The Angry Homeowner

This year at Christmas I decided that I would put together a special surprise for Jess. I decided I would call upon my inner carpenter and build her a jewelry box to give her as a gift. The problem with this idea is that I didn't come up with it until December 3. That only left me 22 days to get it done before Christmas. Anyone who knows me understands that I take things like this as a personal challenge and I wouldn't be defeated by the short timeframe. This post is going to be framed as a timeline of what it took to get the job done. It's a long story so be patient. If you just want to see pictures click here.

Monday 12/3 - The idea hits me to build Jess a jewelry box for Christmas. I throw the idea around the office a bit and my coworkers think it will work. They all comment on the short time I have to get the job done but know I will get it done. When I get home that night I start designing it on graph paper. I called my father to inform him of my idea and ask if he could help me. He said he would help and to put the plans together and head over sometime that week. I end up working until 10 PM that night on the plans.

Tuesday 12/4 - I go over to my parents house to show my father the plans and buy the stock for the job. I told Jess I was going over there to help prepare the kitchen for the new floor my parents were getting (yes they were getting a new floor but I didn't have to do anything). My father looked at the plans, made a few minor changes and figured out the stock we'd need. We went to the hardware store to purchase the wood (Oak). I left the wood with my father who said he'd cut it for me on his table saw and to come back on Wednesday night.

Wednesday 12/5 - I head back over to my parents house after work once again under the "working on the kitchen floor" excuse. This time we actually had to pick up the flooring so it wasn't a total lie. We end up cutting out the pieces for the top and body of the box. Now this is where Jess almost caught me in the lie. She went out that night and I knew she'd be home around 10 and that she'd call the house around 9:45 stating she'd be heading home. I ended up working at my parents house until 9:30. She thought I was just going over there to pick up flooring and come home. I had no good excuse to stay over there so I tried to get home as fast as I could. At 9:45 when she called the house I was still on the highway so she called my cell phone and I said "I just left the mall after stopping there to do some shopping on my way home." Luckily I was right next to the mall when she called so all of the times made sense. I got home minutes before she did, ran into the house with a pile of cut wood, and hid it before she got home (whew I did it!).

Thursday 12/6 - While working I realized I forgot a piece at my parents house. I called my dad to inform him and a coworker stopped by parents house to pick up the missing piece to give to me on Friday (thanks Ethan!) Jess was going out again so I used this night to glue the top of the box together. My father had made me a template out of plastic that I could put the pieces in while the glue dried. I also had to glue the front of the box together because it was in 3 pieces due to the holes cut in the front for the drawers. This work was done in an hour so I was able to clean up, hide everything in the basement and get back upstairs before Jess came home.

Saturday 12/8 - While Jess is in the shower I go downstairs and glue the body of the box together. The problem with this is that after an hour of being in the template, the box has to be removed or the box will be glued to the template forever and the project will be ruined. Another problem is that the box HAD to be together as a single piece before the end of the day so I could bring it to my parents Sunday morning so we can measure the drawers. I was able to get everything glued and hidden away before she got out of the shower. I then took off to do some shopping. An hour later I got home, walked in the front door, ran passed Jess (luckily she was engrossed in Guitar Hero) and right into the basement where I took the box out of the template. She never asked me why I ran downstairs. I will be forever grateful to the Guitar Hero creators.

Sunday 12/9 - I had to be at my parents house at 11 because we were leaving for the Patriots game so I figured we could get some work done in the morning. I went over to my parents house at 8 and told Jess I had to help them do some Christmas decorating before we left (Damn I'm good at this lying thing). We measure, cut, and glue the drawers together and leave for the game. When we got back from the game, I ran downstairs to get the drawers and put them in the body of the box. Much to my surprise we measured wrong and the drawers are about 1/2" too long. I panicked because these drawers had to be done early in the week so everything could be sanded. My father looked at me like I was an idiot, went downstairs, fired up the saw and cut the drawers down to size. I was to glue them back at my house.

Monday 12/10 to Thursday 12/13 - This entire week I got up at 5 AM just after Jess left so I could work on the box. I managed to get all of the gluing, puttying, and sanding done during this time. On Thursday I was going to my parents house to finish some things up before staining on Saturday. Well we had a snowstorm on Thursday and no work got done but we weren't that far away from being able to stain on Saturday.

Saturday 12/15 - Originally Jess was supposed to be at her parent's house in New Hampshire this day so I could get the staining done without her knowing about it. Well that changed when another storm forced her to stay at home. I had to radically change my plan so I went over my parents house under the excuse I had to move furniture back into the kitchen (which I really had to do). We went out and got the stain, finish, hardware, and material to line the drawers then went back to the workshop to sand and stain. We got a gel based stain that is really good stuff. It dries really fast so I was able to get multiple coats on in a short period of time. The problem with it is that it's so freaking messy. I had it ALL over my hands and it doesn't come off. I couldn't go home covered in brown stain after telling Jess I moved furniture so I had to scrub it off with pumice soap and Lestoil (real fun). After we actually moved the furniture I got the finish on, packed it into the car and headed home. I ended up coming home like 6 hours after I left so I had to make up a series of excuses as to where I was.

Monday 12/17 - Jess went out again at 6 PM so I was able to spend the next 2 1/2 hours getting pissed off putting the material in the drawers. I used a spray adhesive to hold the material in place and it worked but the material was very hard to work with and would stick, bubble, wrinkle, and generally be a pain in my ass. On top of that, when you cut the material it would turn into this fine dust that got everywhere (including my fingers that were covered in glue so they turned blue). I managed to get everything done and cleaned up by 9 PM so she once again had no idea what I was doing.

Thursday 12/19 - I was home alone again so I was able to go downstairs and put the hardware and feet on the box. I then placed it in the box my XBox 360 came in. The outside of the box was covered in white paper so it didn't look like I was giving Jess and XBox for Christmas ("great, you got me an XBox for Christmas, I'm so excited.") I filled the box with tissue paper and it looked really nice. The plan was to wrap the box the morning of Christmas Eve so she had no idea it existed.

