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.

Dog & Door

Beau has had a hard time of the move. When we stayed with my parents he wasn't allowed outside as much because he barks and marks all over the place. He's a very protective boy. He was often shipped off to my in-laws to frolic with other puppies but then he missed us. We haven't been staying in the house a week yet and unlike Katherine, he didn't come to visit often before we moved in. He barks at every sound because its new and different. We don't have shutters yet on the windows he can see out of so he's barking at everything that goes past.

Yesterday we took our first walk around the neighborhood and he tried to mark every five feet. That's not an exaggeration and makes for a slow walk. So I have to tell him to move along or leave it alone and keep pulling him forward. Today we had the same problem on our walk. And then the gardeners came. Not only are they close to his house but they are making loud noises. They were in the front and the back yard and he was going nuts. I kept trying to reassure him but he's never taken that well from me. When Mike was on nights and he would bark and could not be consoled. It was almost as if he was saying, "Silly mom, there's a noise out there! I'll protect you!" like a "I-know-better-than-you" protective override. I tried to keep him upstairs (a nice use of the double baby gate system) but he was still barking and whining. We hope he'll get better once he gets used to the place.

Until we get the back fence in and fix the side gates, he can't be out in the backyard off leash. Even then he'll probably be over-protective and bark for awhile. But now, we at least don't have to walk him all the way up to the undeveloped part of the hill to go to the bathroom. I got the gravel down in the dog area which is much closer. The area is 8'x8' and the gravel depth is 2"-3". We have some extra bags because the gravel will probably leave various ways. Its temporary until we pull up that 10'x10' section of concrete but its a good start.

Yesterday I also tried to paint the closet door in the bar area. It was a really dark wood and we wanted it to match the molding in the ever popular "Swiss Coffee." Right away I didn't like the way the paint was going on. The door was finished nicely and very smooth. That meant that the brush strokes are very visible and uneven. Looking back, I should have primed it first. Or sprayed it which was the original plan until Mike wanted it exactly the same color as the baseboards. White is not always white when its next to white. I finished the coat and let it dry. The next time the baby naps (which could be days at this point) I'll try to get another coat on it and see how it looks. The wood looked so dark inside but outside it didn't look too bad. Too late I guess because I'm sure as hell not sanding it.

Lots of little things

Its been a few days and we've had some small and big changes:

1. Water Heater officially works
It took a week and might have been a little over-engineered but as my dad says "It won't break there again." Bob did an amazing job rebuilding the frame, moving all the ductwork, gas line, water in and water out lines, etc. The metal strut support structure insures that it will survive armageddon. We have hot water although we have noticed that if you have the hot knob on and turn the cold water knob at all you suddenly have cold water. We're working on finding a happy medium.

2. Baby-proof (we hope) door
After being defeated by the baby safety lock for the handle on the door leading to the laundry room we decided just to change the knob. $20 later we had an old fashion knob handle with a baby lock mechanism on it we hope will last a few months.

3. Flickering lights stopped The strange flickering in our CFLs has stopped because we replaced them with slightly higher wattage ones. We exchanged the 14 W (=60 W incandescent) ones for 19 W (=75 W incandescent) ones and that was enough to stop the flickering. Which is good because it was creepy at night when they all flicker, dimly, but all off beat from each other.

4. Baby locks in the kitchen Mike has been working hard on installing the baby locks in the kitchen but there are a lot of drawers and cabinets. We bought these really nifty magnetic baby locks that are opened with a magnetic key. The lock can be disabled if you're opening drawers a bunch or the baby grows up but otherwise they are always on "lock" until the magnetic key is brought near. Everyone says "Don't lose that key!" but we have a few spares and it stays handily on the refridgerator. Plus, I just may have a magnet or two at school. ;) I actually probably have one that would open all the cabinets in the kitchen at once ...


