OOpps! - Minor Bump in the Road

Remember this picture of the new door waiting to be installed? Hold that image in your mind.

Here is my tool organizational unit along with the vacuum cleaner (which just got off duty).

Amon stopped by to see how things were progressing. Now look at the next picture.

Notice anything different?

Yep. There is is… the proof of the door and the vacuum cleaner handle having a minor interaction. When Amon walked past the door he brushed against it and it fell over… right onto the vacuum cleaner. Oh well. Accidents happen, right? I felt really bad for Amon, and I know he felt bad too, but like I said. “oh well”. Jay was a little harder to convince of the “oh well”, but he eventually came around.

If we have to assign blame (which I think is rarely necessary) then we could blame Amon for brushing against it. OR we could blame Jay for not leaving it at a good enough "lean angle". Lastly, but least likely, we could blame ME for leaving the vacuum sitting there. I think we will just go with "Oh well" though.

Jay had the header up on the door opening and pretty much ready to hang the door. Oh Well.

Previously he had sealed the plastic in the gap of the ceiling. That other two by four you see will be harder to deal with. It’s apparently not attached to anything, just sort of hanging there. Jay will have to crawl up in the attic and put in some kind of support so that he can patch up the hole that it will leave (such as the one you see with the plastic).

Jay isn’t thrilled about going up into the attic. In years past he’s found big snake skins up there. We have at least one, maybe more black snakes that appear to live in the attic, especially in the winter time. Black snakes are good though… they eat mice. I will remind him of that and be extra glad that attic work is beyond my own technical ability.

Yesterday we got another new door and last night Jay put it in before anything unforeseen could happen to it. He thought it would be quick and easy, but… It wasn’t easy, nothing is ever easy. Because the walls are apparently not exactly level, perpendicular or whatever, the gaps were off… after a lot of fiddling with it (with me as his trusty assistant), he got it in.

I was on one side of the door and he on the other, trying to get the overlap and gap to measurements such as 5/16 on both sides of the door... giggling the little wooden wedge things (I can't remember what those things are called.). Can you believe 5/16ths? I needed a magnifying glass just to see the tape measure. 1/2 was not right... and once I had it at 5/8ths... WAY to much. I am not very good at the perfectionism routine when it comes to construction. I am selectively perfectionistic.

Here it is… looking “in”. That same tile will go over where the concrete floor is exposed. (We still have some from 25 years ago when we built the house.) The “kids’ bathroom is right past the brick, to the left. In case you are curious about the brick, it’s the wall behind our wood stove.

Here’s the door from inside the room, looking “out”.

Jay warned me this morning not to get energetic and start staining it. (I hadn’t planned to do ANYTHING in that room until after the wedding this weekend anyhow.) He said he needs to get some wood putty that will take stain to fill in all the little nail holes. Yeah. I knew that.

I’m very happy with my live in contractor.

And now, back to getting ready for the weekend.

Day 5 - Another wall hits the dust

So, Thursday I didn’t do anything. Well, I did do things, but not related to the new room. Yesterday (Friday) I had planned to spend the day doing housework, but I worked on the room instead. That’s because Jay was home (he is currently working only Mon-Thursday) and he started working in there, so I knew I needed to seize the opportunity. He started by disconnecting more electrical lines, and I knew that was like priming a pump. He’d keep on keeping on, especially if I was working too.

After he disconnected the electricity to the outlet on the remaining wall between the two bedrooms, I knew it was time for me to get going on drywall demolition.

I covered Esther’s stuff with sheets to keep the crud off it and then got busy. First I took her door and door frame off, then had the drywall off in no time at all. Jay stayed busy contemplating and implementing his plan for how to fit the new door into the hallway. (The picture is Esther's stuff all covered up. How will she get all of this plus what you can't see in her closet into her car?)

The view from Esther's room through the hole towards Amon's room. I sort of hate to see that cloud wallpaper go, I like it. BUT, it will go. The era of wallpaper is over.

This is the other side of the same wall, looking from Amon's room into Esther's.

After the drywall was down, the bare studs were too much for Jay to resist, so he took time out from his doorway contemplation to take the studs down for me. Stuck to one of the bottom studs I found another strip of that apricot colored wallpaper that I put in that room when we first built the house. (The only other reminder of it was that little tiny square piece I had found by the window ledge on day 4.)

