Comments (18)

By kilax, August 25, 2016 8:05 am

• Today is my snister’s birthday! I wish I could celebrate with her, in person! Happy Birthday, snis!

Gosh, I think this is the last picture (from Nick and Alyssa’s wedding in June) I have of the two of us! I should have taken one when I saw her on my birthday in July!

• My magnets came! And now that they are here I thought of a few more I’d like to make. Ha.

• We have a sensor installed on a tree midway through our driveway that alerts us when cars (and deer, ha) are coming or going down the driveway, by playing a song in the house (and by alerting Steven on his phone). Of course, this tends to go off whenever I am on a conference call! One time someone asked if that was our doorbell. Ha, no. We just have a knocker on our door – add that to the list of house “to do” items – install doorbell.

• When we were leaving the house Tuesday night, Steven slowed down the car and pointed in to the woods – a calico cat was sitting on a log in our yard! We’ve never seen him before. I hope he comes back!

Can you find him?

• We were leaving on Tuesday to GET GROCERIES!!! Which we hadn’t been able to do since mid July! We haven’t had time to shop or cook much since we started our second floor ceiling project on August 3, so we’ve been getting take out and eating very basic meals. And, as you can probably guess, I feel like crap from all this crappy eating. Here’s to hoping we can eat better and cook a bit more now!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 106

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By kilax, August 23, 2016 5:24 am

Last weekend was our last (gawd, I hope) big working weekend and we ALMOST got everything done. Almost. Not quite. Cry.

But we did get enough done that the contractors could start yesterday, so, yay! We just have a few things to finish in the attic space this week. And we did get A LOT done this weekend:

Lighting/Electrical

We installed and tested all the lighting/electrical. This included (finishing) mounting the lights and securing previously mounted ones, cutting conduit (old and new), installing conduit, installing a lot of new wiring, and running up and down the stairs a zillion times to the breaker box to turn the power on and off. Ha. I had done some lighting wiring with Steven before in our other attic space (above the garage), but he taught me some new stuff – how to cut and ream conduit. I liked that I was learning something. I’m sure Steven loved that I slowed us down so much at first. Eek.

Reusing old conduit (after we cut it). It’s white because we painted all the old conduit with Kilz.

New, never been peed/pooped on conduit!

Let there be light!

Ductwork Taping

I taped up all the ductwork insulation (and installed one piece we missed) on Saturday. I now hate all tape. I wrapped a present Monday morning and was super frustrated. I need a tape break!

This tape is actually neat, everything’s just a pita to do in the attic. And as suspected, taping the supply vent ducts was a TOTAL PITA.

But it’s done, yay!

Subfloor Blocking

The contractors will be putting new subfloor in the attic space above the dining room (our roof slopes down, hence there being an attic there), and we put in blocking so they have something to attach the floor to.

This is where Data went to go skydiving

We’ve actually done A LOT of work in this room and I’ve barely mentioned it. The rafters going down to this space had a TON of insulation, nests, and animal droppings in between them that we took out. I vacuumed it about four times. We sprayed it with Kilz. We had to re-route our internet cables through here. And we removed the ceiling below it (over the dining room) due to animal damage.

Catwalk

And, the big project, which is what we didn’t finish – a catwalk above the attic. The attic was a pain to get in to before, and a pain to get around in. So we added a big opening to get in, and are installing a platform (“catwalk”) to crawl around on when we need to do work up there. We hope that will make future attic work less of a pain. I also hope never to be in our attic again… ha ha, I kid, I kid.

Opening to the attic

Platform when you get in

We laid down the supporting 2x4s on Saturday, then started prepping the 2x4s that go vertically next to those. The vertical 2x4s all varied in length to go around conduit.

We did as much as we could Saturday, while still leaving a space open to get the huge platform boards in to the attic space. We finished putting all the 2x4s in Sunday, and installed the platform in the guest bedroom area.

Data observing catwalk work

The guest bedroom side had a lot of special pieces since that is where the access panel to the attic is located, and we wanted there to be a little platform to use to get up and down.

