A Few Bathroom Reminders

I don't recall exactly when it was (I don't believe it was part of the 2011 bathroom renovation), but at some point we replaced the upstairs shower fixtures. We'd been investigating a possible leak and found out that some of the running up to the tub were basically dissolving ... to the point where the mineralization on the pipe was basically holding the water in more than the pipe in a few places.

As part of that, we had a Price Pfister 20378 three-way diverter installed (at least that's the number stamped on it; I can't find any original documentation) and some nice new old-style faucets that complemented the 1940s look of the bathroom.

So what's the reminder? Next time the ceramic cartridge is failing, the replacement piece that's needed is a Pfister S10-030 cartridge, and it takes a 1¹⁄₃₂ socket to replace. Having the right tools and parts, especially for a project that requires shutting off the water to the whole house, makes things so much easier...

Which leads to another reminder: Next time we have to replace any pipes that lead to a fixture, if there's a way to access things, install a shut-off valve close to said fixture.

Lost in the Walls

C— was working on her art capstone and needed a box cutter. The blade on the one she has was too dull for the work, so we swapped it out for a fresh one. At uni, she disposes of old razorblades by wrapping them in tape before putting them in the trash. (I guess she could also use a sharps container, but that's not the school's usual process.) I started to pull out some duct tape to wrap up the old blade when I had an idea ... C— thought of it at the same time and her eyes lit up!

Like many houses built prior to 1970, there's an odd little slot in the back of the bathroom medicine cabinet. It seems like an odd thing, but before the advent of disposable razors, the safest way to get rid of an old safety razor razorblade was to seal it up somewhere not designed to be opened ... like a wall. Bathrooms commonly had a slit in the medicine cabinet (or even a custom bit of ceramic tile, as seen in this 99% Invisible article) for this purpose.

Your blade is dull, just pop it into the wall! Apparently it's not uncommon nowadays in renovations of old houses to find literal pounds of old blades in a bathroom wall. It's a hazard, and disposal of them can be an issue, but I doubt adding one more blade to our current stash is unlikely to increase the problem significantly.

Once a Car Ran Free Here

Back in 1940, authorities in the DMV (long before it was known as that) came up with what they felt was a plan necessary to ensuring speedy emergency response for fire, police, and other services. They changed all the street names. Not all the names, but for the suburbs that had grown up in Montgomery and Prince George's counties the plan was to extend the street naming system used in the District. The problem was that the actual grid didn't always connect the city with the suburbs. That didn't stop them form developing a rough overlay with the occasional additional new street name that sort-of fit the pattern. They didn't all line up, the definitely didn't connect, but the system was put into place with street signs starting to change in 1941.

I haven't found records with our house's original street number, but when it was built (at least for a few months) the house was on Bayly Avenue. In searching for that name in old newspapers, I turned up one wild tale.

That version is from the Washington Evening Star, but the Washington Times–Herald also ran a version of the story. The the ditch where the car ended up coming to rest is likely the old creek bed that once ran through our side lot.

House History

Searching old newspaper archives for our address, I found some 1946 ads for our house! 

The first one is from late July, the second from early August. The $16,000 sales price appears in this Open House ad, but ones printed in a different paper gave the sales price as $6,000. I'm not sure which is correct based upon the title records.

I'm not sure how they counted rooms back then, but I guess the six rooms are the three bedrooms, the living room, dining room, and kitchen. I'm assuming the ½ bath in the first ad means the basement bathroom is at least partially original. The lot size in the first ad is the correct one. Thanks to last summer's implementation of WMATA's Better Bus Network reorganization, we're no longer a ½ block from the bus. Back then we would have been about a mile to the 82 streetcar stop; now we're around the same distance from two Metrorail Green Line stations (as well as from the nanobrewery named after the old streetcar line).

The lot was originally platted as part of resubdivision of Johnson's and Wine's Third Addition to Hyattsville Hills, and sold in January 1940 to Mrs. Tanya Ritzenberg. Ritzenberg seems to have been involved in building houses in the area; a 1941 Evening Star item says she was erecting 13 two-storey brick and cinderblock houses in the 4600 block of Clay Street NE in D.C.

