A Thank You Letter

Dear Momnipotent & Dadolescent,

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help in renovating the house. From installing crown molding, building a foyer, fixing doors and steps, the never ending task of attemping to make my house plumb and level, painting, caulking, drywalling and even allowing the use, and in some cases purchasing, a multitude of tools are all very much appreciated. The house has come a long way (though not as far as we had thought) since you originally saw it.



Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Sincerely,

-Me

Scheduling and Laser Beams

I get a strange pleasure each Monday when I update my Microsoft Project schedule. You see, being an engineer I have gotten used to scheduling and budgeting. To do both I use MS project to plan my future tasks, show their individual costs, and their dependencies on each other. Currently I have around 200 tasks, with more added daily to help define the level of detail where someone could actually complete the tasks. For instance, under the kitchen category are the tasks, 'prime', 'paint second coat', and 'paint second coat' which are all tasks that need to be done in series, and painting the trim is dependent on finishing the second coat of wall paint. Sure I don't follow all dependencies 100% and I start a lot of stuff before finishing something else, but the software helps act as a task list helping me to make sure that things don't fall through the cracks. Updating the progress on each task rolls up into the higher level task, so it gives a total percent complete of the whole renovation. While progress is slow, there is indeed progress.


A sample, not my actual schedule

Tasks completed this weekend were installing crown molding in the kitchen and bathroom, purchasing and mounting a towel bar & toilet paper holder in the bathroom, grouting the backsplash, starting the drywall touch ups on the bulging seams in the living room ceiling, and re-running electrical for the foyer. The electrical in the foyer doesn't really work yet and requires major trouble shooting, but at least the wire is run and conduit installed per code. I installed it Friday and then proceeded to avoid it for the rest of the weekend to temporarily avoid the frustration.

I would also like to provide Dadolescent & Momnipotent with the Highlandtown Hovel Baltimore Rowhouse award for outstanding achievement. I haven't figure out what exactly shape or form this award takes, so hopefully someone can provide some ideas. While I was suffering overload on Saturday night at around 6:30, they stayed at the house touching up the crown molding until 9:30, and then cleaning up the house too. I really can't express how much this means to me, and I am so lucky to have you help out with the house.

On other news I now have a plethora of tools. I went out and picked up a ryobi 18V lithium-ion 4 piece combo kit, which includes a drill/driver, circular saw, reciprocating saw & light for $270. I needed to buy tools, and it's lithium-ion-y good pulled me in.



After taking this home, a craigslist ad that I responded to emailed me back. He had a barely used 18V (not lithium-ion) kit including drill/driver, circular saw, rec. saw, jig saw, rotary tool, sander, light, batteries and a bag all for $140. I looked at it, and it's only been used a few times so I bought it. Now I have a conundrum whether to keep my new set, return it and keep the used set in it's entirety, or just sell of the parts of the old set that are redundant. Really, the tools look pretty much the same so I'd really just like the lithium ion batteries. And fyi, the circular saw in the used set comes with a laser. I like laser beams.

Basement Skylight

Luckily the basement skylight was temporary. While it was operational I was a bit worried about somebody walking in the front door, dropping through the floor wylie e. coyote style.



While exposing brick is already a hot trend, I'm thinking exposed electrical is the next big thing.



Why, hello there Dadolescent.

Please Remove the Rose Colored Glasses

This weekend brought some migrant labor to the Highlandtown Hovel Baltimore Rowhouse: Leigh's parents, Dadolescent and Momnipotent. While Leigh slaved away counting beans at work (she is an accountant), her dad and I tackled the job of replacing the front foyer. Frankly, my house frightened Dadolescent as he uttered, "there is a lot work", upon entering. I guess after living in the house for a while and watching it get better it doesn’t frighten me as much as it used to. After treating him for shock, we looked at the foyer and developed a plan.

Originally when you walked in the house there was a 4'x4' entry area, sunk about 8" from the rest of the floor, with a second door directly in front of the exterior door. Leigh decided that it would be better if the foyer were removed, and replaced with a knee wall where the old door was, and reroute traffic through the center of the house.



The old door opening has now been replaced with a knee wall. With the new layout the couch will no longer be positioned on the house end wall (with or without plastic on it), and can be placed on the wall in front of the cove, forcing you to take an immediate turn when entering the house. This will be a much better layout, as you won't walk directly into the couch when walking into the room. It also allows you to shift the furniture in the room about 3 feet closer to the door, uncluttering the center of the house.



There was also some lovely tile in the foyer, which was carefully and painstakingly removed.



Or maybe not so painstakingly… The tile on the side on the brick wall came off easily, so I saved it and will find a new home for it. The opposite side didn't come off so easily so I smashed into millions of bits with a hammer. I'd say it saddened me to destroy the tile, but it didn't. It felt quite good. This rip out work was done about a week or so prior to rebuilding the floor.

The rip-out and reconstruction of the floor was accomplished on Saturday. Since nothing in the house is level, it was a pain to figure out how we were going to rebuild the front entry way to level things out. In the end we used a 2x8 as a sister joist, a doubled up 2x8 is floating underneath the door, and hung 2x4's between the 2x8's using joist hangers every 8 inches, and screwing subfloor to the 2x4's. I probably should have used 2x6 for the floor, but it's such a small piece that it will be fine. Getting things level was a bitch. It was a good thing that we ripped out the old floor, seeing as some of the supporting 4x4's below were half rotted out.

The knee wall was built up the next day using 2x6's. Even after running a gazillion 3" nails (NAIL GUNS ARE FUN!) to attach the knee wall to the joist below it still has a slight wobble. Again, it was a pain in the butt to get everything level. As Dadolescent and I worked on Saturday, Momnipotent attacked the pesky paper sticking to the front of my glass tile backsplash. At one point in time I found her huddled up in something resembling the fetal position, scraping the tile behind the sink. Normally I would have taken a picture of someone in such a compromising position, so I'm not sure why I didn't take my opportunity to grab a shot. Next time I'll make the camera more accessible when she is helping.

Thank you so much for helping Dadolescent & Momnipotent - it is much appreciated.