DIY Insanity

repairing our front-loading washing machine

2011-11-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

broken shock absorber

We've generally loved our front-loading Kenmore/Sears washing machine. It doesn't use much water or electricity, gets clothes cleaner, and leaves clothes dryer than our old top-loading machine ever did.

But for a while, it's been behaving strangely. It was vibrating a lot during the final spin, occasionally spilling water from the hose, and sometimes making a whomping noise audible in the rest of the house. Still, it was getting clothes clean, so I didn't worry about it too much. Then last week it stopped in the middle of a cycle—it had tripped the GFCI breaker, and resetting that didn't do any good.

That meant I actually had to do something about it—at least after some hours at work, then taking the half-done laundry load to the nearest laundromat to wash. I took the front panel off and immediately noticed the broken shock absorber-type thingy that connects the drum to the frame. There wasn't a great puddle of water or anything else obviously wrong that I could see, so I let it sit while I got some replacement parts.

After it sat and dried for a couple of days, I tried it again, and it was ready to go. My theory is that it splashed itself during one of its violent episodes. So I unplugged the washer again, and set to replacing the shock absorbers. The old ones were challenging to remove, and the new ones almost as challenging to put in. Fortunately the parts came with instructions which helped, but it still involved a lot of awkward reaching, grunting and pushing and pulling pieces to get done. I ended up taking the back off, too, which helped get access to the plastic pins that hold each end of the shock absorber.

I also took the opportunity to clean out the water inlet filters. The hot water (which we don't use much) was pretty badly clogged. It was also interesting to note that there's a lot of empty space and some cement blocks (attached to the drum, to reduce vibration) inside the washer. And interesting to note that the replacement shock absorbers use a different design—I don't think we're the only ones to have this particular breakdown.

In any event, $35, some banged knuckles, and a test cycle later, the washing machine is back to its wonderful self.

solar in California

2011-06-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

There was potentially big news for solar in California. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) decided that PG&E and other utility companies have to pay homeowners for excess solar power. In the past, it's been simple net-metering, and any excess was used to offset their bill. Now PG&E has to pay a market rate for the excess. In theory that means solar panels can be paid off sooner, and eventually even make money.

Why isn't this huge news? Because the price was set based on daytime wholesale electricity rates paid to power plant owners, which fluctuate daily based on market conditions. That means when supply is low and demand is high, all is good for power producers. But much of the day and much of the year, California has an excess of electricity available, which means low prices, sometimes even negative.

Part of my day job is writing software for a small power plant, one piece of which is a program to monitor the energy price through the day. The price is set by the California ISO (CAISO), and is affected by supply and demand, loss, and transmission costs. After deregulation, companies like Enron gamed the market, resulting in power shortages, rolling blackouts and high prices. CAISO is designed to hopefully eliminate that possibility in the future, in part by always making sure there's more than enough power to meet the demand.

This year in particular, prices have been relatively low in part because demand has been low due to cooler than normal temperatures (until last week), and in part because of higher supply. Why not just dial back production if there's too much? Some generation is hydroelectric, and generates 24x7 depending on water flow, which has been higher this year. Even fossil-fuel based plants that can be adjusted up or down usually can't be adjusted that quickly, so there's generally a large excess.

The other factor is that solar is still a tiny portion of the power generated in California. Yesterday, for example, solar in California accounted for 4,142 MW hours of power, mostly between 8AM and 7PM. That's out of total system demand of 602,261 MW hours, or less than 0.7% of the total. A residential solar install is going to be a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction. All that means that with prices set based on market rates, the payment amounts are going to be very small.

As noted in the article, some people think this is fair, while others think the price paid should be higher to encourage further solar development. What's the right answer? I don't know, but in the short-term this doesn't change much, even for most solar owners. We still don't have solar power, but now that our neighbor's big tree is gone, it may make sense.

gardening with a sawzall

2011-05-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

pampas grass

We're still getting used to the absent tree. The additional light in K's office is nice, and I'm loving having fewer pine needles to clean off the roof and the front walk. And I've still got some work to do on the stairs from the carport. But all those improvements have made some other things more clear.

One is the ugly mound of pampas grass that's been growing near the base of the stairs since forever. The plumes may look pretty when it's blooming, but the main mound is full of dry, yellowed leaves, and the green leaves have a nasty sharp edge to them. K has been wanting to get rid of it for a while, so today after I dropped her off at the airport, I came home and set to work. On Friday I'd purchased a machete from our local hardware store, and between that and judicious use of my sawzall to cut off the dense central clumps, I managed to get rid of 2/3rds of it. I filled our green bin, so after that's emptied on Wednesday morning I'll attack it again.

changing scenery

2011-03-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was not a productive day. I wasn't expecting it to be super productive, but I basically got no work done. Our uphill neighbor told us last month that she was going to have one of the big Monterey pines next to her house taken out. I've always been aware of the trees -- the many (non-Eucalyptus) trees are part of why I bought the house where I did. But this particular pine was right next to her house, with a major branch hanging over ours. Over the years, she had an arborist take care of it, but it had become somewhat unbalanced over the last few years. Even before that, K and I worried a bit during big storms or earthquakes that all or part might come crashing down. So I was torn when I heard it was time for it to come down -- it's beautiful, but can be a little scary.

hecka big crane

Taking down a tree that large between houses and power lines is a tricky business. So they brought in a crane. It's a big tree, so it needed a really big crane. (They were also taking out a smaller dead cypress tree near the other side of the house, and the crane would help with that, too.) Between the crane, chainsaws, wood chipper, and general mayhem, I was anticipating a noisy day. I stayed home hoping to work and to deal with any issues that might come up, and K wisely went to the Mercy Center for a day-long retreat. Guess who was more successful?

Friday morning we woke to the sound of a big crane lumbering its way up the hill. We also woke to the news of the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Although we currently don't have family there, K's brother and sister-in-law used to live in Tokyo (their oldest daughter was born there), and I was there several times on business and worked with some software engineers from Toshiba for a couple of years. So I was not only distracted by the mayhem outside, but I was frequently checking the web for news, praying, thinking of former colleagues and was generally very distracted by the events there. Add to that the relatively minor worries about the tsunami striking California, and it was not a peaceful or productive day.

Despite all that, the they did safely bring the tree down. They started by lowering a guy into the tree with the crane. He proceeded to tie off then cut branches, which were then lowered by crane to the ground for others to deal with. This went on all day, and by 6pm or so, it was all over but the cleanup. They did a lot of that last night, and then came and finished up this morning. We haven't counted the rings yet, but it was a very large tree. You can get some idea of how big it is from the picture of the slice in the back of the truck. It's about 5 feet across at the widest point.

We'll miss the tree (not so much during storms), but removing it has already made a big change in the neighborhood. People further up the hill have new views. We have a lot more light on the north and east sides of the house. And I'll have a lot fewer pine needles and branches to clean from the roof and front walk. One downside is that the azaleas along the path will no longer be self-watering. During the summer, the fog would condense on the tree and drip down onto the flower beds below. Now we may actually have to water them some. On the other hand, it reduces the fire risk, and improves our prospects for solar PV panels.

urban homesteading

2011-02-21T17:43:00.001-08:00

I'm still not 100% done with the stairs to the carport, but they're fully functional and passed the elderly mother-in-law test. I still need to add more spindles to the railings, and some more lighting, but the stairs and railings are there.

Once that's done, I probably won't have as many DIY projects to blog about, so I plan to blog more about urban homesteading. I was inspired in part by Novella Carpenter here in Oakland, who wrote Farm City: the education of an urban farmer and runs Ghost Town Farm. I've also found inspiration from City Homestead here in Oakland. They don't have much in the way of an urban or city homestead yet, but they both feel strongly about local food and are taking steps in that direction. Quite a bit further along are my friends at Casa Decrepit in Alameda. They grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and have kept chickens for eggs for a number of years.

But the real inspiration of where to head is from Root Simple (formerly known as Homegrown Evolution) and authors of The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City. Back when I was first reading Farm City and started following various urban homesteading blogs, Root Simple was one of the first and best I came across. K didn't know I was following their blog at that point, but came home from a business trip with a book for me -- The Urban Homestead.

For me, it's not about saving money (though that's a bonus), it's about knowing where your food comes from. That's a large part of why I became a vegetarian over a decade ago -- the idea of factory farms and having no idea what's going into your food, and a process that's damaging the environment -- it's clearly not sustainable in the long run and not very healthy in the short run.

Steps Toward Steps

2010-12-21T17:24:00.000-08:00

the old carport stairs

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been doing work on the house, the steps in particular. But I've been slowed by frequent rains (those of you who are getting buried under snowstorms have no sympathy for me, I know -- but avoiding that kind of weather is one of the reasons I moved here in the first place).

I tore the old steps down pretty quickly. Once I got one board loose, I could use leverage to loosen others. The fact parts were rotted helped a lot, too. Note to those building exterior structures from wood: water will find its way in, so be sure to treat all sides of the wood, not just the parts you can see after assembly. That goes double for any place with a horizontal surface where water can sit. The rotted ledger also lead to some rot and termites in one of the joists of the carport, so it took me a while to get a clean slate to start from.

After a lot of thinking, measuring, re-thinking, re-measuring, and consulting various stair stringer calculators, I laid out the stringers for the stairs. I managed to screw up somewhere, so one stringer was re-purposed for other uses. After more measuring, thinking and consulting stair stringer calculators, I tried again. This time I was successful, so I spent a couple days cutting the 3 stringers. The bottoms of rest on concrete and/or the ground, and it's a generally wet area (under trees that catch the fog in summer, north of the

new stairs rising

house), so I used pressure-treated 2x12s for them. The added density of the wood from the PT process almost burned out my little skilsaw, even with a fresh blade part way through the process.

I don't have a picture of the current status, but I cut, stained and installed boards up to the landing, as well as the rectangular part of it, so with the addition of a temporary piece of plywood, and the top railing on one side, we now have functional stairs. They're a long ways from finished, as I still have to do the trickier triangular part of the landing, and the rest of the railings, but given all the rain we've been having, it's nice to have functioning steps. That way we can avoid using our neighbor's steps, and tromping through the mud around the corner of the house.

One other note: I said in my original post that "I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones." So about that... I've been having some minor but lingering pains here and there after almost two months, so yesterday I went to the doctor. He said if I was 80, he'd worry I had compression fractures of my vertebrae, but at 44, I was probably OK. But he ordered up some x-rays to be sure. I heard from him a little while ago: the x-ray tech failed to do any useful x-rays of my lower back, but my mid back looked OK. However, the odd pain in my ribs in my side is because I have...a broken rib, with a mild displacement. There's nothing to do (except stop doing anything that makes it hurt), but I can expect some pain from it for the next 2-3 months. Sigh. At least it isn't too painful, but 2-3 months more?

rotted post where landing was

Watch That First Step...

2010-10-26T17:06:00.001-07:00

gaping hole...

I've been planning for some time to rebuild the steps to the carport, at least since January. When I had concrete delivered, I put in the footings for the new stairs, but mentally the task has been on the "nice to have" list, not the "do sooner rather than later" or "do immediately" lists.

Last night, it took a big leap forward in priority. K and I took a walk around the block after dinner, and when we returned I stepped on to the landing at the top of the stairs...and kept going. I knew some parts were starting to get a little rotten, but it seems that was considerably further along than I thought. The ledger board that holds up one end of the boards for the landing was completely rotted. I dropped the 7 or 8 feet to the ground and landed on my back.

Today I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones. Once I'm feeling a little more limber (and I'm past the current work deadline), I'll build a new set of stairs. Fortunately we have our neighbor's steps to use, but I have to admit I was a bit nervous walking on them at first after last night's excitement.

Remodeling Really Fast

2010-10-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

Imeant to post this a while back (say, back when I'd actually finished the work in early September), but didn't get around to unloading the pictures from the camera until today. In any event, here's a sped up version of process of renovating K's office. We tore out the drywall in the outer walls; ran new electrical, phone and Cat-5; straightened out the door; installed an exterior light outside the door; and insulated the walls. And of course repainted everything when we were done.

While the walls are open, you can see why blown in insulation as a retrofit would be more difficult. Not only are there diagonal braces between the studs, but there are some horizontal braces here and there, too. So it would mean at least 3 holes in some stud bays.

World Habitat Day

2010-10-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

Today is World Habitat Day. Millions of people live in substandard housing, and in particular children are more likely to develop diseases and less likely to graduate from school when they live in poor housing conditions. But this isn't just in developing countries in Africa or Asia, it's here in the United States, too.

There are lots of way to support Habitat for Humanity. Check for your local affiliate to get involved, either by volunteering or donating or both.

Just When You Thought it Safe...

2010-08-18T20:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently I can't stop working on the house. K has been out of town with her mom, so we arranged to take advantage of her absence by doing some work on her office. Starting with pulling the drywall off the outer walls, so I can run proper electrical, insulate the walls, and fix the door that sticks now that the house has settled. Other tasks (like work) keep getting in the way, but I've got most of the drywall pulled off and the boxes for the new electrical placed. Hopefully some pictures soon...

Déjà Poo

2010-07-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

from the hammock

About 2.5 years ago or so, the sewer backed up into the laundry sinks, the lowest drain in the house. So yesterday when K went into the basement to get the hammock out, then promptly reappeared with an alarmed look and the dire news, I wasn't as horrified because I had some idea what to expect. More importantly, I knew what to do (i.e., call RotoRooter) instead of messing about myself, because the blockage was likely beyond what I could reach with a small snake. Since the problem was discovered early, and it wasn't 100% blocked, we were able to minimize the mess by reducing water usage, and so it wasn't déjà poo all over again.

And not insignificantly, we could schedule them to come today, which is not a Sunday or holiday, and thereby pay normal rates instead. Regular rates are bad enough, but totally worth it. As before, we had to pay for a second plumber, because the cleanout is far enough under the house it needs one to run the machine and one to feed the snake in and out. So yesterday we relaxed in the hammock, secure in the knowledge that help would arrive today.

$350 worth of roots

We actually got 3 guys for the price of 2, which worked out well. I was able to ask the 3rd guy questions while the other 2 were working, and found out a few things. First, we could install a sewer backflow preventer. However, besides requiring the digging of a really deep hole, it means the sewage backup would go somewhere in the yard instead of the laundry sinks. I'm not sure that would be an improvement. Another option is installing just an exterior cleanout. That in theory would allow a single person to run the snake, and probably be quicker, too, since they wouldn't need to snake as far as they do from under the house.