Our house may have been a similar project as she sold the property a year later, in January 1941, to the Kelley family. The Kelley's turned up in some newspaper searches too as their son was a World War II aviator who was lost over Germany in November 1944 and declared dead a year later. [The side yard lot was also originally bought by Ritzenberg in February 1941, but she apparently abandoned it. In September 1943, the county seized the lot and in January 1945 sold it to the Kelleys for back taxes.]

The Kelleys moved out Spring 1946, selling to the Harold and Helen Distad. Harold was born in China, the son of Lutheran missionaries, and he and Helen had wed in DC in 1940. It's not clear if they were buying the house (and side lot) as an investment or something, but they only owned it from April to September 1946 (and clearly had put the house up for sale as late as July 1946).

The house and lot were purchased by the Bennett family in September 1946, and it stayed in that family for the next 32 years. Fred J. Bennett, the principal of Bowie Elementary School, died in 1947, just a few months after purchasing the house. He was a Mason and it appears the house's deed transferred to a fellow; perhaps the member or lodge held a lien on the house. However, the same day, the deed was again transferred to Bennett's wife and son.

There may have a been a connection between the Bennetts and the Kelley's prior to the sale too. A September 1944 newspaper notice was placed by a "John D. Bennett," using the Kelley's address, saying that he was responsible only for his own debts. Fred's son was John Joe, not John D., so maybe this may just be a coincidence.

About a month before her death in November 1978, Leo (Fred's widow and principal of West Lanham Elementary) and John Joe sold the house. It then went through a series of owners selling in September 1980, March 1983, November 1989, and November 1992. The next purchasers, in June 2000, were us!

Again With Lights

Back when we did the whole kitchen remodel, it was at a point in time when CFLs were dominant, but LED bulbs were coming to market. I very much wanted to use LEDs when we could, but going with what the marketplace offered meant most of the fixtures were made for CFL or incandescent bulbs. For the most part that wasn't that big of a deal: I could either use LEDs in the fixture as it was or with a slight modification. The central light in the kitchen, however, was a bit different.

The Kichler fixture we chose was fluorescent with four-pin G24q bases. Eventually, I found LED bulbs that worked in it without having to rewire things and removing the fluorescent ballast, but apparently that technology was not long for the market. When one of the replacement LEDs went out, I had a hard time tracking down a bulb that would supposedly work, and after trying two that either didn't work or only worked sporadically, I was getting frustrated.

It didn't help that the way the fixture housing was designed was a bit of a pain to work with ... which is how I ended up dropping the (acrylic) diffusor, shattering part of it. Remaining frustrated, we lived with it like that for a while—a broken diffusor and one bulb that worked intermittently—but when the diffuser fell out and almost hit Evelin, it seemed the time to move from frustration to action was at hand.

I'd tried when it first broke to source a new diffusor from Kichler or one of its dealers, but no-one was willing to sell a replacement. The fluorescent version had been replaced by an LED version and while it looked identical online, I would only be able to see if it worked if I bought a whole new lighting fixture.

Searching around, I eventually landed on the Access Lighting Solero III, which was the same diameter as the original fixture. It didn't look as sleek, but it also cost a lot less. It's an LED fixture with the bulbs integrated, so when/if they start to die the whole thing will need to be replaced. I'm not wild about that, but it seems to be the trend these days.

Purple Door

For years now, Evelin has—on and off—mentioned wanting to do something with the front door. Ideally, we'd have one that let in a little more light, but she also has talked about painting it. Fast forward to this past weekend when Celeste and I went to a hardware store.

The intention was to just find some 2-inch machine screws that would fit the Ross door knocker (more on that shortly) that I brought home from a visit to my parents. The old eagle knocker that came with the house aways partially blocked the peep hole and was nothing particularly special, but it used smaller screws than this one needed.

While I went looking for screws, Celeste was on the phone with Evelin looking at paint chips. They ended up picking Pratt & Lambert PL320 "Tyrian Purple," which closely matched the color of the sweater Celeste was wearing. We had can of Valsapar semi-gloss cabinet door and trim deep base (82003) tinted with that shade and suddenly a project was born.

After taking the door off the hinges and then removing all the hardware, we set it up on the porch and primed it. I also plugged one of the holes from the old door knocker and drilled a new one to fit the Ross one.

Since we started late in the day (and it was getting cold after the sun went down), that was all we achieved the first day and the door went back up for the night.

