Pipe Dreams

Sharkbite connectors are cool.

You push the pipe in until it clicks/grabs, and you're good to go.  I made sure to immobilize the pipe on either side of it, just to reduce any forces on the joint that are off-axis, but I've heard good things, and the install was easy.  Now to test longevity...

And I need to practice more with my Wirsbo/Uponor PEX tool, my score marks weren't like the picture, so I bailed on that connection for now.

Demolition Progress

The house is now well underway in the demolition process and completely unlivable. 

Behold.

The front doors, notice the flooring is gone (but not the mastic... Yet).

The living room.

That used to be a wall, now it's on its way to becoming a bookshelf.

Other side; view into the dining area.

Ohhh that chandelier is still up. It will come down. Soon. The door you see goes to the master bedroom.

Kitchen. Isn't she stunning?

Second bathroom, demolition underway.

Who needs sinks?

It's hard to take a decent picture of a bedroom.

Have I mentioned that we have a pantry!? Woohoo!

Standing in the hall to the two bedrooms. I can see all the way to the front door. I love long views! 

Now across the the master...

Those same doors to the back porch, now in daylight with the blinds open.

Master closet, with a little bit of the bathroom at the extreme left. What you can't tell from that little reflection of me is that I am 28 weeks pregnant. Ha.

Master bath, shower and toilet are still relatively intact.

But the sinks are all gone!

I think that's the full tour. The garage is full of debris, not worth taking pictures of. 

Next I think we need to prep the floors for finishing and stain and seal the concrete (that will make EVERYTHING look better).

I guess there is a little more demo to do in the master bath, too.

I am looking forward to when we can make constructive progress!

Progress...

Floors are up, much of the tile is in the dumpster, kitchen is out, bathrooms are on their way out, concrete cleaner and stain products are in-hand (UPS made the acid leak a bit...for shame), and I've got a gas plumber coming out this afternoon to take a look at the kitchen and see about plumbing to the stove.  I bought a craigslist tablesaw (a good Grizzly with a dust collector) so I'm stoked about cabinets.  Onward.

Meta-Materials, or, A Plea

Dear America,

Please stop putting floors on top of other floors.  Have you ever cursed the builder/former owner/occupant/property manager for doing shoddy, cheap, work that you now get to clean up?  If you're a homeowner, I'll bet the answer is Yes. 

America, let's break the cycle.  Do good work right the first time.  Do good work right when you repair.  Do good work right when you're helping your buddy.  Do it well, do it once.

Jesus tells us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  This should hold in home repair, as in all other things.

My brother-in-law (a civil engineering undergrad) blithely referred to the floor you see above as a "tile-linoleum composite".  We engineers understand that composite materials synthesize desirable properties and mitigate drawbacks of individual components, making a whole that is greater than the parts.  The meta-material you see above is highly chisel-resistant, and ensures thorough pulverization of the tile superstructure in any attempt to remove it.  It is a tenacious material, suitable for use in institutions, or to institutionalize people working to remove it.

People of America, we are better than this.  First, don't put down linoleum.  Second, don't put anything on top of linoleum.  Third, return to the first point.

The floors are all out now, though currently in piles of tiles while we wait for the roofers' dumpster to be gone so I can order my own.

Behold, the shambles!

The countertop in the foreground is gone, now, too.  And my ever-amenable brother-in-law helped pick up a Grizzly 5048 tablesaw last night, so I now have the cornerstone of my soon-to-be cabinet shop to rebuild the kitchen.  Just need to get the carpet and pad rolls out of the garage to set it up...

Floor coloring should arrive today, and I hope to be cleaning the floor this Saturday and getting prepped to stain late next week.  I want to do the re-plumbing before I stain, though, and the pexsupply.com order arrives Monday.  Yeesh, there are a lot of plates spinning right now.

But never forget to stop and smell the flowers.  My son has much to teach me.

Fear of Failure

+

+

=

SHEER TERROR

So I'm reasonably handy, right?  I've got no compunctions working on electrical, basic plumbing, making simple furniture, and pretty much slapping lumber around when I want to.  But most all of that work is, er, "construction grade".  Today, I ordered countertops.  Beautiful countertops, made of mixed sapwood and heartwood walnut.  They will adorn our kitchen for years to come.  And I need to cut a hole in them.  A BIG hole.  In the BIGGEST piece.  In doomspeak, I will intentionally nearly sever a $1000 piece of wood, rendering it extremely susceptible to cracking during later handling, and all to install something as prosaic as a sink.

This would be "finish grade" work.  I will need to up my game.

Measure twice?  Nah.  Measure ten times?  Sure. 

Double check?  Oh no.  Quadruple check?  Probably enough.

In case you can't tell, I spent some money ($2300, including shipping) on countertops today.  I do not want to screw them up.  I realized I was putting off making the order (which has a 4-week lead time) just because I was scared to think about working with them.

So why do this?  Why not call the pros?

Well...

