Low Productivity Lately

I didn’t get much done this weekend. Motivation isn’t quite at an all time low, but it’s not far off either.

I’d had plans to spend some quality time updating the blog, but it never happened.

I ended up playing an NHL video game instead — for hours. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but according to the computer, the last time I played was back in October which makes me not feel so bad.

Jumping on the bandwagon, even though they’ve been eliminated from the real life playoffs, I played as the Washington Capitals.

Sometimes I wonder how I found the time to even play video games in the past… By past, I mean like over 10 years ago. Seems I never have that time anymore and I have no idea what I’ve filled it with.

I’d also planned on cleaning up the curbside on the far end of the property.

See, we live on a corner, so there’s twice as much ‘street’ to clear which entails picking up all of the leaves, sticks and plain old debris that lines the curb. Basically, you want to get as much up yourself so that when the street sweeper (eventually) comes by to pick up all of the sand that’s been spread on to the road over the winter, it leaves the pavement bare for the entire summer.

Yesterday, my wife and I did manage to get out there and get the job done.

Apparently the teenagers across the street from our open lot prefer Taco Bell and Marlboro smokes. Shocking, huh?

How do we know this? Well, our curbside is apparently their late night trash can. It’s also their overnight parking space for some reason even though the family paved their entire front yard (yeah, it looks, um, ghetto) and has plenty of room for all of their run-down vehicles.

In hindsight, I should have put the pieces of their broken glass water pipe on the hood of their mother’s car, but I just threw it out. She strikes me as the type of woman who’d pat her kids on the back for that sort of thing.

Really, who paves their entire front yard??? It’s a single family home with a parking lot for a front yard?!

I hope they move.

Soon.

We’d also planned on getting the basement, um, well, decontaminated. The issue we have down there hasn’t exactly gotten worse, but it hasn’t gotten better either.

Thursday night we went out and purchase some kitty litter — and I can I just say, that stuff is a bargain! Really. I’ve never had the pleasure of spending so little money at Walmart for something so heavy that I had to struggle on the way out to my car.

The plan was to use the litter to soak up the pooling water — something we’d planned to do this past weekend — but it didn’t happen.

Friday, my wife, she does all the talking, called a local plumbing company to have them come out and take a look at our sludge problem. They’ll be stopping by tomorrow (Tuesday).

The good news from the call is that they confirmed that it was apparently pretty common for the kitchen plumbing not to be connected to the city sewer line in favor of a dry well.

That explains the plumbing that I see in the basement. It also explains the hole I covered with a big rock in the back yard — that’s the dry well and thankfully not some sort of outdated “little house on the prairie” septic tank of some sort like I’d originally worried.

The bad news is that the plumber also told her that, to him, kitchen wastewater is more foul than toilet wastewater. My take is that it was a warning shot meaning that this is going to cost us more than if we had a “real” sewage problem.

I don’t know why, but for some reason, I don’t consider the kitchen sink water to be sewage, but holy crap, it freakin’ stinks…

Posted on April 28th, 2008 at 9:48 am by Brainy Smurf
Bargains, Blogging?, Home Improvements, Motivation | No Comments »

Is there a Starbucks in my Basement?

Seems our first home improvement project of 2008 has snuck up on us.

It was only a month ago that we paid off the final bit of the vinyl siding project from 2007. We’re not ready yet?!?

But this one seems to be an emergency repair… See, our basement is filling with, well, crap. It is the most foul smelling black sludge…E V E R!

We noticed an odor a couple of months ago during a rainy week. We usually take on a little water when there’s a heavy rain, and over the span of a week, I’d say we had over 8 inches of rain — so water in the basement was to be expected. The water stunk a little, but we chalked it up to the spring thaw…

Once the water dried up, my wife and I went down there to shovel out some of the muck. I was thinking it’d be more sandy or silty than anything, but it was nasty foul muck. Dry heave city — no joke. I was completely useless in the clean-up.

Things seemed fine for a few weeks and, while we didn’t forget about the problem, we tried to ignore it.

Over the last weekend, I noticed that our kitchen kinda smelled like a skunk. Years ago, a skunk sprayed the side of our house — really, you could see it — and the “funk” lasted for nearly a year. I went outside, inspected the entire house looking for a repeat offense, but didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary.

Back inside the house, well, skunk. Or Starbucks coffee. They smell the same to me.

Yesterday, I ventured down into our scary basement. There’s some standing water, some orange/rust colored goo on top of it, some white fuzzy stuff, and a lot of that wonderful black sludge at the bottom. Crap.

