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December 28, 2005
Computer storage options
Most people would be content with a desk that's got room for their computer. In our case, this just isn't going to cut it. Of all our computers, only my laptop has a true home. All of the others live on the floor in various parts of the house. This is not going to happen in the new house, as we've got more than enough space for each to have its own home.
However, a quick Google search indicates that there doesn't seem to be much out there in the line of attractive home designs for servers and other such beasts. Thus, it appears that we're going to have to build our own housing for the two monster boxes (two HP Visualize J7000s) and the firewall, leaving adequate space for future expansion. It's likely that these will end up living in the master bedroom's closet, away from any basement dampness and with lots of space to work with, as we'll need access to both sides of these machines.
I'm thinking of building a cabinet that resembles a large bookcase, with deep shelves and access front & back. We should be able to use the computers to heat the closet, but I'll also integrate a vent into the outside world so that we're not adding heat to the second floor in the middle of August. This is still a ways away, as we're likely not going to get to the second floor until the fall, but it's something that we'll be thinking about for a while.
Posted by plainstext at 10:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 24, 2005
Bob & Alissa's Wedding
My wonderful brother Bob got married this afternoon to an equally wonderful lady. Now we're back home, the wedding was awesome, and I'm sure that everyone's utterly exhausted. The obligatory pictures follow ;-) More to come later.
Posted by plainstext at 07:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 21, 2005
Bathroom framing
On the weekend, Trent & Dana demolished what was left of the framing & walls for the original basement bathroom. Trent then smashed out the concrete surrounding the toilet's drain so that we could move it. The new toilet will not lean drunkenly toward the center of the house!
Trent & I spent Saturday afternoon & all day Sunday framing in the new bathroom, which makes way better use of space than did the previous one. In addition, its walls could actually be referred to as "structural," much unlike those of the previous bathroom. We did learn, however, to take more measurements for the walls' float, as what originally looked like a high spot turned out to be a low spot, meaning that our 5" nails weren't quite long enough.
Before
After
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December 14, 2005
Drywall & doorways
I managed, yesterday, to finish insulating the mud room, add the last bit of vapour barrier, and get the rest of the drywall hung in the laundry room and mud room. Nothing's even close to square, which made things a bit difficult, but at least it's covered. I'll spend a half hour or so tomorrow to add some more screws (as the ones I had weren't long enough). It's amazing what a difference it makes--both rooms are much, much brighter, which shows just how much light the horrible hardboard panelling was absorbing.
I also added 1"x8" around the doorway between the mud room and the rest of the house, as I had visions of one of us catching our feet (or something else) on the exposed edges of the drywall. Now it's on to flooring, which Dana & I should hopefully get installed Friday, so long as I manage to get all of the necessary supplies this morning.
Posted by plainstext at 08:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Disgruntled Christmas greetings...
. . . from a dog with seriously disturbed owners (or, at least that's what Tasha thinks).
Posted by plainstext at 08:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It really does work
We had a stretch of really warm weather last week, which gave us the opportunity to see if the eavestroughing had made a difference to the water problem in the basement. Even with the leaks, most of which I fixed that afternoon, the basement hasn't got any wet spots at the edges of the foundation. Once we've got the grading around the house fixed (which we'll do in the spring), I think that the drainage issues will have been solved, at least for the most part.
There was enough water that I could clearly see where leaky spots were, but this made sealing them a bit of a challenge. I discovered that a prodigious application of gutter sealant worked, even on the big leaks . . . although some of them have rather obvious caulking globs. But, it's the same colour as the eavestroughing and it keeps the water in, at least until we can properly fix these in the spring.
There's one section of downspout that we'll need to take apart, as Dana & his brothers installed it so that the upper pieces fit over (instead of into) the lower pieces. There are a couple of slightly leaky connections that we'll need to caulk, but they're only accessible with the extension ladder and will thus have to wait until spring. And, the highest two sections of eavestroughing (across the back of the house & garage) will need more caulking at the seams.
But, all in all, it does its job, even if the house does look like it's ready to take off because of the extensions to the downspouts, two of which need another 5 to 6 feet in further length because they're draining into low spots that drain back towards the foundation.
Temporary caulking
Posted by plainstext at 08:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The things you do for your dog
Well, not entirely for the dog, but she was definitely the primary motivation. After we installed the new back door, and began using it as our primary entry to the house, we realized that we were going to have to do something to ensure that Tasha could get in and out of the house on her own.
The back stairs have sunk about 16 inches on the north end, leaving a 12" gap between the top of the steps and the sill of the new door. I ended up building a 6" step, which is basically just an open-bottomed box, which Tasha now manages without any problems, bad knee and all. This is one of the few projects that I managed to start and finish in a single day, and its one of even fewer that's actually complete. Hence the rather self-congratulatory post ;-)
Posted by plainstext at 08:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 13, 2005
It's not a cistern, it's a trash can!
Need a place to dispose of unwanted material that you're not entirely sure what to do with? Why not use your conveniently located cistern, no longer used to hold water, as a handy trash receptacle? It's much more convenient than the weekly garbage pickup, which takes anything that you can cram into your town-provided, wheeled garbage can. And, it's way less work than loading it into your vehicle and driving the mile and a half to the free dump.
Unidentified cistern contents, circa December 2005
Posted by plainstext at 10:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Plumber's special
Noun. Colloquial.
