1. Had a leisurely childless brunch with J at the Cheesecake Factory on a Sunday morning. This seems like a lifetime ago by now, but we both need to remember how someday, way into the future, we'll be able to sleep in until 10 AM and then eat lemon ricotta pancakes while sitting under a cabana.
2. Spent a small fortune at Lowe's, Target, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart. As in, it isn't hard to calculate what we spent on upgrades as a percentage of the total cost of our house. (gulp)
3. Drove back to Lowe's, Target, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart various times to make returns and exchanges. Or, as J puts it, "I am so sick of hearing the phrase 'Well, I'd better head back to Lowe's.'"
4. Read Don Greene's book on performing and centering techniques. It all seems like it would be very interesting to have incorporated into my practicing, if I'd had any time for practicing beyond the bare minimum for the past few weeks.
5. Disconnected all of our bathroom fixtures. Some (the toilet) more times than others.
6.. Ripped out the old laminate and mosaic tile floors from the upstairs bathroom, then broke up the old layer of mortar underneath. This led to many prayers that the garbage company would actually be able to get the dumpster up into the truck.
7. Took a shower with the hose in the backyard while the bathroom was out of commission.
8. Learned that James is not to be trusted to tell the difference between a bathing suited person who is asking for a hose shower and a fully clothed person who is not.
9. Was approved to substitute teach in the East Irondequoit School District. A bit of a step down, prestige-wise, from the types of teaching I was doing over the last few years, but the price of folly, and probably easier to work around the various orchestra schedules.
10. Ate O'Lacy's ribs for our anniversary dinner. Just as good as I remembered them.
11. Attempted to read Browning's The Ring and the Book. Given that I don't currently know where the book is (I think Owen was playing with it at one point) the effort hasn't progressed particularly well.
12. Scraped and chiseled old mortar off of fifty used pieces of tile.
13. Trimmed the front hedge back down to a reasonable size, though at the cost of many scrapes and scratches and a pair of athletic shorts, but discovering an additional sillcock in the process.
14. Installed and screwed down a wooden subfloor in the bathroom.
15. Windexed and wiped every window and mirror in the house, only dropping the bottle of windex from the second story one time in the process.
16. Scraped and sanded the ancient paint job off of the wobbly rails on the front stoop of the house.
17. Learned how to properly apply aerosol paint
18. Learned how to properly clean a paint brush.
19. Learned that there are no home stores in the greater Rochester area that offer complementary tile cuts.
20. Rented a wet saw from Home Depot. (A wet saw, if you don't know, is a special kind of saw that is purposely designed to be really heavy and difficult to load into the back of a sedan, especially when the back of the sedan is full of carseats.)
21. Hung shutters on the front of the house.
22. Pulled off the hideous old awning over our front lower story window, finding a bee's nest in the process.
23. Attempted (with not very much success) to wash the old aluminum siding that was hidden under the hideous awning.
24. Repaired a garden hose that was scraped open in the front bush and nearly flooded the basement.
25. Attended a Rochester Red Wings game. (The mascot is still there, but only a little scary.)
26. Selected a new ceiling fixture for the library, although a bare bulb hanging out of a hole probably would have looked better than what was in there previously.
27. Hung curtain rods and thermal curtains over all the big bay windows in the library.
28. Cleaned out the brush pile by the firepit, which no longer fit under the storage tarp I'd pulled over it.
29. Painted the garage doors, with the help of J, while the kids were sleeping--maybe the quietest and nicest time we had together aside from Cheesecake Factory all week.
30. Learned how to mix and lay down thinset mortar.
31. Learned how to mix and lay down grout, which for some reason can be a transitive verb while "mortar" cannot.
32. Bought a new sink pedestal after learning the loud-crashing-noise way that the old one was not a single piece with the sink top.
33. Learned about cutting porcelain with a diamond tipped drill bit and after discovering that the new pedestal wouldn't position exactly the same way the old one did.
34. Roasted lots and lots of coffee down in the basement.
35. Visited the NY Wine and Culinary Center in Canandaigua for a brief glimpse at some of the things we'd really enjoy doing if we didn't have kids with us.
36. Learned how to anchor metal railings in cement.
37. Replaced the rotted sill under our back window.
38. Learned about and used more varieties of caulk than I ever thought possible. Caulk seems to be goo that holds together all grown-up projects, kind of like Elmer's glue sticks of the adult world.
39. Resorted the entire garage, discovering in the process an unopened 30 by 36 double hung window, an ancient Christmas tree stand, several pieces of baseboard that must have come from some place in our house, and the feces of an unknown small animal.
40. Planted a crab-apple tree in the front yard. It's a humane and beneficent activity to plant a tree, because it forces you to call the NY state dig line, and the lady that I spoke to was really excited to talk to someone. I think she must be lonely.
41. Performed a soil analysis on the dirt from my dig. Turns out that we have an alkaline soil of the sandy loam variety. (Don't know what sandy loam is, though.)
42. Miserably failed to properly install two different baby gates. As a temporary measure, I sat down Owen and gave him a serious talk about being careful when he tries to crawl down the basement steps. He seemed to understand.
43. Had an Amish Date Night with J. I pulled on black pants, a white short sleeve dress shirt, and suspenders, and she changed into her oldest and most shapeless dress. We turned off everything that had power in the downstairs and laid on the floor with an oil lantern between us and talked for about three hours. It was really a lovely time, although I was so tired I felt like I'd raised a barn.
44. Attended a third birthday party. Owen and James each came home with balloons; everyone came home with sugar headaches.
