When a lot happens, little gets written

Is that how it is? Well, last year, very little happened on the house, but a lot of other things did happen: Multiple trips. Marathons. But I’ll have to write about them another time. Just wanted to try to catch up on the house a bit here.

I decided to remove some more concrete, and plant a tree:

This soil has been below concrete, and compacted for so long that it can’t be healthy. I dug out quite deep, then threw in some compost: that’s some of the buggy apples from the ground (I guess it wasn’t quite rotten yet.) I layered compost and soil all the way to the top, then planted the tree.

And here is our new little Japanese maple. I hope it thrives here.

So the pile of concrete and dirt from my earlier post sat in our driveway for about 3 months. I had it covered in plastic to prevent a mud slick when it rained. My initial plan was to stockpile it so that I’d get a dumpster and fill it in one go. Well, I just got tired of having a huge pile in the driveway (it was in the way when I took out the garbage, it was difficult to get out of the car, etc.) And life was filling in a lot more of the weekends than I’d expected.

So I used a service called yellowsack. It’s quite a bit more expensive than a dumpster per ton, but if I’m just hauling out 9,000 lb at a time, that fits into three sacks, and they come pick them up with a truck that has a crane on it. No need to reserve street space.

OK, so there’s another project that’s been keeping me busy. I spent a few months reinforcing floor joists. Remember this phot? This one notch, even though it’s about 2″ deep, has probably halved the strength of this 10″ floor joist, because the edge fibers are the most important:

So one by one, I sistered on new joists to the old ones to try to strengthen them back up. I need the joists to be strong for when I’m shoring up the side of the house to replace the foundation.

Had to move some electrical wiring, and removed some rotten wood also.

It’s quite a pain trying to get a full length joist into that space. Actually, I made them a bit short, turned them on their side and pushed one side up high, while the other side I pushed up. Once it was in the space, I could flip it up and push it against the joist. Quite a workout. Don’t ever let an electrician notch a joist.

Oh, I just liked this photo: It’s the bag on my dust collector that’s connected to my table saw and thickness planer. I like how the different wood I was working put different colored stripes.

Roses

Years ago, on an impulse I bought a rose plant from the sale bin outside Lowes for about $3. I planted it against the post for our deck, and it’s loved the location. We get flowers almost all year round. Mole took a photo:

We also did a bit of gardening in the neglected corner of the garden that gets the greywater. It’s a bit of a tricky corner, because it’s the south side, so it gets shaded by the fence on two sides, although in the past tomatoes have grown well here. We decided to get some blueberry bushes. Didn’t realize until after we got them that greywater is not ideal for blueberries, because they are so acid loving. We’ll see how it goes.

Seismic

Dad always joked that the cobbler’s children go without shoes. This house has been a bit like that: We’ve been here for almost fifteen years, and I’ve barely done any seismic strengthening on the house. So I finally decided to pick the most vulnerable wall, and make it a bit better.

But first: Mole almost finished the photo wall… and did I mention she made a rainbow cover for her keyboard?

Oh, and with all the masks, mole perfected her mask strap technique: This allows her to hang it around her neck, or loop behind ears. Super easy on-and-off without the mask-beard that seems to be the vogue right now.

When Arwen isn’t relaxing on the couch…

… she’s decided that oatmeal is one of her favorite treats.

Bella found the new power position in the bedroom…

OK, the garage door: It’s been begging for some attention for decades, and I’d just been ignoring it. Too many other pressing things, and besides: Who looks at the front of our house??? (not me, obviously).

It took about a day to get the door sanded and prepared for painting. I decided to paint it, instead of staining it. Stain and polyurethane may be nice, but they don’t last as long as paint. And it’s a garage door. I’d rather not be doing this again soon.

It took a couple of coats of primer (the door is made of redwood).

I tried to match the rest of the house somewhat. Still need to paint the walls on the sides of the door (I also want to put a couple of lights up)…

Now to the project at hand: I took off the old random pieces of wood, shelves, etc to get down to the studs on this front wall. And I found some rather nasty surprise: Looks like some termites have been living here.

I drilled and installed all the anchor bolts, but had to pause on putting up the plywood until I could get a pest inspector to look at it.

