Mildred Metamorphosis

The Endless March of the White Doors

2012-01-09T23:30:00.000-08:00

Pop Quiz, Hotshot!

As Dennis Hopper has so deftly foreshadowed, here's a pop quiz for you! Yes, you! Don't get up, don't think too long, just answer: How many interior doors in your house? I'll give you a few seconds...

... done?

I bet your first guess was wrong. More specifically, I bet you under-estimated the number of doors. It is amazing how many freaking doors a house has. Rooms, bathrooms, and the dang closets. Oh, the closets. The never-ending parade of closet doors.

When does it matter that you have so many doors, you may be asking. If so, you and I are going to get along just fine. If not, get your head in the game! It matters how many doors you have when you have to paint all of them. ALL OF THEM. Oh man.

So we have 11 doors. Eleven doors in a 3 BR house. Jiminy! Since we painted the interior of the house (including the ceiling) before moving in (whoa, I just realized I didn't blog about that!) most of the doors looked something like this (notice the beautiful hardwood floors):

They all had various amounts of paint on them. We figured when we moved in that we'd replace them eventually, so didn't care too much about protecting them. We've lived with them that way for a couple years and now wanted to make them look presentable.

Replacing doors is actually quite expensive. Would have been about $100 per door depending on if we got pre-hung or slab and if we did the install or paid someone to do it (pffff... as if!).

Painting them and buying new door knobs for all of them ended up costing a little under $200. A pretty good investment, though we lost the garage for a while for the painting assembly line:

A single door took two days. One day per side. Did the primer early in the day then the semi-gloss later in the day. Next day would flip the door. I had the whole thing pipelined so that I would have two doors done each day while starting two new doors each day, so 4 doors were getting painted at once (one pair halfway done each morning and two new ones). The cardboard boxes you see made quite handy paint stands. The weather was quite cold, so everything dried pretty slowly.

Here's a finished door (exciting!):

Maybe I'll post more pictures later, but probably not. This was a long job and a bit messy since I'm not the best painter. Actually, one summer in college I took a job painting. After our first week on the job, the boss/owner had a party at his house and I was the only painter there with paint all in my hair. I quit that job soon after since we basically got paid based on how fast we painted and I was slow. Basically a bunch of manual labor for minimum wage. Made more working for Blockbuster the rest of the summer. And I got free rentals! What was I talking about again?

Front Door Action

2011-12-18T22:42:00.000-08:00

So, about a year ago, we replaced our front door. I'll more or less just throw the pictures up here with a few comments. Actually, that's all I usually do, isn't it? Blogging!

It turns out to replace a door, one of the first steps is to remove the door you already have. Notice this was happening around the time we were doing the painting of our house (which I have yet to chronicle), which is why the trim looks goofy. Here's the original door with security screen, security door removed, then whole door removed:

Some of the "gotchas" on this job were all the bonus nails I found while trying to remove the door. One of the feistiest sets of nails I've come across were coming up from the threshold. That made things tricky since I wasn't expecting them:

Nails are much nicer when you expect them. Normally you won't step on them or break stuff yanking on them if you know they are there. There was another couple of bonus nails in the interior trim. They were driven in through the top trim into the side trims. Ugh. These nails made it so I had to destroy the interior trim (costing more than one would expect to replace):

Here's how stuff looks from the inside before you remove the door, but after the trim is gone (notice the sweet, original curtain):

Luckily the threshold was in good shape and didn't seem to need any special leveling attention. Some sites/videos talk about how to get this level/fixed if needed (notice the sweet entry tile job.. as previously blogged):

One other big "gotcha" was that the new door didn't quite fit. Oh, it was supposed to. Had the same dimensions (on paper) as our house required. But the head clearance wasn't quite there. I had to chisel away about a 1/4" from the head stud to get it to fit. This really burned me up since all the videos online show the door magically sliding into place. While my door doesn't fit. Lame. Meanwhile, it was getting dark outside. Once you remove the door, you're kind of in limbo... the job has to get done, else you won't have a door all night. Anyway, after the chiseling, things went fairly smoothly. I did have to add a couple screws through the side on the outside of the door since I was working by myself and couldn't hold it in place very well. They look ugly out there, but I still need to putty the whole thing up and paint it anyway.

So, here's the final product, complete with gray trim:

The last issue I had with this, was that the door took a lot of force to close. Turns out the sweep on the bottom of the door was much too tight against the threshold. This is odd because it is a pre-hung door. I think the problem was that the screws that are supposed to let you lower the threshold were totally uselss. They just spun in place and the threshold never lowered. I finally had to cut some of the sweep away with a razor and is shut OK while keeping it sealed from the elements.

Ta-da!

Exterior Outlet Installation

2011-12-18T21:22:00.000-08:00

There is still quite a backlog of blogging to do, but I thought I'd try to get ahead of the curve a little and post about this weekend's big project: Adding an exterior power outlet (an exhilarating follow-up to my previous outlet-themed post).

This was somewhat spur of the moment, though it has been on my wishlist for quite sometime. There were no outlets anywhere to be found outside. There have been so many instances where an outlet would have just been magical. Like my frequent outdoor blender parties. Or my regular strobe light breakdancing showdowns. Let's not get into my backyard microwave oven needs.

Anyway, I think I'm getting pretty good at this handy work stuff since on this project, I spent about 3.5 minutes online researching how to do it, and then never referred to anything again. That probably has more to do with bold ignorance than handiness know-how, but still. I just checked this one tutorial from Home Depot and then went and bought stuff (not at Home Depot) and finished the job. I even swept up after myself so I wouldn't cause any household unrest!

Basically the job started with choosing an interior outlet that was on an exterior-facing wall. Just open that sucker up:

And then drill through to the outside to feed through your new wire (kinda hard to see, but that's what's going on here):

Note that you'll probably need at least two different bits. One to get through the metal or plastic outlet box, and a second to get through whatever material you have on your house... ours is this stucco-y stuff. Here's what it will look like on the outside:

Then you take your external box and mount it over the wire. I used a four toggle-bolt sort of things to grab into the stucco:

Next I gathered my parts. This was a little tricky because I was doing this at night in flip flops. Doing random stuff in flip flops, I feel, adds serious style points to home improvement. This is in stark contrast to doing other things, like going to the mall, in flip flops. That is negative style points.

Just some screws and wire connections and I got the double orange light on my tester which means all was good! The green light on the GFCI tells me it was installed OK too. I put it in "upside down" because that's how they showed it in the GFCI instruction booklet. And, hey, why not?

For serious completion points, I caulked up the box and even tried to seal the relatively unused caulk with some plastic wrap and a rubber band. Thrifty!

Overall this took a couple hours. The outdoor GFCI outdoor outlet was the most expensive part coming in at over $20, but the other stuff was pretty cheap. Probably $30 in parts total. No more extension cords needed my next outdoor, strobe light, breakdancing showdown!

Satellite TV Cancellation

2011-10-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

We had Dish Network for the first two years in this house. It was relatively cheap and had most of the channels we wanted (no Bravo though). The delay in changing channels was a little annoying and we could only record one show at a time. Ugh. Well, we finally needed to get faster Internet service (so that I can blog at blazing speeds!) and found the best package was from Comcast. This is on top of the fact that Dish kept removing channels and increasing prices. The major reason we chose Dish originally was the Telugu channels they offered that no other provider had. However, the price of those channels nearly tripled on us over our two-year contract. Now we have faster Internet and can stream those channels over our Roku. Bye Dish!

This meant we had to return some of the Dish Network parts. They sent us a box and some instructions. Those instructions meant I had to climb up onto the roof.

They wanted the receiver thingy:

I'm not scared of heights, per se, but I am also not a fan of falling. Leaning out over the edge of the roof and unscrewing things was a bit annoying and a bit much for television service.

Anyway, I was able to get all the required parts and shove them in the provided box.

Can't see why we'd do a satellite service again unless we live in the Boonies. Wifey is not a fan of the Boonies.

Blogging Backlog

2011-10-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

How does one measure effort? Every method of measuring the effort of a human being has its limitations. For example, a programmer is sometimes (maybe not so much anymore) measured in lines of code written. Well, let's just say that I could easily write a whole bunch of crappy lines of code. Heck, even if you've never programmed before, you could probably write a whole bunch of lines of code. A doctor might be measured on the number of patients per hour. Using that metric, a doctor that gets lucky and sees 82 twelve-year-olds in a row with the sniffles would look like a superstar while the doctor who gets a couple old ladies with a laundry list of serious issues will look like a slacker. Why am I mentioning this now? Well, I'd propose that we can't measure a blogger on the number of posts he/she might produce. Or, more directly, we can't measure a home improvement gladiator (me) based on his blog posts. You will have to take my word for it that I am, indeed, an amazingly successful home improvement gladiator.

"Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?"

The point of this post? Mainly it was to post this picture I spent over an hour making. But also to let you know that despite my lack of bloggin', I've been home improving like a hurricane! Actually, I guess a hurricane isn't as much a home improver as it is the opposite of a home improver. Anyway, this weekend, I will catch up with blogging! Rejoice!

