Just a girl with a hammer

  • The new garbage disposal!

    The new garbage disposal!

    When my parents came to visit they generously asked about a housewarming gift, and was there anything (aside from many, many fattening and delicious restaurant meals) that they could get me?  I responded, “Oh, gosh, I don’t know, you don’t need to get me anything . . . A GARBAGE DISPOSAL, ohpleasebuymeanewgarbagedisposal.”  I’m subtle.

    My old garbage disposal had some bolts and metal parts rattling around in it when I moved in.  I fished those metal parts out, but I suspect they were pieces that actually helped the disposal work.  The disposal could sort of grind up things, as long as they were soft, like tomatoes.  Anything more solid than that (apple peels, potato, lettuce) would just sort of bounce around in there until I fished it out with a spoon.  My roommate had more faith in it and would put all manner of things down it, which I would later have to fish out.

    My parents and I trekked to The Home Depot and looked at disposals.  They have a helpful little box with buttons that let you hear how loud the disposal is supposedly going to be.  They have a button for the super expensive disposal (Insinkerator) which sounds like your mother, humming as she rocks you to sleep.  The next step down (still an Insinkerator) sounds marginally louder, more like someone clearing their throat.  The third button is for the Badger brand.  It sounds like a motorcycle which is being destroyed by a snarling bear with a chainsaw.

    “You’re not getting a Badger,” Dad decreed.

    They bought me an Insinkerator and even offered to pay to have it installed but I’M AN IDIOT, so I said I’d install it myself [meaning: I’d call Bill and make him flounder through it with me].  How hard could it be?

    You just remove the pipes and cut the electricity to the old disposal.
    You twist the unit off of the flange and disconnect the electrical wires.
    Easy, breezy!  We’re like a Covergirl commercial up in here, except that I neglected to shower that day, so Bill got to be all cozy with my stink, under the sink.  I’m a rotten friend.

    Spend the next TWO AND A HALF HOURS trying to unscrew the flange without damaging your very old sink.  Call your friend Keith, who’s in grad school and trying to write papers, for help.  Call the hardware store and see if they have any tips.  Roll your eyes when they tell you they’re not familiar with the Sinkmaster 750 and just how old is it?  Finally take a screwdriver and hammer and bust the flange off, using brute force and a couple of good swear words.
    High fives!  Your flange has been freed in a storm of winging plastic shards!

    Give Bill a beer while you speculate about what type of superepoxy they used to glue this cusser together.  It was probably the stuff that they use to hold bridges together.
    Start installing the new disposal.  This is so much easier!
    Bemoan the fact that your old pipes don’t fit up with your new disposal.  What a difference an inch makes.  Put all these pipes in a bag and take them to The Home Depot where you buy new pipes and extenders.  The next step is very important:
    *Leave the bag of old pipes sitting on the floor at The Home Depot.*
    Get home and realize that you left the bag of old pipes at the hardware store and pray that your new pipes will all work.
    Thank your lucky stars that they work!  Make sure that one page of instructions, the part where they tell you to punch a hole in the dishwasher input so your dishwasher can drain through the unit, is folded under so you don’t see it.  Test the disposal and scratch your head over the fact that your dishwasher now won’t drain.  Really start sweating because Thanksgiving is next week and you’re hosting ten people and sweet jesus, do you ever need your dishwasher to be working.
    Take the disposal apart and then finally realize that you missed a page of instructions.  Punch that small-but-important hole in the dishwasher input and then marvel over the fact that everything works and nothing seems to be leaking.
    Buy Bill dinner and promise him that you’ll never ask him to help with home repair again, but keep your fingers crossed behind your back.
    Get super excited about your new disposal which is super quiet and super effective.  Ignore that guy from high school on Facebook who claims he used to be a plumber and that garbage disposals cause more problems than they fix.  Also ignore your friend who tells you that you should never put food down your drain because it’s bad for the water quality.  Pout that NOBODY EVER LETS ME HAVE ANY FUN while you feed orange peels down the drain, just for fun. 
    Yay!
  • Don’t look under the trivet.

    Don’t look under the trivet.

