shadesofmauve: (Garden)
The last two weeks have been the GOOD kind of crazy, which is much nicer than the bad kind. There's so much to talk about I hardly no where to start.

First, I found out the job I was hoping to apply for was reviewing candidates a week earlier than I expected. I'd given myself an assignment to boost my portfolio cred for this job (which deserves it's own separate post) and suddenly I had to finish it fast, on a day when I'd already committed to be somewhere else. 'Somewhere Else' was my friend's ranch, where I spent the afternoon playing pretty ponies. I took two mares from mudballs to shiny, and in the process I got to lead them around on strings, which is basically all eight year old me wanted in life. 

The next day I went for a bikeride. It was 28 miles, which used to be only middling for me and is now quite long. My legs and lungs were fine, but my back was horrible for the next two days. Apparently I lost all my core strength over my illness. "Do boring core exercises" has become a more urgent task on my list.

The back made driving up to and enjoying Fiddle Tunes more difficult, but I did it anyway. First time I've gone up in three years, and wow, I don't think I'd realized how much I missed it. It was made even better by the fact that friends of mine are now living three minutes from the fort, so I had a bed to sleep. It's also more time than I've spent with those friends since they stayed at my place for a week a few years back, so it was great to catch up. I played music with lots of people, chatted with even more, basked in the sun, sketched, and generally had a marvelous time. I could only stay up for two nights, but when I came back down I had the best 're-entry' into 'normal' society I could hope for -- I called my dad round-about Shelton and found out he and some of our musicker crowd who weren't at camp were just about to sit down to dinner downtown, so they saved me a seat and i joined them. The crack was so good, and I was so hyped to play more, that I invited everyone back to my place after dinner, so we had songs and tunes around the fire pit in the back yard (in between fireworks and the neighbor repeatedly mowing the same patch of lawn, because it was national explode things day).

Later that week I had overnight guests from France by way of Quebec, whom I'd never met (kids of friends of friends sorta thing, possibly with more layers than that). I had to get the guest room cleaned out for them, which is GREAT, because next week Erik's mom is coming to visit.  He's lived here over 14 years and this is the first time she's come out. It's also her first travel without his dad, and just a big deal all round.

This weekend I had a ton of energy and unexpectedly had my folks' extra vehicle while they were at the Oregon Country Fair, and I ended up getting a ton of stuff done on my house. Lots of little things that I've been meaning to do for ages but hadn't gotten around to:
  • Replaced 30" hall closet door that blocked almost the whole hallway with two french-opening doors from a bifold door kit with all the hardware removed. I had to chisel two new hinge mortises into the door frame, which was new for me.
  • Replaced the hall light, because as long as I was working on the hallway I might as well, and because the replacement was a fixture I took out of the laundry room and had stored for three years and I was tired of moving it from place to place.
  • Replaced the non-functional, noisy-when-functional, and incredibly ugly living room ceiling fan with a nicer looking, quieter, more powerful fan. Turns out the old fan was just wired waaaay too loosely -- one neutral was floating free in the box, and the wire nut pulled right off the hot leads. \o/ I'd never taken a look at 'fixing' it before because it was so dang noisy and had so little airflow that it wasn't worth it, but now all these problems are solved with the power of consumerism.
  • Since I spent all this time up near the ceiling, I also destroyed huge amounts of cobwebs. \o/

Just in case all that isn't ENOUGH, my friend Tom started work on my retaining wall out front, Anthony & Kiyoko joined us for dinner somewhere in there, and I got a phone interview for the job I applied for way back at the beginning of all this! The phone interview was this morning, and I think it went really well.

The world may be going to hell, but with some health-related exceptions, my small corner of it seems to be doing pretty dang well.

shadesofmauve: (can we fix it?)
Remember all that angsting about the perfect water heater?

bwaaahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*collapses*

The plan was to get a few months more out of the old one while working on the project, then either get the new one permitted, or start on it after the inspections were done. The new gas one -- regardless of specifics -- would require venting, which would mean it was in a different place,and required replumbing, so it wouldn't be a quick job, and we couldn't start it now because it wasn't permitted with the rest of the work (because I didn't know the current one was slowly failing at the time of application).

BUT.

To put a vapor barrier down over the garage slab today, we had to move the water heater 2 feet UP (room for vapor barrier and access to put a joist underneath), so we drained it out the driveway and pulled it away...

