Multitasking Week 2 (Day 480)

This seems to be the mode now. Lots of tasks going on at the same time, so nothing actually appears to be happening. Brian came back for more trim work, of which there is lots. Lets figure this out. He and Nancy are working on the vertical grain (VG) fir, which trims out most of the doors and windows downstairs. I count 13 doors and jambs. Nancy finished the windows (mostly) in the winter, so we won't deal with those. Each door has 6 pieces of trim: 2 headers and 4 side pieces. That means there are 78 pieces of vg fir to sand (three times) and apply polyurethane (3 times). So then you have 468 actions (sand and paint). Add the doors and jambs (26 total). Its about a weeks work for Brian, which is good for him but bad for the pocketbook. But who said progress is cheap (was a liar).

So what the heck did I do while the worker bees were making honey. On Monday I trimmed out the ladder opening for the man cave and prepped the windows in the cave for painting. On Tuesday I did some landscaping with Tim, planning and excavating for a rock wall in the front of the house. In the afternoon I was off to Sequim to pick up some more tile (sauna), paint, and 1200 pounds of greenstone boulders (hey, a geeeologist just can't have enough rocks on his property). On Wednesday, Nancy and I went to the Seattle Home Show to check out new stuff, but mainly to find metal hand rails for the two porches in the front of the house. Needed to find someone who was willing to paint them to match the house window trim, and we did. So this summer we'll get them ordered and installed. Its not a code issue because the porches are only 24" high (30" is the code requirement for railings). We also went to IKEA, which is the Costco of home furnishing and house decorating. Scored two sinks that were very reasonably priced, for a change.

Thursday was a complete writeoff in terms of the house. Had a Finance Committee meeting for Kala Point and got appointed (with my approval) to be the new CFO of our homeowners association. Not a big job now, but in July there are budgets to prepare. You know what they say: if you want to get something done, ask a busy person (BINGO). After a much needed lunch with the COOKS Group, wine and beer included, I was in the appropriate mindset to meet with the Port Townsend Pacific Marine Science Center, which I'm active in— in terms of Geology. I'm organizing a wine lecture and tasting in May as a fundraiser for them, so there are all sorts of decisions to make in terms of venue, budget, wines to be tasted, and publicity. I've tagged my old buddy Scott Burns of Portland to do the lecture--what a guy, and he is free. Looking for 200-250 winos for the lecture; send any you know that have $25 my way.

By Friday, I was anxious to get back on house jobs. I unboxed the IKEA farm sink that Nancy bought for the pantry. No problem says the instructions, just drop it into their specially configured sink base, which we don't have (and didn't want). Ok, just a few modifications to make. Like, cut the front and back of the cabinet away, build some new supports for the now butchered cabinet, and recut the face panels to wrap around the farm sink. I think I spent about 6 hours on this little chore, which (if I'd had paid to have done) would cost more than the sink. Enough bitching. It turned out great and its ready to place, as soon as Bill McCutcheon finishes the wood counter tops.

Saturday was back on tile. Someday last week I cut and placed the remaining tile in the sauna, so all I need was some time with my lovely spouse to do the grouting. Saturday it was. We were speaking to each other when we started the grouting, and even when we finished. Small miracle. Mission accomplished in 4 hours, but on Sunday we'll wet mop all the tile, hand clean it with rags, and apply the grout sealer. At this point we'll have about 60% of the floor tile finished in the house. Left to do are the master bath and upstairs bath floors (about 200 sq ft) and three shower stalls. They will be the killers, but we only need one shower operable in order to move in.

Multitasking Week (Day 471)

Its been a schizophrenic week; MT (multitasking) was the culprit. Had planned to finish the tile grouting, but plans are just ideas that might happen. Brian (the trim guy) became available on Tuesday, so it was time to shift gears to trim again. When he's here I can't do a separate project since there are decisions to make about every 30 minutes. So I end up being his assistant which is fine. On Tuesday we went back to the door and window trim. Brian trimmed out the 4 remaining pentoid windows that I hadn't completed in the winter (upstairs bedroom and man cave). These needed jamb extensions then trim, which took most of the day to complete.

