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).