Ben is enjoying the sunny day before heading to his game.
Author: Chuck
Waiting for Spring
Winter is dragging on. The cold keeps me from the workshop, and keeps the family inside more than we would like. The boys want to play on their electronics more than they should. The dogs don’t get the exercise that they want. The house is cold, and the oil bills are expensive.
But, winter isn’t all bad. It is a chance to try to find other projects to work on. Like writing in my blog. Unfortunately I don’t like writing when there isn’t much to write about. I like to think about spring and the summer. And plan. I like to plan. It is fun to talk about ideas. But I’m not sure it is as much fun to listen (just ask Susanna).
February brings Will’s birthday. Which means a birthday party. We get to have his birthday party every other year, and this year was our turn. Winter birthdays are difficult. The kids don’t want to spend as much time outside, and a large group of 5th graders is way too loud to keep inside for very long.
This year we held the party in the boys’ clubhouse above the garage. I moved the portable heater up there, and the room was warmer than the house. They can be as loud as they want, and jump on the furniture out there. I think everyone (mostly) had a good time; but if you get enough 5th graders together, you will eventually find a pair that don’t always get along.
I forgot to make pizza dough for Friday night, so pizza/movie night was moved to last night. The boys even helped clean up from dinner (and washed the dishes).
So, what are we all doing to keep occupied during the cold weather?
Ben and Susanna are working on a 1000-piece puzzle. Ben has been building Legos and practicing his trumpet.
Will has been writing a book. I have been trying to get him to take some of the creative ideas that are in his mind and put them down in words. It is difficult for him, he types much slower than he thinks. But he is making progress (as of this morning, he has a chapter and a half written). When he isn’t writing, he is reading or trying to earn time to play on his iPod.
Both boys are playing indoor soccer. Will and Ben are on one team together, and Ben is on a second team without his brother.
Susanna and I are trying to exercise more, and are trying to run a 5k race in March. It has been a long time since I have run much at all, and it is slow getting back into running.
I have been doing small house projects and on warmer days working in the workshop (a very little). We have a three-day weekend next weekend without the boys. Our plan is to finish the hallway and maybe some smaller projects (e.g. the last set of hinges on the kitchen doors, shelves in the storage loft, clean the basement).
Another snow day… which means….
Another snow day, which means time for more electrical improvements. The library/study had only one electrical outlet installed. And with an unfinished basement, adding more outlets is a quick morning project.
The first step is to locate the outlets and cut a hole for the new box. I had to be careful to make sure that I didn’t cut over a stud. On this house, the studs aren’t evenly spaced, so it is a guessing game (and starting with a small hole). After cutting away the plaster, I carefully cut the lath boards. I have learned that it is easiest to almost cut all the way through one side and then cut the second side. If you cut one through the lath the entire way, the board moves a lot, making the second cut difficult.
After cutting the hole, I measured the location of the new outlet from the outside wall corner, and then from the basement carefully drilled into the wall cavity. There is no insulation in the old walls, so fishing the wire is easy.
After running the wire to the three new outlet boxes, I wired them into the house circuit and tested to ensure that the wiring is done properly. I then installed the wall plates and vacuumed up the plaster dust. The project was done by early afternoon.
I am still working on finishing the hall ceiling, but am unable to get drywall today because of rain/snow. The new light fixture for the hall has been ordered, but has not arrived yet. I have a couple of other small (non-electrical) projects to finish, and may find time this evening.
Maybe the next snow day I’ll add a light switch and outlets to our bedroom.
Back to Home Improvements
The hallway was repaired and repainted several years ago. The floor was refinished a couple of years after the hall was done. The only part that wasn’t finished was the ceiling.
The ceiling consisted of stapled up ceiling tiles and an unswitched light (pull chain). The light is (was) one of the few still tied into an old circuit. I think the study, kitchen and pantry lights are the only remaining lights on that part of the circuit.
Late last week the pull-chain switch on the light stopped working (the light remained on all the time). Instead of just fixing the light fixture, Susanna and I decided to add a new fixture and a switch.
Of course it is not possible to run new wires and a switch without digging into the ceiling. Nothing like planning a project in a day and starting it on a Sunday morning.
Sunday I was able to take down the ceiling tiles. Demolition is much faster (and messier) than installation. Of course with rain and snow in the forecast for most of the week, it may be a couple of days before we are able to pick up drywall to cover the ceiling.
