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Tuesday, April first, 2008
 For the past few months, we've been in the process of renovating our 2nd floor bathroom -- workers in and out of the house, trucks driving up and delivering large heavy objects, paint odors and sawdust mixing with our air... It's finished now! And what an improvement -- the old bathroom just was not a well put-together room. Besides that the tiles were old and ugly and the fixtures falling apart, the layout was nonsensical. You pushed the door open into a narrow corridor next to the bathtub and at the end of the bathtub there was a little bit of space and then the toilet; the sink was placed so that you would always knock into the corner of it when you were going by there.
We rearranged the space pretty radically and as I said, I think it's a huge improvement. Before and after pictures are here. The design and the painting (which still has a little bit of touching up to be done) are my and Ellen's contributions, the other work was contracted out.
 Update: I posted a rough floor plan of the before and after layouts here.
posted evening of April first, 2008: 3 responses
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Monday, March 24th, 2008
So the plumber (from the heating company) came and let us know, the pressure relief valve is leaking because the water main pressure is too high -- 120psi*, when the house wants it to be between 80 - 100psi. We called Donald (at the water company) and he was like "Oh, well of course you need to have a pressure regulation valve on your main." Turns out we don't have any such thing. So, another plumber (from the plumbing company) is coming (hopefully this afternoon), to install the valve. In the meantime, this guy adjusted the relief valve so that it will hold 120psi without leaking.
 (Later on:) The second plumber came, installed the valve, everything's fine.
*psi is a lovely acronym in that it could also be spelled ψ.
posted afternoon of March 24th, 2008: Respond
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Hm. Well, I turned the main water supply off last night. Turned it on this morning, and the pressure relief valve is not leaking. I'm not sure what to make of that -- it could mean the problem was a transitory surplus of pressure in the main line; or it could (more likely, I think) mean giving the valve a chance to rest made it stop leaking, which probably means the leak will come back after a little while. I don't want to call a plumber and have him come over here while there is no leak, I don't think that would be useful. So, deputizing Ellen to check on the pipe through the day (assuming it is still not leaking at 8:30, when I go to work -- otherwise I will take a personal day and interact with plumbers.)
 ...Aaand, we're dripping! A very slow drip right now, I'm assuming it will get worse as the day goes on. I have called the heating company and the plumber should be here later this morning.
posted morning of March 24th, 2008: Respond
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Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
Aargh... Some water is dripping out of a pipe next to the combination boiler/water heater in our basement. It is not dripping out super-fast, but probably a few cups every hour, which is a lot in the scheme of things that is our plumbing. The pipe appears to be the output of the water heater portion of the mechanism; as near as I can tell it is a pressure relief valve, described in detail on this page; the likely candidates for causing the leak are - That the valve itself is broken (but this seems unlikely since a new valve was probably put in when the boiler was replaced a few years ago);
- that the water pressure regulator* attached to the main water line coming into our house is broken (this seems more plausible);
- that the main water supply pressure for our block has really unusually high pressure today (possible I guess?); or
- that something done during our bathroom renovation broke the system somehow (seems likely and unnerving, except I can't see any logical way that would work -- the water pressure is an input to the system not at all dependent on the devices attached to the system when they are all shut off.)
It is definitely pressure -- if I turn on a hot water tap upstairs, the leak stops. (Should check whether a cold water tap has this effect, but I think it will.) Of course we cannot get a plumber on Easter Sunday; I guess I will shut off the water coming into the house this evening before we go to bed, and turn it back on in the morning.
 ... Yes, the cold water tap has the same effect. The leak seems to be getting faster, too! Hopefully it will be a simple repair; we'll find out tomorrow, I guess. I'm glad we're doing a lot in the basement these days; I think there have been periods like late last year, where this would have gone undetected for a couple of days.
*(The next day: we don't actually have a water pressure regulator, which is the source of the problem, in combination with the third bullet point above. I was assuming there was one since the linked article made it look like this was standard.)
posted evening of March 23rd, 2008: Respond
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Monday, March 17th, 2008
This evening and yesterday evening, I am (amazingly) starting to see progress towards a clean basement -- much of the sawdust is swept or vacuumed up, my bench is clear of tools and I'm reasonably clear on where the tools are located; I found a couple of tools that I've been wondering where they were; I'm just about ready to start work on the repeatedly delayed fence for the front yard. I've built it in my head enough times now, it should be fairly straightforward getting it into physical existence.