The stench wasn’t so bad — until we disturbed it (Yikes!) with one of those sponge-on-a-stick style mops my wife apparently received from Santa Claus years before I met her. Really, it still had a sticker on it.

Seriously, who get’s a mop for Christmas? My wife, that’s who.

Anyway, the good news is that we can see where it’s coming into the house. I don’t think it’s seeping up from the drain in the basement — it actually looks like it’s coming in through the old rock foundation (if you’re interested, I can take pictures!).

My wife and I followed all of the pipes down in the basement, and to me, it doesn’t look like our kitchen sink or dishwasher were ever hooked up to the city sewer line — basically, they never link up to the pipe where the downstairs bathroom or laundry room exit the house. Or, if they do, it’s not obvious to me.

My theory is that they still link up to the original septic tank the house must have had — the house is well over 100 years old — and that’s not getting the job done anymore. The only problem with that thought is that I’d think that our wastewater from the kitchen would stink of Cascade, Palmolive, and Joy — not, well, I can’t even explain what this sludge smells like…

Imagine a giant skunk drinking a grande Starbucks coffee.

Gag me now.

No, really, I can smell it.

So, the plan now is to call in a plumber for next week. I’m hoping it’s as simple as rerouting the waste water from the kitchen to the main sewer line and capping off the old line that exits on the far side of the house (where the sludge is coming in). Hopefully, then, it will clear up on its own.

As I’ve said, we’ve lived here for 6 years, the house has been there over 100 more, and this is a new problem — so perhaps this isn’t the answer, but I really hope it is — because I can’t imagine it will be very costly.

I mean, how much can a plumber possibly charge to re-route a 4 inch pipe ten feet in the opposite direction? I’d do it myself if not for my gag-reflex.

No, that’s not true — I’ll find comfort in having someone who knows what they’re doing come in and tell me exactly what they think the problem is…

I’ll keep you posted on the situation *and* the bill.

Posted on April 25th, 2008 at 7:33 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 5 Comments »

Ahhh, the Good Life…

Last week, for the first time ever, we hired a local landscape company to come out and pick up our leaves.

It’s something that we’d normally do on our own, and in the past, it has been something we’ve done on our own, but it’s probably not something we’ll ever do again.

(Before anyone points it out, I know, I know, wrong time of the year for that sort of thing north of the equator.)

Next door to our house is an open lot which we also own. In the fall, it could be summed up as a leaf magnet.

Each year, we clear the main lot to make the house look nice; raking and blowing towards the empty lot.  Probably not the best strategy, but making sure the main lot looks nice takes priority.

From there, our city requires that we bag the leaves in those giant brown paper bags — like in the picture.

Idea is, you bag the leaves, leave them at the curb, and the city will come around and pick them up over the span of about a month — usually in November.

On paper, it sounds like a great idea.

But there are a few problems…

The first problem is probably unique to our situation — lack of time.

Working for the hockey team all of these years has sucked up our weekends. It’s difficult for us to find the time required (during daylight) to rake and bag the leaves at that time of year because, well, simply put, we didn’t have weekends from September through May.

Now that I’ve left the team, that should no longer be a problem.

The next issue is a financial one. The leaf bags aren’t free. They come in bundles of 5 and you can buy them at Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, Stop-n-Shop, and pretty much any where else that has some sort of “hardware” aisle.

You can price shop all you want, but bottom line, they come out to around 50 cents per bag. Sounds like a relative bargain, huh?

Typically, at the start of “leaf season”, we’d pick up around 10 bundles. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more upsetting than walking out to the car with a bunch of oversized lunch bags that you just paid over $50 for.

And then it really hits you like a punch in the stomach… You just spent $50 on something that you’re just going to throw out in a matter of hours.

Making matters worse, we’ve always had to go back and buy even more bags. As a result, we’ve never actually cleared and bagged the *entire* yard. I always end up mowing the crap out of them with the lawn mower — finally chopping them into a fine powder by around August. It’s embarrassing to admit.

In the end, I’d say that over the past 3-4 years, we’ve averaged between $60 and $80 spent on those paper bags. That’s PER YEAR.

Add in the time it takes to bag over 100 bags of leaves. It hurts.

Once bagged, we’d end up building a huge pyramid of paper bags at the curb — it actually looked pretty neat.

But then the city wouldn’t come on the day they were scheduled.

Some children would topple the pyramid.

It might rain.

