Primed Porch

The porch is primed and ready for paint. But that will have to wait for next week. Here are several pictures of what we accomplished.

We even got it done in a timely manner. I think we started around 11 and had it complete by 2. Now we have the rest of the day to kick back and enjoy the day.

Ideally, we would like to go over to our neighbors pool but there are a bunch of kids there now and we don't want to intrude with all the Covid going around.

Porch Primin'

We drove to the outskirts of town last night to try and get a look at the Neowise Comet. It's supposed to be visible for the next few days. From the pictures I have seen, it looks like a smeared star. Nonetheless, it would be cool to see it only because I will not be around when it returns in six thousands years.

However, the adventure was a bust. we saw no comet. Perhaps we have to go out later in the evening than 10:00. If that's the case, I'll wait the six thousand.

We cleaned off the porch today. I blew it with the leaf blower and then Susan mopped it while I wiped down the rails. Then we taped up all the edges. That took a while. 

When we finished, we debated as to whether we should continue or wait to complete it tomorrow. Waiting almost won out but we overcame our (my) laziness and soldiered on.

We got half the porch primed, covering only the areas of bare wood and the wood putty. We already see indications that the wood putty was cracking so that might have not been the best idea to put it down. 

However, we have and now we are sealing the wood putty beneath a thick coat of primer. Side two is scheduled for tomorrow.

I would like to show you the little areas where I laid in the thin strips of wood to fill a big hole, but I can't find them.

I think this might be one of the spots right in the middle of the picture. It's hard to tell which means I did a good job.

Mo Porch Work

One of my fixes on the porch worked and the other did not. 

This one worked. I was able to hit it with the sander and make it flush to the porch

This one did not work. The glue did not make good contact with the adjacent boards and I was able to pull the whole shim right out. I 

re-glued and added another very thin shim to the group. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if it will work.

Upon inspection of my caulking skills, I see I need better skills. Or at least, caulk that does shrink so much. I did a third round of caulking today and I think that should do it. I will look at everything tomorrow and give it all a light sanding.

It took three tubes of caulking to do the first round. It took only one tube to complete rounds two and three.

Porch Work

It took us a while to get to it but we had a productive day.

We worked on the porch from noon until four. Susan sanded the wood putty area she did last week and then continued puttying the other half of the porch.

I dealt with Round Two of the caulking. I am filling such a large gap, and the caulk shrinks so much, I may have to engage in a Round Three.

We have a couple of spots where the wood decking appears to have rotted away and requires filling with wood. I used the strips of hemlock that I cut off the bottom of the TV Room baseboard to fill the gaps. I dry fitted them into place and then spread some wood glue on them and slid them back in the gap. I made them ride a little proud so we can sand them flush.

Grass Report

For the first time since we have lived in this house, I am mostly pleased with the parking strip grass on the west side of the yard.

For once, it's not dried out and crappy looking. 

On closer examination, it's not that great. It's not that it isn't green. It's that it is not really grass. It's an amalgam of green plant life that poses as grass from a distance.

See what I mean?!

Anyway, I just wanted to comment on it while it's still nice looking.

Wood Putty and Caulk

The weather today and in fact, all weekend was perfect for a Holiday weekend. It has been raining so much lately that we haven't really expected much of the weather.

I didn't really even think about it prior to the weekend and so it had nothing to prove against me...like the weather is against me.

Susan spread wood putty over the porch today, smoothing it into the cracks and crevasses that abound on the deck. She is hoping it will help smooth things out but is concerned the wood putty will just crack and peel after a couple of years. I guess we'll find out.

I did a search on the Blog today to find out when we last painted the porch. It turns out it was almost 11 years ago. August of 2009 to be exact.

I think that 11 years on a surface that takes quite a beating is pretty good. Hopefully, I'll be dead by the time another 11 years comes around.

I spent the day prepping for caulking and then caulking.

