Author: turtle

Lying Around on the Steps

Now that the front stairs are done, we’ve got to finish the painting. And of course, there are other projects.

On the left is the new landing, grouted and sealed. I finally took off the ugly metal gates from the front of the house. When they put them in, they tore out the rail and balusters that ran along side the landing.

Almost three years ago, my neighbor was tearing out and replacing his deck. He had these balusters left, and gave them to me. Quite fancy for a deck (I think he got them cheap used).

The reason so many wood Victorians were stripped, or torn down: Maintenance of exterior painted wood, even if it’s old growth redwood, is incredibly labor intensive. Sanding these balusters before we could use them took ages.

I don’t think these are redwood, but they are beautiful tight grained fir. I cut the balusters to fit in their new locations. Nothing is square in an old house, so every one is a different size, and the angles of the cuts vary. To keep the bugs from feasting on the wood, (right) mole is treating the end grain with nasty smelling wood preserver. We have to let it dry 48 hours before painting, so I couldn’t get them in this weekend.

Janeen and I spent the sunny Sunday afternoon lying around on the front steps (with paint brushes). Last post, I said we’d decided on a new color for the stairs. It’s not really a ‘new’ color; we’re just sticking with the color scheme of the overall house until we repaint the whole house. The photo above right, for me, is acceptance of how long it will be until we get around to repainting the outside of the house: Probably not until next year.

Stair Painters

I think I’ve pointed this out before: Part of what takes me so long is I have to do much of the work more than once. When laying out the stairs, I was aware that it’s very important to keep the dimensions of each step identical. I waited to build the stairs until I’d bought the tile for the landing. I measured it, and included an estimate of the thickness of everything that goes under the tile. The building code requires the variation be less than 3/8″.

After building the stairs, putting on the Kerdi (same as in our shower) waterproofing membrane and starting to lay out the tile, I realized there was a problem.

(Above right) I was doing a last minute check that the stair heights were consistent. OOOoops. As you see, the top step is almost an inch higher with the tile installed. I’d not realized that the tile I bought has varying thicknesses. The pieces that are at the nosing are twice as thick as the tile I’d measured. Also, the combined thickness of the thinset under the cement board, under the Kerdi, and the membrane added up to almost 3/8″. Lesson: Assemble a mock up of the entire assembly including any waterproofing membranes and the actual tiles that will be used if the thickness of tile is important.

I had to tear out the landing and lower it. Fortunately I had John to help (above right).

After a full weekend detour, I was back to the start. Above right shows the waterproof membrane attached to metal flashing that goes over two layers of building paper under the cement board.

Using John’s tile saw, mole cut out the tile for the landing. Here it is all laid up, before sticking it down with thinset.

Thinset time! The little diamond shapes are hand made tiles from Mexico that a friend gave to me three years ago.

What? Think I can resist putting destructamonkey photos on the blog? Bella figured out how to jump from the bathroom counter onto an open door. Arwen can destroy a toilet roll in under 15 seconds.

Above left, Janeen’s family came to visit to celebrate birthdays. Above right, Misha came to stay for a week; so I put him to work…

Grouting and painting the front steps.

After much indecision on my part, we decided to paint the fronts of the steps (risers) to match the main house color, and we’ll paint the tops (treads) in a brownish caramel. I didn’t have any porch paint in that color, so to fortify the steps before the oncoming rain, we put a coat of the blue on them.

Before Misha’s visit was over, Reirin, Leo, Dan and Dad showed up. Dan is allergic to cats – he looks a bit pensive being the subject of Janeen’s test of our cats’ hypoallergenic qualities.

On the last morning of Misha’s visit, we met up with my “older brother”/friend/mentor Bob for breakfast at San Francisco’s best – and snobbiest – coffee place: Blue Bottle. Misha ran there in his North Brooklyn Runners shirt.

Three cuties working in the office…

finishing the office

This weekend, the office was finished enough to start using it: Only a nine month project. I vacuumed the walls, and all surfaces, then we started taking up the plastic and paper that’s been protecting the floors.

