Milestone

Well, I am now at the halfway point! 2.5 inches up and 2.5 inches to go - The bathroom door now actually closes, latches and locks... a first since we moved in. The bedroom doors are not there yet, but soon they to will close and latch...The next step is to start digging the footings for the permanent posts, which is not going to be much fun. I am planning to go down at least 16 inches to make sure they are very well anchored. With this project in progress, I am formulating the next project - replacing the hardwood floors in the dining room and hallway. I was fortunate to get my hands on 5000 square feet of vintage oak floors that matches what is already here. I replaced three quarters of the oak floors in the front room in Long Beach, and so I already own a floor nailer and have had lots of practice. Below is the picture of the floor prior to sanding. I mixed the existing floorboards with the "new" ones so I could keep as much of the original as possible. Here the floor is really shot so I suspect I won't be able to reuse much. I may use the original flooring to patch the damaged boards in the living room. When they installed new wiring, they ran steel conduit through the floor and bolted the outlets on top of the baseboards. One of the near future projects will be to redo all the outlets and move them into the wall. At the same time I will add a few more and relocate some of the oddly placed ones. The projects continue.

Progress at Last

Whew! It has been quite awhile since I have done any updates, and there is a number of things to report - most importantly, that the jacking of the house has begun! When we bought this place a year and half ago, one of its chief charms (along with the broken windows, see through bathroom floor and resident rat population, was a severe sag in the center of the house. We dealt with the other issues prior to moving in, the sag was sort of the elephant in the room.


Our weekly cocktail parties had an added element of surprise when you realized that the room was leaning - I always blame it on the drinks. In any case, we lived with the doors that would not close, and removed the rollers off all the dinning room furniture. So finally, I bought the floor jacks and some 4X4's, and strung up a masons line to see how far it had fallen. It turned out that it was over five inches, and to top it off ALL the posts minus one had completely rotted at the base, so we had a twenty foot span resting on one post - whose base was resting on sand. The main beam had sunk so low that the center floor joists were floating about 1.5 inches above the beam, so the floor had no support whatsoever. After researching all over the web and consulting with a number of contractors, I set four jacks on some precast concrete bases, and attached the 4x4 posts to the support beam using metal brackets. Then I started the jacking by screwing the jack one turn - which was 1/8". I have done one turn a day for the last two weeks and have lifted the house almost two inches. All the joists now are sitting on the beam, the bathroom door ALMOST closes, and the kitchen cabinets in the low corner of the kitchen have lifted 1/2 inch. So far so good and the plaster cracks have been minimal and limited to where it had already been patched before.

In addition to the excitement inside, I have made some progress to the outside - I put in a hedge and a nice lion fountain, and it looks great! Sure beats the rusty chain link and weeds...

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly....

It seems like any project undertaken around here drags on for an eternity... I have still not finished painting the inside of the house ( it was "supposed" to be done before we moved in) but the thought of dragging out the drop cloth and paint cans gives me hives. It also doesn't help that the trim waiting for its second coat is in our TV /Guest room which is home to a antique shop assortment of furniture, only some of which is actually serving a purpose. On the drawing board is a glorious wall of bookshelves/ work desk for the end wall which would actually give us a place to properly store our collection of books and other assorted stuff, but its down the list. Way Down. At least until I can't stand it anymore and actually get the thing designed and built..


The other eternal project around here ( other than my rants) is the #@$^&!! sprinkler system. Being blessed with a corner lot (with a front row seat to the endless array of near collisions) and a really Long parkway strip between the street and the sidewalk which needs to be sprinkled so I have nice green grass and shady trees rather than dirt rocks and weeds. With the lousy ground I am cursed with here (calling it soil or dirt is being too nice) I can only trench about 15 feet a night after work and install a single sprinkler head. I have two more to go one one side and then I get to move to the front of the house where I have 4 tree stumps to get rid of and then trench and run pipe... After that I can actually do the front yard itself, by which time it should be November ( I will NOT say what year) .










The Good. The bright spot is that I do have one of the flowerbeds along the side of the house done, and with the roses, foxgloves and delphiniums planted and the whole thing mulched , it actually looks nice. One needs to have a finished area, no matter how small to feel better about where it is headed.





The Bad.... (Those are the rocks I have dug up so far)


The Ugly. The sad, sad, backyard. I always wanted a backyard, I just hadn't planned on the piles of scrap metal, piles of concrete and waist high weeds) The view in the photo is the future home of a nice brick patio for martini hour... Seeing this picture makes me want a martini NOW...
Well, we have to get the before pictures from somewhere right? Its just nicer when you can blame the before on the Previous Owners, although in the case of this place they left us lots of really interesting surprises.....

Somtimes, you should listen to the little voices in your head.

