# 1958 Ranch Home, Full of Character - First Home, First Major Project



## Thadius856

*The House*

I came across this home, of all places, online. Indeed, the images you're about to see are the ones that were listed on the MLS entry. I did not take these, nor do I feel there are enough to adequately show the "before" condition of the home. They're intent on showing the good side of the property, while I'll be focusing on a few of the negative aspects. All the same, I didn't take move-in photos, so they'll have to be enough, along with my words.

Built in 1958, this home was one of the first subdivisions that established this city. Originally a railroad-driven community, these homes were built economically for the working class. As a result, the entirety of my subdivision was built with flat roofs. In the last fifty years, most have been replaced with a sloped roof, including this one. Luckily, I have one of the few that was built on footings, as most of my neighbors "enjoy" slab-on-grade.

It was originally approximately 1200 sq ft, compared to the 950-1000 sq ft neighbors, but underwent a garage conversion some time in the last 10 years. At 1390 sq ft, there's certainly enough room for the two of us. In fact, we had enough space left over that I moved my father in. He's a career carpenter, so there's no lack of tools and construction expertise should I need it. Sometimes he swings a hammer around here, but mostly it's me doing the fiddling.

The entire home was originally stucco'd, in that horrible shade of avocado that can't be described, but is best seen on antique appliances. Over the years, the front was given vinyl siding, then vinyl dual-pane windows on all sides, and lastly the stone vaneer that you see here. In this weather, it _looks_ like it's painted yellow, but it's not. No, the vinyl has slowly aged. In normal sunlight, the top of the vinyl appears this color yellow while the bottom appears bone white. The color scheme just doesn't work for me, though you'll notice that between the stone, roof and scant number of trim pieces, I'm fairly locked into at least half of it being earthy tones.


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## Thadius856

The rear of the home isn't terribly different in appearance. Note that this picture was taken before the bank's contractor cleaned the place up. Unfortunately, that means they took the wood too, despite my offer being placed contingent on an as-is status, including the fencing material.

A keen eye will note that this covered patio was an addition, as was the one in front. Originally only a 12" overhang, we not have about 8' to work with in the rear. It's hard to say when it was done, but certainly the addition is older than the current roofing, as I can see the tail ends of wood shingles poking out where they overlap.

Of course, all that cleanup means that the area on the left was completely cleared, even of the split, stacked and dried firewood. Bah!


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## Thadius856

Looking back at the front door, you'll notice that both the entry and den have a beatiful hardwood covering. This isn't some random pergo, no sir. It measures in at 3/4" all the way around, and appears to be tongue-and-groove. I wouldn't be surprised if it was original, as it has so much character and isn't matched like anything I've seen for sale today.

The piano, much like the fencing material, was expected to be included. Not only was it removed, but the hardwood was gouged when they removed it.  I guess it's just as well... I wouldn't have had time to play it anyway.

You'll notice that the door frame is missing trim. In fact, about half of them are. Only two windows had any coverings at all: 1" white faux wood blinds. At least they're decent Levelors.

This room features six 6" cans in a 2x3 pattern with the ceiling fan in the middle. I haven't measured it, but suspect it to be approximately 48". You can see the interesting ceiling pattern going on here... a dark base coat of a stucco-like material with a lighter coat artistically troweled on over it. It's like this in all common areas of the home, except the garage conversion (to the right, not pictured).


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## Thadius856

The converted garage area makes a great living room. Recessed approximately 12", it sits on the old garage slab. This is also the only room in the house where the hardwood is a laminate, though at least of high quality.

Only about half the length of the room is shown. At about 11'6" x 16', it's a fairly decently sized room. The 6" buildup for the wood stove is not a feature we ever liked, and the inspector warned against using it without sweeping out the chimney's creosote buildup anyway. We plan for it to go, but that will have to come some time down the road, as the stove is _massive_ and wouldn't surprise me if it was over 500 lbs.

Note the odd heights of the receptacles, cable and phone. The receptacles were wired when the garage was unfinished, so they were framed out 12" up. The cable and phone were added at different times, at seemingly random heights. In fact, the cable hookup was a hole straight through from the exterior directly below the DirectTV dish without a box in the wall and using an indoor RadioShack cord. :huh:


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## Thadius856

Ah, the bathroom. This one boggles the mind. As in the other common areas, the ceiling here is two-toned stucco. But two different tones of blue! And, unfortunately, it's cracking along one edge near the shower. I assume it's only a matter of time before it all falls, as it doesn't appear to be sealed in any way. Oh yeah, and all the walls are stucco too...

The tile is brand new, and fairly good quality. The sink and medicine cabinet are straight out of a box, and are the only light woods in the home. Suffice to say, they don't match well.

Notice the only outlet in the bathroom? Yeah, that's right, above the toilet paper holder. GFI? Pffft, nope. Decorator plate, though. Sigh.

One odd thing here is that the threshold between the tile and hardwood in the hallway here is about 2" tall. It feels really odd on the feet. I imagine that it was prompted by a toilet or bath tub flood going down the hall, but can't be certain. Also, somebody thought it would be a cool idea to chop 4" off this hollow-core door from each end, making for a rather odd look when it's closed up.


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## Thadius856

And... the galley kitchen. My least favorite layout, plus it's rather small. However, I don't do too terribly much cooking and it didn't seem to bother her too much. I think she's just happy to have a place to call all her own!

This is probably the worst thought-out room in the house, and it hurt its valuation. The cabinetry is all out of a box, middle-of-the-road quality stuff. However, it leaves odd gaps here and there. There's less than 1" between the fridge and the cabinet when it's fully against the wall. Missing baseboards. Peeling sheet linoleum. Random spaces on either side of the fridge with nothing there.

These cabinets are in bad need of some TLC. A little oil will do them wonders. The alabaster ceiling light covers are one of the defining features when we decided on style, even though they're the 2/$20 ones from Lowes. Between that, the wood, and a few brushed nickel accents we're adding, there's not much need for ornamentation. Though we did wish they'd bought the alabaster/nickel ones, instead of the alabaster/white ones. But now I'm nitpicking. 

I'll probably let her go nuts with a few boxes of sticky tiles while I design and save up for new cabinetry, countertops and flooring. They'll just have to hold up while we pay off my credit cards and her car.


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## Thadius856

Lastly, you see our little shed. Many of the neighbors have these, and I absolutely love this little bugger. It's ready to go, and has already saved plenty of headaches with regard to placement of tools and project materials. It's fairly new, and in great condition.

It has a small pathway, which passes right by our old oak. I'm not too fond of the slate-like rock which was placed there, recessed haphazardly into the grass. There's also no power to the shed, and that's something I'd like to have at night. :laughing:

Note that you don't get to see any pictures of our three bedrooms. The front one, as I mentioned, is our den. It's terribly messy right now with all my electronic goodies that I haven't gotten to setting up just yet. One fried motherboard waiting for warranty service from one computer, two bad sticks of RAM from another, and a jammed up printer are keeping me from setting everything up. It's about 9'10" x 11'0" if I remember correctly, meaning that my two 5'x5' L-shape computer desks just won't fit side-by-side (in a U-shape) the way I want them without blocking the closet. Ugh.

The master just got a nice dose of 9-piece bedroom set from the classifieds. We have a medium blue accent wall, which I'm not terribly fond of, and one of the 4 slightly different shades of taupe on each of the other walls. You guessed it, 3/4" hardwood.

The second bedroom was by far the worst. At some point, it looks like there was a roof leak. One corner has a small dark patch on the hardwood and a very slightly bubbling of the paint being dragged down the wall in the corner. We ran the hose on the area for an hour while watching in the room, in the crawlspace and in the attic. We haven't found any leaks yet, so I'm going to assume for now that it was repaired but that the room was never spruced back up.

This room has several colors of tan, sometimes multiple per wall, different by several shades. There was some of that really old avocado showing in one window casing, and some very splattered door trim, complete with drywall texture overspray.


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## Thadius856

Now that I've shown you the move-in condition of the home, I'll catch you up to speed. I don't have pictures along the way, and most of the projects aren't interesting enough to solicit multiple images each anyway.

Just taken from the street, you can tell that we went a different direction with the color scheme. I let the little lady pick the colors, and she came back to me with this baby blue and sandy off-white trim. There's a rich brown ("mexican sand") accent, but we haven't cracked that can yet... it'll be mostly for the undersides of the overhangs and patio covering.

Took this picture in the mid-morning, and you can see the light exposure that the master bed gets on the north side. Definitely need some drapes. Just dug up and re-seeded the small patch of grass near the door. You can ignore the ladder... we were about to wash the van just off-frame. Also removed a brick border running from the front door to the North, which was causing water to pool and sit against the house when it rained.

Next we see the south side wall. Apparently there was a window before the garage was converted, which as very poorly stucco'd. I'll go back and fix it properly some time down the road. Note the odd RG-6 drop from the old satellite location, going straight through the stucco. I'll be re-running that drop through the attic later as well.

The rear is drastically different. The gutter slope had a few low spots, and that's been adjusted and cleaned out. Two outdoor ceiling fans were added, both remote controlled. The black bages are 30-40# of rock for the pathway, where we dug up the makeshift flagstone path. You can definitely see where the paint ran out, and we're waiting on another Sherwin sale. On the left is temporary storage for the flagstone, brick, borders, etc. that we removed.

The North side has not been painted yet, so not pictured. However, we did remove 3-4" of soil that was causing a drainage issue and touching the fence, as well as a 8' section of tree root.


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## Thadius856

The entry looks much the same as before. Fresh paint (mauve?) in most rooms so far. New faux wood blinds. Cleaned up the floors a bit, added some orange oil.

Was troubleshooting the under-window receptacle not powering appliances. Pulled the receptacle, found no power on this leg of the circuit. Found the conductor abandoned inside the switch box for no apparent reason. Reconnected it, and replaced the receptacle for a decorator that matched the one on the left. Also found that the front patio light wasn't getting power, and traced it to a loose negative wagging around in the wire nut. Previous HO used one size too small for number of conductors. Also added grounds to both receptacles pictured from the crawlspace.

Patched the 4-5" diameter drywall hole (that was very poorly patched) where the door knob used to strike. Previous HO added a screw-in spring at the bottom of the door to stop it from recurring, but the rubber stopper fell off and so I was left with a sharp spring and a hole in the base board.  Decided to go with a reinforcer instead, if/until I find a solution I'm happier with.

The recessed garage conversion, what I consider the living room, was very dark. In the center of the ceiling was a ceiling fan bracket w/ motor and single light kit, but no arms, blades or shrouds. It was ungrounded, without a ceiling box, with hot wire connected unswitched. Needless to say it was promptly removed and disconnected in the attic, though I've left the wiring where it was, and you can see the wire nuts faintly.

To solve the darkness problem, I've installed 5 pendants; 3 behind and above the seating and 2 along the far wall. Had wanted something less ornate, but stumbled upon these marked down from $55 to $11, less my discount. Wanted a sixth, but couldn't find another location that had them in stock AND on clearance. Go figure. There's room for a fan still, with about 4½' to the nearest light, so even a 70" is possible... though I'm keeping an eye out for a 52-60" without light kit (8' ceilings) in a design I like.


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## Thadius856

Ok, so the "entertainment center" is looking a bit like a pile of devices and wires. Well, it is. Had to take down all the speakers to paint a few days ago, and they haven't gone back up yet. I'm waiting until my new mounts come in from Monoprice. I'm ordering today, I promise this time! There will eventually be a banana plug wall plate beside each mount as well, with in-wall runs of the speaker wire. For now, thumbtacks will have to do. 

Being near-sighted, I figured a 60-65" TV at 8' was about what I wanted. The far-sighted one disagreed, leaning towards a 42". I ended up splitting the difference with a 50" 3D 1080p Smart TV (a great price point) and mounting it on one of the beefiest (and most expensive) mounts that Monoprice could offer. He thinks the TV is just the right size when against the wall, and when I'm alone I pull it 30" closer for a much more fulfilling experience.

Per Murphy's Law, the TV mount needed to bolt into two studs, and the TV ended up needing to be mounted 8" off center to either side of the room. Naturally, I chose away from the fireplace. I have plans for that area!

This is the seating, at nearly full recline. Even fully reclined, this set amazingly only needs about an additional 3" clearance to the rear as opposed to when seated upright. All 4 recline in the same manner, though one is currently blocked from being able to because of clearance.


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## Thadius856

This stubby wall has been the hardest yet for me. While I easily patched numerous holes in other parts of the living room, I had difficulty here. I had to remove 3 pieces of this single drywall sheet to connect the new circuit - for the 3 receptacles I added in the wall behind the seating - to the pendants, dual dimmers and the new laundry room light. A keen eye may see the difference in texture in person, but I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't created it.

My first attempt failed miserably to match the texture. I looked at the can before realizing it was oil-based orange peel, not the knockdown I needed. After a thorough sanding and refinishing, it went on smoothly and uniformly. The second time I tried, that is. :laughing: Definitely a good lesson to buy the right product the first time.

And lastly, the stove. You can already tell from previous pictures that it's a good 8" or so raised, putting it somewhere between the height of the rest of the house and the living room. That, and the chimney needs work. Oh, and I don't paticularly care for wood stoves. And that the stone and tile is soooooo ugry! I'll need several large guys to move this beast of a stove, then remove the stone and knock down the tile for replacement closer to flush. I plan on building in a whole-wall custom bookshelf here and using the few extra feet to allow the last recliner to... well... recline. 

More pics ready to go, but it's bed time.


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## Thadius856

Good morning!

Adding a new item to my to-do list: line my front lawn with 19 naked statues of David.


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## Thadius856

On to the second bedroom! As I said before, this was by far the most beat up living space. I spend a good two days in this tiny room, just shy of 10'x11'.

Holes all around were filled and/or meshed, sanded, got two more layers of compound with sandings, textured, primed and painted. Two holes about 2" in diameter about 2 inches of the floor were the hardest - it looked like somebody had put them there while using a prybar to remove the baseboard. It was absolutely critical to feather the compound on these two holes well for a seamless look later on.

Errr, time for another haircuit. Brb.

Mmk, no where was I. Ah, the East-facing window had some issues on the casing where spots of the corners were missing down to the drywall backing paper. A genereous over-fill of compound, then sanded down about 1/16" below where the finished version would end, fiber mesh, more compound. Same rigamarole from here.

Again found that the one receptacle had no power in this room. Removing the device, I discovered why: the last one had cooked from the inside out. It looks like it had been arcing onto the plug, because there was definitely some black burn spots. Updated both receptacles and the switch to match the other decorators.

The room previous had a flush-mount light with a bronze ring. It never had a cover when I bought the house, just the two horizontal socks hanging there. It worked, but when I went to replace it, it took a bit of the paint and paper with it. In hindsight, it would have been a good idea to cut around the fixture delicately with a razor knife before removing it. :whistling2: Hint, hint. Luckily, the new fixture was about 3" larger. Installed a plate for the door handle backstop and called it a day.

A tip that might not be obvious: make sure central A/C is disabled before painting a ceiling or adjoining wall. While it was only set on 75F and I had turned the vent to blocked, it was still cooling the vent cover enough to form condensation and really stretch out my drying time.


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## Thadius856

Next up, the hallway.

The switch on the right is to be replaced tomorrow. You see, about half of the switches and receptacles in the home are new decorator ones, by Cooper (aka Aspire) from Lowes. The other half are a mismatched jumble of randomness left over from 50 years of rolling upgrades.

Originally, I thought it a good idea to replace the older ones with the matching decoras. However, it seems to be the case that almost all of the decora switches "pop", and every decora device installed was done with backstabs, and even then poorly inserted. The result is that I could have really chosen any style I wanted at this point, because pretty much every device in the house has to be replaced, and in most cases, I'm having to clean up the connections with wire nuts and pigtails in each box as I go. The neighbor across the street told me of a massive surge that hit the town a few years back, so that may account for the popping.

All of the trim, with the exception of the frame for the door at the end of the hallway, received a fresh coat of white just a few hours ago while I was asleep. Quite a nice sight to wake up to.

I found the closet door in the laundry room a few weeks back, so it got re-hung last Friday. I got lucky that it was installed properly last time, as it's probably the smooth-operating door in the home at this point. :laughing:


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## Thadius856

Time for the master. It's still more or less in its original state, and one of the next projects on the list. Pay no mind to my mess; 12-hour shifts make it difficult to clean between work days.

I found these doors stashed away in the laundry room, devoid of their hardware. Two sliding door restoration kits later, and they're back in business. The brackets on the bottom aren't mounted ideally, so they had to be adjusted all the way down the take up about 15 degress of inward lean on each door. Previous HO graciously left knobs on there of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Ermmm... thanks. :huh:

The two holes probably shouldn't come as a surprise by now. They're patches, but not sanded, as I didn't want to expose the sanded surface to air until I was ready to prime. Note that previous paint job on the trim, and that it's the only in the house with that half-round design.

The dresser is a mess, I know. It's a very nice 9-drawer that I picked up with this Thomasville set from Craigslist. Note the odd place where the cable comes in on the left... about 4 feet off the floor, and the lack of baseboards again. This is the cable you see randomly on the front of the house. Again, used the beefiest bracket I could find for 31" of pull-out on this 50", same as in the living room.


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## Thadius856

Not much to say here. I took this one to show the color of the accent wall that the previous HO left. I'm not sure how they set this room up for their bed to be on that wall. The room just doesn't work in that orientation. (sorry about my mess, again )

Here's a better shot of that cable drop. I still don't understand that one.


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## Thadius856

Backing out to the dining room, you'll see the only window with moulding and a built-up sill. I really like this look, and will probably match the other windows to its moulding, if I can find it reasonably priced. Though I'm not adverse to redoing that if I find another style that will save on project costs.

I picked up this solid wood table with two extensions and a total of 8 chairs. Two need a little glue, two have paint from the previous owner, and one needs reupholstering. But I still think I made out pretty decently for $100 total.


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## Thadius856

The office is an utter mess right now. It's pretty much my dumping ground when I find nick nacks while unpacking, bills, letters, etc. But, it does have the only alabaster light and ceiling texture that I could photograph with good lighting, and the light being off.

The rest of the common area ceilings are a bit less blotchy in pattern, but I think you cab get the idea of what they did here.


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## Thadius856

Lastly, the laundry room. This room is so beat up I don't know where to start!

There's the random lawn timer. The outlet with an oversized hole and a standard plate. The other oversized hole with an oversized plate that still wasn't big enough, so they crammed some wallboard compound in the top of the crack.

There's also two 6" holes that I didn't take a picture of. They're almost ready for primer now. The random receptacles half way up the wall, right beside the back door. That switch doesn't seem to go to anything.

Well, time for work! Hopefully my next post has more before-after photos of completed work.


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## Thadius856

The little lady came to me a couple of days ago. She was having a rather rough time at night traversing the hallway to the kitchen and bathroom without any light sources on. I suggested a night light, but then quickly rethought my plan once I realized that would require a new receptacle installed in the hallway (there aren't any). I haven't mapped the existing circuits yet, and with the some of the retrofits I've seen so far, I'd rather not open a wall without knowing I can add a new drop safely and in a timely manner.

(Plus, I hate how plug-in night lights look, especially at floor-level. A motion-activated valence was out of the question.)

An in-box nightlight seemed to be the solution. I skipped over the nightlight/switch combo device and the rear-lighted switch, right for a full rocker-size nightlight. This is what Lowes yielded. While not a perfect style match, I was happy to it fit the same style switch covers I've been putting in the rest of the home.


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## Thadius856

I removed the switch cover to find a substantial drywall gouge behind. Ugh, I hope it hides behind the next plate. I removed the switch to find a new work plastic box. Well, that's a little unusual considering the home's age. After determining that this wall much have been at least re-rocked in recent history, I snapped the box into tiny bits for extraction. I went to grab my reciprocating saw, but it was nowhere to be found. After 30 minutes of searching and puzzling, and a quick trip into the crawlspace :whistling2:, the stud face bracket was cut off flush and the last remaining bits of plastic removed.

The box was located at the last foot of the kitchen/hallway wall, where it ends to create the dining room. Just my luck, the end stud was framed about 4¾" OC from the previous one, leaving a nominal 3" cavity between them. A two-gang box requires 4". How lovely.

Deciding against chiseling out a portion of the next stud, the only solution was to go vertical. Together two old work boxes went, and into the hole. It was a tight fit, as the boxes were about 3/32" too large for the stud spacing after metal thickness was considered. There's no way it can come out, except in pieces. I had to be careful to keep the old wiring from getting caught as it went in, but it luckily came in from above the box.

It was time to make some pig tails!


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## Thadius856

While making my second pigtail, I was having trouble visualizing how this would all connect together. I ran over to the box and screamed when I realized what a few of you problably already have...

"Ah, damnit..."

"...that's a..."

Switch leg.  There's no neutral in this box. That's a switch leg on which the previous HO/electrician never marked the re-purposed white. Gahhh! The kitchen light switch on the other side of the wall is also a switch leg.

I decided to hold off on going into the attic this afternoon due to the heat. I'll be up there first thing in the morning, hoping I can find the hole for the old drop. I'll take the Romex clamp out of the box, tape two pieces of Romex to the old wiring, and pray that I can pull both conductors through the top plate. I doubt it'll be quite that easy, but I'm hoping.


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## Thadius856

Wow, what a night! Sorry I didn't get a chance to write up all the new happenings this morning. Even coffee couldn't keep me up after the all-nighter to get myself back on the work/sleep schedule I need to be on.

I played around on the computer most of the morning. I got up at 7am, ready to work on the attic. The little lady wanted to help, and I didn't want to crawl back-and-forth across the attic all morning, so I waited for her to get up. Not til after 10am! -.- By the time she'd done her morning routine, it was nearly 11. Toss in a couple errors reported for investigation on the credit report and it was 11:30 before anything was started.

Into the attic! I've included a picture of the catwalk. If not for this thing, I'd be dieing up there. The entire garage conversion area over the living room is well covered in sheeted wood and this catwalk, making for easy movement. It was in rather disrepair when we moved in, and we considered it a Week 1 project. You can also see the "door" in the firewall here. At about 2'x2' and 12" above the ceiling joists, it's a rather tough squeeze for a tall fellow. Oh, yeah, and the door is missing. Somewhat negates the reason for having a firewall.


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## Thadius856

Found this one a little funny. Notice the 16" section of lead pipe just sitting on the cellulose. What really gets me is that there's no water or gas lines in the attic at all, so I have no idea where that came from. Oh well, the recycle truck likes it all the same. :laughing:

Next came getting past the 1x8 truss. Ugh, wth? Nearly impossible to get past without any sheet material to step on. Especially with tools-in-hand.


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## Thadius856

Next I passed this. No idea what it is. It's over the kitchen area, so I can only imagine it has something to do with the gas stove. I don't have an exhaust fan, so it can't be that. It feels like metal coated in a ceramic.

After digging through the insulation for what felt like an hour (to the sounds of the little lady screaming "no, go THAT way a foot" with no idea which direction _that_ way was), I found what I came for.

Notice the hot indication? Yeah, there's a section of 12-2 going down the same wall cavity for God-only-knows-what circuit that I hadn't expected. She promptly killed the circuit or me. The red-texted 14-2 strand is the kitchen light switch leg, and the one on the far right is the dining room chandelier switch leg that I'd been working on. Notice the lack of staples and foam on all 3 drops.

I jiggled the wire. She saw no movement. We tapped around for a bit. It's definitely the right drop. I figured maybe it's stapled inside the wall, but that made no sense. So I drilled a 3/4" hole right between the two drops, being careful not to nick any of them. Dropped down my trusty nylon string, about 15 feet of it. Nothing.

Came down, thinking she just didn't know where to look in the cavity. It's only 3" across though, remember? Nope, not there at all. I can only imagine that the drop comes down through the top plate, then cuts sideways through one or more studs. Looks like I'll have to open the wall.

With the attic temps passing 100F, and me being drenched, I called it a day, leaving my cable cutters, strippers and string up there. Oh well. :\


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## Thadius856

Had a brilliant idea hit me. I removed the kitchen light switch, destroyed the plastic box, and was ready to cut off the bracket. From here I could easily see the string if it was there, and using an inspection mirror I could look up at the pocket. And then the reciprocating saw blade binded on the cut and yanked the bracket far enough away from the wall that it cracked the drywall and chipped the paint. Oh, lovely. At least I haven't painted this wall yet.

Looking inside, I noticed something odd. The stud face where it had been nailed through was practically missing, as somebody had decided to use an extremely knotty stud for the last one. Ugh. Thanks, [email protected]$$ PHO. Couldn't spring an extra couple bucks for a better piece of lumber?

I wire nutted both lights on, threw away the old switches, covered the holes with plates, and called it a day. Again.


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## Thadius856

A knock came at the door. UPS guy with my Monoprice shipment. :thumbup: So much for calling it a day.

Back when I was in college, I bought a parrot. He's been like a child to me (often acting like one along the way) ever since. He likes to ensure that all my shipments are up to snuff, so I allowed him to make the obligatory inspection.

It seems he approves.


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## Thadius856

The "DVD Bracket" is a set of two selves on a 3"x24" vertical track. They sit in the central groove, held by gravity pulling an attached arm forward in the channel, and snugged up by a single allen-headed threaded insert per shelf.

The other 3 boxes are the speaker mounts. At under $3.50 per pair, I figured they were worth a shot. I would have spent twice as much gladly on the metal brackets, but the reviews say that they were terrible quality and that the metal deformed noticeably under less than half their rated load. They're somewhat finicky plastic, but they'll do the trick. Note the 3 sets - 4 for the front sides and surround sides channels, 2 for the double-sized center channel.

As with all Monoprice items, these say "Made in China" _proudly_ all over them. Being American, I have no idea what a measurement of "600" is on this label. I can only imagine it's 600mm, but I'm still unable to picture how large that is in my head. The shelves are just about 14¼" x 17¾", for others like me.

Take note of the single page of instructions. The only words on it are units of measurement, I suppose to save on printing in multiple languages. I managed to make due with only the fuzzy pictures.


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## Thadius856

A note on the shelves. In all pictures, they look to be just plain metal. Not so! There' about 1/8" of something that resembles glass on top, though since I can find no discernible edge to it, I'm going to assume it's a super hard epoxy. A pretty big plus, since it gives them a nice piano black finish, matching my TV and home theater components well.

However, the tolerances on the shelves themselves were pathetic. Holes were noticeably drill off-center. Parts were assembled far out of square. I had to shim two of the shelves out where they mounted to the bracket because they resulted in the shelf being more than 15º off from the wall to one side or the other. One bolt came looking like it got jammed in the machine dispensing it into the little fastener pouch. And one of the finish pieces that covers an assembly hole was so jagged and sharp that I sliced my thumb deeply open on it trying to tighten it.

They're good shelves at about $30, if you have tons of time to tweak out all the manufacturer's problems.

Under the TV, this is what I had to work with. The coax was originally 3-4" lower, where a DirecTV installer had bored straight in, from the outside stucco, without regard to height and without a low voltage bracket (just face plate screwed into the drywall). Coincidentally, he put it through the last 1/4" of a brace.

When this wall was about to get the first coat of paint, I had only a few minutes to move it out of the brace, without the ability to re-terminate it, and get it to its present location so the wallboard compound could dry. You can see the result. It was time to do it correctly.

This is the outlet about 4" to the right (stud on left). That leaves me just enough room for expansion of both to 2-gang each. You can see that this receptacle far pre-dates the drywall installation.


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## Thadius856

One thing that I remember cocking my head at during the initial walkthrough of this house was that there was coax installations. Everywhere you could imagine. Though I only ever saw two connected to the dish from the exterior on a splitter. Since it's bad signal juju to split splitters a bunch of times, I figured that none of the others must be connected to anything, or just to each other.

I was spot-on. I found a rats-nest of coax in the crawlspace, from two separate cable installs. One looked to be done in the 80s, with two holes drilled thru the stucco into each of the rear bedrooms and professional split. The other appeared to be newer, but the cable drop went directly through the crawlspace entrance and then into a 5-way splitter, where it became a mess of random brand and length coax, covered in a healthy amount of corrosion. Then they were randomly drilled up through the 2x6 plank subfloor, though the 3/4" TNG, and left as terminated heads sticking out of the floor. It's a hardwood travesty.

As I said previously, this is one of the DirecTV install. Look what I found when I probed for extra slack to make a service loop. Lovely, huh?

My local, small-town Comcast installer is a pretty decent guy. I donate my old PC electronics to him, and he makes random builds for family and some elderly people he watches after. In exchange, he just hooked me up with 1/2 a spool of RG-6. I just happen to have a pile of IDE DVD-RWs waiting for donation... I'm confident he'd reterminate that cable for me. For the sake of the project, I just shoved it all back in the wall for now.

This is the end result.


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## Thadius856

Some time during all of the action, the little lady woke up. It was probably 2am by this point. Of course, she woke up just as I'd finished making the cut outline for the coax. Funny how she always seems to stumble into the project during the fun parts.

I let her cut the hold, her first time with a drywall saw. We lost a small piece of the paper and texture, but it thankfully hides behind a standard-size plate. I came behind with the jigsaw to straighten and smooth up her cuts, and left little black dots everywhere from a black piece of electrical tape stuck to the underside of the saw. Oops. Comes right off with Magic Eraser, though, and it needs another coat of paint anyway.

Since I couldn't find the low-voltage bracket, I used a standard one-gang box for now. I had to chisel out the brace a bit to get it to fit smoothly, and saw off a small piece of the old work box's drywall backing clamps as well with a jeweler's saw.

Not too bad for a first try. Props to her for that.


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## Thadius856

I took great care with the speaker mounts. The layout plan itself took nearly an hour, as I figured it was important to get proper speaker placement. If I was going to do it, I may as well do it well and only have to do it once.

The front sides are at about 26 degrees from center each and mounted at ear level. The center channel is just above the subwoofer, pointed at the listener. This allowed me the space to plan for some movie posters above and to the sides of the setup, as well as the ability to pull the TV out its full 30" while still getting fully unobstructed sound to the two center recliners. Mounting hte center channel above the TV would have permitted neither.

The surround sides are just barely behind the listener, about 105 degrees to the TV (assuming a perfectly centered listener) on either side. They're ceiling mounted, pointed to just above ear level to take the edge off. They're also 12" inset from the edge of the ceiling, so in-line with the 3 pendant lights.

This is what the plan looks like. Forgive the viewpoint.


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## Thadius856

And here's how it all turned out. Both the TV mount and each shelf track have cable management features, but it was nearly 7am.

Since I plan on putting in a 7.2 banana plug wallplate, matching plates at each speaker location and all-in wall speaker wiring, I figured I'd just leave the wiring ugly for now. The modem/router (and two switches) will also be move to a planned shelf at the top of the wall, with in-wall coax and Cat5e runs. The blocks at either end of the room are planned built-in bookshelves.

I ached, my head hurt, and even mud-like coffee was starting to have no effect. _My thoughts exactly, Al._ Bed time.

This being my 36-hour work weekend, not much is going to get done around here. There's hardly enough time to eat and sleep between shifts. I'll post if I accomplish anything.


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## Thadius856

Woke up late, still dog tired. Suffice to say, nothing physical will get done before I head out the door today.

Been looking at the random mismatch of moulding around here, trying to create a cohesive look in my head.

Most of the baseboards are like so, 4¼" primed composite stock. They're installed, in good condition, in about 75% of the places I'd want baseboard.










Most of the doors/windows have this style at 2¼". Sorry I couldn't find a cutaway. However, there are two other styles, one on only one side of one doorway, and the other only around one window (the only window with moulding). Consistency was apparently not the PHO's strong suit.











These two styles seem to conflict to me. I like the increased detail shown on the baseboard, but would prefer something with even less flat surface. It looks a lot more plain when I look across the room in person, painted in a glossy white, then when I look at the profile image.

I want to just replace it all to match better, but have the feeling that it would be cost- and time-prohibitive.

A bit conflicted at the moment. Any advice is welcome. :huh:


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## Thadius856

The long work weekend is over, which leaves me about about 48 hours of freedom if I were to stay on a night shift sleeping pattern. _If_.

Have plans for tomorrow afternoon and evening, so that's already spent. I'll leave it to be a surprise for now. 

Just woke up to the sounds of a giant commercial stump grinder mawing away on a tree not 30' from my bedroom window. I understand that it really did need to be grinded on, but... a little prior notice would have been lovely from the neighbors, or even a flyer taped to my door from the company in advance.


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## Thadius856

Not much got done today. I spent half the afternoon half-asleep from being woken up with very little sleep and the other half trying to tie up two of my existing projects.

About a month ago, the little lady pulled up the flagstone (slate?) pathway going back to the tool shed. It was "her project", but that's about where it ended - with a pile of pulled out dirt and rock, and a whole lot of missing path.

A little over a week ago I managed to finally find some free rock on Craigslist in my local area. From the pictures and description, I thought I'd be pulling up a gravel pathway. Nope. I arrived to a very messy (and very large) pile. It looked like a pile of dirt, crushed granite, the occasional random river rock, and tons of sticks, leaves, etc. We bought it home, 6 shovel scoops per 3 mil bag, in a total of 20 bags. I didn't expect they'd have so much available, or I would have brought more bags to take more with me.

Since then, she's changed her mind and now wants pavers. I'm waiting for a sale, or somebody's nice project excess to be sold on the cheap.

The mixture got washed down this morning. The sticks and leaves made it into green waste can, the mud runoff made it into a low spot that needed filling along the rear fence line, and the rock was used to cover the unpainted side of the house where 3-5" was just graded off for draining reasons.


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## Thadius856

The electrical problem I was having, where I needed to get a neutral to a box with only a switch leg, is coming closer to being done.

Last time, I went into the attic and drilled another hole in the top plate where the existing wiring comes out. I'm going to steal a neutral from the junction box at the light by rewiring it so that power is at the switch and not the light. This requires I pull an extra run of 14-2 NM from the switch to the light (or replace the existing 14-2 NM with 14-3 NM, but this seems cheaper).

I had lowered a string into the wall pocket, but couldn't locate it near the switch box. I feared that they had drill through the stud and run the wiring up through the next pocket on the wall, then stapled the cable to the center of the stud face.

A lot of ideas came to me. I could use my 54" cable bits up the pocket and then out the top plate. Nah, too risky I may punch a hole through the drywall at the top plate (like last time ). I could steal the neutral from the nearby receptacle. Nah, that's ghetto fab, and pulling a neutral from another circuit sounds unsafe. I could just move over a pocket and drill down from the attic again. Ugh, ok, I'll do it.

Except once I crawled across the house in the 120ºF attic, there was apparently a 4x8 beam end covering where I wanted to drill. 

I tried drilling sideways through the stud adjacent to the switch box and fishing with a coathanger for the string, but it just wasn't working. I couldn't find my rare earth magnets. I ended up removing the cabinet above the switch box and then cutting a rather large access hole on the center of the studs. Sure enough, there was the string, the correct NM conductors, the sideways hole into the next pocket (not pictured) and the staples.

When I'm done, I'll replace the drywall piece, screw it back in, maybe bother cover the screwheads and seam in joint compound, and not worry about it again until I replace the cabinetry.

I can't take another minute in that heat today. I'll have to finish the pull in the morning.


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## Thadius856

Wow, what a day!

Started off the morning with coffee and strategizing over this electrical issue. I expected to open up the chandellier's light box and see two or three cables - line in, switch leg out and maybe a branch to somewhere else. I haven't found any rhyme or reason in the existing circuits yet... powering half of two bedrooms, the opposite wall entry, then cutting back around to the garage conversion, for example. Almost like the house was reading my mind, I took the light down ugliest box I could expect, very loosely fastened to the the underside of two sistered 2x8 beams, floating around and covered in stucco.









Mmmmkay. What the hell is this wire mess? After removing copious amounts of electrical tape, some sort of black cloth tape (gauze-like material), and cutting off the hand-made twists, it was looking halfway respectable. However, whoever though it was okay to strip 1" off the middle of an exposed wire and then the bare end of another wire around it, only to cover the mess in tape, needs to be shot.









Sure enough, 3 cables. I ensured all circuits were off, then turned this one back on after nutting each individually. I expected to see one hot wire with juice (line in) and the rest dead. Nope, I had one cable where both wires were hot, one where just the black was hot, and one where both were dead. This is with the switch removed as well.

I puzzled for a while, then went into the attic (with circuit off again). Turns out everything on the dead branch was a fire hazard. I removed the entire run for safety, and you can see the big mistakes here.









On the left, you see the connection at the light. In the center, you see the in-line splice I found about 10' downstream, stapled to the garage firewall. From here, both ends legs pass through the firewall. Why not just branch AFTER the firewall, and spend $5 for nuts/junction box? Oh, because it would be too safe. Good point. One leg went to the rear patio light, which I ended up putting out of service for now because this isn't a GFCI breaker and there's no GFCI receptacle on this circuit at all. The other leg was cut off (!) where you see it in the right side of the picture, and just sitting burred in a pile of cellulose insulation. I should consider myself lucky that I didn't touch that live wire and fall through the ceiling, or die in a fire. I found the other end of it attached to a decommissioned garage ceiling light that was covered over when conversion was drywalled. Yeah, they left the device and NM still attached to the rafter.

After that, I pulled what I suspected was the incoming line into the wall pocket for the switch. It was long enough that I didn't need a junction, so I appreciate that small piece of good luck. However, I noticed that the area where it was clamped had caused a gash in the conductors. Thus, I didn't just have 3 hot wires... I had an energized box and chandellier. How we didn't ground and go bzzt when we cleaned it, I don't know, but I'm thankful for nothing short of a miracle.









Here's the finished product, dimmed just under half way for the photo. Any brighter, and it washed the lighting out. Any dimmer, and it wasn't visibly lit. It has a pretty wide brightness range. The small quarter-round piece is a light sensor, so it turns off automatically. It can be set in guide light mode by pressing and holding for 10 seconds so it's always on, but I don't have a use for that yet.

At this point, I had about 45 minutes to get ready and out the door, so I didn't have a chance to close up the drywall, remount the cabinet, or reinstall the kitchen light switch. That's going to probably have to wait for tomorrow morning, or maybe even the weekend.


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## Thadius856

Here's why I had to go in such a hurry... today was my wedding day! I cleaned up and made it into my dress blues in record time.



(The forum doesn't seem to like my picture, so I moved it to ImageShack)

We came home for a few minutes, to realize that it had heated up inside. Oh, but wait, I forgot to repair the A/C duct that broke while I was in the attic.

We decided an early dinner was in order. We had the most amazing pitcher of Sangria, an huge portions of Veal Saltimboca and Eggplant Parmisana. A nap was in order on the way home, while our driver had to detour around reported 100' flames coming from a propane train car. 

(Who brought that crane and cow?)

With that, I'm off. To... well, that isn't important.


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## Thadius856

That A/C duct was taped back up first thing this morning. Not a moment too soon either, as the tiny little fan we put in the bedroom window hardly helped. Blech.

Not a very interesting, so I spared the photos.


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## Thadius856

As predicted, Wednesday and Thursday were full of work. I did manage to get started on drafting up the back yard and planned path for the new walkway to the tool shed. Since I'll be replacing the dirt-and-flagstone path with pavers next spring, I figured I may as well move the path if I could find a better route for it. After puzzling a while, we decided on a straight path instead of the curve we already had, and move it to the opposite side of the tree it went around.


After work on Wednesday, I was able to get the cable guy out to re-terminate the in-wall RG-6 in the living room. He took off about 10' and replaced the old connector. That leaves me much more room in the wall cavity, so I move the splitter inside the wall later. I gave him two older IDE DVD+/-RWs that still worked, but were about to be recycled.


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## Thadius856

Here's what the plans look like so far. Up is North. Street is to the east.









The lot's a crazy mix of different materials at different times. Grass at front and rear. Raised front porch, large rear patio. Dirt on the NW corner of the home and gravel on the North side at the utilities. 1x6 wood fence on three sides. You can see the planned paver walkway on the South border. While the hatch shows herringbone, it will likely end up as running bond of squares with border.

Noticed that I hadn't laid out the bathroom right after I saved the screenshot. Added the window and shower/tub afterwards. Also forgot a younger sapling just North of the tool shed and a large old oak in the NE corner.

If I have my way, a lot of this concrete will be replaced with pavers incrementally.


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## Thadius856

Spent a good portion of Tues / Wed working with the wifey on what to do next. I gave the choices of a 3-day camping trip along the Redwood coast, a day-trip to Big Sur, a 2-day hiking trip to Yosemite, the pavers/sand/gravel required for her walkway, or a new bedding set. Guess what she chose...

...the bedding set. So the dirt that was removed from the old path and North side grading went back into the hole she dug. The trips got postponed until next summer.

Was originally looking at sets on Amazon from the "Chezmoi Collection", whatever that is. Mixed reviews citing cheap materials nixed the idea of a 8-pc set without sheets for $79 + $17 S/H. Walmart doesn't sell Cal King in stores. Target doesn't seem to either. Ended up finding what she wanted from Kohl's, online only of course :icon_rolleyes:, and ordered it. $239 - 20% sale + free S/H worked out to just under $200. Added a small filler in to get back to $201 so I could get an extra $10 cash back. In the end, this premium 20 pc set was about $160 + tax, compared to the $96 Amazon set that didn't come with sheets.

Much of today will be spent running her into town for new clothes to start her new job tomorrow. :clap:


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## coderguy

Thadius856 said:


> Just woke up to the sounds of a giant commercial stump grinder mawing away on a tree not 30' from my bedroom window. I understand that it really did need to be grinded on, but... a little prior notice would have been lovely from the neighbors, or even a flyer taped to my door from the company in advance.


Yep, I left my neighbors a five day notice. Who wants to wake up to that?


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## Thadius856

coderguy said:


> Yep, I left my neighbors a five day notice. Who wants to wake up to that?


Precisely.

Besides, aren't they supposed to grind em flush to grade, or even below? 

They left at least a 12" mound. Maybe that's their advance notice that they need to wake me up again. :laughing:


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## Thadius856

As predicted, lost most of the day again. Several hours scouring Kohl's paid off. We ordered her $39.98 worth of work pants from the in-store kiosk. They were "marked down" from $36/pair. We all know nothing's marked *down* at Kohl's until it hits the clearance racks. But it was the best we could do since they never seem to be able to keep short sizes available in anything under $35/pair. Also picked her up 3 tees, one button up, one additional pair of work pants, a tee for me and a button up. All clearance, except the pants. $52 after tax IIRC. Cashier was nice enough to scan a $10 off because I showed my military ID with my charge card. Works for me!

Swung by Lowe's to pick up some more hardware. Twelve 8x3/4 wood screws to reattach the keyboard tray that fell off the desk this morning, and to assemble the wife's. Ten 8-32x3/4 machine screws to hold my car's passenger mirror on (also fell off today) and assemble our mail organizer. Also priced metal gutters at about $10/10ft, plus $6/corner, $1.50/cap, $8/spout hole, $12/10ft downspout. With it being a ranch-style home, the all-hips-and-no-gables looks like it's going to cost a lot more because I have to install gutters both sides as well. 

Picked up some eggplants and Parmesan on the way home, so I'm *hoping* that means Eggplant Parm tonight. :thumbsup:


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## Thadius856

Yesterday went to hell in a handbasket. The bolt I put into the car mirror was the perfect length and even though the head was slightly larger, it still fit fine. The hole was pretty obviously metric size once, and it was very tough getting it through the last 1/8" of plastic. After thoroughly stripping out one bolt head, I got it worked out, and installed a fresh one. The bolt wasn't what pissed me off... it was the neighborhood kids still riding their bikes, scooters, etc. within inches of me down the sidewalk with the car door open. Scared me pretty good thinking one of them could get hurt.

Also noticed after remounting the computer desk keyboard trays that there's an air gap because the thread on the screws I bought stop 1/8" short of the head. Picking up a new set of screws or some plastic bushing to take up the slack today.

Drive 30 minutes into town to buy that 11 gallons of paint yesterday as well. I don't know how it happens, but the paint store was out of paint. They're supposed to get a shipment this afternoon, mix it up, and call me. But by the time the shipment arrives, I'll be asleep before work. Hopefully somebody else can pick it up for me. They did have five 1-gallon cans, but refused to sell me them at the 5-gallon price. Wouldn't let me pre-pay either. -.- Fine, while I was in town, I decided to pick up some free Blockbuster Express titles with promo codes found on Slickdeals.

Bought a second low-voltage bracket, this time the plastic type with wings. Same size. Why is a bracket made for a larger drywall hole than a box?

Spent 30 minutes with a can of raid Raid and an electric flyswatter killing a wasp nest in one of my eves. PHO thought it would look better to sheet them closed with some sort of composite board, so it's very difficult to get to it. Had to rely on spraying into the entrance crevices, running away for a minute, then coming back to finish them off once the defenders hit the ground.

Also spent copious amounts of time looking through the Belgard online catalog, as well as the websites of Basalite and Calstone. We definitely like a certain style pavers (Belgard: "Holland", Basalite: "Mission", Calstone: "Mission", Oldcastle: "Holland"), but would flex a bit for sales. So far, herringbone is winning out in the 4x8 size, with a soldier course. I like the 45º, but think my low skill level will probably call for 90º.

Tried to go 3D in AutoCAD. Having trouble with PUSHPULL freezing when it tries to detect the plane I'm wanting. It's odd, because it seems to be the same action as hatching, but that never crashes it. Is especially doesn't like calculating a plane that contains a hatch. I'll try again, but last night it was crashing so often it wasn't worth even trying.


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## Thadius856

Been working on the 3d modeling in AutoCAD. Apparently I had the viewpoint so that one or more of the axises was severely skewed, which caused the plane detection to go all sorts of wonky trying to determine boundaries far off-square. It all just happened to look proper from the viewpoint that I was working in, so I've resolved to watching 4-5 viewports while I draw: 3D NE, NW, SE, SW Isometrics and 2D Top. I find I draw in the NW Iso most often.

The grading was easy, as was most of the concrete pours once I got the hang of it. Much less freezing once I killed every hatch in the drawing.

I apologize for the renders not being that high detail. I haven't yet downloaded the "Medium Material Image Library" or some such, so they're low-resolution textures applied. Good enough, perhaps, considering the last one took 4 minutes to render. 









Here you can see an early version of the property grading and fencing. North is approximately up. Note the hole indicating no crawlspace grading yet.









By this point, I'd added both the house footing and the garage slab. I mistakenly modeled the outside of the exterior walls to be flush with the outer-most portion of footing wall. I ended up with a foundation that was 3¼" too short on every side and wasn't lining up with the sill plate. I quickly learned that while I knew what I wanted to do in AutoCAD, I just didn't have the skill to dissect merged 3D models and expand individual sides without scaling the entire object. Ended up starting over, this time building from the sill plate _down_.

Once that was done, the sill plates, rim joists, stringers, and pier blocks lined up pretty darn well. And all matched the floorplan. Thank god.









You might be able to notice in this short that the garage's sill plate doesn't physically touch any wood on the house footing. I found this to be the case when I had to open a small area for an electrical outlet right there. So far, so good.









This was my first attempt at a live section. Everything you see here was generated from a plane I drew across the house. It's much more detailed as a wireframe, so I was a bit disappointed with the render. Note the grading under the house is now 3¼" short on all sides because of the footing expansion I had to do. It was corrected after I saved this shot.


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## Thadius856

It was at this time that I noticed just how much the wife's camera phone blew mine away. Even being released in 2009, the 3GS had a pathetically underpowered camera. At least it was a step up from the camera in my 3G, and a free upgrade without contract. Thank you, Apple Care. But her Galaxy S utterly destroys mine. Unfortunately, the forum uploader crashes every time I try to upload one of hers. Allow me to attempt to use ImageShack...










This was taken last night as a test shot. You can definitely see that my camera never captured the wood properly.










This was taken just after a fresh wash with Murphy's. It turned out to be a very dirty bucket afterwards. :laughing:



The cabinetry all got a fresh coat of orange revitalizing oil. I wish I had gotten a before picture. It's night and day.










The living room finally got its second coat after I picked up the (hopefully last) 11 gallons of Duration. This is "Impressive Ivory", I believe, with a slight off-white on the baseboards. You can see the contrast between it and the other baseboard's dingy color. I suspect that they were just left in their primed state. Or maybe they were just so talented with paint that I can't discern a single brush mark on any of the baseboards. 



And here's a break we found in the sprinkler line. It was causing a slow drip to hold moisture against the house. It never dried out, being in the shadows of the patio overhang. It was replaced, but I haven't taken an after-picture yet. Not until I'm positive it's holding.

Wow. Massive size. I'll try to re-upload at 640x480 later. 

Edit: Resized!


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## coderguy

When you upload to imageshack or other image sites; you can have them resize down to 800 X 600 or 640 X 480... looks nicer. I'm on a 25 in widescreen and the pics are pretty big....

I like your renders; i use google sketchup for my stuff and I'm slowly getting better. Nothing like yours though...

Seems to be coming along well.


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## Thadius856

I'll definitely be resizing them later. On other forums I have typically used the {img width=x}URL{/img} method, but it seems to be disabled here. The shorthand {img WxH}URL{/img} seems to be disabled as well.

Right now I'm behind a firewall that filters imageshack, so I can't re-upload them. Perhaps tomorrow.

Thanks for letting me know!


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## Thadius856

What a morning! I was a bit irritated after having to stay almost 2 hours late at work, but when I came home to this gem, my spirits perked up quite a bit. I had the following letter waiting for me in my mailbox.



> Whistler
> <My Street Address>
> <My City>, CA
> 
> Whisler,
> 
> On behalf of all of our neighbors; please stop the loud whistles and chirping.
> 
> Municipal code #.#.# - Prohibited Noises
> 
> 'The following acts, among others, are declared to be loud, disturbing and unnecessary noises in violation of this chapter, but said enumeration shall not be deemed to be exclusive:
> 
> D. Yelling, shouting, hooting, *whistling*, or singing on the public streets, particularly between the hours of eleven p.m. to seven a.m. *or at any time or place so as to annoy or disturb the quiet, comfort, or repose of persons* in any office, or in dwelling, hotel or other type of residence or any persons in the vicinity'
> 
> Law enforcement has not been asked to assist yet.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Resident
> <My City>, CA


I got quite the laugh out of that. Yes, the bolded sections were bolded in the letter too.

:whistling2:

Woops, forgot that I'm not allowed to do that. :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:


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## Thadius856

To be clear, I find it funny not only because of the ridiculousness of the letter's body, but the other statements it gave. It was mailed, quite purposely, from another zip code. It's completely anonymous. It quotes municipal codes. And it's from one of two neighbors who have never introduced themselves, and live less than 100 feet away.

If somebody came to my door with a complaint, I'd understand completely. Hey, we're all human. Approaching me nicely in person with a concern would show a great deal of decency. I'd respond by doing most everything in my power to make sure it was taken care of.

This, on the other hand, shows a lack of testicles (or... ovaries?). I'm not exactly an unapproachable person. It makes me want to get up extra early tomorrow and whistle every song I can think of until my face hurts, less than one foot from the property line. :laughing:

It's certainly not from either of the immediate neighbors. To the southwest, the nearest house is vacant and for sale. The next house further down is a rental with noisy children that love to crank up music. To the northeast, the nearest has four kids and a dog that loves to bark in the middle of the night. One house further up is, again, vacant and for sale. I seriously doubt anybody across the street can hear me whistling from my back yard. Plus, I've spoken with all of them, and we're on a first-name basis. That leaves only two occupied houses - the two whose back yards abut mine.

I don't plan to do anything different until they grow some cojones and come speak to me.


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## Thadius856

Good night, sun. Good night, moon.

(But mostly sun...)


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## Thadius856

Not a very busy day, I must admit. I came home this morning to the laundry room getting a good one over. The first coat of paint is on, and that's no small feat considering it was done without removing the washer or dryer, and everything visible behind the water heater is done!

Unfortunately, I didn't get to prep the living bejebus out of it like I'd hoped to before its first coat. There are random receptacles in the ceiling. The odd gas line T's off the water heater, lies against the wall as it goes over the door, drops back down, and then hangs next to the dryer. Yeah, I bought an electric after all. It's circuit conduit is just about as horrid. There's a switch that we have no idea what it goes to. Ironically, there wasn't any lighting in there until I installed a 12" Alabaster and white enamel flush mount fixture. All of the plates are oversize, and you can still see the holes behind them. It's going to be a work in progress... I'm halfway resigned to the idea of a laundry room being the one room that's allowed to look bad. Trying to fight that urge to just let it go.