2011 Tool Hall of Fame Inductions

2011-07-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I was a little overzealous back in April of 2009 when I started my wildly popular Tool Hall of Fame. I thought, back then, that I might induct some tools weekly. I figured if I did that, though, I'd run out of tools to induct within, like, a month and half. I'd have to buy more tools just to get them inducted. No one wants to see a watered-down Tool Hall of Fame. To be fair, I suppose no one wants to see a concentrated Tool Hall of Fame either. Anywho...

2011 Inductee
My trusty tile saw. Given that I've now tiled the hell out of everything (remember, the only crazy thing about tiling is NOT tiling!), this tile saw was probably the wisest investment I could have made. It was under $100 and I've bought one new blade since owning it. Would have been brutal renting one of these things for all of those jobs. It is a "Husky" (like the jeans my mom bought me in elementary school), which I think is basically one of the generic home Depot brands 9but I might be wrong). I don't think they sell it anymore. It is probably an older version of the THD 750L Tile Saw. Here it is in all of its gritty glory ("Gritty Glory" is the title of my upcoming book. It's sort of an autobiography and a story about sandpaper during the War of 1812):

Did I mention that it has a frickin' laser??!!? It's the first inductee with a laser. I suspect it won't be the last.

2011 Inductee
Since I've had one tool inducted having to with the creation of new pretty things, I think I need to balance it out with a good ol' demolition tool. It's about time the sledgehammer got inducted. I used it to remove tile and to smash an old tin shed and to remove our dilapidated patio structure. Good times all. Without further ado, the sledge (lying in a bed of weeds after a hard day's sledging):

That's it for another couple of years, I'd guess. Now let's go party with our tools! Just don't let the pliers drive home.

Fireplace Tiling

2011-07-01T17:13:00.001-07:00

It was finally time for some more interior fancy work. Luckily, this fancy work got to start out with some good ol' fashioned smashin'. We hadn't touched to masonry/tile work of the fireplace, but it really needed it. Here is what was there already:

So the plan was to clean the bricks somehow and then remove the floor tiles and finally install some new tiles. My wife is worried that we are going too tile crazy. I told her the only thing crazy about tiling is NOT tiling! Well, that and eating grout. Pro tip: "Almond" grout doesn't taste like almonds at all. Total rip-off.

Anyway, to make things less crazy for my wife, we chose tiles to match the entry way tiles. So I decided to attack the removal head on. I've realized that just about anything can be fixed (except my rugged good looks). This makes me less fearful about just smashing things after I figure I've got a decent handle on things. Some of the tiles came out with little issue:

Some of the others took a bit more oomph (cue one of my Hall of Fame tools):

Oh, did you notice what I did there? I kicked this blog up to a whole 'nother level. VIDEOS! BANG!

Anyway, here's the progress of knocking out those tiles. It was a leisurely 4 hours of banging.

Here's a closeup of what was left of the mortar bed underneath those tiles.

Most of the advice I read online said that it might be time to completely remove the mortar bed and start over. However, I rationalized a different approach by telling myself that this was basically a "no-traffic" area. Because of that, I just coated it with some of this floor patch stuff:

After applying it, I got something like this, not too smooth, but I figured I could let the thin set do the leveling for me. Again, this is basically a non-traffic area:

Well, let's lay some tile:

And how 'bout some grout (no tasting):

Finally, let's work on my Achilles' heel, finishing work. Just bought some appropriate trim at Lowe's and used some weird screw-nails on it.

Not too shabby overall. Since I already had thinset and mortar and all of the tools, this was about a $100 job and took me a total of about 8 hours of work spread over 3-4 days. I'll charge my wife the family rate ($75/hour).

Garage Door Opener

2011-03-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

One fine day over a month ago, we pressed the button to operate the garage door opener. The motor made its standard noises, but the door was motionless. And the motor continued to make its standard noises for a very un-standard amount of time. As the motor ran, there was no motion in the screwdrive. The only way to make it stop was to unplug it. My hope that a power cycle would magically fix the issue was dashed as soon as I plugged it back in and the motor continued whirring.

Since this was a old opener (as old as the house? not sure), I assumed it had lifted its last door. A little research revealed that the problem was probably a worn out gear inside the box somewhere. Apparently there are kits sold that allow for replacement of the gear. After removing parts of the case, to take a quick peek, I figured it would be just as easy to replace the whole thing. This was bolstered by my recent attempt to change the fuser unit in a Brother printer. By the time I got it apart, it was clear that there was no way I'd ever reassemble it. I'm very good at taking things apart. So I began to look for a replacement opener.

To my surprise, they weren't all that expensive. There are many quality ones for under $200. I assumed the job of installing it was beyond me, but after a little more research, it sounded like I could give it a try. The cheapest installation I could find was from Lowe's for $97. Most other places were charging at least a couple hundred bucks. Anyway, here's a quick chronicle of me saving at least $97.

Here's the original opener (with part of the case removed already):

Before installing the new "Chamberlin 3/4-HP Power Drive Chain Garage Access System" I took the opportunity to even out the garage door. The right side was closing a bit higher than the left side. This very well could have contributed to the slow demise of the opener:

Fixing it was pretty easy. I wasn't willing to do any work near the tension spring. I always feel like that thing is going to decapitate me. All I had to do was use some vice grips to lock the opposite side in place so it couldn't move in its track. Then on the high side I loosened the set screws in the wind-up wheel for the cable on that side. When the wheel would move relatively freely (not completely loose), I pushed the high side of the door down and then re-tightened the set screws. I took off the vice grips from the other side and the door was even. Woo hoo!

Then I just needed to start undoing a bunch of screws and bolts until the old opener came down.

I was able to use the same 2X4 and corner brackets that held up the old opener. Just had to move one of the brackets a little wider and shift the 2X4 back a few inches. This is actually the most beautiful part of this installation. I didn't have to go buy some expensive tool to complete the job. I had bought all of them already for past projects! Used my small reciprocating saw (a Milwaukee Hackzall) to cut the nails on the 2X4, then used my hand-held circular saw to cut off 1/8" of the 2X4 to fit it in its new position.

The power tool parade continued when I installed the safety sensors. The old opener didn't have sensors. It was built and installed in a day and age when safety was a luxury and real mean risked life and limb leaving their garage every day. They didn't have "safety sensors" or "goggles" or "weekends". We're so pampered nowadays. Anyway, when installing the sensors, I got to use my hammer drill to anchor them to the concrete. How awesome. It was extra bonus points when the sensors lined up perfectly without any adjustment.

Well, the opener works now. As another bonus, I bought this model because it could accommodate 200W worth of bulbs, which is handy in our dimly lit garage.

One last thing to point out:

I went from a piddly 1/3 HP (how un-American) to a MANLY 3/4 HP! Boo ya! That is 225% of the power of the original! 225%! That's what I'm talkin' about.

Replacement Windows

2011-02-28T22:45:00.000-08:00

I was looking at my blog archive and noticed how seriously I've neglected the updates. Only 2 posts during all of 2010! Ouch! I guess I was just too busy getting things done. Well, getting things done and seriously contemplating getting things done. One of the major contemplative tasks I finished recently was replacing three of our old, aluminum slider windows. Earlier last year (Feb 2010?) I had a company come out and replace three of the windows, including the big one in the living room. I watched. I asked questions. I learned. Then I stewed with my newfound window-installing knowledge until, many months later, I decided it was time to act!

I ordered three windows from Lowes since they were able to get the windows from the same manufacturer as those I already had installed. I liked the fact that Inte rn ational Window Corporation was a local company (in Hayward) and the three windows we already had seemed to be doing the trick. Lowe's was able to get the custom windows in a couple of weeks given my measurements (by the way, I don't think you are supposed to lay them like this):

Speaking of measurements: I measured wrong. This can be a fatal mistake with replacement windows since they are custom made. Note in the photo where I measured and where I should have measured. I must have assumed that the fin highlighted in green would come out with the glass for some reason, but I was wrong. I'll talk later about how I overcame that problem...

Those of you with these type of windows know that they can get mildewy, especially over the course of 40+ years. We were glad to get them out. Here's a view of one of the bathroom windows from the inside and outside:

The slider part comes out pretty easily. Then for the stationary part, I scored it with a glass cutter then tried to punch it outward with a rubber mallet onto a canvas below the window. It didn't come out as clean as the window guys', but wasn't a million pieces, so I was happy enough. If you're a regular of the blog, you know that I enjoy smashing things.

