January 2009

I've mostly been working on the pergola. This is a never-ending project... Anyway here are the pics. I've been using Sikkens wood stain. It's oil-based and rated better than anything out there. This is a job that I don't want to do again for a long time and the results have come out great.





I've also been working on the other never-ending project... radiant barrier material isn't cheap stuff. Anyway the attic above the garage is finished now and now I'm working on the attic above the second floor. Elle and I found this top secret passage into the space above the main bedroom. You have to remove the back panel in a hamper upstairs and that reveals a pretty big hole you can crawl through to get in there. It's a sea of gray in there - nothing to stand on anywhere except for the beams and it's a 12 foot fall if you step between them. Unfortunately this is a pretty big space and heat has been a problem in the living room and main bedroom last summer, so I have to install the barrier stuff in there. Fun tims. :/ Here's a view out into the abyss



Not exactly home-related, but I managed to fix the fridge. It was getting loud when it ran... this rrr-rrrr-rrrr whenever it ran. The compressor was loose, but when I was working on it I noticed the fan wasn't turning anymore because it was blocked by a piece of the cardboard material that keeps dust out (or something... it has to have a purpose I guess). Anyway that was an easy fix. I sat on this problem way too long.

December 2008

Loads of updates!

The simple stuff first... my parents were nice enough to give me an extra digital dimmer they had lying around in their garage. That was really cool.

I also ordered a bunch of furniture from Motif in Austin, and it came in way ahead of schedule. So now the living room / family room are getting closer to being set up even though there's still a lot of work left to do. Also picked up a desk for the office so we can ditch the tiny sub-laptop sized thing Elle had and my green 1970s office chair.







I decided to go ahead and do some work with the trees in the front yard. I walk around the neighborhood a lot and there are all kinds of different houses, with different landscaping things going on and then there's this place... They say that winter is the right time to do this sort of work, and I've already started on the HOA paperwork and looked into different places that sell trees. Apparently these things are sold in much bigger sizes than I thought they were. At this point I have a budget and know what I'm looking for, so I'll just get the biggest and healthiest ones I can get.

And the hard stuff... summer cooling bills were nuts, so I decided to try and do something about it. The biggest problems were the fact that it seems really humid most of the time, the main bedroom is always warmer than the rest of the house thanks to some big windows that face due south, and the attic is an oven. Right now I'm working on the attic, and it looks like the best way to keep it from getting so hot is to install a radiant barrier. Since it's not hot out it's the best time of the year to get started with it. Guess I'll find out if it did anything once summer rolls around again.

I also started another project (ok fine, in late November). Not on purpose... it was raining outside and I got out the scrub brush to try and clean up the weathered, gray cedar wood the pergola is made of. The little spot I started cleaning up came out really nice, but you can't just have a clean spot and leave the rest alone... I borrowed my dad's power washer and it took care of blasting all the gray stuff and algae in a couple of afternoons. I'm about halfway through staining the wood at this point. I'm using Sikkens brand stain. It's not cheap, but this is enough of a hassle so that I don't want to have to do it again anytime soon.

Here's what it looked like before. The wood is gray and nasty.


After cleaning the wood, with a little stain. I'm surprised the wood came out this clear after being exposed to the elements for 3 or 4 years.


It's going to take forever to stain the whole thing...

August 2008

Another backdated post, but I'm getting caught up...

I've been working on a few things, but it's mostly small stuff. The easiest was the new garage door remote to replace the one that wasn't there when I moved in. Speaking of garage stuff, I sold the Porsche. There are three cars trying to share two spaces in the garage, and I really didn't drive it much anymore so might as well sell the car. Sad to see it go, but I've moved on to bigger and better things.

I got to do an emergency plumbing repair when I walked out of the office and started heading downstairs when what's this...? Water's dripping out of the cabinet in the upstairs bathroom. I close the shutoff and mop up the mess, and try to figure out what's going on because I didn't touch anything. When the previous owners replaced the fixtures in the upstairs bathrooms they kinked the line that runs from the shutoff to the faucet and today just happened to be the day that it finally decided to let go. A couple of trips to the Lowes that's around the corner 5 minutes before closing time and I've got it taken care of.

