Fort House Rehab

Peter Estin Hut Trip

2008-01-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

Over the December break I took part in what has become a bit of tradition between my sister and some friends. We skied up to a 10th Mtn hut. The huts are normally very crowded and hard to get into. However on around Christmas one can get into a hut and sometimes even get them fairly empty.

This year we skied to Peter Estin hut. We did the more direct 6 mile ski from Yeoman park trail head. The ski inn was fun with the exception of a scare when Talya lost her camera. Luckily someone brought the camera up to the hut for her. We spent two nights at the hut. On the midday we had some great skiing around the hut. We got at least 6" the first morning and a few more the next day. On the way out we did a run then did the long flat route out. I would strongly reccomend against that route since it is rather flat, even up hill in places.

Our friend Bernhard took some fun pictures of the trip. I reposted them below. Talya took some pictures but those are locked up in Facebook's private garden.

Maui Dives

2007-11-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

I recently lost my dive log. A mortal sin for a diver, luckily I am not an orthodox diver. As a programmer I realized that there is a better way to record dives than paper books. It would be really nice to have an interface to post blog posts that include diving information. This would follow the data blogging trend.

I think that a dive blogging platform should include:

A way to post a description

A way to upload dive profiles from dive computers.

A way to securely link a dive to a dive company. A replacement for the traditional stamps that dive companies currently used. This could be performed with e-mail.

This would have many nice features over traditional dive logs. You can calculate statistics about your own diving and statistics about dive companies. There would not be a huge audience for this but it would be a very dedicated following. In this spirit I am going to post descriptions of 4 dives in Maui.

November 13, 2007
# 3
Location: Molokini back side
Company: Mike Severns

We dove down to 100 on the wall that goes down to 150 ft. We slowly worked our way up from there. It was a great dive the dive masters were very good and knowledgeable, pointing out unique fish to the area. The most interesting fish was seeing a fairly large ray swim by.

#4
Location: Maui Shore
We dove down to 65' to see a sunken WW2 amphibious landing vehicle. The vehicle was fairly rusted out but cool to see. More interesting was the frog fish that was on the vehicle hanging out. There were a couple of antler corals near by, but not too interesting.

November 14, 2007
#5
Location: Molokini crater
Company: Pride Of Maui
I want to preface this description by saying that I choose the Pride of Maui because I a large number of people I was traveling with were going on a snorkeling trip on the boat.
This is a snorkel factory. If you know anything about snorkeling you will likely be annoyed with the crew, this is designed to for people who nothing about diving. The boat rarely sees scuba divers. We rented all of our gear and it was some of the worst I have ever used. The first 3 tanks that I tried did not have enough pressure. They did not have wet suits for us, even though the promised us suits. The dive master told us he had not dove in 5 months. We had no dive computers, or watches. A little bit scary.
The dive was very nice but the dive master was a tool. He had screwed up his weight so he was picking up rocks to weigh himself down. He was too lazy or clumsy to stop his pressure gauges from dragging on the coral. We saw one small shark at the very end of the dive.

November 14, 2007
#6
Location: Maui Shore
Company: Pride Of Maui
This was a very shallow and short dive. We were able to see four turtles and lots of eels. Our dive time was limited to the fact that we did not have a watch and had to be conservative, and the fact that the snorkel boat imposed a time limit on our dive time.
Avoid Pride of Maui at all costs!!

Big Sur Half Marathon

2007-11-14T02:15:00.000-08:00

This weekend Annie and I ran the Big Sur Half Marathon in Monterey. I was blow away the beauty of the area. We finished at 2:03. I was kind of hoping to break 2 hours, but not bad for a first time. We did not take any pictures so there is not much to show.

I would love to write more but it is late and I am diving in the morning.

UPDATE:
I have a bit of time to update the post from LAX. The organizers put on a great event. There were a bunch of bands along the way to cheer us on. Ranging from a lone piano player, horn quartet, rock band, hippie drum group and the best was a taiko drum group. The taiko drums group was most of the way out along the beach. So you heard them twice, once right before the turn around and once right after the turn around.

SF2G Haloween

2007-11-01T17:08:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures of the San Francisco to Google ride on Halloween morning. Some are blurry. I am only in a few pictures, but you can get the picture. It was really fun to roll down the road at 20 mi/hr with tunes blasting riding to headlights.

Pot Rack Building Instructions

2007-10-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

I have had several requests for details on how to build a bike wheel pot rack. The contract with ReadyMade said that I could publish for a while. I think the time has passed and they have not answered my e-mail so here it is.