After the glass was out, I had to take care of a little fin at the exterior of the window sill. That was accomplished with a Hackzall reciprocating saw. I love that thing. Here is a shot of one of those windows with the fin still there (in foreground) and the fin sawed away:

Next, we come to the problem of the new windows being a 1/4" or so too big. My first reaction was one of cold-sweated dread. After standing still for a few minutes and clearing my head, the best solution I could find involved smashing stuff with a hammer (naturally). Specifically, that fin I pointed to above (highlighted in green) and a similar one at the top of the window frame, got smashed down with a hammer. Flattened them pretty easily as they are just aluminum. I also could have cut them out, but the hammer was a little easier. Here's kind of what I mean. It's a little hard to see, but the vertical fin is smashed down to make room for the mis-measured window:

Next, I dry fit the window. Then after I was satisfied that it fit, I put some caulk around the opening, per the installation instructions (which didn't come with the window... had to download them). Notice that in the bottom you leave a little gap for some moisture reason:

After it is in, I had my wife hold it in place from the outside as I did the screws from the inside. Here is one big tip on this process. The instructions say to pre-drill pilot holes before placing the window in the hole. I did this with the first window, but then found that the pilot holes lined up with difficult spots to screw (like into the existing window rail). It is easy enough (assuming you have a wife handy to hold the window in place (it isn't heavy)) to drill the holes as the window sits there. Anyway, got it screwed in per the instructions. Then caulked the outer edge of the windows. I then sealed the inner gap with some of that window spray foam. Now onto the inner trim.

For the inner trim, our local Lowe's sells it. It's just a white vinyl strip with a sticker on the back. There's also scores along the length of the back of it in case you need to make it skinnier (which I didn't). So you just cut these to length (I used scissors) and stick them in place then caulk the edges. Here's a single strip without caulking:

After caulking, that's it! Here's a time series of one of the bathroom windows (maybe mixed up between both bathrooms):

And here is a side-by-side with one done and the other still in. I think it turned out pretty good:

It helped a great deal to watch those guys install our first windows, but I think this was a pretty easy do-it-yourself thing to do. Then again, I am pretty awesome. If you rate your awesomeness pretty highly, I'd say go for it. It's much cheaper to order (mostly) directly from the manufacturer and skip the installation fees. Maybe you can find a company that is willing to just install a couple of windows and then watch them do it. Though I think I was lucky to find that company... they usually want to do the whole house all at once.

Kitchen Cabinet Doors

2010-08-31T21:06:00.000-07:00

We completed this project over a year ago (before we even moved in). Time to properly document the exciting process of painting kitchen cabinet doors.

We looked into having the cabinets refaced. Refacing is basically replacing the doors with custom made ones and putting a veneer on the faces of the cabinet boxes that match the new doors. My first question was "how does that cost compare with the cost of a gallon of paint?" When I heard the answer I then posed the question to Neelima: "Do you think refacing will be 40 times better than just repainting it ourselves?" With that detailed cost-benefit analysis out of the way, we got down to business.

I know you've already seen the awesome tile job we did in the kitchen and how we tore out the backsplash, but recall this is how the kitchen looked when we bought the place (carpet and all):

So the first thing for this job was to take down the cabinet doors and sand them and the cabinet boxes a bit. I bought a random-orbit sander for the job. This was my first Milwaukee tool purchase and it was a good one. Actually, before the sanding, we had to remove the hardware. Here is a redacted picture of Neelima doing that job. She wants us to remain incognito on the Interwebs, so I've cleverly disguised here as a happy stick figure:

The sanding was actually quite a job. The doors were the originals put in around 1960. They were lacquered and greasy (which is how I'd also describe my rugby team in college). Here are some exciting photos of sanding:

After the light sanding, we set up an elaborate assembly line. This is where having a carpet that will soon be ripped out comes in handy. We had no concerns for getting paint all over the place. After painting one side (with a roller), we let them dry a while then flipped them and set them up on bricks covered in paper towels (high tech!) to get the other side. All the while we'd paint the edges with a small brush. Afterward, we propped them up in one of the bedrooms to fully dry for a couple of days.

There was one casualty. This door had its veneer bubble up on us. We still have an open cabinet in the kitchen, but it's above the oven and kinda looks like it is meant to be that way (or so I keep trying to convince Neelima).

Next we put on the hardware. Neelima found these at Lowe's:

And the last step was to hang them all back up (with new hinges matching those knobs). Luz and Jose chipped in an helped with that chore (thanks guys!). Here is what the kitchen looks like with the painted cabinet doors (and an awesome tiled floor, renewed backsplash, and new lighting):

There is a little issue with the hinges being a bit thicker than the previous hinges. The cabinet doors won't close completely due to the extra thickness. We've learned to live with it, but if we ever sell the place, it's an issue we'll need to figure out.

A Master Bath Deserves a Master Blog Post

2010-08-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

I know this blog has lain dormant for many a month, but your wait will be greatly rewarded! Starting now!

Let me ground you in the harsh reality that was our master bathroom. It's about 26.5 square feet. Has a stand-up shower (not the joke-telling kind, though that would be pretty awesome: "What's the deal with soap scum? Thank you very much. Tip your waitresses well. I'll be here all week. Because I'm a shower.") and a sort of "L"-shaped arrangement. This is what it looked like when we moved in:

With this shower (notice the lovely, crumbling tile work):

So the first order of business was to right up my alley. Fans of this blog (of which there are MANY) will know that I enjoy breaking things. I especially enjoy breaking them when they are supposed to be broken. So out came the ripping chisel (the first inductee to my "Tool Hall of Fame") and other tools of destruction. Here's the progression:

When the toilet came out, there was considerable damage underneath it. I was told it was a combination of termite and water damage. Apparently those two might go hand-in-hand with the water in the subfloor attracting the bugs. Luckily the termites appeared long-gone (*knocks on termite-free wood*) and we had the house treated before we moved in. Anyway, I had to use the circular saw to cut out a 2X3 foot section of the floor and replace it.
The main wall with all of the pipes was removed to a height of 4 feet in order to do a little plumbing work:

After that, I did a little drywallin'. In the rest of the pictures you'll see the green board that I used. I was really worried about the seam at 4' above the floor, but I think I feathered it out pretty well.

I decided to do the floor tiling first and save the shower tiling for after. The plan was then to get the painting done and install all the bathroom furniture/fixtures. After installing the backer board, I dry-laid the tiles and came up with this "keystone" tile location outlined in pencil:

And the ungrouted, tiled floor:

And a beautiful, grouted close-up:

The next order of business was that nasty shower. After ripping out the walls, I noticed that the drywall was 5/8". That is a problem because the backer board is only available in 1/4" and 1/2", the latter of which is for walls. So to overcome the 1/8" difference between the backer board and the remaining drywall, I needed to add some shims to the studs (sounds risque, no?). I bought a sheet of 1/8" MDF and cut it up to apply to the studs. For some reason I am not clear on, I decided to do it a different way on each of the side walls. First with strips going across the studs and on the other wall with strips going with the studs right on top of them. The method of putting them along the studs makes MUCH more sense. That way you are assured that every screw you put through the backer board will go through a shim and the stud.

Hanging cement board by yourself is not fun or easy. Especially since we (and by "we" I mean "my wife") decided that we should put the tile all the way to the ceiling. Anyway, here's the hung cement board (exciting!):
Here is an awesome set of photos showing the finished, but pre-grouted shower wall (click it to view it larger):

And finally, a grouted and caulked photo complete with shiny new shower head:

I'd be remiss if I didn't show you the lovely shower curtain Neelima picked out:

The shower pan is some sort of sheet metal thing. I figured the easiest thing to do was to spray paint it. I'm assuming it's not galvanized, but if it is, then I'll just repaint it every couple years.

After much deliberation, we decided upon this toilet/vanity pair. Installing the toilet was easy enough, but initially I didn't tighten the tank far enough and it had a fair bit of wobble to it. By applying pressure to the top of the tank to compress the rubber gasket, I was able to tighten the bolts without cracking the tank (phew). Note the nice baseboards that I installed as well:

We went the online route for the medicine cabinet and when it arrived, we went to Lowe's for a roughly matching light fixture and faucet (note the return of my hairy arms!):

Phew. I skipped the painting part, but you can see the sea-greeny color we chose. Originally I picked a really bright, almost neon green, but for some reason Neelima didn't like it. Anyway, Here is the final product and a progression panorama (again, click to enlarge):

If you read this blog post, it might give the impression that I did this over the course of a weekend. I am pretty awesome, but not quite that awesome. Really this was a multi-month project. It's tricky to remodel a bathroom (without a contractor!), work full-time (not as a contractor!), and finish a PhD (not in contracting!) simultaneously, so I took my time at the bathroom part. Now we can have guests over and not force them to use the bushes in the backyard. That was kinda awkward.

Backsplash tear-out

2009-11-22T15:09:00.000-08:00

If my blog were a movie, this post would be sort of a flashback or dream sequence. Most blog/movies will use this device at some point. So as you begin to read this, imagine the borders are a little out of focus and there is some harp music beckoning you to a time and/or place outside the scope of the normal blog/movie timeline...

When we bought this house, there were some funky copper tiles that ran from the kitchen countertop up to the base of the upper cabinets.

While we sort of go for funkiness in some contexts, it didn't seem like these tiles would fit our overall kitchen vision. That's right, we have vision. I figured we'd just pry these bad boys off and the blank canvas would be ready for me to complete our vision. It soon became clear that things wouldn't be so smooth. I then realized that if a vision is completed without much effort, then the owner of that vision probably needs glasses. And we're totally 20/20. Have I killed the vision analogy thing yet? Anyway, here is what it looks like under the copper tiles.