View toward the south (over guest bedroom). There are sides on the platform because insulation is going to be blown in to the attic.

We also installed the platform over the rest of the attic on Sunday, but didn’t finish the sides.

View looking north toward master bedroom

View looking south back toward the guest bedroom and bathroom

We called it quits with the catwalk early (around 11:00 pm, ha) so we could clean up the second floor and garage. Our contractors came on Monday and we wanted them to have room to work. And we wanted the huge pile of sawdust off of our garage floor.

So, still left to do this week – finish the catwalk and install attic lighting. But probably install the lighting first so we can see what we are doing while we finish it!

Comments (13)

By kilax, August 22, 2016 1:22 pm

Two Data posts in one day! Winning!

Part of our dining room ceiling is currently demolished, and we have plastic separating that part of the dining room from the kitchen, but you can still see in to the space. Contractors are here today, and one of the first things they did was put insulation between the floor joists over the dining room. Yay, progress… that someone else did!

So I am in the kitchen making our sandwiches for lunch, and happen to look over at the dining room plastic, and see a huge piece of insulation come down… with Data riding on top of it! What the what?!

He lands on the floor, making only a small thud noise, and calmly walks away.*

View from the kitchen

View from the living room

Meanwhile, I am in the kitchen with my mouth hanging open, saying to Steven, “Did you see that?! Data just floated down from the second floor on a piece of insulation!!!”

Steven’s like “So he went skydiving?”

Ha ha, I guess so. And I guess R38 insulation is thick enough for a 12-pound cat to fall 8’6″ and be okay.

And apparently, skydiving makes you VERY hungry:

And look at this!!!! CEILINGS! IN MY BEDROOM!!!!

*How did he get up there? Well, you access that part of the attic through a door in our bedroom that he pried open. Little sh*t. He’s been sneaking in there this whole project!

Comments (5)

By kilax, August 19, 2016 4:09 am

It’s our final work week before the drywall ceilings start to go up on Monday (August 22) and we still have quite the to do list:

List as of Monday, August 15 – it gets added on to each day (luckily, things are checked off, too!)

We started the week with new can light installation – we took the old ones down because they aren’t sealed or insulation contact rated. In some instances, we’re putting the can lights very close to where they were before. So you’d think I would have taken photos of that before demo. Nope. Oops. At least we can kind of tell by the conduit we left up, and by searching through some photos. (Ha, while proof-reading this, Steven told me he marked where everything was but then painted over it! Oops!)

In other instances, like our master bedroom, we’re not putting things exactly where they were before. It made me crazy how the ugly circular vents were randomly placed in the room, and didn’t align at all with the lights. So Steven fixed that, and has been discussing the placement of everything that will be visibly exposed in the ceiling with me.

We’ll have normal vents, now, yay!

When things align <3 <3 <3 (the vents and lights align, and the fan box is centered on them)

And of course, while Steven was installing lights, he found ANOTHER smelly spot to demolish (that we left for another day). Ha, at this point, I wonder if we should have just demolished all of the interior drywall?! Just kidding. Kind of.

On Tuesday, we put insulation around the ductwork, to make it a bit more efficient and help prevent condensation. We ordered big rolls of fiberglass insulation (which actually have a teeny R value, but it’s a vapor barrier),

Sadly, that is not a giant burrito

that had to be cut to size (and then trimmed, so we have a flap to fold over on itself) to fit around the ducts.

Where there was not a supply duct, or anything else in the way, wrapping the ductwork around, then screwing it in (AHHHHH, we’re putting holes in our brand new ducts) wasn’t too bad. It got tricky around the obstructions though.

SO SHINY

Insulated ductwork over guest bedroom

Insulated ductwork over master bedroom and bathroom

I think I will be itching for a few more days. Ugh. We didn’t finish the insulation on Tuesday, and took a break from it for a day.

On Wednesday Steven demolished the drywall (and put in a new support piece around the conduit) in the newest stinky spot so I could paint it. I painted it, as well as our linen closet (which we had painted part of on Saturday) because it had a funky wood smell (not to be confused with the funky animal smells which are the reason for this whole project).

