We Can Re-build it!

Remember my story about how we hired a plumber 5 years ago, affectionately known as "Placebo the Useless"? Well, after a visit to Lowes I found that there is a PVC flange made for inserting into metal pipe. It has a rubber seal and could be used as a replacement for my flange. Of course it costs 5 times more than a regular flange at around $15. Fortunately, Placebo used a flange that could have been used on either 3" or 4" pipe and I was smart enough to request 4" DWV pipe for our main stack. What does this mean? Well, after laying on the floor for 30 minutes while exercising my wrist with vigorous strokes while my fingers were tightly gripping the handle of a saw (really, some of you have minds in the gutter!), I was able to decapitate the head of my flange! Ouch!



Upon careful examination I realized that I could insert a 3" flange into the opening if I cut a 1" sleeve out of a piece of 3" PVC pipe. Since I had a spare 3" flange laying around, I saved myself $15.

I had some more 'Placebo" issues while laying in the plumbing for the first floor powder room. Mr. Useless had laid in several feet of 4" pipe for the toilet to connect to but it wouldn't pass through the opening in the brick wall because it was not installed at a steep enough angle. I had to cut it back about 2 feet and put in a 3" section to the toilet. The smaller diameter pipe cleared the wall and lined up perfectly for the toilet to sit in the center of the room. I can honestly say that from this point forward, I will no longer be haunted by Placebo's plumbing. I have corrected all of his errors. Any future corrections will be of errors made by me and I didn't have to pay for those ones!

Planning for the future, already!

I have walled in the downstairs powder room. In the process of doing so a decent amount of dead space is being created under the main stairs and behind where the toilet will go. It seems like such a waste of space and I just couldn't let it go to waste completely, so.......




I gathered up a few phone books, some old mail that was laying on the kitchen counter and some old neighborhood newsletters, put them in a plastic bag with a dated note and left them for some future owner to discover some day! I wish someone had done that for me. Instead, I get mummified mice and flattened paint cans to discover!

Old Textured Paint

Ages ago when I pulled up the roll type linoleum flooring in one of the cottage side bedrooms I uncovered a strip of tin that was used to level a floor board that had been cut at some time way back when gas lights were installed during the last Ice Age.



I didn't think much about it and the tin sat on the floor, covered by an old sink and several contractor bags of rock wool for the last three years. I cleaned up the room a bit to make room for all the tools and the worlds heaviest bathtub (which will now be in the same room as a flight of stairs and a little closer to going down them.) I have also managed to rid myself of the fifteen bags of raccoon and pigeon poop encrusted rock wool leaving me the original 9 from the kitchen that I still have to sneek into the garbage at the rate of 3 bags a week.
Well, I found the tin once again and read the instructions on how to apply the paint. I noticed that the color was called "FLAME". Interesting name for a color I thought. I wonder what color it could be? Then I turned the can over



I know exactly what room it was used in and could probably guess what year it was applied based on the pieces of old newspapers that were shoved in all the gaps between the wall and the molding to keep out draughts!

I've Been a Busy Boy!

It is amazing what you can do when you don't have a computer to slow you down! I have painted the laundry room with primer and made a base for the sink that we bought at IKEA out of some of the antique wood that I have lying around. Here is a picture of the thing. Three guesses as to what it is finished with! I even used old nails to make it with because I don't have enough modern nails lying around!




I finished a long 2 X 6 board with the same stuff and still have to mount it on the wall behind where the washer and dryer will go. I have cut a channel in the back of it to run my electrical cables because the wall is made of brick.




Yes, the level IS holding the beam up as it hasn't been attached to the wall yet! So now you have seen the laundry room! It still needs the floor done and the walls painted.

Next I went into the dark hole that we call a basement. First through the door



Then down the stairs



To the abyss.



Which looks like this now!



I removed the stairs and have laid in a joist so that I can put in a floor for a small powder room on the first floor. I have to lay in another joist so the floor doesn't bounce but will do that after I have installed the plumbing. It is easier to hang a joist around the new plumbing than to cut the joist to put new plumbing in. The current space between the joists is 26 inches and the toilet will be in the center where the average Joe would put a joist. Since my plumbing skills are above average but give below average results and my wood working skills are below average but give above average results, I need to follow the lesser path of evil which dictates that plumbing will require more attention and time and should be installed first! The new joist can be installed alongside the DWV for the toilet on the side that would be the best to install it after the floor is in place.
This is my next major project before the winter. Getting the powder room ready for painting..

I also attempted to line a chimney with clay tiles but failed early in the attempt so that I don't have to waste any time or money on that and will resort to stainless steel chimney liners. I even got the one stainless steel liner I had ready for another chimney only to find that it will be too wide to pull up the chimney with the insulation blanket. Now I have to haul the thing up to the third floor again and with all the wrapping it weighs about 40 lbs more than it did when I brought it down the stairs. So here is where it sits until help arrives!



