Baby it's cold inside

12/15/16:  This was drafted about two years ago, but I never posted it.  It has a great picture from the same perspective as today's The Walls Are Finished! post.


Happy December 1st.  We're in the middle of a typical New England fall around here:  70s one day, 30s the next (with lows in the single digits).  With our demolished kitchen, some mornings have been *cold*!

If you have an older house, it's safe to assume that either a) it's not insulated at all or b) someone (maybe even you) has "blown-in" insulation.  I've learned that you usually see blown-in insulation in two forms:  cellulose (think the paper pulp-based small animal bedding in the turquoise-colored block) or fiberglass.  From the outside, they drill holes into every single stud space, insert a hose, and fill the cavity with the filling.  As in our case, they might cover the hole with a bit of plywood, a small piece of styrofoam if you're lucky, and then cover it with your siding.  This will become important in a minute.

For what it's worth, I remember Mrs. M telling us that we had blown-in cellulose.

I've known (source unknown) that plaster is generally more insulating than sheetrock.  But I wanted to know how much better fiberglass (batts) is than cellulose, so set to Google to find out.  The general impression I got:  both have about the same R value (for the newbies, that's how they describe a material's insulating ability - the higher the number, the better it insulates).  This generalization makes one major assumption, though:  proper installation.  Neither material will work as an airblock.  If air can pass through it, you won't get nearly the same results.  Fortunately, a vapor barrier (which should be installed if you're taking down the walls) will also act as an air barrier.  The vapor barrier I most commonly see is that Tyvek wrap stuff they sell at your local big box home improvement store.

To be fair, not everyone has the luxury of taking down walls and properly installing insulation.  It's a messy, long process.  So I don't blame anyone for going the route of blown-in insulation.  Just don't expect the same results.

Once we got the plaster down, we saw that we didn't have cellulose; it was actually fiberglass.  So we donned gloves (just buy a big box of disposable nitriles!  They're worth it), masks, eye protection (glasses, in my case, but otherwise I would have used goggles), and long-sleeved t-shirts.   Despite this, I still itched.  Take a shower immediately.  And those bath poofs work *great* for scrubbing off any stray bits of fiberglass; they have enough scratch to them to scrape it off.

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated

It's been over a year, but I'm back with an update!

We have made progress with the kitchen walls.

My boss (kind of a surrogate dad with my own living across the country) had suggested many years ago "wet sanding" joint compound because it will make less mess.  Well, I tried it when we first started putting up the drywall and yes, we didn't have to contend with dust.  But it left the joints looking like they had melted.  Not really the look we were hoping for.  And so I got frustrated and ignored it, and we've been living with a kitchen with plywood counters and bare drywall with some parts mudded and others not.  We haven't wanted to put the new counters in until everything was painted, and then the backsplash has to wait for the counters, and then we move on to the floor, and finally replacing all of the trim.  A lot has been waiting for these stupid walls and ceiling to be done.

I came to a realization this fall.  That I wanted and expected the drywall joint/tape stuff to a) be perfect and b) not make a mess.  Reviewing an insurance estimate at work (I work for an attorney who focuses on property insurance), I realized people pay a *lot* of money to professional tapers for a "level 5" finish.  I'm not a professional taper, nor do I have the money to pay one.  So I channeled my inner Elsa and Let it Go! and moved forward with the sanding, etc.  We set ourselves a target of getting the paint done by this coming Saturday (really, before, because we're having a party on Saturday).

We tried a sanding block that attaches to the shop vac to reduce what gets kicked around.  It's an old house and nothing is straight; not to mention the drywall joints weren't all fitted very well (use that channel at the edges of the boards!  Don't butt two middle cuts together!  Learn from our mistakes!), so I had to go with smaller tools all around, the sanding block included.  It was just too big to get a good result.  