I didn’t paint that one piece of wood because Steven had just put it in

Steven installed the hallway lights,

View looking north

View looking south

and had to get creative with the light that goes in our ALL tile shower. The six-inch diameter can wasn’t fitting (too big), so he got a five-inch diameter can… which was too small. So he did some handy work with the pliers for awhile until the six-inch one fit.

Steven is sitting in the attic above the shower, picking off pieces of tile with the pliers, to make the opening bigger. It’s a dark and confusing photo, but it was 9:30 pm, so it’s the best I could do!

On Thursday, we got back to work on the duct insulation. We were hoping to finish insulating the supply ducts, then begin taping… but that was a no go. Cutting all the special pieces for the supply ducts took too long.

And besides cutting them to special shapes, I also had to trim the insulation so the flaps overlap each other blah blah blah blah blah. Blah.

But now all the insulation is up and I can go to town taping it this weekend! CAN’T WAIT! This stuff is gonna be so awesome to tape!

Steven got a bit of electrical work done between putting the insulation up – he put conduit and wire to one can light in our bedroom and can now daisy-chain the other three to it. He also ran conduit from a new fan switch to our new fan box. Our master bedroom fan wiring previously wasn’t in conduit, and the wiring was all chewed up (and installed wrong, anyway) so it’s never worked since we moved in. Sorry, Data, it’s gonna work now.

So… yeah. Now it’s Friday and we have three days to get stuff done. I am not even going to scroll to the top of the post and see what we have left! The next post you see about all this should be me saying the space is ready for new ceilings!

Comments (16)

By kilax, August 18, 2016 6:27 am

• I hit a 700 day streak practicing Spanish on DuoLingo! I am practicing stuff I’ve already learned though, since I went through the entire Spanish course late 2014/early 2015. It would be awesome if they added more vocabulary and lessons. And if I practiced with a Spanish speaker!

• My running uniform might be changing! I needed to replace the Champion’s Women’s Absolute Bike Shorts that I use to run in, but couldn’t find my size, so I ordered the Champion Women’s Absolute Fusion Shorts with SmoothTec™ Waistband to try. They’re the same inseam length as the other pair (7 inches), but a little bit different material (these are 87% Polyester/13% spandex vs. the old ones being 87% Spandex/13% Nylon), and they have a bit thicker waist band (the inside of it leaves funny marks on my skin, ha). The new shorts have been working for short runs and I am anxious to try them on a longer one! This is not sponsored, I bought these with my own money.

• The ducks have stopped visiting. Wah! I haven’t seen them in a week. The pond must be too low for their interest. Sadness. But that’s okay because we have a new friend, Burt (see first picture, below). My mom found Burt when she was out cutting hosta leaves to put in these pretty flowers she picked up for us when she went to run errands. Steven does NOT like spiders. When I showed Burt to him, he jumped back and said “it’s time to get a shot gun.” Ha ha.  (Well, I am laughing – he may be serious.)

• Besides helping with house projects, cooking for us, and surprising us with flowers, my mom also helped me out by wrapping some gifts for me. I am horrible at wrapping gifts, which is funny, because that is kind of what our Tuesday night house project was (more on that tomorrow).

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 105

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By kilax, August 15, 2016 6:27 am

We had another weekend of house work, and my parents came to help us! We’ve been really lucky to have friends and family help us with this project – Steven’s dad and two of his friends were up here last weekend, and our friends Eric, Bobbi, John, and Troy have all been here a few days. It’s so helpful to have extra hands, and especially people like my dad, who’ve been doing stuff like this for years.

Steven, me, Mom and Dad

We tackled the ductwork this weekend. We took out all of the flexible ductwork when we demolished the attic. It was in bad shape – animals has chewed holes through it and it was barely held together with duct tape. We bought rigid ductwork to replace it, hoping that if animals get in the attic again (nooooo), that they can’t chew through (as fast?).

Our plan, which Steven did a “sh*t-ton of research and maths to figure out” (<—- that’s a direct quote):

No bathroom return because you don’t want those fumes circulating around the house!

