and so ends the Summer of Tile

I'm happy to report that as of a few weeks ago the tile work is finally finished in our basement. After last summer's water damage we had to pull out the carpet and some of the sheetrock, and we left it open for the winter and spring to make sure we had the water issues taken care of. Lucky for us the new gutters and the landscape fixes worked. We did have a little water get pushed up through the floor after a heavy rainstorm, most likely as a result of all the clay around here and hydrostatic pressure. Since we can't completely rule out the possibility of water in the future, we figured tiling the entire basement was the best idea, labor intensive though it may be.

After 3 months of nights & weekends, 510 sq feet, and over 2000 pounds of tile, it's finally done.

To keep the basement from feeling too hard & cold, we found some simple carpet rugs to use in the family room. This helps keep the space comfortable, and makes it easy to take care of in the event we get water in there again. I'd say it turned out really well.

Here are a few progress photos taken along the way:



And here is the finished product. Nathan really loves all the new play space!

Wet Basement Adventures

Let me tell you a story about our basement... First, we love our basement. It's nice, spacious, unique, and a fun place to hang out. However, we've had the occasional problem with water. Usually this showed up below our chimney, which happens to be the wall between our family room and the furnace room. During a really big storm, we might see some water show up in the furnace room, and maybe a little wetness in the carpet on the other side of the wall. Not much usually, and it would dry up and we never thought much of it until one day we came downstairs to find these:

Yes, those are mushrooms. Big, brown mushrooms growing in our carpet. I even found mold growing up the wooden leg of an ottoman out in the middle of the room. We knew there was some water damage there but never realized the extent of the problem. Our mission was clear, the mushrooms must die ASAP, but not until they could be properly examined by water damage professionals. We were preparing to go on vacation for a week and didn't relish the thought of these things growing down here for another week until we got back. We ended up calling a couple cleanup companies to see if we could get it cleaned up right away. There were some delays as we figured out that nothing was covered under insurance. One company looked over the whole basement with an infrared camera and could see water in the walls as high as 6 feet around the affected area, but otherwise the rest of the basement was dry. Metro Restoration, the company we ended up going with, helped us feel better about leaving for a week and sprayed everything with a disinfectant when they came out to inspect the basement. This killed the mushrooms right away, and by the time we came back from vacation they were shriveled up and black. Thank goodness for that, and thank goodness for subscribing to Angie's List, which made finding good contractors a great experience.

Shortly after we came home we had the water damaged material ripped out of the wall, and had all the carpet in the room removed as well. What we found was a likely culprit... the "ash pit door" which is where you would clean out ashes dropped down from a wood-burning fireplace. Our fireplace has since been converted to gas, so this door was concealed behind sheetrock. All the water was centered around this door. While we've essentially lost the family room for awhile, at least the nasty stuff has been properly cleaned up and we can move on with finding solutions. As an aside, we could tell that previous owners had fun down here. We found hopscotch courses and children's names painted on the floor, and chalk drawings on the block wall.

At this point we didn't know if water was coming down the chimney, and finding it's way down due to a roofing or flashing problem. We had people look at it, and we even went outside during a rainstorm to look at the chimney area. The most telling thing we saw was water dripping off the underside of the gutters (but not overflowing as far as I could tell) in front of our chimney, and hitting the ground right next to the chimney foundation. We also noticed that some of the landscaping near the house doesn't slope away from the house very well. Our gutters have always been in need of repair... rust, holes, cracks, etc. We've managed to keep them going with caulking in the worst spots, but there's only so much you can do. My dad came up with a good way to test out our theory... run the hose on the ground in front of the chimney. If we see the same results, we know it's not likely a chimney/roofing problem. I turned on the hose and ran it slowly for about an hour, and we saw the same thing we've seen before. I set up my camera for some time-lapse photography to capture the leak:



At this point we've decided to go ahead and fix up the gutters and the water damaged soffits & fascia like we've talked about doing since we moved in. We're also going to fix up the landscaping so water is directed away from the house better. I haven't decided if I want to dig in front of the chimney to look at the foundation, but if we direct water away from it, a foundation crack wouldn't be so much of an issue anyway. The chimney itself has some deteriorating brick above the roofline, but that repair/expense may have to wait, and at least we know it's not the source of our water problem.

The new home office takes shape

Several weeks ago, Beth and I were discussing what I could do in the future to keep up my exercising habit as was recommended by my doctors. I loved getting out for long walks, but that meant Beth would have to stay home with Nathan until I returned if he was in bed. Bad weather (especially winter) would hinder my ability to go out for walks. I don't want to take on the monthly expense of a gym membership, and even if I did that would take more time for each session due to travel time, prep time, etc. I had wanted to try a treadmill at home, but we couldn't think of a good place to keep one, and didn't want to take up space in the common areas of the house. I knew I liked the treadmill from using them at cardiac rehab, and I like mentally disconnecting while I listen to my favorite podcasts or an engrossing audio book.