The next day the door came off the hinges again and Celeste put two coats of Tyrian Purple on it, all the hardware was reattached, and it went back up. There are few places where some touch-ups are needed (it was still a little tacky when we hung it up—it was getting cold again), but overall it looks pretty good. We probably need to consider if we want/need to paint the door frame (either purple or at least touch up the white), but that can wait until later.

(It was also noted that the tone of the different bits of hardware—mail slot, knocker, deadblot, and handle—are different hues that noticeably don't work well with each other, something that didn't jump out as strongly when the door was a dirty white. We may be replacing handle and deadbolt in the nearish future too...)

The Ross door knocker originally came from the Pontchartrain Hotel on Saint Charles Avenue in New Orleans. My father's grandfather had an apartment there, and after he and my father's grandmother divorced, she took an apartment in the hotel. (I'm assuming he'd moved out by that point.) The family lore, as my father shared it, was that the apartment my great-grandmother got had been my great-grandfather's, but if she'd realized that, she would have demanded a different space. To disguise the room, the door knocker engraved with "Ross" was removed from the door and replaced with a plain one ... and that removed door knocker is the one now on our front door.

IoT Obsolesence

Two years ago, I was thinking about the various IoT devices we have in the house. Since then, we haven't added any new (hard-wired) items, but Google has decided to sunset support for all the Nest products we are currently using.

Back during the remodel that sparked the decision to start this blog, we installed a new Nest thermostat. That was in 2014, so it was a new second-generation unit. Last week, however, Google announced it was ending support for first- and second-generation units in October. The units will continue to work, but only as an old-school "dumb" thermostat.

Part of the whole appeal is being able to use the smart features — adaptive scheduling, adjusting things from miles away when travelling, alerts to the phone, etc. So while I still look of the second-gen Nest and it is doing its job well, knowing that it is going the way of our SmartDry and being forced into obsolescence, I went ahead and took Google up on the discounted price for a new fourth-generation Nest Learning Thermostat.

I briefly considered not rewarding Google with a purchase, choosing instead an Ecobee or some other option, but I'm already well connected with Google's ecosystem. Plus, I installed two fourth-gen Nests at my parents' house earlier this month, so I'm already using the Google Home app to provide remote tech support.

When reading up on the Nest thermostat announcement, I also found out that few weeks earlier Google announced an end to the Nest Protect line of smoke detectors. Since those have a ten-year lifecycle, Google is continuing to support them through their planned end-of-life (November 2027 to December 2028 for our three). At the moment, the company is partnering with First Alert on new smart smoke detectors that will integrate with Nest Protect units. But the new SC5 lacks a few of the nice touches of the Nest Protect — no path light, no presence sensing, etc. — so hopefully there will some improvements/other options before we have to start replacing the smoke detectors.

If a Tree Falls and No-One Realizes What They Heard...

Right around midnight on New Year's Eve, Celeste and Evelin heard a noise (not fireworks). They thought a limb had fallen on the deck or something, but looking around on the deck and around the side of the house didn't turn up anything unusual.

Flashforward six or seven hours, I'm headed out for a healthy walk to start the New Year and I looked in the sideyard and saw this ...

Apparently, the noise was the other hemlock falling over, just a few days over two years from the date the first one fell.

Unlike the 2022 hemlock-drop, this tree was looking pretty healthy. There had some signs of dropping needles, but nothing as bad as the other one. There was a front that came through that evening, dumping about a third of an inch in less than an hour (and during one heavy burst the rate of rainfall was over an inch per hour). There were some wind gusts, but it looks like it was pretty calm around midnight. I'm guessing there was some illness or something that weakened the shallow root system and the rain combined to stress things enough that it just tipped over.

Fortunately, it fell into a relatively empty part of the yard. The maple we had planted back in March did get hit, but not broken or uprooted, and one of the apples (and the neighbor's mulberry) both lost limb or two each.

Instead of a walk, I spent time in the morning with loppers and (after 8 a.m.) a chainsaw trimming off branches and bits to get the stuck trees free of the mess. Now we just need to get some out with a woodchipper to take care of the detritus ...

It's a bit sad. The hemlocks were great for privacy and noise screening, so now we're getting a lot more sun on the deck, but it's much more exposed. But it also eliminates one of the routes squirrels used to easily hop on to the roof. Random memory: There was one time when Evelin and I woke up in the middle of the night and looked out the window to see a possum in that tree at the level of our bedroom window. Not sure if she was raiding a bird's nest or looking to get on the roof or just chilling.