...and the five giant rust spots on the bottom that had been the source of a very slow leak, as long as the water was compressing it down into a sheet of foam insulation, suddenly became the source of a VERY BIG LEAK.

...so I bought a new standard electric tank water heater, because I had to. Which, after much swearing and a bit of pipe sweating and a lot of people sweating, is now in place -- exactly where the old one was, except 2 feet up (on a store-bought stand rather than the temporary wooden platform we were going to make, because it looks like I'll have to live with it for longer than I thought, and we were running short on time). And Freddie, I hope dad hooked things up right, and my house's weird wiring is up to snuff, because I had to chase wires through the attic and I'm covered in insulation dust and dirt and I want my shower, damn it. And I have a paying renter and a houseguest who presumably want showers, clean clothes, and sanitary dishes at some point, too.

I told Kiyoko that I was trying to ease the transition back to Japan by making her live in miserably primitive conditions, so that she'd be happy to get back to civilization.

I bought a cheap (six year) tank with 10 gallons less capacity, because we never ran out of hot water before and I'm penny pinching with a mind to replacing it in a few years -- whenever I remodel either the kitchen or the bathroom. 

At least this way I have more time for research, I suppose.
shadesofmauve: (Bob the Builder)
Remember all that angsting about the perfect water heater?

bwaaahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*collapses*

The plan was to get a few months more out of the old one while working on the project, then either get the new one permitted, or start on it after the inspections were done. The new gas one -- regardless of specifics -- would require venting, which would mean it was in a different place,and required replumbing, so it wouldn't be a quick job, and we couldn't start it now because it wasn't permitted with the rest of the work (because I didn't know the current one was slowly failing at the time of application).

BUT.

To put a vapor barrier down over the garage slab today, we had to move the water heater 2 feet UP (room for vapor barrier and access to put a joist underneath), so we drained it out the driveway and pulled it away...

...and the five giant rust spots on the bottom that had been the source of a very slow leak, as long as the water was compressing it down into a sheet of foam insulation, suddenly became the source of a VERY BIG LEAK.

...so I bought a new standard electric tank water heater, because I had to. Which, after much swearing and a bit of pipe sweating and a lot of people sweating, is now in place -- exactly where the old one was, except 2 feet up (on a store-bought stand rather than the temporary wooden platform we were going to make, because it looks like I'll have to live with it for longer than I thought, and we were running short on time). And Freddie, I hope dad hooked things up right, and my house's weird wiring is up to snuff, because I had to chase wires through the attic and I'm covered in insulation dust and dirt and I want my shower, damn it. And I have a paying renter and a houseguest who presumably want showers, clean clothes, and sanitary dishes at some point, too.

I told Kiyoko that I was trying to ease the transition back to Japan by making her live in miserably primitive conditions, so that she'd be happy to get back to civilization.

I bought a cheap (six year) tank with 10 gallons less capacity, because we never ran out of hot water before and I'm penny pinching with a mind to replacing it in a few years -- whenever I remodel either the kitchen or the bathroom. 

At least this way I have more time for research, I suppose.
shadesofmauve: (can we fix it?)
For my vacation, I'm sanding and finishing the window frame, which has been bare wood for three years (oops).

I spent about half an hour sanding, then discovered that the mended-over crack under the left end of the window is deeper and less stable than I thought it was, the drywall is crumbling away, and there are signs of (hopefully past) moisture damage. I'm not too worried -- the old aluminum frame single-paned window had a LOT of condensation, and chances are very good that none of the damage is recent -- but it means the crack is something I actually have to deal with if I want to paint the room. I won't be able to just sand it flat, like I would if it was a crack in paint.

I haven't chipped away all of the unsound material yet, so I don't know if it's something I can mud over or if I'll have to cut out that piece of sheetrock all the way to the stud and put in a new one. Either way, it probably means removing the base-board heater.

...which reminded me that I never use that baseboard heater, and it's ugly and in the way.

Suddenly Project "Sand and finish window frame" became Project "Decide whether the living room needs electric heat at all, and if so what it should look like."

I'm going to try to turn my focus back to the original goal, since the other one is doubtless more frustrating. In the meantime, would any of you be weirded out to have a house with a gas fireplace in the living room but no secondary electric heat (in that room)? The only real downside I can think of is that the fireplace is an on/off switch, not a thermostat, so if you wanted to make sure the house was always heated to some minimum you'd need the electric heater (or to replace the gas fireplace w/ a thermostat model).