He said it was old damage. But I soaked it all in wood preservative all the same (made the garage stink).

Hmm, it didn’t happen this quickly, but here I am putting up the last of the drywall.

The amount of electrical wiring in the ceiling is quite mind boggling. And I added to it by putting in an additional four way light switch so we can turn off the garage lights as we leave with bikes.

Don’t hire me to be your electrician, OK?

OK, now almost ready to start putting shelves and cabinets back in. Got to make them first, though.

Arwen has been really enjoying the overgrown back yard. The area she’s sitting in gets watered by our shower and bathroom sink, so it stays lush and green.

Bella prefers her cat tree – like everything, originally it belonged to everyone, but now it’s exclusively Bella’s: She rules the house like a despot.

Oh, and instead of the wire shelves, we now have a beautiful fancy wood cabinet with a full height mirror. The first time we’ve had a full height mirror since we lived at Rousseau St!

July fourth weekend this year we took a trip to Tahoe to escape the war zone fireworks on our street. The girls still hate the ride, even with their thunder shirts on.

You didn’t think this was going to be a vacation, did you? What’s that?

After we finished putting in a new water heater and fixing a pipe broken by freezing last winter, we were up scaffolding installing sheet metal over holes that woodpeckers had drilled into the house. Lesson learned: Get enough scaffolding to cover the whole wall. Then you only have to assemble and disassemble it all once (instead of four times).

We didn’t realize what we were making…

The girls really like the rock cabin – particularly the spiral stairs. They even got to go outside for some walks in the rocks.

I also managed to get a run up to the ridge trail in. This is lake Tahoe on the morning of July 4th (click on the image for a larger picture)

On the way home, Bella got a bit better at traveling, but it was still traumatic. I can’t decide if the fireworks, or four hours in the car, are worse for them: Might be a wash.

How d’you like our matching jerseys?

Watching ice melt is fascinating… for Arwen.

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.

I’ll Just Quickly Fix The Fence

Haha. Nothing goes quickly. So what’s happened since May? Mark moved out of downstairs, my mum came to visit, we went to visit my brother, I rode my bike a lot, my brother came to visit here, and… I finished the railings on the stairs and deck, and started replacing some of the fence between the deck and the neighbor.

It’s Arwen–wearing her medal: 1st place cuteness.

But before I got to the fence, Mum came to visit. And we went to Taos, NM.

Misha and I managed to get some running in: My knee seems to have healed itself with all the cycling I’ve been doing over the past few years. Before I started cycling, even running to the bus would make my knee swell up the next day.

In Taos, we stayed at an ‘earthship.’ The one we stayed at was beautifully decorated with some intricate tile work, and bright, colorful paint. Mum loved it.

We also spent some time in Santa Fe. It was really hot while we were there. I can’t resist taking photos when I see bright colors – this is outside the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts.

And back near home, I went for a walk in Santa Cruz on the beach with both my parents. Haven’t done that in 40+ years!

Oh, and before I get to the house work, I did do a couple of Santa Cruz rides this summer, too. One of them round trip, the second I stayed overnight in Santa Cruz before riding back the next day.

Two sisters and nieces for a Dad’s pre-birthday while my sister was in town.

Oh, and I love this sign:

Lots of bike rides with friends…

Alrighty then: This post was about the railings on the back stairs. We built the stairs years ago, and I never got around to finishing the guard railings. So they were quite dangerous, but we got used to it.

So this summer I finally got around to making the balusters to fill in the railings.

Quite a production effort because there are so many of them. And of course, I’d started making them with a routed detail on the bottom, so that had to continue. On the side of the stairs, the balusters have to be spaced away from the side of the stair stringer. Whenever wood is held tightly together, it stays wet in the joint, so that’s where the rot starts. So I figured I’d fill the gap with waterproof glue: I glued and clamped spacers on all of the balusters.

Here are about half of them when I was staining them:

Mole and Arwen: The railing and balusters at the top landing are all white, because I made those balusters back when we built the stair. At the time I’d planned to paint all of them white.

Here I’ve got balusters on one side of the stair:

Both sides done:

The finishing touch is I added an Ipe plank on top of the railing. It strengthens the rail, but it also looks better I think.

