rainy weekends

this is what happened 2 weekends ago. i’m not even going to try and give any excuses for why i’ve been so slow…

ductpipes

(left) me insulating mathew’s “squct”. (right) mathew outside making LOTS of noise cutting and removing old cast iron pipes.

nail pullerrain barrel

(left) one of my favorite tools: the nail puller. (right) one of mathew’s new tools: a rain barrel.

pipesduct

(left) mathew’s strange pipe garden collection in the garage. (right) the new “squct” is now much friendlier to mathew’s head/height.

mathewwainscoting

(left) for most of the afternoon i helped mathew install new pipes outside the house. it was raining but not pouring. sorry this photo is kind of dark, we work pretty late… (right) and when i wasn’t helping i was stripping wainscotting panels. these are done, although it’s probably hard to tell. next they’ll need sanding, filling and painting.

rain barrelrain barrel

we’ve been getting so much rain over the last few weeks. mathew finally attached the roof rain spout to the barrel. he was so excited when the rain started saturday night that he ran downstairs to check it but there wasn’t that much rain yet. by sunday morning it was full!

pipepipe

mathew cutting and hammering all that old rusty cast iron pipe, making it smaller to fit in the trash. what a big noisy mess he made! strange that you can just destroy cast iron with a hammer….

pipespipes

pipe photos mathew took. i don’t know if he was just documenting or wanting to describe something…

pipesducts

more pipes, and ducts. the plumbing and heating ducts are now done and the work can continue upstairs in the bathroom.

hello stranger!

soooo… it’s been a couple of weeks since our last post. two weekends ago we took some time off from the house.

misha & mathewmisha & mathew

i saw friends in the bay area while mathew was in new york visiting his brother, misha.

plumbingplumbing

last weekend: valentine’s day marked 15 years that mathew and i have been together. and how did we celebrate? with plumbing! i helped with cleaning and prepping recycled copper pipe, while mathew (left) added them to the bathroom plumbing. (right) i even sweated (soldered) my first joints! sorry, no action photos, i think mathew must have been supervising so that i didn’t burn anything… i was nervous but it was quite easy. and mathew says that none of my joints had leaks. yay!

ductduct

later mathew decided to take a perfectly good, round heating duct and make it rectangular. (left) he started by stomping on it. at that point i couldn’t figure out where he was going with it or how it would end up…

ductduct

but it’s mathew. so, of course it turned out just fine. (right) his finished “squct” (square+duct)!

janeenplumbing

(left) meanwhile i was putting insulation on hot water pipes. (right) and connecting cast iron pipes (heavy!) with rubber connectors and metal clamps.

drillingfir

(left) mathew drilling a hole in a fir joist below the bathroom, for a pipe to run through. (right) that circle cut from wood nearly 100 years old, smelled so amazing, like really sweet, warm pine. too bad you can’t smell it, all you get is this photo.

tapestore

(left) a heating duct connection that i sealed with aluminum tape. (right)) our recycled “plumbing store”! magically it always has exactly what we need, even the lengths are just about perfect.

doordoor

(left) on monday morning mathew was downstairs working on something that felt and sounded like an earthquake. i went downstairs and found him working on the double, sliding doors in my office. somehow he’d removed one side and was cleaning the track. (right) and i’m excited to introduce you to my new office door! sorry, i hadn’t removed the plastic film on the glass yet,… and the photo is blurry… but isn’t it pretty?

kitchenkitchen

while i sat in the kitchen, quietly cleaning tile for re-use, mathew came along and cut a hole in the floor. i have often mentioned his love of cutting holes in floors… this one is for a heating duct and will eventually have a register, hopefully a pretty one.

hingessquct

(left) it is exciting to know that the beautiful victorian hinges that came with the house (that were covered in gloopy paint) can be cleaned up and made to look like new again, thanks to a heat gun and a wire brush. (right) mathew’s squct installed!

team gee

the gee sisters, mae, nancy and stef, generously spent super-bowl sunday helping us with the house.

strippingstef

it was a warm day, perfect for stripping paint in the backyard. (left) mathew, stef and nancy setting up their work stations. (right) stef getting started stripping paint and adhesive from wall panels that we will re-use as wainscotting in the downstairs bathroom.

nancysanding

(left) nancy using mae’s new heat gun. these volunteers bring tools! (right) in the garage, mae and i sanding doors. mae became obsessed with sanding this entire door today. mathew thinks he may have found someone even more meticulous than him…

lunchshucking

(left) mae’s delicious lunch of spinach and bean soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, we are completely spoiled, our helpers even bring lunch! we had a nice picnic outside. (right) later in the day stef and i cleaned tile, this process looked a lot like shucking oysters. mae took a break from her sanding to see what we were doing.

gardeningplumbing

(left) nancy decided to trim the very overgrown garden ground cover. (right) mathew’s plumbing work station. soon after there was major plumbing drama in the garage.

before our friends left, we had a late afternoon/evening dessert of berry shortcakes that nancy made. they were extremely photogenic but so yummy i forgot to take photos!