Cutting the mesh sanding screens in half, and then folding that half in half worked well for just using my hand.  But wear gloves so you don't tear your hands to shreds after 4-5 hours of sanding.  I kept the shop vac running the entire time, with the brush attachment.  I'd sand a small section and then vacuum it up, being sure to sand the actual wall, too, because the drywall holds onto the dust really well, and I think that's a lot of what ends up traveling later and getting everywhere else.  Every sanding session ended with a good vacuuming, and while I showered (get undressed standing in the tub before you start the water), ~D swept up the floor to get whatever the vacuum missed.  We managed to keep the dust from going too far out of the kitchen, no drapes over the doorways necessary.

On the whole, I generally did 2-3 coats, depending on the state of the joint.  I learned how to feather out the uglier joints more so, while not perfect, they look a lot smoother than the coat before.

Sunday, we painted.  ~D got to do the entirety of the ceiling, cutting in and rolling.  We used Valspar's ceiling paint that we had gotten a few years ago.  It ended up a little chunky, so we've got a few flecks scattered around, but we'll pick them off when we go back to get our touchups done.  It did need two coats, but it's really hard seeing (off-) white paint on white drywall.  I cut in the walls and ~D did the rolling.  We used Behr's top of the line paint with the built-in primer and, except for a few places where the roller needed a bit more paint, it really did a decent job in its single coat.  

There are some ugly seams on the ceiling, but you'll see in a minute why we didn't care about those.  You can also see at the tip of the top right a hole.  That is from the waterfall we experience from the upstairs bathroom last spring.  ~D had the *audacity* to try to turn off the pipe under the bathroom sink.  I mean, really.  How dare he try to replace the vanity?!  The pipe broke in the wall as he was turning the cutoff.  We learned that Home Depot is open on Easter.  Yay.  We had to replace the entire supply line to the bathroom, and that hole is where our shutoff valves for the bath/shower are.  We got an access panel to cover that up.  

I also took about 10 minutes to get the baffles and trim in/on our recessed lighting.

We toasted our success after the kids went to bed with a pretty meh hard cider that we've had kicking around.  

Next step:  replacing the beams from the old wooden drop ceiling that we saved.  While I sanded the walls, ~D spent his time sanding the beams.  They are hemlock which had been stained a dark reddish mahogany-ish color.  We liked the lighter color post-sanding, but it needed a little bit of depth.  So I stained them with "golden pecan" Minwax to coordinate with the golden oak cabinets, and gave them a satin-finish poly coat.  The kitchen still smells despite fans and even leaving windows open on a cold, late-fall New England night.  C'est la vie.

Last night's project was getting the beams in place.  Ouch.  My shoulder still hurts.  Getting full kitchen-width beams in was pretty exciting, especially when we realized some of them were a little too long now.  Paint touch ups are more dire now.  ~D premarked where the lag bolts would be going, using his stud finder and also a small drill bit to find the edges of the joists, so we could get everything centered for safety and straight for aesthetics.  After the first one was in, we were smart and preset the lags before hoisting the beams up.  Trying to retrieve dropped bolts while balancing at the top of a ladder holding a heavy hunk of wood is not fun.  Twice.

Right now, we just have two lags for each beam, but we'll run a third one through the middles tonight for some added security.  Laser lines FTW.

The night was still young, we got the kids to bed, and went to the next stage:  shelves on the walls.  We got some brackets from Ikea a long time ago, the Ekby Bjarnum ones, with black shelves to fit.  These were super easy to install, especially the ones that went straight into stud.  The ones that didn't go into stud got SnapToggles.   They seem pretty secure, though two ended up breaking during installation and the only way to deal with them is to push them through into the stud cavity.

Last on the honey-do list for pre-party kitchen renovations was the pendant lights.  When we planned for 6 recessed lights, I also wanted some small ones on a separate switch for the evenings when we don't need the full set of lights on.  So we got a couple of cheap pendants from Home Depot and planned to install them somewhat high, as the kitchen's not big enough to put an island in.  The first one took some work, as it didn't come with instructions.  But we worked it out and the second one took about a quarter of the time.

With all of that, this is the kitchen I woke up to this morning:

Even the 8 year old was excited.  Counters, a new sink, and the backsplash will happen after Christmas.  The drywall mental block is gone so we can push forward. 

I made this!

We're horrible, horrible people and forgot to get some before pics.  But really, in my defense, we hadn't really planned on putting in a patio when we started.  It began as a weeding project...

