Sometimes I even impress myself

As I have mentioned several times, The Dump suffers from a lack of gutters on two sides. This leads to a lot of water hitting the ground and sitting there right next to the foundation. This means it makes its way into the crawlspace, which has been the source of much stress and frustration. It REALLY stressed me out last year, and this year I was trying to tell myself I was prepared for the inevitable cycle of rain and pumping.

Back in late summer, I thought to install gutters before the rains started, but didn't because it seemed very likely I'd do my foundation work (including a super powerful system to remove water from the property) and a new roof. Alas, the economy tanked way more than expected and I decided I needed to keep that cash in my pocket.

After the doozie of a storm we had last weekend and the out-of-control stress I felt this week with all the pumping it required, I decided I needed to get some gutters up before the next storm rolled in. So, I downloaded some how-to info from ThisOldHouse.com, went shopping for supplies Friday night and skipped my run Saturday morning to get an early start on what I suspected would be a long project.

I have to admit, I consider most of my home improvement projects thus far to be pretty entry level and was a bit concerned about my ability to execute on this one. But execute I most certainly did. Because I was racing against mother nature, and my doubt about taking on a project of this magnitude, I opted for the slightly more expensive vinyl gutter system that snaps together with rubber gaskets at the joins instead of cementing with metal or plastic adhesive. So easy!

I got about 40' of gutters hung without too much cussing and without falling off the ladder. I ran out of gas and did not finish the task (have a 12' and a 7' section left), but am really pleased with what I accomplished.

Sure enough, it started to rain while we were out to dinner and I could not wait to get home to see how they were holding up. Instead of a waterfall off the roof, I heard water gushing down the downspout and out the end of the 12' diverter tube that takes it away fromt he foundation. Yippee!!!!!

It rained most of the night and a good chunk of today and my crawlspace is NOT full of water as I was expecting it to be. Maybe we didn't have enough rain to create saturated conditions (though he soil was still saturated from the last storm, even with 4 dry days in between) , but maybe the gutters are a big chunk of the solution to my water problem. Not bad for $150 in supplies and 6 hours of work.

And because I am THAT much of a geek, here's a photo:
On tap for next weekend: painting the kitchen.

Rainy day progress

As I type this, Redwood City is approaching 2" of rain in a 24 hour period. I'm not joking when I say it has been raining ALL day. I know our nearly-empty reservoirs desperately need it, and for that I am grateful for it to be raining.

Alas, also as I type this, I have a pump running because my crawlspace is once again full of water. This is partly (mostly) due to The Dump's lack of adequate drainage, and also partly because Redwood City is relatively low, so when there is a lot of water in a short period, it isn't able to drain away very quickly. I am MUCH less stressed about this than I was last winter. It helps that my neighbor's crawl space is full too (yep, I stuck my head in there to satisfy my curiosity!) and he has sufficient gutters.

Truth be told, I was really hoping to hold out on the pumping because my rain barrels are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Since we're perilously close to a drought, I wanted to be a good citizen and attempt to collect as much rainwater as possible for the rest of the rainy season to use in my garden when the inevitable water rationing starts (or at least be a good citizen even if there is no rationing) and pumping the crawlspace into a barrel seemed like a good way to start.

In any event, I've been indoors all day and spent most of that day scraping the 50-some odd years of wax buildup from the hall floor. This has been ongoing for about 6 months, but it's a mind-numbingly boring task, slow on visible progress, and hard on the hands, so it's always at the bottom of the to-do list. I'd tackled the hardware on the kitchen cabinets last night, so there was nothing else that seemed like a reasonable one-day project, and the wet weather meant painting was out since it would take ages to dry, so a-scraping I went.

I wish I could say a full day of work led to a miraculous transformation, but they went from bad to worse before starting to look better.

