Fence update and Light up!

Over the weekend Mike and his dad worked on adding an overhead light to Katherine's room. We took the one that was up in our old house so it was nice to get it back up. We only had a small table lamp and at night her room was like a cave. His dad crawled up into the attic and after some measurement issues they got the box right in the middle. The trick was drilling down through the top plate of the wall so they could wire it to the switch. We have a few more holes to patch and paint now but now her room is really bright!

Mike and I have both been working long days with a lot of obligations lately so we've been getting home late. We noticed the other day that our fence had been fixed, but we haven't been home when its light out yet to snap a picture. Because today was Halloween I got home early and was able to get a picture.

We wanted the fence to be have a bit more of an arch to it but it looks good. And the top has been flattened so that it meets our other fence a little more cleanly.

We've got shutters! And a split.

We ordered nice plantation shutters months ago but they have to be custom made for your windows so they were just finished up. Bob came by yesterday to watch the installers and the new windows look great. (ignore the fact that the pictures were taken in the dark)

We got three windows. The living room (left), dining room (right) and our room (below). We have the option of adding more at the great discount within a certain time period so we may be adding more in the next few months.

While Bob was watching the installers he helped out with a few little things. Mike had installed new stop valves under the sinks he had replaced (our bathroom and Katherine's) and he had bought two more. Bob added similar stop valves to the two upstairs toilets. The stop valves are meant to easily turn off water to the sinks or toilets in case you need to do work on them.


Mike had added a few support brackets to the porch outside so that it was more secure a few weeks ago. He finished adding the rest of them last weekend and wanted to add them to the two support beams in the garage that support our bedroom. One of the beams had a piece of plywood over it that Mike pulled off across the top so he could add the bracket. When he pulled the plywood off he discovered that there was a large split in the beam on the south side. The split seems to be at least a half inch wide and runs the length of the beam. Bob took the rest of the beam so he could get a good look. We're going to have to call a contractor to jack up the roof and replace it. At left is the split visible above the plywood on the beam. 

Things we forgot we did!

We apparently accomplished so much since our last blog post we forgot that we had done more.

Last night Mike got the cable upstairs fixed last night and has plans to play with the excess wire tonight.

Our sink upstairs is fixed ... again. After a long battle with some small o-rings Mike got it working. But it still leaked. So Mike pulled the sink apart and we were sinkless for a little while. Yesterday he was able to mess with it and was able to replace the whole thing with a new one, that doesn't leak.

And our heater works! About three weeks ago we woke up on a chilly morning to discover that our heater doesn't work. We called our home warranty and got an appointment with the company they contract with. They could only come out a week after our original call and of course, we were at work so Anne had to go by to open up the house for them. Somehow the technician that showed up thought we needed our air conditioner looked at and that's what he evaluated. He said our air conditioner was "brand new" when its really 10 years old. Once we realized it didn't work we called the company back and tried to set another appointment, a week later. This time, Mike was there and made sure the technician that showed up was actually looking at the heater. He did and lo and behold he needs a part he didn't have. In the meantime we had to buy a space heater for the baby's room and brought down the flannel comforter for our room.

The technician was supposed to go to the warehouse the next day to get the part, then call Mike to set the appointment. I got a call that day from the company and when I answered they said they called me because Mike had hung up on them. I said, "Yep, probably because he's probably pissed." My guess was right, they had called to tell him that they couldn't get the part until the following week. I told them we'd had to get a heater for the baby, and it would have been three weeks without a heater by the time they got the next appointment. They were very apologetic but it wasn't going to get it done any faster.

When they did come the next week, the same technician that Mike had met came back and got it fixed. Mike still called and complained to the company though, after each disappointment. When he looked them up on Yelp it turns out the heating company had 1.5/5 stars. Boy, I wonder why.

Media closet & a real fence!

Its been a while, we've been busy. Fall has hit me hard with the new school year and Mike's been picking up overtime which means our projects are going slowly. Very slowly.

Our last major accomplishment was getting the TV on the wall. There was still a cable issue and we had two wires running across the room for a long time. In preparation for the finished product, Mike sheet rocked the media closet, fitted it with a three-gang and two-gang outlet box. The boys finally got it hooked up right, without cables and we could walk across our floor in the dark without fear! Of cables at least, toys and blocks are still a hazard. For a little while we still had the power cord down to the outlet below it until Mike rewired the box behind it.

He had to spend a long time with Steve trying to get his infrared system to work. Mike wanted all of our equipment (cable box, DVD player, receiver, etc) in the closet under the stairs near the bar area. In order for them to receive signal from the remote, they had to add an infrared receiver under the TV that was wired through the wall (luckily extra CAT6 had been laid in when the rest of the wires were run) to the closet and sent out of an infrared transmitter in the closet that sends the signal to the devices. Once that was hooked up, Mike could sit on the couch and control the channel of the cable box, the volume of the TV, the volume of the receiver controlling the speakers, the DVD player, etc. If you come over, he'll show you - he can also control it on his phone. There's an app for that.

After everything was wired correctly, Mike built shelves for all the components. He still wants to have it taped up when our painter comes but it works for now. He didn't want me to include a picture of it because its not "done," but its such progress! Our cable upstairs has gone back to looking like it needs rabbit ears though so somewhere along the way we goofed. Mike was able to fix the occasional digital hiccups downstairs by removing a power cable splitter and replacing it with an un-powered one. Go figure.

