Keeping my fingers crossed

Between getting married and the school year starting, I have done nothing on the house beyond arranging for some trees to be trimmed and browsing for kitchen cabinets.

So let me indulge in a little hopeful fun: Posting in order to enter a contest.

The folks over at the truly awesome One Project Closer blog have some Irwin tools to give away, and would like to know how I'd use them if I won.

1. The locking pliers are the most versatile: One of the first things I learned about home ownership is that there is very little that can't be fixed in a pinch with vise grips and duct tape. I already have duct tape. I already have vise grips, too, but they're all old and cranky and they don't have cool blue handles.
   
2. The adjustable wrench will go into my car to replace the adjustable wrench that Someone Who Shall Remain Nameless broke while trying to use them to pound something that should have been pounded with a hammer. EVERYone (well, everyone except S.W.S.R.N.) knows that if you need to pound something and you don't have a hammer, you use vise grips, not an adjustable wrench.
   
3. The spring loaded needle nose will become my dedicated kitchen needle nose pliers, and used to remove pin bones from trout and other pin-boney fish. Guests don't look all that comfy with the cook digging into a grimy toolbox for something that then gets used to prepare dinner.
   

I could have written about using these for far more house related purposes, described some specific projects, such as how the needle nose pliers will likely be useful as I continue redoing the electric in the bathroom remodeling project, the adjustable wrench will be used for the bolts on the small raised pool deck that we're getting from someone that needs to be disassembled and reassembled and added on to turn it into a fort for when BabyGrand gets a little older, or that the locking pliers will be used for... well, just about everything since locking pliers really are, in my book, one of the most useful tools out there (especially for folks like me who regularly need a third hand). But the answers I gave are my more honest ones.

I realize that I have about as much chance at winning as I do of getting the bathroom remodeled before the end of 2008 (yeah, RIGHT) but hey, it's fun to dream about winning! I've never won anything online before, except for a poem written in my honor. Oh, but what a fine poem that was, indeed...

A whole lotta nothing (except a wedding!)

Well, so much for my summer break work-on-the-house plans. Between teaching, 2+ weeks in NC, and planning a wedding, it just didn't happen.

It's going to, though. I'm going to call the Selected Plumber this week to make sure of what the price quoted includes and get a date scheduled, then get the tub and fixtures ordered. Even if all that happens before the end of this year is my new tub, my new tub IS going to happen, dammit! Rest of the bathroom... we'll see. Eventually. Maybe next year when I'm determined to, for once, really truly take the summer off.

The wedding went beautifully, especially for something planned at the last minute. Some pictures are posted here, thanks to a talented friend who did it all with her toddler strapped to her back! I wish I had more pics of the front and inside of the beautiful old house, now a bed & breakfast called Noe's Nest, where we held the ceremony. You can see the garden in the pictures, and the house itself is every bit as lovely. I stayed there last year, and highly recommend it to anyone staying in the San Francisco area.

Here we are, just after having been declared legal spouses:

Going to San Francisco and we're gonna get ma-a-a-ried

Finally, a really good excuse for not having done much of anything on the house this summer!

Yes, this is slightly last-minute: I just found out Thursday that, much to everyone's surprise, the budget was approved for me to go to a geekazoid conference in San Francisco the first week in August. Long story short, Partner decided to join me once it's over, we're going to have a little mini-vacation, and we're going to get married! We'd always planned to have both a small civil and a larger personal wedding, thinking we'd do the civil one in Canada on a "honeymoon" but this just moves the civil one up a bit!

Of course we'll be required to relinquish our legal rights as a married couple at the SFO security check-in, but we'll just go with the hope that in our lifetime we will see our marriage recognized in our state and by our country. It's the same hope that Mildred and Richard Loving had when they traveled to DC to marry, since their home state of VA prohibited their interracial marriage, and not only would not recognize their relationship as valid but could potentially arrest them for it, just like queerfolk could be arrested in many states until the Supreme Court finally ruled that the law has no business poking their noses into what grownups choose to do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. In the delightfully named landmark 1967 Supreme Court case, Loving vs. Virginia, the court ruled that despite Virginia's argument that it wasn't discrimination by race since both the white person and the person of color were considered to be breaking the law, and because both were free to marry someone of their own race, it was in fact discrimination, and those "radical judges" finally dismantled all of the laws that set race-based limits on who you were allowed to marry.

I can only hope that our country gets its head out of its ass soon and stops acting as if our loving each other is somehow going to dismantle the institution of marriage. Marriage in most countries is strictly a civil institution; we are doing what most people around the world do, which is to have a short simple civil ceremony which legally binds us, separate from a friends, family, ritual, religion, music and mojitos ceremony and reception that has no legal status.