The next project is the fence. It’s very rotten, plus my neighbor doesn’t walk their dog: He just goes out back to do his business. Sad and stinky.

When I took down the old fence, this is what their deck looked like: Utterly insect infested and rotten through. I added some temporary shoring under there so it doesn’t collapse while I’m working, and warned him.

I had to take down my stairs at the bottom to replace the fence. Arwen figured out how to climb up and down the ladder quite quickly. Also, I decided to change the stairs so that they are slightly steeper: This will make it so that there will be more head room at the bottom of the stairs.

Even though I was just changing the stairs slightly and then re-painting, it took a really long time. Stairs are painstaking work because they have to be very accurate. Any unevenness can be a trip/fall hazard.

Oh, and to add another wrinkle, the drain pipe was in the way of the old fence. Rather than build the fence around it, I decided to move the pipe over. Which which meant I had to break out out more concrete: The ever expanding project.

While I had the jackhammer, I decided to expand the bed for the rose bush. This was waaay more work than I’d bargained for, because there was an old concrete footing there, full of rebar. Really hard to break up. Before on the left, six hours later on the right.

At the deck level, I built the wall up tall enough that we can’t see over to the neighbor’s side. If the stink still comes wafting over, I’ll put windows up at the top. Still need to add the finishes to make it look more like a fence, but the wall part is done:

I think mole snapped this photo of Arwen while mole was riding zwift in the garden room. It’s a bit worrying riding on the trainer with the cats in the room: There’s a fast spinning back wheel that could really hurt them. We don’t usually let them in, but sometimes they insist.

Oh, we had a party: Mark, who’s lived downstairs for about five years, is going to Lithuania. So we had a big leaving party/birthday party for him. We strung lights up in the back yard, and it was a great time.

We put a Lithuanian flag out front, too!


On hot days, Arwen and Bella stretch out to try not to over heat. Looks like they are flying:

Mole and I stopped in at Davenport on the way down to Santa Cruz for dad’s birthday; wandered around a little. I guess you can have great views even when not riding a bike:

Bella says: “why are all your photos of Arwen?”

Ooops, one more Arwen photo.

Taking shape

Arwen just loves climbing into bags…

Phew! It’s been a long haul, but I’m starting to get drywall up. That gives some shape to the space:

Getting drywall on the ceiling, and the insulation up, was a major effort. Holding a 4ftx8ft piece of drywall over my head, by myself, while screwing it in was hard enough. But there are no 90 degree angles in this place, so every measurement seemed to be off and I had to lift it into place to test fit multiple times. Ugh.

The “before” photos would have been daytime…

Insulation…

In the toilet room (above right), I added wood into the wall behind where the sink will be (so I have something to screw into).

This is the same view with purple (moisture resistant) drywall installed.

This is looking at the doorway into the toilet on the right, and the door into the garden room on the left.

It’s actually looking like a ‘garden room’…

And the rain continues here in California: We’ve started using the garden room as a workout room. I bought a trainer and mounted my bike to it. Mole even tried it last week – we’re still not very familiar with bike trainers, so it’s been a bit bumpy (but not as bumpy as all the crashes on wet pavement I’ve been having lately).

Headroom is a big problem in this space: there’s none. A big duct runs from the furnace to the outside wall for the kitchen above. I have to walk under this duct. After I hit my head two or three times, it’s usually enough for me to do something about it. I changed the duct from round to flat and thin, so there’s just enough room for me to walk under it without losing more of my remaining limited supply of brain cells.

Here’s the duct installed. You can see bare studs around that will soon have drywall on to make walls…

More views of the space between the garden room and the garage…

Above left is the state of the slab in this space. Needs some work. Above right I’m getting drywall on the “garage back room” (between the garage and the garden room).

The green drywall is also moisture resistant – just a different brand. The photos above are the walls that were bare studs in the duct photo above.

Meanwhile, we are working on the guard railings around the stairs and deck at the back. Above left is mole sanding the pickets. I’ve lost track of how many years it’s been: This is the last unchecked item on my todo list for those stairs.

It wouldn’t be a turtle project without some intricate details. Cedar: I love the smell of it.