The mortar or cement that was used to place the tiles was not coming off the wall. I scraped and chiseled and screamed and pouted, but the cement remained.

Also the wall had some gouges from my exuberant chiseling and scraping. Clearly this approach was going nowhere fast.

After conferring with my adviser and mentor, Dr. Shon Grabbe, we concluded I need to rip the dang wall off. This would be my first wall thrashing experience, so I was quite tentative (how quaint are the inexperienced?). I kept envisioning big holes in the wall that I would have no idea what to do with. Then we'd have to move in with no walls. Eventually I just decided to go for it and I cut out all of the walls that had previously held copper tiles.

With a drywall saw, I went to work. Notice the nasty insulation inside the wall. Also notice on this photo that I have BOTH of my hairy arms in the photo. That is a rare treat for the readers of my blog who tune in just for my well-documented arm hair.

Here are a few photos of the missing walls (more or less from left to right). I was quite nervous about cutting electrical wires, but turns out that wasn't too much of a problem.

Alright. Now let's get some walls in there. Turns out that drywall is pretty easy to work with. Just measure and cut the right size and nail it into place, tape it up and this use the drywall mud to smooth it all out. The tricky areas were under the cabinets where there was a little gap. They sell some gap-filler material that helped fix that problem.

Unfortuneately I don't have a big picture of the finished product. You'll see how it turned out when I give you the full "before and after" kitchen shots. Just consider this the abrupt wake-up from the flashback from the beginning of this blog post. See, you forgot you were in a flashback/dream sequence, didn't you? That's how the good directors/bloggers do it.

Dryer vent installation

2009-11-22T08:50:00.000-08:00

Have you ever really felt like you've known enough about someone or something to say: "I know that someone or something pretty darn well." Only to then be truly shocked about something quite obvious and/or none-too-appealing about him or her or it? My first experience with this phenomenon (oh, it's a phenomenon alright) was realizing Whoopi Goldberg had no eyebrows. My second experience was when my cat had worms crawling out of his nether regions. With those visuals in mind, I bring you to today's topic: the dryer vent (or distinct lack thereof).

We had noticed that our smoke detector went off sometimes when we were using the dryer. This enticed me to poke around the dryer a little. This is when I was confronted with the gruesome image to the right. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but when I look at that, I think of the movie Seven. Apparently, the vent to our dryer was connected to a plastic tube which terminates with a old pair of lady's nylons. I tried to look up the Building Code information on using nylons to vent your dryer, but I came up empty. I am thinking that nylons won't exactly collect all of the fumes from our gas dryer. Also thinking that all of the moisture from the dryer won't magically disappear when hitting the stylish, stained nylons. Also plastic tubes are a big no-no. Needless to say, I was a bit concerned and decided to get a proper vent installed.

I knew installing a vent would involves putting holes in my house, so I did as much research as I could. The best couple of sites I found were pretty good at describing what needed to happen, so I went for it. First stop was to buy the parts.

One of the better tips seemed to be to only buy a UL-tested tube. There were a couple of of options at Lowe's that weren't UL approved, so don't assume all the parts you can buy off the shelf are the safest possible. It was recommended that you only use the smooth aluminum stuff to prevent lint build-up, but I didn't feel comfortable with the tools and skill required to do that. I figure it would be easier to be diligent about keeping this tube clean than it would be properly measuring and cutting the sheet metal.

The first step was to cut a hole in the wall of the garage where the vent would exit. Then I used a masonry bit to drill a hole through the outside wall from inside the garage. Using that hole on the outside, I then followed this example and drilled several holes in circle around my guide hole.

Then I started chiseling away to make the hole. After getting through the outer wall, I had to snip some of the chicken-wire stuff and I was then pretty much though to the garage.

I then slid the vent cap/pipe combo through the hole (after chiseling a little more from the hole to widen it) and saw on the other side that the pipe was a little too long.

I took it out and trimmed it using garden shears. It cut pretty easily and I don't think I ruined the shears. I recalled that one way to sharpen household scissors was to cut some sheets of aluminum foil. I figured this was pretty much the same thing for more industrial tools.

With everything cut and chiseled appropriately, I was able to connect the stuff together. The final product on the inside and outside:

Well, I'm exhausted.

Thermostat, STAT!

2009-11-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

OK, I know you've missed me. I apologize for the complete lack of blogging. But I'm back! And I have a bunch of posts I'd like to write! I'll start of easy though with a little thermostat adventure.

So we had an old Honeywell thermostat. It was the rectangular kind with a little sliding switch on the bottom to set the temperature. I'm sure it's the original that came with the house. I guess 50 years is a good run for a thermostat. This one had seen better days since we had actually painted over part of it during the initial work on the house. Also thought it'd be nice to be able to set the temperature more intelligently and efficiently.

I bought a 5-1-1 Hunter programmable thermostat. If you aren't up on your thermostat lingo, "5-1-1" means we can set a 3 different programs of various temperatures: one for weekdays, one for each of the weekend days. For each program you can set 4 time chunks with different settings. One for sleeping time, one for the morning, one for the day, and one for the evening (but you can control the times that each of those epochs begins).

I figured it would be easy to change this thing since it just has a couple of wires (one blue and one white):

The problem is that these wires aren't labeled like they are nowadays. So the instructions provided with the new thermostat were not helpful. They advised getting a professional if the wires weren't labeled. Little do they know that I've bypassed professionals for much grander things than this!

Anyway, here is what the new thermostat terminals looks like. Notice that this thing can handle heating and air conditioning which is why there are so many terminals:

After some research online, the most helpful site was from someone who had been down this road before and had a group of grateful web surfers thanking him as well as a boatload of people asking for more advice. After wading through the comments on his message board, it seemed pretty clear that my two wires were the simplest possible set of wires. Basically they just complete a connection that turns on the furnace. I tested this by touching the ends of the two wires together. Oh, by the way, I never recommend doing anything in your house that I've done in mine. That includes everything from touching live wires together as an experiment to splurging on caramel popcorn (man, I love that stuff).

I ended up with this set of connections (note the red jumper wire is irrelevant to my setup, but it didn't hurt to leave it there) :

After hooking it all up, and throwing in batteries, everything worked just fine.

Taking Trash

2009-05-30T22:47:00.001-07:00

So we needed to get rid of those heaps of junk I showed you in the last post. Turns out that a junk service will charge about $600 or more for the amount of trash we had. I didn't realize how valuable my trash was.

Plan B was to rent a U-Haul and drive the junk to the local transfer station. That is what I did today except there was a small hitch. The 14' U-Haul I rented wasn't big enough for all of the junk. I think I got 3/4 of it in one load. After that I was whooped and just took the truck back. Took a couple of hours walking the junk from the backyard to the driveway and about 45 minutes to unload it at the transfer station. It seems that my "Help with the Mildred Metamorphosis" contest has run out of applicants so I did all of this solo. Neelima claimed she had to "work" or something. How convenient!

I don't know if you remember how I told you how bad I was at estimating job times. For instance, when we were first looking at the house before we bought it, I though to myself: "Hmmm, total home remodel without any professional help? 2.5 days max." I've found out I'm equally as bad at estimating the weight of junk. I thought it would be 600lbs total, give or take. Well, taking 3/4 of it (that estimate itself should be doubted), turned out to be 1680 lbs! That's a lot of junk. That means we had over a ton of junk in the back yard. And it included everything including the kitchen sink.

Not sure when I'll take the rest now. Definitely not this weekend. But for about $100 I've gotten rid of most of it which isn't half bad (don't trust that estimate either... it very well could be half bad).

Hardwood Horror!

2009-05-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

I will warn you that this is an epic post. Full of drama and intrigue. This is one of the posts that sort of explains what the heck we were doing to the house for all of the hours that couldn't be accounted for in the other blog posts. Strap in, and let's get to it!

Maybe "hardwood horror" is a bit strong for a title, but this was the most difficult job of any we've faced thus far in the house. If I could go back in time, there are probably a few things I'd do differently. First, I'd buy a lottery ticket, since I'm from the future and all. Then I would find the version of myself from the past and challenge him to a fight for looking so funny. Assuming I didn't destroy the space-time continuum by battling another version of myself, I'd mostly just be cleaner when I did the hardwood floors.

Recall that we had some shag-a-delic carpet on the floor to start the process. We were lucky that there was actually hardwood floor underneath it so that we didn't have to get it installed from scratch
.
Neelima and I were up to the challenge of removing the carpet. I didn't take any pictures of that, but it wasn't too hard. The hard part of that process was removing all of the tack strips from the edge of the floor and all of the staples holding down the carpet padding. Eventually we got through it though. Here is an artistic bonus photo borne of and inspired by the tack strips that were removed. You can tell it's artistic because I tilted the camera and the subject matter is essentially garbage. If you have a good name for this photo, let's hear it in the comments section.

