Sara And Pat - Home Improvement

The tiller works, GFCI = good

nospam@example.com (Pat Hepfer) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:14:15 -0500

I got our tiller to work! Some new gas, and figuring out what does what... and we are off! I got half of the garden tilled, and now that I have half a clue what I am doing the rest shouldn't take long at all. We have lots of plans, maybe to ambitious, for the garden. We are going to have a variety of vegetables, including a small pumpkin patch for Eli. We are going to be able to use the seeds from his first pumpkin. Which I think will be cool, he wont care, just lots of pumpkins.
We are going to put in a few blueberry bushes, and a few raspberry vines... Eli loves both. Those combines with the existing pear and apple trees should be provide a nice selection.

I have done a few minor upgrades to a few things in the house, mainly a few plugs and switches so far.

I added a GFCI to the bathroom, it had none, and it seemed like a good idea. I also switched out the old plug on the opposite side of the sink, they all match now.

I also added a timed switch for the exhaust fan. It seems like one of those things that could be left on far longer then it needs to be, this seems to be an effective solution. (it also has really cool green LEDs) The fan itself is in need of some help. You can tell from anywhere in the house when the timer turns off. Loud would be a definite understatement. A project for another day.

More soon...

Pat

Happy 2009!

nospam@example.com (Pat Hepfer) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 08:00:02 -0600

We wish everyone a safe and happy new year.

We really are not really resolution people, but there are always things you would like to do different. We moved into a house that could use, well, updating. This is nothing like the Barnes house, as I recall the ceiling was sitting on the floor before we ever started any kind of demo. We will me making lots of improvements to our new house over the next several months, we started with a few fairly manageable ones.

We installed a garbage disposal! I bought the whole under the sink plumbing kit, spent a fair amount of time trying to figure it out. I was trying to over complicate it, it just didn't have what I needed. I was able to leave all of the plumbing on the other side, including the "T". I just needed a straight piece of pipe, the only possible piece that was not included in this kit. It was Sunday, and I had resolved myself to driving all the way into Lansing to pick up the piece. I was delighted to find our home town hardware store was not only open, but had what I needed, and had good service. I had always dreaded the thought of life in a "ville" or "burg"... its not so bad, in fact I rather like it.

To go along with the disposal, maybe the main reason we got it, it our new dishwasher!

The stainless steel, inside and out, an adjustable upper shelf, nylon coated racks, and more loading flexibility then I know what to do with.... all this from Menard's... I hate their theme song, but they have remarkable service.
The overall project took me embarrassingly long, but its all done, works, and looks good.

Much more to come on the home improvement adventure.

Eli seems like he constantly battling some form of a cold, but recently so am I. Considering his constant running nose, he is a pretty happy kid. I recently bought him a ball cap on super clearance. He didn't really like it the first day, but has taken to it and wears it regularly. I think he looks super cute in it...

We are trying to get him on some sort of a nap schedule. He gets two a day, one mid to late morning, and one mid afternoon. The time and length feel pretty random, and we don't always get both. The other day Eli fell asleep while eating. I got up to get something and by the time I got back this is what I saw:

He grabbed his nuk, put his head down and was out. I got the camera, got this picture and picked him up so he could sleep on his pillow. He didn't wake up, I guess he was more tired then I thought.

Have a great day...

Pat

Painting the bedrooms...

nospam@example.com (Pat Hepfer) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:57:11 -0500

We painted what is going to be our room today. We chose a warm cream for our room, and a soft blue for the baby's room. its amazing how much a fresh coat of paint changes the feel of a room. It was really something to see the old paint next to the new, I had no idea the old was so grungy looking. This weekend we are hoping to get all moved into the new room and get the baby's room painted. It shouldn't take really long, it only took an hour and a half to complete the first one. I think we will spend more time moving over and rearranging.

I am putting the finish on the bed tomorrow. I fully expect it to be a day project, at least. This is all pulling together, and it seems to be speeding up, not long till school starts, and it all kicks into high gear.

More soon.

Pat

Front door and more tile...

nospam@example.com (Pat Hepfer) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:47:35 -0500

I am juggling multiple projects, attempting to get as much done as possible. I worked on tile last night till late. Today so far I stained the front door and cleaned up a bit. I used Minwax Poly Shades, it's a polyurethane and stain in one. It feels a bit like cheating, but it has such a nice result in a short amount of time. The door has been bare wood for over a year, and before that had been painted multiple times. We tried to get all of the paint off, the wood had some in the grain that we couldn't get out, and after being frustrated beyond belief, it was good enough. Then end result now is a pretty decent looking door, not the best, but its over 80 years old and seen better days.

More tile tonight, the goal is to have it all in by the end of the night, wish me luck.

Pat

More home improvement, hopefully...

nospam@example.com (Pat Hepfer) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:42:02 -0500

Today (Tuesday) was just an abundance of home improvement fun. I helped a friend Dan move furniture out of his house so their floors can be refinished Wednesday.
As previously pointed out, I have this huge list of stuff I want to do around here. I started the tile backsplash in the kitchen. I am doing a simple subway tile, white, 3"x6". I remember tile going much faster then this is, perhaps that's because that was 12"x12". I only got one corner done, but it turned out pretty nice. I would like to have it all done by the time Sara gets home, it will be a bit of a surprise, lets hope a good one. She is in St. Louis for the week, so I am trying to make it look like I did something productive while she was gone.
More to come,
Pat

One thing off of this list...

nospam@example.com (Pat Hepfer) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:24:36 -0500

I put a few fresh coats of paint on the garage door. It was in not so good shape, it hadn't been painted in what looked to be 20 years, the paint was literally falling off of it. It took several coats to make it look acceptable. It is a good feeling to take something that looked so bad and put a bit of effort in and turn out something nice.

The Flower beds are coming along pretty nicely. The Hollyhocks are between 3ft and nearly 6ft, and the Lilly's are huge this year. We will be working on the back yard soon, as soon as we get rid of the almost functional hot tub. Hey, you want a hot tub? Its cheap...

Pat

A big hole in the ground to throw $ into...

nospam@example.com (Pat Hepfer) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:49:21 -0500

This house has had so much done to it, all new plumbing, electrical, the inside is really nice. The outside has aluminum siding, aluminum that someone painted, not correctly mind you. The paint is falling off, and it just looks trashy. After having 2 estimates for siding, one at just under $13,000, and one just over $18,000 I found the motivation to learn how to do it. On my preliminary estimates I can do it for under $5,000.
After closer examination of this project, we are going to have to do lots of prep work, including removal of the old paint covered aluminum siding, house wrap, insulation, and so on. We will be able to sell the aluminum, and with the cost of scarp metal it should help offset the cost of vinyl. I found an installation manual online for vinyl siding. Its 44 pages long, and goes into more detail then I could have hoped for, so this process will hopefully be much easier due to the wonder of the internet.

Before the siding could be even a consideration we needed to address a looming problem: the porch. Our front porch was in a slightly inclined position. This happened over the 80 some years the house has been here. It had actually pulled significantly apart in places. With Dads expertise this problem has gone from something resembling a sledding hill, to a nearly respectable front porch. The concrete is poured, and we will hopefully be able to put the porch back on the pillars (instead of the jacks) this Saturday.

Much more to come.

Pat