Homeowner Thread

A quick update - the office told me their dude came by, tucked the cable under the siding as best he could, and I should "keep an eye on it."

Okaaaayyyyy....

So I'm not paying the fine(s) I guess? They were dreadfully nonspecific. I just sent in our monthly dues with no extra for the fines, and so help me, if I get another letter about the cable I will show up at the monthly board meeting and lose my shit. But I'm hopeful this is the end of it.

He did not say, and I did not think to ask.

I didn't do any home repair with it, but I am now the proud owner of a jigsaw. I had to cut a bunch of plexiglass plates for Wifemate for her gallery show that we're hanging tomorrow. I saved until today to sweep all that plastic dust off the deck, and I'm hoping it just magically disappeared. That said, I sure am glad to have had the outdoor space to do that job.

~90% done my large painting job... cannot wait to finish but of course the remaining parts are all up high or super finicky trim bits so it'll probably take me 2 more weeks

On the upside I guessed mostly right with my super expensive paint so should have half a can spare for touchups (and most importantly won't need to buy any more while not on sale.)

Bleh, found a bunch more spots where the paint either really soaked in or had a roller issue... got to grab some sticky notes and throw some on the wall wherever I see things in daylight since I always end up painting at night.

I have someone coming to measure the windows tonight, someone else measuring the kitchen countertops on Friday and a third person doing a walk through for our new tub/shower next week. The financials for all three projects are squared away, but this is going to be pretty disruptive.

We only have 1.5 baths and they said our shower will be out of commission for about 10 days. I said I could set up a temporary shower in the basement, but my wife is not having it. She wants us to get a hotel room.

I have bitched to the city about people using my street as a commercial parking lot before, but in my case it was a guy with a giant f-250 supercab attached to a 30 foot trailer who left both there nearly constantly. I finally snapped when one day I guess he had some employees over to watch the hockey game after work and there were more of his trucks/trailers down my street and literally nowhere for anyone to park on my block. Fuck that guy.

Totally makes sense. You should call the number too and tell them that he's running an airbnb and they should submit complaints about his house

The framing/roofing/siding on my "current stove, future fridge bumpout" is done. I'm going to insulate and hang drywall in it this weekend so I can have the place mostly together for a smoked meat extravaganza the following weekend then I'm going full-on winter construction/constant work zone for the duration.

The planned 2nd Biennial Columbus Day Deck Watersealing had to be regretfully postponed when, during prep yesterday, I discovered a hornet's nest wider than a cereal bowl inside the cover of my 99.9%-unused gas grill. Our deck is raised to the top level and has no stairs, so I was hilariously close to wheeling this thing right into the dining room before I thought to check the inside. (and I did still get stung when lifting the deck chairs and one of them was underneath the handle.) Anyway, I bombed the nest. Instructions on the spray can said to wait at least 24 hours before removing it, and indeed I did see some stragglers flying around this morning.

So I'm throwing out that gas grill anyway. In 13 years I've spent far more time telling the story of how I won it playing poker than actually using it. Also it occurred to me that since my parents are unlikely to ever actually visit this house, we don't have to keep the deck chairs they gave us and could just buy something we like instead.

Welp, I took the trash out and went to get another bag from under the sink and found a drip from the bottom of my disposal. It's probably old enough to be rusted through, but at least I caught this early and can tide over with a bucket until I get around to it. Replacements aren't too expensive and I can add this to the list of home repairs I can do. Of course, in another amusing example of work done to this house before I bought it, there isn't actually an outlet under the sink for the disposal, so I'll have to cut the hard wire and join to the new unit.

I had to do a little plumbing this afternoon, which is always an adventure in this old farmhouse.  With most of the pipes and fittings being over 60 years old, and with the entire house using very hard well water the first 30 or so years, anytime you take anything apart you are dealing with sediment and corrosion. Also, my folks did as much work on it as they could during construction, and used whatever they had access to to keep costs down. On one hand, some of the frame and the beams under the ground floor are oak, and cut from trees on the property, which is really nice. On the other hand, once when a pipe junction broke and I took it in to get a replacement, the guy told me "I have no idea what this kind of connection is supposed to be used for, but I can tell you, it's not for plumbing", which was not so cool.  That time I had to keep replacing pipe and joints until I got to a standard plumbing connection.
  We have an outside (freeze proof) hydrant to the back yard that is fed from the well. We also have another on the carport that is fed from the city water supply.  The one on the well water wouldn't shut off this afternoon.  I went to shut off the main valve coming out of the well pump, and it wouldn't close, either.
I unplugged the well pump and let the pressure run down, then made a run to town for a new hydrant, a couple of new valves, and some connectors and such.
  I unscrewed the old hydrant, took it apart and fixed a loose adjustment that then allowed it to close all the way. I wanted to put a shutoff inside where the hydrant goes out through the wall, but that would have made the pipes stick out too far from the wall, so that idea was abandoned.  
  After I hooked up the repaired hydrant, I took out the old main shutoff valve from the well pump. I replaced the old twist type valve with a 1/4 turn shutoff.  I had to take the assembly apart a few times to stop some small leaks at the joints. This wouldn't have been any big deal except I had to turn the pump on, let it build up pressure and check for any leaks, then unplug the pump and turn on the water till the pressure was released to make any changes, then turn the power back on, let it pressure up, and check for leaks again.  
  It took a couple of hours of messing around with it, the basement floor got wet. I got wet, but it seems to be all fixed now.

  I have another little project I finished up right before my foot surgery, that I'm a little bit proud of.  The front door of the farmhouse is really nice. It has concentric circles carved into 3 vertical squares in it's center, When I was a kid, these were always painted some colorful combination, often blue, white and pink.  For some reason, about 15 years ago, my mom had it repainted sort of brown which I hate. Anyway, this door has the doorknob set in about 6 inches or so from the edge, whereas most modern doors have the knob set in about 3 or 4 inches.  The locks and knobs needed replacing, and I looked for almost a year trying to find the right internals to make it work.  Everywhere I asked about it, most people had never heard of a doorknob offset like that. I talked to an old timer or two who told me they remembered that kind of setup, but didn't know any place that carried it. They said I might be able to find it online, but I couldn't find out that that particular part was called.  I didn't want to replace the door, because I really like that woodwork.
  Then, one day this summer, I had two service calls in southern Illinois, and the road from one to the other was one I almost never take.  I found one of those tiny semi-ghost towns with some 100 year old brick buildings downtown and a few scattered businesses and junk stores scattered around about 2 miles off the highway on a side road.  There was a former lumber yard that had been turned into a huge junk store.  I talked to the 90 year old owner, and he told me he did some real estate business and bought old buildings, and brought their inventories there. This place had everything.  He had tons of hardware. I told him about the door parts and he said he had some shelves full of locks and hardware.  
  After digging through this stuff of 15 or 20 minutes, I found exactly the part I was looking for. He said he had never seen one like that before, and charged me $1 for it.  It works perfectly, and now we have new locks, and a working doorknob.