After removing all of the carpet and accompanying staples/tacks, we were able to inspect the state of the floor. Remember when I said we were lucky that there was already hardwood underneath the carpet? Well, the unlucky part is summed up in the following pictures.

Ouch! Water stains! Pet Stains! Putrified carpet padding stains! Dissolved polyurethane! Quadruple ouch! It was clear that there needed to be some hardwood refinishing. Or resurfacing. I think there is a strict definition of each of those terms, but in plain English, we needed to at least sand the floor down, stain it, then coat it with polyurethane. Sounds easy! Lets get started! I can't wait!

After much research online, I rented a sander. Any old sander should do. This one had three round pads underneath. Seemed to work OK. Here's a first pass or two in the living room.

So one of the keys to sanding is to step your grits appropriately. That is equally as important as telling someone to kiss your grits. Couldn't resist that one. Anyway, I read that you go from 36 grit to 60 grit to 80 grit. That results in a lot of sanding. But the first one (36) is the toughest because you have to get all of the old stuff off. The floor isn't level everywhere, so there were areas that had to be sanded flat and that took time. It ended up taking too long with this sander (not aggressive enough) so when the 24 hours was up, we went to Home Depot and rented a more aggro sander. The drum sander.

This guy was much more aggressive and you had to be careful not to leave it running in one place at all as it would leave a mark in the floor. Oh, did I mention that these big sanders won't get the edges of the floor? They won't. So you need an edging sander. Man, I love sanders. Oh, before I forget, there are actually good tutorials by the manufacturers of these sanders on You Tube.

This little edging sander is a handful. It's heavier than it looks and it will lead you all over the floor if you let it. Here's a fun fact: eventually this sander can get out of balance. Cool stuff happens then. It gouges the crap out of your floor. When it started doing that, we moved onto the trusty backup to get the edges. My handy 5" random orbit sander.

To give you and idea of the process, here is an awesome time-lapse of original floor, sanded down floor, and final finished floor. But more on the finishing after the awesome time-lapse:

After sanding the floor with four different sanders and three different grits, we moved on to the cleanup phase. Sanding generates a lot of dust. It's hard to get all of that dust off the floor and walls and ceiling and ledges and your hair. I'd say it's impossible. This is where my lack of attention to detail bit me. I stained the floor which was pretty easy. Then I went on to put the first (of two) coats of polyurethane. But in between I let a few days pass. Not a great idea. Cleanup had to happed yet again. By the time I put the first coat of poly on, the floor was way too dirty. We had several other projects going on throughout the house which didn't help the dust containment problem. So after the first coat dried, this is what it looked like (warning: not for the timid):

If you click on the picture, you'll get a better idea of the problem. There was a nasty grittiness to the floor. Imagine trying to slide naked across this floor (like you weren't already), you'd end up with a bunch of brutal scratches all over yourself. Not good.

The only thing I could think to do at this point was, of course, to rent another sander. I went with something a little different this time. It was a square buff sander. I used a very light grit and it seemed to do a pretty good job taking out the bumpiness. While we were at it, we sanded out some more of the water stains that we didn't get completely the first 8 times we sanded. This time, Neelima and I were ultra careful to go around the house and sweep several times. We then wiped all of the floor with mineral spirits to get remaining dust. Then I wiped the floor with a lint rag and/or tack cloth as a final step. That was as careful as I know how to be. Let the chips (or remaining dust particles) fall where they may.

So I re-stained the parts that we re-sanded. Then I went to apply the next coat of poly. We didn't like the sheen on the first coat, so this time we went for the satin finish. Sounds so silky-smooth, doesn't it? Anyway, I popped open the can and stirred a bit, careful to not introduce bubbles. Polyurethane is quite delicate. There was, however, a HUGE clump of stuff at the bottom of the can. I stirred for about ten minutes until I couldn't feel the clump anymore, but when I poured the stuff into a pan, there were tiny globs all in it. I wasn't about to mess up all of that sanding and cleaning (oh the cleaning) with some bad poly. Check out the clumps (if you can see them) in the photo to the right.

So I jumped in the truck and drove to our current home and looked for answers on the Internet. The consensus was that I just needed to stir some more. I headed back and stirred for another 10 minutes or so and eventually there were no more visible clumps. I then finally applied the top coat.

That was a couple days ago. With some trepidation, I went to the house today to see the final product. It isn't perfect (some lap marks, some light grittiness in some places), but I am happy enough with it. I don't think I'd do a hardwood floor job again, but at least I can speak from experience when I say it isn't easy.

Patio Pulverization

2009-05-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

We finally got around to destroying the patio cover in the back yard. It was a nice little homemade shady area, but the wood was rotting, it had termites, and it blocked a good deal of sun from the kitchen and bathrooms (so we assumed). Here's what it looked like when we first saw the house.

On the inside, there wasn't much. When we finalized the purchase, there was nothing inside of it. But this gives you a good idea of how it was used.

Now I had the opportunity to pretend I that I am an actual engineer and not a fake one (don't tell anyone at my work!). I felt that taking down the structure with the roof intact was probably a bad idea. So after studying the roof and making several calculations, I decided that it made sense to bust out the Hackzall again and cut down the beams holding up the corrugated green plastic. A cut on each end seemed to do the trick, but it was tough slogging for the Hackzall. The 12 volt battery was struggling.

While this cutting was going on, I had to dodge debris from the many bird nests built into the structure. Bird's nests are pretty nasty things. Don't get me wrong, I am very impressed by the bird ingenuity that goes into building the nest. Given a pile of twigs, grass, feathers and bird poop, I am certain I couldn't create something nearly as functional as the birds do. That doesn't mean I want their ingenuity all over my head or drifting into my mouth. In fact, I can safely say that I don't want any animal's ingenuity anywhere near me.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. After cutting five or six of the roof beams off, I needed to try something more direct. This is when I came upon a very cool handyman trick. It turns out that if you hit something hard enough with a sledge hammer, it will actually fall apart. I know, pretty revolutionary. I started taking overhead swings at the roof beams and with anywhere from 5-15 whacks per beam, they came tumbling down in glorious, splintered destruction.

After the roof was completely off, I decided to stick with the sledge hammer and took some swings at the support posts. They had no chance. In the end, this was the final resting place of the patio cover:

Before I go any further, I should show you the garbage pile that is the result of all of the things we've been doing. Carpet removal, vanity removal, painting, etc, etc. All of that business will generate a pile of junk. Here it is in all of its garbage-y glory:

With that out of the way, the final photo of the removed patio cover will make a little more sense. So, here's our backyard, sans patio cover:

Operation: Oven

2009-05-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

One job that was completed from beginning to end today was the oven installation. This wasn't a glamorous job, but I did get to use power tools and some improvisation. Usually improv shows involving power tools don't go all that well, but this one actually turned out OK.

We had to buy the tiniest oven that seems to be made today. The 24-incher. This limited our choices, but we found a good one that more or less matches the refrigerator we bought, so we're happy with it. One problem, though, is that the cutout for the oven is a little too small. I had to open it about 1/2" on each side to slide it in.

Here's the carefully drawn cut line:

I ended up buying yet another saw for this job. It was no good. I decided to break out the hackzall. Man, am I loving that thing. It doesn't do anything subtly, but it gets the job done one way or another. Here it is in all its majesty along with its handywork:

Turns out that the rails that were already installed in the cabinet for the previous oven weren't in a good place for the new oven. So, I added another rail in the center and then laid in one of those boards with holes all over it designed to hang things from. That was a lot of prepositions. Anyway, after getting that board in there and attaching the electrical box, the oven slid in easily. The clock came on, so I assumed the wiring was OK. We'll test it fully later.

There are quite a few other "big" jobs that we are slowly completing in parallel. Hopefully they'll get done soon and I can fully update you.

Establishing Entryway

2009-05-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do another poll after the smashing success of the "Favorite Asbestos" poll, but couldn't figure out a way to do a photo poll easily. So we'll do an informal one here.

We tore out the old tile in the entry way. It was loose anyway. They had tiled right on top of the hardwood. Now we've replaced it. Neelima found some fancy decorative tiles that she liked so we wanted to incorporate them into the entry way. We've already installed them, but we wanted to know if we made the right design choice. Here were the two best layout choices we could come up with:

Let us know in the comments section which you think is best. Hopefully you'll go with the one we actually set in stone.

Switch Shifting

2009-05-10T08:07:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally found a decent place to order bathroom furniture. It arrived in a timely fashion and in the correct number of pieces, so that's a good start. There was one miscalculation on our part, however. We ordered two pieces. A 30" vanity and a 15" linen cabinet to fit the odd 45" space we had been wrestling with. The problem arose when we realized the tall cabinet would block the light switch. Ugh.

So the cabinet is 18" deep. There is 22" from the back wall to the door frame. And the middle of the switch is exactly 18" from the back wall.

