Lensday: Sunset

Taken Friday, January 11 from our bedroom window.

See more Lensday here.

New Lamp

As Amy is well aware my ability to wake up in the morning and my mood are greatly affected by light. Several years ago Amy bought me a sunrise alarm clock which was a welcome addition to our bedroom. That clock worked fine until it's little computer brain got fried by one of the numerous power outages we have. We had it fixed once. The second time it just didn't seem worth it.

After most of a year without the morning advantage of the sunrise clock I bought another. This came with several other bells and whistles. I didn't need the bells and whistles, particularly not the aroma therapy option, although the ambient noise options are at least amusing. In addition the light had a basic problem - the light isn't bright enough and didn't help wake me up.

So with the shorter days of winter fast approaching I went in search of a replacement. I found a gizmo that any lamp can be plugged into that is supposed to turn the light on gradually simulating sun rise. This meant that I could use any lamp.

Last weekend I went lamp shopping. I knew I wanted a wall lamp with a cord (as opposed to one that gets wired into the household wiring), to free up space on my night table. My first stop was the big orange store where I struck out. There were only a couple of options that fit my criteria and I just didn't like them. After a stop at home I headed to the lighting specialty store near our house. There I found this beauty, and I got a great deal (25% of the original price) on it. I mounted it on the wall on Monday, and plugged in the timer gizmo. The good news is the light is coming on in the morning and it's been much easier for me to get up, and I'm not as grouchy. The bad news is that the timer gizmo is not doing what it's supposed to be doing. It is turning the light on, but it's not doing it gradually. I'm going to play with it a little more, but I may have to return it for replacement.

Painted Bathroom

This is what our bathroom looked like on Thursday. We've done some work on it recently - replacing the floor and toilet in April, and fixing the wall of the tub in August or maybe it was Labor Day weekend (I honestly can't remember exactly when).

I didn't blog about the the wall at the time. The tub surround is made up of 5 plastic panels. The 3 on the long side of the tub have been loose for years and we knew that the wall behind them was in rough shape. It's never a good sign when there is the sound of debris falling any time the wall is bumped. So, I pulled down the molding holding the panels, the window frame and the panels except the one on the faucet end. The intent was to reuse as much as possible. This effort was thwarted when it came to the window frame. Whoever installed it glued it to the framing. The only way to get it off was to pry off as much as possible and then chisel off the remainder.

The glued on frame wasn't the biggest surprise I got, though. Once the panels were down I cleaned up the deteriorated wall board and began taking down the remaining wall board underneath the window. This part of the wall had been patched before. The last patch was done with two layers of wall board (1/2 inch I think) which did not quite equal the depth of the original wall. To bring the wall out to the correct dimension they shimmed it with cardboard. That's right inside the tub wall there were cardboard shims. Pieces of boxes.

With that cleared out I shored up a couple of the studs, no major damage but it made me feel better, and patched the wall with cement board. Two tubes of construction adhesive later the panels were back in place. I reused the molding at the top of the panels, added quarter round plastic molding to the tub edge and reframed the window using plastic trim. I did NOT glue the window trim in place. A fair amount of chaulk later the bathroom was ready for use.

One of the casualties of the tub wall replacement was a portion of the wallpaper above the window. Underneath was a lovely pink color. We are not pink loving people. We also have never been fond of the wallpaper. Which brings me back to this weekend.

Amy headed off to Arkansas on Thursday morning and unbeknownst to her I headed to Home Depot. Actually I didn't make it to the big orange store until Thursday evening, after kayaking and playing with some new software. But I digress. At the store I picked up ceiling paint, primer, wall paint, a new towel bar, wallpaper stripping tools and a roll of painters tape.

Back home again I emptied the bathroom, took down the shower curtain, took the green cabinet in the picture above off the wall, removed the tp holder and the outlet cover. The picture is of the outlet cover with most of the wall paper removed.


I'm entertained that the wallpaper was attached to the outlet cover with masking tape. Incidentally as is to be expected of 20 year old (or so) wallpaper it had faded considerably. The paper under the edges of the outlet cover was more purple than blue.