We still haven’t decided if we’ll paint it, or use deck stain. I’m leaning to the latter, both because it’s faster, and because it’s sad to cover up this beautiful wood.

England, the Garden, and Tile (plus kitties)

Well, one of the big things that happened last month is that I went to England with Misha. It was a short visit (the pictures are linked to a larger version).

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On the way up to Mum’s house on the first day, we walked through the farmers market – I got a bit turned around, and didn’t realize which street we were on and assumed it was really small this time of year (above left in front of the only vege stand we found on this street). Above right: “Changed Priorities Ahead” (hopefully they are enjoying themselves more).

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We went back to the farmers market with mum – a bit late as everything was getting closed down for the day. We still got some yummy flapjacks, though.

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We went on a long hike to the Woolpack (famous because the author Lorrie Lee used to love this pub), had a pint and some “chips”, then continued the hike up Swift hill. On the way up the hill, we came across paintings of badgers in many different costumes on the fence posts. There must have been over thirty paintings. They were painted as part of a protest against the “badger cull“.

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The weather was quite warm (for February), but drizzled on the day of our hike. This is the view from the top of Swift hill, looking down over the Stroud valley toward the river Severn (off in the haze somewhere…)

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Mum and Misha sitting at the top of Swift hill (just before Misha pulled out some energy bars to share). The snowdrops were all out – couldn’t help trying to catch a photo on the way down (above right).

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Here I’m trying to take a selfie with the black sheep. Who isn’t a black sheep in some way?

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The flash made their eyes glow. Kinda creepy?

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We rented a very little house in Stroud to stay in for the week. Here’s Misha locking the front door. Yes, we did have to duck to walk in. Fortunately, the ceilings were a little higher!

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Above left: breakfast! Above right, a photo of Misha, Mia and me from about fifteen years ago. Maybe more.

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We also took a trip up to Manchester to visit a family friend (our second mum Jaya, from when we lived in a house filled with eleven children and three single mums). I’d not seen her for over ten years – Misha probably more than 20!

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Mum wanted us to break down a brick wall and do some hedge trimming while we were visiting. I refused to climb up a ladder on the sloping driveway to trim branches – so Misha did it!

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Above left is a photo outside mum’s house. Above right: Does this product name look appetizing to you (Gü)?

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One last photo before we took a train back to London.

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Hmm, so I also did some tile work. Actually, I finally finished the tile on the floor in the laundry room. This is the hexagon tile, with some black tiles used to create patterns. Initially, I was planning to do a border in this room. Then we decided to just do the same patterns as the bathroom, and also something in the middle. And then I added an extra little circle at the center of each wall line. And then (see later)…

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Above left, a detail of the pattern in the middle, and above right is one of the only cut edges (at the door).

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Above is how I looked all day. My knees hurt.

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Above left you can see why there was very little tile cutting. I could just continue the tile under the base boards, and didn’t need to finish them tight against the wall (actually, it’s much better not to, so there’s some expansion room).

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It’s hard to see in the photo, but instead of cutting the baseboards both at 45 degrees at the corner, I have butted them together, and hand-cut one of them so that the piece on the left fits into the grooves on the piece on the right. This is the way it was always done before power saws, and actually results in a joint that is less likely to open as the wood expands and contracts. It’s much more work (of course).

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Here’s the tile all in, and grouted. When I was installing the tile, I ran out of white tile (about half a square foot short), so tried adding even more patterns at the doorways with black tiles, so that I could stretch the remaining number of white tiles. In the end, I just had to buy more tile. Now it reminds me a bit of how some people’s tattoos look: Lots of different patterns strewn around. I think it’s about as permanent, too, because I can’t see myself wanting to do this again!

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Now the baseboards are all in, the floor is done. While I was putting the baseboards in, I stood on pieces of plywood because it’s a bit early to be walking on the tile (needs a week to cure). I’ll start painting next week.

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We had a few weeks of reprieve from the El Nino rains, so I rented a jack hammer and broke out more of the concrete in the back yard. Last year, the pear tree did very poorly in the location I’d put it (even though it did gallantly give us some fruit). The poor tree had almost no leaves, and was being crowded out by some aggressively drought tolerant plants. So I decided to move it. Hopefully the move doesn’t kill it, although the previous location would have anyway.

