House Update- June 9/10
Big news, we got a Kitten!
The newest member of the family is Vector Wolpert. He’s a cuddly little kitten that also loves to play. He loves his Daddy most of all which is adorable!
Oh, we also did some work this weekend. We got the rest of the pieces for the porch and we have to get them primed before they get installed. That meant lots of bending over and working with the sprayer. I got this sprayer:
and it is awesome. The paint and sprayer are on a long tube from the air compressor which keeps the sprayer light and easy to maneuver. The hose is plenty long enough and I love the way it makes getting a nice thin coat so easy. I did thin the KILZ Complete with a bit of paint thinner to make it spray faster. It will spray the thicker but it just doesn’t go as fast and I was all about speed and the coverage seems plenty adequate to protect the wood from water damage. I elected to use a paintbrush to really get the endgrain well covered. After using the sprayer though, the paintbrush seems tedious and boring. Painting is so much more fun with a power tool.
Stefan worked on making a jig to cut the ends of the square balusters. The bottom rail is angled to prevent water from pooling on the bottom rail. It also gives it a really substantial look which I liked. Since the bottom rail is peaked. Stefan has to cut the ends of each post to have a notch to rest nice and tight on the peak. We are also mounting the balusters on the diagonal which was what was originally on the house. That just makes the notches even more complicated. There are 210 balusters so Stefan still has a bit of work to do! After Stefan cuts them, I will paint the cut edges with KILZ primer to seal up the end grain.
I got most everything primed but I have a couple pieces to touch up and a couple pieces that I didn’t get a chance to flip and get the back side. I’ll get those finished up this coming weekend and hopefully the porch guys can get things installed shortly thereafter. I can’t wait to see the beautiful new porch!
Sarah
House Update June 2/3
I have a confession, we didn’t get much done this weekend. We slept in and rested up. The first order of business was to run 1” PEX from the water main to the other side of the basement where we are putting the manifolds to supply water to the rest of the house. From the 1” pex, we split ¾” to the hot water heater and ¾” to the cold side manifold. We are using red and blue colored pex to keep things very explicit and easy to see, we have decided to install a new Heat Pump Water Heater, for this we already know that professional help is a must.
The basement manifold diagram:
and the second floor manifold
I used the fun PEX tool to add valves to the manifolds. This allows us to shut of anything in the basement. Without the assistance from this CSG Renovation: Basement company we’d have had been totally clueless as to where to begin from. Nonetheless, we also bought these nice zip ties to allow us to label each run.
We have the basement manifolds mounted and we have the supply to the kitchen sink run and hooked up in addition to the washing machine supply and the 1st floor bathroom. We just tapped onto the copper that is already existing in that bathroom since we don’t plan on changing the layout until after we have another bathroom completed. Here is a great site to find a good general contractor www.calgarygeneralcontractorpros.ca if you live in the Calgary area.
From the basement, we still need to run ¾” pex up to the 2nd floor (through the chimney void) and add in the 2nd floor manifold. The priority is getting the kitchen done so our 2nd floor bathroom will have to wait a couple weeks.
Sarah
House Update – Memorial Day Weekend
Memorial day was all about the plumbing drain. We had got our roof recently fixed by a roofing st louis company and so it was time to fix the plumbing as well. Stefan decided to call in the emergency plumbing, they came into town to help out. Stefan and Fred pulled out a bunch of super heavy, 4” cast iron pipe. The work was back-breaking and difficult. We used the sawzall and use about a dozen saw blades. It was one blade per cut for the easy cuts. The final cut used 3 blades! We also found that putting a little mineral oil on the blade as cutting fluid, kept the blades cooler and really helped the cutting process. I think some actual cutting fluid would be better but the mineral oil seemed to work fine. They then replaced the cast iron pipe with PVC which is always an exercise in geometry. The whole thing will now be much easier to work with and we should be able to cut into the PVC to add drains as needed.
As an added bonus, we were able to get the drain for the wash down sink set up in the kitchen. After we got the supply done, we were able to transition from paper plates now that we have a sink big enough to wash a plate. It’s a nice change. On the recommendation of Stefan, we looked at these Top 5 Best Small Dehumidifier Reviews – 2019 [Updated], as we did not want the moist atmosphere of the kitchen to harm all the things kept in it.
Here you can see the supply and drain in the basement:
Our scap metal guy, Jose, is going to love these cast iron pipes. The copper we’ll probably take ourselves to a scrap metal place but we’ll need Jose to get the cast iron pipes out of the basement and 2nd floor so we’ll let him have those. He’ll be pumped I’m sure. He was excited with the couple of smaller pieces we had last time. We should call him soon. I’d like to get those out of the way.
You can see a long piece here:
This piece has the weight of a relatively light section at 57lbs. This is a 4′ strait section. The joints are easily double the weight.
This is probably the heaviest piece. I can’t even slide it across the floor.
While Stefan and Fred were working on the plumbing, Ann was going to town on the front and back porch ceilings and the porch posts. If you remember, last time she came out, she primed everything and this time she painted it in Sherwin-Williams Duration exterior paint in Accessible Beige in a Satin finish. It looks a little odd with the gray-white-mildewed aluminum siding but it’s part of the long-term plan and I’m less concerned about the short-term looks and I’m certainly not going to re-paint the porch. I learned more about Noble Painting as we would need to repaint the house exterior. I have already asked for the free estimate.
What would we do without the awesome in-laws? My parents are going to come up and help out in August as well. It really helps to have a supportive, handy family to help out on our big project.
Sarah
Drapes in the Piano Room
Apologies for the accidental draft post earlier today! I promise I have lots of house updates on the way. I need to get a few more pictures and I’ll be having a blog post frenzy this weekend. For now, I’m thinking about drapes.
I’ve decided that the piano room should be painted a muted shade of purple. I think it will look regal with the wood trim and Stefan’s beautiful piano. Purple is such a formal but unexpected shade that I think sets the tone quite well for that room.
I’m trying to determine the best type of window treatments for the large bay window as well as the smaller side window in that room. There are also the french doors into the dining room that will need some amount of sound proofing to make the piano a little less boisterous. I’m thinking heavy velvets are the way to go. They will add a lot of sound absorption and add to the elegant regal feel of the space, not including the balsa wood table we’d brought from a furniture store. Any other thick, rich fabric will do as well. Chenille in a damask or Jacquard pattern could be beautiful. I still haven’t found anything I love in a purple pattern. Since there will not be much furniture in the room, the curtains are a place where we can go a little wild with pattern.
So far, these are the options I have found:
This is a velvet panel from JCPenneys.
Here is a patterned velvet:
They are running about $50 a panel and I would need 10 or more panels. I also have the option to purchase fabric and make my own. That would entail finding 54″ fabric for $15 or less per yard. Definitely doable for a cotton or polyester blend, a little more challenging for a beautiful velvet.
I have thought about changing directions. Part of me loves regal elegance and the ostentatious-ness of velvet, but what if we modernized a bit with something more like this:
Or we could go more casual with a lovely linen floral similar to what I’m doing in the dining room.
Here’s a nice medium but it’s $35 a yard!
The curtains definitely need to be heavy in that room. It will help with the piano acoustics and my sanity. I love the formality that a grand piano brings to a space and I want to emphasize that with my treatment of the room. At the same time, I am worried that going too formal will end up being a bit tacky and over-done. What are your thoughts?
Sarah
