And make way for my smooth operation

Over the weekend I finished touching up the drywall, vacuumed the room, and took out the temporary floor. I also broke out the belt sander and started to sand the floor.

This is an actual conversation that I had with my wife this morning:

Me: Why didn’t you take that yogurt to work? With the granola? I bought it for you since you’ve been looking for healthy snacks to take to work.
Wifey: I don’t like granola.
Me: At that breakfast two weeks ago you said that yogurt with granola was the best thing you ever ate!
Wifey: I know, it was really good. I still had some left over and I ate it yesterday.
Me: So you like granola?
Wifey: But I don’t know how healthy it is to eat too much granola.
Me: Are you kidding?
Wifey: And I don’t really like mango yogurt.
Me: Have you ever tried mango yogurt?
Wifey: No but I don’t really like the idea of mango-flavored things.
Me: Fine, I’ll take the yogurt.
Wifey: No, now I kind of want it.

Sanding the floor will take a long time with both the belt sander and the palm sander. But sometimes it’s nice to have a time-consuming task planned for the weekend that makes it impossible to hear anyone else.

Filibuster vigilantly

Early in September, I somehow volunteered to make my brother’s wedding cake. This seemed like a good idea until I realized that I didn’t know how to make a wedding cake.

On September 10 and September 11, I spent the weekend trying out various angel food cake recipes and cake pans. I settled on one recipe and made a 12x18 sheet cake that I brought to my grandmother’s house. Conveniently, it was her birthday. I wrote “Happy 9/11” on the cake but she didn’t notice. It was, after all, written in delicious buttercream. She loved the cake.

Then on September 14-15 I made a round cake with raspberry mousse inside and practiced with fondant. My wife took it to her book club. They didn’t really care for the mousse but they loved the buttercream. Everyone loves buttercream.

So on September 17 I presented my brother and sister-in-law with a giant white cake with blue details, including their wedding logo. It was a four-layer angel food cake with strawberry filling and buttercream all over. It came out great, but it took so long that I actually forgot about the room renovation.

On September 24 and 25 I just got drunk in my cousin’s driveway. It was as glamorous as it sounds.

But alas, on October 1 and 2 wifey and I got back to work! We sanded, added a third coat of taping compound, and sanded again. Now I just need to touch up a few spots and I can work on the floors! Unless you know someone who needs a wedding cake, because I really don’t want to sand those floors.

And yes I'm all lit up again

The wife and I got the second coat of drywall compound on the walls and sanded it down over the weekend.

A box of sandpaper and a bucket of taping compound was about 30 bucks. I don't remember how I lost the receipts but it was probably when I was trying to haul the 60 pounds of joint compound up two flights of stairs while trying to hide my heavy breathing from the wife. I don't want her to know how out of shape I am. Because, you know, the gut she sees every day is not conclusive evidence. The new total is $631.42.

It was hot as hell over the weekend so we took on the project while only wearing minimal clothing. Apologies if you happened to be driving by and saw up my boxers while I was on the ladder sanding the ceiling.

I told the wife that she actually looked really good in her sanding attire. She said, "You're only turned on because of my dust mask. My mouth is covered and you can't hear what I'm saying."

Waiting for my ruca

I know that my last post was about procrastination but I really intended to get right to the sanding.

Really.

But the lawn really needed to be mowed. Then I couldn’t mow it because I found a rabbit nest so I had to put up a temporary fence to keep my dog out. The next night I came home and discovered that one baby rabbit was missing so I had to search the yard to find him (which I did) and put him back (which I did after a photo).

Then I really had to clean the garage because it was a mess and you never know when you’re going to have company and when your company will want to have a party in the garage.

Then I was going to get to the sanding but instead the wife and I went to the beach for a long weekend.

Then –and this is not my fault –a hurricane hit my neighborhood and I spend an entire night bailing out my basement bucket by bucket to make sure that the rising water didn’t damage my boiler or furnace. I won. But wifey had the nerve to be traveling in Europe (for business, allegedly) during the hurricane and I was on my own. I guess it was for the best since I was drunk for the entire weekend and there was no power so it would have been impossible to drown my drunk ranting out with Project Runway.

Today I took off from work and sanded the walls. Now it’s time for a second coat and then more sanding.

