task of finishing the attic.

See if you can follow along.
In order to insulate the attic, we had to have all the plumbing penetrations completed through the roof.

So we had to move the plumbing stack.

So we had to demolish the old master bath.

Which meant I didn't have a closet.

Which meant all my clothes are in laundry baskets scattered around the house.

Now, you might recall that we're on a couple of house tours soon.  Naturally we can't have laundry baskets full of clothes everywhere when people are touring the house.  So we started installing a closet in the old master bath space. (Don't worry this ties back into the attic again...)

Also as part of the attic, we looked at opening up the staircase to the attic.  Structurally that wasn't going to work at any reasonable price or timeline.

So the old cabinet in the hallway was removed to provide a more open feel in the back hall.

The cabinet was reassembled in the new closet.

And it needs to be painted.

So it needed to be prepped for painting.

And we noticed that a previous owner must have repaired some broken glass and used the wrong molding to hold the glass in place (see glass pane at the lower right).  Actually there are 5 panes that have suffered the same fate.  And they used the wrong molding (1/4-inch quarter round); it looks like cr*p and it going to bug me forever.

So I went looking for the right stuff.  No one has it, including Hiawatha Lumber.

So I have to fabricate it myself.  I start with a 3/8-inch square dowel; shaving it to a 1/4-inch by 3/8-inch quarter elliptical profile with simple hand tools and sanding it smooth.

It's going to cost $8 in materials and a little time.  I'm not sure why the previous repair was such a kludge; that material isn't significantly less expensive...

And once this yak is shaved, I can prime the moldings, install them, and keep painting.

The Old Master Bath - Part 4

If you look carefully you can see that I've started painting the woodwork and cabinetry in SWMBO's closet.  (OK, the serious painters would say that I'm not yet painting, I'm merely priming.  I'm fine with that.)

It's going a little slower than anticipated because, as a wise man once said, "Life is what happens while you're making other plans."

When I've had time to paint it's gone reasonably well so far.

Until I got to that lowest shelf near the window.

You see it's been pretty hot here lately (90+F).  And we don't have air conditioning.  And I'm trying to keep the dust down while I paint, so there's not fan.  Needless to say, I'm in there dripping with sweat.

I'm lying on the floor, contorted to reach into that lowest space.

Shift to reach a spot back in the corner...

And get a cramp in my calf.

I couldn't straighten out my leg because of where I was laying, so I just laid there like a turtle stuck on his back.

Maybe this post should have been titled The Old Painter Man...

Electrical Inspection

The attic electrical passed the rough-in inspection last week.  The inspector arrived a bit early, so I wasn't home when he arrived.  SWMBO showed him around.

Several times he asked her, "Are you sure you didn't have a professional do this work?"  When I arrived he asked me again.  For the record, I did every last piece of it.  He then said, "It's the neatest job I've seen."

(Hmmm.  I wonder if that's my "High C" coming out?)

I guess I have a second career lined up should my day job not work out.  ;-)

He didn't flag any issues, so I'm good to go.

There was one thing he offered for guidance which is a good thing to share.  Note the two outlets in the photo.  In particular the way the wire is routed between the staple and the box.  The one on the right has the wire routed so that is away from the surface of the stud.  The one on the left the wire is up against the stud.

Either way is fine, but the one on the right is better.
Why? you might ask.

Well, check out the next photo.

See where the wire enters the box?  Note that it's very near the back face of the stud.  It's really only an issue on interior walls or where you're finishing the wall on the back side of the outlet.

When the drywall is installed there's a much greater risk of the screw missing the stud and hitting the wire if the wire is right up against the stud.  That's a bad thing because you won't know it until you're installing the outlet.  And you'll have to rip open the wall to figure out why the outlet doesn't work.  Or, you'll have a short that causes your house to burn down.

That would be a bad day.

I've already adjusted most of the outlets where I can.  The others will be protected by nail plates; small flat pieces of metal that attach to the stud to protect wiring or plumbing from nails or screws.  You can see one protecting the water line on the back side of the left stud in the first picture.

And another piece of guidance.  I used the larger volume boxes.  The only cost a few cents more and provide way more room for the wire, etc.  Don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish...

Mulch!

30 cubic yards of mulch makes a pretty big pile when it's in your driveway.  It's taken about a week to get it spread in the appropriate places.  It would have gone much faster had I devoted an entire day to it, but we had other things going on.  As a result we did a little bit each day

At various times SWMBO thought we had too much or too little.  It ended up that we had only an extra wheelbarrow or two.  Which is a funny thing to say.

You can't really have extra; you just spread it a little thicker...

This should be the end of the serious landscaping work for the year.  The rest should just be normal day-to-day maintenance.