For the Reader...

I had a comment in the last post that asked if I could put a detailed picture of our baseboards up. So here it is:

Catching Up...

Since my blogging hiatus, a few things have occurred in my personal life. I realize that this blog is dedicated to home repair, but I thought that I might toss up a few pictures of the vacation that we took over the Fourth of July.

Brice and I try to see as many national parks as we can. So far we have visited:

2004
Rocky Mountain National Park (CO.)

2005
Grand Tetons National Park (WY.)
Yellowstone National Park (WY.)

2006
Colorado National Monument (CO.)
Great Sand Dunes National Monument (CO.)
Mesa Verde National Monument (CO.)
Arches National Monument (UT.)
Petrified Forest\Painted Desert National Park (AZ.)
White Sands National Monument (NM.)
Carlsbad National Park (NM.)

2007
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument (CO.)

2008
Grand Canyon National (AZ.)
Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument (AZ.)
Wupatki National Monument (AZ.)
Montezuma Castle National Monument (AZ.)
Badlands National Park (SD.)
Mount Rushmore National Monument (SD.)
Jewel Cave National Monument (SD.)

Not bad for just four years. Although I have visited numerous other National Parks in the U.S. when I was a child, I really don't remember them very well.

Recently we went to South Dakota for the Fourth of July weekend. We started at Mount Rushmore thinking that there is nothing more patriotic than spending a fireworks-filled fourth of July in South Dakota. However, there is one important point I should make about Mount Rushmore on July Fourth: the fireworks display is actually on the third of July! Disappointed, we stayed for the lackluster ceremony and took some pictures anyway.



**Note the total lack of fireworks.



Here are the South Dakota Badlands after a record year of rainfall. It was very green there and the mosquitoes were terrible at night.





Here are some pictures inside Jewel Cave. Carlsbad is prettier, but Jewel Cave carries the title of "world's longest cave system". We took the Scenic Tour, but that came complete with 732 flights of stairs. I had discovered the week before we left that I had torn my medial meniscus after I had a MRI screen to address my chronic knee pain. This most likely occurred years ago on a backpacking trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. Since that fateful day, I have fought knee pain in my right knee, particularly when going down hills or stairs. I did okay in the cave, but on July 29th, 2008 I went into my first (and hopefully last) surgery for a partial meniscectomy. Now it appears I will have some more time to blog!

Do You Have a Door on the Bathroom Yet?

It has been quite some time since the last time that I posted to the blog. Most of our work (albeit not very much) had been on the exterior of the house. We have worked on getting the front lawn in better shape, since a year or so of no water has taken its toll on it. Unfortunately that required us ripping out the weeds that had replaced the front lawn. With a little re-seeding, we have managed to bring back a few clumps of grass here and there (pictures posted later).

I also began to replant the flower garden near the porch and the curb. I chose plants that require a lot of sun, but not very much water. In other words, cinquefoil, Russian sage, salvia, barberry, thyme, and some shasta daisies. Anyone who lives in Colorado is probably familiar with these low-water species. Unfortunately low-water and no-water should not be confused, as a few have died. Perhaps we are better candidates for a rock garden.

In addition to all this extensive gardening, the cottonwood continued to lose branches in the latest windy spring. In fact, we had quite the collection of sticks on the side of my house. Fortunately, my parents were kind enough to come up for a visit from the southland and grind up all that biomass. It took them one full day, but the pile is gone and the trees look better. That is, one of the cottonwoods looks better. The cottonwood closest to the street has started its journey to the great beyond. You know a tree is looking bad when a couple of guys show up at your door and offer to take the tree down for a mere $1500. I really don't like the idea of paying $1500 to remove something that I am actually fond of.

Anyway, our most recent accomplishment, as the title suggests, is the near-completion of the bathroom. For almost a year, guests have come and gone in the house. Their biggest complaint has always been that the lack of a bathroom door means that one must announce their bathroom intentions to the others in the house. Although there is still a few more things to fix in the bathroom, Brice has finished the trimming, caulking, and painting in the bathroom. I know in previous posts I had decided to paint the bathroom blue, but a last minute decision led to what you see before you.

BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER




Finally, I was able to sew some curtains from a matching shower curtain. I am quite proud of them. Brice suggested that they should "snap" together, so that the neighbors can't see in. However, I thought a button might be a little more stylish. I used a button from some old buttons that my mother gave me and a Jade donut that my friend Jody brought back from Hawaii. Thanks to both of you for your contributions to the curtains.

I should also address the plant on the counter before I get some comments. It has not been planted in the pot yet.