But first, I really need to clean those gutters. Or maybe read that Tolstoy book I’ve been meaning to read.

We’re on the tape, we’re fresh out the box

Wifey and I got the first coat of joint compound up on the walls last weekend. If you haven’t done this before you probably think that the next logical steps are sanding and a second coat of compound. If you have sanded joint compound before you know that now is the time for serious procrastination because sanding that first coat really sucks.

For example, in the last two days I somehow injured my pinkie (which is the most important finger for sanding), decided to reconfigure the amplifiers in my Jeep, and spend an entire day building Lego castles with my nephews. When I finally had a few spare hours yesterday I decided that my bathroom really needed a good (and lengthy) scrubbing.

Eventually we’ll get to the sanding.

These boots are made for walking

I finished up the drywall last week. I also made my first and hopefully last trip to the doctor for this project.

Second batch of drywall was $51.48 bringing the total to $601.42.

After stepping on a nail that almost went through my foot and trying to hide my limp for a week, wifey said, “When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?” I muttered something unintelligible and tried harder to hide the limp.

Then the next day I stepped on a small shaving of scrap metal from the corner bead I was putting up. I cut my other foot. Wifey gave me a look. I went to the doctor. He looked at my foot and asked why I wasn’t wearing boots. He gave me the same look. He gave me the tetanus shot.

You raise me up

This weekend wifey and I bought our first batch of drywall and got the ceiling up. I know it doesn't sound like much, but buying drywall, hauling it home, and getting it up the stairs is a lot of work. And it was 100 degrees all weekend.

Total cost of insulation was $144.61 and the first batch of drywall cost $58.40 so the current total is $549.94.

This weekend's work made me think about my marriage. When I was dating my wife, I knew that she was the person that I wanted to spend my life with and maybe start a family with one day. I knew that she was a genius and looked great in a bathing suit. I never looked at her and thought, “I wonder if this girl can help me haul four-by-ten sheets of drywall up a turning flight of stairs” or “I wonder if this girl can stand on a ladder and hold a heavy sheet of drywall in place over her head while I screw it in.” But sometimes you get more than you ask for. Maybe these are things you should consider when you are dating.

If you're a woman, maybe you should consider whether your man has close male friends who live nearby and who will help him drywall so you don’t have to do it.

They'll never see you leaving by the back door

I didn't do any work on the room over the weekend, but I did make an important decision.

Last week on the way to work I noticed that one of my neighbors was throwing out two milk crates. I stopped to pick them up since I always need milk crates for my homebrewing projects. One of the crates was full of coat hangers but I was running late so I just took the crate with the hangers and threw it into my Jeep.

When I got home, I threw out the old coat hangers and found a doll at the bottom of the crate. The doll has a baby's face with a mustache and is dressed in mariachi or matador clothes. The doll is missing both legs and an arm. Someone nailed small nails into the doll's head where the ears should be.

It's incredibly creepy.

Obviously I couldn't just throw out the doll because it's evil and it will hunt my down and kill me with a guitar or burrito or whatever. But while I was trying to figure out what to do with it, it occurred to me that this doll is the solution to another problem I have been trying to solve.

Before you close up the walls of a room, you should always put something cool in the walls for someone to find ages and ages hence should anyone else embark on a home improvement project. In years past, I've found newspapers from years ago, children's toys, and even an old pair of shoes. But instead of something cool, I'm leaving this evil doll behind the drywall. I wish I could see the look on the person's face who tears down a wall years from now and finds that this evil doll has been lurking in the house for years.

Make some noise if you’re down with me

This weekend I installed an electrical box in the closet so that I could put a light in there and then wifey and I put in insulation. Wifey is very good at insulation. I think it’s because insulation involves scissors and she went to camp as a child.

My policy is to put insulation everywhere including internal walls and ceilings. I grew up in a house wherein you could hear everything that was going on in the entire house – even two floors away – because my father decided not to insulate the ceilings. My father is mostly deaf so it didn’t matter to him but I’m sure my brothers weren’t happy to hear me giggling with my girlfriend in the basement when I was 14. And if there are ever kids in my house I don’t want to hear them talking, crying, plotting, doing drugs, or whatever it is that kids do. They all have cellular telephones these days so they can just call 911 if they need help.