Blue Is Back!

And it's done! We still have to put things back in place (and make some decisions about whether or not to rearrange things), but the scratches and peeling are gone and it's all blue again. The job was done with Sherwin Williams "Gallery Series" (20 Gloss Satin) paint for cabinetry and millwork, which was custom colored to (mostly) match the old blue with a clear waterborn topcoat base (651307803). Since it's a custom color, here's the formula used (in case we do need to touch things up in the future):

CCE/Colorant	OZ	32	64	128
W1 – White	2	28	–	1
B1 – Black	2	46	–	–
L1 – Blue	4	12	–	1
R3 – Magenta	–	24	1	–

(Here's a website that helps explain how to read that formula.)

We're Not Cooking Anything

To the untrained eye, it looks like a scene from Breaking Bad in the kitchen these days. Plastic tarps everywhere and lots of chemical smells.

The truth is nothing so sorted. The cabinetry installed during the remodel was solid, but the blue paint fairly early on started chipping and wearing off. Not sure if it was something defective in the finish or just wear and tear, but it was annoying. Things finally reached the point where it could no longer be tolerated so we have painters cleaning them up and making it all look new.

Day one was mostly disassembly and priming, along with some small repairs. Today is all painting.

I'm not sure if a second day of painting is on the agenda or just reassembly of things tomorrow, but I'm guessing it will be takeout or just snacking again for dinner tonight.

13 Years …

... almost to the day. Seems like that's what you can expect for a washing machine. I'd noticed an issue with the basement bathroom tile a while ago, but I though it was connected to issues we'd had with flooding from the roof/gutter problem. It turns out not. There had been an issue — probably the drain pump — with the washing machine that got a lot worse this month.

I was worried water was getting under the tile from the shower — maybe a leak in the plumbing there, but after pulling up (without breaking!) a few of the tiles and watching things for a bit it was clear the water was intruding from the other side of the wall … where the washer and dryer live.

Once the source was confirmed, the question became repair or replace? At first we planned on the repair option, but once I realized how long ago it was we'd installed this washer, read up on the likely problem, figured the cost of repair, and the likelihood of future problems, replace seemed the better option especially since everyone seems to be having sales on washers and dryers this week.

So out with the old Kenmore 4027 washer and in with an LG WT7005CW. The Kenmore dryer gets to stay. This is a switch back to a top-loading model, which is going to mean more water use, but Evelin has long been convinced the front-loader just wasn't cleaning things as well as she wanted. It’s also a slightly larger drum (4.3 ft³ instead of 4.0). Don’t tell Celeste, but it also uses LG's ThinQ IoT platform. I also picked up an Oatey washing machine pan to go below the washer ... just in case. Our basement lacks any sort of floor drain or grading that pushes the water towards the non-existent floor drain, so having something to hopefully constrain the flow of water if there's a problem in the future makes sense.

Just waiting on a delivery date/time now so I can take the basement door off to get the old washer out …

UPDATE

(April 24): It's arrived and installed without a hitch (excuse the mess in the photo).

For the delivery, the door did have to come off the hinges again to ensure the old machine could get out, but it was still a tight fit for the new machine to come it.

Turns out this model does not support ThinQ; it just has a smart diagnostic feature that will produce audible error codes that can be "read" via smartphone. C decided that "feels analog, so it's fine for a washer." (We have diverging opinions about IoT appliances.) In a related vein, I'm going to put a Govee water sensor alarm in the pan as an early warning system. (I'm a little paranoid about the water thing...) We have a few of these and they've proved helpful, like when the water filter broke.

More Trees

I talked a bit at the end of 2022 about our trees. Today we added two new trees to the side yard: a red maple (Acer rubrum) and a bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). The maple is an October Glory cultivator, which is supposed to have really nice red–orange foliage in the autumn. They were delivered and planted by Casey Trees (for free!) as part of a city program to help increase Hyattsville's tree canopy. Both trees are pretty substantial, 8 feet or taller, and we're looking forward to seeing them grow.

