Property

floors refinished

Saturday, June 7th, 2003

Yesterday and today, MA Wood Floors (recommended by Dolores Demmon) sanded and refinished the floor in the living room, hall, and bedrooms on the first floor. They are a bunch of nice Vietnamese men and Julie woos them by speaking the few words she knows in Vietnamese.

The put on a Swedish, high-gloss finish that must cure 7 days. It stinks to high heaven.

We ask Portland Homes to make some repairs out of the rental deposit: new rear door to remove doggy door haul away wood, tree stump, and railroad ties the fix-it man gives me tips on how to fix the broken shower and tub (I buy replacement parts at George Morlan) grow lamps were installed in basement and attic the lawn and garden were horrible, but the front lawn had been mowed by our neighbor George Demmon

We mow and weed and replant the garden (see garden journal)

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skim coat bedroom walls

Friday, June 6th, 2003

For the past four days, Ricardo (a subcontractor of Wesley’s) skim coats our bedroom walls and puts a fresh coat on the ceiling.

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we arrive in Portland

Saturday, May 31st, 2003

We fly in from Boston to Portland with our cats in a bag.

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Renters move out

Sunday, May 11th, 2003

Renters move out

where’s my UPS?

Wednesday, May 5th, 2004

The long awaited visit from the electrical company happened today. Our contractor had been telling us that there would be no interruption of electrical service… they just had to move the wire from the roof to a pole so the roof could be removed. But at 8am this morning our power cycled violently enough to scramble the CMOS on the server. Talking Julie through the process of diagnosing the problem convinced me that a new motherboard was going to be the smallest component that I could replace and get a working system.

I called Bill into action and started planning a new server. If I was going to get a new motherboard, I might as well get a new system. If I’m getting a new system, I might as well get something good enough that I’ll notice that it is faster.

Plan A: AMD 64 for about $1200 Plan B: a Dual AMD Athlon for about $1300

I got scared by some of the early reports of flakiness with the 64-bit systems. It seems like that just isn’t totally ready for prime time.

So considering a good plan B, I came up with a dual Athlon. I was on my way to refining the components when I came home from work and found that the old server just needed to go through a Bios setup and was perfectly fine.

Sigh. That means I can wait for a few months and get a 64-bit server when things settle down a little.

But I can immediately justify a replacement UPS.

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aluminum is gone

Monday, May 3rd, 2004

The last scraps of aluminum siding are now off. The cedar siding underneath could use some scraping and painting, but it looks lovely. We even uncovered two pie cooling vents and an eyebrow dormer that we didn’t know we had.

We now have an air conditioner and the oil furnace is gone. We still need to donate our remaining oil and fill the old tank with sand. The new gas furnace is in place and the gas line inside the house is in place. The gas company has come out to mark where they will cut into the street and dig up the lawn.

The electrical company still hasn’t come out to move the weatherhead. Grrr. They are going to get it done just before the rain starts.

The chimney that the oil furnace used has been demolished over the roofline. The contractors could just pick up the bricks without any tools. The mortar had completely dissolved.

And for future reference, the aerator on the downstairs bathroom sink is part number 941-146A from Price Pfister.

Hopefully it won’t get too cold tonight since the gas heater has no fuel supply yet…

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too many details

Wednesday, April 28th, 2004

When our landscaper came today, Julie was out getting the results of our oil tank soil sample. I thought that we had planned to put off the expense of the landscaping to make sure that the attic is finished on time. So I had to fire the landscaper.

Then Julie got home. It turns out that we didn’t decide to put off the landscaping, so we rehired the landscaper. He had a remarkable good sense of humor about it all.

Our soil sample was clean, so we don’t have to spend extra on removing our oil tank.

The electric company (PGE) says that can’t come out to move the electrical service (weatherhead) until next week or two. That’s a big drag because the framers, who were ready to start tomorrow, can’t do anything until the service is moved. We had called ahead to PGE two weeks ago and it looked like everything was ready to move right away. No explanation for why that can’t do the move on schedule.

The delay in the roof schedule gives us a little more time to raise funds. But we’re losing good sunny weather…

Work is continuing on removing the siding, and the house will probably get painted on the first level while we’re waiting for the framing.

