finally: Paint!

My brother comes to visit for a few days and what do I make him do? Work on the house, of course!
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First, I had to fill all the dents and cracks with Bondo. This was the second pass with filler (first time was before I primed everything). As soon as it’s painted, all the missed dents and unfilled holes show up.

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Then we had to caulk all the joints between windows and siding, and vertical joints between the trim and the siding. We have to be a bit careful when caulking: Mustn’t fill any joints that water trapped behind the siding might need to drain out of (ie, none of the horizontal joints in the siding, or the bottom of the window sill, etc).

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Actually, painting the color on is fun. It’s the most rewarding part, makes everything look finished, and goes quite fast.

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Well, as long as you are not working with the world’s pickiest Turtle. Here I’m painting the underside of the eave with a sky-blue color.

We’ve always had wasps nesting in the eaves on the back here. While I appreciate that they are part of our environment, and help with (other) pest control, I don’t particularly want them on my eaves. So, a bit of internet research led us to a Southern tradition that we noticed in New Orleans: Painting the underside of eaves with a sky-blue (the actual color varies by region, but it’s often called “Haint” blue) supposedly makes them less likely to nest. Worth a try, and it has a cool story to go with it.

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Above left, Mole gritting her teeth waiting for super slow Turtle photographer.

So, here it is, the outside of the laundry room is painted — now on to the roof, the stairs, the inside…

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Oh, and I’ve still got to paint that pipe.

Bigfoot

We have been slowly progressing with finishing the trim around the windows of the laundry room and garden room.

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I spent almost all day getting the trim to fit in above the windows, and tight against the soffit. Had to splice on a piece at the end, because the board wasn’t quite long enough (above right). But that’s nothing: When I bought the redwood, I got tempted by the slightly cheaper, rough-sawn redwood planks intended for fences. We had to plane and sand and prime them all before putting them up. Silly Turtle – no wonder it takes so long! Now that all the trim is on around the windows, though, it’s starting to look finished.

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This (above left) is the window under the laundry room (‘garden room’). We built out a small box head above the window to shade and protect the windows from rain. Turtle being turtle, I couldn’t resist getting my router out and adding a bit of decorative edge (above right) to the trim. It also serves a purpose: Rounded edges don’t show dents, and they hold paint better than sharp corners.

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The photo above left shows the back wall of the laundry room — a bit difficult to see, as my home-built scaffolding is in the way. Above right is the corner that faces the deck. So, this is quite exciting (for me): All the exterior trim and siding are installed on the laundry room. Now we need to fill all the holes, sand, and paint.

While we were working on the laundry room trim, the cats sometimes came out to play. All the flowers have been blooming in the back yard, and the bees are loving it. Unfortunately, Bella doesn’t know the difference between a fly and a bee…
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She decided to catch a bee, and when she slapped it down on the ground, she got stung. Mole was calling her ‘bigfoot’ for the rest of the day…

the adventures of arwen and bella

arwen and bella have been busy in 2013, making new friends, having fun and getting into trouble…

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here they are with their new friend ‘flat stanley.’ flat stanley came to visit from southern california. he stayed for a few days and i showed him around our neighborhood, then he went home with a photo-essay to teach 1st graders about the mission district in san francisco.

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“WHAT IS THIS?!?!”

ice. 🙂

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bella climbed her first TREE!! before she attempted anything, she stood beneath the tree for about 30 minutes studying and strategizing. it all went well, but could have been better if it weren’t a lemon tree. the cats aren’t crazy about lemons…

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a lazy afternoon with bella and mathew.

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(above left) bella also climbed onto the roof for the first time. she jumped onto the kitchen, climbed to the very top of our roof, looked around, skidded down and decided she’d had enough.

(above right) at the very center of that photo (it’s hard to see) mathew is attaching chicken wire to keep arwen from climbing into the neighbors’ yard. she’s been very active in defending her territory and chasing other cats out of our yard. she’s lucky she’s never gotten a scratch on that pretty face of hers, because she has no idea what she is doing, but her size and total lack of fear has been effective. it’s just annoying to have to go through the neighbors’ house and into their yard to retrieve her!

but now she’s trying to start something with ‘foxy lady’ who lives with the other neighbors and never comes into our yard. i think arwen is just bored and looking for drama.

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bella LOVES her fort/cave!

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(above left) arwen snuggling with me in the morning. (she tends to be a bit camera-shy.)

(above right) bella sitting among the orchids (they have NEW blossoms!!) watching the morning bird show.