45. Saw the "finished product" of our bathroom remodel once the new shower curtain arrived and J put on the final touches. [Cue menacing music and plumbing sounds]
46. Attended East Irondequoit School District sub training, which was about 15 minutes of soft spoken Q&A about the phone system and then the presentation of From I-9 document verification.
47. Discovered that our kitchen ceiling was dripping.
48. Called a plumber to look at the ceiling, who declared after having removed the toilet that it "looked complicated" and he couldn't fix it. (Cost: $150)
49. Mounted two repair flange pieces onto the tile floor after the tub was removed, then remounted the toilet a second time.
49. Figured out how to unscrew and remount the kitchen light fixture.
50. Installed backer rod around the front window, and, of course, caulked.
51. Went to the public market to buy every known variety of squash.
52. Convinced J to pose for a passport photograph.
53. Discovered that even if you take your own passport photograph to the correct dimensions, you can't print that photograph out at a Rite-Aid, CVS, or through an online service.
54. Attempted to sell old junk on eBay.
55. Framed and put up the picture M made for my birthday, of James throwing sticks into a stream with George and Steven a la Christopher Robin.
56. Fixed the puck lights under the kitchen counter.
57. Installed a new handle and lockset in the garage door. (This required printing off key labels, since I now have only a one in three chance of remembering which key goes to which door.)
58. Sanded and spackled and damage from the failed baby gate installations and the new outlet in our bedroom.
59. Emptied the filter of the shop vac that I use to suck up coffee bean husks and spiders down in the basement.
60. Swiffered the kitchen floor after I was confident that we'd solved the problem with the leaky toilet and that there wouldn't be another drip.
61. Discovered another drip onto the kitchen floor.
62. Haggled with the old plumber about the fact that he walked off with some of our hardware and contacted a new plumber to come in and attempt to get a real fix on the problem.
63. Tacked up a saggy gutter on the backside of the house.
64. Painted all the window trim to cover up the green aluminum pieces.
65. Cleaned out all the crevasses of the bathroom wainscot. I did not, however, get around to looking up the correct pronunciation of the word "wainscot."
66. Used a circular saw on James' old Radio Flyer Wagon. (But in a good way...for the purpose of making shelves.)
67. Went to Lowe's for plumbing supplies enough times in 24 hours that the wifi began recognizing my phone without asking whether I agreed to the terms and conditions of usage.
68. Taught a trumpet lesson
69. Researched home insurance discounts, thereby ensuring a barrage of home insurance advertisements on my email page for the next few months.
70. Hit every surface in the bathroom I could reach with CLR.
71. Walked down to Netsins ice cream shop with the boys and the grandparents.
72. Generally surrendered all parental duties to J during the course of the projects.
73. Rearranged James' furniture so that he has better access to his bookshelves after I hung the shelves in his room.
74. Fell down the basement steps and got a nasty bruise on my elbow. (Maybe Owen needs to have a stern talk with me about being careful near the steps.)
75. Grew to loathe the Carbon Monoxide detector every time I had to turn off the power to the kitchen outlets when the ceiling started leaking again.
76. Made an emergency run to the Wegmans food bar for lunch when it became apparent we were going to lose the use of our kitchen AND our bathroom.
77. Celebrated our 8th anniversary.
78. Attended a BBQ with the Shewans, in which James competed at Corn Hole with Olympic level intensity.
79. Performed at J's church on a Sunday morning.
80. Began to look at some music for the first week of the Symphoria season, although only in fits and starts.
81. Visited two parks and the downtown area of Canandaigua.
82. Took showers at extremely irregular intervals, mostly due to the issues with the bathroom.
83. Hung a latticed mug mount over the console table.
84. Applied the final re-coating of tub and tile paint to the upstairs tub.
85. Mounted a curved shower curtain rod.
86. Fixed the bathroom windows that had been frozen shut all winter.
87. Had the Corolla's inspection renewed.
88. Fixed the iPod dock in the downstairs living room. (Mostly for the purpose of getting Owen to dance to the Commodore's "Brick House.")
89. Dealt with James' sudden ambition to become a professional garbageman, practiced several times a day by him in the form of emptying an enormous box of his toys into a pile on the floor, then reloading them and emptying them again several feet away.
90. Sustained a basil plant and a cilantro plant through two weeks of life on the kitchen windowsill.
91. Painted the threshold to our garage door.
92. Had the second plumber in to remove the shoe (and my repair flange) from the upstairs waste line, only to have the kitchen ceiling drip again moments after he left.
93. Stayed home from church to meet the plumber on Sunday morning...only to have him never show or call.
94. Attended a Buffalo Bills preseason game with J and the boys.
95. Used a pair of snips to custom fit a plastic pedestal for the upstairs toilet in an attempt to elevate it a quarter of an inch.
96. Completely stood up Calvus for Hebrew one morning after staying up far too late working on the bathroom the night before.
97. Found a dozen different ways for James to "help" with his tools on whatever I was doing without causing any actual damage to his person or the project at hand.
98. Read, sporadically, Homer, Ovid, bits of the Apocrypha, St. John, and some old grammar exercises.
99. Watched a lot of tutorial videos on Youtube.
100. Swore a solemn oath to give this list a thorough re-reading before ever even THINKING about attempting home repair projects again.
