Category: remodeling

Last August I had to have a massive red oak tree behind my house taken out because it was

• starting to lean over the house,
• showing signs of some kind of illness or root problem, and
• likely to keel over and die.

Six hours, a swarm of laborers with chainsaws, and two thousand dollars later, I had a massive pile of red oak chunks (most between 12 and 18 inches in length) next to my driveway.

I remember when I was six, Grampa and Gramma Vang (don’t quibble with me about my spelling, the were my grandparents) came to take care of Kevin and me (or torment us, as it felt at the time) while Mom was in the hospital having her gallbladder out. One fine day when I supposed to be napping, I watched Grampa split what seemed like most of the cord of firewood we had out back. It was wintertime and cold enough out that Gramma wouldn’t let us go outdoors without our “overshoes” (as she called them, in only one instance of the language barrier we encountered that week–I’d always thought of them as boots), but before long, Grampa was down to his longjohns and dripping with sweat. It was pretty impressive how he usually needed only two or three strokes of the axe to split a log. If I recall accurately, and who knows if I do, these were probably some kind of pine logs about 16 inches long and four to six inches in diameter. Somehow I remember his longjohns being red, too, but that might be a flight of memory’s fancy.

Another fine day when I was supposed to be napping, I sneaked out to watch Gramma make lefse, and a vague memory of her kneading the dough turned into a burst of lefse-recipe-interpreting insight three decades later, but that’s another story. Ask me at Smørgåsbord V (ack! Sweden!).

Anyway, I figured I was my Grampa’s daughter and could split wood if he could, so when Tree Guy and his crew finished up, I googled “wood splitting” and learned that

• red oak is easiest split when green, unlike most species, and
• women are best off with a three-pound axe, a six-pound maul, a wedge or two, and a six-pound sledge-hammer.

I bought some tools, wired myself up to my iPod, and tried to emulate Grampa. I went at it for all I was worth for several weeks, and my housemate David also gave it a try, but neither of us were much good at it. As you saw earlier in the “Two Months In” kitchen photo-spread, my confessional photo of a pathetically-small pile of split wood a year later showed that I was nothing for him to be proud of. Splitting wood is ridiculously hard work.

Almost a year later, I’ve resumed my splitting efforts and learned that most of the advice I googled up was wrong. Red oak is easier to split when drier. It’s got a swirly grain that knots fibers together against all axe-logic, but drying and the action of rot and termites do help. Today I broke my first sledge-hammer (a six-pounder) (I have to admit, I’m feeling a little macho about breaking a sledge-hammer) and went to buy an eight-pound replacement, along with an eight-pound maul, and I’ve also found that eight pounds is a much better-weighted tool for me.

Women’s clothes and bikes don’t fit me, either, so why did I think women’s axes would?

While I certainly don’t want anyone to think it’s child’s play to throw these eight-pound implements around (the stiff muscles I have everywhere are witness that it’s not), that extra two pounds (almost one kilo) make a huge difference. Where before it took four or five strokes, in which I threw the sledge with all my might, to get a splitting wedge visibly further into a log, now a single stroke with the heavier sledge does the job–and I now understand why that googled article recommended a technique where you initially lift with dominant hand gripping at the end of the handle and other hand gripping near the business end, raise the tool overhead, slipping the other hand down toward the dominant hand, and then hurl with all your body’s might, eyes focused on the target (either the spot you want the axe or maul to hit or at the splitting wedge in progress). With the six-pound tools, I found it wasn’t worth the trouble (damn the backache) to do that whole hand-sliding thing, but then I needed to throw all of myself into each hurl. With the eight-pound tools, the hand-sliding thing helps a lot to stave off exhaustion, and the extra two pounds makes throwing myself into the hurlage more optional.

What a difference a kilo makes! Today I split a log that had frustrated me so much I’d set it aside into three hunks, and I got through several more intimidating hunks before I’d finished my litre of water and hour of iTunes.

I’ve still got nothing on Grampa, but I like to think all the same that he might be grinning a little curmudgeonly grin from the grave now at the sight of me dripping sweat and throwing myself for all I’m worth at stubborn hunks of red oak, even if I’m not wearing red longjohns while I do it.

Norton seems to be out of the woods. He kept me on pins and needles all weekend, acting normal and seeming to be comfortable, but not pooping from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning. Then he didn’t poop again until yesterday. Fortunately his poop Sunday looked normal, and pooping didn’t seem to strain him, which was an excellent sign. I talked to the vet late Monday afternoon, and she said if he hadn’t passed it or shown distress by now, he must have digested it. So, let’s hear it for Norton’s digestive system, and for the good digestive thoughts of my readership! Norton and I thank you!

