Beany's House Project.

[monrein]

You're my DIY heroine jbeany!   

[jbeany]

Another set of Adventures in Home Ownership...

Still working on the electrical.  Got the broken front porch light replaced, and all the outlets upstairs.  My handy how-to book on wiring informed me that two way switches like the ones that run the light in the upstairs hallway need a different kind of plug, so I had to go to the store to get those.  (I'm not an electrician, so why would I know this, right?)  I didn't realize that when I shopped the first time.  The side porch light is still not working.  I don't know what happened there, but it's somehow tied in with the mystery plug to nothing just inside the side door that has enough wires for 4 plugs, but doesn't seem to go to anything.  I put an illuminated plug in it that never lit up, so I think I may have a wiring issue.  I bought a funky little volt tester.  Get it near a live wire and it lights up and beeps.  Hopefully, it will help me make sense of the wire scramble.  I also need to take the new light back off and make sure my connections are tight enough, since the old light did work occasionally.  It was a motion detector one, and the sensor only worked part of the time, which is why I wanted to replace it.  (Plus it was really ugly.    )  From the looks of the weather report, that's a job for next week.  I'm not going to play with live wires in the rain.  I'm only crazy, not stupid.

Today's adventure was the garage door opener.  It's pitch black in the back yard (see above about the #$%*& side light) so I didn't realize it was still up when I went to bed last night.  When I saw it this morning, I tried to close it with the remote I keep in the kitchen.  Nada, no matter what angle it's held at, pointing out the window.  Phooey, I just replaced the battery, and it's one of those funky sizes.  My car wasn't in the garage, so I scooted out the side door and pushed the remote on the visor.  Nada.  Oooh, that's not good.  Used the electrical tester - both batteries are fine.  Dashed through the downpour to the garage and hit the button on the wall.  The light turns on, but no motor, and no door moving.  Checked the alignment of the laser sensor on the bottom of the opening.  Seems fine, all lights are on.  Checked the track, and all the wheels look like they are still on it.  Well, okay, grabbed the rope handle and pulled it down.  Yup, slides fine.  Phooey. 

When all else fails, ask the family mechanic.  Run in and get the phone, send him a text describing the problem and what I've done so far to troubleshoot.  BIL texts back - Was it latched into place at the top?  It won't move the door otherwise.  Huh, I don't know if it was latched when I tugged it down or not.  I never realized there was a latch spot.   I'm not a mechanic any more than I'm an electrician, so why would I know this either?  Hey, the garage doors we had when I was a kid swung up and out when you pulled on it.  I was the opener.   

Okay, run back out through the rain and try to pull the door up.  I can see the latch spot, but I don't have enough leverage to pull that far back.  Run back in and get the step stool.  Climb up, tug it into place, and get down and use the wall button.

The door start doing a jig.  BANG RATTLE SLAM, only six inches down and right back up, repeatedly.  Yikes!  I unlatched the door again to stop the banging and ran back in to the house and head downstairs to the electrical panel.  So little else is correctly labeled, I hope the fuse marked GARAGE is right.  Turn it off, turn it back on, head back out in the rain again.  The light is on, and the motor has stopped bouncing up and down.  Climb back up, re-latch the door, get back down, and gingerly press the button on the wall.  Hurray!  It works now.  I guess all the attempts to press the remotes and wall buttons overloaded the poor thing.  Turning off the power reset it.  Last night's wind must have been strong enough to tug on the rope and unlatch it.

I'm now soaking wet and probably just extended my head cold for another week, but hey, the garage door works again.
So much to learn!

[cassandra]

Wow Jbeany that sounds like a fantastic achievement, now please go, and have your self a coffee, and rest, and sit, and check if the door still works.

Well done though,

love Cas

[jbeany]

Today's project - Replace the 3 outlets and one double switch in the kitchen.  I started at noon.  I just finished and it's midnight.  Another quick project! 