While the two guys were running the snake, we listened around in the yard and got a better idea of where exactly the sewer line runs to the main. Sadly, that info points to our lovely little Japanese maple as a likely culprit for the root intrusion, but I now have a better idea of where to dig if I need to.

The first thing to try though is something like RootX, which kills any roots in the sewer line. The local RotoRooter used to sell it, but changing state regs meant they had to get a pesticide/herbicide license (in addition to a plumbing contractor's license), and it got increasingly difficult to comply with so they no longer sell root killers.

In the meantime, I'm happy because we can use the bathrooms again without worry, and I've got a plan to deal with next time, by attempting to make sure there is no next time.

Rain Barrel Review

2010-06-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

Doubtless some of you were expecting dancing rain barrels, with feather headdresses and sequins, or given their watery connections, an overhead shot of them dancing in a pool. That would most commonly be a rain barrel revue. Alas, this post is a bit more prosaic though hopefully quite a bit more useful. We've got two different varieties of rain barrels and I helped some fellow Oaklanders with a third, so when Retro Housewife Goes Green tweeted wanting to know about rain barrels, I decided to finally post this.

Great American Rain Barrel

First up is the Great American Rain Barrel (GAB), which reuses food-grade plastic barrels. We got this one one because I wanted to better control the rain water that comes to the entry side of the house. Even before I built the addition, some construction flaws with the original house led to water being an issue. The GAB comes with all the fittings and parts you need except an overflow hose (it includes the elbow fitting, just not the hose.) It's fairly easy to set up, though fastening the inside fittings takes some doing. (I highly recommend bracing the barrel before you try to wiggle inside it.) I don't like the fact that it's plastic, but I do like the fact it's made from a reused food barrel and that there were color options available. As with most rain barrels available, multiple barrels can be linked to collect more water. The only problem we've had with it is overflow. If it's raining really hard, or if the small holes in the lid are partially blocked with debris, more water comes down the downspout than can get into the barrel. That results in water splashing over the edge rather than making it into the barrel and out the overflow hose.

Specs:
60 gallon capacity, linkable, ~$169

Pros:

includes all fittings
colors available
reused food barrels

Cons:

pricey
lid clogs easily
doesn't include overflow hose
shipped from MA

Rain Water Solutions

Next up is the Moby from Rain Water Solutions. These barrels are made from recycled plastic, and have a custom shape. There are some color choices available though the non-black options cost a bit more. I got two of these through a City of Oakland program which sold them at a large discount (22% of list and no shipping) to residents. The design holds slightly more water, but the big difference to me is the lid. Instead of 16 small holes to let water in, the entire lid is slightly funnel shaped and leads to one large hole in the middle. There's plastic screen over the hole to catch debris and keep insects from breeding in the water. But the large hole makes it much less likely to clog, or clog enough that the overflow doesn't work. Again I'm not wild about them being plastic, but at least it's 100% recycled plastic. Reuse (theoretically at least) is better than recycling, as it uses an item that's already been manufactured, but recycled is better than made new.

Specs:
65 gallon capacity, linkable, ~$199 (black)

Pros:

includes all fittings
colors available (though cost more)
recycled plastic

Cons:

even more pricey
shipped from NC

Obviously given the program through the city, the price was much more attractive for us, and the shipping was theoretically more efficient since they shipped a whole truck load of them.

DIY solution

Last, but not least, is the DIY solution. Given the title of my blog, you might have assumed I'd try this first. I probably would have, but I kept putting it off because of other DIY projects (like the addition and the kitchen remodel), and in the back of my mind I've been planning a larger, more elaborate system to store more water since it doesn't rain all summer here. That didn't happen, so my experience with DIY rain barrels is more limited. I did help the good folks at City Homestead with a platform for their converted wine barrels. These are locally sourced (less than 50 miles), reusing materials, and non-plastic. Others have used reused food grade barrels (very helpful, step-by-step instructions) like the ones the GAB uses. There may be other options in your area depending on where you live. The hardest parts of the DIY option are (1) finding a source for the barrel (2) getting the fittings to work with it. But the upside is that not only can you get the barrel locally, you may be able to get it for free or at least for very cheap. You'll still need to get the fittings, and those will cost you $10-$25.

Specs:
55-80 gallons, linkable, free-$120

Pros:

cheap!
sourced locally
reused barrel

Cons:

finding a good source can be hard
you have to find and install the fittings
wood barrels won't last forever
may not handle high volume well

So there you have it. As with many things, there are trade-offs to the different approaches: cost, greenness, difficulty, et al. With any of these, some may be more important to you or not an issue (e.g., if you live in MA or NC). But hopefully this provided a useful comparison.

Dual Flush Toilet Conversion

2010-06-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

The rains finally seem to have stopped for the summer. This winter was an El Niño year, which helped make up for the previous years of drought. But that means that it's time to get ready for fire season, so I've been busy pulling blackberries and weed-whacking the yard. Each year usually gets a little easier, but this year the growth has been above normal with all the rain we've gotten.

I took a break from that to fix the toilet in the original bathroom. It's a 1.6 GPF toilet that I installed some years back that's worked fairly well. Lately the fill valve sometimes doesn't shut off, which can waste a large amount of water if it goes unnoticed. I decided to replace the flush mechanism at the same time with a dual flush conversion kit.

I saw a similar product at West Coast Green last year, then saw them install one on Ask This Old House. On the HydroRight website they claim it can be installed without tools in 5 to 10 minutes. That's true, though it requires a pencil and a measuring bucket plus a few minutes to calibrate for optimal water usage.

Replacing the fill valve with their HydroClean valve took a little longer, though not much. The hardest part was removing the old fill valve and required a wrench. Installing the new one was very easy. The nut to attach the new valve underneath is even self-calibrating: you just turn it until it clicks once or twice, and it's properly tightened.

My only concern is the long-term durability of the valve and flush mechanism. They seem well designed, but they're all plastic. That's pretty common for toilet parts these days, but does give me pause. The manufacturer, MJSI, offers a 5 year warranty on both, though hopefully it will last longer than that.

enjoying the sun

As usual, Star was unimpressed. She was too busy enjoying the warmth and sunshine.

Hey, FTC! I didn't receive any thing in exchange for this review. Though I'd be happy to if MJSI wants to give me something :-)

Wedgewoodium Leviosa!

2010-05-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

my familar, Rosie

Installing the cabinets and moving back into the kitchen before putting down the flooring had one big advantage: we had a working kitchen sooner rather than later. It had a number of disadvantages, not the least of which was dealing with our antique Wedgewood stove. It weighs a frakking ton (or in honor of the proposed term for 10^27, it's hella heavy.) Back when I bought the house and moved from an apartment in Berkeley, the movers complained about the weight. But one of them complained about everything, so I didn't think much of it. When it came time for K and I to move it out and then back into the kitchen, I thought a lot more about it.

So when I installed the linoleum, I cheated. Rather than move the stove out and back in a second time (moving it out made more difficult by the space being made to exactly fit it), I rented a couple of small house jacks and lifted it out the way. The minimum time for them was a day, but it was still very much worth it. Hella easier than moving the hella heavy stove twice.

Linoleum!

2010-05-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

100 lb. roller

After much debate, some shipping delays, and yours truly moving slowly, we finally have real flooring in the kitchen and dining room!

I picked up the order last week, and rented the one tool I didn't have, a 100 lb. roller. I've been working slowly but steadily since then, and installed the last pieces under the antique stove today. A couple things slowed me down (the antique and very heavy stove not the least of them), but overall linoleum tiles are pretty easy to work with. The aforementioned antique stove was a challenge to work around (or more to the point, under), and the irregular shape of the dining room by the back door made for some interesting shapes to cut, but the real sticker was that we'd decided to do a pattern with the tiles. And not just a pattern, but a pattern involving partial tiles. Whole tiles would have been a snap, but we decided that the size of the room wasn't large enough to look right with whole tiles, so we decided to do a border with half tiles.

cornery goodness

Let me just smack you upside the head if you're thinking of doing such a pattern yourself. It's not impossible, but it does add a ton to the work. Even after I figured out to make a jig / miter board for cutting tiles in half, I still had to note which were 'left' halves and which were 'right'. The error in my jig was probably a 1/32 of an inch or less, but when all the full tiles are exactly the same size, and you don't have grout to hide the differences like with regular ceramic tile, that 1/32" adds up to a noticeable difference when you start putting halves together.

begin in the middle

If you're not doing some sort of insanity like a pattern with partial tiles, the layout for the linoleum squares is exactly the same as with regular tile. Find the middle of the room, adjust 1/2 tile width if necessary, and then snap some perpendicular lines.

After I got past the 1/2 tile border in the dining room, things went pretty quickly. Except for the angle by the back door and the space under the stove, of course. But we're pleased with the results, and I even had enough energy left today to install the toe kick under the various cabinets (I'd measured and cut it ages ago, and temporarily taped it into place until we had flooring.)

Home Energy Efficiency

2010-04-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

blower door

Greetings if you're coming from Jetson Green! An article of mine on home energy efficiency was just published there. I had a home energy audit done recently and wrote about the results. In short it was well worth doing. For DIYer types, it includes links to some useful docs on the Energy Star website for better sealing your home.

power usage: first observations from PowerMeter

2010-03-19T17:11:00.000-07:00

We've started getting data from the TED 5000 and Google PowerMeter. They display the same data, but in different ways. The TED 5000 web page gives more detailed info, but PowerMeter makes it easier to compare your current usage with past usage.

First, let's look at a fairly typical day's usage in PowerMeter:

In the wee hours of the morning, you can see a regular spike about every hour or so. That's the refrigerator coming on. Around 6:30AM you can see the radiant heat in the bathroom coming on, lights, the coffee maker, etc.

The other thing of note is the darker green band at the bottom. That's the "always on" power consumption I mentioned last time. It's only about 85 watts, but since it's always on, that adds up -- over 2kWH per day, which is more than 20% of the 9.7kWH per day we averaged last billing cycle. With our other source of info, the Kill-a-Watt, I've found about 25 of the 85 watts so far. Unfortunately nothing in that 25 is easy to get rid of, but I'll keep checking to find the other 60 and see what I can eliminate.

Now let's move to a less typical day -- laundry day:

Note that the scale has been stretched from 0-1.5kW up to 0-5kW. That's because running an electric dryer causes a huge increase in power consumption. You can see the dryer running for two loads, plus a little secondary run after each to get rid of the last bit of dampness. This is a big vote for line drying your clothes to save energy. It takes longer than just throwing everything in the dryer, but clearly can save a bunch of power consumption since the sun is free.

For more detail about power consumption, you can also view the TED 5000 web page for your device:

There's a live dashboard that shows your current power consumption, power used since midnight, etc. You can also view historical data. But the most useful is the graphing tab, which lets you see your energy consumption in near real-time, with more detail than the PowerMeter gadget shows. You can click on the graph to show the power consumption at any given time on the graph; that's how I determined the "always on" power was about 85 watts. The fourth tab allows you to set up load profiles when certain equipment comes on. My first trial with that wasn't very successful, but I'm going to try again to profile the refrigerator and some other appliances.

So we haven't saved any energy yet, but we've got a lot more data about how to go about doing that now. Some of it, like line drying clothes is even pretty easy to do (at least when the weather permits) -- no fancy gadgets required.

So I Forgot...

2010-03-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

Today I finished insulating the attic. Or at least finished getting one layer down. If you've been following for any length of time, you may be surprised that I'm only now getting to that. When I bought the house, there was no insulation (except for a bit of Kimsul around the main vent stack). Over the years I put insulation in most of the attic, but about the time I was getting to the dining room and kitchen area was when we were deciding to build the addition and remodel the kitchen. So those parts of the house have sat without insulation in the attic, and well...I forgot about it.

On Wednesday we're having a home energy audit, and it occurred to me that I'd never finished insulating the attic. So after a late start (thank you, Daylight Saving Time), I went and measured to figure out how much more insulation I'd need then made a trip to Home Depot. Ideally there'd be R-30 or better everywhere, but the odd joist spacing means there are some gaps, and the design of the roof means it gets pinched (as well as divided oddly, since the rafters don't match the ceiling joists) at the edges. But now there's at least R-25 in most of it except an area I used up some R-19 in. My plan is to put a second layer across the whole attic (well, except the edges where it won't fit) cross-wise. The energy audit should be detailed enough to give me some idea of how much that will help. But regardless, it's nice to know there's finally insulation in the whole attic, after 16 years of living here.

Berkeley zoning board member admits flouting city building rules

2010-03-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

Getting drawings and permits for your home improvement too expensive and onerous a process? Then just do what a zoning board member in Berkeley (just north of Oakland) did: don't. Ryan Lau, assistant to Berkeley City Councilman Darryl Moore, recently admitted breaking the law by tearing down his garage and building a new one without getting zoning clearance (from the board he sits on!) and pulling the required permits. Hopefully he'll have to pay the requisite increased fees that are normally charged when someone gets a permit after the fact, and face some other punishment, because of all the people who should have known better, someone sitting on the zoning board ranks right up near the top.

The story was first reported in The Berkeley Daily Planet.

Blast from the Past

2010-03-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

Edis at work 4.5 years ago

This morning I had a blast from the past: Edis, who worked with me frequently while I was building the addition. He stopped by to say hello (we'd long since lost each other's numbers), and not surprisingly given the economy, see if I had or knew of any work for him. He's currently working part time at Target and doing some painting, but there isn't much of the latter work for him these days.

We talked for a while (his English is much better), and I showed him the kitchen (which I did after he worked with me). I told him that I'd ordered linoleum for the kitchen and dining room floor (yes, that's right -- after lots of hemming and or hawing, I finally decided to go with natural linoleum). I'll call him when it arrives, but if any of you in the Oakland/Berkeley area are looking for a hard worker with some basic carpentry skills, email me at designsinlight and I'll hook you up.

Habitat Build-A-Thon 2010

2010-03-09T10:50:00.001-08:00

I'll be participating in Habitat for Humanity East Bay's annual Earth Day build-a-thon. It's not just a blitz build to kick start the construction of homes for deserving families, it's also Habitat East Bay's biggest fundraiser. Any amount you can contribute is appreciated! Or if you want to participate, check out the build-a-thon page.

I got the power!

2010-03-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

Google PowerMeter widget

Actually, we got the Google PowerMeter. K is a technical writer for Google and we're now the proud owners of a TED5000 and using PowerMeter.