Monday 12/24 - I wrapped the box up, put a nice bow and ribbon on the box, and hid it behind everything so it wouldn't be noticed. The project is finally complete. I managed to assemble (with help from my father) a jewelry box from scratch in 21 days.

Tuesday 12/25 - She loved it! Thanks to everyone that helped with the project.

A few weeks ago I installed a new fill valve into the toilet and we thought that would fix the " constant running" problem we had. Well, it didn't fix shit and I was forced once again to go toe-to-toe with this waste-eating beast. Instead of constantly flushing, the problem was enhanced by the new fill valve. Now every hour or so it would sound like the toilet is magically flushing itself.

This went on for a few weeks and then on Monday morning after my shower I was standing in the quiet bathroom and I heard the clue that would unravel this mystery. This was a dripping sound coming from the toilet. I checked around the toilet to make sure nothing was dripping on the floor. There were no drips. At this point I figured there had to be a leak somewhere between the tank and the toilet itself. After talking with some co-workers and researching how a toilet works on the internet I figured that the flush valve had to be leaking somehow. I would have been able to confirm this had I some food coloring which I could have used to color the water in the tank and watch to see if it leaked into the bowl. I did not have food coloring so I didn't get to try my cool experiment.

Saturday rolls around and we head out to buy a flush valve. I had no idea what I was buying but what I found is that this is quite a universal thing so there were no options, just an entire shelf of the same exact valve. We got home and I started in at 10:30 AM. The instructions said to drain and remove the tank. I shut off the water, drained the tank as best as I could, unhooked the hose that fills the tank. These were all the same steps as last time so I used my memory of the watery mess I made and placed a water catching device (cool whip container) on the floor to catch the water. All of the water fell into the container and not onto the floor (yay). Then I knocked the container over and the water went all over the floor (shit). Now that the floor was considerably wet I had to remove the tank from the toilet. The tank at this point has a little bit of water at the bottom and is filled with the sediment from years of well water sitting in it (it looks like a brown sludge). I unscrewed the tank (and got more water on the floor) and lifted it off of the toilet. I then ran the dripping tank outside so I could clean it out with the garden hose.

What I found at the bottom of the tank proved my theory that the flush valve was leaking...

-The rotted gasket

The gasket that sat underneath the tank where it met the toilet crumbled in my hand.

I cleaned out the sludge from the tank and also cleaned off the back of the tank which had built up a nice dusty icky coating then I brought it back inside. The next step according to the supplied instructions was to remove the old flush valve, easy enough. What they failed to mention is that the big plastic nut that holds the flush valve in place is gigantic and far larger than any wrench I have ever seen. I tried the biggest wrench I had and it wasn't even close. I tried to remove it by hand and with a jar opener and it did nothing but stared back at me in defiance. Out of desperation I tried to fabricate a device to remove it using wood which like the all other attempts resulted in failure. Now that I'm pissed and swearing like a sailor I grabbed a pair of pliers and started breaking off pieces of the valve so I could pry the nut off. Now I have a pile of broken plastic and a flush valve that is still in place. I then grabbed the top of the valve from inside the toilet and pulled on it until it snapped, sent the bug nut flying across the bathroom and my arm scraped from bashing it into the side of the tank. The bitch was out.


-The remains of the stubborn flush valve.


Putting the new valve in was quite easy, I just had to trim a bit off the top of the tube so it would fit in the tank without a problem. I put it in place and HAND TIGHTENED (per the instructions) the new big plastic nut in case I have to remove it again. Then I hooked the chain up to the flush lever to make sure it would fit ok and it was perfect. The only thing left to do was hook the tank back to the toilet (sounds easy eh).

The old bolts (and rubber washers) that held the tank on were all corroded so they needed to be replaced by the nice new ones in the supplied kit. Well this is where everything went south. The new bolts were exactly the same size as the holes in the bottom of the tank. This means they did not want to fit without a fight. One went in without a problem, the second one was a freakin' disaster. It had no intention of ever going in that hole without a fight. I ended up developing a method of putting this second bolt in by putting a piece of wood (from the failed tool construction earlier) on top of the bolt and then hammering the wood with the end of the pliers I had. This worked great until the big rubber washer on the bolt couldn't get by the newly installed flush valve. I tried to wiggle it and get it around the valve but it was not happening. This led me to take the goddamn valve out again (good thing I hand tightened) hammer the bolt in the hole, and put the valve back in.

I placed the tank back on the toilet and put a nut on the end of one side (screwed right on using only my hand) then I went to put the nut on the other side and it wouldn't go on. I managed to screw the threads up so bad trying to get the bolt in the hole that it now required me to use a wrench to get the nut on. I got it about halfway on then realized that I screwed up the washer placement on the bolts AND HAD TO TAKE IT APART AGAIN.

After proper placement of the washers and nuts I put the tank back on and fastened it using the supplied wing nuts. It was at this point I hooked everything up, turned the water back on, adjusted a few things and had a flushing (non-leaking) toilet.


-The flushing (non-leaking) toilet.


Oh yeah it was now 12:30. That was 2 hours of pure unfiltered misery that I suffered through but it was worth it because our toilet has not randomly flushed, made a dripping sound, or leaked in the last day. I hopefully have defeated this monster.

Sorry for the long delay in posts but I've been lazy.

Jess had noticed that sometimes when you flushed the toilet it would never stop refilling the tank. It wasn't causing a flooding issue but it was running through more water than it should. If you walked into the bathroom during one of these non-stop episodes you would hear running water. For the record it was Jess that noticed this. I had no idea that anything was wrong until Jess explained the entire situation to me.

Jess explained this situation to her father (who owns a hardware store) and he showed us what we should get to fix it. After her last trip to her parent's house in NH, Jess came home with a brand new valve that I would need to install (yay me).

For a few weeks the new valve sat around waiting for me to gain the courage to install it when Jess finally told me we had to get it done. I opened the box, read through the instructions, and familiarized myself with the parts involved. It seemed easy enough but I'm a programmer not a plumber so anything could happen. Step 1 was "Remove the old valve". While the instructions to install the new valve were detailed and easy to follow, there was nothing that explained how one would remove the old valve. I shut off the water, took the cover off the tank, and found a way to empty the tank but it took quite a bit of effort to get the old valve out.