Underneath the layer of plastic is a layer of craft paper. Of course, we need to recycle everything we can, so we took all the tape off the paper as we took it up.

Sun in San Francisco? I guess there’s enough in the Mission to bleach the protective paper on the floor. It started out a mauve color and became a very pale pink (left.) The floors held up nicely, and still look fine.

Janeen took some close-ups of the ceiling, lamp, and the crystals that she had cleaned up.

After a couple of passes with caulk, and paint, the medallion melds well with the tin ceiling.

Dad, Elijah, and Eva came to visit this weekend. We all went out to one of our new favorite restaurants: Gracias Madre.

My ‘baby’ brother is now standing a good few inches taller than me. Dad, on the left, is trying to pull him down to size.

Janeen had the camera, most of the time, so she took a photo of the goofiest person in the restaurant (right).

We finished up the weekend starting to move things back into the office. Boxes that have been sitting down in our garage for almost a year. Maybe we don’t need that stuff??

Since winter is on its way, and I can’t see my finding time to get the outside of the house completely painted, I’ve decided to just touch up the bad spots. We’ll do the full repaint in spring. (left) Dumpy is really loving his smooth, clean runway.(right)

what do real contractors do?

Last year — or was it the year before that (how time flies) — when we were working on Popo’s living room, I put insulation over the top of the sliding doors. I couldn’t get to the whole width, because part of the wall was in the hallway. I never got round to installing it, so now we are working on the office, this was the last chance.
adding insulation over sliding doorgyp board over insulation

Above left, I’ve cut out a piece of plaster, and shoved insulation between the joists. Above right, gyp board on, and starting to repair the plaster.

split and damaged window casingdamaged window sill after stripping paint

After stripping the paint off the window frames, some parts are in quite poor shape. The window sill (right) seems to have lots of notches taken out of it. Not sure how this happens? Because of settlement (left), the casing on this window is split, and the corner does not fit. There are also many holes where different curtains have been screwed to the frame.

sheet metal cover that clips over plugs to protect them when stripping paintplug cover in place

Janeen, when she was stripping paint off the baseboards in the living room, discovered that if your trowel slips into the plug while you are working (accidentally), it makes lots of sparks, and burns a hole into the trowel and plug. This time, I made a sheet metal cover that clips over the plugs so that I can protect them (and me) while stripping the paint off the plug. Worked great!

starting to strip the baseboardsaround the bay window

Working around the room, it’s exciting when the wood starts to reappear under years of paint. Most of the trim in this room is in very good shape.

window sill after sanding and fillingbay windows after sanding

After sanding and filling, the window frames are starting to look really nice. It’s almost ready for stain.

window casing after repairing splits, filling, and sandingsunlight on the wall

Above left is the casing that was split. I took it off, glued and clamped it, re-mitered the corner, nailed it back in,  filled, and sanded. Slow work. The sun looks really nice in this room in the afternoons. I’ve also stripped the paint off the mantle shelf.

meticulous j.

Hmm. How did this happen? I wonder if there’s a market for a meticulous builder?

putting up plasticRoofing piled outside our kitchen window

We’ve been planning to replace the roof for a couple of years, almost. Last year, we just didn’t have enough money to pay for it. This year, there hasn’t been four straight rain-free days since before December. Wednesday evening, we got a phone call saying the contractor would be here at 7:30 the following morning to start! I put up plastic and moved our table away from the skylight, which is being replaced.

When they arrived, it was a storm of activity. I had to go to work, but Janeen took the photo above right. They tore off three or more layers of roofing by lunch time.

one dump truckin front of the house

The photo above left shows one of the two dump trucks needed to haul away all the debris. In front of our house became a regular construction zone. If you look at the photo above right, you can see the ladder inside the windows of Janeen’s office. Nobody parked in our driveway that day: there was stuff flying everywhere off our roof. I think there were twelve people on our roof simultaneously.

truck with multistory conveyorroofing piled at top of roof

To get all the roofing off the roof, the contractors used a big orange chute. Well, for the stuff that didn’t go flying in all directions. To get new shingles and plywood onto the roof, they used a truck mounted conveyor belt. Above right you can see all the shingles piled onto the top of the roof, the plywood is installed, and they are starting to put the underlayment on. This is the end of day one.