There was a control period where we weren't seeing the data, but now that's passed we'll be able to use the PowerMeter to figure out more of our electrical usage. We haven't had data long enough to get much yet, but one thing is clear already: we should try to reduce our "always on" power. It's not super high, but well, it's always on, so it adds up. I was trying to think of everything that contributes to that:

thermostat
water heater thermostat
various clocks
DSL modem
router
microwave (clock)
TV
cordless phones
assorted wall warts

The TV is EnergyStar rated so hopefully doesn't draw much when off, but it's probably non-zero. The water heater is a gas-fired on demand heater which has circuitry to decide when it needs to come on. In any event, between the PowerMeter and our Kill-A-Watt we should be able to figure out what's using power and cut back some.

Installing the TED5000 was fairly simple, but it does require opening your electrical service panel and attaching clamps over the main feed wires. It was a little tricky to get it to fit and still get the panel closed, but not too bad. Google and TED recommend hiring an electrician for the hookup, but given I've run most of the circuits in the house, I felt comfortable doing it myself.

TED dashboard

I'll be posting more as I figure things out. Much of it should be applicable to your electrical usage, too.

Thank You, Blood Donors!

2010-03-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

Long-time readers may know I regularly donate blood platelets (I got back from the Red Cross a little while ago.) I'd just like to thank all of you out there who donate blood. My sister-in-law is recovering from open heart surgery to repair an aneurysm in her aorta. It was considerably more complex than a bypass, as they had to put her on a heart/lung machine and cool her body down. So she received numerous units of whole blood and platelets from donors like you.

If you don't donate blood but can, make an appointment at your local Red Cross to donate blood.

Thank you!

With a Little Path Running Down the Middle...

2010-01-29T15:48:00.000-08:00

3 big piles

Wednesday morning I started working on the front walk again. Gravel and sand were due at 10AM and the pavers some time after that, but I wasn't sure how long the break in the rain would last, so I worked at a faster pace than I might have otherwise. The gravel and sand arrived as scheduled, and then I went and rented a plate compactor before the pavers arrived. In short order I had 3 big piles of materials, a heavy machine, and a flight of stairs to take them all down.

the machine

I lost track of how many buckets of gravel I carried down, but eventually got the space filled and then turned to compacting it. The compactor made quick work of compacting the gravel (actually, "engineered fill", which is recycled concrete that's ground up into something like gravel) to a good level. I checked the level of things with my screed, and added some gravel where needed, then recompacted.

At this point my arms were tired enough that I was happier bringing down the sand one bucket at a time instead of two like I did with the gravel. And I didn't need as much, since it was about 1" of sand vs. 3" or so of gravel. Laying the pavers went fairly quickly, but even for a 32' long walkway it takes a lot of pavers. So I only made it about 1/3 of the way down with pavers before it was too dark to work, and waited for K to come home to be sure she saw the piles in the carport and could fine her way down the path in the dark.

screeding

Thursday I started up again early, hauling more sand and placing more pavers. On one of my countless trips up to the carport, a couple of guys drove up in a pickup asking if I had any work for them. We talked for a bit, but I was somewhat distracted because I wanted to get back to work. They were really hungry for work, so we settled on a wage and they got right to work. They brought down more sand and pavers as fast I could place them, so in short order I'd placed all but the pavers needing cuts at the end. While I worked on cutting the last pavers, Rene and Raul put some gravel along the edge opposite the concrete berm and spread sand over the top of the pavers to fit into the cracks. I fired up the machine again to help work the sand in and to firmly set the pavers into the sand under them.

I ended up doing a local jobs stimulus plan, paying two workers for half a day instead of renting the machine for a second day. Besides the path, I had them move the leftover gravel and sand to various places around the yard, move some stuff, and they even helped me carry an old stump up to the carport for eventual disposal. I was pleased with the trade-off, and they were pleased with the paying work. I got Rene's phone number in case I have more work for them later.

final results

With their help to speed me along, I even had enough time to rearrange some of the low voltage lights along the path and add a new one at the bottom of the stairs. I'm very pleased with the final result. Well, almost final. I'll need to add more sand to the cracks as what's there settles, but it's a joy to have a smooth, level, sturdy path to walk down now instead of the lumpy, wobbling brick path that was here when I bought the house 16 years ago.

Rain Barrel Ready!

2010-01-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

rain barrel

One of the things planned for the new front porch was a place to put a rain barrel. Given the weather patterns here in California (rainy winters, dry summers), there's a limit to the usefulness of a barrel as it won't get refilled from roughly May to October, but every little bit helps. Today I cut the downspout and added an elbow to get it ready.

Eventually I'd like to have a big tank under the deck that gets fed from multiple downspouts, but for now I'll have to settle for this 50 gallon one. It should get its first test Saturday night, and the overflow system some time after that as the forecast has rain on and off all next week.

What's at Stake

2010-01-14T19:22:00.000-08:00

stake puller

Today I stripped the forms and pulled the stakes. Or at least most of them. The ones for the steps are hecka difficult to pull, even with the rented stake puller. But the path is ready for gravel, sand and pavers, and the drain for the overflow from the rain barrel is connected. Tomorrow I'll deal with those last stakes, and cut the downspout to feed into the rain barrel. More rain is due Saturday and beyond, so I doubt I'll get the path dealt with, but it's finally starting to look like a porch instead of a hodge-podge of construction detritus.

Concrete on the Way...

2010-01-11T11:54:00.001-08:00

Which is a good thing, as rain is due for Tuesday and Wednesday. The total should be around 2.5 yards, which isn't that much in the big scheme of things. But it would be around a hundred 80 pound bags, which is way too much to mix by hand alone.

Breaking Up...

2010-01-06T19:12:00.000-08:00

busted bricks

Actually isn't so hard to do, at least if it's brick and a bit of mortar and you've got a jackhammer. It's even easier if said brick and mortar has spent years in damp ground. There was a bit of concrete, and even a clay drain pipe (full of dirt and roots), but nothing like the über-thick layers of the front walk I'd taken out before. As is usually the case, cleaning up the debris was more work than busting things up.

As happens with many DIY projects, this has gotten bigger than when it started. Initially I was just going to pour concrete for the front porch area. It was more than I could reasonably mix by hand, but not enough to get a concrete truck and pump. So we added in the steps to K's office. Then I decided I should take out the brick steps down from the walkway, as they were a bit sloped and would surrounded by concrete. Then I realized I could do the footings for new steps up to the carport, too. Now after busting out the steps, I'll need to build a little retaining wall above the area, too. I haven't calculated how much concrete I'll need altogether, but I'm pretty sure it'll be at least a truck load now.

the front walkway

The plan for the walkway is to have a concrete berm along the side to keep things in place, and then use permeable pavers (over a nice bed of gravel and sand) for the main part of path. That'll lead down to a couple concrete steps down to the front porch area. The porch area will be home to a 50 gallon rain barrel, and the overflow from that will go into a drain pipe through to the downhill side of the house.

Eventually, I'll build some new steps up to the carport. The current steps are getting a bit rickety, and they've always been a pain for moving large items (like refrigerators) up and down, both because they're just barely wide enough to hold such items, and there's a 90 degree turn to navigate. The new steps will be a straight shot (basically the hypotenuse of a triangle with the current steps being the two sides), and about 8" wider. But first things first -- a decent walkway. Rain permitting, that should happen Friday or early next week.

What's Next

2009-12-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

the front path

There's still plenty of bits and pieces to finish up, to say nothing of the floor, but K and I decided that it'd be nice to have a proper front walk with the rainy season coming on. When I bought the house, there was a poorly done path with bricks. It was lined on one side with wood that had long since rotted away, and they hadn't put down a proper bed of gravel, so it had grown very uneven and rather treacherous when wet. Some years back I removed the bricks (some of which are now part of a retaining wall by the disused spa) and regraded it, and we've lived with a nice pine needle-covered path since then.

There's also the matter of the porch area in front of the new front door. Drainage has always been problematic on this side of the house, and you may recall that bad grading led to rot and termites in the old front porch (and on in to the kitchen floor joists and subfloor). The new porch will be graded for proper drainage, of course, but also have spot for a rain barrel.

So last week I started grading the path and building forms for the porch. I plan to have a concrete curb on one side of the path, and pave the path with permeable pavers. I got the forms for the porch built, and started on the forms for the path. Then, like most good home improvement projects, the project got bigger. Since the porch is going to come up to the level of the existing bottom step at the end of the path, and the pavers were going to come all the way to the top step, it'd be a great time to tear our the steps and rebuild them because they're a bit sloped, and it'd be an odd transition of materials. Even with the added work, I was expecting to pour concrete by the end of this week.

But it's probably not going to happen, as the forecast is for lots of rain this week. The first storm to come through is a cold one, so there's even a chance of snow in the higher hills of the Bay Area. So today after church I cleaned off the roof, recovered the path with pine needles so it won't turn to mud, and to watch football and wait for the rain.

Thanksgiving

2009-12-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

getting the fish ready for the oven

The kitchen and dining room got their first big test for Thanksgiving. We had K's brother and his family and K's mom over for Thanksgiving. It would have been a struggle to do in the old kitchen because it had so little counterspace. Cooking a meal requires some scheduling so everything is ready at the same time, but the logistics of trying to schedule with no storage space for dishes in progress makes it extra hard.

We were helped in no small part by our sister-in-law bringing lots of side dishes to accompany the plank-baked trout, pumpkin gnocchi, and rolls we made, and K's mom bringing more than enough dessert.

seating for 8 or more

The old dining room would have presented similar challenges. We'd have had to set up an extra table in the living room to have seat 8 people. With the addition and remodel, Uncle Al's table not only fits easily in the dining room, it fit easily with 2 of the leaves in it. If we'd needed it, it would have fit with all 3 leaves.

In short, the kitchen was a joy to work in, and overall the new space passed with flying colors.

Fun with Rain Barrels

2009-11-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

the Labradane

Yesterday K and I visited some fellow housebloggers at City Homestead. They live not far from Lake Merritt here in Oakland, and had lamented not knowing how to make a platform for some rain barrels they bought a while back. I'm not 100% done with the insanity here, but I knew that was something I could help with. So while I showed them how to build a sturdy platform, K headed off to the Y.

The work went pretty quickly since they'd already bought the necessary materials. The most time-consuming was leveling the ground to put the concrete piers, and that was pretty easy because the soil had been dug up before to remove plants. It was nice to get to put faces to the names behind the blog, and both K and I enjoyed meeting their dog, Augie, who's got a lab personality but closer to great dane size. He's rescue dog, and a large bundle of energy.

finished platform and barrels

Final Inspection Passed!!!

2009-11-16T12:20:00.000-08:00

Ican hardly believe it, but the final inspection was passed. The inspector left a little while ago. After all my anxiety about there being some punchlist items to do (or worse) before we got finaled, it was actually a little anticlimactic. He reacquainted himself with the plans (it's been a while since the last building inspection) and asked some questions. He took a look around, and made sure I had access to under the floor and above the ceiling, there were fluorescent lights where needed for Title 24, et al, then took a brief look at the electrical panel. GFCI breakers for the two small appliance circuits, AFCI breaker for the bedroom, and we were good to go.

Woohoo!

Now to finish the trim, figure out the flooring, etc. But woohoo!

Ready...Set...D'oh!

2009-11-12T12:13:00.000-08:00

ladder to nowhere

I've been slowly working towards getting ready for the final inspections. I called Tuesday to schedule them. I anxiously awaited the call this morning between 8AM and 10AM to find out when they'd come. The inspector asked if I'd had my zoning inspection yet. Huh? Oh, yeah. I'd had to go through a design review way back when when I'd first submitted the plans. Not because the addition is very big (~350 sq. ft.) but because the percentage of the addition versus the existing house was above 30%. But it turns out that any addition has to get a zoning inspection before the final building inspection. So now I'm somewhat less anxiously awaiting a call from the zoning inspector so I can set that up.

In the mean time I'll work on all those things that aren't quite done yet, like the bit of trim outside near the kitchen windows, the corner trim (I still have to figure out how to mill that or build it up from parts), and figure out what we're going to do for flooring in the kitchen and dining room. Staining didn't work because the wood filler, while stainable, took stain very differently than the rest of the wood (even with pre-stain treatment applied), so right now it's a choice between painting it and real linoleum (tradename Marmoleum).

That Stinking Feeling

2009-11-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

Not to be confused with that sinking feeling, this was a smellier issue that confronted us the other week. Before I headed over to Casa Decrepit the Saturday past for some demo fun, K asked "does the bathroom smell funny to you?". Yeah, it did smell a little funky. Uh, oh. I mentioned it to Ayse that afternoon while we were working, and she said one of the most common causes is that "something's blocking the vent stack. You know, it crawled in the vent stack and died...but I mean that in the best possible way. :-)"

So I came home, cleaned off the roof (it gets slippery when there are lots of pine needles on it), and snaked the main vent stack. Over the next several days I tried various other things. I took apart the sink trap and snaked that drain and as far up as I could reach in its vent stack and lateral to the main. I checked that the shower trap had water in it, since a trap without enough water can allow sewer gases into the room, and we don't use that shower much any more. Snaking that drain is difficult because of the drain mechanism, but I tried covering it and the corresponding overflow. After each thing, there was no real change -- the bathroom still smelled funky.

So with much trepidation, I drained the toilet and removed it. I discovered two things: the flange was broken, and part of the gasket embedded in the wax ring was missing. Neither of those would necessarily cause the problem, but they were worth fixing in any event. I temporarily plugged the hole with a damp towel while I purchased a repair flange and a new wax ring. I had to chisel out part of a couple tiles in order to get the repair flange to fit, but I was encouraged I was finally on the right track.

With a lot of grunting (toilets are heavy), I lifted the toilet back into place, cleaned up the mess, and aired out the bathroom. All seemed well until a couple days later, when K asked, "does it still smell funny to you?". Arrgh! Indeed, there was a much fainter but still pungent smell noticeable. I then recalled having seen extra deep wax rings, and realized I probably needed one for this toilet because the repair flange and tile made for a slightly deeper space. So I purchased another wax ring, removed the toilet again, replaced the ring, and heaved the toilet back into place.

So far, so good. I haven't noticed any smell in a couple days, so the problem may finally be fixed. Of course, it could just mean my nose has gotten used to it, and the next guest will politely inquire if we've noticed that smell...

I got a little dirty...

