It's not even Labor Day...

And I'm still doing so much work! Thanks, I'll be hear all millennium.

Tasks tackled lately:

- more paneling hung. Have not yet reversed last week's error though.
- installed a double roller catch in the kitchen passthrough so the door stays closed. Would have installed two but I didn't see that the second one I bought was broken.
- finished off trim on window in upstairs bathroom. You haven't done mental geometry until you've tried to match your measurements on a square frame to a series of 45 degree mitre cuts on 90 degree cap molding.
- other stuff I'm sure...

Scraping and painting, and problems with both (now with pictures!).

Plenty of both the last couple of days. I've got one renter moving in right now and am trying to get all the upstairs rooms painted (if they need it). This is mostly standard stuff - tape off, roller, brush, clean up (got an excellent selection of self-priming paints from Sherwin Williams so things go even faster) - but I have one problem in the back bedroom:

A section of the wallboard had cracked and buckled, probably from someone years ago putting their elbow through the other side of the wall. Whatever the reason, I needed to cut the section out down to the plaster. The plan was to buy some drywall or wallboard of the same thickness, tack it into the space, spackle the edges, and paint the whole wall. Unfortunately, this wallboard or whatever is just under a quarter inch thick and something like it probably hasn't been manufactured in years, according to other people who know old buildings. Home Depot certainly doesn't seem to have anything. I'm thinking about just spackling the entire hole, although that seems like a huge waste of spackle, or tacking luan or other wood into the space, although that seems like it will produce a wall with wildly different surfaces.


I'm also continuing to hack at the porch. I finished the entire lower rail today, plan to get the entire ceiling done within the next couple of days, but am really not looking forward to dealing with the spindles which have thick paint that is either cracking or not moving.

The past couple of days...

Have been a veritable flurry of activity. I scraped about 1/10th of the porch. That's a lot when you realize this is the paint on my porch:
At least three layers, at least two of which are heavy-duty exterior paint. Not heavy duty enough, because this is what I'm tackling before I can paint anything:

At the rate I'm going (couple of hours, most days), it should be done by early next week. If the weather holds, I can paint all at once. And maybe even put a coat of the new blue (very similar to the old blue) on the front shingles. You know, the ones that needs painting the least.

Meanwhile, inside... I don't know how the hell this happened:

A tip...

Yes, yes, I know I said I'd be posting in this thing daily. But between work, friends in from out of town, the county fair last weekend (combine... derby....), and today's important home improvement tip, I haven't always been at the computer with thoughts to share.

Today's Important Home Improvement Tip:
Do not go into your attic in the middle of the afternoon during the summer. If you do, don't expect to get much work done.

Note: No, I didn't pass out.

Step one: Tyvek

Forty-five minutes is at least 20 minutes longer than I expected this to take:

Major sources of delay: discovering the bathroom vent pipe wasn't solidly hooked up inside the wall (solution: snip the end of the short pipe so it could be collapsed a little and slide inside the pipe in the wall); and realizing ex post facto that a utility knife would have been a better choice to cut the paper than the shears I brought with me.

Still - some nice old wood under these shingles. I continue to indulge the fantasy of having all the shingles removed, finding not a single spot of rot or weakness or air gaps underneath, and painting the entire building to last, low maintenance, for another 100 years.


Until then, I'll be back up on the ladder soon to put shingles over the paper. I'm looking for the answer to this question - can I use a nail gun to attach the shingles, as opposed to predrilling both shingle and the board underneath, then tapping two nails through each shingle? That's the way the previous owner did it, but if a nail gun with the right size nails and the right pressure setting can do the job then I'll gladly spend the money to spend that much less time.

So close...

See, if the neighbor's cat was really a good hunter, I wouldn't have to call a pest control guy to get two squirrels removed from my porch roof...



This squirrel is missing most of its tail, though, so one of the cats has had some mild success. I can't wait, though - I'm scraping the porch now and want to take out the broken soffit board (where the squirrels got in), replace it, seal all the cracks all along the whole porch underside, and paint it within the next week or so. Then the place won't look QUITE so run down from the outside...

They're unique, that's for sure.

After staring at my closet for yet another day thinking how great it'll be once I install some shelves and move the dresser inside, and get a bar of some kind to hand all my shirts on, I realized that I had all the prep work done and it was just pure procrastination preventing me from (alliterating apparently and) doing at least the first two items.