On Wednesday we tackled hanging a few more doors that previously had problems. The upstairs bath door swang the wrong way, so we'd sent it back to Simpson Doors to be rehung. The other was the downstairs bedroom door which had a defective jamb, so they rehung this one on a new jamb. The third door was one that we'd planned to use for the downstairs stairwell, but it was ordered with the wrong swing, so it ended up going to the top of the stairwell. Anyway, three more doors are hung and only one to go. That one is the fire-rated door to the garage from the mudroom. We'll put this one in last, so it won't get bunged up moving appliances and furniture. While this was being done by Brian, I cut the remaining door trim that we had on hand, mostly finger-joint pine (1x4 for jambs) and MDF (5/4x6 for headers). Didn't really want to use MDF (medium density fiberboard), but 5/4 fir (only other option) is about 10x as expensive and I refuse to paint vg fir.

Thursday was a delightful day. The sun was out all day, not a single cloud in the sky and Mt. Baker was in all its glory. So I went to Sequim to pick up tile, more paint, and polyurethane to finish the doors and trim. We are using a water-based (low VOC) polyurethane because its easy to apply, easier to clean up, and it won't get heavy on vertical trim. We'll use the same stuff on the floor trim (1x6 vg fir) when its time to do this, after the floors are finished off. In the afternoon, Brian sanded the doors and trim and I cleaned them with an airgun and tack cloth. We built a drying rack (in the den) for the trim and he'll rack the doors together (in the bedroom). With 12 fir doors and trim, we'll have the stuff everywhere by the end of the day.

Friday. Another MT day with Brian. In the morning finished grouting and cleaning the kitchen tile and laid out the remaining tile in the sauna. Now all the tile is cut and ready to be finished, next week. Meanwhile, Tim Hamm (hardscaper) came by and we filled the ditch in the front yard (power line to lamp post) and regraded the ditch with his little Kobota tractor. Giving some thought to having him build another rock wall, this one across the front of the property between the ditch and the berm. Its about $750 in labor and another $150 in rock, but it would help manage the berm by keeping dirt from washing down into the ditch. Plus it will give the walkers a place to rest their weary legs when they wander by on Fairbreeze Drive. Its only money as they say. Maybe I could put a little donation box out there on the wall. Sort of a pay as you sit option.

Cork, cork, cork but no wine (Day 467)

Today I decided to lay the cork flooring in the butlers pantry. Now, I just want you to know we don't plan to hire a butler, and since I'm not the cook in the family, I guess that makes me the butler. So I laid on the floor for myself.

We had bought 120 sq ft (4 boxes) of cork tile at EcoHaus in Portland last October because they had a decent sale and don't charge sales tax (those are the operative words in our new recession). About $6 a sq ft in 1' x 3' interlocking tiles. The tiles interconnect and float over the subfloor. This means you don't nail them down anywhere, and just cover the edges with molding.

One problem here is that they want you to allow 3/8"-1/2" in for expansion, but the toe kick is made of 1/4" cherry plywood. So that's a bit of a challenge, but I'm game. Just fur the toe kick out with 1/4" cheapo plywood, then cover it with the 1/4" cherry plywood. Shoot it all in with a nail gun and you're done. Got it all laid in one day (a miracle) and even trimmed out the little platform for the washer and drier.

Got all done and thought about the freezer that will sit on the floating floor—looks like it won't float in that spot. Anyway, the main idea is to allow expansion space for the floor, but its nucleus will be the freezer not the center of the floor. No worries, the floors will stay a pretty steady 75° with the Warmboard radiant floor in the winter and 65° without heat in the summer. Yummy toe temps.

Brian, my trim carpenter helper, is coming for 2 days starting on Tuesday so we'll take a whack at the skirt boards and base molding for the two floors of the stairway. Then its off to measuring and cutting all the remaining door and floor trim so we can finish it before it goes up (after floor sanding).

Grouting tile (Day 466)

Valentines Day. Its been raining a lot lately, so I've gone back inside the house with the exception of the post for the street-side lamp. Needed to put one in to mount the lamp on, so I took a pressure treated 4 x 4 and added an inch to the side to hide the 3/4" conduit that comes up from underground. Then around the bigger post, I layered it with 5/4 cedar (1" thick) and copied the recessed corner styles that we used elsewhere on the house. Bored a couple holes near the top and lead the electrical wire out the front. Then I routered a hole in the facing board to accept the electrical box. Painted the cedar boards and when they dry in a couple days I'll mount them and the top cap. Should look good but I'll wait to post a picture until we get the lamp fixture, which is another story.

Nancy tried to buy what we needed off ebay, which isn't usually a problem except when she went to check out with Pay Pal she couldn't get it to accept our account although we've used it a number of times in the past. After struggling with it for an hour and seeing a commensurate increase in her blood pressure, I found some phone nos. for Pay Pal and called them up. Spent about an hour on the phone (3 calls), closed two accounts and opened a new 3rd one. Then this one still doesn't work. Ebay likes you to use Pay Pal cus they own it (i.e. revenue $$$). Anyway the purchase is still hanging out there because they have to wait 3 business days to confirm our bank account (which we don't intend to use with them anyway). Long frustrating story short--I have a couple weeks to finish the post.