Turning the electricity off took forever.  The double switch to the kitchen sink light/garbage disposal is on two separate  and (previously!) unlabeled circuits.  The plugs are on two others.  Good grief.  The garbage disposal had a broken switch, so that really needed to be done.  I could tell it had gunk built up in it, since the sink takes forever to drain on that side.  In spite of running up and down the stairs repeatedly to find the right breaker, all went well.  My new volt meter is my new best friend - it makes it much easier to tell which wire is hot and which one is neutral.

Okay, so, now the switch is fixed, does the garbage disposal finally work?  Ummm....no.  I googled troubleshooting tips.  Hey, there's a reset button on the bottom.  Okay, reset and the motor hums, but nothing else happens until the reset button pops again.  Crud.  More research.  I need a particular allen wrench by Insinkerator to spin the fly wheel loose.  Off to Lowe's with my list.  Get everything else on the list, but they are out of the Insinkerator wrenchettes.  (Don't look at me like that - that's what it's called!) 

Off to Home Depot another 20 minutes away.  Home again, insert wrenchette and attempt to move flywheel.  Yeah, right - it's not budging.  Okay, my BIL told me he took it apart and rinsed it out while he was here without me one morning, so maybe if I take it apart, I can get more leverage on it than I can laying upside down half out of the cupboard.  Uh, back to Google for more directions.  Pry it off and undo as much as I can.  Holy Crud!  BIL must not have taken it this far apart when he rinsed.  It's got so much goo cemented into it, I have to chisel it off with a hammer and ice pick.  This is never going to spin again.  I looked back at the technical drawings of what it looks like when it's new.  I've got a good inch of caked and rusted crud on both sides of the fly wheel.  I tried for quite a while, but there's no hope.  I give up when I realize the top of the flywheel has actually got rust flaking off it in the few spots I can scrape down to metal. 

Back to Lowes.  Get a new disposal.  Home again, read the directions.  Okay, this looks manageable.  Except, if I've already got half the plumbing out from under the sink, I might as well put my new faucet at the same time, right?

Surrrre. 

I bought a new one because not only is the old one beat up and leaky, it doesn't have a sprayer attachment - even though my sink has a hole for one.  Classy look, with the extra hole to no where, let me tell you.    So, more directions to read.  Oh, surprise, there aren't any shut-offs at the kitchen sink.  I read the directions for installing shut-offs while replacing the faucet, as the experts recommend.  Okay, NOT.  I'm just going to put in the new faucet and call it good!  I know how to shut off the water to the entire house.

What I did not realize is that even with the water to house completely shut off, there is enough water in the system to make the faucets still drip a steady stream of water once you unhook the lines.  Geez, and I thought I got wet fixing the garage door!  At least I wasn't upside down getting it in the face while causing myself back injuries from being half in and half out of the cupboard.  One full bucket of water and two half-soaked bath towels later - tada, new faucet! 

On to the disposal.  Okay, this went well.  I do wish though that they would print the list of "Not included" stuff on the outside of the package.  Thankfully, I had what I needed to get the wiring together correctly.  A little forceful shoving and a whole lot of test runs finally fixed the one last leak from where I reconnected the pipes.  Okay, back down to flip the breaker.

Hurray!  It works! 

Everything is clean again, the trash is out - I even straightened up the workbench.  It must be time to call it quits, right?

At least until tomorrow.  My friend's daughter asked me today if she could come next weekend...and bring a friend...and a puppy.    She's taking the puppy to her father, who lives in Ohio.  They are meeting at my place, which is half way.  I've known her dad since elementary school, so well that he used to call me "Sis," so of course, I said he could stay as well. 

There is no incentive to get things done like company!

[okarol]

How are my freekin hero!!
I am learning so much! I need a voltmeter too!
What's the name of the book you're using?
  You're fearless!

