Sunday in Suburbia

Sunday was another crappy day of cloudy dampness as it threatened to rain but never really let loose with anything substantial. That worked out great for me as I had several projects I wanted to complete that danced the merry line between indoors and outdoors.

My first project was to get some chemicals into the hot tub. I filled it about a month ago and I always let it fester for a couple of weeks before adding anything. It was well overdue and a bit funky smelling. But, a little Boost here and some Sanitizer there as well as a portion of sweet smelling Mango crystals and all is well.

Except for the part where the rack that supports the cover pulled its screws out from thir moorings. I'm not sure what to do to solve this problem. I think I can unscrew everything and slide it over an inch and re-attach it. That will have to wait for a sunnier day.

Next I scooped the ashes from the fire place. I must say that I am happy with my Newspaper logs. They burn for about 30 minutes and while they leave a lot of ash, it's in a nice tight bundle that scoops out easily.

Susan replaced the wall paper she was not happy with as I moved on to replacing trim. I got it all installed around the mantle.

You can compare this picture to yesterday's photo of the fire burning to see the trim added around the mantle. Except for the fact that I took the other picture at a really low angle that hides where the trim would go. So, never mind.

My other project was to put new trim in place at the end of the mantle.

As shown in the picture above, you can see there is no trim on top of the mantle in that corner, and in fact, there never was. Susan thought it was odd they had not continued it all the way to the end of the bookcase. I screwed up and rubbed some stain on the wall that then required me to get some trim on there. So I found some suitable wood, did a half assed job of milling it to match the other trim and then cut it to fit in the corner.

I stained it today and hope to install it tomorrow after work.

So, we had a very nice day accomplishing baby steps toward the completion of the Living Room. We took a walk over to the Hub Tavern for Accomplishment Celebration Beers and returned for a nice dinner Susan prepared in the Crock Pot.

Then we sat around all night and got fat.

...and drunk!

EyeHandy Projects

We came into possession of more furniture today. It's a queen headboard with a matching dresser and night table. It's nothing special but everything is in good condition and it was a decent price...$250.00.

So I borrowed Mark's truck and get the stuff moved. On top of that, I had trim to stain and wanted to try again at soldering the pipe to the radiator in the TV Room.

But first, it's rainy and chilly. I estimate from the Stanculator Weather Station 5000 that we received almost three eighths of an inch of rain today. I decided I needed to try and warm up the house with a fire.

This was our second fire since the install back in the early days of September and I ran it all day. It is working just exactly the way I hoped it would. It really heats up the living room and then wafts warm air upstairs through the staircase to warm the landing. 

My pipe sweating skills have greatly improved. I watched a couple videos on line after doing a search on "soldering copper pipes". I found a great video from this Production Company called "Eye Handy". They have a bunch of videos featuring scantily clad buxom babes showing how to do things like change a tire, repair a hole in drywall and solder a copper pipe. Soldering pipe with Tara is highly recommended.

Thanks to Tara, I figured it out this time and was successful. The key this time around, aside from Tara and her excellent instruction, was starting with a clean fitting. I got the emery cloth to properly sand the areas to join and I purchased the right flux. This flux is a waxy sort of goo that promotes adhesion of solder to the copper. The stuff I used before was what Susan uses when she does stained glass. It's very watery and it is hard to tell if it is even still there.

The other trick was to heat up the pipe and then touch the solder to the seam. It draws itself into the joint and makes a nice clean professional looking seal. And this time it held!

Unfortunately, my impromptu jerry-rigged compression joint repair on the pipe in the Living Room is not working. It's leaking water through the cap. I may try to seal the cap completely with JB Weld or some other kind of epoxy sealant.

I got the Living Room Radiator to the sandblaster yesterday and with any luck, I could have it back by next weekend. Then I just have to figure out how to re-attach it.

Susan is not happy with her wall papering and removed a bunch of 
what she had applied. Then she got to work on the second panel of the stencil.

This is going to look bitchin'!

Sweating the Solder and just sweating

I had to clean the fish aquarium tonight. It's a job that I hate doing so much that by the time I get to it, it really needs to be done. I'll need to do it again soon if I want to try and stay ahead of it.

Susan had to work tonight so I decided to try my hand at getting that Radiator in the TV Room installed.

I thought I could patch the small holes in the fitting with additional solder. I attempted three different times, each time trying to fill the system with water to see if I succeeded. Each time having to drain the system to keep it from leaking all over the floor.

I finally loosened the nut connection on the one side and heated up the copper pipe and turned the fitting off the treads on the other side. I'm going to buy a clean new fitting and try again this weekend.

Stencil Town

Susan started stenciling today. She is now one quarter closer to being done with the medallion around the light.

I worked on trim and the mantle. I think it is starting to come together and there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. However, it could be another train. I still have a bunch of staining to do. It seems to grow.