The biggest task is to acquire a wheel. Front wheels work better, more symmetrical. The next step is to decide what type of wheel to use. I used a modern mtn bike wheel. Mtn vs road is not very important. However it is easier if the hub has cartridge bearings, not the old fashion bearings with races. ReadyMade reported using an old fashion wheel. If you are looking for a free/cheap used wheel it will be a lot easier to find an traditional bearing race hub.

Thread one nut and the coupling onto the metal side of the two sided bolt.

Using two wrenches, tighten the nut and coupling against each other.

Drill a small hole into a joist in the ceiling/floor of the floor above.

Screw the wooden side of the bolt into the hole. Use a wrench on the coupling to drive the coupling/two sided bolt.

Prepare the wheel by removing the tire, tube, skewer, and axel. Each hub with have different directions for removing the axel. If you are using cartridge bearings replace the bearings sans axel. If you are using a bearing race hub replace the bearings with washers.

Place a washer on a 1/2 in x 3-4 in bolt. Thread the bolt through the hub so the washer and head of the bolt are on the bottom wheel.

Place another set of washers on the other side of the wheel. I placed enough so there would be no gap between the wheel and the next nut. Add one nut after washers. Tighten the nut against the head of the bolt. Do not over tighten, the bearings will bind if it is too tight. Be sure to get the bolt as straight and centered in the hub as possible. This is kind of difficult and sort of a hack. It might be a good idea to try to shim the bolt so the centering is automatic.

Place one more nut on the bolt attached to the wheel. Screw it down enough so that there are enough threads clear for the coupling.

Assemble the two parts. Place the wheel below the coupling. Use the bolt head to tighten the bolt on the wheel most of the way into the coupling. When the nut attached to the wheel comes up flush to the coupling stop screwing using the bolt head. Use one wrench attached to the coupling and one attached to the nut one wheel side bolt. Tighten the two bolts against each other.

Attach hooks to the rim and spokes of the wheel.

Done!

If you have any problems with this please email or comment. I have detailed pictures I will label and post but not right now.

Please send pictures if you create a pot rack.

California Bike Pictures

2007-10-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of stories about Google and San Fran, but I am not in the mood to write a big post. I just wanted to share some bicycling pictures. None of these are pictures that I have taken.
I have been riding to work about once a week. There is a great group of Googlers, and others who ride fairly regularly the 45-50 miles from San Fran to Mtn View. Here are some pictures of the ride, none taken by me.

I also have some pictures of a bike ride I took with Piaw and a few other riders.

UPDATE Piaw was nice enough to write up the ride. Check it out here.

Pictures of the trip west

2007-08-23T21:43:00.000-07:00

Really just pictures from Winter Park. Typical to Annie and I we were to lazy to take any pictures. These were all taken by other people.

House Photos

2007-08-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of the house shortly before we left.

PVC Tomatoe Cages

2007-05-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

Last summer we had difficulty using standard tomato cages. The cages are designed for use in yards with a lot of soil. Our vegetable boxes are only about a foot deep. The cages would not stand up when we needed them most; when they are heavy with fruit. We tried all sorts of things, propping up the cages, tying them to walls. Nothing seemed to do the trick.

This year we decided to try something different. Instead of using individual cages that would flop over we built one big cage over the whole garden. It was fairly cheap, around $30 and I would like to think that it looks good too. As an added bonus it keeps Coltrane out of the garden.

Fun in Dublin

2007-05-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

I recently got to travel to Dublin for the VTC conference. I wrote about the technical aspects of the trip on ebiquity.

I planed to trip to coincide with the start of Jared's trip through Europe. Despited a cold, and hurt feet we managed to have fun on the emerald isle. My advice to other travelers is only spend a couple of days in Dublin. It is a fun town for a few drinks, but I found the countryside much nicer than the city.

I was amazed at how cosmopolitan Dublin is now. It is a very wealthy society now. Now that Dubliners can afford things other than potatoes and carrots, they are eating all sort of things. Almost every restaurant has a juice machine, and the Irish are mad about fresh juice and smoothies.

Pot Rack Published!

2007-05-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

Our recycled bike wheel pot rack got published in in ReadyMade. They changed the design slightly so that it does not need an expensive cartridge bearing hub. Unfortunately they gave more page space to a sort of silly bike wheel lazy susan.

The pot rack was in their magazine, not the blog. That is a little more prestigious, however it means that you have to go buy the magazine to see it.