The door studs that used to hold up the door to Esther’s room will stay for now so that Jay can try to duplicate it when he puts in the new one. BUT it will go after he’s done studying it. The door you see in the background is the door into the walk-through closet into the master bedroom. It will stay. The little door that you only see the edge of is to the linen closet. It will stay also.

I took down a couple sheets of paneling off Esther’s back wall which revealed two other small pieces of wallpaper history… both from when the room belonged to the boys. (The wallpaper memories are fun and a little sentimental.) I put that paneling up a long time ago because that back wall was such a mess that I just didn’t want to deal with it. Under the paneling on the wall I found some vertical strips of brown packaging tape that mystified me. It seemed to have no purpose… then it hit me. I put the tape up to make sure that little white strips of wall didn’t show through the seams of the paneling. (It's painted white now, but it used to be the typical brown fake wood look. ) I’ve always been pretty good at innovative answers to little technical problems.

Jay took a chunk of carpet out of the hall as part of his door installation project. As a crud-catcher, he left the very compacted sheet of blue carpet pad … walked FLAT from 25 years of wear. We’ll be extending the tile from the living area into the part of the hall that isn’t in the room as well as putting new tile on the kids’ bathroom floor.

I stripped the little patches of wall paper, removed nails from 2 by 4’s, hauled them outside, burned paneling, carpet, drywall (well, I tried to burn it) and other remnants of the day’s activities. I spent a lot of time vacuuming up crud and organizing the ever growing tool collection, then decided to call it a day. Jay wasn’t done yet… he went to town to buy the new door and pick up a pizza. When he got home I got up long enough to eat some pizza, admire the new door, pretend to listen to some techno-speak about how he planned to install it. Then I went to bed.

This picture was taken from Esther's room looking back towards Amon's. I might keep his closet as is and use it for a TV "nook" (as is..without the doors) OR I might put the doors back on it and use it as storage. Amon left the entertainment center that you see... it has become my tool organization unit.

Jay wants to get the door up as soon as possible so we can close off that part of the house when we aren’t working in it. I will be staining the door and door frame and it will be nice not to have to worry about getting it all over the carpet or floor… since we’ll be putting new carpet in.

Today we’re taking the day off to go to a Patriot Guard “send off” for a National Guard unit in Warrenton, about an hour from here. It’s going to be warm enough to ride the motorcycle, so we can’t pass that up. I’m betting that by tomorrow night he’ll have that door up. I’m NOT betting that I’ll have it stained real soon though. All the kids are coming to town for Nathan’s wedding next weekend.

You can read about Nathan and Kimberly's wedding on my main blog, "Keeping in Touch"

Day 3 & 4 - Hidden Treasure and Wall Stuff

It took day 3 (Tuesday) and day 4 (yesterday) to finish my to-do list for day three partially because day 3 I had to go to town to do some errands and shopping, which always eats away at my “real” plans. Also, I forgot (when making my to-do-Tuesday list) that Jay and I had dance lessons that night. That means that in the afternoon I had to: 1 - Take a nap and 2 - Get cleaned up. So between running to town and taking care of 1 and 2, there wasn’t much time for my empty nest project.

Anyhow, I started by punching a bunch of hammer holes in the wall between Amon’s and Esther’s rooms. This time I made nice neat lines. As before, this was fun and in a way cathartic. This might be the only chance in my lifetime to put holes in walls so I need to savor it. I ripped away the drywall on the one side of that wall in no time at all. I’m getting pretty good at it.

AND.. I found more hidden treasurer. This time it had obviously been deposited from a repaired hole on the other side. This is the last wall that I’ll be seeing inside, and I have to say I’m a little relieved that I haven’t found anything “illegal”. This time there were three crayon pieces, a blue lego, a spoon, a little stencil thing, scissors, a diaper pin, and a little yellow barrette. It’s been a long time since we’ve had diaper pins or any of those tiny barrettes in the house. (Hey, do any of you kids claim responsibility for these?)