-The old fill valve.


Of course even though the water was off and the tank was empty there was still water to be spilled. When I finally disconnected the water supply from the old valve water began to spill all over the bathroom floor. It wasn't a lot of water so I kept working (sitting in the puddle). Oh yes I almost forgot, I BROKE THE OLD VALVE while removing it from the toilet. This became the "point of no return" because I could not stop and put the old valve in if I managed to screw up.

Once I had the old valve (and it's associated pieces) out, I followed the instructions to install the new one. It took all of 5 minutes to install the new valve using the easy to follow instructions. I reattached the water supply, turned on the water and the tank began to fill up. I watched closely as the water began to rise hoping it would shut off as planned and I wouldn't have to clean up a gigantic mess. The water shut off just as it should. I made a slight adjustment to the water level and flushed the toilet a few times to make sure it was working properly. Amazingly everything was working. The only problem was the sediment that was kicked up during the process was making my toilet water an orangy-brown color but a few flushes cleared it up.



-The new fill valve.


Once again I have managed to prove to everyone that I'm not 100% useless when it comes to fixing things in the house. Who knows what will be next.

Jess and I decided that since we don't have any money to travel this year (see the french door project) we should take a week off to take day trips and work around the house. That is how we spent this last week.

Last Sunday we went to Target and got blinds for the living room and curtains / curtain rods for the windows and door in the dining room. We were able to get the blinds installed in the living room and the curtains put up on the windows in the dining room but we couldn't put the curtains on the french doors because the molding around the door had not been installed yet. We also couldn't finish the curtains in the dining room because we purchased all of the curtain rods they had in the Taunton Target.

Monday morning we had to head down to Plymouth for dog training and before we left we ordered a dumpster from the trash company so we can get rid of the debris from installing the french doors and the new floor. The dumpster was to be dropped off Monday afternoon when we got back from training. After training we stopped by the Target in Kingston and Jess was able to get the curtains and rods for the living room. Since it was getting hot and we had already walked a lot we put off installing the new curtains and filling the dumpster until the next morning.

At some point during this process I got the idea that I should attempt to install the molding around the door so we can finish the door project. I called my father and told him of my idea and he said I could try it and "I should buy extra molding" if I was to attempt the project. Gee thanks! He said he would rip a few pieces of wood that could be used to build out the door frame to match the wall and I could pick them up on Tuesday night.

Tuesday morning we got outside at 8:00 AM and started to throw all of the construction debris into the dumpster. I wasn't outside five minutes when I got stung by something on the back of my left ankle. That hurt but I managed to tough it out and get the dumpster filled in a few hours. Jess cleaned a lot of junk out of the basement so a lot was accomplished. When all was said and done we probably had 3/4 of the 15 yd^3 dumpster filled up.

Since it was so damn hot on Tuesday that we didn't want to work all day so we went right to work installing the curtains in the living room. Let me tell you something, if this programming thing doesn't work out I think I will start a career doing home decorations. I am like a curtain installing machine (and I mean that in the most masculine way possible). Actually, I just install the rods. Jess does the pretty work installing the curtains themselves. That night I got the stuff from my father to install the molding. This includes the wood, air compressor, the brad nail gun, and the finish nail gun. That's right folks, he actually let me use the nail guns without adult supervision (he must be gaining confidence in me).

We didn't get to installing the molding until Thursday. Around 8:00 AM we went out to Lowes and got 4 pieces of 3" x 1" x 8' pine (we couldn't find any finished molding so we went with normal pine). It didn't take all that long to get all the molding up. Jess was a big help because I had someone to talk out the measurements with so we were able to get everything cut properly. It took a bit of extra effort because I mitered the spots where the molding came together (I didn't have to but it looks better!). The hardest part of the project was keeping the dog away from eating the nail gun, compressor, and hose. She takes great offense to these machines.

As soon as the molding was installed, Jess got to work staining it and I went downstairs to hack apart a piece of the baseboard heat to cover up the gap left in the corner. It only took me and my trusty Dremel about 9 cutting wheels to cut this cover to size. It was not fun and left me covered with metal shavings. Actually, "not fun" is not a good way to describe it. "Really freakin' sucks" does a much better job.

Saturday morning we were finally able to install the curtains over the french doors. It wasn't a lot of work as I am now a professional curtain rod installer. I want it to be known that the curtains and blinds we have in the living and dining rooms are about 1,000,000 times better than the vertical blinds that used to be there. Not only do they look nicer, but when the windows are open and the wind blows we no longer have to listen to the blinds smack together.

To see the pictures of the new curtains, blinds, and molding click here.

Also on Saturday I had to rewire the entertainment center to make room for my new XBox 360. Due to the fact that the XBox is very sensitive to heat and it has the largest power brick I've ever seen I had to clean up the wiring in the cubby that holds the game systems. That made for a great deal of fun but looks really good.


The Wii and XBox 360 in their new home.

Note: The lawn across the street still has not been mowed.

After we put the new french doors in it became obvious to us that the rug in the dining room had to go. When we removed the heat it left a section of floor with no rug covering it and a hole in the floor where the heat used to connect to the rest of the system. Along with that we were the proud owners of a rug that was covered in melted orange crayon, yellow spray foam, white joint compound, paint, stain, and polyurethane.

Our goal was to finish off the dining room floor with a Pergo pseudo-hardwood floor. This served two purposes. The first (mentioned above) was to get rid of the rug. The second was to define the split between the living room and dining room better. With the rug running from one room to the other it made it seem more like one big room than two smaller rooms.

Last Saturday we measured out the room and we came up with 150 ft^2. Each box of flooring said that it covered 17.59 ft^2. That worked out to be 9 boxes of flooring. We headed off to Lowes and got 9 boxes of floor and 2 pieces of transition that will be used between the new floor and the living room rug. Each box contained 7 pieces of floor (for you math majors that's 63 pieces of floor).