Bathtub Flowers

2006-09-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

We held onto the original bathtub. We talked about what we would do with it for a long time. We we actually got some free time we painted it up a and put in front of the house. I wanted to save more of the bathroom. I wanted to have plants growing out of the toilet, but Annie vetoed that.
The plants are very happy. The neighbors water the plants with thier AC condensate, so there is almost ecological load of having the plants. Another person on Fort recently put out a bathtub planter in front of the house. Hopefully we are starting a trend of bathroom fixture planters.

His favorite new toy

2006-07-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

He loves ropes so we got him a tooth cleaning floride infused rope today.

Curious at 3 Months

2006-07-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

Here is a more recent picture of Coltrane. We did not take near enough puppy pictures. We are trying to play catch up. He has grown a lot in the month that we have had him. We are not measuring his height, but he is almost twice as tall. He went from 15 to 23 lbs. He is an avid runner, but does not run well in the city. He is only good off leash chasing mtn bikes.

Our new puppy

2006-07-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

Here is Coltrane, the newest addition to our house. We picked him up from the Baltimore SPCA on July 3, when he was just 2 months old. He had a few accidents on our carfully restored floors, but since then he has been very good. Crate training is amazing. I originally cringed at the idea of puting my dog in a cage, but he does not mind it much and it means that he does not have a chance to get into trouble. As far as we know he is a lab mix. He was found on the streets of Baltimore near Hampden.

Recycled Pot Rack

2006-07-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

We built this piece out of an old bike wheel. The wheel came off of GT full suspension bike that I broke. The whole project cost around $15 from HomeDepot. There is one bolt that goes through the hub, and a coupling that links that to a bolt that is half metal threads and half wood threads. That's really about all that it takes. The pots hang off of simple stainless hooks attached to the rim and spokes.
To my knowledge this is a unique piece. I have not seen any evidence of similar pot racks being made. One person blogged about a bike wheel pot rack where the wheel was cut in half. Our design allows the hub to still function and the whole thing spins. So even if the pot you want is in the back, just spin it and it at your finger tips.

UPDATE: I have posted more detailed instructions.

The girls

2006-06-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

David and Annie

2006-06-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Orion and Talya

2006-06-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

Mark and Lauren

2006-06-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

Doug and Jordana (practicing?)

2006-06-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

Wedding Photos

2006-06-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

Wedding, honey moon and tear gas

2006-06-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally set up to track our construction process. Now that the construction is slowing down I am repurposing the blog for any communication about our lives. We recently got married in Baltimore. I made a google map of the affair. Our good friend Emily has bloged about our wedding, and others. She also posted many more picture on shutterfly.

I am not nearly as good with words as Emily so I will keep it to what people want, pictures. I am accumulating pictures of the affair on Flickr. I keep updating this set as I get time and new pictures.

You can read a bit about the protest that we got caught up in in Oaxaca from Reuters. Indymedia has a good collection of pictures of the protest, police action etc. I will post our pictures of the action soon.

Bathtub Keg

2006-03-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

We finally had a house warming party. It was a lot of fun. Friends from many different circles came together to have a good time. Annie and I made a lot of food, most of it went over well. Annie's crystal rolls are always popular.
We got a old kegerator. You just need to put a bunch of ice in with the keg. The keg spent the night in our old bathtub.

All of the pictures of the night can be found on flikr.

Original Bathroom

2006-01-20T05:11:00.000-08:00

2x4's Make nice showers.

Formstone at it's finest

2006-01-20T05:10:00.000-08:00

The way we found the kitchen

2006-01-20T05:09:00.000-08:00

See that board leaning against the door? That's the lock!

Original Front Room

2006-01-20T05:07:00.000-08:00

The original living room. Recessed ceiling, shag carpet and two layers of wood paneling. Got to love it.

A Week off, not really

2006-01-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

We both took last week off of work. Our other jobs that is. So we could focus on just our house and wedding planing. We got a lot done, but it does not look like much. Trim work is so slow, and you only notice it when it goes wrong. It does not help that we decided to show the trim work, polyuerthaning each board several times.

We finally drylocked and painted the basement. A word of advice to anyone who is planning on rehabing a house. Paint and drylock the floor before you install anything. We could not paint everything because of the furnace and water heater. Well the basement is actually a place that you can spend a few minutes now. We still have a block wall to build, but all in good time.

Long Time Gone

2005-12-19T14:04:00.000-08:00

If anybody is checking this you will see a big gap over the last couple of months. It's been a crazy time in the house but not for construction. We got the house to a livable level and have been trying finish school and plan the rest of our lives. Other than school we have been filling our days with job, school and fellowship applications. I took a week long trip to China and Hong Kong. Two very cool places. I learned that I really don't want to call myself a Taoist. Even that relegion is fucked up in practise.

