Author: janeen

lemons + tile

saturday was spent doing office work.

sunday was spent with lemons and tile.

lemon treelemon tree

the lemons needed picking and the tree needed pruning.

mathewlemon tree

it was a beautiful morning to be outside. hopefully the tree doesn’t react badly to the extreme pruning.

lemonlemon

most of the lemons look like lemons, but some have been disfigured by a winter citrus pest. from what i’ve read, the pest isn’t inside the fruit, it affects the stem as the fruit is growing and alters it’s appearance.

lemonlemon

strange and beautiful.

lemons

lemons anyone? we’ve got 3 big boxes (of normal lemons.) we gave some to our neighbors who invited us in for short visits. one of our neighbors is rosa, she’s 96 years old, funny and feisty! we left one box of lemons on our front steps for people to help themselves. it was gone within hours.

janeenjaneen

in the afternoon and evening: tile work.

mathewtile

and more tile.

“i’m with grumpy.”

for fun we often conceptualize t-shirts for people. “i’m with grumpy” is what my t-shirt usually says…

plasterpaint removal

the day started out nice enough. a sunny mission district day. mathew put the final coat of plaster on the ceiling. i stripped paint off of wainscoting.

tile!kerdi

and then i started putting up tile (which started out stressful!) just to my right mathew was putting up more kerdi-membrane (which was also stressful.) so we’re working in this tiny space, tripping over each other, making messes and having difficulties. at one point mathew said, “i’m putting up this piece of wood and it might fall on you.” um, thanks?

tile cuttingcut tile

luckily tile cutting worked out great. my dad loaned us his tile cutter and it was able to cut our 1″ travertine tile expertly, even really thin pieces weren’t a problem. thanks dad!

plaster sandingtile

mathew finished sanding the bedroom ceiling and walls; they are now ready for paint! and instead of feeling like he’d accomplished something he said he felt like we wasted the weekend. huh? i beg to differ, we’re ready for paint and look! there’s tile!

shower curbshower curb

here we’re trying to decide what to do with the shower curb, cut tiny travertine, cut green tiles or cut-to-fit solid travertine (not shown.) and mathew just needed to be fed, with a full tummy he’s now upstairs finishing up the kerdi-membrane. now i will have no more excuses for not working on that tile…

leap day

wainscotingwainscoting

mathew spent leap day shopping for supplies and working on bathroom wainscoting.

mathew

lineswindow

i did tile prep which included math, more math, and drawing out lines on the wall (which are very faint in this photo.) and now that mole is back working upstairs it means lots of random photos just because i think they’re pretty! like a blue window with orange kerdi-membrane.

cheeto dustwood curlz

or flourescent orange chalk line dust (cheeto dust.) or pretty and compostable wood shavings…

a couple of sickies

for the record: i don’t think i got mathew sick. i’ve got this 2-week cold that’s going around and he might have a stomach flu. one good thing about being sick in this house though… an endless supply of lemons for hot lemon & honey. (lemons shown on a mathew designed/built bench.)

lemons

i think getting sick might have been good for mathew. he’d been working so much and stressed out all the time. now he’s catching up on sleep, getting 12+ hours a night/day.

kerdikerdi

but it still hasn’t kept him from working on the house.

mole returns

for those of you curious about where i’d gone…

margaret and janeenjm

i was on a cruise with my pal, margaret, john mayer and over 2000 of his biggest fans. (plus over a dozen other musical acts and comedians.)

jmjm

the “mayercraft carrier” cruise might seem to have little to do with the house… but after we’d made 8 unsuccessful offers last year i thought i’d cheer myself up with a crazy little trip. within days we found out we’d gotten this house.

and the cruise was awesome.

ceilings are difficult!

today was all about ceilings.

janeen ceilingjaneen ceiling

i applied a skim-coat to half of the bedroom ceiling. (it doesn’t look like much from this photo, but it’s a pretty large room.)

mathew ceilingmathew ceiling

bathroom floormathew ceiling

after attaching cement board to the shower wall and base, mathew plastered the bathroom ceiling (and parts of the floor…)

plaster dribblesmathew wall

i removed plaster dribbles. after dinner mathew went back upstairs to plaster a bathroom wall. he’s getting quite good at plaster!

