A Christmas Present

For Christmas this year, Celeste brightened the upstairs bathroom with a bit of art. A while ago, Evelin mentioned the idea of painting the inside of the bathroom door with a pattern similar to the one she had painted on her phone case; during Christmas break (and with some parent-supplied materials) she took up the challenge.

We refreshed the bathroom a few years ago (and I just replaced the sink hardware), but it's still defined by the original 1940 mint tiles. Despite this, using dark blue paint (Ralph Lauren Seven Seas) and Marimekko Blue Pieni Unikko shower curtain gives the space a nicer look. Celeste drew upon the Pieni Unikko pattern for her painting, working in a few similar flowers and added in a few shades of purple. Since she used acrylic paints, we figured things needed to be sealed, so two coats of varnish were added giving it a nice gloss.

Next up, I just ordered a cabinet bar pull (Hardware Resources Naples 624PC) that will replace the old towel bar that broke a while ago. The bar pull won't project out as far as a typical towel bar (about 1½ inches instead of 2¾ to 3 inches), letting us open the door fully. Mounting it will be a little difficult — I figure I'll have to sink the screws on the outside of the door, putty over them, and then repaint that side of things — but it should work well.

Today's Weather Forecast ...

Not really a change to the house, but I got an Ambient Weather WS-2902C personal weather station for Christmas. One 10-foot pole later and it's up and running in the backyard keeping track of wind and rain and (this time of year) cold. The house, retaining wall, and tree will have an impact on wind speed and direction measurements, but the temperatures, UV, and rain readings should be pretty accurate ... and most importantly, the signal is received strongly in the house. I might try adding an extension pole to get the sensor array up two or three more feet (it's currently about 7.4 feet above ground), but all in all the data looks good.

Not a Plumber

Back in 2011, when we had the upstairs bathroom spruced up we put in a new sink. I wasn't tracking very well the models/fixtures we were installing back then, so I'm not sure exactly what the sink/vanity combo we selected was, but it was an American Standard and had a wide-spread faucet and Evelin was really happy with it. As part of the job, we had new pipes put in but since we only redid the floor tiles and not the walls, the new supply lines came up from the ground and not out of the wall.

When the vanity was installed, the contractor pushed it flush to the corner, which is how the old, much bigger box vanity was placed, but it left it off-center from the mirror. Evelin did not approve.

Once the placement was corrected we were left with two holes in the bottom of the vanity that didn't line up with the supply lines. Not the end of the world; flexible 30-inch braided steel supply lines were used to make the connection and it all worked well for nearly a decade.

However, a little while back the faucet started dripping. Shouldn't be a big deal right? Except things were all corroded inside and I (see the title of this post) am not a plumber so when I couldn't figure out a way to pull and replace the cartridge we moved on to plan B — replace the whole fixture. The original one had some issues with the spout getting wobbly and not being able to keep it tight in addition to the leak, so no big deal, right?

We agreed on the look of the Moen Essie (84716) so a few days later I picked one up and got to work. See again the title of this post.

So it turns out the cartridge (assuming it has one) in the old faucet was not the only thing that was a bit corroded. After wrestling with tight spaces and tools that didn't quite fit, I got all the old hardware off except the faucet stems. They wouldn't go down the hole without removing the chrome ring and they couldn't come up without removing part of the brass fitting. I couldn't figure a way to get either to happen with what I had on hand, so after some text messages to friends and neighbors with more and better tools than me — specifically a Dremel Saw-Max — I was quickly creating a lot of brass dust, making a mess, and cutting the fitting in half.

After cleaning things up, installing the new fixture went fairly smoothly (despite the still cramped space and not all the right tools. It was going relatively well (thanks to some help from Celeste in making sure the stuff up top was lining up while I was positioning things from below) right up until it was time to reconnect the supply hoses. The 30-inch ones that were used to handle the issue with holes being drilled in the wrong place. The ones that Evelin still is bothered by.

The Moen faucet stems are just a wee bit higher up than the old American Standard ones. And 30-inch supply lines are the longest ones Home Depot seems to carry.

So everything is hooked up. The drain is draining without any leaks ... but we're waiting on the 32-inch supply lines I ordered online tonight to arrive before we find out if there are problems anywhere else in the new setup. And the kids have to brush their teeth in the tub until then, too.

Update: Sepetember 26, 2020 — New hoses arrived as expected and the extra two inches made all the difference. No evidence of leaks and teeth brushing can happen at the sink now.