The hole repairs were interesting to see from the back side. (The one below was directly above the pile of hidden treasure.) Sometimes I was the hole repair person, other times it was Jay. Mostly it was me. I had my own methods and they were much faster than Jay’s. (He did it the “right way” by patching in a new piece of dry wall complete with pieces of 2x4 to support it and dry wall mud to blend in the seams of the repair. When I repaired holes it was usually just preparation for putting up new wall paper and I figured that the wall paper would cover the repair anyhow. Sometimes I used duct tape… sometimes that foam insulation stuff that you squirt in… and other times, like the one below, I just left the hole and papered over it! This time (below) I had repaired it with clean packaging tape. What you see in the hole is the back side of the wall paper on Esther’s side of the wall. Hey, it worked fine… and no one would have even known the hole was there if I hadn’t ripped down the drywall.

After I cleaned up the mess and hauled away the drywall pieces I called it a day and moved on to nap-taking.

Yesterday, I succeeded in finishing my to-do list for the day before which included stripping the wall paper off the two walls which would remain and removing all the nails from the pile of 2x4s. I planned my attack carefully. The wall paper stripper had to be put on the walls (a section at a time) and let sit for 15 minutes… then another coat and another 15 minutes before starting to remove the paper. I chose the easiest wall and put on the first coat of stripper. Then I set up my nail removal clinic in the living room on the floor in front of the TV. I worked on nails and watched TV while I was waiting out the 15 minutes between applications of stripper.

Nail removal wasn’t as hard as I feared, but it did take some muscle. The nails were mostly the three inch variety and almost all of them were bent over from Jay pounding the studs sideways to get them out. I had to hammer them up straight and then pound them from their tips through to the other side where I could use the pry bar to pull them out. It was a nice challenge and I loved seeing the stack of nail free studs grow… as well as the pile of old nails. This didn’t happen all at once, only between trips to the wall to fiddle with the wall paper.

The paper from the first wall came down fairly easily, although not as simply as I’d hoped. As in most past experiences with stripping paper, it came off in two layers.. first the vinyl-ized colored top layer, and then the under-paper part. And… it’s not like it came off in nice big sheets for the most part either, …especially the under paper part, but it did come fairly easily. Not so with the other wall.

(above) You can see the different layers... the blue vinyl top layer, the paper layer (it's yellowish because it's wet) and the bare wall behind it.

(below) All of the blue is off, but part of the paper layer is there. Finally, the finished wall, complete with hole (compliments of Amon on a really bad day).

(I was trying to put these two pictures NEXT to each other but after several tries gave up. Blogger sure has a lot of quirks to figure out... someday.)

The other wall is the outer back wall of the house and I've always had trouble getting wall paper to stick to it over time. Possibly because of moisture or temperature changes or who knows what, it has tended to come loose a the ceiling, seams, or around the window. The last time I put up paper (the current blue stuff) I guess I used some super-stick type of glue, especially on those troublesome areas. Getting it off wasn’t easy. Even when both layers previously mentioned were off, I realized there was another strange white layer of something. I don’t know if it was primer, glue, or remnants of one of the past wallpapers. The later, I suspect. It didn’t come off easily at all. I could barely tell where it was because of the poor lighting (due to the electricity being disconnected and the drop light not working). In fact, I gave up and part of it is still there. I’m not sure if I’m going to hassle with it further, or just call it “good enough”. My only concern is that when I spray on the bumpy plaster “knock down” stuff that it might not stick well. I’ll have to research that.

When I removed the wall paper I discovered splotches near the floor of past wall paper from when the older girls had that room. This is the wall paper that we bought the “dusty rose” sheets and comforters to match. (See day 2) I remember that I couldn’t get it removed last time I tried, and just left it. It still didn’t want to come off, so I left it again.

I also found a tiny piece of the very first wallpaper from when we built the house. It was stuck up near the window ledge.

AND… under the baseboard I found a little strip of a dark blue paper that I barely remember, but must have been when we converted the girls room to the boys room.

Getting glimpses of family/house history through wall paper, sheets, and hidden treasure has been fun.

Day 2 - Stud-less-ness

Yesterday I got the door and the rest of the door frame down but not a lot more. I scattered a few things around so that it would look like I'd been working in there during the day but I really didn't accomplish much except cleaning out the linen closet and sorting and washing twin sized bedding to get rid of.

I found 6 twin mattress pads (one of which was too old to pass on, so I tossed it.) I found 16 twin sized sheets in various colors, two of which joined the tattered mattress pad in the trash. The others I'm taking to Girls Town.

Sorting the sheets was fun, it reminded me of all the different decor/wallpaper schemes we've had going in the kids' rooms over the years. The sheets are all solid colored.. the oldest ones were dusty rose, and then a light teal. After that came the dark colored years. There were forest green, navy blue, and maroon. (I never even went near white.)