5. Dog area built 
We built a real simple frame of 2"x4"x8' pieces of wood and some L brackets to put up against the fence in the south side yard. Tomorrow I fill it with pea gravel (during the baby's nap hopefully). Mike managed to get 20 bags of pea gravel in the Subaru. He did note some acceleration lag on the way home ... Checking the Home Depot website, each bag is 0.5 cubic foot and weighs 49 lbs. That means Mike had 980 lbs of pea gravel in his car.

6. Boxes, boxes and more boxes
Mom has come over a few times to help with boxes. Its very hard to do anything with the baby and dog around. Anne takes Beau to her house daily. Between the two of us we can keep the baby occupied with something other than going through the boxes we are trying to empty. We got a lot of stuff emptied into our bedroom, found the last of the kitchen stuff and moved more craft/ storage/ old baby stuff into the green room. The garage is getting emptied slowly. Technically, if everything was on one side I think we might be able to fit one car in there.

7. Bye bye scrap metal!
Someone was driving around our neighborhood with a big pickup truck with black wood side panels and white lettering that said "FREE SCRAP METAL" and a phone number. The guy stopped and asked if the fridge that is clearly visible on the side of our house worked. I said yes, we wanted to sell it and he asked if I had any other scrap metal. Oh yeah, come and take it! He took the big wire basket of random door knobs that had been left in the garage, the old dirty vent covers we had replaced, the metal cane she left and the metal brackets I had taken out of the baby's room. He asked if we wanted to keep the three light fixtures on the side of the house and I almost laughed. They had gotten no hits on Craigslist (you're surprised, I know) so bye bye vintage lighting!

We continue to open boxes and try to empty them. We are hitting this weird place of having boxes half filled with stuff we don't know where to put yet. The cable remote is still MIA as is the dishwasher detergent but we found our camping stash for that so at least we can do dishes.

Gas leak & a cranky bed

Bob was over early to continue work on the hot water heater which should technically have been working but "might" have a gas leak. You find gas leaks usually by putting it in water or rubbing soap over it. I, however, have yet to find dish soap. He ended up just smelling for it and that was enough to justify replacing it. He had to redo the whole gas line set-up that attaches to the water heater but attributed it to a bad valve. That's the important part that meets the pilot light and actually heats the water after ignition. He was in and out all day and tried to work on the bracing for the water heater. His initial plan of wood supports was scrapped for a metal strut one. Our water heater might double as a jungle gym when its done but its definitely not going anywhere in an earthquake.

Anne stayed with Katherine for a little bit and I got some unpacking done before she had to leave. My mom came over in the afternoon and I got a little bit more done before the baby had to take a nap. I didn't want to unpack anything because the sound of rustling paper and cabinets opening might have woken her up. Sound carries surprisingly far in this house; in fact I can hear Mike snoring upstairs now. I shouldn't have worried though because she slept through the chop saw being used in the garage to cut the steel struts.

Mom and I tried to tackle the office/ guest room in the downstairs bedroom while she slept. Our "office" at our old house was a guest room, an office, camera/ computer part storage, craft room and general store room. We plan on keeping the desk in the downstairs bedroom and otherwise trying to keep it as much of a "guest room" as we can. The upstairs green room will someday be kid #2 but for now can be a craft room and stores everything that is too small or too young for Katherine. All our other storage stuff will actually be able to find homes elsewhere, we just don't know where yet. We have lots of space, which we know will eventually fill up, but we're trying to find out what will be the most logical location. That and we're still unloading boxes so we'll think all of one thing will fit in one location only to find another box of it and have to move everything. A lot of this miscellaneous stuff is marked "office" because that's where it came from, even though that's not where its going. So that in and of itself has been challenging.