It’s A LOT of metal parts and pieces to put together:

Eek!

(I’d like to mention, we tried to get MANY companies to come out and do this for us – if they returned our calls, most wouldn’t come visit. If they visited, they didn’t want to do it/never got back to us. Um, the ceiling is down, making it MUCH easier to work on. Why doesn’t anyone want our business?! Frustrating. I GUESS WE’LL JUST DO IT OURSELVES IF YOU DON’T WANT OUR MONEY.)

On Friday night, Dad and Steven got right to it, and started putting the ductwork in.

Troy replaced the nailers for the new drywall that’s going in (Steven cut them all), Steven worked on getting another (grrrr) nest out of a rafter, and mom and I cleaned up the nest, and the mess it made, and started vacuuming and checking all the drywall tops for animal smell. Oh! And I got to take some of the plastic down (it was time – it had so much stuff on it) and vacuum! I’ve never been so happy to vacuum – I hadn’t seen the carpet in over a week! And I was pleased to see the tarps and plastic protected it.

Dad and Steven continued working on the ducts and supply and return vents – we picked new locations for them – on Saturday

Installing the trunk line

Putting in the east master bedroom supply vent

Marking for the west master bedroom supply vent

Supply vents up, and starting to add the ducts

Installed (and pic of a drywall nailer)!

and I continued vacuuming the drywall tops and checking for smells.

And found another spot that needed to be entirely ripped out (plus Steven had found another in the am!).

Gah. Good thing we found it though! Mom painted the first layer of Kilz on it and I did the second.

And I put a small layer of plastic up on Saturday. And decided I never want to see blue painters tape again. I kind of reached my breaking point on Saturday. No surprise there.

On Sunday, Steven and Dad finished up the ductwork install, and moved on to lighting and electrical. They got a few lights up, and fixed a few switches.

Ductwork leading to supply vent in bathroom

Hi, Dad!

Guest bedroom supply vents

I spent most of the day sealing all the connections with acrylic duct sealant. Gawd, it took forever.

Partially completed sealant work

I don’t know all the details of the work Steven and Dad did to put up the ducts since I was busy doing other stuff while they did that. But man, I was impressed that they got most of it up in a day and that it looked so nice (before I painted it)!

The ductwork is what I felt most concerned about because we’d never done it to that volume before. But Steven and Dad seemed to whiz through it! Even though we have so much left to do (including cover the ductwork with insulation), I feel relieved that is done!

My parents were so helpful when they were here! We worked all day and in to the night, and Mom cooked all the meals, which saved me time driving to get them, and more importantly, made me feel better, physically, eating less take out!

Fajitas and naan!

This weekend felt like a big help to getting us on track for the new ceilings in one week (on August 22). And this will be another week of work. We still need to put the insulation around the ductwork, install some lights, fix electrical, install a catwalk in the attic… and much more.

We’re all ready for this to be done! Especially Data. Um, he was not too happy this weekend…

Comments (7)

By kilax, August 13, 2016 6:23 am

It’s been a year since we first “officially” looked at our current home with a realtor! I was immediately smitten with the house. Steven? Not so much. I think that may be influenced by the fact that he had just had a temporary crown put on, though. Poor guy. (Obviously, he came around.)

I remember calling my dad during my long run the next day and just gushing about the house. I felt kind of foolish, since I thought there was no chance in hell we’d ever sell our place and be able to move, but I couldn’t help but talk about it! Ha, I bet during that conversation, my dad never thought he’d be at said house, a year later, helping install ductwork. Thanks, Dad!

Out of curiosity, I opened up the photo folder from August 13th last year to see if we had taken a photo of the pond when we visited, to compare the levels to what they are at now. Yeah, definitely higher then (and more wild!):

But you know what? If the pond hadn’t gone down, we wouldn’t have discovered there were urns in it, and where’s the fun in not knowing that?!

I think we’ll be finding lots of interesting things here, in years to come. Ha.