A bag would tip over, spilling leaves all around.  You know, that sort of thing…

Worst case scenario, and one that happened last year — an early snowstorm before the we’d even started bagging. Sigh…

Basically, there are a myriad of problems to be had each year… One big headache… Alongside a back ache, a butt ache, and two heavily blistered thumbs.

But this year, we solved it all with a phone call.

My wife called the company one morning before she went to work last week, and when I arrived home for lunch, our extra lot was clear.

We haven’t received the bill yet, but when you combine the savings on the bags and the time and the lack of blisters, we’ll, I’m pretty certain it will end up being a great deal.

Posted on April 14th, 2008 at 2:51 pm by Brainy Smurf
Bargains, Home Improvements | 3 Comments »

Siding Project Update – Sigh…

It’s been well over a month since my last set of remarks regarding our big home improvement project this summer.  Well, the contractors finished on September 1st.

An 81-day project.  The funny part is that the contract stated that work would be complete on July 15.  Ha!

I can now say that the house is sided. We have new doors.  The new attic windows are in.  You think I’d be happy, right?  Well, I’m not.

See, the duration of the project aside, the last thing to be completed was an attic window for the front gable.  My wife and I picked out a nice window by Harvey Windows — paid a pretty large sum too for such a small window.

Harvey custom made us a defective window.  It’s not square.  Not even close.  It’s… a trapezoid.  Yeah, it’s only about an inch off of having 90 degree angles, but it’s enough that when it’s up there on the house — it looks crooked. 

The decorative window, the center piece, on the front of our house is visibly crooked.  Level, but crooked.  Can you believe that?

Well, the contractors put it in anyway, and sided around it. 

It’s a Harvey issue now — they’ll have to replace the window. 

But now, what about all of the siding that’s flush with the crooked window?  That will need to be replaced as well… and I can imagine it already, they’re not going to want to do that.  Or they won’t be able to match the color.  Or the style.  I could go on and on…

Now, after contractors complete a job, they go through a punch list — you know, correcting all of the little things and details that the homeowner points out.  The company we hired has worked on this punch list at our home on at least 4 different occasions.  The two major “issues” still haven’t been resolved — and these are 15 minute projects for a seasoned pro.

It is just so frustrating to deal with contractors — I’m not sure a reputable one exists.  I mean, if I were to run my company, and treat my customers and projects, the way a typical contractor does, well, I’m not sure I could look myself in the mirror.

We’ve moved on to some interior work again, where we’re doing the work ourselves, but at some point we’ll have to call in the professionals to do some electrical, flooring, and drywall and I’m already dreading dealing with a bunch of people who do things half-assed and lie to your face.

Don’t get me wrong, the house looks good.  I guess I’m happy with the work, but when you look at the details, in the corners and things, it makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking — I could have made it look like that myself and I’ve never done it before in my life?!

And really, was it necessary to use my entire lawn as an ashtray?  Okay, that was a low blow…

No, on second thought, it wasn’t.

Oh yeah, and thanks for leaving dirty finger prints on a window 3 stories up that doesn’t open.  I’d love to know how they expect me to wash that…

Posted on September 7th, 2007 at 8:56 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements, Rants | 3 Comments »

Siding, and Windows, and Doors! Oh My!

With the renovation work at the house still ongoing (an attic window, the basement hatch, and some last minute touch-ups left), we still haven’t made the last payment to the contractor. Progress has been very slow for the past few weeks,

It’s tough because now, over month later, I’d like to have begun putting a real dent in the debt we took on to finance the project… but there is still one payment to go.

Seems like it’s something that would be easy to work around but I’m generally of the type that likes to pay all of my regular monthly bills and then send every last remaining cent, down to a $1000 buffer, to the credit card companies. It’s a method that’s always worked for me in the past.

With a $4k bill looming, I’m not comfortable doing that.

I know, I know… I could make my “new” buffer the $5k mark, but with things still up in the air, I want to make sure I have as much cash on hand for those last minute unexpected expenses. You know, like the additional $2500 we paid to have the porch rebuilt.

I want the house to be done.

I want to write that last check to the contractor.

And I want things to get settled so I can put my head down and start paying it back, aggressively, like we did with the last loan (for the roof) where we paid the last $8k off in a couple of months.

Posted on July 23rd, 2007 at 7:59 am by Brainy Smurf
Credit Card, Finance, Home Improvements | No Comments »

Homeowners Insurance Nightmare… the FAIR Plan.

As mentioned earlier in the year, I found out the hard way that insuring a newly purchased older home is near impossible.

