biggerboat's building boondoggle blog
I started this in H&F but this seems a better place for it. These are my H&F posts. A bit long-winded but hopefully entertaining. I'm sure more hilarity will ensue.
I've been debating about doing this, and I sort of thought it might qualify as health and/or fitness so I'm gonna do it.
A little background. I have a very old house that I started to remodel about 10 years ago, then ran out of money and WIM to finish it. I gutted it completely and moved walls and did a lot of interior work. But I never did anything with the exterior.
It is sort of falling apart now. The roof leaks and a lot of the wood siding is so rotten I can stick my finger through it. It needs to be completely replaced.
I just paid the house off so I can sort of afford to completely re-side and re-roof it..............if I do it myself. Another factor is I just got out of a serious relationship and now I have way too much time on my hands. I'm going a little stir crazy.
Now to the health tie-in. The last few years I just haven't been able to do things like this. I used to be able to work sunrise to sundown. But lately I'd be good for about 2 or 3 hours and my back would just tell me to stop. However, due to this forum, my back is really feeling strong again. I think I'm up for the challenge. The other health aspect is mental. I don't feel good unless I have some sort of challenge like this. It gives me something to look forward to. I'm really needing something like this about now.
So, I think I'll sort of log this activity as well as lifting. I'll have to cut back on lifting/running some. Mostly due to time considerations. I'll be working on the house on Saturday/Sunday so no lifting/running on those days.
I haven't committed to this quite yet, but I think I'm close.
On the house front. I went to the city website to see what permits I'll need. It was so confusing that I called, got an answering machine, and never got a call back. So, I went down to city hall to ask some very basic questions. Apparently the appropriate question answerers are only there MWF but a substitute question answerer was available. So, after waiting 1/2 hour the substitute question answerer informed me that he couldn't really answer my question so he told me to come back when the real question answerer was there.
I suspect this will not be healthy in any way.
I tweaked my back Wednesday doing deadlifts.
The back pain has nothing on the pain the city is inflicting on me, though.
Went back to talk to someone again. I at least got the right day. The girl was really friendly and helpful. However, she seemed to not really know what all I was supposed to do. Which, as you will see, nobody could.
The first thing she did was pull up my address.
Apparently, there were 3 expired permits associated with my house. About 10 (or more) years ago, I did a big remodel. I did it mostly myself. The first permit was for an interior remodel. I had to get electrical, plumbing, framing and probably more permits. I remember having each one signed off on. However, apparently there was a final inspection that I never got. This is just conjecture based on what she said and my hazy memory. The second was for a garage. I hired a contractor to pour the slab and I framed and finished it. Apparently the slab inspection failed but the framing inspection passed. I'm not sure how this happens. I really don't recall any of this. The third one was for a bedroom addition. I never did this. I do not recall even applying for this. But, it is there. More on this later.
So I asked a lot of questions and the girl was very polite when she had to repeatedly excuse herself to ask someone else that knew the answers. From what I gathered I can do most of the work on something they call an express permit. However, if I want add a small porch roof I will need site drawings, impervious cover documents, elevation drawings, detailed framing plans and flood plain people approval. At minimum.
Back to the old permits. The girl indicated that I could fill out a form to remove the permit for the addition since I never did it. She then sent me to someone named Tony on another floor to figure out what to do with the other ones. Tony, it seems, did not have his coffee this morning. Either that or he was just an *******. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He told me they couldn't do anything about any of them since he had no idea if I even did any work or not. Which is problematic since I can't get any new permits with these on their computer. After much discussion he agreed to go back downstairs and talk to the friendly girl. Tony then came up and informed me that I needed a Life Safety for Expired Permit permit. He informed me that I needed to go back where I started (the line that I waited over an hour in) to start this process.
So, I go back to the window and explain to them what Tony said. They seemed a bit confused on exactly what a Life Safety for Expired Permit permit was. So, they suggested that what I really need to do is re-submit all three permits and get inspections on the work I did over 10 years ago. Even if I didn't do the work. They then put my name in the computer to talk to someone. However, the number of people waiting had swelled considerably and I had already been there 2 1/2 hours so I think I'll tackle this another day.