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attic floor work

Tuesday, April 27th, 2004

Today the agenda looks like this: remove all flooring in the attic remove all knob and tube wiring (the server may be offline as a result of the power outage) scab in 2×6 floor joists be prepared to lay sub-floor

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construction begins

Monday, April 26th, 2004

Work has begun on our roof. The attic floor is being torn up to determine where the load-bearing beams are. The cats are very interested in sneaking up to the attic, probably just because it is forbidden.

An electrical utility guy came out this morning and said, “this just isn’t going to work.” Then he said, “oh yeah, this will be no problem.” I hope I learn how to hear that from contractors and NOT have a heart-attack before they get to the “oh yeah, this will be no problem.”

Soil samples were taken of our oil tank. We’ll hear if we have leaks sometime in the next few days.

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Important facts

Wednesday, October 8th, 2003

While taking public transit on my job tour today, I learned that it costs $1.30 to take the bus downtown and $1.60 to go all the way to OGI.

While looking for jobs on the city web site, I found information about our house. I’m most interested in knowing our longitude and latitude: Long -122.61048 Lat 45.50688

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new locks

Monday, June 30th, 2003

While Bob and Shirley are here, we install unlaquered brass plates on the light switches and electrical outlets. We also install new doorknobs on the front and back door.

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grow lights

Saturday, June 14th, 2003

Our herbally-minded renters left behind a few grow lights in the attic and the basement. I move one of the long, florescent lights to be over the washer and dryer.

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painting details

Friday, June 13th, 2003

We prime the trim with 1-2-3 primer over a coat of oil-base paint. We prime the walls and ceiling with Pratt and Lambert Pro-hide Gold. We paint the ceilings with flat finish (1426FB) We paint the walls with eggshell finish (2207) We paint the trim with semi-gloss finish (1426FB) Ancestral off-white We install front-loading Maytag washer and dryer. I rewire the electrical plug to be compatible with the dryer. It was a range plug. I remove that and install a 3-wire dryer plug. We use a total of 6 gallons of primer, 3 gallons of trim paint, 4 gallons of ceiling paint, and 7 gallons of wall paint. We do one coat of primer and two coats of paint on everything except the fireplace, which gets about 3 coats of primer.

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a new coat of paint

Tuesday, June 10th, 2003

We scrape and sand our walls to prepare them for painting. We find that there was a coat of latex paint on top of a coat of oil paint on most of the trim, so it peels fairly easily. I catch and kill a rat in the backyard. We spot 3 of them earlier in the morning. The rats seem to be eating the birdfood that falls from the feeder and the slug poison in the garden.

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sprinklers

Thursday, March 31st, 2005

We just had a week of non-stop rain. If that keeps up, we might just beat this drought. It is a pretty wacky place that can be worried about the lack of rain after 7 straight days of it.

And what better thing to do in a downpour than install a sprinkler system. In just two days, the crew dug trenches, set the pipe, and we ended up with three zones of irrigation in just the front yard. (The backyard sprinklers will have to wait until the wall is done.)

I didn’t really want a sprinkler system in the front yard, but it just seemed so reasonable to put it in at the same time we were getting irrigation in the backyard. I can’t say that I’m likely to use it. I like how the dry summer weather stunts the growth of the grass so I don’t have to mow as much. Who cares if it gets a little brown? Grass is supposed to be brown when it is hot and dry. It isn’t going to die or anything. But there it is. And it is a good thing that we had someone digging around in the front yard… they found a leak between the water main and the house that we’ve been paying for for ages. They said it was a big leak too. About a gallon a minute. I’ll be looking for our water bill to drop 50% if it really was that big of a leak.

I’d normally have some pictures of the Ditch Witch and the pattern of the pipes so I could find them again later, but our beloved Canon Powershot S40 pooped out. (The lens tries to deploy when you open the lens cover, then it stops and beeps three times and shows an E18 error on the LCD. I’m guessing it is dust or sand in the lens mechanism.) I was left with the dilemma of repairing the camera for between $150 and $500, or picking a new camera to buy, or getting an upgrade from Canon for $230. It probably would be smartest to just buy a new Canon SD20. That’s the light, simple, point-and-shoot Canon. It makes sense. It would be easier to use than our clunky S40. But in the end, I opted for the upgrade to the S60. That’s another clunky, complex Canon. I couldn’t bring myself to give up all those options that I almost never use. I like occasionally fiddling with exposure and focus and depth of field. Even at the expense of not being able to fit the dang thing in a pants pocket.