To set the scene:  You are at the top of the stairs going to the back yard (the bottom left corner of the pic).  About 5 feet past the railing is a stone retaining wall, probably about 8-10 feet tall, which lands at the top edge of the back yard.  The post in the middle is actually one of the support posts for our back porch.

Originally, this area was a horribly overgrown slope.  We neglected that side of the house - too much ugly foliage, a large dirt pile from our driveway expansion, and it became our yard trash accumulation zone.  One day this spring, I started weeding it out.  It looked great!  ~D and started chatting.

We've had plans for years of putting in a retaining wall at the bottom of the stairs to level out more of the backyard, but getting fill down there would be a logistical nightmare.  So we decided to put in a small retaining wall here, and move the big pile of dirt the ten feet instead of all the way down the stairs.  We scoped it out so we wouldn't be doing more than a two-foot tall wall.

And then we figured we'd put in a patio, maybe with a goal of having a place for a hot tub.  Our back porch is kind of small for the grill and our patio table (just a 44" square with four chairs, but didn't really fit).  This new space is about 300 square feet, about twice the size of the porch.

We got the wall built (pressure-treated, using this video for inspiration) and filled in.  There were many posts dug, and we had to buy about twelve 60-pound bags of concrete, though we have a little bit leftover.  We put in some pretty serious drainage, as the house's gutter drains at that corner.  We sunk the drain to the wall, where it meets a perforated tube, and put in lots of gravel.  I've perhaps been a little OCD about making sure that weeds won't be growing up through it:  pulling everything before we filled in the wall, hitting it with Ortho Ground Clear, and giving it professional-grade landscape fabric.  I better not see any Siberian irises or tiger lilies back there!

We knew we wanted a railing to keep the kids safe because, even though the wall is not high enough (I believe - make sure you check your own state's code!) to require a railing technically, it's also close enough to the big wall that we didn't want people falling over.  So we picked out the metal tube-y balusters from Lowe's, which offers a contractor pack for about 20-24' worth.

Next came the paver decision.  Ugh.  Pavers are expensive, especially when you're doing 300 sf., unless you want the cheap, plain ones.  I did find a place in Florida that offered very reasonable prices for fancy pavers, but shipping was going to be something like $7000.  We decided we'd get the cheap gray pavers and a couple of different colors of concrete dye and paint them in different colors, in a random pattern - no checkboard!

Off to Home Depot we went.  They had a great booklet for the Behr concrete dye system, which will, in theory, provide a more mottled surface.  You apply one color unevenly, and then apply a second color, also unevenly.  We also picked out some stain for the wood railings, which we were planning on doing with more pressure treated wood.

Fortunately, ~D works in the asphalt business, so we were able to save some money having his company deliver it to us.  We ended up using about 2 1/2 tons, which gives us about a 2-3" base under the pavers.

It came time to decide on the pavers.  I noticed that Home Depot had 4x8 bricks in gray as well as the 12x12s, so worked out a pattern I was happy with.  But then I saw that they didn't have the gray in stock locally.  I ordered them from Lowe's instead, with the in-store pickup.  The different sizes were from different brands, and slightly different thicknesses, so they actually provide a lot of color variation even without the stain being applied yet.  (Note:  the in-store pickup was great!  They had everything ready to load when ~D got there with the truck.  It was already paid for, and we only got two duds out of the 700 total pieces that we bought).

I'll (hopefully) do some more descriptive posting for the various stages.  But first I need to finish it! We got it functional before our big Fourth party, but it still needs some work. We need to dye it, stain the wood (which ended up being cedar), and install a light.  The big hole where the dirt pile was needs to be graded and seeded.  But the patio holds the new Weber grill, a cooler/grill station, and the table and chairs with plenty of room and comfort to spare!

Wow, it's been a year

Oops.

Last fall/winter, we made a big push at getting some work done in the kitchen.  And I had all sorts of posts floating around in my head.  There's even one on insulation drafted, but unfinished.  I'm sorry if anyone has actually been reading this.