This is what I had to deal with. There are gigantic gaps in the 100 year old tongue and groove decking on the porch. Plus, there is a tremendous amount of dirt that gets down in there. I had to pull out all the old caulking, scrape out the dirt, and then vacuum up what was left.

Here's a before and after shot.

It requires a great deal of caulking. I used three of these tubes. There is a lot of waste because you put down a bead, screed it with a putty knife, and you end up with a wad of caulk that the putty knife picked up. I tried to make the best use of the excess by pressing it into other cracks. 

It's a messy operation. But...it is a messy operation that is complete!

It's Still About Sanding

When we stopped working last night, we were quite tired and sore. I believe I expressed those revelations in the previous post.

We got up this morning, somewhat revived, and continued with the work. I had to leave first thing in the morning to open up our church to a group of do-gooder sandwich makers. These folks make about 300 sandwiches with an assortment of other lunch items and then distribute them to anyone who wants one. They position themselves around parks and bridges and the like.

Anyway, I open up the building and then leave them to their operation. This has been going on for a couple of months.

I returned home about ten to find Susan on her knees with a hand sander working on the edges and corners we couldn't get to with the big floor sander.

I managed to get through a light sanding with medium grit sand paper and then another with fine grit.

The floor looks and feels pretty damn good. We got through the sanding part.

Because we sanded the front porch too, we have added another project that will keep us from the TV Room until we paint the porch. I'm hoping that will be next weekend. But that will require some evening work out of us over the next week.

We'll see. We're clearly not on a schedule.

We returned the floor sander and got charged for 24 hours plus 4 hours. That was a grand total of $105.00. I haven't figured out yet how much the sand paper cost us. Somewhere around $75.00 I surmise.

Susan continued to work on the porch when we returned. I did a bunch of vacuuming and then got to work on my second coat of stain for the baseboards.

All my staining is now complete. Our next project in the TV Room will be painting the walls, followed by staining the floor.

Oh, the joys of old home ownership.

It's About Sanding!

It's the Fourth of July Holiday weekend and that means big plans for the house.

Of course, out in the world, it means big protests for what a horrible country we are and how we are fundamentally racist. Back in my world, I wonder why so many people risk everything they have to try and sneak in to such a horrible, racist, unfair place.

Enough of politics because that is not what this is about.

It's about sanding! Shortly I will be heading for "The Depot" to rent a floor sander. The objective is to gently sand the  front porch and coarsely sand the TV Room. Down to the bare wood, as it were. And we want to do it in 24 hours. 

The sander costs $65.00 a day plus several sheets of sand paper at about eight bucks a sheet.

First, I must make a comment concerning a new discovery Susan made last night. We have a skunk that lives under the garage. She has been there for quite some time and not really caused us much trouble. I can confidently use "she" as her personal pronoun, because the one has become six. I'm one of those people who claims that only "she's" can have babies.

There I go getting political again.

The little skunkettes are adorable. They follow Mom around and wrestle and play, all the while looking for a tasty mouse. 

We saw them last night about 8:30. There was still enough light to see them easily but late enough where they decided to venture out.

7:26PM: Whew! What a day. We are both beat. But we sure were productive.

We started with the front porch because we are just giving it a buff. We're painting the same color so it doesn't need to go down to the wood. Thanks God!

The TV Room took almost five hours and there is still some work to do around the edges.

It's really tough work moving that sander around. It naturally wants to move to the right so when you want to move left, it's quite a chore. My shoulders are really sore.

I did a pretty good job of getting it down to bare wood. I need to do a little additional hand sanding on a few spots and around the edges.

Tomorrow's another day and we have plenty to do.

Staining Baseboards

I have finally completed cutting all the baseboard for the TV Room. I can't say I'm thrilled with the job I did on the coping corners. I only needed to cut three corners. Some look better than others. Thankfully, they are in the corners and they are dark.

I'm starting the staining process today. I've just painted on the wood conditioner and I'll begin staining in about 15 minutes. 

I'm staining the smaller boards today. If everything goes well, I might be able to devote some attention to my two really long boards...but I doubt it.

