Raincharm’s Weblog

Today is a quiet day for me.
Trying to catch up on home finances and general house work. I should do laundry, but we will see whether we get to that.

Yesterday was the quietest day at work for a long time.
Only a few customers, and only a few people at work.
It was actually a bit noisy as some remodel (at work) work was done to take advantage of the few numbers there to annoy.

Yesterday was also our anniversary.
Carl & I went out to dinner at Anthony’s at Pier 66.
We have not been out here for a while, and went to the upper floor. It was delicious. Carl had the halibut, and I had swordfish. We split a cheesecake with berries for dessert. All in all a good night out.

(28 years in case you were wondering)

The 4th of July was the quietest day we have had not at work for a while.
Neither of us worked, other than to check out the house and pick some raspberries.
We initially went up to the roof of the apartment building to view the fireworks.
We could see some from Bellevue, and what appeared to be some from the Seattle show, but they were barely above the hill.
What we could see was a huge plume of black smoke. Some others on the roof reported this to be a boat fire.
When we went back to the apartment it was reported to be 14 boats. All in a dry storage rack.

The house has been moving forward, and decisions are being made.
Appliances have been chosen, and electrical outlet locations chosen.

The door that would be a wall is making progress.

Door

Becoming a wall

The kitchen/bathroom cabinet is becoming more of a hole (for a cabinet to fit into).

Was behind the Stove

See through to bathroom

Cleared even further

A new hole appeared in the upstairs kitchen to provide access for new insulation. (Or any insulation)

The attic floor strengthening is complete and floor base is being installed along with a  knee wall. All of this will allow the insulation work to move forward pretty soon.

Eastern Kneewall

Windows have also arrived. We are only getting a few new windows where required. We wanted to go much further, but we can only do so much right now.

New windows

And finally – the backyard pile. It is one measure of the amount of work. (They have carted off some of the debris, but it is still a measure of sorts.)

Ladder is not trash, or wheelbarrow

For Carl’s Day we are having unrelenting heat. I am spending the day with AX. Carl get’s to celebrate by shedding pounds through perspiration.

Because this year, he is The Fez.

Because I just like this picture.

Yesterday I managed to get a blog covering a week or more out into space.
Today’s will cover just two days.

Yesterday had two parties, and some baking. And shopping for sinks.

Sinks were first on the docket.
There were two showrooms we had penciled in. We started at the closer of the two, in Greenwood. What we did not count on was it being Greenwood Days.  Greenwood Days features cars. About 25 blocks of cars. While we were in the sink store we commented on a friend of ours that would likely participate in this type of event.

On to the second store. We knew much more about sinks by this time, and did not need to spend a lot of time. We did, however, score a brochure or two.

Then it was off to party #1. The holder of the party is a friend from baseball things (imagine that). But one of the main events at the party was comparing film reviews from the Seattle International Film Festival, which had ended a week or so ago. Some of these folks went to over 100 films during the festival. We went to 0. But it was still fun – and the house was amazingly full of all sorts of ephemera. Puts our house to shame (or not perhaps).

Flamingo Tree

Flamingos are almost passe. Many people collect them. I have one or two myself.
But this collector has some unique collections as well.

Not your standard garden gnome

Herd of Hydrants

1898 Hydrant from the Fremont Foundry

After too short a time to take it all in, I dropped Carl and Dennis at the Mariners game.

Oh yeah. We have a house guest. Or rather an apartment guest. For a few days it is tenable. So come on out everybody.

While they were enjoying the Mariner game (which the Cubs won), I was doing laundry and baking.
This is a recipe Ashlan provided.

Raspberry Crumble

We have raspberries all over right now, so instead of raspberry jam I mashed fresh raspberries and put them on the top.

This party was to celebrate Carl’s birthday.
Really, just a reason to get together and watch old films that have something to do with baseball. There were several documentary types this year. Dennis, our resident film archivist, supplies the films, projector and screen. Kevin & Sue provided the yard, chairs, food and a chocolate cake (based on another Ashlan recipe).