Showing posts with label Home Ownership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home Ownership. Show all posts
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Home Destruction
I'd been bugging J to come to Home Depot with me for a few days. "I want to make sure that you pick exactly the shelves you want," I told her "and I think you need to be there in person." She always found a reason to put it off, however, such as "if I'm not here to take the cookies out of the oven they'll get burnt to crisp and set the house on fire" or "both of your children haven't napped in twelve hours and are screaming their lungs out in the backseat" or "it's illegal and dangerous for both of us to leave the house without an adult present."
She agreed yesterday morning that we could make a trip first thing. I needed to get a replacement exterior spigot, since our old one had been continuously dripping ever since we moved in. There was a massive icicle off of it all winter and when the snow and ice finally melted I had to put a five gallon bucket on the ground underneath to avoid a perpetual muddy mess just outside the back entrance of the garage. I disliked this, and looked up information on how to replace the old spigot with a new one that didn't leak.
The internet is a great resource for rookie homeowners like myself, because there are lots of youtube videos and do-it-yourself tutorials for every conceivable problem. I'd had a string of successes attempting home fix-it projects recently, including some pretty complicated repairs along the lines of:
1) hanging pictures on a wall
2) hanging different pictures on a different wall
3) fixing James' marble run
The point is that I had developed hubris. Hubris doesn't just mean pride--it's insolence to the gods. I don't know which deity I offended when I spoke to J the other day, but somewhere on Mt Olympus a cloud-gathering brow was furled when I declared that "You know, all this home repair stuff isn't rocket science. You read the instructions carefully, you make sure you have all the right tools, and as long as you've done your preparation beforehand most of it is just a matter of familiarity with the process." I was just begging for a smiting.
This is why I was quite confident yesterday morning that I could successfully replace the spigot by myself. Step one was to turn the water off to the house, a task I completed confidently and without issue. (There's a big yellow lever right next to where I practice with a black arrow pointing down that says "OFF") Next I needed to unscrew the old spigot and bring it into Home Depot with me so that I could make sure the replacement was the right size. As I was heading outside, J asked me "How long exactly will it take before we leave? I want to make sure that I can time Owen's next feeding just right." "Well, it could be 20 seconds, and it could be 20 minutes. You never can tell with these sorts of things." How humble of me.
This is where it all fell apart. I brought James out with me, because everything is way easier when your three-year old is attempting to help. He held a hammer, and he swung at the spigot whenever my hands were out of the way, and occasionally when they weren't. I sprayed the threads with WD-40, gripped the pipe with one set of pliers, then attempted to wrench the spigot loose with another. Pound, pound, pound, went James. Nothing was loose yet, so I sprayed some more lubricant and wrenched harder. I looked up the directions again, and as is always the case, the instructions made the process look easy and straightforward. There was no word at all about a spigot that wouldn't move. I pulled harder on the pipe and felt something move. Then I gave a yanking tug left and felt the spigot come free, along with the rest of a pipe. And then I heard water spilling from inside the basement.
J was feeding Owen at this point. She heard a noise in the basement, and footsteps hurrying down. She heard concerned climbing, scrambling, and James asking "Why's that all wet, Daddy?" It was not a reassuring experience for her
I had broken the 1/2" pipe leading to the spigot. Fortunately there wasn't much water to drain out of it, but I saw that because of the angles of the pipe there wasn't much chance I was going to be able to pull it through. I attempted a couple of different tacks, without giving much explanation to J about what was going on--"Well, it doesn't look too bad down there...hmm...I didn't expect that...I wonder what..."
Eventually I gave up on trying to get the spigot unscrewed. As I learned later, the "spigot" didn't screw onto the pipe behind it all, but was all a single piece called a "frost-proof sillcock." I don't know the origin or meaning of the word "sillcock," but I'm fairly certain that "frost proof was an inaccurate descriptor.
There was more experimenting with trying to remove the pipe and to shut off the water to just that set of piping, but that just led to water gushing out all over the basement floor. Eventually we had to give up on turning the water back on before we left, which meant that James couldn't have a drink. (He was thirsty after all his hammering) and J couldn't wash her hands after changing Owen's diaper or her face before heading out into public. It wasn't a particularly cheerful ride to Home Depot.
From a family relations perspective, things didn't improve once we arrived. I couldn't find any of the equipment I needed to complete the repair, largely because (as I progressively discovered) I hadn't the fainstest idea what I was doing. Both of the plumbing specialists had called in sick, and my first attempt to call J's Dad wasn't picked up. Owen was cranky and awake in the carrier, and James was asking about the name and purpose of every piece of merchandise in the store, most of which were completely opaque to me. Eventually he gave up on asking questions and just waved his Greek flag around in the cart, shouting at the top of his lungs that he'd scored a goal in hockey.
We found some other things that we needed, and then when I got ahold of Dad he talked me through one solution that would involve some complicated sets of parts requiring precise measurements and perhaps a blowtorch, and another solution that involved capping off the broken pipe until someone who knew what they were doing could get a look at it. I chose option B, and picked up a Sharkbite slip on fitting. I wasn't exactly sure I had the right measurement for the pipe (do you measure outside to outside, or inside to inside? What if you get a different measurement every time you hold the tape measure up? What if your three year old is hitting you in the shin with a hammer while you take the measurements?)
It turned out to be a simple fix. We got home, J took the screaming Owen inside, James ran outside to wave his flag some more and and celebrate his hockey triumphs (or Greece's hockey triumphs, I suppose) and I went down to the basement with the fitting. I had to finagle (that's the technical term for pushing really hard) the fitting on, but when I tentatively turned the water back on, the fitting held. We had water again! I came back upstairs and declared triumphantly to J "It worked! I fixed it!" As she washed her hands in relief, she asked whether the exterior spigot was working too. "Well, I fixed it in the sense that there's no longer water gushing into the basement and the house is in worse shape than it was this morning at the time I first emptied my toolbox...but at least there isn't any water gushing into the basement."