This past Saturday my father came down to install the floor. Our first mission was to remove the old rug. We made a rough slice through the rug to get it out of the way and then went to work on the tack strips that held the rug in place. While removing those we found a phone cord nailed to the floor using roofing nails (yeah we have no idea either). Once all of the tack strips were removed and placed in a pile of death in the middle of the floor I went to pick them up to carry them outside, got my foot caught on one, it flipped up and proceeded to drive it into my right calf (Injury #1). We then went to work on removing the rug pad. It took me all of 2 minutes to realize that removing rug pads SUCKS. For those of you who haven't had this experience let me explain. Rug pads are made of a material that you cannot cut because it just falls apart. You can rip it, but not in a straight line and it still manages to crumble into a mess. It's held to the floor with staples, lots and lots of them. Where it's stapled to the floor it leaves little bumps of rug pad that I started trying to scrape off the floor then pound the remaining staple. I gave up on that and grabbed a pair of plyers to pull the staples out. Yes it was more time consuming but it was much more satisfying.

Once we had the rug, rug pad, and staples removed, we had to sweep up the awful mess we made. With the mess cleaned up we started laying out the floor. My father got to work on cutting the first few pieces around the door and heat. That took a while because of how oddly shaped those pieces were. Once those were done and in place we were able to get to work putting the rest of the floor in place. It took us a little while to figure out how to get the pieces to snap together but once we got the hang of it, the floor started to come together quickly. We ended up using a leftover piece of the LVL from the header beam to rest against the floor pieces and pound with the rubber mallet. The first piece I tried to put in place I managed to chip and we had to pull it out of service (oops). For a while we were able to get a pretty good run going. My father would cut the odd pieces and put the pieces against the all in place and I would work on the middle rows. It was at this point I managed to miss the 1ft long piece of LVL I was hitting with the rubber mallet and hit myself on the left wrist (Injury #2). This left a nice bruise which is still with me as I write this. As we approached the living room we started questioning if we were going to have enough pieces. We managed to lay it out and find that we were going to just make it.

Before we could lay the last row out we had to cut back more of the rug (and that goddamn rug pad). By this point we gave up on cutting the rug pad and I just started ripping it. Amazingly the results are the same. While cutting the last piece of rug off I managed to stab myself in the finger with the razor blade (Injury #3). We layed the last row in and put down the transition and with that we had completed the new floor.

After installing the floor we went out and got some felt feet for the furniture and new rugs to complete the room.

The stats for the job look like this...
-Time to remove the rug and install the floor: 6 hours
-Number of injuries sustained by The Angry Homeowner: 3
-Number of full Pergo planks left over: 2
-Number of Pergo planks broken: 1
-Number of little felt feet we had to install on the furniture: 44

To see pictures of the new room (and damn does it look good) click here.


Note #1: I think I'm going to give up building a serial IR Transmitter and just buy one.
Note #2: The lawn across the street is still growing out of control.

Those of you who know me are aware of my OCD when it comes to scheduling and doing things in order. Every Sunday morning between April and October at about 9:00 AM I get out the lawn mower and mow the entire lawn. If rain is predicted or something more important comes up I will mow the lawn mid-morning on Saturday or Monday when I get home from work. Regardless of the 1 day fluctuation in the schedule, my lawn is mowed about every 7 days. If I go more than 7 days things start to look like hell and I start to get irritated.

With that in mind I want you to look at this picture...

You've got to be kidding me.

This is the lawn of the guy who lives across the street from us. Each morning when I take the dog out for her walk I get the pleasure of looking at this display. I'm waiting for the day I see a camera crew filming Jeff Corwin as he hacks his way through the lawn with a machete looking for some type of exotic creature. Just yesterday I was across the street talking to Rachel (who is lucky enough to live next to the jungle) and we noticed that there is a clump of weeds that has actually grown higher than the fence that separates her yard from his. Those big weeds are scary looking. I've been sure to keep Nikki away from them on our walks because I'm afraid they will come alive and eat her. At this point I'm not scared for my own life as I don't believe they could consume an adult human. That may change in time if they are allowed to grow more.

Jess and I were discussing what we can do about this mess. At this point we do not have a piece of lawn care equipment that can handle a mowing job of that size. It seems that we have two choices. Choice one is to go get a commercial harvesting machine or something of that magnitude to obliterate anything that dares grow there. This is not a perfect solution due to the fact that the lawn is actually really small and it would suck to have to move such a large piece of equipment around. Our second choice is to get a number of goats to eat their way from the street to the house. The problem with this option is the amount of shit that much grass would generate when consumed by goats. I would then have to write a post about the buildup of goat shit on the dirt lawn across the street.

It's actually quite amazing that a lawn can be this out of control in June. We can only imagine what it will be like by the end of August (especially if we can get some rain). It's not out of the realm of possibility for the grass to actually grow up higher than the windows on the house. Now that would be some interesting stuff. We'd probably be in a public safety crisis by then because those big weeds would be eating at least one person a week.

Throughout the summer I will post updates on the status of this lawn.

I didn't get to write an update last weekend because we were so busy so this will be an update of the last few weeks. Sorry to those who were waiting with great anticipation for an update (all 1 of you).

Last weekend I got out the best tool any homeowner can own, the pressure washer and went shithouse on the deck, walkway, and part of the house. It took me 3.5 tanks of gas, several hours, and god knows how much water to clean everything but the results are awesome. The deck is now it's natual color again (instead of it's natural color mixed with a dirty brownish-green) and the walkway is a very light gray. The biggest improvement was on the side of the house. I decided to test out what a clean house would look like so I cleaned one half of the wall with the doors. The results are incredible. The cleaned side is a nice brown color as compared to the gray-green the uncleaned side is. In true angry homeowner fashion I was able to make an incredible mess cleaning off the house. I managed to soak myself in a brown sludge that flew off the side of the house. It might as well have been raining brown because I was a soaking mess. Once we had everything cleaned off we brought out the patio furniture so we can now have people over for beer and bbq (about time, I know).