    In my kitchen, adjacent to the old fan in the ceiling that needs to be removed, was a wooden trivet.

    I’ve been ignoring it for almost six months. There’s no reason to screw a trivet into your kitchen ceiling, therefore there *must* be something really terrible behind it.  The week before I was to host Thanksgiving I decided to deal with this.  I know.  I know!  I’m dumb; there’s no reason to start projects like these when you’re attempting to orchestrate a meal for ten people.
    Hey there, big hole.  Holes are actually no big deal, but this hole had screws that extended from the attic, through the lathe and plaster, and past where the kitchen ceiling should end.  Hence the former owner screwing a trivet there instead.
    Ha ha, just kidding, that makes no sense, no matter how you dice it.
    In order to patch the ceiling I would need to get the screws reversed enough to not poke through.  I didn’t want to climb into my attic and dig around it the insulation for the rogue screws for a lot of good reasons, but mostly because of SPIDERS, OH MY GOD, SPIDERS.  I decided to try and reverse the screws from below.  I tried a number of things that didn’t work and then one thing that worked really well.  This was my recipe for success:

    Take your drill.  I love my drill.  There would much wailing if anything happened to it.

    Remove the drill bit.

    Spin it until the grabbers are extended really far.

    Tighten the grabbers around the end of the screw.  Then depress the trigger and reverse the screws back into the ceiling.  I’m sure an expert would tell you that this is back for your drill or bad for the screws or bad for the environment, but I don’t care (and you shouldn’t) because it worked.  Once that’s taken care of you can patch the ceiling like normal.

     Apply your patch.

    Apply spackle, using a large trowel.  Let it dry and apply more if you need to. 

    Sand it.  Boy does this part ever suck.  Wear a mask and protective eyewear and know that it won’t make a lick of difference because you will be *coated* in dust.  Think about how you should be making cranberries and sewing napkins for Thanksgiving dinner.  But also think, “Hey, now I have a trivet.”

    Slap a coat of paint on the ceiling and think, “I’ll texture that spot on the ceiling later.”  Ignore for 3-5 years.  Enjoy your free trivet!
  • Adventures in plumbing or why you should never use Drano

    Adventures in plumbing or why you should never use Drano

    My parents came to visit me for the weekend and to see the house for the first time.  It was awesome.  They flew out on a Monday morning and I took the day off so I could go to breakfast with them and then unwind from the busy weekend.  I planned to do laundry and then watch a lot of DVDs in bed, maybe read a little.  I went to breakfast with them, raked my yard, and started a load of laundry.

    My washing machine has a good old-fashioned hose that hooks over the side of the utility sink in the basement.  So all the lint and hair and general yuckiness that comes out with the gray-water goes down the sink drain.  In one of my last places, a 1920 Victorian, our basement sink was constantly clogging because of this.

    My basement sink has always been slow and one side was essentially clogged.  With my laundry chugging away I decided to snake the left side of the sink a little.

    Big mistake.  I have no idea what I did but instead of a slow drain I now had a blocked drain.  Like, really really blocked.

    Backstory: this incredibly heavy cement sink has a lot of cracks in it.  When I moved in I used Drylok to patch the cracks.  Drylok is a cement-like product that dries quickly and can be used on active leaks.  It dries so fast that you better have everything ready to go before you add water or you’ll end up with a paperweight in about two minutes. Back to the clogged sink, I decided to grab some Drano from the store.  It worked when we lived in the Victorian, it would work now, right? 

    It didn’t work.

    It turns out Drano melts Drylok. It melts cement!  IT MELTS CEMENT.  So I had two full, backed up sinks that were now leaking Drano and water all over my basement floor.  It was like a nightmare.

    Once all the water had finally drained out the cracks, down the floor, and into the floor drain (thank heavens that didn’t decide to clog), I knew I had to take the P-trap apart and break up whatever clog was there.  I had a metal snake (just like this one) but I’d never used it before.  I took the P-trap apart, hoping that the clog would be IN the P-trap.  That would be really easy to fix.
    It wasn’t in the P-trap.
    It was about four feet into the drain.  I had a really hard time getting the snake past that section.  I had to poke a little, twist the snake, poke again, hoping I was finding a weak spot in the clog.  Then I tried to rasp the snake back and forth along the clog, hoping to break it up.
    This is the part where I tried unsuccessfully to break up the clog using just my hands and the snake.  It didn’t work and I ended up telling the roomie, “Don’t do laundry,” going to work, and attacking it the next day.  Long story short: you need to spin the snake to break up the clog.  I used my cordless drill.
    Feed the snake in gently, past the clog.
     