We finally moved enough stuff around that we had room to build the guest bed. Now, eventually, we will have a full size bed in that room when we upgrade our full size bed to a queen. Until then, our guest bed remains my old twin day bed. My mom and I figured out today that its 22 years old. It works; for everyone but Keith and George. Someday guys, someday. ;)

The bed, if you haven't seen it, is made of steel and heavy as hell, but it has pretty flowers on it. The connection between the bed frame (what you sleep on) and the sides of the bed is actually a strange double bolt. The bolt is roughly C shaped and each part goes through a hole in the side of the bed through the steel tube. Each bolt has to go through the frame of the bed and then a nut holds it in place. On one side Mom and I had a hard time keeping the bolt through both holds as we tried to fit it through (see "what it tried to do" below). At some point in its life it had lock nuts on it but that time is gone. Once we got to the other side we were surprised to find no bolts. We shook the side and sure enough we heard the bolt sliding from one side of the bed to the other. There are brass knobs on the top so we pulled those out first but found that the tube was sealed off at that point. At the bottom was a plastic foot; a paint knife made quick work of that and the bolts slid out. Then it was a matter of getting it back in in the right spot.

We didn't see any way we would be able to slide it up the leg and just happen to get the bolts in the right orientation through the holes so we tried from the outside in. Surprisingly, the bolt is just long enough that it does not easily slide through one hole and into the correct alignment through the other. It took some work on one side but we got it in and got a nut on it so it didn't fall out. The other one, on the other hand, took some convincing. Many problems with fittings can be corrected with a hammer; I was eventually able to force the bolt into all the way into the tube and *tink* right down through to the bottom. After I recovered it again through the bottom I tried it again, gentler this time and was able to get it. Mike took the bed apart by himself before the move and swore he never would again. The next time we take this bed apart it will be to sell it so I'll never have to put it together again.

Since reassembling the bed took the majority of the baby's nap we didn't get much else done. Its all slowly coming together but slow is frustrating. Katherine can open all the long handle (no doorknobs) doors in the house, has discovered the kitchen cabinets are not locked, and loves to play at the landing at the top of the stairs above the tile floor. In fact today she was practicing her somersaults right at the top. With that many potential heart attacks, its hard to be productive on my own. Its a good thing our parents live near by or we would be living like this for years.

Tomorrow I hope to find the dish soap and run the dishwasher for the first time. Its 20 years old and looks like its never been run. I found the laundry soap but there are still some fittings we have to finish. But hey, the baby got a warm bath tonight so I can stand dirty dishes and clothes.

Hot water!

I spent the whole day with Devon and the family but Mike was busy working on the house. His dad got the hot water working (although I haven't tried it yet) early in the day. He has to come back to do the earthquake bracing tomorrow.

Mike worked on cleaning up and setting up the media closet. He had to install a four gang box inside the closet by tapping into an outlet on the other side of the wall. There is still some drywall work to be done but it's powered. He also investigated our blinking lights.

Last night (during one of the many times we were up) we noticed the hallway lights flash dimly but constantly. The baby's lamp did too. It turns out that CFL lights require such low voltage and are "instant on" so the small amount of voltage required to keep his lit switches lit is enough to turn the CFLs on. We are working on the problem and hope that we won't have to replace all our new light switches he worked so hard on.

We spent the evening away and the baby was asleep by the time we got home. We decided to finish installing the baby lock on the door out to the laundry room. His dad had figured out how to get the rest of it off (something about using a putty knife as a pry bar). After a fairly long attempt and multiple disassemblies and reassembles we came to the conclusion that the locks do not work on all doors. At least it wasn't expensive.

The next project was to try and watch some TV. After assembling the TV, DVR, various cables, etc we thought we were all set. Except we had no idea where the cable remote was so no DVR for us. It hasn't been hooked up for a month so I don't even remember what was on it. We didn't get the old cable box hooked up though ... Only to see "Searching for your cable service - 0%." After watching it slowly get up to 100% by 5% increments it changed screens to the optimistic "Your cable service has been interrupted and should return shortly." We think it's BS and when we got a different cable set up our old unit wasn't activated.

So no TV, no Internet (this post comes to you from Mike's phone) but we hopefully have hot water. Which is enough to be thankful for.

New neighbors & cold showers

Saturday morning we got up early and optimistically packed up the stuff we had brought over to my parents' house. We filled both cars and still had to leave stuff. Somehow we managed to bring a lot of stuff over and fill all three of their guest rooms. We left the baby to play with Devon who is home for the weekend and headed to the house.

