Adventures in Remuddling

Last night, before wrapping up for the night, we discuss the next day. The pedestal sink is next. “That’s going to be hard,” I say. How do I know that? Because I saw the Pedestal Sink Installation Instructions on This Old House website.

“I don’t think so,” Tig says. “It should be easier than the toilet.” I don’t believe him and say so.

This morning (Saturday), after breakfast, Tig goes downstairs to get ready. I procrastinate a little, but eventually get down there in time to be his helper. We start at 9:30am. The first step is getting in the water shutoff valves. We decided to go a little classier and cover all the copper and PVC pipe with chrome. It’s good practice for our own bathroom. Tig soddering.

We tested the valves to make sure they worked. Then we dry fitted the drain pipe.

Continue reading “Bathroom No. 1 - 90% done!” »

Actually electricity. But to me, it’s POWER (ha, ha, ha).

We haven’t been posting recently because I’ve been slowly upgrading electrical circuits and outlets: switching out some old wiring and devices for new ones (sometimes just swapping and putting the cheaper ones into the rental unit).

I came across this ancient three way switch (above - left).

Continue reading “Power (insert evil laugh here)” »

When we first got the place, the rental unit’s back porch entry was scary. Ugly brown wallpaper on the upper section, green chipped paint on the bottom section. An ugly bulb dangled from cracked plaster that looked like it was going to fall down any minute. We had to do something about it. The only saving grace was the wood trim, which had not been painted over.

Continue reading “Scary back porch entry” »

Today we spent way too much time at IKEA, and then at Home Depot. I got in two coats of paint in the back porch entry, and assembled one kitchen cabinet.

Tig worked on the track lighting, which is a big improvement over the old three can fixture. We chose a T configuration, so that the sink area gets three lights. The fourth light will shine towards a refrigerator and side cabinet. Last weekend, I painted the kitchen window (previously left bare, with splotches of paint here and there).

I may have aluded to the country decor in our unit when we bought our house. This dining room chandelier is an example…

Continue reading “Hot or not? Dining Room Chandelier” »

It’s been slow going since most of the “heavy lifting” has been done.

One item we needed to accomplish was outdoor lighting. The easy fix…

Continue reading “We’re mostly done” »

If you’ve ever examined a new home or condo recently, you’ve probably seen a network closet. This is usually where the phone and cable service enters the unit, and from there branches out to all the other rooms. This type of network topology is called a star network. Sorry for all the technical talk, but I think it’s cool. Plus I think it’s much better than the cable or telephone guy, making holes in your exterior walls to put in a new cable or phone jack.

Anyway, I’m attempting to network and wire our house properly.

Continue reading “Network Closet (round 1)” »

I wrote about a network closet in a previous post. Obviously for a network to work, you need those wires starting at the network closet and terminating in the rooms you want connected (or vice versa).

So in my first jack located in the office, I “fished” 2 ethernet cables and a coaxial cable. I should have fished a third ethernet cable, but I can always do this in the future (I left a nylon string in place to help fish future wires). After making the connections (using wire strippers, 110 block punchdown tool and wire cutters) and snapping it all together …..

Continue reading “Ethernet Data Jacks” »

I decided to install a new thermostat. Supposedly the newer programmable ones can save you money in energy/fuel costs by having the room temperature set colder when you’re away at work during the day. However I work from home. Whatever. It came with a $25 rebate from the local utility, so what the heck, I installed it.

We had an old school classic round thermostat. It’s actually a Honeywell T87 series.

Continue reading “New Thermostat” »

Last weekend, we installed the closet organizer, thus finishing the master bedroom closet.

Yes, there is a light at the top of the closet, which Tig installed. No more fruitless searches in the dark for a wardrobe item.

But wait! There’s more!

Continue reading “Smelling the cedar…obstacle #1 removed” »