At this point, I called the contractor. He was supposed to be installing a new skylight. It is bigger than the old one, so new framing is needed, but they haven’t done any framing, and are covering everything up with plywood and roofing already. I told him they are going to need to strip off the plywood, so they can install the skylight. He told me not to worry, everything is under control, and if they need to take off the plywood, they’ll do that…

loose pipe in our closetNew fancy skylight

Above left, I’m taking out an old abandoned pipe that fell through into the closet when they were stripping off the roofing.

At the end of day two, the roofers walked in with the skylight, and said: The skylight is bigger than the opening (duh?), so they are going to just lay it on top of the roof and the opening will be smaller underneath! I told them they had to reframe, so that the skylight fit into the opening properly. That’s the last I saw of them. When I called the contractor, he sounded flustered. Seems the roofers had not understood that they were installing a larger skylight.

The next day when I got home, they’d partially reframed the opening, and set the skylight on top still (the opening is still too narrow). They then proceeded to try to seal up outside, but the manufacturer’s flashing did not fit (because the skylight is supposed to fit into the opening, not sit on top of the roof). The roofers adhered a bunch of roofing goop around the flashing, nothing was fitting properly, so they jammed everything in place and left.

Well, that lead to a “nice” meeting between me, the contractor, and the roofers. Apparently, when cleaning up after nothing was fitting, a bunch of “extra” parts got thrown out, so they can’t even install the skylight properly until they re-order those parts. Right now, it’s temporarily waterproofed for the rain, and the contractor is ordering new flashing and parts. At this point, I’m rather disappointed that the roofers didn’t read the installation instructions (I did!), as they’ve obviously not installed one of these skylights before (at least not properly).

The contractor is being extremely helpful, and keeps promising that he’s going to make sure it’s all done right. He’s made sure everything is temporarily water tight, and the roofers have always cleaned up very well. We’ve had no leaks, and he’s not asked for a penny until it’s all complete and we’re happy. It’s just a pity this skylight is turning out to be such a pain. If I did this again, I’d install the skylight, and let them do all the roofing. Everything would be done by now. Lesson learned.

Popo and her niece KimberlyPopo and her brother-in-law Willy

Popo got some special visitors: Her brother-in-law Willy (Popo’s sister passed away last year), and her niece Kimberly came by for a visit.

janeen with her cupcakes

And it was Janeen’s birthday! Her cake was two Black China Bakery vegan cupcakes.

plastering on my day off

I took a day off work to do one of my favorite pass-times: plastering! Janeen popped her head in just as I was painting the walls with plasterweld, the special plaster adhering paint.

We’d already gone over the mesh tape and plaster washers with rough patches of joint compound, so that’s why the walls look splotchy white.

Janeen loves this photo. It’s funny that I’m standing on a step stool to plaster the area over the fireplace. “Real” plasterers would probably set up a platform to walk on.

The plastering went really well, mostly. The only problem I had was after I’d done the first coat on a couple of walls, I mixed a second batch that was much too runny. I added more dry plaster to it to thicken it up, but the process of starting, stopping, re-mixing took about 20 minutes off the 40 minute open time… I ran out of time and the plaster started setting in the bucket.

That plaster got wasted, but I’ve figured out that I can just mix another batch, and recoat the whole wall. No stressing necessary! It just added about 2 hours to my day, so I finished as it got dark. So much less of a mystery than my first attempt.

The finished walls came out really nice, I think.

Ooohhh, Smooth!

a monster

this post is a catch up. it’s got so much in it, it’s a monster…

Janeen putting decorative film on back doorclose up of decorative film

We bought decorative window film for the back door about eight months ago. We used to have a curtain on the other side of this door, but it started to smell really moldy, so I took it off. The decorative window film is intended to obscure the glass. Janeen’s done this once before, putting a plain frosted film on the windows of Popo’s bathroom. This weekend, Janeen put it on our back door. You have to clean the glass really thoroughly, the the film is sprayed with soapy water and squeegeed onto the glass. I’m making it sound easy. It’s meticulous work.