posted evening of March 17th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Today I drove a bunch of tile over from Barry's house to my own (long, non-interesting story) and carried it inside. I was washing my hands afterwards and had the thought, Frequently, washing my hands seems like a useless bit of ritual, but right now, it is having a clearly visible effect. Which led directly to the thought, maybe the proportion of head work that I'm doing to hand work has grown too high. Fortunately I had a handy project just waiting to be done, namely fixing the pocket doors between our dining room and music room -- these are sliding wooden doors which it would be nice to use, but they don't slide very well in their tracks. We haven't really done much with them since we moved in, until the other day when I closed them -- the one on the left moved along smoothly but the one on the right had to be sort of wrestled out; and when I had pulled it out all the way I heard something falling down in the cavity it lives in, and then it would not shut. This evening I took down the stop which is on the ceiling in the middle of the door track, so I could pull the right-hand door all the way out and see what was blocking it. Turns out the cavity was full of debris, fallen bits of plaster, lengths of 2X4 (one of which was blocking the door's return), chips of brick, and a huge amount of plaster dust. I was able to pull most of it out with a long stick, and the door slides much better now. And I had another chance to wash my dirty hands.
posted evening of January 8th, 2008: Respond
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Sunday, October 28th, 2007
Spring cleaning, though it wasn't really Spring,
Was the Hemulen's favorite thing
--The Book About Moomin, Mymble, and Little My So Ellen comes home, sees the new arrangement in the living room, likes it, and views it as an opportunity to move everything else around too! Well I'm fine with that, indeed it was part of the plan; hadn't necessarily anticipated doing it all right now, but: the living room looks very nice now, with the fresh arrangement of furniture. And somehow that led to the thought that it was time for a little autumnal cleaning -- I got out the ladder and took dust and cobwebs off all (well most of) our window moldings, door moldings, and (where it was really egregious) ceiling moldings. And with the pile of stuff moved under which my coffee table has been living in benign neglect, it seemed like a good idea to give its top, sticky in spots, a good scrub... half an hour later, it looks like oak again,* at least in part... cleaning out the corners of the sunburst in the middle of the table top was particularly interesting. The newly set-up stereo is serving as a good opportunity to listen to records I haven't heard or thought of in a while -- our cleaning music was Jackson Browne, Running on Empty, which I was not even aware we owned.
*Hmm, well like discolored, scraped oak anyway. This may take sandpaper and a whole new coat of finish before I'm done with it.
posted evening of October 28th, 2007: Respond
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When we moved into this house 5 years ago, I set up my stereo temporarily on the floor in a corner of the living room. And there it has been these 5 years, until yesterday when in a fit of organizing, I moved it into a more permanent-seeming location, on a wire rack in the next room, which I am currently thinking of as the "music room" (before it was the "play room", but Sylvia is doing most of her playing these days in her own room). The problem had always been my perceived lack of a suitable shelf. But Friday night while I was turning over various stuff in my mind, I realized that the wire rack in the garage would be just right. So yesterday morning, I sponged the cobwebs off it, brought it inside, and moved everything around. Well: my records have a home now, on a shelf where you can thumb through them instead of stacked on the floor! You don't have to crouch down to put in a CD or record! I threw out my non-working cassette player! And best of all, the sound is much, much clearer with the speakers off the ground. Spent last night with Bob, listening to old Robyn Hitchcock and older Pink Floyd. (Bob, a longtime Floyd fan, had never heard of Piper at the Gates of Dawn or indeed even known there were any records before Atom Heart Mother -- it was a privilege to introduce him to Syd Barrett's music.)
posted afternoon of October 28th, 2007: Respond
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Monday, July 11th, 2005
A status update on my still-outstanding home improvement tasks for the summer. Woodworking - Ellen painted Sylvia's playhouse to match the garage which it is next to, and it looks very nice. It's gotten a good deal of use from Sylvia and various friends this summer, as I was hoping it would.
- The garbage-can enclosure is up. I finished installing it last weekend, and had the inspiration (born of laziness) to make a raised garden with the dirt I had excavated, instead of carting it away. I finished that this weekend, using some rocks from Eva's property (where we visited Saturday) to complete the retaining wall. Under the dirt where I excavated is an old slate patio in very bad condition; Ellen had the inspired idea to use the fragments of slate to create a walkway leading to the front garden.
- However, I still have to build the gates for the enclosure. Once I build and hang these, Ellen will be able to paint the structure.
- We cleaned up the garage and actually have a decent work area there now. Janis had given me some old trestles for a work table, which I nailed together with maple planks, and built a shelf above it.
- I have an idea that I may actually get to building the small tool shed sometime in August.
Patio - The slate walkway along the driveway is level and drains well, which has made me realize that the driveway itself is not level, and drains poorly. Aargh...
- I ended up underlaying the garbage can enclosure with limestone instead of bluestone, because it was available in a more convenient shape. Damned expensive though!
- I'm planning to do the extension of the back patio next Friday, when i am taking the day off. If this goes according to plan, then I will start drawing up plans for the tool shed next weekend.
posted afternoon of July 11th, 2005: Respond
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Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
A bunch of new images for the READIN Family Album:
posted evening of May 31st, 2005: Respond
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