So to answer everyone's nagging question... Yes. There is a door on the bathroom.

Our Friend Gary

There hasn't been a whole lot of action around the house lately. We have discovered a leaky pipe under the bathtub drain. Since it is the drain line, the pipe only leaks when someone is taking a shower or bath. Unfortunately the pipe is hard to get to and requires going into the "difficult" part of the crawl space (inside the bedroom closet). In addition, the area where the leak is located is not really possible for an average-sized human to get too. Thank God Brice is so thin!!

Now I don't know anything about plumbing. Brice says he knows two or three things. So together, we decided that we could (probably) fix this problem. Either that or I will have to shower at the gym and use the toilet at the gas station. The plan is to re-route the bathtub drain into the drain coming from the washer. Why not repair the existing pipe? Well, the existing pipe is a flexible plastic pipe that could be replaced, but eventually it drains into a very large cast iron pipe. The connection between the two pipes is so corroded, that we thought it would be best if we didn't push our luck with the ancient apparatus. If that cast iron pipe goes, we will have some serious trouble. Instead, we will block off the existing flexible pipe, and just drain into the nearby washer drain line.


Recently we have obtained a new pet. As if four cats wasn't enough, an orb-weaving spider moved into the area between the storm and kitchen window. Although the weather is very cold, Brice started feeding the spider. We named him Gary. I made a video of the momentous occasion when we delivered a rather large fly to him.

The video is a little blurry, since the camera had a hard time focusing on the spider.


Enjoy!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I know this is a month late.

My best friend Amanda came to stay at the house for a night and wanted to carve some pumpkins for Halloween. Even though they came from a pattern that you can buy at any store, they turned out really neat so we took some pictures.

This is Amanda's "witch" pumpkin.



This is Brice's "cat" pumpkin.



I decided to carve the tree since I am partial to things that are tree-related. Unfortunately, it took almost four hours and the next day it wasn't looking nearly as nice.



And here they are all together, day and night!

Update on Master Bedroom...

Here are the (be)latest pictures of the master bedroom.


First a few before pictures...



A pre-mommy Molly in the closet.



The closet required the most work: no doors, cracked plaster, a wall made out of plywood, no trim, a crappy closet organizer...









Now it has new paint, curtains, doors, and furniture (The angle made it hard to put the pictures in a panoramic view, but it gives the whole picture). I know that sums up a many weeks of work without much detail, but here are the pictures before the closet was finished.





Here are the finished pictures of the closet. It is a small closet and although I hated the old closet organizer, there weren't a lot of other options. Unfortunately, it is a deep closet so there is a lot of wasted space. What made it so difficult is the attic access in the front-middle of the closet ceiling and the cellar access in the left-bottom of the closet floor. I bought a slightly more expensive version of the old closet organizer and added a place for shoes. I also went through some of my clothes that I haven't worn since college.








Lastly here is the pictures of the doors. Both doors had to be replaced, mostly because I couldn't see myself stripping paint anymore. They are hollow doors, but they turned out pretty good thanks to Brice. He handled all the door work.

And the Crack Came Back the Very next Day...

I forgot to mention in the last post some of the interesting things we discovered while inspecting the front door. When measuring for the opening, we removed some of the vinyl siding around the door. The next-door-neighbor was correct when she said that the house used to be a tan/peachish stucco house. Of course that is after it was a brick house, but before it was a vinyl-sided house. It looks like I might as well stay with the vinyl, since the brick would take some effort to restore. Maybe the stucco isn't that bad, but I would be a little hesitant to pull off the siding and find something massively unpleasant. So for the time being, the house will be vinyl.

Another interesting thing is that the door was arched. I am not sure if the original door was arched, but the opening most certainly was. You can see this from the weird-looking header in the picture of the door. Under the vinyl siding, you can see see it even better, but a picture really isn't possible. Here is what I think the door used to look like.



Well, not quite, but I am guessing that the top bricks were arched like that. Since the porch was added on later, an arched doorway would no longer be possible. Or at least it wouldn't really be seen anymore. What a shame!

I also mentioned in the last post that the bedroom was finished. Where are the pictures you ask? Well, it is a little dirty right now, but I will post pictures of it at a later date.

Finally, before the dining room could be started I needed to determine what should be done with the wood burning stove. You might remember that it had a 90 degree bend in the pipes (my apologies to Lance, as this was the only "before" picture I have that shows the bend in the pipes).