Only got a few hours of sleep before the wife awoke to the UPS guy at the door. She was bouncing up and down on the bed with our new bedding set. Not much choice but to get up and help her make it. Bet you can guess what happened next... I couldn't fall back asleep. Seems to be a pattern.










Anyway, this is how it looks. It came with a 2" tear at the bottom stitching of the comforter. Not impressed with that for $160+, but otherwise loving it. I'll call Kohl's tomorrow and see what we can do, short of shipping the whole set back. Sooooo cozy. I'm sure she'll want to use my Amazon gift cards to get the 20x20 Euro Square shams filled, as well as the 2nd set of King pillows. We currently have 2 King and 2 Standard, with the pillow cases folded over. I guess that's better than it rotting in my wallet. Though I'd kind of wanted some a cheapo multi-tool and a cheapo miter saw. *shrug*

Looked at the finances today and decided that I absolutely will not be buying any more materials until I finish the projects I have going. Unless of course I absolutely need them to complete that project.  That should give me a little time to build the nest egg back up.


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## Thadius856

Managed to make some progress on the junkiness of the storage area in the back yard. Noticed that a "FREE" sign had been added to my pair of boxsprings I'd been on the fence about donating, so I took it a step further and posted it on Craigslist in the free section. Zero bites, I'm floored.

On the other hand, I also posted on the flagstone the wife pulled out of the path. And some other masonry we had pulled up when we moved in to alleviate a drainage issue in front (along with other remedy steps).

This is what I posted:



> One 4' x 5' x 1' pile of flagstone. Various sizes from 3"x4" to 18"x30".
> 
> Nine 12"x12"x3" masonry blocks.
> 
> One 1'x2'x1' pile of concrete pavers shaped and painted to look like petrified wood from the factory.
> 
> Twenty five 2' brick border blocks. 5" tall?
> 
> If you see this listing, it's still available. In <city>. You load. Bring a wheelbarrow or helper if you need one. Email, text or call _______ for address.
> 
> Thanks for viewing.


One response in 30 minutes said they're leaving their house for here immediately. Before they arrived, I had at least 5 more contacts. Thankfully, they took it all. I'm left with one half of a brick and one work glove. Wish they would have taken the box springs too. Boy, that 3/4 ton was sagging something awful.

I felt bad because they arrive just after dusk. I have no lighting on that side of the house. I popped up a LiON Rigid area light, but it died quickly on all of my uncharged batteries. :whistling2: Ended up having to set up two of the flashlights that came with my Mikita set. Not quite the same.

They were also older. And much larger. And very sweaty. While I leaned against my oak and sipped my lemonade.


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## Thadius856

As a last note, I did manage to get a fair bit done on the drawing today as well. The digital 2x8 tongue-and-groove subfloor is laid, the four main exterior walls are framed and up, the second top plate is installed, and several windows were framed out. I managed to get a couple of the windows in, but I'm still missing 3 of them. Added a couple pockets for the interior walls, but again not many. The transition between the original home and garage is what's hanging me up, but I think I've found a solution. I'll sleep on it, then see where that goes.

Here's a sneak-peak. Didn't want to wait for a render, so you get a sketchy wireframe with the grading turned off.


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## Thadius856

Had the house to myself today. That usually means it's the perfect opportunity to do something that involves shutting off the electricity. And that's exactly what happened.

Keeping only the A/C and the new circuit I added hot, I set about to figure out what was going on with the fridge. I recently replaced the counter receptacle with a GFCI. The fridge's receptacle is on the load side of it, and the fridge kept tripping the GFCI after random intervals (2-30 minutes). Made for some very soft ice cream.

Hauled the fridge out, climbed behind, didn't see anything wrong with the receptacle. It was backstabbed, so I suspected that was an issue. Couldn't find my backstab tool, so I shoved a small screw driver tip inside and twisted until it split. Much easier than busting it up using lineman pliers. New tamper-resistant decorator receptacle installed. No problems, yet.

Was able to remove the extension cord going to the GFCI on the opposite counter. I'm sure the wife will be happy to see it's gone. She wasn't digging the neon orange accents. 

Also installed a new kitchen light box. Yeah, I never did get around to putting one back in the wall til now. Wired it all back up, with a replacement switch. No more "popping", and now the kitchen light can be shut off. She'll probably be happy about that too.

Removed the switch box that I had used temporarily to mount the cable to. Slightly enlarged the hole, popped in a metal low-voltage bracket, and put it all back together. I'd have preferred the plastic old work kind, but the little wings wouldn't unfold on one corner without taking a massive piece out of a brace.

Had to go into town for a work meeting. Turns out they booked a room that holds 80 people, and closer to 500 showed up. Parking was a nightmare. And then they cancelled it. Ugh. Picked up a couple cases of groceries on the dirt cheap while I was out... Hamburger Helper and Snack Packs for weeks! At $0.60 a box and 7.1 cents a pudding cup, I couldn't pass em up.

Putting my feet up while I frame out some more windows and doors on the model. Sometimes it feels like I could do it in person faster than I can work with these 3D objects.

Night shift gets their pick of tasks: replace old receptacle in bathroom with GFCI, cook dinner, do the dishes, paint the laundry room, or mop 1100 ft of hardwoods.


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## Thadius856

Made a little progress tonight. Washed dishes, cooked two night's worth of dinner and tupperware'd them. Did some recycling. Unloaded the car.

Managed to finish "laying out" the original house's exterior walls. All windows and the front door are roughed in. Adjusted header height to 80" on windows, 82.75" on doors, added 1" on left and right side of door rough-in. Framed out and roughed in both bedroom closets and doors. Laid out all remaining bottom plates, top plates, and cap plates.

Too tired again for a proper render to load. Hope this screenshot helps.


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## Thadius856

Was waiting for a package this morning, so I didn't want to get working on the back yard. Ended up doing more drawing work. Of course, the package never came. 

This is how far I got. All doors, windows, closets are now fully framed. The garage has been framed out as well. All openings are roughed in.

I had to assume that the garage wall where the door used to be was stick framed back and the door header removed. I'll be opening that wall sometime within the year, so we'll see what I actually find there when that time comes.


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## Thadius856

Not much to say on the home front in the last couple of days. Been conducting plenty of research on cement paver distributors, prices, manufacturers, pattens, etc.

Tossing around layouts in my head. Specifically, trying to determine exactly what we want and how to accomplish it in phases without the whole place looking like hell in the meantime. This project will likely start in the spring. Once we get something closer to finalized, I'll add it to the drawings.

Been working on my broken down car. Think I ruled out a leak at the manifold gasket this morning, but couldn't find my compression tester after much digging. Now that I've found it, I'll probably knock that out in the morning and see if I can't get the rest of the exterior paint thrown on by Tuesday afternoon.

(Over 5,000 views... WOW!)


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## Thadius856

Slow goings, yet again.

Yesterday was eaten up by my daytime sleep schedule. And then transitioning back to a nighttime sleep schedule. I lose about half a day each time, but end up remarkably well rested. I would stay on a daytime sleep schedule all the time, but then I'd never see the wife and I wouldn't be able to do much work on the house while everybody's sleeping.

This morning was eaten up by a meeting at work (which started late, ran late and ended late), a trip to update vaccinations (which took almost no time at all) and a trip to the grocery store (which took _forever_).


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## Thadius856

But I did manage to get some things done!

Just changed out two light switches that were "popping", as it were. One in the master bedroom, one in the bathroom. Also replaced the receptacle in the bathroom with a GFCI. Turns out that the hallway light and kitchen light are downstream on that circuit.  WTF? Another can of worms opened...

Only one thing to do... cover it with a louver nightlight.









Also removed and capped the light switch in the laundry room that controls... seemingly nothing. It was hot, though, and I didn't feel right keeping the plate off. Still threw away the beat up switch, though.









Here's a lovely receptacle that I found. I have no idea why this could even be here. Yet, it's live, and it seems to work just fine. The back is accessible from the attic (and only about 3' from the access hatch), so this may very well become a junction box from above and be patched over.









And here's the paint situation that I've got to deal with. Dingy moulding, gas line running around the trim of the door, mismatched switches with oversize holes and covers, random receptacles mid-way up the wall, and the dryer circuit in conduit. I plan to work on all of it.

We're just now getting to painting some of the door frame moulding. Waiting for it to dry so I can remove the tape.

More this coming weekend, I hope.


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## Thadius856

Little progress again today. Was only able to work a few hours. Off to bed right after this! Hopefully this coming weekend is a fair bit more kind.

I awoke to the kitchen being shuffled around. Sure enough, the fridge was pulled out, the stone was pulled out, and the paint was in the tray. We knocked out the rear and right-hand walls of the galley in about 4 hours, giving it all two coats and cutting in all of the cabinets. I'll be re-painting when I (some day) get the time and money to re-do the cabinetry.

In the process, I found 2 more outlets behind the cabinets, staggered between the two I could see. However, these are 24" or so off the floor, so they create a zig-zag wit the ones I knew about as they go down the wall. Since they're all covered by the cabinetry, I didn't bother changing the receptacles to the new decorator ones.

A little time later, here's what came of it:









Not too shabby. It really brightens the place up. Pay no mind to the sheet vinyl. 

The other half of the day was spent going through all of the messes in the office. There's still quite a bit that needs to be reorganized, but there's now a large box ready for donation. It's got all sorts of old toys, games, electronic goodies, cables, cords, and a nice assortment of now-ancient PC pieces.

In the process, I realized that the closet doors _weren't_ sized too large for the opening. They'd just popped out of the bottom track.

Voila, doors that can close now.









It sound silly, I know, but they really looked like they were 2" too wide. They obviously still need adjustment, but I can get to that another day.

Here's to another day. :thumbup:


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## natedro

Thadius856 said:


> Here's why I had to go in such a hurry... today was my wedding day! I cleaned up and made it into my dress blues in record time.
> 
> 
> 
> (The forum doesn't seem to like my picture, so I moved it to ImageShack)
> 
> We came home for a few minutes, to realize that it had heated up inside. Oh, but wait, I forgot to repair the A/C duct that broke while I was in the attic.
> 
> We decided an early dinner was in order. We had the most amazing pitcher of Sangria, an huge portions of Veal Saltimboca and Eggplant Parmisana. A nap was in order on the way home, while our driver had to detour around reported 100' flames coming from a propane train car.
> 
> (Who brought that crane and cow?)
> 
> With that, I'm off. To... well, that isn't important.


Congratulations! I'm a new follower of your posts. I just bought (also with partner) a 1959ish brick ranch in April. I have a million projects currently going on and will be starting a thread like yours soon. Good luck on all your projects!


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## Thadius856

natedro said:


> Congratulations! I'm a new follower of your posts. I just bought (also with partner) a 1959ish brick ranch in April. I have a million projects currently going on and will be starting a thread like yours soon. Good luck on all your projects!


A brick ranch, marvellous! This one's a mismatch of all sorts of materials. I was recently thinking that I'd love to go with some brick vaneer in place of all this damn stucco and stone (petrified wood?) vaneer. I figured the load couldn't be too much different. That seems like something that won't happen with my budget, though. :laughing:

Please, do document your project. I'll probably start watching yours once the thread pops up, but please do send me a link just in case!


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## natedro

Thadius856 said:


> A brick ranch, marvellous! This one's a mismatch of all sorts of materials. I was recently thinking that I'd love to go with some brick vaneer in place of all this damn stucco and stone (petrified wood?) vaneer. I figured the load couldn't be too much different. That seems like something that won't happen with my budget, though. :laughing:
> 
> Please, do document your project. I'll probably start watching yours once the thread pops up, but please do send me a link just in case!


Started the thread - Let's see how well I keep up with it now!


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## Thadius856

Looking good on that thread. 

Well, the weekend's here! Unfortunately I had to get some sleep this morning, so I missed out on the cooler part of the daytime. I had wanted to throw some exterior paint on, but with temperatures pushing near 100ºF today, the North side of the house will have to wait. I'll just have to find little things indoors to keep me busy this afternoon.

What to do, what to do...


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## Thadius856

Not all that much that I could get done today, having lost the morning and the temperature being so high outside.

I was looking at the doors. Many have a decent wood pattern and build quality, so I figured I might be able to clean them up and re-oil them. They cleaned up just fine with my wood floor cleaner, but really soaked it up. The end grain is definitely in need of some love. Unfortunately, I found that I had only enough oil left for 1 door. I suppose the rest got used on the cabinetry. Boo. Cleaned up this one, and will have a go at the others tomorrow. Maybe.

I had been waiting to get new door hardware until I decided if they needed to be replaced or not. I've since decided that I have other projects that I'd prefer to give precedence to.


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## Thadius856

A little back story, before we begin...

When we moved in, only two windows has any sort of coverings. The dining area and kitchen windows both had white faux wood Levolor blinds in very good condition. We made sure to get matching blinds for the rest of the house, as they're not exactly cheap.

I did really want the rich, dark Walnut or even the Honey Pine faux wood blinds, but they came at a premium, and would require that I replace the two that were already here. The numbers just didn't work out. These are 2" plantation-style blinds, and they work very well to blend in on a traditional Ranch home.

At the big box, they come in some odd sizes. It has something to do with new window sizes, putting undersized vinyl windows in older rough-ins, and some other factors that I don't fully understand. The sales person told me that _width_ accounted for over 75% of the price, and an additional foot or two in length was only a dollar or two more. It's pretty accurate. I gave the widths, she cut the shortest blinds that could be cut to that width, and we were off with a cart of heavy boxes and copious amounts of resin shavings.

Over the course of that following week, I started shortening the blinds that I'd just installed. The largest was the living room window, which is a 6-0 by 5-0 (IIRC) window, but we cut from a 74x82.5 stock. Needless to say, the shortening removed a LOT of weight. I probably pulled 15 lbs of slats off that window alone. These are definitely not lightweight like aluminum or similar thin plastic blinds.

The office was 3-9 by 3-0, but all of the rest were 3-0 by 3-0. The office and guest bedroom were done the first week. And then I never got around to our bedroom, so we've had blinds that were about 58" long for the past few months...


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## Thadius856

You can see here that there was no shortage of slats. Why Lowe's has to carry a 37" AND 37.5" width in a 58"(ish) length, I have no idea. But that's the shortest that my store carried that would fit on a 3' window opening. I can't imagine such a window size being at all common.

Notice how long the lift cords are when the slats were resting on the sill.









This is how far they extend when allowed to lower fully. There's certainly no need for this sort of length in this application. The lift cords are at about the right height here.









And this is what they look like trimmed. I considered leaving an extra slat, but like the way the others in the house looked. The lift cords are in a reasonable position now.

(After I snapped the photo, I noticed that the 2nd slats where we have been tucking a blanket so I can sleep during the daytime bent the slats slightly. I removed that slat, replaced it, and then noticed that it was extremely easy to coax it back to its normal shape. Oh well.)









I did the one behind the headboard, too. I told the wife she had 3 seconds to cover her face if she didn't want her picture online while under the weather. Forgive the mess on the nightstands - I left the tools laying there for the picture. :\


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## Thadius856

Also moved all of my uniforms to one location. They're hanging in the office now. It's amazing how much space was leftover after we went through all of our stuff and prepared much of it for donation.

The books are messy for now because of the planned full-wall bookshelf I plan to build into the living room. I'm exploring ideas for custom closets. At 5'10 x 22", I don't have all that many attractive options so far.

Some of the tupperware will be going away this weekend. The spare computer case was acquired as a freebie in a bundle, and will be sold for half price or less on Craigslist this weekend as well.

I hope to have the doors re-aligned this evening.


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## Thadius856

Almost forgot... got about half of the documentation created for the new circuit I ran. It's in the form of an AutoCAD 2012 drawing and 8.5x11 title block, exported to PDF for easy viewing here.

This diagram shows what to expect inside each junction box and switch box in the circuit. It probably doesn't make a terrible amount of sense without the floorplan or showing the full paths, but that will be in the next document. This is in case, years later, I have to troubleshoot.

Of course, it's 8kb too large for this forum, so... I've hosted it on MediaFire.


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## Thadius856

Got up before the sun today for a little _pintura_ action. Started getting taped and covering windows just after dawn started to break. It was a comfy 70ish.

You can see the dirt stains from the lack of gutters on the all sides (except the front) allowing mud to splash against the bottom part of the house. The grey stuff is stucco patch to hide a hairline crack. And the sprinkler section is still not filled in yet. The primer you see in these two pictures is almost a month old, so it needed another coat.















A little primer (or re-primering for that one section) along the lower section of the wall helps to hide the discoloration from showing through the paint.


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## Thadius856

There's a few tricks when using Sherwin-Williams Duration on stucco. One is to be sure that you brush the wall down well before you begin. This paint has a much thicker consistency compared to a budget paint like Behr, Glidden, or many others. This means that additional force is needed to drive the paint into the stucco's cavities. If you didn't do a good job brushing the wall down, you'll be flinging chips of stucco and wet paint all over yourself.

Another tip is to apply very liberally. This means shortening the already-low area coverage of Duration even lower. I went about this in a three step process: get the roller _extremely_ well-loaded, slop it on the area to be worked, and then spread it around. Come back after two or three minutes after its has started to get slightly tacky and load as much paint as possible back into the roller. This method avoids having to apply tons of pressure with the roller while scrubbing back and forth across the uneven surface.
















Here's a single shot of the second coat, which I applied much thinner. This is just to catch any tiny spots I missed and to ensure even color. I apologize for the haze; the sun was already beating down.

And my progress on the North wall...









It was already pushing 85ºF (29.4ºC) by the time I took this picture. I was getting pretty stinky and called it an end to my outside work day. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew kept going and we've already passed 95ºF (35ºC) with direct sunlight on that wall.

I definitely need to go take drinks outside!


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## Thadius856

I'm certain I've probably expressed my dislike for the wood stove in the living room. While it looks very well-built, like it would output a good amount of heat, and was installed with exceptional clearance on all sides, I just can't learn to love it. So when everybody else decided a nap was in order yesterday, I decided it was time to move it.

Let me assure you, it's one heavy monstrosity. Coming in at 24" wide and 22" deep, I can't imagine it weighing any less than 400 lbs. As a fit soldier, I can't lift any one of the sides off the ground without injury. This definitely complicated any plan that I might have to move it.

But I didn't let that stop me. I managed to move it down the 10" drop, nearly 50 feet across pristine laminate hardwood, through two doorways, and outside around a corner. With a combination of 1/2" sheets of plywood, spare 2x4 and 4x4 blocks and a 4-ton trolley jack, I worked it out of here without causing damage to it or anything else... 1/4" at a time.

Here's the beasty in it's new home.









And the space that I cleared up. Sort of.









Looking at the nameplate on the rear, I see that it was manufactured May 1989. I'm thinking that I may refinish it and work it into my landscaping plans.









I wish the front glass wasn't cracked. I'm not aware of any way to fix it and hide the crack, while still being able to operate at the temperatures required of such a pane.

I slinked into the bathtub after dinner. The wife poured some sort of herbal bubble bath in, I fell asleep for an hour, then managed to stumble in a stupor. I _think_ that she gave me a back rub at some point, but it could have been a dream.


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## Thadius856

Rolled over this morning around 4:30, ready to work. Once I realized it was a Sunday, I figured I'd try to sleep in until about 6:00, have a very tall cup of coffee, and slowly get into the day. Can't do too much around here on a Sunday morning until a decent hour... out of courtesy, of course. I blinked for only a moment, my eyes re-focused on the alarm clock, and it was already 8:00. 

Managed to pick up where we left off on the painting. The slight morning overcast lingered until around 10am, keeping it nice and cool. The paint went just far enough to cut in once very thickly, apply a respectably thick first coat, and a thinner second coat.
















Only about 8 fl oz of paint was left over when all was said and done. That works out to exactly 5 gallons for approximately 700 sq ft of wall (140 sq ft/gal). Certainly the mixture of deep-textured stucco and the low average coverage of Duration came together to really put a dent in the wallet. Hopefully it lasts longer than, say, Behr would. 

That concludes the last surface to be painted in the exterior blue. I think there's still some small section of eve boards to be done, but my memory fails me at the moment.


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## Thadius856

The wife wanted to have a second go at the Eggplant Parmesan, and we just happened to be out, so that necessitated a trip into town. While we were out, I convinced her to stop by the Dollar Tree.

We have a few pieces of tupperware left over from a set we pieced together about two years ago. They're nothing more than the blue-and-clear Stor-Ware brand stuff they show on the Dollar Tree website. With between 2 and 8 pieces for the dollar, they've been remarkably good. We've never had one fail or warp, they're still very much as transparent as when we bought them, and we've never had a lid come off or leak. I can't say any of those things for Rubbermade or Tupperware pieces we have.

After picking up about $12 worth of containers (a pretty decently sized set), we were walking out and noticed a shelf full of... drumroll...

*ONE BUCK CHUCK!*









Well, well, well. I couldn't pass this up. I drink wine very infrequently, as does she, but I've spent well beyond $20 a bottle and had it taste like I spent $2. They're more for decoration than anything, but I'm curious just how these taste.

There was a big sign saying "Limit 1 case per customer per day" at the front. The cashier told us that they're extremely popular with the local homeless, said that they receive multiple calls every day asking if it's in, and claimed that it sells out by the case-full in a single day every time.

I might just keep going back for different the different bottles/labels. I do plan for some wine-holders in the coming bookshelf.

Can't wait for the eggplant to be ready... here's just one of the four trays being baked!


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## Thadius856

I realize I haven't posted since Sunday, and that's just plain unacceptable with all that's been going on. I admit that I got pretty darn excited by the eggplant parm, dug my fork and knife in without taking a picture, and loved every morsel. We all managed to over-indulge that night. And we just finished the last piece of leftovers last night. :thumbup:

That leaves us at Monday. I must admit that nothing much was worked done. The fascia on the freshly painted wall was given a coat of the ecru trim paint, and looks more or less the same from a normal distance (though it was only primer before).









I tried to rehab the small patch of grass in the front between the front patio and the walkway. It was a mess of dead weeds when we got here, and was promptly dug up, sifted through, seeded and top soiled. It was all growing in well, until we forgot to water it for a few days. One side is apparently the neighborhood outdoor cat's litterbox, and the otherside is just bare for no apparent reason. I've been very tempted to throw the cat **** in a bag, write a witty quip on the front, and throw it at the owner's house.

After kicking the cat turds onto the driveway and washing them down to the curb, I gave it a thorough soaking. I took this one before both were done, and the cat's side is the furthest side in the picture.









I had a pretty major test to study for coming up the following morning, so that ate up my entire afternoon and evening.


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## Thadius856

Before I continue, I have to give a shout out to ExifCleaner, a program I use to scrub all the metadata off my photos. You guys don't really need my GPS coords, right? Hehe.

The program is shareware, and lets me pump up to 7 photos through at a time without paying. It's really convenient to have it on the shell menu, and it's part of the reason why I'm able to show you all these photos.

As I was...


(EDIT: 8000 views and hardly any comments? Yeesh! )


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## Thadius856

Tuesday morning was spent testing and then working the night shift. In between, I managed to get many tile questions answered by the awesome guys over at the flooring section. Thanks guys, especially Bud!

I had measured the laundry room in a bunch of places, checked it almost perfectly square and without any waviness in the walls. I loaded up AutoCAD and was able to get 12.5" tile to fit perfectly with only 6 cuts. I was going to get my local Lowe's to cut those tiles, and sneak 1/4" under the drywall on each side. But Bud had to rain on my parade with that plan, and I'm glad he did!

I bit the bullet last night and picked up a super-cheapo tile saw last night. I was going to use a cheapo tile cutter, but was strongly discouraged from doing so by the only knowledgeable Lowe's employee I've ever met. Mad props to "Bob" at the Rocklin CA store, since I didn't catch your name. (Your Willie Nelson pony tail is truly epic).









I ended up with the Skil 3540. It's only a 7", with a pathetic fence that I don't plan to use, but it should get me through at least one small project. I hope. If it cuts like crap, I'll probably take it back, though I may have to eat the cost of the blade.

If I do end up taking it back, I'll probably pick up the even-cheaper 4" saw at Harbor Freight has some surprisingly high reviews. Again, the fence is garbage on that model, but it scores much higher in reviews that their 7" model. At about half the price of this Skil model, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just as good.


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## Thadius856

I'd done a ton of research on buying tile, and especially what the difference was with HD/Lowes. It all seemed to boil down to the big boxes buying "seconds" to get a lower per-piece price, while the better tile stores would only buy firsts. I shopped with this in mind, very cautiously. And I bought just under twice what I needed for this project. I even checked a few already-opened cases for size, square and thickness variation, and found very few. Note that this was pretty decent $2/sqft (at 12x12) porcelain, and I did see _lots_ more variation in the cheaper (and much thinner) ceramic stuff.

I plan to repack any obviously unacceptable seconds and take them back as defects. "Bob" reassured me that this was fine and happened often, though I get the odd feeling that it may require a fight with customer service.

Here's what I ended up going with.









Eight boxes of Del Conca Rialto in 12x12.









Three boxes of Del Conca Noce (on website as 'Tan') in 6x6. You can see the texture of the style a lot better at this magnification. Just what I wanted. 

I had wanted to go with a border, but between the cost and the style of the one in this set, I decided to go with a course of the slightly darker 6" instead. Take a look for yourself...









$10 per 3.5x12 listello section, and I'm not a fan of the metal-finish accents. They show up extremely poorly in all of the online images.









$7 per 4x12 section, but with far too much variation for my taste. Note that it's a "natural stone" material and not porcelain.

(EDIT: Removed tons of whitespace on the borders. Sorry for that!)

The plan is to have the 12" on diagonal in the center of the room, followed by the 6" border perpendicular to the walls, and then a small border of the 12" perpendicular on the outside edge. I haven't calculated the approximate size the outside edge will need to be, but will use whatever distance I have left to keep the center section on whole 12" pieces as much as possible. (Hope that makes sense!)

(EDIT2: Here's a quick mockup I threw together in AutoCAD. 1/8" grout joints, assumed 11¾" and 5¾" nominal tile sizes. Works out to about 8-19/32" on each side. Going to try another layout so I'm not wasting so much tile.)









(EDIT3: Added another 12" in the center and that pushes everything else just about 4¼" out to either side. The new size for the 12" border comes out to 4-11/32", which allows me to get two pieces out of each tile. I like the look a bit more as well.)


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## Thadius856

I also grabbed 2 50# bags of "Pro" modified _white_ thinset, 10 lbs of sanded grout in _mushroom_, the liquid mix for it, a 1/4"x3/8" trowel, some sponges, etc. Forgot the sealant though. Ugh!

The first thing I had to do was to get the room cleared. The wife moved out the wire racks and laundry accessories before I got home. I stopped the water into the hot water heater, cleared the washer lines and disconnected, and we moved both just out the door onto the back patio. The water heater is another story entirely. A few things have complicated its removal.

As you can see here, it's messily strapped down. Ok, no problem, I'll just undo the straps for now. The second problem was that the drain wouldn't drain, even with a hot tap open in the kitchen. Once it came open, it refused to go through my hose for God-only-knows-what reason, so all the water was removed just over a gallon at a time. Zzzzzz. Most was put into the bath tub for the wife to get washed before work today.









The first problem you may be able to see in the lower left: the gas line threads didn't swivel on either end. I tried to unthread it without damaging it, but it was just too old and kinked far too easily. I ended up cutting it in half and removing the water heater half. I'll have to replace the line, I suppose.









The second problem is much of the same. The pressure relief valve is missing its handle, and has the same problem with its threads: there's no collar to spin, it's just soldered on there. Ugh. I don't have a torch, flux or solder, so I ended up taking drastic measures. A jeweler's saw frame and a half dozen 2/0 Laser Gold blades did the trick of slicing the valve in half. But it took forever. Another thing to replace. 
















I gave up for the night, as it was nearly 1am. Today's problems include removing the water lines without destroying the horribly-corroded modification somebody made to the water heater, and disconnecting the vent pipe without damaging the ceiling.


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## Thadius856

Before I go tackle the disconnect, I've readied some "before" pictures. This is obviously sheet vinyl, just over 5'3" in width. It's peeling at the corners, has holes in places, and is blotted with stains across most of its surface. Dirt stains have settled into the texture and make it look exceptionally dingy. It's glued directly on the concrete slab, and has been fairly easy to remove so far.


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## Thadius856

Some problem spots include the exterior wall next to the water heater, where the drywall ends 6" short of the floor (see previous images), the exposed-but-painted side of the house's footing, a horribly torn out cut for the stand pipe, an intruding 12.5" L x 4.5" W x 6" H piece of the footing, and missing drywall section for the sprinkler wire. Not sure what I'll do about these yet!
















And with that, I'm off to get in over my head!


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## Thadius856

Sure enough, I got in well over my head!

The water heater only took 20 minutes to disconnect the water lines and move outside. I was very lucky that the threads didn't seize, break or strip.









Of course, the wall was never painted behind it... :laughing:









I had taken the advice of a few members here and got myself a multi-tool. I had walked into Harbor Freight to get the cheapest model with my flyer for $19.99, but decided to compare it with the more-expensive corded model at $49.99. The major differences are that the more expensive model includes 3 attachments (vs 1 attachent), a carry case (vs a cardboard box), it's a blue color (vs red) and is variable-speed 10-20k rpm (vs 20k rpm all the time). I knew I was going to need all 3 attachments in the set, so I priced the cheap one plus the other two attachments, coming up with about $4 difference. Well, heck, why not. My 20% off kicked it and actually made it cheaper. Swweeeeeet! A manual scraper alone could have run over $30 for a nice handle with a few good blades, which I would have completely destroyed on the concrete.

The sheet removal started very well. In a matter of 15 minutes, I had chopped and peeled the entire sheet in managably-sized sections. And that's about all that went well. I started promptly at 7:05am and was scraping backing and glue until about 3:00pm. Yeah, 8 hours straight on my hands and knees running a mutli tool at about 17k rpm. In my haste unhooking the water heater, I had failed to bleed the hot line. Without fail, half way through the job, the hot on the kitchen sink was turned on, air rushed up the spout, and the pipe in the laundry room pissed all over the floor. I let the backing soak it up for a good hour before trying to scrape that section, and contrary to suggestions I've read here, the water did not help loosen it at all. The paper portion came up easier, but the glue became plastic again and turned into a big stretchy sheet of goo.

This was after 2 hours in the morning. I was pretty confident that I'd developed a method of removal with the tool that would get it done quickly. Obviously not so.









I noticed during my 15 minute lunch break that the bevel of the scraper wasn't quite right. I thought I just goofed and been using the blade up-side-down like an idiot for the previous 5 hours. Not so. I had entirely removed the bevel from the scraper attachment and ground another in the opposite direction. Flipping the blade gave amazing removal ability for a good minute or two, then died back down again. It turns out that I needed to flip the blade every 5 minutes or so to keep a good bevel on the correct side. Needless to say, the scraper attachment is a fair bit shorter now.

Scraping on the diagonal, parallel or perpendicular to the long wall, in arcs or circles or star patterns had absolutely no effect in almost all areas. Some areas had flaky glue, some had goopy glue, some had crusty glue, some had extremely hard glue, some had wavy glue, some had very little glue and yet others had mounds of glue. Every 5 square feet was different. I had hoped for a perimeter glue and a glop in the middle, but this was definitely a roll-on installation. I severly underestimated the removal time required.
















Re-energized by finishing the impossibly long removal process, I immediately mixed up a 25 lb batch of thinset. While I waited, I staged some tile, and prepared to cut some in half on the diagonal. This is when the carpenter decided he'd had enough of installing gutters and decided to come meddle in my project. We discussed squareness of rooms, of tile, of mud buildup in drywall corners, and many other things. After arguing on how to find the center of the room for 20 minutes (I was dividing to find the midpoint of each wall, then drawing a cross shape - he snapped a line lengthwise, found the center of it, and used a square - both ended up with the same two lines within 1/8"), I was ready to start cutting. Only 9 cuts, no biggie, right?

The first cut went smooth and ended superbly. The second cut chipped badly before I learned to ease all pressure to finish the cut. The eighth chipped out as well. A total of ten cuts was all it took. And by then I had a 25 lb bucket of rocks. I tried to save it by adding some water, but it just didn't work. Instead of a nice sandy cake frosting texture, I got a rocky white paste texture. After doing a terrible job troweling this gunk around and cutting the lines in, and laying two full tiles on the center line of the room in this crud, I gave up. I let the thinset claim the bucket, salvaged by mixer, and called it a night as the sun went down. Did some cleanup and scrubbed some of my own blood off the tile. Locked the valuable tools inside, and left the door removed from the hinges.

Depressing. Wanted a hot bath, but no hot water. Straight to bed then, where I hogged the covers all night, to the chagrin on of the wife, who woke me up repeatedly to try to steal some back. End of day 1.


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## Thadius856

Before we go on, let me tell you about this tile saw. It's a real entry-level DIY saw. And I mean _really_ entry level.

First, it's supposed to look rugged, but it really just looks pathetic to anybody that has ever seen quality tools. Why do manufacturers think cheap neon orange plastic makes products look professional? What they really tell the world is, "I have absolutely not idea how to choose a good tool, so I picked this one that's dressed up like the guys on that construction site I commute past." Anyhow, moving on...

Second, the blade is a real El Cheapo. I expected this, like getting half-filled ink cartridges with a new printer or low-quality sheets in a bedding set. The real disappointment was that it cut like a hot knife through butter for the first 20 cuts, but then wore down to be as effective as a wet noodle against a brick wall. In all honesty, I wish it had just started at wet noodle strength so I hadn't gotten my hopes up.

But both of those things could be forgiven for the price. My biggest pet peeve, by far, is the water supply for this saw. It had a small tank that holds maybe 12 ounces of water on the right-hand side of the saw, under the table. My makeshift table extension, of course, is on the same side. When you turn the saw on, it literally throws 4-6 ounces of water starting the blade up, and only has enough water to cut a single 12" tile before it runs out of water enough to require a refill before the next cut (at least on these 5/16" thick PEI 5 porcelain tiles - I'm sure thinner and softer tile would push through faster and thus take less water). I'm real tired of filling the thing between EVERY cut, especially because of the way sediment builds up in the holder, and because it's inaccessible with any reasonable pitcher, especially with my makeshift table extension. I found it faster to just try to pour and try to hit the side of the blade, allowing it to fill through the slot, while watching on the side. A one-gallon pitcher last me about 5-6 cuts, then it's back inside to refill.

When it's all said and done, I can live with the saw. I've probably pushed over 100 cuts through it already, and can deal with it's quirks. If I were doing a larger area or a pattern with more cuts, this thing would go straight back to the store. I'll keep it for now, and probably sell it after the other small areas are done being tiled.


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## Thadius856

Pissed about being woken up repeatedly during the night, when 6am rolled around, I was up and already at it. A few cups of joe went down while I prepped for my day. I dry set the 12" tiles again. I set up the tile saw again, restacked my makeshift 4x4/2x4 table extension, and poured the thinset - only half a bucket this time! 7:05am came, and I started mixing.









I got a beautiful, creamy, velvety but sandy texture. Perfect. It went on smooth and thick, notched back well, and was very pliable. I had probably 30 sq ft of the center whole/half tiles up in just over 2 hrs. I'm sure a pro could smoke me when it comes to speed, but I wanted to be very precise with the grout joints and keep it all square! I also learned from the previous day's mistake of trying to mud up 1-2 sq ft at a time and went for 3-10 sq ft at a time, cutting down my the time it took in half.









I had to mix another small ~3-5 lb bucket to finish the last few tiles, but all was done fairly quickly. The biggest obstacle at this point was only have a 10½" inch swath around the perimeter to work in without being able to step on the center. I measured distance to the wall at both ends and the center and found that I had about a 3/16" crookedness over the 10 foot span (if I trust the long walls to be parallel). Not to terrible, I suppose, for only having the center lines snapped. Perhaps I should have snapped perimeter lines.

I got pretty good at jumping over what I'd set, even while carrying objects, and walking sideways along walls. I got all of the 12" border tiles cut to width while stealing spacers here and there, and building mockup borders with the 6" tile, then tearing them back out after I got the measurements so I could walk through again.

I cut the door trim somewhere between 3/8" and 1/2" shorter, measured by lining up a 6" tile snugly against it, rolling the half moon wood blade of the multi tool against the trim, then cutting 1/8" to 1/4" parallel above it.









I also managed to get the threshold pulled up at both doors. The outside door threshold had apparently been screwed _upwards_ through the plate into the door frame, with the screw heads sitting on the slab. I can only deduce that the door framing must have been assembled outside, the plate screwed up into it, and the whole thing then move into the door rough-in and secured. The interior threshold came up, but with a gigantic glop of glue with it, and I broke off a piece of the underside. Oh wells, time for a nickel upgrade! The outdoor door threshold, expectedly, had a ton of filth underneath.


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## Thadius856

I got most of the edge pieces cut to width, including both doorways. There's a 1/4" expansion gap on all sides, except where I stayed 5/8" from the edge of the slab because of concrete chunks missing there. None of the door pieces were notched, and I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do in the corner where the footing is exposed. If I was careful at this point, I could put a little weight on the occasional tile so I didn't fall on my face, as they had over 6 hours cure time on them. 

It was already at the end of day two... and time for work yet again. After 12 hours of tile work at home, I wasn't much looking forward to a 12-hour shift.


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## Thadius856

I got home after work this morning and was so incredibly tired. After 26 hours, I felt like I was on autopilot. As much as I wanted to keep working on the tile, I knew I didn't have it in me. I went into our darkened bedroom to take off my top and almost fell asleep standing up. Within a minute, I was in bed, and within another 20 seconds I was fast asleep.

I woke up around 3pm to the sound of sawing. As it turns out, the house two doors north sold to an older gentleman with some construction experience. I had noted while it was listed for sale that the roof looked like it wouldn't make it through another winter or two, and hoped the next owner would notice before they made the offer. Sure enough, he was up on the roof today, beating and sawing away. I don't think he's living in it and that he's planning to flip it, because we haven't seen any moving trucks, cargo trailers, furniture, or window treatments.

All the same, I took 5 minutes to wake up on the back patio, then got ready to start working again. I got the door cuts notched in (having to cut two of them again because I laid out the notches in the wrong corners) on both sides of the room. D'oh!
















I started on the corners and found that I had just enough tile left to cover the exposed footing. I got the rest of the corner pieces cut. I decided to go with butting the 12" pieces on the short walls of the room, as you can see here with the small pieces. I'm not sure if I'm crazy about having one of those on each corner when I could cut one piece twice as large for the center of those two walls _or_ remove them, add another 12" piece to the middle of each wall and take some off the ends of each piece that was in the corner. We'll see what I have left without opening another box of tile... I'd rather keep the last 3 boxes closed up for now if possible. I may just keep it as it is, as I'm planning on having a stubby piece of 6" tile in the center of each wall as well. We'll see how it lays out once I lay out a full wall of 6" tile. It's been rather hard to visualize, as I only bought one bag of spacers and lost 1/4th of them to the thinset on the initial tile laying, so I have to steal them from other areas to lay out the next small area.


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## Thadius856

At this point, I'd come to the end of day 3. I only got 3 hours to work on the tile, so I'm a bit upset about that. Twice more today I goofed up and made the pipes barf water all over the floor.  So annoying. I think what I'm doing is opening the hot and allowing the cold to backflow down the line to towards the water heater.

I tried to remove the excess thinset from between the tiles just before I left for work. With over 24 hours cure, they were pretty difficult. I wish I'd stopped and removed much of it yesterday before it got so hard. It looks like I'll need to pick up a grout saw because I already turned one small flat headed screwdriver into an ice pick trying to get it out.

I also need more spacers, plain and simple. There's no way to lay out a ton of 6" tile with the amount spacers I have now. I also have several receipts to be price adjusted because I forgot my ID for 10% off and probably a few small returns. Hopefully I get a decent cashier at the returns desk because I don't want to start a fight when the cashiers that checked me out previously told me to just come back with my ID for the adjustment.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a picture of what I have left in my scrap pile. The two piles in the top left are cuts from the corner notch outs and corner cuts. The four stacks in the top right at the excess from cutting down the edge pieces to width. There's also some extra (chipped) triangles left over from the first day, the two door pieces that I otched on the wrong corner, an some seriously chipped/broken corners as they came out of the box. Honestly, I'm pretty happy with the quality.


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## natedro

Man that tiling looks to be a bit more in depth than I would have ever guessed. I grouted tile once when I was maybe 12 or so and even that sucked to me (recommendation: wear gloves that block sand... Maybe thick rubber gloves). Your layout looks great though. Added value for sure. Congrats and get some rest buddy. That's where we differ. I have to get a lot of sleep on the weekends to make up for my lack of it during the week! 

And Home Depot and Lowes are both pretty good about customer service stuff. I just wish I got 10% off... Probably would've saved $1000 by now! 

Good luck with the rest of the tiling.


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## Thadius856

You do get 10% off!

Head down to the Post Office and ask for a Change of Address packet (or 5). They're free and have a 10% off coupon inside.


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## Thadius856

Wow! I haven 't posted in nearly a week. It's been a pretty crazy time.

Unfortunately, only hours after my last post, I contracted the flu. I managed to pull through the last couple hours of my shift bundled up and shivering before I got to come home. The wife literally had to peel me out of my uniform to get it off. 

From the morning of the 18th onward, I was held up in bed. High fever, extremely little appetite, tons of sweating... the works. I awoke on the morning of the 19th feeling halfway decent and saw the wife off to work. I'm the type that will try to work off a head cold, but after only two hours of laying the perimeter tiles, I was back to shivering and sweating, huddled up under blankets.

Some time on the 21st, the carpenter offered to lay the last half of the edge for me. I was feeling very good, even though I resigned myself to peeking on his efforts every so often. He did as well a job as could be expected for a first timer. I'd like to think I have the slightest edge on him having done the rest of the room, but I could easily be mistaken. All the same, I was thankful that it was down.

Having felt so much better and my 103.2 fever having broken to a measly 99.1, I returned to work that night and felt great for the first half of the night. My energy plummeted in the wee hours of the morning and I ended up a zombie. I forgot to take the fever reducer and was back up to 100.5 when I got back in the front door. Lesson learned.

The carpenter grouted it all yesterday, with nothing more to go off of than the instructions on the Lactricrete box and what he could pull up on his iPhone. I'd like to think I could do better, but I've never grouted, and frankly I wouldn't have had the energy.

At work last night, my energy lasted less than the first third of the night. The fever seems to have gone, and is still gone as I write this. My stomach absolutely torn up from the constant medicines over the past week with little more than 7-Up and Top Ramen to back them up. I'm trying to nurse it back to wellness while keeping good nutrition. This weekend will be little more than rest for me.


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## Thadius856

I couldn't just post the progress without pictures. Since the grout has cured over 24 hours, we're able to walk on it now. The sealer we have states to give the grout 72 hours to cure and then 24 hours to dry after application. In the meantime, we've put down a painter's dropcloth, some soft door mats, and put the water heater back in. We're aware that it will need to come back out, but it was starting to get stinky around here without a running shower. Heating a bucket of water on the stove just wasn't cutting it, especially with the wife starting to get sick. Anyway, here's what we have!
















Note the painter's tape. I would never have thought of that as a way to keep grout off the wall.

There are a few spots where the depth is slightly uneven, but only noticeable if you're actively looking for it. There's also one spot near the footing where the grout went on a bit too thick, and I'll probably just remove that slowly tomorrow.

The only thing he did that was a little weird was that either he tried to grout up to the drywall at the edges, or just pushed the excess there. We'll be removing it and putting in creme-colored silicone caulking that I have set aside. The baseboards would hide either.

I'm pretty happy with the transformation.


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## Thadius856

A little comparison...











































A big thanks to Bud Cline and everybody else who helped so much!


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## natedro

Thadius856 said:


> A little comparison...
> 
> View attachment 38635
> View attachment 38640
> 
> 
> View attachment 38636
> View attachment 38639
> 
> 
> View attachment 38637
> View attachment 38638
> 
> 
> A big thanks to Bud Cline and everybody else who helped so much!


Looks excellent! I'll post more commentary later, but wanted to check in with ya. Hope you're feeling better.


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## Thadius856

_Much_ better! Still taking it easy and recovering this weekend.

Will post some updates later today!


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## Thadius856

This was pointed out to me the day before yesterday. In all the excitement of posting the tile pictures, I plum forgot to mention it.









It could only have come from one specific direction at a fairly short distance. Suffice to say, only one house fits the bills - the renters two doors to the South, the ones with the noisy teenagers and constantly loud music. We went over immediately, and they prentended ignorance, but it was obvious they knew it was one of them that put it there. Thankfully, it was still half-fresh and came off with a few sprays of Linseed-based remover.

I've noticed the progression deeper and deeper into Autumn every evening. It used to be that when I went to work it would still be the bright end of a beautiful (hot) day, but as the months have passed, it's become darker and darker. This is what my commute now looks like, for the next week or two at least.









Please excuse all the bugs. I'd just driven past a rice paddy and was out of bug goo.


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## Thadius856

Yesterday was a little different than most for me. I awoke to a set of missed calls (@%*& not good!), spent the early morning with a cup of coffee and a bowl a cereal reading news, and then saw the wife off to work. Afterwards, I was off to do what everybody does on their Saturday morning...









I volunteered to go cleaned up our Adopt-a-Highway miles. There was probably nearly 30 of us, but by the time I decided to snag a picture, we were spread out over two miles of highway shoulders and medians.









The guy who drove by with his head out his window screaming, "haha, suckers!" made my morning. I suppose we must have looked like we were serving court-ordered community service or something. :laughing:


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## Thadius856

I've been trying to lean up the bills a bit. A few cell phone features here, a few cable package features there, etc. One method was to order a cable modem from Amazon with gift cards so I could stop renting one from Comcast for $7/mo on my bill.









Inside, I found the usual stuff: manual that nobody reads, wrapping that nobody pays attention to the stickers on, a CD of "drivers" that aren't required and nobody installs, a power adapter, and the device.









You can see the old one on top. It never came with the right power adapter, so I'm hoping Comcast doesn't give me crap for that. You can tell the Surfboard is quite a bit wider and deeper, as well as nearly twice as thick if you don't count the Ubee's puny legs. However, this is a DOCSYS 3.0 modem, so it should last be no less than 5 years.









The surfboard's lights also came on a bit brighter once I got Comcast to understand the serial number I was trying to give on the phone. Since it sits near the living room TV, that's not necessarily a good thing. I may have to dim them back down with some tinted tape if they're too harsh at night.


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## Thadius856

The pomegranate tree in the back yard is coming along real nicely. For not having directly watered it all since last July, and God only knows it probably got nothing before we bought the house, it produced fairly well this year. I still need to figure out how to determine a ripe pom so I can harvest some of them. I have no idea what we'll do with them yet!








(sorry for the camera washout)

It's been looking like it wants to rain today, and thus has stayed fairly cool for the area. We got a few seconds of wanting to drizzle, but it stopped just as soon as it started.









I feel bad because the neighbor two houses North (the one that's flipping the property, we think) has the roofing material torn off and the new stuff sitting up there.









We hope this doesn't end badly for him, even though we're really looking forward to the first rain of the season.


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## AlbacoreShuffle

Wow, what a project. Looks very good.
If I were you Id get that water heater in a drip pan and run the drain to the exterior of the house.
It's If you get a leak its when. 
All water heater tanks give up sooner or later, and I hate to see all that work get buggered up .

PS: Thanks for serving your/our country.:thumbup:


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## Thadius856

Thanks, Albacore! That really means a lot to me... and the rest of us too.  As for the drip pan, well, we're kind of in a gamble with that right now. I'm hoping to have enough saved up for a tankless replacement by spring, complete with in-wall plumbing for the washer and maybe some new drywall on that wall.

When the house was purchased, only the back patio had gutters on it. They were of course full of gunk and had several spots where water would just sit. Concurrently with my tile project, the carpenter was working on installing some new gutters. He offered to purchase the lengths of gutter and downspout, which seemed most generous, until we realized that the bulk of the project cost is in the hangars, fasteners, corner pieces, splices, etc. I still appreciated the offer!

Well, they're definitely on. It took quite a bit of planning, a lot of riveting corners together, and a ton of water-proof goop at the joints. The new run on the front runs from the high North corner to discharge at the driveway and thus into the street. One side discharges at the same spot, and one side discharges in the rear.








Front/East. (runs from right to left)








Side/North. (runs from background to foreground)








Side/South. (runs from background to foreground)








A water flow mockup. Note while the SW and SE sides share a common spout (yellow), they split the area about 60/40.

With that, I think we're now ready for winter!


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## Dinggus

The wife and I went from a $140/month cable + internet bill, to a $40/month internet bill. When I deployed, I taught her how to use Hulu and how to watch her shows for free with other means. So, why not just cancel your cable? Get like an AppleTV, jailbreak it and stream movies/tv shows/etc from your computer to AppleTV through your network?


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## Thadius856

That's certainly an option we've explored. I have a buddy who's a CSM at Comcast, so he hooked us up on this amazing 6 mos intro rate. It blew away anything that they offered on the website or when I called in.

I'm testing right now to see what our data usage looks like. We've got two smart TVs and a web-connected Blu-ray player, and I've been keeping an eye out on Roku's. I may end up with a Boxee, we'll see. We do take advantage of my Amazon Prime membership and, until this last week, we were considering going with Netflix streaming.

Once this promo period is over (end of December), we'll probably be keeping the connection and dropping the TV, doing much the same as what you suggested. We may have to switch over to a business-class connection to bypass the 250gb/mo cap, but so far the constant stream of free Blockbuster Express rental codes are keeping us rather well stocked with free movies (and thus keeping the bandwidth low).


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## Thadius856

How the time flies! Lets see... what's happened recently.

This weekend was one of the few where I haven't been volunteering for a MADD-style foundation, so I certainly took the opportunity to have a drink or two. It's amazing just how nice a well-paired flavored Vodka & Kool-Aid can taste at the end of a autumn day. I was tempted to attempt a sangria from my one buck chuck, but decided to experiment another time. While I would typically rather have a red-base sangria, I think the chardonnay could make for a very light-spirited, refreshing white version. I think I'm going to go a non-traditional route with some fruit liqueur in place of fruit brandy, frozen juice concentrate (Hawaii's own, perhaps) in place of fruit juice and fresh strawberries and strained pomegranate from the tree out back. Anyhow...

Not too terribly much has happened with the house since last I posted. I chipped some of the excess grout to the desired shape in the laundry room, then we sealed it with a light coat first, and then a very liberal application second. The water heater, washer and dryer went back in, and we've gotten caught back up on laundry. I certainly didn't expect we'd fall that far behind. The result is beautiful, but something seems to still be off-gassing, as the room will get a somewhat musty masonry smell if left closed up all day. We assume this will fade to nothing, given enough time. I cut the trim pieces on the rear door a bit higher so we could reinsert the threshold after it gets sanded a new coat of black spray, but we haven't installed it yet. I think we're leaning in the direction of drilling through with a masonry bit, then insert soft lead anchors to bolt into. If any masons have a better idea, I'd love to hear it.

I finally took back all of those Lowe's receipts that didn't have the 10% discount applied. Unfortunately, it's not a simple matter of scanning the receipt barcode and then returning 10% back - no, that would be too easy. Only the shift's head cashier can handle these type of requests, and they are forced to return each item one-by-one from the original receipt at full price, then re-sell it all at the discounted price. This ended up with me standing at the returns desk for nearly an hour while a fistful of receipts were returned and re-rung. To compound matters, I brought back a handful of items I didn't use in the projects - a spare inner gutter corner, some 3/16" spacers I decided against using, a bottle of de-hazer, etc - so the complexity of the process magnified when some of the items came up "insufficient quantity - already returned". To make matters worse, I shop at 3 locations (depending on what other errands I need to run), so many had to be overridden, and different transactions used different combinations of cash, debit, and credit. 

I ended up with, as best I can tell, nearly $200 back after returns and adjustments, some cash, some credited to debit account, some credited to some credit card or another. The cash went right back into the ATM, and I managed to avoid buying a single thing. I really had my eyes on replacing the odd, worn mixture of knob styles, manufacturers, and finishes with a new Schlage set in brushed nickel, shown here...