At that point I decided I would take a bit of a break from attempting my own repairs, at least without some really thorough research and perhaps some expert assistance.
That resolution lasted until 4:00 in the afternoon, when I decided that installing the new doorknob on the bathroom door couldn't possibly be that hard. J was busy with something, perhaps teaching, and I brought both of the boys up with me. I opened up the instructions and glanced over the first page. Installation time, 15 minutes, I read.
I'm learning to take those estimates with a grain of salt.
To my credit, I even double-checked the process in a large Home Maintenance reference book I have on a bookshelf downstairs. There were lots of colorful pictures of a man using a screwdriver, then pushing together the two knobs of the lockset and screwing in the faceplate. Easy, right? The boys could even play together next to me while I worked.
This particular repair was necessary because the inside handle of our bathroom door had broken off sometime before we moved in. This made it difficult to even close the door completely, and impossible to lock it. With a three year old whose favorite adjective is "curious" roaming the house, this made privacy almost impossible. For both J and myself, it's a regular event to have James pull open the shower curtain as you're attempting to wash yourself off and ask you a question that he needs your help with right away, the floor and boy getting soaked the whole time, and then once you tell him that you don't know where his "favorite roof slat" is, to get some helpful comment along the lines of "Hey, you're really wet." About intrusions during toilet usage we will not even speak.
I attempted to read the instructions as James began bringing all of his worldly goods into the bathroom to show to Owen.
1. Mark door edge approximate 36" (914mm) from floor. Fold the template along fold line. Place center of template on marked position. Not relevant to me, our door already as the lock hole cut. Let's skip this.
2. Drill 1/8" (3mm) pilot holes as marked in step #1 for both the 2-1/18" (54mm) and 1" (25mm) holes. I don't think this applies to my door either. Let's skip it.
3. This step is for interchangeable latches with face place converts to either radius or drive-in. Not applicable to mobile home latch. You know what, I think I'm just going to start unscrewing.
The unscrewing part went fairly well, although J began to get nervous again as she listened up the stairs and heard things like:
"Well, how's that supposed to come off?
"James, don't cover Owen's head with that blanket."
"Hmm...well, that could be painted over."
"Owen, don't eat the trash, that's siwwy!"
"Oh, Owen, stay out of there."
"Oops..well, I think that would be covered up anyway."
"Wait, what's all that wood doing there?"
I managed to get the old knobs off with some prying, and discovered there was lots of...random wood?...still in the middle of the door. Enough so that I couldn't fit the knew knobs into the old lockset, which had been my time-saving intent. As I was going up the stairs with a drill, J wisely decided that now was a good time for her to take over the supervision of James and Owen. She asked when I'd be done, since she wanted to go on a walk.
"Well, the instructions say fifteen minutes..."
She's learned to take such things with a grain of salt as well.
I started looking further down the instructions to see if there was any information about what to do in my random wood blockage...
5. Press exterior knob/lever against exterior surface of the door making certain the stems are positioned horizontally so they go through holes in the latch case. Note: the exterior knob has blah blah blah, you're holding a drill, turn the drill on. The drill is fun! You know what you're doing! You won't mess it up!
An hour later, as we got ready to go for a much shorter walk, I triumphantly declared to J that the bathroom door still didn't really lock very well, and that the knobs didn't move particularly easy, but if you pulled really hard you could shut the door and that at any rate there were knobs on both side of the door now.
When she asked what the problem had been, I gave the highly technical explanation that "There turned out to be a lot of door in the way, and the pointy things wouldn't fit through, and then when I opened up some holes using paddle bits (I think they were paddle bits) to push those through there was some more metal in the way, so I had to take everything out again to get rid of some more wood, and then the screws wouldn't quite go in right...so..."
So now I really AM off of home repairs for a good long bit. At least until we put in the corner shelves this afternoon.
She agreed yesterday morning that we could make a trip first thing. I needed to get a replacement exterior spigot, since our old one had been continuously dripping ever since we moved in. There was a massive icicle off of it all winter and when the snow and ice finally melted I had to put a five gallon bucket on the ground underneath to avoid a perpetual muddy mess just outside the back entrance of the garage. I disliked this, and looked up information on how to replace the old spigot with a new one that didn't leak.
The internet is a great resource for rookie homeowners like myself, because there are lots of youtube videos and do-it-yourself tutorials for every conceivable problem. I'd had a string of successes attempting home fix-it projects recently, including some pretty complicated repairs along the lines of:
1) hanging pictures on a wall
2) hanging different pictures on a different wall
3) fixing James' marble run
The point is that I had developed hubris. Hubris doesn't just mean pride--it's insolence to the gods. I don't know which deity I offended when I spoke to J the other day, but somewhere on Mt Olympus a cloud-gathering brow was furled when I declared that "You know, all this home repair stuff isn't rocket science. You read the instructions carefully, you make sure you have all the right tools, and as long as you've done your preparation beforehand most of it is just a matter of familiarity with the process." I was just begging for a smiting.