Now that school is out (almost) we have returned our focus to the house. We gave up an opportunity to sail down to Florida to finish up. Kind of sad, but we got to do it some time.

So far we are finishing up a few last areas of tile that were not done before: the entrance way, a window sill and some holes in the wall where you can see the old brick.

We'll post pictures when we actually finish something.

2005-09-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

Our bed, with no privacy.

2005-09-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

A good picture of our lights.

2005-09-16T10:33:00.000-07:00

So civilized, even espresso.

2005-09-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

Annie and Paulette talking at our table.

2005-09-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

This is the tub where we take our showers.

2005-09-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Our nice tile shower we have yet to use. We still need to buy the glass doors.

2005-08-18T20:16:00.001-07:00

The downstairs at 8 pm.

2005-08-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

The downstairs at 7 am.

Remaking the First Floor

2005-08-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

Today was a long day that changed the first floor dramatically. Yesturday we pulled down the old stairs. We have been using the old stairs as temporary work stairs. They did not meet code so we had new ones made. While the stairs where out we sanded down the floor. The result is that the downstairs is very close to finished now. We do not have treads in the stairs yet so we use a lader to get up and down. That is the next task, shoping for and buying new treads. The downstairs floor looks dramatically different. It was a long day of sanding (12 hours). The floor still has imperfections, but we expected that. The grain of the wood is very nice.

Busy Workers, Lazy Posters

2005-08-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

Just because we have not written in a while does not mean that we have not been busy at the house. A whole lot has changed. Where to start? We painted, we layed flooring, tiled, built cabinets and a whole lot more.

The painting was quick and made a huge difference. Keith came through with some cut out skills. Unfortunatley we were not really ready for his help and we still have a lot of cut out left to do at some point.

We tiled the bathrooms, the kitchen and the washer closet. Tiling the bathroom was difficult. Tiling on walls is tedious because you can only do a couple of rows a day. It now looks great and should last a long time. The shower is still not done, we have to pay someone to build glass doors. For now we are putting off that expense while we shower in the bathtub.

We tiled the kitchen with black tiles in a very complicated pattern. It looks great and it is almost impossible to identify the pattern in the floor. Talya came out and helped with this. She learned how to tile with us.

For the upstairs floor we went with cheap Ikea laminant flooring. It is really easy to work with and looks great. I was really suprised at how much lighter the house became with finished floors. The floors reflect so much light.

Tomorrow should be a huge day we are getting the appliances delivered. I am so excited. I can't wait to have a full size fridge. (We have being living with a mini.) Unfortunatley we will not be able to hook up the rest of the appliances until we get the counter top built. Hopefully that should not take too long. We are also getting measured for tomorrow. With a little bit of luck the new counter top could be delivered in a few weeks. At which point the plumbing for the house will be complete.

2005-07-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

What a difference some drywall makes

2005-07-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

Our Loft

2005-07-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

A New Face

2005-07-08T19:31:00.000-07:00

Finally Painting!

Drywall!

2005-07-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

Things are really starting to fall into place. Last week Juan Carrillo hung and finished drywall in the whole house. It looks great. The mexican crew really worked hard and finished the house well.

Not to say there was not some excitement. We did not pass our inspection like we had planned on the previous Friday. We had to move a drain line at the last minute. To hide the drain we added a closet downstairs. Nobody will be able to tell there is a pipe sticking out into the room. We even started to prime the house. It looks really good all dressed in white. Hopefully we will be able to paint this weekend.

With a little bit of luck the upstairs bath will be done in about two weeks. We still have a fair bit of tiling to do. Building a tile shower is a show process when you are new to tilling.

2005-06-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

Bathroom Privacy

2005-06-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

Gourmet Kitchen

2005-06-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

Original Transom

2005-06-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

A Long Day!

2005-06-29T08:47:00.001-07:00

Bathroom

2005-06-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Roughed in kitchen

2005-06-29T08:46:00.000-07:00

Tomas and Sandor

2005-06-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Insulating couple

2005-06-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Things are moving fast again. It is amazing what we can get done when Annie and I only have 20 hours a week of other commitments. Last Wednesday the windows finally came. When they did they broke one screen, but that is minor and we will get that sorted out. That afternoon and the following day we finished the last of the insulation. We even had enough left over to do the whole bedroom.

Then we started cleaning and emptying the house. According to the city we cannot live in the house until there are things like a smoke detector, heat, and a toilet. So before the inspector came we had to move all of our living stuff into storage. Since we did not have much it was a pretty quick process.

