Stay-cation: The Last Days

I should have known better than to be excited about a day with nothing planned. Turns out the War Department was just full to the brim with ideas for Friday, and none of them involved anything even remotely fun.

And of course, it was the worst of her ideas that we wound up working on all day.

Wanna know what it was? I'll give you a hint. It's the common theme within all these pictures:









No, it's not that it's all overgrown. Well, it is that, but it's not SO much that it's all overgrown as it is what it's all overgrown WITH. (Ending a sentence with a preposition is fun!)

Blackberry canes!

Dear jebus, the blackberries. We've been putting off this particular chore for a while now, and we paid for that procrastination dearly. You can kind of get an idea of what we were dealing with from those pictures up there, especially the second one. That big cane on the left side of the picture is actually coming down from where it grew up into and through the dogwood tree.

Of course, municipality bylaws indicate that you're not allowed to HAVE blackberry canes on residential properties, so we grabbed our thickest (not-quite-thick-enough) gloves, a couple of shovels and the pick and headed out into the yard to take them on.

Four of the scratchiest, sweatiest, annoyingiest hours later, we had this:







Wait a sec. Let's take a closer look at that gate, shall we?



So, to sum up: the gate (which is not actually a gate, but a "repurposed" section of one of the two wrought iron trellis thingies) is held up by two broken broom sticks, a couple of spare bits of rebar, two different kinds of speaker wire, electrical tape, and baling twine. Well, at least it's not crooked or anything.

I should also hasten to point out that the reason we didn't tackle the largest area of blackberries, the one behind the brush pile/grass clippings, is because the War Department seems to think that that's where the little bunny in our yard lives. And she didn't want to disturb it. So we'll be finishing this particular chore next spring. Provided, of course, we can convince the bunny to move out and get a damn job, that deadbeat freeloading hippie.

Anyway, that was our Friday. On Saturday, we took the day off, aside from a couple of short errands and some light housework, and even went down to the park and tossed the baseball around for a while. (Heh, 19 degrees in the middle of October: love it!)

On Sunday, I put two coats of sealer on the bathroom tiles and we got the bathroom door ready for painting while the War Department worked on a bunch of other projects. Oh, and we finally got our mattress delivered, which means I can finally take some pictures of the finished bedroom! Well, as soon as we get some more of the artwork up on the wall, anyway.

So that was our stay-cation. We didn't exactly get ALL of the things done that we wanted to, but we got the bathroom pretty much ready to put together, we got to spend some time in the backyard enjoying the sun and the copious amounts of wildlife, and we ate like freakin' KINGS for pretty much the entire week. (Seriously - the pepperberry chicken was only the start of the good eats.) All in all, I'd have to call it a success.

And of course, for a whole week, we didn't have to go into the office either, so that was pretty sweet.

Stay-cation: Days Five and Six

Sorry about the lack of update yesterday, everyone. It was just the realization that we're not going to get even close to finishing the bathroom this week was a little disheartening. Well, that and the fact that the tiles looked pretty much exactly the same after setting them in place as they did when I dry-fit them. I did manage to get them all down in thinset on Wednesday, but then of course had to wait 24 hours before I could grout them on Thursday.

As it turns out, we have to wait SEVENTY-TWO hours* after grouting the tiles before we can seal them. Seeing as how everything else we need to do in there (with the exception of the electrical, and the War Department can whip that off in twenty minutes or so) needs to have the sealing done first, and we can't seal until Sunday at the earliest.. yeah, we ain't getting it done this week. Maybe by next Sunday...

* (As recommended by the grout manufacturer. Some sites advocate waiting THIRTY DAYS before sealing slate tile. Needless to say, screw that noise.)

But not being able to finish the bathroom doesn't mean we haven't been busy! Aside from the bathroom, so far on this stay-cation we have managed to knock off some other projects.

• For example, the War Department got her chainsaw working! Now, I know this doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that a) the chainsaw was made in 1976, b) she had to make no less than three separate trips to the parts store to get the right stuff for it, c) she had to remove and rebuild the entire carburetor, and d) I was absolutely no help whatsoever (the one thing she wanted my help with I couldn't do because of my great fat sausage fingers), it's pretty impressive. She spent almost the whole day on Tuesday working on it while I was cutting tiles, and finally got it running on Wednesday.
  