This is why I was quite confident yesterday morning that I could successfully replace the spigot by myself. Step one was to turn the water off to the house, a task I completed confidently and without issue. (There's a big yellow lever right next to where I practice with a black arrow pointing down that says "OFF") Next I needed to unscrew the old spigot and bring it into Home Depot with me so that I could make sure the replacement was the right size. As I was heading outside, J asked me "How long exactly will it take before we leave? I want to make sure that I can time Owen's next feeding just right." "Well, it could be 20 seconds, and it could be 20 minutes. You never can tell with these sorts of things." How humble of me.
This is where it all fell apart. I brought James out with me, because everything is way easier when your three-year old is attempting to help. He held a hammer, and he swung at the spigot whenever my hands were out of the way, and occasionally when they weren't. I sprayed the threads with WD-40, gripped the pipe with one set of pliers, then attempted to wrench the spigot loose with another. Pound, pound, pound, went James. Nothing was loose yet, so I sprayed some more lubricant and wrenched harder. I looked up the directions again, and as is always the case, the instructions made the process look easy and straightforward. There was no word at all about a spigot that wouldn't move. I pulled harder on the pipe and felt something move. Then I gave a yanking tug left and felt the spigot come free, along with the rest of a pipe. And then I heard water spilling from inside the basement.
J was feeding Owen at this point. She heard a noise in the basement, and footsteps hurrying down. She heard concerned climbing, scrambling, and James asking "Why's that all wet, Daddy?" It was not a reassuring experience for her
I had broken the 1/2" pipe leading to the spigot. Fortunately there wasn't much water to drain out of it, but I saw that because of the angles of the pipe there wasn't much chance I was going to be able to pull it through. I attempted a couple of different tacks, without giving much explanation to J about what was going on--"Well, it doesn't look too bad down there...hmm...I didn't expect that...I wonder what..."
Eventually I gave up on trying to get the spigot unscrewed. As I learned later, the "spigot" didn't screw onto the pipe behind it all, but was all a single piece called a "frost-proof sillcock." I don't know the origin or meaning of the word "sillcock," but I'm fairly certain that "frost proof was an inaccurate descriptor.
There was more experimenting with trying to remove the pipe and to shut off the water to just that set of piping, but that just led to water gushing out all over the basement floor. Eventually we had to give up on turning the water back on before we left, which meant that James couldn't have a drink. (He was thirsty after all his hammering) and J couldn't wash her hands after changing Owen's diaper or her face before heading out into public. It wasn't a particularly cheerful ride to Home Depot.
From a family relations perspective, things didn't improve once we arrived. I couldn't find any of the equipment I needed to complete the repair, largely because (as I progressively discovered) I hadn't the fainstest idea what I was doing. Both of the plumbing specialists had called in sick, and my first attempt to call J's Dad wasn't picked up. Owen was cranky and awake in the carrier, and James was asking about the name and purpose of every piece of merchandise in the store, most of which were completely opaque to me. Eventually he gave up on asking questions and just waved his Greek flag around in the cart, shouting at the top of his lungs that he'd scored a goal in hockey.
We found some other things that we needed, and then when I got ahold of Dad he talked me through one solution that would involve some complicated sets of parts requiring precise measurements and perhaps a blowtorch, and another solution that involved capping off the broken pipe until someone who knew what they were doing could get a look at it. I chose option B, and picked up a Sharkbite slip on fitting. I wasn't exactly sure I had the right measurement for the pipe (do you measure outside to outside, or inside to inside? What if you get a different measurement every time you hold the tape measure up? What if your three year old is hitting you in the shin with a hammer while you take the measurements?)
It turned out to be a simple fix. We got home, J took the screaming Owen inside, James ran outside to wave his flag some more and and celebrate his hockey triumphs (or Greece's hockey triumphs, I suppose) and I went down to the basement with the fitting. I had to finagle (that's the technical term for pushing really hard) the fitting on, but when I tentatively turned the water back on, the fitting held. We had water again! I came back upstairs and declared triumphantly to J "It worked! I fixed it!" As she washed her hands in relief, she asked whether the exterior spigot was working too. "Well, I fixed it in the sense that there's no longer water gushing into the basement and the house is in worse shape than it was this morning at the time I first emptied my toolbox...but at least there isn't any water gushing into the basement."
At that point I decided I would take a bit of a break from attempting my own repairs, at least without some really thorough research and perhaps some expert assistance.
That resolution lasted until 4:00 in the afternoon, when I decided that installing the new doorknob on the bathroom door couldn't possibly be that hard. J was busy with something, perhaps teaching, and I brought both of the boys up with me. I opened up the instructions and glanced over the first page. Installation time, 15 minutes, I read.
I'm learning to take those estimates with a grain of salt.
To my credit, I even double-checked the process in a large Home Maintenance reference book I have on a bookshelf downstairs. There were lots of colorful pictures of a man using a screwdriver, then pushing together the two knobs of the lockset and screwing in the faceplate. Easy, right? The boys could even play together next to me while I worked.
This particular repair was necessary because the inside handle of our bathroom door had broken off sometime before we moved in. This made it difficult to even close the door completely, and impossible to lock it. With a three year old whose favorite adjective is "curious" roaming the house, this made privacy almost impossible. For both J and myself, it's a regular event to have James pull open the shower curtain as you're attempting to wash yourself off and ask you a question that he needs your help with right away, the floor and boy getting soaked the whole time, and then once you tell him that you don't know where his "favorite roof slat" is, to get some helpful comment along the lines of "Hey, you're really wet." About intrusions during toilet usage we will not even speak.
I attempted to read the instructions as James began bringing all of his worldly goods into the bathroom to show to Owen.
