Month: October 2021

It was an eventful week. In addition to finishing a bit of painting and doing yard work, our contractors started our bathroom and laundry room remodel. Problems were encountered (surprise! – not) and the job isn’t yet completed.

Our remodel plan had four goals: 1) install a job sink in the laundry room, 2) relocate the washer’s water and drain lines, 3) install a garbage disposal under the kitchen sink, and 4) relocate the upstairs bathroom toilet and water supply lines.

This project was mainly undertaken as the washer and bathroom water lines (run along exterior walls – stupid) tend to freeze in winter (duh). The washer lines had heat tapes on them which kept water running, but the upstairs lines did not.

Beginning in the kitchen, the garbage disposal install required a complete rebuild of the sink’s drain system, but was accomplished without much fuss.

In the laundry room, moving the washer lines and drain, plus adding lines and a drain for the new job sink, was a bit more of a problem. The plumbers were able to complete most of the work but didn’t have the correct fitting to add the new drain lines to the existing drain pipe. A return visit will take care of that, but it may take a couple days/weeks? to get back on the [very busy] plumbing schedule. Until then the washer is still functioning on the original lines.

One of my “indoor” projects will be to repair the sheet rock around the install. I plan to make a cardboard template so I can accurately make the needed cutouts. Pam already has plans to put wallpaper over the entire wall (which will help cover any mistakes I might make). The plumbers found a stash of acorns and vintage linoleum in the wall as they worked. The acorns were maybe a rodent stash, but linoleum in the wall? A mystery.

Related to the washer relocation is the install of our new job sink in the laundry room. This is also on “hold” pending the drain connection, but I did get the faucet mounting and backsplash finished. Pam painted some hearts on the wood and I followed up with 3 coats of spar-quality polyurethane.

Where we really ran into PROBLEMS was in the upstairs bathroom. The original plan was to simply relocate/replace the outside wall water lines (the ones prone to freezing) to an inside wall and replace the old stool with a new one. That plan did not survive long!

When some floorboards were pulled up a real mess of lines and drain piping was found. Obviously, someone who was trying to do work on the cheap used whatever was at hand, not bothering to get the correct parts to do the job correctly. Lines were a combination of cast iron, galvanized pipe, and copper pipe. There were no clean-out ports and the traps were not accessible should they need to be cleaned or replaced.

However, the worst problem was structural. The floor had sagged over the years, dropping as much as 1 1/2 inches from level in the middle of the room. This meant that the new stool would not sit level.

Now we needed to make a decision: Fix the floor correctly, or just patch the floor and leave everything ‘as is.’ We called in Bob the Builder who gave us a plan to level the floor. He will cut “tapers” to lay on top of the existing floor and install a new floor over the top of the old one. Material will not be that expensive (cost of wood is coming down after the pandemic high), but the labor to do the job will be substantial, requiring at least a couple days work by two carpenters.

So there we were: Bob the Builder, the master plumber Zach, Pam and I, standing in the upstairs bath debating the future of that room. Given that the floor was already open (in several places) and required reworking of the existing water and drain lines, we decided to go ahead with the floor fix and add a shower install (an upstairs shower is an item I have been lobbying Pam for). Bob will get us on his schedule and the shower stall has been ordered through the plumbing company. Short term, the new stool was installed on a level patch installed in the existing floor. The sink was not disconnected so is still functional. (The new plan calls for it to be relocated to an inside wall near the stool.)

We have watched enough “old home renovation” shows to know problems such as this are not uncommon. Old homes have settled and there are no level surfaces or straight lines. What we hoped not to find was “kludge jobs” done by previous owners. Silly us.

Zach the Plumber was able to do a substantial amount of work in the bathroom, relocating the water lines as we had originally planned, and replacing much of the existing drain system with PVC piping. Here are a couple photos of this work in progress:

Current project status: We are waiting on correct fittings for laundry room and job sink drains, waiting for Bob the Builder to get the new floor installed, the shower stall is on order, and sheet rock work needs to be done. A return by Zach the Plumber to install the shower on the new bathroom floor and complete the plumbing will be required. After that Pam and I will need to put some type of floor covering down to complete the bathroom. There is a long way to go, but at least we no longer have to worry about water lines freezing!