Today was focused on the house.
The day started with a garbage run. That is I packed the Prius full of garbage from the house, and made a run to the dump. When asked by the transfer station attendant what I was bringing, I replied, “household debris”. That satisfied him without further questions. [I also found out that I can fit a full size trash can in a back seat. Two full cans, a car seat, some broken bins, etc, etc, etc.

Next up was paint. Or rather getting paint ready for disposal.
The paint that was up for disposal was dated 2000, 1998 and by the previous owner (so pre-1992).
It may have seemed more efficient to take care of the paint prior to the dump run.
However, the contractors were working in the garage and basement, so it was time to clear things out as much as possible.

To make the garage cleaner I moved some rakes and shovels into the great outdoors. I did put most of the yard care equipment into a trash can, so it would be protected from the element. Of course to get into the corner that I had designated for temporary storage, I had to do some pruning of branches, and removing blackberry vines that were extending from a neighbor’s yard.

Finally got focused on the paint.
First step – getting the g*&$-d%#$@ lids off of the cans.
Second step – stirring in some paint hardener. These little packets of powder should shorten the drying time by weeks.
Lucky for me I was able to play with paint in the basement. It was in the high 80’s outside, so the cool was welcome.
Hopefully we will be able to dispose of these cans in the regular garbage over the next few weeks.

Paint drying – Is this boring?

Next on the home improvement was more asbestos work.
This time it was encapsulation rather than removal. In short …

Duct asbestos laden

Duct taped!

It is a bit hard to see in the picture, because it is black and blends into the darkness.
This was my first introduction to Gorilla Tape.
I had described this tape as Duct Tape on steroids, based on the contractor’s description.

Wow – can you say sticky? I had to pull off the amount for the use, then unstick the fingers that had been pulling the tape of the roll. Then get fingers of both hands into position. Then tape.

Enough for one day, except that I think I am expected to choose the sink tonight.

Oh – and our friend that we thought would be at the Greenwood Days, it turns out that his car was at the very corner we were. Either he had a different car on display than we expected, or we are blind. Could be either.

It has been too long, but it has been busy.
Getting home late for one reason or another, and unable to face sitting at the keyboard longer than necessary to download pictures.

So here is the last week of house renovation.
Followed by a few days where I took a picture so I could remember what I was doing – that was not renovation.

Here is some of my renovation work. Asbestos removal. I am getting way too familiar with this stuff. The top part of this vent was completely removed, and asbestos tape scraped from the lower portion.

6-22-2013 Evil Asbestos covered vent

6-22-2013 Evil vanquished

Note the wet around the vent. Keep the fibers from moving into the air with lots of water.

Moving upstairs, the attic floor has been removed so they could work on strengthening the floor.

6-22-2013 Museum (aka attic) floor gone

Back down in the kitchen, they are working on making access through something other than our front door possible.

6-22-2013 Temporary door on the floor

Two days later – mission accomplished.

6-24-2013 Temporary door installed

Cool peek hole for apt 309

Closing the south end of the kitchen is moving along.

6-24-2013 Scaffolding up

6-24-2013 The bluest skies are in Seattle

I believe these are the rafters.

Down in the basement, there are signs of the earthquake nailing.

6-24-2013 Earthquake Retrofit begins

6-24-2013 Rods are ready

Which leaves the backyard. I use this as a measure of how much work is going on inside.

6-24-2013 View of the backyard piles

Two days later … I noticed the word “Demo” written on a wall. The problem was that we had removed the removal of this wall from the scope of work. Not enough funding to change the upstairs bathroom entrance.

Demo? NOT

Walls that have been removed are getting more and more closed in.

6-26-2013 Kitchen eaves with venting

6-26-2013 Rafters covered

No more blue sky. With the rain not coming in any longer, electrical is starting.

6-26-2013 Electrical box locations (blue)

Earthquake work has moved to the garage – pulling plaster off of the walls to expose the foundation.