...but I somehow managed to keep my money in my pocket.

The wife's medical and dental goes live tomorrow, so I imagine I'll need to keep a fair bit around for co-pays and whatnot this month, as she's been uninsured for quite some time. My car needs to have the registration renewed, and hers needs to be registered in this state. I just switched my homeowner's/auto policy from Liberty to AAA, saving about $20/mo for myself, and another $25/mo when I switched her insurance to my policy. Every penny counts.

The county tax bill arrived, so I spent half a day sorting out the particulars with my lender to pay it from the impound account, and for the county to be prepared to accept it. Also had to fiddle with the impound account when switching insurance policies around, oh boy. The joys of the first home purchase!

Finally located the socket cover for the wife's motherboard, so it finally went out for RMA. Also tested each stick of RAM in both computers one-by-one for two hours, and found two failed sticks. Their RMAs have been created, but I forgot to ship them yesterday, so they'll go out tomorrow.

Couponed my way through another 40% off grocery trip, this time full of essentials like ground beef, canned chicken and bread. I'm sure it would have been much more savings if I had bought massive amounts of junk like they do on that TV show. Looking forward to another high-savings trip next week at the not-for-profit Commissary prices.

Also been trying to pick up reading a bit more. Worked my way about a third of the way through _Cataclysm: General Hap Arnold and the Defeat of Japan_ by Herman Wolk and almost half of the way through _Dune_ by Frank Herbert. All I can say is wow... what a novel! But it is certainly a long read. Have the second one set up to go afterwards. Also picked up a couple history books from a county library book sale, the second book from Asimov's Foundation series, and the first Wheel of Time novel. Just the Dune series alone could keep a guy busy for a year, so I expect by the time I finish it, I'll have pieced together a full second-hand set of the Foundation and Wheel of Time anthologies.

And... hmmmm... yeah, not much else. Little done to the house. Trying to find the projects that use materials I already have, so... the next projects will probably to slap a coat or two of paint on the office (or master bedroom), run some more grounds to existing outlets, and maybe refinish the front door.

Anyhow, it's bed time. Goodnight.


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## natedro

Thadius856 said:


> View attachment 38907


I like those knobs. The ones I went with were very similar in the master bedroom and eventually I'll put them in the rest of the house. I'm hoping Home Depot doesn't decide to stop making the ones I have started using. I guess I need to wise up and just buy 20 or 30 eh?




Thadius856;739007[/ATTACH said:


> And... hmmmm... yeah, not much else. Little done to the house. Trying to find the projects that use materials I already have, so... the next projects will probably to slap a coat or two of paint on the office (or master bedroom), run some more grounds to existing outlets, and maybe refinish the front door.


What's this grounding you speak of? Can I get a how-to? We are all ungrounded in our house. While we will be rerunning all the wire to the kitchen and bathrooms, every othe room is fine, but I'd like to ground some of the outlets. Have any good information for me bud?

And I know how you feel with the house - sometimes you just need to take a breather I think.

Thanks,
Nate


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## Thadius856

Need a breather? Hardly. Finances necessitate it.

As for grounding, I remove the receptacle cover, receptacle and electrical box. A 3/8x54 cable bit goes down in the wall cavity, then I drill through the subfloor at an angle (in case I land on a stringer, so I don't have to drill another 6 inches or so). A piece of 14 gauge green THHN is attached from the crawlspace to the bit, the bit is raised back out of the hole with the wire, and the receptacle put back together and reinstalled with pigtails. I run the new conductor to a central junction box I installed and connect it to a homerun back to the ground bar in the main panel.

It goes much faster and easier with the carpenter topside working the boxes while I do the work in the crawlspace. By the time he has gone to the next box, I've run the line to the junction and stapled appropriately. I do the connections in the junction after we've done our fill of receptacles, while he reattaches the wiring.


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## Thadius856

Been a few days since I last posted. I'm going to try to post daily from here on out, but no promises just yet while I try to work it back into my work schedule. Lately, most things seem to be revolving around the first rains of the season.

The forecast called for rain the last night and the night before and beautiful days between. I welcomed it, as we haven't seen rain since we moved out here in last April (not counting one night of 0.01" light drizzle that lasted all of 5 minutes). Of course, the first decent rain in a new home is always a nail-biting mix of excitement and fear that the roof will hold up well. I've been keeping a close eye on the corners of each room for runs in the paint and haven't seen any new ones yet... I made sure to sand the old runs down a bit when we were painting so I could tell if they started running again. So far, we look good.

The carpenter's been keeping an eye on the gutters for leaks, for much the same reason. So far they're holding well against the fascia everywhere, but we've discovered leaks on a few of the splice pieces, even though they've been gooped up well with sealant. We'll be re-coating once we get a dry day again. All of the downspouts seem to be well-placed, and I think we've alleviated the water sitting against the foundation on the front (Southeast) wall as much as possible without putting in a french drain.

Unfortunately, the older gentleman two doors down still doesn't have his roof done. The thing was obviously lumpy when seen from the street when he started, so we knew he'd find some warped wood in places and quite a few sagging rafters. My guess was that they'd been too widely spaced when it was added on - all houses in this tract started with a flat chip roof, and about 15% still have them. When the shingles and paper came off, he exposed the same 1x6 sheathing that I have.

Instead of replacing the sagging rafters, it looks like he just threw some solid decking on top and somehow hoped it would pull it flat... fat chance of decking pulling 20-plus-year-old rafters in any meaningful way. I think he knew it wouldn't be a permanent solution, as the dips would cause water to sit in places, but kept going anyway. The unevenness _will_ still be visible once he's done.

To his credit, he did extend and overhang past the front door and paper the whole thing quickly. But then work seemed to grind to a halt for a week, when I'm told he found rot in the rear (where we can't see his progress). It must be fixed now, because he's moving along again. However, he only had the additional overhang over the front door and paper and composite shingle bundles up top when yesterday's rain came. No tarps. He got the new overhang and about 5 rows done on the front before last night's rain. He's back up there today, but I doubt he'll have even the front half done before tonight's rain hits. I seem to remember doing much larger areas much faster as a helper, without the benefit of his compressor and gun, so I'm not sure what's holding him up. A plain rectanglular floorplan of ~1200 sq ft, at 4/12, with only one ridge, seems like it would go fairly fast.


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## Thadius856

Anyhow, onto some (half-) real progress!

The office has been re-tidied up about 10 times now, but we're _still_ waiting for the wife's motherboard to return from RMA, the wife's RAM is _still_ being RMA'd, and the printer is _still_ broken (out of warranty). That presents two majors problems: there's no use putting her case back together since I'll just have it tear it all apart again, and we can't afford a decent printer replacement at the moment. That means both are splayed open on the floor!









My desk seems to get fuller, then emptier, with each passing day. Stamps for bills, paperwork, etc. just seems to keep building up with no other place to put it. Thus, the wife started cleaning up the "junk drawer". It's now relocated deeper into the kitchen instead of being the furthest outmost drawer (which I dislike, but it's her domain) and is much emptier than it was previously. Most small hand tools have been moved back to my project box, and others out into the tool shed.









Since the printer's out of warranty, and cost me more than $200, I figured I'd give it a go at repairing it. All I have to do is get one dislodged arm of the CD tray back into its correct position, but I can't find a way to do that without disassembling the entire thing. Servicing it may easily run the price of a replacement. At this point, I have nothing to lose by trying to repair it myself (since it's worth $0 in its current state), but it's slow going. There are so many hidden screws and tabs, very tight working spaces, and absolutely ZERO instructions or how-to's or people's experiences in doing so online. If I could just remove the lid it would be so much easier, but it's held on some way that I just can't seem to understand. :furious:

I'm a very... organized person. The fact that it won't turn on to even let me scan annoys the bejebus out of me, since I normally scan and shred everything short of Birth Certificates and other official documents. The pile of paperwork is probably passing 500 sheets now, with a stack of handwritten notes and many receipts that I need to get scanned in before they fade. I expect my home improvement deduction will be pretty large this year.

Also notice the extension cords, power taps and surge protectors. There's only one outlet in the entire fracking room. That's _going_ to change in a radical way.









The wife and I try to supplement our food budget as best as possible with a combination of shopping at the base commissary, couponing, and not eating out. It's certainly not easy to feed 3 people on an E-3's pay! While we're nowhere near the ridiculousness of that Extreme Couponing show, I find it's necessary to have good organization to get _anywhere_ in the process. We skipped over the cut-coupons-in-giant-binder method for the whole-inserts-in-filing-cabinet method, and have saved tons of time not clipping coupons we'd never use.

It was a pretty lengthy undertaking to get it all together, probably no less than 15 hours of sorting, labeling, ordering, etc. The stack not in the filing cabinet is half of our expired coupons that we'll be sending to military familiar stationed overseas (where they can use coupons up to six months past expiration).


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## Thadius856

The house next door finally closed the sale. After the $20k in termite damage and rot, it passed inspection. However, I'm told the realtor contracted out a ton of tiny jobs (like re-painting the front door trim) that ate away quickly at what the last owners got for it. It's a shame too, because they were a very nice family, and just wanted to get the deceased mother's house sold before it went into disrepair.

The electrical company was out to the rear of the house no less than half a dozen times doing a fair amount of work. The overall goal seemed to be to replace the old meter with a new smart meter, as well as one for the gas line. It looks like the house was on less than 100 amp service, had both ancient meters, had a very worn weatherhead, needed the drop from the pole replaced, and was still on a fuse box. I shudder to think of what it cost if the utility company wanted all required and piping up to code before they'd allow for the main panel to be replaced. I don't know if they did, or who put up the cash for it, but it wouldn't have been cheap.

There's nothing new to take a picture of - the grass is still overgrown, the windows still don't have coverings, the landscaping hasn't changed - as the new owners are still moving everything in. They're a mid-twenties couple who seem fairly nice, though we haven't really talked too much yet.


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## Thadius856

The wife worked last night, so dinner fell on me. Typically, I like to do a one-pan meal (brown hamburger, add with other things to crock pot or a Hamburger-helper type meal solution), but I wanted to be a little more traditional. I pulled together some pork strips front the freezer, some fajita seasoning, and red/green bells together for some amazing fajitas. In the process, I realized that the only pan we have was a 9". Cooking fajitas for 3 adults in something that size was certainly challenging.

It dawned on me that this alone must make cooking dinner incredibly frustrating for the wife. I wanted to wait for a good sale on Amazon and use up the last of my gift card, and some $5-off offers I have saved up, but it didn't seem right to make her wait for all of that. I picked her up a much nicer quality T-Fal Elegance 12.5" stainless saute pan (but still not pro-quality), and placed it on the stove with a pink bow.









While I was at it, I realized we didn't have any glass casserole dishes, so I picked up a Pyrex 3-qt/2-qt combo set with lids...









...and a Chicago Cutlery chef's knife, utility knife and paring knife to match the vegetable knife (note: the only half-decent knife) we already have.









I also tossed a bag holder on the wall for her (up-side-down from what the instructions called for) that came with the absolutely worst quality anchors I've ever seen.









And replaced our make-shift silverware tray repurposed as spice rack with a real one that folds down to be closer to her eye level.









In the end, I won't get the door hardware, baseboards, etc. that I wanted because I used what I did on the kitchenware. It wasn't break-the-bank expensive stuff, but it isn't throwaway cheapo stuff either. Hopefully it all lasts us a very, very long time.

She was so happy that she ended up re-arranging the kitchen storage into a configuration that makes a lot more sense... _except for the junk drawer_. :wink:


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## Thadius856

One last thing for the day before I get started on my other chores!

As I was writing my last post, the wife came into the room and showed me something she rigged up. I thought it was cute as hell and decided that I just had to share it with the world.









At this point, I was thinking she just tossed some batteries in it or something. Hardly that simple.









It's a makeshift key rack! It only seems to hold the two key sets that we never use, but hey, it didn't cost anything to repurpose!

Simply. Adorable.


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## Thadius856

Apparently posting daily isn't so easy as I thought.

Have a new supervisor at work and, as expected, things have been turned on their head. He's a good guy, and I think he's looking out for me, but I'm now buried in work to try to get where he wants to me to be. Namely, he wants every action I've ever taken at work since I got here in April in a spreadsheet. I understand the importance for performance reports and awards packages, but it's simply not easy to go back and create such a document accurately in retrospect.

That aside, I had dental appointment #3 this morning. #1 and #2 tackled fillings on each side, and I expected this one to be a cleaning. Instead I had my gums poked with a sharp tool for a solid 30 minutes while the hygienist read off huge strings of single digit numbers and location terms that made my head spin. I did get a water picking that hurt a whole lot less than I expected and a third round of painted-on fluoride. This one was stronger and turned my stomach up-side-down in no time flat.

Now I have _two_ followup cleanings. Why two? Because she wants to numb me up on each side, giving herself a full hour per side. It already sounds painful.

I started this weekend out with a 15 minute nap in the library parking lot, a scolding from a librarian, a solid 3 hours of sleep last night, and an attempt (in vain) to clear out the DVR box a little bit by watching consecutive episodes of How the Universe Works and Dark Matters: Twisted But True.

I'm putting off cleaning, grocery shopping and errand running until tomorrow morning. In the mean time, I managed to managed to fix an error with my PC's backups that had been plaguing it for a while. The dreaded "Error 0x81000031", which the description indicates is because of missing BitLocker encryption keys, despite the fact that my drives aren't encrypted. As it turns out, it can also happen if one of your Windows 7 libraries is unavailable at the time of backup, which is what happened when I moved my videos drive from Y: to X: without updating my Videos library link. Lame sauce.


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## Thadius856

I already know that I won't be available very much tomorrow. I have to pick up something to grill, get some ideas ready for what to make, and all that jazz. My brother-in-law and two nephews are stopping by for the first time, so the wife's suddenly _really_ into cleaning. She got called into work tonight, so it looks like I'll have to pick up some of the slack. :huh: I had originally planned this long weekend for the demo on the raised portion of the living room, but that's pushed off to the side now for family's sake.

In other news, I've been working on backups of my DVD collection. I came into a few box sets and quite an amount of not-so-great films a while back. However, I have this rule that I never watch the originals or put them out on a shelf because invariably somebody will mess them up or leave them out of the case for weeks on end. I've been slowly recopying them all to DVD-R so I can store the originals away, but it's a long process (especially for TV DVDs, which are always DVD-DLs and need to be split).

One of those box sets is the Battlestar Galactica set, including Razor and The Plan. I've only seen about half way into Season 4, so I'm really antsy to finish the series. The same is true for Stargate Universe, which I still haven't seen the last 10 episodes or so, and the whole last season of Doctor Who.

In the book world, I'm now piecing together print editions of Ender's, Foundation and Dune series. I'm stalled about half way through John Green's _An Abundance of Katherines_. I really like his writing style and the Vlog Brothers videos, but something about this book makes it feel like it's targeted at a much younger audience, and I'm a little disappointed at that. Perhaps I'll give _Will Grayson, Will Grayson_ a try next.

Anybody have plans for a DIY time machine? Yeesh.


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## Thadius856

Yesterday, as expected, was pretty hectic with family in town. We got to see my nephews and their father for quite a few hours, so I was pretty happy about that. They finally got their birthday presents, so they were just as excited. I think we all had a pretty good time.

Of course, that meant that the table needed to have the two additional leaves put in and the rest of the chairs brought out. This mean that the table needed to be moved into closer to the front door, which gave just the right amount of space. In fact, we like it so much where it is, it's going to stay there at the fully expanded size.









They made off with close to 20 lbs of large, juicy pomegranates from the tree, and there's still plenty more left. The local birds have been going nuts on the husks we threw under the tree.

I went a little overboard with cooking. I dislike time spent cooking, though I very much enjoy the results, so I cooked a bit more than we needed. And when I say a bit more, I'm talking 12 1/3lb burgers, 10 chicken thighs and 10 hotdogs. There was certainly leftovers.









I made a half dozen of the burgers with sharp cheddar and green chiles inside, covered in a pepper jack, and the other half dozen plain with some Worchestershire mixed in and covered in a mild cheddar. The green chiles really held in the moisture. The chicken thighs were marinaded and basted with a mixture of Maui Luau marinade mix, a can of pineapple chunks, a squeeze of honey and a small amount of Strawberry Smoothie for moisture. The result was a very crispy, sweet skin and a very moist meat. Mmmmm.

I also whipped together an traditional butter/brown sugar baked acorn squash and a 4lb butternut squash cubed in a garlic Parmesan sauce. Unfortunately, nothing special with the salad or hotdogs, as I ran out of prep time. I would have liked some giant croutons and almond slivers, but had neither on hand.

Desert was a store-bought coffee cake and a traditional American apple pie, with a side of french vanilla ice cream (or mint chocolate chip).

I made two pitchers of Sangria as well. The first was a mixture of the $1 Chardonnay, a tropical punch mixture and diced strawberries. The second included chunk peaches, raspberry juice and a mango-guava mixture.

Needless to say, I _rolled_ to bed after packing up all the leftovers.









The previous dining area is now empty, so we tossed a new rug on the spot. We found it on Craigslist for $50, though we think it was originally made as a tapestry since there's split rings on the back along one side. The lack of baseboards is really apparent now without the table to distract the eye, but we're okay with that.


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## Thadius856

This morning we awoke to find a garage sale just a few houses down. Even after 10am, we were only the second customers. There were still some good finds left.

The first was a Time Life books series, ranging from Woodworking to Major Appliance repair. At $1/book, they were a steal.









The wife found cookbooks. Need I say more?









And a full set of dishes, setting for six. Not sure what we'll do when we have to serve eight, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. They're some Chinese Walmart brand and not top-quality, but we paid $10 for the whole set (while the sticker said $25).









I also picked up a set of three older 4' pipe clamps for $5. They'll come in handy for re-gluing some of the chair legs today.


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## Thadius856

Today's mini-project was removing the paint from the hallway hardwood. It seems that we're the only owners to have every drop-clothed the hallway while painting, so there was random smears and specks (from rollers) in trim white, the previous light brown color, and the dark blue-grey before that.

A latex paint remover seemed to do the trick pretty well. I spot tested to make sure it wasn't going to strip the entire floor. I sprayed, let sit for 1-2 minutes, then agitated with a Rubbermaid dish brush (the same amazingly sturdy one that scrubbed every inch of fence before staining and every inch of stucco before painting).

*Before/After*



























Much of the roller spray I couldn't zoom in far enough to show. You'll just have to take my word on that one.

After all was done, I cleaned it all down with a bottle of orange-based oil and a Swiffer WetJet mop (without the Swiffer floor spray).









It still looks beat up without the baseboards, but at least now I know when I put them on that there won't be huge paint glops everywhere, texture overspray peaking out from behind, and the world's worst caulking job left over.


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## Thadius856

Last night was certainly entertaining. I decided that I was going to at least begin demo on the raised portion of the living room so that I could get a feeling for what was underneath.









I carefully removed three of the already-cracked tiles with a good old trusty B.U.S. (Big Ugly Screwdriver - the one that looks like it had been abused for 50 years). One tile cracked in a wierd way and left sharp ceramic splinters, one of which went right into my thumb. It didn't hurt, and I barely touched it, but I was spurting blood. :huh: That compounds the other thumb that got poked with a brand new factory-sharp Chef's knife while opening a brick of cheese.

The wife had told me that she wanted me to save and reuse or sell the old tiles. When she asked why I was dealing with them so gingerly. Apparently she'd changed her mind without telling me. The 4th came off with just a few quick whacks. I gently pried the hardwood off the front, the quart round moulding and the base moulding.

Oddly enough, there was thinset under the hardwood. With some staples and carpet fibers on top of that. So at some point this thing as tiled on the side, then it was carpeted (with zero carpet in this house, wtf?), and then removed and covered with leftover hardwood flooring planks. Go figure.

I revealed what I'd hoped to underneath: a nice, empty space framed out with 2x12s on top of perfectly clean foundation. Yay, no disgusting amount of scraping ahead!


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## Thadius856

Once everybody's moving around and awake, I'll start back up with my baby crowbar, pop the tiles off, then sledge the plywood. Had to stop last night because the wife wanted the both of us to go return the videos and get some groceries. I sneaked in a trip to Lowe's for a dimmable CFL and we ended up leaving with two new brushed nickel doorknobs and six new brushed nickel hinges. For the record, they're the same as the ones I showed on the previous page. There was one with a slightly twisted, fluted handle quite similar, but at $44/ea and with a 5-day Special Order wait, I wasn't going for that.

The wife started in on old knob removal before I could even get everything inside, let alone take pictures. So the before/afters will be a little hobbled together this time, I'm afraid.

*Before/After*



























A little close-up detail of the old scratches... or as close as my crummy camera would allow.


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## Thadius856

Apparently, somebody was a real fan of graphite powder, because I've found it in every hinge and knob so far. Because there are cheap hollow-core doors with only stain, no sealant, it's very difficult to remove and ends up darkening the surrounding area slightly. Grrr.

Front








Back


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## Thadius856

Again, more graphite everywhere. Cleared a few cobwebs while I was at it.

*Before/After*








































The wife got the hinges off, again, before I could take pictures. Sorry about that.

The trim on both doors hasn't been painted yet, because these are the last two rooms to be painted. I'm waiting on a style decision about the wainscoting in the office before I do paint.


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## Dinggus

Looks nice. I've been thinking about replacing all my interior doors, but from what I read, pre-hung or slab doors both seem to be difficult.


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## Thadius856

Yeah, I wish I had the $$ for a new set of doors. Or baseboards. Or trim. Or crown. Or... or... 

Just finished demo on the raised portion, and was just emailing myself the photos to scrub the EXIF data.

I gotta get to sleep for work tonight, but I'll _try_ to post the details before midnight Pacific.


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## natedro

Thadius856 said:


> Yeah, I wish I had the $$ for a new set of doors. Or baseboards. Or trim. Or crown. Or... or...
> 
> Just finished demo on the raised portion, and was just emailing myself the photos to scrub the EXIF data.
> 
> I gotta get to sleep for work tonight, but I'll _try_ to post the details before midnight Pacific.


I changed a few knobs recently also. Exact same style you chose. I need to change the hinges still... Another project and more money I don't yet have... Mind sharing how much a brushed nickel hinge goes for?


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## Thadius856

natedro said:


> I changed a few knobs recently also. Exact same style you chose. I need to change the hinges still... Another project and more money I don't yet have... Mind sharing how much a brushed nickel hinge goes for?











The 3-pack was about $8. Lowe's website shows them at $8.48. They come in 5/8" round (pictured), 1/4" round (can take a picture), and rectangular. The hall closet has 1/4" round and I prefer the look, but I wasn't at my usual Lowe's, didn't see the 1/4" round, and frankly was happy enough with an excuse to not have to re-chisel the hinge mortises to make room.

Remember, you _typically_ need 2 for interior doors and 3 for exterior doors.

I bought two 3-packs, so the last two will go on the carpenter's door, but I just didn't get to that today.


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## Thadius856

Woke up this morning to heavy rain.









Funny thing was that I couldn't hear it at all anywhere inside the house. Certainly unexpected. I opened up the back door and, sure enough, it was beating away on the patio overhang.

Still no signs of leaks. Peaked in the attic briefly and didn't see any spots or smell any mustiness of the blown-in insulation getting wet. Certainly no leaks in the tool shed. There's some standing water at the downspout in the picture because I never filled in last year's carved-out hole.

We have a fairly decent view of the city's rustic water tower just outside the front door. I really liked the look of it wet, but didn't get a picture because my little town's name is plastered all over it. :whistling2:


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## Thadius856

Demolition progressed at a steady rate, though it took some time to find the optimal method for tearing it all out.

The first method was to prybar/hammer off each tile. But this was some heavily modified thinset, well laid, and strong porcelain tile, so it was very difficult to remove even in pieces. You couldn't just smack the face of it to crack it either, at least without sending sharp bits flying twenty feet across the room. After the tile was off, I'd smash the plywood to bits between the supports. The downside was that it took forever, but the upside was that the largest bit of trash was smaller than 6" across and fit in the household waste. This worke for the first few small sections. (This is the method from yesterday's pictures)

The carpenter lent a hand and we came up with the second method. It involved removing the supports from the still-tiled portions, then simply stepping on what was left hanging over. The idea was that the tile would stay rigid against the flexing plywood and pop right off. Only that even with strong deflections, they miraculously stayed well-attached. This method was quickly scrapped. (That's what you see us trying here. I've split the one 2x12 that you _can't_ see in half and knocked it out)









Method three included delaminating the plywood with tiles still attached. As we drove the prybars between the two center layers, the tile would crack and break off. This would expose the screwheads (yep, screws... this added considerable time since the heads were under the thinset) so we could pry/unscrew the bottom half from the supports. This worked for the second third of the removal.

The last third was simply carried off. Since it just floating there, we simply cut down the 11' section of 2x12s and walked it out the door intact. A dump run will definitely be required.

We were then talking about the rock wall. I hated it, he loved it. It was going to come down, period. And we decided it would be easier to remove now than to try to remove it later without damanging the new tile. I had enough time before bed, so, guess what... it came down too.









A combination of pick-axe for some rocks and prybar/hammer for others worked well. The dyed mortar between the rocks was fairly soft, and the mortar between the rocks and the wall was broke easily. Underneath was chicken wire, secured with roofing nails to two layers of tar paper marked "gun grade", whatever that means. Beneath that, a layer of sheetrock that we pretty well destroyed. After filling twenty contractor bags with CMUs, mortar, tile, wood, etc. we ran out of space to put more trash, so it stayed up. That, and we didn't want a half-open wall with it getting colder.









Here, we're still in the cleanup stage. A thick layer of concrete dust has settled over everything and we're trying to vacuum it off seating, swiffer it off electronics and sweep/mop it off the floors.

I'll be buying sheetrock, tape and mud on my next day off, as well as doing that dump run. I suspect I'll probably need to pay my dues to the Pink Panther as well, and I'd like to do some work on the electrical while I have the wall open. I think I already have all the electrical tools/materials I'll need on-hand, except maybe switch boxes. (I only have $5/ea old work boxes w/ clamps and wings, and may as well just get some with the stud bracket.)


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## Thadius856

Here's what needs to go to the dump now. Thank goodness for having a van at our disposal because there's no way the Accord, Firebird or Neon would carry it in less than five trips.


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## Dinggus

I suppose I missed something, why did you remove that piece of flooring?


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## Thadius856

Flooring? What piece?


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## Dinggus

Looks like you removed a huge piece of flooring, like it was raised?


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## natedro

Dinggus said:


> I suppose I missed something, why did you remove that piece of flooring?


I think they just removed this thing.

Then they're going to be replacing the flooring (I assume?) and redoing the walls behind where the thing was because they are beat up. Am I right?


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## Dinggus

Alright, now I get it.


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## Thadius856

That is, indeed, the correct "thing". And yep, just about spot on with the replacement. 

With central heat working very well and little access to free dry wood, I didn't see much of a use for a wood stove. Additionally, it was caked in creosote, appeared improperly installed from the attic, and was all single-wall. The purchase inspection noted that it looked like the pipe had caught fire more than once, but with no _apparent_ damage to the roof.

I'm going to put in the same porcelain tile that I just put in the laundry room, unless perhaps I can get a _perfect_ match to the hardwood from Lowe's, where it seems just about _everything_ recent in this house came from.


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## Dinggus

Laminate flooring is pretty cheap on HomeDepot right now.


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## Thadius856

Problem is that I'm a wanna-be perfectionist, so any mismatch would drive me slowly insane.

There's going to be a 3-piece full-wall bookshelf there, hiding the wall and covering some of the flooring.

Here's an unfinished drawing of the bookshelf I'm planning out.


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## Thadius856

Being in between work shifts, I didn't have too much time for the house today. I have dental visit #4 in a few hours, and doubt that I'll feel all that great afterwards, but if I do, I'm planning to take the load of building waste to the dump. I'll need to pick up some drywall on my way back. (I could really use some coffee about now!)

I did manage to get the old drywall taken down. I just gave the crow's foot a couple solid whacks to get it under the nail heads and the pulled right out. There was an odd assortment of standard wood nails (8p?), roofing nails, horseshoe nails (t-shaped head) and finishing nails. Go figure.









You can definietly still make out the location of the old garage door. There's also some gimpy pieces that were used for a place to attach the drywall around the edges. The more I look at the picture, the less I like the idea of two 12' pieces. Pretty sure I'll just go with the three 8' pieces instead. I really don't want to have to build a horizontal brace to attach the drywall to if I go horizontally, so I'm avoiding it.

I was going to install insulation, but I may just leave it the way it is and put in a few blocks for a fire break to stop the blown-in insulation from falling into the walls from the attic. Not very cool.

Of course, everything's coated in white dust again. Who coulda guessed...


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## Thadius856

What a day so far!

Started off with a run to the dump, getting rid of 1920 lbs of what I tore out from the living room - nearly a full ton! It would have actually hit a ton if I hadn't saved the pieces of the hardwood I removed from the side of the raised section for spares. I'd wanted to get that done yesterday, but schedules were what they were.

I did get a quarter of the way through _Paper Towns_ by John Green yesterday, which I'm (so far) liking much more than the other book of his I recently finished, _An Abundance of Katherines_. I'm at a pivotal plot point,, I'm pretty certain I've already predicted what's going to happen, even though there's only minor hints so far. I just hope the rest of the book doesn't go emo after it, if it does indeed come to be. Anywho...

After the dump, we made a run down to Lowe's for some materials. With a few pieces of the living room hardwood in hand, they couldn't match it. It's a plain-Jane piece of 3/8" tongue-and-groove, but most of their stuff was thicker and/or odd types of proprietary speed lock joints. There was some stuff going out of stock that was similar, but off by 1/16th in thickness and with lower-quality ply. Otherwise, a near-perfect match. It appears the living room section is red oak, and fairly stripey pieces at that. Looks like we're sticking with the imported Italian porcelain tile that I put into the laundry room. :thumbup:

While we were there, I noticed something very... familiar. See for yourself:

















Yep. That's right. The same stuff I just removed from the laundry room. While every other sheet offers a 5 to 20 year warranty, this stuff is the only one that comes with a 1 year limited warranty. It's also by far the cheapest, with the next cheapest (to the left in the picture) coming it at around $1.00/sq ft.

It relieves me to know just how cheap and new that stuff is, because that means I certainly did not disturb asbestos when I removed it. :laughing:


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## Thadius856

While we were there, I picked up three 4x8 sheets of drywall. The regular 1/2" stuff was in the 6.xx range, but I splurged laughing on the green anti-bacterial stuff at 9.98 per sheet.

In case anybody was curious as to the price of a project like this, read on. Otherwise, just skip to the next post.

One 50lb bag of heavily modified thinset in white @ $28.98
One bag of the Tavy 1/8" _X-Men*_ tile spacers @ $5.18
Two metal NM switch boxes with stud brackets @ $2.17
One gallon of Valspar drywall primer @ $12.98
One bucket of low-dust premix mud @ $5.95
One 300' roll of green no-mold drywall mesh tape @ $6.98
One 5lb box of 2" drywall screws @ $6.47
One fine grid angled sandpaper block @ $5.97

After 10% discount and after 7.25% sales tax, I ended up at $103.05.

I already have some tile on hand, maybe even enough for this project, so I didn't bring any more home. I at least have enough to get me started and well into at least the 6th level tiling-a-trapezoid-shaped-area-with-a-3-pattern-field-and-cutting-it-all-with-a-dull-blade-on-a-cheap-ass-tile-saw Hell. Sounds like fun, right? :laughing:



_* Obviously there's no picture or mention of X-Men on the bag, but there damn well should be! I mean... see for yourself._


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## Thadius856

Anyhow, back home, I started on the electrical. Off went everything except the new circuit I added because it's that only one I feel 100% confident knowing exactly what's on the circuit and what isn't. Plus, Pandora streamed through the TV, piped over the 5.1, is a whole lot better sounding than my Ryobi worksite radio.

The new switch boxes with stud brackets went on. The only receptacle on this wall previously was about 3.5' from the left edge of the wall. For reference, the wall is approximately 11'6" wide. It had also been buried deep between the faux-rock, and we didn't even notice it was there until over a month after we moved in.









As it happened, the power came from the right side of the wall, so it was no problem cutting that piece of Romex back to the first new box (4' from the right side). It turns out that whoever put up the last drywall nailed straight into that old piece of Romex, and I found a corroded hole in it when pulled out the excess. Each side of all of the wires got stapled for good measure.








_*200th picture, YEY!*_

New Romex went from the first new box to the second new box (roughly centered on the wall), and from the second new box to the existing box. All is 14-2 on a 15 amp breaker. Somewhere closer to the panel it ties into 14-2 without a ground, so I'll leave the ground disconnected on the new receptacles as a visual if I end up selling the home. The question is really, 'where does it connect to the original wiring?' because I haven't found the junction yet. I hope it's not another glad-I-didn't-die-in-an-electrical-fire-while-sleeping DIY bundle of inline electrical tape ball goodness.


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## Thadius856

Once the electrical was done, I cut and installed three fire blocks from random scrap 2x4 pieces to keep attic insulation from continuing to drop down into the wall. I also cleaned out what dirt and grime was left in the bottom of each stud pocket, finding an unusual amount of dirt and a few dead weeds. I think the previous homeowner left the wall open on the outside for some time when installing that same ugly stone on the other side of the wall. Ugh.

These walls are wavy. And I don't just mean wavy... I mean _wavy_. The living room was taped and mudded last time by a complete amateur, so my goal is to make my first time look better than theirs. :laughing:









Note the obvious gap in the upper left. We ended up transferring a line from the ceiling to the drywall with a makeshift compass. We tried to trim to leave at least 1/8" for a gap from the slab where possible. It worked in most places, but not everywhere. Also note that the bottom isn't all the way pushed in for the above photo.









Closer up, it becomes much more obvious. See the wavy line on the adjoining wall? That's where it was never textured, primed, or painted because they just slapped on the faux-stone before painting, and that's where it happened to cover. It should make for very interesting work for me.









Also check out the segment of the wall that was also not textured, primed or painted done because of the fireplace platform. I don't feel like spending $80 for a poor-quality texture gun, so I think I'm going to just fully panel the new drywall in white bead board, and all other walls up to 32".

I tried to find some at Lowe's, but they only had five HORRENDOUSLY beat up sheets that I'd have to trim 6-12" from each side to make use of. No way I'm paying their price for such poorly handled materials. They did have a few very nice stain-grade pieces, but at $40/sheet, I'm not going there to just hide with a bookcase.









And here we are after almost 4 hours from when we got home. Before I'm flamed for the screw pattern, understand that I eyeballed the spacing. It wasn't until after we stepped back after finishing that the carpenter said "you know, normally you would go 8 & 12 on the spacing..." LOL.

I did have use of decent impact drill, which made things easier. I did the first 1/5th with a standard PH2 tip in an impact driver, then we located the specialty drywall tip with a circular head that sets the correct depth every time. _I don't know the name of this tool, so please feel to chime in if you know what it's called._ I ended up doing more damage with it when I'd slip than the sanity I was saving praying I wouldn't break the paper, so I just went back to the last 1/3rd of the room with the standard bit and driver.









A close-up of the center section. The only thing that worries me is that expansion might reek havoc on the pieces that touch the slab. Otherwise, I'm almost rested enough to try taking on the mudding.


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## Dinggus

You motivate me, how hard was it to put up drywall?


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## Thadius856

Dinggus said:


> You motivate me, how hard was it to put up drywall?


First, thank you!

Second, hanging it was easier than I remembered from the last time I did it. Then again, I was about 10 years old back then, so a full sheet felt a lot lighter this time around. :whistling2: If this was a new home or new framing, I can only imagine it would be quite a bit easier. Most of our time was spent accounting for the waviness of the other two walls and the ceiling.

I think the difficulty in drywall installation is in the tape and mud. _That_ seems to be why the call drywall an art. I'll let you know how it goes tonight, assuming I get my fat ass out of this chair and attempt it. :laughing:

I'm almost certain that having an experienced carpenter helping me along made a lot of things go smoother. While he had me do the bulk of the labor, I'm not sure I would have been able to determine the off-square cuts as easily or as cleanly as he had.


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## Thadius856

Just got done with the tape and first coat of mud. And for anybody who hasn't taped and mudded drywall before, let me just say, that was way easier than I expected. After having read so many seemingly conflicting tutorials, tips, and "ZOMGWTFHELPME!!!!1!!1" posts, I was starting to get worried that I'd screw it up royally. In reality, all it takes is a steady hand, patience and time. Lots of time.

The seams between the new sheets were easy. Very easy. Taping took seconds there. The left side of the wall where it butted tightly against the old drywall was easy too. The hard spots were those with the 1/8" - 3/8" gaps.

Standby for before-and-after pictures _after dinner_!


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## Thadius856




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## Thadius856




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## Thadius856




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## Thadius856




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## Dinggus

Wait, so all you do is mud the spaces and nails? To easy.


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## Thadius856

LOL. Yup. Pretty much.

I did get some washboard effect in places because the knife kept hitting the texture on the other walls, but otherwise, it's almost good to go.

I think shooting a consistent texture would be much harder than this. That and the sprayer costs a bit of dough. Think I'll cheat and cover the whole wall with bead board after I prime it. :laughing:


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## Thadius856

Just realized you said _nails_. Yes, and no.

You _can_ use nails to save a few dollars. I find them harder to control (from breaking the paper) and that they're more prone to backing out in the future and showing through the texture, especially if a cantilevered load is placed on them (like a TV mount). Screws are the better option, IMO.


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## Thadius856

Over the long work weekend, progress of course stalled again. My surges of full days of free time, followed by zero free time (ad infinitum) seem to have several advantages and disadvantages. It's great for when I have projects that 'have to be done in one day', like anything that's electrical, for example. I have to reset the clocks far fewer times than if I had to do it in 2 hour spurts. However, with things that require a dry or cure time (like drywall mud), it turns out that I need a secondary project to work on during drying or small amounts of labor will stretch out to take forever. The latter seems to be what happened this week.

The second coat of mud went on last night, without sanding between. I only have a 4" and 6" knife, and don't care to buy 8", 10" or 12" knives for a wall that I'll be covering, so it's receiving its sanding right now.

We decided on full-height bead board. Three sheets should run about $54 or so. I should already have a can of drywall primer, so that'll go on the wall. I'll be using an interior/exterior latex primer on the sides and back of the bead board panel, then applying some Duration to the front. We still have a can of the white from the interior paint job (that is on hold), so I think I may just use that. The wife wants the bead board cream or off-white, so we'll have to reconcile that difference before we can continue. I don't think it'll give enough contrast with the walls unless a bright white. We'll see what pans out.

I still have to actually pick up the bead board, pick out the chair rail, and decide on a new base board. That's on the books for today. I may as well try to pick out a matching baseboard and door/window casing while I'm staring at it in the store. This is the style we're working towards, and about the same wall color.









Or this...









We're going a bit away from the very-high-and-flat moulding that's traditional and going with something a bit curvier, as seen here.


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## Thadius856

Started working on the tile layout for the living room while overtired yesterday morning. I manged to crank out the thing and get it planned out. Here's what I came up with.









Unfortunately, it's a lot of cuts. But hopefully it pays off in equity. Here's a breakdown, by number of cuts.









*Zero Cuts
One Cut
Two Cuts
Three Cuts

*Unfortunately, I pulled the measurements copy-and-paste style from my 3D model and took them as granted. Nope!

It was only off by ½" in two directions, but I drew it up for a width nearly 9" too wide. Grrrr. I'm redoing it now, because I think it will have a substantial impact on the layout.


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## Thadius856

Figured out the pattern with the updated dimensions. Of course, nothing's final until it's thinsetted to the floor. And even then... 

I had to shift the center field to one side and reduce it by one tile width. Otherwise, I was getting these odd ~1.5" slivers of the 12" tile along the border edges. While this design calls for another 2 tiles wastage than the one with slivers, I think the improved feel of the center field will be well worth it.


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## Thadius856

Back from Lowe's, again. Ready to start get this project rolling!

Got the van this time, so I was able to bring back the full (4'x8') primed MDF beadboard sheets.They're certainly not tip-top condition, but I think I cherry-picked the best six. I'll probably return the worst looking one when I get the next set.

I also picked up some additional baseboard and door casing. I got five 7' pieces, which should be enough to put on the bathroom door and inside the front door. I'm adding rosette blocks on these ones, and if the look works well enough, I'll retrofit the other casings with them as well.

Grabbed two more door knobs while I was there; one bath/bed, one closet. Two packs of white paneling nails and a new Stanley miter box (with saw). This should keep me busy a little while.

For reference, here's what I went with.








3-7/8" MDF base








2-1/2" MDF casing








2-5/8" MDF chair rail








4'x8' sheet of 2"-spaced bead








Stanley miter box with saw

For the record, I wanted larger moulding, but decided that the increased cost of replacing all the existing stuff wouldn't be worth it, especially considering this is an exact-match with what we already have.


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## Thadius856

Once again, I find myself not having posted updates in four days. Gah, how the time flies. Part of it has been my lack of will to email myself the pictures, clean off the EXIF data, rename, rotate, upload, etc. Anyhow...

Lets see. After my last post, I installed the door knobs I purchased. They're the same as before, so if you haven't already seen them, just go back a page or two for a photo.

This time, I noticed in the instructions that it said the wavy part should point up. Interestingly enough, I installed the last two up-side-down. I inserted the lock pin, popped each side off and swapped them. They feel much better now and are much easier to grip. So now the bathroom and hall closet match the two of the other 3 knobs in the hallway. :thumbup:









Once again, I found a pile of graphite inside the beat up old brass knobs. The bathroom door didn't lock before, so I'm thankful that can be done now. :laughing: Also, the catch plates are much improved.


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## Thadius856

Two work days ate up another 24 hours, plus the sleep in between.

We've had the MDF bead board sitting in the living room with the new moulding, getting acclimated to the humidity present. This, along with priming of the back and ends, seems to help minimize expansion and contraction of the MDF and eliminate the necessity to caulk the joints twice per year.

This morning I decided that I didn't want to install 6 full sheets (let alone the rest of the house) with ghetto rigged-up work areas. Thus, I went shopping for things to make my life easier (and some things that I had forgotten last time).

From Lowe's, I grabbed 10 Hem-Fir 2x4x8's, four sets of folding sawhorse braces, some knockdown texture in a can and an extra tamper-resistant receptacle/plate to finish the living room wall. From Harbor freight, I picked up six 12" clamps/spreaders, shaded safety glasses, a high-carbon steel blade for the Chicago Tools ripoff of the Multi-master and a baby sized 8oz hammer for the wife. From Sherwin-Williams (15 miles out of my way), I picked up two gallons of Duration Interior in satin, one in the trim color and one in the primary wall color. At 40% off and with a $10 off $50 coupon, it was about $28/gal. I got another two gallons of the same paint, but untinted, that I'll have tinted for free when I need them.

The hammer, seriously, has about half the handle length of my 16oz or 20oz hammers, and even less when compared to my framing hammers. The claw almost bumps my wrist when swinging it, and it's certainly all arm strength that powers it. Perfect for the wife.









A lunch of KFC to go completed my 5-hour round trip. Gotta love this...


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## Thadius856

Unfortunately, ten 2x4x8's was enough to make only enough pieces for only one set of sawhorses capable of handling full sheets. With 32" legs, they sit about 34½" high, are precisely 48" wide, and have four 8' 2x4 stretchers with a sheet of 4x8 press board on top. That leaves two 2x4x8s left over, and one spare 32" leg. Looks like I need another four.

As a note... the 2x4s at Lowe's were terrible. I didn't want green Douglas Fir and could only fit 8' lengths in the Accord, so that left only Hem-Fir as an option. I picked through at least 30 boards before choosing the ten I did, I saw two red wood mites, and at least 3 boards covered in black mold splotches while sifting through them.









With the sawhorses assembled, I set about cutting a sheet into thirds. This meant measuring in 37-3/64" from each end, marking, then clamping the guide bar's nearest end at those marks. Even though the sheet would divide evenly into thirds at 32", I had to leave exactly 5" for the circular saw frame and 3/32" for half of the blade's kerf. Cutting with the blade set at about 3/8" (on a 1/4" sheet) with the finished side facing down minimized tearout and loss of primer surrounding the cut.









Afterwards, the primer went on easily. I wasn't worried about the coat being perfect because I knew it would probably never been seen again by another human being and because my main goal was to seal out moisture. Unfortunately, cutting before priming led me to the realization that drips quickly migrated to the finished side of the sheet not just around the outer edge but also along the new cuts. Every other sheet will be primed, _then_ cut to save me having to sand the front edge back down.

For reference, the primer is Kilz 2 interior/exterior multipurpose. I was tempted to get Sherwin primer today, but couldn't justify the increased cost for $18/sheet MDF stock. The roller is a synthetic no-name-brand with 3/8" nap, chosen because it's what I have leftovers of from painting the interior walls.


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## Thadius856

While the first sheet was drying, I came inside to work on the last bit of the drywall project. I had sprayed the right edge where the corner was never textured due to the faux-stone, and ran out as soon as that 8' segment was done. Since I got a can today, I figured it was time to finish it up.









In hindsight, the stuff from Lowe's I got today is much thinner in consistency than the previous can from Ace. Since it's a water-based knockdown texture, it ended up giving a much shallower texture than I expected and drying even thinner. Two coats were needed to get anywhere near a good match. It was also very easy to spray too much and knock down large areas, which I like to call "slicks".









I'm not sure I got the consistency exactly the same, but I think it's good enough. Note that it's not primered yet, so it may still change in depth.


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## Thadius856

And lastly, I laid out two of the four walls for stud locations. It required me removing the baseboards on the long wall, which it turns out were held on with a combination of way too many wire nails and way too many panel nails. Literally, there were, on average, 4 nails every 6".

The top row was easy enough to remove. I used my new high speed steel attachment to slice right through them. The ones at the bottom of the wall were shot direction at the footing and sill plate. When the nails entered the wall, it's obvious that they struck the concrete and bend into a squiggly S-shape inside the drywall. Prying them out was very difficult, especially while trying to salvage the MDF base they went through and trying to preserve the drywall as much as possible. But, it's done.









Once it was done, I laid out the expected stud locations off of one of the glass shelves I installed previously. I then drilled in with a 3/32" spiral bit directly below, just above the sill plate. Assuming I hit a stud, I then moved ½" to each side and drilled again. This assured me that I had hit the center of the stud. On all but one stud, I was dead on the money. Probably due to a framer's error, there is one stud that's about 1½" off center in the middle of the span, falling right on a 4' sheet break. I'll have to carefully toe-nail that seam.

I have to go move sheets #3 and #4, and finish priming sheets #5 and #6 before bed. I want to be able to start painting the fronts and get at least the three full sheets installed tomorrow. Ideally, I would love to have all of the cuts made on the bead board. We'll see how it goes.


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## Thadius856

I just noticed that we've passed 20,000 views.

Thanks everybody for the interest!

I know it can be slow going or sound preachy at times, but I'm trying my best to take the hand and make it all make sense to somebody with no previous experience and who has just tuned in. My hope is to teach some basics, provide a steady framework upon which to expand, ease the freak out factor from simple things like opening walls or wiring switches, and to inspire others to start their own projects.

If I've left anything out, or anybody has questions, please don't hesitate to post and ask... and point out if I've made any fatal mistakes.


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## Thadius856

On Friday night, I made a 90 minute trip up to North State Public Radio to work as a phone volunteer for their fall pledge drive. I've been giving to Nation Public Radio as a payroll deduction for nearly a year, so half of my motivation was to get a behind-the-scenes look at where my money was going.

As it turns out, each station has an independent budget and, thus, separate pledge drives. Each station pays its own staff (or uses a mixture of volunteers and paid staff) and purchases most of their programming at the national level from companies such as National Public radio, American Public Media, etc. While some programming is locally produced (such as most of the shows are composed of mostly DJ'd music and local news), most of the programming is acquired in this fashion. To help the member stations, the national producers include pledge drive segments during certain times of year, causing most stations to run their pledge drives at the same time. To make matters even more confusing, some stations have translator or repeater stations, which have a separate station designators (starting with W if east of the Mississippi or K if west of the Mississippi) but are otherwise real-time mirrors of their parent station.

As it stands, my money has going to a show production budget at NPR. While this helps offset the cost that must be passed on to each member station, it does nothing to help them actually purchase it. As a result, I'm spreading my donation around at the national level instead of helping my local station. I'm fine with that, but I felt a bit guilty once I revealed my donation strategy to the station staff. Once all was said and done, I worked phone for three hours, commuted another three hours to and fro, and accepted approximately $600 in pledges. That felt good, but it was only a drop towards their $175,000 goal. Of course, a Friday night at the same time as Game 2 of the World Series doesn't make for very high donations. I had hoped to get some goodies from the Sierra Nevada Brewery gift shop on the way back, but they closed minutes before I arrived.

Last night, I was scheduled as a volunteer driver for the base's Airmen Against Drunk Driving chapter. It seems that they only call when on nights when I'm so tired I leave my phone in the living room. Not last night! I received a call just before 2am to bring three airmen from a neighboring town back to the base. They were on temporary duty for training, so it was refreshing to know that they had our chapter's phone number or at least where to get it in the middle of the night.

In combination with being woken up early by the parrot, yesterday's heavy work load and the lack of rest has made for a slow start this morning. I'm just about done with two cups of coffee and so I am probably about ready to get moving on the bead board sheets. The carpenter just primed the new knockdown texture, so I think I'll start by painting the front of the center full sheet, then finish laying out the studs on the short wall segments while that dries. Once the primer dries, I'll see if I can get the right-side full sheet scribed to the far-from-perfect corner. After that sheet is cut and drying, hopefully I can get the two pieces with a 45 degree rise (one at the stairs, and one at the recessed transition) measured out.

Wish me luck!


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## Firefighter3244

Wow, Lots of work and lots of progress! Looking good.

I'll be watching so lots of pics are always good!


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## Thadius856

Not nearly as much progress today as I'd hoped. Got two coats of paint each on 2 full sheets and the one chopped in thirds (the drippy piece I'll use for partial sheets). Also removed the base board and door trim from another wall.

Opened a can of The Great Stuff to foam the space above the door. Ended up doing the same abound the bathroom door. Planned out the measurements for the stairs piece. Marked the studs on one of the short walls.

Only got the right-most sheet put up. After it was painted, I crosscut 3/8" off the top right corner and removed up to 1/2" when ripping the scribe mark. Unfortunately, that meant I grinded MDF saw dust into the paint, so it'll need a third coat. I cut out the receptacle and hung it. There's one stud off layout that I wasn't aware of, so I made a few nail holes finding it.

I'm pretty disappointed in the progress, really. I did learn quite a bit in the process though. The center sheet will go up whole, less receptacle cutout, so I'm sure it'll go up in the morning. I'll probably finish laying out the last few pieces around that time.

Since I'm posting from my phone, I can't attach pictures. I'll write up my the tips I learned and today's images while I work on my coffee and wait until I can start making noise.


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## Thadius856

It's morning again, still too early to swing a hammer, so I've been marking studs and the rest of the sheet that I have up on 8/12. As promised, here's some tips and images from yesterday's lessons learned.









Here we have one of the full sheets, still drying. It's a whole lot harder to paint these lower quality MDF bead board sheets, as they have small imperfections in the supposed-to-be-perfectly-smooth surface. I found that I could knock down most of the imperfections with a quick pass or two of a fine foam block. This also gave me a slightly rougher surface (though not visibly so) for good adhesion of the paint.

I used a 3/16" nap mohair roller. This was my first time using a roller this thin, so it hadn't occurred to me just how little paint a nap this small could hold. All the same, it applied the first coat thinly with a very slightly texture. If you wanted to keep the perfectly smooth surface, you would probably want to use a 1/8" nap foam roller. However, I liked the slight texture that the mohair added.

Start by loading the roller fully, then work along the lengthwise across the sheet, four sets of grooves at a time. The main goal at this point is to apply enough pressure while scrubbing the length of the panel to get the paint worked into the beads. Be aware of the edge of the roller you're working, keeping the arm side of the roller facing towards the unpainted side. Once you get the beads worked, quickly re-roll the section you just worked. With a quick-setting paint like the Sherwin-Williams Duration Home Satin, time is your enemy, because you'll leave nasty lines if you don't re-roll it fast. Continue across the sheet, four grooves at a time. Once done, hang the sheet slightly off your work table and gently roll the long edges, where the sheets butt.

