more on the porch floor: walking on water

we officially have a floor in the porch. more correctly, we have some floor. a little bit of floor, which is to say not all of the floor. today we have about 38" of porch floor installed. but not painted. or stained, or whatever. the wood is beautiful, but largely as per the cost of materials and finishing, construction tolerances, and things of that nature, i think we're going to paint it, not finish it. it breaks my heart a little bit, since the wood is beautiful, but it is supposed to be a porch. i suppose we will make our final decision after we lay down the flooring we have already bought, which we could get away with staining if we decide to go that direction. 38 inches of floor. i think i mentioned in an earlier entry that the porch is about 36' or 37' long. also, only about 10' is leveled and ready for flooring, so we've still got a ways to go.

our neighbor let us borrow his floor nailer. it is a cool mechanical contraption; one lines it up with a joist and wails on the plunger with a big sledge hammer to drive little "cleat" nails at a perfect 45 degree angle right over the tongue, through the board, into the joist. of course, since most of the joists are pressure treated, we have to use galvanized or stainless hardware. oh yeah, and they don't make galvanized flooring nails for this thing, so i bought a $99 box of stainless steel nails (1000 count); a normal box is about $23. the truth is, after all that i've found that i prefer to hammer drive regular 2.5" galvanized finishing nails. i guess i'm a little old-school that way. on a more pragmatic level, with all the metal and giant holes from failed implantation of metal, sometimes it is beneficial to feel how the nails set and maybe drive one or two additional nails at an angle into the sides of the joists.

the truth is that building your own floor is very satisfying. i can only speak for myself, but when i step out the door and my floor catches me without creaking or groaning, it is a spiritual experience. for me, walking about on the floor that i built myself is like walking on water.

it makes a person think of famous carpenters - or at least step-sons of carpenters, said to have walked on water. was he actually walking on water, or did he just build himself a really nice floor one day, and in telling his friends and disciples was terribly misunderstood? growing up in a household with a professional carpenter, one is bound to learn a thing or two. in particular, if one had been away from the trade for a while and then built himself a nice floor, i think he'd be beaming over it. it is quite a thing to walk on a floor that one has built with his own hands.

oh yeah, construction...

so yeah, construction. we declared an end to major combat operations on the porch a month ago, but we've been working and tearing things up since then. in the last couple of weeks, we've put in 4 windows. day before yesterday we put in two doors and a bunch of giant beams. i started building the floor.

as expected, nothing about the floor has gone as expected. so we're right on target, right? this will require pictures to properly convey the complexity of the problem. let's toss out some numbers just for fun. the porch is about 37' long by 9' wide. the floor slopes down slightly away from the house about 1.5" in three directions. the floor must be:
1) level
2) strong enough that we don't fall through it
3) fairly even
4) not too high off the ground; we've already installed doors.

so the way we do the floor is to bolt 2x(something) lumber to the concrete, level it, put flooring on top. the primary, strong attachment points are called drop-in anchors; secondary shim-and-pin points are attached by tapcon concrete screws. stringers run every 15" or so (<=16"), and shim points need to be about the same. each point must be leveled to its 4 neighboring points. so in physics land, we call this a problem with MANY degrees of freedom.

Reconstruction

a few weeks ago, we declared, quietly to ourselves and i suppose anybody who asked (not that anybody did), the end of major combat operations on our porch. since then, we've been blissfully, leisurely spending most of our free time still working on the porch. of course there was a break in porch operations.

about two weeks ago, i went to Palm Springs for the annual SCEC meeting (about earthquakes, seismology, and all that good stuff). there, i learned several important things. 1) seismicity along faults appears to obey Gutenberg-Richter statistics. there was some disagreement amongst the participants as to the appropriateness of that conclusion from the study presented, but for the most part, i buy it. 2) some kinds of slider-block models have an interesting, tunable chaotic threshold. 3) there really ARE wood floors in our bathroom.

the first revelation i learned in a morning talk; the second was an excellent poster by a very smart UCSB student, and the third i learned on the phone. rebecca usually takes on a project when i go away for a few days. things get painted; furniture gets rearranged. it is always wonderful to come home.

so i get a phone call. "good news!"