The cabinets are nearly all installed now, and it’s starting to look like it’ll be a nice kitchen. When the sheetrock was put in, suddenly the space seemed too small for everything that was going to go in, but Jon said the cabinets would make it look roomier again. How this could be defies reason, but he was right. Now that most of them are in, the kitchen actually feels spacious, and the vast expense of alder is gorgeous.

George has finished installing the underlayment in the closet and at the mouth of the hallway.

The old dining room is no longer a chaotic crowd of cabinets, and it too feels more spacious. (The new dining room is full of saws and so on, so it feels far from spacious.)

Political: how much you want to bet Wes Clark ends up on Kerry’s?

Kitchen: installation is proceeding. Russell spent all day and Jon spent about half the day working on the bases and base cabinets. About a third of those seem to be sitting in place and presumably are leveled. Nothing’s bolted into place yet.

We’ve discovered the first two noticeable mistakes in the kitchen job:

1. Herrell got the cabinet over the refrigerator backwards. It was supposed to be vertical storage (for cookie sheets, cutting boards, etc.) on the right and regular shelves on the left, but he built them the other way around. Oh, well!
2. Jon and/or George mismeasured where to put one pair of outlets, so I now have two pairs of outlets behind the refrigerator, where I only need one. The other will end up as a junction box with a plain face plate. It’s no big deal, though, because there is another pair of outlets a few feet away, and I don’t see myself needing four. That corner’s going to be pretty cramped and unusable anyway. The base cabinet in that corner has a door only ten inches wide, it’s such a screwy corner. Ten inches sounds like a good-sized cabinet door, but it looks pretty puny. I have no idea what kind of stuff will end up in that cabinet, but it will have to be narrow, whatever it is.

Caligari: (let’s hope not) the other day Norton (my grey cat) gobbled a chicken bone off my plate before I could stop him. It was about a two-inch piece of wishbone–which is to say, longer and pokier than I can envision finding a harmless path through his cat-sized digestive system. The vet recommended:

• giving him a 3 inch serving of petromalt (I decided that meant daily, so he’s had 6 inches) to help bind up the bone in other stuff and move it through as an innocuous, blunt mass
• watching him closely for signs of depressed appetite, crankiness, trouble pooping or peeing, futile attempts to barf, bloody stool, or bloody barf
• bringing him in immediately in case of any of the above
• watching for the bone in his poop or barf

She said most stuff passes within a day or two, so I’m starting to worry, but I’ve been watching him for about 48 hours now, and there’s no sign of anything wrong with him. He’s cheerful, up and about, and eating and drinking normally. On the other hand, there’s been no Norton poop in the box since I got home from work yesterday, and none of the poop that was there at the time was long enough to hold the bone.

Please think good digestive thoughts for my number one son.

Jon hauled away a truckload of crap to the dump.

George filled in the cute little missing notches of underlayment in the kitchen, installed the cover to the subpanel, finished peeling back carpet from the foyer closet and the mouth of the hallway, started marking and measuring the foyer for its underlayment, and got himself hung up on the horns of a dilemma: where to draw the border between tile for the foyer and hardwood for the music room.

Jon’s idea was to run tile halfway into the pony wall that divides the foyer from the rest of the room and start the hardwood from there. While working on measuring out that line, George discovered that the pony wall is slightly concave and not parallel to anything else, so he couldn’t figure out from what to measure or to what to be perpendicular or parallel. The foyer closet’s plane is offset a few inches from the door’s plane, and opposite the pony wall is a perpendicular wall, so they’re no help, either. He thought about dropping a plumb bob from the wall/ceiling corners overhead, but those didn’t appear to be on square with anything, either.

Despite the lacked of reference points, we both thought the line he’d drawn (extrapolating the plane of the pony wall, such as it was) looked a bit off square, so I suggested checking it against the foyer closet wall at both ends, and there was in fact a 1/4″ difference. Of course, who knews if that wall is square with anything, either. George also wondered if putting the boundary at the halfway point of the pony wall would look silly.

He decided to clean up for the day and let Jon figure it out tomorrow. That seemed like a good choice to me.

How about that Theresa Heinz Kerry?

So I was right: the sheetrock work is done. It’s time for underlayment, so George came and spent a vigorous half-day installing underlayment in the kitchen. It doesn’t sound like much, but having underlaid several bathrooms, I have vigorous respect for that accomplishment.

