January 12 & 13: Plumbing and Shopping

This weekend was a relaxing recuperating weekend. Work has been busy for both Stefan and myself and by the time the weekend rolls around, we just want to sleep in and watch James Bond movies. We finally got around to getting library cards so I’m working my way through the Game of Thrones series. I’m about a quarter of the way through the second book. They are really good but long and a bit dense. I’d say the HBO series does a pretty good job of telling the story but there is more symbolism and mystery in the books that doesn’t come through in the TV show.

Saturday, I did some wiring and got Stefan to drill a bunch of holes in the basement for me. That is tiring work. You think,
“hey, it’s a power tool…can’t be that hard” but you’d be wrong. drilling 5/8 inch holes through 3 inches of old-growth hardwood is a lot of work. You have to stick your head between the rafters in the ceiling of the basement with all the dust and dirt and drill this hole above your head. I’m glad I was able to get Stefan to do it for me!

After the holes are drilled, just string some wires. Nothing too exciting.

We also worked on a good bit of PVC. We planned out how we are going to lay out the 3rd floor bathroom and get the second floor sink venting done up to the ceiling. We need to work out some final jogs to get it up into the chimney cavity but that should be relatively easy. If you need an emergency plumber in Gloucester, call Plumbing Heroes.

You can see the one piece of PVC that’s covered in purple. That was last weekends accident. Nearly an entire bottle of purple PVC primer spilled on the floor. It stains everything and even made Stefan’s shoes fall apart. Nasty stuff. A great way to stain things purple though. I got some on my dryer in the basement and I’ve considered painting my dryer purple. If only it didn’t smell so bad!

On Sunday, we did a little PVC, a little Electric, and a lot of thinking. We’ve picked out the doors for the bathrooms. The 3rd floor bathroom will just use one of the 10s of doors we have lying around. The Master bath will have little french doors. We are going to buy bifold doors and change the hardware.

At $36 each, they’ll be great little doors. They’re in-stock at Home Depot so we’ll pick those up next time we are there with the truck.

The other big piece of thinking we did was figuring out how to get the bathroom vents installed.

If you look at the back of the house, you can see the two narrow windows. The left one is in the bathroom. The bath vents will pop out of the house above the window just to the left of the window. Because of the porch roof, getting up there is a pain. We measured and tried all sorts of combinations and what we came up with was roof brackets and a short extension ladder from the porch roof up to the appropriate location. We’re planning on picking up the ladder next weekend.

It’s also in stock at the ol HD. We are going to need a 40 foot ladder or at least a 32 foot ladder soon for the 3rd floor bathroom vent. We still aren’t sure how to get that home. I’m thinking we’ll probably rent a big truck from HD or rent a UHaul or something. We looked at ladder racks for the truck too.

In addition to some decisions, we did a little shopping. We broke a door handle spindle so we ordered some replacements from House of Antique Hardware. While we were on the website, we found some amazing light fixtures.

I’m loving this for the bathroom. I’d love a matching 2-light sconce but they didn’t have one 🙁 I’m thinking perhaps a real simple light would blend.

This one is awesome for the kitchen above the sink. I’m loving it!

I was surprised by the selection and the prices at House of Antique Hardware. I highly recommend and they aren’t even a sponsor though I wish they were. I’d love to offer some of their awesome products to my readers.

That’s about all that happened this weekend.

I hope you are all having a great January. This past week was January thaw week. It was marvelous. It’s supposed to get cold again and snow or rain on Wednesday 🙁 I’m hoping for one more pretty snow so I can take a bunch of pictures and then an early Spring. I’m hoping the ground is thawed by mid march so we can get the front yard dug and a new water main put in. I want to get landscaping in before it gets too hot!

Next weekend is MLK weekend! Whooo 3 day weekend.

New Years Weekend

Stefan had New Years Eve and New Years Day off of work so he had a long, 4 day weekend to work on stuff.   In addition, we are at the finishing stage on a bunch of projects.  It’s been great to start checking things off the list.

