Moved in... Sort of

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I've done a blog update.  I'd been pretty busy with trying to get the house at least livable which I did manage to do.

After some plumbing challenges, Robyn and I had a functioning bathroom. 

The tub was set...

After I verified that the plumbing worked and didn't leak, I put up the walls around the tub.

It was a bit of the challenge as nothing was quite centered nor the walls square.  Plus the directions for putting together the Moen valve controls were the absolutely worst directions I'd even seen.  I searched on the internet for clearer directions... The Moen website said, "Not found." when I clicked on their link to the directions... No kidding.

Once the tub walls were up, I reconnected the toilet plumbing replacing the flange that was busted.

I did get the toilet set before we started moving in although it was a few days before I had the water supply connected to the sink.  The drain kit wasn't long enough to hook up the drain so I have a bucket sitting under the sink drain.

Tuesday, Robyn had to go back to work and I broke down and rented a u-haul trailer to move our stuff from the apartment.

I had mostly smaller items but it still took 2 more days for Robyn and I to finishing moving.  That 10 minute round trip from the apartment to the elevator to the trailer and back definitely didn't help.

A week and a half later, Robyn and I are still recovering.  I had no idea you could be so sore that you couldn't sleep.  I am most definitely not getting any younger.

Saturday evening, we took a bit of a break to host Tino and Mary with a recreational bonfire.  The firepit (formerly a goldfish pond) was fueled with some logs that they had brought plus some construction debris.  Nice relaxing evening sitting outside on the concrete patio.

Sunday, I made one of my frequent trips to Home Depot.  As I was going in, I saw a sign for cat adoptions on the PetSmart that were being sponsored by a rescue organization.  Robyn had expressed an interest in adopting a cat (to scare the mice away).  She specifically was looking for a black cat and we both wanted it to be a rescue cat.

After I finished up at Home Depot, I took a little detour over to PetSmart.  Three hours later, two sisters, Angel and Lucy, were headed home with me.

Angel is a Siamese mix with big blue eyes.  She's shy and reticent.

Lucy, shortened from Lucifer since that isn't a girl's name, was formerly named fluffy.  This long-haired black cat is very gregarious.



As you can see from the pictures of the cats, we still have quite a bit of work to do.  Only 3 rooms are at 95% completion.  This weekend, I am going to attempt to unstop the kitchen drain again amongst other things.

One day, I did 30 joints...

And it just so happened to be today.

Earlier this week when I was trying to install the bathtub, I had some issues with the slip joint for the drain.  After I had the tub set, leveled and supports attached to the wall, I found that the tub drain had come loose... grrr.

So I pulled the tub out and re-did the joint, this time with some PVC cement.  While I was waiting for it to cure, I started to work on pulling out the toilet and sink.  The toilet valve, the one in the wall, had been leaking so I wanted to replace it before I installed our new toilet.  So I turned off the water and went to loosen the connections to the drain flange... the toilet was attached, it was just sitting on top of the flange which was broken.

Next, I pulled the old, decrepit sink out.  I hadn't been able to turn it on; the valves were stuck so I was replacing them as well.  Once I had the sink and toilet out, I turned off the main water line and took the valves off.  I was surprised to find out that they were connected to galvanized pipe.  Surprised because the water supply for the tub was copper and those were the only lines I saw running to the 2nd floor from the basement.  The only other set of lines I saw were to the kitchen sink so the water for the toilet and bathroom sink must have been coming from the neighbors.

Before I could get to the toilet flange, I pulled up a layer of extremely thin plyboard, had to be less than 1/4".  I found that underneath a piece of 3/4" plyboard covering a hole that had been cut in the floor to the provide access to the toilet drain.  The drain went through a humongous rubber gasket into the cast iron drain... and of course, it wasn't supported anywhere.

So now I'm at the point where I have access to the walls to solve some problems I wasn't anticipating.  I plugged the galvanized water supply lines.  Put a T in the hot and cold supply lines for the tub and ran lines from there for the toilet and for the sink.

I wish it was as easy I that just sounded but in order to get through joints, around vent lines, around drain lines, around more joists and then between joists, I ended up soldering about 30 joints, or around 60 connections.