Now that we’re in the final stretch for the exterior renovations, it’s time to start thinking about acquiring some conventional homeowners insurance.

Currently, my carrier is a state run plan, called a FAIR plan. Most states have them, and I’ll be the first to tell you, they’re anything but FAIR. The premium is generally double what you’d pay to an insurance company you’ve heard of, and you coverage is half what a real insurance company would carry.

Illinois’ FAIR Plan website looks to be one of the best in the country, so I’ll use their definition:

The FAIR (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) Plan Association offers property insurance to qualified applicants who are unable to buy insurance through the standard insurance market for reasons beyond their control.

The FAIR Plan may be an answer for responsible property owners or homeowners who are having a problem obtaining property insurance in the standard market.

Many insureds use the FAIR Plan as a temporary market for a year or two until they qualify for coverage in the standard market.

It’s been nearly 5 years since Allstate cancelled my policy. Surfing the web, I’ve yet to find a “successful” journey from the depths of the FAIR plan. Seems once you’re categorized as high-risk, it’s damn near impossible to get normal coverage. I’m hoping I can blaze a new trail.

One thing I have read is that when an insurer cancels your policy, they must send you a letter explaining why they’ve cancelled you. Over the weekend, I peeked into the old filing cabinet in search of the old Allstate folder.

I was skeptical that I’d still have the letter. At the time, it was like a punch in the stomach. I’d just paid my first ever mortgage bill, I had no money left to my name, and now suddenly, I was about to let my insurance lapse before the second mortgage payment. I thought I’d likely thrown it out in anger.

To my surprise, there it was…an interesting read. It almost made me more angry seeing how trivial all of the ‘problems’ were. I kept thinking that they were nailing me on the electrical system, but in fact, there is no mention of that.

Here is what the letter listed:

• The roof of the dwelling is damaged and lifting/buckled.
• The soffits/fascia/eaves are damaged and needs paint.
• The renovations are not completed.
• The detached structure has dry rot, glass broken, trees overhanging and needs paint.
• Your chimney is crumbling, separating, in need of tuckpointing.
• The foundation of your dwelling or garage is crumbling.
• The siding or frame exterior of your dwelling is damaged, has peeling paint.
• One or more of the trees on your property poses a risk to your property because it is overhanging.
• The windows of your dwelling or garage needs paint.

According to much of what I’ve read, technically, if I correct Allstate’s laundry list of problems above, they should take me back. That said, since they burned me so bad back then in 2002, they’re not exactly my first choice.

Oh, and Allstate is no longer issuing homeowners policies in my state because we’re apparently in a hot hurricane zone. Um, yeah… One, Hurricane Gloria in 1985 — 22 YEARS AGO!? — and it was just a heavy rain, but whatever…

A little back story first… when Allstate sent out their inspector, I was having a cable line added to the second floor of the house so I could have cable internet in my home office. Being broke at the time, the cheapest route, rather than snaking it through the walls, was to have the electrician run the line in one of those PVC tubes up the side of the house.

Apparently, while the electrician, a fellow in his 70′s, was working on the side of the house, the Allstate inspector stopped by and asked to go inside the house. The electrician said, “No.” When I arrived home that evening, the electrician explained to me that he’d had a “run-in” with an aggressive insurance inspector trying to enter my home.

I thanked him for not letting the inspector in my home. I was never made aware that an inspector was coming by, and thinking about it, I never recall having an insurance inspector ever enter our home when I was living with my parents. I was thankful that the electrician hadn’t let some stranger in my home without me there.

Then the cancellation letter came and it all became clear. I’d guess that the insurance inspector thought the electrician was the homeowner and refused to allow him entry. Ticked off, he essentially checked off every box on his standard form, in an immature “I’ll show you!” act of rage.

Windows need paint? Um… they’re vinyl windows. At that time, they were only 2 years old. That aside, you don’t paint vinyl windows.

Renovations incomplete? Um, okay, the contractor was there working on them at the time you stopped by without notice.

Trees overhanging the home? This is New England. I challenge you to find a residential home within a 100 mile radius of my home that doesn’t have a tree limb near the structure.

Those boxes were checked out of spite. Pure spite.

The rest of them… I could call legitimate… at the time. Which is why I didn’t dispute the letter.

The roof was old. The roof was ugly. But you know what? It didn’t leak. But I still spent $14k replacing a roof that didn’t leak.

The chimney was crumbling…we had it removed entirely.

The foundation was crumbling…we had it repaired.

