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If you've paid attention to status reports on various remodel things I've done around the house (click on the "home improvement" tag at right for a refresher) you've heard me say many times that the previous owners were crackheads. Surely it can't be that bad, can it?
Submitted for your approval: This is the junction box which connects the wiring for the entire back side of the house to the fluorescent light I'm removing and the power from the breaker box. What do you see a lot of? Black electrical tape. What do you see none of? Wiring caps. What does this junction box really look like? A plastic light fixture screwed to a beam with the two screws for a fixture still intact and no cover to keep the wiring in. Can you make hide or hair of how this electrical spaghetti is configured? Not a clue. How old is this? The lizard-skin looking stuff may date to 1959 but the light and that grey cable were installed in 1991 so the mess you see here is probably 15 years old. And for sure they had building codes to follow at that time, but didn't.
I bought a new metal box with a cover, removed this, and mounted it in the same place... and replaced two of the three cables, using end caps to connect the wiring. (The third cable with the red wire is the one to the switch on the wall... it's ugly but in functional condition and would be a bitch to restring.) See below for the result.
It's for reasons like this that simple home improvement tasks become convoluted. You can't ignore this unsafe crap -- hell, you can't work very well with this crap if you wanted to ignore it, see above -- so you've gotta fix it. The timeline grows exponentially.
This sign originally hung in the Information Booth at the Kent State Student Center throughout the 1990s.
We replaced the fan in the livingroom. It only had one light-bulb and was small, as for a small bedroom. This one really lights up the room. The picture doesn't do the light justice. It really is bright, but I'm uploading the dark version so you can't see all the dust that was on my ceiling!
The plan is to wall off the back corner to make it the utility/storage area. Hanging thedoor is the next step then we need to redo the plumbing a bit.
Time has come to fix up the dining area in the house. New floor coming but first is painting the walls.
Day 1 involved planing the boards and attaching pieces to the ends to bring them to the rough final length.
End of the week and not quite picked up - but the curtains are hung. Still may add some glass pull knobs on the end as finials. And of course all the primping of something new - like training the pleats, putting some weighted washers in the hems to hold them down straight.....all the things a grandma would teach you about curtains and drapes.
We cut down our popular boards for trim in our dining room. Joanna primed and painted the boards in the outbuilding.
We were warned by the gentleman we bought our secondhand Rainbow Playset from that weed wackers will take their toll on the wood. He had done his best but over the 7 years he owned it the wood had taken a beating in spots. My solution is to add some protection to the most vulnerable areas, mainly the legs.
I bought some 22 guage steel from Home Depot and using a grinding wheel cut it into strips/pieces to fit around the base of the legs. I made each piece only 3" tall figuring it's only there to protect it from a weed wacker hitting it. I only protected 3 of the 4 sides and attached each piece with 4 wood screws.
I used a can of Rustolium to protect the metal. Eventually we'll be restaining the wood and the brown metal won't stick out as much.
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Once upon time, in a quiet village, stood a small bungalow, which suffered from neglect because its owners didn't have any money to maintain it properly. A sign "for sale" had been standing in the front garden for a very long time, but nobody was interested since the bungalow was of very modern design, which was a sharp contrast to the rest of the historic village. Day after day the wood rotted away and nature slowly took over the garden, until only a complete make-over could help the bungalow to survive...
Rebuilt the shelf over the washing machine from scratch. The old one -- what's left of it is sitting on the washer -- had its backboard crack around where it was bolted to the wall and most of its nails were rotted away. Wish I had a "before" pic showing the old shelf before it fell apart, but the washer and dryer in the garage aren't exactly regular photography subjects.
I was trying to show someone my front door -- to prove that not all doors are brown, white, or red -- and saw I forgot to upload a photo at the time. Oversight! So here it is.
Paints (dark grey, light grey, and purple) by Miller. Lighting (also hadn't been uploaded earlier, also rectifying now) by Crescent. House number is from vintage gas station signage, obtained at Persnickety in Sumner WA.
Once upon time, in a quiet village, stood a small bungalow, which suffered from neglect because its owners didn't have any money to maintain it properly. A sign "for sale" had been standing in the front garden for a very long time, but nobody was interested since the bungalow was of very modern design, which was a sharp contrast to the rest of the historic village. Day after day the wood rotted away and nature slowly took over the garden, until only a complete make-over could help the bungalow to survive...
Ok, it's not exactly a marvel of engineering, but I take certain amount of pride in making this all by myself. The old shelf's backing was two thin boards. Here I opted to go with a single piece of 1/2 inch plywood I had lying around in my garage.
I wanted a great front light, something in pewter, to be better than the plastic thing that was there before I tore it off. Funny, I ordered a second one like this for the back but the store ran out of pewter, and no way did I want something that looked like galvanized steel (which is what showed up at the store under the same part number two weeks later).
Old: tattered loud 100W mercury vapor light.
New: spiffy silent 42W LED light (2480 lm).
Also, a little bit of long-overdue painting and flashing replacement.
Both photos are the same corner of the overhang, but from slightly different angles, and you can see how far apart the fixtures were installed. I get it that the arm needed the additional support of the crossbeam, but mounted directly to the corner makes more sense for this lighter new fixture.
I spent my entire Sunday replacing the columns on my porch. They were rotting from the bottom and were pretty ugly to begin with. We decided on some colonial style columns from Home Depot. All that's left to do is give them a nice coat of exterior paint. The next project is trying to get my power washer to start. The house is filthy and needs a paint job.
One of the things in need of repair are the drain pipes for the house downspouts. Over the last 50 years the current pipes have been crushed flat by the growing trees.
This is my newly installed toilet flushing. And better yet-- it is flushing without leaks. I had someone help me carry the toilet upstairs-- after that I did all the installation myself.
Fuck yeah! Go toilet go!
I replaced our leaking faucet and part of the drainpipe today. This was the creature that had been living in the drain. The first two feet of the creature, mind you. The remainder escaped down the sewer pipe and must now be plotting elaborate revenge. I especially recommend a 1:1 zoom if you aren't planning on eating soon. Color and contrast aren't accurately represented since I had to reprocess a lot to fix the exposure. Just imagine it in glistening dark grey, with chunky spurts of black silty water.
Grandpa came and helped on the third day. We got a lot done but there's probably 2 more day of work left. About half of the remaining sheets can be hung without needing the lift but another rental will be needed at some point.
The finished paint job. Looks a bit purply sometimes, but I think grey was a good choice with the pink tiles.