Bob was already there trying to work on the water heater. He had to leave until the afternoon so Mike and I worked on other things. We unpacked the china, glass vases, etc into one of the linen closets. I'm very excited that I was able to fit all of it into one of three linen closets and didn't even fill it! So many cabinets and closets are empty right now. I know we'll fill them but its just amazing right now that we haven't filled it all. We tried to get our room together and realized that again, any one of the three closets was bigger than what we used to share at our old house.

Devon and Dad stopped by and we showed them the progress. I had shown Devon pictures of the house we had from the open house (with wallpaper, etc) so that she could understand the change. She hadn't seen it at all before. After they left Sean came by and helped us move the last of the "big" furniture. We got the desk into the downstairs bedroom, the two dressers up into our room and the TV entertainment center into the family room.

That is where we encountered a problem. When Steve and Tim had run cable, speaker wire, etc., they had left it as a bundle at the top of the wall in the family room until Mike gets the speakers and ports he wants. We had planned on movie the TV into the entertainment center so that when we hear "Ernneee! Ernneee!" we can do something about it. I looked at the bundle of cables and asked, "Where's the coax?" Mike and Sean looked at the bundle, looked at each other and I could see we had a problem. Sean started suggesting some fancy equipment that converts coax to HDMI to ethernet to HDMI to coax, etc. Mike suggested a TV that would take HDMI, which means a new one. Our old tube TV is a hand me down and we knew we would have to get a new one eventually. We had hoped to make do for a little bit longer. For now our plan is to move the big one up into our room where there is a coax hook-up and make do with the TV upstairs until we figure out the one we want downstairs in the family room. Someone told Mike he needs a 65" TV for the family room. Thanks, whoever you are.

So the entertainment center sits empty and we moved on to the next thing. The baby has figured out how to open up the handled door knobs so we bought a safety device that is supposed to limit her. But it also limited us. You're supposed to completely remove the door handle in order to install it. Together, the three of us couldn't figure that out. We'd never seen anything like it. Next step is our dads. If they cant figure it out we may go buy the same model to see how it goes together in order to work it backwards.

The water heater was still not finished by the time we needed to shower in order to go to a HOA BBQ. Mike and I decided to suck it up and take cold ones. He took one first, walked out and said, "Go to your parents house." I had to pick up the baby anyway so didn't argue.  The HOA BBQ was okay, there weren't a lot of people by the time we got there and we didn't recognize any of our neighbors. It was mostly a "meet the board" kind of thing. That night though, we had a BBQ with our neighbors and that was fun.

Our immediate neighbors are awesome and fun! We only had one set of good neighbors at our old house (who we miss!) so it was really refreshing to meet everyone. We met some new neighbors we hadn't before and (we think) nailed down the names of everyone. There are quite a few younger kids so Katherine will have kids to play with. The baby across the street is 5 months younger than her but just as tall and heavier. They were taking turns wolfing down watermelon and being adorable. We had a great time hanging out and learning more about everyone. We think we will be very happy there and it seems like everyone else plans to be there for a long time too. We are excited!

But since we didn't have hot water still it was back to mom and dad's for the baby's bath. By the time we got there though she was so exhausted she just wanted to cuddle and sleep. It was the first night in our new house so we headed back home before she completely lost it. She fell asleep easily and stayed asleep all night. We, on the other hand, did not. The windows were open so the door shuttered in the door jam until Mike closed a sock in it. The dog heard noises and barked a bunch. The temporary blinds we got from the window company (temporary blinds = pleated paper & tape) moved in the breeze and the close-pin type clips ("cordless opening & closing!") banged against the window frame. Mike got up a dozen times and even tried taping it to the window frame. Eventually he just closed the window. We may have to invest in some cheapy drapes since our nice shutters won't come in until October. Our 7am alarm (baby) made it a short night. But we are excited to finally be "home."

Water Heater, Sprinklers & no more drapes!