A Little More Light

Last month, we had an electrician come and expand the exterior lighting slightly. Back in September, my office moved locations and now I'm able to regularly bike to work. Since we don't have a shed or anything, the bikes are kept in the basement and I use the walkout to exit the house each day. Fifteen years ago, when Celeste was a baby, I used to leave the house through the same basement door in the middle of the night,^* and while it was always dark, it wasn't that big of deal.

My goal is to be a bike commuter for as much of the year as possible. Figuring that as winter nights grew longer it might be helpful to have some light by the basement door when I was wrangling a bike and backpack and everything else, it seemed logical to add a light by the basement door. Evelin suggested that since we were having electrical work done anyway, we also add another exterior outlet in the same area.^†

Per my preference for dark-sky friendly fixtures, we got a John Timberland Danbury Modern LED barn light. Instead of a normal lightswitch, we went with a Kasa HS200 Smart Switch, which makes it easy to program the light to turn on/off automatically when I'm leaving/coming home and, if it is off for some reason, I can turn it on with my phone. We have a few other wifi-enabled plugs (mostly Kasa and one WiOn) and they're much better than traditional mechanical timers and are also great for things like Christmas lights.

Up next? Still slow-going thoughts on expanding the house up or out, that old carpet in the basement, and who knows what else.

^*When Evelin went back to work part-time after C was born, she went in to her office two afternoons a week. On those days, I shifted my work day to align with (then) IMAS's Italian office and left the house at 3-somethingalltooearly in the morning. Evelin was concerned that the front door was too noisy, so I started using the basement door.

^†When we bought the house, it had one exterior outlet on the side of the patio that was primarily for the pond's pump. After the patio and pond were removed, I stupidly cut that wire off at the exterior wall and sealed off the wires inside; years later I realized it would work to have an (interior) outlet there instead of a sealed junction box. We added an exterior plug to the front of the house at some point and one on the deck as part of the huge kitchen project, but now there's one more set of outlets on the back of the house.

The Wall

Evelin has long wanted to do something about the retaining wall in the backyard. It's painted cinder blocks and while I did pressure wash it once a few years ago, getting off a good bit of dirt, grime, and some of the old while paint, I'd agree that it didn't really look great. In my mind, it looked organic and rustic; for Evelin, it just looked shabby. (Picture below cira 2014)

This spring, Evelin pulled the trigger and called the painters. She did agree to go with a dark green color, instead of the black she'd initially been pushing for, but Celeste remained worried that it would be too dark and ugly. For Evelin, the goal was to have the wall basically "disappear" if you were looking at it from down the hill or through the neighbors' yard from the street behind us. It's still too dark for Celeste, but I think it looks good and gets the job done. (Picture below circa yesterday)

One other undocumented here change: Last August, we took out two dead/dying trees in the side yard: A black cherry (Prunus serotina) and a white oak (Quercus alba). Both were big enough to require city approval for removal, but both were clearly dead enough to necessitate it. We still need to plant two trees to replace them, we've talked about doing pawpaws (Asimina triloba), although a sugar maple (Acer saccharum) would be cool (albeit not at all right for the climate), but we haven't yet. The city did plant two new trees in the right-of-way — a pin oak (Quercus palustris) and something else (Not quite sure) — so we haven't felt pressure to replace them just yet.

Inside the house, no major improvements or changes of late, other than replacing the downstairs smoke alarm with a Nest Protect. The old one alerted us at 2 a.m. last Saturday night that it was dying. At some point, I guess I'll replace the basement one with a Nest and then everything will be networked.

Still undecided is if we should ever get around to popping the top and adding a third floor master suite.... Quinlan would love the opportunity for a larger room (her current room would become a critical part of the stairwell), and the roof is going to need to be reshingled in the next year or three, so we probably need to think seriously about it, if we're going to do it.

House Update

It's been a while (3+ years), but I wanted to document a few additional house changes. After the kitchen project ended, some friends and I redid the basement bathroom, after that a leak led to needing to do some work in the hallway/under-stairs area in the basement, we had the upstairs bathroom reglazed, and (prompting this update) we replaced the AC (again). Still in the future? The old carpet in the basement should go at some point, the retaining wall out back needs painting (as does the front porch), the shutters should be replaced, and we may eventually follow through on the idea of expanding the house.

Basement Bathroom

A few months after the kitchen was finished, we discovered a long hidden leak, which led to a very compromised vanity and drywall. What began as ripping out some bad spots lead to a full demo. It took a long time with lots of starts and stops, but the old pink tub is gone, replaced by a nice tiled shower (United States Ceramic subway tiles), vinyl floor replaced with nice tiles (Ceramica Sant'Agostino Aspen series), and everything else redone, too. One nice touch (after a lot of discussion over storage solutions): school-style gym lockers. As part of the project a lot of Roxul ComfortBatt rockwool insulation was added (along with more than a few DC Brau cans ... I do wonder, when some future homeowner goes to redo the space, what they'll think of that ...)