All of this business about needing paint and peeling paint — well, vinyl siding is taking care of that.

All of that aside though, it is a little troubling that your insurance company can essentially cancel your coverage because your house could use a new coat of paint.

I can understand the “crumbling” brick work being a bit of an insurance problem, and realistically, that is where their list should have begun and ended. And I would have taken care of that immediately, but to pile on all of the additional cosmetic issues seemed a little unjust.

Especially when they agreed to insure the home for the closing, and then cancelled the policy less than 30 days later.

Hopefully we’ll have normal insurance in the coming months…

Posted on June 26th, 2007 at 4:32 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements, Insurance | 9 Comments »

Playing with Electricity

For the third weekend in a row (week 1 was the knob-and-tube removal, week 2 was the dryer vent and outdoor light installation), we made a trip to a big box hardware store with the intention of doing another project ourselves.

This week we went to Lowes and while headed for the paint aisle to browse, a display of light fixtures caught our eye. PULL-CHAIN LIGHT FIXTURES!!!

It’s almost impossible to find ceiling mount pull-chain fixtures anymore. Especially if you don’t want the “naked bulb” look.  Sure, that works just fine in a basement, garage, or attic, but it really looks like crap in your living space.

Upon closer inspection, they were the type that usually mounts to the bottom of a ceiling fan, but my wife’s limited Spanish skills came in super handy, “Poro ceiling-o install-o”, or something like that…

For whatever reason, this weekend, it seemed like everything had the Spanish side facing forward, but that’s a rant for another day.

Forty-nine dollars later, we were on our way home to replace the long-dead pull chain fixture in the center of the ceiling in our kitchen.

The original fixture was a horrible, slightly rusty circular thing, about 18 inches in diameter. The lighting consisted of two of those circular fluorescent bulbs — which provided great light when I purchased the house but it was UGLY. Rusty fixture, two naked tubes, and no place to mount a cover (because of the pull-chain placement) to hide how horrible it looked.

Over time, the fixture started to buzz like that annoying light we all have at the office. Then one of the bulbs would never turn on, even when I replaced it. Thankfully, it never flickered.

One ambitious weekend, I took the whole thing apart and replaced the ballast and it worked like a charm for about a month. Then the buzzing started up again. And then the pull chain snapped.

That was probably two years ago. Since then, we’ve made out with just a couple of old ratty lamps. The result? A dark, yucky kitchen.

We took down the old one and installed the new one. The instructions were very cryptic — sorta merging the “fan installation” and the “ceiling installation” into one very confusing mess. Turned the power back on, and voila! A bright kitchen!!!

It was still ugly though. The old fixture had a HUGE hole in the ceiling above it where you could see the electrical box. We needed one of those big plastic cover plates to hide things — and mount the new fixture tightly against the ceiling.

A quick trip to Home Depot, $17, and another 15 minutes re-installing the light and we were done. It’s not ideal, but for around $60, it made our relic of a kitchen a lot more livable.

And that’s three consecutive weeks playing with electricity… without an injury! Woo-hoo!

Posted on June 25th, 2007 at 8:40 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 1 Comment »

Nickel & Diming It Up

Yesterday, the contractor’s salesman team came by the house to measure the attic windows… though as I suspected, that was just an excuse to come over and collect the second $8000 check.

Being a bit of a talker, to put it mildly, Art (the main salesman) went on and on about nothing while repeating things we’ve heard over and over and over again.

I can’t tell you how many times, regarding the new doors we selected, Art’s mentioned that “the doors are a thousand dollars a piece”… Problem is, we looked at the exact same doors at our local Lowes and they’re both under $500 each — and that’s after the retail mark-up.

Same deal with the attic windows. “Oh, the circle top windows are $900 a piece…” C’mon… All hot air. I just nod my head. My wife on the other hand will probably call his bluff on the next round.

Later on in the evening, the owner of the business stopped over. There was likely some communication issue as he was also probably stopping by for the next check, but whatever.

It was nice to finally meet him — and he left a good impression. You can tell he’s not an aggressive salesman like Art, but he works it too.

Last night, he basically sold us on a new front porch. The pitch was, “you’re updating the whole look of the house, you may as well have the porch done to complete it.”

He’s right. But when he tries to sell us on a new back porch, well, we’ll stop him there.

What was cool was that he gave an estimate right there, on the spot. It wasn’t this needlessly long drawn out process, like it was the first night with Art and his son.

Another difference from the first night was that the number wasn’t staggering. Around $3000 for Trex and around $1500 for wood. I’d have to sleep on it.