Meanwhile, Jess sanded, reapplied joint compound, and sanded again the newly rebuilt inside wall. Our goal for this weekend was to paint the wall and stain the doors. We were getting kinda sick of looking at a semi-built wall (we haven't had a full wall there since early april) so first thing Saturday morning Jess got painting and after about an hour had the whole wall painted and it looks just like the rest of the room. As soon as she was done painting I got out the stain and put a coat of stain on the doors. We had to do something soon because the unfinished pine is like a dirt magnet. If you walked near the doors with dirty hands, the dirt would fly off of your hands and stick to the doors (yeah it was that bad). While not as painful as staining the desks, I will not be retiring from programming anytime soon to be a professional door stainer. Like the newly painted wall, the doors look pretty damn sweet. I will have to add a coat of finish or poly still (that has been scheduled for this week or next weekend) but the doors are nearing completion!

There are only a few pieces of the door puzzle left. First we have to add some sort of frame/moulding around the door so it looks finished. Next we have a bigger project which is to tear up the rug in the dining room and replace it with a Pergo floor. We went to Lowes yesterday and priced out what we were looking for so now we have to take our measurements and plan that mission out. Hopefully within the next few weeks we can get that done.

The nerd in me is also working on an interesting project (not making a lot of progress yet) involving the receiver that controls the outdoor speakers, the linux server I have in the basement, a Lego Mindstorms IR Tower, and LIRC. The goal is to find a way to control the receiver remotely using the web. So far I haven't had a great deal of success but I'm getting closer each day. When I figure that mess out I will post the results of the configuration.

That about does it for this update. I hopefully will not be lazy and get back on my weekly (or more) updating schedule. To see the latest pictures of the door picture click here.

If you haven't read Part 1 of this weekend's work, please do so because Part 1 is the reason this project took us all goddamn weekend. This part of the story takes place on Sunday.

At 8:30 AM I met my father at Home Depot to buy the drywall and supplies to finish off the interior wall. We loaded the drywall into my father's truck and covered it with a tarp (oh yeah did I mention it's still friggin raining). I threw the rest of the supplies into my truck and we took off to the house.

The first part of the mission was to build the wall out so we could attach the drywall. This had to be done because we have new studs (3.5 inches) alongside old studs (3.75 inches). Yes that's correct lumber is shrinking and today's 2x4s are not the same size as the 2x4s used in the original framing. While my father was building out the wall I got to work on using the world's worst home improvement supply, insulating foam in a can. Now this stuff should not be called "foam in a can" but rather "Shit in a can that you cannot get on anything of value because it will stick there forever and you will be left with a yellow mess". As I write this I still have a yellow, foamy stain on my right thumb. Without fail anytime I use this stuff something I own gets destroyed simply by coming in contact with this stuff. The biggest problem this time was making sure it does not get on the dog. I had to put Nikki in her crate because I know she would either rub up against the wet goo or try to eat it. Neither situation was something I felt like dealing with.

After the wall was built out we installed the new insulation. Using our elite planning skills we were able to fill the entire wall using exactly every square inch of a small roll of R-15 insulation. Once the installation was in we cut the first piece of drywall and got it in place. While my father got working on measuring the next piece, I used the ultra-cool drywall screw gun to screw the drywall to the studs.

When the second piece was cut and tacked to the wall my father had to leave so he left me in charge to finish the job. I've never done this before so I knew this was going to get interesting. Before screwing down the next piece of drywall I decided to measure and cut the piece that goes above the door. Believe it or not I was able to do this on the first try. The only tough part was hoding it in place while I got the first screw in but I got it done. I then went back and screwed everything into the studs. At this point we had a rough interior wall.

Before leaving my father gave me a brief overview of what to do once everything was in place. He explained how to apply the joint compound and the tape and how to fill in the corners. It all seemed so simple when he explained it. The piece he left out of course was how much of a mess you could make with the joint compound.

For the next hour and a half I worked on applying the joint compound to the screw holes, the corners, and the joints. Overall I don't think I did a bad job but I did make the biggest goddamn mess anyone has ever seen. My hands were totally covered with the joint compound. I also managed to get lots of it on the rug (Jess said it was OK because we're getting rid of the rug anyway) and once it got on the rug it got on my shoe which I used to track it over more of the rug. Once I realized my shoes were covered I took them off and worked in my socks which were soon covered as well. I also managed somehow to get a big glob of it on my shin (which quickly hardened and made my leg very uncomfortable) and big glob on my shorts which then spread like wildfire to other spots on my shorts, t-shirt, and arms. Along with myself and the rug I got joint compound on a chair, my hammer, the door handle, and the blinds on a window I wasn't even near. Amazingly though I didn't get any on my face or the dog. I must say the wall looks pretty good considering I've never done this before.

As this week goes on we are going to finish off the wall by sanding it then going through another messy joint compound application. Hopefully we'll have most of the wall done by next weekend.

To see pictures of this weekend's mess click here.

Due to the fact that there is so much to talk about, I've broken this weekend's update into 2 pieces. The first piece will cover the actions of Friday night and Saturday. The second piece will cover Sunday.

During the day Friday I got to Lowes to buy the hardware required for me to install electrical outlets and some audio/data jacks outside on the deck. The key element of this trip was to get these outdoor boxes that allow you to plug things in and keep the cover closed. I also had to pick up some wire and a new GFCI outlet.

I was hoping to get the new outlets installed and all the cable/wire run in the wall so on Saturday morning we could get the wall insulated and the drywall up. As soon as I got home from work on Friday I started working on the install. It was lightly raining/misting so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal. I drilled a hole in the house and went to install the outdoor outlet. As soon as I walked outside it started to pour. I was able to get the box attached to the house but couldn't get the outlet installed because the voice inside my head said installing electrical outlets in a downpour is not the safest thing to do. Instead I went on to try and install the other stuff. Once again I was only able to install the box but get nothing in it because it was raining so damn hard. By the end of the night I was soaking wet and really friggin cold (it was 41 outside).

On Saturday morning I got up and got working around 8:30 AM. Within a few minutes I had the audio/data jacks installed and in the box. Before continuing on I decided to test it out to make sure the audio was working (that was the main reason for this box). When I plugged my iPod in no sound at all came out of the speakers. I went through a series of tests to find out the cable I had run in the wall got destroyed during the install so I had to get a new cable run. Luckily I have a bunch of RCA cables hanging around so I got another one hooked it up and we had sound coming out of the speakers. I then installed and tested the new GFCI outlet in the other box and had power out on the deck. It's amazing how much easier it is to work when it's not pouring outside.