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in search of new thrills, arwen decided to climb onto our roof, and then the neighbors’ roof, and then the roof of the next house! she was gone for quite some time and mathew was worried we’d lose her forever. see that lump in the middle of the photo? that’s arwen finally reappearing and coming home.

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bella and arwen also made some new human friends from sweden! mathew’s aunt, uncle and cousin, bridget, mats and marja-sara. we took them on a guided architectural tour of san francisco and showed them the ferry building and the embarcadero.

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and a few days later mathew’s aunt and uncle, stella and chris flew in from england. we went for a nice walk, showed chris where we got married (he wasn’t able to attend) and had lunch at greens, the site of our wedding reception.

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we went to santa cruz to meet up with everyone including bridget’s daughter irya who flew in later.

(above right) international siblings: daniel, stella and bridget.

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we celebrated irya’s birthday twice because when you’re from sweden and visiting the states, with the time difference it’s hard to know exactly when to celebrate… or maybe we just wanted 2 cakes! (above left) this is cake #2 which appeared after breakfast.

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and somehow, when we weren’t entertaining or hosting we had time for thomas and sarah’s FANCY art deco themed wedding! (above left) photo booth photo. (above right) mathew and his buddy bob dancing during dinner. technically, the first dance, but who’s counting. the band was AWESOME and upon request, they played mathew’s fave, ‘bourbon street parade.’

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a spectacular view of the city with stella and chris.

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and a quick visit to the beach.

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and jumping! or flying? 🙂

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a windmill, daffodils, poppies and tulips at the queen wilhelmina tulip garden in golden gate park.

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and then, ANOTHER wedding!? with my parents at darren and jenny’s super hip and modern wedding.

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my younger brother justin was a groomsman for his childhood buddy darren.

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the bridesmaids at the end of the table, admiring the wedding cake. i honestly never looked at the cake because all the cookies, mini cupcakes and cake pops were much too distracting!! (and delicious!)

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and we had fun with yet another wedding photo booth. with and without props!

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i hope everyone is having as much fun this spring as we are.

maybe next month we’ll finally catch up on sleep and do some work on the house…

Fascia and Soffit

Mole says: “That’s an attractive title.” I think she’s being sarcastic.

The fascia is the finish board that is attached around the edge of the roof to cover up the framing underneath. We’ve been working on putting that onto the laundry room roof.

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This is how it looks before the fascia is installed. I had temporarily attached the gutter to the end of the rafters that stick out and support the roof overhang.

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As usual for us, we re-used old wood. This wood was the siding on the laundry room before. It’s not Redwood, but it’s old-growth Douglas Fir. The photo above left shows the condition of the paint on the wood: bad! And there was a lot of other stuff stuck to it, such as duct tape (waterproofing?) and caulk. After many hours of removing the old paint with a heat gun, though, the wood is in excellent condition.

Above right is the piece of wood that will be the fascia. I’ve routed a quarter round decorative edge into the wood. Couldn’t resist.

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To help the paint last better, we primed the boards on all sides before putting them up. This is supposed to help the wood to be more stable in changing humidity, so the paint lasts better. Above right: The fascia is attached. It looks better already. The framing is still exposed at its under side.

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At the corner, I carefully shaped the end of the board so that the decorative edge goes around the corner. Above right: Mole is the best painter there is. No drips, and perfect coverage.

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For the finish under the roof overhang, the soffit, I also reused the old wood. Most of the time is spent preparing the boards. Installing them takes relatively little time. I only have one small piece left to install. I’m leaving the gutter off for now, until after we replace the old leaky roof. But the next step is to install the trim around the windows.

Waterproofing part 2

The roofing felt and cement board do not themselves waterproof the deck. On this deck, I’m using the same material that we used in the showers: Kerdi. It’s a polyethylene sheeting that has a fibrous material bonded to both sides so that it sticks to thinset mortar.

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Here I’m sticking down the Kerdi over the cement board. Arwen is watching from the stairs.

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To stick it down, I use the same cement-based thinset mortar that’s used under the cement board, and also will be used under the tile. I spread it out with a notched trowel, and then lay the Kerdi onto it. Then I smooth the Kerdi down with a flat trowel. The problem we were having is the cement board was dry, so it was drying out the thinset mortar before I could spread the sheet down. We had to wet down the cement board with a water sprayer so that we had enough time to stick the Kerdi down properly.

Above right Bella is watching the progress.

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They both really like tiling, I think. Almost as much as plumbing (they love to sit in the shower and watch the water go down the drain.) Janeen got all the difficult parts of the waterproofing – like fitting it around a pipe penetration.