Above is the only picture I remembered to take during the staining process. The good news is that I was able to get all my boards treated and stained. So that gets me that much closer to having the baseboards ready to go.

We are planning on refinishing the floor this coming weekend. It's the Fourth of July so we have a three day weekend. I will probably have a four day weekend, which is a whole day better.

Once the floor is completed, we will be really close to finishing this project.

I am pretty happy with my efforts to match the north facing board with the curve in the floor.

I ended up making three passes to get it where I was satisfied. The final pass closed the gap even more than shown above.

Baseboard Part Deux

I think I have solved the baseboard problem.

I took my construction pencil and laid it on the floor with the lead up against the baseboard. Starting at the left end where the gap was really big, I drew the pencil along the board and created a cut line that followed the contour of the floor. 

I then used my jigsaw on the board, cutting right to the line, which created an arc that presumably matched the bow in the floor.

It worked! The board now sits much more snugly and flush against the floor. I ended up doing this procedure twice and I have gotten the left side to where the base shoe covers the gap. I might run it one more time to really snug it up.

I'm happy.

TV Room Base Board Predicament

I'm trying to figure out what to do with the baseboard I have milled for the TV Room.

The problem is shown above in the picture that shows the problem.

There appears to be a high point in the floor that does not allow the baseboard to lie flush to the floor at the left edge.

The other edge is not much better. However, the gap is small enough that the base shoe would cover it.

The gap at the left end is an inch high. The base shoe slides right under it.

I am thinking the way to solve this problem is to mark the midpoint of the board where the high point is and cut a straight line from the corner to that midpoint, about half an inch from the bottom. Then I would continue the cut at a slight angle towards a second mark further down the board and then straight for the bottom corner at the right end of the board.

I am essentially cutting a crude bow to match the floor. The base shoe will then hide the bow cut and the gap.

It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be better than it is.

The Hunt Begins

I found a junk box at work that had an assortment of promotional items in it, including a rain gauge to place in the yard. I screwed it to a fence post on Friday. Upon checking it this morning after yesterdays' rains, I measured .35 inches of moisture within the capture tube. Isn't that exciting!

It looks like it could be another day of rain but we don't care as we have begun the hunt for a couch in the TV Room.

We went out yesterday and found the style we are looking for although not the color or price range. The couch pictured above is basically what we are looking for. The two sides recline. The seat in the middle does not. This one was priced at $1,500.00.

We found a couple more, equally as nice and comfy at a furniture store close to us on Monroe. They had a similar couch that reclined electrically for 700 bucks.

We are going to continue the hunt today. Since we are a good ways off from finishing the room, we are not in a panic to buy.

Dumpster Day

It is a rainy wet Saturday so my plans to work outside are in the dumpster. I had a good mostly rain free day yesterday which allowed me to get several of the baseboards cut to length for the TV Room.

I decided to work on a minor little problem that popped up. When removing the plaster and lath walls, we left a chunk of plaster at the bottom of the wall. While it was close to being flush with the floor, it was not flush with the wall. The baseboards would not have fit up snugly to the wall.

So today we chipped out the plaster. It turned out to be quite a mess. However, it is done now and one more impediment removed to being done with this two year project.

I think my next move is to start sanding the floor. We are saving the main sanding for Fourth of July weekend but we can get a good head start by sanding the edges of the room. Since I have a couple of hand sanders, it should be no problem.

We are heading out shortly to look for a new couch for the TV Room. The La-Z-Boy store sent us a flyer concerning a sale that ends today. Probably not the best time to start looking. We're not even sure what we are looking for. Only that it reclines, is at least a three seater and is no more than eight feet long. Cup holders would be nice, but not mandatory. It's going to have to be comfy because I plan on logging a lot of time in this unit.

Baseboard Duty

I spent the bulk of my day milling the baseboards for the TV Room. Here is what we ended up with.