plumbingdoor

plumbing and sanding went late into the night. actually, it is almost 11pm and we haven’t had dinner yet and mathew is still downstairs working as i write this post…

slight detour

on saturday, i mentioned that i’d really like to replace my plastic csi office door for my real door (that has been sitting in the garage for months.) mathew was more than happy to change his agenda for the day because plumbing is his least favorite activity to work on.

doorwindow

(left) mathew planing the door to fit the frame. (see, my ugly csi plastic door? still in place to keep the dust away from my office equipment as i sanded the door frame.) (right) i’m finally painting the frame for the window in the living room. it was sunny and warm, a perfect day to have the windows taken out and painted.

doordoor

(left) mathew clamping wood to the top and bottom of the door. victorian door frames are taller than today’s standard doors. we purchased this door from a local discount place and it was easier and cheaper to alter this door than place a custom order for the correct height. plus, settling of the house caused the door frame to become slightly off-square, so a thin angled piece was added to the top of the door. (right) here mathew is lying on the floor drilling the hole for the door knob while the wood glue is drying.

ceilingceiling

and finally on to the plumbing! mathew wouldn’t be mathew unless he was cutting holes in ceilings, floors and walls. (he needs to get to the pipes…)

all over the place

last weekend we spent all of our time in the downstairs bathroom. this weekend we worked in and around the bathroom and we had helpers.

dadmom

my dad was in the downstairs bedroom drilling holes in the wall for blow-in insulation. my mom and i were in the garage pulling nails from wood, then separating floor tile from particle board, saving any reusable tile to donate to Scrap.

mathewjaneen

mathew was in the bathroom cutting and pulling up floor boards and making tons of noise. i’m sure he was doing more than this but i don’t know exactly what he was doing. (maybe he’ll add to this.)

kitchendad

later my mom and i moved upstairs to sort through the blue wall tile that we’ll need to reuse and fill in the gaps in the bathroom. and my dad drilled more holes in the kitchen wall. the system is: you drill holes at the top between all the studs, then you drop a string down with a weight to find where the fire blocking horizontal wood pieces are, this is about half-way down the wall where the blow-in insulation would be stopped within the space, then you drill another hole below the fire blocking.

janeenjaneen

i spent most of sunday sanding the double-doors in the living room downstairs, first the large flat surfaces with the power sander and then the smaller and curving parts by hand. i spent about 5 or 6 hours on this.

joistjoist

mathew was working on moving and replacing joists below the bathroom. the previous owners had cut out parts of the joists: BAD. and the new layout of the bathroom causes the plumbing to move, so a couple joists needed to be repositioned.

vent prepducts

in the evening we moved on to heating ducts in the garage. the new bathroom layout means these will get moved around too. mathew is hoping something can be done so that the new ducts will NOT be the perfect height for hitting his head on…

ductstinman

mathew pulled apart all the pieces leading from the furnace to the bathroom and i scraped off the asbestos tape. (right) now we’ve got enough old and new parts for an interesting tinman…

total destruction OR plan A, B, C, D, etc.

it was a weekend full of bathroom demolition. our friend stef has offered to help with demo many times and we would have contacted her to help last weekend if we had known it would involve this much destruction…

wall tilefloor tile

(left) blue wall tiles, the covered about 75 % of the walls! (right) crazy, slippery, busy floor tiles. say goodbye to those!

doordoor

the weekend started with mathew cutting the closed off door from the bedroom to the bathroom.

doorwindow

(left) originally we had hoped the door would be a clean, easy opening and that the tub could stay in place. when the door was finally opened the shower wall obstructed about 1/4 of the door. and it is already a very narrow door by today’s standards… (right) mathew re-framing the original window opening where the old/new bathroom door was.

janeenfloor

(left) there are now lots of scary pieces of wood filled with tons of nails. pulling them makes our work space safer and we can reuse the wood. (right) mathew pulling up floor tile. he had a fast method: he pulled up a vertical and a horizontal line of tiles then with a circular saw, cut the plywood they are attached to (without disturbing the subfloor.) he then pulled up large pieces of plywood covered in tile. a lot of the tile is still useable and we might donate it to Scrap.

wallwall

(left) mathew removing the shower wall, where i have removed most of the tile. (right) wall removed, door unobstructed.

walljaneen

(left) mathew removed the gypboard on the left side to find a nice surprise: old plaster wall and panelled wainscoting. we were hoping to find the same wainscoting on the right side of the door. no such luck. (right) here i am cleaning up tile i’ve pulled off the walls. we need to fill in spaces around the shower and old window so i’m doing my best to salvage the old tile.

janeenmathew

chipping away at tile…

plansplan

mathew became obsessed with figuring out configurations for the bathroom. he really had his heart set on putting in a clawfoot tub, but i don’t think my grandmother would use it and our friend, bob (who has experience working with seniors and bathroom designs) recommended a shower with a removable seat. last night after taping a shower outline on the floor and moving around the vanity and toilet we decided on a layout, with a 47″ shower and minus the clawfoot tub.

bathroombathroom

the current state of the bathroom. (left) where the toilet and vanity will go. (right) where the shower will go. we’re not in love with the tile, it’s far from victorian, but it will save a lot of time and be much less wasteful to keep it, at least for the shower area.