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Here’s after the concrete is all out, and I’ve added mulch. The pear tree used to be on the far left of the upper left photo. Now its at the far right of the same photo. More sun and space. Fingers crossed. Above right, you can see what remains of our peach tree after the tree-jumper incident. It blossomed this spring, and is looking very healthy right now, so I think it will recover.

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Mole was taking photos, so I think the texture of the pile of broken concrete appealed to her…

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Our garden grows nasturtiums!

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While I had the jack hammer, I also broke out some of the concrete in the room underneath the laundry room. We’re calling that room the ‘garden room’. I plan to make it into a place to brew beer 😉 But there’s a bunch of plumbing sticking out of the concrete that I need to remove.

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We didn’t get many crocuses this year – but here’s one!

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Bella sometimes likes to climb inside my shirts (when they are clean)…

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This time she fell asleep in it!

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Here’s Arwen looking blissful on a blanket that Mole knitted specially for her!

Brewing, Tiling, Riding, Waterproofing, Siding…

Wow time goes by quickly. Well, I’ve actually done something in the last few months. And here’s some of it:

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I bought a jug of apple juice at the farmer’s market, added some yeast & a bubbler: Cider! Much easier than brewing beer. I finished laying the tile in the laundry room bathroom, but am going to wait on grouting it until I’ve also tiled the laundry room.

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And of course, we rode AIDS/Lifecycle together this year. Here’s a picture from the opening ceremony.

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Here’s me trying to capture the party atmosphere in the Cow Palace…

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A photo with our friend Alex who rode one day, but work stopped him from doing the whole week.

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Well, these front steps have been an ongoing project. Seems I have to fix them every year. The temporary fixes from past years finally gave out. The photo shows how the front of two steps broke off completely. There is also another problem with these steps: The height between steps varies too much for code compliance, so it was high time I did something about it.

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The reason the step heights vary so much is originally they were built with thick boards. Then (before we got the house), some repairs were done with thinner wood. To fix this, I had to make new steps out of thicker wood. I re-used some old wood that I still have in the garage. Lots of planing, gluing and clamping to make boards that are wide enough for the steps.

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I forgot to take photos while I was working on it. There’s one photo where I’ve replaced part of one step. I also replaced the step below it. The one below that was concrete, but it had a piece of wood glued on top. This made the step heights very uneven, so I took the wood off: The reason they’d glued the wood on top was the concrete underneath was cracked and uneven. So I had to repair the concrete, also. Above right is after I’ve repaired the bottom five steps. Looking further up, you can see that some of the upper steps are also uneven and need to be fixed: Next year!

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OK, to head off the ‘no cat photos’ complaint: I think Bella was sleeping under the table, and Arwen (love-bug) decided she needed some cuddling. They were actually sleeping like this for a while.

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One other project that I got partially finished with, but stopped because of ALC and life, was the siding and waterproofing on the back. In the photo above left, you can see where I left things for the past two years. The building paper is exposed (getting damaged by the sun), and I’ve “sealed” the top with some blue tape. Above right, I’ve taken out the wall of the back porch, so that I can take out the siding boards and re-use them. Clearly the rear porch was not part of the original building construction.

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Here’s all the siding removed. The wiring for the porch lights is hanging loose, and you can see in under the roof.

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Here I’m getting plywood on. It’s a bit complicated because the drain for the kitchen sink goes through this wall. Luckily (for the house) we’ve had very little rain for the past few years. But there’s predictions of ‘el niño’ this year: hopefully lots of rain. But I have to get this properly waterproofed and finished first.

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Here I’ve added the porch wall back in. Wiring is now much neater.

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The siding was is very poor shape. Lots of holes cut for various plumbing iterations over the life of the house. But the wood, once the peeling paint is removed, is still good. Thousand-year-old redwood is too good to waste. So I carefully repaired all the boards.

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Here are the same two boards after I’ve glued in pieces to repair them, and sanded ready for primer.

