Archive for category living room

More small stuff

Raked about half the backyard.

More clearing in back room and living room.

Took a wire brush to the stand pipe cleanout, then gave it another dose of Kroil. Will alternate this with a blowtorch for the next couple of days and see if it gets us anywhere.

Mapped a few electrical circuits in the basement, including finally isolating the dining room light so I can install the switch and unit – and have a dining room again!

Also sorted through most of the papers that had piled up on the coffee table, which isn’t really house-related per se, but at least I now have a coffee table again. And now Sarah’s calling saying they’re at the Feve, so I think that’s it for today…

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It’s not even Labor Day…

And I’m still doing so much work! Thanks, I’ll be hear all millennium.

Tasks tackled lately:

– more paneling hung. Have not yet reversed last week’s error though.
– installed a double roller catch in the kitchen passthrough so the door stays closed. Would have installed two but I didn’t see that the second one I bought was broken.
– finished off trim on window in upstairs bathroom. You haven’t done mental geometry until you’ve tried to match your measurements on a square frame to a series of 45 degree mitre cuts on 90 degree cap molding.
– other stuff I’m sure…

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The past couple of days…

Have been a veritable flurry of activity. I scraped about 1/10th of the porch. That’s a lot when you realize this is the paint on my porch:
At least three layers, at least two of which are heavy-duty exterior paint. Not heavy duty enough, because this is what I’m tackling before I can paint anything:

At the rate I’m going (couple of hours, most days), it should be done by early next week. If the weather holds, I can paint all at once. And maybe even put a coat of the new blue (very similar to the old blue) on the front shingles. You know, the ones that needs painting the least.

Meanwhile, inside… I don’t know how the hell this happened:

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Stuck (un)

Finally. Four cutting wheels on a borrowed rotary tool to score the plaster and start to cut the wood, a screwdriver to chip the plaster out, a saw and a steak knife (long story) later and I could access the wheels inside the wall. The rope had in fact jumped off and was wedged between the wheel and the wheel well.


Snipped the rope, rolled the wheel to loosen the stuck section, and the window finally came down. Some new line and an assist from Marion later and I swear this thing moves smoother than before.

I haven’t gotten a chance to look into options for the next part of this project, though – security. Right now there are a couple of heavy screws above the bottom sash to keep anyone from just sliding it up from the outside. There’s probably a more elegant solution to be found, something custom that matches the old wood, maybe. Perhaps it can be located at Home Depot.

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Update: Stuck

Attempts to fish at the stuck window‘s sash rope failed, partly because the wheel is farther down than I initially estimated. Unless someone has another idea I’ll be cutting a new hole in the plaster and lathe as soon as I get the appropriate tools.

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Stuck

These photos – and this project – have been sitting around for a week and a half or more. When opening this lovely window to look at the underside of the bottom sash I apparently raised it too far and now it won’t close. The top of the sash – maybe even the rope tie point – is past the inset wheel in the frame, and I’m pretty sure what’s happened is that the rope has come off the wheel. My friend Hans examined the window at some length and noticed that the rope appears slack in the crevice between the side of the sash and the frame, and goes even more slack when we raise the sash further. Between that and the feel of where the sash catches when we try and move it, I think the rope-off-wheel theory is sound enough to test.

CIMG4416
So the current plan is to lift up the counterweights enough to create some slack on both sides of the wheel, then attempt to fish around from the top of the sash with a heavy paper clip or some similar hook and try and catch the top of the rope loop, lift it, and guide it back on the wheel.

CIMG4417

Option 2 is to get a Dremel (I’ve been thinking about buying one anyway) and saw a square through the plaster and two or three of the lathe boards underneath up towards the top of the channel where the wheel is. This would, in theory, let me reach right in and do the same thing as above but without trying to imitate Huck Finn.

And in other news, these two nails just do not want to come out of the rosette:
CIMG4419

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