Friday we got our insulation inspection. I had hoped the inspector could verify we had fixed a problem between the plumber and electrician. Unfortunately the inspector just laughed at our solution and told we needed to call another inspector the next week. I talked to him today and he did not believe we had a good solution to the problem. I hope this can be solved soon.

The drywallers did start today. They decided to deliver the sheetrock by hand. I think the will start hanging today. I told them not to do the part around the problem pipes. I hope that we can get this problem resolved this week so they can close up all the walls. I am so happy to see what the house looks like with drywall.

We have a bunch of new pics, that I will publish soon.

To Hang Drywall

2005-06-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hanging drywall is a goal that we cannot seem to attain. It seemed so much simpler when we started this project. Now there are so many different things that must get hidden in the walls it is daunting. We are getting very close but I feel like I have been saying that for a long time. Every day we go to the house there is another large project to tackle and of course, we cannot hang drywall until that task is complete.

I know that there is a finite set of tasks that must be complete before drywall is hung. So if we continue to execute those tasks we should be able to hang drywall. It just seems that we discover things that need to be done faster than we can actually finish the other tasks. So the list of things that needs to be done seems to grow overtime rather than shrink.

Enough of my bitching. Over the last week we finished (almost) the V-channel. There are a few little spots that need to be leveled, but nothing too hard. We poured leveling compound in the kitchen. That is some really weird stuff. It has the consistency of milk when wet, and concrete when set. The stuff will seek level which is great if your surface is sealed. We had problems closing all of the holes in the floor. As a result we lost a significant of the leveler right through the floor. After quit a bit of messy frustration we have a floor that is almost level. Close enough for laying concrete board and tiles. The floor was off level by almost an inch in places!

We also started hanging cement board. All I can say is that I am glad that we are hiring drywallers. Just putting up a few small sheets is hard. We have not even started the taping and sanding. I don’t want to think of how long that will take.

Parental Help

2005-06-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

Well I have been very lazy about writing. Finals got to crazy to think about much else. I know I got one A, but that was from an easy class. I don’t know all of my grades, but I know that I did get one B. It means that I will have to retake at least one class if I want to get a PhD. I really did not think UMBC would be this hard.

The house was effectively put on hold during finals. We are still without drywall. There are a few little bits of framing left to do, but the main thing holding up the house is windows. We are waiting on Baltimore Window factory. They said they could make the windows in a little over a week. It is now 9 weeks later and we still don’t have our windows.

My parents came out over the weekend to help out. We were able to get a lot done. We finished almost all of the framing. We also installed insulation, and V-channel. V-channel is sheet metal formed into long pieces that have ‘V’ like profile. We installed the channel because our roof is too unusual to hang drywall on. The channel is up, but we now have the monumental task of trying to create a level, or a least flat surface. That is the task for next weekend.

We also started the construction of a trap door. We got a trap door cut and supports installed. The door has recycled old floor boards so it matches the rest of the house. We have not figured out the hard part which is how to hinge it. We are trying to find the system that would make it very easy to access and hardly shows from above. We have discussed different hinges, wheels, tracks, springs, hydraulic lifts and all sorts of other things. I don’t know how much time we will spend on the hinges right away. There are so many other things, it might just have to wait.

Annie's Thoughts

2005-05-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

Well as some of you know I'm not much of a blog fan but since no one is really reading this anymore, I'm going to use it as a therapeutic release. We are living in our house now which is crazy and dusty but sort of romantic. My last blog I said "this has been an experience I hope never to forget" as if I could possibly forget this experience. The hardest part of all of this work is the sub-contractors. They are all trying to do the least amount of work and pass the buck on someone else. I have such a hard time understanding a field of work that is so dishonest. In my line of work if I make a mess I clean it up, it's just that simple. Anyway, I guess that dishonesty is just becoming part of the American way, from our politicians to our sub-contractors. On a good note, the house is really coming together and hopefully we will have drywall within the month.

Moving In

2005-04-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it is now no longer the work site, it is our house. We moved in! It’s been a rocky ride but we now live in our new house. There is not much in the house to make it cozy. There are the bare essentials, a sink, toilet and heat.

We found out last week that there is a problem with the plumbing and electricity. The plumber put a drain line right above the breaker box. This does not meet code so it’s needs to be changed. Our options are either move the drain line way out into the living room or move the electrical box. The electrician wants $700-800 to move the box. I have not talked to the plumber yet. The electrician thinks that we should get it paid by the plumber. I really dread the resolution. That said we need to resolve it because it is holding back the house.

I have fallen behind in all of my classes, so the house is going to be put almost on hold until after the end of the semester. I will do some work, but I do not want any more C’s this semester.