With the room cleared it was time to cover up the pieces I didn't remove. Most of a roll of painters tape and a goodly amount of plastic tarp later the room was ready for the fun to begin.


Then it was time to strip. Not me the wallpaper :-). The good news is that most of it came off in large swathes. The remainder yielded pretty quickly to the wallpaper remover and a thin putty knife. Unfortunately some of the wall also gave way. One "interesting" discovery was the pink plastic tile under the sink. It's still there and will be until the sink comes off the wall. It goes so nicely with the pink paint that was on the upper part of the wall.


With the wallpaper removed it was time to clean the walls. I must have looked ridiculous mopping the walls with a sponge mop, but it did the job and the scouring pad on the edge of the sponge was particularly helpful in removing mildew. Plus I was able to do the work with my feet on the floor rather than having to maneuver on the ladder.

Before I started painting I patched the places in the wall where the plaster had come away with the wall paper. Luckily there weren't very many of them and most were smaller than a dime. Unfortunately there were two 7X7 spots just above the toilet that needed patching. The patch job on those is satisfactory at best. If you look at the bottom of the photo in a larger view you can see the patched areas.

Finally it was time for paint. The ceiling got two coats of a white mildew resistant paint. First step on the walls was primer. The pink on the walls showed through the primer pretty strongly. This picture also gives a pretty good look at the taping/tarping job. (The yellowish panel at the right is part of the tub surround.)

Finally it was time for the top coat on the walls. I'd picked out a very subtle green. When I started putting it on the walls it looked a bit too subtle. I decided to go ahead with a coat anyway since it was at least banishing the pink. The color was so subtle it was hard to tell where the ceiling white ended and the wall color began. So, it was off to the big orange store again (trip number 3 I think). The color I got on this trip was significantly darker than the first.

Getting the darker paint onto the walls went fairly smoothly. As it dried I realized it hadn't covered as completely as I would have liked so I ended up doing a fair amount of touch-up. I finished the touch-up yesterday morning. The hardest part of the touch up was getting paint between the sink and the wall. There is only about an inch of space there. I ended up wrapping the sink in plastic wrap (a challenge in and of itself) so that I had as much space as possible to work in.

Once the paint dried it was time to put the room back together, and remove the tape. Most of the tape came off cleanly. In a couple of spots I had to use a razor blade knife to get the tape off. Putting the tp holder back up proved to be fairly difficult, although this may have been because it was late and I was so tired I couldn't see straight. The cabinet also proved to be troublesome. I did get it back up, but any other cabinets I install will be installed with cleats. (See the end of this post for an explanation.)

I had acquired a new towel bar and hook for the bathmat, so the next step was mounting these. When I opened the towel bar package I discovered that one of the mounting plates was missing. This required another visit to the big orange store. I was not happy about this. At that point (mid-day Monday) I was trying to get the room back together, cleaned, all the tools and supplies put away and a couple of other cleanup items (dishes, recycling) before Amy returned home at 7ish. The good news is that I was able to get the missing bracket without any hassle. Back home I got the brackets mounted for the towel bar and the hook without incident. It took about 3 times longer than I had expected to tighten the items to the mounting plates. They attach with a tiny set screw that is tightened with an allen wrench (hex shaped) and I couldn't get a good angle to be able to both see what I was doing and actually do it.

A final scrubbing of the room finished up the work (and I even had time to give my kayak a wash). Almost forgot - while I was at it I replaced the black sockets with a white one, and the rusty metal face plate as well. Here are the results.



We do need to do a little more touch up, but all and all I'm very pleased. The only problem is that without the distraction of the flowers the wall above the towel bar looks very stark. We may have to acquire some artwork for it.

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Cleat explanation: The cleat to hang a cabinet is created by cutting a piece of wood at an angle on the long edge. The bottom half is attached to the wall and the top half is attached to the cabinet. Mounting the cabinet just requires slipping the top portion of the cleat onto the bottom portion.

