mathew ordered 30 lbs of new screws from mcfeely’s. they use a special square drive bit. they arrived today. i’m looking forward to working with these.
Author: janeen
monday night plaster
yesterday, late in the afternoon, mathew decided to do some plaster work.
he finally came downstairs around 10:45 pm, quite happy and covered in plaster. we ate freshly made leek and potato soup with toast. he couldn’t believe how well the plaster went on… and how good everything tasted.
this morning we went up to admire his work. the plaster is so smooth it feels like highly polished stone. even mathew, the hard-to-please perfectionist, thinks it’s “amazing.”
working house guests
it’s amazing how much more you can get done with 2 extra people!
on sunday morning najia couldn’t wait to get started on the entry floor. linoleum tiles were stuck down with adhesive; peeling them up with a scraper was tedious, but the heat gun sped up the process.
justin cut and installed drywall upstairs where the refrigerator will go, and put up insulation and moisture-barrier paper in the bathroom.
mathew put up blocking (horizontal wood pieces between studs) for the shower doors to attach to and made some cool sparks grinding off nails. after lunch justin, najia and i moved cement board (HEAVY) up 2 flights of stairs from the garage.
(left) tired work monkeys. (right) a (tiny) toy truck found during the remodel. it’s helping to move some cellulose insulation…
we’re so grateful to justin and najia for sacrificing their weekend to help us work on the house. with them we made lots of progress and had fun talking and catching-up during meals. thank you so much to both of you! come again, any time…
before and after dinner, mathew and i installed cement board on the bathroom walls. it is mold resistant and goes up before the tile. it is cut by scoring with a special carbide tip knife then snapped over a piece of wood.
the cement board is heavy. it’s hard to cut and hard to drill. two screwdriver bits were destroyed in the process. (it’s dust is also carcinogenic so masks were worn during the installation, although, for some reason… not in these photos.)
hope everyone has a good week!
an electrically charged day
saturday was all about electricity.
the crazy, stormy weather continued from friday, mathew installed 3 electrical outlets upstairs, and my brother, justin and his wife, najia helped with deciphering the house’s entire electrical system.
justin and najia started by creating floorplans of each level of the house and mapping out every electrical outlet and light fixture. then using our cordless phones as walkie-talkies they systematically turned off each circuit to find out which outlets and lights were connected to each circuit. they found that of the 25 circuits, #5 was used heavily throughout the house with a random light usage of #11,12,13 and 14. mathew’s new outlets use #16 but the rest of the circuits are completely unused. this is incredibly valuable info and mathew hopes to sit down with uncle ken (electrician) to find out the best way to rewire the house.
we also had a visit from my parents, uncle gilbert and auntie pauline. and i worked on installing more (yes, more!) insulation.
and now for something completely different
every thursday night we have dance lessons with brandee at the metronome. last night we had the lesson in our kitchen!
it’s a crazy, blustery, stormy friday. our neighbor’s avocado tree (it’s more like a giant bush) is taller than our house and i’m worried it’s going to blow over! the poor lemons are getting thrown from our tree. hope everyone has a warm, dry and safe weekend.
happy new year!
happy 2008! this is how we spent our new year’s eve and new year’s day. (not a big surprise…)
i did office work in the morning while mathew made the cover for the attic opening (finished photo coming soon!) he also installed a new light switch. the previous owners had accidentally cut the wire that lead to the bedroom light switch so they had a pull-chain in the middle of the bedroom. not cool. and mathew also rewired the bathroom.
on new year’s eve i knit and we watched 2 episodes of “project runway.” we got an early start on new year’s day by finishing the attic insulation. (right) mathew cut open more of the garage ceiling to do more rewiring. it was similar to the plumbing where the wires (unnecessarily) stretched the length of the house and went outside then came back in. notice the white wire that has been notched into the bottom of all the joists: bad. mathew drilled holes at the middle of the joists and installed new wire for the bathroom circuit.
we’re finally getting all the open walls closed off. here i’m applying insulation to the last open side of the bathroom. (right) mathew exposed the final bathroom wall down to the studs.
and here he had a real sense of accomplishment as drywall went up and a doorway was cut.
hope everyone has a _______ (peaceful, relaxing, productive, fun, etc.) new year’s.
welcome to the attic
the attic needed insulation…
(left) …so mathew cut a hole in the ceiling. (right) mathew has been getting a lot of use out of the right angle drill he borrowed from uncle ken. since the attic is now accessible he did some electrical work too.
we returned the u-haul van and purchased the remainder of home depot pro’s supply of green fiber insulation. (right) the attic before the insulation. possibly the first time it’s been seen in 93 years!
i carried 21 packages of insulation up 2 flights of stairs. each one weighs 21.4 pounds… (mathew says the photo is too big but i say it’s not big enough!)
(left) ready to apply the snow. (right) after the insulation was added.
(left) the christmas gift (from my parents) that mathew picked out today. it’s sooo shiny. (right) now, what to do about that big attic hole..?
field trip!
this morning we rented a van and went to the home depot pro store.
this pro store is aimed at contractors and there seemed to be only a dozen people shopping and maybe twice as many employees. to our surprise, they were extremely friendly, helpful AND knowledgeable. (??!!) i rented the van so i was the one driving it. you can’t tell from the photos but it’s BIG and the only way to view behind it is through the mirrors. plus it was raining. scary.
we bought 4 sheets of drywall, 12 sheets of hardie backerboard (mold resistant concrete board for the bathroom) and 32 packages of green fiber recycled cellulose blow-in insulation. we also rented the blower to install it.
we feel good about using this insulation, it’s 85% recycled material (paper and other stuff) and uses 10 times less energy to produce it. it’s also not itchy like fiberglass so you don’t have to worry about it getting it on your skin. but it sure is messy! i was putting the material into the machine; turtle was upstairs installing it. each time he came down to check on me, he was wearing a thicker coat. (that was partially the machine’s fault; it kept getting blocked, so i was only putting a small amount of insulation in it at a time. if you don’t keep a steady stream of material flowing it will just blow and then dust fills the air. tip: there are different types of machines. apparently the one we got does not have the power to blow the insulation through 100 feet of hose up two levels. it started working okay once we took it up to the top floor and reduced the hose to 50 feet.)
but he said applying it was really peaceful, like shooting grey snow. unfortunately i was too busy to take photos of him in action.
note to bubba: sorry, there will be lots of posts to catch up on from this weekend! mathew has monday and tuesday off, hopefully we’ll get a lot done.
a new door
(these are photos from wednesday that i never posted…)
the bathroom door is getting a makeover, it’s moving to the left and getting reduced in size from 34″ to 26″ wide. it involved adding new studs, cutting some drywall and moving and rewiring an electrical outlet. we still need to buy the new door but at least now it will be a standard interior door size.
happy friday, happy weekend everyone.
a merry christmas
last weekend we worked on the house but didn’t have many photos to show for it. (left) my box of nail, paint and adhesive-free solid wood to go in the compost bin, old pieces from the house that are too small (or too strange) to be reused. (right) the plumbing temp valve for the shower upstairs. [turtle: ok, so we spoke too soon, there still is more plumbing.]
we baked cookies for our neighbors on christmas eve.
my family came over in the morning to celebrate christmas. it was a nice gathering with lots of cookies, coffee and pizza. afterwards we went to the big extended celebration with my mom’s family.
hope everyone had a warm and peaceful christmas and hanukkah.