Showing posts with label Home Improvements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home Improvements. Show all posts

Friday, May 15, 2020

Fresh air and exercise

Terry likes to play around with woodworking projects. As previously mentioned, wooden pallets are routinely available for picking. The three-tiered planter featured in the last post is one such pallet creation.

Before one can start working with pallet wood, one must first disassemble the pallets to free the wooden planks from all its other wooden plank neighbors.  Crowbars and hammers play a role here.  All the nails must also be removed.  It is a bit tedious when you are talking about removing five planks from each of a dozen pallets.

We have an accumulation of pallets. The weather is beautiful. The kids have a day off from school today (that sounds weird to say, I know, but it means that had they actually been in school they would not have gone today, and the child who does get daily assignments didn't have any for today). Put that all together and we get - Workforce Friday!

Monday, August 7, 2017

Cabin, Epic Treehouse Version

As usual for an in-the-USA July 4, we headed up to the cabin for the long weekend. It is not news that I love the cabin and everything there is magical and wonderful.  Because of logistical problems we have been debating whether it makes sense to just sell it. Then the kids asked for a treehouse and Terry got a bee in his bonnet to make it something better than a plywood board nailed in the Y of some random tree. Most of our "relaxing" long weekend was consumed with creating Epic Treehouse Cabin Version.

[note: this was supposed to be published a month ago. And with photos. Such is life]

Terry got 8 foot boards and decided not to worry about cutting them down, so the treehouse is 8 square feet. It has two trees growing up inside of it (i.e., it's got 2 tree support rather than just one. The trees come through the floor. They are perfect for leaning against while reading a book).

Day 1 was mostly just framing it out and anchoring the foundation to the trees. We didn't think about taking any photos until that work was just about done, oops, so there's no documentation. A decent chunk of the day was spent simply getting the lumber and tools up the hill to where the treehouse is - in the middle of the woods, nowhere near the lane or anything else that smacks of humanity. Everyone got good exercise and ate a larger lunch than usual - perhaps a bit of foreshadowing what it may be like to have 2 teenagers in the house? Day 1 ended with a trip to Home Depot for more lumber for flooring and the railing, and paint for the railing. And water ice, where we discovered cookies and cream water ice. And chocolate fudge brownie. All dairy-free (we asked). Alex was in heaven.

On Day 2 we had to cart more lumber up the hill. We had to paint the railings, too, which was a task largely delegated to the kids until Terry noted what a sloppy job they were doing. He was happy to release them from chores to play with their new friend, a neighbor girl who they had never interacted with previously and who they spent most free moments with during this trip. She and Zoltan were like oil and water - he'd come back upset from some slight, and 45 minutes later be running off to play with her again. In between the schlepping and painting, Terry lay the flooring. We ended up with a very fancy-looking design using both dark and light wood.

Day 3 was constructing and installing the railing, then realizing the kids are little and skinny and they would plummet right off in between the rails, so we needed to add something to prevent that - in comes some old lattice that had been laying around in what was essentially a junk heap and now finally had a productive use.

This project was much more time and labor intensive than I had thought it would be. And It is pretty close to the end for a while - our plan is to use it as is for a while and through the use determine what we'll do next. For example we first planned to close it in entirely, like a real house, with windows and a door. Then we realized it would be a tragedy to make so much of the surrounding area hard to see when sitting on the floor, leaning against one of the trees and reading a book. So we're considering keeping it open. Or using clear plexiglass to provide a bit of weatherproofing while not keeping nature out entirely. And that goes with the roofing options: something solid? a tarp that can be rolled up or down? A mix? All options are currently on the table.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

A place for everything, and everything in its place

Once we got through Tummy Bug 2014, there was the one last basement chore I'd been wanting to complete: the organization of the play room.  There are still a few stragglers - the dresser that needs to move to its new home in the study/guest room, the toy workbench we've been trying to sell on craigslist (Anyone want one? We can't sell a thing on that site to save our lives.). But as of today, every item either has a reasonable home, or has been thrown away or packed away for future rotation. I'm proud of the results.


couldn't resist one pic from the epic tummy bug
 

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Renovation - Nearing the end

I am closing in the on finishing the study.   The door is built to cover the breaker box.  I ended up putting hinges on the trim that then attaches to the wall.  This seems to work pretty well.  I also added a few additional screws from the plywood to the trim to help hold it in place, since there is quite a bit of weight now on the trim.  Additionally I added some L brackets at all the corners to tie all the trim together.  This should help make it studier.  Additionally I added a magnet at the bottom to keep the whole thing closed.