Allow me to explain.

Tile–even stone–is fragile stuff, because it’s thin. Say, 3/8 to 5/8 of an inch (roughly a centimeter, for my European readership–hi, Giovanna!). Look at it wrong, it breaks. Therefore, you have to install it in a cozy layer of slightly boingy thinset (mortar with a latex additive), surrounded by determined grout, on a perfectly flat, absolutely solid, staff base, which is affixed within an inch (c. 2cm) of life to the subfloor, which had better be even and bumpless.

Affixing that base is the subject of our tale.

The preferred base is a stiff sheet of concrete backer-board (such as Hardibacker). First you have to schlepp it to the site, which is up 25 steps from the driveway, and it’s heavier than you can imagine, because it is, after all, concrete. Then you have to measure and cut the sheets. You have to stagger all the seams, so that adds a layer of indirection to the measuring and marking task. Cutting it is a royal pain in the ass, wrists, lungs, and goggles, because it is, after all, concrete, which is hard, feisty, and dusty. Next, you have to spread a perfect layer of thinset, which by the way needed to be mixed, set up, and get de-bubbled. Now, you lay down your first sheet of underlayment (which is big, unwieldy, and heavy, because it is, after all, concrete) all at once, so that you don’t scooch all the gook to one end. Now you walk it down, but evenly, so that again you don’t scooch all the gook to one end. Now spread more gook and fit another sheet, and kick, shove, and otherwise persuade it into a nice, tight, square fit. Spread, lay, shove. Spread, lay, shove. Spread, lay, shove.

Got it all in? Squared up? Staggered? Snug? Gooshed down evenly and level? Full coverage? You deserve a beer!

Wait, no! You’re not done yet!

Now you have to fasten it to the subfloor. You have to screw it down, or at least nail it down. I screwed it down, because that’s what Tile Store Guy told me to do, and it’s a pain in the ass (especially when you’re installing it right up under the toekicks of existing cabinetry and don’t have room for both a screwdriver and your hand–yet another argument for ripping out cabinetry and starting over, if you ask me). Even with a cordless screwdriver or even a high-torque drill with screwdriver bit, it’s harder than you can imagine to get the screws through, because it is, after all, say it with me: concrete. Jon has declared nails sufficient. But not so fast, cowboy: you’ve got to put those puppies every six inches in every direction. We’re talking four screws or nails per square foot. Even when you’re nailing, it isn’t trivial. I had no trouble sympathizing with George’s whimper about the nailer being broken and having to pound them in by hand.

It took me a whole day (or was it two?) to underlay a bathroom. George underlaid the whole kitchen, except for two funny-shaped notches, in half a day.

I’m impressed.

Today Chris the Taper Mudder Guy finished up (I think) the sheetrock work. I think all he did was skip-trowel the music room walls. The kitchen and dining room will be untextured. After 3-4 hours he packed up and left. That would be about it for today. New pictures for today show the winter-like effect in my dining room from all the sheetrock work’s dust. This dust is everywhere in the house. I haven’t found kitty respirator masks anywhere, but nobody has white lung disease yet.

Two months in

Old pictures:

Before

Preparing for chaos

Demolition and chaos

One month in

Still later

Thursday and Friday were all about sheetrock. Chris the Taper Mudder Guy has pounded up the last hunks of sheetrock around the subpanel, patched the holes upstairs, and patched the big hole in the closet where the subpanel used to be, and taped, corner-thingied, and mudded everything everywhere. He’s also gotten little globs of compound on the cabinets in the dining room, but the stuff is ridiculously fragile and easy to remove (from walls as well as cabinets, I learned ruefully when I mudded my bathroom a few years ago), so I’m not worried about it. Coming up are sanding and remudding and resanding and remudding, and white lung disease for all us inhabitants, and then a round of topping and skip-trowel work, so that the new walls and ceiling match all the old walls and ceilings.

The holes upstairs were from where Jon and George had to pull a new circuit when they were putting in the arc fault circuits that are now required in bedrooms, which they had to bring up to code because they had moved the subpanel to bring it up to code, which they had to do because they’d done anything electrical at all, which they had to do because I didn’t like my old kitchen in the house that Jack built.