Don't worry too much about the short 4' edge. No matter what size you cut the bead board, the top and bottom edges will always be underneath the base board or the chair rail. I'm keeping the factory edge down at the floor because it's a whole lot uglier than the edges I've been creating with my circular saw guide rail.


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## Thadius856

After removing the door trim, I revealed the door rough-in.









There was a good 3/4" gap, so I figured I'd fill it in with foam for some insulation. This is an interior door, but this wall is insulated as well, and it often acts as exterior wall (when the laundry room door is open for ventilation). I may recoup the cost of the can of foam some day, but it was more for my own peace of mind. I'd rest easier knowing that I've done all that I've done everything I could to enhance energy efficiency and stabilize room temperatures.









With the first panel about to go up, I decided it was obligatory to sign the wall. Even if myself or a future owner pulls down the sheet and decides to texture/paint the wall, it will be easily covered. I used a laundry Sharpie, so it may be washable, though I highly doubt it (as it's on primed green drywall).









Here we have the door moulding and base off of the short wall. You can see I started with a can of fire block foam, which promptly clogged, so I went to regular foam. It's a shame, because the fire block stuff was way more expensive. Over half the can just wouldn't come out without spraying out the side of the nozzle.









Not sure if you can see the bow here at the bottom of the short wall, but it's fairly major. The drywall bows out where it covers the foundation wall and sill plate (the bottom 6 inches or so).

If the walls were closer to normal, I could just measure and cut free hand, even odd angles. That would allow me to cut from the rear of the sheet. Unfortunately, that just isn't the case, so I'm having to repaint the front of each sheet that the saw's table touches.

I think the 32" pieces will go up faster, but no guarantees. I only have 4 hours or so to work today, so I better get to it!


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## Dinggus

Can't wait to see this done.


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## Thadius856

Today was a... long day.

I managed to stretch that four available hours into twelve. The upside is that I got a got a lot more done than I expected. The downside is that as I type this during my lunch break at work I'm fighting off sleep. I may just end up napping in the parking lot this morning before I attempt to drive home.

Unfortunately, I decided to leave for work at a reasonable time, and between that decision, cooking dinner and getting ready, I didn't have time to run the pictures through the EXIF removal utility. I may as well write the day's notes while I'm at it. I apologize in advance if it's hard to follow without the pictures inserted yet.


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## Thadius856

Progress today was, again, slower than I expected. I wonder if quality materials would make this go faster... anyway.

The corner you see here is the bane of my existance. (You saw this one last time post).









Just a corner? Hardly. It's plain evil. But we'll come back to that. This is what I managed to get done as of the lunch break.









You can see here that I managed to finish two full sheets and two one-third sheets. At this point, the first full sheet is nailed every 8 inches around the edge and every 12 inches in the field. I used zero construction adhesive because I want the next homeowner to be able to remove the paneling without having to re-hang the drywall. Not that I want them to rip it down... I just don't want to destroy perfectly good materials.

My aversion to glue adds a considerable amount of time because after I hang the sheet (making it look like a Hellrazer) I then have to drive each and every nail close to flush without damaing the sheet. And then after that, I have to countersink each one ever so slightly with a 3/32" punch. With only 1/4" of MDF, it's a very fine balance between countersunk and right-through-the-sheet.

The second full sheet is still in that Hellrazer stage. The smaller sheets only have half a dozen nails in them, just enough to hold them in place. I took extra care to make sure their tops were level, only to find out that the floor has a considerable slope, all the freakin way from one side of the room to another. Luckily, this is the low corner.


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## Thadius856

Back to the evil corner. Why evil? The level in this shot is absolutely, perfectly plumb. You may even be able to see the bubble resting dead center.









That's a 48" level, by the way. Yeah, that's right. At the steepest point, it's a 15/16" kick in.

After cutting down the sheet about 3/8" in height, I resolved the lower corner problem with a particularly aggressive scribe line. Leaving about an inch excess for wiggle room, I freehanded the curves with the circular saw. Dead on. After a few very precise measurements, I ended up setting my square at 7/8" in and scribing off the scribed cut. Perfect fit, once I knocked off a small piece of the top-right corner.

The only problem is that I removed all 3/8" from the top. The concrete floor is fairly wavy as well, so I really should have taken some from there.

Anyhow, here we have all three full-length sheets up. The last one still needs to be countersunk.









Just in case you were curious as to how that ugly corner turned out...









...I'd say fairly well.


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## Thadius856

And here we have the third one-third sheet going in.

I'm getting something like ¼" to 3/8" slope per 4 ft. I hope it's not too obvious when the opposing wall ends up something like 1½" shorter over a 19'6" span.

Unfortunately, the center channel of the surround sound and the component shelves had to come down for all of this to be possible. I ended up just removing the 5.1 in its entirety temporarily and moving the networking devices to the floor with the DVR.









While removing the first shelf, three of the six large screw heads stripped right out. Crummy bargain basement Chinese fasteners. I managed to back one of them out with all of my weight against the drill while surging the speed, but the other two just spun and sprayed shavings. I ended up drilling about 1" into the heads with a drill bit slightly smaller than the shank of the bolts, then knocking the head off with the BOSS.

Back to my chair rail dilemma. It's within 1/4" of the bottom of the TV mount bracket. This leaves only enough room for me to overlap the chair rail, not butt it above. I was thinking I might just plan a 45º dip/notch in the middle sheet, but the TV's about 6" off center to the room. If I center the notch on the TV, it might look odd. If I center it on the room, it might look odd. Building the chair rail on top of the bead board seems like the right idea. I think I could make it look good with the chair rail extended 1/8" past it above and filling that gap with white paintable caulk. We'll see how adventureous I feel when I get back to that piece again.

This Saturday I'm going to be sneaking some Adopt-a-Highway trash pickup in between a few shifts. I may not get much done (except on Thursday) until next Monday or Tuesday.

We shall see!


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## Dinggus

One question, why do you volunteer all the time?


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## Thadius856

Feels good, looks good on a resume, and it just might push me to my next promotion 6 months early... which, if I got it, would allow me to test for the following promotion a year earlier.

Also going to apply for a commission one of these days, and it doesn't hurt there either.


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## Thadius856

Added the pictures... but gotta run!

No progress today. Just been a day of rest.

Ready for some barbacoa!


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## Thadius856

Some work done today. Still slow going, though. I figured it would pretty much be sure from here on out, considering the previous pace of this project. I suppose the installation may have been faster with a wood shop available to me to fabricate quality traditional bead board, but then I'd have to consider the fabrication time as well.

All of tonight was spent one one single piece... the stairs piece.

I started with the 4'x8' sheet, cutting it down to 4'x64". I then ripped it down to just over 40". I laid out the cuts roughly on the rear of the piece, then roughly cut them out. Already I had a pile of small scrap pieces.

The floor is sloped. The outside corner I'm butting against is sloped. The wall is wavy. The door casing it abuts on the other side is out of plumb. The stair is sloped, and has a protruding tread. Unfortunately, that means this was a much more arduous piece than I wanted to make it. Measure, rough cut, fit, finish cut, fit, and then probably re-cut. For each of approximately 10 cuts.

Here's the result, so far.









It's still not quite done because I need to cut the treads out. Note that I was going for 1/4" clearance between the floor, treads and risers for expansion. It looks a little messy right now, but it'll clean up nicely.

I'll be building up the bottom portion where the base will attach. I'm not sure how else to describe that plan, so you'll have to just wait and see if I'm being unclear.

After dinner, I'll tape out the remaining studs and cut the stair treads. I've left the piece at 32-1/2" tall at both ends so I have wiggle room for getting it even with the piece on the other side of the door. That piece is about 26' from the low spot at -1/4" per 4' slope, so I estimate the panel with end up being approximately 30-1/2" at the bottom end. The diagonal cut will maintain the same slope as the stairs.


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## Thadius856

Got a lot done yesterday.

Tried to knock out two birds with one stone by playing items from the DVR while working on the paneling. I started with the panel under the TV by slightly expanding the lower end of the outlet holes. The next two sheets went up pretty easily, and met in the first corner that's close to straight and plumb. I was happy about that.









After I turned the corner, I had to start working around odd framing layouts. There's no stud in the corner. The first sheet had to be shortened 3/4" so I'd be able to still hit the studs, and the next piece is where hell began. The door is out of plumb and the floor takes on a steeper slope, so combined with the uneven factory edge and the slope of the previous piece, it was a piece that got cut on 3 sides.

Plus, the wall gets rather... wavy. Remember that I'm using no adhesive, so I'm nailing top/bottom, and every 8" between, to get the bead board to follow the waves.









That left me at the stair piece. I had marked it several times before the top side rough cuts, so that just left me with a mess of pencil marks in smudged fingerprints. The bottom ended up exactly 31", and would have been more if not for the up-slope on the previous piece. Go figure.









To get the height to carry across, I used a level carry the top edge of the bead board to the door frame, then drove a paneling nail through that line. That became the rest for one end of the level, and then another was driven on the other side of the doorway perfectly level.

After re-calculating the final cut line about 5 times, I ended up having to highlight the correct line in red sharpie. I was so tired of less-than-four-foot pieces sliding around under my fence, so I freehanded the cuts. The top is... so-so in quality. But since it will be built over with the chair rail and not butted, I'm not too worried.









Once I was cleaning up, I was reflecting on how much faster these pieces seemed to go than the last few. And that's when it hit me... I had one more receptacle cover than I had receptacles. Crap! Somewhere behind one of the panels is an outlet. I think I know where, but with the panels already nailed on 8" and countersunk, there's no way it was coming off.

I think I'll have to poke around with a drill bit. The wife is fairly certain she knows what stud it's on, and we know the height is about the same as the others in the room.

Unfortunately, the non-contact voltage tester isn't able to pick it up through the paneling. :\


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## Thadius856

Since it was about dinner time and getting too cold outside for paint, I had to repurpose the kitchen table. Sorry honey!









All of the moulding received two thinner coats of Kilz2 interior/exterior latex primer. Just like the bead board, I'm hoping to lock moisture levels where they are. It's been resting on the living room floor for over a week, so it should be well-acclimated.

Between coats, I started filling the nail holes on the paneling. I broke down and bought a small tub of the pink stuff so that I could actually see what I was doing with such fine detail. White-on-white in this situation would have made things far harder, because I wouldn't have been able to see bubbles.









After that dried, it all got a light sanding.









And then a light spot coat of primer.









A few spots will need a second coat because they shrunk as they dried, so that's where I'm off to now!


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## Thadius856

Looking again closely, it looks like only the holes made on the butted edges needed to be patched. All of the diagonal holes in the grooves seem to be fine. Re-applying spackle there took only seconds.

The new base, casing and rail and rosettes received their first coat of Duration Interior Satin in Westhighland White. It's much more difficult to roll out the curves on this Victorian-style trim than I had guessed it would be, even with my 3" wide 3/8" synthetic nap roller. All the same, it's done.

Taking a lunch break before I start painting the beadboard. Hopefully I can have it prepped enough to start installing the moulding on my next day off.


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## Thadius856

Got a fair amout done after lunch. Indeed, every square inch of bead board received a coat of paint. That means that the three full sheets are finished now, and the other sheets need only a second coat. I wanted to recoat or attach the char rail, but decided that I wanted to leave more dry time before I did. All the same, that one coat of paint hid every fingerprint mark, every nail mark, every seam, and evened the prime tone out ever so slightly darker.

















Please excuse the project clutter.


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## Thadius856

Instead of rushing the drying on the paneling, I decided to do the only thing that I could at that point: attach the new door casing.

The old stuff was a pine moulding, but very plain, and very beat up from countless dings and coats of paint. While this is merely MDF, I think it still looks just fine. At 1/4" wider, I didn't have to worry about exposing layers of paint edges, and it has a bit more curvy Victorian flair than the old stuff.









I know that the casing is not fluted, but I decided that I wanted to use the rosette blocks anyway.









I hadn't accounted for the increased thickness when I purchased the 1-5/8" panel nails. I may need something longer to get a firm grip. I had to drill the holes myself with a 3/32" bit. I really wish they'd come pre-drilled.

I'm sure it will all look a lot better with a light sanding, spackle, sanding, spackle, sanding, primer and paint.


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## Thadius856

Got a few minutes of work in today. Decided that I wanted to see what the finished product was going to look like. I managed to get about 17' of chair rail and 12' of base board up.









The base board has to follow the uneven floor while remaining somewhat straight, so it's really a matter of balacing the size of the gap between the base and floor with the straightness of the line it creates.

The chair rail I hung by eye, without a level, string or line. It ended up being within 1/64" anywhere along its length, except in the the inside corner, where it's off by 1/16" or about 1/2" of its length. Next time I'll use the level, but that's certainly not bad for using just my eye.

I couldn't even find the holes I spackled on the bead board. :thumbup:


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## Thadius856

Worked the weekend, so not much got done the last few days. I seem to have this habit of working all day the morning before a long work weekend, then pulling an all-nighter at work. Needless to say, I sleep well after the next shift or two. If I didn't adopt this system, I'd have 2 days less to work on the house per week and I find that if I don't exhaust myself this way, I have trouble falling asleep because of a racing mind.

After the latest shift, I had to go re-register the car. On the 45-minute drive to a DMV location with a reasonable wait time, I ended up having to pull over in a shady neighborhood to take a nap while parked in a self service car wash. I figured it was better than falling asleep while driving. Because somebody fraudulently used my debit card a few days ago to spend ~$60 on iTunes, my card no longer works and I had to go to bank to withdraw cash. I figured while I was in the neighborhood, I may as well stop by Lowe's...

What started as a pit stop for one piece of base and a package of nails turned into a lumber cart full of Hem-Fir and moulding. I think the wife will be pleased when I put up this crown.









Last night I worked on the living room until just after dark, when the Trick or Treaters started early. I went through $10 in bags of candy in the first 30 minutes, so I ran to the corner market for another $10 worth that lasted the rest of the night. I fell asleep on the couch about 8:40 and wife woke me up around 9:00 when the last kid left. There's a lot more children than I thought there would be in this quiet little town, but that's just fine because there's still a few caramel chews left over for me. 

Another mandatory administrative day this morning meant that I had to report in just after dawn in my service dress, so the rest of last night and this morning were burned. On my way back home, I stopped off at the base education office to schedule a CLEP exam (because the Community College of the Air Force doesn't recognize my Calculus or Business Statistics credits from a California State University as valid math courses ). I ended up taking the test as a walk-in, two weeks less prepared than I'd have liked. It was frantic dash at the end to fill in the blank answer with random guesses, but I eked out a score of 68 (with a score of 50 representing a median C-average). Not too shabby for what little time I spent cramming to remember math from too many years ago.


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## Thadius856

Check out what little progress I made yesterday!









The chair rail was continued to the corner. It's just shy of 1/4" short, but I think it'll be filled, shaped and smoothed with caulk just fine. I also got that near-12' length of base cut and attached, at which point I decided I dislike working with 12' pieces. I don't have the setup to easily cut them (4' longer than my tables), they don't fit in my car, they're hard to move around in tight/furnished spaces, they're heavy enough that you can't hold them up from just one end while nailing and they can bow significantly under gravity over their length (even on-end). It's 8' pieces from here on out.









Here's some idea of the dips I'm working with in this flooring. The random smudges hide it slightly, but follow the line from corner and you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm not yet sure if I'll bother using a leveling compound before tiling or if I'll just work with what I've got. It's a remarkably low traffic area.









The chair rail is done on the stairs piece. With a 16½" rise over a 27¼" run, I calculated the cuts out to 74.4º (assuming the two horizontal pieces were level and the center piece was symmetrical). I could have kept both end pieces at 90º and cut the center piece at 58.8º, but I like the look of it more this way. Plus, 74.4º is twice as close to the 75º detent than 58.8º is to the 60º detent... even though I don't trust a hand tool to a 1º tolerance.









New hinges on the door. I unscrewed the hinges between Trick or Treaters assuming it would be an average hollow core door. Nope. It's easily 50-60 lbs and fell right onto my big toe. Remounting it solo was tricky until I broke down and fetched a pry bar to stand on.









The front door never had trim, so I added it there. I was tired of seeing the rough-in insulating foam always mocking me. While I was at it, I knocked the finished frame around a bit, shamming closed a gap at the top right (as seen from this side) of ½" between the door and frame to now 1/16". Since this is an exterior door, it should help considerably with heating costs.









Here's my new stack of moulding to prime and _paint_. Whooopeee! This is by far my least favorite part of this whole process because of the messiness, waste and wait time. For reference, there's 24' of 3-7/8" base and 56' of 3-5/8" crown in this picture. I wanted larger moulding in this entire house, but was afraid that it would make small spaces feel smaller if it was too large.


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## Thadius856

It's been a hectic but interesting few days. Even though I invested substantial amounts of time, I'm afraid I didn't accomplish as much as I'd have liked. Doesn't that just always seem to be the problem when creating quality finish work?

I picked up another 6 sheets of bead board to continue into the dining room and down the hallway. I estimate that I'll be able to make it with 5 sheets if I don't screw up any cuts at all (HAH!), so I grabbed six. I also picked up another 8 2x4s to set up the second set of saw horses (eight 32" legs, two 48" braces, four 96" stringers). Right after cutting, I wasn't paying attention and nailed the braces in as legs and was forced to cut them down. That left me a few pieces of waste and with only three stringers. Oh well, it still works. I didn't sheet the second table like I did the first, as I'll be using this one primarily for priming, painting and drying space.

I started on coping the quarter round where it meets the chair rail and base board, realizing just how tedious this work is with mostly hand tools. Here you see two lengths of ¾" primed quarter roung being coped to the profile of the top end of the base board.









I cheated. The piece is alway cut out in the picture. I forgot to take a true before shot. See for yourself.









And a blurry ass shot of it mating with the base.









Coped both directions and then filed, here's another blurry shot of its final resting place. Note this is a dry fit.


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## Thadius856

I pre-drilled the panel nail holes 5" O.C. I figured they wouldn't get deep enough to bite the stud at the corner, and I was right. A decent squirt of Elmer's Pro Bond on each of the backsides gave a pretty good hold. I also buttered each end with the pink Dap spackle and filled the gap between the chair rail and the adjoining wall. With nearly 1/8" gap, it felt like pretty sloppy work. I don't know why I didn't rip it down while I had the chance to re-do it easily.









Note that I'll be adding another piece that will be coped around the middle and top of the chair rail. I figured it would be wise to do it in multiple pieces. As it was, getting these 3 copes to line up well at the same time was rather difficult.

After all that small work with the fiddly bits, I started to lose patience while spackling the chair rail. Once they started looking this rushed, I decided it might be a good idea to just give it a break instead.









I managed to get all of the base and crown from the previous post with one careful coat on the front and one backside primer coat to each of three full sheets. I had hoped to get them cut up into manageable pieces, but a grocery trip was needed, taking up the last of my day.


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## Thadius856

There's been progress this weekend. Not as much as I'd like, but still some!

First, I forgot to include a shot of the second set of sawhorses.









On Friday, I made another trip into town for materials. The same stuff as before: base, casing, rail, nails, paint, etc. This time I was buying for the rest of the house's common areas, so there's a bit more heft to the materials pile. I'm going to recondition and reuse as much base as possible, so there's very little here. I'm not sure how much I'll need to repurchase due to poor condition.









Not a whole lot got done, but I did manage to knock together a mockup for the (planned) coffers.









It's a pretty basic construction. 2x4 base bolts to the ceiling, then 1x4s are nailed to each side, and a 1x4 fingernailed back a bit for a slightly reveal. Here it's a little larger than I'd like, but that's why I made mockups: to practice on something nobody will ever see. Afterwards, crown is installed, but I haven't gotten there just yet.


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## Thadius856

The wife was wonderful enough to lend me a hand this weekend. In exchange, I had to watch a chick flick. Fair enough. At the end of the first night, I'd gotten this far with the wall. I couldn't go much further due to my materials still being fairly raw. Note that the right-most piece isn't nailed on yet at this point.









The wife spackled and sanded most of the living room base board and chair rail. Meanwhile, I manage to get the base cut and installed for the stairs. I left the top-most piece loose because the adjoining paneling isn't on yet, and that will create a ~3/16" offset.


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## Thadius856

I went to take some materials outside and noticed how dirty the floor was. Covered in sawdust, it needed a good sweeping. Afterwards, I realized that I never did work on the problem area between the foundation and the patio slab at the back door.









I decided it was time to get it worked out. The vacuum made a cameo appearance, sucking up plenty of rocks, thinset globs, spiderwebs and most of an action figure.

It just so happens that a month or so ago I was at Lowe's. Somebody had bought a bunch of pea gravel and spilled a good 10 lbs in the parking lot. Not to let it go to waste, I scooped it up with a piece of cardboard into a grocery bag. And that's exactly what I filled the hole back up with.


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## Thadius856

While Saturday's work was all to the right of the front door, Sunday's was all to the left of it. Removing the baseboards, I learned something about the sequence of colors that the interior walls have been at one point or another. You can also see how I layout my studs.









I make a guess at which direction the wall was framed from, then drill around with the smallest bit I have at that mark. If I hit, I move left/right in ½" increments until I find each edge of the stud. A vertical line on each side with an X in the middle is my preferred method of annotating the layout. After, I lay 2" wide x 6" long strips of painter's tape on the floor at show where they are once I put the paneling up. It really helps to know exactly where to nail this bead board without having to guess around. Usually I use pencil, but for this spot, I used a Sharpie.









From looking closely at each layer here, I can tell the interior's last five colors: *avocado > deep blue > medium brown > warm grey > ivory*. Somehow that progression seems to match the order I'd rank them in from least universally liked to most.

The wife gave each new piece of molding two thin coats of primer on the backside. It was raining when I (lit.) ran inside with them on Friday, so that gave them two days to acclimate.









And of course there was more...









Here's the progress at the end of Sunday, just before I turned in early.


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## Thadius856

Today was the first day of rest I've taken since long before this project started. I don't know that it even counts because I spent the morning running out to get a printer, the entire afternoon scanning documents and receipts, and the night at work.

Certainly feel more rested. Ready to get back to the project in the morning.


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## Thadius856

Spent the last few days mostly scanning in paper documents I've had around here. Picked up a printer/scanner/copier and figured I'd test it out. I haven't decided yet whether I'll keep it or not. We'll see.

Being practically paperless for several years, the 6-9 month stack of papers really irked me. I managed to scan several hundred pages the first night, and another 85 documents yesterday morning. It took some time, I'll admit, but I hope to earn it back during tax season when I itemize (hoping for zero tax liability this year). Yeah, there's still some paper and unsorted digitized files laying around, but they'll be done in due time.

I did manage to get some small bit done last night. The ~22" section of wall between the full bead board sheets and the entryway never got done. I've been putting it off because it's not seen often and was going to be a nightmare like the stairs piece was. I tackled it last night.









I wanted to keep the same slope as the stairs piece on the opposite end of the room, but that wasn't possible due to the shorter length of this wall section. In the end, I ended up with a 45º slope (and thankfully my miter box has a 22.5º detent for the chair rail). I ended up just cutting it an inch over the shortest width and scribing the inside corner. After I freehanded that cut, I _nailed the damn thing in place_ still as a big rectangle, an inch too wide, and a inch too tall.

I drew out my lines in red pen, placed a piece of scrap galvanized sheet metal behind it, and went to town with the multi-tool. Much easier than the measure-cut-fit-measure-cut-fit dance I was doing before.

I didn't get the last piece of chair rail on the right because I ran out of prepared material (more on that momentarily), but I did get the 4½" piece behind the railing end piece cut and nailed into place, then fastened the end piece back down with 2" 6d finish nails. Please excuse the copious MDF dust.


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## Thadius856

All of this morning was spent painting the moulding that the wife primed last weekend. I managed to finish 24 pieces, for a total of 177 linear feet of the curviest, most irritating stuff to paint in detail with a roller.

Didn't see much of a need for a picture, considering it looks almost exactly the same as when I started, just cleaner and more uniform. Yey for white trim. :\


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## Thadius856

More slow progress yesterday! I'm seeing a pattern... anyhow, let's just jump right in.

More or less finished off the wall between the living room and the front door. The door was already cased a few days back, so I just had to finish the chair rail and case the window. If you look back through previous pictures, you'll see that I covered a ½" - ¾" gap above the window. Nobody will ever know unless they take the blinds down, and even then, it's nothing structural.









I also threw some chair rail on the wall to the left of the front door. Easy going.









And I cased out the door to the office, as well as turned the corner with the wainscoting and chair rail. The wife just _had_ to get in the way while spackling. 

Still plugging along, while trying to buy her b-day present online (while she's not looking, of course) and get some more done. Think I just ran out of primed 4' sections of bead board though, so it might end up being a shorter day than I'd like.


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## Thadius856

Actually made decent progress today!

First, I got everything tidied up. Yes, I swept all of the little piles that I'd been collecting into the trash can. I put the old baseboard and door casing I removed into a single pile. I stacked each piece of moulding into like piles. And I threw away far too many very small waste pieces (< 2 inches in length).

I still have about 215 linear feet of moulding painted and ready to go after the day was over. 









And 90 sq ft of bead board sheets left over, plus some random scrap.









At least it's all sorted now.


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## Thadius856

Tossed the chair rail and base board on the wall to the left of the front door. Now it just needs half round (far corner) and L-shape outside corner moulding (near corner).









Also tossed some base board on this wall, and then promptly ran out. :no:









And threw these sheets on the wall as well.


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## Thadius856

Also threw casing on the closet door.









And the master bedroom door.









I also got a hand priming the last 3 sheets of beadboard. I cut them into their thirds, and removed the rest of the trim pieces there.


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## Thadius856

Most of today was spent working on the ceiling coffer layout, finalizing the design, and getting ready for that project. However, I did get some minor trim work done.









This whole wall was bare before I started, so that's another 11' or so sheeted and railed.









And another 13' or so of rail here.

Tomorrow's payday, also my day off, the replacement debit card arrived (finally!) and I need a good amount more baseboard, so I'll be off to the big box to pick up some first thing in the AM. If I can get a cut list going, I might just pick up the 2x for the coffering as well!

I have a physical fitness test in two days, so I'm going to try to get the last of the bead board up tomorrow, but won't be pushing myself to the limit to get it done. Only screwed up 1/3 sheet of materials and only smashed my thumb three times today. :wink:


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## Thadius856

The wife decided that she didn't like all white on the bead board, base and chair rail. So... I had to pick up color samples in brown. I knew if I came home with just color swatches, we wouldn't get anywhere. So, I headed to Sherwin and dialed in what I figured was the color temp of the house using known colors.








SW7566 Westhighland White (existing)









SW7560 Impressive Ivory (existing)








SW6095 Toasty








SW7680 Lanyard








SW7694 Dromedary Camel (no joke)








SW7714 Oak Barrel

My hypothesis what they something twice as far from the Westhighland White as the Impressive Ivory was would look best. I pulled the RGB values, then doubled the difference. I ended up with a lowly saturated off-white/pink color. Scratch that idea. Grabbed a sample quart of each and brought them home.

That brings me to a point... why the hell is it a quart? The stuff is so thin it's like trying to apply watercolor to a hot frying pan. It just runs and runs, doesn't tack at all, flows like crazy. Ugh. One quarter this amount would be just fine, thank you. And at $6, I'm not real impressed. Next time I'll just take their color card to the big box and pay half as much for a smaller amount of their runny snot watercolor instead.

If it was half-decent quality in application, I could understand painting a large swath or even a small wall. But this was too retardedly slow drying and wimpy to get a consistent look in less than 3 coats, with no less than two hours between coats. Anyway...


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## Thadius856

Note... we already have a gallon on exterior SW7519 Mexican Sand lying around begging to be used. We got it for the underside of the overhang, but never got around to using it. Go figure.

Here it is for comparison. This little devil is what sparked her interest in a brown tone. :\


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## Thadius856

So, here they are. She liked the "Toasty" the most, so I smeared some of the snot on the bead board as well. It was received with a "I love it! Or maybe a smidge lighter." :whistling2:









Bought another eighteen 8' sections of base. That should be enough to finish the dining room, entry, master bedroom and guest bedroom. Well, maybe. The wife was sleeping, so I just used the dimensions from my AutoCAD plans and plugged them into Cut List Pro. There's a bit of scape spare, but I still hope I bought the right amount. It all got back primed and the face painted today, as well as four or so full pieces installed.









The left wall done the hall is getting closer to done. You can see the leaning piece between the closet and bathroom is ready, just needs a hair trimmed off one side so I can pop it right in. The piece at the end of the hall is cut and nailed down.









The right side of the hallway is now done, except a 2" sliver between the two bedroom doors.









All of this went up today. I'm out of material at this point, and that leaning piece is just an inch too short. I'm contemplating trying to hone down a nearly perfectly cut edge into something that resembles the factory edge. Will get back to you on this one. This is where the saw horses previously were.


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## Thadius856

Made a killing today in tools. Was going to buy an el cheap $69 base model Skil brand table saw on Black Friday. And then a freebie "first to haul it away get it" type ad came up on Craigslist. Woot! Here she is.









She came in a pile of parts, so I spent my morning reassembling her and noting the original hardware that was missing. I don't have the guard for the belt drive, so I'll not stick my hand in the belt while running. Also missing were a few washers and small bolts, but I had at least one of everything, so all was replaced in short order. Also had to convert the plug from the 50A straight 3-prong to the 30A L-shape 3-prong. Yeah, I'm using the dryer outlet since I know it's dedicated.

She runs well, but bogs down about half way through a sheet of 1/2" particle board. I think the fence is out of alignment and I'm tailing into the blade, sideloading it. I still need to adjust all the tables, the blade height tensioner, the miter angle gauge, etc etc. I also need a new blade, as this one's fairly thick and burly. I'll probably spend some time tonight looking for a good blade for ply.

Also managed to pick up a used-once Skil worm drive framing saw (planned $129 on Black Friday) for $60 and a used-once Milwaukee 
reciprocating saw for $40.









Quality table saw, framing saw and reciprocating saw for $100. Today was a good day.


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## Dinggus

It's looking good, can't wait to see it finished. I've seen some houses that do only a few rooms and it looks good.


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## Thadius856

Yeah, I have as well. This is the entry, dining rom, living room and hallway.

I'm going for a contemporary-Victorian look. The aim is to bring a warm, cozy cottage feel to an otherwise very plain ranch home. Hopefully I get the chance to update the exterior eventually.


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## Ironlight

Thadius856 said:


> Made a killing today in tools. Was going to buy an el cheap $69 base model Skil brand table saw on Black Friday. And then a freebie "first to haul it away get it" type ad came up on Craigslist. Woot! Here she is.


If I'm not mistaken that's an early model Delta 10" Contractor's table saw. I had one of those back in the late 80's/90's and it was built like a brick $#*&house. Cost me $400 new. I gave it to a friend when I moved away rom Philadelphia and had a workroom that was too small for it. I think yours is an earlier model because of the flared feet. Probably early 80's. 

If you have never used a powerful table saw like that I advise that you read up on safety as that thing can kick back like a mule. If you're a tool geek like me you'll wax t he top, too


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## Thadius856

This one says Rockwell, probably from right before they acquired Delta and started slapping the Delta name plate on everything. The manual is dated 6/5/79 on the copy I found online, though it's certainly for a different base with sheeted legs.

At only 1½ horses, it's the least powerful table saw I've ever used. I have also left the blade guard and kickback fingers in place, tested to be sure they work.

As for waxing the top, well, probably not. I'm very tempted to restore the paint in an antique tone, though.

Edit: Here's a better shot of the new worm drive Skil. She's a real beast, for sure.


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## Thadius856

Spent today recovering and getting ready for tomorrow. It was certainly much needed and well deserved. Looks like tonight might be a long night of volunteering, and some in the morning as well. Not sure if I'll sneak in a big box trip before or after the morning's activities.

More or less finalized the plans for the five-piece bookcase. Even mocked the thing up in isometric and made the cut lists for the plywood and dimensional lumber. Oddly enough, doing the backs in ¾" ply turns out to be cheaper than doing it in ¼" ply. Why? Because converting the backs to ¼" only saves me 2 sheets of ¾", but requires 5 sheets of ¼" with lots of waste. For giggles, I also tried seeing what would happen if I set it up for MDF as spacers between the carcases and as the against-wall portions. Nope, still more expensive. Even still we're at 29.8% sheet waste.

Going to try a (rough) four-piece mockup and see if the price is comparable.


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## Thadius856

Forgot to post the mock up of the 5-piece. Never did get around to the 4-piece. Fell asleep on my keyboard before I could finish.


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## Thadius856

Worked on a 5-piece version that minimizes waste by shortening sides from 12-21/32" to 11-3/4" and backs from 26-9/16" to 23-3/4". I took up the difference in a wider center piece.

Went from 22.3% waste on 10 sheets to 8.7% waste on 8 sheets. All pieces still 3/4" oak. Going to 1/4" oak for the rear panels only saves $3 (< 1% of sheet materials cost), due to the effect mentioned in the last post, and leaves me with waste everywhere.









The doors got overly tall looking, so I mocked up some drawer fronts in this version. It adds some of the savings back onto the cost, but does add some storage options.

Will pick up the sheet goods this afternoon after volunteering. Still keeping an eye out for a good deal on a miter saw and a plunge router.


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## Thadius856

Well, after the volunteering I returned to dry out my soaked shoes and change my soaked pants. While fueling up en route to Lowe's, I received a text alert. A miter saw was listed on CraigsList. Used, but not very much. Single bevel. Craftsman. 10". With thin-profile carbide multi-purpose blade. The only problem it has is that it's missing the knob cover to set the bevel and the dust bag, but he threw in a length of hose that works better than a dust bag and I can use a pair of vice grips to set the bevel angle when I need it. Not a bad pick up for $50. Unfortunately, this took us nearly an hour the opposite direction from the nearest Lowe's, but right past at least 3 others on the highway.









Fair enough, time to go get the sheet goods now. On the way, we grab a cup of coffee, get a gallon of paint tinted, and return the new printer. I receive another alert about a Paslode finish gun for sale. The guy tells me it's in good condition, has five fuel canisters, three batteries and two chargers. For $150. Great deal! We show up and it's a framing nailer. I was pretty bummed. But as it turns out, the guy was clearing out repo'd storage units and had some routers. I ended up walking away with two Craftsman 1¾ hp routers, a router table with vacuum port, a work stand and about 25 usable bits (16 of which were still in their wax in a set). For $140. Not my best deal, but certainly not the worst either.
















Afterwards, I went back on Craigslist to check to make sure I hadn't misread the last guy's post about it being a finish gun. That's when I stumbled upon a week-old ad for a finish Pasload, mint conidition, once used, new in box, with all original accessories for $100. I figured there while it was a long shot that it was still available, there was no harm in calling and getting shot down, and ended up at the guy's house a few blocks away. It was exactly as he described it, and a steal at $300+tax retail. Unfortunately, the only fuel included had leaked away over the years since it was bought, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to test fire it. The batteries charged right back up, and I was able to get the compressor fan to kick on, so I'm fairly certain it will fire.









So there you have it. I certainly got a good deal of toys for well below retail. I figure I probably could have spent the same amount on a miter saw alone and not gotten a whole lot more functionality than the one I just picked up.

By the time we got to Lowe's, I was fairly tired from running around for the past 4 hours. We looked at the ply, and I wasn't overly impressed with the oak. The only sheet of birch in the store was absolutely beautifully grained. One of the lumber guys offered to cut any sheets for us on their panel saw, and when I jokingly asked if he'd rough cut all 8 sheets to my cut plan, he agreed to do it for free (and even give me the oak at the birch price to make the sale). It's not the closest location, but if they're willing to take the time to cut up 8 sheets for me _accurately and without tearout_, and stand behind their cuts, then I'll certainly let them do the rough cuts (but you can be damn sure I'm going to measure every piece before I check out).


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## Thadius856

While having the first cup of coffee around 6 am, I discussed my concerns of Lowe's cutting the ply with the carpenter. After we read a few horror stories together of dull blades, massive chipout, misaligned saws, and associates who wouldn't cut a slice of cheese, we decided against it. We'd initially loved the idea because it sounded so much more convenient and probably would have taken the offer on the spot if I'd had the 8-sheet cut plan with me. :laughing: The guy claimed he would get them within close tolerances, but when it comes to precision work, I prefer to do my own.

A discussion of where to find a 23/32" dado bit ensued. I couldn't find any on either big box website, so that left special ordering from Amazon (Prime membership for free shipping or $4 overnight), Rockler, etc. I don't want a full set for all the different sheet sizes, so we took another approach. While searching Craigslist for the word "dado", we came across a classic 9' DeWalt radial arm saw with a dado set for $40. The guy didn't respond (until a few moments ago, incidentally) so we ended up driving 30 minutes, down rough dirt roads and across questionable bridges, below water level between rice paddies (which scared the bejesus out of me) to go look at a 10" Craftsman. The huge flocks of geese, swans and ducks along the way were amazing.

The damn thing looked like it had hardly ever been used. Not surprisingly, the original table had been replaced. It also came with a custom furniture dolly. Since the guy was moving out today, he left it go for $20. Score!
















I have the blade guard off here because I was going to change the original 24T (28T?) stamped steel blade for the mostly-dead 60T carbide blade from the table saw. Until I realized that the arbor takes a 1" socket. It was already dark, my shed doesn't have a light, and the 180pc set at my feet only went up to 7/8". That will have to wait until tomorrow.









You can see that this blade I took off the table saw (was free) is more or less toast. Sure, it cuts, kinda. But it's full-width, burnt, sap-covered, some teeth are chipped and it's fairly dully. It was causing the table saw problems, but more on that momentarily.


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## Thadius856

So, when the got the table saw, we essentially whisked it out of a first-generation Mexican immigrant's barn. You could tell me didn't use it any more, and my guess is that it was due to frustration. I was about to learn why.

The first few test cuts were not very promising. The blade did fine on the first few inches of 1/2" OSB, but any time there was waste of the left side of the blade it would slow the motor was down until I fully stopped and gave it a good 5 seconds to catch back up. The waste side was burning (but not the good side), so I figured it was just misalignment. Naturally, I adjusted the kickback fingers and splitter, thinking I was sideloading the blade. It only helped marginally.

I heard a "ting, ting, ting" when pushing past the end of the blade, so I figured the fence was out of alignment. I don't have a miter gauge yet (apparently the big boxes don't even carry them anymore), so I couldn't test that way. Instead I just broke down and realigned the fence to be 1/64" tail out from a miter slot (a measure to try to prevent sideloading, binding, excessive blade heat and kickback). Again, a tiny difference, but not much.

At 1½ HP, I knew the motor was either going or the blade was shot. Knowing that I needed a 80T blade to get the most out of hardwood plywood, I ended up at... guess where... Lowe's. This time, I was really disappointed.

First, they didn't have any Freud or Forrest blades I've been reading so many fantastic things about. They only carry the DeWalt 80T finish blade in 12". That left me with few choices.

At $11 and claiming to be a plywood blade, I was a bit doubtful. If it could make it through this project, it just might be worth it. A quick barcode scan pulled up the Amazon reviews, which claimed it dulled before finishing a single sheet. Pass!









The 80T Irwin Marathon caught my eye. Good reviews on Amazon. Just then I saw a combo pack for $5 more than included the $24 40T general purpose carbide.
















Just as I was about to grab it, the carpenter came over to tell me that he could only find the yellow "shorties" for the Paslode. I don't have the adapter, so that was a no-go. We took a peek at the ply, as we'd come to this location because it said it had over 12 sheets of birch. In reality, it had something more like 9 in the store and 6 usable. There were voids, face knots, filler ON THE FACE and between plies, and all sorts of garbage. The 19 sheets showing of oak showing on the site was actually two. Yes, two. The lumber associates thought they were out and we couldn't see a stack on any of the upper overstock shelves. Ugh. We decided to check the big orange before we went to look at Meek's for supposedly nicer stock (at almost $70/sheet, I'd sure hope so!).


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## Thadius856

HD had the tall fuel cells. And the lumber was far nicer. The worst sheet only had two face knots, far smaller than a dime. We didn't see any edge voids bigger than 1/8". There wasn't any warping on any of the sheets. Only the top two sheets had been picked through or even moved. I mean, yeah, it's 7 ply with a thin veneer, but it beat Lowe's hands down. The difference was that their birch is $5 more, but the oak is the same price. We ended up picking 8 sheets of red oak from the pile of 15ish. The color varies a bit, but I'm thinking of a rich cherry stain, so I doubt it'll show. But is it nerve racking loading this stuff in the rain, even if their website claims it's graded C-3!







(front)






(back)

Oh, and HD carries Freud. I picked up the D1090X, a 90T labeled "Ultimate Fine Finish". It did have a big new sticker next to it on the shelf, and I can't find much info online, other than a listing on diablotools.com and one forum post from 4 months ago. At $60, it cost 3x what the radial arm saw did. :laughing:









It really bothers me having to hop from store-to-store. This Lowe's, 30 miles north, has by far the best stock levels, material condition and selection for moulding. But the next one farther north is another hour. When we go 20 minutes south, we get a smallish Lowe's that's always been cherry picked to hell. Another 10 minutes south and we get a good selection of everything but lumber, because we're now in a metropolitan area. Ughhhh! To make matters worse, Sherwin is only reasonably close to the North one, Harbor Freight is only near the far South one, etc.

Neither HD nor Lowe's seems to carry miter gauges, probably because they don't carry full-size table saws, only the little worksite jobbies. Yet a few of the portable table saws and bandsaws have custom-width ones in the box.

Anyhow, with a load of plywood and the radial arm saw, we trucked on back. I had just enough time to cut and install baseboard in the 12x10 guest room before dinner. Got the goodies unloaded.


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## Thadius856

After playing with the Paslode depth and putting up that baseboard, I finish the night with installing my new saw blade. It was already slightly past the curfew for sawing, but I just had to give it a go.

I checked the table saw out before swapping the blade. Table was within 1/64" everywhere. Fence was 1/64" tail out. Old blade perfectly straight with no wobble. Blade height correct. Miter perfectly 0º. Throat plate perfectly level. And it still bogged down a ton on the 1/2" OSB and started burning the waste side again.

Swapped in the new Freud. I almost cut myself just handling the new blade! Now with gloves, I turned on the saw and went to town on the same OSB. The saw didn't slow at all, cut right through like butter, gave less tearout at almost triple the feed rate and took half the kerf. :thumbup: Yeah, I'm ready to start on the oak in the morning!


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## Thadius856

Can't say that much has gotten done yet. I spent a few hours on Monday building and installing the base for the bookcase, then on a wild good chase for a CraigsList ad that was too good to be true.









You can tell I had to shim the right side up quite a bit. That's means that I'll have to cut the toe kick cover by hand. Made out of 2x6 fir, the bracing is doubled (on center) where the edge of each carcass _should land. I was as meticulous as possible, but if need be, I can always add an extra block or two if they end up a ways off layout.

I'm thinking that I should probably check to see if the ceiling is this far off level! :laughing:

Stopped by Harbor Freight on the way back. Just wanted to feel some cheap Chinese tools so I could compare my aged, quality tools. They're prettier alright, but much less fun to handle (and probably use). I needed a dado stack, and laughed when I saw what they had.









All their saw blades are "Lifetime Carbide" brand, a name which I find horribly ironic because they're probably the shortest life blades one could purchase and there's not actually good quality carbide on the tips.

The lack of progress was made up for by the $0.50 pot piece that microwaved beautifully. With a perfectly domed, golden crust. Usually they end up caved in and doughy.







_


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## Thadius856

Had a great discussion about quality dado sets. Been over there the last few days.

Still trying to cement down the bookcase plans. I gotta get that done today so I can start ripping!


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## Thadius856

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!

A quick, quick update (it's Turkey time!!)

The table saw's pointer was off by a good 1/16". I removed it, cleaned off a little surface grime. Because it was so dark, it was hard to read the measurement without strong lighting, and it's rainy today, so I only had the overhead from the porch fans. I sprayed the pointer hunter green, because that's all I had, and it was a lot easier to read. I'll have to keep looking for my can of neon orange. I immediately reattached it and zeroed out that 1/16".









Those with a keen eye would notice that the tape is at 23" while the fence is at 21". Why? Because I started the tape at 2" to avoid any play in the tip of the tape that might mess up the measurement.

And here's the stack of pieces so far for the bookcase, as of when we stopped for the turkey, just after 1pm.









Still got more to do. One full sheet hasn't been touched at all. My dado set won't arrive for another 5 days or so, so I'll have plenty of time to... uh... work on other things, I guess. :whistling2:


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## Thadius856

I'm having an absolute _blast_ with this project! The carpenter and I both enjoy this kind of work and would love to make small one-of-a-kind items from unique cuts of wood for sale and gifts. He's thinking along the lines of jewelry boxes, while my ideas are a bit larger: redoing the cabinetry in my kitchen. Trying not to get too far ahead of myself on this one.

Anyhow, I finished cutting all the pieces for the four 24" bookcase carcasses after dinner. I'd gotten to the point where it was no longer ripping full sheet and cross-cutting awkward pieces on the table saw. Moving the 90T plywood blade off the table saw and onto the radial arm saw, I couldn't help but feeling I needed a refresher video in RAS safety. A big thanks to the teacher of "FoxHighWood" for putting a video safety brief on YouTube. I couldn't help but think that the RAS looked much more modern with a new style blade and the guard reattached.









I clamped a piece of scrap casing at the end of the table as a jig for the 16 shelves and 8 tops/bases I had to cut down to length. I certainly felt like a pro knocking, them out with impressive speed! Here's the result.









Boards with no blue markings on top (painters' tape) are cut to finished dimensions. Board with a blue 'X' are scrap, though most will be re-used in the toe kick section once the carcasses are sitting on the base (cut against the grain to save $45 on buying another sheet). The pieces with a single blue mark are for the center unit, the width of which cannot be determined accurately until the other four are preliminarily installed.

All of the single blue marking pieces received a 2"x4" Avery sticky label on the backside so I know what in the world they're supposed to be milled to. Don't worry, they're not _that_ sticky.









After cleanup, it sure looked like it had snowed. There's a lot more out there than you can see. At one point, I was standing on a pile about 2" tall at the center and 2' across.


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## Thadius856

In other news, I learned that my radial arm saw's guard has been recalled (like, 10 years ago!). I can't figure out why because the recall website is rather vague, but I assume it's due to injuries from ripping or cutting with your hand in the blade path. All the same, I gave my address and serial number to the company that oversees it. An email they sent me says they'll be sending me a new guard and a new table in 8-10 weeks, though I'm doubtful the table will materialize. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye on my fingers and not rip with the big old thing.

I looked at the new supplemental manual for the guard and it's easily the length of the entire original owner's manual for the saw. Times certainly change.


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## Thadius856

Found some drawings of the current project I had forgotten to post, in case anybody's interested. You can see the front view of the layout at the top of this page.


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## Thadius856

Made out like a bandit on a recent CraigsList ad. I'll spare myself the bother of re-hashing it. Check it out here:

Woodworking Talk - Just Scored on a Lot of Wood and Tools

I'm pretty stoked about this!

The woodshop is pretty well stood up now. With a table saw, compounding miter saw, radial arm saw, three (!) routers w/ tables, band saw, scroll saw, belt sander, etc etc... we're pretty well packed on the patio. It looks like we'll be expanding and enclosing it this winter, if the funds are available.

Anyhow, I spent a good portion of today on work-related stuff and fiddling with my new smart card reader. The other half was spent routing the rabbits in the bookcase tops, bottoms and carcass sides.

I thought it'd be a smart idea to do two passes with a 1/2" bit. Nope! I ended up with slightly different depths at slightly different spots, some splitting, and twice the time spent. It's silly too, because I had a fresh unused 3/4" bit sitting right there, ready to go. I'm glutton for punishment.

I split out enough of the panels that I'm to embarrassed to show the extent. If it were the inside edge, and not the edge on the rear of the carcass, I'd have stopped and thrashed (edit: trashed) the first panel.









Think I'll go have a cup of joe, sand some spackle, and finish my night off with taping some base board/chair rail.


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## Thadius856

Again, slow progress lately. Switched from nights back to days, and lost a bit of off time in the transition. This also means I can't work on my projects in the wood shop before or after work because of that neighbor that loves to write anonymous letters to God-only-knows-who citing city ordinances on time-base noise restrictions (both before/after shift are no-no times of day). 

Spent most of my morning scheming on the bookshelves. A few days ago, I managed to pick out some piece of solid oak from that last big wood haul. It feels good to be able to put other people's scraps to good use, but boy does it take a lot more time to plan it all out. Here's during cutting them down... I took a break, both for the blade's sake and mine. (you get to see my new push sticks and featherboard that I made!)









The pieces are about 1-7/16" x 26", so I'll have a couple nubby inches of scrap left. They're also about 1/32" thicker than the plywood shelves they'll face, so I'll have to sand that down.


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## Thadius856

The radial arm saw recall replacement parts arrived today. No joke, the package was 4' tall and 50 lbs. I figured it'd include the guard, and maybe a new table. But it came with both of those, a new handle assembly, a bunch of new brackets and braces, bags of screws, and a few other small parts. The instructions make it seem like I'll have to more or less tear the whole saw apart to get it all installed. That, and it assume I still have the stock fences, which I don't. I put it off til the morning, but it could be a real fun one... 









And to think I spent half the morning playing with my new dado stack to get it fine tuned to the proper width. Ugh.









I managed to pick up a very basic ¾" miter gauge at a garage sale today for $2, plus some picture frame staples, glazing pins and a cabinetry book for a total of $5. Another $5 at a waste-of-my-time all-tools estate sale yielded a push stick made from vaneered MDF, more picture frame staples, a can of orange Krylon and a compass, again for a total of $5. They had three really nice pieces of wood (2"+ thick mahogany and walnut in 6'+ lengths), but the guy managing the estate sale would only sell the wood if I agreed to buy every piece of wood at the sale, to include a ton of 2x4 and 2x6 scraps, OSB tail-off pieces, various worthless hardwood scraps, and pieces of pressboard siding on a lumber rack made from scrap lumber. For $250, I'd get to haul it 50' to the car myself without a wheelbarrow. Riiiiiight.


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## Thadius856

Over the last few days, we've picked up a few gems.

Namely, a 12.5" Craftsman benchtop planer with very favorable reviews for $75. Like new, but the table needs to be wiped down with some WD-40.









Not pictured, a Ryobi biscuit jointer with dust bag (#0 - #20) that was used for less than a dozen cuts (original sawdust and two tubs of biscuits included) for $50 and a used-once Milwaukee random orbital sander with 5 extra packs of sand paper for $35.


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## Thadius856

And here's a mock up of the bookcases when done. We spent a good amount of time today going over the details of attaching the face frame, assembly order, etc.









You'll notice that it's a rough mockup, with the center shelves having the correct 13.5" spacing. Red indicates face frame and fuscia indicates the outline of drawers fronts / cabinet doors. While rough, it gave my an estimate for how much material I'll need to make the fronts. I calculated the doors will take 12 of 38 the 7" x 36" cherry glue-ups I got from that last haul and already have the cut plans ready. I haven't worked the drawer fronts yet, but am not worried that I'll run out of material. :laughing:

I've decided on a rich maroon stain for the cherry sections (doors, most of the face frame) and somewhere between honey and coffee for the carcass and shelf fronts (will attempt to match the hardwood floor). Everything will get a coat of water-based polyurethane. We haven't though about hardware at all, other than hinge style.

Spent the rest of the day looking for deals at garage sales and estate sales, only to come away disappointed. Was really hoping I'd find some good specialized router bits (raised panel, stick and cope, glue joint, undersized dado, oversized dado, dovetail, etc), but found nothing. No pipe clamps at a reasonable price either. There's always tomorrow, though I'd rather make sawdust than make my tank emptier.


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## Thadius856

Been away for what seems like forever!

Just got off a 7-day, 90 hour workweek. You can imagine that nothing got done during that period of time. I'm still trucking away at the bookcases.

Looking back, I don't think I showed these pictures of the dadoes. Sorry if these are a repost.























