Thank you....

I would like to think, that everyday we are learning something new about ourselves and are gaining a better understanding of who we are. That as humans, we can achieve a closer appreciate of what we can and can not do…Well over the last couple of weeks, I feel that I have made that discovery. Technically it’s not a monumental innovation that will cure the current budget crisis and/or any diseases per say. But it is more of an internal observation. It’s a discovery that would make you say “Wow! Now that was different.”

I have mentally unearthed that I am getting old!!! Yes I said it… I am getting old!!!! I am not that 25 year old person that had the strength of an ox… Ok that was a little exaggerated, but I think you may know what I mean. My discovery was that I am not as strong as I once was. I can’t go out and lift a 300 pound radiator as if it is a 5 pound bag of potatoes, wait…that is exactly what I did….

Ok, let me explain, over the holidays I was working on the floor upstairs…As stated in my last journal entry. Well this guy, me, was thinking about the old Iron Man Competitions. You know the competitions where these strong guys push a bus and/or lift car with one finger… Well, I thought that it would be fun to move a radiator…But, I decided to deviate from the proper lifting techniques as shown below…

For more information on performing a Proper lifting Techniques please see…

http://myhealth.centrahealth.com/library/healthguide/en-us/support/topic.asp?hwid=hw206944

Anyway, this donkey decided that it would be wise to move the radiator while on my knees and with my body twisted to the right side…Ok, to be honest, I was working on the floor and realized that the radiator was in the way. So instead of lifting things correctly, I decided to cut a few corners in the process… I got lazy… Well, while moving the radiator, I got a hernia. My belly button swelled up to resemble a large hard green grape…or was it like a large hard purple grape… I guess the color doesn’t really matter… Anyway, I saw the doctor and he diagnosed me with an umbilical hernia.

On January 8, 2009, I had surgery to repair my umbilical hernia. Because of my stupidity, I have been under house arrest for two weeks. Well it feels like house arrest…Especially when there is nothing on TV except the mid-day soups opera’s… I have been unable to lift heavy objects and perform any tasks for upstairs. I have been informed that I will be able to return to work on January 22, 2009. But yet another delay in getting the upstairs completed. But I would like to personally thank Wilson, Joe, Nestor (my dad), Eric (Plumber), and Sarah for helping me out during my healing process.

Ok, enough about me, let’s talk about the house… A couple of days ago, I was talking with Eric about how I needed to refill the furnace everyday. He walked around the apartment and noticed the air vents. It turns out that the air vents that I installed into the baseboard radiator were incorrect. Their main purpose is to depressurize tanks. I guess my friends at the Super Box Hardware Store don’t know it all… Anyway, Eric explained what needed to happen and purchased the correct air vents. We installed them and thus far, I have not needed to refill the tank for at least 24 hours…Plus, it has been a little warmer in the house... Ok now I need to locate the other water leaks…

Here are two pictures showing the correct vents. As you can see in the photos, the walls look pretty beating up...

One morning at around 4 in the morning, I heard a fire alarm go off. It was coming from upstairs... When I entered the apartment, it was like walking into a sauna. The steam was escaping from several open valves. I have not been upstairs for sometime and the valves must have vibrated open from the pressure of the steam. After removing the batteries from the fire alarm and returning to sleep. I later contacted Wilson to help reinstall the radiator upstairs. With my situation of not being able to lift heavy objects, he brought along his friend, Joe. They both moved the radiators to their appropriate places and threaded them in. It turns out that two of the radiators are leaking at the nut portion of the radiator. So I may need to replace the locking assembly. I’ll have to consult Eric about that…But after install the radiators, the batteries were reinstalled to the fire alarms. Luckily, it also turns out that Wilson’s friend, Joe is a welder. So he is going to attempt to weld the cracked radiator. Hopefully some positive news there…

Anyway, I know this is not the standard journal entry that you may normally read here. But I just wanted to let everyone to know that I’m healthy and doing well. I am slowly recovering and do not plan on doing anything too excessive over the next couple of weeks. So the entries will be slow. But I am optimistic that I will be returning to my old clumsy self. I would like to thank everyone for their well wishes and prayers. Thank you… Until, next time…

Focus....