1. Mark door edge approximate 36" (914mm) from floor. Fold the template along fold line. Place center of template on marked position. Not relevant to me, our door already as the lock hole cut. Let's skip this.
2. Drill 1/8" (3mm) pilot holes as marked in step #1 for both the 2-1/18" (54mm) and 1" (25mm) holes. I don't think this applies to my door either. Let's skip it.
3. This step is for interchangeable latches with face place converts to either radius or drive-in. Not applicable to mobile home latch. You know what, I think I'm just going to start unscrewing.
The unscrewing part went fairly well, although J began to get nervous again as she listened up the stairs and heard things like:
"Well, how's that supposed to come off?
"James, don't cover Owen's head with that blanket."
"Hmm...well, that could be painted over."
"Owen, don't eat the trash, that's siwwy!"
"Oh, Owen, stay out of there."
"Oops..well, I think that would be covered up anyway."
"Wait, what's all that wood doing there?"
I managed to get the old knobs off with some prying, and discovered there was lots of...random wood?...still in the middle of the door. Enough so that I couldn't fit the knew knobs into the old lockset, which had been my time-saving intent. As I was going up the stairs with a drill, J wisely decided that now was a good time for her to take over the supervision of James and Owen. She asked when I'd be done, since she wanted to go on a walk.
"Well, the instructions say fifteen minutes..."
She's learned to take such things with a grain of salt as well.
I started looking further down the instructions to see if there was any information about what to do in my random wood blockage...
5. Press exterior knob/lever against exterior surface of the door making certain the stems are positioned horizontally so they go through holes in the latch case. Note: the exterior knob has blah blah blah, you're holding a drill, turn the drill on. The drill is fun! You know what you're doing! You won't mess it up!
An hour later, as we got ready to go for a much shorter walk, I triumphantly declared to J that the bathroom door still didn't really lock very well, and that the knobs didn't move particularly easy, but if you pulled really hard you could shut the door and that at any rate there were knobs on both side of the door now.
When she asked what the problem had been, I gave the highly technical explanation that "There turned out to be a lot of door in the way, and the pointy things wouldn't fit through, and then when I opened up some holes using paddle bits (I think they were paddle bits) to push those through there was some more metal in the way, so I had to take everything out again to get rid of some more wood, and then the screws wouldn't quite go in right...so..."
So now I really AM off of home repairs for a good long bit. At least until we put in the corner shelves this afternoon.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
House Projects
I was home all morning and afternoon today after a long week of BPO and other obligations. Here was the schedule from the week:
Monday-AM off (Veteran's Day), Houghton in the afternoon, Hochstein in the evening
Tuesday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO, stay in Buffalo all day for 7 PM concert
Wednesday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO double rehearsal, back at 5 PM, out the door at 6:30 for Choir
Thursday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO double rehearsal, back at 5 PM, out the door at 8 for Bills game
Friday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO concert, Houghton lessons in the afternoon, Houghton concert 7 PM
J said James was much better behaved all day, since I was around. Given that he stole food, threw Lincoln logs, and pitched a hurricane-force tantrum about having to wear grippy slippers, I shudder to think what he was like earlier in the week.
Today, with two parents, was a day for getting things done. First thing I loaded up a few basketfuls of laundry and took them down to the basement. Then came the long delayed project of putting away all the clothes that are upstairs in our room. They've been sitting in big rubbermaid bins, unsorted and unstowed. There comes a dangerous point in the life of any mess, when you start to fail to see it any longer. For example, J will put a few of my ties neatly folded on one of the stairs for me to put away. (My ties always end up downstairs because when I come home from a concert I kick my dress shoes off and step into my slippers, throw my coat over the desk chair, yank my half-tied tie all the way off and throw it over the armchair.) Anywhow, the ties will accumulate on the back of the chair until she notices that it's a problem, and she'll put them on the stairs. Then, I'll see them as I'm on my way to do something else. I'll notice that they need to be brought upstairs and put away, but I'll be in the middle of saying "I don't know if Woof-Woof is still outside, but we need to get you into the bathtub before the mustard dries in your hair." I have SEEN the ties, but done nothing about them. Then perhaps the next day I'll see them again, but someone we'll be saying to me "if we turn the box spring a little bit left I don't think we'll crack the drywall too badly." Again I'll SEE the ties, but do nothing. And then, before you know, I've stopped seeing them. The ties will be right there on the stairs, but they've blended into the landscape of the steps and almost become part of the wood. It will be a Friday evening and I'll be frantically dashing up and down the stairs, yelling at J "Come on, don't I have a single black tie anywhere in this house?" I could probably step right on the pile of ties, and I wouldn't even notice it.
So this was the danger of the rubbermaid bins in our bedroom. They had sat there for over a week, and they were nearly permanent furniture in our house. The fading-to-unnoticed trick has already happened with the damage to the bathroom threshold. It was the first thing that I noticed when we did our initial walk-through of the house. "Don't worry," I told J "that's a cinch to fix. I can take care of that in one trip to Home Depot and 15 minutes of work." Now I don't even remember that there's a problem, although probably every guest who's used our bathroom looks at entrance with mild revulsion and thinks "Why don't they ever take care of that?"
Not only did we empty most of the rubbermaids, we also unloaded two boxes of pictures and wall-hangings that were chameleoning into the downstairs library. I got out my stepstool, drill, and level, and we put up lots of pictures of our family. It turns out that we only have pictures of James and O&K, so all of the rest of you need to get us pictures if you want to be up on our walls.