The wax was really thick and grimy at the edges, but that's where it has scraped up more readily. After making progress with the 12" on either side, I covered it with a runner and ignored it for a while since the visible parts were quite nice looking. :)

The central traffic area was smooth and most resistant to scraping off, but quite discolored compared to the exposed perimeter. After a few hours of scraping, I decided to give the chemical wax stripper a go. Not the smartest thing on a day when I can't open all the windows of the house to ventilate, but I had a one track mind about the floor. I'm less than impressed with the results, even after going at it with steel wool with plenty of the solvent.

After letting them dry, I used Johnson One Step Floor Wax which is supposed to clean and wax in one step (duh) with no buffing required. It claims to be able to remove wax too, but I knew it was no match for the amount of buildup on my floors. The label said it wound dry shiny and if it did not, that meant there was wax buildup that needed to be removed. My floors are not shiny, so there is more scraping/scubbing in my future. I think I'm going to see if I can find a brillo-type pad to attach to the sander to save my hands a bit.

Since I don't have a photo-worthy hall floor, I'll leave you with a photo of the new kitchen cabinets complete with hardware and butcher block top:
More progress to come, eventually. Painting the kitchen is near the top of the to-do list when we get a dry spell.

Kitchen updates

I've been holding off on posting about my progress over the holidays because I have not finished the kitchen project. I had a few technical hurdles and a business trip get in the way.

In December I decided that Ol' Betty (the 1950's stove) had to go. I was tired of not being able to bake to my heart's content, and she really was big for the tiny kitchen. In addition to being 34.5" wide, she stuck out into the room a good 6" due to the location of the gas inlet. Too big, too big, too big.

I demolished the existing cabinet to the right of Betty (the drawers were falling apart) and assembled two base units from Ikea to go on either side of the new stove. Alas, the gas inlet is problematic with the new stove too, so I decided not to do countertops and final positioning until I got that resolved. After some exploratory cuts int he dryway, I decided rerouting the gas line is a task best left to a professional. He's coming tomorrow to do that, and the rest of the day will be spent installing the countertop and drawer hardware.

Here's the current situation:
I'm hopeful that I'll be posting completion by the end of the weekend. It does involve using a new power tool (circular saw), so there could be some unexpected challenges.

Finished with the storage unit

I moved out of the storage unit Thanksgiving weekend, and let me tell you, does it ever feel good! I was pleasantly surprised that I am not overrun with boxes. Excess furniture is in the back room until I decide whether or not it has a permanent home here, and 95% of the boxes went into the garagey shed with just enough room for bikes, chipper-shredder and gardening equipment.

The other 5% of boxes are in the back bedroom and contain clothing that I have obviously lived without for well over a year. I will be reviewing the contents of those boxes and hopefully making a huge Goodwill run later this week.

I've completely emptied several kitchen boxes that had previously been partially emptied as I looked for the most basic kitchen essentials. I also had a number of empty boxes in the garagey-shed that I'd hung onto because I figured I'd move out for construction "any day now." Getting rid of those cleared up a lot of shelf space in the garage and I was able to do quite a bit of rearranging in there.

That's good news since all my Christmas decor bins are stacked in the back room. They are OK in there for now and I plan to have cleared more room in the garagey-shed by the time I'm taking down the tree.

I'm also contemplating removing some of the cabinets in my kitchen and replacing them with some IKEA cabinets to improve the storage situation (and also because some of the existing cabinets are falling apart) so that I can unpack more kitchen boxes. I've designed the kitchen with the IKEA kitchen design software and it's quite exciting to see the space more efficiently used. I'll post photos for sure if I tackle that project during my time off this month.

With care, any paint challenge can be overcome

So, last weekend I thought I had met my match when it comes to painting and that all the challenges I faced while priming would resurface when actually painting. It was looking especially grim after my pep talk with the fellow in the paint department at OSH.

I think allowing a good drying interval after priming may have helped. I moved very slowly with the paint and kept a super light pressure and had nary a peeling paint issue. I saw a couple areas bubble up after the first coat, so I turned a fan on in front of them and let them dry for a good long while before starting the second coat.