I can sit here and say, “Yes! Since my time off from work, I have been a diligent worker and have been working on the apartment upstairs” and/or also say “everything is going to according to plan”…. But that wouldn’t be the truth…With the snow and extreme cold over the last couple of days, my patients with this house has been running thin. But more on that later…I have been living here for over 5 months and I feel drained from all of the work. I have to admit, with all of the set backs, I wonder will I ever get the upstairs completed. As you can probably notice, I’m starting to lose focus…I wonder in the New Year if this place will eventually bring me happiness… I have to admit, every time I take a step forward, I feel like I’m taking two steps back…My plans have been adjusted several times due to the set backs. But that’s life... Nothing goes according to plan… Murphy’s Law 101….

Anyway, as a yearly tradition, many of us make New Year’s resolution, a decree and/or a mission statement. I wish all of your resolutions come true...I however, normally don’t make a New Year’s resolutions per say… But this year, I do have two, plus the standard ones…. You know get in shape, stop eating chocolate and so on… Well, I will reveal only one of my wishes… Sorry, the other one is kind of personnel, plus this journal is about the house…. “My wish is to get the upstairs ready for an occupant before 2010” Yes that was way too easy…. But let’s move on…

I had initially planned on working upstairs over the holidays. But I had a personal reason that caused the delay… I honestly have to admit though, it was worth the postponement…But, I also can not forget the set backs that didn’t help... The set back was the furnace. Part of the problem is that the water storage within the furnace. The water within the furnace is used to create steam to heat the house. The water is evaporating way too quickly, in-turn causing me to refill the furnace twice a day. When the furnace kicks on, the apartment would sound like a steam locomotive racing across the tracks trying to get Marty McFly back to 1985…

Additionally, because of the one inlet and outlet pipe to heat the house, a banging noise can be heard. The banging noise is caused when the hot steam air is blocked by trapped water. The banging noise can be heard as if someone is hitting the pipes with a sledge hammer. The noise is deafening at 4 in the morning… I believe I may have found the source of the disrupting noise, but I need to investigate further to resolve this issue...

But to stop the time travel of McFly, I was able to finally fix the pressure valve issue. The problem was with a pressure valve in my appartment. I had previously mentioned this valve. It turns out that it was a subassembly that was threaded into an adapter. Here are the photos showing the assembly.

Note the damage walls and floor caused by the dispersed water vapors. I had to cut back the carpet to remove the metal cover.

Here is a photo showing the old valve. The adapter portion was originally flush against the radiator and was difficult to differentiate, thus causing me to remove the wrong portion of the valve.
Here is a photo of the disassembled valve.

Here is the replacement valve...

Within the bathroom, the light fixture was finally installed. The wall was repaired and painted.
The big project that was accomplished over the holidays was the dining room floor. You may remember the results from the cracked radiator. I removed all of the water damaged wood and investigated the joist further. Luckily the joists were not damaged. Here are the photo sequences of the repaired process.

Photo showing the removed damaged wood and flooring.

Photo showing all of the water damaged wood removed and gaining visual access to the floor joist

Here I installed a new piece of 2X4 to help with installing a new floor section.

Plywood was cut to fit the access hole.

Because the existing subfloor is so thick, about 3 inches, I installed two pieces of 2X4 to help make the floor level.

After securing the two 2X4's, a larger piece of plywood was secured on top of the 2X4…

To complete this task, a piece of Luan Plywood will be used over the new piece of plywood. Then I will install replacement peal and stick tiles to finish the job… The only thing left is to get a replacement radiator… Ok until next time..

Happy New Year

I will like to wish everyone a safe and Happy New Year!!!!

~Angel

Almost there.... Ok maybe not....

This week, several positive and negative items were revealed. I will begin by highlighting the encouraging item then to the unenthusiastic. The plumber was able to update the toilets and sinks for both bathrooms. For the second floor bathroom, he was able to install the vanity top and faucets to include the toilets.

Here is a picture showing the new vanity with the faucet installed for the upstairs bathroom. I would like to take this moment to thank my mom for selecting this faucet. It looks appropriate for this room.
Here is a picture showing the new toilet installed for the upstairs bathroom. As you can see with a couple of minor fixes the bathroom should be completed soon.

