The Difference Between an Issue and a Problem

At work a lot of things don't go as planned. As things don't go as planned it means you have an issue or a problem. An issue is something that takes more time to fix, but is really just an annoyance because you know a solution as soon as you find the issue. A problem is when you uncover a potential issue, and you don't know how to fix it.

Yesterday I had an issue. The stairs are missing 4 balusters, and I need more balusters to reinforce the railing at the top of the stairs. The balusters in landing are spaced about every 12". They should be about every 4.5". I took one of the balusters to HD and of course, they don't match. Instead of buying around 25 balusters, it looks like I'll be buying 50-60 of them. This was an issue because I knew the solution. I just didn't like it because it costs more, and takes more time. Today was different.

Today I found a problem. As we were demo'ing the back bedroom we removed the drywall, plaster, lath, and trim from the back wall. Below the window we noticed the wood didn't look right. After poking around a bit I came to the conclusion we had termites. Not good. I'm not sure if they are still there, but I'll research this tonight. The termites ate some of the framing supporting the window. This explains why the upper sash of the window was broken... I wish the termites stopped at this. They didn't. They have eaten the main transverse support that is supporting the 5' overhang off the back of the house. This is a real problem. I have a few ideas of how to fix this, but it all involves more work than I expected.

Hopefully I can come up with a solution we can fix from the inside. The outside of the house is covered in formstone. If we have to rip this off the job will become very difficult, and a much bigger endeavor than I want to deal with.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Between bouts of eating turkey over the holiday we got some work done on the house. Luckily, this weekend was more productive than the last one. The main things accomplished were finishing up shelves for the new linen closet in the bathroom and staining the stair edging.

The teak floors have been sitting in the dining room since July. With all the other dirty work they haven't been a priority, but with the dirtier work is nearing an end we're focusing on the floors again. We didn't purchase stair nosing when we bought the wood, and par for the course, the wood in the stain we purchased has been discontinued. Similar pre-finished woods were running $9-13 a linear foot, we have 60 linear feet, and the finishes didn't match our wood anyways. I don't like paying astronimical prices for items that don't even match, so we decided to buy some $4 a linear foot unfinished maple and stain it ourselves. This weekend has been an interesting experiment of trying various wood stains on the nosing we bought. So far we are pleased with the match, but there are still 3 coats of polyurethane to put on the wood.

The wood shelves went into the linen closet ok. I had some leftover plywood laying around, so I used that for the shelves. On the front edge I used the finish nailer to add a piece of trim to give a cleaner and more durable edge. The shelves were then primed and painted, and are looking ab fab in the closet.

Other things accomplished this weekend were getting the foundation issue fixed, eating turkey, building some shelves for the basement, repairing the upstairs sink, sitting in front of a fire drinking irish whiskey, and going to the dump to rid ourselves of building supplies. Not too shabby.