We also got the green house window replaced.  We had gotten an estimate on replacing the pane that had a broken seal from one company  and wanted one for replacing the window itself with a flat one from another but the company didn't want to replace it because of the vinyl siding. When we replace the vinyl siding and windows in another ten years (and go into debt probably) we'll have that window changed out. Now we can actually see into the backyard which is helpful with the baby.

And today we got our fence finished! We had the single wrought iron gate on the south replaced with a straight redwood one (right). On the north side, we replaced the double wrought iron fence with a double redwood one and built a fence along the slope up to our neighbors fence (left). We had asked for an arch along the top so we have to email him back and check on that. But for now, Beau can go into the backyard, unsupervised! He can't see into the front yard to bark at cats in the neighborhood and we're hoping he can't jump  a six foot fence on an incline. Time will tell on that one I guess.

 

Shower & Shed

Last weekend Mike and I finally got an outdoor shed. We had found the one we wanted on sale at OSH over the summer but had to take a rain check. Weeks and weeks later after calling them we finally caught someone who said "We have one, come quick." When Mike got there he ended up getting an additional discount since they didn't call him which was nice. We had had the same brand before so we were able to get it up fairly quickly. Its a smaller one than before since we have such a big garage. It only has to fit the lawn and gardening supplies, not the camping supplies, irrigation fixing supplies, camping gear, spare tire for offroading, etc. It looks pretty good and means our lawn mower can finally leave the patio. Of course the baby thought it was a playhouse so we'll have to get a lock.

After that Mike worked on the media closet door. You'll remember we tried to paint the initial door to save money. It ended up not coming out well and when Mike looked up the price of replacement doors he decided it wasn't worth trying. So he ordered a replacement bi-folding, pre-painted door that arrived pretty quick. The door molding though, needed an updated from the 70s wood trim. With a new miter box (our old one is missing pieces, presumed to be in a box somewhere) Mike hand cut and pieced all the door trim for the media closet so it matched all the other doors in the house. He has to paint them still but at least their up. We still have the door off though because the boys are still working on the media set-up.

With the start of the school year and a bunch of overtime we haven't been able to do as much to the house as we would like. But, it still requires our attention from time to time. The shower in our bathroom for instance, made a protest on the morning of Back To School night. I tried to turn the water off, and it decided to stay on. I tried to crank the handle over farther, which diminished it a little bit, but it decided to stay on. And when I say "on" I don't mean a trickle. It was flowing about half strength which was not something you could leave going all day. So I called Mike and he said, "Yeah it does that now," and suggested really trying to crank it over like I was going to break it. I could push the handle a little bit farther but it would never fully shut off and when I released the handle it went back to half flow. So at 6am I had to go outside, towel on my head and in a robe, to turn off the water to the house. Fun times. Mike's dad came by during the day and fixed it. Apparently a screw and washer had come loose.

We're hoping to take another crack at the media stuff this weekend....

Rear Speakers & Holes

Last week we got the TV, front speakers and center channel in. Last night Steve and Tim came back to put in the rear speakers, run wires for outside speakers and add an outlet and media box behind the TV. Which means more holes.

At one point, Mike Steve and Tim were all working on different holes in our walls and ceiling. Tim had to drill holes from the media closet under the stairs into the beams in the ceiling of the family room. Mike had to keep an eye on him since they didn't want to turn the electricity off and there were live wires along the beam. Steve ran cable from the media closet through the holes in the beam into the ceiling of the family room. He had to cut a hole in the ceiling in order to drill small holes in more beams so that he can get the wires between the beams that would hold the two rear speakers.

While Steve was cutting and placing the rear speakers Mike and Tim were working on the outlet behind the TV. There was a plug right below the TV and a cable that ran across the carpet for cable for the last week. The plan was to drop the wires hanging from the whole in our ceiling above our TV into a media plate behind the TV. Mike wanted a real clean look with no wires or devices near the TV.

After it was all hooked up and Steve was checking connections they encountered some problem. He tried a couple of different things and I think it was decided that one cable was 1.5 feet longer than the other. He has a nifty device that plugs in to a wire and tells you how long it is. Apparently with HDMI, a slightly different length can cause big problems. Our current plan is to trade in our DVR for an HD one and buy a different plug-in plate for behind the TV. Mike said he got the right one and its not broken it just doesn't work. I don't quite know how that happens. Until then, we add to our "to be patched, mudded and painted" list for our painter.

And we have a TV

Its been a long process but we have officially come into modern times with a flat screen TV. We had a hand-me-down 32" tube TV (thanks Keith) from college on a nearly decade old hand-me-down Ikea entertainment center (thanks Kristen and George). Its been a long standing agreement in our house that if the Sharks made it to the Stanley Cup, we would buy a flat screen. Well, we bought a bigger house before that happened so it was time to upgrade.

Tim and Steve had worked on rewiring the house for phone, internet and cable over the summer. The wiring was done after the house was built and not done well. We have a hole in every closet from cable lines that has to get patched; especially now that the baby has figured out her fingers fit in them. We have been staring at a 4"x12" hole in our wall above the TV for weeks waiting for the speakers, wall plates, TV, etc. to come in. There were several hold ups to the process, like Mike actually deciding what he wanted to order, adding an electrical outlet to the media closet, etc. The TV was delivered last week and then the speakers came. The TV box was huge so it was a good thing one of the garage bays was empty.

We had to clear out the living room of toys which made the baby's room look really full. Maybe she has too many ..... never! The boys were really good about asking us where we wanted the TV centered, the height, etc. But I was surprised when they started tracing out the templates for the front speakers because they were huge! I actually thought it was the template for the sub woofer when I first saw it. Each front speaker is mounted in the ceiling and is 16" square. The speakers are angled down even though it has a speaker cover that is flush with the ceiling.