Here is a picture showing the new vanity with faucet installed for my bathroom.

I would like to take this moment to thank Kylie for helping me find this wonderful faucet. She had asked a while back as into what I was thinking for a faucet and she was able to help me find this reasonably cost faucet. Thanks…
Here is a picture showing the new toilet installed for my apartment. Good bye yellow toilet… I also forgot to mention that the plumber also changed the hardware on my tub. As you can see in the next photo, the drain was damaged and pretty disgusting with the calcium build up… (Yes that is a yellow tub)

Before

Here is a picture showing the new hardware for my yellow tub… Yes I have a problem with the color… But it’s ok for now… The rest of the updates for this bathroom will have to wait.

Anyway, for the other updates conducted this week were the installation of the six new windows. Here is a picture showing one of the newly installed windows.... The only thing left to complete the window tasks is to install insulation and new wood trim. Because of the high energy efficiency of the windows, I will eventually update all of the windows throughout the entire house, especially since the windows are extremely easy to install and fairly cheap (Bob you Tool!!!).

Now for the set backs…. With the plumber on site, I was able to get him to cap the radiator valve until I am able to replace the cracked radiator. You may remember a while back where I mentioned that the radiator looked to have a crack and was leaking pretty profusely. I also noticed that the radiator was starting to sink into the floor. NOT GOOD!!!! After removing the radiator, I was able to easily remove the peal and stick tiles. Here is a picture of what the floor looked like after removing the radiator….

Well it looks like I need to remove a section of the floor and hope that the floor joists are in good shape. PLEASE!!!!! My concern is that I will need to remove part of the wall within my apartment to reinforce the damaged joist…

I started to remove the floor and realized that the water damage was pretty excessive. Thus far it doesn’t look like the floor joist are a concern. However, I was unable to remove all of the flooring as of yet to make a solid judgment on the floor joints. It looks like the floor has two layers of hardwood planks. I will have to cut the floor boards without damaging the joist… As you can see from the photo, the hole into the floor is a result from the rotten wood that was removed. My plan at the moment is to remove all of the rotten sections and replace it with plywood. I hope to utilize the existing floor joist. But if there is any damage, I will need to sister the floor joist to minimize any further damage. . I just realized something; I might have to retile the entire floor in this room. I am not sure if I can locate the same peal and stick tiles. Problem after problem….

Here is a picture of the damaged radiator.

In this picture you can see the hair line crack into the radiator. I am not sure what may have caused this hair line crack. But it sure did its share of damage... I wonder if it can be repaired, but regardless, it certainly has to be fixed…. Anyway, until next time…

Attic Protector.....

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I can try to get back on schedule. The previous week saw some new improvements to the exterior of the house. When I initially purchased the house, the trim around the windows and the roof were missing metal flashing. The exposed wood was pretty beat up. Holes within the trim work gave access to any creature searching for a warm place for the winter. Too be honest, with the discovery of bats within the attic, this tasked was place on my highest priority. So with that said, I had hired a contractor to perform this task back in August. About a day after I moved into the house, he was commissioned to start work immediately. The only problem was that my contractor wasn’t seeing the same priority list. But I’m happy to finally say that he completed the job yesterday (Yes about 5 months later)...

This picture is the house prior to any work being done to the house.

The trim work above the metal awning shows exposed dark wood, with paint chips pealing off.

Here is a good picture showing the exposed wood trim around one of the windows. All of the windows installed to the house looked similar to this picture.

The second floor bathroom is located in this area of the house. The exposed wood trim is where animals entered into the bathroom ceiling.

When it rained, the back porch would get completely wet. The rain would drip back onto the two porches. So I decided to install new gutters for this location. I felt that when it rained on those hot days, someone would want to relax and sit on the back porch.

This picture shows the trim work completed. The windows look cleaner.

Here is a close up of the windows with the new metal flashing. All of the windows look this good, clean and professional.

The new gutter was also installed.

Another picture of the gutter, but you can also note the new flashing prohibiting access to the bathroom ceiling. The next task on the list is to install the new windows. They finally arrived last Thursday. So I’ll be happily installing them this coming week. I hope you enjoyed this installment, but until next, have fun…

New look....