So I’m still a happy member of the Canon family and I think their upgrade program is really smart. Even though they couldn’t tell me when my S60 would ship. And even though they are likely guilty of an astroturf campaign on the Newegg customer reviews (too many Canon customers tend to sign off their reviews with the phrase “Go for it!”).

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new carpet

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004

Today the carpet is being installed on the second floor. We’ve moved the bed up there and have been sleeping upstairs for the past week or so. It is really nice. I imagine it will be even nicer with carpet. I just don’t look forward to cleaning cat barf out of the carpet.

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bathroom done, stairs next

Thursday, September 16th, 2004

The bathroom is now useable, although I guess there is still some work going on in the shower. But the jacuzi bath tub works just great. The railing around the stairs is built and primed. It will get a coat of paint soon enough. We’re still waiting for the carpet to arrive. They estimated that it would arrive ten days after ordering. The bed and mattress should arrive today. The carpet guys will just have to move it around, I guess.

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bathroom progress

Wednesday, September 1st, 2004

The construction on the upstairs is moving along steadily. The parts for the handrail are being painted before they are installed. The bathroom tile is grouted. The shower door, toilet, and sink are supposed to be delivered soon. It looks like the whole bathroom will be functional in the next week.

Did I mention that the lights are in and the electrical work is done? That was done a week or two ago.

We’re getting pretty anxious to move in now that it is so close to being done.

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attic progress

Friday, August 6th, 2004

This week, Jerry began work on trimming the windows. The subfloor is down, the ceiling is done, the walls are painted. Today, he even installed one door. It is amazing how much better it looks with a coat of paint, and a clean floor. And a door just adds that little bit of class. It is really going to look like it is ready to live in soon.

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painting begins

Tuesday, July 20th, 2004

Jerry bought some paint today and will begin the painting in the upstairs rooms. That means that the drywall, taping, mudding, and sanding a substantially done. Not only that, but I think we passed the landmark of not needing to make any more decisions about what will go in the upstairs. Jerry has been politely pestering us to decide on tile, carpet, paint, fixtures, lights, windows, doors, trim, etc etc. I think now all our choices are made and we only have to wait for the completion of our desires.

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inspections

Tuesday, July 6th, 2004

Three days ago, we passed our framing inspection and just this morning we passed the insulation inspection. Plumbing and electrical passed a while ago, so that means that the drywall can start to go in. We still have to pick a few lamps, bathroom fixtures, and odds and ends. Oh, and we have to make the final decision on the tile in the bathroom and the carpet everywhere else.

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outside finished

Tuesday, June 29th, 2004

The house looks like a finished product now that the gutters were completed yesterday. And we passed our framing inspection this morning. So now the thrust of the work will be on the drywall and finishing of the second floor. I suppose there really is the chance that we’ll be done by the due date of July 10.

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electrical and plumbing inspections passed

Wednesday, June 9th, 2004

The electrical was no problem, but the plumbing upstairs had two leaks to fix before the inspection. And we got some damage to our first floor ceiling as a result. But our contractor assures us that we don’t have to worry about any damage caused by the construction, so I guess it just means we get a new ceiling.

But man, soggy old plaster really stinks. eeweeguh.

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living in a big, fancy tent

Thursday, May 13th, 2004

We came home Tuesday night to a house with no roof. We went up the stairs to the attic and looked up to nothing but sky. We balanced around on the beams of the roof, careful not to step through the lathe and plaster, and looked for artifacts. We found a few documents from the 1920’s, some rulers, an old watch face with radium numbers, and a matchbook.

Since then, we’ve been sleeping in the fanciest tent in Portland. The gas line for the heater just got hooked up yesterday, but the city has to inspect it, so still no heat. The air conditioner is installed and ready to go, except for the thermostat. So it has been chilly at night. The loaner portable heater just doesn’t seem to do much even when you are standing right in front of it.

We got approved for less money than we wanted, but it is enough to cover the current project and some overruns. Not enough for the backyard garden. That will have to wait. My income just wasn’t stable enough for them to give us the max. Ah well, that’s what we get for traveling for a year.

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