I was also able to get a new wire run from the basement and a switch installed before we headed out to watch Ben play soccer. Of course I didn’t cap the old wiring and turn the power back on to the lights on the first floor until I returned home later that day (after dark). I figured that Susanna had a flashlight.
I removed all the tiles. Above the tiles is the original plaster. I didn’t remove all the plaster, however, I removed portions of the plaster and lath as needed to run the wires. I will cover the old plaster and lath with drywall.
Thanks to the snow, I had an unexpected afternoon to work on the project. I finished wiring the hall light. We ordered a new fixture that will hopefully arrive this week, but probably not. The hall will remain without light until the fixture arrives. We ordered the light fixture and switch plates from House of Antique Hardware. I am putting push-button switches in the house to match the house style. The switches are a modern replica of antique switches. They are also expensive for switches (about $16/switch). Luckily I don’t need many switches, and already had some in the workshop.
The hallway had the remnants of a switch for an old porch light. Neither the light nor the switch were working. With the ceiling opened up it was easy to run new wires to the porch light and add a new fixture (this one was purchased at Home Depot). So, after many years, we finally have light on the front porch.
Over the next week, I will need to pick up drywall and cover the ceiling. It is a pretty small area (less than 2 sheets of drywall). We are planning on adding crown molding to the part of the ceiling that meets the walls. It will be a little extra work to make the crown molding look good with the opening for the stairs. It is also a small space, so the molding will have to be reasonably small. But the advantage of a small room is that it won’t take much molding.
I don’t know if we have any hall paint to touch up mistakes, so I’ll have to be careful working. With Will’s birthday party this Saturday, we will probably not be finished until after the weekend. So our guests will have to enjoy the view of a partial ceiling in the front hallway. I never said we were good at timing our projects.
Luckily most of the guests will be 11-year old boys and don’t really care about ceilings. Or even notice them.
Writing
Will is one of the most creative people I know. Sometimes it seems he lives in a fantasy world. Or many fantasy worlds. I have been trying to encourage him to put his thoughts down in writing.
Sometimes he can find the interest to write. But, mostly he writes in his blog because I force him to. Tonight, he decided to start writing a story. He wrote a page or so, and shared it with us. It is a ways from being a complete story. But it is a start. And since he normally hates writing, it is nice to see him spend a couple if hours focused on it.
Upgrading the Internet
Okay, I really didn’t improve the Internet today; we just improved our connection to the Internet. I know, I just was complaining about how the boys spend too much time on their electronics yesterday. And undoubtedly this blog is not what I would call an “improvement” to the Internet.
We unplugged the satellite dish last spring in anticipation of being furloughed last summer. And we have remained unplugged from cable/satellite since then. We are reliant on Netflix for DVDs and streaming. When we got the satellite several years ago, it came bundled with DSL. Yes, DSL is a bit slower than cable. But it works. And it was inexpensive. And I’m trying to spend less time playing on computers and more time living my life (so, what the heck am I doing writing on this blog?).
This month, Comcast was having a good promotional rate on their Internet service, so we decided to upgrade to Comcast over DSL. The boys had a half-day today. Since Tucker and Targa have proven to be poor adult supervision in the past, I was going to have to be home for the afternoon. What a perfect chance to get Comcast to install Internet. Of course, I didn’t plan the timing perfectly, and the Comcast installer was nearly finished by the time I would have had to be here to meet the boys.
So, I tested my Internet speed with DSL prior to the install. Latency was pretty high, with a 58ms ping time. The download speeds were 2.5Mb/sec. The upload speeds were 0.42Mb/sec. As you can see from the right, the new speeds are much better, with 28Mb/sec down and 5.7Mb/sec upload. The real test will be when streaming Netflix, but so far I can’t really complain. Now time to go download some big files.
Preston 5th Grade Winter Concert
I have never been much of a singer, or any sort of musician. I think much to Susanna’s disappointment, but if you ever heard me sing you would understand my reluctance. So it is nice to see Will and Ben at least try music. Ben has been playing trumpet all year; Will sang in the 5th grade chorus and put on a concert tonight.
