Soon time to cut the ties that bind, or striking off the last fetters of wage-slavery.......

I've been a punch-list guy for almost 2 months. The boss is neat, and my workload is huge, which makes me happy.

Spent most of the day tightening up the siding. It looks quite bit better. The siding after nailing the loose pieces, still looked not good at the front porch, so I did my usual nit-picky, perfectionist caulking of the pieces near the ceiling. Looks a whole lot better now. Oh yeah, stained my heart out. Second coat on doors. My own druthers, if something is going to be stained and finished, buy it that way. Just too much of a headache for production work.

My own place, the skirt board has been painted its finish coat of dark grey. Been trying to figure a way to get a 2 by 8 to double up the joist under the utility room without disturbing the gas pipe. That's so some of the decking can be replaced by the chimney. The coaxial cable is just going to be disconnected and coiled. There's a pile of joist hangers in my living room. It will be safer with them installed then under bare feet. Boss wants me to do part of the weekend, I think, and my house still needs another two full days of work to finish up the underside. The top of the chimney chase needs to be flashed and repaired.....otherwise, all that rebuilding and rot removal will be for naught. So my new ladder will need a stand-off to keep from crushing my new gutters. That will be next next weekend.

John McCain is in the race. It will be interesting. He's his own man and always has been, and he also has a temper. In short, he's more of a human creature then some of those plastic politicians. John Edwards, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Sam Brownback to name a few of the synthetic persuasion. Hillary Clinton is also non-plastic, as is Rudy Giuliani. It would be nice to have someone with a quick temper in office.

The very YELLOW green house.

Really didn't want to work on my , or anyone else's house after the "green" house, but found my neighbor digging into his front walk post with a sharp end of a rip hammer. So, hauled out my sawzall, crawled under the walkway, and cut the sucker out. It took about ten minutes. Banged in a new one, routed the top and then spent ten minutes bs-ing. Our townhouses sit across a dry moat from the parking, so we all have bridges. Often thought of hinging mine and having it going up.

Spent entire day yesterday staining, sanding, more staining. Just me at the green house which is now YELLOW. Very YELLOW. Got caulking, block laying, and rail fixing to do, also door adjustment, two pieces of trim, one outdoor outlet, and so on...........

Banging, Sawing, Caulking, and Painting.

Remember this picture?


It's now been replaced with this.
Here's a beauty shot.

It's slightly crooked but that's the way it was originally framed, and to change that would have required a lot more work. So crooked it stays. Other then that, the rotten stuff was replaced with treated wood, the deck got yet another doubled joist, and with the aid of my bro-in-law, and a friendly policeman, we got the heavy stuff up and in, and then did a nice casing of the cantilevered framing with 5/4" X 6" decking boards. The vent goes to the fireplace insert, that's the supply for the combustion air.

I know the coaxial cable is hanging down, but I don't have a subscription anyway. It will be carefully put in place next weekend. The white paint is primer. The casing will get a coat of primer next week Then it gets painted grey along with the new skirt board beneath it. I still need to add more strong-ties and about 8 BFNs*, but the deck is now pretty sturdy.


*......Big F*****g Nail

Two Months

Short quick post today.

I turned down a job yesterday. It would have been nice. Nine bucks an hour to start, and twelve if I'm permanent, and from 3PM to 11PM. Bennies too, of which now, I have none.

Sticking with the "green" house for now. Two months to go on the house. Progress good, house painted by the end of the week. I got to get the outdoor fixtures cut in, and the vents attached. I got stainless steel screws for those. Caulking of course, back porch, vents, and possibly garage. Also, replacing two pickets in the front porch railing. I got the worst ones yesterday. I also got to get some nice 1 X 6 treated. The Suby can suffice for that. Big tree fell across the driveway, missing some painters by a few feet. High winds yesterday. We saw one go down in the woods too. Pretty neat.

More Rotting Chimney (and house) Blues.

For some strange reason, I decided to tear off that weird white plywood box nailed to the underside of my deck under the chimney. What you are about to see is not pretty.



After I got nuts with the sharp end of a rip hammer and a sawzall. Yep, the previous owner was hiding something.


This is actually "supporting" the middle of my back deck. Actually, it's now the decking that carries most of the load to joists on each side of the chimney chase. Yikes. Still, it's holding my weight.



Note the wedge. I could slide it out with my finger tips.



All is not lost. I already doubled the joists on each side of the chimney chase. It will get a double hanger as soon as the rim joist and bottom plate gets fixed. I'm gonna to make those one solid, nailed, glued, screwed, and monolithic, block of treated wood. I'll add more nails too to the double joist. My arm was going to fall off at the end of the day. Enough nails to hold it for now.