Ok, enough rambling. Now, what the HELL am I going to wear, and where are we going to DO this, seeing how SF town hall is booked solid? Who knew that even a little short ceremony like we're having could take so much work?!?

Goin' to San Francisco, and we're... gonna get ma-a-a-ried... gee I really love you and we're... gonna get ma-a-aried...

Survivor Windows/Reliabilt gets A for customer service

The replacement sash was waiting for me when I came back from my two weeks out of town.

It didn't include instructions on how to take out the old and put in the new, but with a hint from an online friend we finally got that figured out. I have no doubt that we could have also gotten instructions from their customer service desk, but I didn't call until after they were closed and of course I didn't want to wait until the next morning to do this. What, me? Impatient? Nahhhh.

Once we knew the trick it took me three seconds solo to take out the old, and 3 minutes with Partner's help to put back in the new.

And so while the window really shouldn't have broken in the first place (and we still have no idea why it did), Survivor Windows (sold through Lowes as Reliabilt) gets a solid A for customer service because of their immediate action to send us out a replacement sash without making us jump through hoops, even knowing that the windows were 9 years old and that we didn't have the receipt, and they didn't even challenge me about or ask for pictures to back up my claim that the window broke all on its own, as evidenced by there being zero damage to the screen or inner pane. They would have earned an A+ had they included installation instruction, since it was not at all difficult but it was also not intuitive.

I'm especially happy with their customer service when I compare it to what my dad is going through with MW Manufacturers Windows, also sold through Lowes, to get them to fix or replace a broken window that he bought only a couple of years ago. If I understood his tirade correctly, they're basically saying "oh we don't have that part that broke and we won't replace the whole window so you're SOL."

I'm still no big fan of vinyl windows overall, particularly to replace original wood windows in old houses. I'd still much rather have the windows that were original to this house, and just fix them up and add on good quality storms and screens but the deed was done when we bought the house. But now that I have vinyl replacement windows, it's good to at least know that they're from a company that will solidly back up their product.

OK, so I crumbled.

Every year I have November 1st as my goal date for turning on the heat. Most years I get close, and I think last year I missed it by just one day, but I really do try hard and if it was just me, I'd make it if I had to wear 15 layers.

I also have a goal date of June 15th before turning on the AC, but it's much more difficult for me to adhere to that one, especially now that I'm at that special age where I carry around my own internal furnace year-round. But add in Delaware's killer humidity and a whole bunch of rain with wind that made opening the windows impossible, I finally caved.

At least we have central air now, on an efficient system, and with a kick-ass good filtering system.

It's all about the customer service, baby.

Well, this was quite unexpected and something worth passing along. The window that broke was 8-9 years old, we didn't install it, we don't have the receipt for it, but with one brief call to the company about the window, they are sending us out a totally new sash. Normally they would have me get it through where they were bought, since that's where the windows were purchased and they handle the warranty service on the windows they sell, but since this is an older discontinued model they're sending it to me directly.

Now, as long as it doesn't turn out to be a PITA to install (which I can't imagine it will be), I will call this a good experience and excellent customer service. I've always said that it's not about someone never making mistakes (or never having a product fail), it's how you respond when a mistake is made.

Freakin' POS Vinyl Windows

Night before last I heard some strange POP sound from the vicinity of the laundry room. I investigated and here's what I found:


You can click on the picture to see a close up of the damage.

Of course, I was initially worried that it was someone trying to break in, but inspection that evening and re-inspection during the day yesterday confirmed that nope, no way this was caused by anything or anyone hitting the window, this glass just broke all on its own. It's just the exterior pane of the double-pane window that broke, but the screen is completely undamaged, and it's too far away from the window and much too taught for anything to have gotten through and broken this window without damaging the screen in some way. We poked and pushed on the screen and tried everything to see if we could get to the window without damaging the screen, and it just wasn't happening.

I did at least find out from the PO's where they got the windows (edited - see note at end), so I'm going to stop by the store where they got them from today while running errands and see if they can tell me if the pane can be replaced (since I'm told that on some double-pane vinyl windows they can't) or if I have to replace the whole blasted window.

Grrrrrrrr. What I wouldn't give to have the original windows and some good storms. Instead, I can foresee that within the next decade or so we'll likely be replacing the windows as one by one they fail in some way that, unlike a good wood window, can't be replaced.

Edited note: The store gave me the number for the manufacturer of these windows and it's not yet been confirmed since I wasn't at home to give them the sticker info off the windows, but it sounds like they are going to be covered under warranty even though I'm not the one who installed them and it's been 8 or 9 years since they were installed. Nothing will stop me from wishing I had the original wood windows, but if the manufacturer provides the kind of customer service that so far it seems that they might, I'll at least not blast them by Googleable name.

Some Honest Opinions Needed!

