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).