[jbeany]

It's a Better Homes and Gardens book.  "Wiring:  Step by Step Instructions."  I know it's all available online, but as I don't have a laptop, I can't look online when my power is out!  The volt detector is like a magic trick.  When I get it near a hot wire, it lights up and beeps, without even toughing the wire.  I've had a regular meter for a while, but the detector is highly entertaining and useful.

Got the trim and the edge of the tub where the new lino meets it caulked in the bathroom, as well as some gaps in the trim in the hallway caulked over too.  That means the bath is officially finished, except for some final decision on artwork.  So far, I've just set the picture I had hanging in my apartment bath on the shelf in this one.  It may not get anything more for quite a while.

I unpacked the glass shelves for the curio cabinet, washed them, put them in it, and unpacked enough knickknacks, artwork, pictures, and other decor items to decorate the living room.  The bathroom vanity came with a mirror that doesn't work in the bathroom - no wall space left since I put a medicine cabinet over the vanity.  It was hanging out in my office, still in the box, when I realized it would look nice in the living room in the last empty spot on the wall.  I wanted something simple, and everything I had for artwork was going to look to fussy.  I like the way it looks, although I keep doing a double take as I walk by, wondering what's moving on the wall.  At any rate, the living room looks decorated finally.  Some of the pics and things ended up in the bedroom, so that looks a bit less barren as well.

I spent time working upstairs today.  I'm slowly working at heating the old lino off the built in desktop.  I was trying to heat and scrape the adhesive off, too, but umm....no.  It's nasty, and it's going to take weeks with a heat gun.  Time to get some chemicals and strip it in an afternoon.  I did unpack a large stack of boxes and sorted things into the built-in drawers.  Much of my material is now hanging in the closets, and many of my bins are now tucked away underneath the fabric.  It's lovely to see the floor space again, and I can't wait to get the desk done so I can really start setting up.  I'm tired of trying to find things for my craft classes and not having a clue where I've put them.

Company coming tomorrow, so I won't get much done this weekend.  Ah well, the mess will still be here when they've gone!

[okarol]

  Company! How nice!

[natnnnat]

Wow beany.  Your house is coming along something amazing! 

[Chris]

Sure you do not want a cable show on HGTV or TLC? 

[okarol]

It's a Better Homes and Gardens book.  "Wiring:  Step by Step Instructions."  I know it's all available online, but as I don't have a laptop, I can't look online when my power is out!  The volt detector is like a magic trick.  When I get it near a hot wire, it lights up and beeps, without even toughing the wire.  I've had a regular meter for a while, but the detector is highly entertaining and useful.

Found the book on Amazon - thanks.

[jbeany]

Sure you do not want a cable show on HGTV or TLC? 

Actually, filming the entire process would have gotten high ratings as a comedy...I can see high speed shots of me zooming up and down the steps, trying every combination possible on the breaker box, trying to figure out the tangled wiring.  I'm betting they would have done a slow-motion replay of the water in my face when I replaced the kitchen faucet.     Perhaps someone should consider it as a contrast to shows like "This Old House" when everyone always has the right tools and nothing ever goes wrong!

I'm getting my basement steps replaced on Tuesday!      My carpenter friend-of-a-friend finally had an opening in his schedule.  My bottom two steps have been a milk crates for the last month.  I can't wait to have sturdy, no-squeak steps with clean, wood tops that I can paint in fun colors!  I think I want to do ombre shading on them.  Paint the steps all the same color, but the risers a progressively lighter shade each step up.  I just have to add white to the color in increasing amounts as I work my way up.   

My company just left.  I need to do laundry to wash all the extra sheets and towels, and then get to work ripping out the old steps.  I'm hoping the replacements can be done in one day, so I'm going to give him a head start.

[jbeany]

My steps were started at 8:30 and finished by 1:30.  Travis works fast!  (And shirtless.  Darn, that was tough work, watching a buff, tan guy with great abs working on my house.  I might need a cold shower.)