 They had quite the set up in our living room. Steve brought his own blanket to control dust from the drywall cutting and they were able to use their ladder as scaffolding. Although several times he seemed very precariously perched while holding a saws-all. There is a stud right down the middle of the wall that the TV is now mounted to. But the center channel, needing to go in the center, created a problem. Steve had to notch out part of that stud to fit the center channel in. Mike had purposely bought a very thin center channel and assures me that its still structurally sound.

When the boys had rewired the house they had to get a bundle of wires to come down through the attic into the green room's closet, along the floor under the carpet, under the door channel and into a hole they made in the floor a few inches into the room. That was out of necessity to get around beams, floor joists and what not. It ended up being perfect placement though for wiring the ceiling speakers. You know its going to be a good install when you here, "Right on the money! Oh my gosh this is going to be so easy. This is great, no time at all, " etc. Which is good since they had to spend so long on the rewiring.

At  some point they decided they still need to observe the opening day of football season and plugged our old TV into the wall in the bar area. And there was a short delay when Tim got hit by the ricocheting saw, I'm still not sure how that happened. Mike had to go get a mount and ended up getting one from his parents because they had a spare. Of course the baby fell asleep on him while he was out and the three of us back home decided we were hungry so we also asked him to pick us up pizza. Pretty quick though, the TV was going up and getting plugged in.

So now we have two ceiling mounted front speakers, one center channel and a 60" plasma. All day they were asking me what I thought and I kept saying, "Its huge!" I thought it was too big and that Mike overbought. But once it was all up and we sat on the couch, I had to admit it was a good size for the space. The couches are 15" away from the wall so it does have to be big.

There is still a hole above the TV because we were waiting on a wall plate to be delivered. The wall plate is a two-gang that has power on one side and HDMI on the other. All of those wires that are hanging will be fed down into the wall and attach to that wall plate. We also still have a cable, actually two, running across our family room floor because the wall plate isn't in. Once the wall is set-up, everything will be connected to the other side of the wires in the media closet. Then I won't have to worry about tripping over wires in the dark.

Once it was all up we sat around to watch football and check out the TV. Of course, our TV has an app. All three of the boys downloaded it and were taking turns changing the volume, menu, channel, etc. When we put the two rear speakers in (which are thankfully smaller) we will probably also put two speakers in the back patio. We'll already have holes in the ceiling so why not? Once we do that we will be able to control inside speakers and TV (Zone 1) separate from outside speakers (Zone 2). Apparently we'll also be able to plug in an iPod and browse the whole music collection from the phone (or whatever) that has the app for running the system. And Mike thought the thermostat app was cool....

The boys plan to come back on Friday since we got the rest of the parts this week. Its been a long process and its still not done, but at least now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel in super crisp HD.

Trailer Trash no more!

The north side fence is wrought iron and very open. You can see the whole side yard and part of the back yard from the street. Which was helpful when we were stalking the house before we bought it but a little disconcerting with the baby back there. We finally sent in our HOA approval so that we can get the A-okay on the fence design. It'll probably take another few weeks.

Until then, we've been worried about the amount of trash on the side of the house. We look like trailer trash with the previous owners old fridge just hanging out and piles of junk. There's been a lot out there since we moved it although its slowly being depleted. When our fence guy came back to take the rest of his materials away he offered to take the remaining junk on the side of the house. It was really sweet of him to offer, he was going to the dumps anyways. He took away the old zip drive, stair step, and luggage rack we'd found in the garage and the rest of the baseboards, the last newell and the cork paneling we couldn't fit into the garbage. While we still have the hazmat stuff, the old back door shutters, gardening stuff waiting for a shed and vintage suitcases, the side yard is looking a lot better. The fence guy also let me take the blocks of scrap redwood from our job for our classroom. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet but I'm excited!

Mike finally had a chance to post some stuff we wanted to get rid of on Craigslist. There were a few people interested in the fridge they had had in the garage. It was a nice one, had an ice-maker and water in the door, it was just older. Someone was supposed to come by between 4-5pm last night but didn't show up until 8pm. English was not his first language and I felt bad because he came by all by himself. He had tried to pick up a worker outside of Home Depot but no one was there by the time he went. He was very anxious to get out of my way but there was no way he could lift it by himself. He tried to tip it into his truck bed and I knew it wouldn't work because the fridge's center of mass was below the tail gate. (That's Physics for you) But I didn't think I'd be able to communicate that to him; he was going to try another approach anyway. He got a ladder out of his truck and laid it down like a ramp than used some pieces of our wood over it. Luckily he realized that wasn't going to work before I had to tell him. We ended up just tipping it onto the truck bed then lifting it from the ground and sliding it in. He insisted on getting it upright again in his truck and had to lift it up by himself. I tried to tell him that he had to let it sit up, vertically, for 24 hours once he got home before he plugged it in because he had moved it. "So I plug it in right away?" "No, you have to wait a day and let it sit up." [repeat multiple times] By the time he left I think he got it....I hope so. It feels good to have it gone. Now we just have to get rid of hazmat waste and the giant shutters. There's more to sell but at least the rest of it fits in the garage.

In the last few days Mike has had off, he's been busy working on electrical and plumbing, the two eternal projects it seems in this house. He replaced the last of the old switches in the kid bathroom and laundry room hallway. He patched the hole from the old thermostat and old phone in the bar area. He moved the cute Noah's ark light switch from the downstairs guest bath to the green bedroom upstairs. We still have to replace the downstairs bathroom and kitchen outlets with GFI outlets. If you don't have GFI outlets in bathrooms or your kitchen you usually have a GFI breaker at the electrical panel. We do have a GFI breaker, marked "W P" which is not hooked up to the kitchen or any bathroom. Mystery #382 for this house.