New Throne - Day Two

If you haven't ready Day 1, I'd suggest reading that first so you get the whole story.

After a well deserved rest at the hotel Saturday night, and a hearty hotel breakfast we headed back to the house on Pickerel Pond to continue our rehabilitation of our bathroom.

Step fifteen: Replace floor. We bought the replacement vinyl tiles years ago for the other (non-working - a story for another day) bathroom in our house. Early this year they made their way to the yard sale pile. They didn't sell so when we decided to replace the floor and toilet it made sense to put them to use.

The entire floor contains 20 tiles. I took probably 25 to get them in. First error I started in the corner nearest the door (bottom right of photo). The problem with this was that the tiles at the end fit further under the threshold and baseboard than the third tile on the wall with the door. Despite numerous vacuum passes the tiles picked up fuzz and other debris so were unusable again. With that problem solved the job went quickly until it came time to start cutting tiles.

Seven of the tiles required cutting - 2 around the drain, and 5 along the tub. Cutting the tiles for the drain went smoothly. I got a little bit cocky at that point, thinking I had this job nailed. It took probably 30 minutes and 2 tile to get the cuts scribed and cut correctly for the piece next to the tub at the upper right of the picture. A few more missteps and the floor was done. The only problem with the new floor - it's really slick. Imagine, if you will, a dog on a newly waxed floor. That's pretty much what I looked like trying to stand up.

Step sixteen: Caulk edge of tub. Nothing major to report here, other than that the directions on how to open the tube need to be larger. Once I located a nail large enough to pierce seal inside the spout the job went without incident.

Step seventeen: Cleanup. Because of the small space all of the tools I'd used needed to be collected before the toilet install could begin.

Step eighteen: Toilet install, part 1. We unpacked the new toilet. For anyone planning this in the future - cut the box away from the toilet. This method worked great for us. Then we cut portions of the box to use to cushion the toilet while we got it ready for install. First we installed the closet bolts in the flange, then squished the wax ring onto the bottom of the toilet. At some point during this (don't remember exactly when but it was before the wax ring was attached to the fixture) Dad called. Brief conversation and promise to call back.

To paint a picture of the next maneuver in your head - imagine if you will one large, heavy toilet with really sticky wax blob on the bottom, and two rather large women in a 4' X 5' space. The toilet needs to be lifted and dropped into place over two small bolts without dropping or even setting down the toilet, without hitting the supply line, and without injuring either of the women. Amazingly Amy and I managed to get the toilet upright and into place without incident. Wish I had pictures, but there was no one left to take them not that they would have been able to take a decent one.

Step nineteen: plumbing connections. (Insert screeching tire sound here). After wiggling my way under the toilet, I discovered that the new supply line didn't fit - the helpful sales person at the big box store had provided me with the wrong size.

Step twenty: Trip to big box store for correct size supply line. More helpful sales people - why is it that even when I know what I'm looking for and where it is the sales people in the Plumbing department can't leave me alone. With the correct supply line in hand (receipt #4) I headed back home.

Step twenty-one: Final installation. Attach supply line. Hack saw bolts. Add caps. Turn on water - no leaks YEA! With Amy in the basement to check for leaks I flush - no leaks there either. Added a bead of caulk between the toilet and floor.

Here's the new throne in place. It's quiet, flushes and refills quickly and doesn't run!

Step twenty-two: Reattach door.

The evening concluded with lots of cleanup - tools back to the basement, vacuuming in the basement (debris had made it's way between the boards that make up layer one of our subfloor), more tools away, cutting up the cardboard for recycling, and packing up all the trash.

Cleanup was followed by dinner and celebratory cupcakes. Life is good in the house on Pickerel Pond.

A New Throne - Day One

The women on Pickerel Pond have a new throne. While Amy tackled the government required paperwork, I took on the bathroom. A leaky, wobbly toilet prompted a replacement of both the toilet, part of the sub floor, and the floor covering.