At that point my father arrived to get working on the drywall. Before we could do that we had to tie the new outlet to the last remaining outlet in the dining room that was disconnected when we demolished the wall. To do that I had to climb up behind the well pump in the basement and have my dad pass tools to me so I could get the wires tied together. This was not a lot of work and took us about 15 minutes.

The last electrical mission was to get the outdoor side light back in use. This wire like the others had to be removed when we demolished the wall. We snaked the wire up over the door and after some fighting got it outside. I went out in the drizzle and installed the light and my father tied the new wire into the old wire and we were ready to test. After flipping the breaker back on we tested the other lights on the circuit and they worked fine. We then flipped on the outside light and pop the GFCI outlet on the kitchen counter tripped.

Now there's some history with this circuit. First of all, having the lights be on the same circuit as the kitchen counter is just wrong but we must accept that fact because at this point there's nothing we can do about it. Also, when I installed this light last year I went through this same song and dance so this is not my first time fighting with this circuit. Last time I had this problem I had shorted out a wire in the light so I figured that was the problem.

I went outside and disconnected the light and then went back into the kitchen to reset the outlet. I pushed the reset button and it just popped back out. No matter what I did, I could not get the outlet to reset. My father made sure the outside light was off and to be sure we disconnected that entire leg of wire from the circuit. Nothing would let us reset the outlet. We then figured maybe the outlet crapped out. Luckily I had another GFCI outlet hanging around so I wired that up and once again we could not hit the reset button. Now I'm getting pissed because we were not supposed to spend our day dealing with electrical issues.

At this point we started our troubleshooting. We worked our way to the next outlet in the circuit and found that we could get power to it without a problem. Then we went to the next outlet and again had no problem getting power there (at this point I knew I could at least use the fridge again). From there we went to what we thought was the next point, the light in the mud room. When we tested the wires we found none of them were hot. "Well it must run to the dining room light first", we said. Once again we were proven wrong. Now the best way to describe our train of thought at that point is to think back to Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade when Indy was in that Venetian library with the hot Nazi chick. You know the one when he found the numbers three and seven but couldn't find the ten. Well the next point in the circuit was our ten. We walked around the house, around the basement, and around the yard trying to find where the hell this circuit went. After about 10 minutes it hit me, the kitchen light.

This is the point in the story where everything went into the shitter (up until now the situation was just standing in line to use the port-a-john). When I took the kitchen light down pieces of old wire rained down on my head and we were faced with a real big mess. The kitchen light apparenly is the hub of all wiring in the kitchen and the wiring in the box was old and twisted up for so long that the wire covering had worn off which allowed the wires to touch and short out the circuit. We figured that whatever short we had in the new light had done enough damage to the wiring in the kitchen light to push it to the limit. By the time we had pulled every wire out of the box we had 8 completely bare wires and a floor covered in old wire covering. This became one of those "what the hell do we do now?" situations. We decided to take each wire and wrap them up in electrical tape so they wouldn't short out anymore and then had to figure out what wire went to where. Once we determined the hot wire we tied things together mapping out things as other parts of the circuit came alive. We then tied everything together and now because the wires in the light were wrapped up in tape the circuit stopped shorting out and we were able to get everything working again (including the outside light).

Oh yeah, it was 4:30 by the time we got the electrical figured out so we didn't end up getting any sheetrock done. That we decided to do first thing in the morning.

To end this story on a high note we have the "I'm an ass" moment of the day. While trying to figure out the direction current was flowing on the circuit my father had this idea to tie two wires together because he thought it would make another part of the circuit come online. He touched two wires together which created a spark, a big bang, and tripped the breaker. We found out at that point those were not the wires we wanted to tie together.

To read the rest of this weekend's work, please check out part 2.

Yesterday morning as soon as I got to work I called the town's building department and scheduled an inspection of our weekend work. I got an appointment for 1PM on Tuesday (today). At 12:30 today I left the office and headed home to meet the inspector. I ended up working from home for an hour waiting for the inspector to show up. At 2 PM he showed up, walked up on the deck, asked me how I liked the doors (I responded with "we love them!"), walked inside, looked at the header, said "ok" and left. One hour of waiting for a 2 minute inspection.

That now gives us the permission to finish off the project. This weekend we will tie all new cabling and outlets into place, build out the wall, and hopefully get some sheetrock up (we'll see how the rest of the stuff goes). I may also get to start putting the shingles back on the outside wall.

There are no new pictures or movies to go along with this post. Check back this weekend for more on the rebuilding of the wall.

We took a time lapse video of the door installation process using my Powerbook and iSight. The video starts about 9:00 AM and ends about 5:30 PM. A shot was taken every 30 seconds during that time frame. In case you were wondering, the song in the video is Going Home by Goldfinger.

To see the video click here.
Note: It will take some time for the video to load as it's 17 Meg.

This weekend we took on the installation of the French Doors. Because this was a major project, we brought in some help Saturday in the form of my friend Ethan. The work done on Sunday was just me and my father.

Starting at 9:00 AM on Saturday we got to work on finishing the demolition of the wall. This was by far the most fun part of the project. While removing the old windows we discovered a really interesting fact...the inside of the window frame was actually the stud with with white paint on it. Yes that's right, there really was no window frame. It also didn't take a great deal of effort to take the other pieces of the window out as they were only held in with a few nails. Once the windows were out we removed all of the outside wall and cut out the studs. We propped one up in the middle to make sure the roof did not collapse down on us (that would not have been good). I used this demolition phase as an opportunity to jump in and out of the windows.