The room is nearly finished.  I started moving the stud furniture in the room so other parts of the house could start being cleaned up.  I still have a little bit of chalking to do around the door then I will have to do touch up paint.  Allin all I am so close it is starting to fell like I have actually accomplished something.  

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Mission: Completion (sort of)

We have been busy, busy, busy. Terry's writing a post about finishing the study/guest room and - yes - that means it is finished! And, with the room in move-in condition we moved in!

Hi, honey
 All the study furniture got out of the "media" room and we're still debating exactly how we'll lay out the guest room portion so none of that has gone in yet.

With the study furniture gone, we were able to go buy those bookcases I've been waiting for and get the books out of boxes in the basement closet. As we seem to have culled more books than I thought, we also had room to put up the small mountain of family snapshots.

My amazing husband also redid the kitchen pantry with more, adjustable shelves so a great number of small kitchen appliances were able to find their way into the kitchen. Really, anything that gets used at least once a week deserves a place here, but until now there just wasn't room.

In the spirit of organization, we have also tackled the linen/hallway closets. One is now entirely devoted to kitchen equipment. Even with the additional pantry space the kitchen is, as I may have mentioned before, too small. We even got to pull three boxes of lesser-used kitchen/dining-ware out of Zoltan's bedroom (4 year old boys don't really need closets) and found new homes for the contents of the 2 large boxes. Thus, only one smaller box returned to Zoltan's closet. The other hallway closet now houses all bathroom and linen related items. And most of a shelf is still empty!

The final step of all this organization will be to go through all the kids' toys, purge what should go and pack away a subset of rotating toys like we used to do ... now that there is room in the basement closet for all that stuff.

And then it will feel (mostly) like home.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Renovation Update - The end is near

This weekend was an exciting weekend.  We are closing in on finishing the study. On Saturday I ran right after breakfast to get trim and some other miscellaneous things for the house at Home Depot.  Got back and proceeded to work on getting the trim painted.  My sawhorse only allowed me to paint half the trim at once. You can see in the photo to the left.  So I started with the door trim since that is the first thing that needs to go up.  While I was waiting for that to dry I worked on cleaning up the doors from the side table.

One really nice thing about the gas heat in our house is it makes everything so dry that you don't have to wait long for the paint to dry.  I was able to get two coats on the trim with a last round of touch up before the game.  In the morning the door trim was done and I did a quick coat on the floor trim after coffee but before breakfast.  Then I started to hang the trim around the door.  I ran into an issue with my brad nailer.  Basically it was not working.  It appears sitting in storage for seven years dried up the piston with a rubber ring and the pressure could not move it.  So I oiled everything really well and put it back to together.  It took a little work getting the nailer back in shape but finally it was.  Once that was going the trim went up in no time. It is amazing how much faster the right tool makes things.  It is also amazing how people built house before power tools.  That is some skill and toughness.  Also explains why houses were generally smaller.  The photo on the right shows just the door trim up.

I managed to get on three coats of paint on the second round of trim before nap.  Once that was dry it was no time to cut and hang the rest of the trim. On the left you can see the final room with the trim up.

There still is a bit to do.  We need to do some touch up painting where we caulked the trim.  Also I still need to figure out a way to install the door over the breaker box to cover it but still make it accessible.  So far all the hinges I have tried have thwarted me, but I have one last idea.  More on that later if it works.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Stain stains


A long, long time ago (seriously. It was before we joined the foreign service.) Terry's dad made a super cool hamper. It looked just like a bedside table, but inside the piece was a pull-out hamper. We placed an order. And then left the country.

Terry's dad did us one better and made a matching set: one hamper and one real bedside table. Then he put it somewhere safe and essentially forgot about it as we weren't coming for it any time soon. Fast forward seven years and the tables are in our house.

We had to stain them to make them match the bedroom furniture we already had - all dark and walnut-y. We had to sand down the table tops and eventually attach them to the bases. We had to apply a sealant something on top of the stain.

But they are now almost finished and oh, so pretty! I can't wait to get these babies into our room.


Saturday, December 28, 2013

Renovation - Floor down

Last Saturday, Lynne planned on taking the kids to the botanical gardens to meet up with friends.  I planned to stay home all day and lay the tile floor.  Laying the floor is a kind of a slow process as you have to lay some tile glue down, then wait for it to dry some and get tacky.  Then you lay down the tile in that area.  This gets repeated many times as you can't lay glue on too much of the floor or you would be tracking glue all over the new tile and anywhere else in the house you roam.  Well, on Saturday I managed to work through the room laying the tile and getting it all down.  In the end I am really happy with the floor.  Lynne was also pleased with the final product.  During the waiting time I managed to stain the end tables some more (more on those in another post later) and finish the cabling in the adjacent room.  Slowly we are moving towards finishing this room off.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Renovation - Prepping the floor.