Since I'm slowly scaling up the projects I wanted to do something that I've already done before in another place I lived - replacing the old school toggle light switches with the new, wider ones. It's pretty easy to do. Just turn the switch on, run back and forth down to the breaker panel to try and find out if you guessed the right one, and remove and replace the switch now that the power is off. All you need to know is how to operate a screwdriver. I put in dimmers where there are dimmers already, nothing fancy at this point. Also did GFCI outlets because that was an item on the inspection report. The house was built just before January 1, 1993 and they weren't required yet at the time.

I've decided to try and do something about the trees in the front yard. They grow like crazy - these Vitex things and look like they've been cut on a bunch of times. I'm not sure if they're exactly trees or giant bushes, but if I can't do something with them I'm going to have to get them out of here and go with actual trees.

Kind of on a tangent, I'm starting to think about what kind of furniture would go good in the living room. The stuff in there now will go into the formal living room someday. No idea what to get yet, but I want something modern. Still plenty of time to think about it while I save up.

This is the living room right now






This is the front living room where everything will go once I get new furniture in a few months. It'll just have to look empty for a while...

June 2008

The movers showed up WAY ahead of schedule - before they got in all I could really do is unpack whatever Elle and I brought along in her car when we drove over here. The car was packed, but that's not a lot of stuff. The plants look bad... I don't know what happened but they really don't look good. Maybe they got a lot of sun on the way over, who knows. Also got an LCD TV and stand (thanks to my parents for the stand). It's a pretty massive piece of furniture, it took a 4-wheeled furniture mover or two to get it indoors.

After all my stuff arrived I had a little repair work to look into. Two fence posts, rotten at ground level for this short section that runs between the fenceline and a wall. Of course you can't just go buy new fenceposts and put them in the square hole in the concrete.

The hard part was really only an afternoon job but it felt like a weekend. It's hot in San Antonio in June, and breaking up the old concrete and getting the new fenceposts installed straight isn't exactly a good time when it's 100 degrees out. Anyway the fence is installed with new pressure treated posts that should last a long time and stand up a lot better to the carpenter bees I spotted going in and out of the old one. I also got the chance to write Elle and my name n the concrete and that's always fun. Wonder how long they'll be around? Hopefully longer than the old ones anyway.

We want to redo pretty much everything, of course the hard part is figuring out exactly what changes to make. The plan is to start with easy or repair type stuff, then move on to bigger and better things once I have a better feel for the house.

Anyway here are a couple of pictures of the concrete. Cheesy I know.

The Before pics

April 2008

I get accepted for a job within my company that I put in for, which means relocating from Seattle to San Antonio, TX. I go on a househunting trip, looking for a place that's solid on the inside (nice layout, foundation, wiring, ...) but that's "cosmetically challenged."

I come up with a top two choices:

House A

20 years old, but so is the roof (decking looks shot in one area too), two a/c units, two water heaters, and pool in the back yard with a cosmetic crack to be fixed by seller. There are 4 other cracks that are filled, so something tells me it'll crack again later at $750 to repair each time. Fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom, cathedral ceilings downstairs. Nice trees in the front and back yard.

House B

16 years old. Original roof and (one) water heater. Two 4-year old a/c units. No pool, but no worries about a pool requiring expensive maintenance soon either. Wood fireplace converted to gas. 12-foot ceilings and loads of windows so it's a really bright place. Trees in the back yard are not as big, and the trees in the front yard are these giant bushy things called Vitex.

Long story short, I go with option B. I really liked the first one, but the pool has issues and too many expensive things are getting a little too old for comfort. I also have no idea how to pull off a modern contemporary look with a house with the cathedral ceilings.

Nothing's shocking about the inspection... except the hot water comes out of the tap red because the place has been vacant for a year and algae has built up in the water heater (yuck!) so the water comes out red. The inspector also writes up a few scary words about the roof being at the end of its life which is true. I negotiate more off the purchase price and close on the place a couple of days before Elle and I start the drive from Renton to Texas in late May.

So here are the 'before' pics...

First a view from the street.

Next the back yard

I really like the back yard.

Living room.

Interesting choice of wallpaper there in the informal dining room...

Scary wallpaper in the bathroom!

There's a lot of work ahead!