When the arborist came out in the autumn to consult on possible species and placement, I asked him about getting a sassafras (Sassafras albidum) and while Casey used to grow them apparently they didn't have much luck with them in an urban context so they didn't offer them. He did, however, identify a spot where I could put one if I could source one. That guy (a more affordable 4-foot tree) arrived in December and I got it into the ground then. I've been worried that it didn't make it through the winter, but the arborist who came to help plant the new trees took a look at it and said it looked like it was still alive, so I should keep watering and see what happens. 🤞🏻

The maple is in the foreground, the sassafras to the right, and the cypress in the back. Behind it, near the fence are three pawpaws (Asimina triloba), one of which was translated as a little seedling from a neighbor.

All three of the new trees are now protected with cages to help ward off nibbling deer (we don't get those too often, except for when the apples are out, but better safe than sorry) and they just need to get watered weekly (twice weekly come summer).

UPDATE

(April 23): The maple and bald cypress are looking good; the sassafras, however, is pretty sad. There's supposed to be a one-year warranty on the tree from the grower, but I have to wait until June to see if anything happens.

Small Things

The linear drain we put in the basement bathroom looks great, but the spacers used to keep the cover positioned in the trench were just free-floating little plastic rectangles. They could block some of the waterflow and, if you tried to clean the filter basket while the shower was in use they could float around or even end up in the drain.

I recently found these grate risers as a replacement. They clip to the cover, keeping them stable, while positioning it properly in the trench without affecting waterflow. Sometimes small things can make a real difference.

Thinking of small things, in mid-December we had a bit of excitement when we awoke to the sound of the water alarm under the kitchen sink. The Grohe Blue system takes up a lot of space in there with the chilling unit, CO₂ tank, and water filter. The filter head uses an unusual push-to-connect fitting for the outflow from the filter to the chiller.

As can be seen in the photo, the plastic sheared apart, letting water spray from the filter into the kitchen cabinet (and down through the bathroom ceiling below. It was easy enough to shut off the cold water to the sink and then a surprising amount of mopping things up given that it wasn't spraying for too long.

The problem was then finding a new piece. Once it was late enough for the Home Depot to open, I headed over there. They had similar fittings, but nothing that was female-to-female with European threading. Driving a bit further, I tried Lowes with no luck, and then both Ace and True Value Hardware shops. Nothing.

A pain, but not the end of the world. I figured we could last through the weekend and I could try a plumbing supply store on Monday morning. (We did find out, thanks to the water alarm again, that using just the hot water also caused some leakage thanks to water backflowing into the filter, so the sink and dishwasher were out of commission until we could get a new part.)

Monday morning, early o'clock, I visited three area plumbing supply stores with no luck.

Next step was to call Grohe and after a few false starts I had the exact part numbers needed ... but it wasn't something they could provide. Searching around online wasn't giving me too much confidence in finding the right piece event with the Grohe-supplied parts number.

I thought I'd ID'd the right piece at McMaster-Carr, but I called them to make sure. After a bit of back and forth, the best we were able to figure out was to replace it with a female-to-female (British threading) coupler and then a male-to-female push-to-connect fitting. It made for a slightly longer piece, but not so long that it wouldn't still fit under the sink.

I hit submit order on the website while still on the phone with McMaster-Carr, which was good because the sales person was able to change the order to ship the pieces diectly to me. Otherwise, it would have meant driving to somewhere near Trenton, N.J., to pick them up. (Although, because UPS was so busy with pre-Christmas packages, it might have been less frustrating if I had made the drive; the UPS app showed that the driver was just a few blocks away for about four hours before he finally dropped off the package. At one point, I took Lucy for a walk and saw him resorting boxes in the back of the very crowded van trying to make the deliveries more efficient.)

What Paint Where?

So after 23-⁵⁄₁₂ years in this house it's no surprise we have a bunch of partial cans of paint in the basement. I was looking this morning to touch up a few things (and looking ahead to a patch job that I need to deal with in our bedroom) and the first white I tried doesn't match what's in the kitchen ceiling. I looked back in the blog and while I made sure to note the color on the walls, I did a poor job of recording what's on the trim and ceiling.

I spent some time going through them all, finding a few that need to go to hazardous waste disposal and trying to figure out where the others have been used. It's a mix of Behr, Benjamin Moore, Sherman-Williams, and Glidden paints. I think the Glidden ones may be from before we bought the house ...