Most of them still look pretty good too, which is amazing considering what they've been through. Not only have they served as sheets, but also as tents, room dividers, table cloths and bed skirts. I realized long ago that if I wanted a large piece of plain colored fabric, the most sturdy and cheapest way to go is by buying a flat twin or double sheet. I have two dark green ones now, hanging from the ceiling in "MY Space" (in the garage room) to hide the water heater and softener. I got rid of old plastic "pee pads" which I kept for emergency use if needed for overnight company with weak bladders as well as a twin sized plastic mattress cover. I got rid of curtains I'd kept for "just in case" and king sized pillow cases that I'd made (from sheets) for various kids who liked those huge pillows. We no longer have any of those in the house. My linen closet has a lot more space in it but I still need to go through the queen sized sheets, of which we have two many. With only 2 queen beds in the house, we surely don't need 10 sets of sheets, especially when I wash sheets and usually just put the same ones right back on the bed. We have way too many old comforters (several of which match those twin sized sheets) and other types of blankets too... but blankets are harder for me to get rid of than that other stuff. It just seems that there will always be a use for blankets for one thing or another. Besides... I guess I just LIKE blankets.

After all that sorting, I figured I'd done a day's work. I'd still have to take the piles of cast offs to Girls Town, Amon, and would save some of the mattress pads for Rachel. I called it quits for the day.

Then... last night... just about the time I was settling down to do some serious TV watching, Jay decided to check out the electrical lines and figure out the sequence. He fiddled with the breaker box and determined that all four outlets and the ceiling light in Amon's room are all on the same circuit. He disconnected them. I was a little confused about his timing... and figured oh, well... I guessed I'd be working in there without lights until he got around to doing more, which I didn't figure would be anytime soon. BUT I was wrong! Not about not having lights, but about his time frame. After he disconnected the wiring he started knocking out studs! Now there's a wide open stud-less space there.

I really didn't expect him to get involved this soon and I'm really glad he did. I have to admit, it would have been really hard for me to get those studs down. (BUT I would have found a way.) It was hard for him. He had to use a big pry-bar and swing a heavy sledge hammer to knock them loose from the 3 inch nails that connected them to each other and to the ones that went across the top and bottom. Jay really seemed to be getting into it. The 2x4 across the bottom was attached to the concrete floor with special long nails. He pried it up and then broke the nails off even with the floor. Like I said, it would have been very hard to get this done by myself, so I was really glad that he jumped right in there so willingly to help.... and I didn't even have to ask.

It became obvious that I was going to have to figure out a place to stash stuff like door frames, baseboards, and doors. They were quickly accumulating and they were in the way. I moved them to the "kids computer room" where there is already a chaotic mix of items that I don't know what to do with yet. I had to move a few things, but found a nice spot for them. I'm already thinking about the two extra doors that I'll have. (We'll need to buy a new one to get the right "swing direction")... and what I'm thinking is that doors make GREAT table tops for workspace. I was going to buy a nice long table, but I might refinish one of those doors instead.

After last night, the room is filling up with tools. Jay always likes to use a variety of tools. Sometimes after a simple project, putting away the tools is more time consuming than the project. I noticed that we have FOUR different sizes of pry bars in there and four different sizes of hammers. But hey, he got the job done, and quickly too, so I'm not complaining. The main thing I did was hang around, look supportive and impressed, and hand him whichever tool he wanted.

Today, my to-do list includes removing all the nails from all those 2x4s so we can store them somewhere for future use. Jay suggested that if I'm "up to it" maybe I can haul them up to the shed. (hummm) I also hope to remove the dry wall from Amon's side of the wall that divides the two bedrooms. I never thought of that... it was Jay's idea that reomving it from the side in Amon's room wouldn't cause any dust and crud to go into Esther's room and get on her stuff. I also hope to remove the wallpaper from the two walls in Amon's room that will be staying. I was pretty proud of myself for finding the wall paper remover (liquid) as well as several tools that are specifically made for that task. I had put them all away... and actually found them! Amazing.

Frustration

I have spent way too much time trying to figure out why part of what I wrote in the posts below is double spaced and why part of it isn't. I HATE not being able to figure this out! I know it doesn't matter all that much, but I really want to know. I guess solving the mystry will have to wait for another day though.

