Seriously, who puts popcorn texture on crown molding???

We had a very productive day... starting off with a trip to Home Depot.  I needed three 14 foot long 2 X 4's to finish boxing in the ductwork in the living room.  And we picked up some Murphy's Oil to start cleaning the woodwork in the rooms Robyn scraped paint.

Because the 2 X 4's were 8 foot longer than the 6 foot bed of my pickup, I put one end down in the tailgate, rested it on the cab of the truck with the other end was sticking out over the hood.  I wrapped it tight both bottom and top and headed down the interstate.

Not one of my brighter ideas...  Those 2 X 4's sticking up in the air acted like a kite, even though I tied them down snugly, or at least so I thought.  The ends over the hood were raising up and down like a kite.  I decided I should travel city streets to the house.

Good thing too!!!  About 2 miles from the house, the 2 X 4's had slipped to one side and slid off the cab next to my door.   Startled the heck out of me and sticking about 2 foot out the side of the truck.  Quick dip into the Red Cross Headquarters parking lot and Robyn, Copper and I were on our way again.

My primary responsibility today while Robyn was finishing up trim cleanup was to get a working faucet in the kitchen so we could clean walls before painting. The handles were broken off the existing one and the valves wouldn't turn.  Here's why:

They were full of gook.  And of course, in a house with a few years on it, the water wouldn't shut off completely.  Robyn and I decided to grab some lunch at the restaurant across the way, Leo's Chow Mein, on the way to the convenience store to get my next tool.

Leo's is known through out the Twin Cities for its cuisine.  Basically, filling, cheap, greasy Chinese food.  And it tastes pretty good too.  As for the sliced bread, it was so stale is probably wasn't good for much besides what I needed it for...

Stuffed in the tubing to stop the water drip.

A few minutes later, I had replacement valves on and was ready to start on the faucet... If I could ever get the old one off!  It was so gooked up, I unpacked my new Dremel and ground the plastic nut off.  Which promptly fell in that 1/32" opening between  my glasses and my nose, leaving me with a nice little welt.

Ohh... and the hoses I bought at Home Depot a couple of days earlier were about 8 inches too short.  And they were they were the longest ones they had.  So off to a new hardware store, Seven Corners Hardware store in downtown St. Paul.  Founded in 1933, it is a really cool old-style hardware store.

Forever later, I had the faucet hooked up, and the water turned on.  And just hot water, without a lot of pressure.  I suspect that gook was other places than the valves.  Fortunately, the pipes are readily available just below the kitchen in the basement.  I was going to have to replace some of them anyway because someone had mixed copper and galvanized pipe... a no, no.

So, in the meantime, Robyn has finished cleaning wood work with the Goof Off, Goo Gone and Oops and is ready to wipe them down with Murphy's Oil and mop the floors.  Only problem was I hadn't finished pulling the crown molding out of the rooms yet and got some of her work dirty.  Pain in the butt because someone had put the crown molding up with finishing nails about 2 1/2 inches long... serious overkill.  But my new Dremel came in handing cutting an opening so I could get leverage with a crow bar to pry it loose.

After we paint, I'm planning on putting up stained crown molding which will look better.  (And has the additional benefit of we don't have to mask off between the ceiling and walls.

Here's a shot of the popcorn crown molding I mentioned...

Seriously... this has to be the ugliest application of popcorn texture I've ever seen.

Popcorn texture can cover up quite a few flaws, so we aren't removing it from the existing ceilings.  Just touching up with an aerosol product.

So as the day wound down and Robyn finished up mopping the walls, I spread another layer of spackle and tackled this bad patch job in the dining room ceiling.

The directions say to drape off the area to avoid overspray and bounce back of the texture.  I figure how messy could it be... I was only doing a small area.  As it turns out, it can be quite messy.  I had to go get a cheap shirt so we could go out to dinner at Pat's, Robyn's coworker.  But the initial results of the touchup aerosol texture aren't bad.

We'll see how it looks tomorrow when it dries.  Here's a short video of us as our work day wound down.

The snow, not the Taxman, cometh...

Yes, it snowed overnight here in the Twin Cities.  Who would have thought that this would be happening on April 15?  Upside... we can't see how much work needs to be done to the yard with all the snow.

Here are a couple of shots from last night...

Robyn's convertible.  Yes, she drove it all winter.  Even when it was 25 below.

The streaks you see are the snow falling.  My snow-covered truck...

Copper wondering where the white stuff came from.

...and off we go on another Home Depot Adventure.

When you gotta go, you gotta go...

To Home Depot.

Last night when I picked up my laminate for the bathroom, the woman checking me out asked if we were working with an interior designer.  I said nope, Robyn was coming up with the color scheme and design ideas.

Now I was back to pick out that essential household furnishing... a toilet.  The trip was a little bit more frustrating than my usual trips to Home Depot.  Usually you can't walk across the store without 4 or 5 associates asking if they could help you.  This time I lingered and lingered for what seemed like an eternity before I could find someone to help.

After spending 20 minutes with a associate who called the warehouse, he found out that the toilet I'd picked out was no longer manufactured... well the bowl was but the tank wasn't.  So then the process started over, back to the displays, look at the specs, go through the catalog, pick out a different model, explain him home to widen the columns on the display so he can see the order number, watch him "hunt and peck" type my order in. 

Once he finished my order, he was more in his comfort zone helping me pick out a new bathtub and wall panels.  I was looking for a fiberglass one that I didn't have to reinforce the tub bottom.  And it had to be a 4 piece to get it up the stairs and around two 90 degree turns.  Found one.  Since it is a stock item, I didn't have to order it.  I'll just pick it up in a couple of weeks when I do the bathroom.