A few have varying degrees of helpful notes written on the lid, but others are a total crap shoot. I can say for sure that our bedroom is Behr Silverware (#3B45-2) in a Ultra Pure White interior eggshell base; Q's room is Benjamin Moore Blue Orchid (#2096-50) in Ultra Spec 500 interior flat base; the upstairs bathroom is Ralph Lauren Seven Seas (#SS38) in a neutral tinting base (#RL 1393); and the basement bathroom and hall are Behr Lunar Surface (#N460-3) in an interior eggshell enamel medium base. The kitchen is Benjamin Moore Wales Gray (#1585) in an eggshell finish base, and I think the living room is Benjamin Moore Offshore Mist (#PPU13-16) in a Premium Plus Flat White base.

For outside, we just used Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior Semi-Gloss, white, on the porch, and the retaining wall was painted with Sherwin-Williams Rock Garden (#6195) in an exterior acrylic latex Ultradeep base.

That leaves a Benjamin Moore #N539-01 Ultra Spec 500 Interior Semi Gloss that's marked as "Trim Living Room Hall & Stairs", a Benjamin Moore Premium Semi-Gloss Interior marked "Dec o/White", and a few cans of Benjamin Moore Intense White (#OC-51) that says "Hall & Stairs" ... I'm guessing that last one might be the ceilings, so I'll have to try a discrete spot to see how it looks.

UPDATE: Yeah, OC-51 is not the ceiling...

Just Needs Some Caulk

 

Things are looking good here. There's still a little bit of caulking I need to do and then touching up the paint, but most of our summer of exterior work is now done. After the roof work was complete, we were able to get the porch work finished up. (I also scrubbed the siding, removing most of the green algae that had built up over the years.)

The braces added to the columns were a nice touch that Evelin thought up. She'd seen another house in the area that had something similar, then did some digging and discovered these Ekena Millwork Thornton knee braces. We went with the smooth finish western red cedar ones and they really do look good.

We also moved the house numbers from one the short porch column (where they were hard to see, but not blocked by the camelia or the flag (or the now-moved crepe myrtle) to the lightpost. It's not perfect, but it'll do until we decide to try something else.

Drainage Solutions

 It's been a dry end to the summer, but when it has rained, it's tended to be aggressive with a lot of water falling in a fairly short amount of time. That's exactly the sort of rainfall that was giving us grief. The good news ^{(knock on wood)} that the new gutters and the adjustments made in how they connect to the house seem to be working. We've had heavy rain (at one point last night, it was falling at almost 3 inches per hour), but none of overflowing of gutters and sheeting down the side of the house.

Despite that good news, I was still worried about water backing up in the walk-out basement well and potentially flowing under the basement door. There's a small drain there with a cast-iron pipe headed out into the yard. I've never really known how that works. It might lead over to the retaining wall, but it doesn't seem to be connected to any of the weep holes in the wall.

When we first moved in, I cleared a lot of dirt out of the drainage hole, which had been blocking the pipe. More recently, I picked up a Drain King H34 hose attachment that jets water down the pipe. The idea is that the bladder swells to keep water from flowing back down the pipe and it forces out whatever is clogging things. I did manage to make a little progress with that, but it also led to water just bubbling up in the yard about 12 feet from the drain.

Concerned that I was going to cause a sinkhole if I kept forcing water down the pipe and into the yard, I eventually called in a professional.

A go at snaking it came back with just a hunk of the local clay indicating that (as expected) the pipe either had broken/collapsed or it did actually just dead-end into dirt (clay). After some discussion of options it was decided to just put in a new pipe, but angled like the gutter drain to flow into the side yard. There's a good change of elevation that direction, which made it easy to ensure the pipe would be emptying out. It took a few hours of work (interrupted by a crazy thunderstorm), but it's now complete. 

Re-Roofed

 And after a quick visit this morning to put on the last two downspouts, the roof and gutters are done.

We need a good rain (and, of course, the leaves to come down the fall and oak silks in the spring) to see how well it all works, but it looks good. The bigger gutters and the band of 2×8 around the top give a little heft to the look of the roof, which looks pretty good. (left before; right after)

  

There's still some caulking and touch-up paint/carpentry that needs to be done on the porch, and I need to see if pressure washing or something will clean up the old siding, but it's good to have the work done. (Next, at some point, replace the siding and replace or remove the faux shutters on the first floor, and paint/replace the door, and ...)

