Someone's water line broke up the street. That's not really all that unusual in this neighborhood, but it's been running like this since Thanksgiving morning.

ugh, this weather

did the house survive the ice?

Yeah, it's all good. They finished the skirting before the cold hit. I think that made a big difference.

In other news, Joe showed up. He sort of half-assed the skirting vent screens. At this point I'm sort of tired of dealing with him. I can go back and redo it if I need to. Paid him the balance and we are done.

Tomorrow - siding begins!

Alright! Back to work.

Picked up a decent day laborer and waited for Lance to show up. He didn't make it until about 8:30. We spent a bunch of time just trying to figure out how to start things. We spent a lot of time screwing something up, tearing it out and trying again. The starter and bottom row took us longer than all the rest put together.

All in all, it our output today was sort of pathetic.

We didn't get too far on this side because that far corner is where the electric panel is and I think this is about as much as we can do until we get that off.



We had some problems with this side too. Notice the metal along the stone. It came out pretty good, but the stone obviously doesn't stick out the same distance everywhere and to get the metal to not look all warped we spent a bit of time chipping stone away. But, it looks pretty good (still some paper to cut away). We stopped here.



The nice thing is, once the bottom row is established, this tool takes care of everything. It is pretty awesome. We won't need a third person with that bad boy.

So, I hate Home Depot. Every damn time I go in there something goes wrong.

So, Lance thought the blade might be wearing a bit so I decided to get another one so we wouldn't have to stop in the middle of things.

Went to Home Depot because Lowe's doesn't carry those Diablo blades. Well, I couldn't find them at HD either.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Do you have the Diablo Hardie blades"

Him: No, we don't have any more".

Me: "You ran out or you don't carry them?"

Him: "don't carry them"

Me: "Why?"

Him: "we can't sell them. They cost too much".

Me: "but you are out so you obviously do sell them"

Him: "well, we don't sell many of them"

Me: "I just got one a couple weeks ago at another store"

Him: "Yeah, we sell a lot more than the other stores".

I pretty much gave up there.

Hate hate hate them.

Just me and Lance today. I was hoping we would finish the side, but there was a lot of cutting and quite a bit of trying to figure out stuff. Primarily the horizontal trim piece towards the top. It's just going to be a decorative feature but it sure took us a while to think it through. Anyways, here's today's progress.

Just found this... tl;did read every word... the house is looking good.

POG was slow, so I was poking around other forums

Thanks.

Glad you found it!

Well, it doesn't look like we did a lot, but we finished this side. Lance was making fun of my fake vent but I think it looks good. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Finished the back side. Feelin' pretty good about finishing a side in a day.

You can't tell from the pic, but the soffit is as wavy as the north sea. Gonna need lots of caulk.

Lookin good. Really like the stone.

Yup, it's looking really good.

I'm looking for a new place atm. When you're done there, fancy a busman's holiday, bb?

Thanks guys.

Lance and I couldn't quite finish the front today. Lance sometimes moves a little slow for me and he has to smoke a cigarette every 10 minutes. But, he's pretty easy going and works steady.

Too dark to take pics. Will post tomorrow.

I've been working with the electrician to get everything set up to remove the electric panel so I can put siding on. We just got a a time from the city. January 13th. ugh. We have about a 3 hour window to get this area filled in. Should be no problem but I have doubts about being able to get Lance and if I don't it will be some laborer. I still think I can do it, though. I guess the worse that can happen is I'm out electricity for a day.

So I've got a week off and I'm probably going to start on some interior work. I still have some outside stuff to do but I'm going to get started on things inside while the weather is not so good.

When I originally did my interior remodel, for some reason I measured EVERY door frame incorrectly. I have no idea how I did this. I was about 2 inches off. At the time I was pretty sick of dealing with the house so my half ass solution was to nail a 2 x 4 to the top to sort of fill in the gap. I've decided to go back and saw the frame and bring the header down on all the doors.

Also, when I did the original remodel I measured what I thought would be a suitable laundry room. It wasn't. You can barely squeeze in between the washer/dryer and the wall. It's hard to see here but the left front wall you see is the back of a small closet. It's also hard to see but past that is a wider area with a little folding table.

So, I'm going to remove the closet and widen the whole room. And, because I'm sick of bending down to get laundry in/out of the washer I'm going to build a platform/table to put both the washer and dryer on so I can access both easily. The washer and dryer will ultimately face the left, not the front like they do now.