This led us to come up with a new plan for the house. Beth's office downstairs was a room she found she didn't like to use. It was secluded in a corner of the basement, was usually cooler than most of the house, and generally inconvenient, especially if she needed to run upstairs if Nathan started making noise through the baby monitor. The room downstairs can't be a bedroom due to the lack of a window, and would work better as an exercise room anyway. My office upstairs would have room for two people if we could clear out some items.

We started going through our things, cleaning and organizing, and ended up selling my old desk and an old bookshelf on Craigslist. We also sold my old storage trunk on Craigslist which I have an interesting story about, but that's for another post. Once we sell off Beth's old desk I think we'll have offset most of the cost of the new office.

On Monday we headed down to IKEA with Beth's dad to help us haul stuff home while her mom watched Nathan. We had made up a plan for the office and picked up almost everything that day (we had to go back for some items that weren't in stock on Monday). Of course, we had to partake in the Swedish meatballs with lingonberries for lunch at the IKEA restaurant before we left. We picked out a series of VIKA AMON tabletops and VIKA ANNEFORS table legs with storage that would come together in the form of a large T-shaped desk for the two of us. I also picked up a SIGNUM cable organizer to mount under each desk to keep all the cords tidy and up off the floor. We also came home with a new wall clock, desk lamp, and a few other small accessories. Now that everything has come together we absolutely love the new space. We have more workspace than before and the room feels bigger to boot!

We figure the room will stay an office for a long time. This room was part of an addition to the house, and it doesn't have ductwork for air conditioning; just baseboard electric heat. The best way to keep things comfortable is to keep the door open and the ceiling fan running. Plus the vaulted ceiling means there is no attic space above to insulate from the outside temperature. Overall, it works well enough as an office, but we wouldn't want Nathan or other future children to live in a bedroom with this relatively poor climate control.

Now the downstairs (former office) room is our next project. Beth has moved out of the room, and now we just need to sell off her old desk and get rid of some more items. Once it's cleared out we can look for a deal on a low-cost new/refurbished/used treadmill and set up a little exercise space. The cool temperature downstairs should lend itself well to working up a sweat. Having the ability to exercise my heart and body year-round at home will be great. I'll be able to keep up a relatively consistent habit, and be more available as a husband and father. I want to keep my heart healthy and I don't want to become the person who has a treadmill that never gets used. Granted I have more of a reason than most to use it. At least for now I'm able to get my exercise walking outside, and assembling and moving furniture!

The Nursery Takes Shape

With the help of our mothers, the nursery was painted back on July 7th, and we've been working on filling it with furniture & supplies for Nathan's arrival in November.


Assembling the furniture was time consuming, but went rather well. I had to drill or re-drill some bad or missing holes, and cut one piece smaller so it would fit. Although I've come to expect some of that with any ready to assemble furniture, having tools at the ready certainly helps. A cordless drill is a huge time (and hand) saver for putting in most of the fasteners. Overall we're happy with the look of the furniture, and most importantly we're looking forward to the day we can put our son in his new crib.

A Rough Start for the Red Maple

It was a little over a week ago we happily planted a new tree on the west side of the house. Last fall we cut down an old half-dead birch tree, and we've wanted to fill the space with something new (and not so dangerously close to the foundation!). Thanks to my Dad for his help and discount from Bachman's, we got a new Red Maple.

We found the soil to be somewhat clay as we dug the hole. Before dropping the tree in, we added water to the hole, but it didn't soak in very fast due to the dense clay-like soil. A few days later our leaves were wilting & curling, and looking pretty sad in general. We think it's a combination of over-watering and the shock of transplanting the tree.

As a last ditch effort, I picked up 10 bags of better topsoil dirt to put around the tree. I dug up the tree, still wet under the roots, and made the hole bigger and deeper for the new dirt. Our new Maple is now surrounded by 400 pounds of better dirt that should hopefully soak up water easier and help the tree. We may end up with a dead tree, but we'll let it go until next summer and see if it improves.

Taking care of some overdue house projects

This past week I've gotten the bug to work on some house projects that have been on our list for a long time. Now that the weather is warming up, the temperature in the attic isn't ice cold, and not yet blazing hot, which works well for me.

We've been doing our best to keep the upstairs bathroom ventilated as we started to see mold appearing on the wall behind the door many months ago. That was taken care of with some bleach and mold-resistant primer and paint. Now I have a new bathroom ventilation fan installed in the ceiling. I picked up a nice little 70 CFM fan from Menards. After locating the right position up in the attic, I hooked up the wiring and ducting, and mounted the unit in place, and fished the wiring down through the wall to the switch box in the bathroom. As of now, I have a working bathroom fan. The only step I have left is to vent the air out through the roof. Installing the vent is a project for another day though.