Its been a very busy day! Mike and I got to the house early, after stopping by Home Depot of course. I should just sign over my paycheck to them. It was a first trip of four today. The baby came with us in the morning until my mom could take her to class. She is obsessed with the mourning dove that has made a nest under our porch overhang right in the middle of our window. Anne has called her "momma bird" so Katherine wanders around saying "Mamama" and then flaps her arms. We have been expecting babies any day and today we saw two little chicks in there. Once we explained to Katherine that there were two baby birds in addition to the momma bird she parked herself on the ottoman right in front of the window and didn't move for half an hour. If you've met her you know that is a very long time for her to sit still.

Once we got to the house I started on rearranging the living room and laying the area rugs out. Mike started  helping and then Anne finished up. We ended up getting all the furniture into the living room and dining room so its starting to look like a house.

Look beyond the boxes ...

Anne and I spent a lot of room in the baby's room today. I put together a toy holder for her and we got a bookshelf in there to hold all her books. We got her clothes in the closet and a lot of her toys back into the room. We still have all of her clothes that have to go back in her dresser but right now they are all in the suitcase at my folks' house.

We had put the old drapes up on Freecycle and someone came by today that took all the drapes. The woman asked if we had drapery rods too so we were happy to give her those. The gardener came by and now we have a weed-free yard! He made it look great and I know it will only get better. The "sprinkler whisperer" came by and fixed the leak in the front yard. He did have to pull some new pipe under the walkway, replacing the cheap, thin PVC that was their before. He dug up a small part of the lawn to run the pipe but you can't even see it. He found that there was a pipe that runs right underneath the walkway so he just abandoned that line. He put all the lawn back, swept up and it all works great! He was very reasonable and finished it very quickly. If we can't get the back irrigation working then we will definitely be calling him back.

Bob worked on our water heater set up all day. He replaced the plywood with planked 2"x12" boards. While he and Mike were inspecting and discussing some of the vent work Bob yelled and jumped several feet in the air. He had thought he'd seen a mouse but he'd really seen a small baby hand. What we didn't know was that Katherine and Anne were inside in the bar area and had heard Bob and Mike talking. Katherine found a spare wire nut on the floor and Anne told her to take it to Grandpa. Since she could hear Grandpa through the hole in the wall (vent without a wall register on it) she stuck her hand through it to give Grandpa the wire nut. Mike and I got a new wall register for that on Home Depot trip #2.

There was a third Home Depot trip when they decided to replace all the vent work around the water heater and had to get more parts. By the time we left around 5pm the water heater was up and most of the pipes in place. Not everything is fully attached or soldered or taped but its there. We opted for a "shorty" which is a smaller water heater for now and a shorter warranty since its small. At least its not leaking rusty water. They've taken precautions against leaks again by putting a drip pan under it and sheet metal. Almost all the duct work in the area has been replaced or at least retaped at the joints. There are a few more things to do so we should be able to finish it up tomorrow afternoon. Since we have neighborhood BBQs tomorrow we figure tomorrow night is a good transition time for the baby. Fingers crossed we have a water heater then! Mike had to hit Home Depot again on the way home, trip #4.

Who can fit in a plenum?

Today Mike and I were both busy so only he briefly stopped by the house tonight. His dad Bob, however, was busy at work on our furnace and water heater area. He managed to crawl into the plenum (where the air furnace pushes out air) in order to inspect it and clean it out. Anne took this picture which is apparently right after he was completely tucked up in it.

Tomorrow, Mike and I hope to get out there early. Mike will be on water heater duty while I will try to work of all/ some of the following:
- scab the holes in the drywall (entry way wall, purple room, master bedroom)
- put kitchen baseboards back
- continue moving boxes from garage to house
- assemble baby's new toy shelf
- meet "sprinkler whisperer" and get irrigation fixed
- meet new gardener and get the yard on the road to recovery
- rearrange living room and dining room with rugs this time
- add putty to baseboard nail holes
- put baby proof latches on the doors with long handles (as opposed to door knobs) the baby has figured out

Fingers crossed the water heater gets done before tomorrow night and we can actually live there by the weekend.

