Adventures in Remuddling

Soundproofing the Bathroom Plumbing

tig — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:37:23 +0000

After scouring the internet and reading the Fine Homebuilding article several times, I came up with a list of things I could do to soundproof our bedroom/bathroom wall. Here’s what I did:

I removed all the metal hanger straps that supported any pipe and replaced them with plastic hanger straps.

metal vs. plastic hanger straps

The plumbing drain stack was originally strapped tightly to the studs in the wall from the basement all the way through to the attic. Unfortunately, changes in water temperature and the weight of the water, caused the PVC pipe to expand, move and rub against wood studs, resulting in creaking sounds. The plastic straps are more flexible than the metal straps, so hopefully it would give more with the PVC plumbing.

I also suspended the pipes between the studs of the wet wall. Fortunately we have 2 walls (or a wet wall) which the pipes run between, so every other strap was attached to alternating wall studs. This way, the PVC would not directly touch the wood. A little complicated I know, but hopefully this arrangement will pay off.

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Touring an Urban Farm

serena — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:55:09 +0000

Yesterday we took a tour of an urban farm owned and run by GardenGirltv. I stumbled upon Patty Moreno’s website a couple weeks ago, and was immediately inspired by her desire to help urban people to live more sustainably. Trained as a film producer, her short, educational video clips touch on a wide variety of topics ranging from growing fruit trees and potatoes to acquaponics.
Patty grows fruits and vegetables, raises Bantam chickens (for eggs), rabbits and fish on a larger than average urban plot. Tig and I got a tour of her raised beds, two fish ponds, and chicken coop. Unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures, as we spent most of our time there asking lots of questions and getting ideas from her. Check out her website for pictures and videos (they’re much better than we could take anyways).

Master Bedroom Redo…Again

tig — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:20:49 +0000

A few months ago, we moved out of our bedroom and into the guest bedroom. Why? Unfortunately, the noise from the bathroom plumbing stack (which is the wall where our bed is located) came back.

I thought I had fixed the problem. But it turned out to be only temporary.

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California Dreamin’

tig — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:37:19 +0000

Yes, we’re transplants from Northern California. (Sigh)…how we miss the mild climate all year round, the winter rains that bring about spring poppies (and then the dry summer that leads to brown hills). But those days are long gone.

One item in our garden plan that I insisted on was the inclusion of poppy flowers (the California state flower). After the fence was installed, the poppy seeds went into the ground in front of the fence. Although I started the plants later than I would have liked, they’ve finally started flowering a few weeks ago.

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Vertical Gardening

tig — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:38:29 +0000

Our lot is about 4400 square feet, roughly 1/10th of an acre. The house, porches and back parking spots take up 60% of that space, so we have less than 1/20th of an acre to work with.

The raised vegetable beds take up 100 square feet. We let our tenant use a 16 sf box. So we don’t have a lot of space devoted to food production, which is fine. If I had more land, I’d rather plant an orchard than have more raised beds.

A little vertical space helps us maximize our raised beds space, and makes it look like a real garden.

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Haws Professional Versus Cheap Plastic Watering Can Smack Down

serena — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:37:22 +0000

Tig had bought a 6 dollar plastic watering can from Home Depot a while back, and he complained that the water spray was coming down too hard on the seedlings. He had read about the Haws professional watering can - favored by bio-intensive farming icon John Jeavons - which has an upturned, brass oval rose that allows water to fall ever so gently like a light rainfall.

Naturally, I snickered when he told me this. Oh, and these watering cans are pretty pricy - a one gallon galvanized can costs between $90-130.

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Relocating Network Closet

tig — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:43:14 +0000

Third time’s a charm. At first, our network hub was literally in our chimney stack closet. Then I moved it into the office closet, thinking it was a more accessible/central location. However hot summer temperatures and no a/c brought an early demise to both our router and cable modem. At least that’s what I think happened.

So I decided to move the network equipment into the coolest spot in our house: the basement.

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Notable Quote

serena — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:59:08 +0000

“At some point you will be done with your house, done building, or repairing, or just done obsessing. Prepare to welcome that moment. The world will have waited for you, ready to feed you what you’ve been missing. If you have set yourself up with what David Omic calls a `thick margin of extra time, resources, and energy,’ you’ll have the power to create a wider, safer home in the world than you could have imagined in your own separate house.”

- Shay Salomon, Little House on a Small Planet

Have a Happy Fourth of July.

Putting in Fish Scale Swales

serena — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:57:04 +0000

After taking notes on water conservation and permaculture, I convinced Tig to take a chance and put in fish scale swales by the nectarine and peach trees. Below is a picture of a semi circle-trench dug around the tree. We dug about 1 foot down and made sure the bottom was level all around. This nectarine tree isn’t doing so great. We have a 50-50 chance of either improving the situation or killing the poor tree.

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Cover Cropping and Mulching the Pathways

serena — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 01:15:46 +0000

After ripping up our entire front lawn to put in garden beds, we still had a lot of unsightly brown dirt everywhere. Looking for ideas, we took a tour of a neighbor’s backyard and noticed that they had planted clover seeds in their garden paths and mulched with straw.

Later, I read in Gaia’s Garden that clover can serve as a perennial groundcover for garden paths: “The greenery suppresses weeds, the shade holds moisture in the soil, the blossoms attrach beneficial insects, and nitrogen fixed by the clover boosts the growth of other crops.” What a perfect solution, we thought. That way, we don’t have to plant and mow grass, and we’ll still get some greenery in our garden paths.

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