Once demolition was done we got to work on rebuilding the wall. The first part was to level the floor because it was actually higher on one side than the other (this is probably why the old windows were crooked). We then built the frame for the new door. The header we used was massive. We put 2 2x8 pieces of LVL with a 1/2" piece of insulating foam between them. This left us with a very large and very heavy header that is much more than required by building code. We built the frame out on the deck and then knocked out our temporary supporting beam and carried it inside. Ethan and I then held the frame in place while my father positioned and nailed it. When the frame was in place we added a few more studs on each side of the frame so we had something to nail the external wall to. At this point we went into assembly line mode where Ethan would clean up the old piece of external wall, my father would measure and cut them, and I would nail them in place using the framing gun. Just so everyone is aware, the framing gun is by far the coolest tool one could ever buy (Nikki doesn't like it because the compressor makes an unpleasant sound).

When the wall was rebuilt we layed out some tar paper and stapled it place using the stapler-hammer thing as seen on Monster House. This was my job until my father took it away from me for not being able to use the stapler-hammer thing. As he took it away he turned to Ethan and said, "It's not his fault that he can't do this. I think he's retarded and he can't help it" (thanks dad).

Now came time to put the door in place. Ethan and I each took a side and my father held the middle as we lifted it into the hole. It fit perfectly! We nailed it in place and admired our work. The next step was to put this sticky rubber, tar, aluminum foil flashing stuff along the edge of the door. I have to say that this was quite miserable. The stuff was really sticky and didn't want to go where I wanted it to. Luckily we didn't have to use a lot of it to get the desired result.

As my father was finishing up around the external side of the door, Ethan and I were fighting the biggest battle of the day...installing the goddamn hardware. We worked for more than an hour figuring out how this system worked. It didn't take us long to get the door opened. The problem came from when we tried to engage the triple locking system and key lock. When you pull the handle up it's supposed to engage the deadbolt and the bolts that go into the top and bottom frame. I think we put the hardware together and took it apart 15 times when we realized we couldn't engage the triple locking system unless the door was closed (doh!). The completion of the hardware installation at about 5:30 PM finished day 1.

Sunday morning my father and I went to work installing the screens. We fought through what could arguably be the worst installation document I've ever seen (Note to window vendors, "Don't outsource the creation of the documentation to offshore workers!!!"). Not only did the documentation not explain what the components were, it was filled with typos. At one point it was telling us to look at the another section of the "installation instrucitons". A few paragraphs later we were told to "slid the hold washer" and then not to "adjust the sweep so that is contacts the sill but does nto interfere with the closeing of the screen". This was after we had to go to a dictionary to figure out what the instructions meant by "installing the astragal" (What the f*ck is an astragal?). It turns out an astragal is a piece of molding that covers the gap between doors. Of course we wouldn't have been confused if it showed a picture of what the friggin thing was. They took the time to draw us pictures of a hammer and tape measure but nooo we can't get a picture of an astragal. We also had an issue with the installation of the "sweeps". As it stands right now we didn't install the sweeps because what the instructions told us made it so the doors didn't close properly. After several hours we got the screens in place and they look really good.

We did a little more framing and as we stand right now the wall is ready for it's inspection. I have a time-lapse movie of the entire process that I will post after I run it through an editing process. Look for that later this week.

For now you can check out the pictures of the process and result here.

Our house has this area in the front that has become known as "The Moat". It's an 8' wide by 35' long section that is between the front of the house and some sort of retaining wall. Our front porch is like a little bridge that goes over the moat. Each spring the moat fills with weeds and other crap that makes it look like hell. This spring we are doing something about it!

Last fall, Jess put down tarps to cover the ground in the moat to kill whatever may be growing in there. Our goal was to cover the ground with weed paper and then cover that with stones figuring it would look a lot better than weeds and other ugly plants. Today we decided to take on the "filling in the moat" phase of the project.

This morning we got outside early and took our measurements to figure out how much stone we needed to get. Figuring we would buy it like mulch, we converted all of our calculations to cubic yards. We figured that we would need 1.5 cubic yards of stone. Side note: my calculations showed that we could only get at most .5 cubic yards of anything in the back of my truck. After getting the measurements we headed down the road to a landscpaing supply place in Freetown. We had no idea what kind of place this would be but it ended up being an enormous plot of land with any type of landscaping supply you would ever need. After talking with the people inside we found out that they sell by the ton (apparently 1 ton = 1 cubic yard in the world of crushed stone) so we then drove onto the scale and they took the empty weight of my truck. We then headed down into the quarry to get a load of 1.5" crushed stone. It was at this point that things got interesting. My truck has one of those hard covers on the back that opens to about a 45 degree angle. I knew this was probably going to be an issue but was hoping they would load my truck using a small backhoe. The guy drove over in this abso-friggin-lutely HUGE front-end loader and proceeded to tell us that we gotta do something about that cover. The 3 of us (me, Jess, front-end loader guy) then tried to figure out how to release the cover from the truck. We were able to undo the hydraulic rams that kept it at a 45 degree angle but that was about it. The front-end loader guy did his best to load the stone in the back while the two of us held the cover up at about a 80 degree angle. We had some of it in the bed and some of it on the tailgate. He told us to get rid of the cover when we come back. We got our load, drove up to the scale again, and Jess went inside to pay. The total for this load....$4. All of that work for $4 worth of stone. As we left the parking lot, we sprayed probably $.50 worth of that stone all over the street as the tailgate was down.

When we got home we finished taking the cover off and unloaded our really sissy looking pile of stone. We headed right back to get a second load (this time with no cover). This time the front-end loader guy got 1/3 of a ton in the back costing us $8. We unloaded that back at home and started to work. After we got working, I headed back for more stone and Jess got the weed paper layed out. The next load was also 1/3 of a ton for $8. Our pile in the driveway was getting bigger at this point but we still needed more. On the last trip, the guy was able to get 1/2 of a ton in the truck for $12. This was a real joy to unload. In the end we got $32 worth of stone and $24 worth of weed paper.

At this point we had a gigantic pile of stone in the driveway. For the next few hours I filled the wheelbarrow with stone and dumped it into the moat while Jess spread it out. It was really shitty work and I complained the entire time (not a big surprise to anyone) but in the end it looked really, really good. Our calculations were perfect as we filled in the moat and had nothing but a pile of dust left in the driveway.

To see pictures of the stone filled "Moat" please click here.