I think I'm going to frame around some standard cabinets for storage purposes. This is also the room where the cat litter boxes are so I need to come up with a plan for them. Not sure what yet.

We just had an offer accepted on a house. It's got a field with a stream, and some outbuildings. If things go to plan we'll move in Feb or march. Mrs k is already planning to knock out an interior wall and drill a hole outside to put a log burner in.

You'll be done by march and looking for a new project, right?

After further review, I think I'm going to just refine my half ass solution. I'm going to sandwich a piece of 1/4 " plywood between my half ass 2 x 4 and nail a proper length 2 x 4 to the top.

I realized after tearing the sheetrock off that 2 of the doorways support beams that in turn support the roof. I'd rather not go to all the effort to jack up the doorway just to fix this properly. It'll get covered up with sheetrock anyways.

I HATE DOORS! More on this later.

Got a really late start. Went to Home Depot and Lowe's to try to match the tile in the laundry room. No luck. They don't even make it anymore. So, I'll have to re-tile the whole room. ugh.

Bought and cut a couple pieces of plywood to sheath the area where the electrical panel is. I'm trying to get as much done as I can ahead of time.

Started re-doing all the interior doors. My half-ass solution (sandwiching a piece of plywood in between a 2x4 and the header) turned out not too bad. Here's a pic.



But, re-hanging the doors. AAAARGGGGHHHHH!!!!!. I spent about 3 hours on the 2nd bathroom door. I just can't troubleshoot problems at all. My method is basically stick some shims in various places, screw stuff in, and pray. After about 37 or so tries I finally got it to close properly. But, it's still not exactly right. It's going to stay not exactly right. The little door to the water heater wasn't quite as hard but even it took a while. Surprisingly my bedroom door went in pretty easily. There's still some weird gaps in various places but the door closes properly.

Only 3 doors - not good progress.

My house is now a construction zone.

When I hang a door, I start with the bottom of the hinge side and work around the door clockwise (or counter clockwise, I guess). If the floor is lower on that side, I shim the frame up until it is level with the other side. Otherwise, the frame goes on the floor.

Hinge side frame goes tight to the stud, shimming just enough to get it plumb. I shim and screw only at the hinges. Any bows between the hinges can be addressed later with the trim. You don't gain any strength in the door by adding more screws away from the hinges, and you'll drive yourself crazy trying to get the reveal perfect at this stage.

Next, top corner opposite the hinges. I shim/block between the frame and header so the gap above the door is equal to the other corner, again ignoring whatever is going on in the middle.

Then I work down the knob side, screwing/shimming about 8 inches from the top first, then the middle, and bottom last. Three screws only, matching the reveal only at those points.

This should result in a door that opens and close, but probably needs a little fine tuning to get the reveal right all around. I make those adjustments with the casing trim, moving the frame in or out as needed and nailing the trim to both the door frame and the adjacent stud to keep it where I want it.

Thanks. That's pretty much how I start. It's when that doesn't work that I have problems. I should probably film myself doing this. It would be "Tuffish does carpentry."

Finished up the doors that I'm fixing for now. There's a couple I'm waiting on other stuff to do before I hang them.

The closet door, ugh. The rough opening was too small so I got the planer to the door. Geez. I ended up planing so much that I had to completely chisel out the area to put the little latch plate. In fact, I planed it so much the knob wouldn't go in properly so I cut some more stuff and drilled some more stuff and aye aye aye aye aye. Finally got it to fit and shut properly and it's fine as long as you don't look at the planed "edge". More like the planed ocean edge. Anyways, all doors are shutting properly now. Something that hasn't been that way in over 10 years.

Finished up the siding in the front (see pic). I still have a couple of pieces of trim to put at the top but I need a second hand to "bend" the trim while I nail it end. The ceiling is a little wavy.

That gap you see on the left is where the trim meets the stone. I'm going to mortar that tomorrow. I asked the guy at Lowe's where I could find a grout bag. He said they don't have grout bags. But I'm pretty stubborn so I kept looking. Right in front of me. I held up the grout bag to show the guy and he sort of harumphed at me.

So, as you can see on the front there is something missing. A porch. If you recall I removed the concrete porch. I asked Wes about this and he said I'll need a permit and inspection for a new porch. Actually I think 2 inspections. A framing inspection and a finish inspection. I could add this to my current permit but I think I want to go ahead and get the house inspected and just pull a second permit.