Went to the 9/11 museum this morning. It is really well done. But it gets to you pretty quickly listening to people talk about being there. It's really an emotional experience.
Then we walked on the high line for a bit. It's just an elevated rail line they converted into a pedestrian walkway. Pretty neat.
We walked up this thing called the vessel. Not really sure what the purpose if it is other than you walk up it then back down.
My wife isn't a fan of the subway. It's a little confusing and she would rather just walk.
So we walked from the high line back to the hotel. Im tired.
Hope the trip is helping you "get away" mentally as well as physically for a little bit.
Mentally definitely but I've walked more in three days than I have all year.
Today we hit the natural history museum. Crazy line to get in but the place is big so it didn't feel too crowded.
Ny tip. Anything you want to see, buy tickets in advance.
When you first go in all you see is stuffed animals. I was ready to be disappointed but there was a lot more to it. We really liked the minerals exhibit. The highlight of the museum was the leafcutter ants. They created this crazy path through plexiglass so you could see them go back and forth between their nest and the plants. It was pretty incredible to see how far they traveled holding pieces of leaves.
We somehow stumbled on to the place John Lennon was **** and the memorial to him in central park.
We were planning to see the MOMA but we are really tired and have a show to see tonight.
American Museum of Natural History was one of my favorite places as a kid.
and the high line is a wonderful repurposing of misplaced infrastructure to an elevated park for the community it originally bisected
Misplaced?
Our last night we went to see Hell's Kitchen, a musical by Alicia Keys. We really enjoyed it.
Back home now and ready to get back to the boondoggle.
Today's mission is to replace this guy.
Ugh
We found two wet areas in the wall. My guess is one might be from the washing machine drain and one might be from seepage out of the old copper pipes. I can't really figure out a source for either one, but I pulled the sheetrock out of the garage side and we'll hook stuff up and try to identify.
I had to pull some sheetrock out to get to the wet areas. I think it's fine. We dried it all out and I don't see any water coming in.
New cabinets are in. The sink was too big for the cabinet so I had to saw it some. I checked the old ones and whoever put them in did the same thing.
The countertop was all kinds of heavy. My wife and I really struggled with it but....
Great Success!
Kinda surprised, thought you'd go with duals on the replace. Nice work, glad there's not a leak after all.
Got the guest bathroom ready for the new cabinets.
The countertop goes the entire length of the bathroom and it's tight. I thought I could back out the screws holding the old cabinets in and pull the entire assembly out but it wouldn't budge. Missed a couple screws and one just wouldn't back out.
So loosened the countertop and slid it on top of the old cabinets we pulled from the master.
Super tight but I was able to remove everything.
Worst mold we've found.
Do you think the mold has been there a while?
The guest bathroom was beyond difficult.
First, there wasn't any room to work. I was able to squeeze in between the new cabinets and the huge countertop but we had a brace under the countertop that was sticking out that I had to climb over every time I moved from one end to the other. My second challenge was just getting the new cabinets up and over the countertop and in place.
Something was off that I still can't pinpoint. Either the wall isn't square or the new cabinets aren't square because when I set them on the floor the bottom butts up to the wall, but the top is more than a 1/4 inch off. It's enough to matter.
Screwing the cabinets together was a huge challenge. I just couldn't get them all exactly flush to each other. It's enough to bother me.
We were able to get the countertop on the existing cabinets but it was really difficult. We had about 1/4 ' to play with so just moving it a little more on one side would bind it against the walls. My wife isn't strong enough to slide it so we had to switch ends every time we were able to move it in a few inches.
We finally got it on after 1/2 hour of extremely difficult work.
I'm not really happy with the end result. They don't line up perfectly at all. It's probably not enough that anyone would ever notice once doors and drawers are in, but I'm not sure I can live with it.
I have to take a day off. I'm not sure if it was the amount of work I did yesterday, or the fact I got a flu shot monday, or maybe a combination, but my body is completely wiped out.
I'll give it a day or two before I get back in and try to fix things up a little better. I'm not sure if it is even possible with all that weight on it now, but I'll try.
