Category: downstairs

hey everyone, i’ve been really sick and mathew has been really busy with his job, so here’s what happened last weekend.

the bathroom vanity now has drawers!

because of my lack of electrical knowledge i had a bit of a dangerous shock while stripping paint… my paint scraper slipped and must have hit something inside of the open outlet and there were huge sparks. (left) can you see the scorch marks at the lower right of the outlet? (right) and see that crater at the lower edge of the paint scraper? the sparks made that! luckily i was wearing gloves, a respirator mask, glasses and headphones. mathew says because it sparked against the outside of the plug, this is good because it means the box is grounded.

(left) meanwhile mathew was outside grinding off the bits that hold the useless mini half-gates at the bottom of our stairs. (right) and inspecting what the next steps will be for the cracked plaster wall in the living room downstairs.

a lot of the electrical outlets in this room were added more recently by a really BAD contractor. they were all placed at varying heights in the baseboards. they installed them by chopping out parts of the baseboard and then filling in the space with plaster. NOT pretty (see my scorched outlet photo above.) mathew is planning on putting them above the baseboards and then replacing the missing trim. (right) and while mathew and i are busy with demolition, scraping, sanding and general chaos, our friend and temporary downstairs tenant, mark was dancing tango with his girlfriend atsuko in the kitchen.

mathew up a very long ladder trying to uncover the reason for a leak.

(left) here i’m sanding to expose covered cracks in the plaster walls. (right) proudly standing next to my ugly work.

i had an early start upstairs on saturday and painted a couple of coats over the weird paneling (that will eventually be removed.) my parents came over to help downstairs. together they pulled up the top layer of linoleum in the foyer.

when i finished painting i went downstairs and my dad moved into the living room to remove the window frame, picture rail and baseboard from the water-damaged wall by the window. i helped my mom to remove the fiberboard and linoleum “rug” that was under the linoleum. this floor originally had a linoleum “rug” with a painted red border, a layer of fiberboard, 2 layers of different patterned linoleum and a layer of carpet. i guess the idea was, “if it’s ugly, cover it.”

in true turtle + mole fashion, “it has to get ugly before it gets pretty.” (left) my dad removed all the trim around the window so that mathew can figure out where the leak is coming from and then repair the plaster wall. (right) mathew spent saturday down in his workshop making the frame for our medicine cabinet mirror, trimming and finishing shelves for our living room and other things.

on sunday i finished pulling up the fiberboard and linoleum “rug” (pictured left.) isn’t that the weirdest thing? now it’s just unfinished wood with a painted red border.

i spent a little time in mathew’s workshop personalizing an aluminum strip that will go on the inside of the medicine cabinet mirror frame. cool, huh?

(left) mathew making drawers for our upstairs bathroom vanity. (right) paint stripping begins in the downstairs living room. the smoke alarm went off after 5 minutes, at least we know it works!

my parents came up to the city to help with the house this weekend.

they helped with the laborious task of paint prep, which made it possible for us to start painting this weekend. (right) here i am using a recycled dental tool to clean out the picture rail trim. it made me realize that i could never be a dental hygienist!

after i removed “plaque” and “tartar” with the dental pick, my mom followed with a good brushing with a nylon bristle brush that resembled a big toothbrush. my dad and mathew worked on plaster touch-up and scraping and sanding the baseboards.

after my parents went home mathew and i put on our respirator masks and mathew pulled back the carpet to finish stripping the baseboards of paint.

that night we primed the ceiling.

on sunday mathew stripped paint from the window sill and added more emitters to the drip irrigation system for the garden.

it’s been quite sunny and warm recently and the plants with drip emitters were doing so much better (left) than the ones without (right.) hopefully the garden will be looking more healthy in the days to come.

i spent the entire day priming the walls and in the afternoon i was able to start painting actual color! (right) here i’m painting one of the long walls but this is as far as i got because we suddenly decided to leave this wall white and only paint the end walls. we still need to paint the window and door frames, picture rail and base boards in this room. mathew put a final coat of white on the ceiling so at least that is done.

the color is called “montgomery white,” kind of a beigy, slightly peachy, cream color. this room gets a lot of light and we’re liking how subtle this color is, but it makes the yellow in the dining area seem fluorescent in comparison! we may add a lighter yellow above the chair rails in the dining area to tone it down.

did this weekend go by quickly, or what?

i spent most of it upstairs in the living room stripping paint. on sunday morning the heat gun decided to konk out (temporarily, just for me) so i continued by chipping the paint away carefully but with some force. this method turned out to be much better: toxic paint fumes weren’t released into the air, it was quieter, used less energy and surprisingly was less damaging to the trim. sometimes the heat would cause parts of the trim to fall off (because they were originally glued on?) and sometimes if i lingered too long the heat would scorch the wood.

mathew’s sister eva came over on sunday, to generously spend one of her last days in town, cultivating our backyard garden. she arrived with a tomato plant and some herb plants. mathew and eva then went to the local garden store and picked up soil, chicken poop and a variety of additional plants.

the chicken poop was definitely stinky and as eva worked she heard the neighbors asking, “what’s that smell..?” the large avocado plant from our front yard was finally transplanted in the back yard. halfway through the day we stopped to go for a walk and have lunch at cafe gratitude.

(left) mathew spent part of the day in the yard with eva and part of the day plastering the ceiling upstairs. you probably can’t tell from the size of this photo, but he’s got a glob of plaster stuck to his ear. he says the plaster often jumps off the ceiling and “attacks” him. (right) as the day was coming to an end, eva brought us downstairs to see the garden she had created for us. (soon to be) blue and purple flowers and ice plants line the bed, a jalapeno plant and the tomato plant get special buckets nestled into the ground and basil, cilantro, and thyme fill in the spaces. eva also planted some sugar snap peas from seeds. mathew created a little sign that says “garden of eva 2.”

(left) here eva is pointing out which plants need more water. (right) in its own little circle of soil to the right are two tiny basil plants, there was lots of basil and we’re looking forward to one day making pesto and salsa from our garden. thanks eva! we can’t wait to see this garden grow.

before the sun went down mathew set up his drip irrigation system. even though eva said we could let things die if we needed to, we’re really excited to see this garden take shape.

note: mathew collected soil samples from each spot in the yard. we plan to get the soil tested for lead before we start eating vegetables grown in it. this was why the jalapeno and tomato plants got their own buckets with new soil. if we find there is lead we’ll do the same for the herbs and transplant them into additional buckets.

mathew took the week off from work to concentrate on the house. the house has three levels, so depending on the noise level of his activity, i usually don’t find mathew on my first try. but i always bring the camera with me to capture the moment.

cleaning out extra thin-set (mortar) between the tiles upstairs.

in the garage, bending pipe to cover electrical wires (using a pipe bending tool uncle ken loaned him.)

(left) out in the backyard filling our new composter. (right) in the garage, making a vanity (for the upstairs bathroom) using a cabinet making tool that was a gift many years ago from his brother.

the things i missed: mathew injuring himself (and getting blood on his overalls) while doing some plumbing in the bathroom. mathew painting the bedroom with a final coat of paint. i wanted him to do a “dramatic re-enactment” photo but he just wouldn’t play along.

mathew worked from home yesterday and daniel, mathew’s dad dropped by for a visit.

after chai and hot chocolate they looked at progress upstairs and discussed the floors downstairs. (mathew and daniel used to work on hardwood floors together.)

after dinner mathew stripped some paint off the baseboards upstairs.