Moving right along

Today I didn't get to the house until 1pm but we got a ton done! Brandy came over and is a moving queen! Mom, Grandma and the baby came by a little bit later. Grandma helped with unpacking the kitchen, I assembled some lamps and mom and Brandy got a bunch moved out of the garage. They were able to set up our bed, move both of the baby's dressers upstairs and a dozen other boxes. There is still a ton to move but its a great start. If we can at least get it all inside then room to room we can arrange it. We found the drinking glasses which is fabulous so we don't have to drink out of solo cups anymore. It seems like there is still so much in the garage but we really did move a lot out of it. Some of it just got moved around though if it was really just garage stuff. So much of it we just don't know where we're going to put it yet.

Bob came over to work on the water heater problem. He had taken the water heater to the dumps in the morning and came back to cut out the rotted piece of plywood. Underneath there was an old rats nest; it didn't smell which is supposed to mean its old.

The wrapping around the pipes is coming off and was soaking wet, still. All of that will have to be replaced. He suspects some of the taping around the furnace contains asbestos. And one of the back supports of that piece of plywood appears to be broken (in the back right).

By the time he came back in the evening to show Mike it sounded like he wanted to replace the whole box which includes the portion that supports the furnace. We're looking at a water heater ETA of Friday, if we're lucky.

It seems like we are spending tons of money on the house; of course paint and flooring was a big portion of that. But a lot of little things have added up to. We don't have a shelving system in any of the closets so we'll have to get one for the baby's room and ours at a minimum. Most rooms don't have overhead lighting so until we can get around to wiring those we have to buy some lamps. Some rooms like the family room don't have crawl space above so overhead lighting isn't an option.

Oh and when I ran the sprinklers this evening half of the upper lawn circuit didn't work at all. As in does not pop up, does not even gurgle water out. Luckily the "sprinkler whisperer" is coming tomorrow.

Its filling up slowly

Last night we got the living room and dining room kind of put together.

So its starting to look like a house. Today we had the area rugs cleaned on the front drive way, which looked weird, but worked out well. They have been brought in but not placed. We still have to play with the living room arrangement.

Mom and I built the crib which was an adventure with the baby. She has become obsessed with nuts and bolts and screwdrivers. I went out and bought her a play set today so she has something to do while we work on stuff. The baby fell asleep so I was stuck inside since I didn't have a baby monitor. Since we weren't locked to the house once she woke up we could actually run errands! I bought some lamps since the family room and bedrooms don't have overhead lighting.

We got the definite "no" from the home warranty company yesterday. Our realtor tried to work a miracle today to no avail so tonight Mike went over and dismantled the old water heater today. Now we have to find somewhere to recycle it. We hope to put in a new one tomorrow night. We definitely need to replace it right now because it leaks rusty brown water and the water has damaged the box beneath it.

With just mom and I during the day its hard to move anything in because we can't move the furniture with the baby around and then we don't have anything to put the stuff in boxes into. Plus my back got messed up doing something yesterday. Which could have been scraping on hands and knees or lifting or chasing the baby or moving boxes or anything.

Carpets are in!

I was up and out early again to meet the carpet installers. They called me before 8am asking where I was! All of them have been early which is great. It was a three man crew again but not the same as the hardwood installers. They were surprised that the baseboards were already down because they had expected to install them (problem #1). Which means they were out money they were expecting. And because the new baseboards are thicker than the old baseboards they were closer to the carpet tack strip. The carpet guys blamed this on the wood installers, saying they didn't give them enough room and that's why carpet is supposed to be laid first and then baseboards on top. The floor consultant had purposely planned the wood guys to do it so the communication problem was on their end. As a result the carpet guys had to pull up and replace the carpet tack strip in the entire house; around the perimeter of every room and closet (problem #2).

When I was showing him what was having carpet around the house I point out the exposed linoleum we had found under the bar. I told him that we had just found it and wanted it removed with the old carpet so that the new carpet wasn't laid on top of it. He didn't seem to think it was a problem at the time. The guys went to work and I started looking for things to do in the house not in carpeted areas. I was on the phone for awhile setting up appointments for other things. The "sprinkler whisperer," as my dad says, will be coming on Friday. We wanted to try Planet Orange for a pest control estimate but they don't serve our area.