2009-10-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

mmm...dirt

OK, I got a lot dirty. Probably the dirtiest I've ever been in my adult life, and possibly in my entire life. But it was for a good cause. I was helping friends and fellow housebloggers Ayse and Noel at Casa Decrepit with another demolition project. I was there back in March to help them tear down the lowered ceilings in some of their rooms and hallways. Above those most of the original plaster and lath ceilings were in good shape. But in the dining room, roof leaks over the years had not been kind to the original ceiling. Now that Noel has (hopefully) patched the leaks, it was time to tear down the damaged ceiling. We also took off the plaster and lath on two of the walls that was in bad shape. I hosed myself off before we settled in for a late lunch and beers, but I was still filthy. When I got home I had to wash my hair 4 times before it was clean. That's saying something considering how little of it's left.

More pics and description on their blog.

big-time clean up

original plaster medallion

Blog Action Day: Global Warming

2009-10-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

Global warming. If you haven't heard about it, you've been living under a rock. If you don't believe it's happening, you're probably living under a rock. And even if you don't believe it's happening, the rest of the world does, and that's going to impact you when resources start getting short.

While small things won't save the earth, they're a step in the right direction. And here's some small steps you can take.

(1) Eat vegetarian one day a week (or one more day a week than you already are.) Raising meat, particularly beef and pork, generally have a horrendous effect on the environment. The good news? It's cheaper to eat vegetarian and better for your health.

(2) Stop drinking bottled water. Tons of petroleum products go into the manufacture of the bottles, and the water is less regulated than tap water. The good news? It's cheaper to use a refillable bottle.

(3) Walk/bike/take public transit one (more) day a week. The good news? It's cheaper and you'll get more exercise.

(4) Seal your home better with caulk and insulation. The good news? It's cheaper than paying the utility and you and your family will be more comfortable.

See? No messy mercury-based CFLs or buying hybrid cars or anything. All stuff that's easy and cheap and good for you. So even if you don't believe global warming is happening, you win.

World Habitat Day

2009-10-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Today is World Habitat Day, to remind everyone that adequate shelter is a basic human right. According to the United Nations, more than 100 million people in the world today are homeless. Even here in the U.S., one of the wealthiest nations in the world, millions of people are homeless or living in substandard housing. You can help by donating or volunteering with your local affiliate.

West Coast Green

2009-09-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

This week in San Francisco is the annual West Coast Green conference. I'll be covering parts of it for green building blog Jetson Green. There promise to be lots of interesting innovations in the field of green building and design.

I'm particularly excited about seeing the SFH40 from Green Horizon Manufacturing, a self-sustaining temporary building that can be sent anywhere in a shipping container to provide emergency housing. After FEMA's mess with the trailers following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, this looks to be a major step up. It features solar panels, a fresh waster supply, waste water treatment, and is built from 100% recycled materials.

I'll also be keeping my eyes open for new do-it-yourself friendly materials and technologies. Let me know if there's anything new you've heard of that you'd like me to check out at the conference.

Only You...

2009-09-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

Guess who wanted to help while I was working on the front hall?

Oakland: DIY Resources

2009-09-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Note: I've made a couple of additions to the list since originally publishing it. Thanks to Jessica Reeder of Charles and Hudson, and Artemis of City Homestead.

View DIY Resources in a larger map

Do-it-yourself blog Charles & Hudson covers a variety of topics. One nice feature they've got is DIY city guides for various locales. Oakland and the SF East Bay aren't yet covered, so I've created one for Oakland. Some people are into DIY to save money and some into it to have control of how 'green' their project is. A great way to do both those things are the 3 R's of green: reduce, reuse, recycle.

So without further ado, here's my guide to do-it-yourself resources in the East Bay, centered in Oakland. This is by no means an exhaustive list; if you've got a favorite DIY resource in or around Oakland, let me know and I'll add it.

Tool Libraries

Oakland Tool Lending Library 510.597.5089
5205 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94609
The Oakland Public Library system has a great tool lending library in the ground floor of the Temescal branch. There are a wide variety of tools you can borrow for free. Open to Oakland, Piedmont and Emeryville residents.

Berkeley Tool Lending Library 510.981.6101
1901 Russell St., Berkeley, CA 94703
The Berkeley Public Library system's tool lending library at the South Branch. Open to Berkeley residents and property owners.

Salvage Stores

Habitat ReStore 510.777.1447
9235 San Leandro St., Oakland, CA
The Habitat ReStore is a great resource. You can buy new and used building supplies for less, and your purchases support Habitat's mission of eliminating poverty housing worldwide, and useful items that might otherwise be discarded are made available.

ReUse People 510.383.1983
9235 San Leandro Blvd., Oakland, CA 94603
The ReUse People specialize in deconstructing buildings so the materials can be used again. Not only do they have doors, windows, cabinets, etc., but they've got reclaimed lumber and some one-of-a-kind architectural elements, too. If all that wasn't enough, they're next door to the Habitat ReStore, so you can check both places with one stop.

Urban Ore 510.841.7283
900 Murray St., Berkeley, CA 94710 510.841.7283
Urban Ore is not just a source of salvaged building materials like windows, doors and sinks, it's a treasure trove of all sorts of things that can be salvaged or repurposed. It's all part of their goal of "ending the age of waste."

East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse 510.547.6470
4695 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94609
The East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse is an ecological treasure trove of art & craft materials, educational supplies, vintage furniture, home decor, paper goods, fabric and more. The mission of the East Bay Depot is to divert waste materials from landfills by collecting and redistributing discarded goods as low-cost supplies for art, education, and social services.

Ohmega Salvage 510.204.0767
2407 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, CA 94702
Just up San Pablo from EcoHome Improvement and the Ecology Center is another nice salvage store, Ohmega Salvage. They specialize in architectural salvage, unique doors, windows and other fixtures that are often one-of-a-kind items.

Green Stores

EcoHome Improvement 510.644.3500
2617-2619 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, CA 94702
EcoHome Improvement has a wide variety of green building materials, including cabinets, countertops, paint and flooring. EcoHome Improvement has a friendly and knowledgeable staff, who are always looking to add more items to sell. They consider not just the manufacture of materials but the transportation of them and other factors, as well. While many of their items are expensive, realize they're also high-end items, so don't compare, for example, Vetrazzo countertops (which are made here in the Bay Area in Richmond) with laminate countertops from a home improvement chain.

Learning DIY

Building Education Center 510.525.7610
812 Page St., Berkeley, CA 94710
The Building Education Center teaches a wide range of courses, from Landscape Watering Systems to Installing Windows, Doors and Skylights, plus hands-on workshops like Electrical Wiring and Stucco Repair. Or take it all in with the Homeowners Essential Course, a 2 month, 17 session course that covers just about everything about building, repairing and maintaining a home.

Habitat for Humanity East Bay 510.251.6304
2619 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612
You may be asking yourself, "why is Habitat on this list?" Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit dedicated to eliminating poverty housing worldwide, building houses with mostly volunteer labor. They don't just hand you a hammer and let you loose, though. Habitat East Bay instructs volunteers with what they need to know to build safely and correctly. It's also one of the greenest Habitat affiliates in the country, so there are opportunities to learn about green techniques and technologies, too. I've volunteered with Habitat for more than 13 years, and largely with what I learned there, I designed and built the addition to our house that's chronicled here on DIY Insanity.

Ecology Center 510.548.2220
2530 San Pablo Avenue, Suite H, Berkeley, CA 94702
The Ecology Center was founded back in 1969 to promote environmentally and socially responsible practices through programs that educate, demonstrate, and provide direct services. They teach a variety of courses, including organic gardening, urban chicken raising, and greywater and rainwater systems.

Hardware Stores

Markus Supply Ace Hardware 510.832.6532‎
625 3rd St., Oakland, CA 94607
When you just need some basics, your nearest hardware store is your best bet. But if you need a wider selection of items but don't want to go to the box stores, Markus Hardware may have what you need.

Ace Ellis Hardware 510.653.4365
5424 MLK Way, Oakland, CA 94609
If you're looking to browse the aisles, head somewhere else. Ellis Hardware has most of what they sell on huge shelves behind the counter. Describe what you need, and they'll get it for you, or tell you where you can if they don't carry it.

Lumber Yards

Piedmont Lumber 510.658.1826
351 40th St. Oakland, CA 94609
Piedmont Lumber is a full-service lumberyard, with lumber, drywall and and other building supplies. And they've got a classic sign.

Economy Lumber 510.261.6100
750 High St., Oakland, CA 94601
Economy Lumber is another full-service lumberyard. Besides all the basic building materials, they've got a window and door showroom where you can order windows and doors of all sorts.

Plumbing Supply

Moran Plumbing Supply 510.652.7437
415 40th St., Oakland, CA 94609
Just up 40th from Piedmont Lumber, Moran Plumbing Supply carries everything for plumbing, from pipes of all sorts to sinks and toilets. They've got a helpful, knowledgeable staff.

Rubenstein Plumbing Supply 510.444.6614
2800 San Pablo Ave., Oakland, CA 94608
Rubenstein Plumbing Supply is another good plumbing supply place. I bought our dual-flush Toto toilet there.

GRID Alternatives

2009-09-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

up on the roof

Today I volunteered with GRID Alternatives, a non-profit that installs solar panels for low-income homeowners and provides community members (like me!) with training and hands-on experience with renewable energy technologies. We were prepping some of the Habitat homes for GRID's upcoming solar-a-thon, where they'll install panels, inverters and wiring for 16 homes. It was a short work day because most of the prep work got done last week. We installed a few safety clips on one roof, and others sorted tools and supplies. After a bit, a delivery truck arrived with the solar panels, inverters and cutoffs for the install. We inventoried them to make sure everything was there, then moved them into one of the houses for storage. Pretty much everything is ready to go for the solar-a-thon, which is good, because they're expecting 250+ people for the event.

It's Hot!

2009-08-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

No great surprise to those of you in California, but it's hot here. The car said it was 77 at 8:15AM, and 100 at 4:00PM. It was broiling out at the Habitat for Humanity work site, but we got a lot done.

Tomorrow K & I will be going to a local food festival, the Eat Real Festival. Local food and beers, from the people who created them. You can read more about it on my Our Oakland blog. It should be great! And hopefully a little cooler than today.

Meanwhile I'm slowly mudding and taping the dining room and entry. This is me working in the clerestory in the entry way. I love the round windows (a house down the street of a similar vintage has one), but they have been more work. But most of the extra work for the taping and mudding has come from all the corners and edges that define the dining room and entry. Those also swallow a lot of mud during the taping phase, so I've gone through quite a bit for a relatively small surface area. But it's getting done.

International Fame!

2009-08-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

Rosie and our cat ladder are now officially internationally famous! They've been posted on the Cat-Ladder blog, which shows homemade and commercial cat ladders from around the world. The blog itself originates from Sweden.

Our Electric Bike

2009-08-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

Not much to report on the house. I connected the last outlet and the light switch in the dining room (it was behind the boxes for the kitchen cabinets) and put the last piece of sheet rock in. This week I hope to finish taping and mudding it.

our e-bike

One thing I've been doing lately is biking. A while back we bought an electric-assist bike. It's been great, and has us riding more than we did with regular bikes, in large part because of the big hills around here. I think some of you who are more in to green stuff might be interested. I wrote more about it on my Oakland blog: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

To Say Nothing of the Kitchen Sink

2009-08-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

Nothing too exciting to write about. Yesterday I finished hooking up the vent for the range hood. This afternoon I spent cleaning up the dining room so I can move forward with that. It's been full of cardboard, boxes, pieces of styrofoam, etc. from the kitchen work. Everything (including the kitchen sink) had packaging. Some a little, some a lot, but it all added up to a substantial amount of cardboard. K had cut a bunch of it up before to go in the recycling bin, but there was still a fair amount left. Some of it I'd used to protect the plywood underlayment while installing the cabinets, and some had been re-used for various tasks before that, but most of it was just waiting to be recycled. I even have a potential lead on recycling most of the styrofoam. Each of the cabinets had styrofoam on the corners, and numerous other things had pieces here and there, so it added up to a fair amount. The catch is that they're waiting on some new equipment, and so can't accept donations right now. But better than into a landfill.

Holy Cow...

2009-07-28T18:33:00.000-07:00

the kitchen

Somehow we went from a nice space to an actual kitchen today. I finished painting the wall behind where the stove will go, and with K's help installed the range hood. Hooking up the electrical for it was a snap.

Then I cleared a path from the refrigerator in the living room into the kitchen, and again with K's help moved the refrigerator into its slot. A bit of cleaning of the stove and lifting it onto some sliders, and K helped me slide that into place. I hooked up the gas, checked for leaks, et voilà!

Of course there's plenty left to do, like trim and flooring, not to mention the dining room, but today was a good day, ending with a fully functional kitchen.

crushed by the stove?

The Eyes Have It

2009-07-27T15:46:00.000-07:00

my other eye

Well, one eye has it. Iritis, that is. Saturday I had a bit of a headache. Sunday it was worse, and it was odd because it felt like it was behind my eye. K noticed my eye was bloodshot, and when we went out, I discovered it was very sensitive to light. I called the advice nurse at Kaiser, and they wanted me to come in to check it out.

So today I trundled over to Kaiser for an appointment with my doctor. After checking in and a short wait, I was ushered in for a mini-physical (weight, temperature, blood pressure), then in to an exam room. My doctor is great. He came in and quickly asked some questions and examined my eye, then very quickly said, "It could be glaucoma. I'll make an appointment for you at the eye clinic right away." Eek!

Right away was the next available appointment, which was two hours away. Sigh. So I ran some errands and came back. Another pre-exam including a quick vision test, then the ophthalmologist came in. He asked some questions, then examined my eyes. Then some eye drops, and a glaucoma test. No glaucoma, but I do have iritis -- inflammation of the iris.

After a visit to the pharmacy and some more waiting, I have some eye drops to treat it, and a follow-up visit scheduled for next week. None of these things took that long (except, oddly, the check-in at the eye clinic), but it all added up to pretty much the whole day shot.

I also got a heads up that my other eye (shown pictured above) was showing signs of pigment dispersion syndrome. That's where the pigment of the iris flakes off (I guess they didn't prime it before applying the paint?), and can clog the drainage of the eye, leading to glaucoma. So when in the next couple of years when I have to get reading glasses (what?!), he suggested I get a glaucoma test, too, and every couple years going forward. Hmmph.

Two conditions I'd never heard of before, and I've got 'em. It could have been worse, so no complaints here. But the upshot is that instead of finishing the touch-up painting in the kitchen today, all I got done was moving stuff back in and putting the outlet and switch covers back on for the part that is done.

With Fronds Like This...

2009-07-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

bat star, ochre star
and hecka anemones

I'd like to say I've been busy on the kitchen, or that I've been super busy with other stuff that's been keeping me from working on the kitchen, but neither of those is true.