One of the joys of parenting is the short notice events. I think the school is pretty good about sending notices home, but there is a disconnect between the school and the parents (of course life is much too exciting to pass on notes to parents). And I don’t make a huge effort to check updates on the school’s web page; but it is more fun to blame the kids than take responsibility for scheduling.
Typically Will or Ben will let us know Wednesday or Thursday night about an event planned on Friday night that they want to attend; after we have spent the evenings earlier in the week making our weekend plans. This time we got a little more heads-up. But not really. Two weeks ago Will mentioned that he had a concert coming up, but no details. At least not until yesterday.
We made the concert. But not without a little struggle. Will told me tonight that he needed black pants for the concert. Luckily we had his dress pants from the wedding. He also needed a white shirt, and we had his dress shirt from the wedding. But he chose to wear a white t-shirt instead. More like an under-shirt. But what can one do. It wasn’t worth a huge fight. I think he was more interested in getting five minutes in on his computer than he was in getting dressed nicely. I think it is time to cut down on electronics… again…
The concert was nice. It was crowded – lots of family and not quite enough seats. The 5th grade class sang 4 songs at the start of the concert and were followed by the middle school chorus and then middle school band. Next year we will get there a little earlier to make sure we get good seats. And will make Ben wear a nice shirt. But that shouldn’t be a problem. I thought about recording the concert. But I figured it wasn’t worth the effort to make a poor quality iPhone video mostly of the back of the woman’s head sitting in front of me. Anyway, I really wanted to just sit and enjoy the music.
Blog Books
Will and Ben have been writing in their blogs for nearly 2 years by now. Will has written over 8,100 words in 204 posts. Ben has written 6,400 words in 155 posts.
I told the boys that if they wrote in their blogs (or rather, submitted to me forcing them to write), that I would get a book printed each year from what they wrote. Last year I got a soft-back book from Lulu.com. This year I took all of their writings over the past two years and published a hard bound book from Lulu. The books arrived today, and the boys were excited to open them. The books are a sort of journal of what they did over the year. Neither really keeps a journal or scrapbook, so this is a way for them to go back and look at what they did over the past couple of years.
We will see what the next year in blogging brings! Hopefully another two books. Now to get moving with getting this blog printed into a book.
Frozen
The thermometer read -7 this morning. Well, it started at -4 when I woke up and then dropped to -7. Apparently it is warmer in Anchorage, Alaska then in Connecticut this morning.
It has been too cold to do much in the workshop in the evenings this week. Maybe it will warm up enough this weekend to get time to do work. If not, I’ll be stuck doing house projects (which wouldn’t be that bad).
I still have a couple of house projects that I need to finish. I have one more door to replace hinges in. I could add an outlet and switch to the bedroom, but if it is too cold to work in the shop, it is probably too cold to work in the attic. At least last weekend was warm enough to get some shop time. I even was able to insulate one of the doors – hopefully that will help me be able to heat the space.
The chickens have been surviving the cold. But, I don’t think they like the snow. I think we will add two more chickens to the flock next summer – that should help next winter. I’ll probably also insulate the roof of the coop. I probably won’t add heat to the coop, but I’ll probably add a water heater so I don’t have to water the birds several times a day when the weather is this cold.
Finishing up the quick bathroom upgrade
Susanna and I have made a good start on projects this year. We are focusing on smaller projects this winter. So far, so good. It is nice to have projects that can be completed in a single weekend.
This weekend we finished a couple of smaller projects in the bathroom. I replaced the vinyl tiles with improved vinyl tiles. I had done most of the grouting last night, however a couple of the smaller pieces of tile didn’t want to stick (near the tub). I had to get construction adhesive this morning to finish the job. I had finished touching up the grout by lunch.
Susanna wanted to repaint the radiator. We picked up spray paint last night, and this morning she sprayed two coats on the radiator. It is a huge improvement.
The closet is under the stairs and was 5-6 feet deep. And pretty useless. It had two shelves way in the back, each were 24″ deep. I built a wall that was 24″ back from the door, and reused the wood from the old shelves to build 4 shelves that are only 12″ deep. We were able to take all the stuff that was in the closet, plus all the towels that we had kept above the toilet and put them in the new closet.
So, that is 3 small projects completed this weekend. There are several small projects that we can still do in the bathroom, but it is working out well to only pick small projects for now.
Now to take a shower and go out for a beer.