Well, it turns out that some chimney sweeps not only clean chimneys, but also fix stoves, fireplaces, and pipes. So I called a local chimney sweep and he said that the 90 degree angle was probably there because of where the rafters lay in the attic. He also said that the stove would need at least 16 inches of non-combustible materials in front of it. You can see from the previous picture, that this is not even remotely the case. You can also see that if I were to extend the bricks further out in the room, not only would the new floor need to be cut, but it would extend into the doorway as well. He suggested that maybe I purchase a new wood burning stove (in the spring when the deals are better), and it could be connected to the existing pipe. A new stove would be smaller, more efficient, and the pipe usually comes from the top of the stove instead of from the back. Even still, I would need to extend the non-combustible surface further out, to prevent starting a fire on the floor. If I were to completely remove the existing stove and replace it with nothing, I would have to patch a hole in the ceiling and the roof, and a weird brick area would remain in the dining room. Removing the bricks would most likely be out of the question, since the wainscoat cannot be matched without some custom work and the floors would need to be fixed.

Here are the pros of each option.

The pros of replacing the old wood burning stove with a new stove:

• Efficient heating method for house


• Smaller design


• Help house resale

The pros of just removing the old stove and leaving things as they are:

• Cheapest option


• Non-combustible materials do not have to extend further in the room


• Place to put plants

Because I shamelessly enjoy putting polls on my blog, I would like visitor's opinions on whether or not I should remove the wood burning stove all together or if I should get a new stove and extend the brick. Voting is in the side bar again.

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Now to explain the title. The last two days we have had nothing but rain. This morning when I glanced over at the living room wall, I realized that there was a weird shadow there. On closer inspection, I found that the Krack Kote has swelled and formed a bubble.



This area has been repaired twice before. Why is is still coming back? Well the first time we repaired it, the joint compound cracked. The second time we repaired it, we used Krack Kote over joint compound (the Krack Kote label DID say that it can be used over joint compound). We felt like maybe we should have primed the surface first, but tried it anyway. It seem to hold pretty well. However, this time it appeared that one of two things have happened;

A. Water has somehow gotten into the house during this rain storm and has caused the joint compound to swell. This caused the bubble in the Krack Kote.

or

B. The humidity has caused the joint compound to swell and in turn, the Krack Kote to bubble.

Brice went into the attic today and could not find any leaks or dampness from the rain. The roof is still in very good shape and it would be unusual to find a leak. However a leak from the side cannot be ruled out. Last weekend Brice and I set to work cleaning the yard, house, and gutters. Perhaps a gutter is still blocked and water is backing up into a crack. Or perhaps water from the hose leaked through some crack in the roof or siding.

The other option is just swelling from humidity. This is possible, but I found a new and smallish crack in the ceiling above the bubbling in the Krack Kote and it is slightly darker then the surrounding ceiling. This makes me think that it is slightly damp and leans me towards option A.

Either way, there is a problem. I think that the best way to fix the problem would be to wait until things have dried out, remove the old Krack Kote, prime the surface thoroughly, and reapply the Krack Kote. Although there is bubbling, the Krack Kote has done what it promises, and that is NOT CRACK! I am very happy with the product at this time and will continue to use it on all my plaster (and occasionally drywall) walls.

Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out...

Since, this is a rather long post, I decided to post a more succinct summary at the bottom for those with short attention spans.

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It has been over a month and a half since I have posted something to the blog. I don't want people to get the impression that no work is taking place, but if they had that impression it wouldn't be entirely off base.

Actually, some progress has been made, but there seems to be a road block that Brice and I have hit since finishing the bedroom (Oh yeah, we did finish most of the work in the bedroom). Brice thinks it is because the house is now livable and inhabited, thus making it harder to find the motivation to do any work. I think that I am just getting frustrated with the slow progress that has been made, and having to do things again, and again, and again...

So to recap what has happened in the last month...

I wanted to weatherproof the house before the cold weather came. I first looked into getting new storm windows, since many are missing pieces and they just aren't in that good of shape. Well, they certainly are cheaper than brand new windows, but the cost of the new windows is a deterrent for the time being. Probably those won't be replaced until next year. The bright side, is that I don't really need anyone to install them as there are already storm windows there and they are just screwed into the house. The down side is that they are $1,000+.

So I moved onto the two exterior doors. They both need to be replaced. The back door, in particular, has gaps around the top and bottom of the door that are large enough to view what is going on outside. The slightly ironic situation is that the side of the door fits so tightly that when it rains and swells, I cannot get out the door without the help of Brice. In addition, the jamb, threshold, and back screen door are also rotten and should be replaced when the door is replaced.