Having never heard of “Trex“, I was leaning more towards wood, if not only because I’ve heard of wood, but because the current porch is made of wood and I’d guesstimate that it’s over 80 years old and it still holds up just fine — except for the one plank at the end.

After looking it up, and with a some valuable input from my wife, the idea of what Trex really is, set in. Yep, the synthetic stuff. Probably the wiser choice.

We checked out their website and, yeah, it looks really nice. That is, if your going to build a huge circular deck and have a compass rose built right in. Our house can’t quite pull that off.

We’re building a rectangle. Maybe 14 feet long and 5 feet wide. Where would the compass rose go? Anyway, they don’t really have a colour option that matches the house, and I think a great deal of the cost involved is due to the “finish” they put on the fake wood. We’d end up painting over it.

So, that puts us back to wood. While $1500 more really hurts, it’s not nearly as painful as another $3000 would be. And I have a feeling his estimates were for bare minimum style porches. I’d like to jazz it up some with some nice posts and railings. Going the Trex route, I’ve little doubt that I could put together a porch that would cost us in excess of $5k. That’s not an option.

Today, he’s dropping off a catalog of posts and railings. I think I know exactly the look I’m looking for and hopefully it’s in the catalog. Our original back porch, which was torn off in December and was likely original to the house, had the type of post I’d like in the front. There are few old houses in town that have the style too — basically a fancy square post. No round columns for me or anything that looks like an extra large interior banister.

Right now, though, I guess anything would be an improvement over the cheap piece-it-together wrought iron posts and railings we have now.

For the floor, and actual porch structure, my only hesitation on using wood is that “they don’t make ‘em like they used to”. Our porch has a neat sound when you walk across it. I’ll miss that. The floor is like a hardwood floor — not in the looks department, but it’s put together in a tongue and groove fashion. It’s tight. No gaps between the boards. I like that. And you *never* see that on new construction.

For a back porch, where I’d call it a deck (are the words interchangeable?), that type of construction seems right, but for the front, I don’t know, I kind of want to keep the “authentic” look…even though the house is now covered in vinyl…

Decisions, decisions…

Posted on June 20th, 2007 at 1:32 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 1 Comment »

Do It Yourself?

This past weekend, my wife and I decided to take on a few home improvement projects ourselves.

Seeing how the siding contractors have gone around obstacles on the side of the house they’ve finished, it seemed like a good idea to remove and replace the obstacles we don’t really like, so when they go around them, they’re not leaving an eyesore up there.

The back porch area was the area we concentrated on — specifically the light fixture and the dryer vent.

The first project of the day would be the dryer vent.  When I bought the house in 2002, there wasn’t a dryer — just a 3 inch vent, with a bird nest, for one to hook up to.  When I finally purchased a washer and dryer, my mom cried as I’d no longer make laundry visits.  But the real problem I had was that the standard dryer duct was 4 inches — I had a 3 inch vent.  Nothing an adaptor couldn’t take care of, but it was always something in the back of my mind; make the dryer vent bigger.

The original wall mounted light fixture on the porch was one of those junky looking under-$10 types.  We went to our local Home Depot (we’re actually more partial to Lowe’s, but it’s farther away) and picked out a relatively inexpensive (around $40) motion sensor type of fixture.

Then we headed to the aisle with the dryer vents.  We picked up a nice plastic one that came with the 4-inch duct that would extend into the house.  There were all kinds of options to pick and choose from individually (duct & vents), but this one had everything connected already and kinda had the look I was picturing.  Total damage, about $5.

Now the problem would be drilling a 4-inch hole in the side of the house.  I knew my dad had drill bits like that, and I remembered exactly where he kept them.  Problem is, my parents retired to Florida a few years ago, so I’d have to get one for myself.

Off to the tool section and I couldn’t find what I was looking for.  They had what was called a 4-inch saw bit.  Not really what I needed.  My wife asked one of the associates and they said we needed that and a mandrell.  Hmmm… Barbara Mandrell is going to help me drill the hole, eh?

Nope, it was a mandril. Basically a normal looking drill bit with the ability to attach the 4 inch saw blade to.  Never saw one of those before.  I  thought a mandril was a monkey.  My dad’s big circle bits always one big piece.  Whatever, we needed it to make the hole and this was all they had.  Sucks that it was nearly $40 total for both pieces.  I’m not sure I can think of another place I’ll need to drill a 4-inch hole.  Ever.