The big project today, however, was hanging up an enormous mirror in our bedroom. J's grandparents gave us a gorgeous solid cherry dresser with a matching mirror. The dresser is possibly the nicest piece of furniture in the house, and we wanted to set up our television on top of it so that we can watch TV in bed, keep the TV out of the downstairs area, and possibly limit James' George intake. (So far, unsuccessful. George is need to watch his self on Mommy-Daddy's bed.)
The mirror we didn't know what to do with. It didn't have any hardware to be mounted vertically on the dresser, and we didn't have room to mount in horizontally. Plus, it weighs about 400 lbs, so I got tired of holding it up at different angles in a hurry.
Good thing we bought a studfinder for just such an occasion. J and I had massive problems with the very little shelf-hanging we'd tried at previous apartments. For people whose livelihoods depend on detecting minute differences in pitch and timbre, neither of us were particularly adept at using the "knocking" method of studfinding. So when we moved into the the new place, we decided to splurge on a new studfinder. And when I say "splurge," I mean we bought the cheapest one we could find and hoped it would work.
It actually does work pretty well, although we still quadruple check every mark we make on the wall. We had a long adventure finding a screw that we could actually fasten into the stud. The first long screw we found I stripped the head with my drill, and then accidentally bent it beyond salvaging when I tried to hammer it in. (True story: I actually uttered the phrase "I just got my flannel shirt caught in my drill case" a few days ago). The second screw I successfully drove into the wall and screwed in almost to the point where we wanted, and then the head broke off, leaving the body of the screw stuck in the stud for all eternity. Finally (in a new hole) we got a screw in securely, I bloodied up my finger, and we hung the mirror.
We both let go and took a ginger step back. I nudged the mirror and it stayed up. I put the level up, and said "close enough." I nudged the mirror again, and it stayed up. I think we're actually figuring out this home-ownership stuff a little bit at a time. So if you want to see any of our handiwork, come on over, and bring a picture of yourself. I'd be more than happy to hang it up. Also, keep your eyes open for my trumcor black soft mute while you're over, because that's definitely chameleoned into a couch somewhere. And step carefully, because I still feel like that mirror could come down at any moment.
Monday-AM off (Veteran's Day), Houghton in the afternoon, Hochstein in the evening
Tuesday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO, stay in Buffalo all day for 7 PM concert
Wednesday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO double rehearsal, back at 5 PM, out the door at 6:30 for Choir
Thursday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO double rehearsal, back at 5 PM, out the door at 8 for Bills game
Friday-Leave at 8 AM for BPO concert, Houghton lessons in the afternoon, Houghton concert 7 PM
J said James was much better behaved all day, since I was around. Given that he stole food, threw Lincoln logs, and pitched a hurricane-force tantrum about having to wear grippy slippers, I shudder to think what he was like earlier in the week.
Today, with two parents, was a day for getting things done. First thing I loaded up a few basketfuls of laundry and took them down to the basement. Then came the long delayed project of putting away all the clothes that are upstairs in our room. They've been sitting in big rubbermaid bins, unsorted and unstowed. There comes a dangerous point in the life of any mess, when you start to fail to see it any longer. For example, J will put a few of my ties neatly folded on one of the stairs for me to put away. (My ties always end up downstairs because when I come home from a concert I kick my dress shoes off and step into my slippers, throw my coat over the desk chair, yank my half-tied tie all the way off and throw it over the armchair.) Anywhow, the ties will accumulate on the back of the chair until she notices that it's a problem, and she'll put them on the stairs. Then, I'll see them as I'm on my way to do something else. I'll notice that they need to be brought upstairs and put away, but I'll be in the middle of saying "I don't know if Woof-Woof is still outside, but we need to get you into the bathtub before the mustard dries in your hair." I have SEEN the ties, but done nothing about them. Then perhaps the next day I'll see them again, but someone we'll be saying to me "if we turn the box spring a little bit left I don't think we'll crack the drywall too badly." Again I'll SEE the ties, but do nothing. And then, before you know, I've stopped seeing them. The ties will be right there on the stairs, but they've blended into the landscape of the steps and almost become part of the wood. It will be a Friday evening and I'll be frantically dashing up and down the stairs, yelling at J "Come on, don't I have a single black tie anywhere in this house?" I could probably step right on the pile of ties, and I wouldn't even notice it.
So this was the danger of the rubbermaid bins in our bedroom. They had sat there for over a week, and they were nearly permanent furniture in our house. The fading-to-unnoticed trick has already happened with the damage to the bathroom threshold. It was the first thing that I noticed when we did our initial walk-through of the house. "Don't worry," I told J "that's a cinch to fix. I can take care of that in one trip to Home Depot and 15 minutes of work." Now I don't even remember that there's a problem, although probably every guest who's used our bathroom looks at entrance with mild revulsion and thinks "Why don't they ever take care of that?"
Not only did we empty most of the rubbermaids, we also unloaded two boxes of pictures and wall-hangings that were chameleoning into the downstairs library. I got out my stepstool, drill, and level, and we put up lots of pictures of our family. It turns out that we only have pictures of James and O&K, so all of the rest of you need to get us pictures if you want to be up on our walls.
The big project today, however, was hanging up an enormous mirror in our bedroom. J's grandparents gave us a gorgeous solid cherry dresser with a matching mirror. The dresser is possibly the nicest piece of furniture in the house, and we wanted to set up our television on top of it so that we can watch TV in bed, keep the TV out of the downstairs area, and possibly limit James' George intake. (So far, unsuccessful. George is need to watch his self on Mommy-Daddy's bed.)