Mama said knock you out

On Friday I went to my parents’ house after work. My mother’s air conditioner kept blowing the circuit in her house so I decided to go out and have a look.

It turned out that my mom had a monstrous window air conditioner and her pool filter running off a 15 amp circuit breaker. I pulled it out and put in a 30 amp circuit breaker and it worked like a charm. I celebrated by jumping in my mom’s pool.

When my mom came outside, I explained the problem and told her that I fixed it all in five minutes.

I expected her to be overjoyed but instead she seemed to be deep in thought. She said, “Do you think that is the same problem we have in the kitchen?”

In our house growing up (and still to this day for the unfortunate souls still living there), we were only able to use the toaster oven OR the toaster OR the microwave OR the dishwasher. Activating more than one device tripped the circuit and required you to go down to the basement and reset the circuit. This happened hundreds of times – usually when one of us didn’t notice that the dishwasher was on and we microwaved a snack. It is a frustrating situation.

When I told my mother that yes her entire kitchen is running off a 15 amp circuit breaker and yes I can fix that in five minutes next time I come out, her mood turned to anger. “You mean to tell me that it only takes a three-dollar part and five minutes and I’ve been up and down those goddamned stairs a hundred goddamned times and your father could have fixed that years ago?”

I quickly dried off and went home before my dad got home from work.

When I told my triumphant story to my friend, hoping to get the accolades that my mother deprived me of, my friend said, “What happens if your parents’ house burns down?”

I said, “Well, I suppose my mother will stop complaining about her air conditioner.”

When I spoke to my mother the next day, I asked whether her smoke detectors had fresh batteries. You know, just in case. She said, “We got rid of our smoke detectors. They were too much trouble. That one in the hallway went off every time I fried something.”

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine

This week I replaced all of the electrical boxes and outlets in the workroom. It didn’t really have to be done since the wiring all appears to be pretty new but a new room looks much better with sparkling new outlets and I’m more comfortable living in a house in which I personally did the wiring.

I mounted all of the electrical boxes to studs because the prior boxes were installed with Madison clips and Madison clips are for fucking anarchists.

Cost of mountable outlet boxes, new outlets, new light switch, and more contractor bags: $44.17. Total cost of project thus far: $346.93.

I also added one outlet – in the closet. Wifey snickered at me and you may be snickering too but I believe that every room and every closet in every house should have an outlet. Someday someone will invent a super electronic device to install in every closet that makes all of your clothes wrinkle-free and shines your shoes and makes you coffee and smells like roses and I’ll be ready with outlets in my closets and you won’t so snicker away.

We love dirty laundry

On Saturday I went out to my dad’s house to repay the favor.

My dad has an old cable line in his backyard between two trees that he put up for a dog run. This was useful thirty years ago when we had a giant mangy mutt running around the yard with me and my brothers but since that mutt has passed on and my parents currently have a dachshund that wouldn’t run away if the house was on fire, my dad now uses it as a clothesline.

A few months ago during a storm, a branch fell on the cable and it snapped. My dad has been bugging me to fix it for a long time but I have been putting it off because he had a hip replacement in March and he really isn’t supposed to be out there hanging laundry all the time.

But this Saturday I finally went out to repair it. My dad came outside to supervise. He asked why I had a drill and when I told him that I was going to drill a pilot hole to sink the hook into the tree he scoffed at me. My dad is old-fashioned.

“Just hammer a ten-penny nail two inches into the tree and then pull it out.”

I rolled my eyes and drilled the hole. After I put the hook in, I abandoned the project to visit my grandmother and on the way back to my dad's house I stopped at Home Depot to buy a shiny new turnbuckle to tighten the cable. When my dad saw this he first pointed out that it wasn’t necessary and then he said, “How did you get that on a Sunday?”

Look out kid, it’s something you did

Saturday was a big day in the work room because my father came to inspect. When it comes to renovations he knows everything about everything. He is also very skilled at leading you in one direction without making it obvious.

“Sure, we can turn this into a bathroom. I mean, we’re going to have to install a whole new floor that is level, we might have to vent the drain out the side of your house, and there really isn’t any point in having two bathrooms on one floor of a small house but I can help you run the plumbing.”

