Mooserific!

Melting snow, singing birds

Finally, the winter doldrums seem to be coming to an end.  Signs of Spring are suddenly with us!  The sun is shining, the birds are singing, we’re making progress on our bedroom makeover, and the house is seeming cheerier.  The snow is almost completely melted in our shady backyard.  We have a number of bulbs coming up in our front yard, and birds other than cardinals are discovering our bird feeder.  We don’t get as much exciting light here as we did in our window-filled loft apartment, but the bird songs make up for it.  It’s nice to be able to open the windows and hear nothing but bird songs.  No highway traffic noise here!  I hope it remains happily peaceful as neighbors start to emerge from hibernation.

Leaks and trim

The past week has been a busy one.

We discovered a tiny leak in our (finished) basement. It looked like it had been going on for a while, so I pulled off the drywall to see what I could see. The leak appears to be between the slab and the wall. It looked like the wall had been shoddily repaired, but whatever waterproofing was done was only partially successful. We’re getting quotes now for some injection waterproofing and perhaps a french drain to prevent the water from getting under the house in the first place.

After getting a roof rack for the Volkswagen, I’m happily buying lumber and installing window trim in our bedroom.

I’m almost done. We plan on painting, removing the horrible jungle-themed fan, and installing wood floors. After that, it’s on to Abigail’s room. June seems closer and closer…

Odds and ends

Whenever we have a few extra minutes, we swap out some door hardware. We’re moving from those darn brass knobs and hinges to nice brushed nickel hinges and levers. It makes a surprisingly big difference.

I’ve also been swapping out light switches because Venus and I like the wide paddle style switches and the old switches were a bit grungy and loose. In the process of replacing the 3-way switches in our hall, I discovered that they were wired oddly. In the process of correcting it, I removed the hall light fixture and was shocked to discover cracked and crumbling insulation and burn marks. The house wiring was fine, but that fixture got replaced in a hurry, as did its twin in our bathroom. The new fixtures look great. I highly recommend Taunton’s Wiring Complete. It’s been tremendously useful.

Defenestration?

I’ve spent a great many hours over the last week working on my biggest projects yet: window trim. I’ve learned a lot (and purchased a great many tools).

Here’s where we started. As you can see, they have no trim and there is a marble sill. All in all, I’m reminded of the cheap apartment I lived in during college. We’re planning on painting soon, so we decided to add trim first. I started in the master bath because we’re not using it much, so if the project went horribly we could just seal it off and pretend it never happened.

My father helped me come up with a plan. Our house doesn’t have much in the way of trim now, so we were starting with a blank slate: we’ll use the same pattern throughout the house eventually. We decided on a design that will provide some shadow lines but will be simple-looking enough to go with the house’s modern exterior. We chose to use poplar because we intend to paint– we didn’t want a wood with a lot of grain.

Here’s the finished product. The side casings are 1x4 and the head casing and apron are 1x6. The back band is 2x2 rabbeted into an L-shape and then trimmed down to ¾ in on the front face and coped to the wall. Originally, we had no back band, a 1x8 head casing, and I planned to install strips of molding at the top of the cap and under the apron. The intent was to make the ceiling look taller, but it was just too much, especially for a tiny bathroom.

I’m delighted with how the window turned out. I still need to fill in the nail holes, sand, and prepare the window for painting. We have two windows to do in our bedroom. I’ll start those just as soon as I figure out how to cram 8 ft boards into the Golf.

Little buddy

I now firmly believe that everyone that everyone should have a nailer. Driving nails with a hammer is a pain and all I could think about whilst hammering was just how many nails I’ll have to drive in this house. I started researching nailers and quickly became enamored with Paslode’s line of cordless nailers. They use internal combustion, so there’s no need for a noisy compressor and unwieldy hoses. Unfortunately for me, they’re also pretty expensive.

I didn’t give up hope and checked Craigslist. That’s where I found my little buddy, a 16-gauge straight finish nailer. It’s several years old, but it was regularly serviced and works like a champ. What once took 15 minutes now takes 15 seconds. I’m delighted!

A snow day means...

A surprise day off work today due to the lovely winter snow storm allowed me some extra time for home dreaming and minor home repairs.  Prior to today, most of my home improvement energy has been has been consumed by cleaning.  This house was so dusty when we moved in!  Our Dyson filled up quickly, over and over again.

Now that the house is clean, I can focus my attention elsewhere.  As John mentioned, I hate the abundance of brass hardware in our house.  Our door handles, door hinges, door stops and a few of our light fixtures are yucky imitation gold. During our most recent trip to Lowes, we picked up some new chrome door fixtures. I had big plans to change out the whole first floor today.  A tall order with three bedroom doors, two bathroom doors, and two closet doors.  After easily replacing one door hinge and two door handles today, I recognized though that once again I was putting the cart before the horse.  Although the change was quick and easy, I realized that the doors and trim really needs to be painted first. Why put them on and then have to take them off again when we paint? That’s just silly! So instead of completing this project, I got online and started dreaming about other changes. Of course we “need” curtains for the living room and master bedroom, new master bedroom furniture, a bird feeder, and so many other things.  Bouncing around between Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and Amazon, I very quickly lost an hour or two.  I reined myself in though, and with John’s encouragement thought about changes we really need to make first.  Thus, my brain’s now back where it should be and I’m thinking about crown molding and trim.  With our bedroom as major project number one, we first need to install trim and then focus on painting.  (Some light and cheery Martha “whites” for our northern room.)  We’re thinking an Arts and Crafts style trim would best suit us.  I think I found a nice model too.  Another young couple with a home lacking in these details had just the right example.

Anyway,  that’s blog post number one.  I think I’ll bundle up now and lovingly toss snow balls at John while he shovels our driveway and walk.  I may take some snow day pictures too.

So far

…so good.

The first order of business was replacing all the locks. Schlage made it pretty easy. Yay for now only having to carry a single key.

I got our washer and dryer installed. It sounds simple, but it proved to be more difficult than we expected when I had to flip the receptacle. It had mysteriously been installed upside down. Come to think of it, all of our receptacles are upside down– the ground plug goes on top, darn it!

Next, and my biggest project so far, was replacing the asthmatic vent fan in our main bathroom with a new fan capable of moving 140cfm. It’s quiet, too, at just 2 sones. Our attic is only about 5 feet tall at its peak. I am 6 feet, 6 inches tall, so I spent a lot of time on my hands and knees. I did get to buy a wonderful jigsaw, which more than makes up for a case of fiberglass insulation itchiness.

This morning we leveled the stove after noticing that all of our cooking was sliding towards us. Ah, much better. Tonight we replaced the battered air vents in our living room. We just didn’t think that the duct tape holding them together improved the room’s æsthetics.

I’ll let Venus tell you about her hatred of brass hardware and the banana boat fan.

Two weeks later

Welcome to our better-late-than-never home improvement blog. Two weeks ago we bought our first house. It is a simple 70’s ranch located in lovely Edgewood, Kentucky– just across the river from Cincinnati.

We’re unpacked now and have already completed several projects. We’re not doing anything too serious– the house’s bones are great– but we both grew up in older houses and thus feel it’s a bit lacking in trim and detail. We’ll use this site as a record of our progress.