So what makes the toilet so special?  You know if it goes down, does anything else really matter?  After living in an apartment, I definitely wanted a "more efficient" model so I checked out the flush power ratings on all the models.   And then picked one that matched our bathroom color scheme...

Yep... black.  I hear it's even stain resistant.

That just sucks...

The new vacuum that is...

Our vacuum bit the big one about 2 months ago.  It was a gradual death.  The switch, a step-on type, started where it wouldn't turn the vacuum on consistently... then I was wedging a quadruple-folded paper to keep it down and just plugging it in... and then, not unexpectedly, it just died...

So today, when I went to Home Depot to pick up our special order laminate, Dupont Black & White Chess Slate,

I also snagged a vacuum cleaner.  One with a hepa filter that will also clean wood floors (since we won't have carpet just some area rugs.)  This laminate will go in a bathroom with a white ceiling and Sherwin-Williams' Cloak Gray walls.  Along with a dark cabinet with a glass bowl sink we're also considering a black lavatory.

And you know I can't go to Home Depot to get just an item or two.  I also picked up an inexpensive kitchen sink faucet to replace the one that doesn't work along with a Dremel to help me disassemble the crown moulding around the downstairs rooms.  There are somethings a saws-all just doesn't work well on.

I could be in for running for customer of the month at Home Depot with all we've spent there in the last 3 weeks.

Plugging away...

During the week, we don't make very much progress on the house.  So when I stopped by today to check the mail, I took some pictures of my plugs that I had done for the radiator piping holes.

What I had done was take some wire window screen, cut it to the width (hole diameter times 3.14) that would role up to the diameter of the hole I was plugging.

The holes....

The window screen cylinders...

The holes immediately after the cylinders were inserted and filled with spray foam expanding insulation.

Two days later after the foam had a chance to cure...

These particular patches are on the ceiling so for my example on how I intend to finish the patches, here is a picture of two patches lower where the pipes originally went through the wall.

Here you can see how the foam expanded out from the hole.  I wish I had made a cylinder and filled it outside of the wall so I could have seen how it expanded through the screen.  I tugged on the foam and it was firmly wedged in the hole, much more securely than filling it with newspaper would have been.  And by completely filling the cylinder all the way through the wall, I don't have to worry about knocking a hole in the wall in the same spot.

Next, I trimmed the foam slightly below the wall surface...

And knocked out some of the loose pieces of plaster.  Next, I put my primarily layer of spackling...

After this dries, I fill in any remaining depressions.  Later, I hit it with a sanding block and prime it before the wall is painted.

Welcome to the world Madelyn Grace!!!

Born April 11, 2011 at 7:00 am, 19 inches long and 6 pounds, 3.2 ounces.

Weekend 3 - Filling stuff in

Slowly and surely we are starting to see progress.  This week saw the completion of the HVAC installation and the water heater installation.

Also, this weekend, Robyn finished up cleaning the paint off baseboards and molding in the dining room, living room, entranceway and front bedroom.  After spending most of 2 weekends working in the dining room, she flew through the living room, entranceway and front bedroom.  This leaves only the middle bedroom, the back bedroom and the upstairs hallway for removal of paint overspills on the molding.  Every once in a while, I pass the paint gun over the door molding in the kitchen and peel a bit of that old paint off.

My job this weekend was to start boxing in the ductwork.  It's slow going.  I had to build two boxes around the upstairs air return in the living room because of the proximity of that ductwork to the first floor air return.  There wasn't room for the frame, sheetrock, and molding before the edge of the air return register was encountered.

See what I mean...

Here's the box framing for the dining room side.  We took it all the way to the edge of the doorway so it would match the other side of the wall in the dining room where the chimney goes up.

After I finishing building the box on the left, I said to Robyn, "I think a built in bookcase would look good there."  (There's about 21" of usable space.)  Guess where no sheetrock is going and what one of my first projects will be.  Yep... a built in bookcase.

After I replace the door handle on the storm door on the front 3 season porch, I started on these old radiator piping holes.

After all the ductwork was run, I was only left with 3 sets that had to be filled in the ceilings and walls.  They ranged from 4 1/2 to 9 inches deep and 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches deep. I'd been mulling over options trying to figure out the best (and easiest way) to plug the holes and this is what I came up with.

I purchased some metal window screen material and cut off a strip 9 inches wide.  Then I used a bit of high school geometry (circumference equals diameter time pi) to determine how long a strip needed to be to make a cylinder to insert up in the hole.  So basically, a hole that was 2 inches in diameter need a strip of wire screen about 6.28 inches long.  I then took the strips, rolled them into a tube and stapled them together.  Here's what the two for these holes look like...

My idea was to use a can of that aerosol spray insulating foam that expands.  It would expand after I sprayed it up into the cylinder and the expansion through the mesh would hold the cylinder in place but not use up cans and cans of spray foam nor would I have to stuff the hole with newspaper and put multiple layers of spackle 

And the almost final results...

This was just after I finished spraying the foam.  About 30 minutes after I took the picture, the foam had expanded about two inches down below the original hole.  It should cure completely after 12 hours.  After which time, I can trim it a little below the surface and fill the depression with a thin, rather than thick, layer of plaster.

After a long, busy weekend...

Robyn and I went to the 5-8 Club with our friends, Tino and Mary for Juicy Lucy's.  (Well, I had a Juicy Lucy; Robyn had a salad.)