Then around 8:45am the main carpet guy came to me, very frustrated and told me that if I wanted to linoleum removed I would have to pay them extra and pay for haul away (problem #3). I said I would take it up if they started upstairs. The tiles of linoleum came up pretty easy with a wide putty or 5-way paint knife along one side of the room. I was moving pretty well and got about 2/3 of it taken up before it got difficult. The tiles are 40 years old and original to the house. One side of the room seemed to have much more glue than the other. The 1/3 I had left was being pulled up in pieces smaller than an 3" square at a time. I was chipping at it with the 5-way since it was a stiffer blade. At 9:15am mom came by to drop off the baby since she had an appointment. Since there was a possibility it was an asbestos based tile the baby had to be outside.

Family room before (circa 1974 linoleum)

What I got removed  in 30 minutes (larger tools are theirs)

Where they had to start helping

I was outside with the baby for about half an hour before Bob and Anne showed up. By then the carpet guys had decided I wouldn't be able to finish and started to help. They said that could either pay them directly or they could tell the flooring store how much to charge me. At that point I realized I had quite a few cuts and blisters so if they were going to get to that room before I could finish I didn't have much choice. I helped them though so that it would go faster and hopefully not be charged as much. It took two of them plus me probably another hour to get it all off and cleaned up. You can see in the pictures above the longer scraping tools that are usually recommended for removal. They had tried to use those but ended up using my putty knifes to do it by hand. You can also see that exposed cement foundation has two different colors to it. The white on the left is where the linoleum came up super easy, because there wasn't much glue. The black on the right had a lot more glue and resisted. The small little pieces we were chipping off were resticking to the floor in that area.

We were scooping up the big pieces with a metal dustpan and trying to sweep all the small pieces, dust and debris into it as well. The shop vac helped with the last of the little bits but it kept getting clogged up with the small pieces of linoleum. The carpet guys told me they thought it was asbestos and let me know, as if I didn't, that it could cause cancer. He asked if I wanted to dispose of it or if he should. I told him I couldn't put it into the trash can and asked if he knew where I could take it. He said he would take it and it would be ok, he must have a contact for hazardous disposal because he's a contractor. After all that though, they still got to that room last.

Mom came back and grabbed the baby and then Anne went back home. I laid out some fertilizer and water to try to save the grass that hadn't gotten water during the irrigation problems. I was also able set up an area rug appointment and finally got our plumbing appointment for the water heater. When the plumber got there he took one look at the water heater and said it needed to be replaced. Duh. But he told me our claim had already been marked as "approval necessary" since we just got into the house. He didn't sound hopeful they would pay for it. They later denied us.

The carpet guys had to make two runs to the store, once to get all new carpet tack strips and once to get special nails to hammer into the slab foundation. You could see their arms recoil back a few feet every time they tried to hammer into the cement. They worked all that way until 4pm but got all the carpet laid. They ended up rolling it out along our driveway and partially into the street.

I had called the flooring company about all the issues and they said they didn't want to nickel and dime us so they said they would be taking care of any overages. I told the main guy that afterwards and he didn't seem to believe me so he tried to call the store. He must have thought I was trying to cheat him (problem #4).

The floor ended up looking nice, it looks like a totally different house. Now all it needs is furniture.

 Mom and dad came by with Katherine in the evening and helped move our dining room and living room in. We had to put felt squares on the bottom of everything because they will be more spread out than before and not all over the area rugs. We did a pretty basic arrangement but it needs adjustment. I'm sure we'll be moving things around more and more in the coming weeks. At least one room looks like we live there.

The devil is in the details

Today we were both able to be at the house all day! We had planned on getting there early but Katherine had other plans. She was up at 5:45am and wouldn't go back to sleep. We were able to get another hour once my mom got up and watched Katherine for a little bit. We had to hit Home Depot, yet again, on the way so we didn't get there until 10:30am. Bob was already there working on the bar wall and got it all buttoned up. He's still working on the drywall holes in the laundry room on the other side. We will have to call our painter back to mud, texture and paint it.