Since I was already working in the wall outside our bathroom, I took the opportunity to install a second light switch in our hallway. Previously, we had to walk all the way down a dark hallway to reach the light switch. With some careful measuring I was able to fish my wires down into the walls without making any extra holes in the wall, which was very nice. It took some time to sort out the plan for wiring, but I was able to make it work nicely. Now I have two switches on our hallway light. A small convenience, but well worth the effort.

The Cabinet Completed and Moved-In

I'm happy to say the custom cabinet is done. After a lot of filling, sanding, priming, sanding, and more painting, it's finally done! I really like how it fits in with the rest of our white decor in the basement. We've taken advantage of the extra storage on the back, and our cords are neatly tucked away in the compartment on the back.

Not all paints are scented equally

On my last trip to Menards, I picked up a gallon of Dutch Boy's Cabinet & Trim paint for the new cabinet. After a lot of wood filler, sanding, and priming, the cabinet was ready for paint. I applied the first coat of paint to the entire cabinet, and the top sides of the shelves. I have to say I'm impressed with the tough, glossy finish from this paint. However, having inhaled the stuff for about 2 and a half hours, I had quite the headache. Whatever they put in that paint to make it extra durable smells a lot stronger than your typical interior wall paint. Our furnace in the next room picked up the scent and spread it throughout the house. By the time I finished my painting for the day we decided to open some windows to air out the house, and went out for awhile to get some fresh air.

So... for the rest of you. Paint in a well-ventilated area!

The TV Cabinet Takes Shape...

What started as three 4' by 8' sheets of plywood and some assorted lengths of solid maple is starting to look like a real piece of furniture.

Wednesday night Dad and I picked up the supplies so we could start right away on Sunday morning.

8 am we started ripping down plywood and laying out the cabinet. Add some nails, glue, and biscuit joints and we started to have shelves. With help of a drill jig we also made plenty of holes for shelf pins for the adjustable shelves. Thanks to Dad, I think it came together much nicer (and faster) than if I had done it myself. It's nice to be able to work with someone who's built cabinets for years, with a complete arsenal of tools and in a heated garage in the middle of winter.

By 6pm we had everything done except the doors (which will get done later) and had it loaded up in the truck to go to our house. Now it's sitting in our laundry room ready for some paint. While it's a shame to cover up such a nice wood grain, since everything else in our family room is white we'll be painting the new cabinet to match.

I have to say I learned quite a bit, and I'm proud to see my design come to life. Now I just have to paint it and set it up in our basement. Expect another update and pictures when it's done.

My Foray Into Furniture Design

Since moving into our house, we've wanted a better TV cabinet for our family room. For the time being we're actually using one I built in junior high wood shop. While I'm rather proud of the piece, it doesn't exactly suit our family room nor the way we want to use it. The TV it holds now is bigger than what used to sit on it, and its placement in the room isn't exactly normal.

Because of the size & shape of our family room, the best place for our TV cabinet is somewhat in the middle of the room, leaving the back of the TV visible to half of the room. With the back of the cabinet exposed, we wanted to accomplish two things: conceal the unsightly cables and keep them away from little hands, and create some storage space accessible from the back of the cabinet.

Enter Google Sketchup. This free program from Google has been a useful tool for some of my other small projects, and provided a fun way to design our cabinet. The design shown here is the basic concept. I plan to include some doors on the front, and a panel to conceal the wires on the back.

While I've managed to stock my garage with enough tools to get by on small projects, I haven't really built anything large since our current TV cabinet. This is where it comes in handy to have a Dad with years of experience building cabinetry and a high quality table saw in his garage. At this point with the design laid out, Dad and I will be getting together to buy some materials and start building this thing! Let's hope it all goes well.

Quick & Easy Foot Switch

So this all started with a floor lamp we bought from IKEA, with a handy foot switch built into the cord. The convenience of just stepping on a foot switch to turn on a lamp is really quite nice, and I've found more opportunities to do this elsewhere in the house.

During one of my many trips to Home Depot, I stumbled on the exact same foot switch I had seen on the IKEA lamp, in the lighting section, hidden in with the lamp parts. For just under $6.00 I had the foot switch, and for another $1.00 I had an extension cord to wire it into. Simply cut one strand of the two-wire extension cord and strip the ends back about half an inch. After twisting the ends, the exposed wire inserts into the switch. Once this is complete, press the wires into place and re-assemble the switch.

This worked particularly well for my office. I have a couple lamps on my desk, and turning them both on would be a bit difficult the way the switches hang off the back of the desk. So, I plugged both lamps into the end of the modified extension cord, and I can turn them both on and off by stepping on the foot switch under my desk.

So... not the most difficult house project, but a very nice convenience.