    Attach the end securely to your cordless drill and start spinning, slowly at first.  I spun the whole length of the pipe, then moved the end of the snake to where the big clog was (you could still feel it in there, pulling on the snake), and spun it again.  All sorts of gunk came out with the snake but I won’t post pictures because this is a family blog, but know that it was all very dry-heavey and sort of fantastic at the same time.  Then I put the P-trap back together and ran gallons and gallons of very hot water down the drain.
     
    Hallelujah! 
    In doing some research while my sink was slowly draining Drano and water all over the basement floor, I learned that This Old House recommends the following plan of attack with clogs in old houses:
    1. Plunge the drain.  This will often break up whatever is down there enough to flush it away.
    2. Snake the drain. 
    3. Flush the pipe with copious amounts of hot water.
    4. Call a plumber if these things don’t work.
    Nowhere do they ever recommend using Drano.  LISTEN TO THIS OLD HOUSE, ya’ll.
  • A snapshot of my mind lately

    A snapshot of my mind lately

    I wandered into the kitchen to strain the chicken stock I’d made the night before.  Then I remembered that I needed to put laundry in the machine so I went and grabbed the basket.  But then I got hungry so I started to make a snack. Then as I was sitting there, eating my snack (laundry basket by my feet), I decided I should finally hang the light fixture I bought.  So I pulled out the ladder and did that.

    Is this what dementia is like?  Will there are least be good drugs to look forward to?
  • The bedroom

    The bedroom

    I love my bedroom.  I’ve spent the least time and energy on this room so it has evolved really slowly.  It was, like almost every other in the room in the house, painted two different colors.

     I sewed curtains for the room and had planned to paint the walls gray but I just couldn’t find the right color.  My coworker gave me a bunch of paint samples and I ended up really liking one of the greens.
    Cilantro cream by Behr. I love waking up in this room. 
    I wanted something dramatic for behind my bed, as the prints I had hanging seemed out of proportion with the room.

    I settled on an outdoor shade. $30 at Lowe’s!  I found a bigger lamp (too big? what do you think?) at a consignment shop for $20.
    I really wanted a mid-century modern dresser for this wall. 
    And you know what’s crazy?  I found this one at the thrift shop by work for $65.  It’s gorgeous.  It was made in Portland by the B.P. John furniture company.  Finding it was like something out of The Secret, right?

    A quick coat with the wood conditioner and it was shiny and newish looking.  I kept feeling like the corner with the chair needed something (aside from a new reading chair).  I kept trying different artwork there until I realized that it doesn’t need art at all. 
    It needs a lamp, no?  I love this one.  I’ll never buy it, but a girl can dream. 
    I’m still not crazy about the green curtains with the green walls, so I’ll probably end up sewing new curtains at some point.  But my roommate came in recently and ooohed, “Oh, it’s an ADULT room.”  Hearing that made me jump up and down and clap my hands like a kid. Having a room I love like this is the fun part of being an adult.  The bills and the gray hair, not so much.
  • Uses for an undead boyfriend

    Uses for an undead boyfriend

    I’ve been reading the Twilight series recently. I never got around to reading the fourth book, so I reread the first three.  If you’ve been living in a cave, the Twilight series is a tweener juggernaut about a vampire boy in love with a human girl, written by Stephenie Meyer.  She’s a terrible writer but the underlying story is fun and addictive.  In her mythology vampires don’t sleep during the day and can basically pass as human most of the time.

    And you guys, her vampires are made of glitter.  GLITTER!

    Ms. Meyer could write a lecture series on Knowing Your Target Audience.  The only way preteen girls could eat up the story more is if Edward (lead vampire boyfriend) rode in on Zac Efron.  Actually, that might be a very different story, one that a mormon like Ms. Meyer probably wouldn’t write. 