6-26-2013 Garage wall plaster removed – for earthquake retrofit

In the attic

The biggest level I have ever seen – in the attic

Two days later the reason the level was in the attic was explained by the contractor.
They found that the floor was not level, having a sag in the middle.
The method chosen to improve the strength was to add sister 2 x 6 boards to the stacked 2 x 4’s in place. If you look closely you can see that the lighter board (near the flat board) is flush with the 2×4 at the end, but noticeably higher in the middle.

6-28-2013 Sisters in place

Kitchen work is somewhat quiet, ready for the next step. Rafters closed in, door in place (temp), and electrical rough locations chosen.

6-28-2013 Kitchen ready for the next step

More evil asbestos is showing, but this vent stays. Apparently I will be wrapping this with Gorilla Tape (Duct tape on steroids). Perhaps tomorrow.

More asbestos – this vent stays.

Then it was upstairs for a view of the backyard piles.

6-28-2013 Backyard Piles

I noted some long posts (to the left of the picture) that I recognized as the deck supports.! And I looked down. – No Deck.

6-28-2013 – It’s a big first step

No deck from the kitchen door.

6-28-2013 Deck no more from the back door

Now we have a doorway to nowhere. (That will become a window.)

6-28-2013 Door to nowhere

In other news – RASPBERRIES

raspberry crop coming in

And there were a few other things going on.
On the 22nd I was walking home from vanquishing the asbestos, and came across this scene.

Pho Viet Anh opening

Carl had called because they had startled him when they started playing their music and bells. And blowing off fireworks. All to celebrate the opening of a new restaurant – directly across from our apartment.

Pho Viet Anh – celebration

And this was followed by a Mariner’s game that evening.

pitchers sunning themselves

Followed by a morning game for Carl. I did not take many pictures at his game – sorry. But we did go over to a teammates house following the game. They had this wonderful sculpture next to his driveway. This was a tree that grew in this spot. Until it didn’t.

Eagle and salmon

And, since we are who we are, we went to the afternoon Mariner’s game.
We did not have our tickets for this game. We had provided them to our Eugene friend who had placed them in a school auction. A man and his son were attending the game from Eugene. Lucky for them, they got to sit next to our friend Mark. He is a trove of knowledge, and fun to talk with about baseball. [We were sitting across the field from our usual seats. Really nice seats – 5th row, with a great view of our  normal seats.]

Mark texted us early in the game to ask if we had a ball in our possession that we could share with the lad from Eugene.
As it turns out, we had actually taken 3 balls out of the backpack before we walked from the car to the ballpark. So Carl got up and left the game for a few innings to retrieve a ball or two. I could see him joining Mark and the Eugeneites for a few innings. His good deed for the day. Karma.

He made it back to our seats away from home for the last few innings.
So we both had a great view of a home run hit by Kendrys Morales in the bottom of the 9th inning – right to Mark.

6-23-2013 Mark snags a walk-off home run – sweet

And, two days later, Mark caught another home run, this time by Ibanez. The announcers even recognized that it was the same fan.

And because I just can’t get enough of renovation, we are doing some at work.
Right outside of my office.

Renovation at Work – no escape

I did not go to the house yesterday – the first day I have not so much as set foot on the property.
For yesterday I will offer a picture from work.

Office babies

The baby had just finished nursing when I took this picture. They don’t really see into the windows, so we can get a nice view of the action.

Today Carl got a call from the contractor asking for a front door key.
At first he thought the key in the key-box was gone for some reason.
When he finally got over to the house, he put in his key, and took out the duplicate key from the box.

Our front and back doors use the same key.
However, opening the front door requires finesse.
Just ask our finesse-less kids. They continue to use the back door.

Work continues, even when I skip a day.

South End

The reason the front door access is required.

Back door replaced by plywood

The interior view.

If the window is really this big I will be very happy

Framing over the transition from the kitchen to dining room.