One of the indispensable tools I used was this tubing cutter for confined spaces that I picked up at Ikea for about $10.  It came with a hole saw to cut openings in stainless steel sinks.

Eventually, I got all the lines connected... and when I checked just before leaving the house for the evening, none of the connections were leaking.

I took the opportunity to secure the lines where they came out of the wall with copper clamps.  I hate loose valves and shower heads and they always eventually wear a bigger hole in the wall.

The last time someone was back behind the walls working on the plumbing, they had cut out a joist and had done a poor job splicing it back together.  I'll fix that and I'll be ready to put the tub, toilet and sink in.

The toilet doesn't work...

But we've started moving stuff to the house...

Friday was a busy day and we accomplished quite a bit.  In addition to hauling our first load of furniture to the house, we also had high speed interet (40mbps) installed by Qwest at the house along with Diretv (with free NFL Sunday Ticket!).

Thursday, the house finally came off the City of St Paul Vacant properties list so we were able to remove the vacant property placards.  Here's Robyn working on the one on the back door...

We also finished up the laminate in the master bedroom, except for the closet.  As for the bathroom...

When I started replacing the toilet and sink, I found that the water supply was via galvanized pipe.  When I took off the old valves, I could see that the galvanized pipe was over 50% closed.  I decided since the wall and fixtures were out, now was the prudent time to hook the toilet and the bathroom sink up to copper supply lines which had already been run up to the bathroom.

Tornado...

Sunday afternoon as Robyn and I passed the 3M building on Interstate 94 on the way back to our house from Home Depot, the tornado siren went off.  Startled, we looked at each other and said, "Wow, that was loud."  We had already heard on the radio about the tornado warning and to be honest, I was more concerned about it having rained all weekend which prevented me from cutting the grass or moving my table saw outside.

It wasn't until we woke up this morning that we heard about the tornado that had struck north Minneapolis about 15 miles from where we are going to live.  Although one life was lost in the storm, this tornado paled compared to the tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri and the ones that struck the southeastern United States.  ...sort of puts my complaints about the rain in perspective and helps me to remember my blessings.

It was just one of those weekends.  I should've expected it since there was a bear wandering around in our part of St. Paul last week.  The weekend got off to a great start. Robyn discovered that the scraggly bushes on the side of the yard were actually lilacs and there were blooming...

These, along with the crab apple tree, add some well appreciated color to our yard.

Everytime we came back to the house, Robyn, taking a big sniff, would ask me as I was unlocking the door, "Can you smell the lilac?" Unfortunately, the only way I could, with my bad sinuses, would be if they were practically in my nostrils.

My plans for the weekend was to get flooring down in the living room, dining room, master bedroom; paint the middle bedroom; and get a functioning bathroom.  Thanks to Tino; Mary and their daughter, Danielle, we were able to accomplish most of that.

Danielle has a gleam in her eyes as she shows off her paint work in the middle bedroom (that's a Sherwin Williams' color called Griffin.)

Tino was much more efficient at laying the laminate than I was...

Friday evening, when I was at wit's end trying to get the joints to fit together properly in the master bedroom, Tino, along with Mary, came over and not only showed me some tips and tricks but also put most of it down.  When Sunday evening rolled along, we had a pretty good system going with me doing the cutting and Tino doing the laying. 

After Tino put that last piece down in the dining room...

It was great seeing the results...

Mary demonstrating how exhausted we all are...

Our final activity for the evening was to unroll the rug for the living room that Robyn had found on clearance at Home Depot...

Copper thinks it will provide a nice play surface.

As for the bathroom, the most productive part of the weekend was hitting my finger with the hammer while nailing up a support for the edge.

Jamming a splinter up under the nail of my pinkie finger was no comparison.

Crying over spilled paint...

Robyn has been giving me crap about how much paint I get all over myself when I paint.  Now I will admit, I may not be the neatest person when it comes to moving paint from the paint can to the wall and ceiling but most of what I do get on me is the results of drips.

Yesterday, while I was working on setting the bathroom tub, Robyn was painting the middle bedroom.  Her first comment to me was, "Gee, it's really hard to paint the ceiling. It drips everywhere."

Her next comment about 30 minutes later was loud and something along the lines of, "*&^%, @#$*&<^!"