Comments (9)

By kilax, August 12, 2016 8:18 am

We moved the house project party to the basement on Wednesday and Thursday so we could replace one of the joists we had been jacking up. Why take a break from all the attic work, when we are on such a deadline, to do this (note: we asked our contractor to move his ceiling install date back another week – no way we’d have all the work done by August 15)? Because we’re concerned if we replace the joist later, it will crack the new ceilings that will be installed on our second floor. Jacking up this joist has been affecting the second floor, so no reason to risk cracking something that is brand new.

It was a nice change to go work in the air conditioned basement, and not have to wear a face mask the entire time! And to have space to move around without stepping on plastic. Woo hoo!

The first thing we did was move as much out of the way on the floor as possible, since we knew we’d have to somehow get a long (16′!) joist in to the basement.

Part of the workout area before

And after. Good thing I did my indoor ride during lunch break on Wednesday!

We also moved weight off the joist from the floor above in the kitchen (sigh, now, basically every room in our house is a disaster zone):

Moving the fridge and stove away from the joist

Doing that exposed the opening to the kitchen floor, and Helper Cat checked in to see how things were going:

We started removing things around the joists that would be in the way when we tried to install the new one.

Steven put me in charge of using the angle grinder to cut off nails. SCARY! (Since we’re going to put two joists where there was one, we had to remove these nails to get the second joist in.)

There were quite a few things we couldn’t move, and would have to work around. Eek!

Then we built a support to push up the two joists on either side of the one we’re replacing to make space to get the new one in. That didn’t work, so we switched to plan B, and used the jacks (we thought the other method would be quicker – nope!).

And after that, we tried to get the joist out. HA! It had about a zillion nails in it. So we only got a bit of it out Wednesday night.

We resorted to cutting it, after the prybar and hammer wasn’t doing too much!

We had been prying against the sub floor so much I was convinced our office floor tile was going to be all smashed when we went upstairs. Surprisingly, it wasn’t! We put up a temporary support, and called it a night.

On Thursday evening, we got back to work. Steven started cutting apart the joist and taking it down,

while I set up to use the angle grinder to cut off the nails from under that joist… only to find the angle grinder wouldn’t turn on. Some wires had disconnected! While Steven worked on fixing that, I scrubbed down the subfloor where the joist was attached – it had some mold (the entire basement flooded at some point in the past few years, which probably caused it) – ew.

Luckily, our friend Troy arrived right as the angle grinder was fixed. Yay – he got tasked with cutting off the nails. Steven and Troy like using that thing, but there is something about sparks flying in my face that I just don’t enjoy!

Steven and I then set up in the garage to cut the new joist. As we were going downstairs to check the measurement one more time, Troy was finished, so he helped Steven cut the two new joists and I took on the important task of ordering dinner. As I was about to leave to get dinner, I saw them walking around outside with the joists so I went in the basement to bring them in – yay for basement egress windows – getting the joists in was really easy!

Is that a joist or are you happy to see me?

While I was out getting dinner, they got the joist almost in place (after bringing the saw inside and cutting it a bit shorter lengthwise), but couldn’t get it to stand up – the joist we were replacing was squished to 8-7/8″ and the new one was 9-1/4″. They tried everything, but it was a no go – and all the pounding cracked the new joist. Oops.

So after dinner, they cut a notch in the sill plate, and cut a new joist.

The joists rest on the sill plate on the east side of the basement, and hang on a joist hanger on the west side

The first joist went right in! Well, after some finagling above all the conduits/wires/ducts/etc.

After they checked that the first one would stand up (it did!), they laid it flat to get the other one in. This is when I was really grateful Troy was there to help – he is really strong (and patient!), and that is what this job needed. I was the gofer and documentarian, and could have done this part of the work, but, let’s be honest, I was happy not to be. Ha! The more hands, the better (we’ve been very lucky to have friends and family help us during this past week)!

Once they were both in, they stood the first joist up to glue it to the second,

then start nailing them together.

One board was warped, so they had to be really careful as they put it together that they didn’t make it permanently curved. That involved manipulating it as much as possible by hand (and with hammers, etc.), and also, letting the jacks down on the other side of the wall, and bringing them over to support the new joists from below while using the baby jack to push the joist upright. This also involved using a laser upstairs to see how level it was becoming.