I got tired of trying to stuff insulation into the gap between the ceiling and the floor above, so I tore off the plaster ceiling in part of the garage that still needed insulation.  Quite a mess pulling it all down. It was already falling apart, and had holes, so needed some fixing anyway. Much more enjoyable.

Putting in the insulation was then super fast.

The following week, John helped us to put new gyp board on the ceiling. He came up with T shaped props, so that we didn’t need to hold it up on the ceiling while trying to screw it on.

Some places were really difficult to cut and fit.

John is the master of custom fit. He made a very carefully measured drawing of all the cuts before starting.

There were cutting and sawing noises for an hour, and then…

The floor was covered in powdered plaster dust, but the pieces of gyp board all fit perfectly. Janeen took a photo of the portable tool kit that her dad brings with him in his pockets…

We also spent half this weekend patching the plaster in the office. We’re using ‘hot’ (setting type) joint compound (“Easy Sand 90”) over fiberglass mesh tape and plaster washers. Next week I’ll plaster the lower half of the walls; but above the picture rails, it’s easier to just use a skim coat of the joint compound and sand it. The extra durability of plaster is not necessary where nobody can reach it.

And now that we’ve got the garage and insulation all done, spring is here. The white peach tree that Janeen’s aunt Janet gave us last year is in flower.

Oh, and Janeen knit a monster to give her friend’s son. The pocket on the front holds a baby monster.

stuffing fiberglass

Spring. We spent the first half of the weekend with Janeen’s family visiting; Popo kept talking about how many lemons were on the tree and insisted that Janeen’s mum bring lemon pie for her. Before they left, Jason and John went out to the garden and picked more lemons. The photo below is just one branch — after picking two bags of lemons. We’ve probably got two boxes of lemons still on the tree! Lemonade, anyone?

The peach tree is starting to flower, as is the jasmine. Janeen planted some freesia bulbs, and the gladiola bulbs Janeen planted last year are already starting to pop through the soil. The jasmine is really growing well on the East wall of our garden; quite amazing from just a twig that we took from a neighbor’s fence and rooted!

I tore out most of the Ice plant that I’d unwisely bought as cute little plants two years ago (it has very nice blue/purple flowers, but it overtakes the whole garden in a hurry), and sprinkled native California wildflower seed in its place. The snails had a great winter, practically eating everything — except the ice plant of course. I must have found fifty of them. Janeen took a photo as I was filling up a third container. The problem with urban gardens: Nature is all out of balance. Where are the hedgehogs, frogs, toads, snakes, caterpillars and birds when we need them?

We moved on to the garage ceiling on Sunday. I’ve left open holes in the gyp board for about a year, planning to stuff insulation in. I’d been procrastinating, because it’s such unpleasant work.

First we cut out strips of the gypsum board on the ceiling. The best method so far seems to be multiple passes with a utility knife to just cut through the board. (I’ve tried cutting it with a saw — messy! and it risks damaging the joists).

Using a magnet, I can find the nails, so that I can carefully cut around them. By not damaging the board when I take it down, we can reuse it.

Finally, cutting and stuffing the insulation batts in between the joists is really unpleasant. Even with a dust mask, goggles, gloves, and long sleeves, it gets everywhere. I should have just rented the insulation blower, and used blow-in insulation: a) it’s easier — drill a hole and blow it in b) it gives better insulation — fills the cavity completely c) it improves the fire resistance of the house d) it’s recycled e) did I say it’s a lot easier? Can’t think why I came up with the hair-brained idea to do this. The only advantage I can think of is that it’s much easier to service wiring within the ceiling space when there’s fiberglass batt insulation.

One really itchy, sweaty, awkward day later, half of the work had been done.

The cut out ceiling pieces fit right back in like a jigsaw puzzle. Almost no waste.