The other project I have to get going on is the boiler/heat system for the house. I managed to plug the pipes in the living room for the radiator I removed. I've been dawdling on getting that thing out of the house and to the sandblaster/powder coat painter. It's not going to be installed this season. Hence, I plugged the pipes.

I have another radiator in the TV Room that needs to be re-installed. Part of that reinstallation requires sweating the pipe. For the uninitiated, that means soldering the pipes together to create the seal.

I'm not very good at it. My first attempt last week resulted in a leaky pipe. It took about a half hour of filling the system before I saw the leak. So I stopped filling, drained a little and tried to re-solder. That didn't work either so I drained the system and moved on to other porjects...stuff I could handle, like sweeping.

Baby Step 2013-09-18

Susan was able to remove the guilty wall paper from the wall by steaming it off. It came off in one piece and she will probably be able to use it again.

I got a little staining done on the mantle and included a bit of window trim as well. I'll get a second coat of stain on tomorrow. My goal is to have the mantle back in place this weekend.

We are in that weird no man's land right now where no heat or air conditioning are required. So right now, for at least the last couple of days, we've had an incredibly small carbon footprint. We have made up for it with our incredibly large alcohol footprint.

The small carbon footprint will end soon but I'm enjoying it while I can. The alcohol footprint will continue to grow and grow and...well, you know.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I had hooked up the radiators to our system in preparation for re-energizing the system when the weather required it.

The radiator in the TV room had been off line for a good couple of years. The one in the living room is going to be out of the system through this winter due to my hopeless procrastinating to get it sand blasted and painted. 

The problem is that the thing is really heavy. I just haven't been able to gather the equipment and people together to get it out of the house. So I have rigged a plug in the pipes going to that radiator.

I was less successful re-attaching the radiator in the TV room. The connection on one side is a simple screw on connection. The other side requires soldering. It was my first attempt at sweating a pipe and I was unsuccessful.

It started spewing water as I filled the system. So the filling is on hold while I try to do a better job of soldering. That will be a weekend job. Probably using someone other than me.

Wall Papering Savant - Not so much

It is time to get back to the serious business of completing the living room by Halloween. That's our new goal.

To that end, we went to the fair on Saturday. Well, we had to. We had not yet made the trip and we needed to see how our wine entry did in the wine competition and it was the last weekend.

I was able to get another entry for the coffee table book I am compiling called, "Fat Ass America".

It's just going to be a bunch of pictures like this. Fortunately, the fair is a target rich environment for these kinds of pictures.

Next, it was time to see how our wine entry did. We entered our Tempranillo and we entered the wine label Susan designed for the Tempranillo.

The excitement built as we entered the Ag Bldg to see our wine. It was a giant let down. While our label design got a blue ribbon, the wine itself got a donut. Nothing but a purple Participation Ribbon. Yuck! We look forward to seeing the judges notes.

So the rest of the fair was what one expects from the fair. I got my elephant ear and my corn dog and a delicious rib-eye steak sandwich. 

Beyond that...it was just the fair.

But we'll be back next year!

So along comes Sunday and Susan is insistent to start the wall papering. I had my projects to work on as well. I connected the radiators in preparation for colder weather, which looks like is coming soon.

Susan spent the afternoon talking to herself and getting up and down and cutting and measuring and completed a good portion of the wall papering. I was impressed with her accomplishments.

We were cleaning up when she suddenly noticed that one of her panels didn't look right. It had a double line in the pattern that should not have been there.

Upon closer inspection, she began to express obscenities the likes of which would make a sailors parrot blush as she realized she had placed the panel upside down.

Fortunately, it was still wet enough to remove and fix. While working on that piece she said, "I didn't do that anywhere else, did I?" I looked at the wall and saw the same double line and said, "Um...yeah you did." Expletives again began to rain down and this piece was too far dried to remove.

After she calmed down, she decided she could order more paper to cover her blunder. But she is understandably upset.

Loooooooooong Weekend

It was a long weekend with a funeral service and lots of family and  others coming in and out. 

The service for my sister Sherry turned out to be very cathartic for me. One thing I know for sure...Sherry lives on in the four wonderful people she raised. 

We had a big party out at Sherry's house on Friday night. There was lots of people and food and drink and a blazing fire with hay bales around it. We were all thinking about how much Sherry would be enjoying this and DAMN her for not being there.

For my Sister

Sherry Garmin, daughter, sister, friend, and most important, joyful mother to four extraordinary children, passed away on August 29th. The legacy of who Sherry truly was shines on in her children, Samantha, Burke, Olivia and Peyton DuPree. In addition, she leaves behind her cherished mother, Trudy Jensen, her brother and sister-in-law, Stan and Susan Burke of Spokane, her sister and brother-in-law Anastacia (Stacey) and Craig Miller of Pilot Hill, CA. A memorial service is planned for Friday, September 6th at 11AM at Hamblen Park Presbyterian Church, 4102 S. Crestline Street. In lieu of flowers, please remember Sherry with a donation to Spokane Mental Health.