I did tear all the treads and risers off last night, so that probably helped the work go faster.  Nothing like de-construction to work out your frustrations!  The only thing I left in place was the stringers - mostly because I couldn't get an leverage to knock them loose.  I'm too short!

I'm working on scraping the nasty, cracked laminate off the built-in desk upstairs.  The chemical stripper may have sped things up, but the smell sure is headache inducing.  Bleah.  Taking a break before I start patching the dings and sanding the last of the wood smooth.

Pics!

[okarol]

I was wondering how you got out of the basement with no stairs until I saw the ladder. Kitty found a way! New stairs look great and the paint idea sounds cool!

[AnnieB]

I'm getting wiped out just reading this thread......... Wish I had your energy! The house looks great, you really have a gift for this 

[jbeany]

Hmm...gift or curse?   

Finally mowed the lawn today.  The mower wouldn't start yesterday.  It's an electric start, so I plugged it in overnight, hoping the battery just needed charging.  Nope, was still doing the same thing today.  The motor would turn over, but not catch.  It had oil, it had gas, it had a charged battery and - well, seriously, it's an engine.  That's about as far as I get before I run out of bright ideas.  I'm smart enough to have added dry gas to my new car when it shuddered every now and then, but other than a few basic things, I'm not much good with engines.  And this is a lawnmower, not a car, so I really don't where things are.

So, I tried for a bit, and dug out the manuals and started to read all the troubleshooting tips.  No help there - the next thing it said to do was adjust the spark plugs.  No clue there.  Pity they didn't let me take auto shop in high school instead of home ec.  (With a professional chef for a dad and a former home ec teacher for a mom, the how to cook and sew class was a total waste of my time.)  Okay, last resort - text BIL with what I've checked so far, see if he's got any ideas to try.

He's working on his deck today, so I wasn't expecting an immediate response anyhow.  I got busy with a bunch of other things.  I watered the pinks my sister gave me to transplant.  I measured and started working on the pallets I'm turning into casual furniture for the rec room.  No response from BIL, so I decided to put the mower away and get it out of my work area in the garage. 

Of course, just because I was irritated with it not working, I tried the key one more time.

And it started.

And I had left my glasses in the house.

I REALLY didn't want to let go of it and have it shut off again.  What if it didn't restart?  My lawn wasn't getting any shorter.  I last mowed it 9 days ago.  If it had worked yesterday, 8 days of growth isn't too bad.  If the mower died again, it might be several more days before BIL could come see what was wrong.  Not a pretty picture.

So I mowed without my glasses.  Squinting in the sun isn't such a big deal - it was trying to figure out where my mowed lines were, when I couldn't tell the short grass from the long grass until I was right on top of it! 

Ah, well - After I shut it off, I went back over the few stray spots I missed with the weed wacker after I went and got my glasses.  It looks pretty good, really. 

Even with my glasses on.

[Chris]

Those velcro straps come in handy for the mower jbeany. It will keep the saftey switch engaged while you attend to something elsae in the way or in your case, get your glasses. Without looking hard to tell why it acted up, but I would have checked for a short in key areas between spark plug and ignition switch. Those troubleshooting tips in a manual never help, never list the problem you are having!

[jbeany]

Velcro would have been good!  I've got some giant twist ties that would have been helpful, too.  Must remember to wrap one around the handle.  If it's going to be fussy to start, I don't want to have to shut it off every time I need to move the lawn furniture or the gutter drain.

[Chris]

From my experience the twist tie route is not good. They wire tends to be to flimsy. But if you do use it, keep extras on hand.
 
In my day we did not have these darn saftey devices, we knew better!

[okarol]

Engines need air, fuel and a spark to start. Spark plugs can get a little gunky and not work. Sometimes you just unscrew them, wipe them off where the head is and it could help. Adjusting them is by checking the gap, but since you mowed 9 days ago it seems unlikely that the spark plugs would need adjusting. How does your air filter look? (I know this stuff from my motorcycle days.)