Saturday we finished up the plumbing for the laundry and  layed down the final last bit of floor in the bathroom.  We also designed the plumbing drain for the bathroom sinks as well as the gas piping for the laundry.  We went out for a Home Depot run just as it was starting to snow.

This was the snow situation when we left the house:

About 45 minutes later when we walked out of Home Depot, The snow looked like this:

It took us another 40 minutes or so to get home in that weather and then we made a roast chicken.  It’s on our new year’s resolution list to cook more and this was a fun date-night project in true Wolpert style.  Home Depot and Dinner.

Next time, smaller chicken.  It took FOR-EV-ER to cook.  It also had to be rotated in the oven several times causing entirely too many flip the bird jokes.

Sunday morning we woke up to 6-8 inches of snow.

Stefan busted out the snowblower.  I’ve never seen one in action.  It’s super cool!

We also tried to take Vector out to play in the snow.  He was terrified but he did love playing in the leaves under the deck.  We had a hard time getting him out.  He also escaped out the front door to the porch while we were shoveling but he left only a few tentative footprints in the snow before apparently getting scared and running back inside.  Silly Kitty.

By the time the driveway sidewalk, porch, and deck were snowblowed, shoveled and salted we were pretty beat.  We did manage  to get 99% of the way done with the gas pipe and dry-fit the sink drains.  We needed one more little piece until Stefan could pressure test the gas connections so we went to Home Depot yet again.  We also went to Target and hit up the 70% off Christmas sales while we were there.  Lots of extension cords, timers, flood lights, etc.  We cleaned up!  I’ve got Christmas cards for next year and some wrapping paper.  I found this years pinecone ornament (my new collection) and I’m good to go.  The box stores are generally pretty picked over in this area so I didn’t get any garland for the porch or any lights.  I’m probably just going to have to pay full price.  Even then, you really have to get to the Home Depot or Target early to get lights.  For whatever reason they were picked over by Thanksgiving.  I’m glad we were able to have a Christmas Decor research year or I would never have known!

Monday I had to work 🙁  Stefan went to a friend’s house for brunch and did a bunch of computer research work.
Monday night we went to a party with some friends and Tuesday we did some more work on the plumbing and gas.  The bathroom is really starting to shape up!

As soon as we get the bathroom vent fan picked out, we can install the duct-work in the exterior wall and we will be ready for round one of insulation.  A bit more plumbing and electric in the bathroom and we will be ready for drywall.  We are getting close! AND as an added bonus, MLK day is in just a couple weeks giving another power 3-day weekend.   Depending on how the contractor’s timing works out, we may be drywalled by early Feb and done with the master bath by the end of March.  I can’t wait!

I hope you all had a wonderful new year. When we woke up on January 1 we were greeted with this beauty:

My lemon tree finally bloomed! Now I just need a second bloom so I can get to pollinating the blooms! Another couple months and we’ll have lemons!

Happy New Year!

Sarah

House List 2013

I’ve been inspired by Centsational Girl’s yearly Home Goals post.  I thought I might take a stab at where we want to be this time next year. We looked at great homes at new homes in lake worth, and recommended to friends of mine who needed to a house to live. They are very cozy to live in and they are very affordable. We also have so many anticipated changes over the next few months. I’m excited to write this post and fantasize about my clean dust-free living space.

Here are 13 goals for 2013!

1) living on the 2nd floor

We are currently in this large bedroom on the 3rd floor and it’s a little too far from the bathroom for comfort…especially since we keep the house at 54. Note: The room hasn’t been this neat since we took this picture. It’s actually usually a crazy mess.

We are going to be living in that room with paint and decorations and clean sheets.

2) bathroom adjacent to our bedroom.

I have wanted a bathroom adjacent or even near our bedroom for soo long.  Our first apartment our bedroom was off the kitchen and the trip to the bathroom involved crossing every room in the apartment.  Not really all that bad except for the cold floors on bare feet.  Non-optimal.