Crappy picture, water dripping down my neck, but here it is. Joist hangers added, and the other end of a doubled joist. Deck feels much solider now, and that's with not having got to the cross joist yet. The ledger board was sneered at by yours truly, but is going back up anyway just for a little redundancy. This deck is definitely not today's code, if indeed it was remotely near code.

Rotting Chimney, Brown House Blues.

Pictures soon.......

The chimney chase, originally of wood but now partly of mulch, was so rotten that its going to be a big repair. The rot even got into part of my rim joist. No biggee though. I spent a hundred bucks today on some treated wood and Simpson Strong-ties plus nails. The first project, which is partly done, is to beef up the back deck and make it independent of the cantilevered chimney structure. Which it mostly is, because that part of the chimney framing is no longer there. If it doesn't rain tomorrow, then that will be finished. I'm really glad I got gutters now. It makes a big difference and the water that used to pour off my roof and soak my siding now goes....away.

Next week is getting under the house proper and fixing the rim joist and the cantilevered chimney structure. It would be nice to tear off the chimney and be rid of it and the fireplace, but the HOA would get upset. Also, it's another real estate agent necessity.

The week after that, I finally get up to the first floor and start rebuilding the chimney itself. I really, really hope the fireplace insert won't have to come out. That would be ugly.

The Half Bath, useless but it's there.

A half bath, is in the eyes of some people, mostly real estate agents, a necessary thing. To me, it's 18 square feet of wasted space that could hold my utilities, or be a decent closet, or even be a laundry "roomette". There's me and my cat.... and two and a half baths. For years, I lived with only one. My uncle did put a bathroom downstairs in his house, but he sneered at the whole half-a-bath idea, so his has a shower and tub. Mine sits under the stairs, so it's got a sloping ceiling right over the toilet.

When I bought the place, the previous owners had given the half-a-bathroom a sort of a redo. It was painted flesh-tone (only way one can describe that color), vinyl tiles stuck to sub floor, and a toilet that was making the town of Cary rich by flushing every hour on the hour....a sort of water closet clock. The vanity cabinet was a red oak front nailed to some bracing with a laminate counter top that was water-semi-dissolved. Not pressed wood as much as pressed wood splinters. The light was this bronzy flower thing with two light bulbs on arms. It didn't sit on a box, but was that 1980's NC standard of bashing a hole in the wall and shoving a wire through.

So, six months after the closing, away the half-a-bathroom went. The toilet was already turned off, and in the gutted space sat tools and wall board and bits and pieces of house. Fast forward nine months as I realize that the two remaining baths need much work before I sell this place and realize my dream house in the woods (which is going to remain a dream house in a busted real estate market).

By this time, the GFI was all done, the water shut-off had been repaired and moved to under the sink, and all my bathroom lights had been replaced with a simple 4-light frosted glass bar. I was planning to do both upstairs bathrooms at once, leaving just the tub and the shower in place. This meant that the half bath had to fill some functions besides being a useless real estate enhancement. My kitchen renovation was under way at the time, so it also had to function as a place to make coffee. This must be one of the few half baths in the area with a full vanity, medicine cabinet, full towel rack, and a bar sink faucet.

Pictures.......

Not a bad vanity but it was no bargain. It did go well with the theme of the room which I call "1920's Insane Asylum" A change from my usual gray and white decor schema. Yellow and terracotta. The alternate name is the Venetian Room. The baseboard is a one by four topped with an base cap molding. The shoe mold is pine, clear urethane to bring out the gold tone.

The floor is vinyl tile, found on sale at Lowe's. I love the brick repeat of the pattern and how it matches the counter. After putting down the underlayment plywood and leveling it, I measured the exact center of the room and put the first tile there. I wish it was a sheet floor, but it's a half bath. No walruses sloshing water around here. I want to get more but it's discontinued. Oh well.
The sink is an oval drop-in Kohler. The sink is offset to the left since I'm right handed and to make room for the coffee pot. I wanted a rectangular one that was vaguely 1920s in style but when I got home, found this in the box. So, Machs Nix, dropped it in. The counter is a cut-down kitchen counter, surrounded by a tile backsplash. I wanted a pre-cast terracotta color but they only come in 37 and a half inches, and the room is 36 inches wide. Cutting those down does not work well. K across the street gave me his attempt. I'll quietly toss it when he's not looking. The bar sink faucet swivels and I washed quite a few dishes there when my kitchen was a gutted mess.


The door was trimmed out in what would normally be used as baseboard with a base cap molding around the outer edge. Picture framed doors are usually found in Greek Revivals, and I plan to do more of this upstairs.

So there it is, semi-useless but it's done. Be happy, you real estate types. I did this just for you.