Fitting the gyp board was difficult around the new electrical box and the bracing I’d added to the beam over the garage door. We had to dismantle part of the conduit so I could slide the board underneath it. It’s no surprise the work takes us so long!

Janeen wired in the three-way switch again.

When Janeen’s family was visiting, John helped us pick up our new front door. It needs to be cut to fit into the door opening, and stained and sealed. Exciting.

full steam

We rented the wallpaper steamer again this weekend and finally finished steaming the layers of wallpaper and paint off the walls in the office…

We’d removed the lower half of the wallpaper already, so now it was all working up ladders. The photos make it look like it just happened quickly, but it was slow going: We had to scratch up the surface of the wallpaper so that the steam could get through the paint, and then it was about four passes on every foot square to get down to the plaster.

At the end of Saturday, we’d got through most of the room: Just the area above the windows and the wall over the fireplace left to do.

Janeen found that steaming went much faster if she scraped off as much of the paint as possible before trying to steam. In some places, the wallpaper would partially separate, or some of the paint layers would come loose. Those were the fun bits.

In some places, it seemed like the wallpaper had been attached with some type of superglue: we’d steam it for a couple of minutes, and still the wallpaper would only come off in tiny little 1/2″ pieces, then we’d steam and scrape and steam and scrape… In the photo above right, there’s a bin below janeen: we completely filled that with soggy wet wallpaper scraped off the walls.

unclear on the concept

The photo above right is titled “unclear on the concept.” The previous owners screwed a hook into the picture rail: what did they think picture rails are for if not to hang pictures from?

janeen cleaning up wallpaper scrapings

I love the look of the plaster after the wallpaper has been removed. It’s a pity that this house has such cracked plaster, as I’d love to find a way to just keep it as it is. The mottled yellow/orange color and the smoothness of the 100 year old plaster are impossible to replicate, and paint seems so bland in comparison.

I also got some of the insulation into the floor in the area we were doing electrical work; not easy to jamb fiberglass insulation around all that conduit, wire, framing…

The photo below right shows the beam that was added to the house when they put in the garage in the 50’s: I never noticed before, but it’s BENT! Much of the cracking in the plaster was caused, I think, when they did the garage addition. The beams they used were not stiff enough, and deflected too much, cracking the beautiful plaster walls in the process: Cars and architecture are not friends. I also added a 2×6 on the front and back to make sure the beam stays on the post in an earthquake (wouldn’t want it falling off, or the post falling over!) Now I just need to get plaster board back on the ceiling.

Getting all the wallpaper off the office walls makes things feel like they are moving again: now we’ve just got to fix the plaster, strip the paint off the woodwork, sand, stain, seal, paint, replace the windows, make the built-in furniture… almost done. ahem.

slowing down

lists_20091124Now that Popo has moved in, we have slowed down a lot. It’s been over two years of working nonstop on the house. The photo shows a few of the checklists we made — with everything checked off. Feels a bit like I am climbing out of a hole that I’ve dug for myself! Hmm. Mole references…

Over the past couple of weeks, we finished up the back door and put it back on. The laundry room and ‘tear-off’ room leak a lot of cold air, so the kitchen had been rather drafty. The hardware for the original door was some of the nicest decorative brass on all the doors (below left). This is the original brass hardware for the back door after Janeen and I polished it up and removed all the old paint.

backdoor3_20091124backdoor2_20091124

The door was stripped, carefully sanded, stained with “Early American” oil based stain and then two coats of integrally colored polyurethane “Natural Cherry”. I sanded the polyurethane between coats with a very fine grit (220) sand paper to help the polyurethane adhere better, and also remove any dust or roughness that got into the first coat of urethane. The doors all have an aged but cared-for look to them now, and the color polyurethane helps to unify the color of the door, filling, and any blemishes.

backdoor1_20091124backdoor4_20091124

Above right, you can see the door installed in the background.