New Roof

Yesterday was a hive of activity with the shingles and old gutters being ripped off and new shingles going on. Lucy was not a fan of the noise, particularly when things being thrown off the roof passed by windows she was looking out. I have to admit all the banging and hammering and feeling like we couldn't leave the house for fear of falling debris did start to weigh as the day went on.

But the bulk of the work is done ... there was more damage than expected on the porch roof, so that wasn't finished by the time the crew reached the end of their day, but the roof is done (including adding the new venting for the bathroom fan) and the course of 2×8 that were put as a ring around the top of the house for the new roof and gutters to connect to is in place.

The siding modifications needed to accommodate that are done, so all that's left is to add the metal cap over that course and then the gutters. Plus finish the porch roof. (And once the porch roof is done, the handyman can come back and finish up that work.)

Today some rain and thunderstorms are expected, so they won't be back to finish things up until Friday, but we should be good and weather tight until then.

Up Top

So ... the roof. When we bought this house in 2000, we knew a new roof (and siding and gutters and windows) were going to be needed soon. The windows we put off, but during our first year we went ahead with the roof and probably made some mistakes. We went with conventional asphalt shingles, seamless gutters, and a Dutch-lap vinyl siding. All in all, it held up okay. Moss has taken root on the north side of the house and the 5-inch gutters were always too small. Plus, squirrels.

For the new roof, we're keeping most things the same, but better. We've had an issue in recent years of heavy rain overflowing the gutters and sheeting down the house. It's a hip roof, so the water flows down all four sides to the gutters. There are downspouts at each corner, but only on the north and south sides of the house; water has to turn a corner to come down to the ground (or go over the edge of the gutter). I added an additional downspout on the east side of the house, which helped some, but even when the gutters are freshly cleaned, they're too small to handle all the water from some of the storms we've been getting. Plus with all the overhanging oaks leaves, oak silks, acorns, etc., are a year-round issue.

We flirted with the idea of adding an 8-inch (or so) overhang to the house to help get the water away from the wall, but when we found out that would a few months of having formal plans drawn up and getting permits, we opted for a simpler solution that adds a new band of fascia caping around the edge of the roof and putting a new J-channel for the siding below that. This — along with 6-inch gutters, 3×4 downspouts, and a Shur Flo gutter cap system — should help channel the water flowing off the roof down to the ground.

Shingles have improved over the past two decades, too. We opted for Atlas Pinnacle Pristine architectural shingles in "heatherstone" (basically a grey with some variation in shades) with a Summit 60 synthetic underlayment under most of the roof and WeatherMaster Ice & Water 200 granular underlayment around the eaves. Supposedly the Atlas singles are designed to help reduce moss growth.

One unexpected change was the rain barrel. The RainReserve diverter we installed whenever the barrel was first installed was designed to fit a 2×3 downspout. The roofing guys planned to fit an adaptor in line to reduce the 3×4 downspout to fit the 2×3 join with the diverter, but I thought it would be better to just get a new diverter. At first, I thought we'd need to go with a different type of diverter but it turns out in 2011 the RainReserve diverters were reëngineered to work with 3×4 downspouts ... so a replacement was ordered.

Work is set to begin this week...

Office Update

The front porch is 90% (or so) complete. We're pausing on some of the finishing work because some bits of the repair will be handled when the gutters and shingles are torn off for the reroofing. (Basically, we discovered more extensive damage to the wood at the squirrels' and racoons' entry point, and replacing that makes more sense to handle as part of the reroofing.)

We haven't figured out where we'll put back up the house numbers, and we are waiting for new brackets to see if the iron handrails can be more stable (if not, we'll probably have the carpenter make new wood handrails for the steps up to the porch). Evelin also is thinking about adding a façade-beam across the front to give the look of an arch across the front from the street. It would mimic some of the Craftsman houses on the block as well as the arch inside between the living and dining rooms.

But the posts and some trim have been replaced, along with a few other touchups. Everything's been painted, and since an engineered wood product and pressure treated beams were used, hopefully things will stay looking nicer and stronger for a long, long time. We also got a much nicer, free-standing gate to keep Lucy dog contained.

As for the roofing work, the contract's been signed and we're just waiting to hear with the weather and their schedule align to get the work done. (And, yes, the siding needs to be replaced too or at least cleaned well. The later will probably happen first, but the former is in the cards too. The shutters too.)