The new dado set cuts remarkably flat, especially for a $62 set. Note the smoothness of the rip at the veneer.


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## Thadius856

I finally got around to cutting the biscuits for the shelf fronts. I'm hoping they add some measure of strength, but was mainly concerned with using them to more easily line up the pieces for gluing. This is what I ended up jigging up for the 16 solid front pieces:









The pieces with a welding clamps are stop jigs that align the side of the biscuit jointer with the end of the board. There are two faint red lines of each side of the solid piece, drawn on the plywood at the rear. These show me the expected ends of each piece, though each side also has a second line another 1/8" to each side just in case I had a slightly longer one (which I didn't). There's also a red line on the sticker which marks the dead-center of the board for the center biscuit to align with. After biscuiting...









The jig for the plywood pieces was only slightly different. And here we have their stack..


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## Thadius856

Because I didn't want to constantly be unloading blades each night, we had to design some covers for the saws. We made these out of 3 mil plastic sheeting and woven elastic cord. 









I put up a wanted ad for clamps on CraigsList, but didn't get back any replies worth following up on. The reviews of the Harbor Freight bar clamps were favorable, so I grabbed six 24" and six 18" for somewhere around $50, IIRC. They do indeed hold quite a bit of pressure, more than enough to squeeze joints dry if you really tried to.









They did come with a fair amount of still-wet oil, but I attribute that partially to them never being hung in the store (got two boxes from the rear of the store, still sealed). The ones that had been hanging weren't nearly as oily. We certainly took the time to wipe them down twice before using them. They also flex a bit, but spring right back to the their original shape when released.


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## Thadius856

Glue-up was only the next logical step. Here's the first three as they rolled off the line, so to speak.









I had left the solid fronts about 1/32" thicker to hive me some room to play. I was seriously worried that one or two would warp and if I didn't leave the excess that I'd end up having to stand a good amount of veneer off if I missed perfect alignment. Seems I left too much, because I spent nearly a whole day sanding all 16 shelves flat and smooth.

Killed my new orbital doing it, to boot...


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## Thadius856

Worked on some stain samples as well. We experimented with Minwax in four colors. On the far left, you see a solid oak control piece. The bottom row is solid and the top row is plywood. The left half are oak in Early American (#230), the right half are cherry in Red Chestnut (#232).









The two oak on the left are lighter because they've been wiped, and all the rest are still awaiting their time. You can see my time chart below (order does not correspond to locations in the picture!)... and it was 3:24.

And closer up...















I'm much happier with these colors than the ones I bought yesterday (Dark Walnut #2716 and Red Oak #215). They're the top two rows shown here.









I lost several hours between the two round trips of 40 minutes each direction. To boot, a co-worker gave me her cold two days ago, so it's sapped some of my energy and is killing my throat.

Off to get the sides/tops/bases/backs sanded to 220...


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## Thadius856

Started staining this morning. Took a few hours to dust and dry mop this morning before beginning. Also had to wait until 8am for the local Ace to open so I could get a few more foam brushes... gunked up the five I had on the samples.

I'm certainly off to a running start. Taking a moment to pause for lunch, having just finished the top sides of all 16 shelves. Had the wife take a picture with her camera so it's a bit clearer this time, I hope!

(and of course, the forum apparently hates her phone's images... trying imageshack)


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## Thadius856

Finish staining all of the finished pieces last night and made more progress on the bookcase today!

Here's the first coat of water-based (oil-modified) polyurethane going on...
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/209/392yq.jpg/





One of the backs from last night, stained but yet polyurethaned.



Makeshift hallway drying rack...



Makeshift kitchen drying area...



Makeshift living room drying area...



More stuff drying where the bookshelves will eventually be installed...


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## Thadius856

Just buffed out the first coat of poly on all the shelves, all the tops/bottoms, two sides and one back w/o electrical cutout. Then added the second coat of poly to all of those pieces. Progress is slowing greatly because I the pieces have to dry laying flat, and I keep running out of space for that. Gotta get ready for the holiday party now, but just slammed together a progress tracker in the last 15 minutes or so...

Still some inaccuracies with it because of the speed with which I put it together.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


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## oldhouseguy

I was searching for something earlier and your thread came up in my search, so I took a peak. 

About an hour later now, I have read with interest the entire thread!

You are making great progress, and it is very reminiscent of my first house. (I did mine with no internet help, research, spreadsheets or craigslist  ... you are lucky in that respect!!!!)

I think it is great what you are doing. I see some real thought and planning goes into most everything you do.

Good luck and just know there are people out here who are reading this and are left with a good feeling about the talent and drive of some members of your generation!

:thumbsup:


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## Thadius856

Thanks! It's always great to know that somebody's even reading this, let alone enjoying it! You might like what's coming next then...


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## Thadius856

Went to the squadron holiday party last night. The company was great, dinner was good and the drinks line was long.

The ticket that I bought for the wife came up as the first drawn in the raffle, so we came home with a $300 KitchenAid stand mixer. She's certainly excited, and the best news yet, she's counting it as a Christmas gift from me to her! 

In fact, she was so happy, she gave me my Christmas presents early...

===== WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!! =====


















Just kidding. :laughing:

She got tired of me nabbing her phone for photos (and complaining that mine sucked), so she got me a real camera.


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## Thadius856

Been bulk uploading the last 400 images to ImageShack, since the forum limit of 100kb just isn't going to work with a new 14 megapixel camera, as each image is natively 3m (or 30x the 100kb limit).

But it's so. Damn. Slow. I know it doesn't take an hour to upload 87 mb on my connection, as I have over 2mbps upstream. Checking out Flickr now for image hosting... standby.

Update: Just uploaded 100 images to PostImage.org in the time it took ImageShack to upload 30. Plus, ImageShack was only allowing me to select 100 files at a time (which is pretty generous for free), while PostImage is allowing me to upload 295 in the second batch.

Just waiting for the pictures of my present to upload... be back in a bit.


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## Thadius856

Alright... time for a little new-and-improved high def action!  Or rather, catching back up to the 21st century action.

Unwrapping my gift, I figured it was pretty obvious what she got me, considering I only asked for one thing...










Exactly what I wanted! Laminated wood levels have always caught my eye because of their beauty. Don't get me wrong, I own several painted aluminum i-beam Stanley levels, a few line levels, and a couple cheapie torpedo levels, but this is a different class of level here, with polished edging and curved bubble windows. I only wish I could see the bubble through the top.










It's as ironic as it is telling that the Made in USA logo is messed up, yet it still made it to market, and an American was still willing to purchase it.


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## Thadius856

And of course, there was the obligatory shots of where I stand in high def.

After the second coat, but before buffing (with flash)









Same thing (without flash)


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## Thadius856

This morning I managed to get buff the 2nd coat of polyurethane on the one back, two sides, four tops and four bottoms, as well as buff the 1st underside coat of all 16 shelves. I gotta say... doing the shelves first, and seeing all the screwed up spots that appear in the first coat of polyurethane, really got me down. It's probably the only thing I hate about working with this stuff... the first coat is always a disappointment, no matter how careful you are with it. Sure it becomes lovely again once you slap the second coat on, but it's still a heartbreak seeing all your work come out so crummy every time you sand a first coat carefully.

While I was waiting for the images to upload, I managed to get the third coat on that back, those sides, and a second top coat on all shelves. I'm headed in the direction of getting the tops/bottoms their third coat, then a second underside coat for all of the shelves. Ideally, I'd get a couple more sides/backs done tonight, or the lighting ordered.

We'll see where I finish when everything's on the table, but here's where I stand now:


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## Thadius856

As planned, I managed to get the tops and bottoms their third coat, put the second coat on the underside of the shelves, and the first coat on one back and the remaining eight sides pieces. Sure is starting to feel like progress!

Because it's been dark out for about five hours now and I do all sanding on the back patio, I don't want to even think about buffing tonight. I'll leave that for the next time there's daylight when I have time to work on this project again... Thursday!

Of course, I couldn't go to bed without a 3rd coat shot or two...


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## Thadius856

Progress continues!

Yesterday I buffed out the second coat on both sides of all 16 shelves and buffed down the first coat on the remaining 8 carcass sides, then put the second coat on the sides only. I would have finished the shelves, but we went to a friend's house for dinner and then I caught the Itis on the way back. I didn't take any pictures because it's much of the same... glossy wood.

I hope to have the underside of the shelves with the 3rd coat today, get the second back piece done, and have two 24" units fully assembled before bedtime.

Here's where I stand...


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## Thadius856

There's a rather... socially awkward guy at work. He gets ribbed on rather often due to his numerous slip-ups and lack of world experience in work settings.

I started working on a (humorous) Christmas gift to him that is sure to give the guys in the office a chuckle. Lets call it the "Mul Project". It's a solid cherry plaque of 11-7/8" x 15-1/8" x 5/8" that I plan to finish similarly to the bookshelves, but stained Minwax color "Red Chestnut" (as shown in the samples a while back).

It also gives me the opportunity to play with staining a larger piece of cherry, using an oil-based pre-stain conditioner, and masking off areas for adhesion.


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## Thadius856

On with the Mul Project!

For a little backstory, this guy has two very prominent joking points. The first is about a non sequitur tattoo he got on a whim which features a dead tree, glossy jewel tone circular saw blades and sibling initals. The second is about a series of hammy web cam recording outtakes that he unwittingly released into the wild... in which he raises one eyebrow, looks dead into the camera and says "This is how <his name here> gets the ladies" in an attempt at a suave voice.

This plaque is going to be a mix of both running jokes.

So yesterday, I went into town looking for a dog tag engraving machine. I figured for a couple of dollars, it was going to be the quickest and easiest way to get engraved metal on the plaque. All I'd have to do is punch a second hole in the other side of the dog tag. Easy, right? Nope. The Lowe's that I could swear had a machine for that didn't. Woops, guess I went to the wrong location. Home Depot didn't either. Went to Pet's Mart, who charged me $10/tag, but did laser engraving on a matte black finish. Perfect.









(sorry about the blur... still getting used to the new camera)

I came home and grabbed one of the 7" x 36" glue-ups I got from Marleene a while back. I promptly cut it in half and glued it up. I gave the thing 2 hours before I tried to put it in the planer, but before I could even get it to pass through once, the glue joint failed. Luckily not in the machine. So, I planed each half separately, re-ripped the glue line, and back into the clamps it went for the rest of the day.









(image is from before planing)

And here's the old 10" rusty sawblade (Craftsman original) that came my radial arm saw, covered in numerous coats of glossy jewel tone golden yellow.










I just put another coat on it because I left fingerprints in it last night, but otherwise it's practically done.


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## Thadius856

And more progress! Completed everything I wanted to get done (except the second backing, which is drying now...), plus the first unit assembled!

Dry fitting for the second time and discussing the assembly method.










A little closer...










In its place!










Closer...










(Almost) too close...










Feeling like I'm on the top of world right now. :thumbup: Certainly over 100 hours into this project already, not including research and tooling.


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## Thadius856

Project Mul made some headway as well while everything was drying.

Planed 1/128" each side (to remove misalignment ridge along seam). Finish cut to size. Orbital sanded front/back 60-80-120. Routed a Roman ogee on the front. Orbital sanded front/back 180-220. Hand sanded ogee and broke rear edge 120-180-220. Conditioned and stained both sides.










The blade is nearly dry too. During its fourth coat, somebody put a newspaper on (luckily only) one tooth, which caused it to stick. Badly. We're about 6 hours into drying the fifth coat.


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## Thadius856

The second back finished drying around 9pm, and we spent 10pm to midnight assembling it. Hope the neighbors couldn't hear the Paslode...

The sup isn't very happy with that dado...


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## Thadius856

Minwax 'Red Chestnut' stain on the 5/8" cherry plaque...


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## homefellas87

Thadius856 said:


> *The House*
> 
> I came across this home, of all places, online. Indeed, the images you're about to see are the ones that were listed on the MLS entry. I did not take these, nor do I feel there are enough to adequately show the "before" condition of the home. They're intent on showing the good side of the property, while I'll be focusing on a few of the negative aspects. All the same, I didn't take move-in photos, so they'll have to be enough, along with my words.
> 
> Built in 1958, this home was one of the first subdivisions that established this city. Originally a railroad-driven community, these homes were built economically for the working class. As a result, the entirety of my subdivision was built with flat roofs. In the last fifty years, most have been replaced with a sloped roof, including this one. Luckily, I have one of the few that was built on footings, as most of my neighbors "enjoy" slab-on-grade.
> 
> It was originally approximately 1200 sq ft, compared to the 950-1000 sq ft neighbors, but underwent a garage conversion some time in the last 10 years. At 1390 sq ft, there's certainly enough room for the two of us. In fact, we had enough space left over that I moved my father in. He's a career carpenter, so there's no lack of tools and construction expertise should I need it. Sometimes he swings a hammer around here, but mostly it's me doing the fiddling.
> 
> The entire home was originally stucco'd, in that horrible shade of avocado that can't be described, but is best seen on antique appliances. Over the years, the front was given vinyl siding, then vinyl dual-pane windows on all sides, and lastly the stone vaneer that you see here. In this weather, it _looks_ like it's painted yellow, but it's not. No, the vinyl has slowly aged. In normal sunlight, the top of the vinyl appears this color yellow while the bottom appears bone white. The color scheme just doesn't work for me, though you'll notice that between the stone, roof and scant number of trim pieces, I'm fairly locked into at least half of it being earthy tones.


nice looking. great can you tell me more information about your house like how make it???


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## Thadius856

fellascarpet said:


> nice looking. great can you tell me more information about your house like how make it???


Not sure I understand what you're asking.

Are you asking why style of construction it is, or how _I_ built it, or...?


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## Thadius856

Project Mul is moving along nicely. All three coats of poly are on the front, and the third coat is drying on the back. The saw blade still has a slight chemical smell to it when you really stick your nose right up to it, so I'm going to be gentle and assume that it'll cure over the next... days, weeks or months. I'm at the point of selecting the hardware to attach the engraved tags, and have pulled out the tube of construction adhesive to warm up in the house. I had forgotten to remove the old tube of gutter goop, so I had to fight to get the inside of the tube unstuck from the plunger of the caulking frame.

A lesson learned the hard way: when staining, don't think you can stain the backside before the front is dry. When I flipped it over to stain the backside, the front side sucked some of the dye out of the newspaper it was lying on. I quickly flipped it back over and worked most of it off with a paper towel, but some is still in there.

Also, a note on Minwax formulations. The standard formulation, which I purchased in a quart is totally different that what I have been working with thus far. It has a very similar consistency to the Minwax (Oil-based) Wood Conditioner... it's pervasive, gets everywhere, and feels like a thin layer of motor oil when it gets on your fingertips. I can see now why some people just do not like working with it.

Up til I stained Project Mul, I've been working with a Minwax 250-VOC gallon because California law prohibits the sale of the regular formulation in the gallon size (also OH, IN, IL, and most of the Northeast US). The label says that this product is thicker because of added resins and my experience is that the added thickness makes it easier to work with. However, if you don't wipe it off within 20 minutes (label calls for 5-15 minutes), it'll get so tacky that it'll rip apart cheapo brand paper towels trying to wipe it off. It doesn't drip, spreads very evenly, and levels well enough. But, I can see that I wouldn't want to stain an entire floor with it the way pros do (pour a pool, spread it around, buff it off) because it'd probably be tacky by the time you got a room spread around and you'd go through countless buffing pads trying to get it back up.

Quarts match quarts. Gallons match gallons. Trying to match colors across regular quarts and 250-VOC gallons is not going to work. Do not mix them together, or you'll get a horrible mess because they use different bases.

Regular Minwax Wood Finish can be top coated in 6 hours, while 250-VOC takes 8 hours.

The product labels and website often disagree. Label says 5-15 minutes, then wipe, and done in one coat. Website says a couple seconds to no more than 5 minutes, and it takes two coats. Just make a standard and stick to it for consistency.

Lastly, a note on coverage. The 250-VOC can says it covers 500 sq ft. I just stained ~275 sq ft of red oak plywood and used about 1/8 of the can. Same thing with the Minwax Water-based Oil-modified Polyurethane in Semi-Gloss... says a can coats 500 sq ft. I've done 3 coats each on about 250 sq ft (total 750 sq ft), and I've used less than half of the can. I tried putting it on thicker, but it ends up just glopping and needing more sanding; it just doesn't level right if you put it on too thick. Thinning with 10-25% mineral spirits _may_ help, but I haven't tried it.


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## Thadius856

More progress on the bookcase. Taught the wife to stain (and carefully watcher her) the second set of backings. Got one layer of poly on them last night, then buffed this morning and put on the second coat. Buffing and third coat goes on at 12:20pm.










Also located and drilled for the electrical on the two existing units. I figure there's no way I could measure accurately enough to do the electrical cut-outs before assembly. So, I fabricated one of the spacers I'd designed (okay, so I really just wire nailed two pieces of scrap together for the correct thickness), then placed each of the cabinets in its proper place. I then marked their location on the base, pulled them down, stuck two red pens in opposite corners (ie, top-left and bottom-right) of the electrical box, put the cabinet back in place, and moved the pens to mark the back side of the carcass while holding it from falling on my head.

Once I took the cabinets back down, I just drilled directly between the two red dots I'd created with a 1/2" spade bit, put the cabinet back in place, and marked a red dot through the center of the hole. Dead on center of each receptacle. Once everything's leveled, aligned and shimmed, I'll carefully cut each opening for the box extender.

Oh yeah, box extenders. Forgot to talk about them. They look like so.










There's a video on Amazon if you'd like to see how they work, but essentially they provide up to 1-1/2" of extra box depth, especially good for recessed or buried boxes (due to addition of drywall, paneling, etc after electrical box installation). They're approved for use with both metal and plastic boxes, and cover completely under a standard size receptacle cover or switch plate. There's 2-, 3-, and 4- gang models also, but you can use multiple 1-gang pieces and trim the wings off where they meet also. I picked up 3 from the Big Orange yesterday ($2.97/ea) to play with, and ordered another 10 from Amazon ($9.38/5pk with Prime).

I'm also considering putting two or three receptacles in the toe kick, but have to check on code compliance first.


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## Thadius856

Looking back at Page 7, I realized that I never updated on the neighbor paintball situation. The renter neighbors that liked to play rap loudly all night until the sun came up, and then resume at noon the next day.

I watched the Sherrif's Department evict them a little over a month ago. That was a pretty sweet day. I made sure to "check the mail" at the mailboxes outside their house several times that day. Man, they either had friends over to help them move out or a straight ton of them lived in there.

It's already been re-rented out and, you guessed it, another bunch of people moved right back in. They're not nearly as noisy, but dang, they sure cram a lot of people in that house.


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## Thadius856

Making a little progress...

Found (somewhat) suitable hardware to mount the engraving on the plaque in the pile of hardware Colleen gave me. There's handles, pulls and feet for days in here.




























I wish I had something with a a rounded head and a flat back, but I was in a rush and it was Christmas Eve, so there weren't many choices in hardware stores that were open...

Got them mounted, then had to run off to work


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## Thadius856

After work, I added another coat of paint (ugh, now a full can of spray paint on that _heavy_ blade) and glued 'er down with construction adhesive and a fair bit of twisting.










It's harder than it looks to imitate wood carving on fresh paint with a Sharpie... especially when the marker tip fouls every half inch...


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## Thadius856

Making good progress on the bookcases. Two nights ago, we got the last two 24" units assembled. Here's everything so far, dry fitted into place.


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## Thadius856

And here's the overhead LED lighting I'm deciding between. Big Orange ran out of 5" (600 lumen), so those are definitely out of the question, leaving the 3" (345 lumen) and the 4" (400 lumen).










Note that the actual LED portion of the light is actually smaller on the 4" model (plus brighter), so they're a lot more harsh. However, the baffle is also deeper, so I may be able to easily hide the light source more easily. We'll see.










I noticed that my local Lowe's just got 6" Halo LED kits in this week, but those are far too large. I did manage to find 4" and 5" non-IC cans that I could use with a new construction IC box box, but that would only get me flush to the top side of the drywall (and not the ½" drywall + 1-2" air gap + ¾" plywood from there to the underside of the bookshelf top). Plus then I'd have to pay for the can ($14ish), the IC can ($8, was $15) and the LED retrofit bulb ($40ish)... and that costs more than the Big Orange kits (3" $50, 4" $55, 5" $60)


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## Thadius856

And the bookcase progress is coming along nicely. Now that I have the overhead LED lighting units, in-ceiling (attic) electrical, and in-cabinet electrical supplies purchased and on hand, I feel like I've made good forward progress.










And now about the center unit... after putting the 24" units in place and measuring, it came out much different than I expected... the gap was about 3" wider than anticipated.  Lovely.

As it turns out, I left the back about 2½" wider when I rough cut, so I was able to get almost all of it back. I did have to take 1/8" off the shelf width and top/bottom width due to re-ripping the sides 1/8" previously. I have just barely enough shelf front material to make it (will have about eight ½" pieces left over, I estimate). And I'll get the last ½" by pulling all four units ¼" to the center and scribing a little extra against the wavy walls.

Seeing that 3" sure did give me a fright at first though!


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## Dinggus

Looking good. What's the point of the blade plaque?


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## Thadius856

More or less a gag gift, and to let me practice on this solid Brazilian cherry and Red Chestnut stain before I tried to make real things out of it. Got 28 pieces that size for about $15, so I figured it'd be a good idea to iron the wrinkles out of my process before I did it for real. Paid off too... found a couple things I did wrong that would have screwed up my cabinet doors (and my day).

Hung it on the wall in the shop for a day and a half. The guys got a kick out of it. Also posted it on Facebook and tagged him in it. When he picked it up, I'm told he was rather happy to have been made it.


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## Thadius856

Some progress today. Got a little frustrated toward the end, but that's how it goes some days. Spent a good portion of the morning going back and forth between the 3" and 4" LED cans. I really do with the 3" can were baffled deeper on the recess, and it would have been a very easy choice. Went with the 4" ones for that reason. On a dimmer, I don't expect they'll be as harsh as in the store, and completely out of sight unless sitting in one particular chair. *cross fingers*

Pulled out a scrap piece left over from a center unit shelf and tried the 4-1/8" hole cutter on it. Came out fairly smooth, but not as smooth a a jigsaw on a hole cutting jig. The can popped in easily, and then I sprang the retrofit feet with hardly any effort.










The bulb and ballast fit in pretty easily too. I took off the airtight gasket here.










I didn't have to touch anything from above to install. Obviously I'll have to go up into the attic to wire them, though, since I haven't pulled wiring from the junction yet or wired in the switch.


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## Thadius856

Got all the biscuits cut for the center unit shelves. Another 20 biscuits (40 cuts) knocked out.










Just finished gluing them all up. I think that's pretty close to my least favorite part of the whole process... smearing glue, the mad rush to get everything aligned and clamped, scrubbing excess glue off, waiting to take off clamps, etc. Funny that it used to be my favorite part of the process.

I had numbered each joint on both sides for the fronts. Somehow when I was gluing, the stacks got jumbled up, and I didn't notice until I had glued half the pieces together. There goes all the grain matching I spent an hour on earlier. *sigh* And now probably a lot more sanding.


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## Thadius856

Determined the finalized spacing, which of course took far too long. Then I cut all the lighting can holes in the bookcases and drywall.










I'm so excited that I can wait to install the light cans. But I know that I can't do that until I screw the carcasses into the studs, and I can't do _that_ until I have the center unit completed. Ugh.

Hopefully I can get the junction box installed and all the wiring ready tomorrow. I'd also like to be able to start staining, but I know that I probably can't until I let shelves finish curing (late tomorrow night). Ugh!


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## Thadius856

Not a whole lot done yesterday. Mostly an R&D day.

Tried to work out a way to hardwire in the LED I planned for the bookcase so I could switch them, but didn't have much luck in the logistics department. The main difficulty would be finding a place to hide the transformer(s) and PWM module(s). I ended up going with a plug-in solution, which will be just fine, so long as the provided cords are long enough. Crossing fingers, but it'll be here by Wednesday, so I should know by then.

Went with a Chinese LED importer on Amazon. I figure that way I get free 2-day air shipping, no sales tax (until new laws kick in tomorrow ) and I'd be covered by Amazon's return policies in case anything arrived broken or incomplete. Plus, I could reap most of the savings. Instead of paying $10-15 per foot to a local company (that probably imports the same strips and packages them up as a kit), I paid in the range of $0.80 per foot. I'm sure I saved a hefty bit on the PWN and transformers as well.










That puts the flex strip lighting bill at $185 ($37 ea) for 80 feet of strips, 5 PWMs and 5 transformers. That's in addition to the $275 ($55 ea) I paid for the LED cans. Not sure I'll live long enough to see that money come back in energy savings.


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## Thadius856

Managed to get some spackling done for the wainscoting, base board, chair rail and window/door casing. I figure if I do it in metered doses, at least it's less drudgery. Didn't get a change to sand it down yet, but I hope to get a fair amount of painting done today, mostly in the Sherwin "Toasty" deep brown color as seen before.

Donated a 13" TV, a box of pots/pans, a hot plate, a mouse, a reciprocating saw and a corded drill to Salvation Army. Picked up a $180 printer from Staples as a clearanced floor model for $28.

Going to take some building materials down to Habitat for Humanity ReStore today, and then take what they don't want to the dump. I have at least 5 sets of door handles and hinges for them that I'm sure they can use.


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## Thadius856

Tried to take that stuff down to the ReStore. Glad I called right before, because the majority of what I had was carefully-removed base board and other moulding, and they won't accept anything painted. When I asked about donating some that was factory primed with no paint and a manufacturer's name/date sticker on the back, they were unsure. So I ended up not making the trip... cut the moulding into 4' sections with the worm drive Skil and was done with that mess. I'll slowly mix it in with the weekly trash pick up until it's gone. Still have those hinges, knobs, paint quarts, etc that I'll continue to hold onto until I feel so inclined as to make the 30 minute drive to donate them.

Why is it always _purposely made_ so damn difficult to volunteer your time or money?!


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## Thadius856

Took a break from the bookcase to get a step closer to finishing the wainscoting/moulding project. Got up at 2am yesterday (couldn't sleep, go figure), so I started spackling and sanding. By the time the wife woke up, we were ready to vac and tape off the wainscoting.

I took some before photos, some after the first coat/taped, and some after the second coat was dry/untaped. Then I realized that nobody gives a crap about what the first coat looks like, so they went into the trash. :laughing:

Anyhow. Here you are... please ignore the bleed-thru at the base board, as that's _today's_ project (and installing a few pieces of missing moulding).


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## Thadius856

*Hit the image limit in a single post. Continued...*























































*...and a bonus wall that I forgot to take a 'before' shot of.*


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## Thadius856

More progress again yesterday, though not what I'd originally hoped for. I had wanted to get most (or all) of the missing trim pieces cut, nailed, spackled and then paint everything. That certainly didn't happen.

I spackled for a few hours with what was left of my dying sanding blocks (both 150 grit, I believe), but I gave up and threw. They both were missing huge chunks on each sharp edge, and that's the edge I use 90% of the time when trying to work the corner of all of the nail holes I "hid" in the groove of the trim. What a joke... I should have just nailed on the flat, because they're a lot easier and quicker to patch. 

I quickly got distracted and tried to sand the living room window sill to be a little less "goopy" from countless thick layers of paint. That didn't work... the sander just tore chunks out, and I was forced to go down nearly to bare wood. It still looks like garbage, so I think that I will indeed go all the way down. I'll have to re-caulk the sill, but I should already have a tube of silicone opened anyway for the moulding.


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## Thadius856

Then, of course, I got distracted again. I ended up installing somewhere in the range of 8 or 9 of the box extenders, with some customization to about half of the extenders, and some cutting back of bead board with a razor knife in about half as well. I also prepped the bookcase electrical boxes... removed the devices, capped the wires, vacuumed them out, etc.

But this baby was the highlight of my day. When paneling, I had a d'oh! moment and paneled right over a receptacle. NEC 2008 wouldn't let me get away with that, and it could pose a threat, so I had to go find it. The wife knew where it was within a foot either way, so I story poled the other two outlets in the room, then checked about 2½" to either side of the stud I knew it must be nailed to. Sure enough, the non-contact voltage tester lit up this time, even with the newly added paint. It's weird that it wouldn't show any juice through the paneling before, without the paint, even on the 5 mA setting. I marked, drilled with the smallest bit I had, and struck the hot-side screw.

Here's what I saw after about 5 minutes of drilling progressively larger holes (and eating most of the face of the device off while doing it).










It all worked out, though the device came out in pieces. The $3 I spent replacing it was well worth my sanity. Here we are completely, just before the face plate went back on.










Made a run to Big Blue to pick up some materials, then made dinner. Afterwards, I raised the TV 7".










I might go a little higher. Don't know yet. But it certainly looks better not covering all that paneling. And for some reason, the TV looks bigger when it's slightly above eye level. That's a pretty nice optical illusion.


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## Thadius856

Determined today that the LED flex strips are approximately 8mm wide, 2mm thick at the LED, and have a 120º emission. Here's an overhead shot of the approximated light pattern possibilities.










Bottom is mounted directly to the backside of the stiles. Center is mounted at 45º on a 1/4" x 1/4" chamfer. Top is mounted at 60º on a 9/32" x 5/32" chamfer (?). Certainly the top is the best pattern, theoretically. Will do some testing when it arrives. Can't find anything premade that I'd want to use, so it looks like I might be turning some scrap solid oak into these pieces. Wish my luck.


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## Thadius856

Also looking to buy a ton of picture frame molding. We don't have a single frame hung because the few (cheap ones) we had didn't survive the move! Looking to make my own, so I think I'll just need a dozen corner clamps (Harbor Freight or Grainger, perhaps) and some suitable material. Here's what I've got my eye on so far. I had to request a price list, so I won't mention the wholesaler's name out of courtesy. Note, these prices are for small quantities. I may be able to get a discount if I buy a "box" (100 to 400 ln ft) of any style.

*







$1.75/ft








$?/ft








$1.97/ft








$3.52/ft








$1.18/ft








$0.86/ft

*Going to call to see if I can get a sample or two tomorrow. Also stopping by the base frame shop to see if they have any good connections. Prices are w/o shipping.


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## Ironlight

Eons ago when I was a teenager I worked in a frame shop for a few years. If you're going to do a lot of frames you probably want to get a decent frame vise. Using something from Harbor freight is a recipe for disaster in my opinion as they are not designed to grip frames with rabbets and unusual profiles.

Also, make sure you buy a frame that is wood throughout. Those frames you're looking at actually have a thin coat of plaster on them and are then painted. In a frame shop you cut that sort of frame to just largerof your intended dimension with a shop saw and then you cut it down to final size with a special bench tool that cuts with a sharp blade at 45 degrees which removes the unavoidable chipped end from the chop saw.

Lastly, get a tin of framer's putty that matches your frame color. It's indispensible for filling nail holes and flaws.


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## Thadius856

Well, I got the wholesaler on the phone. His prices are certainly amazing, but he hs to ship each box by Freight... and that _starts_ at $150 for 1 box. 2 boxes is the same shipping rate. And he said that the whole box price is about half of what I posted here (175ft/bx for the top one), so it's pretty close to a wash.

I'm sure sure I understand what you mean by plaster on the wood. Can you clarify? I can't see the pictures... at work, on my lunch break, and they're filtered.

Every other wholesaler I've found so far that has what I want won't sell to the public. The base frame shop wants $4.75/ft for the first molding I showed (WTF?!) and $15.20 for 11x14 UV glass (!??!).

I've worked with the first and fourth profiles before when I managed a photography studio, but we got all of our frames in pre-assembled in 11x14, 12x16, 12x24, 14x24, etc.


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## Thadius856

Worked the last two days. Spent today checking out a few lumber yards an hour away. And I'm pretty impressed.

The larger one was nearly out of straight-lined 8' 4/4 red oak, with only a few pieces (with boot prints on them). At $3.20/bf. But they did have a good selection of most everything else, at good prices.

The smaller place had teenagers working. Rude ones that talked **** about other customers while I was still shopping. I'm sure talked about me too once I left. But at $2.88/bf, I feel like I got some good stuff. Got a 4/4 3¼"x8' piece of Jatoba with rather distinct grain for the carpenter to play with and a 5½"x9' piece of Padauk for me to play with for picture frame molding. Still trying to figure out a good profile setup using less expensive Chinese bits from eBay/Amazon...


















Even at almost $8/bf for 4/4, it still comes out cheaper to make quality stuff from an imported African wood (Padauk) than to order box quantities (175ft/bx) of ****ty moulding (basswood and filler) from across the country (Georgia) at a great discount ($1.75/ft) versus the base frame shop ($4.80/ft) and have it shipped across the country ($150+). And that includes my tools cost...

I wanted the 12½" x 8' piece, but they said it was reserved for an instrument maker two hours away. Ugh. I made them bust open a unit for this piece... passed up a lot of wavy grain for this beauty!


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## Ironlight

Thadius856 said:


> I'm sure sure I understand what you mean by plaster on the wood. Can you clarify? I can't see the pictures... at work, on my lunch break, and they're filtered.


The second image you posted is probably the clearest example. They cut the profile out of some cheap hardwood and then coat it with a thin layer of what, back in the day, seemed like plaster which would then take the finish on top of it. Your selections have several finishes...black, brown, etc...and then they have the detail, which is not cut in the wood but is moulded into the plaster that is applied. I'm not sure it is actually plaster, but it behaved like it. Cut it with a saw and it would chip pretty reliably. Ergo the pedal-operated shaving machine. Perhaps things are different these days but I suspect that going at those with a chop saw would be problematic. Ah here, found a picture. It's call a moulding guillotine. Appears to have broader use in furniture making:










I like your idea of making your own frames from hardwood. Much more interesting and fun.


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## Thadius856

Got the LED flex strips in yesterday (and another dozen binders, but that's another story...). Had to give them a test, of course. They're dead on 5/16" wide by 1/8" thick. I haven't taken them all the way off the reel to confirm that they're really 16'4" (5 meters).

The dimmer says that it'll dim down to 0%, but the lights blink out around 10%. That's not too terribly bad, as they're really dim at 10% if you're not looking directly into each "bulb" so to speak.









*Lights On, 100% power*










*Lights Off, 100% power*


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## Thadius856

When I tried to tilt them to what I estimated was 30º, 60º and 90º, the "bulbs" became very obvious when standing near the shelf. I couldn't see anything from the seating. This presents a problem because I wanted the lighting to appear source-less, so to speak, as it was emanating.Seeing the bright "bulbs" ruins the illusion and cheapens it a bit, especially if you see them every time you walk up to look at a curio or read the book spines.

Deciding whether I want to go with mounting them directly to the backs of the stiles (can't see the "bulbs" unless you put your head *into* the bookshelf), or whether I want to try to design a 30º/60º chamfer and a 45º chamfer and test installing a lip onto the back side of the stiles. I could make it decorative, like a rope molding, if I really wanted to, but... it might create more work for the same result in the end. We'll see.

Either way, it's looking like I'm going to have to upsize the face frame to 3½" minimum. 4" could look good if properly routed. Starting tooling up for the picture frame project a little early in case the router bit profiles I buy for that project come in handy on this face frame.


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## Thadius856

Part of the reason why I've been taking a break is because I've been recently disenfranchised. I tried to make six 26" pieces of the solid stock span the fronts of four 38" shelves. I tried to fix the fact that I didn't have 38" long stock by cutting two of the 26" pieces into quarters, after which I planned to put one quarter (6") on each side of the 26" piece. That would make the center seams line up vertically with the apothecary drawers and make the splice look intentional, right? I hand-matched the grain and profile of each joint by hand, marking each pair with a set number, and then biscuited with five #10s and glued up, except when I got half way done gluing up, I realized that somebody had rearranged my pile, and I'd glued random ass pieces together that didn't match...

...it looked like dog **** while I was clamping, with air gaps at each joint I couldn't get to close up, the front banding 1/32"+ _thinner_ than the plywood, terribly rounded uneven profiles and all sorts of slop where the two small end pieces moved in the clamps off-plane from the center piece.

So today when I got home, I fired up the table saw and cut that **** right off the plywood. (I think) I had enough plywood to start the shelves over, but found the plywood wasn't messed up yet. All the same, I turned them around so the cut-off biscuits are butted against the back wall. I then ripped them down to 1/8" over the width of the other shelf fronts (to compensate for the lost plywood), rough cut them ½" longer than the shelves, marked, biscuited, and just finished gluing them up. The clamps are ready to come off, and I'm beat.










It's going to be a long weekend, full of work. Much of next week, too. This puts me back in the position that I only need to get everything sanded down, stained and poly'd. I'm seeing the light at the end of the (albiet very long) tunnel again.










The tracker doesn't show a whole lot of progress. Seems to just be that way in the stage of the project that each step takes a deal longer than other steps. Especially when you have to re-do steps... :\


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## EvilNCarnate

Mind PM'ing the wholesalers name?


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## Thadius856

Check your inbox.


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## Thadius856

As expected, work ate up most of my time. Unfortunately picked up an extra 8 hr shift both this week and next. Pile on 4 tests for college credit (3 on Monday, 1 on Tuesday, with another the following week to complete my 2nd degree), and my schedule has been pretty tight. I'm told to expect this level of work until after Valentine's... oh boy!

All those extra hours at work need to be filled with something, and when all the work is done, that leaves a little time for my personal projects' R&D. Lately, I've been working on picking out the router bits I'll need for the near future... and I'm really liking the prices of Yonico bits, especially since they have many profiles that are exact matches to MLCS for 40-50% cheaper. They're carried on eBay, Amazon and a site called Precision Bits, so I can buy from Amazon to get the free shipping, avoid tax, and get their return policy to protect myself in case they're crummy bits.

I sent Precision Bits an email through their site to inquire about quantity discounts and getting one bit swapped out in a 5-bit raised panel set because they don't have the profile I want in a 5-bit set, and I received a quick response back from Jonathan, who will be sending me a coupon for existing customers... looks like I might have to buy one or two cheapie bits separately to get that code to work.

I'll post the profiles I'm looking to get shortly.


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## Thadius856

*For large box lids, chests, maybe even gifts:*


















*For my planned pictures frames from Padauk:*


















*For basic joinery, because I've always had an eye for these, but never gotten to play with them:*


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## Thadius856

*For the cabinet doors on the bookshelves (and possibly future kitchen cabs)*:


















*For attaching the drawer fronts to the drawers on the bookshelves (again, possibly kitchen cabs):*


















*For the stiles on my book case face frame stiles, and possibly some hand made crown to top it off:*


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## Thadius856

I think I've forgotten to mention some of the smaller happenings recently. Perhaps it's time to take a step back and mention some of those.

A little while back we bought a Cummins benchtop drill press. Nothing fancy, but it's been rather useful. Another CraigsList find ($35), but I doubt it ever had a bit loaded into it before I did, because I got a bit of goopy reddish factory grease on my hand when putting the first bit in the chuck. The gauge seems to indicate that it only drills "50", which I assume are millimeters (and the specs/manual say nothing of depth at all), so we'll go with that.










The carpenter was using an old bar stool I got at Wally World for under $25 years ago. At 36", it was the right height for my studio's bar. All these years later, I still have one. Where the other go to, I can only imagine, but I'm guessing it was a casualty of my divorce. I had no real use for it, so I wasn't bothered by him using it for his woodworking projects. But after watching him sit in it for more than a minute or two, I realized it just wasn't up to the task. As luck would have it, a Craftsman work stool appeared on SlickDeals as a doorbuster for $36, marked down from $80. Yeah, it's pretty comfy, and the hydraulic works as a spring when you just first sit down.


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## Thadius856

On the way back from my new favorite lumber supplier, I swung by Harbor Freight. I know some people here hate their products, while others love them. Myself, I feel that some products are well worth their price while other are completely garbage. Take for example the 18" and 24" bar clamps I bought. They don't have _perfectly_ machined heads or _super_ supply grips, but they easily get the job done with enough force to squeeze a glue joint dry. At $5 (I think?) everyday price for a 24" clamp, it'll pay itself off quickly.. and that's if you don't catch them on sale.

(Admittedly, they bend half-moon shaped when you clamp real hard, but they spring right back when released)

I took my receipt back to Harbor Freight for the clamps, from exactly 30 days prior, along with a stack of coupons. I got the $30/yr membership and the clerk was nice enough to backdate the member's sale price of the 24" clamps for me, putting $6 back in my pocket. I picked up a $40... rolling frame cart thing... for $25 because of the membership. Only $9 until I pay off the membership. It's proven to be an amazing buy. Here you can see the front (wheels on castors, or you can lock it stationary within seconds using the feet) and the rear (wheels on axles).










It used to take two of us to move the planer away from the wall, but now that it's on the stand I can roll it around the concrete patio with one hand. It was a bit odd to assemble, as we had to mill down some 2x4's to 1½" square (or was it 1¼" square?), but it seems to live up to its 300 lb rating. I'll probably be picking up three more before the sale ends on the 31st, one for each of the radial arm saw, the band saw and the large router table.










Tonight I discovered much by accident that my paint can key is also designed to be a beer bottle opener. Literally a perfect fit. And here I was thinking that painters became painters because of the fumes...


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## Thadius856

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

As I think I said before, I scheduled 3 exams to challenge for college credit. What I don't think I said before was that I scheduled them on Friday afternoon. For the following Monday. One has a 91% military pass rate, so I didn't bother studying for that one at all. Another was Introduction to Computers, which I took a practice test for and was surprised at the level of depth it went into (as an IT professional), but again, I didn't find any need to study.

I figured the third one, Management Information Systems, would be the same story as I was a nerd when I was in college, sailed through that course, and finished a business minor. How much could have really changed? Took a practice test Sunday afternoon to calm pre-test jitters... and it absolutely kicked my ass. Scored a 65/100. So last night I look at one guy's homemade study guide for that test, looked up every topic I missed on the practice test, made myself some cheat sheets to study on-the-go, and signed up for a service called InstantCert. Surprisingly, their claims that their study guides were half way decent were actually pretty true.

I couldn't sleep - got maybe three or four hours. Woke up and had some coffee while I crammed the material for four hours. Wrapped up cramming, showered and was out the door in 10 minutes. On the hour drive to the test center, I tried to calm myself with the radio. No dice. Got lost twice. Ugh. Still arrived before the proctor. Made the mistake of trying to take all 3 end of course tests back-to-back (100 questions each, or so). Finished all three in a little over 90 minutes, but by the end I was a bumbling idiot and I watched progressive test scores get lower and lower. I was reading the questions, not understand a word of what they were asking, even though I knew it was easy material that I knew. Just plain fried my brain. Luckily, I took the hardest test first.

Management Information Systems, 466/500.
Introduction to Computing, 462/500.
Principles of Supervision, 435/500.
(400 is a pass)

Not great scores, but who finishes 9 college credits in one day?


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## Dinggus

Is that with DANTES?


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## Thadius856

DSST, formerly DANTES, though Prometrics. Yup.

I have a CLEP tomorrow and one next Thursday. Those five should finish out another Associates of Science just before my first performance report closes out. I normally would have went through the base Education Center and done it all for free, but I wanted it all done in that time frame, and they were booked for 4 of next 6 weeks that I have days off on a weekday. At test center I went to, they only go in when you people are actually testing, so I had the place to myself. Much nicer than feeling everybody elses' stress.


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## Dinggus

Good job, I turned my military transcript in and got around 30 credits.


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## Thadius856

Funny thing is, I was sitting at 170 credits before I went in this morning, but they wouldn't take 80% of my credits from my Bachelor's (from a California State University) for transfer (towards my Community College of the Air Force associates). Ironically, I could satisfy the requirements with CLEPs/DSSTs that had the same name as what showed on my transcripts.


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## Dinggus

You have a bachelors and you went enlisted?


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## Thadius856

That's correct. Unfortunately my degree is considered "non-technical" and the three OTS boards failed to meet for non-technical degree applicants. So I enlisted instead.

Non-technical of course being the friendly was of saying they think a degree is equivalent to Underwater Basket Weaving in applicability (like Liberal Arts or Philosophy). You wouldn't think that _the Air Force_ of all places would give that label to a Private Pilot with an Aviation degree, but indeed they do.


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## Dinggus

I would have went a different branch to become an officer. You got screwed.


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## Thadius856

I can still play that card as I have 6 years before I hit the commissioning age, but as it turns out, officers don't get Tuition Assistance. I'm thinking about using that $4,500 per semester for tuition on an MBA or similar, then going the commissioned route anyway. That would let me keep my MGIB intact and the clock at 10 years (plus 10 more years for Post-9/11 Bill transfer), so I'd effectively have 20 years to give it to my child after I got out. Plus, it would really suck to make Lt just to get RIF'd right back out of the armed forces if this budget **** hits the fan.

Indeed, the Marines offered me a _guaranteed flight slot, on paper_ and all I had to do was attend a 10-week summer training course in Pensacola during college. Retardedly, I declined so I could continue working that summer to support my live-in girlfriend (now ex-wife). Probably the biggest mistake of my life so far.

It's not unusual for people in my career field to make 6-figures with 10 years of experience, so there's always that route too.


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## Thadius856

On my way back from the exams, I picked up a tube of thermal paste to rebuild the wife's desktop and put the office back together, now that the motherboard is finally back - after nearly 4 months being out for RMA. I sure hope it works this time and that they didn't just send it back without repairs. I also grabbed some hangers for the living room wall on the way home. What kind of hangers? That's a silly question, but stay tuned.

As it turns out, the hardware that came with them was pathetic. I'm hanging a several hundred dollar item weighing 15 lbs 4" off a wall, and they gave me two 1¾" wood screws? After ¾" for the mounting bracket thickness and ½" drywall, that's only ½" in the stud. No way in hell that's going to work! Here's my upgrade...










...3" wood screws. Much better. While I was at it, I touched up the dirt and pencil marks on the paint and mounted the audio/visual shelves back on the wall.










Too tired to set the 5.1 receiver back up and re-run all the wires tonight. I'm relocating the front L/R speakers just above a/v shelves and the center speaker just above the TV when I get the energy. I think I just need a framed panoramic print to tie it all together.


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## Thadius856

The long week continues. Work's wearing me down. Can't wait until my freedom (relatively speaking) starts tonight.

The carpenter finished up some of his more fun-and-figured stuff and is close to running out of wood to play with. I think he got 6 boxes and a fair amount of joinery experience out of that amount. I'll have to post pictures of them once they're done being finished.

We worked out an understanding in roles. I tend to prefer the design, engineering, materials selection, purchasing, and drafting due to my experience with (and love of) CAD tools. He tends to prefer being handed a set of plans (or working with none at all) and enjoys the process of physically milling/joining the wood. The wife tends to prefer the large overarching go/no-go decisions and admiring the finished product. None of us seem to really enjoy sanding or finishing. :laughing:

Because of my work schedule being so hectic lately, especially for the near future, I'll be spending quite a bit of my free time making plans and placing material/tool orders to pass on to the carpenter. Yesterday I tossed him some receipts, some items to return (switch plates, outlet spacers), some items to pick up (beadboard, MDF), the "corporate" credit card :thumbsup: and two sets of plans (push pad and router guide). He decided to throw in two featherboards.










The wife stained the underside of my shelves, for which I'm grateful. She also stained the other side of the top/bottom, which will never see the light of day.  Thanks honey! :laughing:


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## Thadius856

During the "big find" of stuff we got from Colleen, we picked up a stack of at least a dozen 4"x36"x¾" plywood rips. I'm not 100% on the dimensions, but I seem to remember them being 7-ply white oak, probably B-2 or C-3. I think she intended them for toe kicks or somesuch, but since they have some sun/water discoloration to the veneer, I don't have a use for them in furniture. If they're still stable and haven't warped, I think they'd be perfect to be jointed together for a Straight Line Rip jig, such as this one that came up in Google:

http://www.southpointhawaii.com/include/pdf_files/10bestsawjigs.pdf (Page 5 of 7, #6).

I've got about 65 bf of beautifully air-dried (the seller tells me nearly 10 yrs) 4/4 8' Cherry for the bookshelf face frame, just begging to be straight line ripped in widths up to 13". The different in coloration between it and some kiln-dried commercial stuff I have sitting around is night and day, with the vintage air-dried cherry have a beautiful reddish tone, while the fresh stuff is still just barely colored. I already purchased four 300lb horizontal hold down clamps from Harbor Freight last week, as pictured. The plans went over to the carpenter for review. Seems like a perfect use for long scrap and biscuits. We'll see what he comes up with.


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## hyunelan2

>


Nice stumpjumer. I wish I lived somewhere that mountain biking was more than riding around in my lawn. As it is, road biking is my preference. 

I enjoy all the pictures in this thread, keep up the good work.:thumbup:


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## Thadius856

hyunelan2 said:


> Nice stumpjumer. I wish I lived somewhere that mountain biking was more than riding around in my lawn. As it is, road biking is my preference.
> 
> I enjoy all the pictures in this thread, keep up the good work.:thumbup:


Thanks for the feedback! Didn't even notice I left the bike in the shot until I posted it. I usually try to keep those things out of the pictures, you know, so I don't show off too many expensive goodies.

Mountain biking here is unfortunately pretty lame as well. It gets most of its use around the neighborhood, which is all flat here in the California Central Valley... which is why you see traditional flat pedals instead of the clipless than used to be on it. Nothing worse than taking a face dive at an intersection because some random driver is texting instead of paying attention and you can't clip out fast enough to put your feet down.

The farmers love the flatness, but us not so much. When it was purchased, we were up in the Sierra Nevada foothills where there's much more varied terrain. It's still only an hour drive or so to get up there from here.

Looking to replace the Armadillo XT's on it as they're original and low on tread, but not sure which way to go yet. Star thistles keep running straight through the inner tubes, so we tried to solid tube approach, but couldn't get it to seat inside the tire. They're sitting on a shelf now, never used.


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## hyunelan2

Try some Mr. Tuffy tire liners. They go in between the tire and the tube, and act as a barrier to prevent things like thistle from poking the tube. I use them on my CX and all-terrain tires. Have never had a flat while using them. 

http://mrtuffy.com/

Can't tell if that's a 26" or 29er Stumpjumper - I think all the new FSR's are 29ers. They make them for every size though. 29er uses purple strips, 26" depends on the tire width. There is a size chart on their site. They will run you about $20 for a pair.


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## jtitus07

Everything looks great so far! Wife and I are in the process of buying our first home (which we have rented and lived in for the last 4 years) and already have a big list of projects. Really love the built-in bookcase/library 

Off topic and out of Curiosity, what do you do in the AF? I'm an Air Traffic Controller, with just a little over 4 years in.


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## Thadius856

hyunelan2 said:


> Try some Mr. Tuffy tire liners. They go in between the tire and the tube, and act as a barrier to prevent things like thistle from poking the tube. I use them on my CX and all-terrain tires. Have never had a flat while using them.
> 
> http://mrtuffy.com/
> 
> Can't tell if that's a 26" or 29er Stumpjumper - I think all the new FSR's are 29ers. They make them for every size though. 29er uses purple strips, 26" depends on the tire width. There is a size chart on their site. They will run you about $20 for a pair.


Ah yes, Mr. Tuffy. Installed some STOP Flats 2 a little while back, and it seems to be holding up, but that might just be because star thistles nettles are a lot less strong and sharp in the winter. It seems to be working, but we'll see come spring. Kept the packaging that says they'll replace the liner and tube if it ever gets a puncture. I'm skeptical.



jtitus07 said:


> Everything looks great so far! Wife and I are in the process of buying our first home (which we have rented and lived in for the last 4 years) and already have a big list of projects. Really love the built-in bookcase/library
> 
> Off topic and out of Curiosity, what do you do in the AF? I'm an Air Traffic Controller, with just a little over 4 years in.


Thanks on the library wall! I just did a little more work on it, and will be doing some other small steps this weekend, so stay tuned for progress updates.

I'm a Cyber Systems Operator, which is DoD-speak for Server Administrator.


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## Thadius856

Slept in this morning. Spent the last four hours of my shift trying to clean up a mess I made because I let my guard down for all of 10 seconds, and that thoroughly wore me out with stress. Ugh.

The rest of the morning was spent trying to pare down the finances. W2's come out at the end of this month, so once I get the wife's, I'll be filing our taxes ASAP. Going to use the (estimated) refund to pay off her car loan 9 months early, and then be able to cut the auto coverage back down to liability.