"we'll have to make some exploratory cuts and see what we've got there."

"ummmm... i'm pretty sure there are wood floors. that is pretty much definite at this point."

the really good news is that it was surprisingly easy to tear down the bathroom to its bare bones. a diamond blade on a circular saw, set to the appropriate depth, makes very short work of tile grout (or just tile, but the grout cuts more easily and leaves the tiles intact). i mean, it makes a lot of dust. wear goggles, breathing mask, and all that good stuff. get a fan and blow out as much dust through the window as you can. the really key part is to have an assistant with the shop-vac on the trailing edge of the saw blade. with those bits in play, a person can tear up two or three hundred square feet of tile in a few hours.

of course all the toilets at home depot are crap, recognizing the pun, so we ordered a toilet. it will be here maybe tuesday. for a few more days, then, we have but a gulag style hole in the floor and the spider-toilet in the garage (see ZoD articles).

the truth is that it is worth it. the floor is wonderful; troy once again did a great job. i'm off to AGU in december, so i'm sure we'll be seeing him around christmas time.

pictures coming...

A Long Time Coming...

So it's been a while. We've been a little overwhelmed. Okay, a lot overwhelmed. But we are winning the war. See for yourself...

All of these pictures are a few weeks old now. We'll take some more pictures before the new windows and doors go in.

Thanks to Dick, Nancy, Scott & Ben for all of your help! Especially Ben- I never would have thought child labor could be so productive! :)

Happy house...neglected blog

July 16, 2009

Not much time for blogging lately. But we have made so much progress! I'm feeling much more optimistic, you know, now that there aren't any gaping holes!

Laundry room with holes...

The laundry room with a door, a window and a structurally sound external wall.

The new 6' french doors are finally in place.

The dummy wall that divided the porch has been taken down (the porch is huge!)

The old set of french doors no longer live on the patio (sorry no picture of the finished product). Admittedly I bit off more than I could chew with this project. Flaws aside, they still look better than they did before. I've downgraded the status of this project from 'total disaster' to small catastrophe. Remodel and learn.

Randy did an amazing job on our new gate! We've also started to do a bit of xeroscaping in the front yard. My goal is to have replaced 3/4 of our lawn by the time Woodland installs water meters.

Perhaps most shocking (to me anyway) is that I've successfully sewn two sets of curtains. And yes, the one set is hanging by masking tape in the picture above, but that was only temporary- it's properly installed now. Considering the fact that I'm a fairly right brained geeky scientist I'm rather proud of how they turned out.

Restoration Burnout

June 26, 2009

We still don't have doors or windows in the back of the house. Well, we have them as in we finally have them in our custody but they aren't installed. They are just sitting in the ruins that are our porch taunting me. The novelty of a wide open back of the house is wearing off and I'm starting to feel as though my sanity is hinging on a door installation (funny). To make matters worse I took the french doors that were in place in the living room off the hinge and started stripping, sanding and painting them. Quite possibly one of the lamest ideas I've had so far. Sanding and painting doors is tedious work and I'm not quite 1/2  of the way done.  Gheerrrrr....

Applied Physics and the Aftermath of a Redwood Fence

i think it has been mentioned that we recently built a new fence. in this case, by 'built,' i mean, 'hired alberto to build,' as we frankly know very little about building a fence. alberto knows a great deal about building fences - note the string, level, and accurately spaced fence posts. our fence is now the envy of the neighborhood - or so we are told.

admittedly, it is a bit nutty to get too worked up over a fence, but this is our first major project that resulted in something being built. i mean, destruction is fun. lots of fun, but from time to time, it is nice to build something. here, we see the sharp contrast of this beautiful redwood fence next to our potential-porch window still stuffed with fiberglass insulation and showing a bit of electrical wire. for certain, we are glad to be rid of that rickety fence; the remaining panels shown in the photo to the right. note the giant posts in the background that will soon support a custom gate.