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See, another difficult spot: Mole attaching the waterproofing to the side of the building. Above right we are starting to lay out the tile grid. I drew a grid on the Kerdi before starting the actual tile.

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Here are the first tiles. Actually, it’s not tile; we’re using a very colorful slate. We really liked the variety of colors in the slate. Each piece is like a little work of art.

Unfortunately we learned, after buying it all, that this slate has a flaw: The color is made by thin layers of impurities in layers within the slate, so it tends to delaminate. We tried to pick through carefully to avoid the tiles with bad layers in them. Hopefully we caught them all.

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Mole did almost all the cutting. She became the tile-saw queen. Even got into some really complicated cuts to fit the slate tiles around pipes.

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Once all the slate was done, we let it dry for a week. Because the slate has such a rough surface, I used a pre-grouting sealer on the slate before grouting. Hopefully it will make it easier to clean the grout off the surface.

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The crocuses are already up! The bulbs we planted under the lemon tree last year have come back this year. So nice. Above right, you can see a rectangle that we left unfinished. I wanted to make a virtual doormat in front of the door, by changing the tile pattern.

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We used some ceramic tile that a friend gave me for the border (the same tile I used on the front porch as an accent tile). In the field, we just cut the same tile as on the rest of the deck to about 1/3 the size.

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Above left, this is the ‘door mat’ ready to be grouted. Because the tile is so colorful, we chose a grey grout. I had to get mole to pick out colors, because I’ve learned: I wanted to get a really colorful grout… The grey looks really good.

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Above left mole is wiping off the grout from the tile surface. Above right, after the grout dries for a couple of hours, we came back with a dry cloth and polished off the haze on the surface of the tiles.

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Mole is polishing up the ‘door mat.’ Now we can get back to finishing up the siding! Here’s a pic of Arwen and Bella looking out the window from their cat tree.

 

Deck Waterproofing and Christmas Eve

Well, a lot happens, and I’ve failed to post any of it. Here’s part one..

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Before we moved into this house, mole found a lampshade made out of shells that she really loved. Unfortunately when she ordered it, it was out of stock, and no longer available. Just recently, the store got some more, so she bought it. We put it up in the bedroom.

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Bella and Arwen really like it too. So, back to house projects: almost a year ago, I stopped working on the back stairs, because I started working on the laundry room. It sounds a bit as if I got distracted and went off to another project. But there’s a reason: After dealing with all the rot in this area I had decided that the deck would be waterproofed. The waterproofing needs to attach to the side of the house, but since the laundry room was so strangely built (there was no waterproofing membrane, just vertical boards) I had to rebuild the wall to add a waterproofing membrane.

One thing led to another, and we started jacking the whole thing up to level it… OK, so it did become a bigger project than I planned. The deck at the first floor sat out in the sun and rain for a year, unfinished, while we basically rebuilt the whole laundry room. I don’t want the deck to endure another winter unprotected, so it’s back to the stairs. Above right, I’m putting down heavy weight roofing felt.

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We stapled it down and lapped it, starting at the lowest side of the deck. Here’s mole just finishing up.

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The felt is just the first layer. This deck is going to have tile on it, so we put down cement board. To make sure there is a uniform surface under the cement board, we put down thinset mortar first, and set the cement board into that. We then screwed it down to the plywood.

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It got pretty late working on this. I think I finished about 10pm. I wanted to get the cement board on before the rain, which was due in the next couple of days.

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They are so sweet when they sleep together. We just can’t help taking photos.

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About four years ago, when we were doing the wallpaper stripping in the lower unit, we started stripping the wallpaper in our front hallway too. We stopped, because it smelled moldy, and we figured we’d need to replace the plaster. Well, it sat with the wallpaper partly stripped for all those years. Talk about bad Feng Shui in our entry! So I decided to just paint white over it. At least it will look better until I get around to the replacement work. Because there’s still no heating, the paint wasn’t drying: I had to bring an electric radiator down there. Arwen came down to watch the progress.

My family came over for Christmas Eve again this year. One of my Christmas traditions now is baking bread. Above right I’m just starting to mix.

