Beer Update 2, and Home Improvements (Not at Our House)

Scott came over last night and we completed the next set of tasks in the creation of my "End of Term" beer to celebrate the completion of my tenure on city council.

Rather than work in the basement this time we worked in the kitchen. I set the carboy on the work table.

We had already sterilized 60 or so bottles, the bottling bucket, the siphon system and the bottle filler. This is done by washing them all in bleach water and the rinsing in clean water. Scott inserted the siphon system and we started to fill the bottling bucket.

 After we had started the siphon going we decided to have a little taste so we partially filled a mug and tried it. I don't want to jinx this process, with a rash prediction, but we were both pleased with what we had.

 After the bottling bucket was filled Scott attached the bottle filler to the siphon hose and started filling our sterilized bottles.

 My job was to take the full bottles and cap them. I bought my bottle capper in 1982, when as a first year teacher I made root beer with my 5th graders for our Halloween party, a tradition I carried on for three more years. Scott had never seen a capper like that so he wanted a turn at trying it out. So he capped our final bottle.

 In the end our batch made exactly 50 12 ounce bottles of beer.

 Youngest daughter saw my photo above and said it wasn't artsy enough so she shot a better version. Her's does a much better job of showing off the hops cone bottle caps I bought for our brew.

So despite working on our home at glacial pace, I've actually picked up a few jobs on the side. I finished one last weekend, so here are some shots from that. "Susan" (not her real name) is a new faculty member at the University of Iowa and has bought a nice bungalow on the east side of Iowa City. Over the summer I did some work in her kitchen and installed a correct period front door. She said that she wanted a tin ceiling in the kitchen to cover a not so great plaster job and I agreed to work on it with her.

First thing we needed to do was cover the ceiling in 3/8 inch plywood.

 After doing that I snapped out lines and started to install the ceiling panels.

 A couple weekends after finishing the ceiling panels I went back to install trim around the walls to make the project look "finished." In the shot below you can also see the paneled box I created last summer to hide the soil and water pipes that run to the upstairs bathroom. Originally this area, and the furnace chimney were covered by a plaster wall bump out. Susan wanted the get some exposed brick in the kitchen so she had the plaster removed, but wasn't expecting to see pipes. She is pretty handy herself and has been stripping the woodwork on the window and doors and will take them back to their original varnished condition.

 The kitchen is not big but it certainly had interesting challenges, working around the stairway to second floor led to some creative cutting but I think it looks quite good now.

Kitchen Update #2

I was able to install more trim over the weekend. First I had put to put 1 x 4 around the back door. Somehow I managed to lose the piece that went on the left hand side of the door and was cut out for the door lock catch, but waiting 10 years after removing it, that will happen... I did find the piece that went over the door, but that was no good to me, since originally the right hand side of the door was a perpendicular wall. With that wall removed I needed to cut a right hand side panel and then have the top go over it, so the original was too short. I picked up trim at the Salvage Barn. It was three pieces painted all over 84 inches long. Since it was painted it was half off, so I paid $8.00 total.

I stripped the paint off the boards, sanded and then cut them to fit. I then primed, painted and installed over a two day period. I think the part around the lock turned out OK.

My picture is bad but here it is now:

 Compared to how it looked in 1928:

In my defense, because we took out the closet to the right of the door we had to make both sides match, and be part of a single plane which they weren't originally, so we had to install a shim under the trim, which recesses the lock catch a bit.

Up next: Getting back band cut and fit around the back door so I can then complete baseboards, and the upper trim.

Kitchen Update #1

Here is a first kitchen update after announcing that we were actually doing something.

Last week I finished painting the wall and some trim. Here is a shot of the sink and the edge of the cupboards:

Since I've taken this picture I have:

• returned the brass switch and outlet plates
• put up the trim at the top of the cupboards
• added the trim that runs around the kitchen between the window and cupboard
• added quarter-round to the baseboard
• added base shoe to the cupboard toe kick area

Here is a picture of the nook:

I just se the table in place, I haven't attached it yet. You can see the trim above the nook, that will run all the way around the kitchen.