Once home, the dryer vent was the first project.  My wife used a hammer to pry off the old vent.  One thing I’ve noticed on this house is that the previous owners had apparently never heard of a screw.  Everything is nailed on.  And then painted over.  Once she got the vent off, we saw what I’d guess was the original colour of the house: white. 

 

From the insides of the attic windows, we determined long ago that the trim was originally green.  White with green trim and brown cedar shingles.  That would have looked really nice.  Makes you wonder why they threw light gray shingles on top, painted the whole thing a baked bean shade of red, and then nailed plastic black shutters up.

Back to the task at hand…  Since it would be too difficult to use the drill to make the 3-inch hole a 4-inch hole without drifting, and the original hole was in an odd place anyway, we decided to make it a few feet lower and to the left.  We picked out spot and I started to drill.

Barely through the semi-rotten clapboard, it became apparent that an electric drill would be a huge advantage over the cheap Skil 12V battery powered drill I have.  It’s a terrible drill.  In fact, I hesitate to even call it a drill.  Screw stripper would be a more accurate name.  It died.

We recharged it and drilled to death about 5 or six times before we’d gone through the siding, the wood behind the siding, the wood lathe, and the interior plaster wall.  We luckly missed a stud by about an inch — something I hadn’t even thought of when I started to drill, but something I won’t forget for the next time I’m pulling holes somewhere in the house.

I was also surprised at how thick and hard the wood was, once through the old siding.  I was always a little skeptical about how solid the house was where it looks terrible, but just behind one of the worst places on the exterior, it’s as solid as solid can be.

We pushed the new duct and vent through the hole, connected the dryer and gave it a test run.  Success!  I didn’t bother to pull/push it flush against the house and screw it down yet though, as I’m sure the contractors will appreciate it having a little give for when they side around it.

Next up was the light fixture.  We turned off the power and pulled down the old one.  I was worried it was going to be like some of the interior wiring — ancient.  It was old, but not terrible.  The biggest problem we had was stuffing all of the connections in behind the fixture.  And then figuring out which setting to set the motion sensor on.  We also left a little give on it too — it’s not super tight against the house either for the contractor’s benefit.

Small projects, yeah, but we’re working our way up to tearing off the horrible wood paneling, and then plaster, in our entry room.  Small steps, right?

Posted on June 18th, 2007 at 10:30 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | No Comments »

Siding Project Begins!

I should have done this a long time ago.

Yesterday, when I arrived home from work, I found that the back of the house had been sided. Wow. Not sure I really expected it to begin so soon, but I’m not complaining either. I’m just glad we have the funds in place to make the remaining payments already.

The colour looks a lot better than I thought it would. I was a little skeptical… I dunno, I thought it might be too dark, but it’s not, it’s perfect. And the improvement is so drastic; I can’t imagine why I held off having this done for so long. Oh yeah… the cost.

On the negative side of things, it’s not seamless vinyl siding. I kinda knew that going in, but amazingly I’ll admit it’s not that noticeable. Maybe it’s the shock value of the house not looking like crap any more that makes me gloss over the seams, I don’t know.

Another thing I don’t really like is how plasticy and semi-squishy the side of the house is now. Again, I knew that was going to be the case going in, and it’s also the reason I’m not real fond of vinyl siding, but the difference in curb appeal will totally be worth it. Still, someday I hope to have an old home with read wood siding — and in great shape. It just would have cost too much to restore and maintain this one and make it look the way I want using all wood.

The contractors have been good so far — a definite improvement over the roofers. I’ll hold off on a final ruling because the roofers also appeared quite good until the last couple of days when they tore most of our screens, put a brick through a window and onto the hood of our car, and on top of it all, they left a dumpster in our front yard over the Christmas holiday (even though the project was complete over a week beforehand).

On the back of our house, there is an exhaust port for a fan in our kitchen. Basically a little spring loaded trap door, when it opens, the fan turns on and sucks whatever out of the kitchen. Well, they obviously tugged on the trap door from the outside and broke the chain that keeps the door shut — and the fan turned off — so when I got home, the door was shut, but the fan had been running for hours.

Thankfully, it was an easy 15 minute fix. No damage done.

Posted on June 14th, 2007 at 7:34 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 5 Comments »

Monday Musing

Slow day at the regular paycheck job.

Currently, I’m redesigning the company’s website, which is a nice needed change of pace from the regular daily grind. Unfortunately, it’s something I work on whenever I get a chance or things slow down, which isn’t very often.