The big problem is that to the right of the light switch is a stud. And I don't mean the one holding the measuring tape. Excuse me a moment while I bask in the joy of writing that joke... OK, I'm good now. Anyway, here's the stud causing the problems:

So I went to OSH and asked for help on the situation. The guy in the electrical department was quite helpful. He suggested one of those boxes that goes over the wall and that made sense to me. The only fear was that the cabinet doors might still be impeded by the box sticking out of the wall, but I had to give it a try. To save a 1/2", I decided to mount the box directly on the stud rather than the draywall. Here are the supplies (on our beautifully tiled bathroom floor):

In order to get the box flushly (oh, it's a word) installed, the old box had to be removed since it was sticking out a little further than the stud. This was the perfect opportunity to break out the Hackzall. That box had no idea what was about to happen to it. All sorts of Hackzall fury was unleashed. Here's the aftermath with a highlight on the cut itself:

So now I was free to mount the box and repair the drywall. I've grown to like the drywall mud that goes on purple/pink and dries white. Maybe that takes a little away from the ultra-manliness I displayed with the Hackzall, but so be it. Here is the almost finished product:

So after this dries completely and gets a little sanding, painting, and caulking, we'll be good to go with the furniture installation. I actually already built the tall cabinet and the doors open unimpeded by the bulky switch box. Phew.

Totally Tiling

2009-05-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

I've left you languishing for far too long. For that, I sincerely apologize. I hope I can make the wait worthwhile. No more posts about visits from the locksmith or about chimney updates. We are into the really good stuff now.

You remember when I told you all about loading/unloading all of that tile? I asked you then to imagine our floors gloriously covered with those handsome tiles. Well you can stop imagining (that must be a relief for you), the kitchen and main bathroom floors have been tiled, grouted and sealed. It actually looks like we're making some progress now. In case you've forgotten what the kitchen/dining room floor looked like before, here are a couple of angles showcasing the awesome carpet that was there. Oh, that's right... carpet in the kitchen.

You may ask yourself: "Self, what neat things do you think you/I might find if we tore out a kitchen carpet?" Well, wonder no further. I think that there was a carpet padding under there at one point. But all that was left now was a sort of compacted black powder. Keep in mind that this carpet has likely been here since the house was built, circa 1961. Under the carpet and under the disintegrated padding was some particle board. To the right you can see some of the has-been padding scraped away revealing the particle board.

Particle board isn't that easy to remove because if you get some leverage underneath it it just sort of crumbles away. Then after it crumbles away, you still need to deal with the staple/nail things that held it in place. I had some help with this process as it would have taken me quite a long time by myself.

After we revealed the subfloor, it was time to lay the backerboard for the tile. Micah came in handy here. He did most of the screwing while I laid/cut the board. It was quite a process (over 200 sq ft). Micah also got busy with the Jamb Saw. I actually bought a saw made specifically for cutting away a little section of a door jamb. Oh man. Not only did I have to deal with this tool-specialization anguish, I had to listen to Micah sing "We be Jambin' " (over-emphasizing the 'b') over and over again. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if he had taken a little effort to figure out another line to the Marley song. It's hard to find good help these days.

After the backerboard was down, I carefully dry-laid the tiles and found my key tile. This was to be the magical tile that would determine where every other tile on the floor would be placed. I marked the occassion of marking this key tile with a little photo.

Anway, Micah also heped me get started on the first few tiles. He'd lay some thin set mortar and I'd throw down some tiles. It worked well, but I started to realize how long it was going to take to get through the whole floor. By the time Micah had to trudge back home (it was after 10pm on a school night!), we'd finished about 20% of the floor. Significant, but a harsh reminder of the amount of work remaining. And for the rest of it, I'd have to work without coming up with grout jokes that Micah is so fond of. You see, at UC Santa Cruz (and likely many other places) certain bathrooms have a subtle vandalism where people have written phrases cleverly using the word "grout" in the actual grout. "Oscar the grout." "Grout Expectations." "Twist and grout." Oh, the hilarity. When I reminded Micah that we weren't actually grouting anything yet, he said that it was much harder to think of similar jokes with "mortar." The best I came up with was "I lean mor-torward grout jokes." It was about then that we realized it was quite late.

I took the whole next day and laid all of the whole tiles. The edge tiles were cut the next day. The next day was dedicated to grouting (It's a-grout time.). We let the floor get trampled upon for several more days before Neelima sealed the grout. So without further ado, here is the finished product. We're quite happy with it.

Credit Contents

2009-04-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

Crunch time is approaching. Some things are getting done. Some things seem like they won't ever get done (I'm looking at you, Master Bathroom). I promise to have more photos soon, but until then, I hoped you might like a peek at my redacted credit card statement for the past month. Looks like OSH is winning, with Home Depot and Lowe's battling it out for 2nd. There is also a rouge entry from an online vanity dealer. What could go wrong with ordering furniture online? I can't think of one thing.

Panel Pain

2009-04-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

I have alluded to an epic battle with some stubborn wall paneling. You didn't know you'd get allusions and foreshadowing in my humble blog did you? You know, I majored in movies in college. To be honest, I'm looking forward to the dénouement (movie majors like to talk about movies with French words) of this current home-improvement experience.

Anyway, back to the wall paneling. Basically, this paneling was glued on with hardened, brown glue. When the paneling was pried away from the wall it would take various layers of the wall with it; from none, to one layer of paint, to two layers of paint, to drywall paper, to a bit of drywall itself. To make things cooler, this glue was put up with big 'X's' and a few random dabs here and there. The removal happened with the good ol' ripping chisel (now in the Tool Hall of Fame). Note in the photo to the right the various layers of glue/paint/drywall.

The next step was to scrape the remaining glue off. This took a delicate touch. Using a scraper with a delicate touch is trickier than it sounds. After that I used drywall mud to smooth out all of the gouges. That is when I realized that the smooth, fixed gouges were going to be amazingly noticeable against the textured wall. So, why not learn how to re-texture a drywall? Sounds grand! Click the photo for a larger view.

I started with the simple spray stuff but two layers of that didn't hide the obvious problems. Then, my friend Shon suggested to bring out the big gun. The big texture gun, that is.

Looks like the company "Homex" has carved out quite the niche for itself in the home texturing market. Anyway, this gun worked great (and makes an awesome noise), but it still took two coats of the stuff (or I was just using it wrong, which is a distinct possibility).

Well, this is probably a bit of a letdown, but I don't have an official "after" picture because it will give away too much that will be contained in future posts. The wall looks good though. Trust me! Stay tuned!

Peruser Participation

2009-04-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

My unadvertised blog contest, "Blog-readers-work-on-the-house-for-free sweepstakes", has had three winners thus far! Marsha (a.k.a my mom), Tom, and Micah have all been big winners. Marsha (she'll love that I don't call her 'Mom' in this blog post) and Tom came over a week ago and pitched in.

Marsha's big contributions were mold scrubbing, crooked paint taping, and saying "you should hire people to do all of this work." Thanks Marsha!

Tom's helping hands came in the form of teaching the ways of the pipe wrench and plumber's putty. Thanks Tom!

Marsha and Tom also helped remove the kitchen counter and oven. Thanks Marsha and Tom!

And tonight Micah came over for a few hours and tirelessly ("tirelessly" means sweating a lot and taking a bunch of breaks, right?) screwing in backer board for the kitchen floor. Oh, and we got a track light up in the kitchen. Thanks Micah!

And now that I thanked all of the them, I expect them to thank me for letting them win the "Blog-readers-work-on-the-house-for-free sweepstakes". It really is quite an honor. You're welcome Marsha, Tom, and Micah!

Don't worry loyal blog readers, there are still plenty of chances to win. The main qualification is that you read this blog then ask if you can come over and do some work. Or, as in the case of Micah, I call you and say "come over and do some work." Either way counts as a valid entry to the sweepstakes.

Don't read anything into the fact that those three are three of the original blog readers. The sweepstakes is open to anyone of any age from any state. Let's do this!

Carpet Clearing

2009-04-19T23:08:00.000-07:00

All of the carpet is out of the house. Oh man. Getting the carpet out was actually not too bad (despite the "yucky factor"), but all of the tack strips and carpet pad staples were brutal. There are still probably 20% of the staples and carpet strips to remove.

Unfortunately, the hardwood floor isn't in super-duper shape. Some spots where the finish is missing and a water-damaged area in the hallway are the worst of it. I am hoping that a good resurfacing will fix all of that up. When we'll do that, I don't know. But the end of the month is fast approaching. I'll probably take more than one day off work this week to put more dents in the projects.

Thankfully, there is evidence of progress now. Sorry for the lack of photos. Three 14-hour days have taken their collective toll on my picture taking/editing abilities.

Laundry List

2009-04-18T23:42:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post a quick update on the past two days' activities. I took Friday off to get an extra day of home improving done. So Friday and Saturday ended up being 12+ hour days for the both of us. I'll post more details and photos of things later, but here is a taste of what we've accomplished:

Walls in all three bedrooms and living room painted.
Ceiling in all three bedrooms and living room painted.
Carpet ripped out of all three bedrooms.
Kitchen cabinet boxes primed.
Hinges put on kitchen cabinet doors.
Bathrooms 90% painted.
Lots of trips to Lowes, Home Depot, and OSH (we aren't picky).