One thing we have been up to recently was camping. We've camped frequently in mountains and deserts across the west, but neither of us had camped on the coast before. We got the idea because we didn't have a large block of time, so we wanted someplace closer, but still wanted to "get away". And we wanted to stay in a state park, because the govenator has been threatening to close the parks in a misguided attempt to balance the state budget. Most state parks don't pay for themselves completely via collected fees, it's true. But when people have less money, they tend to take cheaper vacations like camping, and they still spend money doing it, generating sales tax. Close the parks, and more people will stay home.

So searching the many California state parks, I came across Salt Point SP. It's about 100 miles and (because of winding roads) 2.5 hours away. Being on the coast, it can get fairly windy, but we were prepared for that. It's a beautiful park on a beautiful section of the California coast. We spent a lot of time just watching the ocean and marine life. Amongst other things, we saw seals, sea lions, brown pelicans, a black oystercatcher, three osprey that were hunting, and all sorts of things in tide pools. Part of the park is a marine preserve, which made me wish we knew how to scuba dive.

Today K is back at work, and I'll work on the kitchen this afternoon. A special thanks to our friend Melissa for staying with the kitties one night. Rosie was definitely happier for it, and Star probably was, too, even if she wouldn't admit it. And yes, our cats are spoiled, but after all, they're in charge.

south of Salt Point

osprey

tafoni formation

Kitchen Widgets

2009-06-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

towel bar

Along with the big stuff like countertops and cabinets, there's a lot of little stuff that often goes into a kitchen, like a towelbar. I spent a lot of time searching for alternatives to the $90 Swedish-made brass ones and $3 steel ones, and finally found this beauty on Amazon for $22.

plumb bob how-to

I was impressed with the instructions. They instruct you how to make a simple plumb bob to help hang the bracket vertically, though they don't describe it as such. I've used various items including washers, chalk lines, and actual plumb bobs (thanks, Pete) as a plumb bob, but for something this short, I just use a level. But the idea of taping a coin to the instructions to get a vertical line is brilliant, and since many folks don't have a level or necessary understand their usage, it's probably better they don't describe what it is your doing, just tell you to do it.

I was less impressed with the massive plastic clam shell packaging it came in, but that's unfortunately all too common these days. And I would have preferred something U.S. made, but this was the right size, style and price.

ain't she lovely?

Another recent addition to the kitchen was a new compost bucket. We've always composted, even though haven't had a garden to use the compost in recently. It's long been in a Tupperware container, which works, but shows you the moldering fruit and veggie scraps piled on the coffee grounds, and is not the most appetizing thing to see on your kitchen counter. So I found this bamboo compost bucket, also on Amazon. It has a dishwasher-safe plastic bucket inside, and a simple filter in the lid to reduce odors. And it looks great with the new counters.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

2009-06-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Today is the 9th anniversary of when K and I got married, the 47th anniversary of when my parents got married, and tomorrow is the 4th anniversary of DIY Insanity!

I haven't been posting recently, not because we're busy celebrating, but because I was sick last week with strep or some other throat infection. I sounded first like Froggy of the Little Rascals, then eventually progressed to a loud whisper. I spent the time doing things like installing the knobs and pulls, and researching and buying various things like a towel rack, compost bucket and range hood. Today I checked out a belt sander from the tool-lending library and tomorrow I'll tackle the floor. But tonight we celebrate with a nice dinner at a restaurant here in Oakland.

One Project Closer's Before and After Contest

2009-06-16T09:33:00.001-07:00

One Project Closer is having their second annual Before and After Contest. You send them pictures and a story of your DIY project (at least 75% DIY), and each week they'll pick a winner. At the end, there will be a grand prize winner. The cool part for me is that each winner has $35 donated to Habitat for Humanity in their name. Winners also get $25 gift cards to Lowe's, Home Depot or Amazon, but for me the real winner is spreading the word about Habitat's mission of eliminating poverty housing across the world.

busy week

2009-06-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

sun pillar

A strangely busy week, but not much progress on the kitchen. We do have knobs and pulls on all the cabinets, and with the microwave, toaster oven and coffee maker in the kitchen along with functional plumbing, it's starting to feel like a real kitchen. I still need to finish the floor so we can move the refrigerator and stove in, but it's a functional room now.

Friday I was out at Habitat. Yesterday we worked on the yard getting ready for fire season, cutting down the long grass, pulling weeds, and picking up branches and pine cones. I found a cool old milk bottle that I posted on the Our Oakland blog. I haven't found out anything about it yet, even Googling around on the intertubes.

Today we were off to the graduation of our oldest niece from Stanford. On the way home, we saw a cool sun dog, and then as we got closer to home, a beautiful sun pillar. I only had the point-and-shoot, but I managed to get this shot. No where near as nice as my friend Jim's sun pillar shot taken at Lake Tahoe a few years back that was featured on NASA's astronomy picture of the day.

A Happy Little Jig

2009-06-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

a happy little jig

Yesterday K cleaned out cupboards and lined them with grippy shelf liner, while I installed the two tall pantry cupboards. Then we made one of the most important decisions about the kitchen...the knobs and pulls. EcoHome Improvement had some cool (but expensive) pulls made with recycled glass by Aurora Glass that donates all its proceeds to St. Vincent de Paul, but none of the options grabbed us. Given the cool countertop we've got, we don't want something too busy that will clash with it. So we ended up getting some simple (and much cheaper) brushed metal ones that match the faucet. Since there are lot of cabinets, I took the time to make a little jig so they'll all get installed in the same position without needing to measure a zillion times.

Today after visiting another church (which has some amazing Tiffany mosaics), K finished cleaning cabinets and pounding down nail heads in the floor, and I filled in over the nail heads and along any of the joints that were large. I also re-hung the last doors now that all the cabinets are installed.

We're still boggling over how much more countertop and storage space we've got now. Only a few things have been moved so far, but we've got gobs and gobs of room compared with before.

Seussian Plumbing

2009-06-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

bye, K.C.

After more work than you'd expect (given where I was yesterday), we have a functioning sink, dishwasher, and yea, even disposal. After a trip to Home Depot, I discovered that my original dry-fit plan wasn't going to work (even if I'd gotten that last piece in the vent stack), so I made another trip to Home Depot for more fittings. The trip was totally worth it, though, because I saw this in the parking lot. Apparently it was the last day for someone named K.C., and his or her co-workers bid them a fond farewell by wrapping their truck (with a Home Depot shopping cart thrown in for good measure) in plastic. The antenna has a cardboard tube with goodbyes written on it, so K.C. will know who to blame.

the maiden voyage of the dishwasher

After returning home, I tried an alternative solution I'd come up while playing around with the available parts at Home Depot, but decided my original plan (updated) was the way to go. So I forged ahead and started gluing, and finally arrived at a completed vent stack and drain. After waiting a bit, I tried things out, and discovered a small leak around the strainer, but everything else was good. After re-seating that with more plumber's putty, everything seemed good to go.

So I tried the ultimate test -- starting the dishwasher. With little fanfare but much excitement, I let it run a 'quick wash' cycle, and all was well. Woohoo!

Almost There...

2009-06-05T08:47:00.001-07:00

under the new sink

I got a lot done yesterday. I set the sink in place, cut into the drain line and installed a new T (after doing a little snaking to clean out the line, so I installed a new clean out, too), installed the disposal and strainer, the faucet and supply lines, and got most of the DWV connected. I just couldn't get the last piece in, so that's my main task for today. Well, that, and check for leaks. So far, so good, though.

That Sinking Feeling

2009-06-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

After much ado, we now have a new sink. It's not installed yet, but the counter is re-cut to accept it, and we have it. And nobody played with the price in the mean time, like happened to This D*mn House.

I was figuring the new sink would fit, because it was the same dimensions as the old one (33"x22"). But I figured wrong, by about 1/2" on each side (the countertop guy was very precise with the old sink, I guess.) I cut most of it with my skilsaw and a concrete cutting blade, but I couldn't get into the corners (especially near the backsplash), so I rented an angle grinder and took out the last bits with that. Not surprisingly, it made a huge mess, even with the shop vac going. I got it all cleaned up, the dishwasher pushed into place, and the water supply shut-off valves installed, too. So tomorrow I can hook up the drain, put the sink in the new hole, and we should have a working sink (and dishwasher!) soon.

Roger, Houston...

2009-06-01T21:16:00.001-07:00

Roger Houston. Insanity Base, here. We have counters.

And they're beautiful. It took a good chunk of the day for them to install the counters, and cutting out the hole for the sink made a ton of dust, but we're very happy with the end results.

The only problem now is the sink. We'd been planning on reusing our old cast-iron sink because it's in OK shape, but now with the new cabinets and beautiful new countertop, the sink looks a bit more banged up and stained than we remembered. And looking at the faucet, the same will be true for that if we replace the sink.

We're considering recoating the sink, but we haven't been able to find any place local that does actual recoating (vs. painting like Miracle Method.) Anybody know of a place in the East Bay that recoats sinks?

Ready for Counters

2009-05-30T18:06:00.001-07:00

ready for countertop

The countertop is ready, and will be installed Monday morning. While K cut some cardboard to catch any crud that might drop into the cabinets, I finished securing the last cabinet and getting ready for the countertop. It's an exciting step, because once the countertop is in, I can install the sink, disposal and dishwasher. We're particularly excited about the last one. While we're doing OK with takeout and microwaved food, we've gotten tired of doing dishes in the bathroom sink.

A Day of Rest...Mostly

2009-05-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

Rosie inspecting the work

After a couple of days of intense work on the kitchen, today was mostly a day of rest. Except I had to be up early to meet the countertop crew coming to make a template. Getting up early isn't easy for me under the best of circumstances, and I was up late last night getting ready for this morning. I had to re-install the sink cabinet over 1/2" (thank you, non-plumb and square walls of an old house), and had to plane a little off the back of the last lower cabinet to get it to fit in the corner. Designing with small tolerances means little wasted space, but doesn't leave much room for error. Fortunately the blind lazy susan cabinet requires a small spacer, so I was able to make adjustments by trimming that, but it was still a close fit. Rosie was kind enough to inspect my work, and approved not only of the cabinets, but enjoyed the boxes they came in.

countertop template

This morning the countertop crew showed up and made fairly short work of creating the template. They'd clearly done this a bunch of times before, and confirmed where we want a backsplash, which edges of the cabinets are flush and which get finished edges, etc. But they puzzled over where to put the seam -- the material comes in 8' lengths, so there will be at least one. After measuring and pondering (sounds familiar), they settled on a plan. The template was marked up for the seam, backsplashes and edges, and off they went. They'll be back in about a week to install it. Wahoo!

The Little Soffit That Could

2009-05-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

cabinet install fun

Yesterday was a marathon. After looking over measurements and pondering, we decided at the last minute that we didn't want the upper cabinets all the way to the ceiling as we'd never reach the upper shelves, and we definitely didn't want a little space up there to collect dust. So I built, drywalled and mudded a little soffit. In doing so, I discovered that the ceiling has a fairly substantial dip in it. So the emergency soffit surgery wasn't a bad thing -- I can hide part of the dip with the soffit instead of trying to cover a variable-sized gap with trim. I knew the floor isn't level, but I didn't know about the ceiling, so it was good to figure it out before I started hanging cabinets.

After getting that straightened out (ha!), I made reference lines for the upper and lower cabinets, and started installing. I started with the corner (a blind lazy susan thingy -- it's pretty slick), and shifted and shimmed and finally got it in place. I then moved on to the sink next to it, which presented its own challenges. Besides the unlevel floor, the sink has outlets for the disposal and dishwasher, water supply lines, and the DWV pipes. So lots of measuring and re-measuring and then drilling and cutting to make openings for them all. I discovered I was off by about a half inch on where the vent pipe exits -- d'oh! Fortunately, the next thing in line is the dishwasher, so I was able to take a little out of the corner of the cabinet and it'll work fine. No one will ever see it unless they stick their head under the sink, so no worries. It did cause me some worries in the meantime.

Today will be more of the same: a second coat of mud on the soffit, installing more cabinets, and rearranging things to get ready for tomorrow. You see, this flurry of activity is because the countertop installers are coming tomorrow at 8AM to make a template for the countertops. Yes, it's true...the do-everything-yourself guy is having someone else do some work. In part because I've never worked with the material (Icestone, which is made from recycled glass and cement), but largely because the stuff is frakking heavy. Most countertop materials are (besides laminates), so I'm happy to have someone else do this work.

Fiat Lux

2009-05-23T11:50:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday afternoon my neighbor helped me paint the kitchen, and I put a second coat on Wednesday evening. Since then I've been finishing up the electrical, putting down the plywood for the underlayment or flooring if we go that route, and getting ready to hang cabinets. Adding the main fluorescent light fixture made a huge difference. Now it feels like a real room. A room with a heck of a lot of outlets, to be sure, but a real room.

Top 10

2009-05-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

The top 10 rejected titles for this post:
10. White Room (Cream)
9. Lay Down Primer (Eric Clapton)
8. You Make Painting Fun (Fleetwood Mac)
7. Any Colour You Like (As Long as it's White) (Pink Floyd)
6. Fixing a Hole (in the Drywall) (Beatles)
5. Paintin' on a Sunny Day (Bruce Springsteen)
4. Haven't Got Time for the Paint (Carly Simon)
3. When Paint Dries (by the painter formerly known as Prince)
2. Blinded by the White (Manfred Mann's Earth Band)
and the #1 rejected title for this post:
1. Primed, Sealed and Covered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)

In other words, the kitchen is primed and ready for painting.

Rip It, Rip It Good

2009-05-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

wet sanding

K and I ripped the plywood into 2' widths today. Not because I'm ready for it yet, but because K worked at home today and ripping full sheets of plywood is a 2 person job. Unless you've got a much nicer shop set up than I've got; I had to set up the table saw in the yard to have enough room to maneuver a full sheet.

I finished mudding the kitchen over the weekend, and spent the balance of today wet sanding it. Alas, the potentially boffo sponge (I bought one for the good folks at Casa Decrepit, too) wasn't so boffo. The rough 'scrunge' side separated from the rest of the sponge after not too much use. I'm still a big fan of wet sanding vs. dry sanding, but a regular sponge works just as well if not better than the special one.

In other exciting news, our new dishwasher arrived. It's a lovely, water- and energy-efficient Bosch SHE43M02U that K picked out. It'll be a while before I can hook it up, but we are so looking forward to not doing dishes in the bathroom anymore.