Mike also worked on the sink in our room and the kids' bathroom. The kids' bathroom was an easy fix, the "cold" handle was 90 degrees off of normal.That means while the "hot" handle was off when parallel to the mirror behind it, the "cold" handle was actually parallel to the sink when off.

Our sink on the other hand was not easy. Our bathroom sink leaks, as does our shower, and then there was the mystery half of a threaded piece of PVC that just appeared under our sink. We both looked and couldn't tell what it was a part of.

So Mike took apart the plumbing to try and fix it. A pic at right gives you an idea how many small parts there are to a sink and accompanying handle. As far as he could tell, the very small rubber O rings that fit several pieces along the handle mechanism must no longer be tight. When I say small, we're talking about less than a half an inch in diameter. Once he got it all apart, and we were sink-less for awhile, we headed to the store to replace them. But it is difficult to take off rings smaller than a half an inch that are tight on a valve and a few inches long. We tried what we had with us which was my work keys and a paper clip but couldn't get them off. We even asked an employee to try a box cutter and he couldn't get it off. The baby fell asleep while we were trying to get them off. So we were holding up the rings, still on the valve, to the packages trying to best guess if it was a 3/4", 1/2", 11/16", etc diameter O ring. Mike tried it again the next day and I got a phone call that we were just replacing the whole thing. Now it works but he had to replace the vertical part of the valve. And it still leaks.

Our shower is better after he replaced the entire valve assembly. In order to get hot water in our shower, you have to crank the hot handle all the way over with no cold water and even then its tepid most days. In addition to a leaking shower head, the hot handle pours out water when cranked all the way over. Mike ended up having to replace the entire handle assembly to fix it. The valve was stuck in the wall apparently and he has to go get special tools to get it out. But its fixed and doesn't leak anymore, still not hot though.

The dog got out twice this week. Once when Mike was in the backyard Beau saw our neighbors' cat through the fence, jumped the retaining wall and had a clear shot to the front yard. Apparently he ran across the street chasing the cat into our neighbor's yard. When she rang the doorbell Mike had no idea he had gotten out so he was surprised to see him at the front door. Another time Mike and his dad were working so hard on the house they didn't realize the front door was open. After awhile they realized that they hadn't seen the dog in awhile. They went looking for him, got worried he'd gone far and then found him sitting in the driver's seat of Bob's van. He apparently wanted to go play with his cousins.

We finally have some pictures up! Not many because we're still finding out where pieces really fit. We got the family wedding photo and our wedding photo with the guest signatures on the mat, our big railroad picture from the Yukon and some of our flower pictures up. The dining room table is still cluttered with more frames, there's a least a dozen in the office waiting to go up. But its starting to look like real people live here.

We have a couch!

Today we went looking for a couch for the living room. Our backs and butts hurt from sitting on the family room floor with the baby, even though it has a thick pad its on cement slab. We had a few things on our wishlists:

1. Long enough to fill the 136" back wall against the kitchen.
2. Leather, for durability, preferably in a brown tone.
3. (Mike) Arm chair with a recliner, a "media chair" with arm rests on both sides that could face the TV. Although I was opposed to arms on both sides in the middle of the couch.
4. (Bree) Either a sectional or chaise that would extend seating into the family room. Although Mike was opposed to a chaise.

We visited one place, didn't really see what we were looking for since it was a "take it as it is" kind of place. Of course, we went next door to Video Only to price out flat screens. We currently have a 35" old tube TV that we inherited sometime in college. It and the monster entertainment center it sits on that is 10+ years old need to go. Video Only is having a big sale for Labor Day so we will probably go back and get a $60" Panasonic plasma for <$2000.

After that we headed to Bassett furniture, which is where we got our dining room set 6 years ago. We weren't really expecting to see much since they're a design studio, too. We started looking around and got approached by a sales person. She directed us to the sectionals in leather and pointed out a floor model. It was dark brown leather and huge but it was a possibility. We ended up learning more about sectionals while we were there which was helpful. There are different "pieces" to sectionals that you can piece together, like at the right. There are armless chairs, left and right end chairs that can recline, corner pieces that are square or wedge shaped, and consoles with cupholders and arm rests. Some even have "oversized" pieces that are 1.5 or 2 times larger than normal ones.

This particular piece has a right manual recliner armchair, one console, two armless armchairs, one corner wedge and a right hand powered recliner armchair. It was a floor model that was on a massive mark down because the line was being discontinued. Its replacement line was also available and we looked at that, too. We took measurements and went home to feed the baby, get her down for a nap and said we would return later. Once we took more measurements at home we thought it could work! We were so optimistic we dropped off the baby at Mike's parents' house and traded our car for their van.

When we went back and looked at the piece, we were able to get it marked down even more, for a total of 60% off! The sales rep had done her homework in our absence. She had priced out each individual piece both with and without the sale price, written the size specs down for each and worked out a total. She did the same for the replacement line in case we decided to create our own new one rather than going with the old one. The new line was available in leather but only a dark dark brown that was almost black so that nixed that idea. While we were sitting on the sofa, to really make sure we were ready to take it home, we started looking at the arm chair that matched it. Mike decided he really liked it and asked to add it to our purchase.

So we ended up with a 6 piece leather sectional sofa (two reclining armchairs, one powered, one console, two armless chairs and a corner wedge) plus a separate reclining armchair for less than half the original price of the sectional. Even with tax it was all <$4,300! We love that place and highly recommend it.