the careful observer also notes the posts for the old fence behind the new fence. clearly they must be removed. this should not be a problem. the last time we removed fence-type posts from the back yard, they pulled out fairly easily. this fence wasn't built to last a year, so i'm sure the posts will pop out wihtout too much difficult, or so i told myself naively.

here is the thing about building a fence, or so i would be led to believe by the previous owner of this house. what difference does it make if the posts stand straight or the pickets are placed evenly? how important is it REALLY that the posts lie in a straight line and are evenly spaced. it is not critical that the spans are less than or equal to the length of standard stringer lumber (8'). shortcomings in these areas can be overcome by using A LOT OF CONCRETE to set the posts. lots of concrete; that is what is important, should you one day decide to build a fence.

so i started with a shovel, a hose, alberto's giant pry bar, and a positive attitude. after a short while, i had created a public hazard, but could not say i was close to wresting the post fully from the ground. i was prepared to agree with alberto - rent a tractor. but really, i thought to myself, people have been pulling fence posts out of the ground for a long time; there must be a tractor free way to do this. my first thought, of course, involved high explosives, but i wasn't sure i could pull that off without damaging the new fence. no, it would have to be simple levers and torquing devices.

my fence-post removing device is pictured right. it basically consists of a lifting bracket on the post, a cinder-block, and a few 2x4s to adjust the fulcrum height and as a lever arm. as the post starts to lift out of the hole for the first time, it gives a very satisfying "squilash" as it wrests free from the thick clay-dirt and inches toward the sidewalk.

also pictured are two of my deposed enemies. sure, they don't look like much, but when you've just pried them from the tight-clinging mucky earth, they are special. i guess i didn't take any pictures to demonstrate the scale of this accomplishment. the posts are about 3.75" across if that helps. it is my guess that there is well over 100lb of concrete on the end of each post. 8 or 10 blows with an 8lb sledge was typically sufficient to wrest the cement from the posts once they were removed.

updates...

Progress has been made (mostly in the positive direction)- for the most part we are proud of our accomplishments so far and starting to come to grips with the painstakingly slow process of remodeling.

Excuse the lack of commentary in the past week or so- long days of work followed by hours and hours of construction have not left much time for blogging.

Not all of my projects have been construction related. I planted a cactus garden and it's still kicking after 2 whole weeks in my care. I love it, a garden that thrives because I never remember to water it.

The Birch trees, however, are another story. They are dead. Well, three out of six are dead. But that is not completely our fault. They were half dead when we bought the house... we just didn't fix the sprinklers in time to save them.

We also tamed the weed garden that was our front yard. Then I spread something like 6 yards of mulch (a house warming present from our neighbor Sean who happens to be an arborist).

I finally finished my window seat. Unfortunately it isn't soft enough for Zuri to perch upon, but I am rather proud of the way it turned out.

I also finally got down to business stripping, sanding and finishing the mantel. I don't have any close ups of the finished product but these shots show some of the work that was involved.

Mark has made a ton of progress towards bringing our wiring up to code but I'll let him blog about that. He also liberated more of the porch. If you are thinking that porch progress has been slow, you're right. But we've run into all manor of trouble with getting the doors and windows in. For one thing Home Depot told us we'd have everything in 10 days. For the windows that turned out to be more like 15 and the doors haven't come in yet. Also, we have to find someone else to install them, someone familiar with working with a stone house. We should know more Monday.

We decided that rather then try to mend and extend the poorly

constructed backyard fence, we would just tear down the dilapidated thing and replace it with an 8ft tall redwood fence. (Extending it is necessary in that it only runs the edge of the current porch enclosure which is fine for now, but won't be okay once the porch is opened up), This work is literally going on as I type. By the way, does that look like $1,000 worth of lumbar to you? Redwood is expensive.

A Nerd and Her Chalkboard

June 11, 2009

This was a fun and easy project (two great tastes that don't frequently come together in this house). After I finished repainting the closet doors in the library I discovered chalkboard paint on the living etc. (http://www.livingetc.com/) website and decided to have a go at it. Now the library has a proper blackboard (I'm sure it will come in handy when I start graduate school).