Meanwhile, somebody has peeled back more of the carpet to the base of the stairs, since the tiled portion of the foyer is going to reach back to the first step. However, nobody has peeled carpet out of the closet, which will also be tiled, nor the first bit of the hallway. So once again I ask myself, what is efficient about the way these people juggle the jobs, doing bits and snatches of work in one place before running off to the next? Why would you come all the way up to Montclair to peel three square feet of carpet but not peel the other six? I don’t get it.

Thursday afternoon Jon and I took a field trip to see the Granite Guy and the Slate Guy. We started with the Granite Guy, wandering around among the slabs and holding up an alder shelf from my pile of cabinetry to see which went best together. I was pleased that my original choice, uba tuba, looked quite nice with the alder. (Uba tuba, for those of you who nodded off in the previous expositions) is basically a tight-grained granite with little flecks of gray, quartzy-looking stuff, and brassy bits. Granite Guy calls them “gold veins.” Whatever.

Dakota mahogany also caught my eye. That’s a salmony-pink number with swirls of gray and quartzy bits stuff that I have always associated with boulders in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, so even though it’s wildly colorful, it appeals to me. Somewhat disconcertingly, it looked really nice with the alder also, throwing me into doubt. Should I overcome my fear of color and branch out from Basic Black? Granite Guy thought so. He said both are beautiful, but Dakota mahogany would bring out all the colors in the Indian peacock slate I’ve been leaning toward.

From there we went to see Slate Guy, who turns out to be Slate Woman. (I hate “gal,” sorry.) There we gathered up a few representative tiles of Brazilian slate, the stuff Jon’s been recommending, and Multi-Raja, which is what this shop calls the Indian peacock I’ve been wanting. We schlepped these along with the shelf around among THEIR slabs of granite, stopping first at the uba tuba, which went nicely with the Brazilian. Then I noticed a similar but flashier slab a few slabs away: Golden Butterfly, which is basically uba tuba with a lot more gold, and which struck another blow against certainty. The alder and the golden butterfly brought out the gold in each other, and the Brazilian slate and the butterfly brought out the flash in each other. Although I wasn’t so fond of the Brazilian slate’s palette (it’s beautiful, but all those golds and rusts and brownish tones aren’t so much my colors, and the bold contrasts of its colors are definitely outside my stark Scandinavian modern comfort zone), I couldn’t argue with how beautifully the three materials went together.

We wandered around a bit more, searching for Dakota mahogany to no avail. I finally found something similar, and I thought it looked pleasant enough with the Multi-Raja and the alder, but it just didn’t jump out at me the way the other combination had. We wandered back to the uba tuba and agreed it looked great, and then back to the golden butterfly.

I stared at it. Jon stared at it.

I said, “I don’t know, Jon, it just speaks to me somehow.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of speaking to me, too.”

Somehow we both found this puzzling.

Anyway, we’ve more or less decided on the golden butterfly and the Brazilian, even though I like the Multi-Raja slate better and love the Dakota, because the Brazilian, the alder, and butterfly are positively stunning together. So what if Brazilian’s not in my preferred palette? They’re gorgeous together and the others are merely nice. I’m going to have to assume that this is a case where I’m supposed to override my Scandinavian instincts in favor of more color to warm up all the rest of my Scandinavian instincts.

The catch is that Slate Woman only has four slabs (my job needs two for sure, maybe three), and at least two of them are on hold. However, they’ve been on hold since April, so I don’t think they’ll stay on hold past actual money being waved around. Jon would rather buy his granite from Granite Guy, who already bid the job, but Granite Guy doesn’t think he has any of this stuff on hand. He’s going to check his other store in Reno. Presumably Jon is now backing and forthing with Granite Guy and Slate Woman to put a plan together.

My fallback is uba tuba and Brazilian. Dakota mahogany and Multi-Raja are third choice. Come on, you can’t really picture me working at a pink counter, can you?

So get this: in a rare departure from my usual expensive taste, which I swear is unintentional, I have fallen in love with what is considered a lower grade of what is already one of the cheapest granites around.

And get this: I thought this was going to be a short post.

Today Jon arrived at 2, sanded down the rough spots on the subfloor in preparation for putting down tile underlayment, and left for a 3 o’clock appointment.

The sheetrock guys postponed starting until tomorrow.

Old pictures:

Before

Preparing for chaos

Demolition and chaos

One month in

New pictures:

Still later

Real Estate Guy just called back. The lot next door was listed at $139K and sold recently for $150K. Bad news, good news. Bad news, it’s sold, and I suppose somebody’s going to be building soon. Good news, I couldn’t have afforded it anyway (way not), so no use torturing myself over it. Argh.