Also spent an hour trying to get AT&T to sell me a telephone landline (why is it so darn difficult to GIVE them my money?) so I can pick up Sonic.net DSL. Also enrolled in a 30-day Netflix free trial that should give a $20 gift card. That should allow me to cut down the cell phone minutes, run an alarm system if I so choose, stream Netflix/Amazon videos, download as much as I want to (uncapped DSL) and drop cable entirely. Total savings should be close to $53/mo ($636/yr).

The phone line and DSL are scheduled to be turned on next Friday. I could have had the phone on Monday and the DSL in 5-10 business days, but this way seemed more convenient. Plus, it gives me time to hunt for an ADSL modem deal.


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## Thadius856

More work on the library unit: the center (larger) unit got its first coat of poly 1 hour ago. I hope to buff and get the 2nd coat on there before heading out to that meeting tonight. Here's where I stand now:


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## Thadius856

Much of the carpenter's morning (and our collective afternoons) was spent assembling a 6'x8' storage shed. He picked it up yesterday off CraigsList (seeing a pattern yet?) for $300. We estimate it would sell for over $800 new; this one was used for 2 years, then disassembled and stored. Only two parts were missing, and they didn't stop it from being assembled correctly.

He said he was the first to call about it because he gets real-time alerts using HeyCraig (free, web-based alert service) and by the time he drove off with it, 6 other people had emailed the seller. Anyhow, he laid out all the big pieces last night. The sprinklers kicked on for 5 minutes, and then some of the water froze to them, but they're still just fine.










And here's the spot he picked out for it. I told him that I trusted his judgment on placement and to do what he felt was right.










And here's completed. Note that the shadows are now going the opposite direction...










It's currently being filled with 30-40 gal Tupperwares. It looks like we could fit 24 of them without getting too crazy with stacking, while still leaving room for access and basic lawn care items (push mower, weedeater or edger, rakes, snow shovel, etc).

There's enough hardware to hang 4 extension cords or hoses and install two 6' long by 14" deep shelves, but we passed on those to maximize space.


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## Thadius856

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but a while back, I got the carpenter _Basic Box Making_ by Doug Stowe. This was the fine woodworking primer that he used to practice joinery, precision and finshing on the charactered scrap we had gotten from Colleen. They're being given away as gifts tomorrow to my nephews and in-laws, so I figured I better get some pictures of them before they're gone.

I included a pack of playing cards for size reference (free advertising for Scion, I suppose). Without further ado...










































In order of appearance:
1. Clean, flush design with mitered joinery featuring Chinese Elm top/bottom and sides of book-matched Goncalo Alves.
2. Ogee'd design with hand-cut dovetails featuring Black Walnut sides, Spalted Maple top and Curly Cherry bottom.
3. Overhanging picture frame design featuring English Walnut sides, Black Walnut around (Hoduran?) Mahogany.
4. Rounded lip design with dovetails featuring Black Walnut sides, Limba Top and Red Oak bottom.
5. A solid piece of Black Walnut burl that we tell people is a box with super precise joinery and bet them that they can't figure out how to open it... :laughing:

Edit: That's 501 images, folks!


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## Thadius856

I skipped the second coat of polyurethane last night, as I had to run into work for some volunteer things and then book it 50 miles down the road to a dinner with friends.

What a cluster ****. By the time I got to Harbor Freight to pick up some things (more on this later), dinner was in 15 minutes. No problem, it's only ½ mile away. The cashier took his sweet time ringing up my purchase, starting over twice. He couldn't get my 20% coupon to work on a $10 item, and just as I was about to tell him to forget about it, the manager randomly butted in and gave me a very snarky, "that's a sidewalk sale item, and you can't use coupons on sidewalk items". As much as I wanted to say "hey, I didn't know you were even having a sidewalk sale because it's _dark outside_ and there's nothing on the sidewalk, douche," I resigned myself to a polite "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

Of course one of the basic laws of the universe is that any time you bottle up a snarky response, it _will_ come out soon rather than later. Sure enough, I jokingly called my wife a name _but in the completely wrong (snarky) tone_ in front of all my friends. I thought she was going to jump across the table and strangle me. :laughing:

After getting a little work done this morning (again, more on that shortly), I went to watch my nephew's basketball scrimmages. And tomorrow night I have to go to the wife (post-) Holiday party, so less work time this weekend than other weekends.


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## Thadius856

So, late night I went to Harbor Freight to get some more of the Mobile Bases. The first one has been wonderful to have on the planer. I bought the last three they had, and probably would have gotten 1 more.


















Also picked up five portable storage cases with 20 removable bins each. They have a few different sizes, but this one just happened to be on sale for ITC members.










Started filling them this morning. I wish it had a few more of the smallest bins because I have so many brads, tracks and staples, but they'll do just fine. I may need more than five... :whistling2:


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## Thadius856

This morning, I buffed the first coat of polyurethane on the center unit back/top/bottom and put the 2nd coat on. Also buffed the first coat on the topside of the shelves and applied the first coat to the underside.

This evening, I buffed the second coat of polyurethane on the center unit back/top/bottom and put the 3rd coat on. Also buffed the first coat on the underside of the shelves and applied the second coat to the topside.

Getting there, slowly but surely. I hope (but doubt I'll be able to) assemble that unit tomorrow before the wife's holiday party.


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## Thadius856

Just ordered the Yonico router bits from Precision Bits.

One architectural moulding bit (#16135)
One crown molding bit (#16150)
Set of three lock miter bits (#15334)
Set of three mitered door bits (#12230)
Set of five raised panel door bits (#12530)

Total $185.17. No sales tax, free shipping, after 10% off $150+ orders (coupon "150order").

Thirteen specialty bits for that price shipped isn't too bad. Hope they don't fall apart on me.


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## Thadius856

Realized that I included the wrong profile rail and stile image. I meant to post an ogee, but somehow posted a roundover. My mistake.


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## Thadius856

Got all of the rest of the polyurethane coats done yesterday. Feels like a weight has been lifted now. While I was waiting for coats to try, I chiseled out the slots in the shelf fronts for the LED strips in the other four carcasses. Here's the first (and ugliest) one I made.










And with LED strip in place, shown facing backwards for the photo.


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## Thadius856

A major milestone has been reached now that the center unit carcass is together!

Boy, was it difficult gluing this one together. I went from having 15 clamps big enough to clamp across the face to only 3 clamps because of the increase in size. Lots of clamp-shoot-unclamp-move-reclamp.










And now we enter the face frame phase of construction.


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## Thadius856

The wife's clearly happy to have her entry way, dining room, seating and table back. Sorry about the overexposure... the camera didn't like this one particular lighting situation. No idea why.










I took the 4 sawhorses to the shed, as well as several totes of materials. Some items were moved to the laundry room to clear this space back up (for now ).


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## Ozgirl1985

Thadius856 said:


> Ok, so the "entertainment center" is looking a bit like a pile of devices and wires. Well, it is. Had to take down all the speakers to paint a few days ago, and they haven't gone back up yet. I'm waiting until my new mounts come in from Monoprice. I'm ordering today, I promise this time! There will eventually be a banana plug wall plate beside each mount as well, with in-wall runs of the speaker wire. For now, thumbtacks will have to do.
> 
> Being near-sighted, I figured a 60-65" TV at 8' was about what I wanted. The far-sighted one disagreed, leaning towards a 42". I ended up splitting the difference with a 50" 3D 1080p Smart TV (a great price point) and mounting it on one of the beefiest (and most expensive) mounts that Monoprice could offer. He thinks the TV is just the right size when against the wall, and when I'm alone I pull it 30" closer for a much more fulfilling experience.
> 
> Per Murphy's Law, the TV mount needed to bolt into two studs, and the TV ended up needing to be mounted 8" off center to either side of the room. Naturally, I chose away from the fireplace. I have plans for that area!
> 
> This is the seating, at nearly full recline. Even fully reclined, this set amazingly only needs about an additional 3" clearance to the rear as opposed to when seated upright. All 4 recline in the same manner, though one is currently blocked from being able to because of clearance.


This house really has come a long way. I really like that your "lower level" has been turned into a "game room" or sorts. Will you add more theater seating furniture or game room supplies to the space? (Sorry I tend to take an interest in the design element of a room). 

We're in the process of finishing our basement (which is a wreck) and I like the hardwood you chose for the flooring in your house. Was it difficult to put in? If it came with the house, did you have to restore it?


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## Thadius856

A long way into a ton of unfinished projects, maybe!  Before any new projects start (to include picture frames ), I'm set on getting everything wrapped up, including floor transitions. It's going to take a while.

The hardwood came with the house. It looks to be the original flooring, and appears to have been refinished once. It was a fairly major selling point for us. It could probably use refinishing or replacement again, but there's not much point while we're still renovating.

If you're only as far into the thread as your quote suggests, I think you'll be pleastantly surprised to see how far that room has come...


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## jtitus07

Thadius856 said:


> On the way back from my new favorite lumber supplier, I swung by Harbor Freight. I know some people here hate their products, while others love them. Myself, I feel that some products are well worth their price while other are completely garbage. Take for example the 18" and 24" bar clamps I bought. They don't have _perfectly_ machined heads or _super_ supply grips, but they easily get the job done with enough force to squeeze a glue joint dry. At $5 (I think?) everyday price for a 24" clamp, it'll pay itself off quickly.. and that's if you don't catch them on sale.
> 
> (Admittedly, they bend half-moon shaped when you clamp real hard, but they spring right back when released)
> 
> I took my receipt back to Harbor Freight for the clamps, from exactly 30 days prior, along with a stack of coupons. I got the $30/yr membership and the clerk was nice enough to backdate the member's sale price of the 24" clamps for me, putting $6 back in my pocket. I picked up a $40... rolling frame cart thing... for $25 because of the membership. Only $9 until I pay off the membership. It's proven to be an amazing buy. Here you can see the front (wheels on castors, or you can lock it stationary within seconds using the feet) and the rear (wheels on axles).


You don't happen to know the name or Item # for the roller stand do you? I'm looking for something like this for my table saw and can't for the life of me seem to find em on the HF website.


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## Thadius856

You know, the same thing happened to me, actually. And that was after I'd already bought one!

The product name is actually "300 Lb. Capacity Mobile Base". Not exactly the first thing that came to my mind either.

http://www.harborfreight.com/300-lb-capacity-mobile-base-95288.html

Note that you only get the four black corners. You need to supply and size your own wood down to 1¼" x 1¼" (or use steel tubing). It doesn't come with the stand in the picture.

They're $40 ea everyday price, so take a 20% off coupon from the Sunday paper with you if you can find one. Or, getting the $30/yr membership drops them down to $25 ea if you bring the Inside Track Club coupon from the January mailer: http://slickdeals.net/f/1276399-Harbor-Freight-Coupon-Thread


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## Thadius856

Not a whole lot got done yesterday. I'm taking the last test to complete my CCAF degree today, so I spent much of yesterday studying and will continue this morning. With a 30% pass rate, it has the lowest pass rate of any test I've taken so far for this degree. But again, it's a class I took in college and have some real world experience with, so I'm not terribly worried about failing... just getting a crummy score.

The carpenter finished building the mobile bases. There's now four installed: planer, large router table, radial arm saw and band saw. Everything's now easy to move into place and clean behind.

I spent a good few hours cutting a few fiddly bits of molding. You know those short pieces that take forever and don't add very much? Yeah, those ones.




























Also pumped out the first tube of caulk behind the chair rail. This was a bit of a shortcut because when I started I had neither a table saw nor a router and did not have access to a traditional wainscoting cap. Thus, the chair rail was installed flush on top of the bead board and the gap filled with paintable white acrylic-latex.

(Please excuse these pictures... the flash washed everything out, but when I tried to turn it off, the camera refused to focus on what I wanted)




























Used the last couple gobs to re-caulk between the bathroom tile and the bath tub, as well as along the bathroom baseboard. Will certainly need to pick up at least one more tube today.

Also cut a few pieces of quarter round (for inside corners) and L-shape moulding (for outside corners). Don't think I'm going to cope each profile like I tried last time... just too damn time consuming!


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## Dinggus

Where did you learn to make the cuts for corners and what are you using?


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## Thadius856

Miter saw set at 45º. Used a Miter Box previously, and those cuts came out looking like garbage... I mean... it's yours for $25.

Edit: Obviously joking. It cut decently, but after the entry, living room and dining area, I was about to throw it out the window. Spent $50 at the Big Blue. Still sharp. Then I went on CraigsList and bought a Craftsman Miter Saw with new blade for the same price. Ugh, thinking about how much time I wasted...

I could have done a better job, if I wanted to protractor each corner, then compound each cut. No thanks. I'm just fine using caulking and spackle, thanks.


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## Thadius856

Yesterday was a long day. Spent most of the morning studying, as predicted. Played some Rocksmith to keep calm. Took my test, and passed with a 70/80. Once those credits evaluate, my AS requirements will be completed.

Also dropped some MDF pieces back off at Lowe's, picked up 76 ft of moulding and two tubes of caulking, took a busted sander (that took over two weeks to ship to me) back to Home Depot, got some card stock & cover stock from Staples, and shopped routers. Pretty sure I want a big 'ol 3+hp beasty, but still might go with a nice 2.5hp.


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## Dinggus

Alright thanks! Wife is getting upset because I want to start another project while waiting on the kitchen. My buddy is flying in tomorrow night while he's on R&R as well, and we're going to go extremely hard on the kitchen.

Home Depot is coming Tuesday to talk about refacing, the staining looks good, but I'm moving to Ft. Hood like 2 months after I get back, so I *need* to get the kitchen done.

So, my next question is, I'm looking at patching a decent size hole I did in the laundry room on accident, if the dry wall is crumbling as I replace it, I told the wife I should just redo the whole laundry room with new dry wall. How hard is it exactly to put new dry wall up? Screw them in, mud over the cracks and screw holes, then paint?

My next question is, how hard is tiling? Also, the room you tiled was it your laundry room as well? If so, do you need a drain just incase of washer flooding?

After pulling up the laminate tiles off the floor, there is a lot of adhesive left. I'm debating to remove most of it, then just lay cement floor down for the tile.


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## Thadius856

Ok, let me try to tackle those. Normally, I'd use a drywall patch with a steel mesh for large holes (door knob size or larger) or without the steel mesh for smaller holes. But if the area to be patched is in poor condition, then a patch kit like that won't do much good. Before you rip down all of the laundry room, you need to realize that hanging the drywall is not the hard part! Between mudding it up and spraying texture, it's going to take a whole lot longer than you might think. Plus, I for one don't have a texture sprayer (and don't want to pay for one), and the learning curve has got to be horrendous.

The easiest solution, IMO, would be to cut the hole back to the center of the adjacent studs, then make it roughly square. That'll leave you with a hole approximately 16"x16". A 24"x24" piece of drywall can be found at the Big Blue or the BORG for maybe $4. Cut it down, screw it in, mud it up, and spray on some texture in a can (orange peel or knockdown texture to match). If the sheet is still garbage when you make the hole that big, then you're pretty much hosed into replacing the whole thing, and then yes, probably the rest of the drywall to match. That puts you square back in the realm of having to retexture the whole room.

_I strongly suggest you consider hiring out mudding and/or texturing if you want a professional-looking job. Your first attempt will look like dog barf and eat up your R&R for little impact. The kitchen project is a much better place (and better return on investment) to put your time (and money). More directly, yes, it's as easy as you think it is, but it's terribly time consuming._

One last thing to consider on that drywall patch... I avoided having to texture and was able to hide my first attempt at mudding by putting up paneling. I just used the MDF beadboard, but Lowes/HD both have real wood and tileboard alternatives (though I've never worked with tileboard).

As for tiling... it was far easier than I thought it would be, but I also had the easiest setup imaginable (small room, tiling directly onto the slab). A straight 12" grid is about as simple as it gets. I have a tendancy to throw a ton of extra detail into my projects, and it adds considerably to the time. If I had just done 12's on a grid, I could have been done in a day of cutting, a day of mudding/laying, a few hours of grouting and a few hours of sealing. My 12's on diagonal / course of 6's / 12's on grid pattern took 25ish hours of cutting (cheapo tile saw), 30ish hours of dry fitting / laying, 2 hours of grouting and 2 hours of sealing. That's a lot for a 120 sq ft area.


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## Dinggus

Already cut my hole out, doesn't seem to bad, so I'll easily replace it.

As for tiling, already bought all my supplies. Our laundry room is about 50sq ft., and I bought 3 boxes of 13x13 tiles. I'm going to do the straight method. My buddy told me use complete tiles in the most common entry ways, then towards the least walked through area which is near the back of the machines would need to be cut of course. I hear so many different methods, guess it doesn't matter which one I pick.


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## Thadius856

Your buddy seems to be steering you in the right direction.

It seems a lot of these simple DIY instruction get overly detailed when the pro's get into the mix. Their methods, while valid, are geared more towards a system where time is worth far more than the materials, and we tend to operate an opposite realm. Especially so if we're doing it because we enjoy it, not because it has to be done right now. There also seems to be a pretty big Holmes-on-Homes-syndrome going around, where anything that isn't 100% technically correct is automatically considered 100% applicably incorrect. What we're really talking about here is using wet mud to stick a piece of baked mud on to a slab of cured mud. If it lays even, doesn't crack and you can walk on it, how much can there be to it?

I will say that I wish I had used a better saw. I didn't save myself any money going with the cheapo saw, because it took way longer, made me freehand all of my cuts (the fence was worthless) and caused me to lose a $25 bag of heavily modified thinset, the $5 bucket I mixed it in, and (almost) the $10 stirring tool too. Plus the dump fees to dispose of that brick. And added a ton of stress, making much of the process less than enjoyable.


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## Dinggus

Yeah, he's letting me borrow his wet saw tomorrow. So, I figured I can have the backer board laid down tonight and tile, then tomorrow I can make the final cuts.


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## Thadius856

Sounds like a plan!

One last tip... don't shortcut laying out the tile. Snap each line if you can, unless you're using very white grout. It'll save a ton of time when laying.


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## Dinggus

Do I need the chalk lines? Because I was told you don't really need it.


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## Thadius856

You don't really need them, no. But they do help a whole lot. I only used two chalk lines and my pattern ended up kinda parenthesis shaped (1/4" over 4' I think). Can't tell visually, but I know it's there.

Do you really need a table saw? No, but a circular saw with a clamp-on guide gets teditors in a hurry. Heaven forbid a hand saw...


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## Dinggus

I got spacers, doesn't that help? I bought 1/2" but was told bigger the grout lines the more water they trap, and since it's the laundry room go 1/4" or smaller. That came from an old man who lays tile, so I took his advice, lol.


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## Thadius856

That's good advice. I went 1/8". Like the look, but wish I'd gone 1/4" so my 12's line up with the 6'a.

Assuming tile is square is folly unless you paid out the butt for rectified tiles. You can't trust their squareness.


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## Dinggus

You don't need a wet saw?


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## Thadius856

You certainly do, unless you're using a very thin tile and using a tile cutter that scores instead of saws.


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## Dinggus

Okay, yeah I'm going to borrow my buddies wet saw. 13x13 tile.


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## Thadius856

What a long two days. Where to start... yesterday I finally got a day off. Much needed. Got in touch with a guy an hour and a half away with some things I was interested in. Got almost there, he emailed me his address, and it was an extra hour farther. Ugh, ok, fine. I've been keeping an eye out for a deal on a 3hp+ router to spin some massive bits, and I just couldn't pass up this guy's deal.










Rockler table top, leg set, wheel set and fence. Hitachi 3¼ hp router (M12V). Woodpecker's lift. Custom wings, shelf, back, bottom and drawers. Wired with independent switches for shop vac and router.










Came with plenty of extras too. 11 rings, pin, tons, and two cranks for the Woodpecker. Custom bent wrench. Three feather boards, plus extra hardware to make a few more. Base plate, handles and hardware for the Hitachi. Six auxiliary fences. Several push blocks. Several setup blocks for the same rail/stile bits I have.

Tried to talk him down to $300, but we ended up at $400. Easily $800 worth of stuff here.

Left to go check it out just before noon and didn't get home until 7ish.


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## Thadius856

As luck would have it, the router bits arrived at the same time as I picked up the router. They arrived in a mish-mash of containers... three wood, one aluminum, two different brands and logos, one unbranded, and two separately in wax.










They're larger than I expected they'd look in real life, but dead on the dimensions they said they'd be. Well, most of them. Some claim an overall length or carbide height that isn't quite right.










Had to wait until this morning to play with them.


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## Thadius856

First up, the glue line bit. This suck weighs over 2x what the next largest bit I own is. ¼" shaft bits just don't compare to these ½" shaft bits. The ¼" bits flex when you apply enough pressure and I'm afraid they're more prone to catastrophic failure.










This was my third attempt. The first two were rejected only because they didn't line up within 1/128". This is where the Woodpecker shined... I was able to adjust the height, from above, in a fraction of the time it would have taken me with the old Craftsman routers, and with much greater precision. It's fairly easy to adjust within 1/64th of 1/32".

Mechanically, a very strong joint. I just wish it had a bearing... if you don't get the fence depth perfect, you'll end up with a potentially unsafe situation and a very uneven joint. A bearing would alleviate this.


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## Thadius856

Next up, the mitered frame bit. At 2½" for just the carbide, it's a pretty tall (and heavy) bit. A 1/4" x 3/8" slot bit is shown for comparison. Note the (almost) zero tolerance cut-out that I made in the fences. The first one for the glue line was so bad, I don't care to show it, but this one was made with ease.










And here we are after three or four passes.










I quartered the length of the board to make a frame for a box lid or door, and mitered the wrong direction. D'oh! Into the scrap heap they went.


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## Thadius856

Next was the reversible crown molding bit. Again, this one's about 2½" of carbide alone. Again close to a full pound of steel moving at about 18,000 rpm. 










I was making the second pass when the router made some funky noises. I turned off the machine as soon as I was clear of the bit and noticed something wasn't quite right. Here I've already unplugged, moved the fence out of the way and removed the ring.










The first pass went flawlessly. But some time during the second pass, the bit dropped about 3/8". Here, you can see it more pronounced at the end of the cut. A second v-bead appears.










At first I though the router cooked itself. Nope, still works. Then I thought the lift must have dropped because I could have left it unlocked. Nope, still locked and very close to all the way up. The bit was definitely lower, but I know it could have dropped in the collet, because I had it only ~1/32" from bottoming out. WTF?

The plunge lock had come loose on the Hitachi and stopped holding the bit all the way up. The vibration, the springs and gravity all kicked in. Thankfully I was using several feather boards and a push stick. I locked it back into place, checked the lift and we were off again.


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## Thadius856

I went to start on a second piece for the crown bit and the router wouldn't start. I think some sawdust worked its way down into the body and is messing up the switch. I ended up discovering quite by accident that I could the switch "on" firmly and it would run like a champ. Duct tape to the rescue.










Here we are after 3-4 passes of ~1/8", flipping to cut each twice. You see a little snipe here because I set the fence back about 1/64" too far back, which allowed the bit to eat away my reference surface.










Looks good on the bookcase. The center piece is a spacer between the carcasses and the two outer pieces are for reference to make sure I had enough space for the moulding under each shelf. I can clearly fit 3/4" thickness moulding on each side with this 4" stile pattern. I think it'll look awesome in cherry.


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## Thadius856

Precision Bits sent me the wrong picture frame bit, and I sent an email to that effect, but I didn't get a firm response back on it today. I'm getting antsy to have some frames on the walls (not a single one yet, and we've been in this house since July), so I went ahead and worked with this one. The difference is minor, so I hope the customer (i.e., the wifey) doesn't get upset. Here's a stick from 1¾"-wide 4/4 red oak.










You'll notice the bottom-left corner is two different thicknesses because the stick ran away with me at the end due to trying to skip using a second feather board. Lesson learned. At this width, we come just short of hitting the bearing, so I'll probably made the finished product 2", which will add to the innermost border.










I didn't rabbet this one, because I haven't decided on a rabbet size set. The inside is miniscule at just shy of 2"x2", so I probably won't bother gluing it. Hope this profile looks good on padda-whack.


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## Thadius856

The switch over from Comcast TV ("Preferred" package) and Comcast Internet ("Performance" tier) went smoothly. They're not getting that $96, plus $7 for a second cable box, from me any more.

I went with AT&T for home phone (local plus caller ID and call waiting for $23/mo), Sonic.net for internet ("Elite" tier for $20/mo), Netflix Streaming for TV ($8/mo and I get a $20 gift card). My photo uploads are a bit slower, but I tend to upload while writing anyway, so it's a non-issue so far. I traded 16/3 mbps cable for 6/1.5 mbps DSL at less than half the price and without a bandwidth cap.

Comcast keeps calling (once on Wed, once on Thu, thrice on Fri) and begging to have me back. They offered me 25% off, then 50% off, and then asked what I was paying. "Oh, well, I can't beat that, so... uhh... have a good day". :laughing:


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## Thadius856

So after I finished playing with the new router (Tuesday afternoon), I took a break for dinner, then realized it was the end of my weekend... so I pushed into another project before bed time. The bookcases still needed to be mounted, so I started on that.

We decided that the easiest way to ensure the fasteners hit the studs would be to shim it all off the wall. He calls em nailing cleats, I call em firring strips, and it's not clear who is right. :laughing: Anyhow, here we are, having cut and screwed _them_ into the library wall. I used a full pound of Rustoleum-coated T-25 head decking screws at #10 x 3", then called it bed time.










I woke up to the carpenter already shimming out my strips. You can see that he started by locating the nearest point on the wall, then stringing off that strip. Pieces of 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" plywood scraps were added to put all points on the same plane. Here, it's fairly early in the shimming process. And yes, those are 3/4" oak plywood strips and the smaller stuff is a mix of scrap cherry, mahogany, birch, etc. Not entirely common.

Had to cut back the chair rail for where the face frame was going to go. Much harder to get the oscillating multi-tool in there once the carcasses are screwed in. I simply stacked two pieces of 3/4" scrap, then rocked them against the chair rail and marked the intersection as my cut line.



















This tool has been worth its weight in gold, and I only paid something like $50 for it, three blades and the sanding attachment. The cheaper (non-speed-adjustable) version is routinely on sale for $20 without attachments at HF.


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## Thadius856

When I got home from work, everything was fully mounted, the dishes were done, and a meat loaf was in the oven. Talk about a full service carpenter! 










The carcasses were attached to the strips using slightly smaller T-20 head #8 x 1-5/8" decking screws, countersunk just below flush. They're also screwed sideways into each other through the plywood spacers. I was going to stain up a bunch of mushroom cap oak buttons, but he was able to hide every screw in places I had set aside for the under-shelf moulding.










Very straight and tight. These things aren't going anywhere.


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## Thadius856

Yesterday I set about to make the moulding. I had decided before I ordered the router bits that I could use the same bit for the 1¾" picture frames (now 2") and the 1-3/8" x ½" moulding (now 1½" x ¾"). I sketched this up after tracing a photo of the bit from PrecisionBits' website.










From left to right: 1¼" x ½" base cap, 1½" x ¾" shelf moulding, 2" x ¾" picture frame moulding, Yonico #16135 router bit profile.

As it turns out, they accidentally shipped me #16130 instead, so the top-most detail is a v-groove instead of a trough as in the pictures.


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## Thadius856

Here, I've already planned out how I want my cut up boards. Because of the enlargement from 1-3/8" to 1½", I had to add an extra (small) board for the last piece of moulding. The 24" carcasses will each get four 4' sticks (11" + 22¼" + 11") and the 36" carcass will get four 7' sticks (11" + 38½" + 11"). That way, each shelf comes from one stick of wood... any minor differences in the profile are matched, grain pattern is very similar and color is much more even once stained. The guys at the lumber yard thought I was crazy trying to plan out all the cuts in my head to see how many boards of what size I would need... who's crazy now!? :thumbsup:










Two of the pieces just couldn't be thrown on the table saw. One had developed quite a warp since I cut a piece off of it last and the other didn't have a straight enough factory edge to trust. Out came the 8' straight line rip jig.










After that, router table setup was a breeze. We used a 2x4 which I ripped a smooth face on because we don't have whole table feather board (yet). A little ghetto, but it worked surprisingly well to keep the moulding from rolling on its side as it passed the cutter. You can tell the design is _very_ top heavy with not a whole lot of bearing surface.










Several hours of pushing wood through it later, the bit still feels sharp to me. The carbide is intact. The neighbors are probably pissed at me. But I have sixteen 4' sticks and four 7' sticks of the moulding that's (almost) ready to go. Didn't want to do that final 1/32" pass in the dark and mess everything up, so that's on the schedule for today.


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## Thadius856

Two days ago, I decided to finally break out my Padauk. Since I already had the frame profile bit in the router from the library shelf casing, it wasn't a bit deal to just raise the bit and change the stock size.

It planed down to ¾" beautifully. Very little planer snipe, almost perfect smoothness, just about zero tearout. Crosscut fine (hard to tell on the radial) and ripped wonderfully. It has really turned out to be a very easy wood to work with, but with two drawbacks:



The sawdust it kicks up looks like you just milled a red-orange Crayola, it gets everywhere, and stains other woods and most paint on contact.  It also dyes you hands, but washed off easily with a grapeseed oil-based dish soap, except for the tips of my fingers, which retained the color for two days.
Over time, it will lose its famous color and become a walnut-ty brown hue. Covering with a UV-inhibiting finish (eg, spar urethane) slows the process, but doesn't halt it. Ironically, staining is the only way to hold the red.
See for yourself. I wiped a small area of the inside of the vac so you could compare it to Ridgid orange. The other sawdust is red oak.












Never work this stuff in clothes that you like. It'll stain them pink if the oils are not washed off quickly. Thankfully, I do most of my woodworking in old beat up pajamas. :laughing: It turned into picture frames pretty easily, same setup as before just this time a little taller.






















You can see the difference between the color in direct sun (when UV hits it) and in the shade (how it looks indoors, or even richer red). This was enough sticks for 3 frames matted out to 11x14...

...and I screwed up one piece by mitering it backwards, so it's really 2 frames. I didn't have the profile planned when I bought the wood, so there's plenty of waste (5.5" width and 2" strips). Two frames from a $37 board isn't really that great. Would have been satisfied if it was still 3.

Two brands of band clamps on the way for comparison. Might continue with paddywhack. Might move to something else exotic. We'll see.


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## Thadius856

Spent most of yesterday in the attic. While the carpenter was finishing cutting all the shelf trim pieces to fit, I was enlargening the drywall holes with a tool I custom made for the job... a drywall saw with a piece of a shim taped to it so it didn't destroy the bookcase finish.

I spent several hours in the attic. Had to use the 54" auger drill to get through a fire block to run the switch wiring. Several times, in fact. It came out sideways through the drywall on one of the attempts. 

But after over 5 hours crouching, kneeling and laying in cellulose, the switch and cans were wired. A quick run to the BORG turned up ELV dimmers at only $22/ea (as opposed to $39/ea for the matching Cooper with the same specs).










Pretty standard dimmer. Replaced the other two in the living room while I was at it, since I was pushing CFLs on a magnetic dimmer, which is a no-no and the reason why I've blown 3 $5 100-watt-equiv CFLs in the last few months. The new ones seem to cut down on the humming and ozone smell too.










I just wish they dimmed _lower_. Feels like they stop at 50% or something. Maybe that's the lowest these CFLs are supposed to go safely. Sounds dim, but it's still pretty damn bright.


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## Thadius856

Spent most of Wednesday thinking out the face frame design for the library. I hate that designing and drawing usually requires me to go back and forth with a tape measure. _In other words, I wish that real walls were straight and measurements were more accurate with tape measures so I didn't have to get my butt out of the chair for that half of a day._ 










Laid out all the cherry I had and picked about 2/3 of it for the face frame. It's disgusting how much waste I have between straight lining, rough cutting, ripping to final width, etc. The huge pile of saw dust under the table saw really bummed me out, considering the stuff was over $6/bf because it was air dried something close to 10 years.



















It seems like every time I need to plane, the wind kicks up and throws every bit of sawdust into my neighbor's yard. They can't be happy about that, so I removed the little guard that spits the sawdust onto the board and replaced it with a vacuum port. This is some high tech stuff here, complete with a 1-7/8" to 1-1/4" reducer I picked up from the BORG for $1.50. 100% dust pickup up to about 13/16", then it drops to about 90%. Still saves more time than it took to make.










Also got some volunteer time in, a pretty decent grocery run, update immunizations, etc.


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## Thadius856

While I was working, the carpenter sanded, stained, applied three coats of poly and buffed between coats on the shelf moulding we made. I'm amazed at his patience this far into the project. He even installed the ¾ of the pieces that he could. The others I haven't notched out yet (until just moments ago) because I'm feeling a cold coming on and trying to rest up.










He's also been helping the wife take baby steps into woodworking. No idea why, but she's beginning to feel more comfortable around the tools and seems to worry less about my appendages staying attached now that she sees the level of control involved for herself. Yesterday she mounted the Spalted Maple key hooks she made, even though I offered to buy her a nice stainless one.










Bookcase progress is moving along nicely. I had to add a new row for the under-shelf moulding since it was such a large undertaking. Updates will be hatched from here forward for easier viewing. We'll also try posting them full-size.


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## shumakerscott

Looks great and fantastic documentation. I think you should invite the neighbors over for a movie and beer when you finish. :yes:. Keep it up. dorf dude...


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## Thadius856

Thanks for the kind words!

Tried to keep pushing through with the projects, but came down with a head cold. I know the harder I push myself with it, the longer I'll have it, so I only did a few minor things. Just slept 12 hours and still feel like garbage.

Replaced three light bulbs, two light switches, a GFCI, installed two box extenders, and finished cutting one outlet hole in the wainscoting.

Also custom-made some pieces of door casing for the wonky door at the end of the hallway. The door is framed out all wrong in the rough-in, so the right way would have been to re-frame the door an inch to the right. Didn't happen, not enough energy. As such, I had to rip one of the rosette blocks, and rabbet the backs of four of the five pieces. Nothing I love more than rabbeting some floppy ass piece of MDF. :\

The library also got loaded up with books because the wife wanted the shelf back that they were occupying in the closet.


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## Thadius856

Just realized that after the wife loaded up the bookshelves, I never posted a shot. We have a lot more books than I thought we did! And this is after selling over ½ of the books I bought in college for General Ed.










Spent most of Friday cutting the profile for the stiles. This time, I did the job solo. Ran into a few unexpected issues (namely keeping steady feed rate, angle and pressure as I passed the clamps) but nothing that was show-stopping or destroyed materials. I did lose a bit to snipe and one slip, but still have all ten fingers... that's always a concern when working with this 2.5" tall, 1lb piece of spinning steel.










Ran into one small bark inclusion that was unexpected (not seen from either side of the board when I started), but I'll gladly accept it as a beauty mark.


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## Thadius856

Spent yesterday scribing the top pieces to my "reverse cathedral" ceiling.  No pictures, sorry. At it's narrowest, the top piece is about 1-5/8" tall and at its tallest, it's about 3-1/2" tall. The scribe was done with the compass I picked up for $1 at the crummy Estate Sale, with one of the blunt points reversed. An initial, rough scribe was done with the jigsaw, then hung in place temporarily, and a second, finer scribe was done and cut with the bandsaw. It's not a perfect scribe, but is within 1/8" at all points, and will be covered with crown or quarter-round.

Cut the top/bottom of the face frame to length and mitered the joints. Sanded the top/bottom of the face frame 120-180-220, then stained. Cut the toe-kick pieces, sanded 220 and stained.

Here's the first coat of polyurethane drying.










Also added some nailing for the bottom piece. Here it's being held in place while the construction adhesive cures.


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## Thadius856

(Slept in and then) spent the entire morning cutting in the receptacles for the library unit electrical. Took as long as I expected it would. I had planned on using primarily the jigsaw without much difficulty, but then realized it wasn't the tool for the job when the cord started restricting what angles I could cut at. The multi-tool saved the day, even if it did tear out a little behind the units and make the place smell like burnt popcorn.

After lunch, I started putting up the LEDs. Each 5m strand consists of ten 30-led strips, and each strip can be cut between every 3rd LED. It reasons to follow that I installed 1500 LEDs today. I feel better having realized I got _something_ done today! :thumbup: Here they are temporarily taped on, getting ready to install the top/bottom of the face frame tomorrow.










The carpenter spent the morning working on the picture frames. He was getting frustrated with poorly fitting joints, until he noticed that the miter saw was off my about one half of a degree. After adjustment, the joints are much tighter! Unforunately that makes each frame about 1/8" smaller, and thus they now need custom-size glass and matting. :\










The one on the left is drying in the Bessey band clamp (which I prefer), while the one on the right is drying its second coat of polyurethane (clamped with the Wolfcraft band clamp, which he prefers). Notice the color shift away from orange towards red after the water-based polyurethane was applied. I would have expected no change, with oil-based enhancing the orange tone. Not so. Both cut from the same board.










Such beautiful wood. So easy to work with, and relatively forgiving. No idea why some people feel the need to using a grain filler with this stuff. Might pick some more up tomorrow.


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## Thadius856

Been working on getting other things sorted out recently (notably my digital filing cabinet and my Gmail account), so I haven't put a huge amount of time into the project. However, I did buy some more Padauk.

Went to a place that is really a hardwood floor manufacturer, but also has a retail hardwood store front. They had a pile of Select & Btr Cherry for $2.50/bf (read: lowest hardwood grading there is) that looked like they'd been chewed up in a planer accident, then warped to all hell. I'm glad I passed.

When I inquired about the price of their (questionable-looking) Padauk, they quoted me at "$15-16/bf". Ummm, yeah, nope! We drove across town to our preferred supplier and they still had most of a strap of beautiful pieces at $8/bf.

Picked up four 9' pieces, two 8.5" wide, two 4.5" wide. Looks like 19.5 bf to me, but they charged for 19.13, so I'm not complaining. $185 in Padauk, but should make eighteen 11x14 frames if I don't screw up too many. *cross fingers*










Also stopped by a woodworking tool store and drooled at the $5k+ saws and $600 dovetail jigs. I won't be owning anything like those any time soon!


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## Thadius856

My last day of working on the bookcase, I got the top/bottom pieces of the face frame nailed in and then cut the stiles to length. I knew it'd be a few more days before I could get back to sanding them, pre-staining, staining, and then the 3 coats of poly.

The alarm went off the next morning at 5, but I snooze nearly 45 minutes. When I got up, the carpenter was applying poly to the second stile. My mind reeled at what time he must have gotten up to sand all of those curves by hand, stain, and... ohhhh wait, that's the color it should be. It took a good 30 seconds to set it, but then I realized there wasn't any stain on these pieces. A couple rounds of expletives followed from each of us. While I was at work, he sanded the poly back off meticulously, then pre-stained and stained. He felt terrible about the whole thing, but I knew he'd only been trying to help and that I had the option to start over on them if they didn't turn out well enough.

Unfortunately, when he sanded the two stiles, he sanded only those two stiles. So when he stained all four, two came out glass smooth and two came out closer to raw. In some woods, that might not be a big deal, but in cherry, it's a huge difference in color (smooth sanded stains lighter), grain pattern (smooth sanded stains with a very subtle grain) and color pattern (smooth sanded stains very evenly colored). We spent the evening applying stain to one, then others, to try to get the colors to match. In the end, they don't match perfectly and the texture is different between them. I could start over on the pieces, but that would put me another week behind and use up that much more 10 year old air-dried wide cherry. I don't see myself doing that. I'll call it character.

Here's one of the not-so-sanded fronts, now finished under three coats of poly. All of the backsides now have their stain drying. You'll hopefully see them all installed together tomorrow.










And a small correction... on the last frame image, I said that it was drying its second coat... but it was still on its first. Here's the color after the third coat, no stain used at all (still need to touch up a few spots):


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## Thadius856

Installed the front pieces with one nail each so I could measure some things. Cut down, plumbed and scribed the side pieces. Here they are just before being sanded down.










Backside went 80-120-180, front and side went 80-120-180-220. Pre-stained and stained all three sides last night. Poly starts this morning.


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## Thadius856

Poly done on the scribed stiles. One coat on the back, four on the edge, and three on the front. They'll be hung this morning. Measurements have been taken for the face frame for the cabs and drawers. I didn't plan a dust shelf into the cab section, so under-mount BluMotion slides might be out of the question. We'll have to see.

My MonoPrice order arrive with the home theater stuff I ordered. Banana plugs and pin plugs at Fry's were retardedly expensive... $20 for two pairs. I paid on the order of $1.40 per pair (36 pairs). Same for wall plates... $60+ for the 2-gang 7.1, I paid $15.30 for the 3-gang 8.2 model.










I removed the two mono ports that shipped with it for two subs and replaced them with banana plug keystones from a spare jack (an extra $1.90 or so), since my sub requires both leads. That's an atypical setup, so I kept the mono jacks just in case some day I need them. Here's what it looked like before... note the dead center, where it says "subwoofers".










Also picked up 100' of in-wall CL2 sheathed 12g wire and 50' of the standard oxygen-free 12g variety. That should be enough to run the 5.1 for now, and I can pick up more later if/when I install the rest of the wall plates.










Cut all of the wall plates areas out of the drywall and installed low-voltage brackets. This one is the main 3-gang, directly below the TV mount.










And here's a mock-up of what the finished product will look like at each wall plate. Note that it's not actually connected in the attic/walls yet. I also am still on the lookout for clear heat shrink tubing (don't want to cover up all that pretty brass!).










Wish I'd gotten more done, but by the time I squeezed an hour of volunteering in and donated blood, the day was pretty well spent and I was having trouble keeping my arm above my should for more than a minute.


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## Double

Do you get better connecticity using the gold plated speaker adapters instead of simply inserting the speaker wire into the back of the speakers?


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## Thadius856

I suppose it depends what you mean by connectivity.

If you meant does it provide a higher quality signal over using bare wire, then no, they will not do that. I believe they're gold-plated copper, btw. Gold is almost always only for the look when it comes to cables.

However, they do greatly simplify plugging and unplugging. I like to take my speakers down to clean them. Had one fall off the mount while cleaning it once -- never again. It also provides a break-away points at either end of the cable in case of a cord snag so that it doesn't injure sombody, damage your equipment, or both.

The difference in signal increase I'll get is from upsizing the speaker wire. I can't find any specs on the home theater the existing wires came with, but I suspect they're 18 awg at most. They're also silver in color, which probably means they're not copper, and I don't think I paid enough for real silver cable... though I'm admittedly not a stereophile.

Moving to 16 awg was probably a good idea, and I may have noticed a difference at 14 awg. I'm not positive that I'll ever have a good enough system to notice the 12 awg difference, but then again, for a few dollars more, I know I won't have to upsize again in the foreseeable future.


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## Thadius856

On Friday, we had to pick up an important document from 90 minutes away, tried to do some shopping, and came back. Stopped at Grainger, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Harbor Freight looking for clear heat shrink tubing -- all of them carry at least black, but none of them stock clear. Harbor Freight actually had the best selection in colored rolls and diameters. Didn't compare prices, but I'm pretty sure they're close to the bottom. Also tried to find another gallon of polyurethane, but the two stores I called that we were going to drive past didn't have it -- one claimed it was a special order item and the other claimed that the county they're in prevents them from stocking it. I call BS... it's water-based ffs! 

Came home, cooked lunch, and ran all the in-wall wiring for the home theater with the CL2 cabling. For the rear sections, we ran it up and cable stapled it along the rafters to avoid crossing any Romex and inducing major hum in the lines. I know where the Romex I put in up there is, but there's other rats nests that I haven't fully traced yet. Also installed all the banana plugs on the in-wall cables, connected and installed the face places.

Yesterday, I made all twelve of the cables that will be visible with the oxygen-free wire (six from the speakers to their individual wall plates, six from the stereo to the main wall plate). That puts me at 36 pairs of banana plugs installed (some multiple times because I had to remake the cables) with some very sore fingertips from all the copper stabs.




























Since I don't have the heat shrink tubing yet, I preventing them from shorting on each other by separating them with pieces of cardboard taken from a Ritz cracker box and some Scotch tape. Ghetto, but effective.


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## Thadius856

Also did some cable management with the TV mount. None of these cables are seen from the front anymore.










The finished result, which could still use some power cable management.










Not an anime fan; that just happened to be scrolling past on the front page of Hulu when I took the picture.


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## Thadius856

Painted up 16' of chair rail and 70' of door casing last night. Hope to get a few missing pieces finally cut and nailed today.










We'll see how much of the spackle / sand / paint routine I can put up with today.


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## cdnNick

What do you think of the speaker mounts? I assume they are from monoprice as they look the same as the ones I just received from them. I didn't get a chance to install them on the weekend but they seem pretty sturdy especially for the price.


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## Thadius856

They feel rather flimsy to me. I wasn't expecting too much for the price, but I have a hard time trusting them. They'll be fine unless an earthquake hits or we have kids over or something.

I'd much rather they were metal, but you get what you pay for.


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## Thadius856

Only got a couple pieces of trim done before I was ran out of patience for it.

Finished the wall in the dining room around the big window and completed the piece for the door at the end of the hallway.










The piece of the floor is to be attached with adhesive to the side of the cabs.


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## Thadius856

Yeesh, no updates in over a week. My bad. :\

Lets see... there was plenty of time spent at work, but some of the time I had off, I spent enjoying the surround sound again. Movies cranked up, TV shows I could actually hear crisply, Rocksmith cranked way up...

Went to go do some more caulking yesterday, got one tube done (messy stuff!), then went to fetch the other two tubes I'd just bought, and realized they were clear (instead of Brilliant White). Ugh. No reason to show that picture.

Also bought and then spent half a day installing a CISS for my printer. I was going to just keep buying cheap Chinese remanufactured cartridges for ~$1.25/ea and recycle them at Staples for $2/ea, but on my second and third orders, I got some cartridges that weren't filled properly with crummy ink, causing my print heads to try to dry up on me. On this machine, that would mean the death of the printer because they bury the printheads so deep that you can't get in there to remove/clean them without specialty tools. Anyhow, here we are, having performed about 10 head cleanings to flush out the nasty ink and re-moisten the heads, then 250 pages of black.










Not so much Home Improvement; close to LifeHacking, but still DIY.


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## Thadius856

Wanted to do some volunteer work, but without finding anything I liked, I started on my own project. Still have to decide which charity I want to donate this to or auction it off for. Wounded Warrior Project comes to mind, as does Fisher House.









One hour in: mostly research, sanding, gluing pattern on, drilling pilot holes. (not including the two hours looking for the pattern)









Two hours in: Getting the feel for it again, not liking what I've done so far, starting over!









Three hours in: Feeling like this one looks better, but still not liking the blade I have on here for this project. Doesn't track well, then I noticed it's been cutting diagonally. Trashing this one too. Will try with thinner stock (13/16" is just too thick in hard maple!), better blades and more practice today.


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## shumakerscott

I'm completely lost with your last 2 posts? What is a CISS for a printer? What are you building? What is the new project? Sorry man you lost me. dorf dude.


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## Thadius856

shumakerscott said:


> I'm completely lost with your last 2 posts? What is a CISS for a printer? What are you building? What is the new project? Sorry man you lost me. dorf dude.


Hey, that's fine. I assumed some things there, and that's my fault.

A CISS is a Constant Ink Supply System. Essentially, it's a set of ink cartridges you place in your printer and a set of ink tanks that sit on the desk, connected to each other by tubing. You fill the cartridges and tanks, bleed the air from the tubing, and prime the print heads on the printer so everything has ink and there's no air in the system. The idea is that as you print, it creates a small amount of suction that draws in from the tanks to keep the cartridges topped off at all times. Once it's set you, up stop buying cartridges and buy ink by the pint or even quart for less than the cost of even one cartridge and just top off the tanks every one in a while.

As for the scrolling, essentially I I was trying to make a piece of art ton donate to a veteran's charity or try to auction for charity. It's a first attempt, so it's not perfect. You didn't get to see the pattern yet, because it's not finished.

Or wasn't...


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## Thadius856

I spent about half the day hopping between custom framing shops trying to find somebody to sell me supplies for framing. These custom frames got my hand into a whole new trade. Yeesh!

The first framing shop turned their nose up at me. Apparently they don't sell supplies, only do the jobs themselves. Fair enough. They gave me a referral to a wholesaler an hour South. I got to the parking lot and read the name, then realize it's one that has turned me away twice already because I don't have a shopfront. Not sure if that was an "oops" or a "f*@% you".

The second store was pretty pricey, especially for being in the back half of a thrift store. She was willing to sell me supplies, but with a pretty hefty markup. A cutter that's $149 on Amazon was $219 plus tax and the $199 cutter was $279 plus tax. I know that she has to get her cut and so does her distributor, but I can only put cash in so many pockets. She had a used 60" cutter, but it was way out of my price range at $1000.

The third store was awesome. I walked in and noticed the ceiling was poorly patched. Bingo! Like good restaurants, I find the best retail relationships with owners to be in these types of places. Owned by a veteran, so that gave a great talking point. We didn't always understand what each other was saying, but he's a great guy.

Let me clarify that... most framers I've met fall seem to fall into two groups: those that guard the "trade secrets" of framing like it were a religious artifact, and those that openly share their trade to get customers involved.

Anyway, this guy was great. I recognized many of his tools, his mouldings, and even his distributors. He told me he sells a pane of 11x14 glass for $9.xx, then turned around and sold me two, plus a piece about 4x6½ for a total of $15 with tax included. Also tossed in some pieces of ugly mustard-color mat for practice.

Then he sold me a mat cutter for $250 that was bought for $750 a few years back and had a little use. Looks like it's missing one screw in a standard size. Feel like I made out like a bandit. He also showed me how to use it, and answered every framing question I had, then help me out to my car.

I'll probably buy all my glass from him, and definitely my mat sheets. Even if I don't break the bank at his shop, I'm certainly recommending him to friends.


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## Thadius856

So anyway, once I got back, I worked on my scrolling a bit more. Yanno, on the scroll saw...

I had previously been printing the image mirrored, gluing it on the back, and then scrolling the backside. I figure I was going to glue the back to something anyway, so why not? Turns out, if the blade isn't perfectly vertical at all times (like if you sideload it accidentally), you end up with a different image on the front. And usually it's a ****ed up one. That's what happened to attempt #2.

Today I wised up. I got some blades with 28 teeth per inch (I had been using 11.5 teeth per inch), moved from 13/16" to 5/16" hard rock maple, and started scrolling on the front. How? Cover the whole piece in 2" or 3" strips of blue painter's tap, then spray can adhesive (3M #77 works great) on the back of the pattern, and stick it to the tape. I made the mistake of spraying the board instead of the pattern, and ended up with a sticky ass board where the pattern didn't cover. :laughing:

Anyway... here's what I got done today. Started at 4pm, and went til just after 9pm.

*One hour:*









*Two hours:*









*Three hours:*









*Four hours:*
Forgot to take a picture

*Five hours:*









Sanded the back very lightly, because it's rather fragile, to remove some of the fuzzies. I think it'll mount nicely on a piece of cherry. Screwed up in a couple places, and it's rather noticeable because the pattern is so... so... perfectly curved? Even width? Symmetrical? With cursive text? Probably a combination of all of the above.


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## Ironlight

You misspelled fallen.


jk :whistling2:


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## Jackofall1

Ironlight said:


> You misspelled fallen.
> 
> 
> jk :whistling2:


??????????????????? Looks great!


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## Thadius856

Asked the carpenter to make a plaque for it. I was thinking cherry. He was thinking the other half of the same maple board. 










I would have liked two tone, but I think it still looks pretty darn nice and there's no glue showing.

This one's getting donated to Disabled American Veterans.


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## Thadius856

Last night, I went to go meet the wife as she got off work to take her on a surprise shopping trip. Ended up halfway there when she got off early, then I hit a roadblock on the highway that diverted me and about 500 other cars bumper-to-bumper down some very rough (up and down) unpaved farm roads. They were covered in silt and so much dust was kicked up that I needed my wipes and headlights.