After applying several waifer-thin coats the doors were left to dry for 4 days and then cured with chalk. The curing process was a bit messy and I have begun question the intelegence of turning the closet into a functional chalkboard...

Finished! Complete with some wave equations. Nerdy? Of course, but what did you expect? We're "a house of learned doctors"... ( we will be soon anyway).

Galvanized Nails, Concrete, and a War Criminal on the Lam

It all started with the kitchen window. That is to say, what once was a kitchen window and had become the back of an awful wall. We tore away drywall only to discover crimes against humanity and all that is sacred. In a nutshell, the former owner of our casa had achieved his wall by:
1) sledge-hammering the brick window sill
2) attaching arbitrarily sized 2x4s directly to the cinder-block using a powder-actuated "snoop" (see the Wire, Season 4) nail gun and hardened steel galvanized masonry nails.

we've got some ideas on the bricks, but we'll have to save it for later. let's talk about the nails. From time to time, one can pry out a nail. More often than not, prying out nails results in giant explosive "blisters," as can be seen in the photo above.

So occasionally, a nail comes willingly.









more often, however, they require more coercive, "alternative extraction" techniques.

After some trial and error, we have developed three basic techniques to efficiently remove these abominations from our wall. If you should find unsightly 2x4 lumber "snoop" nailed to your wall, perhaps our methods will work for you.

First, know your enemy. As pictured, the lumber is attached to the wall by a galvanized, hardened steel masonry nail driven into the wall by something akin to a blank .22 powder actuated charge. There may be a bit of space between the board and the wall; the nail may have sunk deeply into the lumber. if you are lucky, the nail may not be particularly well bonded to the wall, and it will pry our (relatively) willingly. do not become accustomed to this; it is a gift and will be the exception, not the rule. a crowbar or hammer with a flat chisel type prying surface is a good start. pry, as best you can, in the direction the nail was driven into the wall. of course, be careful of softer masonry and note that if the nail does not wrest free easily, it will probably take a good chunk of your wall with it, so move on to a power-tool alternative.

all home owners need a sawz-all, or some other brand of reciprocating saw. they are wonderful instruments, efficient at destruction. if there is a bit of space behind the lumber, or if you can create a bit of space by prying the board and crushing the wood against the giant washer, slip a 12 inch bi-metal 14tpi metal-cutting sawz-all blade behind the lumber and go nuts. the blade will happily bend a lot. alternatively, use a wood type blade, cut away a notch behind the washer, switch to a metal cutting blade, and summarily decapitate the nail (this method is pictured above, right).

sometimes, an angle-grinder is a far superior tool for decapitating nails. compared to sawz-all solutions, angle grinders and metal cutting blades are inexpensive ($30 and $3 each respectively). it helps to pre-cut a notch in the wood, but it is not fully necessary. using a narrow metal cutting type blade, just go nuts and cut straight through the washer, wood, nail, whatever. these blades are not terribly efficient at cutting through wood, but they're inexpensive and effective enough. expect lots of sparks.

in both the sawz-all and especially the angle grinder methods, expect a lot of heat. keep handy a dripping-wet rag. when you start to smell wood smoke, douse the nail until it stops hissing. this should be sufficient to avoid spontaneous combustion.

there are a few variations on the power tool methods. for example, sometimes, it works well to cut partially through a nail and then use a crow-bar to pop off the top of the nail. it is exciting when the head of the nail and/or the washer shoots across the room with some velocity, but you might cover windows. did i mention that the nail-head-projectile will be super hot? i had some luck bending the nails while they were hot and then cooling them - presumably weakening them a little bit before popping off the top or smacking the board to snap them off at the base. in the end, it's a free-for-all - you against the nails.

after the nails have been decapitated, the lumber comes off the wall without much problem. of course, then you are left with a bunch of 1.5" steel death-pins sticking out of your wall. the sawz-all will take off this nail - bend the blade flat against the wall. the angle grinder is much more efficient, and there are lots of sparks.

one porch liberated, one to save.

power tools needed...

the past two weeks of the KQED and affiliated NPR radio stations, have inspired us. we need power-tools, and you can help.