What we got done last year was to take down a cabinet over our stove, put in a nice mosaic backsplash, and install a new vent hood that *gasp* vents outside!  It's one of those fancy stainless chimney-types, with a glass dome.  It looks awesome.  I have pictures.  Sadly, those pictures aren't here where I'm typing this.

Our walls have been insulated to the best of our ability, and sheetrock covers the walls.  I have even done some amount of mudding and taping.  Our ceiling is halfway sheetrocked, but we've discovered that the joists on the other half aren't at all even, so some furring is going to be necessary.  Our goal is to have the ceiling done and walls painted by the week before Christmas.  We'll see.

Other things this past year has brought to our house include a ceiling fan/light fixture in our living room (~D's anniversary gift - bronze was the theme this year, and it's an antiqued bronze).  We moved the chandelier that was in the living room into the dining room.  So we have light over the table now!  Our dining room had had a hole in the ceiling and a covered switch box on the wall, but we discovered those were disconnected knob and tube.  We had a punch a small hole near the ceiling in the foyer to thread the new wire, but the damage was confined.

I finally put in a nice perennial garden in the side yard.  I shouldn't have to worry about planting that one anymore.

We finished the kids' play structure in the backyard last spring, and I put in a small patio for the play house, so it's no longer a mud pit.  I even put in a bit of white picket fencing around the side and back of it - some of the short flower bed edging from Home Depot.

Hopefully I can get around to some more in-depth descriptions and pictures of what our kitchen work has entailed soon!  I think once the walls and ceiling are done, the counters and floors will go a lot faster.

Until then, stay warm and safe.

The Aging House, Kids, and Lead

I want to take a few minutes to talk about concerns that renovating an old house can raise when you have young kids.  I have personally seen two instances of debilitating lead poisoning:  an acquaintance of ours has a severely autistic son for lead exposure, and my cousin, it was learned after his adoption, apparently had eaten lead paint pre-adoption, which led to numerous mental disorders requiring residential care.

~D and I have two young children.  Our daughter had just turned one when we bought the house (holy cow, how is she already 5?!) and our son just turned one as I'm typing this now.  Being an old house, we have always assumed there is lead and act accordingly.  As we do in all parenting respects, we try to take a reasonable approach:  understand that the risk exists, and try to minimize exposure to it.

Sure, before moving our things, we could have spent $20k or more for lead remediation.  I know there are some interest-free loans you can take out - check your county or town for more information - to do this.  But, to be completely honest, that was money that we did not have.

One of the ways to mitigate lead, as I understand it anyway, is to paint over it; latex paint is supposed to protect you from surface exposure.  The house was freshly painted.  The other thing you worry about is dust, from, for example, opening and closing windows that have lead paint.  We bought the house in the fall, after the time for opening windows had passed for the year.  Our daughter wasn't the type of baby to try eating window sills.  So we had some time to determine the actual risk at our house.

Before we moved in, we purchased a couple of the home lead test kits from Home Depot.  We chose some representative sections of woodworks - window sills in the most-lived in rooms, baseboards, etc.  We cut little Vs through all of the paint layers until we saw wood, and then tested them.  Just about everything came back negative.  The places that did come out (slightly) positive, are in places that we aren't too concerned about the kids getting into it, even if they suddenly turned into monkeys.

We're now tearing the kitchen apart, taking down plaster, which is raising a lot of dust.  We have found some paint that is mostly likely leaded - it is thick, has a smooth glossy finish, and is under some wallpaper.  We're assuming it is leaded.  So while we demolish, the kids aren't allowed anywhere near the kitchen.  We have plastic-ed off the demo zone, and keep the kids out of a buffer zone, as well.  We spray the plaster, and exposed lath, liberally with water while we take it down to keep the dust down.  We have a sticky mat at the entrance to the work area to grab anything off our shoes.  We use positive pressure ventilation (fan blowing into the kitchen from the foyer, and a fan in the kitchen window aiming outward) to keep the dust in the kitchen.  And we try to keep the bad paint in as big of chunks as possible.  We also mask- and glove-up to protect ourselves, and shower immediately upon leaving the area.