Reverse – shows how the cove ceiling butts up to the transition

Attic floor demo continues. I think this happens for a break, or to fill in small periods of time. Or maybe it is too hot to do too much at one time up here.

Where the closet once stood there was a vent at the back. This vent fed the dining room with heated air.
Apparently there is some sort of asbestos tape or covering associated with this vent.

Vent at bottom of closet back

And so, just as I was getting used to not working on the house or moving, it will be back into the white suit – perhaps as early as tomorrow.

Black Bag over Asbestos

This is the hall of many doors. There were 7 (Kitchen, bathroom, study, Rey’s room, basement, dining room, closet). Now there are fewer, 2 down, 1 more to go, but when some that are down are just hanging around it gets down right confusing.

In other – non-demolition related news – there is new wood in place.

Kitchen extension floor

In case you have not been following this (almost, sort of) daily record, I am trying to stop by the house every day and see what has transpired.

What a difference a day can make.

Reverse View – clearer today

Notice the missing studs. And the vertical boards are gone too.

From the kitchen – east

Closet wall gone. The area seems large now.

Moving to the outside. The Strongties have gone vertical.

StrongTies up

Side view of the Strongties.

Walls in transition

I tell myself to slow down and really look at what is in front of my face.

Notice the area under the floor. Most of this was outside of the basement, and under the kitchen nook. I think this was at least part of an addition to the original house. I was looking at the brick work. Then I looked more closely. I now think they put on the addition in 1947.

Fancy Header

This has the date – and a notice for Contract Bridge lessons.
I remember playing with my parents Contract Bridge game. I wonder if it is still around anywhere.

The royals are in the news. (Carl notes that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip have been married just a bit longer than his parents, who celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary today.)

Honeymoon plans

News from Flint, where they are considering eliminating gear shifts.

Apparently trying to make the car drive like a tank.

Traffic Court ideas.

An Arthur Murray advertisement – noting that in 1947 they had been around for 33 years. (Almost 100 years old now)

Ship Movements (I don’t think these are reported in the daily paper anymore)
[Look closely below the fold – I think it is a house for sale for $8,850!)

A Snookums comic

Every now and then today’s cartoon artists will complain about the shrinking amount of space they are given for their art. I get it now. This Prince Valiant comic has a full page.

Finally pulling myself away from the news.

Appliances amoung the Calla Lilies

The kitchen structure continues to diminish.
I have been trying to get by every day, just to look.

Tuesday’s effort – not much to see

Same old perspective, but too dark – late and phone battery dying

Wednesday – found some new structural elements

Strongtie – so our wall will be strong

And noticed some of the old house was missing.

Light of Day reveals a new back porch. Or old breakfast nook repurposed

Thursday – Normal vantage point view.

New transom window over the door?

Reverse of the normal vantage point

Reverse of same old perspective – with light

With this set-up do you look out the window? Or just through the wall.

Outdoor Indoor Window

Cool discovery of an old Cold Pantry.

Old Cold Pantry discovered

The holes in the floor were drilled into the basement area. Cool air comes up in the summer, and goes out through the vents in the wall. I have seen several houses with these square areas in the neighborhood. Never saw them on our house because they had been covered up by at least one layer of siding.

Cold Pantry drilled holes to the basement, and lower vent

I am starting to think that our kitchen, and house, originally ended at the archway.

Big event of the day was the US Men’s National Soccer team playing a World Cup qualifying match against Panama.
There was a Mariner’s game going on across the street at approximately the same time.
Attendance at the Soccer Match = 40,000+.
Attendance at the Mariners Game = 10,266.

Both home teams won.
Both home teams had a shut-out.
Both games ended within 30 minutes of each other.
Lots of happy people in the streets.

The gathering crowd

View from the opposite side of the pitch

New fashion statement

Scarves Up – USA Style
(See two posts ago for Sounder’s Style)

TIFO (see two posts ago) from our seats

TIFO from Ashlan’s Seats (Baseball stadium in the background)