July 2005 - Posts
Last week we asked readers "How long have you owned your home?" 7 readers (21%) are still getting acquainted with their new homes, having been with them for less than a year. 9 readers (26%) have been in their homes for 1 or 2 years. The majority of us
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I've been getting a number of emails asking for information on how to set up a ProjectCam , so I took the time to write up some instructions. Good Luck, it would be great to see some more live project feeds!
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Can you believe it? I was up on a ladder using the nipper to pull a nail, and suddenly something heavy dropped to the floor with a "thud". Then I noticed the nipper wasn't working right. I must be stronger than I pretend to be.
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We have two cats: Chloe and Lizzy Mae. They have always been pretty good cats and pay their rent monthly with the mice and rats that they catch and keep out of the house. Okay, sometimes the mice and rats are in the house, but only after they have been
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One of the major aspects of our remodel is the radiant floor heating we're adding to our 1st and 2nd floors. On the 1st floor we're using a system called Quick Trak, and for the 2nd floor we're using Joist Trak. We installed the Joist Trak last week when
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One thing I like about house projects is that they vary quite a bit. Right now I don't like the project I'm working on and will be glad to move on to the next project. My current project is stripping the nook windows. We are trying to keep as many of
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After a week of frenetic work on the house, we are returning to our regular pace of weekend and evening renovation. Dad returned home on Friday, and today the boiler contractors will pack up their tools, and I’m headed back to work myself. We have a backlog
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Faithful readers may have noticed that there was no new poll last week. Mostly this was because we were busy renovating, and didn’t have time for the blog. Or anyone’s blog for that matter – I’m pretty far behind catching up on my favorites… Two weeks
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Today we have a special guest post from my dad, who's been visiting this week from Wisconsin. This is my last morning in Seattle. Over the course of the week, several people asked if I was enjoying my "vacation" helping Nick & Trissa on their house.
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Nick gets his ingenuity from his dad. Often times Nick will come up with a clever way to help make a job easier or more exact. Seeing him work with his dad is great. They built a jig that held the joist tracks that they needed to screw into the ceiling
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3000 screws later (all driven overhead), my neck and arm are kinda upset with me. Here's what it the Joist Trak looks like - basically they're 4' sections of extruded aluminum that are installed end to end in each joist bay. Tomorrow we snap the tubing
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I went and picked up the 3400 screws that Nick and Phil will use to install the joist track for the radiant floor on the second floor. It took awhile finding where to get 3400 screws and I ended up at Tacoma Screw down in Georgetown. It's a great place
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Things are changing quickly around here. Nick and his dad have gotten a lot done. The boiler is hung and now they're completing the plumbing. The drains for the new half bath are installed on the first floor and the sub floor repaired. The beadboard is
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It's only 8:30 in the morning here and the porch will be gone soon. I'll miss the porch, but our new back door will have a home soon! A couple of more coats on the interior and by then I'm sure Nick and his dad will have the porch ready to go. Off to
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Last night we hung the drywall in the corner of the laundry room where the boiler will be. We will rock the rest of the room when the project is complete and we no longer need to access the joists in the ceiling. The weekend to-do list will keep us out
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Got this from my radiant floor contractor, Paul Pollets (Advanced Radiant Technology) last night: Hi Nick & Trissa: We’ll be arriving around 8:30am tomorrow (Th.) Boiler and water tank delivery is scheduled for late morning. My lead mechanic is Kelly
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As we are moving the temporary "shop" that has been in our former living room back to the real shop, I keep thinking back to the idea of setting up a workstation each time you work. I haven't been too methodic about this, except for the varnishing, and
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My plea last week for folks to vote must have had some small effect: 43 votes this week compared to 24 the week prior. Thanks, everyone! For the most part, we’re all in our respective homes for the long haul. 42% wont even consider moving, and 21% are
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Saturday Nick ran the cold water pipe to the laundry room so it is ready for the boiler installation. The soldering went pretty well- he says it's messier than he'd like, but we don't have any leaks and I think it looks great. I put the second and third
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Today I will finish removing the extra putty from as many of the doors that I can reach and I'll do the other side tonight after Nick moves them for me. Then it's a quick sanding to remove any machine marks or imperfections and I can start varnishing!
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The last couple of weeks around our jobsite, er – “house”, have been non-stop busy with projects. Our radiant heating contractor, Paul Pollets, is arriving between the 14th and 18th to install our new boiler, and there are a number of prerequisites we’ve
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The doors have arrived and they are in the house. Thank you to the awesome delivery man from the Door Store: he carried them up both flights of stairs and into the shop. The front door had to be carried up one more flight to the upstairs because it won't
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I was so close to getting the Sikkens Cetol products for the exterior doors, but I ended up buying some Epifanes spar varnish. From all the forums I read and the research I did, this is supposedly the brand to get. It's a Dutch company that's been around
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It was a productive weekend. We raised the beam(Nick will post about this project soon) and the gas pipe for the boiler has been re-routed and is ready to go. Our new doors arrive tomorrow so now it's time to clean up the shop so I will have a space to
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Weekly Poll Calling all visitors: Vote in the poll! Our readership has gone up lately, but poll participation has sunk. We only have 24 votes this week. If you don’t like the questions, send some new interesting ones our way! Last week’s poll asked about
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