More Life as a Truck

2009-05-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

at the lumber yard

Today I finished the next coat of mud, showed the addition and kitchen remodel to a long-time friend from Habitat, and actually got the 1/4" plywood to smooth out the subfloor.

The plywood is so smooth and lovely that we're considering using it as the flooring. I just need to find a durable enough (and non-toxic) finish to protect it, and a good way to fasten it down. I'm contemplating ripping it into 2x8 or maybe 1x8 strips, so it can be laid out in a staggered pattern. In any event, we'll have it as our flooring for a while to consider, so we can see if we like the look or not.

The plywood is so smooth that I had a hard time securing it to the roof. It seemed OK, but it slid significantly when I braked. While I was stopped to refasten the load, someone stopped and asked me for directions that I could actually give (and had a map to show them), so it worked out nicely.

My Car's Life as a Truck

2009-05-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

mosaic mobile

I made what may be the final dump run for the kitchen remodel (which is not to say there won't more for other projects), with my little VW Golf stuffed to the gills with bits of wood, old drywall, and scraps of clean drywall.

On the way back I stopped at Orchard Supply Hardware for some more mud, and when I came out, this beauty was parked next to the Golf. It's not just painted -- if you look closely, it's bits of glass tile glued all over. The lump on the roof is a skylight which is covered, as are the back windows, so it's very colorful inside, too. Between the added weight and the reduced aerodynamics, it's gotta suck on the MPG front, but it's a beauty.

Muddy Kitchen

2009-05-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

one coat on, two to go

Last week was a blur of putting up drywall and taping and mudding it. The momentous part of that is that I'm done with the drywall lift, so it'll be headed over to Casa Decrepit for them to use in redoing the ceiling in their dining room. That room will eventually become their kitchen, but regardless the plaster needs to be replaced as it has water damage coupled with the damage inflicted by the lowered ceilings. Drywall lifts make putting drywall on ceilings so much easier, they're worth borrowing, renting or buying if you've got very much to put up. Even more so if you've got high ceilings like they do.

Today will be a (final?) dump run, and buying some more mud for the second and third coats, and some 1/4" plywood to put over the subfloor. That's because we'll be putting down linoleum (the natural stuff, not vinyl flooring), and it's best to have a smooth surface for it. The OSB subfloor would probably be OK, but the old 1x8 diagonal subflooring that I didn't replace doesn't come close to qualifying.

Inspection Passed!

2009-05-04T12:34:00.001-07:00

Hugo, the inspector from the city, left a few minutes ago. I passed building, electrical and plumbing, so I'm good to go to cover the walls. He would have preferred I had all the plumbing done (right now I just have the vent stack), but was OK with deferring it to later. That's because I can't go into the wall and down, but have to go straight down, so more of it will be in the sink cabinet. The other comment upon inspecting the subpanel was that the bedroom breaker needs to be AFCI. That's relatively new to the building code, so I wasn't aware of the requirement. I'd seen AFCI breakers at Home Depot, but didn't know where they were required, and given the higher cost, wasn't going to go installing them in every circuit. In any event, I'm happy and K will be, too, because now I can cover the walls (and more importantly given the current weather, the ceiling.)

I'm Back...and so is Winter

2009-05-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

German marketplace

I didn't manage to get the inspection in last week after the build-a-thon before I headed off to my nephew and godson's confirmation. I'm back from that, mostly over the jet lag, and have the inspection scheduled for Monday. I'll spend some time today making sure everything is ready to go.

Winter decided to come back, too. After the 90 degree temps during the build-a-thon, we're back to chilly weather and rain. We need the rain so I can't complain too much.

Earth Day Build-a-thon

2009-04-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

wall going up

I spent the last four days framing houses at Habitat for Humanity East Bay's Earth Day Build-a-thon. We've had unusually hot temperatures for this time of year (Monday was in the upper 90s) which slowed down progress, but it was a great event, raising over $200,000 and getting a ton of progress done on 20 homes. You can read more about it on the Habitat for Humanity East Bay / Thrivent Builds blog. We also had a little excitement, with a truss delivery crane falling over at the end of the day.

I'd like to give a huge thank-you to those of you who donated money to support my efforts. THANKS!

Pricing Puzzlers

2009-04-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

We seem to be running a home for wayward deer. We spotted another pregnant doe today, along with what's probably one of her offspring from a previous year. More exciting was seeing four Cooper's hawks flying around, sometimes chasing and being chased by a crow.

I've pulled all the wire except for the new range fixture, and that I got pulled into the kitchen wall and started running up towards the main panel. Another couple hours of work and I'll be ready for an inspection. I might have been done today, but I ran out of 12-2 Romex on Wednesday and had to get more yesterday. In a curious bit of pricing at Home Depot, 100 ft. was about $30. A 250 ft. roll, rather than 2.5X as much, was $39. The 6-3 cable for the range (8-3 would have done, I think, but they didn't have any) had a similarly puzzling pricing scale: 50 ft. cut off a spool was the same price as a 125 ft. roll. I wasn't sure exactly how much 12-2 I'd need so that was a no-brainer. The 6-3 I pondered for a bit, but I figure the good folks at Casa Decrepit will be able to use the leftovers when the move their kitchen into what's currently the dining room.

During the week I plugged the DWV stack and left it filled with water for a couple days, so that's good to go, too. Thank goodness for trade-specific stores like Moran Plumbing Supply. They not only had the riser clamp I needed a couple weeks back, but they knew what I was talking about and had an extension hose for my test plug.

But any inspection will have to wait until next week. Saturday through Tuesday I'll be at the Habitat build-a-thon, all day and then some since I'll be a crew leader. Not only will this be the biggest build-a-thon that East Bay has done, but I think it will be the best organized I've seen, too. Hopefully that'll be the case...

Kids! Kids! The Slugs Are Back!

2009-04-13T21:13:00.001-07:00

one slug, two slug, green slug, ewww slug

The slugs are back, and the deer are gone. The doe has been very vigilant, and our neighbor reported last seeing them yesterday afternoon. I didn't see them at all today, though I was down into the basement and around the other side of the house to the main electrical panel several times. On one of the last trips I spotted this handsome fellow oozing along.

I made a lot of trips between the kitchen, the basement and the main panel. That was because after wrestling to get the exceptionally large wires into the new range outlet, I tested things, and got nothing. I went to the main panel, shut off the power, and noticed that the wires at the panel end were smaller than the wires I'd been wrestling with. So I went into the basement and under the house and traced things, and discovered that there was a one junction box where the fat copper wires were joined to some other fat wires (probably 4 AWG) with cool bronze screw clips. And from there it lead to the mystery subpanel on the other side of the house. There it joined to the smaller wires with some huge wire nuts, and then up to the main panel. The mystery subpanel on the side of the house is also where the old dryer circuit of very dubious merit ran through. The thing is, the 4 AWG wire doesn't appear to be copper, and is in the old cloth insulation. Regardless, there's a problem somewhere along the line between the mystery subpanel and the kitchen. So even though we won't be using it any time soon (our antique stove is gas), I'll be pulling new wire for the range outlet. Sigh. I'd been hoping to just hook that back up and be done with it.

'Tis Spring...

2009-04-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

...and the thoughts of a young doe turn to "Why did I trust that handsome young buck last October? I haven't seen him since that night. He hasn't even called or sent a card."

In something fit for Cute Overload, a deer gave birth last night in our neighbor's yard to a pair of fawns. They're only about 15 feet from the corner of our house, but because of a tree and a rhododendron (and of course their great natural camouflage), we can't see them unless they get up and wobble around. No pictures yet, but I hope to get some in the next couple of days.

I'm busy prepping media for tomorrow, which will be my last Sunday at RLC. K and I want to be able to worship together and be part of a church community closer to home. And after 9+ years there, 7 of them creating and growing the media ministry, I decided it was time to move on. I'll miss the heck out of a lot of people, but I won't miss the late Saturday nights prepping things, and having to be there almost every Sunday. This afternoon there's a brief crew leader meeting for the Habitat build-a-thon next week, and I hope to get a little time in on the kitchen, so I need to stop fawning over the little deers in the back yard and get back to work.

The Week So Far...

2009-04-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

Monday I ran the new supply lines for the kitchen sink. The process re-emphasized my love of the headlamp I bought last year. When sweating copper pipes, you generally feel like you need a third hand anyway, and if you're in a tight space under the house it's doubly so because even if you had a third hand, you'd be in the way of the light when you held it. The headlamp has no such problems.

blob-o-tape

The rest of the week I've been pulling wire for the various kitchen circuits. Mostly an easy task, as it's in the ceiling and walls, but it has required a number of trips under the house for the home runs, too. One unplanned for task was moving a switch for an outlet in the living room over to make room for the kitchen light switch (a 3-way switch outside one door; the other is on the half height wall by the other entrance). Because the existing wires from one side weren't long enough to reach the new location, I decided it was time to start a new circuit. I hadn't planned on doing any work on the living room until the far distant future (e.g., after the kitchen is done and the lengthy list of other tasks is completed), but with the wall open, it's a lot easier now. When I pulled the old switch out of the box, I was afraid I was going to find some dodgy wiring job with things just twisted together like I've read about on other blogs, but they'd actually soldered the splice before smothering it in tape, so it wasn't too bad. But now the living room has its very own 15 amp circuit, though only the newly replaced outlet has a proper ground. That leaves...um...the short hall in the middle of the house as the only thing on the old house-wide circuit? Maybe the closets? With this house, you can never be sure.

Today I was out to Habitat, and for a change I wasn't cutting stair stringers, or even doing anything related to stairs. Instead I was helping inventory the beams for the different house models, making sure each had the correct set in its pile. That meant pulling out a few that were too short and cutting new ones, and pulling out a few that were too long and cutting them down to size. In case you're wondering, 4x12 LVL beams are heavy. We also ran some temporary electrical for the speechifying and such that will go on during the build-a-thon. Finally, we repaired an extension ladder that had been smooshed on one end. It's now in better shape than it's been for a while, though it is about 4' shorter.

Little Blue Boxes

2009-04-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

This week I worked on the kitchen, and actually moved forward with things. I finished placing the boxes and fixtures for electrical, which if you've ever looked at the code requirements for a kitchen, are substantial. Two small appliance circuits, dishwasher, disposal, lighting, and a 240v range circuit, and it all adds up. Plus there's the refrigerator, a 120v outlet for a newer gas stove (we don't need it, but it's easier to add now than later), range hood, under cabinet lights, and for good measure, we have a couple of recessed fluorescents above the sink and the adjacent countertop.

I ran the pipes for the vent stack for the kitchen sink. After puzzling over it repeatedly, as I was doing it I figured out how to run it using more of the fittings and pipe I already had on hand. So I returned one riser clamp and $25 worth of fittings, which is always a nice thing. And for good measure, I added a holder bracket for the pipe to the shower in the bathroom that I'd neglected to include back when I redid the shower a couple of years ago.

When I was at Home Depot to return the fittings and pick up a few other things, I was pleasantly surprised at how much better the service has gotten. Maybe they're training them better, maybe they're just afraid of losing their jobs, but whatever the cause, I'm liking the results. It was even quick and painless at the returns desk.

many stringers

I don't have any interesting pictures of the progress on the house to show you (wanna see a bunch of blue boxes nailed to studs?), so I'll include a picture from today's work at Habitat. I once again cut stringers for stairs. That means a lot of very careful identical cuts. "Sloop" John B. is the Americorps member who's been doing this week in and week out in preparation for the upcoming build-a-thon, so once a week isn't so bad. There's a lot to do -- 20 houses * 3 stringers per stair section * 2-3 stories per house adds up.

Casa Decrepit

2009-03-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I loaded my step ladder onto the Golf, and headed over to Casa Decrepit in Alameda for a party -- a demolition party. They're restoring a lovely Victorian that's had unspeakable crimes committed to it. Lowered ceilings, covered over ceiling medallions and window arches, dark brown faux wood paneling, and to finish it off, bright pink trim. It was great to meet Ayse and Noel and their animal menagerie, and the others who came to help with the demo party. A great bunch of people. Read their post on it (with lots more pictures).

Elaine the panel-ripping machine

let it snow!

Rosie and Goldie

One Step Forward, Three Steps Back

2009-03-27T17:29:00.001-07:00

new framing

That's how this week felt, at least. Thursday evening I was basically back to where I'd been at the end of last week. To be sure, things are in better shape than they were now that the termite-damaged wood has been removed, but it's frustrating as all get-out (frakking frustrating for you BSG fans) to not be any further along than I was a week ago. And I thought I was basically done with framing back in September. I've gone through most of a 5 lb. box of 16p nails since then.

But it wasn't all doom and gloom. Our neighbor, upon hearing of our kitchenless state offered to bring some food over for dinner. She recently returned from working in Europe, and wasn't able to cook while there, so she's happy to cook extra and share with us. And we're happy to have some home-cooked food (though we've been finding some good microwaveable stuff from Trader Joe's, it just ain't the same).

Today I was out to Habitat for Humanity for my usual Friday volunteer gig. I spent the day cutting stringers for stairs for the 20 houses in the upcoming build-a-thon (it's not too late to sign up or donate!), but what was of note were the helicopters. The Edes site is just south of Oakland Coliseum, where the memorial service for the 4 Oakland police officers who died recently was held today. The site is also near the Oakland Airport, so helicopters, small planes and jets aren't unusual, but the sheer number of helicopters in the air quickly caught our attention. I was thinking about the officers, their families, and their friends and co-workers frequently throughout the day.

Tomorrow I'm off to Casa Decrepit in Alameda for their demolition party. It'll be fun to meet some other Bay Area housebloggers, and a nice change of pace from demolishing stuff in our house. This week was more than enough of that for me.

The Tell-Tale Poop

2009-03-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

Sawzall Hero II

So those few dark bits that I thought might be termite droppings, alas, were. I pulled out the channel in question, and there were tunnels running the length of one of the boards. I'd already replaced the bottom plate, so I turned my attention upward, and removed the top plate and the doubler. To be sure, I even removed a ceiling joist and part of one of the roof rafters. At that point there wasn't much to hold the siding in place, so I removed it, too (carefully stacking it in a corner). Today after a dump run, I'll go ahead and remove the last vestiges of that wall and rebuild it. If I'd known, I would have just demolished the whole wall from the start and rebuilt it then. Sigh.

Ooops...

2009-03-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

ooops...

Here's a quick quiz: at what point did I decide it was time to quit working on the kitchen for the day? If you guessed "when the flatbar broke", you're right! I knew it was theoretically possible, but didn't think it would be quite so easy.