Here are some good tips http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL_DyQX29UQ It's a bit much but gives a general idea

[jbeany]

I don't think I've mowed more than 6 times - the drought killed the grass and there was little to mow in June and July.  It frustrates me to be having trouble already with a brand new mower.

Thanks for the link, karol - I'll take a look before I head out to try to get it started next week!

[jbeany]

I haven't posted on this in quite a while! I got off track once I started volunteering again, and things have been taking muuuuuuch longer to get done these days.

My brother-in-law finally had to come check my lawn mower.  It had something caught in the throttle spring.  He taught me how to check the spark plugs while he was here.

I have some incentive to get moving again now.  It looks like I've (been!) volunteered to hold the end-of-term party for the pro-bono clinic at my place.  I'm centrally located for most of the students, and I've got plenty of space for a party of 30 to 40 people.  20 students, 5 staff, and various dates and significant others.  Even if only half show up, it's going to be a crowd!

Sooooo - I've only got space if I have the family room downstairs finished.  Time to get moving again!

The biggest thing taking up space downstairs was all my crates and boxes of books, along with boxes of artwork.  Only way to move most of it was to put it away where it belongs.  Which would be the office, upstairs.  I've been plugging away at it for a while, but keep getting buried in paperwork for job apps, Assistance Apps, Ticket to Work - and oh yeah, the research for the huge trial I'm helping with.  I've been living with a giant mess for weeks now, as I puttered away at painting and other odd things like replacing all the broken cam locks that hold together my bookshelves.

My sister volunteered to come help me get rolling again this Saturday.  She's amazing at designing things, so I wanted her to spend her time here doing the decorating stuff, not the painting stuff.  I spent 12 hours Friday finishing the painting, washing the windows, scraping and puttying the window trim prior to painting it, and all the other annoying things I had been procrastinating on.  She came Saturday just as I was scrubbing the floor one last time, and we began hanging blinds, curtains, and artwork, as well as rearranging furniture, getting the room size rug in place, and hauling up the books and decor from the basement.  I got all the books shelved yesterday, and I spent today reorganizing files and office supplies. 

I still have papers from school to sort and shred, but everything is tucked neatly away, and there's no rush on doing those, thankfully.  I can start on the next room now.  I think I'm going to get the rest of the craft room together next, as I need my sewing machine set up properly so I can make cushions and curtains for downstairs.

Onward!

[jbeany]

And the finished project...

[cariad]

Wow, sounds like you've got our work cut out for you, but the finished bits look amazing. Nothing like a deadline to keep a person on track - and you will no doubt make an elegant and welcoming hostess when the party day arrives.

I wish you the best of luck. Now get moving!  

[MooseMom]

Oh wow...it all looks AMAZING!  I love love love the red accent wall.

[jbeany]

Next on the deadline list - paint the stairs to the upper level.  These were the ones I yanked the gawd-awful 70's green shag off the first day I owned the place.  I finally have them refinished - or at least close to it.  I swept them, scrubbed them, pulled all the stray nails and carpet tacks I missed or didn't have the tools to remove the first time, puttied them, sanded them, swept them again, vacuumed them, wiped them down, primered them, and painted two coats of brick red floor paint on them.  I think I need a third coat on the treads because the paint goes on thin, but they look really good.

The paint was one that came pre-colored, so I wasn't entirely sure how well it would match the tiny color sample on the label.  It is really close, but it's the scariest paint I've ever seen.  It dries a lovely brick red - but it goes on a horrible purple-mauve!  I had to get out my blow drier and double check. 

The cats were duly unimpressed.  I locked them out when I started painting at the top of the steps.  When I worked my way down far enough, I had to open the door at the bottom of the stairs to have room to work.  Since they wanted to help, they got locked in the bedroom.  The bedroom door is directly opposite the basement door, so they whined and begged to be let out the whole time, and glared under the door at me like I'd imprisoned them for life!