    But better than the whole glitter thing I found myself thinking about what I could do with an undead boyfriend.  While I was getting my beauty sleep and otherwise preparing myself to be a productive member of society, my undead boyfriend/husband could be priming the basement for me.  What else is he going to do–watch me sleep?  That’s creepy.

     
    Because painting a basement? It sucks eggs.  There’s just no venting it sufficiently. Vampires don’t breathe, so there would be no reason to worry about wearing a mask or risk of cancer.  While he took care of the basement I could address more important activities like getting a haircut and eating cookies. 
    I was at work this week, waiting for my oatmeal to cook and flipping through the Sunday ads, when I saw that drywall primer was on sale.  I took this as a sign from the universe that I should prime this weekend.  I should have ignored the universe and watched movies instead.  First coat:

    Second coat:
     
    I still need to paint the ceiling, the edges, and throw on a third coat to the walls.  Then I need to finish all the edges where the drywall meets and basically fill in the cracks and gaps that are EVERYWHERE in the basement.  And then deal with the flooring.  I sort of want to throw up my hands because I’m not a babysteps kind of girl.  I like staying awake for 48 hours straight, working on nothing by coffee and granola bars, and getting shit done.  Not only do I lack the funds to finish the basement anytime soon, but there’s so much labor to be put in.
    Universe, get on that vampire boyfriend!

  • My house has a good personality, apparently.

    The other day I was returning from work and there was someone sort of parked in the middle of the street, in front of my house.  I pulled into the driveway and started to head into my kitchen.  I heard someone behind me, on the driveway, calling, “Excuse me? Miss!”  I don’t know why, but I hightailed it inside. I wasn’t in the mood for whatever they were selling.  And it freaks me out when people I don’t know come to the side door.

    Then I remembered that car in the middle of the road and the driver that looked lost.  I opened my front door and a woman came running.  It turns out she was a realtor looking for comps for a client who was selling their house in the vicinity.  She handed me her card, so she obviously wasn’t a murderer.

    “Is your house in decent shape on the inside?”
    “Um, yeah?  It was a foreclosure, so it had some problems.”
    “But it has wood floors?”
    “Yes.”
    “Great.  I’m selling a house for a client and I wanted to show him other houses that are nice inside but look crappy from the outside.”

    So glad to be of service! Me and my ugly house are going to put on sweatpants and eat some ice cream.

  • The dining room, or how I spent my labor day weekend.

    The dining room, or how I spent my labor day weekend.

    My dining room is odd.  When I bought the house the trim was missing from an entire wall where there had clearly been water damage at some point.  I figured I’d have to spend the next year visiting The Rebuilding Center looking for matching trim.  Then there’s the half carpet situation.  The wood floor actually extends underneath and beyond where the carpet ends, but only by 8 inches.

    I have a theory about this.  My realtor thinks I’m crazy.

    In Portland Maps, under the section where they break down the square footage, there’s a carport that measures 140 square feet.  I don’t have a carport.  I think this section of the dining room used to be the carport. 

    It would explain why I have an electrical panel in the dining room. It would explain why there’s wood flooring only in half the room. 

    Anyhoosy, the dining room was a bit of a mess.  Paint that didn’t meet the corners, missing trim, electrical outlets hanging out of the wall.  That first week I was working on the house my electrician friend Josh came and took care of all the safety hazards.  He cleaned up the bad wiring in the attic, anchored the electrical outlets properly, and did a once-over to make sure I didn’t go up in smoke.  One day I was home, recovering from dental work, when I noticed some boards high on a shelf in my garage.

    The missing trim! It was all there!  Once I got that up I was motivated to paint the trim.

    Once the trim was painted I got the bug to paint the whole room.  I had originally wanted to paint the dining room a steel blue and the living room a deep warm orange.  But I sort of liked having the rooftop painting against the green . . . it made parts of the painting pop in a way I didn’t think they would on a blue wall.  So I put some paint samples up and found a pale green I liked.
    A funny thing happened at the Home Depot.  The color swatch I put on the wall was a Glidden paint sample.  When I went to purchase a full gallon I asked for it to be put in a Behr base. I figured they’d grab the color coding from the Glidden paint and just put it in the Behr base.  Instead they used the color matching computer program.  The resulting paint did NOT match the paint sample I put on the wall.  It had a sick fluorescent tinge to it.

