the good, the bad, the ugly
first, the good. the hardwood floor and painting projects made decent progres
s this weekend. we worked all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon (after halftime of the Colts game, 12-0 baby!) through late evening. our friend Kristi came over on Saturday and helped Chrissy paint the dining room. we ran way short of paint in there (but had a lot of excess Pepto-primer, go figure). i think it was just the fact that you need a lot of paint to get that deep of a red color. we got another gallon and Chrissy finished it up on Sunday. it really looks nice. it makes the room feel a little bit smaller, but not in a bad way. just a very cozy, warm space. we definitely need to get lower wattage bulbs in the light to help hide some of the "character" in the walls (the glare from the light shows them more). that, or lots of artwork. the hardwoods went somewhat slowly. i hit some of the more difficult stretches to work through (beveled cuts at the front door, radiused cuts at the stairs, end rows of rooms, etc.), so the slow-down was expected. the difficult 
spots went fairly well, just slow. the radiused cuts
weren't perfect, but i plan to radius some shoe molding around there to cover it. after all was said and done, the living room and sunroom got finished. it's really nice to see the huge expanse of the living room all completed. just the kitchen and upstairs hallway to go (roughly 160 SF, including some semi-tricky transitions to get things started). i'm behind my initial schedule, but should be fine since we have all this week and next weekend to work. sorry, the dining room pic didn't turn out very well and the living room one has wood laying on the floor making it look funny. i'll try to get some better ones soon.ok, so now the bad -- tonight. it has been fairly cold the past few days, especially starting last night. i have been worried about the pipes in the downstairs bath freezing because that area is on crawlspace and seemed to get very cold. well, they were frozen tonight. luckily, nothing burst. there were already some pipe heaters attached to those water lines, so after a discussion about their potential safety with my brother, i decided to use them (this was actually before i found out they were frozen). so, i plugged them guys in. it seemed awful breezy down there so i grabbed my flashlight to try to figure out why. i thought it was the poor brick-work down there but it seemed to be too much for that alone. lo and behold, i found a rather large gap in the end wall of the house right at the top of the foundation wall (just under the siding). i don't know how i didn't notice it before, i guess the siding and weeds kind of hid it. so, i grabbed more expanding foam insulation and insulated the snot out of the cracks and gaps. the foam doesn't work as well in the extreme cold, so i hope it still expands a little more to really seal things up tight. i could tell a definite difference right away though. there was still a very slight breeze coming from somewhere, but much much less than before. hopefully the foam will expand up and stop it. if not, i'll see if i can track it down also.
then, the ugly. after a bit i was able to get a few drips of water to come out and eventually the hot water line was going. but, the drain wasn't draining, but dripping out under the sink. i grabbed a little bucket to catch the water. the drain stopper connection was leaking like crazy. so, i tightened that but still no water was going down the drain - frozen?? i went back down and looked in the crawlspace ... lo and behold ... the last section of the drain line, between the toilet and sink runs DOWNHILL (as in the water needs to run uphill, which is sort of the opposite of gravity--at least here in Indiana, which is wrong, dumb, stupid, retarded, someone should be shot). for the love. so, we have a nice section of frozen waste water down there. nice. we kept hot water in the sink the rest of the night hoping to loosen it up. no luck yet. we're hoping things heat up down there with the gaps filled so that thing melts (also closed the bathroom door to try to keep some heat in there). so, this has confirmed what was only a theory before ... the construction of the addition (bathroom, mudroom) was terrible at best. makes me just want to knock it over and build something better there. for now, more insulating to try to keep it warmer down there and using the line heaters when it is really cold out. ugh.
so tonight was not so good. i also almost broke my ankle and my flashlight (it worked for a bit, but then stopped working so who knows), and nearly lost a nail punch, not to mention getting more insulation stuck to my fingers. so we decided to call it an early night (as if 10:30 is early). all i REALLY got done was preparing the door jambs going into the kitchen to lay hardwood around. which is a small victory on a rough night. Chrissy untaped the dining room and listened to me lament the woes of plumbing in a crawlspace. so, when can we start drawing plans for a NEW house??
posted by Chris and Chrissy Miller @ 11:04 PM
4 Comments:
The floor is looking great Chris! Keep plugging away. I remember the last few weeks before our house was done, all I really wanted to do was sleep, but the deadline from the bank was looming large. Just know that all those work "nights" that actually end in the wee hours of the morning do pay off and make for good memories. The last night I was literally falling asleep while putting door knobs on.
Are you laying the hardwood over the linoleum in the kitchen or did you rip it up?
yeah, we're trying to stay positive and push through to the end.
a little of both on the kitchen. we ripped up the first about 18" of the linoleum. i'll use that distance to even out the 3/8" height difference using roofing felt (per Contractor's recommendation). couldn't have run the floor in the direction we wanted to (for looks and ease of install) if we ripped it all up -- strip floor beneath goes the same direction.
It looks good! Every time I paint another red room, I swear I will never paint a room red again. But then, the red room ends up being my favorite place in the whole house because it is warm and cheery and everyone seems to congregate there. So...I'll probably end up painting many red rooms in my life. Tip: Spring for the spendy paint that takes few coats to get good coverage. It's worth it with red.
d
yeah, we used Behr which is a bit pricey ... but a coat of pepto-primer and 2ish coats got it all red-like.
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