I don't use a flatbar for pulling nails very often; usually it's just my framing hammer and if necessary, a cat's paw to get it started (one of these days I'll have to do a how-to post on the right way to pull a nail). Only rarely do I use the flatbar to pull, and even more rarely the long end. Anyways, this was one of those mysteries of our house, a 20 penny nail where normally it would be a 16. It was in a channel between two studs where one of the old front porch walls met the outside wall, so my hammer wouldn't fit. I tried the short end of the flatbar (which has more leverage) and couldn't get it, so I tried the long end braced against one of the studs on the side, and there was a *tink* and it snapped. No injuries, but I stood there stunned for a second, trying to figure out if what I thought had happened had really just happened. Alas, it had.

The really bad news is not the flatbar (aka a Vaughn Superbar), but why I was deciding to pull that nail is that I thought I saw some tell-tale termite droppings along the edge of the channel. Tomorrow I'll go ahead and pull out the boards involved just in case. I did get the final bit of the ceiling drywall pulled down, puzzled over some more on where to run the plumbing (particularly the vent stack), and placed a few electrical boxes for countertop outlets and such.

(Sheet)rocking in the Free World

2009-03-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

Vitruvian drywall

Once replacing joists and subfloor and dealing with the small roof leaks I discovered with the ceiling open put me (way) off my original goal of being pretty much ready to install the cabinets when they arrived, I re-adjusted my goals.

Specifically, I wanted at the very least to make sure I had a place to store the cabinets (besides under a tarp in the carport) until I was ready for them, and that meant the dining room. The dining room has been serving as my staging area, and so has been full of tools, drywall, etc. But it's also been lacking a ceiling in areas between the new part in the addition and the old, which had been waiting for the rest of the kitchen walls to come down so the whole ceiling can be drywalled. And it's gotten pretty dirty besides.

intrepid explorer

So in the last week, I've torn down the rest of the dining room ceiling, most of the kitchen ceiling, sheetrocked the dining room ceiling and part of the kitchen ceiling, and as an added bonus, almost finished sheetrocking the dining room walls (at least the parts that used full pieces). And all the while, making sure Rosie didn't get into too much trouble.

Wednesday, right on schedule, the kitchen cabinets arrived. Fortunately I'd specified delivery into the house, because some of those suckers are heavy, and there's a flight of steps down from the carport. The delivery guys packed things in fairly well, but didn't really leave us a path through to the rest of the house. So using some of our mad Tetris skillz, K and I rearranged some boxes to pack them in better and open up a path.

There's a little more ceiling in the kitchen to tear down, then it's on to plumbing and pulling wires.

before and after

Habitat Build-a-thon

2009-03-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

last year's build-a-thon

As if I don't have enough to do (the kitchen cabinets arrive on Wednesday), coming up in April is Habitat for Humanity East Bay's annual Earth Day build-a-thon. This is the biggest build we've done, framing 20 houses in 4 days. I'll be a crew leader this year (not a house leader; I'm nuts, not crazy) so my fund-raising requirements are lower, but I'm still trying to raise $1,000 for the event. You can find my fund-raising page here. If you live in the SF Bay Area, consider taking part in the event yourself.

I owe a lot to Habitat because that's where I learned 99% of my building skills. I volunteer on the work site most Fridays (I didn't yesterday, because I'm busy getting ready for the cabinets and trying to keep the kitchen Rosie-proof), but the build-a-thon is also a fundraiser and a chance to get to see a whole lot of progress in a short amount of time. Most importantly, it's a chance to give people a hand in having a simple, decent place to raise their families. So donate if you can -- every little bit helps!

Where the Deer and the Tabby Cats Play

2009-03-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

smash!

Yesterday as the sun was going down, the deer that had been sitting and grazing in our yard decided it was time to play. There's a family / herd of 5 (mom, 2 from this year, 2 from last year, we think) that we frequently see in our yard. Mostly they eat plants, eat birdseed, poop, and sit around. Yesterday we saw 4 of them, doing their usual. But the young ones started running around, up and down the hill to the neighbors on each side. Then the others started getting in to it. Occasionally one would stop, breathing hard, and then join back in. It was, in short, hilarious. When not chasing around with the others, one would occasionally just hop in the air. It was almost as much fun as watching birds bathe in the birdbath.

Today I worked more on the kitchen. I spent a while puzzling over the plumbing (made more difficult by the foundation changes needed because of past problems), then went back to work pulling out drywall, bits of framing, etc. K was working at home today, so Rosie had someone to entertain her. Mostly. In the late afternoon, K had a video meeting, and Rosie showed up outside the plastic into the dining room. I went out and carried her to K's office. At some point while I was carrying debris up to the carport, she snuck past the plastic, up the back of the chimney, and into the attic.

who, me?

I was picking up bits of drywall, and heard a rustling noise from above. I called her, and saw her peering down, looking innocent. She wouldn't come down, so I went up the access ladder, and she jumped down the way she'd come up.

We had a bit of worry, because in addition to all the debris she could hurt herself on in the kitchen, there's plenty of stuff in the attic, too. K took her outside to eat some grass in case she'd eaten anything she shouldn't, but she seems fine now. Her usual goofy, playful self.

Oh give me a home
where the house cats roam
and the skies are cloudy some days
Where some times is heard
an unpleasant word
because Rosie has decided to stray

Home, home of deranged
where the deer and the tabby cats play
Where some times is heard
an unpleasant word
because Rosie has decided to stray

Sign Sign Everywhere A Sign

2009-03-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

unhappy trails to you...

sign that you've got termite damage: see picture
sign that you've been watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica: you say "frak!" upon discovering said damage
sign that a board has termite damage even though it looks OK on the outside: it sounds like a frakking rain stick when you tilt it

This was a joist below the area of subfloor that looked a bit spotty, so I'm very glad I decided to replace more subfloor. I took out the entire joist, but the one that was sistered to it I could only take out 8' of or so without major work. It looks clean after that, but that's no guarantee I've gotten all the infested wood. Still no live termites or even corpses, just trails and castings, but bleah.

I did actually say "frak" when I discovered the damaged joist, and didn't think about my word choice until later. K and I don't watch much TV, mostly movies from Netflix, but we recently discovered the new version of Battlestar Galactica. Besides the character names and the basic premise, it has very little in common with the cheesy 70's original that I watched as a child. This is much darker, better special effects, and deeper, more interesting characters. (The other word I've picked up from a sci-fi television series is "shiny". Bonus points to anyone who can name the series.)

Dark Side of the Fireplace

2009-03-04T19:55:00.003-08:00

This is why the kitchen is not quite a rectangle. I'm going to tear down all this drywall, but I gave a little test tear to check things out. This is the back side of the chimney. It's dark, though these days the front side is dark, too. That's because we pretty much stopped having fires several years ago because of the particulate pollution they produce. I became more aware of that after visiting Yellowstone NP and reading about the problems they were having from campfires some times. Of course, even if we wanted to have fires, we frequently couldn't because the local air quality district realized the same thing, and passed regulations limiting when people can have fires, and only EPA-certified inserts, wood stoves, etc. can be installed in new construction. Glass doors I installed many years ago plus the damper keep it from sucking too much warm air out of the house, but the fireplace sits dark.

There's a hole...

2009-03-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

a great big hole

There's a hole in floor, dear Liza, dear Liza. A great big one, dear Henry, dear Henry. There's a hole in the roof, too. Fortunately not nearly as big, but big enough that water is sneaking in somehow when it rains really hard. I discovered the latter after ripping down the drywall in that part of the kitchen. I created the former by ripping up rotted and termite-infested subflooring.

I ripped up a lot of subfloor today, and decided I'm going to rip up more that's spotty. So after making another dump run, I got another piece of T&G 3/4" for subflooring. The hole will be bigger than what's shown before I'm done. Including the old porch, it'll be three 4x8 sheets total, which ends up being two thirds of the kitchen. Hopefully that'll be enough.

Hobbing and Nobbing

2009-02-27T21:53:00.000-08:00

So the subflooring was worse than I thought. Today I was out to the Habitat for my usual Friday gig, only this wasn't a usual Friday. Habitat East Bay held their 2nd annual Executive Build, where executives from different companies around the Bay Area come out and learn about Habitat and ways to partner with them, and swing a hammer for half a day. So I was hobbing and or nobbing with big cheeses (mmm...cheese) from companies like PG&E (they're paying for the solar panels on all the Habitat houses), Chevron, B of A, Wells Fargo, and more. Well, mostly I was swinging a hammer and teaching some new homeowners who were out getting started on their 500 hours of sweat equity how to swing one, too.

Oh, right. The subfloor. The event was through lunch, though a number of people stayed to work for another couple hours. After I got home, I started in on pulling up the vinyl flooring in the kitchen. I figured it was a good way to unwind, and as I'd only put in 3/4ths of a day at Habitat, I still had some energy. I hauled the dishwasher up to the carport, then pulled up flooring. It's glued to 1/4" plywood, and coming up in 2x2 or so chunks.

find a happy place

I pulled up some by where the sink had been, and saw the telltale of tunnels and castings. Fortunately no live termites, but after that and dropping the dustpan down a hole in the subfloor (yeah, there's a hole that big), I decided it was enough for the day. So let's all look at the lovely sunset instead, shall we? Lalalala...no termite damage here.

ISE = mark of the beast?

2009-02-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

I read recently that disposals are evil. Not only do they discourage composting, but they use water (precious here in California) to flush solids to the water treatment plant where they then need to be trucked to a landfill, encourage blocked pipes along the way, and use a bit of electricity to boot. I had no idea they were so bad. InSinkErator responds that they're not evil, and in fact are better environmentally. Given the choice between chucking food in a disposal and throwing it in the garbage, maybe, but composting is the way to go.

evil?

We didn't use our disposal much since we compost, and after removing it, it's a good thing. As I was cutting the drain pipes, it fell away. Apparently it had been held in place primarily by the drain pipes, the top having rotted away to nothing. That along with the lower cabinets which were rotting away, between being cheap-ass particle board and having the occasional influx of moisture (rusted out drainpipe and original dishwasher, I'm looking at you). So besides the kitchen sink, there wasn't a whole lot to salvage out of the kitchen demolition.

Instead of getting to the vinyl flooring, I made a dump run and got some new subflooring material and some 2x4s to rebuild the wall where the old window had been. Ripping up the vinyl flooring and replacing some of the subflooring is on today's list.

Bloomin' Idiots

2009-02-24T18:56:00.000-08:00

That'd be and some of the flowers. The flowers for starting the process of blooming a couple weeks ago in the warm days we had before winter returned. Me for deciding to tackle more plumbing work than I needed to today.

space...the kitchen's frontier

This week started off well. With the clock ticking, I got an early start yesterday (thanks to Star; if she can't sleep because of some perceived problem, why should anyone?) K headed off to work and I ran the dishwasher for the last time. While it was running, I hung plastic in the doorways and moved the last items out of kitchen. As soon as it was done, I started removing the cabinets and the remainders of the walls. It was messy but fun work. I alternated between the sawzall and a hammer and prybar. I'd planned to have the mess cleaned up by the time K got home from work, but when I looked at the clock it was 5PM and I still had a lot of debris to remove. I was still hauling stuff when she got home, and did so for a while after. I took a shower and was in bed before 9PM, and asleep not long after.

After 11 hours sleep, I awoke today and got a much slower start. In order to remove the lower cabinets, I needed to remove the plumbing. After K left for lunch, I turned off the water, and started chopping pipes. And now we come to my moment of idiocy. Rather than just sweat some 1/2" caps on the stubs of where the kitchen supply lines had been, I took a look the mess of 3/4" and 1/2" and tees and such where the plumbing for the addition had been tied in and galvanized pipes replaced, I decided it was time to clean it up. So I cut out the mishmash and then spent the rest of the afternoon cutting copper pipes and sweating fittings. I only had one failure, but with plumbing that takes a while. The results are great: no mishmash, 3/4" all the way to the master bath, and I think I fixed the last of the water hammer by securing the new pipes better. But it took me all afternoon instead of the less than an hour that capping the stubs would have. I did get the drain pipe removed and capped, and the old dishwasher pulled, so there was some visible evidence for today's work, but I'm feeling almost as tired tonight as I was last night.

Tomorrow I'll remove the sink and take out the lower cabinets, and remove the last bits of wall. Time permitting, I'll start ripping up the vinyl flooring, too. I did a little test strip, and it shouldn't be too bad. It's glued to 1/4" plywood instead of directly to the subfloor, so it comes up with out leaving adhesive gunk behind. The bad news is that I'll have to replace some of the subfloor, because I've already seen from below what bad shape it's in.

Behold...the Kitchen of the Future!

2009-02-21T13:32:00.001-08:00

the kitchen of the future

Sure, you were expecting rotating refrigerators, dome top cookers, and levitating frying pans. No, our kitchen of the future is a little more down to earth. It'll be split between the dining room table (which is in the living room) for prep and cooking, and the bathroom for cleanup, with the occasional foray to the deck to use the grill.

Rosie the explorer

This week has been cleaning out and packing stuff from the kitchen so I can demolish things on Monday. Rosie was happy to help, if by 'help' you mean explore empty cabinets and drawers. K is busy making lasagna for tonight's guests in what will be the last use of the oven and stove for a while. It'll be...interesting...to live without a proper kitchen for a while. Wish us luck!

Winter's Back

2009-02-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

Apparently NV's rain dance worked. We still need more rain and snow, but the last week or so we've gotten a lot. Fortunately we've got a break to clean up and dry things out a little.

if a tree falls halfway...

Yesterday on my way home from the Red Cross, I saw a neighbor out walking during a break in the rain, and so had to drive closer to the other side of the street. The branches over that side of the street seemed low, and after parking I saw Mike looking at the tree, and indeed it was low. It was low because it had fallen half way over, and hadn't fallen all the way only because it managed to fall against a stump. I warned the people in the houses opposite, and Mike and I went and told the people in the house where the tree was. The owners weren't home, but a nanny, child and dog were. I went in to get the number for the Oakland public works department, and before I'd gotten far I heard a truck braking. I went back out, and public works was already out there in force. Seems another neighbor had already called them a couple hours before. Given how busy public works must be, between the storms and budget cutbacks, it was amazing they got there as quickly as they did. Fortunately no one was injured, and there was no major damage done. It could have easily flattened a car or pedestrian.