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Here’s a pic of everyone who came over. Dad got a picture of Elijah for Christmas, and wanted to include him in the photo!

new orleans

last month mathew and i went to new orleans! mathew was competing in a national karate tournament and i tagged along because i’d never been there before and i’d heard there was good music and good food. 🙂

(left) here we are a little nervous before the tournament. (right) i was “volunteered” to help with the competition even though i knew nothing about score keeping! it turned out fine, i learned a lot, i think i even had fun!

mathew competing in kata.

we bought a new camera before our trip. i decided to get a canon since everyone seems to love them but i was extremely disappointed as almost every single photo was blurry! at first i thought it was “user error” but the camera turns out to have been defective. it’s at the manufacturer getting repaired or replaced. honestly, after all that, i’d rather get a completely different camera model and/or brand. oh well, maybe we’ll resell it.

this photo, of mathew competing in kumite, was taken by someone else’s big fancy canon.

that night there was a “banquet.” here is mathew with some of his friends/teammates: hans, john and christina. they look pretty tough, don’t they? christina has consistently been one of the top competitors in the nation for several years.

a blurry group photo of mathew’s team. notice every single person is wearing at least one medal? they are an impressive bunch.

(right) how did we celebrate? over 20 of us went for a walk in the french quarter that night. more than half of the group were kids and we didn’t lose anyone! (right) of course we ended up at cafe du monde for beignets. here mathew is standing on a table (ack) giving a karate demo. just kidding.

after the tournament most people flew home. mathew and i moved to a hotel in the french quarter to spend a few days exploring the area. here is our fancy jr. suite. i think it looks much fancier in the photos, but it was a nice, quiet room in a convenient location.

cafe du monde? again!? this time without 20 other people.

and just as the weather dropped to unusually cold temps, we went on a swamp tour.

…we only saw a few alligators. (they hibernate when it gets cold.)

…but it was a beautiful and scenic tour. here’s a stereotypical swamp photo, complete with spanish moss.

a very cool new orleans boy band: the drunkin’ catfish ramblers.

the band was playing across the street from the most photographed building in the french quarter.

the next day we walked to the garden district, had an amazing brunch at Surrey’s and looked at some beautiful, big, old houses.

that night we waited in a really long line at Preservation Hall.

this tiny concert was one of the highlights of our trip. the first song they played was “bourbon street parade,” one of mathew’s favorites.

it’s always nice to come home to our furry children. here’s bella playing in her paper cave.

i hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving. i can’t believe it’s almost december!

Gold Numbers

We’ve been procrastinating on the transom house numbers for a few years. It’s intimidating doing sign painting. Finally, I got around to doing it.

Mole made a template printed on paper, with the numbers reversed. She just printed the black outline and shadow. I’ll be painting the black outline and shadow on the glass first, then filling it in with real gold leaf.

After thoroughly cleaning the transom glass, I aligned and taped the paper template to the outside of the glass. The numbers are going to be painted on the inside, so I can look through the glass and paint over the black areas. Using ‘One Shot’ sign painter’s paint, I painted the number outlines on the inside of the glass.

There was quite a bit of involvement by our usual inspectors. Arwen couldn’t resist climbing the ladder to get a closer look.

There are two things that make this painting difficult. Firstly, painting is a skill that I’ve never practiced. A paintbrush is much more difficult to control than a pen or a pencil. I kept misjudging how close the glass was, and making a mess. It’s really difficult to paint a smooth, straight line. Secondly, the glass is about 1/8″ thick, so I had to look perpendicular to the glass at the outline drawing on the outside, or the lines would be offset slightly.

A few hours later, I was done with the outline. Next time, I’d make a template with just thin lines for the edges, and paint up to those, or use a color for the template. It was hard to see whether I’d painted, or it was the template, because it was black on black.

I let the paint dry for a few days, then on to the next step.

To get the gold leaf to stick, I painted gilder’s size onto the inside of the glass inside the black outline that I’d already painted. The size has to dry before the gold leaf is applied. The mistake I made, is that you only need a very thin coat of size. I painted it on too thickly, so the size wasn’t uniform and perfectly clear. Oh well, it looks a bit more aged… Then, once the size had dried, carefully, I placed gold leaf onto the numbers. Lesson here: whole sheets are better than pieces. At first I was tearing the sheets, and trying to lay them over only the number. The problem is that at the joins, there is sometimes a gap. Also, the leaf breaks whenever there’s any wrinkle in it, so it makes another gap.

I gently rubbed the gold leaf to burnish it flat, and the leaf that did not have size behind it rubbed off.

Ta-da! Our transom number completed. It looks fine from a distance. Up close, you can see my slightly jagged painting: Mole will be doing the other one, because she’s much better with a paint brush.

sep-tober life

september and october have been busy months!

last month we had a family “stay-cation” and got to play tourists in san francisco. here are my brothers at Alcatraz, justin on the left, jason on the right. that photo is blurry because my camera was dying. (no worries, i’ve since gotten a new one.)

it was a beautiful, clear day but a bit windy and cold. mole left, turtle right.