Once I got there, I took her to Home Depot while I did some shopping, then took her to Lowe's and made her pick some curtains. Sounds easy, right? :laughing:

We spent about two hours in the curtains and rods aisle. The employees knew the score - _nobody_ came to help us, thank goodness, knowing there was nothing they could do to help her. At first she wanted these traditional sheer red metallic finish curtains with an apron (or whatever the secondary curtain up top is called), but then she got stuck on two-rod solutions that she didn't like. Dodged a bullet there... she wanted the cheapie-looking curtains on the cheapie-looking rod with the cheapie end and cheapie rings. 

I ended up helping her along, and we ended up with chocolatey brown curtains with large grommets up top (so we didn't need clips, rings, sliders, etc). The rod is about 1" in diameter, and capped on either end with a piece of polished quart-veined marble that looks like a Hershey Kiss. Well, not really, but you'll see soon enough.

I've had three gallons on the Ivory paint in Duration Interior Satin sitting around that I've been collecting at Sherwin sales since last August. Just picked up a gallon on "Brilliance" flat bright white ceiling paint at a sale a few weeks ago when buying polyurethane (to get me over $50 to use a $10 off deal), so it was essentially a free gallon. Also picked up 1" and 2" masking tape yesterday, and a 18" brown paper roll.

So today was bedroom renovation day, part 1...


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## Thadius856

Started yesterday by taking the closet doors off and removing much of the furniture to the dining room. These doors are functional, but a little dirty. And like every other piece of stained wood in this house, they were never sealed with anything. You can probably see where somebody used an aerosol graphite. They loved the **** to death and used it on every hinge in the house... without masking off what was near it. As a result, everything looks dingy and dirty near the hinges. These doors got sanded lightly, will get primed, and painted to match the trim in the rest of the house. She picked some pewter pulls for them, I'm replacing the worn hardware, and using nickel hinges.











Took of what little casing was in the room this morning. Only the inside of the door and the closet had any.











A before shot of one of our makeshift blackout curtains. Useful when working the graveyard shift, but not so pretty. Note that I'd already started removing stuff from the room.











And the other makeshift curtain was a crochet blanket. This accent wall... I get it, but it didn't work in practice. The one behind the bed would have made a much better accent wall. Plus, the blue went about 1" past the corner and onto the ceiling too.











Not sure if I ever showed the holes in the wall when we moved in, but they patch I put on has been unpainted (and untextured), waiting for some love, since last July.











See? No base boards! Haven't been any since we moved in. The phone jack didn't have a dial tone and was covered in paint/texture, so I ripped it off, and will hide the wires behind the baseboard in case they're needed in the future.


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## Thadius856

*Just Started (only primed the accent wall so far)*:




























Everything is taped off with 2" blue painter's tape. 18" brown paper covers the windows and the edge of the floor. 0.4 mil plastic sheeting covers the rest of the floor.


*Half of the ceiling has its first coat, and I put an Ivory sample on the existing paint:*


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## Thadius856

A few days ago, I bought a mat cutter to help with the picture frame project. Last night, we picked up a glass cutter at the wife's request. She still really wants to bypass the frame shop and cut her own glass. :\ After about 3 hours of practice and tuning, I'm getting perfect mats out of the cutter!

It's a 40" long cutter, so it handles full sheets (which are 32"x40"). It has a 27" squaring arm and can cut windows with borders up to 5½" wide using production stops. I'm sure it's possible to cut wider freehand.











Cutting 2/3 of a matboard down to a strip, then three 11½" x 14" mats for practice.




















Some close-ups of the production stops.


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## Thadius856

Making a border of 1½" (8½" x 11"). I know I didn't leave any space for the document to mount to (it would fall through the window), but these were just for practice.











Inserting the blade at the start of the cut











Finishing the cut











The wonky results I was getting before all that adjustment.




















I'm now within 1/128" over an 11" span with perfect corners that fall out on their own. No perfect cut pictures, sorry.


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## Thadius856

Two coats of ceiling paint and two coats of paint on the walls later, here we are.




























Tomorrow morning we start on the moulding, closet doors, her curtains, and putting everything else back the way it was.


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## Thadius856

Woops. Looks like I forgot an entire update.

After the day full of painting, we set up the bed in the dining room for the night. The wife liked the contrast with the bead board so much, she wants it in the bedroom now too. 










I got spent most of the morning picking up ten 8' kiln-dried Douglas Fir 2x4s to build backing strips out of for the crown. Plywood beveled on two edges probably would have sufficed also, but cutting on-edge against the fence isn't an idea situation.










Ran out of baseboard half way through the room. Arrgh! And then ran out of time to finish the crown. Boy is that stuff... irritating to try to do quickly. Everything wasn't back in the room and put together until nearly 10pm. The wife got to put up her new curtains, which she'd been waiting all day to do.










Rearranged the armoire so I had more walking space on my side of the bed. Makes the room feel much larger.










Door/window casing didn't get done at all. :\


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## Thadius856

There's certainly some room for improvement on my technique for the crown. Most of the problem stemmed from be not measuring the angle before I installed the backing boards (because then the protractor didn't fit in the corner, and I had to measure 3-4 inches down the wall). However, this painted stuff is exceptionally forgiving in that it can be caulked and painted over. Not so with stained. Cut it short? Start over.










The wife is very happy with how the polished marble ends on the curtain rods set off the colors of the room. She also got matching marble tie backs (not pictured).










I'm pretty happy with the outcome.


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## Thadius856

The wife picked out some new pulls for the closet doors. On the left, the old one from the bedroom (on the brown stained bi-folds) and on the right, the old one from the office (on the white painted bi-folds). The center is the one she picked out, in pewter.



















The carpenter was kind enough to start priming and then start painting the closet bi-folds I sanded down. He's making good progress, but with all those slats, it's slow going. Two days ago, I came home to completed casing on the inside of the bedroom door and on the bedroom closet. That was a surprise.










This morning I experimented with 1½" and 2" borders on the mats for the pictures. I think I like the 2" borders for the double mats, but we'll see what the wife says. Obviously, she gets the final say. :laughing: Also hammered in the hangers, put the glass in, and adhered the rubber corner bumpers. We bought a piece of "replacement glass" from Home Depot because she wants to prove to me she can cut it safely for the next round of frames.


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## Thadius856

The 3:1 poly clear heat shrink tubing came in a few days back. Got to play with that and the head gun earlier. Heated up my fingers a few times real good. :no:










The end-result is much nicer than my Ritz cracker carton solution I was using before. 12 pairs down of banana plugs down, 24 pairs to go.


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## Thadius856

Went down to the city recently to run some errands. Been looking for an upright freezer for some time now, and I figured I may as well check the local CraigsList ads for listings that are now a lot cheaper to drive to.

Spent two and a half hours getting jerked around by random people not knowing a thing about how to sell stuff. First guy was afraid to let me buy his because it was drizzling, then ignored my texts for 20 minutes before telling me "how about tomorrow?". Several others never responded. One lady gave me her address to come look at hers, so I showed up. Nobody home, wait 15 minutes, then I leave. She emails an hour later to ask me if I want to come look at it.

Finally found somebody who was home, moving, and needed theirs gone. Drove over there 10 minutes later, heard it run, felt the air temperature, offered $80, hauled it off before we'd been there 5 minutes. _That_ is how CraigsList is supposed to work, and has always worked for me until now. Unloaded in 5 minutes, installed in 5 minutes. Went and bought some stuff to put in it.










It's a little older, with the wood panel handle, but runs extremely cold and quiet. Haven't tried the Kill-a-Watt yet, but I don't think it takes too much electricity.










Wish the door opened the other way, or was reversible. Still, not too bad for $80. It's a 15 cu ft Kenmore (rebranded Whirlpool).


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## Thadius856

Picked up 13 sticks of casing, 10 rosettes, and 4 sticks of baseboard. Also restocked my bin on rollers (2" 3/8" nap, 3" 3/8" nap, 9" 1/2" nap, 9" mohair and 9" primer). The moulding sat for a few days to acclimate to the humidity inside and then was backprimed. When it will get installed depends on the weather.

The doors got two coats of Duration (one regular, one very light to cover the last bit of unevenness in color). They're ready for new hardware and install, except for the screws for the pulls, which are too short. Going to replace as much old hardware as possible so I don't have to take them back down any time soon.


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## Thadius856

Finished the baseboard and casing in the master bedroom yesterday. If you haven't seen the base yet, it's the same as in the rest of the house... step back a few posts. Started casing in the guest bed. 1 window down, 1 window and 2 doors to go.










Also squeezed the bed back in with the night stands turned the way we wanted them. Two nightstands + headboard = 1/16" narrower than the wall they're installed on. :O Certainly a tight squeeze. Please excuse the curtains (moved them out of the way for the nail gun) and the messy bed.

Went to Target with the wife last night to pick her up a new wallet and maybe some slippers for me. Ended up leaving a few hundred dollars lighter. Home decor items were Buy 1, Get 1 50% off _and_ stacked with clearance, so we picked out the 5 rugs, then realized we should buy in even quantities. We didn't like any other rugs, so we got the fountain to help her relax after work (at half off).

Two 22x84 runners (for each side of the bed):









One 22x84 runner:









One 60x84 area rug:









One 60x84 area rug (image is inaccurately dark... actually rusty red and chocolate):









Her relaxation fountain:









This shopping trip pushed back my Cat6 install time frame back a little, but I suppose it's worth it to be comfortable in your own home.


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## Thadius856

Spent my morning installing all the hardware on the newly painted closet doors (upcycled, if you will). All nickel now hinges, slides, pulls, etc.










Had to make a run to the local Ace for some #8 32x 1-1/2" screws because the ones that came in the bag were intended for thinner doors (maybe drawers?).


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## Ironlight

You might find those bifolds a lot easier to open if you put the pulls in the center (horizontally speaking) of the panel instead of all the way at the edge. That is how they are supposed to be mounted. That way you just give the knob a tug out and the door opens. Another option is to put them on the other side, which serves the same purpose, but looks a little weird.


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## Thadius856

Ahhh. Yes that's a good idea. I'll get to that as soon as I can remember to.

Don't want to make more holes until I can fill the existing holes. Just used the holes the previous owner made and didn't think about it.


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## hyunelan2

Thadius856 said:


> Ahhh. Yes that's a good idea. I'll get to that as soon as I can remember to.
> 
> Don't want to make more holes until I can fill the existing holes. Just used the holes the previous owner made and didn't think about it.


I have the same issue in my house. Every-time I have to open a bi-fold closet door, I want to drive down to Nebraska, find the original owner of my house, and kick him in the shins. Haven't got to the point of moving the knobs, filling the holes and repainting the doors yet.


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## Thadius856

hyunelan2 said:


> I have the same issue in my house. Every-time I have to open a bi-fold closet door, I want to drive down to Nebraska, find the original owner of my house, and kick him in the shins. Haven't got to the point of moving the knobs, filling the holes and repainting the doors yet.


The wife hates the bi-folds because they're so hard for her to open. It hadn't occurred to me that the problem was the force was being applied to the wrong area (though, honestly, I didn't really research because they felt fine to me). I have plenty of hand strength to open them, but since it's a chore for her, she usually leaves them open -- driving me nuts in the process. :laughing:


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## Thadius856

Finished casing the guest room window and both doors. Ignore the sheet of MDF. :whistling2:



















The crown is all done now too. What should have been a "last two boards" became a "last four pieces" when my two pieces left both fell 1" short and I had to splice in a piece of scrap.










It's done, for now, but will require plenty of ladder work, spackle, sandpaper, paint and... time... :no:

Note the extra holes... forgot to reload the Paslode and ran out of nails. Shot about 5 blanks before I noticed, and they still make a hole.


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## Thadius856

Finished another 12 pairs of banana plugs for heat shrink tubing. 24 pairs down, 12 pairs to go.


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## Ironlight

Are you positive that the grips on those banana plugs aren't insulated from the plugs themselves? The plugs I have came with rubber boots that slipped over them, but they are not as fancy as yours. Given that the back of every AV receiver is tightly packed, I find it hard to believe that they are not designed to be in contact with each other. If not, that's a huge design flaw.

I just looked at these on Monoprice as I need to get some more. Out of hundreds of reviews of these I did not see a single mention of shorting from plug contact as a problem.


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## Thadius856

Pretty sure there's no insulating layer in there. Just solid copper with gold plate.

Ill whip out the multimeter and see.


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## Thadius856

The multimeter is out in the shed, it's cold out, and I'm still waking up. No dice there. Was going to measure impedance across the speaker using a cable, both at the banana and by touching the side. Expected about 5 ohms at both places.

Did Google a fair amount. Everybody says they're just hunks of uninsulated metal. For banana plugs, it shouldn't matter terribly because they're held in place from touch each other in the socket, but the pin type ones do have a tendency to touch (which I have 12 pairs of).

I probably could have gotten away without shielding the banana side at the wall, but who knows, maybe it'll save a receiver some day from a child.

Edit: Sums it up. Not an A/V site, but it seems to be the general consensus. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r25772776-Banana-Plugs


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## yogi_bear_79

Was reading along happily until page 17, when you changed to postimage.org. Now no pictures show up.


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## Thadius856

At my work, my PostImage images don't load. But that's because they're blocked by the firewall intentionally.

I see some images aren't loading in Internet Explorer. Seems to be random - about 75% of them load. Loads fine in Firefox and Chrome. Seems like a security setting. Will keep poking around.


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## yogi_bear_79

Odd, I run the firewall here! Assume you are a 3C0 in the AF? or what are they now 3Dxxx

Aha...Microsoft ISA is blocking the site as ****ograhy...will look into override..


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## Thadius856

That may be the case, because they allow adult images as well I believe. But I'm missing a few in Firefox now that I just noticed.

Looks like PostImage changed their back end a bit. For example, one that fails to load:

http://s5.postimage.org/q25fka3ph/426.jpg

Putting it in Firefox, it takes me to:

http://postimage.org/image/ago40brr7/

Which displays the image:

http://s5.postimage.org/m5s3oaipx/426.jpg

Unfortunately, the posts are so old I don't have an Edit button anymore to update the links, even though I still have the images and they definitely appear on my hosting page. :\

Edit: 3D0X2, yup. Server jock.


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## yogi_bear_79

Sent you a PM

ok, got better results with your pics now, still missing some, but not all as in before.


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## Thadius856

PM'd the site staff to see if I can get some Edit links back. No promises that they'll be able to give me them.


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## Thadius856

No response from the site staff. Considering finding a new image host tonight, re-uploading everything while I sleep to the new host, and starting the thread over. But, that would take away the time I'd need to cut the picture frame moulding. Choices, choices...

Edit: If anybody has suggestions for an image host, please let me know. I'll check back in the morning to check on recommendations. I'm willing to pay $2-3/mo for a basic host that allows hotlinking and basic batch uploads.


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## Thadius856

Spent much of yesterday working with a new toy. If you're not a techie, you might as well skip to the next post. Headache ensues...

Bought a pair of Cisco E2000 refurb routers about a year back. Installed one, and then planned to install the other (and two ASUS 4-port gigabit switches) for the whole-house Cat6 wiring. However, the project got sidetracked and in the meantime we bought a new 1250 watt (BIG!) microwave. The signal kept getting interrupted -- no, killed -- by the microwave and cordless phone (which are both 2.4 ghz band). All three are in the kitchen because that's where the only functional phone line comes in from the TNI. I considered turning on the 5ghz band, but it's not simultaneous dual band (and most of my devices aren't capable of 5ghz band), so that wasn't a decent solution.

Ran into some old hand-written notes I had on the wiring install plans and noticed that I had left one LAN port for "Future Expansion" on the main (DHCP) router. As luck would have it, SlickDeals had an E3000 refurb on a good sale (which _is_ simultaneous dual band). A light bulb lit. It arrived Friday, and I installed it yesterday. Both E2000s are now in boxes waiting. They'll be LAN 1/2 and the switches LAN 3/4.

The E2000 was running the outdated stock firmware, but it got the job done. I started fresh with this E3000: flashed Tomato 2.6 beta w/ VPN, built new a WPA2 key, configured all of my wireless devices (10 of them, if you don't count secondary NICs) for static DHCP, and set up QoS.

The only downside to all of this is that QoS in Tomato is _per IP_ or _per port_. You can't specify a range for either of them. Thus, services like Netflix that have a 100+ port range aren't feasible to use QoS on. As such, my only recourse was to give both smart TVs, both notebooks, and all three Kindles priority based on src/dst IP rules over my desktop (which doubles as a file server until I buy a DLNA-ready NAS or build a DIY file server). Otherwise, when I would download anything using simultaneous connections, I would cause Netflix to hiccup and re-buffer. As a result of giving priority to the TVs, Netflix now thinks it's top dog and always tries to run at max bandwidth, choking my downloads substantially at times. I fixed a bunch of quality issues by prioritizing ACK packets, but it makes me more suspectible to be crippled in a DDoS attack (which is unlikely, but still a consideration).

I'm really excited to see where we sit financially after the 1st of the month. This might be my month to start the Cat6 installation. Or it might be the month to start picking cabinets if the wife has her way. :laughing:


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## Thadius856

Had a going away lunch for a friend and mentor yesterday. I joked that he'll be back in a few years to pick up a contracting slot, but I have a feeling he'll be sorely missed. As our technical expert, he's left a knowledge gap that won't be easy to fill.

Afterwards, I met up with a retired gentleman about an hour away in a well-kept recreational retirement subdivision. You know, one of those beautiful ones with gold courses, gold cart lanes, lakes, etc. I've found some of my best deals in these areas. A lot of times, heavy items are nearly free (because they have trouble moving them) in these neighborhoods.

His son had dropped off two desks, a lateral two-drawer filling cabinet, two office chairs, and a smaller oak filing cabinet. I picked up both desks and the lateral file, which isn't really lateral, but rather a double-wide cabinet. For $50. Not too bad. As I was loading the heaviest piece, my phone rang. He was calling to tell me not to come because somebody else had already picked them up. A real awkward moment ensued.

We brought them in today. The drawers got a shot of Fabreeze because they smell like a retirement home. All the tops got wiped down. We had to take the legs off to get them through the doors sideways.

The big one (mine) is just shy of 36" deep and 71" long. That's a far cry from my old L-shape (which was two 23" deep and 36" long pieces with a corner piece). The L-shape (the wife's) is about 30" deep by 54" long, plus a 22" deep by 40" long piece. The filing cabinet is rather large as well at 36" wide.

*My Space:*









*Wife's Space (not done):*









While I was moving the file cabinet, I had the printer on top. The Constant Ink Supply took a tumble and broke off 4 of the 6 hoses. Ink everywhere. Stained hands. I was pissed. $46 down the drain, and now I can't print for a week. Sealed off the tubes and left the cartridges in the printer so the lines won't get air in them and dry out the print heads. Ordered a new one already... hope it comes quickly.










Crawled up underneath the desk and started cable management. Some of it done. Lots left to do.










Feelin' like a king with so much more space. Going to touch up some of the scratches with the Minwax Wood Finish Oil Stain I have in Early American.


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## Thadius856

Took a good portion of Sunday to do some grocery shopping, then got lost in Ikea for the first time. Jesus, that place is a confused, crazy mess.

Working on a kitchen layout using Ikea's models and design software. From there, I may buy their cabinets, or I may see if the cost to build my own on a construction style similar to theirs with better materials is worth it.

Ideally, I'd spend a about the same as Ikea charges, get a better product, and have an excuse to upgrade the table saw. 

In the short term, I'm going to be pretty busy in the coming week, so I may not post. I'm still choosing another image host, and will probably be going with Imgur. Suggestions continue to be welcomed.


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## Ironlight

My take on building your own IKEA cabinets:

The particle board carcasses of IKEA cabinets are what always makes people dubious about them, but in my experience they are fine. They are pre-drllled for all of their hardware, are super sturdy (I have one row supporting what I estimate to be a 700 lb. slab of granite) and perhaps most relevant to your thoughts, completely hidden when the cabinets are closed. Yes they are susceptible to moisture damage as is all particleboard, but unless you have a leak in your sink that's not going to be an issue, ever, in your kitchen. The hardware itself...as in door hinges, drawer slides and soft-closers, and storage carousels, is top notch...as good as the top of the line hardware that you'll find in any other line of cabinets. The drawer mechanisms are rather ingenious in terms of how they come packed, how you assemble them, and how rugged and sturdy they are.

If you're thinking that you're going to come it at the same cost if you build them yourself, then the value of your time must be zero. Once you get rolling each cabinet can be assembled, start to finish, in about 20 minutes.

If I were you and I really wanted to customize them or build my own, then I would consider buying the carcasses and hardware from IKEA, and then building my own doors and drawer-fronts. You' be putting your labor into the part of the cabinet you see and feel, and which is also the most expensive component of the cabinets.


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## Thadius856

Went ahead and bought 1 month of Imgur Pro at $3 - if I like it, I'll buy the year at $24. Hopefully it works out for everybody. It it one of the hosting providers that isn't blocked at work (yet), and that's certainly a plus.

Started uploading some of the images, and they'll probably take all day to get through uploading over 650 images. But here's a test below. Please let me know if these images load for you, or don't.

The carpenter spent the last two days removing the old wood stove vent pipe and spackling up my amateur crown job. I think most of the problem was because I forgot to rabbet the back of the blocking pieces, which caused them to shift slightly once they ran up against the mud buildup where the ceiling meets the walls, throwing off the angle. Live 'n learn.


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## Thadius856

Went to Wal-Mart a few days ago (really dislike shopping there) to grab some cheap jugs for the fridge. We're trying to kick the soda / energy drink habit to help us save up for the kitchen remodel, and the jugs were so we could make large batches of Iced Tea (warm brewed), Country Time Lemonade, Kool-AId, etc. ahead of time (on our days off).

Walking past a kitchen gadget endcap, I noticed they were selling the cookware set she wanted at Target. At Target, it was $98... but Wal-Mart has it on clearance for $72. Somebody must love her a whole lot to spend that kind of cash on some pots and pans...


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## Thadius856

The new image host (Imgur) is live and the gallery is created.

I hid the gallery, so the only way to find it is to follow it back from an image in it or to follow this link:

http://imgur.com/a/7JbC8

Will be moving to the new thread once I find some time. :S


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## Thadius856

About to start backing up all the old posts on my local drive, then start the painstaking process of editing all of the image links locally and re-uploading into a new thread. :S In the meantime...

Last night, I moved the desks a bit to see if I could fix a stuck drawer, when I noticed that some of the wainscoting had pulled away from the wall. Odd. We never tried to remove it because we were under the impression that the previous owner had probably used construction adhesive to put it up. But then it shouldn't be pulling away from the wall. I stuck my fingers underneath and found that it was only nailed on (with a ton of nails). But I had to be sure it was like that everywhere, so I went to a random spot and pulled.










You can see the terrible job they did mudding the pieces together before paint. How they thought this was even remotely acceptable is beyond me. Besides, it's horribly planned and done: the chair rail is much too small, it's made of "whitewood" (a synthetic faux-wood foam), it's way too high at 48" plus rail, making the room feel way smaller than it is, etc. I get the 48" reasoning (cut a 4'x8' MDF sheet in half and slap it on the wall) but it's just plain lazy and looks bad with 8' ceilings. A lightbulb lit above my head...










I don't have to live with this ugly stuff anymore! 20 minutes later:



















The previous owner installed it _behind_ the window sill, so I have to cut it from behind the sill, but otherwise it came off really easily. The other half of the room will probably be stripped this afternoon. Been a very busy morning with non-DIY things.


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## rrolleston

Whenever I need hosting for pictures I setup a domain name with hosting and it seems to work much better. I use godaddy for all my domain names and pay a flat rate for a hosting of all of them. But I am sure they have some affordable hosting plans for a single domain name.


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## Thadius856

rrolleston said:


> Whenever I need hosting for pictures I setup a domain name with hosting and it seems to work much better. I use godaddy for all my domain names and pay a flat rate for a hosting of all of them. But I am sure they have some affordable hosting plans for a single domain name.


GoDaddy lost all of my current and future business when they publicly backed SOPA.

Edit: I get what you're saying, though. Private web hosting is the most flexible option, I agree. However, I rather like Imgur as a service and their one-click approach is very refreshing. Every moment I save not administering a web server is another moment I can use for DIY or recreation.


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## Thadius856

As I mentioned before, I've been pretty busy with things other than DIY lately. The wife and I got in on some OXO Good Grips clearance items at Sears. Normally discounted to $65 in the set ($50 elsewhere), they were on clearance for $18. We picked up five sets, and she went to town on organizing her little pantry.










I have made some small progress. I managed to spackle about half of all the holes after taking down that paneling. I didn't want to move the desk back against the wall so I could do the other half of the room until I had the new computer case. More on that ordeal shortly.


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## Thadius856

Spent a day working on my desktop that keeps crashing (memory errors on BSOD), but memory tests come back fine with each stick individually and even when fully loaded. I attributed some of it to heat, but I can't be sure. My current case is something I bought in probably 2005 or 2006 and is on its last leg. It has almost no features, is dinged and dented, has poor air flow and work space, few features, etc. And all the fans are about to throw their bearings (yeah, it's noisy), so it's time to upgrade. The wife has had her dead motherboard in her Antec Twelve Hundred for quite some time; I didn't feel right stealing it, even though it's a huge, powerful, cold beast of a case. But I did want something on that level - a big, heavy steel box that would last for a long time.

*My old aluminum and plastic mid-ATX (Ultra Aluminus) case:*









*Her steel full ATX case (Antec Twelve Hundred):*









*My new steel full ATX case (Coolermaster HAF 932 Advanced):*









There's also a Synology 2-bay NAS on the way, which will act as the RAIDed backup server, DLNA server, download server, and remote file server. I'm pulling two of my 1TB drives from this machine for it (including my current OS disk), which means I have to migrate everything to other storage medium temporarily. This could get interesting with all the shuffling of data from one disk to another. Also have about $120 in Staples Rewards on the way, so I'll probably pick up a SSD or two as my primary OS disk once those arrive and a Staples deal pops up.


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## Dinggus

Nice, I was looking at making a budget box. Basically it's a case that has a enough power to run 10-15 HD's. I have: 2x2TB external's and 2TB portable, I'd like to build a box to hold at least 10TB and just hook it up to my network so I don't have to worry about my external's crashing. It'll detect if a HD is going to crash, and automatically transfer all the files to the primary drive, so all I'd have to do is replace the HD and it'll transfer all the files to the new HD.

After getting back from Iraq and having to reformat my iMac, it also formatted my 2TB external and I lost 15 months worth of deployment photo's and my wedding photo's.


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## Thadius856

Br-ouch!

I have all my critical data backed up to a second internal drive (unfortunately on the same SATA controller :\), and then periodically onto DVDs. I'm looking into picking up a small fire safe for extra piece of mind for those DVDs in case of a fire - I'd store a couple vital records in there as well. The only problem is that any fire safe of a workable size with a decent fire rating is pretty expensive. I can get something in the range of 7" x 12" with a 30 minute rating for $15, but something 12" x 15" with a 2 hour rating is closer to $80.

I'd like to set up the NAS with two partitions per drive; one raid 0 for the DLNA server content and one raid 1 for my private records. I also really need to get into the habit of backing up off-site. All of these backups do zero good in case of a natural disaster (other than flood, which optical media might survive) or major theft. I might have to look into a Carbonite-like service again. Last time I checked, the $15/mo price tag was a bit hard to swallow for storing a few TB of photos and whatnot. It seems like prices should have come down in recent years.


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## Thadius856

Dinggus said:


> Basically it's a case that has a enough power to run 10-15 HD's.


BTW, how can you put 10-15 HDs in anything and call it "budget"? I mean, I don't think I've ever seen more than 8 SATA channels on a mobo, and adding RAID controllers isn't cheap at all.

You might be able to get an older corporate NAS, but then you'd probably be looking at SCSI.

Confused.


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## Ironlight

Dinggus said:


> Nice, I was looking at making a budget box. Basically it's a case that has a enough power to run 10-15 HD's. I have: 2x2TB external's and 2TB portable, I'd like to build a box to hold at least 10TB and just hook it up to my network so I don't have to worry about my external's crashing. It'll detect if a HD is going to crash, and automatically transfer all the files to the primary drive, so all I'd have to do is replace the HD and it'll transfer all the files to the new HD.
> 
> After getting back from Iraq and having to reformat my iMac, it also formatted my 2TB external and I lost 15 months worth of deployment photo's and my wedding photo's.


The price of storage falls at a fast enough rate that I don't think you should ever need anything more than a two bay NAS unless you are storing huge quantities of video.

I'm a big fan of purpose-built NASs, as they are efficient on power, shut down gracefully if hooked to a UPS, give you full RAID redundancy, have hot swap, and also run fistfuls of applications like torrent, Firefly, and more that are super useful. 

I looked into building my own NAS but quickly realized that it was cheaper to buy one and just continue to hot-swap in larger drives as I needed them. I put two 2 TB drives in when they hit $120 a piece a few months ago. 4 TB drives will probably be the same price a year from now. And so forth. 

NASs also have USB ports so you can plug in other externals and have them accessible on your network.

If I have enough spare parts in the future I might build my own but it would likely just be an experiment to try it out. PCs are too power hungry for simple storage.


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## Dinggus

Thadius856 said:


> BTW, how can you put 10-15 HDs in anything and call it "budget"? I mean, I don't think I've ever seen more than 8 SATA channels on a mobo, and adding RAID controllers isn't cheap at all.
> 
> You might be able to get an older corporate NAS, but then you'd probably be looking at SCSI.
> 
> Confused.


http://www.greenleaf-technology.com/blogs/prototypes/index.php

Of course it won't be a budget box once you keep adding harddrives.



Ironlight said:


> The price of storage falls at a fast enough rate that I don't think you should ever need anything more than a two bay NAS unless you are storing huge quantities of video.
> 
> I'm a big fan of purpose-built NASs, as they are efficient on power, shut down gracefully if hooked to a UPS, give you full RAID redundancy, have hot swap, and also run fistfuls of applications like torrent, Firefly, and more that are super useful.
> 
> I looked into building my own NAS but quickly realized that it was cheaper to buy one and just continue to hot-swap in larger drives as I needed them. I put two 2 TB drives in when they hit $120 a piece a few months ago. 4 TB drives will probably be the same price a year from now. And so forth.
> 
> NASs also have USB ports so you can plug in other externals and have them accessible on your network.
> 
> If I have enough spare parts in the future I might build my own but it would likely just be an experiment to try it out. PCs are too power hungry for simple storage.


What NAS do you have? The link above I can build one pretty cheap.


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## Thadius856

Sort of fell off the face of the Earth there, didn't I? Been trying to save up by not doing anything. Seems to be working. :laughing:

Not much has been going on here lately. First a decent amount of rain, and now it feels like summer is off full swing. It was in the high 80ºs here yesterday (bout 30ºC). I really need to get back on track.

To answer your question (sorry, guess I didn't see it before), it's a Synology DS212j NAS. I really like that it's silent and that it fits on top of my kitchen cabs.

Just got my hands on two Crucial M4 64gb SSD's for practically nothing. Spent the last few days leaning up Windows (disable search indexing, remove some useless but weighty visual effects, etc) from a 140gb installation down to 42gb.

Moved 'Users', 'Program Files', Program Files (x86)' and 'ProgramData' to a 1TB Maxtor I've had for a while and put the rest on the SSD. Microsoft really does not make it easy to do it, but I was familiar with the process of offloading folders using symbolic links... it's just that I'm used to doing it in Unix, not MS-DOS from a Recovery DVD, so I had to re-learn some commands.

I did lost a few settings (desktop background, Start Menu favorites, etc) and a few programs unregistered, but otherwise everything is fine now. A few bumps along the way, but nothing to worry about.

The "before" disk (that now holds everything I moved off the SSD):










The "after" disk (that now holds the OS):










Boot time has been cut in about half, shaved off a couple more seconds by disabling an unused raid controller and a spare T-base 10/100 LAN port, and overall it just feels a lot more responsive. I'd probably get much better results if I had SATA 6gb/s capability on this motherboard, as it seems to be gimping the new drive quite a bit.

Also added a few more devices to Static DHCP, going to re-partition the NAS today into several slices, and reinstall some of its packages (oh boy!).

Going to have to take some leave sooner or later to get something done around here!


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## Thadius856

Things are back to crazy around here. Having saved up some money (paid off the wife's car, got ahead on some credit card payments), we're back in the realm of finishing some unfinished projects. At least that should keep the expenses down while we continue to save.

First, the wife picked up 6 yards of fabric to reupholster the dining room chairs. She's done this entirely on her own from start to finish, except for me lending a hand here or there to hold a piece or flap of fabric while she stapled.

Before and after:




























Two down, six to go. She will need only 2 more yards of fabric to complete the job. They're still a bit under-padded, but they're certainly comfortable enough for dining.

She decided that she needed an electric stapler for the project, so we now own an Arrow ETFX50.


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## Thadius856

The carpenter and I jumped onto getting the tile done in the living room (in front of the library wall). It took a solid two hours to square off the existing laminate flooring and scrape up the glue that was holding it down.










After replacing the tile saw blade, it once again cuts decently. We had to toss the blade guard because it was throwing the cuts off to one side and causing a gradual curve in each tile. As a result, now we get a face full of water with every cut.  Here's the center field laid out.


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## Thadius856

Lets see. Where were we.

Took all the measurements for every tile off a dry fit. Annotated them all on a CAD-generated tile layout and the carpenter cut them all free-hand. Yeah, that's right, every cut freehand. Turns out the fence on this saw isn't worth using. Not surprised.










Took two days to thinset the border tiles down. Really could have been undertaken in a day, but one's knees get tired.










And 24 hours later, floated in plenty of mushroom color grout. Note this is after leveling, but not yet cleaning the tiles.










There's some height variation, but the slab isn't flat either, and I wasn't going to go through the process of leveling it out. I probably would have if it didn't butt to the hardwood... that is, if I was replacing the flooring in the whole room.

Tomorrow, sealant.


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## shumakerscott

I did the same thing with my blade guard and fence. I chucked them the first day. I'm still thinking of a solution to the issue of getting bathed in water. I use a face shield and wear an old hat. I like the progress. dorf dude...


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## Thadius856

Funny. We went with a shorter table, Hefty trash bag poncho, eye protection and a box fan to blow the spray to the side of you.

Works well enough. Looks pretty ghetto.


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## Thadius856

Left this thread for dead again. Ugh.

Been keeping up on some progress, but was pretty firmly in saving mode. Already cut about 35% of our credit card debt out, and now that the wife's car is paid off, that's the only debt we have (besides the mortgage, obviously). Here's how we did it:










I went to Wally World and picked up a 2-gallon jar. I have no idea what people use these for. Making displays, maybe? I shredded some pastel paper we had at the time (pink and ecru) and filled it to the top. On the backside, I labelled the total amount of debt in dollars, then put grading marks every inch or so, like a big glass measuring cup. As we pay off the debt, we go take some out, and it sits right next to the TV so we can't just ignore it easily.

We set a monthly amount we wanted to pay off, and we're ahead of schedule so far.


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## Thadius856

The tile finished up spectacularly. It's a little less than perfect in the flatness department, but I'm not complaining. You're always more critical of your own works, right? We headed to Lowe's and the BORG to grab some t-moulding and were floored by the price. $28 for 67" of fake wood moulding? Seriously? We did find two on clearance at $7 (which we were willing to pay) until the cashier at the register pointed out that only one of the two we grabbed were clearance, and that the other was an oh-so-slightly different color at full price. We gave up 'n' made out own instead.

At ¾" thick, the leftover air-dried cherry was a perfect choice. The last knotty 7" wide piece went through the saw and came back out as two usable 1¾" strips at 8', with a whole lot of waste sapwood leftover. We cut 3/8" off the back of the tile-side and 1/4" off the back of the laminate side, leaving a ¾" strip down the middle, then mitered some return.

Pre-stain, two passes with stain, and four coats of polyurethane later, here we are. There was enough for both the laundry room door and the new tile sections.




























It's a shame to walk on so many hours of labor. :laughing:

The height of it forced us to shim up the last recliner ¼" or so, but it's not really noticeable.


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## Thadius856

It's been time for a new bird cage for some time now. Rather, nearly 3 years. 

I admit, I bought a cheapie cage when I first got my parrot. It was safe and large enough, and that was about all that mattered to me at the time. While shipping it to NC three years ago in a huge cardboard box, it took serious dents and I've had to beat it back into some reasonable shape. Yesterday I realized that it was time I stopped putting it off and just pony up for a nice one.

Except the nice one I wanted, after four hours of researching, ended up being a semi-custom. The factory in China that makes it literally only tools up for it once a year or so, leaving me with an estimated 6 month wait for a color I wasn't thrilled about. At $579, with an additional $180 shipping, it wasn't going to be cheap either. This one.










In desperation, I checked CraigsList for deals, just in case. Found this rusty old treasure.










The previous owner had her parrot in here for almost 30 years, until it passed about 5 years ago. She just now decided to part with it. It did need work, but I was willing to make it happen.










The scroll work had a bit of flaking, but nothing too major.










The side where she must have had the water dish was pretty well beat up.

Poop had eaten the paint off the feet, which is rather common.










I jumped right in with a sponge, bucket, and some steel wool. A few hours later, I had a blank canvas. Everything went smoothly, except this rust spot, which took quite a while.


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## Thadius856

About 6 hours in, the first coat of paint started going on. I went with three cans of Rust-oleum "Hammered" in Silver. The label says it can be applied directly over rust and doesn't require primer. About $5.50 a can with my discount. I started on the underside first.










After 1 coat on the outside of the bars and the underside bars, I was already out of paint. I was getting about 15% of the paint of the bars. The rest wafted right through. I could bring the can closer and lose less paint, but then it'd get ugly and try to run. Occasional breezes weren't helping.










I gave up for the night after the underside and outside bars. This morning I picked up 6 more cans and got to work just after breakfast. The entire inside, top side and one pan got done with those cans.










The carpenter ran into town for the last 3 cans at the store. I made it all the way around, and two coats of every part of the trays, but not with too much to spare. Yeah. It took that many.

Here's the same foot after two hours of drying, then a quick two coats of Crystal Clear Glossy Enamel as a test.










Looks great to me. Hoping to get the rest of the think glossed tonight! Ordered these casters to go with.


















I didn't plan it, but ironically, the silver/red theme matches the bird pretty well.


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## Thadius856

Ordered five Rubbermaid closet systems the other day. Normally $130 at Lowe's, plus tax (so closer to $140). Only $101 on Amazon, shipped. In titanium color, this is how the product page shows them. Seen them in person, and it's pretty close.










They should be here some time today. Decided I should start prepping the closets, so I started tearing out the old office closet expecting a finished wall underneath.










Nope. Unfortunately this is the original 1950's install. Bare drywall paper underneath.










Ended up having to pry the 4' piece about 1/2" off the wall then cut it in thirds using a circular saw set to just short of full board depth.

In the process, I pried with a pry bar at a spot where I thought there was a stud... but apparently there wasn't. The sound of gypsum crunching... 










Here I've already cleaned it up a bit and pulled the loose pieces out. Couldn't find my fiberglass patches, so I headed to Ace instead of searching all day. 15 minutes later, we're back in business.










Time to sand down and go for the second coat on the patch.


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## Thadius856

When I said "time to sand down and go for the second coat on the patch", what I really meant was "time to go run my sanding block and sand paper through a pile of still-wet compound." That's about how the rest of the day went. The that patch and one other spot stayed cold (read: still not dry) through dinner time when I gave up on them.

In the meantime, I added the clear glossy enamled to the bird cage. Four coats on each side of each pan last night, and two coats on each side of every bar today. Came out to exactly 12 cans of the hammered silver paint and 12 cans of the clear gloss.  The wheels also came today (a day ahead of schedule), so I drilled out the feet early and bolted them on with 1/4" x 1/2" x 20 hex heads. Probably should have gone stainless, but found it hard to justify the cost for 16 bolts and 16 nuts.










As it would turn out, I ended up ordering all 4 with the brake instead of only two with and didn't notice. Only added about $2.30 to the order, so I'm not too worried about it. As luck would have it, the heat from the unlubricated dull drill bit ended up melting some of the paint on the feet, so they're back to looking terrible. Sigh. But at least it's done now and rolls around easy.










Going to give it a solid week to cure before giving a last wash and then bringing it indoors. I was as much of the VOC content to have left as possible before exposing the bird to it.


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## Dinggus

The tile looks good, I'm in the process of trying to find the floor transissions for doorways for my color flooring.


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## Thadius856

If you can't find an exact match, consider something contrasting. Sounds silly, but it's worth it to draw the eye to a quality job.


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## Dinggus

The company recommends this:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...=10053&langId=-1&keyword=HL9305&storeId=10051

Which this texture is cork looking and the floor looks like wood, ha.


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## Thadius856

Progress on the closet continues. First a bit of primer over the bare paper and the compounded spots, then a coat of the ivory paint.










Definitely in need of a light second coat today to even the color out. Hoping it's fully dried by Monday for hanging the closet system.

Edit: imgur problems seem to have subsided. Either the (huge) thumbnails were taking forever to generate server-side or my proxy was having problems trying to cache images before they were available, causing some odd problems. Either way, last three image links now fixed and replaced.


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## Thadius856

Yesterday morning the second coat went on. Looks pretty even. Still needs inside door trim and baseboard, but that can wait for now.

Installed the closet this morning. Took... a few more hours than I care to admit. Probably close to 4 hours? Wasn't timing it, but it's not the amount of time advertised on the box my any stretch of the imagination. Went with this layout, but it's pretty much 100% re-configurable on a whim:










The top bar is much higher than a traditional closet. The wife will need a step stool to access things up there or to hang my blues. Luckily, the uniform I wear 95% of the time is on the bottom row anyway.

Tons more spacious in the closet than the the pictures lead you to believe. The cheap camera combined with a narrower opening meant that I couldn't get a nice, close, wide-angle shot. Instead, I tried to get some angled shots to show the rest of the space (especially up top) but not sure it worked.


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## Thadius856

Went Father's Day shopping today. Been keeping an eye out for HDTVs in the 32" - 42" range. The carpenter and I have both grown very fond of the game Rocksmith (read: Guitar Hero or Rockband with a real guitar), to the point where there's two Xbox consoles in the house that pretty much only are used for that game. He was having trouble trying to play it on an old tube, curved screen 27" TV.

Found a 50" Element (off-brand, I know) at Target. Normally $650, on sale for $500. 1080p, 3 HDMI, USB, VGA, headphone port, built-in soundbar (with a freakin sub!), etc etc. There was no display model, but I took a chance on it. And it looks actually very good, except for some pixelation on the boot screen of the XBox at 1080i. Anyway, I snuck it home and installed it in his room today while was at work.










Also picked up a new stud finder for $10 (which is equally as garbage as the $10 Stanley one it was supposed to replace) this morning, along with two clearance Kreg decking jigs I hope to flip on eBay.

Also priced out new recessed lighting while I was out. As it turns out, the LED cans at HD are only a few dollars behind the traditional or even CFL can systems. Once you get the remodel airtight EC can, you're already at $32. At a ring at $7-15 and a CFL at $2-3 and you're already at $41-50. The 5" LED system spits out 600 lumens using much less electricity, lasts longer, and only costs $60. No piecemeal work either. Anyhow...

Spent the rest of the my afternoon and evening installing more shelving. Today it was time to put up the pantry where the tiny little dining room used to be. It's not quite done (need to custom cut two braces for above the window), but it's already being stocked. Looks like she's taking back the cabinets for cooking gadgets and good China and whatnot.










Went to crack open a stout and realized I still haven't mounted a bottle-opener. I've been meaning to put a neodynium magnet on my church key for the longest time and never go around to it. I rummaged through the junk drawer and pulled out a Marlboro thank-you gift that I've had for years and never got around to installing. I quit smoking almost two years ago, so it's been a while.










Yep, opens Guinness just fine.


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## Thadius856

Took a road trip this weekend, so unfortunately not a whole lot got done here. A trip to the Redwood Forest was just what I needed to unwind.










We took advantage of an offer that Michael's was having. They were selling Lowe's gift cards at a 20% discount - $50 gift cards for $40. More or less cleaned out two stores on the last day of the event, with the managers' permission of course. I already put them in my safe deposit box at the bank, so I don't feel bad saying that I bought just shy of $4,000 worth. For the planned kitchen reno, the plan is now to buy the appliances from Lowe's. I'm going to be spending quite some time studying prices, reviews, etc. of kitchen appliances in the coming months. Hopefully I can snag a clearance, dented box, scratched, or similar unit for pennies on the dollar with these. I just have to be... very... patient.

Of course while were we at Michael's, the wife just had to get some new cake decorating goodies. I told her she better put them to good use. Sure enough:










And today marked the end of the seven days of drying and curing for the cage. Dusty got to check out his new (upcycled) home.










There's talk of keeping both cages. Yikes, this place sure is filling up in a hurry!


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## Thadius856

For the record, the fondant on that cake was rubbish. I peeled the stuff off so I could eat it. It was like chewing a never-ending stick of gum. So, you don't have to feel so jealous now. :thumbsup: The wife won't be buying any more premade fontant in a box!

Finished fabricating the two missing pieces I needed to complete the pantry. Only took a few minutes with a hack saw and a few of the leftover extensions. They went from 25" to about 4". Also threw a clothes rod up there. I was thinking it can be temporary pot/pan storage via shower curtain hooks.



















The super approves.


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## Thadius856

Been researching kitchen appliances lately. Pulled up the Ikea Kitchen Designer again today and loaded up the latest layout. Noticed I had set aside $1,500 for the fridge. We plan on waiting for a 20% off sale, and the 20% is the budget reserve for project overruns. The one I'd selected was apparently the Nutid model.



















Plain, yet elegant. Not a terrible price for a Whirlpool (top rated by Consumer Reports as most reliable), but not amazing either. Solid model, but lacking in styling and features.

Worked through some deals and found a Whirlpool at Lowe's I liked a lot more.



















Got the ice maker, water dispenser, and the 4th door for more fridge space that should be able to hold a full sheet cake or whatever else. Hopefully it helps our energy efficiency if we can get in the habit of putting the most common things we need in it.

$2499 SRP - sale price ($1879) - additional 10% off ($1691) - military 10% discount ($1522) - 20% savings on gift cards ($1217). Plus tax, but the Ikea one was supposed to be too.

Compared to the original $1500 - 20%, I'm down about $17. Also free delivery that Ikea wouldn't provide because of distance. Definitely worth it to me. It arrives tomorrow. Was very hard to pass up a larger Samsung in stainless with the dual evap system and second ice maker for only a few dollar more, but the terrible reviews (of it breaking down a lot) swayed me.


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## Thadius856

Spent the morning cleaning up some of the reno mess. Funny how fast that stuff piles up when you're not actively keeping up on it.

Spent most of my day waiting for the fridge delivery guys and installing a threshold on the rear door. Had been without a threshold since we installed the tile, so there was a solid 3/4" gap at the bottom letting air pass back and forth. Needless to say, the space became unconditioned fairly quickly.










At 4" wide, it's a pretty decent version. Felt like an eternity of hammer-drilling through the porcelain, but once I got through, it would go stupid fast through the thinset and then be pretty quick going through the concrete. 3/16" tapcons sealed the deal.

Thresholds take forever for seemingly no progress. At least we have a seal now.










Because I didn't get the 6" wide version, now I need to think about some sort of bullnosing or tread edge or something to cover the exposed edge of the slab and end of the tiles..


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## Thadius856

Please excuse my grammar if this post comes out a little funny... I'm still a little shaken.

Last night while BBQing, we smelled something like a grass fire, but real faint. We walked up and down the road and smelled it everywhere, so we figured somebody was smoking some meat.

Woke around 2:30 to the same smell, but much stronger. Rolled over and grabbed my new tablet and checked for wildfires in my area on Google News. Nothing. Checked the CDF page, nothing. Went to get a drink from the fridge before grabbibg my shoes to take a stroll down the block and heard some rustling. Figuring I woke the bird, I turned on the light to check on him. No bird. Oh, right he sleeps in his other cage in the guest bedroom.

...and thats when I noticed the ceiling was bubbling...

Several bubbles about 6" across and 2" tall were on my newly painted ceiling. I woke the carpenter, we gatgered a ladder and work lights quickly, and opened the attic. Tons of thick, white, stinging smoke up there.

He crawled up and discharged a fire extinguisher while I called 911. He dumped another 3-5 pots of water on it before they arrived.

A dozen firefighters took down a 6'x10' section of my living room ceiling, spraying water and foam all over. We may have lost a load bearing beam and definitely lost parts of 5-6 joists, some electrical, some lighting and all of the 6" of celulose insulation. The floor may also have been damaged by the falling debris, but its too soon to tell (and too dark). I suspect the room will need to be reframed to bring it up to code.

The culprit looks to be a junction box that carried a 220V circuit and at least one other 110V circuit. It had no cover and was burried several inches under cellulose. The inspector and adjuster haven't seen it yet but will probably agree.

Looks like insurance will probably cover all of the damage. I have coverage on the house of almost twice the puchase price, plus over $100k on personal property. Hooe this pans out well...


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## shumakerscott

Glad you caught it! dorf dude...


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## Thadius856

A look at the damage:


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## Thadius856

More pics:


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## Thadius856

On the bright side, I finally offloaded the dirt bike in the back yard. I'm fairly certain I've pictured it at one point or another.

It was a 2004 Yamaha TTR250 that has minor seat cracking and needed minor carb work. Traded it for this sweet 1986 Gibson Les Paul Standard (1958 Re-issue) in Sunburst. Shown next to the carpenter's Epiphone Les Paul in... Whey?










Near mint condition.


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## natedro

Thadius856 said:


> Please excuse my grammar if this post comes out a little funny... I'm still a little shaken.
> 
> Last night while BBQing, we smelled something like a grass fire, but real faint. We walked up and down the road and smelled it everywhere, so we figured somebody was smoking some meat.
> 
> Woke around 2:30 to the same smell, but much stronger. Rolled over and grabbed my new tablet and checked for wildfires in my area on Google News. Nothing. Checked the CDF page, nothing. Went to get a drink from the fridge before grabbibg my shoes to take a stroll down the block and heard some rustling. Figuring I woke the bird, I turned on the light to check on him. No bird. Oh, right he sleeps in his other cage in the guest bedroom.
> 
> ...and thats when I noticed the ceiling was bubbling...
> 
> Several bubbles about 6" across and 2" tall were on my newly painted ceiling. I woke the carpenter, we gatgered a ladder and work lights quickly, and opened the attic. Tons of thick, white, stinging smoke up there.
> 
> He crawled up and discharged a fire extinguisher while I called 911. He dumped another 3-5 pots of water on it before they arrived.
> 
> A dozen firefighters took down a 6'x10' section of my living room ceiling, spraying water and foam all over. We may have lost a load bearing beam and definitely lost parts of 5-6 joists, some electrical, some lighting and all of the 6" of celulose insulation. The floor may also have been damaged by the falling debris, but its too soon to tell (and too dark). I suspect the room will need to be reframed to bring it up to code.
> 
> The culprit looks to be a junction box that carried a 220V circuit and at least one other 110V circuit. It had no cover and was burried several inches under cellulose. The inspector and adjuster haven't seen it yet but will probably agree.
> 
> Looks like insurance will probably cover all of the damage. I have coverage on the house of almost twice the puchase price, plus over $100k on personal property. Hooe this pans out well...


Wow. I've missed a ton lately, but GLAD that this was caught soon enough before it caused major damage and could've made your lives very different. Hope to catch back up on my thread soon. Again, glad everyone is OK. When our air conditioner blower motor seized up about 11pm the other night, I was very afraid we'd be dealing with a house fire shortly. Going buy a fire extinguisher today. Can't believe the things that are possible!


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## Thadius856

A little update for anybody interested.

The city building inspector came by a few days after the fire. After a few "hmmms" and "ahhhs", he determined that replacement like-for-like would be acceptable replacement and that code upgrade would not be required for the structural in that case. If we wanted to re-frame in any way differently, other than adding hangers or nailing cleats, the living room ceiling would need to be taken down and re-framed to current code.

We had the fire investigator out at the insurance company's request (well, really, demand). He took over a week to get out to the house. He took plenty of pictures and concluded that while there was plenty of probable code violations with the junction box... that it was not the source of the fire. He said he was 99% sure that it was electrically caused, but couldn't find the burn pattern to support it as the source. He also pointed out that the black wires which I just naturally assumed were coax were not - the conductor was much too thick, and they traced back to that junction. He submitted a recommendation to the insurance company to bring in an electrical engineer to check it out, and of course, they did.