Meanwhile, the kitchen cabinets have been ordered! We really wanted to go with the EcoHome ones, but they came in at over twice the price of the KraftMaid ones, even with some of the less expensive options selected (e.g., doweled vs. dove-tailed corners, frameless vs. inset faceframe). H&H was somewhere in between. The clock is now running, so I'm packing the kitchen, moving some stuff into the dining room to use in the mean time, and after some guests this weekend, I'll demolish the kitchen next week. Then it's on to electrical and plumbing.

glacial kitchen progress

2009-02-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Progress on the kitchen has been slow, or at least feels that way. I've been finalizing the layout of the cabinet design and getting estimates. Since the cabinets are major part of the expense as well as the look of the kitchen, and I can't do it myself (without a major learning curve to learn cabinet making, and a lot of time), I'm getting three estimates. I can't blame the weather (which was glacial...there was ice on the bird bath the other morning), though that has kept me away from Habitat for several Fridays. I can't even blame jury duty, since the case settled while they were calling role, so it only took a few hours out of my day.

The first estimate is from Home Depot, which had a very helpful, friendly guy help me finalize some details while he was inputting the cabinet specs into their system. KraftMaid makes nice cabinets, and has taken some green steps, but doesn't specify FSC-certified lumber and would be shipping the cabinets all the way from Ohio. They ship a lot of cabinets, so there's some economy of scale, but still not the best thing.

Another estimate is from a local green home improvement store, EcoHome. They're a great shop, with a huge selection of eco-friendly paints, flooring, cabinets, countertops, etc. We got our bamboo flooring from them, as well as all the paint we've bought in the years since they opened. They have a company make the cabinets locally, using FSC-certified wood and low- and no-VOC finishes. This will definitely be the greenest option, but probably the most expensive.

The final estimate is from a local cabinet shop here in Oakland, H&H Cabinet. They were the last on my list, so the drawings were pretty complete by the time I got to them. They've got a small showroom above their shop which is only staffed some of the time, so the hardest part was getting over there when it was. This may be the cheapest option, but we'll see.

I'm hoping that EcoHome's estimate will be reasonable enough that we can go with it. They're super-knowledgeable, always looking for new and better options, and have done a lot of work figuring out the trade-offs involved in the various options. With the recession, they've been adding more variety to the products they carry. Instead of purely high-end stuff that's as green as possible, they're also carrying some more modest stuff that may not be as green. Regardless of whether we get the cabinets from them, we'll probably get the flooring (probably natural linoleum) and countertops (maybe Paperstone or Vetrazzo; the latter is made locally).

I'm also hoping this will all be reasonable enough that we can splurge a little on some art. We recently went to a local (as in around the corner) open studio. Turns out the house with the funny sculptures in front (a couple doors over from the house that burned a while back) belongs to a local artist who works with copper. Kenneth Griswa does some very high end installs, but also does some more modestly priced work, too. His portfolio includes some boffo copper backsplashes and range hoods as art. They're decorated using a variety of techniques, and are in a word, amazing.

In any event, the basic design of the kitchen is done. It's got the classic work triangle, and despite any limitations imposed by costs, it's going to be 1000% better than our old kitchen. It'll be twice as big, with lots more counter space and storage, and open to the dining room (via a large doorway and half height walls at the counters), so it'll feel even bigger.

DIY Chuckle for the Day

2009-02-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

from Rhymes with Orange

Thanks, Millard

2009-02-03T15:25:00.000-08:00

Millard Fuller, 1935-2009

Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, passed away today at 74. Over 1.5 million people around the world live in better homes built by Habitat volunteers, because of the organization that he and his wife Linda founded in 1976.

But countless other people, including K and I, live in better homes because of what they've learned volunteering with Habitat. I'd been volunteering with Habitat for 9 years or so when it occurred to me that I might have learned enough to design and build an addition myself. There's a lot of kind and patient people who taught me things to thank, too, but Millard Fuller has to be at the top of the list. Thanks, Millard.

Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

2009-02-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

While many of you in home improvement land are dancing for joy that the temperatures are up to the 50s, I'm hoping for our temperatures to get down to the 50s later this week. You see, while you've been freezing your collective butts off, we've been basking in unseasonably warm weather, with clear sunny skies and temps in the 60s and 70s. Which is wonderful and all, but means we haven't been getting rain. We're facing the 3rd year of a drought, which will have a bad impact on an already dire economy. Lower temperatures usually come with a storm, and there's supposed to be one moving through beginning on Thursday. Even if that messes up my usual volunteer day at Habitat for Humanity, I'm all for it.

In any event, today I worked on the kitchen. Not by tearing down walls, removing old cabinets or the like. Not even by moving stuff out of the kitchen. No, I spent the day trying to find old files that were part of the overall house plans so said plans would open without complaints in the home design software I used. When I finally acknowledge that that wasn't going to happen, I moved to measuring the actual kitchen space. And realized that having the old files wouldn't have helped me that much, because the plans I submitted for permits didn't have exact measurements for the kitchen (or probably anything else, for that matter). So I've begun creating a new set of plans, this time for just the kitchen, so I can figure out exact cabinet layouts and such.

Temporary Kitchen

2009-01-26T17:56:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here waiting for the mayor's state of the city address to start and admiring the video creation skills of of the folks over at KTOP, the Oakland government access channel. Since we don't have cable, we don't get it on-air, but thanks to the intertubes, I can watch in online. Their 'random pics of Oakland' video reminds me of what a beautiful, diverse city we live in. There's even footage from Habitat for Humanity showing a wall going up on the Thrivent Builds house (I might be in that shot, but the online video quality was too bad for me to tell.)

In any event, I spent today taking out some more parts of the kitchen wall. Partly because it'll help give K and I a better idea of the space before we finalize the design (which we need to do soon), and partly because it's a lot more fun than searching my office for the install CD for the home design software I made the plans with.

While I was working on it, a thought occurred to me. We're planning on using the other bathroom as part of the kitchen while the kitchen remodel is underway. One problem will be washing dishes, either in the bathroom sink, or maybe in a makeshit sink in the shower. Why not put the dishwasher in the bathroom? It has updated wiring now including a GFCI outlet, it has water, so why not? OK, problem number one is space...even though a dishwasher only has a footpring of 2'x2' or so, the bathroom doesn't have that kind of space that wouldn't be in the way of the sink or the door. So...why not temporarily take out the toilet, and put the dishwasher there? It'll cost me a wax ring and a bit of work, but it'd be pretty easy, and simplify having no real kitchen.

So (ignoring code issues), is there some good reason not to do this?

edit: I forgot to mention that the dishwasher is on its last legs, so we'll be getting a new one when the kitchen is done. So even if the dishwasher got damaged by being more exposed in the bathroom, it wouldn't be a big deal.

House History

2009-01-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

ineffective insulation, anyone?

After a break for church media prep, the MLK Day of Service, watching the inauguration, and having some of K's friends from the spiritual direction program over for dinner, yesterday I got back to updating the electrical for the old bathroom. I realized it would be much easier to run new wires into the switch box if I took off a section of paneling in the hallway outside the bathroom. In doing so, I discovered a bit of house history.

First, I found more of that weird insulation I'd found in the other wall of the bathroom. I'd found out before it was paper pulp insulation and it didn't have asbestos, but that was it. This time, it was intact enough to find out exactly what it is. It's Kimsul insulation from Kimberly-Clark. In researching what that is, one reference said it was made famous by that finest of home improvement films, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. (Cary Grant apparently says, "Wrap your home in a blanket of Kimsul." I've seen the movie several times, but don't recall that. I love it, so I'll just have to watch it again.)

DIY, 1943 style

Then I came across this gem of an ad from 1943. I've zoomed in on step one of the quick and easy instructions. 'If your attic is unfloored' is a good start. But check out the woman holding the other end of the tape. She's balanced on ceiling joists. In a skirt. And high heels. But still managing to show some leg. Eat your heart out, DIY Diva :-)

In any event, why they'd put the insulation here was even more a mystery than the other piece I'd found. This was again in an interior wall. But only in one stud bay, and only in the upper half of it. It obviously wasn't for warmth, and only being in part of the wall, it wasn't going to do much for noise reduction. It also showed serious compression and sagging, which isn't too surprising given it's made of paper.

Mouse Hawkins

The second thing I found was a name. I know a few names and things associated with the house: POs were a couple of circus people (clown shoes in the closet during the inspection) and inherited it from her uncle. Said uncle was a bit of an odd duck, and died here (oh my). The house was built in 1948, but beyond that, not much. Scrawled on the back of the drywall in the bathroom wall is the name "Mouse Hawkins". I didn't find anything useful about the name on the web. (The fact that Mouse Hawkins is the name of a supporting character in a webcomic is not particularly useful.) What was Mouse's contribution to the building of the house?

City Homestead just blogged about some names they found in their house. What sort of interesting things have you found out about or in your house?

MLK Day of Service

2009-01-19T18:15:00.000-08:00

Rather than re-post, I'll refer you to my (fairly new) other blog, Our Oakland, for a brief writeup of my MLK Day of Service activities and some pictures. Yes, they were construction-related :-)

What did you do for the MLK Day of Service? (NV, I know you spent the day nursing a cold, so you're excused.)

Huh?

2009-01-16T10:53:00.000-08:00

I shouldn't be surprised anymore by the way I find stuff done in this house anymore, but I am. Yesterday I worked on one of the few remaining "should be done before the kitchen demolition and remodel" projects, namely updating the electrical in the original bathroom. The kitchen (i.e., former front hall and porch) shares a wall with the bathroom, so with the back side open, it's a fine time to get the electrical up to date.

So yesterday I turned off the power to that circuit, went into the attic space, and started pulling out the old wire. Based on previous experience, I figured something important (like the kitchen) might be downstream of it, like when disconnecting some of the wiring in the hall lead to no power in the old outlets in K's office. But after pulling the old stuff, I restored power, then flipped on the kitchen light, et voila! So I didn't think any more about it.

Then K made coffee this morning, and when I got up, I asked where it was, and she said it was brewing in the living room. Uh-oh. Seems the kitchen lights were not downstream of the bathroom lights, but the outlets are. Well, it's all going to be redone anyway, but that accelerates the steps towards demolition. It kind of gives me the impression they wired the rooms and outlets in alphabetical order. Maybe organized in a non-Latin based language. Like Klingon.

Today I went over to the building department and got updated permits, as well as trying to do my part to support Oakland businesses that were vandalized by some yahoos in the wake of the Oscar Grant killing. I ran into an old friend I used to work with, who was in downtown Oakland to...go to the building department. He and his wife are considering buying a house here in Oakland, but it's had a fair amount of unpermitted work done, including a garage to family room conversion, major kitchen work, and more. They're nervous enough because it's their first house, but this might be enough to kill the deal.

The Cats Have Won

2009-01-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

wretched excess?

As I've written about before, we've included some kitty-friendly features in our addition. We were inspired in part by The Cats' House, but we'd never go that far (we say repeatedly to reassure ourselves.) Well, someone else would. They've done their own Cats' House in a sleek, modern style in Japan. TreeHugger considers it wretched excess, though besides the heavy-duty grill to fence in the balconies (which is good for preventing your little darlings from decimating the local bird population), the incremental cost for the various steps and shelves is very low and isn't taking extra space. I don't read Japanese to know all the particulars, but it hardly seems wretchedly excessive or un-green to me. Maybe the house is 50% bigger just for the cats? And lest the goggehs...er...doggies feel left out, the same builder has a house full of dog-friendly features, too.

Our Oakland

2009-01-10T20:11:00.000-08:00

Oakland - many parts, one whole

There's a great post over at City Homestead about Oakland in the aftermath of the shooting of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer. My Oakland is different their Oakland, and was different than Oscar Grant's Oakland, but it's all Our Oakland. It's a large, diverse, beautiful city, and I love it. I'll be the first to admit that I might feel differently if I lived in some other parts of Oakland, but it's a wonderful city.

Yesterday I worked out at Habitat for Humanity, south of the Oakland Coliseum. I've been volunteering in that neighborhood for almost 14 years, but I don't really know it, and the only people I know who live there are Habitat homeowners. But slowly but surely the neighborhood is improving. Besides two large Habitat developments, there are a number of commercial developments along 98th, and just the other side of the BART tracks is a large development of Pulte Homes.

Today K and I went to some other Oaklands. A fawn died under our carport, and animal control warns on their website that living animals come first so it could be a long wait, and I didn't want to dig the requisite 4'-deep hole to bury it. So we carefully slid it into a heavy bag and took it to Oakland's animal shelter. The drive took us from Montclair, through Glenview, to the Dimond District where Oscar Grant worked, down Fruitvale Avenue to the Fruitvale District where he died. There were no signs of the protests there (the vandalism didn't start until they got closer to downtown) -- it was the same Fruitvale I've gotten to know over the last couple of years. Edis and his family live there, and I've made frequent trips to the nearby Home Depot and to Economy Lumber. It was a beautiful day, with food cooking, people shopping, the sun shining.

Union Point Park

After the animal shelter, we went to a small shoreline park to shift gears from our grim task. Union Point Park is a little park along the Oakland estuary near Coast Guard Island, squeezed between the estuary and an industrial area. (I'd been there before because the Alameda County household hazardous waste facility is nearby.) It's home to a playground, picnic area, marina, and a distinctive viewing platform. The viewing platform is all the more interesting viewed from above, when its spiral shape becomes apparent. The park also contains the statue pictured above, Sigame/Follow Me, which reflects the diversity of Oakland by honoring various Oakland women of note. Like Oakland and her people, it's made of many disparate parts, but is one whole. Sometimes we forget that. But it's all Our Oakland.

Ooo...we're trendy

2009-01-08T17:58:00.000-08:00

According to builderonline.com (via Charles and Hudson) our house is pretty trendy and has features that will help boost its value with buyers. We have their "10 Things You Must Put in Your Next House" list pretty decently covered:

Radiant-heated bathroom floors - check
Butcher block countertops - nope
Glass tiles - considering for the kitchen
Dual flush toilet - check
Low-flow showerheads - check
On-demand water heater - check
Water re-circulator - considered, rejected for now because our water usage is low
Folding patio-door - maybe if we had a bigger house...
Central vacuum - nope
Excellent insulation - check -- I've blogged about this before (1, 2)

That's 5 yesses and 1 maybe without evening trying in an addition and remodel. Of course, we're doing the work on the house to make it what we want and to reduce the resources it uses, not to increase the sales value. The nice-but-not-million-dollar view from the bedroom is for us, not the next people who own the house. But it's nice to know the work isn't detracting from the value of the house. The economy is doing that well enough on its own.