I am trying to get better about the renovation posts and making them a little more timely.  Since last weekend the door is painted and rehung.  It is much nicer now - without the globs of excess paint it actually can close. I still need to put the door knob back on and put the new strike plate on the door jamb (the old one was no longer brass from all the coats of paint).  Then it will be done.

This week I also worked on leveling the floor for the new tile (this is the photo in the post).  The old floor consisted of carpet (that we ripped up) with tile underneath.  Many of the tiles near the walls were broken when they installed the tacking strips for the carpet, so we can not use that flooring.  So, we are going to be installing a new tile that looks like a fake hardwood floor.  Not the fanciest but the tile is very durable and considerably cheaper and easier to install than real hardwood.  In order to install this I needed to make the entire floor level.  So out came concrete that I used to fill in holes in the floor and where there was tiles missing.  If all goes well this weekend I am hoping to lay the new floor.  

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Renovation time

This Saturday Lynne took the kids to the Ballet with Auntie Heather and Harrison.  I decide to skip hunting one day and concentrate on getting something moving the in the study downstairs.

Last time I wrote anything the walls were spackled and needing paint.  Painting has since be completed (mostly by Lynne during nap time and on sadik days).  So now I have been working on the drop ceiling.  First I installed the drop ceiling grid, then a new light was installed within the grid.  The first photo shows the drop ceiling grid installed with the lights. 

Next I started installing the drop ceiling tiles.  I had to leave one area open to install the air ducts.  This required a trip to Home Depot for parts.  Once back I completed the duct work, terminating all the cables in the room, and installing the outlet covers.

With the duct work complete I finished installing the ceiling tiles.  Now the ceiling is done. I pulled the door to the room off its hinges so I could sand down all the old paint.  It is amazing that a contractor was paid to do a job this bad.  The guy painted over dirt and left paint drips everywhere.  With all that extra paint lots of doors in our house don't properly close.  I am slowly working on correcting that.  Last night I got the door sanded and started painting again.  So the list of work to is slowly dwindling.  We still have to finish painting the door and rehang it, touch up paint the walls where I made a mess putting up the drop ceiling.  After that I need to level the floor, then install the tile floor.  And lastly paint and install the trim work.  Lots to do but lots less.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Renovation Update

Time for a renovation update.

With the bathroom mostly wrapped up.  I have started on the 4th Bedroom/Study.  We have not decided on a name for the room because we are not entirely sure on the purpose of the room yet.  Either way it is getting somewhat of a makeover.

Before we moved in I tore open the ceiling to run data and coax cable to the living room. I wanted to rip out the old crappy paneling and put up new dry wall anyway.  So to accomplish getting cable into the living room I decide this would be the first area of the basement we undertake.  So the first order was to completely gut the room as you can see to the right.

Once the gutting was complete I ran new data cabling in the room.  Basically anywhere I open a wall I am running new cabling so there is plenty of copper around for the future.  Most places are getting 3 runs of cat 5 and one run of coax.  This should provide some growth for the future and not kill the budget.  Plus I am too cheap to run fiber.  I ran all of the runs back to an area under the stairs where I am putting in a small patch panel and the some shelves to house the networking equipment.  Eventually all the TV from the Antenna/Cable company will terminate there so I can distribute the signal throughout the house.  Eventually! 


Back before we moved in I borrowed my Dad's truck to bring down a load of things he had saved for us to use in the renovation.  Since we had the truck and I was going to need the drywall in the future I went ahead and bought the drywall then so I could get it home in the truck and save the rental fee.  That was June.  So Lynne was very excited when the drywall was finally removed from the kids' play area and hung on the walls of the BR/Study.  Drywall went up quickly.  In one evening and the following afternoon I hung all the drywall I had.  Unfortunately that left me one piece short.  The next day I went to Home Depot and with some creative cutting in the parking lot was able to get the last piece in the Subaru.  That piece is now up and all the walls are covered. Next up is the Spackle work. 

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

172 boxes - almost done!

So every box has been touched and 90% of stuff put away. Unfortunately, the moving company only comes back on Saturdays for the empties, and last Saturday was too early, so some stuff can't be unpacked because there is a wall of broken down boxes, or boxes filled with packing material, where the thing should go.

We've been to Target 3 times for different forms of storage.  We may have more pictures and photos than we have walls.

...

And in the midst of all the craziness, Bathfitters finally had all the parts they needed for our install and was able to fit us in within 4 days and we got a new bathtub. The kids are disappointed because the sliding shower door frame (sans doors, of course) was a "railroad" for them to play with - their bath toys took a lot of trips. The adults are about as far from disappointed as one can get.