Steve and Tim were there continuing to work on the cable and wiring. They were able to cover up the hole in the green room floor with protective wall plates. Usually those wall plates go over studs that electrical wires pass through so that if you were to try to drill into that stud you will hit a metal plate (and thus stop drilling) before you accidentally drill through live electrical wires. That would be bad. Sean came by in the morning to help out, too.

We had picked up white vent covers to replace the ugly brown ones. They look great against the white baseboards. The one in the living room had a bent vent so we had to bang some more nails into it. Since its a 4 inch wide opening that meant one person held the short flat head nail with needle nose pliers and the other tried to bang the hammer sideways to hit it in. Not the head of the hammer, just the side of it and you could only move it a few inches. Not a quick process.

Mike and I replaced the round knob dimmer (missing the knob) in the dining room with a new touch dimmer. It was actually easier than regular light switches. 

From there we moved on to attach the dining room chandelier. It was an easier process at first than the dinette light because that we measured before we tried to wire it and thus removed the excess wire and chain links prior to installing it. It was a difficult process though because we had to thread the wires through the upper housing hardware. The first time we forgot the ground through the hardware and had to rewire it, the second time the ground wire was too short and we had to splice it. Then the third time we had thread through too much wire and the chandelier was hanging from the wires and and not the chain. Poor Mike was up on the ladder the whole time working above his head. Sean and I took turns holding the chandelier above our heads so that Mike had slack. The real pain to deal with were the arms of the chandelier.

In order to take up as little space as possible when packaged the five arms of the chandelier were folded so that three were together on one side and the other two were together 180 degrees away. When the three arms of the entry way light were bent similarly they just swung out to the position you wanted. When we tried to swing the arms of the dining room chandelier they wouldn't move. At all. We unscrewed the top of the chandelier and had to dismantle part of the it to see why. Each arm carries the wires from the socket for each bulb into the main part of the chandelier. Each set of wires goes through a screw that has two, count 'em two locking nuts on them. We tried attacking them with two pairs of pliers and that didn't work. We had to pull the light sockets out slightly to lower the wires enough to be able to fit a socket wrench over it. Even then Mike had trouble loosening them. All of this was not mentioned in the directions. I don't see how a layman would have been able to get this figured out. We actually has to undo electrical tape, wire nuts and the initial circuit just to start.

Once we had the arms adjusted we had to tighten all the nuts again, then pull the wires back up and twist the circuit together again. Then reassembled the top of the chandelier. All of this was between rewiring of the ground wire attempt #2 and #3. Eventually we got the shades on. We were all excited to test out the chandelier and realized we had no bulbs in it. The first bulbs we grabbed didn't work; compact flourescents don't work on dimmers. We ended up scavenging an incandescent from the garage to test it. The touch dimmer didn't work the way we expected but we figured it out and its fancy. ;)

Later, after the second Home Depot run of the day, we got enough lights to actually light it up and it looks pretty good.


The rest of the day we worked on replacing outlets in the family room. The electrical panel labels continue to confuse us and we tend to turn off enough circuits to kill the whole floor just in case. We taught Sean how to replace outlets, too. Changing the outlets from ivory to white makes such a difference. I also changed out the door stop on the garage door. For some reason it is about two inches off the floor. Currently we're using a bottle of soda and a gallon of some kind of cleaner to hold the door to the garage open. I took off the old one which must have been on there a while because all of the paint came off with it. I replaced it with a new one that actually touches the ground; apparently a novel concept.

Dad came over after flying and worked with Sean to replace the leaky valve on the front irrigation. Mike and tried to clear everything off the carpets since they're getting replaced tomorrow.  The house is really starting to come together. New paint and baseboards made a huge difference. The outlets, lights and covers have been great details to add. But the carpet is really going to make it look like a new house. It will feel clean too and I'll feel better about the baby coming over. There are still a few things to do but its definitely looking better.