Chimney lining will be delayed another six months now because I may as well line all the ones that I need to line at the same time and I don't have all the lining kits or the wads of cash needed to acquire them at this particular moment. I also need a permit for this project and to install the water heater and furnaces that we don't have yet so the delay may be cost effective at this time. Besides, we all know that my plumbing will burst somewhere this winter and installing the water heater (which we do have) will just increase the number of places where this could happen!

Back in the Blogosphere!

I don't know if I should be boasting or complaining.

We went out and got a new computer after many days of phiddle phucking with the old one. That's right! We traded in the Model T for a 2004 equivalent of a Lamborgini. This thing has bells and whistles I won't even find for a few years! I don't have a clue just what it will do and we still have dial up service but I don't have to wait 10 minutes for blogger to upload anymore..... I wonder if it could fix up my house for me?

Man or Mouse? Squeak Up!!!

Like many of you, we have mice. These aren't normal mice. They are the result of many years of careful breeding and are multi-generational to the house. I met someone who knew a person who lived on our third floor when it was apartments. He said there were mice in the apartment. We still have mice on the third floor! I suspect they are the descendents of the original 1840s mice that lived in the attic. This lineage has witnessed the developement and patent process attributed to actually building a better mouse trap. The dumb ones have succumbed to a century of snap traps, glue traps and poison while the intelligent ones have procreated to the current residents that defy my attempts to snap-trap them. Every so often I find one of the ancestral dumb ones under linoleum, in an electrcal box, behind a wall access or once in a while I even get a modern dumb one in one of my traps. Last week I found what must be the great great great great great great great great grand parent or aunt or uncle to this brood between the 1st and 2nd floors in that unfinished room next to the laundry room. This one was smart enough to get to a level closer to the kitchen but may have succumbed to the poison traps of a previous resident or owner, who knows. So, in light of recent mouse posts and for those of you who have mice and wish you could scare the little buggers away. This one is for you!

ENJOY!!!!!

WTF?????

Hey, while checking my email at the library today I tried to link to "Houseblogs.net" and got this message! I only had a few minutes left of my 1 hour session so I decided not to invoke an override!


You cannot access the following Web address:
http://www.houseblogs.net/
The site you have requested is blocked under the policies of the Dayton Metro Library because it offers sexually explicit images, which is prohibited under library policy.If you believe this site is blocked by mistake, you may override the block for ten minutes by entering your adult library card number. The computer system will check to see if you are 18 or older before allowing this bypass. Before proceeding, please make sure you have read and understand the library's policy regarding acceptable use of the Internet in the library. It is a violation of this policy to display sexually explicit images on library computers. Violating this policy may lead to suspension or denial of Internet privileges.

Who posted the sexually explicit pictures? When? And where can I see them?
Enquiring minds want to know?

Off the Blog!

I am experiencing computer problems. My antiquated system is having a nervouse breakdown and won't initialize at start up. I am hoping it is the keyboard but the remedy may be that we have to get a newer and much faster system! In the meantime I won't be able to post or respond as readily as before. I pulled the old keyboard apart and it was manufactured in 1995!
Now where did I put that sledge hammer?

The New with the Old.

A couple of years back I tore a garage down for a neighbor. It took two days and I did it all with a pry bar, a crow bar and a sledge hammer. I salvaged the window caps and later stripped them and painted them. They were mounted on a wall with masonary screws and liquid nails with the intention of using them as coat racks. I could never find hooks that I liked that weren't $15 a piece though. During our trip to IKEA we found some coat hooks that we liked. They were modern with an old look. They come in packs of two for $4 but if you buy the rack version you get 5 for $9.99 plus a nice piece of finished wood to mount them on from the Peoples Republic of China. I can use the wood for somewhere else in the house (like a bathroom towel rack) but we bought 2 of the sets and I actually attached the hooks last night. Now I have a place to hang a garbage bag!



What was Elizabeth's role in the Expeditionary Force? She was the chief ice cream sampler!
"Elizabeth, smile and say vanilla!"

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Have you ever had one of those rashes that just won't go away? Hemorhroids maybe or even a recurring cold sore? That is how the plumbing is in this place. Way back in the days when I was really stupid, we paid a plumber to install the waste system and vents. The work failed to hold air and I fixed it. Then it failed inspection and I had to replace a third of the pipe so it would pass. Then there was the 10 inch center toilet we had to special order when we have 3 perfectly good 12 inch toilets laying around because "Placebo the Useless" couldn't measure 12 inches from the wall. Now I have this to deal with



The Stanley knive is there for scale but indicates that the top of the flange is a full inch off the floor. This is after laying in the half inch backer board! If we lay ceramic tile with a thick mortar base I can only go up a half inch at most so I am going to have to make a separate riser to place under the toilet to raise it off the floor and stop it from wobbling. Then I have to conceal the gap. This is why I no longer pay people to screw something up when I can screw it up perfectly well myself for free.

Can you say "incompetent moron" boys and girls? If this plumber didn't have hemorrhoids he would be a perfect asshole!