Not all activity this past week was indoors. Pam finished some small paint jobs early in the week, including the ginger bread over the front porch steps. She really wanted to get this section done as it adds character to the front porch entrance and shows passers-by what the rest of the ginger bread (high in the eaves) will look like once painted in shades of blue. Additionally, I painted the white trim on one of the second floor bedroom windows, which required a trip out on the front porch roof. Both projects are visible in the photo below.

Other chores including getting a 4-wheel alignment done on the RAV4, lawn clean-up, the dogs were taken to a new vet for a quick appointment. The colder weather has not slowed our schedule by much. More projects will be of the indoor variety as colder-than-average weather sets in for the next week.

I include this photo of Felicity and Peter; they are dressed in their Halloween costumes to volunteer at the Tulsa Botanic Gardens. Felicity is in her Jane Austen dress and Peter is a western gambler.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

This week seemed about ten days long; by Wednesday I felt it was already Saturday. We moved a quantity of boxes out of storage areas where the plumbers would be routing lines — boxes of “stuff” therefore being stacked around the house. (Reminded me of the move-in two years ago, and not in a good way.) Drilling noise, keeping track of animals while workmen were moving through the house, making sure Elmo didn’t escape into an open hole in the floor. Exhausting.

And that second floor bathroom, what a mess under the floor boards. Why has virtually every repair in/on this house been done cheap-cheap-cheap and poorly? It grows tedious. I mean, what sane person would put a 2 x 2 for support under a 700+ pound clawfoot bathtub? I guess we’re lucky the tub didn’t drop through the kitchen ceiling below. (Maybe it would have if one of us had actually taken a bath in the thing. Weight of tub + weight of water + human weight = wild ride to the first floor.) I’m currently quite angry with previous owners.

Oh well, time to plant spring-blooming bulbs and finish cleaning dead hostas from the flowerbeds. I’m planning to live dangerously and overwinter a Boston Fern indoors, within Elmo reach. The internet tells me the plant will not be lethal to the cat, but the cat may be lethal to the plant. (Trying to factor how many cat pukes I’ll be cleaning vs. if the fern will survive…)

Happy Trails.

You would think that with the weather getting colder, our lives would slow down. Not so. With more painting, a visit from a long-time friend, leaf clean up, and various other projects we are as busy as ever.

Last Monday we entertained one of Pam’s long-time friends, Sally Eglinton. Sally was a brand-new librarian when Pam was in high school. (Sally’s husband Ken [now deceased] was a shop teacher at the same time.) Pam struck up a friendship with Sally that still endures. I first met Sally when she attended our wedding in 1974.

Since 2020’s face-to-face visit opportunities were COVID-limited, we had not had a chance to see Sally, who lives in Minnesota, and she had not had the opportunity to visit us. This year we set a date and Sally drove to NE Iowa on a beautiful fall day to get a tour of Heart House.

Here is a photo of us on our front porch.

The “Welcome Fall” plaque, seen between Sally and Pam, is a much-appreciated housewarming gift from Sally and will be on display until the snow falls. We really enjoyed having Sally here — catching up with the news/events in our lives since the last time we saw each other.

A limited amount of work did continue on the house. I replaced two rotten pieces of trim with newly painted wood. I put a second coat of red paint on the west wall and scraped and painted some of the vertical white trim, which improved the appearance of the corners and really makes the red walls ‘pop’ with the contrast. With below freezing temperatures arriving late in the week, I drained and removed the hoses, pulled the last of the vines out of the garden, and made a couple passes over the yard with my leaf muncher and riding lawn mower to remove fallen leaves. Pam put away yard art for the season, then cut back a number of plants, including a few hostas and morning glories (saving quite a few seeds from the Grandpa Ott morning glories).

We are preparing for the plumber’s visit, scheduled to start next Tuesday. This project will relocate the laundry room water and drain lines away from an outside wall, where they are prone to freezing unless we plug in their heating tapes.

The upstairs bathroom will also get similar attention, moving water lines away from the south outside wall. We’ve had to aim a milk house heater at these lines where they made the curve from horizontal (in the basement) to the vertical where they ran up the wall to keep them from freezing. Finally, new water supply and drain lines need to be run for the job sink we plan to add to the laundry room. The plumbers have let us know that they will not do any repair on the walls and bathroom floor so after they leave we will have new projects to repair those areas. Photos will be forthcoming in my next post!