The front door on the other hand is a beautiful solid oak door with glass. The same door at Home Depot cost well into the the $800 range. It pains me to have to replace it, but over the years, the door has not weathered well and has gaps all around the window, splitting joints, and several holes where many locks once existed. It would be far too expensive to fix it, and the house would not have a door for an undetermined amount of time. That probably is not the best deterrent for thieves.

With all my frustrations about the wooden back door, I thought that steel would be the best alternative. It is affordable and won't be subject to shrinking and swelling when the weather is humid (which normally is never on the front range, but this summer has been particularly wet). Too lazy to remove the freshly painted trim, we took the measurements of the doors themselves and took them to the local Home Depot.

This however, was not the way to plan for a new door. After being asked a number of questions that I couldn't answer and discovering that both doors would not be the $170 base model I picked out, but rather two $400 custom cut doors, I went back home in frustration. We removed the trim around the front door and measured the opening. The rough opening was the same size as the door itself. After a few seconds of mulling this new prospect over, we realized that the door did not really have a jamb, it was just hung directly onto the framed opening of the house.

Now, this is not normally how you would hang a door. The rough opening should be framed and then a door and jamb are placed inside the opening. However, this meant that we COULD hang a normal sized door within this opening!

Or so we thought... We measured the narrowest part of the door, and found that the opening could hold a 32" door (The current door is 36") For those that don't know much about doors, that is a pretty small door. Most likely this would mean that the next owners should get accustom to my style, because a lot of the furniture would not be leaving (or entering) the house anytime soon.

It should be noted that at this point in time, I had already phoned my parents and requested their help installing the doors before winter. They were planning on coming on the weekend of Columbus day. The time to order doors and get them before my crew arrived was rapidly diminishing.

Desperate, I searched for local handymen that might be able to suggest what should be done about the front door. I found a couple of carpenters on Craigslist. The first seemed a little too eager to get the demo saw and create a bigger opening in the bricks. I wasn't really comfortable with that idea. I wasn't sure how this house was constructed and didn't want to try anything too risky with the framework. He asked what I planned to do with the door and I said that I would probably donate it to the local construction recycling center (discussed in an early post). He offered to take it off my hands to save me a trip with the door. Whereupon I tried to negotiate a trade for part of his labor in return for the door. Anyone can tell you that I am not a good salesman. Needless to say, this was unsuccessful.

The second carpenter showed up half and hour late, got out of his truck and proceeded to pour what looked like a beer onto the sidewalk. He then smoked a cigarette and opened and drank what looked like another beer, before coming up to the front door and apologizing for being late. He said he wasn't comfortable with the idea of removing the framing as he didn't want to be responsible if something catastrophic happened. He suggested just getting a slab that would fit the opening, much like we had now.

My parents came up to visit despite having no door to install. They surveyed the situation and we decided that the old wood frame should be replaced and a new slab should replace the old door. In other words, the new door would be exactly the same as the old door, only hopefully weather tight. At least this would not require someone elses labor (except my wonderful parents, of course!).

***********************SPOILER ALERT!!**************************







• Brice and I are lazy and have not worked in the house for a while


• Storm windows are too expensive to replace at this time


• Both exterior doors suck and need to be replaced


• Remove all trim to measure for new door and jamb


• Front door is attached to framed opening


• Carpenters from Craigslist may be sketchy


• Front door will be re-attached to frame of rough opening sometime in the near future

Plumbing Woes...

For the last couple of weeks, our plumbing has started to make funny noises. At first it belched a little. Then it started gurgling. Finally, it made loud gurgling and belching noises every time someone took a shower. At first we thought this could be a venting issue. But soon, we found that the bathtub drained slower, the sink wouldn't drain at all, and the toilet seemed continually clogged. I know my limitation, so I called a professional. This afternoon, the plumber came over to inspect the gurgling plumbing. He cleaned the main line out, because he could not find a trap in the house. No surprise since the house predates most indoor plumbing. He said that at about 30 feet, there was an obstruction, but surprisingly he only pulled out a few roots. He did make a point to say that he would not be responsible for a crack in the cast iron pipe (which is apparently a likely enough event that he felt he should warn us). Luckily the ancient pipe seemed to withstand the abuse. for the time being. Now I am a few dollars poorer, but at least the sewer is functioning again!

This weekend we will begin working on the bedroom. That means repairing some serious cracks near the attic entrance, finishing stripping the trim, and of course painting.

In the meantime everyone has just been lounging around after the holiday. Here are some pictures of the kids...

Oliver

Zelda

Foster

and Nelson

The Container Store...