  
  
  Now she just needs to do the same thing for the weedeater, and we'll be golden.



• She also cleaned and caulked the gutters and downspout at the front of the house. They were so clogged with roof debris and pine needles and whatnot that every time it rained, water would stream over the edges and down the sides, turning our front entryway into more of a shower stall.



• I finally managed to install the soap dispenser that came with our kitchen faucet. Probably wasn't really that big a deal, but I did have to make an extra trip to Home Depot (my second of the day).



• We hung a mirror in the family room! Now I know THIS doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's literally the first piece of artwork or decoration that we've put up on the walls downstairs.



• We took yet another load of garbage and recycling up to Hartland. I think this makes six? Seven?



• Amy spent another two hours power-washing the driveway. We're about a fifth of the way done now. Good times.



• I got started organizing the files in my office... okay, now I'm reaching. Anyway, here's a shot of the tiles actually grouted. Joy.
  
  

So, as for today's progress... well, I don't know what on the schedule. Depends on the weather and what's left on the job list for the week, I suppose. Apart from waiting around for the guy to come and give us an estimate on the gas fireplace, I really don't know what we're going to do today.

And it's kind of a nice feeling, actually.

Stay-cation: Day Four

So maybe this update every day thing wasn't the best idea. I'm not sure if people would rather read a short post every day about what we did the day before, or whether I should just save it all up and do a monster post on the weekend when we're all done.

I do know that these little posts are seriously cutting into my video game time...

So yesterday was all about getting the tiles cut and fitted for the bathroom. Given that the bathroom is only about 30 square feet, you wouldn't think it was an all day job, but as I keep reminding people who ask why it's taking so long, I'm not exactly a professional.

Anyway, I hied myself off down to the Home Despot yesterday and rented the big wet saw again. I had to wait almost fifteen minutes to get someone out to help me load it into the truck, but I'm getting used to that by now. Slackers.

Once I got it home, I thanked the capricious Victorian weather gods for what turned out to be a pretty nice day, and set up a little cutting station in the driveway:



A tip for using one of these bad boys: keep the pump in a bucket of fresh water instead of in the tub under the saw. That water gets all gummy and dirty really fast, and the clean water means the pump doesn't get clogged, and it helps wash off the tiles when you cut them. (Just remember to keep an eye on the level of water in the bucket!) I think I went through about ten or twelve bucketfuls - hence the hose waiting at the ready. I also put down a rubber mat to stand on; partly to ease the pain of standing on concrete for long stretches, but mostly so I wouldn't be standing in the dirty water while I was cutting and thus not track it back into the house.

Anyway, not much else to say about the job yesterday. Including two trips to pick up and drop off the saw at Home Depot, it took me about six hours to measure cut, and dry-fit the tiles. The hole around the toilet flange was really fiddly and painful, but I'd managed to plan out the tiles so that I only had to cut two instead of three or four. (Okay, that wasn't planning so much as dumb luck, but still.)



So today I get to actually set them in thinset and maybe - depending on the drying times involved - grout them, too.

Stay-cation: Day Three

Just a quick update on yesterday before I go get started...

Yesterday was all about two things: getting the bathroom painted, and planning out the tile placement for the floor.

Two coats of Restoration Hardware's "Flax" later:



After realizing we kinda got shafted in terms of how many tiles were scratched or otherwise crappy, and having to plan out where to put the bad tiles to minimize their effect on the floor:



I'm off to Home Depot to pick up the tile saw. It's going to be a long day...

Stay-cation: Day Two

I was going to post this entry last night and actually get caught up with my idiotic scheme, but we had our little Thanksgiving dinner last night and seeing as how it was just the four of us, and two of us don't drink wine, I couldn't let such a nice bottle go to waste, could I?

Well, that and we didn't actually sit down to eat until 9pm. But mostly the wine...

As I mentioned in Day One, our primary goal of this stay-cation is to finish the downstairs bathroom. Of course, a lot of what we're doing is painting, that means a lot of waiting around for things to dry. Which means side projects!

The first order of business yesterday was to clean the walls and ceiling in the bathroom in preparation for painting. Once that was done (and we had waited for the walls to dry), we replaced the fan motor - which cleaned up pretty nice:



It's still not the quietest bathroom fan in the world, but it beats having to rip out half the ceiling to install a new one.