Photos to come...

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Kids' rooms

Way, way overdue.

Here's Terry edging Alex's room.
And the finished product ...
... seen here with what will be the bunk bed's top bunk but for now is set up for pre-furniture-arrival naps [edited to add: the room is now complete with its adorable wood and white furniture and sweet pink floral bedding, courtesy of an off-to-college cousin].
Zoltan's room got similar treatment

He also, however, has received most of the furniture that will fit in his room. Yes, that's TWO pieces. Hey, at least he has a closet - better than he had in Russia!



Friday, June 21, 2013

A pink room and a blue room

While the kids hang out at Camp Pop-pop and Nana, Terry and I are having our own boot camp - make the house liveable.

Our first day went much better than expected - we got to MD hours earlier than we thought/feared, so were able to go ahead and start on two of our main priorities: the front flower bed (pulling the dirt and mulch away from the foundation so termites don't come back, as well as to make room for what we want to plant; and paint the kids' rooms.

We got Alex's room trimmed out before realizing Zoltan's was a higher priority, and got the front flower bed torn apart pretty well, aka it looks awful. We tried to transplant some lilies and a little bush, plus hacked away all the big bushes. We'll have to wait and see if any of the transplants survived. We tried not to overdo it because we have days more work to do but I won't lie - I was sore the next day. At least it was sore, not useless.

Next day was the Pepco inspection of our electrician's work. Pepco, apparently, gives a range of time and refuses to narrow it. So we had to be at the house at 8:30am and we had to get to Lowes beforehand. 6:30am was our wakeup, 7am at Lowes, and we pulled up to the house at 8:29am. Pepco didn't come til after 11am, of course, but we were busy. A bit of time in the front yard, then off to paint bedrooms.

They both need more work, we'll see in the light (bought a lamp!) just how much.

Here's my issue: I really like how the blue turned out in Zoltan's room. I am not 100% sure about the pink in Alex's. In both cases, however, the paint in the room looks NOTHING like the paint on the chip or in the can. Curiously, The paint spattered on my body looks exactly like the paint on the chip and in the can. How does this happen?

Monday, June 10, 2013

The Money Pit

Terry got his first look at the house this week. The more I am there the more I realize the good things are very good (recently refinished hardwood throughout the house) and the bad things are very bad (the pond that appeared during the rainstorm right at the walkway to the house from the front yard).

Our first thought, last month when we bought the house, was that the kitchen was top indoor priority. The stove violates code and the previous owners slapped a granite counter on top of 50 year old cabinets. However, we've since decided the top priority needs to be the bathroom with the nasty tub. We're hoping to shame the contractor who did the kitchen into at least moving the stove for us - it involves running a gas line, which we aren't thrilled to do ourselves - and I know he cares about his Angie's List ratings. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

The trees are down and the electrician is done other than having the city come and do the inspection to certify his work. We've chosen the company to do the bathroom although installation won't be until later this summer. So, things are moving along .....

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The work begins

Today Alex and I spent the day at the house. Promptly 1 minute after I arrived at the house (and 15 minutes early!) the crew came to remove the 2 large trees in the back yard that were too close to the house, endangering the foundation and for all I know being the route the termites took to get in. Alex was fascinated watching them, actually I was too but I was also quite busy. The house had been what my mom would call filthy, what other people would call a bit dirty, so I cleaned bathrooms and swept. I had gotten those Windex wipes so Alex could help with windows and mirrors, and she really enjoyed it for about 15 minutes. When I realized that we had no drinking vessels, we ran to the nearest grocery store for provisions. During the day I also fielded 3 electricians for their estimates. This was actually my most critical task, however I got to the tree stuff first because they didn't need a person to let them into the house to see what the work would look like.

I had also completely forgotten to call the utilities to set up accounts in our names. And apparently the sellers got right on having the gas shut off when I didn't take care of that detail on Day 1, so they have to come turn the gas back on and of course they can't get to it for a few days. At least now I know the heating system isn't broken, it just isn't getting any fuel.  It was chilly inside the house, even Alex happily changed from shorts into the pants and socks I brought for her. Tomorrow is supposed to get close to 90F so it will be interesting to see how well the house stays cool without a little help.

Now I'm trying to contact the selected electrician and get him in ASAP to fix the bad and allegedly dangerous wiring. Tomorrow we get to go to Lowes and buy a hot water heater. If my bank account didn't take a hit every time I accomplished a task, I would probably find this way more fun than I am :-)

Here's an important question to anyone who might be reading: the bathtub has those anti-slip decals, I even remember them being marketed in the 1980s, they look like flowers. I need to remove them. Comet didn't even touch them, any suggestions??