What I'm working on now:

• trimming out the back door
•  baseboard for the exterior wall on both sides of the door
• upper trim on both sides of the door

Hopefully I'll have some more pictures to share in a couple of day...

Last MAJOR INTERIOR Project, REALLY!

I know it's been quite a while since anything was published, but I want to say that the LAST MAJOR INTERIOR PROJECT at Foxcroft is well underway: THE KITCHEN.

Every time Lisa has asked when we would do the kitchen, I have answered "Last." This is because nearly every other project required us to track materials in through the back (kitchen) door.

Over spring break we had plasterers come to fix the corner where we had removed the bump out that was Bess' closet from her bedroom. We had removed the closet a mere 10 years ago in June of 2005.

While I will flesh this out and give details about what we've done in the near future, here is a photo montage of the kitchen from when the house was built (1928) through today, in progress:

BLUE PRINTS
Here is the kitchen layout from the blueprints. The back door opens between the half wall of the nook, and a bump out bedroom closet. This would have been extremely narrow. The small area marked "Brooms" was another closet, that opened in the kitchen. The fact that Bess was getting an ELECTRIC REFRIGERATOR rather than an icebox was a big deal, and noted in the plans:

One of the most charming parts of the kitchen plans was the breakfast nook. Bess had found separate images of how she wanted the table and the benches to look, and given them to her designer:

1928 Photos: 

THESE 4 PHOTOS WERE ALL TAKEN SHORTLY AFTER THE HOUSE WAS BUILT.
For ALL PHOTOS below click on the image to see a larger version:

This photo was some time after 1928 and before 1948:

In 1948 the half wall and bench of the nook were removed.
These photos are probably shortly after that:

The next three images show what the kitchen looked like the first time we were in the house on Dec 19, 2003:

The next four photos show removing the broom closet, and the bump out bedroom closet
on June 9, 2005. Read about that here:

They're Here!

We had to put a header over the back door to carry the load of the gable we added upstairs. the first photo below shows that. The second photo shows the  light switches shown on the bump out above that had to be relocated, this would be about a week after the pictures above.

So here is the kitchen after the plasterers came, and I just finished varnishing the floor. There will be more updates to come.

Some Trim Cuts I CAN do successfully!

In my last post I neglected to mention or display the trim cuts I can do successfully. Here is the new bump out before I started trimming it:


The baseboard was left over from when I did the upstairs 3 years ago, I had stashed two pieces away in the office closet. Here is the exterior miter:


The piece behind the room door to the right fit nicely, however on the closet door side, There was only 1/2 an inch between the wall and the backband, so I had to mark a line, saw down 1/4 of an inch, then chisel out so the baseboard would fit snugly to the wall:


And here it is in place:


The base shoe was saved from when we had to work on the dining room wall.


I hit the edge of the baseboard miter with a little stain and it looks great.

Coping With My Inability to Cope...

... as in "cope cuts." I am very bad at using a coping saw. I was able to do passable copes when I had to cut new baseboards for the upstairs, but when it comes to coping the picture railing, forget it.

You may ask "How did you manage to successfully trim four rooms upstairs with picture rail if you can't cope?" The answer of course, is that I used salvaged rail and made sure to take advantage of the copes that were already cut by people FAR more skilled than I am. It became a challenge in itself to figure out how to take advantage of the copes already cut!

Which leads to trimming the new bump out in the office/spare bedroom. Way back in the 1950's a temporary closet had been built into that space. We ripped it out and put in our chase for the HVAC and electrical to go upstairs. However the picture rail in the corner had already been cut and removed long ago. I had barely enough salvage left to do this last little job, but it meant having to do a cope cut myself, so here it is:


The top fit pretty well, but the bottom has some real issues. You can see that when I put it up into place:


In my defense it doesn't look that bad when you're standing in the room, and that corner is very out of the way. If I slather enough wood filler up there, it will be invisible.

What you may also notice from that last picture is that the original rail was cut short of where the new bump out starts so I was forced to GLUE a tiny block of wood in place to fill that gap. Once I put a little touch up paint over the glue that bubbled out, it too should be invisible. (I hope!)