To help with all of that painting, we rented a super-duper power painter thingy. I'd highly recommed it if you need to paint the popcorn ceiling stuff. The biggest problems are switching paints and covering everything you don't want paint to get on. All of my tools now have a permanent white mist on half of their bodies.

Anyway, I better get to bed, I feel another long day coming to finish the weekend.

Electric Elation

2009-04-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

One of the major tasks of the weekend was the electrical system. We got one estimate from an electrician for getting a new panel and grounding our outlets amongst other things. It was pricey. I figured: "I'll fix our home electrical system. What is the worst that could happen?" Ignorance is indeed bliss.

Seriously though, I wasn't going to upgrade the panel, but I thought I would poke around in the outlets. I did some more figuring and figured: "If the circuit is switched off at the panel, then it's all just metal and plastic." I dazzle myself with my insight sometimes.

Turns out that all of the outlets had ground wires already! Bingo! They just weren't attached to anything. In some cases they were clipped really short. The ones that were just unconnected were easy to fix. The shorties were tackled with wire nuts and a little extra wire. Here's a little of what I was up against:

So with some new outlets (2 boxes of 10) and some patience, I was able to ground almost all of the outlets in the house. Pretty cool. What are they grounded to? What does grounding even mean? Who knows! But the little outlet tester tells me I'm cool:

There were two outlets that ended up still ungrounded. I think that one of them leads to the other, so the upstream one is probably the problem. I'll tackle that later. I was going to take a picture of each of the outlets I changed, but decided against it. I even added GFCIs in the kitchen and both bathrooms. Awesome.

As I was doing all of the work, I was thinking to myself, "Self, you are really smart. You showed that uppity electrician who's boss. With his crazy fees. What do electricians know anyway. I mean all they..." and that's when I got shocked. Yowza! I learned that all outlets in a given bedroom are not necessarily on the same circuit. I will probably never forget that lesson. It's like self-shock therapy. And I'll probably get an electrician for anything more major than this completed job.

That's it for now. Shock-tastic!

Sticky Situation

2009-04-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

You may have thought the story of the linoleum tiles on cabinet shelves was over. How wrong you might be.

I'm not a fan of sticky stuff. And while I'm at it, I should point out that I am not a fan of people who are fans of sticky stuff. Old linoleum glue turns out to be one of the sticky substances known to man. Did you know there is a stickiness scale, much like there is a heat scale for peppers? I think the sticky scale is called the "Wooftrum Scale." Or something. Fresh hummus has a Wooftrum rating of 32. Recently chewed gum has a Wooftrum rating of 150. Old linoleum glue is rated at 199823015 (give or take).

So I went for some Goof Off. That didn't work.

So I moved up to pure acetone. Again, the results were poor. Basically the acetone would make the old glue clump up. I could then get some off, but it was very tedious. After three applications, I gave up. Acetone is not fun to work with.

So now we are thinking we need to get some sort of shelf liner and call it quits. We're looking at cork shelf liner. I think it will look good with everything else white. Apparently cork resists mold, absorbs shocks from bumping dishes on the shelf and handles water fairly well. It sounds like the wonder liner. We'll see.

If anyone has any other suggestions, we'd be happy to hear them. We'll have to go with something soon since we need to order a counter top after we see how well the cabinets turn out. If they turn out good, then we get granite, if they turn out not so good, we go with corian, if they turn out awful, we go for plywood and glue.

Tool Hall of Fame

2009-04-06T07:40:00.001-07:00

So as I was walking down the street yesterday, I was accosted over and over again about the blog. People were saying things like: "Hey Joey! Great Blog!" and "Aren't you the Mildred Metamorphosis guy? Awesome!" After they get past their shock of meeting me in person, they ultimately ask some serious home improvement questions. Now, I'm happy to help by spreading my vast knowledge, but I only have so many hours in the day. At some point I just need to say "look, I appreciate how much you love my blog, but I still need my personal space. I'm still just a regular guy. A regular guy with an awesome blog adored by millions, but a regular guy nonetheless."

Anyway, as a sign of appreciation to all of my loyal readers, I'll address one of my most asked questions. What tools have been the superstars during your renovation? To answer that, I'm starting my own "Tool Hall of Fame" today. The first 3 inductees are as follows. First is the 17" Ripping Chisel. Not only does it have a great tool name, but it pulled it's weight and then some during the vanity removal and wall panel peeling. Next is the good old scraper. Oh, it scrapes. Big time. Finally, for its service during the linoleum tile removal, the humble hairdryer.

I think every week, I'll induct more tools into the Tool Hall of Fame (THOF). Stay tuned!

Locksmith Lauding

2009-04-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

This isn't going to be one super-exciting posts to which you've become accustomed (spoiled some might say), but it is an important one. We changed the locks on Mildred Drive. Back in October, we had our apartment burglarized and I found Dan Kohlman to come out and change those locks. He was glad to talk about what he was doing and answer our naive questions. So when we needed the service this time, we called him again and we did a smooth job once again. This time he even let me use his hammer to butcher some nails (I'm not a good hammerer). Anyway, if you need any locksmithing done in or around Fremont, I'd recommend giving Dan at Kohlman's Key Works a call.

Barren Bathroom

2009-04-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

One of the jobs we've paid someone to do was to rip out the flooring of both bathrooms. Since you're so familiar with this view of the main bathroom, I'm presenting the current state of the bathroom. So envision the tiles on the floor, a new vanity and toilet along with a larger mirror and a fresh paint job. Pow! Done! What could go wrong!

Oh, we found out that the previous vanity was probably custom built for this bathroom. It was 45" long. If you search around for vanities, you'll find there is a serious lack of 45" vanities. 36" is a standard and 48" is a standard. Anything in between will likely need to be custom built. There are some fancy modular bathroom furniture collections that can be ordered through Home Depot. Though, if we ordered the pieces to fit this space, we'd probably have to triple our vanity budget. Vanity indeed!

Neelima came up with the idea of buying a 36" vanity and paying the as-yet-to-be-named plumber to move the pipes to the right so the vanity can sit in the corner. If we didn't move the pipes, then the vanity would be close to the toilet and there'd be an awkward 10" gap between the vanity and the right corner of the bathroom. So that's the plan now. Forward ho!

Linoleum Lifting

2009-04-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight after work I went home, ate, and then headed to Mildred Drive. The primary mission was to remove the linoleum tiles from the kitchen shelves. Yes, I said linoleum tiles. On the kitchen shelves. Seriously. The previous owner liked his sticky surface coverings. Whether it's wallpaper or wall paneling or linoleum, if something could be stuck to a surface, it likely was.

This will give you a sense of what I was up against. Note that these are just the lower shelves, there are more on the upper shelves:

Those are individual 12"X12" tiles glued to the wood. I got to work with the stiff putty knife:

It soon became clear that this wasn't going to cut it. I had to bring in a secret weapon... the hair dryer. This became the work setup:

The hair dryer worked wonders. I'm not going to say that it made the job "easy," but it definitely made it easier. It took a good 2 hours to get them all off. The glue buildup on the putty knife and my hands and arms was something to behold. Toward the end it wasn't even necessary that I grip the knife anymore. It will be a later job to remove the stickiness from the shelves. I assume it will be some harsh chemical remover stuff... we'll see.

The stickiness was not easily overcome. I drove home very carefully trying not to touch much of anything. Unfortunately the camera took some sticky hits for the sake of the blog. See the lengths I go through for you loyal blog readers? Anyway, after getting home I showered with extra hot water. The glue didn't really feel like participating in the smooth clean up. I ended up with sticky clumps in my arm hair. Oh, you know I've got a photo:

The photo isn't super clear, so all of you hairy arm fans (and I know there's a lot of you out there) will just have to use your imaginations. Looks like my hairy arm is becoming the star of the blog!

Asbestos Announcement

2009-04-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to my previous (and now legendary) post regarding asbestos analysis, we received the lab results:

On January 4, 2008, HMA received a bulk sample of material and was asked to obtain laboratory analysis for possible asbestos content.

An independent NVLAP accredited laboratory performed analysis and results are
reported as:

Trace amounts of asbestos (chrysotile).

Dang! Trace amounts of chrysotile! The HMA guy told me that we should probably just leave it alone if it's in good enough shape. It's hard to say if we're happy or sad that the ceiling is, indeed, in "good enough" shape.

Well, the bumpy ceiling remains:

Chrysotile 1 - Joey/Neelima 0.

UPDATE: Don't forget to vote in my first poll over to the right!!! ------->
UPDATE 2: The poll is closed! And with a whopping 40% of the vote, crocidolite is the winner! But, really, who didn't see that coming?