The only tricky part of our great score was getting it out of there. Since Bassett is a design store, they don't usually have people walk out the door with their furniture. Usually you custom order furniture and it is made in their warehouse, then delivered to your house. Since they didn't have any "warehouse guys," only sales people, they had no one that would help us move it. Apparently every cripple in the place was working that day. The manager came over to assure us that even though we saw a man working there, he was a grandpa and had tendinitis so he shouldn't help. And our sales person apparently visits the chiropractor weekly. They lent us two dolleys and let us move the van up close to the door. Since it broke down into pieces, all less than 3' across, it wasn't too hard to move. Even though the sales people all said they couldn't, two of them helped us get it on dolleys and they all helped with the doors. They were all really nice about it, you could just tell they weren't used to manual labor. Makes you wonder how they rearranged the floor designs all the time?

We managed to get the whole sectional in the van but just. We had to leave the armchair to come back for tomorrow. It was a very packed van. We drove back to our house and on the way we realized that when we left our car at his parents with the keys, we left our house keys. Luckily his parents had a key to our side gate on their key ring for getting the dog. We unloaded everything and with manuevering, we got it into the patio. We figured it would be fine until we came back from dinner at my folks.

When we got back, Mike managed to get each piece in the house by himself while I put the baby down. We played with a few arrangements but had some sticking points. We don't want the couch to go into the space in front of the stairs into the family room. We don't want to cover the floor register that is in front of the back door to the patio. We don't want to block the door to the patio. We found one arrangement that will probably work. Right now it feels a little cramped but we're used to a completely empty room. We plan to live with it until we are both off again this weekend to see what we think long term. We may opt to take out the wedge and have it all against the wall. I would just have to find somewhere to put the wedge. I think it looks great and we are currently both relaxing on it; which is so much more comfortable than the floor.

We have a fence!

Yesterday our fence posts were put in along the back fence and along the north side. We had to put the fence in front of the existed barbwire fence because the barbwire fence belongs to the rancher. Today the view fence, also known as deer fence, went in along with the horizontal supports. The workers were here early, around 7:30am, dropping off materials so they could go get the wood. They were done around 2pm! It went up so fast!

We still have to have the front gates done and fence added above the retaining wall. We let Beau out, off leash, while we were in the backyard. He ran right up to the top of the stairs and then stood there. Normally that's as far as he can reach on his 30' lead so I don't think he knew what to do with himself. He ended up running around the backyard while Mike removed some trees. There was something with thorns that tore him up pretty bad so he moved on to some less defensive oak trees.

We knew our property was big, but the fence actually makes it seem bigger!

Busy Busy!

After the baby got sick, I got sick. Then we went to visit my little sister for a few days down in So Cal. Mike had the place to himself to work on a few little things. Mainly to fix the sprinkler system.

He ended up having to pull up and replace more pipe. He got all the sprinkler heads working and to a height he liked. He ran wire from the irrigation control in the garage under the house in the crawlspace out to the new irrigation valves at the back of the house. He's got everything wired up and working automatically. We're still doing some extra hand watering trying to bring the lawn back. Unfortunately a lot of the time the sprinklers weren't working had very high temperatures. Even our gardener hand watered when he came almost a week later; that's when you know you have to work on your lawn.

Mike also reattached the wooden baseboard trim in the kitchen. Some of it had been removed so that the painters could remove the wall paper in the kitchen. In the front yard he hung up a wrought iron hose holder onto the brick. With the new irrigation valves in the front the hose couldn't go where it was before.

Another project while we were gone was the entry way wall. The newells that were on there were the first things he removed in the house. He had to sand down the top to remove the depressions then he painted it to match our baseboards and put some trim around it. It still needs to have the edges caulked and the nail holes puttied but its a start. It really lightens up the entry way.

Since we got back from our mini vacation, we've just been trying to clean. Whenever the baby naps I try to get through a box. All of our clothes are put away, I found the last of our sheets and blankets and I think I've got all of our pictures. We're still discussing what goes where. We decided for sure where a few pieces are going to go but then we couldn't find our hanging brackets.

We also couldn't find our second remote, the charger for my camera, the laptop battery (meaning it always had to be attached to the wall) or a working flashlight. Mike had torn through some boxes looking for them to no avail. One day while the baby was napping I got to go through a few "misc" boxes. It had everything from pens and pencils to things that had been on our fridge to cook books, jackets, frames and everything we'd been looking for. All in a bag, under another bag in the bottom of a box, that had drop clothes and a flower Halloween costume on top of it. I don't know why he couldn't find it before. ;) So now we have multiple phones, we don't have to run the remote up and down the stairs and the laptop can actually be portable.

Mike was also working on the garage door. Apparently the garage door remote openers we got for the first door didn't go to that door. It does open when you use the wall button but not via remote; and if it doesn't work via remote, you can't program your car to open the garage door. Details details. He worked on it for awhile, even managed to find the manual online and followed the instructions "forwards and backwards" and it didn't work. He researched a little and found out that that particular remote doesn't actually work that particular door. He found a brand new remote that would work online and got it in a few days. He got it working really quick so now two of our three garage doors work from our cars. Mike loves eBay. The third stopped moving within a week of us moving in.