As I posted in the last blog, I went to visit my parents and some friends in southern Colorado last weekend. On the way down there, we stopped in Lone Tree to see the Container Store. WOW! I love that store. My close friends and family know how much I love to organize things and here was a store that was full of shelves, plastic boxes, and just about every conceivable item for organization. I was in sensory overload. I am very interested in their Elfa closet system, but that will have to wait until I get a closet to organize. Nevertheless, we still bought some various items, including the 3M Command Picture Hanging Strips. I looked all over the internet for reviews of these little strips, but found very little information. So here is my review...

3M Command Picture Hanging Strips



3M is a pretty interesting company. Most are familiar with their "sticky" things, such as Post-Its and packing tape, but few know that they also make small animal stethoscopes and fly fishing lines. They usually don't disappoint me and certainly are extremely innovative. With the Command Picture Hanging Strips, I think that they have once again made a very useful home product.

The walls in my house are plaster, and even though I often wished we had replaced them with dry wall, we did spend a lot of time trying patch the billions of cracks that peppered my walls. For this reason, I am afraid to use the swamp cooler (since humidity can cause new cracks to appear) and hang pictures using nails or screws. But a house without decorations is no house for me! I saw the strips in Living magazine and thought, perhaps this was something that I could use.

The strips come in three sizes and have different recommended weights. The medium strips held pictures up to three pounds, so that is what I bought. The package has six strips, but you use them as a pair, so actually it is three. Since we used two for each picture, this was a bit of a pain. Luckily I had enough to hang the four vacation pictures I had in mind when I purchased them.

The strips are adhesive on one side and a weird plastic Velcro on the other side. The two strips then lock together, while the adhesive holds one strip to the wall and one strip to the picture. What makes them even more unique is that they are not supposed to take off your paint when you remove the adhesive from the wall. The back of the package does warn that they should not be used on wallpaper, however.

After you clean the surfaces that the adhesive will stick to with rubbing alcohol, you stick one strip to the picture. You then lock the two strips in place with each other, peel the backing from the second strip, and place the picture on the wall. The directions were a little confusing, but when you see the product it is very intuitive. Once the pictures are on the wall, you can remove the picture or make adjustments to level if necessary.

The best thing about this product is that no damage is that done to the walls, while the pictures stay in place and cannot be bumped and nudged. The only thing that caught my eye, was a warning that instructed the user not to use these strips to hang picture over the bed. That does make me wonder if I am going to come home one day and find my pictures on the floor.

So here is the final result...



And a picture of the side view...

Trip to the South

This weekend we took a pause from the hustle and bustle of the housing project and went to south to visit my parents. Most people think of Colorado as a beautiful, forested oasis. However, the majority of Colorado's population lives on the east side of the Rockies where it is actually high plains...pretty arid, especially where I grew up. While I enjoy the slightly wetter summer we have had, I hate any humidity, since we usually get dry heat. So despite driving three hours on the nation's most horrible interstate (I-25), it was nice to visit the "desert", and see the local wildlife... Here is a tarantula on my parents garage. We see them pretty often at my parent's house, but we were pretty surprised that it could climb the slick garage walls so easily. It even scooted across the glass!






This weekend we also lost out dear friend Haley the German Shepard, who stayed at our house while her parents went to Alaska for three whole weeks! Lucky jerks... She didn't die, she just went back home. Anyway, she was a lot of fun to have around, and it seems weird without her. It was nice to finally have a yard where a dog can stay.

Here is Haley and the Hose.

2 Rooms Down...

Here are the newest pictures of the living room...

We painted the lower part of the fireplace, just so it looks okay for the time being. Eventually we will tile the fireplace and hearth. We also bought a couple of pieces of furniture (on the wishlist) from American Furniture Warehouse that complimented the coffee table.



Although this picture looks much the same, you can see the new curtains...





The only things left to finish in the living room are to replace the front door and to tile the fireplace!


Here are some pictures of the new curtains in the office. I wasn't sure whether to hem the curtains on the shorter window, but I think that the longer length is okay in a room with the high ceilings. Plus I think that it matches the other window. (Let me know what you think by voting in the poll on the left side of the blog...) **The poll was closed some time ago, but the consensus (by a narrow margin) was to leave the curtains the full length **

I got the curtain rods for $15 at Big Lots!!







And here is the office with some furniture in it. I don't really like the set up in the room right now, but the cats like to use my desk as a ladder to the high window. Plus the bookcase needs to rest on the east wall, since the floor is slanted and on the other wall, the bookcase leans forward! Ahhh, old houses...