This is our current bathroom but it’s now messier and has lost of holes in the walls… Exploratory bathroom surgery you know. I’d take a picture of it in it’s current state but posting our messy bathroom on the internet is past my share-threshold.

The bathroom is functional but it is a full 2 flights of stairs between the bedroom and the bathroom….2 flights of bone-chilling cold stairs.

3) Glorious Closet space!

We will have a closet bigger than the bedroom in our first apartment.  It’s got a ways to go but I’m sooooo excited!

4) No more tools in my den

Powertools will be kept in the basement until needed and put back in the basement upon completion of a project.  I can’t wait!

Maybe we’ll even have a den without a bathtub in it. oh, the luxury! The den will not be done and I’m skeptical that we’ll get any built-ins done in the next year but we will have a TV and a couch. I will hopefully have settled on a paint color and with a rug on the floor, this room will be living and not working space.

We finally broke down and picked up a nice slipcovered sofa and loveseat and the loveseat is in our current bedroom.  Having a cushiony place to sit was novel but having a couch long enough to lounge on is going to be amazing even if the room isn’t done yet.

5) start of a privacy hedge

First thing this spring we’re going to be planting that arborviae hedge to block our view of the neighbors.  It’ll be more than a year before they are large enough to block anything but it’s a start. I talk about that and the plan for the yard here.

6) Host something!

I want to have a party where people don’t have to assemble their own furniture.  We hosted a burger feast in 2012 but the Ikea chairs for the deck had to be assembled.  I will have a dinner party where I have seating pre-assembled for everyone.  I’m also going to have that Open House I wanted to have last year.  We met the neighbors at a neighborhood party before Christmas and it was great to meet everyone!  The neighborhood is great.  Everyone is so neighborly.  I wasn’t expecting it.  Anyways, I’m sure they’re going to be so excited for a chance to see it.

Not to mention our friends have an unusual penchant for the dinner party:

7) Insulation and Paint

I’m refraining from painting and doing too much plaster repair work until we have the insulation blown in.  The insulation requires a bunch of holes to be drilled in the plaster and lath. and those holes have to be patched.  We’re planning on patching and painting the whole house at once to minimize and duplication of work. The stairwells are going to be the biggest challenge. We may not get to those.

8) Rugs Unfurled

I have so many rugs.  You can see them here and here.  I have rugs for the dining room, piano room (or den), and 2 upstairs bedrooms.  I’m slowing down on the rug search but I keep my eyes peeled on craigslist still.  I even recommend rugs to friends at this point.

9) Decorate for Christmas

A tree, a vintage ornament wreath, garland on the stairs and front porch.  Christmas will come to this house next year!

10) New Water Supply

We need a new water main put in from the street to the house. Blah. They are going to have to dig up the front yard and it’s going to be a pain. I’m also going to take that opportunity to work some lime into the soil. It’s quite acidic from years and years of yew bushes. I’ll also get to landscape the front yard which is always a fun challenge.

11) Kitchen Moldings

Well, first we’ll actually attach the counter top to the cabinets, and put in those last few cabinets, and the vent hood, and the backsplash, but after all that, we WILL get moldings on the kitchen cabinets. It’s going to be awesome!

12) Situate the Card Catalog
All the drawers, with labels, new feet with heavy duty castors. It’s going to happen.

13) Not do work

We are going to spend much of this summer hanging with our friends, enjoying being young, and not working on the house. I want to go to cape cod. I want to take a group of people to Stefan’s parent’s camp. I want to rent jetskis in New Hampshire somewhere and be a river rat once again. I want to sit on the front porch and sip gin and tonics and invite the neighbors passing by up for a drink.
It’s going to be a great year.  I’m looking forward to the work.  I’m looking forward to the relaxation after the work.  It’s going to be great.

Sarah