It's crunch time in the Georgetown House Bathroom Renovation Project. I need to make some decisions about fixtures and finishes. I'm seriously design-challenged and have a really hard time visualizing how things will look together.

Honest honest HONEST feedback is appreciated on how these will all look together. FYI it's a very small bathroom (only around 60sq ft). The floor will be white & black 1930's hex tile, the tub surround will be white tile (probably a combo of subway and square) with some color border/accent (not determined what), and the walls will hopefully get tiled to coordinate with the tub surround before I run out of steam and money.

So here's what I'm considering. I thinking that they all will look fine together, but I'm also thinking that I'm missing some really essential thing of "but this curve really doesn't go with this one" or "you have too many variations on blah blah" or whatever. HELP!!

This tub (pictures not very clear - the side is basically a framed panel), Kohler Archer:




With this sink (also Kohler Archer, but not those faucets, and yes I talked about an old dresser as the sink base but I'm worried that it will be too big so I'm looking at alternatives):


And this toilet (Toto Promenade - the matching Kohler one is too long and too high - I don't have "comfort height" legs!):


Then there are these fixtures - double towel bar, toilet bar, toilet handle, brackets for glass shelf for over sink and for oval mirror (all polished nickel, Allen & Roth "Andrews" which is a Lowes-specific line):




This sink faucet and tub faucet/shower (both Danze Opulence line in polished nickel):





And finally, these lights (Rejuvenation's Umpqua, on either side of the oval mirror, but in polished nickel not the brushed nickel that's shown):

A Plea to Contractors

If you tell me you're going to come and give me an estimate, please show up. I know that my little bathroom remodel is just a wee job compared to so many things that you work on, but still, I can't plan out the parts that I'm doing myself or start ripping things out without having some assurance that I have someone lined up to do the parts that I can't.

Thank you.

Doing, not Blogging

For once I'm actually spending more time on a renovation project than I am on blogging about it. I've started the upstairs bathroom renovation. First on the list was getting the electrical worked out. It was initially a challenge to figure out how to put two wall sconces on this wall:


Note where the right-side sconce would go: Brick wall just behind the drywall. And to the left? A pipe taking up some prime real estate that could be used by the left sconce.

With help from my buddies at the Old House Web forums, I did manage to squeeze a pan box in front of the brick and a regular rectangular box just to the left of the pipe (a hex or round box would have put the light too far over to the left).

There is still much fun to be had. See the j-box sitting there to the left? It has a wire (on the lights circuit, btw) running down from the 2nd floor, connected to a wire running back up again - a path to nowhere. Being particularly un-fond of random junction boxes, I'm going to bring those wires up to the box I'll use for the left sconce and eliminate the random j-box.

The wiring for the left sconce is a hassle: See, the light was originally on the left wall instead of over the sink. What should have been good news was that there was JUST enough wire to reach over to the sconce location -- it only went into the box by an inch or two, but code allows me to pigtail it from there.

Except.

The PO's somehow had managed to get that wire past inspection even though it was missing the outer sheath for around a foot. I tried to find some way to allow that - put it through conduit? apply some sheathing material? But the code is clear: Sheathing must reach into the box, period. So getting this hooked up will require tearing out half my bathroom ceiling so that I can unstaple enough of this run of wire in order to pull it closer to that wall and give me the extra foot I need. Oh, did I mention that they took the wire from the switch, ran it up, angled it to the back of the room, then angled it back forward to use for this light? Brilliant. NOT.

I also won't have enough play to move the GFCI to the adjoining wall, so I'm going to do one of two things: Maybe (but less likely) I'll just leave it behind the sink, though move it as far to the left as possible. But more likely I'll take the wire into a j-box that I can see down the wall behind the bathroom sink cabinet (is that legal?!? probably not), and connect it to a new wire that I then run up to where I need it on the left side.

Now I just need to decide if it's going to be worth the extra cost of even more drywalling to tear out around the switch so that I can actually make use of the 3-wire they used on the switch for the vent/light, in order to put in separate controls for the light and the fan. WHY would they run the right kind of wire to do that, but not bother putting in the third switch?!?

I'm playing tag with my plumber, trying to get him here to give me an estimate for that work, which will include negotiating with him about whether I'm ordering what I've picked out or what he likes to use. We'll see.

I also need to start tracking down a drywall pro, since that's one project I'm not willing to tackle. I miss real plaster -- if for no other reason than no one ever expected it to look nice and smooth. I can't make drywall finishing look nice and smooth.

And in my next destructive moment (hormonal overload? office dickwad strikes again? Partner gets "in a mood"?) I'm' going to tear out the vinyl and laun, and make sure that I really do have a nice solid plywood subfloor under there. This will be my first big adventure in tiling. Pray for me.