Author: turtle

Hallway continues

Even though I haven’t posted about it for months, the hallway does continue to progress…

The quarter inch thick drywall on the hallway wall had been exposed to years of moisture from a leaky roof before we bought the house. Years ago when we were stripping wallpaper, the smell of mold established that this drywall should be replaced, rather than plastered over.

Well, now’s the time: Here’s Mole pulling it off the wall. It came down shockingly easily; it had been nailed up with the wrong type of nails, so they just pulled through the drywall.

The wall framing under the drywall is a mess of different sized pieces, some not even nailed in place properly. No wonder this wall rattled in tune to music in peoples cars in the street. I had to plane the wood flat on lots of the studs to make sure the new drywall lays flat; Also added some screws to hold things together a bit better.

I finished up connecting the utilities in the hallway wall. It turned out to be quite a lot jammed into that tight space: Drain for sink, conduit for network cables, and a hot water return. Also wiring for a plug and light switch.

Mole caught a photo of me as I was finalizing the stairs.

Here’s the new drywall going up, to flush out the corner. It’s starting to come together.

The leaky roof also damaged the plaster in the ceiling. Here I’m adding plaster washers to hold it all in place, rather than replace the ceiling.

This is the edge of the ceiling, where it transitions to vertical wall. I’ve filled up to the dowel on one side with joint compound. I prefer to use joint compound on ceilings than plaster, because it doesn’t need to resist bumps and scratches like walls, and it’s easy to sand flat.

Here’s the ceiling after a couple of passes with joint compound. I haven’t sanded it yet. Probably needs one more pass before sanding. Now I need to go find some cat photos…

Arwen working from home

Hallway half done

I’m about half done with the hallway, I think.

I took out the winders at the bottom of the stairs, and opened up the wall to reveal space for a coat closet.

I put a landing instead of the top winder, and the stairs will extend into the hallway three steps.

I had to cut into the floor dad I and installed ten years ago. But I tried to do it carefully so that I don’t have to refinish the whole thing…

A small detour: The microwave suddenly stopped working. Well, that’s what we thought at first, but actually the receptacle (that I installed) stopped working. Turned out there was a loose wire (!!!!) – and the only way to access it was behind the dishwasher. Not sure why, but it seems common that junction boxes end up behind dishwashers:

The second photo is my brother dealing with an electrical issue behind his dishwasher… Next time I build a kitchen, no junction boxes of any kind behind dishwashers: They are painful to remove and put back (power, water and waste have to be disconnected and reconnected.)

Ahhh, but here’s the floor fixed, and the stairs roughed in. I’ve also put some gypsum board (drywall) in the closet.

Every closet needs a light: This one gets a light and a plug.

Just about finished with taping. I’m just going to skim coat the closet, instead of plastering.

When we painted the front stairs, we didn’t get around to putting the second coat of paint on. So it didn’t last well. I’m putting a few coats of paint on before the rain starts…

Simultaneously.. (disobeying my cardinal rule of remodeling: One project at a time!) We tore out the fugly built-in closets in the upstairs bedroom.

Not sure how many stages they were built in, but they were a rather scary mixture of incredibly flimsy and hugely overbuilt. Some parts I’d pull out a nail, and it would come crashing down. Others it would take hours and scores of nails and screws. We filled half an empty paint can with nails, just from this.

I think this is some of the original wallpaper.

Looks like there is some plaster repair to do…

Starting Upstairs

It’s finally happening: We have moved downstairs, so we can work on the upstairs unit. First: the hallway and stairs to upstairs.

It’s just going to get more ugly for now. Here’s how it started out:

The problems are:

The stairs are steep, and also have ‘winders’ (pie-shaped steps that turn the corner) near the bottom. Both make the stairs more dangerous, so I plan to at least resolve the winder part by making a landing and then extending the stairs three steps into the hall.