Roughed in

2005-04-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

The house is really starting to come together. We got the plumbing and HVAC roughed in and inspected. There were a few hiccups along the way. Working with a HVAC guy doing this on the side saved us a bunch of money, but we still paid for it. He didn’t start on time. When he did we had to cut some of the brand new plumbing out. He pissed off the neighbors by working too late at night. When he finally did finish some of the work didn’t pass inspection. I guess you get what you paid for.

On the plus side we got the few items we decided we needed to move in: heat, sink and toilet. There are no walls, so there is no privacy, but we can move in. It works out well because our land lady really wants us out.

I’m personally getting to the point where I don’t feel the fire under me quit as bad. I want to work, but I really have to concentrate on doing well in school so the house is not as urgent as it once was. I may reconsider when I start trying to live without a stove or a shower.

Mechanical Work

2005-03-30T18:45:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened since I last wrote. It’s funny I actually write less the more work we do. I only get around to posting here when I am not working. Last week was spring break which meant no break on the house.

The week started interesting, our HVAC did not start on time. The plumber’s started work, before the HVAC. This of course is not the way it is supposed to work. When the HVAC did finally start we had to cut some pipes to make way for the duct work. The duct work is now proceeding and should be done at the end of the week. At that point the plumber will come back and fix the things we had to break. I hope they are not too unhappy with us.

The house is starting to come together. We got the form stone removed from the front of the house. They washed off the lead paint below with a caustic soda. Finally the repointed the bricks to make it look nice and new. In the back of the house we have a new door and new windows.

We are now looking at drywall crews to hang and finish the drywall. There are a lot of little details that need to be sorted out before we can call them in. We need all the new windows and doors installed. Any electrical lines we want to pull need to be put in. We want to put speakers into the ceiling and possible install a security system before the walls are closed. Basically went the drywall is up, it is move in time.

Archeological Dig

2005-03-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

We are trying to get the house ready for the tradesman. It is a bit hard because we really don’t know what they need or want. We mostly did little jobs to get ready for the electrician coming at the end of the week. We put up one wall in the kitchen that we build a long time ago. We also did some last minute demolition work pulling out some pipe left in the house.

We also dug out some space in the kitchen. The funny thing is we kept pulling out old bottles, some broken some not. We tried to keep the unbroken bottles. There must have been a drinker who tried to hide their habit by throwing the bottles under the house.

The coming weeks will be very exciting. At the end of this week we will have a new service line, electric panel and back door opening. Soon after the plumbers and HVAC will come in.

Washing the Bricks

2005-03-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

It is really getting stressful to try to get the house ready for the contractors. We are trying to get all the little things in place and in order. Of course there are some issues that are holding up the entire project. We are still trying to sort out the back door. That has really become our nemesis. We must get an electrician in to work on that before any other work can go forward. Of course that has to be the one contractor we have not settled on. Hopefully this week will see all of that settled.

We did not do any major work this week. We spent a bit of time framing and replacing joists. We ordered our cabinets from IKIA. We will not need them for a while, but it is nice to get that out of the way. We will just put them in storage. It was good to get it done, that way our kitchen layout is set.

Yesterday we rented a power washer and washed down the bricks. It was amazing, the house looks so much better. It is the first surface that looks good. It was fairly easy, but very messy. Before starting I covered everything in the house in plastic, tools, lumbar, everything. Our next door neighbor David has noticed a smell on his side of the wall. I can imagine that some water went through the wall. I hope that it is not much and goes away soon. There was no water damage so I think it should be ok. The other problem is the furnace gave out. I don’t know if we will get it working again. We are heating the house and drying it out with an electric heater. Hopefully with a little time the furnace will decide to start again.

Helping Hands

2005-03-01T18:38:00.000-08:00

We started the weekend by taking down a chimney on Friday. It was very messy work; think about being a chimney sweep. It was also very heavy work. We had to haul a lot of bricks out of the house, along with a lot of mortar. We were originally afraid to take it down, but our neighbor Frank said he did it with no problem, so we followed his lead. We are all very happy that we did. It was taking up about 2 square feet upstairs and down. Not much but it is significant to us.

On Saturday we got lucky. A friend of ours Joe who is training to take over his step-dads construction company came over and gave us a hand. His help was very useful. We got a lot of work knocked out with his help. He gave us some hints on how to work efficiently, but most of the help was just the fact that he was there. We stopped working when we ran out of lumber. Annie and I ran out and bought another 80 studs so we had something to do on Sunday.

Sunday we got some help too. Meekins came by and lent a hand for a while. Even though he is not a pro, he was very helpful. After a hard weekend we have basically finished framing the upstairs! We have not framed around the windows yet, but we have to wait for the windows to come in to do that. Four more walls downstairs and that too will be all framed. Woot!