Tile Toil

2009-03-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

You know what's heavy? 306 Porcelain tiles. I picked up (in more ways than one) the tiles that will be going in the kitchen and bathrooms. Just pushing them through Lowe's on that big, flat cart was rough. Taking them off the ol' Ford Ranger was rougher. By the way, if there's one thing that I think you will learn by reading this blog, it's that Joey is a bit of a delicate flower. But fixing up this house will change all of that! I'll be a sturdy piece of bamboo soon! Or celery!

But seriously, I hope that seeing the tiles gets you all excited to watch the process of us installing them. Should be easy. What could go wrong? I can't think of one thing! Stay tuned!

Vanity Vanquishing

2009-03-29T22:49:00.000-07:00

The major hurdle this weekend was bathroom vanity removal. I now understand the old saying: "You haven't lived until you've removed a vanity." I think it was originally from the Celts.

But really, if you haven't ever removed a vanity, I recommend checking out this link as it was one of the best I found on the removal of a vanity. After studying all of the steps in detail, I set out to get the job done on the dated Mildred vanities. That's about when the wheels completely came off!

Step one was: "Shut off the water to your sink before you disconnect your faucet supply tubes. Look for shutoff valves under the sink and turn them off." Now this should have been a cinch considering the water hasn't been turned on for us yet. Apparently, the water company didn't shut the main off completely so water could still trickle through the faucets. I couldn't turn the main off any further since the control nut for it was padlocked. This shouldn't be a big deal considering the shutoff valves to the sink should work. But they didn't. This basically meant there was no way to shut off the water completely. Ugh.

After a trip to Home Depot, a guy in the plumbing department told me I should replace the valves since they must have lost their effectiveness over the years. Easy enough if I could shut the water off to the house. Since I couldn't, I found that I could turn on a faucet outside the house and that would prevent the other faucets from trickling. This allowed me to finally complete "Step 1" of the vanity removal. Now we're getting somewhere.

The next step was to remove the sink/counter top, which actually went pretty smoothly.

Next, I was to actually detach the vanity from the wall. Easy enough when the vanity is attached with screws. This one was nailed to the wall. I was eventually able to pry those nails free without destroying the wall.

Now comes the step that was missing from all of the "how-to" articles I read. The vanity was nailed to the floor. Big time nailed to the floor. It was at this point I started destroying the vanity. I eventually got it out, but the whole process took over a couple hours. The best part about the whole thing was that I discovered that I liked demolishing things. Anyway, here is the crowd-favorite series of photos for this job:

Phew.

The master bath vanity actually went very smoothly. The only hitch on this vanity was that the water supply lines were rusted shut. I ended up having to snip them instead of unscrewing them.

That's it for now.

Chimney Changes

2009-03-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

No photos or anything, but we got the chimney spark catcher thing installed last week. The guy also cleaned the chimney. Nothing more to see here. Move along.

Wallpaper Wiping

2009-03-28T20:41:00.000-07:00

We did quite a few things today. I know you're on the edge of your seat wondering how it all went. Well, take it easy. I'll get to each task in time. This post is all about our adventure with the wallpaper.

As an aside, who ever thought wallpaper was a good idea? Admittedly, I used to be quite ambivalent toward wallpaper. That all changed today. I am totally anti-wallpaper now. Anyway....

Before Neelima had to go to work, she tried out the wallpaper scorer. I pretty nifty invention that pokes little holes in the surface of the paper without damaging the wall underneath.

Wow, her arm/wrist isn't super hairy. (That's called foreshadowing. Not the lack of hair, but the statement in context of this blog post. Foreshadowing isn't that effective when the author goes in great detail to call it out.)

So after the wallpaper is scored, you can squirt water and/or wallpaper removal solution. I found out today that wallpaper removal solution is a big scam. Water worked just as well on its own. I squirted it and then waited 15 minutes and squirted it again and waited 15 more minutes. I think I should have used holy water, because this wallpaper was completely possessed. It took scraping and squirting and scraping and squirting to finally get the stuff off. It wasn't fun. Here's the exciting time-lapse photography:

Phew.

There was some additional wallpaper in the kitchen (hooray!). But to contrast things, here is a picture of me peeling this stuff off with total ease and without any liquids:

Wow, my arm/wrist is really hairy. (That's a foreshadowing payoff! So worth it!).

As a final contrast, take a look at the waste comparison between the two rooms. It gives a good idea of the work involved.

Nice, clean strips of paper versus a scarred hellscape of cellulose and glue.

Just to reiterate, I am anti-wallpaper now.

Asbestos Analysis

2009-03-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

What thoughts does the following photo evoke for you?

Bag of white powder, spoon, bandanna, spray bottle with mysterious liquid... if you thought "acoustical ceiling sample gathering," then you are, of course, correct. What else could it be?

So there is a place in San Leandro called Hazardous Materials Assessment, Inc. and they'll analyze samples to tell you if they have asbestos and/or lead within them. It costs $35.00 per sample. They only require a small amount for the test. I'll be sure to update here on the blog when I get results.

We are getting the "ceiling popcorn" stuff analyzed. I guess for houses built before the 80's, the popcorn stuff often has asbestos. And for all houses built in any decade, the popcorn stuff is quite awful looking. So we're hoping there's no asbestos and we can scape the gunk off and have a regular looking ceiling. Wish us luck!

(By the way, the bandanna was to cover my mouth and nose as I scraped with the plastic spoon after wetting it with the spray bottle.)

Redfin Review

2009-03-21T08:52:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note about our experience buying a house through Redfin. Even though we were completely new at the home-buying game, it felt good to have some control over how the process went. This control came in the form of access to information. The Redfin site provides some good tools for searching available listings and for arranging tours, which let us feel like we were guiding and shaping the process to some extent.

Redfin does have a fairly unique distribution of responsibilities. There is a a separate person for each stage of the process. There is someone who schedules tours, someone who takes you on tours, someone who prepares offers, and someone else who organizes paperwork after the offer. Overall, it seems the main player 9and rightfully so) is the one who prepares the offer. He/she will do the negotiating and will answer all of the important questions about the process. I was very happy with the job that Miawand Bayan did (and continues to do) for us in this capacity.

The best part about buying the home through Redfin is the "rebate" you get after the sale. We got back 1.5% of the sale price which amounted to just about all of the closing costs with the escrow/title company and the vairous loan fees. If we hadn't had to prepay a chunk of mortgage insurance (don't get me started on mortgage insurance... that's a whole 'nother blog entry), we would have actually received a check after the closing costs were covered by the Redfin refund.

Title Tribulations

2009-03-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

So we've been watching a lot of HGTV lately. On the shows where first-time homebuyers sign their final paperwork, there are generally plenty of smiles and the occasional hug and/or high-five. We didn't have any of that.

The title company lady called me at work on Tuesday and asked how we'd like to sign some loan papers and other documents. She offered to have someone stop by the house with the papers or we could drive 40 minutes during work hours to their office. Well, shoot, come on over!

At 8pm that night a young girl showed up with roughly half her body weight in papers. She was a notary. These were all of the papers for the deal. THE documents. This was not the high-five situation I was expecting. We signed a few of them, then stopped. After a couple of calls to my realtor and mortgage officer, I decided that I'd feel more comfortable signing in the office. We sent the little notary girl packing.

When we went to the title office on Thursday morning, I don't think the title lady was all that thrilled to be dealing with us. We labored over the estimated cost sheet for some time. We felt that we were somewhat led astray on the previous home-signing appointment (we are total house noobs) and were hoping for some considerations in the title/escrow costs. She wasn't having any of it. She let us know how the title/escrow company actually did the "lion's share" of the work for the entire transaction and received precious little in return. Thus we were getting a "great deal." I'm not the world's best negotiator especially when I have little to no leverage. This was the seller's title company and we stood to lose our good-faith money if things didn't go forward. So what are we going to do? Oh, we're going to give the title company every penny it asks for. Each cryptic line item will come out of our savings. My lunch money for all of 2010 now belongs to North American Title Company. Not a good feeling.

Now, don't get me wrong. If the title lady could give us a break, she totally would have. Her hard-working hands were tied. The fees, she went on to describe, we set with the State of California. It would be illegal for her to offer any discount. Oh, and she was the notary too. And there's just no way to make any savings on the notary fees. I guess the argument is that she went out of her way to get her notary license, so that skill should be compensated separately and appropriately. I'm going to try that at work sometime. Whenever I have to do some programming in a different language, I'll charge an extra fee to my boss since I went to school for that. I suggest that any doctors who have to be licensed separately to prescribe certain drugs to charge a little extra to the patients when issuing those prescriptions. Makes sense.

Anyway, there were no big smiles when we were done. No hugs. And definitely no high-fives. But the papers are signed. Now some other hoops will be positioned, but I think other agents must jump through those. Looks like on Tuesday we'll get our keys. Then the real fun can begin...

Blog Beginning

2009-03-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

Well, there's nothing more satisfying than the smell of a fresh, new blog. In this one, I hope to chronicle our first home purchase. This should start at the signing of our documents on March 20th through our move-in on May 1st. In between I expect major excitement as we get some improvements completed. New floors, cabinet resurfacing, painting, electrical work, etc.: What could possibly go wrong?