raw, vegan, chocolate cake

on wednesday my cousin larry came to help with the house.

larrylarry

before having lunch at Herbivore, larry and i painted closets. after lunch we did some shopping at Rainbow then came back for more painting and sanding. here larry is sanding the double doors in the living room.

cake

for dinner larry created a tasty and satisfying raw, vegan salad and chocolate cake. yum. thanks larry! please feel free to visit anytime!

last weekend

i’ve really been dragging my feet with making these posts…

doordoor

(left) last friday mathew planed the door so it would fit into the door frame, as the bears watched.

closetanaglypta

(left) the closets are now completed with drywall. (right) and the anaglypta gets some paint.

bathroombathroom

(left) a hole that shows the right side of the door that leads into the bathroom from the bedroom. the original owners had closed this door but left the door and frame on the bedroom side. (right) toilet removed.

mathewbathroom

(left) and next goes the sink and vanity. and the cabinets and mirrors.

tapingbottle

(left) all four closets now have drywall and taping done. we worked together in cutting and installing the drywall as well as taping with topping plaster. (right) morning sunlight streaming into the upstairs bedroom.

hope everyone had a good week!

happy 2009

paintcolors

we spent hours sanding and filling the door taken from the basement. this photo shows where a piece of wood had been used to fill where the door handle had been moved, many years ago. janeen counted the layers of color. it was archeology:

  1. dark green
  2. dark grey green
  3. apple green
  4. dark brown
  5. medium grey
  6. mint green
  7. medium grey (again – i guess they decided they liked the color)
  8. cream
  9. pale turquoise
  10. off white
  11. white

janeenbiskitjoinerscrewing and glueing the door extension

we then added a piece of wood to the bottom of the door. the door from the garage is shorter than the opening upstairs by about 5 1/2″. We just added a piece of 2×6 from my offcuts pile onto the bottom of the door. janeen used the biscuit joiner to cut slots for wood ‘biskits’ that will hold the new piece of wood to the bottom of the door. she also screwed in two 6″ long bolts to help clamp the wood while the glue dried.

it’s not ideal. panel doors are built with vertical pieces on each side, and horizontal pieces connected between them. the vertical side members help to prevent the horizontal pieces from warping. the piece we added has no vertical pieces, so it may warp. the bolts may help. we’ll see.

woodshavings_20090103dumpy's palace

the next day, i planed the wood flush with the face of the door.

above right: dumpy has a palatial new home. janeen finished off most of the trim painting in the front entry foyer.

begin demo of closet doorlookingupcloset_20090103

meanwhile, i tore out the makeshift ceiling and walls in the closets between the bedroom and the living room and framed in a wall between the living room and the bedroom. our plan is to create a bookshelf on the living room side, and a closet on the bedroom side out of this short passage between the rooms.

I made a hatch to get at the space over the closet in case I need to get to the plumbing under the bathroom above, and added in wiring for a light in each of the three closets.

janeensviewframing closet

above left: the view janeen saw of me on new years day. on the right, the framing is installed.

installing gypcloset ceiling

we got most of the gyp board on.

janeenfastdoorsjaneendoors

janeen painting the trim around the living room doors.

halllightclosehall light

i cleaned up the light in the entry hallway. you’ll have to look back to see how it looked before. but i really like the retro patterned glass. i also painted the cover plate at the top of the light to match the walls: janeen calls it a Mercedes hubcap.

bathroom doorbathroom door open

ok, one last thing: this door between the bedroom and the bathroom was closed up. we are planning to re-open it. here you can see how insulation and a wall was framed in front of the door. get ready for ugly.

holiday progress

electricalelectrical

to rewire lights downstairs, mathew had to open up the floor upstairs between our dining room and living room.

electricalelectrical

he also had to open up the floor in the living room.

uninsulatedgas pipe

(left) and he spent a lot of time in the last uninsulated crawl space next to the living room. (right) here is the new junction box mathew installed, next to the gas pipe that used to run downstairs for the gaslights.

tapetape

my parents came over on saturday and helped with tape masking, trim filling, sanding and painting.

janeenparents

mathew worked on electrical wiring while i painted trim and closet/cabinet interiors (green!)

owieowie

late that night we pulled up the special green paint masking tape and sadly it pulled up the primer and 2 layers of color. it didn’t happen everywhere but it did do quite a bit of damage, especially for something that was supposed to save us time. more sanding and painting will be needed.

paintpaint

on sunday i finally took some photos of the new pink paint in the living room. and you can see the green closet interior.

anaglyptaanaglypta

mathew and i spent almost all of sunday installing anaglypta on the wainscoting in the entry foyer and hallway. it is applied like wallpaper but with a heavy weight paste. because it is paper the moisture from the paste can make the paper expand so it is applied to the wall and then trimmed in place.

anaglyptaanaglypta

this new anaglypta is not as obvious as the thicker lincrusta we removed, but because it’s a very frilly, victorian look we like that it doesn’t stand out too much. it will be painted the same semi-gloss white as the trim so it doesn’t add color but subtle texture and interest below the chair rail.