So we’re definitely not making it into a bathroom.

After coffee with my dad, I bought some lumber and installed some studs where necessary so that we have something to which we can screw the drywall. Cost of lumber was $15.97 bringing the total to $302.76.

Every day I'm shuffling

This past weekend I did absolutely nothing in the work room.

Well, not nothing: I paid the trash guys to pick up the remnants of demolition. It cost $200 bucks so the total for the room is now $286.79.

The wife and I were thinking of turning the room into a big bathroom which would be nice but not really necessary for the house. Then a friend of mine suggested closing up the existing doorway, putting a new doorway into the adjoining bedroom, and turning the room into a master bathroom. We gave this serious consideration.

As previously documented, the floor in this room is slightly curved. The reason for this is illustrated in the beautiful cross-section of my house shown above: the room extends past the room below it and over time the edge of the room has fallen. This means that if we put a bathtub in this room, it would have to be positioned along the inner wall to avoid placing too much strain on the front of the room.

So this past weekend we did a lot of looking at the room, getting rough estimates on plumbing fixtures and tiles, and thinking about what would improve the value of the house. And drinking, we did lots of drinking as well. Drinking is an important part of home renovation.

Thinking of a master plan

I drew up a floorplan (to scale, of course) for the work room. I e-mailed it to wifey and told her that we should think about what to do with the room. I asked her to come up with some ideas.

I would be happy to insulate the room, hang some drywall, refinish the floor, and put it back just like it was. But since we really have no use for the room I also thought about making it a huge walk-in closet or turning it into a big bathroom with one of those huge Scarface tubs that I could smoke cigars in.

I printed ten copies of the layout and brought it home. Over dinner I used a marker to draw up five ideas I came up with: two for luxury bathrooms and three for a walk-in closet with lots of hanging space, a dresser, and shelves.

I asked the wife for her ideas and she drew hearts on a blank copy of the layout.

Rolling in the deep

Over the weekend when I went to tear out the knob and tube wiring and the one random bx power line that I found buried behind the walls, I tested them with a light bulb socket just to make sure that they were dead before I cut them. But they were all live. This was not good. This meant that at some point in the history of this house, someone left live wires sealed behind the plaster and lath walls. And to make matters worse, they sprayed insulation into the wall and ceiling cavities, surrounding the live wires with insulation. In a knob and tube system, the knobs and tubes keep the power wires away from the wooden beams that make up the house because power lines get hot. But when you spray insulation around the wires, it defeats the point of the knobs and tubes and creates a fire hazard. I had no choice but to trace the circuit and turn it off. The good news is that one circuit in the basement cut power to all of the knob and tube wiring buried in this room so I could cut the wires out. The bad news is that the living room ceiling fan lost power. That was unexpected since the living room is not even close to the work room- it’s on another floor and two rooms over. So I spent the past three nights tracing the power line in the basement and disconnecting it from the circuit box, then running a new power line to the ceiling fan in the living room and installing a new circuit for the ceiling fan. In the process, I discovered that the outlets in the living room were hooked up to the circuit for the furnace, so I disconnected those wires (giving the furnace its own circuit) and connected them to the circuit I just installed (giving the living room its own circuit). Now it’s Wednesday and I’m mentally exhausted for the week even though I spent the last three nights in the basement and haven’t set foot in the work room since Saturday. But on the bright side, I installed a light over my ironing board in the basement so that makes my life a little easier.

There ain't no reason you and me should be alone tonight

Today the wife clocked in on the job site for the first time. We spent the morning pulling the lath from the corners of the room, pulling out the dead wires, and pulling the nails from all of the studs in the room. We also swept up and vacuumed.

I had to buy one more box of contractor bags and a few vacuum bags for 40 bucks. Total cost of the project is now up to $86.79.

Every time wifey and I embark on a project together, whether it's dicing vegetables or painting a room, there comes a time when I realize that wifey is progressing about as quickly as a drunken turtle. Today my investigation revealed that wifey was not pulling nails and letting them fall on the floor like a normal person. She was collecting them in a small basket. I don't even know where she got the damned basket. Who brings a little basket to a job site?

Every now and then I fall apart

When you gut an entire room in your house, it's important to focus on completing the project as soon as possible because it seriously affects the value of your house. It's important to avoid distractions.