Framing in the Kitchen

2005-02-23T19:02:00.000-08:00

Well as you can see out across the street neighbor, Matt Butcher is rehabbing his house too. It is a bit of a controversy on the block because he wants to add a full third floor and some people think that would kill the view for people on our side of the block. I have not made up my mind on the matter. I don't want to tell him what to do, but I don't want to lose $10k or more if our precious “water view” goes away. I don’t know what will happen. If too many people say nay, he can’t build it. Right now I have too many things on my plate to try to bother with it.

As far as our house is concerned … We spent much of the weekend trying to sort out the kitchen and back wall. The last joist in the house was totally shot, so we pulled it out. We have not put a new one back just yet. We spent a lot of time fixing holes in the wall. It is a tedious process of finding bricks that match, then mortaring them in.

We also started to replace the back window. We took out the old window, but that caused the cinder blocks on top of it to fall in. We had to rebuild the cinder blocks so that we could install the new window. The cinder blocks have been replaced, but we have not replaced the window just yet.

The biggest issue now is doors. The city inspector has insisted that one door has to be at least 36 inches wide and all other doors are 32 inches wide. Currently the back door is 29 inches and the front is 30 inches. It won’t be too hard to change the front to 32, but changing the back to 36 will not be easy. I don’t like it but just want to do so we can move on. I have been talking with a neighbor who just did the same thing. It is not very reassuring, because my biggest fear, that the wall will fall down, happened to him. I friend of mine, Joe came up with a scheme that should work to keep it from falling in. The only real problem now is that we need to move the electrical box, before we do the work. I think we will try to get the electrical contractor to move the box ASAP. The only problem is we don’t know who that will be.

Framing the Bathrooms

2005-02-15T18:56:00.000-08:00

Over this past weekend we got most of the framing done. It feels great to actually see some result of our work. The upstairs master bathroom is framed in. I am very happy with how it came out so far. It is very large, but still leaves plenty of room in the rest of the house. We also framed in the downstairs bathroom. That was easy by comparison. All the walls are rectangles, that makes life so much easier. We really should have done that first. We also started framing in the kitchen. We built one of the walls. We made a hole in the wall so that we could show some brick through it. It should make a nice little storage area behind the stove

Learning To Frame

2005-02-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

We really started the construction this weekend. We started with framing the upstairs bathroom. We decided to follow the slanted roof line for the ceiling. This made all of the construction much harder. Only some of the measurements were square. Annie and I worked all day on Saturday to complete one wall. We would build the wall erect it and find some problem. Drop the wall try to rectify the problem and start over. I don’t know how many times we tried to put up the wall before it was good.

On Sunday we had more luck. We also had David’s help to guide us. We got almost 3 walls built. It also helped that we worked out some of the bugs of building a slanted wall. We were not able to finish the wall however because we underestimated how much lumber we would use. We started with 42 studs. The next time I will get twice as many at least. We have done a lot of the framing, but there is still a lot to do.

With a little bit of luck we might be able to have most of the framing done by next week. Perhaps even get the plumbers, electricians and HVAC in by next week.

Annie is Learning

2005-02-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

So it has been an amazing process working on our first home. I have been having a great time learning about construction and power tools :) Last weekend I learned how to use a skill saw, I was nervous but it was not that difficult and a lot of fun. This whole experience will be one I hope to never forget.

Starting the Construction

2005-02-01T18:46:00.000-08:00

This weekend we started the construction. There was no definite end to the demolition. In fact there is still more to do. Basically we got to the point that almost the entire demo was done and we were ready to do the construction.

After creating 13 floor plans with two bedrooms and two baths upstairs we decided to scrap all that and start with a new idea all together. Two bed 2 bath is what almost everybody does here. We are going to make a loft space out of the house. With the skylight and no walls there is very good light in the house. We are going to try to keep that. We are going to put one large bathroom upstairs and a half bath upstairs. There will be no walls separating the bedrooms. It will be a very unconventional space. We will build in such a way that it could easily be converted into a convention 2 bedroom house.

As for the actual work being done… We got one very high bid for framing, so we decided to embark on it our selves. There were two main tasks we are working on now. One is fixing the sag in the second story floor. This involved jacking up the floor and then securing a new joist in place. This was rather hard work because it involved bending 2x6 joists and moving the entire upstairs. This task is almost complete.