First, the pros are downright expensive.  Fact of the matter is, pros are people too.  They are people with tools and experience, which is saying a lot, but they charge for the mental labor required to make something beautiful, correctly.

Second, that's the wrong question.  Why not be a pro?  Have butcher block installed, make a kitchen once.  Learn to install butcher block, be able to make kitchens for fun and profit for a lifetime.  Unless you can firmly give a negative response to the "why not be a pro?" question, do it yourself.  Unless the tools are WAY too expensive (marbleworking, perhaps?  CNC machining?  bridgebuilding?) or it is not a job you ever foresee wanting or needing to do (pumping septic tanks?), my philosophy leans toward being a pro.  You will do most home-related tasks more than once in a lifetime. You probably have friends and neighbors.  You should have a church family.  Everybody lives somewhere, and it will break sometimes.  Wouldn't it be nice (or even financially rewarding sometimes) to help them?

Plus, then when you're old you can be that cool guy at church who can take the time to make stuff with and for people.  This is a breed that you find at many Southern Baptist churches, and I always liked that guy.  Maybe someday I'll be that guy.  He was cool.  And he wasn't afraid of doing things.

Down With Solar

Quite literally, actually.  And not in the large-scale policy or economic way, either.  Just very locally.

The house came with a 3-trough single-axis-tracking water-heater-booster system.  That was not connected.  And looked like it was installed by Jimmy Carter himself. The supports were rusting through (and it looked like they were laid OVER the latest shingles?!?), the drive mechanism was seized and stuck, and it just represented a roof liability.

So this morning I tore it off, to prep for the roofers (who did not want to deal with it - surprise!). 

It was loud.  You try throwing a 2.5m aluminum parabolic trough onto rocks sometime.  And then throwing a steel frame onto that.  And so on.  Sorry, neighbors! (it was early)

Now to the scrapyard with the Al and the Cu.

Other notes - ordered concrete stain/sealer/wax from directcolors.com, out of Shawnee, OK.  I like Oklahomans. They seem like good folk.  And when I was in Tulsa on business once upon a time, I saw a DeLorean made up like the BTTF car, complete with a Mr. Fusion on the back.  It was rad.  But I digress.

All carpet except the living room is yanked, along with tack strips.  I aim to nail the living room tomorrow, and start pulling tile up in the main area.  Home Despot has a diamond-blade wheel for their floor buffer, which will allow a nice surface prep prior to staining.  There will definitely be before/after pictures of the floors - I'm excited about them.

Later today I will go to the plumbing supply to see if they can beat pexsupply.com for the piping and fittings.  I got outbid on a Wirsbo tool on ebay, rats.  Then back to campus to meet my TA and interview a grader.  Did I mention I start teaching in exactly one month?  Then home, then maybe some building-related errands with the family. We've gotta get cracking.

On that note, I need to call the butcher block people, but they closed 15min ago. Tomorrow...

Also this week's lunch expenditure was $13.50, including cheese, 4 avocados, 5 apples, 4 peaches, 6 bananas, green leaf lettuce, 4 bell peppers, 3 cucumbers, and 5 tomatoes.  And my lunch was delicious.

Re-allocation

So I am not going to pretend that moving into this new house of ours is going to save money, but I am pretty excited about how the profile of our money spending will change.

One of the big things? Laundry.

I estimate that I spend $700 a year on laundry at the coin-op machines in our building at the condo. That doesn't even count the cost of soap (which I make myself, so the cost may be negligible). That is just quarters in the machine. We won't be saving that money, but I would rather be spending it on a house that I like than dumping it down a washing machine. 

If we were to stay in the condo, the laundry numbers would only be going up; we are expecting a baby soon, and are in the long process of adoption for another. I don't expect that my current seven loads a week is anywhere near the maximum that I will reach.

Other benefits of house laundry include the ability to use a clothesline. We aren't allowed to use one in the condo (because our HOA has a false assumption of classiness? Because they hate the environment and the age-old glories of solar clothes drying? You choose.) and that forces a dryer load per washer load. I am hoping to get up a clothesline ASAP at the new place, use less electricity, and get more vitamin D and exercise while drying my clothes. I expect we will still have a dryer (it does rain sometimes here, and we are no strangers to the midnight emergency load), but I hope to use it a lot less.

Another perk of no coin-op is that it makes cloth diapers both easier to do (I can't control the cycles on our washing machine at the condo) and much more economical. We own enough cloth diapers (fuzzibunz) to diaper one, maybe two kids very comfortably, but at what it cost to wash them effectively, it was actually cheaper to use Costco diapers. With my own washing machine, I won't have to run three separate cycles for my cold/hot/cold wash, so I can get them done more efficiently, and with a clothesline I shouldn't have to run them through the dryer hardly ever.

I expect we will still use disposable diapers on occasion, but I am looking forward to cloth diapers being the economical choice. Especially since in a very short time we will have two kids in diapers.

Saving on laundry definitely doesn't balance the cost of the new house, but I would much rather be spending the money on the house that we like than continually dumping it down the laundry drain. It's a lifestyle choice that I am excited to make.