With the installation of the new French doors approaching, we were faced with an interesting problem. What do we do with the dog when we have a big hole in the side of the house and once the doors are installed, how do we keep the dog from escaping. The solution to the problem of the escaping dog is to build gates to close off each exit.

Normally, I'd ask my father to help me in the construction of something like this (he did build the deck) but since he will be helping install the french doors, I didn't want to consume all of his free time this spring. Since I wasn't asking for any help, it was up to me to design and build the gates.

Earlier this week, I sat down and drew up plans for each gate and figured out what I needed to get for supplies. As the week went on, I refined the design after having discussions with co-workers and Jess. Along with the supply list, I also had to figure out what tools I needed for the project. Being a fairly new homeowner and a computer nerd, I don't have an incredibly impressive tool collection so each time a new project comes around, it's an opportunity to get new tools. This project would require an easy way to cut the wood and a powerful drill/driver. I settled on getting a compound mitre saw to do the cutting. I've used my father's in the past and it was easy for me to cut things in straight lines (often impossible for me using any other cutting device). Also, because I'm don't have a great deal of cash to spend on this project, I settled on a corded drill to put the screws in. My cordless drill is lacking in the balls department (this was learned when we built the deck and my drill was only able to drive the deck screws halfway in) so I needed a drill with a pair to get this done.

Saturday morning we headed off to the hardware store to get tools and supplies. We settled on a Hitachi Compound Mitre Saw (with the laser of course) and a Dewalt 3/8" corded drill with keyless chuck. I would have loved to get one of those elite Dewalt 18V cordless drills but at $199 I just couldn't afford it. We also got our supplies (all pressure treated) - 4 2x4x8s, 1 4x4x8, 16 42" balusters, 4 hinges, 2 latches, and 2 boxes of screws. In total we spent about $350 on tools and supplies for the project.

Now let's start the construction part of this story by stating this...there were very few (if any) people who thought that me (nerdy programmer, hopeless carpenter) would be able to construct anything resembling a gate. I knew that I had the ability in me because I come from a long line of carpenters and somewhere inside of me this ability exists. After unpacking and setting up the new tools, I got to work measuring and cutting my first pieces. As I screwed the first pieces of the first gate's frame together, I was amazed to find that what I had built was actually square and looked like it could be a gate. Now I had to rip a 2x4x8 into strips that can be used for the railings. Never in my life have I ripped anything on the table saw. I've only assisted my father when he was doing it. Well after screwing up the first attempt, I tried again and actually got it done correctly. I took the ripped pieces back to the deck and put the railing together, put that into the frame, and all of a sudden it looked like I had half a clue as to what I was doing. Next I hung the first gate using the heavy duty hinges I purchased and it actually looked and worked like a gate should. The latch proved to be the only part of the first gate that caused me any trouble. I gave up after about half an hour of fighting with it (the sox game was coming on and I had to shower) and said I'd solve it in the morning.

This morning I got up went outside and within 10 minutes I had found a way to get the latch working on the first gate. I then went to work on the second gate and got the whole thing built in a few hours. The challege with the second gate was also the latch. This was a problem because it had to latch to the side of the house. I was able to get that situation all worked out after half an hour of trial and error.

After getting everything together and the deck cleaned up, I let Nikki loose to see how everything works. She ran right up to one of the gates (one of her normal escape routes) and was blocked so she sat there and used this as a new way to people watch and spy on the neighbors.

At this point it appears that the mission was a success and to be honest it came out much better than even I thought it would. This project was a test of sorts to see if I can do more when it comes to building things around the house. Right now I think I've passed this test so hopefully I can use these new skills to build more things.

To see a gallery of the new gates, click here.

This weekend marks the beginning of one of the biggest projects we've taken on since moving in almost 3 years ago, "The French Door Project". Since we built the deck in the rainy spring of '05 we've wanted to install french doors that open to it. This year we finally came up with enough money to take on this task.

Installing the doors is a multi-phased project due to the complexity of it. The first phase was to get the building permit which we did a few weeks ago. People keep asking why we need a building permit to install french doors. The answer is because we are changing means of egress. Since we are removing two windows and half of a wall to install the doors we are creating a new way in and out of the house. When dealing with egress Massachusetts building code states that we have to get a permit. Also, because we are rebuilding an entire exterior wall, we will need to have the framing inspected before we can close up the wall.

The second phase of the project was to order the doors. This was completed last weekend when the people at the Pella store used my credit card to suck all the money out of our bank account.

The third phase was to remove the piece of baseboard heat that is on that wall. This was a job that required a plumber due to the fact that we have forced hot water. Back in February we got an estimate for moving the heat (see the washer / dryer installation story). On Friday the plumbers showed up and successfully removed the baseboard heat that was on that wall. It took them about 4 hours to complete the project and I learned far too much about how forced hot water heating works. There were a few unexpected results of this plumbing adventure. The first is that I got to see the plumbers install PEX pipe to replace the baseboard heat. This stuff is amazing plastic-like pipe that doesn't give off heat like copper pipe which makes it much more energy efficient. It also doesn't require any soldering so the joints are done with clamps. The second result is that we now have heat in the kitchen. When we moved in we found a radiator tucked between the dishwasher and the stove. We were told this didn't work so we never thought about it. While the plumbers were going around bleeding the baseboards to get the heat working, they discovered that the radiator actually worked and with a little effort bleeding it, it started throwing heat. At about 4PM when the plumbers left, it was about 100 degrees in the house because we've had the heat on for so long but that phase of the project was completed!

Yesterday (4/21) we started the demolition and discovery phase. My father came down and we ripped open the inside of the wall to plan out how we will get this job done. Demolition went a lot easier than we thought it would and after about an hour we had the inside wall torn out and had a plan in place as to how we are going to do the framing. We are planning on needing 8 2x4s for framing and 2 very heavy laminated 2x8s for a header.

As we stand right now our dining room is missing an interior wall and are in a holding pattern waiting for supplies. To see pictures of the weekend's activities go here.

I know I'm not in any of the pictures. That doesn't mean I sat around doing nothing. Someone has to do the photography so stop bitching that I don't do any work!