    It was the color of toothpaste!  Seriously:

    It made me crazy, so crazy I couldn’t stand it.  The next day I went and bought more paint samples.  Two days later, Labor Day, I went back to Home Depot and got a new paint color.  It wasn’t as gray as I wanted, but I could live with it.  It’s very pretty in the morning light.  At night it almost has a metallic sheen.

     
     
    Soon I’ll reupholster the chairs with a more vibrant pattern in an orange or yellow tone.  Someday I’ll have the floors refinished and extended so I can get rid of that crazy zigzag carpet.  For now the paint demons have been quieted, though I’m sure they’ll start screaming again soon.  I never though I was compulsive until I bought a house; now I’m pretty sure I could paint trim for a millennium and I don’t know if I’d be in heaven or hell.  I’m learning so much about myself, mainly that there’s a lot of crazy in here.  Or maybe that’s the paint fumes talking.
  • The arbor vitae

    The arbor vitae

    The former owner’s lady friend decided to plant eleven arbor vitae in front of the house, along the parking strip.  They were about a foot tall when she planted them, according to my next door neighbor.  They’re a little bigger now.

    It was impossible to see when I backed out the driveway, and it made it difficult to see if there was oncoming traffic when you came around the corner.  A lot of people plant arbor vitae in their side or back yards to create privacy but I rarely see them in the front yard.  I hated them.
    My friend David is a farmer/landscaper/savior who volunteered to remove the arbor vitae.  All eleven of them.  For free.  He’s amazing.
    He started by sawing down the main body.  He was really fast at it.

    Once most of it had been removed he very laboriously popped the stump and root system.  He used a long pry bar and a whole lot of muscle.  While he worked to remove the stumps I would chop down the next tree.

    It took all day.  I’m really slow with an axe.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    I felt oddly naked inside the house now.  I was so used to being hidden behind those overgrown shrubs.  So many of my neighbors stopped by to say how happy they were to see them gone.  And now I can back out of my driveway without getting sideswiped.  David came the day we pulled out the furnace to yank out the last three stumps, finished in record time, then helped us pull out the furnace.  Such a badass.  His fiancee is a lucky lady.
  • The new furnace

    The new furnace

    I don’t know why, but hiring professionals to do things makes me nervous.  The crew at Jacobs did a fantastic job on my furnace, but having to be present in the house while they installed got me all amped up.  What was that noise?  Does the fact that he asked X question mean that he doesn’t know what he’s doing? 

    I would hate to work for me.  I’m particular, I ask too many questions, and I get my panties in a bunch at the drop of a hat.  The young man they sent over asked a lot of questions about where ducts should go, where venting should come out of the side of my house . . . things I felt he should know.  It turned out this is normal for them, that they like to arrange these things with the customer.  But at the time it seemed odd, and I came down after the first day to see the furnace looking like this:

    With the white PVC ducting crossing in front of the furnace it looked . . . homemade. Like something I would build.  It really bothered me.  I suspected it would bother me for the next 25 years.  I started to worry that they had sent me an installer who didn’t know what he was doing.  I called the company that morning and voiced my concerns.  They sent out a manager the next morning to smooth things over.
    The installer agreed to redo the PVC exhaust so it would run behind the unit.  The manager was really nice, he assured me that everything was going well.  I was feeling better.  Then he told me, “Relax.”
    Have you ever had a contractor or repairman tell you to relax?  It makes me do the opposite.  It makes me angry; it’s so dismissive.  Should a contractor ever stumble across this blog, DO NOT TELL WOMEN TO RELAX.
     In the end they redid the ducting and I’m very happy with everything.  The new furnace is so quiet you can barely hear it running.  I would use them again in a heartbeat, even if my blood still boils a little when I think about that stupid five letter word: relax.  Grrr.