Meanwhile, Nancy and I started grouting the tile in the guest bath room and kitchen. Got about 2/3rd done with the first batch of grout I mixed, so after I finish laying the last 20 sq ft of tile (coming Tuesday), then we'll go ahead and finish the rest of the grouting. Its takes about an hour to grout and then clean 25 sq ft, so the entire grouting job is about 20 hrs of work for us. Then it has to be sealed (silicon penetrate), which is pretty fast. Hopefully, we'll be done with this first batch of tile by the end of the week (kitchen, guest bath, mudroom and sauna). Next comes the master bath, but at least we've agreed on the type and color. The shower is another challenge, but it can wait a week or two before pushing that "Purchase" button.

On Sunday I started on the cork floor for the pantry. Didn't get too far because the box says "Obtain and thoroughly read the directions for installing this flooring tile; see www.expanko.com". Now that's a pretty cheap and shoddy way to treat your customers. How expensive can it be to include one or two pages of instructions in a box of tile that costs $200. They get my vote for Assholes of the Week, which I might start to feature regularly on this blog. Last weeks winner is Pay Pal. More later, after I find the instructions.

Bambie vs Johnny Appleseed (Day 462)

By Tuesday I'd laid the remaining tile (but some more is on order) so it was time to plant those bare root apple trees we scouped up at Costco about a month ago ($15 each). There is a little triangular sunny spot in the front yard and that's where they went. Had to move a small mountain of stock piled dirt and level out the spot, but by noon I was ready to plant those suckers. Two Gravenstein, one Honey Crisp, one Fuji (early season), and on 4-in-1 grafted pollenator. No leaves on the trees, so Bambi and her friends haven't noticed them yet, but they will. The profilic deer bed down in the adjacent State Park (Old Fort Townsend) and stroll over to Green Acres for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hell, they may have dessert here too for all I know. (Anyone have an oil-based paint gun they want to sell?)

So to protect our 2012 bounty of apples, I had to construct some sort of deer fence. People around the neighborhood have told me that the deer will jump over 6 ft fences to dine. They'll eat about any kind of new growth and love tulips (dessert). So I got a roll of 7-ft deer fencing (light weight 1" plastic mesh) and fenced in Johnny's little orchard. Made nice wells and put in organic soil and bark chips, then remembered that I still had to lay the 110-v power line from the garage to the front lamp post. Should have done this last summer when I had open trenches for the power and water, but it slipped my mind. Nancy says that a front light would be a nice touch (like we should have one), so now was the time to do it. I glued up 14 10' sections of PVC conduit (cheap) with 12 guage wx resistent cable and laid it out from the garage to the driveway. Can't cross the septic field or dry river bed, so my routes are limited. Damn if the best route didn't go right through the apple patch. No worries, the soil was soft from all the digging so I dug and planted this part of the electrical conduit first, then will work towards the garage and driveway next. The light post in the front will serve as out house address marker post also, so its a twofer.

The deer fence is finished and barely noticeable, so it should pass muster with the landscaping committee (no real fences are allowed in Kala Point). It beats the paint-ball machine gun nest that I'd have to build as an alternative deterrent to Bambi and Co.

Time off for good behavior (Day 461)

Well, progress has been slow on the house in February since we spent the first 7 days in the Bay Area. We didn't make it down there for Christmas, so we planned a later trip when the wx was better. Last year we drove through an ice storm in the Portland Hills and thought we'd be there for the night, but not. This year we had typical Oregon rain, but no snow, not even on the pass to California (I-5). Haven' written a blog for nearly 2 weeks, but no complaints from the peanut gallery. Maybe everyone is tired of my dribble.

Managed to see all our parents and siblings (except Nancy's sister), and even bagged a couple of old friends on a sleepover in Santa Cruz. The pace of life in the Bay Area is pretty fast, and the longer we live in little Port Townsend (pop. 8,000) the worse it seems on our occasional forays to the land of fruits and nuts (as we fondly used to call it, even before the Govenator took over).

So we're back and laying tile. Trying to finish off the guest bath and sauna. Nancy ordered grout for the floor, but it will take a week to get so I'm looking outside to finish some landscaping and electrical work. No rest for the well rested. More later.