So ends another busy week. Items still on the list: detail painting we would like to get done, but that is weather dependent. Looking forward, the big event will be the plumbing project of course, which necessitates relocation of stored boxes out of two different areas. Other projects on the horizon include changing oil and filter in the truck and installing a new drive belt on the John Deere riding mower. I need to check the snow blower and make sure it is in running condition after not using it since last spring.

Pam has begun working on our 2021 holiday/Winter Solstice cards. These hand-made cards will take quite a bit of work to complete. I help where I can, primarily on the computer-printed art work, but Pam handles the hand work required to design and assemble the cards. It is a time-intensive project.

Finally, I have a short clip of Elmo the cat playing around the legs of the kitchen table. The clip is 46 seconds long and has no sound. You can find it on my Cats Videos page or go directly to Elmo at play.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

I have it in my mind I want to paint the portico over the front porch before all is said and done re: outside painting this year. It is not an easy reach for me on the ten foot ladder, and all of the component parts of the (small) project involve detail painting. Standing by for 50 degree temps.

In many ways it will be a relief to wrap up exterior painting; both Himself and I are very, very tired of exterior painting. There will be interior painting for me over the winter, but my “break” between paint jobs is the cut-and-paste holiday cards.

Happy Trails.

The past week was a mixed bag of painting, yard work, bad weather, cold weather, and a visit to friends in Winona, Minnesota. Here are the specifics.

Starting with the weather — the last week featured some very cold rain, forcing us inside where we worked on smaller projects. We received word that our plumbing remodel is on schedule for the week of the 25th, so we began moving some boxes around and other prep work in anticipation.

Pam continued to sort through the linens and other items I brought home from The Lot. Several loads of laundry were involved, but everything is now worked through. Items that will be going back to The Lot next spring are packed in plastic bins and labeled. That will make the first trip packing much easier and quicker.

Fall temperatures have led to overnight lows in the upper 30 degree range, causing us to fire up the furnace for the first time this fall. Cooler temps have affected our painting and scraping routine. I did manage to get a large chunk of the west and north-west walls scraped and painted red, a big improvement. The blue trim board and white vertical trim still need to be painted, but we are waiting for slightly warmer weather early next week, probably Tuesday. That will (probably) end our painting for this year.

I did not get red paint over the west window as had been done with the other first floor windows; I did get up as far as possible while working from the ground. (Going up and down the ladder just did not appeal to me.) It was unfortunate that our scraping on the west wall revealed quite a bit of wood repair needed, which slowed the process considerably. As mentioned, given the weather and other work to be done, we may not get any more red paint up this year. It’s satisfying, though, that almost all the first floor painting is completed.

In an odd twist, one of our lilacs has been blooming for the past couple weeks.

We can’t figure out why this would be happening but we can enjoy the the fragrance the flowers are putting forth.

I have a photo left over from last week’s art and craft fair excursion to New Hampton. It seems “spinners” are all the rage. Quite a few vendors had numerous variations for sale; here its a photo of a few of them.

On Friday we drove to Winona, Minnesota, to visit John and Margaret Flesner. Pam and Margaret had both been co-workers in Glenwood Springs. Margaret, who still owns the family home in Winona, recently retired in Colorado. She and John extended their fall MN visit while awaiting a painter, who is due to show up next week. This timing worked out perfectly for us to arrange a visit. The family home dates from the 1880s and features an amazing amount of original woodwork inside. The stairwell and double door entry is a feature of real beauty. We had a lively (if short) visit — a couple hours of chatting after a tour of the historic home.

I had met both John and Margaret in Colorado as they both rode motorcycles. (Margaret had a trike.) A “Campus to Campus” ride was organized by a mutual friend, where all of us rode from Glenwood Springs to Steamboat Springs, visiting the local community college campuses in those towns. That “ride” was a good many years ago; John and Margaret have traded in their motorcycles for 3-wheel “tadpole” style recumbent bicycles. Many trails in the Winona area give them ample opportunity to ride. Here is a photo of Margaret on her recumbent trike:

Generally speaking it was a good week over-all, though the rain and cold weather did put a damper on the paint schedule for a few days. The upcoming week promises to be a bit warmer, and we are expecting a Heart House visit from one of Pam’s childhood/Midwest friends. That event will be covered in my next post.