The gas fireplace coupled with the ceiling fan easily heats both the living room and dining room. I've never turned on either living or dining room baseboard heater. The only issue with the gas fireplace is that you have to manually turn it on and off to control heat, so it's not the most even of temperatures (I love it, but I like it warm).

Technically my baseboard heaters are all single pole, so I can't turn them entirely off and they *should* all start working if the interior temp reaches 50 degrees F. I've never noticed that actually happening, though -- the thermostats are as old as the house (50 years) and mechanical thermostats don't age well.
shadesofmauve: (can we fix it?)
The City Administrator called me back this morning. He was quite friendly, and sympathetic to the basically un-garage-like nature of my garage (which is great, but doesn't imply anything about the final outcome -- it's perfectly possible to be sympathetic but still rules-are-rules). He said he'd look at the plans I had on file and get back to me with what my options are. He also clarified that the variance process can be expensive, and that's why the staff warn people off it -- a nice bit of info I hadn't had before. Otherwise, he pretty much laid out the same options dad did, I think -- either find a compromise within code (and I really think there isn't one I'd be happy with), go through the variance process (which may or may not work and costs money), or lobby to change the city code (which may or may not work, and takes a lot longer).

Still, it's nice to feel like things are moving forward, even if they're just moving towards another dead end.
shadesofmauve: (can we fix it?)
Let me tell you a little story. It relates to the post I made about it being easier to clean other people's houses, and particularly a comment [livejournal.com profile] westrider made on that post. Our story starts this morning, around 10 a.m., right after I finished my coffee...

"What shall I work on today?" I asked myself. "Self," I replied, "We should start with that pile of sheet music and lyrics that's been steadily growing in the living room, moving from place to place every time someone actually wants to sit somewhere." "Great idea! It's only about a half-hour job. The three hole punch and the music binders are right there. Piece of cake!"

So I walked out into the living room, and decided (I think understandably) that if I was going to be sitting on the floor spreading paper hither and yon, I'd rather the floor be clean.

Out came the vacuum cleaner. But what's this? The canister is full! Ah well, no matter. Out to the trash bin with the full canister I go -- only to discover that it is so full that the lid is wedged and it's not actually openable.

"I know!" thought I, "I'll use the shop vac to suck some of the cat hair out of the input hole, and thusly free the locking mechanism." So off to the garage for the shop-vac. Now, there aren't any outlets in my garage, so one must use an extension cord for the shop vac. The extension cord has a three prong (grounded) plug, which presents an inconvenience, as the nearest 3-prong outlet is in the kitchen. "But hell," I thought, "I've been wanting to rewire the laundry room outlet anyway." So it's back to the garage for the toolbox.

As I was wrestling with the outlet (really, whomever decided to make modern wire boxes bigger and not black, so you can actually A) fit all the wires in and B) see what you're doing? You have my deepest thanks. I wish you'd come along sooner) I heard Calliope mewing piteously outside the laundry room door. I opened the door, looking about at cat-height to see where she'd gone, and in so doing the door bumped the level on the shelf, which bumped the screw-nail-miscellanea-bits-in-drawers organizer, and knocked the latter off the shelf.

Upside down.

Into the litter box.

...at which point I said "Well, fuck," and went back to wiring the outlet.

The only really remarkable thing about this chain of events is that I managed to successfully reverse the whole chain (including sifting wire nails, drywall screws, and picture hooks out of kitty litter) all the way back to vacuuming the living room, before I sat down to eat lunch and write this post.

I doubt I'll get the music organized today, though.
shadesofmauve: (can we fix it?)
Up until about thirty minutes ago I was having a splendid weekend -- [livejournal.com profile] westrider came down, which meant instead of painting the rent-a-room and cleaning house and panicking about my general overwhelmed-ness I spent two days geeking out. It was really relaxing, and I woke up this morning ready to be productive on my day off!

Note to powers that be: When I said "ready to be productive" I meant "ready to work on the to-do items I already have," not "ready to learn how to replace a sink trap."

When [livejournal.com profile] madalchemist* took the trash out last night, there were a few inches of water in it. We checked and found a slow leak under the sink, but it was late at night so we just shoved the empty trash can underneath and figured it would keep.

This morning it isn't dripping; it's pissing like a drunk the morning after from a corroded hole in the trap.

Looks like I get to learn something new. Joy.

*To anyone who was on ME3 mp with us this weekend, "HarmlessNPC" is my housemate, [livejournal.com profile] madalchemist.

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