Here's the before:

That's not dirt but broken and peeling vinyl tiles.

Step one: List - we did that together Friday night.

Step two: With list in hand head to Sporting Goods store for temporary substitute (did I mention that this is our only working bathroom).

Step three: Off to the big box store for toilet, plywood (including some for woodworking projects), caulk, flexible supply line, and several other items (and no the router bit wasn't for this project).

Step four: After selecting the new throne, I negotiate a hour or so rental of one of the big box stores small trucks. Pay for and load up the throne with help. Head back inside for the plywood. (Note to self: when transporting very heavy items, and 8 foot sheets of plywood in truck with 8 foot long bed - procure and load the plywood first!) Load the plywood, with help from another customer (thanks buddy) who came upon me trying to determine if I could load the sheets by myself. I was doing this while waiting for more help from the store staff. With the sheets in the truck I then struggled to get them under the toilet's box which was already in the truck. A little assistance from a store employee got the boards under the box enough that the truck bed would close.

Step five: With help from Amy, unload the toilet and carry into the house, and the plywood to the garage.

Step six: Return truck, and purchase a couple of items missed on the first trip. (For those keeping track this is cash register receipt #3.)

Step seven: Remove towels, bathmat, and basket from the bathroom. Tie up shower curtain. Oh yes, and the door - this is a small bathroom.

Step eight: Empty the water, disconnect and remove old toilet. The floor space in this bathroom is about 4' X 5'. Getting to the connections required contortions. The blob on the floor is me - my feet are in the hall. (A note about the shirt. It's tie-dyed. I really like tie-dyed shirts, and bought this from a catalog without thinking carefully about what a red tie-dyed shirt would look like. I'd wanted a purple one, but they were out. I don't wear this in public, since it looks like I've just come from the scene of a massacre.)

Step nine: Clean - floor, flange - the remains of the wax ring were sticky and fairly disgusting.

Step ten: Cut the perimeter of the floor section to be removed - due to rot. I'm not sure what the pros use for this. I did my best impression of a hapless home owner at this point. I cut the perimeter with my circular saw. This did a fine job except for the fact that it couldn't get close to the wall, or the tub. As a result I had to finish up with a chisel.

Step eleven: Measure for replacement floor. Cut plywood. Measure for drain opening, scribe to tub. Cut. Test fit. Consult with Amy about how to wiggle into place. Cut again (same piece, smaller segment). Cut new strip for next to tub. Test fit. Trim all, cut new strip for next to tub. Lather, rinse, repeat (oh wait that's something else).

Step twelve: Screw down plywood.

Step thirteen: Strip up remaining old vinyl tiles. Discover that some of the tiles are still stuck to the floor, really stuck. Call in reinforcements. Discover just how sharp the edges of the tiles are. Acquire band-aid. After a lot of scraping all remnants of the tiles are gone - from the floor at least.

Step fourteen: Pack up a change of clothes, pajamas and swim suit and head for local hotel. Enjoy room service, a swim and a soak in the hot tub before collapsing into bed.

Out with the Old

This is the before, outside and inside views. We finally reached the last straw when the mechanism to open the door from the outside broke several months ago. The door was hard to open - the method for opening it from the inside was by pulling on a chain, and squeaked when raised or lowered.

So we decided to replace it. After many trips to the local big box store - order placed, order revised (the original order wouldn't work with our _very_ low ceilinged garage), paperwork they forgot to have us sign...)- the door was delivered a couple of weeks ago.

Over the last couple of weekends, and a few weeknights we varnished the door sections. It's kept me out of the workshop, but it sure does look nice.

In With The New

The installers arrived this morning, and quickly got to work removing the old door. Soon all that remained was a pile of debris in the driveway.

After trimming the door, and lowering the header, the door started taking shape. Several hours we had ourselves a brand spanking new garage door, complete with an electric opener.

The blue in the after pictures is masking tape put on to keep the varnish off the glass. It's coming off first thing tomorrow.


Now we just need to decide what color to paint the trim. Any suggestions?