Unfortunately, the new fan grill we bought is slighter smaller than the original, so the War Department had to caulk the edges of the hole around the fan to pretty it up a bit. Which meant another two-hour wait before we could paint the caulking.

Given that it was unseasonably warm outside (highs of 19 degrees!), we headed out to see what we could make of the sunroom issue. Imagine our surprise when we pulled off the rotten trim to find that the room WAS actually designed properly! The roof flashing has a proper drip-edge on it, and the siding extends well past the sill plate on the bottom. We're pretty sure the trim was added after the permit and inspection had been passed - it was obviously not installed professionally, and completely compromised the overall design.

Once the trim was removed, we pulled back the rocks in the little ditch around the sunroom so they weren't right up against the siding.






I think we're still going to wrap some heavy plastic around that corner to keep any more water from getting in through that huge crack, but the good news is the sunroom should make it through the winter without too many modification.

While we were out there (and after mowing the lawn yet AGAIN), we also pulled the earth away from the wall outside the kitchen where it had piled up against the trim:



Yeah, looks pretty bad, but it'll the keep the bugs and the moisture from wicking up the stucco and rotting out the sill plate.

Well, by that time, the caulking had dried, so we painted the bathroom ceiling, went out to Rona and ran some other errands, and then came home and put a second coat on:



(I like that soft pink a lot, by the way. It's going to look really sharp with the baby-blue walls and creamy, butter-yellow trim.)

And then we watched some baseball, did some other chores and eventually got around to making our Thanksgiving dinner. Not exactly a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, I must say: pepperberry chicken and mushroom risotto:





Damn tasty, though.

Stay-cation: Day One

Welcome to the first and hopefully-not-annual-because-I'd-rather-be-in-Hawaii-quite-frankly Don and Amy's Stay-cation! This year's project: the downstairs bathroom.

That's right: we're taking the next week off work to try and finish the downstairs bathroom. Painting the ceiling and walls, tiling the floor, installing the vanity and toilet, painting and installing the trim, fixing the electrical, and generally trying to make it awesome. It's an ambitious project, but the good news is that it won't take up every hour of every day - there's a fair amount of time we'll have to spend waiting for things to dry or set up, and that's time we can use to relax. Sorry, not relax. Heh, got my words mixed up. I meant to say: figure out how to make the damn sunroom weathertight for the next six months.

Hopefully, I can find at least a little time each day to post an update here on the blog. Yes, I'm actually going to try to make this a daily update, at least for the next week. And yes, I'm posting Day One's entry on Day Two. Nothing like getting starting when you're already behind.

On to Day One!

We actually spent most of yesterday driving around running errands and looking at gas fireplace inserts for the bear pit, but the War Department did manage to finish the drywall patches. What needed patching, you ask? Heh, these things:



Frank's idea of adding color to a bland little room, I suppose. (Heaven forbid he should actually PAINT something...) He had three or four of them stuck high up on the wall, and when we peeled them off, they took the top layer of paper off the drywall. What with that and the enormous hole I gouged in the side wall when I removed the old counter top, there was drywalling to be done.

Fortunately for us, the War Department is getting to be pretty damn good at mudding drywall (there's a skill you'll likely want to leave off the old resume lest you be asked to do some touch-ups around the office), and she had them fixed up in no time.

It's a tough bathroom to take pictures in, but I gave it a shot, and hopefully you can get a sense of the project's scale (and how much dust is generated by sanding a few small drywall patches.







We also wanted to replace the old fan, but given that it's really not that easy to get to the existing one, we might give cleaning it off a shot, and see if that makes it any quieter. You can probably see why I think that, given the fan's current condition, it really couldn't hurt:



Oh, and we also removed another candidate for worst light fixture:



Just... no.

Tune in tomorrow (or later today) for the next installment!

Dr. Strangewood

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mold...

If there's one thing we've learned in our years of renovating this house and the last, it's to expect the unexpected. Actually, if I wanted to avoid lapsing into a pointless cliche, I'd rephrase that to "expect shit to be broken". Oh, I know! Here's an even better one - words to live by, really:

Trust in incompetence, and you will never be disappointed.

Particularly - ESPECIALLY - when it comes to designing sunrooms, apparently.

Oh, by the way: all my readers complaining that there wasn't nearly enough schadenfreud in the last post? Yeah, this one's for you...