Yet Another Narrow Escape From Burning the House Down

When we first bought Foxcroft and discovered both A Lifetime Supply of Cardboard, and realized that the fireplace had nearly a foot of ashes in it, we shook our heads and wondered just how it was that the place hadn't ever burned down.

I've been scaping and painting at the peak of the the gable end on the south side of the house. Our second floor dryer vent is located up there. I noticed that there was grass sticking out of the vent door. I also removed an extensive sparrow nest from the top lookout box. I reached my hand in and pulled out quite a bit of grass. I then went down and told Lisa, who said, "THAT's why the clothes haven't been drying!" At that point I knew I'd need to take apart the vent.

I climbed into the attic, scuttled across the rafters and pulled apart the vent:



Then I pulled off the elbow:



Then after removing that pulled out from the straight portion:



And being the compulsive fatalist that I am, re-assembled the whole mess back outside on the ground. Yes the entire length is a little over two feet:



I am sleeping a little less soundly these days, but the dryer is working much better, thank you.

There's a Hole In the Bucket!

I knew if I posted about the sink's cold water stem no longer leaking from the wall it would start again. So yesterday I took the entire assembly off AGAIN. I wrapped teflon tape around the cold stem AGAIN, I reassembled the whole faucet AGAIN. I was happy. Then as I was sitting at the breakfast nook table working on taxes, I noticed that the faucet was DRIPPING. Arrgh. I was right back to where I started a month ago. My thought was that sediment from the pipes had gotten into the stem and were keeping it from shutting tightly. So I spent the afternoon getting up and turning the water on and off every 20 minutes or so. When I got up this morning the sink was dry. But I'M NOT SAYING IT'S FIXED! For the record this is the 5th faucet I've installed in this sink in 4 years, but in my defense several were salvaged ones that I had to put on in a pinch...

The good news is that while I had the faucet off I was able to remove the plug for the third hole in the sink. The better news was that no water came spraying out of the pipe, but I was pretty confident since I knew that pipe ran down to the basement and was not connected to anything. Now I can jerry-rig something together for a soap dish.

So here's a little trip down memory lane of posts about the sink:

kitchen faucet

Holiday Plumbing

Still Do Any Work Around Here?

To answer a persistent question, yes.

Here's an update on a project that actually has been completed. The issue that led to my recent rant regarding the kitchen faucet has been resolved. The not-repaired stem was inserted back into the faucet and failed completely a week later. I then paid a visit to my brother-in-law at the plumbing supply store to get a better quality faucet.

There was a Chicago brand faucet in stock, and after being satisfied that this would be the last faucet I installed for some time I bought it. My specific questions were:

• Do the stems have rubber washers or ceramic?
  
• Are the washers replacable?
  
• Can I order new washers?
  
• Can I get new stems?
  

Jim's answers were:

• Both rubber and ceramic fit this model. If the rubber go bad quickly due to heavy use, replace with ceramic
  
• Yes
  
• Yes
  
• Yes
  

This answers made me very happy. Here is the faucet installed:


One week after I installed it I noticed rust stains from a drip at the cold tap:

I was of course fearing the worst as the supplies barely come up to the openings in the sink. But thankfully it was the connection between the adapter that fit onto the supply and the faucet itself that was not tight so I DID NOT have to disassemble the entire unit. I cleaned up the rust and it seems OK. (knock wood)

My only regret with this model doesn't have a built in post to add a soap dish. However I think that perhaps I can kill two birds with one stone here. In noticing the THIRD hole in the sink, there was a pipe for a cistern line originally. I can state with complete confidence that there NEVER was a cistern, as it isn't mentioned in the original contract, blueprints, or show anywhere in pictures. I do have original kitchen photos with a third faucet but it was likely just a dummy. There is no pipe coming down the back of the sink, nor is there any hole in the original floor for a pipe to go to the basement. I think if I can work the plug off and there is some little bit of pipe there I might be able to fashion some adapter and mount the soap dish from the previous faucet...

Step By Step

I'm continuing to work on the back steps. Pete dropped off the yellow pine that he joined together to make the side "boxes" that will cover and hide the end stringers. I spent yesterday cutting and shaping the boxes.

With some luck I can get them painted this week and maybe installed next weekend. Then I would be ready to install the steps.