Also, the head room for the stairs is very limited, and it’s made worse because for some reason they left a rather small ‘door’ opening at the bottom of the stairs. I plan to open this up and to raise the ceiling above the stairs, so there is much more head room (I’ll raise it up to the underside of the roof).

There are other miscellaneous problems, like the wiring for the lights is in a pipe on the outside of the wall, the plaster surface is not uniform, and the trim is just a mess.

The photos below show the problem we had trying to get our couch downstairs through the stair opening. Surprisingly, we did actually manage to get it through.

It was quite easy to open up the top of the ‘doorway’. I still made quite a mess — but nothing like what was to come.

The extra pieces of wood around the opening turned out to be difficult to remove, and removing them made quite a mess of things. I also took the 1/4″ drywall off the walls: It had been used to cover the damaged plaster, but it had got water damage at some point (as most of the house has). The plaster underneath was in terrible condition.

First step in raising the ceiling: Tear off the lathe and plaster. This is going to be a lot of work.

I had to change the framing supporting the roof, and re-route the drain line for the kitchen sink. Also, the wiring for the bedroom had to be moved. And while I was at it, I re-wired the light over the stair and the dining area.

But more interestingly: One of mole’s clients wanted her to design all the posters in the San Francisco Civic Center MUNI station! They were only supposed to be up for a month, but now they are going to be up through the end of the year.

Back to the mess: In the photo above, I’ve finished re-framing to raise the ceiling, but haven’t got it closed off from the attic yet.

I jammed 3″ rigid insulation tightly between the old 2×4 rafters. The old wood is almost 4″ deep, leaving 1″ for a vent gap between the roof and the insulation.

Here’s the new ceiling installed. Doesn’t look much different from before I started, but there’s much more room overhead.

Switches installed, and walls patched (partially).

Here’s something that will be a challenge: Traditional Victorian corner details use a dowel attached at the corner. The the plaster stops at the dowel, but instead of just being a plain round corner, they put a reveal next to the dowel. I’m going to try to reproduce it here.

Looking Down

It’s been a long while since I last worked on a floor – over a decade. But the front stairs – wood exterior stairs need TLC every couple of years.

One of the steps was starting to grow some type of fungus. Really time that one was replaced.

By the time I was done, I replaced three steps.

Here’s mole getting started priming the stairs for our unit.

Meanwhile… We plan to move downstairs so that I can work on upstairs. But the bedroom downstairs had carpet: Fine as a rental, I suppose, but not nice. So we tore out the carpet. No hardwood floor under this carpet, sadly. Just many layers of vinyl composite tile.

Once I got down to the subfloor, it was better already. I decided to use a prefinished solid oak plank floor. I don’t have the equipment for the refinishing, and the prefinished is almost the same price as unfinished – the end result is also much faster.

I don’t like the look of quarter round to cover the necessary gap around floors – looks cheap and un-craftsman-ly to me. So I used a jamb saw to cut the exact thickness of the flooring from the bottom of the baseboards.

That is a little easier in theory than in practice, because sub-floors are not perfectly smooth. The jamb saw can’t sit perfectly flat on the slightly uneven floor, so the height of the cut varies slightly.

I put a border all around the perimeter of the floor, before infilling. In retrospect, I wish I’d selected out all the darkest and lightest pieces from all the boxes, and used them to make alternating light and dark boards in the border. Would have been a nice way to add a little decoration, without resorting to different wood species.

Selecting and placing boards takes quite a sense for color and shade. You don’t want to put two pieces that are overly contrasting together, but do you want to keep them sort of random. Otherwise you’ll get whole areas of the floor that are dark, and others light.

I started on the floor using an old mechanical floor nailer that my dad gave me when he helped me install the floors at the front of the house. It doesn’t require a very heavy hammer blow, but it must be perfectly aimed. Given the right technique, it works perfectly well. Needless to say, after spending a day with it, I went out and bought an air-compressor powered version. Sooo easy.