We knew when we moved in (have I used THAT particular phrase enough on this blog, ya think?) that the sunroom had some issues. After all, the wood trim on the inside looked worn out, all of the windows in the ceiling had blown seals and condensation between the panes, and there were some pretty big gaps between the windows and the trim on the outside. So it's not like we didn't know it needed work, but still...

This whole mess started when the War Department was fixing one of Frank's botched attempts to run speaker wire out through the walls and to the exteriors outlets and fountain pumps (via sprinkler piping, of course). She couldn't help but notice a fair amount of discoloration on the drywall, the baseboard, and the carpet in the west-most corner of the sunroom. We both figured it was water damage from rain getting in the massive gaps around the window casings and the War Department spent several perfectly good weekend days at the end of the summer carefully caulking the holes with some nasty brown silicon.

Needless to say, it turns out we were wrong. As soon as the weather turned towards fall, the sunroom started to smell distinctly mildewy, and the carpet in that corner was noticeably damp every time it rained. We figured the best course of action might be to just cut away the carpet in that corner and try and keep the concrete dry through the winter.

Given the nature of the house, however, cutting away the carpet was really only the beginning of the problem:



That's... not good. That's very ungood, in fact, for a number of reasons, but let's stick with the fact that there's evidently a lot of moisture in that corner of the sunroom, and leave aside - for now - the fact that the people who built the damn thing apparently didn't remove their wooden forms between pouring the footer and pouring the slab.

To give you an idea of what we're dealing with, here's what that corner looks like from the outside.



You can already tell from the huge crack in the siding (it was slathered in mayonnaise when we first noticed it, but the War Department peeled it off before I could get a picture) that there's probably going to be a water issue with that wall, but take a closer look at the top of that corner where the roof flashing meets the trim:



What the hell? What were the idiots who designed this thing thinking? Where the hell did they think the water was going to go?

Look, I haven't been doing this renovation thing for THAT long, and maybe I've watched more Holmes on Homes than is really healthy, but for Jebus' sake, even I know that's just BAD fucking planning. The water running off the roof is actually DIVERTED right onto the end of the wood! Look at this:



You can probably picture the water coming straight down along beside the window casing and running right off the edge and into the trim all the way along that slope. Where did these idiots think the water was going to go? Did I ask that already? I don't care!

To be fair to the original builders, the sunroom was an addition to the original house. Yeah - keep that in mind as you read the rest of this post: the sunroom is only about 15 years old, as opposed to the 25-year-old house.

Anyway, I refused to start ripping off the trim outside, given that I knew it was going to be a complete shit-show underneath and we hadn't even had dinner yet, and I didn't want to be crawling around trying to make it weather-tight in the dark. So we put off the outside until next weekend, and went to take another look at the inside corner.

I cut back the drywall on the one side, and right about then is when I figured out that we were probably heading right up Shit Creek, and jettisoning all our paddles:



What the...? I don't know that's ants or termites or wasps or what, but whatever it was had long since abandoned it to a couple of pill-bugs and some teeny little ants. Oh, and of course there was more on the other side:



See, the problem isn't really that insects have gotten into the wall, or that there's rain coming in from the roof. The problem is that those ... nests, or whatever, are what's holding up the entire corner of the structure. The dark stain along the bottom on the right side there? That's actually the remains of the sill plate. The tall nest on the left? That's what's left of the jack stud supporting the window. There's no goddamn wood left; it's insects, all the way down.

As an added bonus, this is what the back of the drywall looked like:



Kinda makes my throat tighten up just looking at it. Gross.

We figured that the little drainage ditch of white gravel around the outside of the sunroom was not an original feature. The lawn probably came right up to the walls and the gravel was put in later when the trim at the base of the wall started to rot. We're pretty sure of this because I really shouldn't be able to just push a drywall saw two inches into the sill plate without even really trying:



Rotten to the core.

So I pulled out all the moldy insulation (or as much of it as I could reach), swept up the ants, and sprayed the whole thing down with pesticide to kill any remaining creepy-crawlies. It looks, frankly, like utter shit:



I really don't know how we're going to fix this before winter, or if we should even try. My vote is to wait until spring, and then tear the whole thing down and build it up right.



Maybe Mike Holmes will come by and show us how it's done.