I was using paint leftover from the condo and it was dated prior to my purchase of the house, but they had never been opened, so other than a really extensive stirring, it worked out fine (and free).

Strangely enough, what was a really blah non-color in the condo (with it's soaring ceilings and bright southern exposure), is a lovely warm, creamy beige in this room. I rolled out the oriental rug on the hardwood floors and it looks quite nice...as long as you don't look closely at the windows where there are cracked panes of glass and some others that are popping out of the sashes. Oh well.

I'm still wrangling with finding some suitable insulated window coverings to try to trap some heat in the room, but I've already moved half of my storage unit into it (hence, no photos). I'm on track to be out of storage by the end of this month, and let me tell you, that's $202 I'll be glad to have back every month, even if it does mean a mountain of boxes in the guest bedroom/office/craft room.

Roasty toasty

My fireplace insert was installed yesterday. I love it already.


I played with programming it last night, and sure enough, it went on at 6am today. I opened my bedroom door to a balmy 68° and did not have to race to the bathroom to turn on that heater and the hot water to take the chill off the air. Ahhh.... the simple pleasures of life.

I should have a similar experience when I get home tonight and can't wait to sit on the couch in front of it.

I need to get a little doorway fan to push the warm air through the kitchen to the rest of the house, but that's a minor issue at this stage.

A paint job is only as good as the paint beneath it

Such was the sage wisdom I received from the kind fellow in the paint department at OSH this afternoon. This weekend's project was painting the back bedroom in preparation for moving the rest of my stuff out of storage this month. It will be the guest bedroom via an air mattress whenever the need arises.

In any event, I had not tackled this room for a very good reason--it was the dumpiest aspect of The Dump. Peeling paint, cracked glass in the windows, popped up floor boards, etc. It was also the first interior item on the list when it came to big remodel plans, so I just kept the door closed all the time.

Anyway, after a ton of paint scraping, spackling and sanding, I deemed it as good as it gets for a fresh coat of paint. I could tell the last paint job painted over chipped/peeling paint, so this is not a new problem for this tragic room, but I was determined to make the best of it and move along at a good clip.

Wrong.

Apparently when paint that doesn't want to stick to the layer beneath it gets wet with a fresh coat (primer in this case), it bubbles away from the wall and peels off on the wet paint roller. Yuk!

After scraping away of some wet bubbles of peeling paint and rollering very slowly and carefully, I decided it was finished and was hopeful that the primer would form some sort of flexible "glue" that would hold it all together when the real paint does on. I had to run to OSH for a few other items, so I decided to have a chat with Mr. Paint. I told him the situation and he grimaced and actually said, "Yuk," before dropping his bomb of a pearl of wisdom. No matter how well I prime that mess, it's still going to peel off.

I decided I will wait until next weekend to deal with the real paint. I'll keep an eye on it during the week and will remove any other bubbles or cracks/peels that develop. Ceiling and trim are all painted and ready to go. The wall color is leftover from the condo (two gallons never even opened), and is ultra-boring cream. Whatever--I'm using it up instead of sending it to hazardous waste, and I didn't have to buy paint (the mis-mix bin was not going to help in this case since the room is big enough to require more than one gallon).

In a more successful turn of events, Arturo came out to run the gas line to the fireplace and also removed the nasty old wall heater in the living room. He patched the wall, so I primed and painted it and am amazed at how much space I just reclaimed in my living room:

I can actually use that corner now! There is a little gap in the floor and baseboard, but I'm not going to bother fixing it at this juncture since that is where I plan to put my wine cabinet. I'm thrilled since that is one less piece of furniture being stashed in the "guest bedroom."

Looking back, I don't seem to have posted a good photo that includes the heater, so here you go:

Oh, you can also see the major improvement in the soot-covered bricks. Simple Green, a scrub brush and a bucket of warm water were highly effective in removing the soot buildup in preparation for the fireplace insert coming next week. After that is installed, I'll finally get around to painting the mantle.