Day 1 - The Beginning

Yesterday was the day... Time to start! The first thing I did was take apart and get rid of the beds in both bedrooms. Next, something simple, I decided to tackle the stars on Amon's ceiling. For some reason, my kids have have found the need to decorate their bedroom ceilings... I'm not sure which one of them stuck the little luminescent stars up where, but both Amon's room and Esther's had them. I started by knocking down all the stars in Amon's room. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom to read the first post which shows my floor plans and talks about the overall scheme of things.)

When I say "Amon's room" I only mean that he was the last occupant. Each of the bedrooms in our house has been occupied by various kids over the years. When we first built the house, "Amon's room" was Rebekah and Rachel's room. Then Rebekah moved out and it was Rachel's room. It's also been "the boys room", then Nathan's room. Others may have claimed it over the years, it's hard to remember!

Here's Esther's ceiling. I think Naomi was responsible for these stars. The blue ones are stenciled on, the white ones are stuck on and glow in the dark. I won't be working in that room right away since Esther still has a lot of things in there. My attention for now is on Amon's room.

After knocking down the stars, I decided to get serious... it was time to be really committed to the project so I tried to punch a hole in the wall that I was going to remove between Amon's room and the hallway. When I hit the wall with my fist it HURT! I couldn't imagine how the boys have managed to put holes in the wall by hitting it... (it occasional fits of anger)... Putting a hole in the wall is not easy and I gained a little bit of perverse respect for anyone who could do it.

I decided to pound my "starter hole" with a hammer. I took a couple swings and managed to get it opened up enough to pull out the first section of drywall which also pulled away some of the wallpaper. The hole doesn't go all the way through to the hallway at this point, only the side in Amon's room.

I wonder how long I will call it "Amon's room".. ??? Probably forever. I still call the main bathroom the "kids' bathroom and no kids even live here now. AND I still call that room behind the kitchen the "kids computer room." Some things may never change.

That's part of one of the beds that you can see through the door into the hall. I got rid of it before I went much further. I decided that hammering the wall was fun... and decided to make a bunch more (hammer) holes.

I used the hammer holes to weaken the drywall so I could pull it off in chunks. I put the big chunks in containers to haul off. I wasn't too worried about the little chunks on the carpet. Eventually I'd just cut the carpet out, roll it up and haul it off too!

I've got almost all the drywall off this side of the wall! Some was sticking under the door frame, so I'd have to remove it to finish.

When I got this far I found some interesting items that had been INSIDE the wall. There was a checker, a nice round rock about 3 inches across, a little toy (Fisher Price) milk bottle, and a little green matchbox race car. I guess one or the other of the kids (probably one of the boys) had shoved them through one of the holes that had been kicked (and since then, repaired) in the wall. When Amon stopped in he said..."Oh, there's my car! I was looking for that a long time ago!"
Now, for the other side of the wall... here you can see through to the hallway.
Taken from the hallway looking towards the kitchen. Nice looking studs, huh?

All done for the day, looking into Amon's room from the hallway. You can see the expertly removed door trim against the wall. I took it off Amon's door, both sides as well as Esther's from the hall side.

And here is the view from Amon's room looking into the hall. Notice how I even cleaned up most of the plaster mess off the carpet? I decided I didn't want to track it around in the rest of the house. I'd say that's a pretty good afternoon's work.
I'm not sure what the next phase will be. All I know for sure I can do is remove Amon's door from the hinges and maybe take out the rest of the door frame (not just the trim like I already did). I can't start taking down 2x4's until Jay does something with those electric wires. He'll have to move the light switch and outlet, but the wires also go on into Esther's room. That part is beyond my expertise so progress from here may be at his whim and mercy. I don't really want to start removing the wall between the two rooms until Esther moves her stuff out in a couple weeks.

If I get antsy I might start ripping up carpet, but I have mixed feelings about that, it seems to be a good catch all for plaster dust and such.. might be easier to take it up later than clean that stuff off the concrete floor under the carpet. BUT ...

I might not be able to help myself. I guess I could start ripping down the wallpaper. Maybe that will be next. Eventually the walls will be refinished with "knock down"... bumpy plaster finish to hide all the years of hole repair and other flaws. Those walls will never be smooth enough to just paint and I'm tired of wallpaper.