They're not fancy but they do have a passing resemblance to the baseboards on the rest of the main floor. 

My next project is to cut the boards to length and then get them stained. But first, a trip to Costco.

A Note to Our Scumbags

Victims of the Riot

It looks like we are an unhappy casualties from the riots last night.

Susan was preparing for her run while I was mowing tonight when she called to me and pointed to the front garden. I walked over, not sure what she was pointing at, only to discover our cement bench was missing.

This was the unfortunate scene. Our poor tin man just hanging there.

And this is what was taken. That bench was heavy so we figured someone must have really planned on taking it. They must have driven up and quickly loaded it into a vehicle. 

Scumbags like this are why we can't have anything nice.

We've brought the tin man in until we can replace the bench.

Historical Review

A week ago on Memorial Day, a man named George Floyd was arrested by Minneapolis Police. Three cops stood around while a fourth pressed his knee into the handcuffed man's neck. After about five or six minutes, Mr Floyd was dead.

Demonstrations started in Minneapolis the next night and turned to rioting. The rioting has spread to L.A., New York, Portland, San Francisco, Madison, Wisconsin, and last night, Spokane.

The protest started earlier in the day and was peaceful. It remained peaceful for a couple of hours. The crowd started to disperse when some anarchy supporting shit heads started damaging property. A bunch of storefront windows were shattered and the idiot crowd threw bricks at the Police line and the Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets.

Susan and I had just finished streaming a TV show when we came upon the local channels with "Breaking News". Channels 2, 4 and 6 were all reporting about the situation in downtown.

A curfew was in place for the downtown core and people were told to go home. A lot stayed around for a long time.

I finally went to bed around 11 and tried to keep a wary hear to the night outside. Of course, I fell asleep and the night passed peacefully.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of nights.

Cold and Windy Sunday

I was going to try and mow today but the weather is not cooperating. It's cold, windy and a strong chance of rain.

This doesn't seem to be a good day to start the Boiler Game, but it is done. I turned the heat off this morning. The Boiler Game is of course, the game where we turn off the furnace and see how long we can go until it must be turned on again. We have made it well into October before. In any event, let the game begin.

To celebrate the re-opening of stuff, we went out to breakfast with our friend Mark. We were going to go to this little place within walking distance called Cabot's Kitchen. But they were still closed. So we went to the new location of the Kalico Kitchen, which used to occupy Cabot's place before moving to this new locale.

Breakfast was good and the place was as full as they could make it under the new reduced occupancy rules.

I am about to conduct a search of this blog to find out when we re-did the floors in the TV Room. I'll let you know how I fare.

2:16PM: Success!  I was beginning to think I had blogged about the staining but not written done the formula. As it turns out, I did write it down.

It's the same formula we are currently using on the trim. I discovered it in a post dated September 6th, 2010. The surprising part to me was learning we put down 5 coats of varnish.

Chores for Friday

My project for today is to mill the lumber for the baseboards in the TV Room. Susan wants to match the baseboards everywhere else on the main floor and that makes sense to me.

However, they are not simple baseboards.

Here is a picture of what I'm trying to recreate. I'm going to use my newly acquired Dado blade and make the baseboard out of one piece of wood. I'll add the base shoe at the end.

I also need to make a trip to Costco and I want to do that early. However, Costco doesn't open until ten. So I have a couple hours to get some stuff done, take a Costco break, and then get back here and get to work.

12:36PM: I've been to Costco and back. 

I set up everything in the backyard and went to work. First I had to cut my boards down from ten inches to about eight and a half. That all went reasonably well. 

I changed out the saw blade for my half inch Dado blade and decided to try it out on my shortest board. I'm cutting nearly two and a quarter inches out of the board and it appears to be very stressful on my saw. It tripped the breaker on the saw. I was able to reset it but even taking it really slow didn't prevent the saw from tripping the breaker again.

My plans have been foiled by a malfunctioning table saw. Specifically, the reset button on the table saw. I have just returned from a venture out into the world to procure another reset button, but it's specific enough to the table saw application that I have to try and find it on line. Here I go!