(left) my mom hiding from the wind! (right) at pier 39 after visiting the Aquarium of the Bay.

(left) look what we found! turtle and mole! (right) and a street vendor selling all kinds of evil deliciousness: pretzels, churros, corndogs and soda. there was also cotton candy.

on day two we visited the California Academy of Sciences. i think everyone’s favorite part was the rainforest. i didn’t get an good photos of them, but the butterflies in the rainforest made me very happy!

(above) my brothers and parents touching starfish and sea urchins. i even got to touch a sea cucumber!

downstairs at the academy of sciences, the aquarium is so huge, that we didn’t even see all of it because we were starving and had to stop for lunch!

(left) there were baby ostriches outside! (right) and stuffed? giraffes inside. i love giraffes. 🙂

a cool photo of my family climbing stairs to see the rooftop.

day three we had a little detour. with all my “amazing” planning, i planned for us to visit MOMA on a day it was closed! so we went to the apple store, then got onto a cable car headed for fisherman’s wharf.

we spent quite a lot of time in the Musée Mécanique, an antique penny arcade. (left) me and jason and a fun-house mirror. (right) mathew finally got to see a “whac-a-mole” game i’d told him about from my childhood.

my brothers playing games.

(left) mathew and i listened to some ragtime from a player piano. (right) i posed for a publicity shot in front of a submarine. 😉

justin found “grow a girlfriend”! 🙂

we rode the cable car back after dinner in fisherman’s wharf. and because it was so crowded justin and i volunteered to stand, hanging on to the outside of the cable car. that was FUN.

(left) jason’s cats also came for the stay-cation. here is my dad holding smokey. (right) jason and my dad walking through the palace of fine arts.

day four: we had a lot of brainy fun at the exploratorium! because my camera was acting up again, i only took photos with the chairs…

and we all agreed to extend our stay-cation by one more day so we could visit MOMA. (left) me and justin in front of a mark rothko. (right) my dad given a surprise blue bottle cappucino in front of the giant metal spider in the rooftop cafe/garden at MOMA.

thank you to my parents for a fun and low-key family stay-cation. i hope everyone had a good time!

and we saved $$$ by purchasing CityPass tickets to all the attractions. i highly recommend this option if you have out of town guests or just want to explore city attractions. it also includes a week of free muni and cable car rides.

on october 2nd arwen and bella turned TWO. they didn’t get a birthday party, but i made them a playhouse to celebrate.

they like going inside, chewing on the roof and knocking the whole thing over. they did fight over it in the beginning but they’re sharing it now. i’ve since added an escape route at the top so no one gets trapped inside.

october 20th was our wedding anniversary. we had brunch at Greens and reminisced about our wedding reception there TEN years ago.

and of course we had to walk up to the fort mason park and visit the spot where we said our vows.

it was a beautiful sunny day to be out.

and today, october 24th, is my mom’s birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! i love you. xoxo

a new coat of paint

with new tenants moving in, the first thing on the to-do list was to paint over the PINK! and for the record, not everyone hated it. i’d say only 3 or 4 people really disliked it, and everyone else thought it was kinda great. i mean, this IS san francisco.

late on a saturday night last month, mathew, bella, arwen and i got busy masking off trim, baseboards, the window, doors, ceiling and one wall that would remain white. bella and arwen weren’t all that helpful. mostly they spent their time climbing up the ladder, standing proudly at the top, then working up the courage to climb back down.

mathew applying test swatches on four different walls. after mark, jennifer, mathew and i all decided “queen’s wreath” was the best choice, the paint spraying began.

sprayed and waiting for the paint to dry… it’s amazing how many hours prep takes and then with the sprayer, painting is done in minutes.

ta-da! queen’s wreath is a slightly purple, muted, medium blue grey. mathew was skeptical about such a dark color, but we all think it turned out great and works well with the trim and doors. yay team! (mathew did most of the work.)

while mathew was inside painting, i was just outside the bedroom painting the exterior wall and window trim. in the above photos i’m sitting on the 2nd level of the rented scaffolding.

we masked the windows and trim then mathew used the sprayer to paint the final coat. the new paint looks great! as you can see, above right, we still need to sand and paint the other walls…

but the good news is the scaffolding has finally gone back to the rental company. we’d had it for FOUR months! ack. even though it was getting expensive, it had been a busy summer, we’d had lots of friends and family visiting so we barely had time to work on anything.

now on to one of our other 200+ projects.

and my next post will have absolutely nothing to do with the house. 😉