I rush back upstairs to see what the problem was.  Robyn was cutting in the primer on the wall (which is gray) below the ceiling (which is white).  She was holding the roller pan in one hand and had tipped it back accidentally, pouring paint down the front of one of her favorite shirts and leggings, soaking into one of her favorite bras.

I was able to get most of it out of her shirt and bra using the old-fashioned washboard attached to the laundry tub in the basement.

And I must say, she looks pretty sexy in my t-shirt.

Get 'er down...

Wednesday evening I started on the master bedroom laminate after I finished up connecting the bathroom ventilation fan duct.  The first decision I had to make was which direction to lay the laminate.  There were two conflicting trains of thought about this.  One train says lay the laminate in the longest direction of the room; the other, parallel to the direction the light comes into a room.

I had gone online to find the manufacturer's instructions for this particular laminate and they said to lay the laminate parallel with the light coming into the room.  I still mulled it over until I remembered one of the houses we looked at when we were home shopping. The house had laminate laid the longest direction across two rooms but perpendicular to the light coming into the rooms.  I remember looking at it and the glare of the light was just ugly.

So I decided to go parallel to the light.

This meant I needed to do a dry run of laminate across the room to determine how much of a gap would be left on the far wall... about 18 sheets as opposed to 9 sheets if I were to lay the direction.  Once the gap was there, you measured the gap, subtracted the expansion space for both sides (between 1/2 and 1 inch) and then divided by two.  This result was how wide the first course of laminate should be.

30 minutes later I found out that the length of the room was exactly equal to the 18 or 19 sheets needed to cover it.  But that didn't mean I didn't have to rip the first course.  The tongue of the first course of laminate that would go against the wall had to been cut off (ripped lengthwise) so I wasn't saved any saw work.  Each tongue of the laminate that was against the wall had to be cutoff as well.

So, I finally started for real...  I laid the first three courses exactly as the directions called for (and they seemed counter-intuitive to me).  Basically, start with a full length sheet, then start the 2nd course with a 2/3 length piece, and then the 3rd course with a 1/3 piece.  Next the directions called for putting a full length piece on the 2nd and 3rd courses before putting a full length piece on the first course. 

It was difficult but I got that sucker in there.  The instructions then said to repeat the process... Full length on the 2nd course; full length on the 3rd course and then the piece on the first course.  By then I was having to deal with 2 walls and I just couldn't get that piece in there.  If I had been using regular tongue and groove laminate, it might have been possible but I was using an interlocking tongue and groove and it just wasn't possible.

After much frustration, I gave up on following the directions and I did one course at a time.  It started going much better and in about an hour I was able to get about 1/3 of the room done.  Here's how it looks...

Best Laid Plans...

Tuesday afternoon, the contractor who installed the HVAC system came back to fix a minor issue that came up during the permit inspection.  While they were there, I also was planning on them fixing another issue the inspector brought up... the bathroom fan wasn't vented to the outside.  However, the guy who came looked at the fan and found out that it wasn't installed correctly.  The outlet was right up against the joist  and was installed with the screws screwed into the sheetrock sideways.

Downside was they weren't able to vent it for the price I had been quoted and the new price was considerably higher than what I was willing to pay.  So where my original plans for Tuesday were to fix some of my sloppy mudding in the middle bedroom....

sand and then prime the room so we could paint and install flooring this weekend.  Instead, I had to work on the bathroom fan.  Which involved removing the old fan, adding a block to the side of a joist for a secure surface to attach the fan...

Cutting a hole in a piece of plyboard that overlaid the joists next to the opening, rotating the new fan 180 degrees, attaching it to the block and then powering it up.

Up in the attach, I found some nails coming up through the ceiling right next to the fan outlet so it wasn't possible to connect the ductwork directly to the fan.  So another trip back to home depot to pick up an 3" elbow and a 3" to 4" connector.  Once this was done,  it was a simple matter of just connecting the ductwork to the fan and to a roof vent.

The R-8 insulated flexible ductwork seems a bit of an overkill for a bathroom fan that won't be part of the internal distribution system... but hey... that's what the inspector wanted and I was able to do this for about 1/3 what the contractor wanted.