The second is laying a new sub-floor upstairs. We decided to lay 1/2" plywood on the second floor. The original wood flooring is in bad shape. It has lots of holes and it has a lot of give to it. This is fairly easy work. Cut the 4x8 sheets down to fit the joists, then glue, nail and screw them into place. This also is mostly done. We need to finish fixing the sag before we can finish laying the sub-floor.

Emerald the Work Cat

2005-01-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

I tried to bring Emerald with me to the work house yesterday. It did not go to well. It started fine. I loaded my car full with a bunch of trash. I grabbed Emerald and drove to the dump. She was a little spooked by the dump but did ok.

When I went back to the house I closed both doors and let her free in the house. I started doing some demolition work. She really did not like this. I opened a window to get fresh air into the house. I also open the way to the basement. Emerald cried for a while, then disappeared. I worked for a while not thinking about it. After about an hour of not seeing her I got worried. I returned home to get tuna for her. I put some tuna inside and out. I had to run some errands, so we did not see her again until around 4. She simply showed up like it was no big deal. She must have jumped out of second story window. When we continued to work, she disappeared again. She did not show up again until 6:30. In the 5 minute ride back to our other house she shat in my car.

Emerald has made it pretty clear that she does not like the new house. I wonder how long it will take her to come around to this place.

As far as the construction is concerned, we are still finishing the demolition. We are trying to decide how to remove an old chimeny that is no longer used.

Stair Moving

2005-01-25T19:19:00.000-08:00

Ralph is moving the stairs today. He brought in one other carpenter. I think the two of them will get the job done today. If they do it should be good money at $820 for 16 hours of work and lumber. I consider it money well spent since the cost of doing it wrong could be much worse.

We got the bill and weight back from the dumpster company. Annie, some helpers and I carried 6.68 tons from the house into that dumpster.

Tub On Belay

2005-01-24T19:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a big day. Jared came over and helped move some big stuff. There were two main things to move, the stairs and the old tub.

First we moved the tub. Annie and Jared were in favor of smashing the tub and bringing it down in pieces. I convinced them that a belay system could make the job reasonable. I set up a simple belay with some cheap hardware. Annie worked the belay and Jared and I hauled the tub. The belay system put most of the weight onto the house, not us.

The second big item was the stairs. We removed the old stairs so that we can move them into a different place. We will get new stairs in a little while, but we needed to move these so we could frame the upstairs. The stairs took less gadgetry. We supported the stairs on a jack, then cut them free. To our suprise they were supported much better than we thought. Several times we cut them free only to watch them continue to hold on. When we finally cut them free we lowered the stairs down with no rope assist.

Today I am going to the dump on my lunch break. Our backyard has turned into a lumberyard. We continue to pull more and more stuff out of this house. The demolition is very close to done, but I know there will still be more to come.

Dump Subaru

2005-01-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we continued the demo, but did not finish. We took down the final original ceiling. To our suprise what we thought was just drywall, was actually drywall over plaster and lattice.

We made two trips to the dump, one in a bad snow storm. The subaru is turning out to be a good snow dump truck. :)

Today we will take down the stairs and hopefully finish the demolition. The trash will not be out for a while, but the destruction should be done today.

Sawzall Rocks

2005-01-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

We put in a big day of demo. We pulled out the rafters for the ceiling in the front bedroom. This will give us another 2 feet of room height in that room.

I played with the sawzall for the first time. Cool tool. The coolness of cutting through solid pipe wears off quickly.

With the help of the sawzall almost all the plumbing and electric is out.

We took our first trip to the dump with my subaru. I think they were very surpirsed to see a car pull up to the dump. (instead of a truck)

Hopefully the demo is almost done and we can start fixing the sagging floor. Maybe tomorrow will be the last day of demolition.

Still Demoing

2005-01-19T19:09:00.000-08:00

We met with a contractor who told us we definitely need to pull down the tin ceiling in the kitchen. We needed to get into the floor to straighten the floor of the second floor.

So we pulled down the tin ceiling. The plaster underneath had already fallen apart. There was some leaking from the bathroom above.

Also the dumpster was taken away today. I look forward to getting the weight back from the dumpster company. I want to know how much we pulled out. Already we have a lot more trash. We may have to get another dumpster.

Demo Progress

2005-01-17T19:08:00.000-08:00

We continued the demo today. Most of the bulk work is done so we have started to do some of the slower stuff, like pulling out the electrical wiring. The dumpster is so full now that we cannot place any large items in it. We finished exposing the brick we plan to expose.

Closing

2005-01-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

We closed on the house today. The stuff was supposed to be out by now, but no love. Annie, Jared and Sandor started to demolish the house. We were breaking down the house around the old furniture.

We get the promise of Jerry that the old stuff will be out tomorrow.