Tongue and groove flooring is almost all blind nailed (no nail holes on the surface). It fits together with tongue into groove on the sides and ends.

When doing this with a border, though, on every line of boards, you have to cut a board to fit against the border. One thing I did on this floor that we never bothered to do when I was working for my dad almost thirty (!) years ago, was to cut new grooves into all the cut ends of boards: Much too time consuming for a contractor. This floor, however, is completely interlocked at all joints, except for the one long side joint one third of the way into the floor where I’ve ripped boards to fit. I glued those in together.

To finish the job, I carefully taped all around, and caulked the gap between the floor and the baseboard. Then painted the baseboards.

Perfetto!

Still chipping away at it

I’ve still been working on the house, but not posting much. Last year, I started repairing the fence between the deck and the neighbor’s house.

Next I started covering it with Cedar. I bought 2×4 boards, and ripped them to 3/4″ thick, sanded and stained, then attached to wall. I put 1/8″ thick spacers behind the mineral paper to allow a little air circulation.

I tried to make all the gaps consistent, including at the mitered ends. I used copper flashing over the top of the wall. I’ll get a piece of Ipe to top the wall – eventually.

I have to stop here until I’ve put tile on the steps. But I’ve not decided what tile to use. It’s always difficult using tile on stairs: Either I have to buy special tile with a nosing, or buy some type of metal stair nosing. I also poured the curb under part of the wall – still have two sections to do though.

The roses really liked this rainy winter. They are looking good again this year.

Safely Home

I’m home safely after riding 560 miles (including the short trip from my house to the ride start on day zero, and a few repeats of the infamous “quadbuster” hill during the ride). Here’s a fun parody video that gives you a bit of a feeling for the more fun side of the ride.

Here’s the 2019 AIDS/Lifecycle video, hot off the ‘presses’:

Day 7: Ventura to LA!

When riding through Malibu I was thinking today is not such a beautiful day, but looking back it was. Again.

Different roadie teams run all the rest stops along the ride every day. Today rest stop 2 made a special effort for the last day. These are peanut butter or Nutella bagels with various toppings:

Lunch, after a long and very un-scenic ride through Malibu, was on the beach.

I’m safely in Los Angeles. The route through LA to the finish line went past the pride celebrations. People were cheering on both sides.

Thank you for your support and generosity. It was beautiful, tiring, emotional, fun, and now I’m utterly exhausted!

Day 6: Lompoc to Ventura

Today’s ride is absolutely gorgeous. We rode up and over the Gaviota pass then along the coast through Santa Barbara to Ventura.

It is an easy climb up to Gaviota pass then a spectacular fast descent to the coast.

Ron (right) took me under his wing on my first ALC, and Scott (left) did the same for Ron a few years before.

I had a good day today, and even stopped along the route at a great cafe in Goleta with friends.

Day 5: Santa Maria to Lompoc

Otherwise known as Red Dress Day, today we dress in red to make a red AIDS ribbon as we wind up the hillside.

I recycled my cat in the hat costume from past years.

It’s a relatively short day of riding, but I really was not feeling very well today. I didn’t sleep well last night so this morning I barely wanted to move. I love cycling but today I just wanted to go hide in a corner somewhere. Happily I found Ron and David to ride with, and we stopped for pizza before the end of the day. Good friends can make any day into a good day.

Day 4: Paso Robles to Santa Maria

It was a beautiful morning for the climb up the evil twins to the halfway point.

We rode through my college town San Luis Obispo. And a friend from high school and her family happened to be in town to look at Cal poly so they met me at the lunch stop. Arthur has ridden this ride once, and Marisa knew someone else on today’s ride who was riding his 20th time.

It was a really great day for everyone riding I think. There was some wind but the temperature was perfect, the views were beautiful and the downhill from the halfway point was absolutely fantastic.

I’m now sitting under a tree at camp waiting for some cycling clothes to dry in the breeze before dinner.