For example, it's probably not the best time to spend a night drinking a lot of beer and repairing old GI Joe guys.

Talking to myself because I am my own consultant

Wifey was out of town this weekend so I spent the entire weekend talking to my dog. I also finished demolishing the entire room.

Demolition is easy: insert crowbar, pull down wall. It's clearing all of the debris out that's hard.

I think what I like most about demolition is that I get to use a crowbar. It's such a mean-looking tool that I rarely get to use. Whenever someone uses a crowbar on television, it's for opening coffins, breaking in to someone's house, or beating someone. Even though I bought a special thin crowbar for gently pulling off crown mouldings that I sand and refinish, I still feel a little badass when I use it.

Ya best protect ya neck

Today I finished pulling down the ceiling and I bagged some of it up.

Dust is your main enemy when you're pulling down plaster and lath. The first time I did it, I wore a dust mask. The second time I added goggles. Now I just cover as much of my body as possible. Spend the ten bucks for disposable coveralls with a hood. It keeps the dust out of your clothes and off your body. And of course, it scares the living hell out of your neighbors if they see you through the windows so make sure you're highly visible.

It’s especially fun to take the trash out to the curb dressed like this.

No need to worry, my accountant handles that

Today I made the first trip to Home Depot for this project. I bought a box of dust masks, a box of contractor bags, and some disposable coveralls with a hood. Total: $46.79. And the money flow begins.

Now let's get it all in perspective

I started demolition today. I wanted to get an idea of what's behind those walls before I plan my weekend. When you tear down walls in a house that's over a hundred years old, you never know what's going to be back there. You could find hidden treasure, alien remains, or just really bad construction.

The bad news is that at some point in the history of this house someone blew insulation into the ceiling. This is going to make demolition a lot messier and much more of a pain in the ass.

The good news is that at some point someone (probably the same person) put new wiring into the ceiling. In the top photo you can see the old knob and tube wiring in the ceiling. That's what I was afraid I would be tearing out. Hopefully there isn't any current in there. I'll make my dog lick it tomorrow and see if she dies.

I feel the earth move under my feet

Last night I took a good look at the floor in the room and realized that it's quite crooked. I took a photo using a level and Yoda to show scale. There appears to be a hill in the middle of my room.

When you consider buying an old house, keep in mind that "charm" means "try to figure out how to put new mouldings in this room with the crooked floor."
Today I laid down some 1/8" MDF as a temporary floor. This will protect my "charming" floor during the destruction of the walls and ceiling.

I also pulled the rest of the mouldings from around the window, around the door, and around the closet door. I pulled them off carefully because I plan to save them, refinish them, and reinstall them. I'll get to that later. I'm alreday excited to post photos of me sanding mouldings by hand.

Lord, I was born a rambling man

Today I got a few things done. I removed the face plates from the outlets and removed the light fixture. I pulled off the baseboard mouldings with a hammer and chisel.

Now I actually passed the point where I could have turned back. Now I am committed. I actually have to do this thing.

To finish the day, I contemplated getting into my Jeep and driving and driving and never coming back.

Call the crib -- same number, same hood

These are photos of a small, unused bedroom in my house. This is the room that I will tear out and rebuild.

Time estimate: 6 months.
Cost estimate: $1,000.

I am sure that these estimates will be way off. Know where I learned that? Every fucking person I've ever hired in my life.

I have lots of rooms to rebuild. My house is about 120 years old and it's not insulated. If you've ever lived in an uninsulated house in the northeast, you either (1) went bankrupt paying heating bills, (2) bought lots of sweaters, or (3) killed your wife tauntaun style. I went with (2) last winter but definitely contemplated (3).

The walls and ceilings are made of plaster and lath and there are cracks showing in the plaster, so they must be replaced with drywall. I also want to replace the old wiring if there is any.

And there are bigger concerns. Have you heard of suburban ennui? It's good to smash things once in a while.

Relax and take notes

Hello and welcome. My name is Pepper. I've decided to create this blog to chronicle my recent home improvement project: the complete deconstruction and reconstruction of a room in my house.

Progress will be minimal. Updates will be infrequent.

A wise man once told me, "Underpromise and underdeliver."