Definition: Floor joists (or other structural members of buildings), which no longer can be construed to be of structural value, that have been savaged via sharp implements such that plumbing (most typical) or other pipe, conduit, or wire can be routed with the least amount of difficulty (on the part of the installer) from one point to another.
For a case in point, see Figure 1, which depicts a true 2" x 12" floor joist, underneath a bathtub, which is mysteriously missing an entire 16" long section. The remnants of plumbing discovered in the cistern (to be documented in a later post), indicate that this was done in the course of plumbing the drain for the main floor bathroom. The result, after an unknown length of time, is that there is a 2-1/2" difference in height between the two ends (not to mention the rather alarming slope to and spring of the floor of the bathroom in question).
Figure 1
Posted by plainstext at 07:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 10, 2005
Door refurbishment
When we removed the original back door from the mud room, we weren't really planning on doing anything with the old door. However, once I brought it inside to remove the hardware and, in the process, took a good look at it, I determined that it wasn't really in as bad of condition as we'd thought it was.
Thus, I've gained a new project . . . something that I really don't need or have time for, at least at the moment. However, the small amount of time that I've spent on stripping the door of paint has convinced me that I've definitely made the right decision. It's a solid core, 32" x 80" fir door that, despite its age, is in fairly good condition, aside from the usual nicks, dents, and minor cracks. We're now planning on using it in the laundry room, which had a badly damaged hollow core mahogany door . . . if it ever gets completely denuded of paint.
Before stripping
During stripping
Posted by plainstext at 08:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bathroom roots?
In addition to finishing off a couple of other small tasks, this afternoon Trent & I dismantled the leaking toilet in the basement bathroom (if you could call it that). As with other projects, nothing seems to have been installed properly.
The flange bolts that are supposed to hold the base of the toilet to the floor were not the proper bolts (with two flat sides), but standard bolts with round heads. Removing them required significant elbow grease, to the point that Trent ended up snapping them off with the vice grips.
Once we removed the toilet from the floor, we had to clean out the partially blocked drain. However, instead of being blocked with what one might expect of a toilet, the drain was occluded by a large number of tree roots. Go figure.
We spent about half an hour making a list of the necessary plumbing, electrical, and subfloor supplies, then wandered back into the city to visit Home Depot. We managed to find pretty much everything that we were looking for (after a bit of searching), except for treated 2"x4" lumber (which Trent'll get in the morning). The only lengths that they had anyof were 12' and over, none of which would (a) fit in Trent's truck and/or (b) fit down into the basement of the house.
Posted by plainstext at 08:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 06, 2005
Sunrise over Aberdeen
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Weekend Busy-ness
We managed to get a lot done this weekend, including removing the last of the plaster (and plaster keys) from the laundry room walls, installation of a new plug in the mud room, rewiring of the mud room switches and light fixture, and the installation of a new exterior door for the mud room.
It was a good thing that both Trent and William were there, as we discovered that the mud room's exterior door was suspended from the roof, with nothing running through to the foundation for support. This was the same thing that we'd encountered with the mud room, itself. But, we'd hoped that the previous exterior door had been properly installed. Not so.
Between them, William & Trent constructed a much more solid and properly engineered ;-) door frame. The actual installation of the door took a great deal less time. There's now a great deal of light in the mud room, which was previously rather dark, and you can no longer see the outside world through large gaps in the door (never mind the piece of MDF that had been nailed to the bottom of the door in order to keep out the vermin).
Mud Room Before
Mud Room After
Posted by plainstext at 08:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 01, 2005
Missing light shades
This is one of a pair of light fixtures that flank the small hallway to the main floor bedrooms. It appears to have originally had a shade of some sort that screwed over top of the light bulb. My guess is that, because of the small switch underneath the bulb, it likely got broken at some point and was never replaced. I'd like to keep these, although I'm planning to move them to the master bedroom, but I'm not too enamoured of the bare bulbs. I'll have to do some research to see what's available for replacement shades.
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Hard at work
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Cover-up
There are no longer gaping holes in the laundry room's walls and floor. Fitting the subfloor into the hole that I rather inexpertly cut was like doing a rather large jigsaw puzzle. I've temporarily laid a layer of 1/2" plywood over top of the first layer, to prevent us from losing screws or anything else through the few small holes that remain. I'll add a permanent layer of 5/8" plywood sometime in the next several days. Combined with the underlayment and laminate flooring, this should mean that there will be very little difference in height between the original hardwood and the new laundry room flooring.
Yesterday Trent & I ran new wire for the dryer and have set the box up for connection. We won't connect it, or the new plug for the washing machine, until the drywalling is finished. We fished through new wire for the light, and installed a new box & switch.
This morning I closed up the hole between the mud room and the laundry room, then spent the rest of the day cleaning up and organizing stuff. Now I should be able to find things a little more easily.
Tomorrow's project will be to clean up the portion of the basement that's underneath the laundry room, as it suffered from intermittent showers of plaster, rotten flooring/subflooring, and the occasional lost item (including an entire box of 1-1/2" wood screws). Once that's done, I'll likely leave the plumbing for the time being, as I'm not entirely certain as to where all of it will end up. Plus, I don't want to trip over it when I'm doing the drywalling.
Posted by plainstext at 09:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack