Just a girl with a hammer

  • Mysteries in the laundry room

    Mysteries in the laundry room

    When I moved into the house I needed a lot of electrical work.  This is what my electrical panel looked like.  Wires sticking out, no cover . . . just a tiny bit hazardous.

    Luckily I have a friend who is an electrician and would work for a reasonable rate (and access to the food in the kitchen cabinets).  He did a couple of really awesome things without my asking, like putting a motion sensor on the light in the laundry room.  So if I’m carrying a basket of laundry there’s no fumbling with a chain in the dark–the light just comes on.  After five minutes without motion it turns the light off.  It’s awesome. 

    Fast forward to now.  A few weeks back I started noticing that the light would be on when no one had been down there.  I noticed that the dryer hose had popped off the window vent and figured that must have triggered the light to go off.  Some contractor had told me that, in the hierarchy of venting, rigid metal ducts are best.  They accumulate the least dust and lint resulting in a lower fire risk.  The only problem is that I couldn’t get the stupid hose to stay connected to the window outlet. I kept finding it like this:

    I kept applying more foam tape and the stupid thing kept popping off.  I finally decided to screw the pieces together.
    Bingo!  Why didn’t I think of that before?  The only problem?  The light was still going off.
    THE LIGHT WAS STILL GOING OFF.
    My roommate and I had a very serious conversation about the light (we had both noticed it and gotten freaked out); my roommate solemnly informed me that it could be a ghost.  I was worried it was a mouse or some other critter.  I hunted around for signs of critters: droppings, nests, chewed stuff . . . but found nothing. 
    So my latest theory concerns the old stove downdraft.  My house didn’t have a stove hood so the previous owners appeared to have one of those stoves with a downdraft that vented through the kitchen floor.  There was a hole in the kitchen floor with a duct attached.
     
    That hole was covered by the underlayment for the Marmoleum and I repurposed that duct into a vent for my portable AC unit in my bedroom.  But in the winter the duct was just hanging out doing this:

    My theory is that it gets windy outside and air comes shooting into that duct and into the basement, causing the duct to swing.  I should have remedied this long ago.  I’m letting cold air into the house and basically left a fun slide for critters wanting to get into the house.  Like SPIDERS, OH MY GOD, SPIDERS.  Or mice.  Or whatever. 
    So I took the cover off the exterior of the house . . .

    . . . cut some of this stuff I found in the basement to fit . . .
    . . . screwed it in and replaced the cover.
    I’ll keep you posted about the light.  I really hope this stops the light triggering because I don’t want to consider the alternatives.  Like ghost-rats.
    Edited to add: I did finally get a cover for my electrical panel.  It feels slightly less dangerous doing laundry beneath it now.

  • Progress in the basement

    Progress in the basement

    Sigh.

    The basement. My albatross.  When I bought the house the basement had been drywalled and taped.  The seams had been mudded but they needed to be sanded.

    I hate sanding.  Really, really hate it.  I had primed the drywall but the corners needed to be taped and mudded and sanded and primed and sanded and painted and sanded . . .
    You can’t just leave rough corners like this.
    You have to get some of this.
    And some of this.
    You smear some of the joint compound on the corner and then affix the corner bead.
    Then you wipe away the excess compound and let it dry.  Then you have to put more compound on top of that, trying to make it as smooth as possible.
    Then you let that dry and sand and sand and sand.  Did I mention I hate sanding?  Then you try to remove as must of the dust from the drywall as possible and then slap on another layer of primer.
    It takes professionals no time at all to do this process.  I just watched a TV show where these pros came in and did a whole room in two hours.  It was beautiful.  I felt so lame.  This took me THREE WEEKENDS.
    But I’m finally at a point where I can start painting.  I love painting!  Once I’m done painting I can scrape the foam padding off the floor, install the laminate flooring, and then install the disco ball.
    Oh yeah. I own a disco ball. 
  • Fighting with the Flippers

    Fighting with the Flippers

    My episode of My First Place (“Fighting with the Flippers“) aired last night.  It was totally surreal.  Overall I’m thankful that HGTV edited me kindly, though I wish more of Bill’s hilariously witty comments made it into the episode.  I also wish they had shown a *little* more of the charming details like the arches in the bathroom and the coved ceilings.  I also wish they hadn’t played the soundbite talking about art deco tile when they were showing the non-deco tile in the bathroom.

    Coved ceiling!
     

    Even though I have a thousand pictures, I forgot how empty the room looked after the reveal when compared to now.  That was such a fun day.

    Fun’s over now, though.  I have to get to work on the basement.  I still haven’t been given a vampire boyfriend so I have to do it all by myself.  Hmph!

  • Holidays in the house

    Holidays in the house

    Thanksgiving was a screaming success.

    Photo: Bill Tennant

    My parents sent flowers!

    We also had a Latke Off! for Hanukkah.  I made latkes from purple potatoes.  
    . .  . and Scott’s latkes came from a box.  They were beautiful looking.  They totally tasted better, too.

     
    I didn’t have any Hanukkah music so we settled on the soundtrack from Dirty Dancing. 

    I made caramel corn for my mom from this recipe and promptly ate half of it myself.

    If you had told me last year at this time that I would close out the year as a homeowner and the feature of an episode on HGTV I would have laughed and laughed.  Happy new year!
  • Happy winter!

    Happy winter!

    Snow!  In Portland!  Hooray!
  • Reupholstering the dining room chairs.

    Reupholstering the dining room chairs.

    I bought my dining room set at a consignment shop called Rerun.  I intended to reupholster the chairs early on, but here we are six months later . . .

    I finally decided on a fabric from Tonic Living and it was a snap to change it out.  I flipped over the chair and removed the screws that hold the seat to the chair frame.  Then I began the process of removing all the staples.  I used a screw driver and a pair of pliers.

    Oh hey, there was another layer of fabric under there!

    And another.  Ick.

    I made sure to not vacuum before I put the fabric face down on the ground.  That way the fabric would get nice and coated with dog hair.
    I cut out a piece of fabric and started stapling it to the chair bottom.  I found this staple gun when I bought the house in a kitchen drawer, along with the aforementioned hammer, and a wrench.  I love free tools.

    Then I trimmed the excess fabric away and screwed the seat back onto the chair frame.

    It looks so much better, yes?

    Then I started on the rest of the chairs.  And promptly ran out of staples.  Damn it.
  • Fun finds on craigslist

    Fun finds on craigslist

    Since moving in, I’ve had my record player on a stool and the LPs in a cardboard box.  It didn’t look great.  Also, my parents, who had bequeathed me a sizable portion of their LP collection, were coming to visit and I wanted to show that I appreciated them and used them.  There’s nothing better than a dance party with records.

    I found these bookcases on craigslist and the guy was also selling a display box. 
     
    I cleaned up all the pieces with some Howard Feed-N-Wax wood preserver and bought some metal legs at Ikea for the display box.  I think it’s just the right size and height for my record player and LPs.  My only regret is that I didn’t buy the second display box he was selling.  I think I could have added legs, fashioned a door for it, and turned it into bar storage.
    A pretty rad thing happened when I sold my old pressboard bookcases on craigslist: the buyer told me he grew up on my street and used to play in my house in the 60s!  He asked if the “little house” was still in the backyard.  I told him we had to remove the shed because it was rotting and he told me how much fun he had playing in it as a kid.  He also told me that the family that lived here had two little girls and that they moved to Texas.  It makes me really content to know that people had fun and were happy in this house. 
  • A wonderful surprise

    A wonderful surprise

    If I’m watching TV I’m either knitting, doing the crossword puzzle, or scanning craigslist.  I can’t just sit and watch TV anymore, which is actually really annoying.  I found an amazing fireplace screen on craigslist one night and joking sent a link over Twitter and said, “Someone buy me this.  I’m serious, I love it.”

    I came home one night the following week after work to find this:

    I think it’s amazing.

    And I think it looks great in the room, which has gone through a lot of rearranging.
     
     
    I will not apologize for my Battlestar Galactica prints.

    The fireplace screen was left, of course, by Bill.  He happened to be going to Sellwood, where the seller was, and picked it up.  He had been carrying it around in his car, waiting for a good time to sneak it into the house.  And yet I still made him help me with the installation of the garbage disposal.  Seriously, I’m a rotten friend.  I don’t deserve him.
  • A proper range hood

    A proper range hood

    There was no ventilation in my kitchen over the stove.  I did have this charming little shelf, however.

    I love that shelf.
    But trying to sear meat or do anything that created a lot of steam was a real pain.  I’d end up smoking out the whole house.  I hired a contractor to put in a hood because it involved cutting cabinets, electricity, duct work, and going into the attic where THE SPIDERS, OH MY GOD, THE SPIDERS are.
    Did I mention I did this the Friday before Thanksgiving?  I’m stupid.
    This was messy business.
    It was totally worth the mess.  He even cut down my shelf so I still have a place to put my salt and pepper. I’m not sure how I would have pulled off Thanksgiving without it.  My only regret is that I bought a used hood on craigslist rather than buy a new one.  This hood is old so it will be difficult or impossible to get replacement parts, and it’s LOUD.  Good thing I’m sort of deaf.  Bummer to be my perfect-hearing roommate!
  • Trees! Plants!

    Trees! Plants!

    Remember these?

    They were replaced by the teensy tiniest Japanese bloodgood maples. I’m now accepting bets for how long it will take for one of the neighbor kids to hang on them and damage them.

    This picture also serves as proof that there is absolutely no reason to water your lawn in the summer.  It comes back just fine in the fall!  I highly recommend digging holes on Thanksgiving weekend. All the rain makes the ground very soft and the extra turkey weight helps with the shoveling.
    I also did some planting in the side yard: shade loving ferns, bleeding hearts, and hostas.
     
    No trampy ferns in my yard.  These ferns are *ladies*.