The mirror we didn't know what to do with. It didn't have any hardware to be mounted vertically on the dresser, and we didn't have room to mount in horizontally. Plus, it weighs about 400 lbs, so I got tired of holding it up at different angles in a hurry.
Good thing we bought a studfinder for just such an occasion. J and I had massive problems with the very little shelf-hanging we'd tried at previous apartments. For people whose livelihoods depend on detecting minute differences in pitch and timbre, neither of us were particularly adept at using the "knocking" method of studfinding. So when we moved into the the new place, we decided to splurge on a new studfinder. And when I say "splurge," I mean we bought the cheapest one we could find and hoped it would work.
It actually does work pretty well, although we still quadruple check every mark we make on the wall. We had a long adventure finding a screw that we could actually fasten into the stud. The first long screw we found I stripped the head with my drill, and then accidentally bent it beyond salvaging when I tried to hammer it in. (True story: I actually uttered the phrase "I just got my flannel shirt caught in my drill case" a few days ago). The second screw I successfully drove into the wall and screwed in almost to the point where we wanted, and then the head broke off, leaving the body of the screw stuck in the stud for all eternity. Finally (in a new hole) we got a screw in securely, I bloodied up my finger, and we hung the mirror.
We both let go and took a ginger step back. I nudged the mirror and it stayed up. I put the level up, and said "close enough." I nudged the mirror again, and it stayed up. I think we're actually figuring out this home-ownership stuff a little bit at a time. So if you want to see any of our handiwork, come on over, and bring a picture of yourself. I'd be more than happy to hang it up. Also, keep your eyes open for my trumcor black soft mute while you're over, because that's definitely chameleoned into a couch somewhere. And step carefully, because I still feel like that mirror could come down at any moment.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
I Samuel 8
But the Lord said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people in all which they are saying to thee, yet bear witness to them and foresay to them the law of owning a house which will be over them.
And thus Samuel said all the words of the Lord to the people which sought from him to buy a house, and he said:
This is the law of buying a house which shall be to you. They sons will take up drumsticks and beat them against thy walls, and it shall be up to thee to replace the wallpaper and the drywall, and they shall make markings of crayons and markers upon the same
And there will be established on you school taxes, even though you homeschool, and also shall you pay insurance and thine own utilities, not to mention closing costs and the fees of thy realtors
And thy daughters also, shouldst thou have any, will seek of thee to paint their rooms anew, though the paint be as precious as gold and thou would have no idea how to paint in any fashion
But thy money and thy credit will be given to repairs and to upgrades, and thy wife will demand of thee that the kitchen shouldst be upgraded and that thou madest pledge to her of fixing the bathroom although there is to thee no remembrance of such covenant
Thy books as well shall be in boxes in the basement, yet that basement will flood and thou will make effort to deliver them barefooted and in thy underwear, lo, even though it be midwinter will thy basement flood as the waters cover the sea
And when the wintertime cometh thou shalt shovel thine own snowy driveways, and surely in the spring thou shalt clean thine own gutters, and in all season will thou payest utilities, and the neighbor kids will steal thy trash cans.
And you will clamor in that day before the face of thy house which thou boughtest with the gold of the bank, and the Lord will not hear thee, for even at his heavenly house he must needs mow his own grass each week
But the people did not hear the voice of Samuel, but they said surely shall our own house be unto us, and we will be owners over it just as the gentiles, and our house will be our own, and it will be over us and keepest us warm in the winter
And Samuel heard all the words of the people and spoke them in the ears of the Lord. But the Lord said to Samuel, listen to their voice and establish over them a Realtor, and Samuel spoke to the men of Israel, and each departed unto his own city.
And thus Samuel said all the words of the Lord to the people which sought from him to buy a house, and he said:
This is the law of buying a house which shall be to you. They sons will take up drumsticks and beat them against thy walls, and it shall be up to thee to replace the wallpaper and the drywall, and they shall make markings of crayons and markers upon the same
And there will be established on you school taxes, even though you homeschool, and also shall you pay insurance and thine own utilities, not to mention closing costs and the fees of thy realtors
And thy daughters also, shouldst thou have any, will seek of thee to paint their rooms anew, though the paint be as precious as gold and thou would have no idea how to paint in any fashion
But thy money and thy credit will be given to repairs and to upgrades, and thy wife will demand of thee that the kitchen shouldst be upgraded and that thou madest pledge to her of fixing the bathroom although there is to thee no remembrance of such covenant
Thy books as well shall be in boxes in the basement, yet that basement will flood and thou will make effort to deliver them barefooted and in thy underwear, lo, even though it be midwinter will thy basement flood as the waters cover the sea
And when the wintertime cometh thou shalt shovel thine own snowy driveways, and surely in the spring thou shalt clean thine own gutters, and in all season will thou payest utilities, and the neighbor kids will steal thy trash cans.
And you will clamor in that day before the face of thy house which thou boughtest with the gold of the bank, and the Lord will not hear thee, for even at his heavenly house he must needs mow his own grass each week
But the people did not hear the voice of Samuel, but they said surely shall our own house be unto us, and we will be owners over it just as the gentiles, and our house will be our own, and it will be over us and keepest us warm in the winter
And Samuel heard all the words of the people and spoke them in the ears of the Lord. But the Lord said to Samuel, listen to their voice and establish over them a Realtor, and Samuel spoke to the men of Israel, and each departed unto his own city.
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