This was every bit as hard as I thought it would be, maybe even harder.
I've been debating doing the tile floors myself. My "you can do this" attitude keeps at me, but I'm not good at tile and I botched one tile job years ago. Once it isn't right, it never lets you forget.
Our next door neighbor is getting all new tile. That's a story in itself. They spent a year remodeling and he put down laminate floor himself in the entire house. It took him weeks. That was about 6 months before the flood and it all had to come up. He's not going to try to do it himself again.
Anyway, I talked to the guys doing the work and I think I might go with them if they are reasonable. The first thing he told me is it isn't a good idea to slap new tile directly onto a terrazzo floor. He says the terrazzo is really smooth and won't bond properly with the thinset. They have to "rough it up" first to guarantee a long lasting floor. I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle all this myself, plus I'm really getting exhausted from all this.
He'll give me a bid tonight and I'm leaning towards using him since he's doing a fantastic job on the neighbor's house.
I tried to rewire the boat lift breaker box. Because I can't remember much of anything. I put tape on every single wire and marked it. From what I can tell I did it correctly, but nothing works and it's even weirder than that. Stuff works that shouldn't. I'm baffled.
I sent an PM to Mark to see if he has any clue. I'm definitely clueless.
I tried to rewire the boat lift breaker box. Because I can't remember much of anything. I put tape on every single wire and marked it. From what I can tell I did it correctly, but nothing works and it's even weirder than that. Stuff works that shouldn't. I'm baffled.
I sent an PM to Mark to see if he has any clue. I'm definitely clueless.
I somewhat figured it out, maybe. I at least go the boat lift working. Nothing else does but at least I've narrowed the issue down.
The hits just keep coming.
We bought my wife's car several weeks ago, in the middle of all the chaos. We got her a Honda Accord.
But we left without the paperwork so we called and asked them to send it to us. It took over a week to get it and all we got was the loan agreement.
The loan amount was $14,000 MORE than the price of the car. Something is really wrong. They sent us no other paperwork.
They have to know this is a mistake. There aren't any accords anywhere for sale even close to the loan amount. Not even close.
This is the kind of thing that keeps happening in the middle of all of this. You have to deal with so many issues and it's like never ending machine gun fire. It just never stops and you can't be on top of things.
And to top it all off, there's yet another storm brewing that has a chance of coming our way.
I've been debating doing the tile floors myself. My "you can do this" attitude keeps at me, but I'm not good at tile and I botched one tile job years ago. Once it isn't right, it never lets you forget.
Our next door neighbor is getting all new tile. That's a story in itself. They spent a year remodeling and he put down laminate floor himself in the entire house. It took him weeks. That was about 6 months before the flood and it all had to come up. He's not going to try to do it himself aga
The bid was higher than what I wanted to pay, but my expert google searching suggests he is on the low end of tile labor costs. I just don't want to be looking at a tile job I botched for the rest of my days here so I'm going to hire him. He said he can start in 2 weeks.
Fun with electricity part...whatever part this is.
I've been trying to debug my dock/lift electricity. It just wasn't making a lick of sense. Wires were hot that shouldn't be, nothing really worked right.
So, I decided to separate circuits as best I could. Isolated the lift box - worked fine. Isolated the receptacle on the pole. Worked fine.
The only thing left was a light and light switch. I had a red/black/white/green wire going from the light to the switch. My guess was that the black was hot going into the switch and the red was supposed to be coming from the switch back to the light. They had a weird dimmer thing going that I didn't understand, but I figured my analysis was correct.
The only thing was, the red wire coming back from the switch was hot no matter which way the switch was. Maybe a bad switch? I dunno, I've never encountered that before.
So, I just disconnected the switch, turned on the breaker, and the red wire was still hot. WAT!? Then for shits and giggles I tested the white. Also hot. Every damn wire was hot. So, maybe a wire somewhere in the conduit got stripped or rotted or something. Didn't make any sense. They are fairly new wires.
So, I started pulling the wires out. First one out was wet. Hmmm.... I went ahead and took the conduit off. It was full of water - saltwater. I wouldn't have thought that it would cause a short but I have no other explanation.