And then there's the thermostat; which, if you come to visit, will probably be  the first thing Mike shows you for awhile. The thermostat was in the family room downstairs and didn't really heat or cool the house the way we would want. The downstairs family room stays cool in the summer so the thermostat doesn't realize that the upstairs is hot and the air should come on. He moved the thermostat to the landing at the top of the stairs so that it more accurately read the whole house. The old one was also replaced with a brand spanking new one. Its so cool, it has its own app. Not only can you set a low temperature for the heat to come on at and a high temperature for the AC to come on at  (which compared to our old one is cool), it can be remotely controlled. Via the app you can check efficiency, the temperature, turn it off or on, etc. You can use presets for efficiency, then adjust it from there. Mike thinks its very, very cool, just ask him about it.

A busy few days

The baby has been sick - which means we have not slept well and didn't get a lot done on the house from one day to the next. Over the last few days we did get a bunch of little things done though. Today with the help of our parents we got a lot more done.

1. Swag dinette light over - Mike had replaced the light in the dinette a while ago but we kept hitting our heads on it. We have a rectangular table not a round one so every arrangement was awkward. Mike got a hook and it was a quick fix to get it a bit higher up and centered over our table.

2. Cleaning out the chemicals, still - The previous owner left a lot of chemicals around the house. I've been collecting them from around the house and garage and putting them on the side of the house. Some of the cans are so rusted we can't even tell what they are. There are multiple cans of Lysol, Windex, Comet, Raid,  garden fertilizers, pest controller, paint, spackle, car cleanser, etc. The pile just keeps getting bigger. I finally had the time to pull out what was actually useful (and not expired) so I think what remains (below) can go to hazardous waste finally.

3.  New Hallway lights - The gaudy old crystal lamps are gone! This two lamp set was only $20 and totally worth it. We don't know if we want to replace them with recessed lighting or not but now that they look so much better we're really not worried about it.

4. Cleaning out the garage - We can not fit two, yes two cars in the garage! Anne came to help me for several hours today and we were able to get a lot done. First we were able to get up into the rafters in the garage and clear out the junk left there. There were tons of empty boxes, (no Playstation in that box like we hoped ;) and a bunch of other finds. We pulled down:
  
 1 vintage 80s step exercise kit and an old Zip drive kit ...

An old bike rack and fireplace grate (which is odd since we have one in our single fireplace already?)...

And this jewel (right) was wrapped up in a towel and a piece of the old blue carpet in a Mervyn's cloth bag. I'm totally sporting it in the patio. Wrought iron and solid glass body so its heavy as hell.




Perhaps the strangest thing was all the luggage. There were eight different suitcases in the rafters. Many are old enough to count as "vintage," the old hard Samsonite type. Maybe someone wants them for decor??

After we got all of the previous owner's junk out of there we were able to get ours up. The rafters in the garage are partially covered in 1/2" plywood across the beams. There are several 4'x8' sheets of plywood and the highest point of the garage can hold up to 4' worth of stuff. It took a lot of manuevering but we manged to get Mike's old wood bunk bed set and an extra mattress up there. We also got the extra pieces to the baby's bed, all our holiday stuff, extra carpet, extra insulation and most of our memory boxes up there. Its seems almost full already but there is still room. Its a little hard to get up there but its definitely usable space. The tricky part is getting around all the garage doors and their supports. I couldn't reach all the way back onto the 4' plywood so I had to use a stick to maneuver everything around. That "stick" was actually an old shower curtain rod so every once in awhile the spring function was not helpful. 

After lots more moving, sorting and compiling Anne and I were able to get everything that remains in the garage into one bay. All of our tools are spread out everywhere so we really need a workbench and tool box to hold it all. Once we have that we can get the rest of it put away. We also have some heavy boxes we can't put away yet of CDs, DVDs and books. Mike has to finish the media closet before the media can go away and we don't have a bookshelf which makes the latter hard to store. But its close! So close!

While we haven't done it yet, there is now space for two cars in our garage! You can also see that we were able to store our extra baseboards up at the top above these two bays. I'm a little concerned about the integrity of the shelving though.

5. Retaping the air return - Mike and his dad had planned on moving the thermostat today. It is currently in the family room which is usually colder than upstairs. When we run the heater at night we often end up boiling in our room and actually closed our vent. Mike had hoped to run the wires up and over the stairwell to come down into the stairway across from the return.

While discussing the plan, Bob opened the air return and didn't like what he saw. Like much of the house venting and ductwork, it is taped up in asbestos tape. As long as its not disturbed its okay for most people. Bob wanted to remove it all which required wetting it so that it didn't become dust and scraping it off. At the least, he planned to retape the area with silver duct tape (actual duct tape meant for ducts). He also decided to bend some sheet metal to close in the box a little more. He and Mike found one hole that was covered up with cardboard that they had to fix. When it was all done its sealed up pretty well.

6. Fixing the back sprinklers - Mike has been looking at the back sprinklers and noticed that the sprinklers don't rise high enough to water as they should. The grass is well established and is turfed really high. He decided to pull up all the sprinkler heads up in order to attach longer ones. Some of them he was able to replace easily. Some were more difficult. When I checked on him today there was a a big hole (1'x2') in the middle of the grass. He said that one was being "stubborn." Apparently at the bottom of the sprinkler body, where it should attach to the main sprinkler line to get water, there was another strange 90 to 90 angle connection that he thought was leaking.

He also decided to completely eliminate one sprinkler in order to replace it with two others along the same edge of the lawn. He's hoping that will help distribute water more evenly. After he got everything connected he tried to run water through it but found one sprinkler failed to pop up completely which means it doesn't have enough water pressure. Which means the water is leaking, somewhere. He also discovered he broke a pipe somewhere, he's not sure where. That's where we stopped for the day, we'll have to take it up again tomorrow. The "Sprinkler Whisperer" may be getting a call tomorrow.