1:07PM: It is possible I have found the part and it is available in Spokane. I found it through Grainger.com, who seem to have everything. I'm waiting for an e-mail telling me to go and pick it up.

In the meantime, I'm dead in the water with my baseboard project until I get this part. I guess I'll go clean up.

2:30PM: I just returned from Grainger in the Valley with my new part. Unfortunately, it is not even close to the part I ordered. I should have checked it before leaving. Now I have to go back.

Shit!

I can't make it there before they close for the day. And they're not open until Monday. Unfortunately, they close at 3 which is most inconvenient.

SHIT!

Time to go to the pool.

The Return of the Hub

We have just returned from the re-opening of the Hub. It was so nice to be back in our little neighborhood bar. They cut the capacity from 49 to 24 1/2. It wasn't terribly busy but people were just happy to be back.

It's amazing how we miss the little things. I'm going to try and appreciate the stupid stuff we take for granted. Like drinking beer in the privacy of your own neighborhood bar.

Lawn of Crap and Other Stuff

We are deep in the grips of the Memorial Day weekend. I've been off since Friday but I really didn't accomplish much that day. Everything I wanted to do required being outside and it kept raining...like it has all week. I really need to mow the lawn even though it pretty much looks like a step above a waste land.

My big project for the weekend is to get all the trim stained. It's a two stain process in order to achieve the color we like. The above picture shows about half of my boards.

This picture shows me getting ready to stain. Notice I am social distancing AND wearing my protective mask.

Susan is out beautifying the front yard with some flower planting. I'm heading out for round two of my staining.

I still have one more trim cutting project to do. I have to cut all the baseboard but Susan wants it to match what we have in the rest of the house. That will require some special milling which I will get in to when the time comes.

In the meantime, here's some of the stained wood from yesterday.

Okay, a little time has passed and I have completed the staining. Just by the hair of  my chinny chin chin. I got right down to the bottom of the can. I have just returned from the General Store where I acquired another small can of Dark Walnut. I was worried the General Store wasn't big enough to stock a bunch of colors. I also had a slight fear that they discontinued Dark Walnut.

But I lucked out and found it.

Here is a picture illustrating the difference between the first coat and the second. This picture doesn't quite show how much darker the board on the right is from the one on the left.

Anyway, we have a formula to follow and follow it we shall.

Susan has completed her farming almost and now we look respectable enough to be in this neighborhood. Don't look at the back yard.

So now, it's time to mellow out and enjoy the rest of the day.

Saturday Musings

It is a beautiful Spring Saturday and we are going to do some stuff today. I don't want to be more pacific than that for fear of sounding stupid.

We've just returned from church where we dropped off some food our Pastor is collecting to deliver to the food bank. It looks like we are making a nice haul.

While there, we observed the damage from the fire on Wednesday that burned up a good portion of our shrubbery. 

I counted at least 40 to 45 shrubs that need to be replaced. We have no culprits regarding how this happened but we suspect smoking kids.

I spent a good portion of yesterday with my power washer. I cleaned Mom's patio and washed her patio carpets. Then I came home and power washed the deck. Man...did it need it! I'm going to break out the chairs at some point this weekend.

Today I'm going to continue with the power washing theme. We have two outdoor carpets for the front porch that need a good scrubbing. While I have it out and operating, I'm going to wash my car and hose down the barbecue, which we will be using tonight for to make a fabulous Saturday evening meal. Steaks and asparagus! Yum!!

It's approaching noon o'clock and we are just now having a breakfast burrito that Susan made. Yum!!

We are still in the midst of the Covid-19 Lockdown where we are all staying home and trying not to interact with each other. People are starting to get antsy and many are calling for the opening of some businesses. It will probably be a while before we can return to the Hub but there is no problem going to the store or anywhere else as long as you maintain a 6 foot distance from others.

Okay, time to get outside and not spread the Covie.