For the shower, we used a Redi Trench shower pan with a solid linear drain, a VIGO Pirouette frameless shower door, and a Symmons Elm commercial shower faucet. The sink is a Mirabelle console on a stainless-steel pedestal with Delta Vero faucet and a Feiss Infinity Collection oval mirror. The light over the sink is a Kichler Caparros 2 fixture Evelin won from Build.com; the other ceiling fixtures are NUVO Polaris 60-608 flush-mounts. For ventilation, we used an Air King 150 cfm exhaust fan. The suspended ceiling with mineral fiber acoustic tiles was replaced with a CeilingMAX system that uses Fasäde Quattro PVC tiles with a trippy pattern embedded in them.

[ADDENDUM: A while later, we finally got around to adding some hardware from the Moen 90 Degree line to the bathroom, specifically a toilet paper holder and two robe hooks, which we're using to hang towels from.]

While the downstairs bathroom tile work was being done, we went had the same guy add a tile backsplash behind the stove and under the window behind the sink. As part of the kitchen renovation project we considered doing this, but decided against it. After living with it for a while, we changed our minds. The tile used was the one the interior designer had recommended, Glazzio Tidal Wave Blend.

After all that was completed, the hose that goes from the wall to the toilet tank developed a leak, which took a while to discover. At first we thought it was flooding due to crazy rains, and then possibly a leak connected to the shower. Once the culprit was discovered, it was an easy fix, but the vinyl tile in the hallway/under-stairs area just outside the bathroom was all damaged, along with more wet drywall ... so I took all that out, replacing the flooring with TrafficMASTER Allure vinyl planks (instead of the shag carpeting Q wanted) and replacing the drywall with greenboard. It took longer than it should have, but not as bad as the bathroom.

Keeping Cool

And today, we're getting replacing our AC for the third time in the past 17 years. The unit that came with the house when we bought it in 2000 died in 2001, days after the home warranty provided as part of the purchase expired. The replacement for that lasted until the 2012 derecho hit and a tree limb fell and speared the compressor. At that time we replaced the full HVAC system, upgrading to a high efficiency furnace. We have had an issue with the AC working as well as it should and has increasingly been losing coolant (and the guy who did the work disappeared on us, so ...). This year, when we had the system tuned up at the beginning of the summer and coolant added, it worked until the massive July heatwave at which point it was clear that the system couldn't keep up. Instead of topping off the coolant three or four times a year, we decided to go ahead and replace the AC system.

We opted for an American Standard Silver 14 SEER unit. We couldn't really take advantage of a higher SEER unit without upgrading the full furnace system too, so after some discussion we decided going from 13 to 14 SEER was good enough. The previous unit was only 2 tons and mathwise the house needs somewhere around 2.6 tons of cooling, so we opted to go with the 3 ton one. We're also having the compressor relocated to the east side of the house; this gets it out from under the deck, which will be good for airflow for the unit as well as hopefully mean less noise when we're on the deck.

(A few hours later ...) The work is done and it difference is amazing. Barely audible from the deck and quite effective at cooling the house. The guys who did the work did a very nice job, too, taking care to consolidate the piping and wiring in ways that gained us some space in the basement. As part of the job, they also replaced the old whole-house humidifier (which I'd installed in 2005) with a new Aprilaire Model 700 unit. In doing the work, we realized a small change to the ducting would allow for better air filtration, so they'll be back in a week or three to make that happen.

Day 62: The Big Reveal

Day: 63 (I'm writing this after the day in question)
Schedule: T−3
Prognosis for Survival: Have Entered a New Stage

So yesterday, Day 62, was the big reveal. The contractor and his team hosted a reveal party for us, inviting a good chunk of the neighborhood, along with other folk, to see the finished product. The recycling bin is full of bottles and Lucy had many scraps off the floor, plus we got to see just how many people the deck could support (a lot of them). It was a nice time, and we're glad to be moving into the living-in-it phase of things.

There are still a few punch-list items left to go, but hopefully they will be done by Wednesday (which is when the replacement stove is supposed to arrive). All in all, it looks quite good, but I'm not sure where things are. I did cook my first meal in here on Friday (pasta and peas for the girls) and my second one tonight (tacos) ... hopefully, next weekend will be a bit calmer and I can have a go at making a nicer meal.

On to the pictures (which Evelin wishes were of a cleaner/neater space):

Looking into the kitchen from by the living room.

Looking from the kitchen into the dining room.

Looking across the deck.

Looking into the kitchen window from the deck.