It’s been a very productive day so far though — I’ve figured out how to prevent Firefox from looping an Adobe Flash file, when every other browser out there loads and displays things fine. It’s something I’ve been planning on sitting down and figuring out for a few weeks, but I finally did it this morning. I’d had a feeling it was something simple… and it was.

I’ve also filled in the content to two sections worth (16 pages so far). As I’m using a PHP template for this site, this part is really repetitive and *really* boring allowing my brain to ponder other things. If you hadn’t guessed, this is the project that isn’t bringing in any income that I’ve mentioned a few times in previous posts.

On the brain right now? Well, with the pending siding project nearing fruition, I’m starting to look even further ahead. The next potential obstacle to overcome for our homeowners insurance problem is the original knob and tube wiring throughout the house.

I removed some myself this past weekend, but it was all in full view. It’s the stuff behind the walls that’s out of my league. And lately, I’ve really been wishing that we had light switches like a normal house. (Most rooms have a pull chain fixture in the center of the ceiling.)

The greedy side of me would also like a sub-panel installed in the detached garage so we could have power out there again, but that’s just like extra frosting.

This week, I’ll dig up the number of the electrician, John Cyr, from when he upgraded the 60amp fuse box to 200amp service three or four years ago. He also wired a new outlet to the dryer and washing machine at around the same time.

Deep down, I know it’s not the type of project I can get a quote on, it’s understandably, as they say in the business, a “Time and Materials” type of project due to the number of variables hidden behind the plaster, but I think he charged me fairly for work done in the past.

That, and I learned a ton just from watching him and being a “stand-in” assistant. I’d be comfortable with him working in my house, really the most important thing, so I’m hoping he’s up for the project and some quick easy money for a job he can work on at his own leisure.

This will kill any chance of reaching my 2007 financial goal, but as long as I finish the year higher than I started, I’ll still be satisfied.

Saturday’s Cessna purchase is still ongoing as well. I was unable to pick it up today, but the plan is for a fellow from work to help me lift it into my wife’s truck tomorrow morning. The weather isn’t likely to cooperate, but I think it should be okay. For whatever reason, I’m pretty excited about getting it home.

Now I can honestly say that, “I own my own company, I drive a BMW, and I recently purchased a private plane.”

Hey — it’s true in a wacky sort of way.

All that’s left is for me to turn my house into a palace — and we’re working on that!

Posted on June 11th, 2007 at 2:21 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements, Insurance, Life | No Comments »

Home Improvement Preparations Begin

This morning, the first $8k check to the contractors cleared (even though I post-dated it for June 11). The ball is now rolling and I’m getting excited to finally get the whole thing going even though it’s putting me back in the hole financially.

Last night, we picked out and purchased the door hardware for the front and side doors that we’re having replaced. It was tough to pick a style or even a colour when we still don’t really know what colour the wood grain on the door is going to be. We decided on a brushed nickel finish — though it’s got a bit of a copper finish to it.

My wife also finished clearing out the attic. We hadn’t really ventured up there since the roof was completed in December of 2006; let’s just say there was some yucky debris…everywhere. A quick shop-vac run took care of that.

We also tore down some of the paper stapled up to “hide” the insulation. It wasn’t hiding anything, and it was hanging down and just looked sloppy. We also rearranged a bit to make it easier to the contractors to get to the windows in the gables. I hesitate to say that it looks good, but compared to what it looked like just last week, yeah, it looks good.

This weekend, I still have to remove some of the unused knob-and-tube wiring up there and then somehow cap off the live lines that extend over to our detached garage. Yes, we have our own personal power lines that run from the house to the garage through the air. Don’t ask.

The downside of doing this is that the garage will no longer have power, but I’d hate to have the vinyl siding elaborately go around something so outdated. This way, the exterior of the house will look nice and right now, that’s priority number one.

We also have a few holes along the roof line that various critters like to call home at various times during the year. Right now I believe it’s vacant. The birds have moved out. And the squirrels won’t move back in until the fall.

I think if I pull down some insulation (right near where the wires I’ll be working on are), I’ll be able to see into their home — and out of the holes from the inside.When we had the roof done, the roofers plugged the holes with some wood blocks.

Sadly, those were nothing but a mild inconvenience for the squirrels. Persistent little animals. This time I want to plug them for good and somehow make it so that they never return. Apparently fox urine does the trick. But getting a fox to pee three stories up may be more of a challenge than I am up for.

Either way, I’d hate to have them work their way through the brand new vinyl that goes up in a few weeks.

Posted on June 8th, 2007 at 10:08 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 2 Comments »