I also made some built-in shelves for the living room. In the space where there used to be a door between the living room and the bedroom, we now have built-in shelves for photo albums. I found pieces of wood for the shelves in the rather extensive pile of wood I’ve built up. Also the trim that holds them up is recycled:

shelves1_20091124shelves2_20091124

To make the front edge of the trim look finished and more decorative, I cut off and bevelled the trim, and added a piece of the same trim to return it to the face of the wall. Below right is a matching pair (left and right side).

shelves3_20091124shelves4_20091124

shelves6_20091124 shelves5_20091124

Above are the shelves as they are being installed. I had a bit of a dilemma: when in an old house where the floors, ceiling, doors (everything) slopes at various angles, do you install shelves so they slope the same as the floor? the tops of the doors? the ceiling? or ignore all that, and make them horizontal? I decided to make them slope the same as the top of the old doorway, so the shelves and the trim will at least both have the same slope…

While Janeen was out of town (she went to visit her “sisters” up in Seattle), I put insulation and gyp board on the ceiling of what used to be a bit of a scary little room in the garage. The photo below left shows it as it was a couple of years ago. Below right is with the gyp board on the ceiling, all the piping and wiring are now hidden.

garageroom1_20091124

The kitchen is quite moved in. Popo is doing her ‘homework’ (as she calls it). In the background you can see the outdoor steps in the back yard that go up to our unit and still need much work…

popo_20091124

help!

So now we’ve got a real deadline: Po-Po has decided that, in fact, she does want to move in here. We gave her a firm date of the end of September. We need to finish the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom by then!

Janeen’s parents came here both days last weekend, and they worked really hard. I also took a few days off work to get the kitchen moving faster.

01_kitchencabs-09071602_kitchencabs-holes

I took down the cabinets to get wiring in for additional plugs and under cabinet lights. It was surprisingly quick to string the wires in and add the plugs. Had to cut some new holes into the tile, and big gashes into the wall…

05_kitchen-wiresin06_kitchen-wiresin2

Then John showed up and fixed all my messes. He patched in tile where I’d broken it out.

03_kitchen_plug07_kitchen-johnmixing

And taped and plastered over the holes in the walls. Meanwhile, Janeen and her mum worked with a wallpaper steamer that we’d rented to take all the old wallpaper and many layers of paint off the walls in the bedroom.

09_kitchen-patching08_bedroom-steaming

The photo below shows John and me getting perfectionist about the caulk on the edge of the old tile. The person who had put in the tile had failed to polish off the grout from the surface of the tile when they put it in, so the tile all had patches of grout; we scraped and chipped it off. They’d also used grout where they should have used a flexible caulk – at the interface between the counter top and the tile – so it had cracked; chipped that off too.

15_kitchen-chippingcaulk

The photo below is of me plumbing the dishwasher drain hose into an “air gap”. Previously, it had been directly fed into the drain, but the air gap prevents water backing up in a blocked sink and emptying into the dish washer (a good thing, I’d say). Janeen and Judy had become pros with the steamer by now. I wish we’d known about this tool before.

10_kitchen-plumbing11_bedroom-steaming

Not content with a solid day of work, they came back for more punishment the next day. John caulked the gaps in all the wainscot boards and helped me put the cabinets back in. Janeen and Judy moved on to steaming the kitchen. The photo below right shows them installing plaster washers as a team. I think Judy thought her job (assembling the screw onto the washer) was too easy.

12_bathroom-caulkingwainscot16_bedroom-plasterwashering

I went and hid down in the garage and put the final coat on the door that goes to our hallway. I think John thought the steamer looked like fun, so he took it and did a wall.

13_halldoor17_kitchen-johnsteaming

Below left you can see the mess we’ve got the kitchen into. Not quite finished steaming off the wallpaper here. We suspect that grease in the air has made the wall paper much more water resistant, so steaming in the kitchen went very slowly. The special scoring tool would cut right through the wallpaper and damage the plaster, so it wasn’t much help. Sanding the wallpaper helped a bit. Below right shows the kichen cabinets back up, and the new under cabinet lights on.

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Here are a couple of photos of the old wallpaper in the kitchen.

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