Category: life

After pounding away at nails on the new plywood for a couple of days, I ran out and bought a new nail gun. My hammering of nails managed to crack the plaster over the kitchen window. Need to fix it again. I don’t understand the mechanics of it, but somehow a nail gun can shoot a whole nail in with less noise, and much less rattling of the wall. One less thing to fix if I’d only known.

Do you think this could be part of a superhero Halloween costume? Of course, the cats need to inspect a new tool: Knitted ball or nailgun – decisions, decisions…

For my birthday (41!) I got a dual fluffy-cat-hug. Then I went and put the water resistant paper (“Super Jumbotex”) on the wall with the new plywood. I layer it staggered by half a sheet, so there’s always at least two sheets thick on the wall. Instead of nailing the siding directly to this, I read it’s better to leave a gap behind the siding. The gap allows any moisture that makes it through the siding to run down the wall and not be trapped between the paper and the siding. I’ve used 1/4″ thick strips of redwood stapled over the Jumbotex paper with stainless steel staples. I’ll use stainless steel screws to screw the siding to the wall through these strips.

After hours of sanding the old siding boards, Mole put a couple of coats of primer on both sides.

I’m not sure if it’s a building code requirement, or just one plumber’s interpretation of it, but there used to be three drain pipes running up here: One for the roof drain, one for the vent for the kitchen sink downstairs, and one of the drain of the kitchen sink upstairs. Seems to me it’s less cluttered to just have one pipe with sufficient diameter for both kitchen sinks, and one for the downspout. So I changed that.

Right now it’s quite far from the wall. There’s going to be a stair landing on the right of the top of the window. When that’s in, it will be easier to work on the siding over the window. I’ll also put a proper wall jack for the plumbing penetration. Caulk really does not seal these penetrations properly.

We’ve started on the second phase of the stairs. Last weekend, with Nick’s help, we tore out half of the upper part of the old stair. Ahh, so open! Now we need to build the new stairs. Above right, you can see that I’ve put most of the old siding back on. On the right of the photo is my neighbor’s fence, which I’m planning to cover (once the stairs are in).

Here’s the view out the kitchen window downstairs. You can see the stringer for the new stair lying on the deck. Above right is Arwen using Bella as a pillow. Since we came back from LA they have been more cuddly together.

We started to ‘pour’ the footings for the back stairs last weekend. Well, it was more like I got lots of blisters on my soft engineer’s hands by shovel-mixing concrete.

Because the back stairs are the second exit from our upstairs unit, I don’t want them to be out of commission for a long time. I’m leaving the old stairs up until I’ve got all the footings done for the replacement stairs. I’ll also pre-cut as much of the framing for the replacement stairs as I can so that once we tear down the rotten old stairs, I’ll be able to replace them quickly. That’s the plan.

Figuring that the concrete that’s all over the back yard would be thin and easy to break out, I first tried to chip the concrete out with a sledge and cold chisel. Two hours and two blisters later, with only one footing chipped out, I learned the error of my ways: The rented electric jackhammer did the remaining eight, and the concrete in a corner of the garden, in the same amount of time.

Being an engineer is a handicap when it comes to foundations. Once I started with putting reinforcing steel in the footings, well, I started figuring out how I could bend the bars so that they would hold their position. Hence the funky shapes!

Test-fitting the reinforcing (left), and with the formwork made out of plywood. OK, they didn’t need to be sloping, but I like it.

And then the inspection. Bella seems to see something wrong on the footing: I think she thinks I don’t have enough concrete cover between the soil and the rebar. Or maybe she likes the smell of the string. Difficult because she never wrote a field report.

So after my fun experience with chipping out the concrete, I’d planned to rent a concrete mixer. But it doesn’t fit in the car. So I got more blisters, and an aching back, by shovel mixing 16 60lb sacks of concrete to pour three footings. I’m going to see if I can strap the mixer onto the car somehow…

I was going to use this post to show the completed front steps and porch. But I forgot to take photos. Next time.

When we first looked at the house, the major thing that worried us–and actually almost held up the sale–was the condition of the back steps. So it’s a bit ironic that we just passed our four year anniversary here, and I’m finally starting on the project of replacing them.

Here’s a nice view out of the downstairs kitchen window. When my Mum was visiting, she tried to improve things by getting plants to put out there. On the right is the view at the outside of this window. Pipes everywhere, and paint  in rather poor shape. It’s hard to imagine, but this actually looks better than when we got the house (I’ve removed two pipes already, and a cable tv wire).

But nothing compares to this! These stairs are held together with paint and caulk. And the paint is seriously peeling. On the right you can see the temporary shoring I put in four years ago (I was thinking it would be there for six months max).

Last weekend mole and I measured, and I drew up some plans for the new stairs. My goal is to change the alignment slightly so that it’s not in front of the kitchen window. I’d also like to make a small deck out in this rather dingy space.

With a level, string, a tape measure and spray paint, it took me most of the day to lay out the locations of the new posts, and where their footings will be. Using a concrete saw blade, I saw cut around the outlines of the new footings. In about two hours of hand chipping, I dug one of the footing holes. There’s about five inches of concrete, then soft, dark, beautiful soil. On the right above you can see the footing hole.

I’m gonna rent a jackhammer next week–there are nine more to do.

…and some kitten photos:

Left, Arwen on the about-to-collapse-deck. Right, kitten cooking assistants (they are watching Janeen cooking).