After a small breach this weekend, the dining room ended up covered in a fine dust (none of the suspect paint breached the containment).  We bought another test kit.  I'm happy to report that none of the dust we found, as well as ~D's shoes, tested negative.  We sprayed things with a de-leading spray just to be on the safe side, and washed everything in the dining room.  And I do mean everything.

The baby just had a lead test done, and we haven't gotten a phone call from his doctor screaming that his levels are high.  And our daughter's test when she was younger came back fine, too.  So it seems that our protocol is working.

UPDATE JULY, 2015:  The now nearly-3-year-old's (!) lead test came back absolutely fine, at about the same level as our daughter's, when hers was tested before we even bought the house.

Rearranging the Furniture

~D is a Virgo. What that means for me is he likes to rearrange the furniture. All the time. And it's not just a matter of rearranging the furniture. No, no! It's deciding that the desk should no longer be a corner desk, so we need to buy a new desk that will go better on the middle of the wall. It took a few years, and us moving into a much smaller apartment (like those number puzzles where one square is missing and you shift all of the other numbers around to try to get them back in order) to break him of it.

 So when I suggested a month or so ago that our refrigerator be moved, he was ecstatic. It gave him the rearranging that his psyche craved. I'm happy to report, our refrigerator is happily living in its new home, and we got it moved the day before our son's first birthday.

 I've learned that having a hard deadline for discrete tasks works best for us. We'll never be able to say "I want the kitchen done by the spring." It just won't happen. But "I'd like the plaster to be down by Thanksgiving" can, if we adhere to it.

We haven't completely finished the new partition/box for the fridge yet. It still needs a top, and the outside of it needs to be painted. We also need to finish up the support pieces on the cabinets that we had to cut into - facing, etc. But here it is:

Many power tools went into the making of this box. Cutting out the cabinets took no fewer than three saws (saws-all, circular saw, and a reciprocating saw). I wired my first outlet ever. It didn't growl at me when we turned the power back on. ~D moved the water line, and cut out the old one, so we still have our ice maker. He used Pex and "shark bites" - no soldering necessary, and we don't have any leaks (he worked as a plumber's apprentice for a bit after graduating from high school).

And the back end of our kitchen now looks like this:

It's nice and spacious. My kitchen feels huge now (and brighter, even with the shortening days).

Next up (beyond finishing the box and cabinet ends): Destruction! The Demo Hammer is go. The paneling covering the wall in that back end comes down, and the plaster on the ceiling's days are numbered.

You have to make a mess before you can clean a mess

At last, progress on the kitchen! I'll be honest, we haven't done much work in a while. Having a now-one-year-old, who seems to be made of velcro, makes work difficult. After he was born last fall, we did manage to close up the downstairs bathroom and do some demo, tearing down some plaster. But it wasn't much. 

We're living in a construction zone right now - the kitchen is largely unusable. Making a huge mess right now, but it'll be worth it. But I've managed to make dinner using one burner on the stove, the oven, and the grill. Hooray, for the grill! A quick reminder of how our kitchen looked when we bought the house:
 And then how it looked after we took down the wallpaper and wainscoting:
 

 While defrosting our deep freezer a couple of weeks ago, I pulled out a tape measure and started measuring cabinets and the fridge. The result: We're moving the fridge to the wall next to the closet, and putting in a low cabinet where the fridge was. In the first picture above, you see a wine rack under the window - that's where we keep our deep freezer now (after a power failure in the basement caused us to lose the entire contents of the freezer a couple of years ago). So we'll build a box for that, with the cabinet/counter next to it. It'll open up the window, maybe give us a bit more light. And we lose less cabinet/counter in the move. So here's how it looks with the hole.

 

Our cabinets are custom oak. They were built on the wall. So the hole had to be cut on the wall. Now we're redoing the wiring, both for the fridge (getting its own circuit) and some outlets for the counter. GFCIs, of course. The "pressed paperboard" duct hiding behind the cardboard stapled to the wall has been removed and we're putting in a new one. Respirators and air filters and plastic sheeting were involved in the removal, just in case.

 We're still working on making some decisions (floor, paint colors, etc.), but we're making progress, and I'm starting to have fun!