Photo Archive

These photos are from September of 2009 during a trip to Estes Park, Colorado

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

It didn’t make the photo cut last week, but — for those of you following along out there — I did manage to paint the floor of the east/side porch while Himself was in Colorado. Not an insignificant task, since one must keep the outside cats from utilizing that porch while the paint is drying (two coats). This time of year, leaves from the oak trees also have the discouraging tendency to blow down into the wet paint. All in all, something of an exercise in frustration, but done for this year.

All three porches + steps will likely need “paint refreshed” every couple of years (due to shoveling snow off the surfaces, sweeping, floor traffic, deliveries). Yippee. Himself and I are pretty burned out on painting at the moment; it’s excellent to cross paint jobs off the list, for this season anyway.

With the arrival of colder air, it was obviously imperative I tackle winterizing the catio. Time to clean cat boxes, vac, pull out winter bedding and bed heaters, stage a space heater for those evenings below 20 degrees. Cleaning indoor cat boxes will be next, to be done outside before the hoses are pulled for the season.

My bulb order arrived, on time this year (not stuck in pandemic Holland, like last time). I doubled up on daffodils, since the daffy display was so successful in the Mary Lynn Memorial Garden this past spring. After the first freeze, bulb planting will join the yard cleanup tasks.

It’s that time of year. Happy Trails.

It has been an interesting time since my last post. I took a driving trip to Colorado to shut down The Box for the winter and made a [long] side trip to Arizona to visit our good friend Hank Tourtillott. It was a long and tiring journey but satisfying on many levels.

Every fall, in late September or early October, the RV trailer we call The Box has to be shut down for the winter. This year, in addition to draining the fresh water and emptying the holding tanks, Pam suggested I bring home all food items, including all dry foods that would normally not be harmed by cold weather. In addition, I brought home all fabric items including bedding, pillows, and all other linens. The truck was stuffed on the way home!

Until the last day, I was finishing some cutting and chipping that I had set as objectives. The work was cut a bit short by rain and cold weather, as morning temperatures were often in the mid-30 degree range. Still, with the fall colors just past prime, it felt good health-wise for me to be able to get out and enjoy the weather; I completed as much as I had the energy to do.

Here are a couple of fall color photos from this trip:

I did not take many “work” photos but did get a before and after of some of the work I accomplished. In this case, I was cutting dead branches off the bottoms of pine trees on The Lot.

I do this kind of work so it is easier to walk around The Lot, it reduces fire load, and it just makes the place look better. The dead branches will be chipped. I was able to work on several trees in the upper part of The Lot, opening a potential path for the tractor and trailer to use to further clean up the area. I was also able to chip a couple of small piles of brush I had assembled on the lower part of The Lot, giving me the chance to operate all my “Big Boy” toys.

Part of the travel plan was to take 3 days out of the trip and drive to Arizona to visit Hank. It is hard to believe we met him more than 40 years ago when we moved near Nederland, Colorado. Hank (and Ellie, since deceased) were our good neighbors during that time and we have kept in touch ever since.

I did not take photos of my time in Lakeside, Arizona, but did record some strange “on the road” photos during the trip down and back. Here they are with captions.

The trip, in total, was around 3,200 miles. I was tired when I arrived home and the truck needs an oil change. Still, it was a satisfying journey.

I arrived home around dusk last Friday. Pam had a nice meal of roast beef and a fresh apple pie waiting for me. On Saturday I unloaded the truck and we took off to visit a craft and antique fair, as Pam was hoping to find some larger Christmas-themed decorations (none we liked were present). Pam did score an old heart-shaped rug beater – which will become a decoration in the house – and I bought an oil lamp (sans chimney) that caught my eye. It was a good outing.

Sunday was a day of yard work. In my absence the grass had grown and a lot of oak leaves had fallen. The work to mow and clean up the yard yielded two trailers-full of grass, leaves, and cut-back flower plants which I took to the town organic dump area and unloaded. Those loads will be the first of many for the fall leaf season; hopefully I will be able to keep up with yard work a little better with no long trips scheduled in the near future.

Finally, I have a new short video clip on my Video page. The latest covers a cannon shoot at the Ft. Atkinson Rendezvous we recently attended. The end of the clip features Greg and Annie, a duet that performs old fashioned music at events like this. The direct link is Rendezvous 2021.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Himself is back in the house. Time to prepare bloody meats for mealtimes once again. The dogs love it when bloody meats are cooking. Me – not so much.

Happy Trails.