It worked!

After that, Steven hung the other side on a joist hanger, nailed it in place, removed the jacks, and it was finished!

East side of new joists

West side of new joists

West is on the left in this photo, east is on the right

East is on the left in this photo, west is on the right. Don’t mind the mess – my stuff is spread out a bit since we can’t use the second floor!

Hooray! The floor on that side of the house is more level now, and the basement door shuts again!!! And surprisingly, no floor tiles cracked during all the jacking.

The only thing left to do is cover a hole under the stove (where Data was peering through) and one that goes outside. Oh, and we have to replace the joist on west side of the house at some point (that will be part ii!), which has even more stuff in the way. Hopefully Troy can help again!

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By kilax, August 11, 2016 6:57 am

• I love magnets, especially photo ones. I was asking my snister on Tuesday if she had seen any Shutterfly coupons so I could order some. She found a small coupon, and I was going to use it Tuesday night, but was up past midnight helping Steven paint (see more below) and didn’t get to. That turned out to be a good thing – she sent me this coupon for ten free magnets on Wednesday!!!! SCORE!!! I still had to pay shipping of course, but it saved me over $60.

• All the attic Kilz painting is done. Yay! Steven did all the painting, and I was “ground support” – getting things, moving the equipment, making sure we didn’t paint the carpets/walls, etc. It was SUCH a hard job for Steven. He painted the undersides of the joists Sunday and Monday, then did the tops Tuesday night, which involved crawling around in the attic.

• I also helped clean the equipment after using it. Our friends let us borrow their air paint sprayer and there are so many parts and pieces! I channeled my inner Rey and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed, ha ha.

• I am bummed these major house projects are taking place during the Summer Olympics. Even though we don’t have antenna or cable, I’d still have liked to find a way to sit on my bum and watch a lot of sports! Instead, I am just reading highlights and watching the small clips I find and texting friends about it. My favorite memories of the last two games (winter and summer) are “watching” it with Gina and texting each other our reactions and commentary! At least I can wear my Olympic shirt and show support in spirit (only, not really, because the stuff we’re doing in the house will ruin it!).

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 104

Comments (14)

By kilax, August 9, 2016 6:15 am

Gosh, I am getting used to having the bedroom ceilings open! And they’re painted such a nice white! Should we keep it this way?!

Ha ha. No.

So the original plan was to try to be done with ALL attic work (removal, cleaning, damaged wood replacement, electrical, ductwork, lights, and so on) by yesterday so the drywall ceiling could be installed. But that didn’t happen. Things took longer and we ran in to a lot of extra damage – like this entire piece of drywall above our master bedroom sliding glass door that had to be removed because it was so stinky and soiled:

partially removed

fully removed and grumpy to find another gross spot, ha

We spent A LOT of extra time removing damaged wood we didn’t know would need to be replaced – a few joists, a few studs, etc. We’re happy we found the damage. We’d rather replace things that are so badly damaged than cover them with Kilz paint – which blocks seals and odors.

New studs

So back to the original plan. The construction workers were going to install the ceiling, then they were gonna spray Kilz all over the joists. But the more we thought about it, we decided we’d get better paint coverage if we painted with the ceiling down, and it would be nice to not have newly installed lights covered in Kilz. So we’re doing the painting. And hopefully we can get the lights and ductwork up by next Monday so they can install the ceiling then, but we’re not so sure we’ll get it all done. We may have to delay again.

People keep asking me if we had an inspection, or why wasn’t this caught during inspection, and did we know about this when we bought the house? We did know there were animals in the attic – we could see the holes in to the attic from outside. We did NOT know how bad the damage was until we had the attic insulation removed after we moved in and saw how soiled the drywall ceiling was from the top. There were stains on the bottom too, but they were faint. We suspect the bank had them covered up.

We’re not super mad. We’re happy to get it fixed now, and do it right. Doing it right just takes a loooong time. And we actually have a bit of a deadline, since the contracted work is FHA 203k funded. So, work work work work work.