Sears.com has helped us put together a short list of things we need:
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/GiftRegistryItemView?langId=&storeId=10153&catalogId=12605&externalId=900007405563010101&sortByItem=category&fwdURL=GiftRegistryItemfwdView&grUserType=BUYER

(the list id is: 900007405563010101)

of course substitutions are welcome. as a general rule, if it's a tool, we probably need it or could use an extra. sawz-all blades... can't get enough of them. we seem to have an abundance of wood, pipe, nails, wood with nails, nails with wood, pipe with nails, you name that needs cutting.

we would like to extend a special thanks to Tim Krasnansky. tim, above and beyond an excellent (former) neighbor and fantastic vet (http://www.berryessavet.com), his generous saws-all-loan (pictured above) has helped us to liberate our porch. fewer than half the galvanized nails driven into our wall by a powder actuated charge were a match for his saw (they were summarily delt with by angle-grinder).

Mr. Yoder, Tear Down This Wall!

and he did...

A Stoop for The Coon Hound

May 22, 2009

If Alger gets a castle, then I suppose it's only appropriate that Zuri get a stoop. Preferably

 she will get a really nice screened porch. As you can see, she is waiting patiently

 with her paws crossed. 

Here are some photo’s of what used to be the outside of the porch before the previous owner destroyed it.  

All of this will be ripped out and rebuilt as a screened porch/sun room. We are currently waiting on the custom french doors and windows to be installed before we rip the exterior bits shown bellow out. One more week to go...

Zoo of Death: the early days (retro-posted)

(originally drafted 27 april 2009, 3 days after closing, 3 days before moving in)

so it's done. i guess. i mean, after all the drama, there was no ribbon cutting ceremony. nobody even brought us keys - save the ones we stole from the realtor's lock-box. correction: OUR lock-box (we also own a very nice white post and "for sale" sign that will make a nice clothes line anchor).

as with any newly acquired house, there are problems. i knew i was a home owner after the 3rd time i fixed the toilet; i had it all sussed out after the 4th repair mission. we had lots of fun demolitioning the dry-wall off the stupid bedroom modification of what was once most certainly a wonderful porch. we're pretty upset about the galvanized concrete "snoop" nails driven into the exterior wall (see The Wire, S4), but like most problems, i think there is a saws-all solution. we found a great floors-guy, so the hardwood floors are sanded and finished. they will be beautiful. rebecca has done wonders with paint-brush and rollers.

but that's all normal stuff. ours house, i would guess, rates above average on the interesting scale. for example, after we clear out the "zoo of death" coridor in the garage (half of the dozen or so black widow and brown recluse spiders we've killed have come from the ZoD), we'll need to figure out how to bring electricity back to the garage. i've got half the outlets grounded now, but i feel the electricity in the bathroom should probably be:
1) grounded
2) gfi protected
3) securely attached to something

so we'll get the bathroom and kitchen as soon as we get half a break.

the good news is that this weekend, we'll be able to move our belongings out of the garage and into the house where they belong. we will have operational guest facilities by next weekend almost certainly. all are welcome to visit and contribute; we will be seeking counsel on wood, demolition, reconstruction, electrical, and landscaping related topics.

Office before- you can't see it, but there was TISSUE PAPER on the plaster walls. Why would anyone do this to beautiful plaster walls? WHY?! This is also a great 'before' shot of the floors. All of the dark discoloration and wax was stripped and sanded. The oak was then returned to a 'natural' finish. 

Office/library- after(ish).  Several attempts to scrape, steam and/or dissolve the tissue paper were made (many, many hours of attempts) before I gave up on the idea of complete removal of the tissue paper. Eventually I just applied Kilz (a HEAVY primer) sanded and then applied some fresh grey paint. We were so amazed at how well the floors turned out. Troy Bolen did a great job, we are still singing his praises (hardwoodlyr@hotmail.com) . 

living room after...