Offending sprinkler found

After the water meter box flooded we started running experiments to try to find out the cause. I have a tendency to experiment systematically I guess.
1. Operate the house water (showers, washing machine, etc.) with no irrigation.
2. #1 + Run the back irrigation only.
3. #1 + Run the front irrigation only.

We have not been able to recreate the leak. In between experiment #2 and #3 I dug a hole to the dirt behind our brick mailbox at about the same slope as the water meter box. My thought was that if the water was seeping from the ground into the hole due to our water table then theoretically it would in this second hole as well. It was just a dirt space so I figured it was worth a shot. No water in either hole through the experiments.

So today, since the baby actually took a nap, I figured I would run the front irrigation and take a look. There are two sprinklers in the plant area but only one works. The one that works is actually a lawn sprinkler and puts out too much water for that area. It is the one closest to the water meter box so that may be part of the problem. I think the majority of the problem is actually the other sprinkler that does not work.

It spurts water as pressure builds up in the system and it bubbles out. But once the sprinkler rises completely up the water stops coming out of the sprinkler. I dug around the offending sprinkler and found water building in the space around it, highly suspect. The view to the right was after I already chopped back that bush. It was an old growth bush that needed to go anyway. It is now in pieces on our driveway.

In order to get the sprinkler out of investigate it more, I had to remove the whole bush. The root system was the tricky part. Every time I dug my spade in I hit another root that I would have to excavate so that I could cut it back. A round tip shovel gave way to the narrow tip irrigation shovel which gave way to a hoe. I could only get down an inch or two before I would hit roots and clay. By the end of it, I had made a mess again but I didn't feel like I got much accomplished. There were decorative rocks and natural rocks to deal with in addition to the root system. Then there was an outpouring of ants; apparently I disturbed a colony.

Oh and the purple shovel is there because the baby decided she wanted to "deg deg" too.

When Mike got home he had a chance to help me dig. I had noticed the sprinkler head was loose and he discovered why. The sprinkler actually met a 90 that attached to another 90 then to another pipe. Given the direction of that other pipe we think it goes under the driveway or just up against it. We took it all off since it was loose and leaking anyway. We hit Home Depot and got a cap for it so that we can run the irrigation while we work on the area. Mike wants to put a smaller sprinkler on there and possibly dig up the mystery pipe a little more.

The other, active, sprinkler we will also replace with a smaller sprinkler. We hope that by repairing the leaking connections and using two smaller sprinkler heads, we've fixed the problem. Since we have been unable to reproduce the leak we still don't know for sure what caused it. Until it happens again though, we think we've located it.

Bar leaves, Leaks return

Today was a busy day. I had two window estimates; one for repairing the leaking pane in the garden kitchen window and one for replacing it completely with a flat one. Either way it takes money but we'll see which will be worth it.

And the bar left! Hallelujah! A friend's brother wanted it for his bachelor pad man cave so he rented a U-Haul today. He brought two friends and between the four of us we were able to lift it and shuffle it into the truck. Luckily he had rented the 10' truck because it just fit with room to close the door. They were happy to have it and we are so glad to see it go. The boys will enjoy it, he's already posted a picture of it in his garage.

Anne came over to play with Katherine for a little while so I could get some work done. When she showed up I noticed the sidewalk in front of our house was wet. I went out to look and the water meter box (cement box near the street that reads water usage into the property) was overflowing with water. I bailed water out of it using one of the baby's buckets; at least I was able to water the part of the lawn that needed it. I got the water level below the level of the water gauge so I could see if it was moving at all. The meter wasn't spinning which meant we didn't have an active leak and no water was being currently used on the property. When I checked back on the water level a little while later it had risen; a few hours later it was almost as high as when I first found it.

As we see it, there are a few potential causes:

1. We ran the back sprinklers through a full cycle last night for the first time since they stopped working on their own. They had been on a few times occasionally but not for as long as we ran them last night. It is possible that all that water took that long to flow through the ground all the way into the front yard. But that doesn't explain why it is seeping up just in the water meter area.

2. It could be a break or leak in the waste water line. Not sewer, it didn't smell, but sink or shower run off. I had run the washer in the morning, taken a shower and used the sink. When Mike got home we ran the shower for a few minutes (after bailing more water out) and saw it rise a little. Not a lot, barely noticeable, but it did rise. But it could be that whatever started to fill the box, was still continuing to fill it, unrelated to the shower running.

So our investigative plan is to turn off all the sprinklers tonight and use the water in the house as normal. Since we haven't notice this flood before either something just broke or its the back sprinklers since that's the only thing different. We've been showering this whole time obviously. Tomorrow I'm going to see if the box is higher, sans sprinklers, and that should establish if its house related or not. Either way Bob suggested getting a big container of food coloring and dropping it down a sink to see if it is waste water going to the meter.

No water should go back through the water meter from house to street. The water should only be going from the street to the house, through the meter where it gets measured. Since the meter isn't continuously running its not a case of water continuously flowing through from the street to the house. If we establish its a leak in water leaving the house, we call a plumber to find the leak; its probably in the main line that leaves the house and we think its left of the walkway which means right through our lawn. But if that's the case we don't know why it would leak in the water meter which is on the right side of the walkway. If we establish that the leak is related to the sprinkler system in the back, we may have to dig down and rip out the pipes that go under the cement from the front to the back. Fun fun either way.