With the furnace issue temporarily out of the way, I was able to refocus my efforts towards finishing the bathroom upstairs. The interesting part about this week is that I am able to reveal some updates of my own personnel bathroom downstairs. Some portions of my bathroom have been updated since my first week of moving here, however, I think the recently added items constitutes a description.

But first let me explain about my adventure of installing the second floor bathroom vanity. I first used a stud finder to locate the studs within the wall. I marked off their locations and then leveled the cabinet portion of the vanity. I used wood shims to help with the leveling process. I fastened the leveled cabinet to the stud using a 2 ½ inch drywall screw. Prior to installing additional screws , I rechecked the cabinet to ensure that it was still leveled.

"STILL GOOD!!!"

After installing the cabinet, I decided to see how the sink would look. This picture shows the vanity without the faucets. The plumber will be soldering on new valves for the water inlets. He will also be installing the vanity water waste pipe. Because he will be on site, I decided it would be cost effective to have him do both the upstairs and downstairs install of the water waste pipes and inlets. That is the reason for the update to my bathroom.



This picture shows that with the new vanity installed, access to the window and radiator is easily possible. Anyway, after installing the vanity, I decided it was time to install the new light fixture.



OOPS!!!!! Well there's your problem… It would appear that the opening is larger then the light fixture.



Ok sort of an easy fix.... I first remove the light fixture and install a small piece of drywall to the bottom section of the opening. The drywall piece was temporarily secured with mesh drywall tape. I also used a small piece of the mesh drywall tape for the top section. Joint compound was used to secure and mask the added tape and drywall. After the repaired section dries, I will be able to sand and repaint it.

Until then, I decided to move onto my bathroom downstairs. I guess I should give a brief description about my bathroom. The bathroom has the original sunshine yellow color that the previous owner had painted. The cabinet was a white vanity and a matching mirror cabinet. I’ve left the wall color because I wanted to focus primarily upstairs. So the sunshine yellow color will stay for the time being… The tub and toilet are a matching mustard yellow… The bath tub walls are tiled with white and blue sail boats…


I’ve updated some items, like two new towel racks, shower curtain rod, and shower head. But, I’ll go into more detail about those items shortly. Anyway, the plumber will be installing new hardware for the bathtub, a new toilet, and the required fixtures for the vanity.

Why am I changing the vanity downstairs you ask? Well, for two reasons, the first is because the color of the white vanity was starting to closely matching the wall color, pretty disgusting really. The second reason is because I fell in love with this marble top vanity and wanted it for upstairs… But it just happened, when I purchased the vanity for upstairs, it was way too large. “To be honest, I didn’t measure”…. It turned out that if used, there would be no access to the window and radiator. So instead of returning it and paying a 15% restocking fee, I decided to keep it…

The reason for the new toilet is not only because of the mustard yellow, but because it continues to leak. Every hour on the hour you can hear the toilet flushing… But it will be nice to finally get a working toilet.

Here is one of the towel racks that were installed.

Here is a picture of the second towel rack and also the shower curtain with the new rod. The rod is a curved shower curtain rod that gives an additional 8 inches of room in the shower. It helps with giving the upper body more room to move around in the shower…

I also had installed a new shower head. The shower head has 8 setting for dispersing water. My favorite setting is the one that simulates rain. I have to admit it is extremely soothing…

Now that you know what has been updated. I can start with the demolition of the vanity. I first remove the counter top. I had to use a hammer and chisel to remove the top. As usual the counter top was glued to the cabinet.

Here is a picture of the old vanity completely removed.

Here is a picture of the new vanity with the marble top. You may notice the damage paint on the wall, this was done while removing the previous vanity. I’m not too worried about fixing it. Anyway, after completely installing the vanity, I plan on installing a new mirror and light fixture. The completion of my personal bathroom will not be completed until upstairs is done.

With both vanities install, I have to now wait for the plumber to install the required hardware… Anyway until next time…

Oh yeah, before I forget… So the plumber needs access to the first floors tub trap to exchange the required hardware. The tubs trap is located in the basement. Check out the spider webs….

Here is a picture of the entrance to the traps location.

Here is a picture showing the pipes for the tub. Well Mr. Plumber good luck with that...Until next time....