The custom shelf was pretty easy. It doesn't have to support much weight, meaning the shelf supports themselves don't have to support much weight, meaning this half-inch right angle piece I had in the back room would be fine tacked straight into the wall.

[Update 8/14 - should have mentioned all the steps here. First I pre-drilled the support at 4 places along its length; it makes the next several steps much easier, not to mention keeps you from splitting the support and teahcing your neighbors some new curse words. Then I tapped the nails into, but not through the wood - 'porcupine' boards also make the work go faster, assuming you didn't pre-drill holes that are too big. Then: found my height, nailed one nail in part way to the wall, LEVELED the support (this is the sort of step I'd normally space on and have to pull out a nail), tapped in another nail, and then hammered all four nails in using a nail set to finish them off. Nail sets are wonderful, wonderful tools, especially when working with small nails and/or tight spaces.

You can try and measure from the floor to the support on both sides, or just use a piece of wood and the level to quickly find the right height. If you're a little off for some reason, don't sweat - these shelves are only 3'1" wide, so a slight grade won't even be noticeable.]

You can use whatever one-by wood makes sense for you - scrap is great if you sand or paint, or don't mind how it looks. This is a bunch of old old tongue and groove that came out of a friend's house and that I knew would be useful for something. In addition to having some character, it also comes apart in 3" sections if, for some reason, I needed a little more clearance at the front.

If you're doing something like this in an old house like mine, make sure to take multiple measurements. For whatever reason this closet tapers slightly. The slats are all cut the same, but the two closest to you in the picture have probably 3/16" wiggle room, whereas the very back slat is jammed in too tightly (you can see where I accidentally gouged some paint on the right while putting it in). Measuring the way back as well as the couple of runs I measured elsewhere would have prompted me to cut one board a hair shorter.

Doesn't matter much at all - it works great and looks nice as is. I'm thinking of putting a small rolling shelf underneath this one for my shoes.

Shed's dead, baby. Shed's dead.

Wonder bar, mallet, screwdriver, elbow grease, two hours.



Here's more of the sequence.

Direct quote:
Me: I've got beer and cola in the fridge, you want any?
Sarah: Haven't had my coffee yet. Let me get through that, *then* I'll be ready for a beer.

I swear, I did work too. I just also took all the pictures.

And of course, after doing all this, we looked around and decided there's probably a better place to put a shed. On the bright side, I've got scrap metal to sell and a nice little clearing (once I figure out how to get these ginormous timbers up and away) for a garden or a place to sit.

Hey look, it's a door!

Adjusted the hinges this morning so it sits right in the frame, picked up the right screws for the handle at the hardware store this afternoon. Will paint all the hardware tomorrow (maybe...)
and I need to dig up some weatherstripping for the bottom. Also I should build a cutout for the latch jamb so it actually latches. But look! What an improvement! (Ignore the rest of the porch).

Also done today - painted the banisters on the front steps to cut down on rust -

...and finally got the windows installed upstairs. My tenants can breath again. Hooray for breathing.

Ed note - man those are lousy pictures. I'll try and take some better ones when I'm done with the last bits of hardware.

Sick day

The big plan for today was to take down my old rusted shed and pull up a few roots/stumps to make way for a new shed (one of these days). I got the barn-razing (har) email out a little late, though, and I was feeling under the weather (don't worry - a nap and some food and I was fine by evening), so that plan has been postponed for a bit.

Instead:
- finally hung porch door; need to either adjust middle and top hinge or shave 1/8+" off the other side to get it fitting smoothly in the frame.

- leveled washer; now need to get a vibration dampener

- started prep on wall in back bedroom - there was a cracked section of drywall; I started cutting and have wound up expanding to about 18" square to get around various cracks and warps. There's more to one side, but I don't want to rip out too much, and what remains is at least level. Plan is to cut a section of drywall (looks thinner than normal), screw into the gap, putty edges, paint entire wall.

Daily log

I don't know if this will help or just turn this into a mess of uninteresting posts, but I'm going to try posting daily (or close to it) even if that means only bulleting small things I've started or finished. For example:

Over the last three days:
- took down porch screen door
- prepped hinges for new (actually old) screen door to go up
- cut and hung molding for upstairs bathroom door frames (well, the verticals)
- cut old tongue and groove boards and two supports for shelving in my closet
- finished all pipe connections for washing machine

HaHA! (triumphant sounding)

All I can say is I'm glad I a) bought a hacksaw the other week and b) had the foresight to buy plumber's tape a while back.

Eight dollars of pipe connections later and it's hooray for cleaning of clothes.