The electrical engineer took another 10 days or so to come out. He determined that the black single-conductor wires were polyethelene and design for high voltage applications, finding it very odd that they were used at the junction. It was traced back to the 30A dryer plug, which was not used that day. He also found a very loose connection in the junction and posited that ohmic heating caused the black polyethelene in the junction to melt, dripping down the wire and burning like a candle. He suggested that the source was probably about a foot away, where it laid on the drywall.

Another week later, the property was released for repairs. The contractors took a few days to come out, we signed the contract last Wednesday for a four week timeframe with the unstanding with the insurance company that the scope may need to be expanded (via Change Orders) once we start digging in. His guys would start sucking out the insulation on Friday morning before it got hot. It's now late Monday night and I haven't heard a word from him since. Not in such a hurry now that he has his contract signed, it seems. It's pretty obvious he was just trying to burn out the 'cooldown period' quietly and then pencil me in around his other jobs. I'll start calling incessently in the morning... I refuse for my house to become his sidejob.

So, now 5 weeks in the hotel and counting. As good of a rate as AAA gave for insurance, I can now see why. The adjuster almost never returns my calls and takes several days to take actions. They wanted to investigate the hell out of the place in an effort to not pay or to recoup from a third party. The contractors are slow as hell. The hotel booking agency keeps having billing issues with my hotel, the one that they chose for me. The list goes on and on. They're making it really hard for me to want to keep them after all this is done.

On the bright side, I did manage to get out to the range with my newfound free time. Put 100 rounds through a 22 Ruger and another 50 rounds through an M9.


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## Thadius856

So I was sitting at the hotel a few days ago when reality hit me:

_Nobody is living at the house. Now is the perfect time to be doing work on it!_

I'd managed to keep my fingers off of it for over four weeks. Since I have 6 ceiling fans waiting to be installed (yeah, I know, that's a lot) that I just picked up on sale, I figured I should start there. I picked up 6 new work fan hangers, tooks down the existing dome lights, and prepped for the new boxes.

Again, I realized:

_The wife's not living here. This is the perfect time to tear up the kitchen and re-do the flooring before the renovations next spring!_

So I did.


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## Thadius856

I unhooked the range and moved it beside the fridge. Only one base cab was held in, and only by one screw. The counter top lifted right up. The sink plumbing was a matter of spinning a few PVS collars. Easy peasy. The carpenter helped me move the cabinets into the entry/dining room.



Since I've seen the same sheet vinyl flooring for sale still at the big box, I figured it probably doesn't have asbestos. So I tore a little to see what was underneath. Of course, it delaminated from the paper backing.



I pried up a corner of the plywood it was glued to and found... another layer of laminate! In the meantime, I noticed that I had just uncovered several receptacles burried behinds cabinets. Arrrgh. That will have to be dealth with before the reno.



The drywall around the sink is a complete hack job as well.



Somehow, despite being the same thickness, it's recessed back a full 1/8", plus a gap between the two pieces. I don't know why they even bothered taping if they weren't going to mud over it.


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## Thadius856

The first layer was glued to 1/4" plywood and nailed about every 4" along the edge, and every 6" in the field. Literally pounds of nails came out, all about 2½" long.

Here's a better shot of the second layer of vinyl.



The second piece of vinyl was on 3/4" plywood, again with 2½" nails. Slightly better frequency this time at 4" on the edge and 6-9" in the field.

I tried to not peel it wherever possible to keep the dust down. Instead, we'd pry a section up an inch or two, then push it back down. The nail heads would pop, then we'd pry them out and start over. After a while, the whole sheet would come off in one piece. I was surprised that both layers didn't look all that old.

After we dropped it off at the dump, I found a small piece we'd missed. I picked it up and turned my head sidways at it for a few seconds. Underneath the second layer lurked something sinister and rather ugly... this third layer that we hadn't seen.



We had worn respirators just in case we unearthed something like this. I just wish we'd found it before we finished dumping it.

Here were are with a clean subfloor. Looks like 2x8 over 4x8 joists 48" OC.



And a little closer.



Finished the day by making a trip for ¾" engineered tongue-and-groove, ¼" hardibacker, thinset, grout, tons of tile, grout sealer, spacers, etc. Think I'll take tomorrow off from the project.


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## Thadius856

Ended up not taking a day off. Instead, we laid out ¾" StudiFloor. Three sheets at $26/ea. Screwed into place with 2½" coated decking screws with star-drive heads. Still have over half of the box left. Screwed 2" in from each corner, ~8" OC along the edges, and every 12" in the field. The thread I asked for opinions in stated to used 1" (I assume that's 1-1/8"), but I also thought that I was dealing with 2x6 back then, not the 2x8 that I'm happy to have discovered. I figured this would make up for some of the strength while providing adequate deflection and keeping the height difference to a minimum.



I figure at ¾" plus 1½" for the nominal 2x8 TnG, I have just shy of ¼" sticking thru the underside. Haven't crawled in the crawl space yet to verify, though. Will need to verify that I didn't hit any of the grounding retrofit down there before we turn power back on, though I doubt it, as I haven't retrofited the kitchen. 

With temperatures already climbing through the 90's and our knees hurting, we called it an early day. Boy is the floor stiff now!


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## Thadius856

Went out to dinner with a friend who won't be working with us any more due to a volunteer assignment. We'll still see him, but much less often, and only outside of work. After a few tall beers, I decided to sleep in. The next morning, the carpenter got up early and cut down the hardibacker while I snoozed.

I spent the entire morning screwing it all down. I was going to apply thinset to the ply using a ¼"x¼" notched trowel, but I decided not to. I tried to read all that I could about why it should be thinsetted down and the three reasons that stuck out at me were:

To "cushion" the tiles from deflection.
To even out any voids in the substrate and provide a flat surface.
Because the tile manufacturers say so.

I don't buy #1 because I found many posts that say cement board and thinset barely affect deflection. I don't buy #3 because I don't expect any manufacturer to actually stand by their warranty these days, instead using these types of "proper installation" clauses to squirm their way out of them. And as much as I wanted #2 to be applicable in this case, I couldn't find any uneveness using my 4' level or 8' straightedge. This is literally the flattest floor I've ever seen, with less than 1/8" of slope in one direction over 10'4".

If the tiles crack or fail due to deflection, I'll happily eat my crow. I just don't think it's going to happen, in my amateur opinion.



Just after I finshied sinking almost 400 1½" coated cement board pan-head screws flush with the board, I decided that I didn't want to proceed with tile yet. As you can tell from the above picture, I wanted to know what was going on in the walls, electrically anyway. This fire has made me a little paranoid, and drywall is a lot easier to re-hang than fire damage is to un-do. I pulled down the first 4' the next morning.



Other than lacking mechanical protection, staples and stackers, there's not a whole lot of terrible stuff going on with the electrical. I think I'll be moving all of the existing outlets to counter-level, even out their spacing, replace the short runs of romex, and be done with it. But look... an abandoned... flue? No idea what that thing is, but it vents out of the roof.



Here we see the back of the tub. To the right, a doorway that was closed off really poorly. That will be rectified.

Interior walls are going to get bats of R0, while the apparently uninsulted exterior wall is getting the highest R-value I can cram into 2x4 framing (probably R-15).

Just after cleanup, I decided I want to take the drywall all the way down for that. So, upper cabs came down on one wall, I crammed the freezer full of food. We're preparing to take down the other cabs and the rest of the drywall Soon (tm).

The insulation guys came this morning and removed all of the attic insulation. I don't think they started until almost 9am, so I'm stur it was probably closing in on 150F (65C) before they finished. Tsk, tsk. I told them they could start prep as early as 5am as long as they didn't spin up the huge vacuum until 7am, but they didn't.

I certainly don't feel bad about it.


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## shadytrake

Your kitchen looks a lot like my kitchen when I started...I was having a deja vu moment.


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## Thadius856

Do share. How does it look now?


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## Thadius856

Lots of progress since last post! I'll try to put up pictures tonight.

Electrician came to repair burnt electrical while I was wiring. He suggested I replace the home runs to get a ground. I traced them back, but most continue down a wall cavity in other rooms. Abandoned everything I could safely, capping them off in new junctions with lids. Pulled 6 new circuits for the kitchen and one for lighting in other rooms. That took two days.

Completed rough in to code on all the new circuits. Another day there. Added nailing surface to the bottom plate. Researched plumbing, and about to start plumbing the rest of the items now (on a shopping trip currently). Also picking up insulation and drywall while we're out. Bought some of the backsplash materials the other night... we'll see how crazy the wife makes the design.


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## Thadius856

So much has happened in the past... week and something.

After the shopping trip, we started tee'ing off the hot and cold lines to run toward the refrigerator and dishwasher. About 10 pieces of galvy in, I received a phone call. Out of the blue, the city building inspector decided to call me. As it turns out, after about 6 weeks in the hotel, the contractor still hadn't submitted plans to the city. Once he did, the city was quick to notice that the house had never had a single permit pulled in its 55-year history. The inspector zeroed in on the garage conversion, which is very common on my street (only 3 blocks long, and 15 similar conversions) but ultimately unpermitted. Locked the brakes; we capped off the stubouts off the tees and stopped work on the kitchen until everything was sorted out.

City ordinance requires a two car garage or two covered spaces of off-street parking. Each must be at least 9'x20', set back 20' or more from the road. As luck would have it, the entire subdivision was built with one car garages and we're set back 30' from the street, less overhang. As such, even if we converted the living room back to a garage, we would still not meet the ordinance requirements. Short of tearing down half the original house, there's no way to comply. The conversion probably pre-dates the ordinace (1991) because of the age of the faux-stone fascade on the front of it, but without permit paperwork, there's no way to prove that.

The city initially refused to issue a permit to repair the fire damage. After pleading our case to the city hall staff several times, they finally relented and allowed for a permit to be pulled for rough-in framing/electrical inspection on the repairs, but no final inspection until the parking issue is resolved. In the meantime, we have to do the run-around with the contracted planning department, which is a private firm about 20 miles away. Fingers crossed for a variance.

Rough-in inspection was this morning. My kitchen passed with flying colors. The contractor's subbed electrician was said to have missed some staples and fasteners on the cans.

Will get the rest of the details tonight. Would love to proceed!


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## shadytrake

Thadius856 said:


> Do share. How does it look now?


It's in my sig link below. Not quite done yet but getting there.


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## shadytrake

Oh and good luck on the permit variance!


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## Fishinbo

I liked how you kept a blow by blow account of your restoration. This should make you proud.


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## Thadius856

Sure hope so. Tons of bumps along the way!

Spent my morning updating documents, cleaning the gutters, and working with the building department.

Hopefully I have a legitimized house when all is sad and done.


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## Thadius856

While I've been waiting on the kitchen rewire permit process to run its course. Rough inspection on Tuesday, which was somewhat dragged out by the holiday weekend and a 8 day permit approval process. We had one dedicated circuit and one shared lighting circuit, all on 50-year-old 14-2 NM on 15A breakers. Now we have three small appliance circuits, a fridge circuit, a dishwasher/dispoal circuit, and a dedicated lighting circuit, all brand new 12-2 NM on 20A breakers. Rough-in is already done. I just need to take a few a few minutes to pull the wires down by the panel and clip one run back to the junction a few feet back in there. Pretty much playing the waiting game to throw on drywall.

While I was waiting, I replaced the surface-mount lighting fixtures in each bedroom. While they looked alright, they just weren't bright enough with two 60-watt equiv CFLs in there behind alabaster glass. At $18 for a pair of them, I'm not feeling bad about tossing them, either -- the smoke had soaked into the insulation on the backside, trappin the smell in the bedrooms. Out came the ancient 3" boxes and blocking, replaced by 75-lb ceiling fan (210-lb light fixture) brace. I tossed the included 4 screws and used eight 1.5" ticos instead leftover from some Stimson hurricane braces I used to tighten the ceiling up with. Replaced all the ratty old wiring between each box.










Up went one of the Crosswinds fans in each bedroom. The nickel Crosswinds with the cherry blades.





Added four Halo H750RICAT 6"/LED/IC/AirTite/Remodel cans and Commercial Electric T91 LED lights to the guest bedroom and the office (6 in the master). Placed them on a CFL/LED dimmer.


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## Thadius856

Lighted up the T91's. Terrible headaches ensued. They would only turn on if the dimmer was above 50% ("pop on"), they had a 1.5 second delay turning on, they would surge something awful when more than 4 were dimmed on a LED/CFL dimmer, and they would flicker while the dimming level was being changed. Bought some incandescent dimmers and they worked better, but couldn't justify $60 in new dimmers just to make over $400 in lights dim properly. Though they did look great full lit. Took them back. Think they were designed for bathrooms where they wouldn't be dimmed because of the damp rating.





Exchanged for T85's. Longer rated life, bigger ballast, etc. Uglier trim, but they work great on the dimmers I had, and took the $60 dimmers off. Got something like $28 back. No dimming issues to speak of yet.







Please excuse the terrible, terrible cell phone pictures.


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## Thadius856

Busy, busy, busy. Let's see, where were we.

Passed my rough electrical on Tuesday with flying colors. Only comments were that I needed to insulate the exterior wall (insulation rolls were already sitting on the floor) and to stub out the sink pipes (pieces on the cart), then send pictures of both. Interesting how those don't have anything to do with eletrical. Was instructed to call for a drywall inspection after screw down and before mud. Here's about where we were as of a few days ago:







Also stubbed out the refrigerator, dishwasher supply, and pot filler faucet.


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## Thadius856

Sink stubbed out.



Six GU24 base lighting cans installed.



Added some mechanical protection.





Expanded the light switch box to a two-gang to make room for the light switch to the dining/pantry area. Did it after the rough in, but don't feel it violates the intent or code of the plans I submitted.



Replaced some staples with cabler stackers in the busier places, which really gave a lot more flexability.


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## Thadius856

Much better shots of the new lighting setups with the real camera back.

Office:



Guest bedroom:



Master bedroom:



All lights are dimmed fully to not overpower the lens. The blue tape is to prevent airflow into the attic until I can get to patching the drywall.


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## Dinggus

Looks good!


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## Thadius856

Thanks! 

Hood arrived. With cord attached. Grrr. Not exactly clear instructions on how to hardwire, either.



Almost threw out my plans of hardwiring it and was almost forced to put it on yet another dedicated circuit. Receptacles would have gone here, but then might have been considered "inaccessible" behind the chimney, which is another code violation.



This one beats my old hood in so many ways. Under-cabinet 30" vs chimney 36". Non-vented vs vented. 120 max cfm w/ 2 speed settings vs 760 cfm max w/ 4 speed settings. 1 incandescent bulb vs 2 halogen bulbs. White painted vs stainless. Etc etc. 



Thankfully, my inspector is cool with me using the same crimps that the manufacturer used to replace the cord. Emailed him to be sure.


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## Thadius856

Wired up the main panel nice and proper.



Would have stripped back the jackets a little further, but it was pretty hard to get my tools that far back in. Circuits 3a/3b/4a/4b/5a/5b are the new kitchen circuits.



Tried to keep my neutrals and grounds nice and clean.



Clipped off the temp power and tried to clean up the bottom of the panel as much as I could. Success?



About 10 zip ties went on right after the pictures were taken to keep everything neat and organized.


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## Thadius856

Right before the fire, I noticed that the Maple out front was looking a little haggered. An arborist came out, did a drive-by from the road while I was not home, and said it was fine. I asked him to come take a closer look because I was able to pull chunks of bark off with my bare fingers and found ants marching up into it. On second look, he said it looked like it had been heat stressed at one point, likely due to it being a rental property at one point, and that it may or may not be possible to save it. The difference in cost between trimming and removal/grinding was $450 vs $750. Not wanting another homeowners insurance claim or anybody to get hurt, I went with the removal option last week. Fast forward to a few days ago, they finally booked my job. In all fairness, it did save me a $100 trip fee waiting a little bit.

Lined up ours and the neighbors' bins to block off parking, as it happened to be trash day.



It certainly was a tall tree, and was well within reach of 2 houses and at least 5 cars.



Boom operator sizing it up.



Limbing off the small sections first.



Easy to see here why I was worried about the house!



Almost all the way down.


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## Thadius856

Almost gone by this point.



The boom operator said that the center was squishy and had some fungus-ridden wood. Reinforced my decision.



The price included stump grinding about 6" below ground level.



And they left us with a pile of grindings about 2' deep at the center, tapering out to a diameter of 10-12'.



Was curious to see how much I could get in our 92-gallon bin when I got home.



The answer was very little. After filling it, we proceeded to fill another fifteen or so 42-gallon contractor yard bags before striking stump.



Tried to pick-axe on the stump, but it's hard as a rock below ground level. Might have to drill it out, pour in some sodium nitrate, and wait a few months... or years.


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## Thadius856

Today, we got the kitchen totally ready for sheetrock tomorrow.

All of the insulation is in the exterior wall. We put the leftover pieces in the bathroom wall, just in case.



Insulated both hot and cold pipes in polyethylene. Also capped the sink (pictured) and tee'd off for the AAV (not pictured). Dryfit the AAV for now until we know the flood rim level of the new sink and cabs.



Insulated the ice maker supply line, the dishwasher supply line, and the pot filler faucet supply line. Make good use of the elbow and tee pieces they sold pre-made.



Insulated the wall under the sink as well.



Spray foamed all holes in the double top plate and where all of the pipes come up through the floor. Hopefully it prevents rodents from being able to use the large hole where the sink pipes comes up.

Also ran a wire to the chandellier and into the 2-gang switch box pictured previously, then made a 3-hour long materials run.


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## Thadius856

Last night, I noticed that when I switched on the bedroom ceiling fan, the LED cans would flash brighter all of a sudden. Several times. Suspecting a loose neutral at the service, I called the POCO. An hour later, a truck arrived and tests were performed at my panel. Solid 121v on both lines and they didn't move at all under testing. Technician noted that my service disconnect had seen arcing and that one of the main service lugs was essentially destroyed, so I had him pull the meter for the night and schedule a re-install for the morning.

The wife was not happy to loose the power during one of her shows.

This morning I got up super-early to go fetch a new 100A disconnect. Got to the big blue home improvement store just before opening. Forgot to buy the GraBit bolt extractor and had to make a second trip back an hour later. Once the lug was extracted, the new mains was installed in under 5 minutes. The POCO showed up to reinstall the meter around 11am.

In the meantime, put the finishing touches in the kitchen before drywall. We ran two Cat6 and one RG-6 up the rear wall, suspended them from the attic rafters using holed zip ties, and brought them back down into the hall closet through one of three new 3/4" holes in the ceiling. The whole house data wiring install begins!

Once power was restored, we got both cordless sets charged up and started on the drywall. Before starting, we had to stub out the pot filler and dishwasher, which meant the water had to be switched off, the caps removed, nipples doped and installed, and then the drywall to be bored and go up around them. Since we wanted to be able to flush and shower tonight, we did those sheets first. :laughing:

The inspector wanted 6" O.C. along each stud. I hope he's happy with how well screwed down it is, as we came in at 5" O.C. plus the entire border 6" O.C. or less. In many places, the studs are closer than 16", so there's that much more.



On this wall, we hung parts of two sheets horizontally to bring us back flush to the existing drywall (beige, top right), then started hanging the second layer on top, starting from the left. This will allow for better sound insulation between the shower and kitchen areas at just over 1" of rock, texture, and paint.



And on this wall, we only rocked where we had to in order to cap and turn the water back on. In the process of fastening the drywall, I utterly exploded a Bosch dimpler (on the 10th screw, no less), wore out an Ace brand dimpler, gave up, then just used a driver and extra care to not tear the paper instead. $30 in dimplers didn't make it through four sheets... what a waste of money.

The rough looking stub-outs.



My first attempt at using a rotozip-style tool (cordless Ryobi One+) equipped with a drywall bit that had a tracing tip. I ended up stinking up the smell with the house of burnt plastic, and they're not perfect, but they get the job done.



And finally the data drop: one ethernet, two telephone, one cable/satellite TV.



Starting to come all back together. Unfortunately, the carpenter got a job today, so I'll be losing my helper soon. He won't have a start date until tomorrow, but undoubtedly he'll be back to work before we finish up for the winter. :no:


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## Thadius856

Re-typing this post because the forum ate it the first time I tried to submit it. 

The workday started around 7am with me realizing that we hadn't blocked out for the range hood and that now it was drywalled over. Around a hundred drywall screws came out, a sheet came down, and we spent the next hour blocking out there and at the gas pipe. Now I have a solid 7" of nailing, allow me to hang the hood anywhere between 26-3/4" and 33-3/4" off the cooktop. The manual says to aim for between 28" and 36" above, so I'm going to split the difference and shoot for 32", which puts the screws 14" O.C. down from the ceiling line.



The rest of the day, we pumped out drywall. The carpenter measured, scored, cut, and rasped. We hanged each piece together with 2 screws in each corner. I'd mark out and stitch up the seams, then rotozip the boxes while he was working on the next piece.



We were able to restore power and water around 2pm, just in time to grill some hotdogs and take a beer break. I finished screwing down the fields some time around 5pm... way too much time on an impact drill for one day. Plenty sore in the lower back and legs, but oddly not in the arms (yet).



Hopefully we can get it inspected Thursday and start mud/tape on Friday.


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## Thadius856

Woops. Been a few days since I posted. Apologies.

Thursday we did get our inspection. Passed without comments. 

Yesterday, we picked up on the data cabling project. I laid out the drops on each wall, drilled out the top plates and nailed in cable stackers in the attic along a few routes. We ran a few test cables all the way to the living room and they look exceptionally tight and organized in the cable stackers. I made sure to support approximately every 2 feet along their length for the entire run. It got hot in the attic and we had to quit with only a few drops finished.

Each of the 9 drops is getting four Cat6 and one RG6 cable. On the 24-port rack mount gigabit ethernet switch, that will give me: 18 wall jacks (2 ethernet at each drop), 1 router, 2 access points, 1 network attached storage, 1 test/configuration port, and 1 port left open for expansion. Each drop also gets four phone lines over a single Cat6 cable, though I'll only be installing two jacks at each location (one with lines 1/2, the other with lines 3/4) . Since telephone distribution blocks are stupidly expensive, I'll instead be punching down one long set of four pairs to each of the punch blocks on a 24-port 110-type patch panel, which would allow me to jack in up to 24 drops of 4 lines each - with over twice the capacity and at one quarter the price of a pre-made distribution block. I could go smaller with a 12-port patch panel, but they're only a few dollars cheaper, so why not? Drops are being installed at: three drops at the home theater, 4' apart; master bedroom; guest bedroom; two drops on opposite walls in the office; bathroom; kitchen. The hardest part is figuring out if I want to split out the coax for all ports hot, or have to swap later. Still planning that one.

Anyway, here's what each drop looks like. Note the 2 ethernet cables, 1 telephone over Cat6, 1 coaxial cable, and one spare Cat6 in case any of the other 3 die.



I printed up a naming convention chart with progress check boxes so we could keep track of each drop. This was the progress at lunch... we also finished both office drops before it got too hot.



We ran into fire blocks in the office and there's not enough room to get an auger cable bit in because the roof is so low that I couldn't get it down the hole. Instead, we had to take out some drywall, cutting along studs for easy patching later.





Here's what the closet looks like so far as of the end of the day.



Yeah, that's a lot of cables.



Tomorrow we only have a few runs left. I have to run two Cat6 to each of the access point locations and then two Cat6 and two coax to the demarkation point outside. Top plate and low voltage bracket holes are already cut. Already drilled through the rafter blocking as well. Hopefully we can run those before sunrise.

I also have to finish up pretty much any electrical work I ever want to do in the attic without having to crawl over 14" of fiberglass insulation, as that's getting blown in on Wednesday. In a single day. Eek!


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## Thadius856

Finished pulling all the data runs on Sunday. Boy am I sore. This is just the bundle going into the living room (3 drops).



Here's what my the wiring closet looks like on the other side of the drywall. That is, from the attic.



Still amazes me that I pull this much cable in two days.



Ran power to the closet for the switches, routers, network attached storage and whatnot. Four duplex receptacles going in, four on each side, about halfway down the 7U rack going in.



Here's where one of the two access points is going. The other, directly over the TV.



Finished up as much electrical as I could. Rewired almost all of the laundry room. Removed and unwired two exposed switches and a receptacle in the ceiling there. Had pulled two spare 20A lines all the way to the laundry room; used one to give the washing machine a dedicated circuit, and the other to run the wiring closet and access points. Certainly the wiring closet getting a dedicated 20A circuit is overkill, but it's what I had ready to go. And with the insulation coming on Wednesday, it was probably my last chance to use those circuits.

Also ran the range hood venting. Removed the ceiling pan, terrible 2x4 bracing with drywall screws, replaced with a burly fan-rated box tacked in with ticos, re-wired the fan off the laundry room circuit onto the living room circuit, etc. Also cut holes for and ran wire for two dining room lights.

Hopefully tonight I can find the energy to finish running the last two speakers for the 7.1 install, then put up the two dining room lights, and maybe get ready to replace the living room lights. Think I need a Redbull.


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## Thadius856

Been a few days. Not much got done. Life has been getting in the way.

Started to prep the wiring closet for the server rack install. Most parts have already arrived. Started by removing what I presumed was the original shelf supports.

Lesson learned from the bedroom closet: when studs are in short supply (zero in this case, other than at the corners), cut them every 12" with a circular saw set to about 90% of the depth. That way, you can pry them off in pieces, instead of having to leverage a bar against brittle drywall and cause needless holes/dents.



Found underneath some original mint green paint. It's a little darker than pictured, closer to avocado.



Was going to put a two-gang box in each wall for power. Realized that would only give me the ability to plug in 4 things on each wall. In reality, that translates to 2 things per wall because of wall worts. Hating to do the same job twice, I upgraded. To two three-gang boxes, per wall. Went from 4 duplex receptacles to 12.



Cracked the drywall on the right wall using too much force with zero backing. The screwdriver here is holding the drywall piece in place while a mud bandaid is drying. Probably won't work, but have to give it a shot.


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## Thadius856

Progress has been slow because I finally caved in to the wife. She's been asking for a dog for years and the timing has never been right. I recently realized that sometimes waiting for the timing to be right ends up prioritizing the small things ahead of the big things.

I visited the animal shelter in the next town over and found an adorable Beagle. Little is known about him. The shelter staff had been calling him "Toby". He was still on hold in case the original owners claimed him, and thus not available for adoption. Not to be dettered, I went to this county's shelter and found a small female Beagle mix. I put down a deposit on her, waited 3 days to pick her up after her spay appointment, and brought her home last night. While I was waiting for her, I went back to see Toby. He was just too cute to pass up... I was back the next morning on an early lunch break, in line 20 minutes before the shelter opened, to snatch him up within the first few minutes of his release date. Thus, we're now the proud owners of two Beagles!

The little one's taking a nap with the wife right now, so no pictures yet. In the meantime, here's some of Toby. We decided to keep the name. 

First night, a little nervous.





Earlier today, pretty well adjusted other than having abandonment issues.









More coming in a few minutes.


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## Thadius856




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## Thadius856

Finally got pics of the little one. She likes to get really close when you call her name... too close for the camera to take a picture of her in focus.

Immediately after our 30 minute walk.



Still recovering.



Checking out Toby's crate.









She's a meager ~13 lbs, compared to Toby's 24.1 lbs.


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## Thadius856

Took all day and a lot of energy, but the wife managed to wear them out.



And I managed to wear myself out taping and mudding the rest of the kitchen, to include my first corner bead.



Tomorrow, a light sand and touchup, then prime. Normally I'd spend more time doing wider joint mudding, but it's all going to be covered with cabinets (and tile backsplach after final) anywawy, so it won't be seen in the end at all. Hence, no need to texture except on that corner bead.


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## Thadius856

Sitting here, sipping my coffee, trying really hard to get excited for a day of sanding/priming...

...might just have to trudge through.


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## Thadius856

Managed to get up the energy to sand and do a second coat of mud. Actually, less energy and more motivation.

My first finished corner bead:



It should all be dry in about 30-60 minutes, ready for a quick sand and then prime.

We got the insulation blown back in... last week? Realized I never showed a picture, so I climbed up to the access hole for a picture. The brown is the batts the installer used so the blown-in wouldn't fall down the access hole.



He left the measuring stick from the box. Admittedly, this one of the highest-filled areas. Funny that he'd put the stick in this spot and not the others, eh? 



From the catwalk, looking into the main part of the house through the "firewall" that really isn't one.



And holding the camera inside that door. I don't dare enter, lest I scratch off every square inch of skin I have.



I won't be entering to get any other pictures. Sorry. :no:


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## Thadius856

Primed and waited for it to dry. Had some pork chops for dinner. Took the dogs for a walk.

Wired up six countertop GFCIs, two duplex receptacles (disposal, dishwasher), and one switch (disposal). Three countertop GFCIs to go, plus the gas stove receptacle.

Last thing to do tonight is to move a base cabinet and set up a temporary table and the new coffee maker. Ready for a shower and bed!


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## Arlo

Nice build! Is there a reason you couldn't make the kitchen bigger? I don't have a sense of what is on the other side of the right wall but it would be great if you could expand that way. I guess if it was possible you'd have done it by now! :thumbsup:


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## Thadius856

Arlo said:


> Nice build! Is there a reason you couldn't make the kitchen bigger? I don't have a sense of what is on the other side of the right wall but it would be great if you could expand that way. I guess if it was possible you'd have done it by now! :thumbsup:


Behind the right wall is the hallway. Considered trying to expand that way, but it's the main load bearing wall, holding a huge beam to cover the living room span. I can't imagine moving it. Goin exposed beam would be difficult at best as the meat of the beam is in the attic.

In the picture you quoted, I took down the chandelier above where i stopd to take the picture and repurposed the 9x12 "dining room" into a pantry with high cabs, a hutch, and a window seat. Hopefully it helps make the kitchen feel a little larger.

You'll have to wait to see what I mean until I can afford the cabinets.


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## Thadius856

Been pretty busy. Finished mudding, taping, sanding and priming. Not sure yet if I have to paint before passing final. We'll see.

Contractor finally came back after over a month of no contact to ask if I've finished the variance process because the insurance company is asking why it's taking me to so. Um, no, that's your job.  Insurance company agrees with me.

Finished swapping the wiring in the laundry room and living room, but then lost or threw out the piece of drywall I cut out out of the laundry room wall.  Finished up the living room, GFCI protected the last 6 circuits in the run, and will hopefully knock out the last of it tomorrow. Still need to pull the networking closet and washing machine circuits into the main panel and connect them up.

Installed both Access Point data plates and both bedrooms as well. Was a little shaky at first with these coaxial compression fittings on the quad-shield RG6, but think I'm doing just fine now!

Color key:
Red - network infrastructure (demarcs, switches, routers, etc)
Green - bedrooms
Black - living room (x3 drops)
Yellow - office (x2 drops)
White - spare lines (every room)
Orange, Purple, Pink, Brown - not used





Installed 6 duplex receptacles in the wiring closet. Waiting for some mud to dry before I try to put the cover plates on in the morning.


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## Thadius856

Slow progress around here, lately.

Had the networking drops in the living room half way to where they need to be. Because I had to get through a block on each one, I figured it'd be best to run the drops extra long originally, then route them later. That turned out to take a lot longer than I had planned... at least 4 hours to drill the holes of a decent size and get the coathanger through. Even then, pulling the cables through, the coathangers kept coming un-taped, so it was mostly a manual job. After all of that, I terminated all 3 living room drops, clipped them into the face plates, and installed against the wall. Phew.

I then meticulously removed every face plate and mudded up any edge I'd messed up drilling... in the entire house. Waited for cure, sanded, second coat, waited for cure, buffed, painted, reinstalled face plates. That covered all of the pencil marks, dirt marks, spackle knife marks, etc. Everything looks many times better.

Today, I pulled the office apart again to get to the two pieces of drywall I had to remove. Mudded up one wall, finished mudding the closet, sanded both, and now I'm waiting a little bit to do the second coat of mud on the wall. Don't have enough mud for the second wall, so looks like I'll be headed into town for materials today. Also painted the top portion of the wiring closet. Hopefully it will dry so I can do a second coat, then knock out the shelves and put in the Rubbermaid closet today.

Also had the pest guy out a few days ago after seeing two mice and finding a few droppings. He cleared cobwebs, set glue and snap traps, sprayed for bugs around the perimeter and in the crawl space, etc. Apparently we must have opened up a hole into the house during the renovations. At least one trap has snagged a mouse and he's coming back to reset today. It did cost a little more, but now I know how to do it like the pros would, so future traps and will be set by me.

Edit: Also looked at the original color key I placed the networking materials order from... turns out I'd planned for the APs to be orange and, as such, ordered those parts in orange. Had to go back and tear down the red, then replace with orange.

Phew! It's going to be a long day.


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## Thadius856

Been a busy day, again. :S

Turns out, I had a few pictures waiting on my camera.



This is what the back of each media drop looks like. In this case, it was taken from a living room drop (note the black keystones). Yes, the voice jacks fail Cat6 spec... but that's fine, because phone is designed on Cat3 specifications anyway.



Took this picture before I repainted over all of the pencil marks.


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## Thadius856

Last night, I tore out the rest of the original 1950's painted wood shelves in the hall closet and spackled over all of the holes and messed up trowel texture.

This morning, I painted the bottom 2/3's of the wall and the ceiling, each with two coats.

Since the rest of the house will be getting crown eventually, I figured it would be easier to do it here before the closet was filled. Unfortunately, when I went to paint the crown, I realized I was out of interior trim paint.  As a result, it went up with just primer for the time being. Yes, those are dirty fingerprints.

Also installed the 7U server rack on six drywall anchors with fender washers. They're rated at 51 lbs each in 5/8" drywall, but I'd bet this install wouldn't hold over 51 lbs total. Wish the mounting hardware had been included so it'd be black to match, but oh well.



Luckily the Paslode was still charged after sitting idle for almost 6 months. I got that in just before noon.



Chopped down a 4' top rail to fit this closet (28" wide), then filled it with shelves. As it turns out, the spacing is perfect, as the rails are 24" O.C. and the shelves are 26" wide. Had been ready to chop down shelves to fit, but was glad to find it wasn't necessary to.

Also installed baseboard. Again, without a finished coat of trim paint. :\


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## Thadius856

I hate telephone punch down blocks. They're just so ugly and don't work well in a rack mount environment. In days past, an office would use a 25-line or 50-line punch down block with bridging clips selectively placed to share common groups. The major expense involved was paying for a technician to punch down each and every phone line individually. The Type-66 ones looked like so.



This one is a 50-pair version on eBay for $16 plus $8 S/H. I'm sure they could be had for under $20 shipped. They are big, cheap and ugly. They didn't fit in a rack environment (built before the 19" server rack was common), but rather directly on a wall, with or without a cover.

OnQ has made some smaller versions for use with their modular racks. Other companies have followed suit with similar products. Because they're specialized and specific to the manufacturer's bolt-in patterns, they can command a high price for them. These proprietary devices start at about $20 for a cheaper 6-pair and run well past $80 for a 12-port with additional features like coaxial or ethernet distribution.





Lower demand for wired voice blocks has made prices creep higher. Rack mount versions are difficult to find and far more expensive.

However, these can be essentially made at home in a rack-mount environment cheaply, bypassing the insane price markup on these devices... and that's what I did last night.


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## Thadius856

Start with a standard patch panel. I went with a 24-port model because that's the highest density you'll be able to reasonably find in 1U size. Even though I only needed 11 ports, the price difference between a 12-port model and a 24-model was only $2. Always plan for future expansion.



Additionally, I went with a Cat6 specification panel even though only a Cat5 model is required. This will allow me to re-use it if I ever wanted to go through and remove all of the telephone wiring for more ethernet wiring some day in the future - a difference of $2 again.

Here's what they look like.



The idea here is that you bridge all of the punch downs together so that each port is a mirror of each other.



To bridge the punch downs, we cut down about 6' of cable, then strip the jacket and untwist the pairs from each other. My whole install is to TIA/EIA 568-B specification, so the color key labeled "B" in the picture was used.



We continue with all 4 pairs of wire until every punch down slot is filled. Be careful not to use a Type-110 punch down tool that has a "cut" side labeled, otherwise you'll be spinning your wheels. A metal putty knife works well in a pinch.



When it's all done, you'll have done 192 punch downs. If any of them are bad, that port will not work properly on one or more lines. On a large 96-port 4U model, that would be 768 punch downs would have to be done without error... better off patching four 24-port models together than trying to wrangle that beast.

All 24 ports are now mirrored to each other. Plug the incoming line in on Port 1 or 24 or whatever you like, and the rest will have a dial tone on all activated (paid for) lines. This is how I have 4 phone lines going to each of 9 locations.

Total cost, about $25 with tax and shipping. Total time spent, 90 minutes.


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## Thadius856

Just finished the cable chase. Thought I was going to have to wait until Wednesday for parts to come mail-order. Luckily I was able to find them locally at a reasonable price.

Originally wanted a 3-gang or 4-gang grommet plate setup. However, they only seem to go up to 2-gang. Ended up instead with three 1-gang decora-style brush plates.



I cut in and installed a 3-gang low-voltage plate, then screwed in all three 1-gang brush plates, then covered with a 3-gang decora cover that I had purchased separately.



There color isn't a perfect match (matte white plastic plate vs gloss white nylon plate), but it's close enough that I couldn't tell the difference visually once installed.

Now to start bundling, bending a service look, and then zip-tieing. Wish I'd bought a cable comb...


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## Thadius856

Service loops are done.


Flipped the shelf up-side-down and installed it to simulate a hard floor for where the switch will sit. That way, I knew exactly how long I could make them without loading downward force onto the switch from hanging loops.

Ready to punch down the networked ports. Port order and color scheme are created. :thumbup:


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## Thadius856

Finished punching down the first 18 jacks. That completes the 18 active ethernet runs.



Next, 9 telephone runs, 9 coax runs, 9 spare ethernet runs, 4 access point runs, two cable demark runs, and two phone demark runs.

Wow, that makes it sound depressing!


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## Thadius856

Progress!



Started on the 2U patch panel. Not sure I'm a big fan of the way the keystones stick out, honestly. I only ordered the 2U because I was worried about the width of the Cat6 keystones due to some of the product reviews; the fit is tight, but I could fill all 24-ports without a problem. Ordered two 1U patch panels like the one below it to replace it and will have to re-dress the service loops to match.

The white keystones are the telephone ports. They'll be pulled off and re-punched with ivory keystones to visually differentiate them from the spare ethernet ports. The leftover white ports will go on the unterminated spare ethernet cables.

I'm going to need 18 patch cables from the lowest patch panel to the switch; 9 patch cables from the telephone patch panel to the telephone distribution panel; and a few spares from the spare ethernet ports on the patch panel to the switch. I'll also need to patch in the router to the switch, router to the access point patches, access points to their wall plates, etc. 

Patch cables will have to be measured out, and I'll probably color coordinate. I mean... why not if I'm going this far? Already have a few test cables on hand for measuring out: 6", 1', 2', 3', 5', 7'. Since patch cables are difficult to make by hand to Cat6 spec, I'll be buying those premade.

The cable demark runs have already been compression fitted and coiled. Next, the phone company needs to move the demark, pull a modern drop, and rebond the ground.

Drilled additional holes in the rack shelf to accompany a 1U device overlapped on it's top half (see picture). Rackmount surge protector arrived today, a day late, and will be installed tonight. I'll also need to make cables to patch the coax to the splitter and back. And buy the splitter.

Ivory keystones, patch panels and replacement banana plug decora straps are in shipment. Once they arrive, I should be able to get the 7.1 install back to being functional. Already have some of the replacement speaker mounts on hand. This wouldn't have been an issue if we hadn't lost so many parts repairing the fire damage.

Just have to keep pushing onward!


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## Thadius856

Parts arrived today. Woohoo!

Pulled the white keystone jacks (pictured previously) off the phone lines. Re-punched them all down with ivory keystones from today's shipment. The idea being that phone lines are "old timey", and thus ivory should be a good indicator that they're not... ethernet spares. Also replaced the 2U 48-port keystone panel with two 1U 24-port keystone panels. The old one was cheap, and stamped out of the single piece of sheet metal, which allowed the keystones to move and flex in their slot. The new ones have a backing that the keystones click into, holding them firmly. This was especially important with the coax keystones, which can have quite a bit of pressure behind them from the service loops.

Here's where we stand... completely punched down; ready to start measuring, ordering, and then installing the patches.



Punched down the second-to-last drop at one of the office wallplates. Don't have the energy to finish the last one right now. It will have to wait until tomorrow.

Temporarily patched modem to the router to the switch, then patched my desktop in. Now I can take down the 100 ft patch that used top run to the top of the refrigerator.



Yes, replaced 6mbit DSL and traditional (POTS) phone service today with 30mbit cable, 80 channels of TV on 3 TVs, and free HBO. For the same price... go figure.

Old connection tested at 4.5 mbit downstream / 300 kbit downstream. Check out the new connection.


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## Thadius856

Spent most of the day locating, unpacking, restoring, and reflashing my two backup routers (Cisco E2000s). Flashed over the factory firmware with the most recent version of Tomato available for them, then set them up as access points (same SSID, same WPA2-PSK, turned off NAT and DHCP). Also updated my static DHCP tables to account for the ethernet NIC mac in all of my devices.

Installed both routers, one in the living room and one at the end of the hallway. They look about how you'd expect them to.



Also measured out, wrote down, and ordered all of the patching cables. Hopefully I didn't forget too many. Have at least a dozen cables on hand, just in case I forgot some. This is what a patch cable order looks like for a project of this size... and it only includes a few of the devices at the wall plates.




Code:


Product	Qty.	Price	Total
 2302	7FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Black	1	$1.67	$1.67
 2303	7FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Green	1	$1.67	$1.67
 2292	1FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - White	5	$0.71	$3.55
 2291	1FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Yellow	4	$0.71	$2.84
 3422	2FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Orange	2	$0.88	$1.76
 3413	3FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Orange	2	$0.98	$1.96
 3434	5FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Yellow	2	$1.29	$2.58
 2113	1FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Blue	4	$0.71	$2.84
 2289	1FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Green	4	$0.71	$2.84
 2288	1FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Black	6	$0.71	$4.26
 3424	2FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Red	2	$0.88	$1.76
 3419	2FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Black	2	$0.88	$1.76
 2297	3FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Red	1	$1.03	$1.03
 2296	3FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Green	1	$1.03	$1.03
 7505	0.5FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Red	2	$0.57	$1.14
 7500	0.5FT 24AWG Cat6 550MHz UTP Ethernet Bare Copper Network Cable - Gray	9	$0.57	$5.13

Subtotal : $37.82 
Shipping & Handling Cost : $7.99 
CA Sales Tax : $3.32 
GRAND TOTAL : $49.13

Hopefully I can get everything patched in a few hours once they all arrive.

Also installed the banana plug wall plates for the surround left, surround right and front center surround sound channels. Looks like better without cable hanging out of the ceiling. Hooked up the surround left and surround right to the back of the 8.2 distribution panel, then put it all back together. Only rear left, rear right, and front sub left to dress up. Will take pictures when that's complete.


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## Thadius856

Cable shipment arrived. It was delayed a day because the UPS driver didn't want to leave it on my doorstep like he has the past thousand times. This wasn't a large or expensive shipment, either.

Preliminarily patched the closet. It took about 20 minutes to unwrap all the cables and then 10 minutes to do the actual patching.





Yeah, I color coded. Also bought color coded patch cables for each device that I know will be hardwired (desktops, smart TVs, XBOXen, etc).

If you give cables a twist between the cable management and the wall, they'll form a loop on their own when possible. For example:



At full 36" extension.



Stowed against the wall.

Still think I'm going to drop the cable channels. Can't watch this standard definition stuff anymore. Feels like I'm watching TV on a potato, especially when blown up to 50". How did we deal before?


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## Thadius856

Got off my lazy butt this morning and cleaned up the patching.

The router and switch both got stowed on the rack shelf, the wiring tucked behind, and everything cleaned up pretty nicely. Also patched in the NAS that has been sitting unplugged since June (stupid fire!).



Can still see the activity lights on the modem (from the floor) and router (from a step ladder). Had to wash the picture way out for the flash to penetrate back to them.



This is the mess of temporary and measuring patch cables I've been using the last week or so. Surprised I don't have more.



The 100' one at top somewhat resembles the FSM.


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## N_Butler

Youre incredible! I just read this entire thread and I'm amazed. Keep up the good work.


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## Thadius856

Been trying to take it easy lately. Not so easy to do, it seems. Between a hospital visit, surgery, and the new dogs, we've been pretty darn busy lately.

The wife invited friends over for Thanksgiving dinner, which puts me under the gun to have the kitchen looking halfway decent and usable. That leaves... 2 off-work days after today? Lovely.

Pulled everything back out of the kitchen. Painted the walls, as we'll have to be looking at them for at least another year. Can't put up the backsplash I bought until the new cabinets are purchased, and that will be the long wait. Laid out the center field of tile for the floor.



Tried to start cutting the tile, but it was already too late and too dark to start. Gave up and installed two of the last three surround sound face plates instead.


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## Thadius856

N_Butler said:


> Youre incredible! I just read this entire thread and I'm amazed. Keep up the good work.


Hey, thanks for the kind words. 

I hope to keep updates rolling for some time, so keep an eye out for more.


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## Thadius856

Because I stayed up til 11pm last night playing Super Meat Boy (guilty pleasure), we didn't get to sleep until after midnight, and didn't get up until 7:30 this morning. Late start on a long day of work.

Worked all day on the tile in the kitchen. Last night's layout helped it go faster. The wife and the carpenter helped too. I was the mud and measurement guy, the wife spaced the layout, and the carpenter made most of the cuts (I cut the center field, but he did the rest).

About 11 am.



About 1 pm.



About 3:30 pm.



About 4:45 pm.



Match the planned layout pretty well, I'd say. The red line is where the new cabinet layout will eventually fall, once it comes back into our budget.



The gaps between tiles will be cleaned out tomorrow evening, followed by grout on Wednesday morning, just in time for the stove to be moved back into the kitchen around noon on Turkey Day.

Would have liked to put everything back on Thursday, but then I'd have to take it all back out to seal the grout later. :\


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## Thadius856

Spent an hour last night and two hours this morning chiseling out thinset that the wife didn't wipe up while it was still easy and wet. Sigh.

Went to grout this morning - dumped the grout in the bucket, dumped the prescribed amount of water on top, then realized I couldn't find my drill to power the mixer. Aaaahhh! After a 5 minute mad rush to find it, I stirred it all up and brought it inside.

Ding! Hmmm, text message. Friend coming over to see if I can help him install his front license plate, and he just left his house. Oh, great timing. Quickly grouted, then started sponging down the kitchen when he showed up.

Finished sponging down, then install the front license plate on his car, then sponged a second time. Still pretty nasty water coming up.



Lowe's delivery guys showed up. Bought a gas range at Black Friday prices; $999 normally, down to $699 less 10% military discount. With tax and new gas line kit, I paid just over $705 delivered. Also ditched plans for the $1400 stove that the wife wanted in the process. Woot! As an aside, Consumer Reports ranked it the #4 stove in the 30" gas class for home out of 55 models.

Here it is next to the old one that came with the house, which is promptly going on Craigslist to make a few bucks back.



So much to do and so little time.


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## Thadius856

Sold the old range for $100. Was surprised that I got that much for it, considering a cheapie one brand new would probably be in the $300 range and it was 10 years old. Since then, not much has been going on.

Got sucked into a video game or two, I must admit. Helps save up money, though. Too busy playing them to spend it! Today I got off my butt and put the kitchen back together with the carpenter. We're going to have to wait until next year for cabinets and countertops to be back in the budget again.

I marked out the rails for the cabs while he cut them out of 3/4" oak hardwood 7-ply we had left over from the bookcase. Upper cabinets went up quickly, then the lowers, then the countertops. 



These are just temporary, and rearranged from their last installation, so some don't have cover panels on the exposed sides. I'm not worried enough about it to make custom ones, since we'll be taking them down in a year.



Need to fabricate a floor transition piece. Everything still needs to be wiped down, sorted, and loaded back into the cabinets. That's tomorrow for the wife.



Spent the rest of the day trying to install a garbage disposer I ordered.

As it turns out, a 1hp garbage disposer is bigger than I pictured it would be. Most homes have a 1/3 or 1/2 hp disposer... this thing is literally at least twice the size of them physically. Picked it up for $88 on a Amazon lightning deal.

Made two trips and got it installed, but realized I needed a few different lengths of pipe 10 minutes after the hardware store closed. :\ Tomorrow!


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## Thadius856

Been slow going around here. Somewhat bunkered down for the winter months. We're trying to keep the heating bills low putting on sweaters and pajamas when home, and that makes it much easier to just opt for comfort (ex, video games) over housework. Go figure.

Did manage to sell the wood-burning stove I took out to build in the bookcase. Got $225 for it on CraigsList. Many might not remember it by this point.

From the original move-in picture set (July 2011):



And the tile/bookcase that replaced it.



Trying to sell other odds and ends around here to keep the place tidy. Not terribly hard to fill up a 1200 sq ft home with 3 adults living in it.

The old gas range also fetched $100, which I was surprised to get.


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## Thadius856

When we went to put the kitchen back together, I had to hook up the sink. As it turns out, the cartridge on the hot side had pretty much hardened up solid. Almost zero hot water flow, even after letting it run "full blast" for two hours.

The old one was builder-grade, so you can imagine it was cheaply made. The sprayer was calcified over and would only let a single jet hole give any water.



Removed it, scrubbed up all the putty and minerals stuck to the sink, then installed a new Delta Leland unit with a soap dispenser.



I was surprised that this one had integrated PEX hoses that connect all the way down to the tee and valve; most faucets I've installed require two braided supply hoses, usually sold separately for $10 each or so. That's $20 that I didn't have to spend.

Lowe's price is $204 plus $33 soap dispenser before 10% military discount, plus tax (total $229). Amazon was $198 incl soap dispenser, plus tax ($212). $18 here, $18 there... adds up over time.

We're very happy with it. Good, strong flow on the hot. Aerates well to make the 1.5 gpm flow rate feel like more. It's deeper, so the water hit around the middle of the bowl, where the old one hit the back 1/4 of the bowl. It's also a pull-down, so cleaning the sink afterwards is much easier than before.



The weight does a good job of bringing the head back up without using any muscle and it has a magnet in the head of the pipe that locks the nozzle in the up position when not pulled down. No droopy faucet here!


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## Thadius856

I knew I had a few days before the faucet was going to arrive, so I started looking around for a garbage disposer sale. Really wanted a 3/4 or 1 hp In-Sink-Erator (ISE) Evolution Essential or Evolution Excel. They're super quiet and seem pretty dependable. At $250+, they better be! No such luck finding one on sale.

The next day, I received a deal alert for a Waste King 8000 on Amazon. At $88 (normally $118), this 1 hp beast was a steal.

I did have to compromise a bit. The outer case is plastic instead of stainless, so it doesn't look as nice when you open the doors. It also is slightly louder, but still quieter than the 1/3 hp Badger models that come in most new homes. At 1/3 the price of the comparable Evolution Excel, I can deal with it. 



The only pain was re-plumbing because there was no disposer previously. That took me two days (needed 1 more part, it was 5:15pm, and the neighborhood hardware store closed at 5:00pm) and was frustrating, but I think it was pretty worth it.


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## Thadius856

So, the kitchen faucet is a Delta Leland, and the pot filler is a Delta as well. The next bathroom faucet will probably be a Delta also. Everything is stainless. Might as well get matching accessories if the price is right, right? Well, that's what I did.

Picked up 4 robe hooks, two towel rings and a toilet paper dispenser. Everything now matches.













Moved the location of the toilet paper holder so you don't have to reach behind you to get to the toilet paper. The three robe hooks replaced a 14" towel bar that was missing... the towel bar. Essentially, we've only had space for two towels for the last year and a half. Not the best situation in a house with three adults... the wife had been asking for a towel bar for quite some time.


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## Amerzjl

*Good luck!*

We bought a house about a year ago and have had a lot of fun figuring out ideas! :thumbup:


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## Arlo

Any progress?


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