during the day we had a visit from auntie em and uncle ken. i forgot to take photos. (and the contrast between the construction site and their nice church outfits was great…) uncle ken brought over some electrical tools and supplies and reviewed the wiring in the house with mathew.

drywall, spackle, chicken wire and mortar

after purchasing more plaster and ordering our tile, we had a productive saturday.

windowdrywall

the bedroom window where mathew pulled off his plaster to repair the leak and rotten wood. i cut drywall to fit.

windowwindow

after the drywall was attached i spackled to fill in the gaps and now it’s ready for plaster. again.

wallwall

wallshower

mathew worked on the little shower wall. (left) making sure it is plumb. (right) attaching moisture barrier paper, then chicken wire to the shower floor.

mortarmortar

mixing mortar in the garage.

drainmortar

applying the mortar to the shower floor. the plastic drain piece needs to be level and properly supported by mortar. the edges of the floor are built up and leveled.

mortarshower

then mortar fills in the rest so the floor slopes towards the drain.

testing…

last night we did a shower test-run.

showershower

shower plan

and this morning mathew decided to add a small wall on the right and change the angle of the shower slightly to give a little more room inside. we then went and ordered 78 square feet of travertine tile that will arrive in 1-2 weeks.

winterizing

snackshrink wrap

because i haven’t had very many pretty pictures to post recently, i thought i’d share one of a snack i had last week. (i guess it’s not technically pretty, but it brings back fond memories…)(yes, larry, they’re vegan!) (right) here i am in my office, shrink wrapping the (cheap, single-pane) windows with a plastic film to seal out drafts. one day they’ll be replaced.

windowvent fan

we spent a lot of the weekend winterizing and preparing for the upcoming rain by painting, sealing and caulking around the windows upstairs. rain is predicted for at least the next 10 days! (right) the cute little bathroom vent hood that mathew installed on the roof last weekend.

moonbathroom

an early evening moon photo taken by mathew while freezing on the roof. (right) the upstairs bathroom is on the verge of greatness… ready for plaster, tile, flooring, wainscoting, a custom-made vanity, a sink, shower, toilet, medicine cabinet, light fixtures and switches…

ceilingceiling

except for last weekend’s window detour, the bedroom is almost ready for paint! here mathew is taping and skim-coating the ceiling.

have a good week everyone. stay warm and dry!

no glamour shots here

it was a weekend of hard work with little to show for it…

closetinsulation

drywallcloset

a while back mathew had cut holes in the downstairs closet wall for running pipe and electrical wires upstairs from the garage. now it was time to close them up. i attached wood to the right side stud so the drywall would have something to attach to. i added insulation, then cut and screwed on the drywall. next will be plaster and probably something to hide that unsightly sewer pipe.

cuttinghole

vent shaftvent fan

meanwhile, mathew was upstairs cutting more holes in the ceiling… this time for a vent fan in the bathroom. (i should have him take some exterior shots, there’s a cute little vent hood up on the roof now.)

sunday’s activities took a slight detour…

windowwindow

during the last big storm mathew noticed that the upstairs bedroom window was leaking. since there’s no rain in the forecast for at least a week, we decided to check out the damage. this included removing the window, tearing off the window frame and (sadly) destroying part of mathew’s first plastered wall.

windowwindow

what we found was not good. rotten wood and fungus (ick.) someone had installed this window not too long ago, but had done it so incorrectly that water was seeping into the window frame and wall and getting trapped. with time running out in the day, we decided to treat and replace as much of the rotten wood as possible and come back and replace all of it including the stud and window at a later date.

this unscheduled activity took up our entire sunday. i spent the day sanding and sealing old and new wood and mathew spent the day laboriously hanging out the window attaching, planing, sanding and painting things.

drill curl repsbathroom

(left) here i am demonstrating the home remodeling bicep drill curl. start with 3 sets of five reps, increase as you build up strength. (right) the bathroom is almost ready for tile! (currently the cement board makes it look like a prison cell…)