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The photo above left is titled “One Weekend of Work”: Repairing and re-using the old siding takes masses of time. Six boards in two days: Not the sort of thing a contractor would do. Above right, I’m getting the building paper on, and waterproofing around the drain pipes. I also got a new wall vent for the attic space.

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Here are photos of the process of putting the siding back on. Cutting around the pipe penetrations is tricky.

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And here’s where I’ve got to. I’ve ordered new windows for the porch, so can’t go much further here until they arrive. Above right is a view under the porch.

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Here I’ve added insulation, and installed wood to cover it. This is re-used wood left over from the laundry room wainscot. It still needs some trim around the edges and paint, but looks much better – and the porch will be more insulated now.

Tile Shopping

We had a week of hot weather for San Francisco. The poor cats have been losing their summer coats and getting their winter coats at the same time.

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Above is Bella trying to stay cool.

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Continuing on the shower rebuild in the laundry room bathroom, I made the shower pan. Because I’m using Kerdi as the waterproofing membrane, I use their special drain flange, and cast it into a bed of mortar.

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Above left is the finished shower pan. Above right mole is putting bondo onto the pressure treated wood we used for the back stairs. The wood gets incised when it’s treated, so has all those holes all over it. Looks much better when filled.

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Above: Before and after filling with Bondo.

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Over a year ago I made some balusters for the back stairs. I just got them primed, and will put them up soon.

But the most interesting thing we’ve done lately is go to Fireclay tile and we bought fancy tile for the bathroom. Above right are two nice decorative pieces we’ll add in. The only downside is that this tile is $$expensive$$ !!

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We went to their ‘boneyard’ and bought a couple of boxes of seconds at about 1/4 the price. Now we need to figure out exactly how much more we need and order it.

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Some other tile we looked at was at Latch tile in San Francisco. The person working there was super helpful and patient. Above left, cool shapes, but how to use it? Above right, these tiles are beautiful (reminded mole of her parent’s house) — maybe we’ll use a few as accents.

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We’ve been watching a lot of Downton Abbey lately… Funny, with all the fancy stuff “upstairs”, the thing that caught our eye was the tile in the kitchen. We may do something like this on the floor in the laundry room & bathroom. Above right Bella came to inspect right before I started plastering.

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This is the first time I’ve used basecoat plaster. It’s similar to plaster, but has sand in it. It goes on slightly rough so that the plaster sticks to it properly. Above you can see the ceiling after the basecoat is on and drying.

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On top of the basecoat, I put a finish coat of veneer plaster. I forgot how much I enjoy plastering. Yes, I did get quite a bit in my face and on the floor while working on the ceiling. Still, it’s very satisfying to start out the day with rough uneven surfaces, and end with perfectly smooth white plaster.

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In the laundry room, I taped all the joints. I don’t need to be very careful with the taping, because it will be covered in veneer plaster.

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Next: More plaster!

from cobbler to cement board

Our peach tree gave us lots of peaches this year. The tricky thing with peaches–at least the ones on our tree–is they all ripen at the same time.

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The peaches were not as sweet as last year, so Janeen made lots of peach cobbler. MMmmm. Especially good with vanilla coconut bliss.

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Arwen still loves to get into bags. I think she’s amazed at how a space can be created out of a folded up piece of fabric. She loves to be carried around in the bag, too. Oh, and we don’t need a shredder anymore: Arwen does a fine job of it. We have to be careful never to leave anything important out, though.

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Here’s a photo of me and Bella (above left.) Arwen and Bella are having a discussion about who gets to shred this piece of paper.

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This is an unusual view: Looking straight up at the ceiling of the bathroom-to-be beside the laundry room. I’ve used cement board on all walls and the ceiling.

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Above left is the shower with the niche, and above right is the space for the toilet.

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Here is mole painting on the plaster weld. I’m going to plaster the walls on two sides, and tile the remaining walls. Above right I’ve done a first pass with alkali resistant mesh and plaster over the joints. I forgot how much I enjoy plastering.

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Here’s the skylight in the laundry room. I finally put the drywall around the inside of the skylight. The photo is taken from two opposite sides of the skylight. Above right you can see I have curved the piece where the ceiling steps back (see above left on the right side). Next step is plastering – not sure if I know how to plaster a curve. This will be a challenge.