Tonight was one of those nights where everything that could go wrong with a project did... an spectacularly so. I managed to burn my hands, my arm hair, and buy a tool I already had.
This project actually is a result of my ongoing sprinkler installation, and happened because I located the main waterline with the pick ax last week. Who knew that the #%##^#^ that installed the new waterline would put it three inches below the surface where I would mistake it for a rock, that was until the "rock" started trickling water. since I just dented it where the pipe goes into an elbow, and it was a very small leak, I decided to ignore it and continue my sprinkler line and get to it later or I secretly hoped it would plug itself up. Well, I decided that today was the day I was going to fix the bugger, and on the way home, something told me to put it off another day. I ignored that thought and went to Home Depot, got my copper fittings, came home, turned off the water , dug up the line and set to work heating the joint so I could pop off the solder..and so 20 minutes later the solder still had not popped and so I resorted to cutting the pipe on one end thinking I could heat the joint and wiggle it off. after another 20 minutes the elbow actually deformed and started to soften from the heat, but it was firmly attached to the other line, which could not be cut because it runs under the sidewalk. I was using another piece of copper pipe slipped into the cut off side, but it heated up and burned my hand. Finally, the cut off side Fell off because of the heat and used a pair of pliers to wrench the ^%^^&$^$ elbow off, and finally, after all that it came off a twisted and contorted mess. So, it now being 7:15pm, I cut the new section, prepped the surfaces for soldering, and slipped them onto the pipes in the ground. I had incorrectly measured a bit, so it all came off, got re-cut and went back on, ready to be soldered. I fire up the torch, and as I tip it to touch the fittings, a FIREBALL comes up and singes my arm hair. No matter how may times I take the head of the torch off, blow it out, etc it shoot out flames. Thinking I am maybe running out of gas, I get another canister from the basement and encounter the same issue. At this point is almost 8PM and with no water so in a panic, I got back to Home Depot, buy a new torch, get back, and the new one does the same thing. I try a variety of positions and it finally starts working normally, all though the flame is not as consistent and keeps blowing out. I solder the four joints, and then turn on the water - now the trickle is a dribble in a different spot and I am DONE for the night since its slightly better than before.. I think I will try again next week.....In the meantime, back to digging trenches for sprinklers and pulling up more rocks.....

Yippe!!!!

Well, I am both very excited and little guilty at the same time for my latest purchase. I have been focus on the sprinkler and landscaping project, and this week I finished the first flowerbed along the side of the house. I got five roses planted along with several foxgloves and delphiniums and put in a nice border of blue lobeila, which will grow in to big masses of brilliant blue flowers. The mulch is down, so I won't have to worry about the soil drying out or weeds, so it should prove to be both beautiful and low maitenece

The naughty purchase was a result of a trip to our local salvage yard to get materials for Steve's latest purchase - a 1926 bungalow with river rock columns that will be rented out.
Out of the deal I am ending up with the houses claw foot tub, sans the claw feet. By 1926, Claw feet were very old fashioned and so a resourceful builder boxed in the tub and tiled it in, which was redone in the 1960's with neat mosaic tile but had suffered terrible water damage. In any case, the as much as we love the old tubs, the hardware is non standard and they are harder to maintain, so we have decided to remove the tub and replace it with a standard tub/shower unit. The claw foot will be installed here at some point, as I want to restore the bath back to 1910. For now, we will store it until I am ready to redo the bath.

In any case, as I am innocently looking at replacement bedroom doors for his house, I spotted the PERFECT front door for this house - It was exactly what I had envisioned and lovely. So I measured it, convinced it would not fit, and came home only to find IT was a perfect fit. So although we are on a tight budget & front door replacement projects are way down on the list, I dreamed about the door all week and so we went down today and I bought it....So now, I just have to repair the lock holes ( someone drilled a hole for a deadbolt) and replace the front door frame ( As is the case with ever other door frame in the house, it has been massacred) But its fabulous. We got it home, and before we hiked it down to the basement for repairs, I set it in its new home and wow do I love it....

And we have moved to the great outdoors...

Boy, its been awhile since my last post, but we have made lots of progress! I have installed the first Sprinkler zone on the side of the house, and in the process removed about five tons of river rock, and broken through very tough clay. This is the worst soil I have encountered ever, so the next step is massive amounts of compost and peat moss, and maybe a few sacks of manure for good measure. I have my roses in pots in the back yard, and added some foxglove, delphiniums hydrangias, and last night I bought a Japanese maple on sale at Lowes for 21.99 - regularly 39.99 so I am a happy camper. It will be nice when I can actully plant them in the yard, as I am having to water my mini Nursery before work every day....

The other good news in that I got the malibu exterior light on Ebay for $35 with shipping. Its over $100 at Home Depot so I am happy...

A few weeks ago I was cleaning out the garage in Long Beach and ran across a few gallons of paint I bought for the Window sashes - I ended up using less than half a gallon on the windows up there so I decided to try it out on this house.

Wow, what a difference! It really makes the house pop. I touched up the area on the front porch where it was enclosed and covered up the turquiose spots. Boy what were they thinking!

In any case, with the holliday weekend, I should finally get the soil ammended and then get most of the plants in the ground. I can't wait!

Updates...

Wow, how time flies..
I wish i could report that the house is now picture perfect, but I am not THAT delusional...
Instead, I am happy to say I have removed the ugly chain link fence, the wheelchair ramp and three Jade plants. (pictures soon forthcomming). I also been collecting items for the finished yard, including 8 iceberg rosebushes, (On sale at Walmart!)the control panel for the sprinkler (A deal on Ebay!) And sprinkler parts (gift from out Long Beach neighbor), and the coup'd'ete Fabulous exterior lights for 75% off at Home Depot. Awhile back, I had picked out some very expensive path lights that were relegated to the wish list. A few weeks ago, while at Home Depot, we took a walk down the outdoor lighting aisle and I showed Steve the $26 lights I wanted foe the outside. He noticed they were on sale for $4.99!! I bought all they had, and then we went to (ahem) four more locations all over the San Diego area and I bought up all I could find, ending up with 18.... I actually crawled between the shelves at one location and found three addtional. Now I need the $100 transformer... I am channeling the Ebay gods to send me a good deal. Tonight we went to Lowes to get sprinkler heads for the side flowerbeds and they just got a shipment of Hydrangeas and I picked up the three I need for the front of the house for 4.99. Since we got first dibs, we got some really healthy and large plants. I should get them in the ground ummm soon.... Till then, I have my work cut out for me watering my collection of plants in the backyard. Its like I am back working for a nursery again. Look for new pictures coming in the next few days...