In happier news, I worked more on the garage. The last two boxes of our clothes made it up to our room. They're not in the closet yet, but they're closer. We still have to get some kind of workbench for all of our tools. And now that we have space we can see that the previous owner left a lot of stuff in the rafters. We're assuming its more junk we will have to get rid of. We have to clear all that before we put our own stuff in the rafters; thus it still sits in our garage. The rest of the crafty stuff has to go into the second upstairs green room but right now there is no where to put it other than stacking it in boxes in the closet. That and its hard to decide where a lot of it will go while Mike is working. When I rearranged the garage, my car can fit! That's right, there is an actual car in our three car garage. Sure the other two bays are full but its a start.

Back valves done

Our back valves for the irrigation system were almost as bad as our front ones. We had replaced those earlier and decided to tackle the back this weekend. To see why, check out the videos below. There were several problems:

1. The back irrigation system did not work with the timer in the garage so they had to be turned on manually.

 

2. When you did run the big sprinklers for the hill manually, it squirt water out (above) and filled the irrigation box pretty quickly. 

 

3. When you were done manually running the sprinklers and turned them off, they would back flow. That means when you close the valve that stops new water from going through the pipes out into sprinklers all the water that was in the pipes flows back to the valve. That means water pours out of them and into the same irrigation box that was already flooded (above).  

 

4. All that water is just when you run the two systems for the hill in the backyard. Then you run the sprinklers for the lawn (above) and it squirts again. 

All of that water fills the irrigation box, also called a christy box. The valves were actually  below patio level and the box is supposed to keep back the dirt that surrounds it. That works if the box is intact. Ours was wood and decomposing so when the box filled with water it also filled with dirt. After a week or so of manually watering the backyard we essentially buried the valves. The dirt level in the box rose at least 4 inches. 

The repair process started with digging. The whole area was filled with those lovely white rocks that will some day be leaving my backyard. We had to move all of those and the old wood box. That meant rusty nails sticking out of decomposing pieces of wood we were trying to pull apart with our bare hands (we lost the hammer somewhere). We found some interesting things while digging. There were abandoned pieces of PVC pipe that were filled with dirt that might have been from an old set-up that they just cut off and left there or they were at one time meant as supports for what was left. Either way, not normal. We also found random bits of glass, wood, nails, and electrical tape which meant there were wires. 

We did find two large clusters of wires that were not the low voltage usually used in irrigation. So there was the big question, "Are they live? Where do they go?" We found the same cluster coming out of the wall on the side of the house so we were able to establish that they weren't live but we have no idea what the once were from. 

It took a lot of digging and ended up being a big mess. The hole we were digging was 3 feet by 3 feet and we estimated the final depth to be about 3 feet as well. Most of that was hand troweled. We usually hand troweled around the valves and pipes and then tried to get it into the section that was clear, about 12" wide, to shovel out. The annoying part about the hand troweling was that it was not only slow but we were digging below where we were sitting. Sometimes it was just easier to lay on our stomachs and do it.

We had to dig a lot of dirt out and pretty quick we hit mud. Make that Bollinger Clay that never dries out. We were double fisting trowels; one to dig and the other to scrape the first clean of mud so you can dig again. The mud would stick to the trowel so badly that we couldn't dig again and actually move any dirt other wise. Don't let the pictures fool you, I was in there digging, too.

The whole process was a lot like excavating a dig site. We kept finding surprises, like the bundle of wires. We would find pipe and think it was part of the system, only to find it was only a few inches long and abandoned. We eventually did find the pipes that go under the lawn to the rest of the system but they were strangely set up. All of the pipes were laying on top of each other and fit awkwardly around each other. There was also a mix of 1"and 3/4" pipe was well as PVC and brass fittings. Again, we have no idea why. Which is always a great place to be in with your irrigation, "I have no idea why its like that." That means, it all comes out. 

A few hacksaw strokes later and the whole tangled, rusty mess was out of that hole. That left a few pipes going different ways than we wanted still in the hole. And the hole was filled with water again from the water that been in the pipes until we cut them apart. We ended up bailing the water out with one of the baby's sand bucket into a bigger bucket so that Mike could dump it somewhere else.

Of course taking it all apart took the time we had for Saturday. We attacked the rest of it today. Which meant multiple trips to Home Depot and OSH. When we went to Home Depot I asked someone where the christy boxes were. At first the two workers just stared at me so I thought maybe they were out of their aisle of expertise and didn't know what it was. Nope, they were just shocked that I knew what it was. This is the second time that an employee has actually done a double take when I've asked for something. I'm used to hardware store workers being surprised with my questions ("I need a sheet of pure aluminum and 10 feet of tubing that will fit marbles") because I teach Physics. But it is still a little strange when they do a double take and have a "Whaaaattt???" look on their face right out of a cartoon.

Looking at the mess we made, we knew we had a lot to do today. Mike spent a lot of time cutting and placing, gluing, etc. Eventually it all fit together nicely and we were able to test it manually, without a flood. Once we established that it worked we shoveled all the dirt back in. That meant hand picking all the junk out of it, removing the rocks and rescuing baby lizards. This time around we also had help.

The first day the baby had been at my parents, today she was with us. She was entertained for a long while with her new play house, but then she decided we looked like we were having too much fun. Its kind of hard to fill a huge hole when you've got a toddler around. When the rake wasn't fun enough she went after daddy's tools, including wire cutters, a hoe, PVC pliers, etc. Our neighbors must think we don't let her play with anything because I swear all we say is, "Katherine, that's a No No!" The rocks and dirt pile looked fun to climb on which also make it hard to fill.

Eventually though, we got it filled and its all done.  Of course, its still not wired to the irrigation timing system but that's a project for another day.