Monthly Archives: June 2010

Stair Rail Complete

Posted on June 29, 2010 | Leave a comment

Rick from Floor Medic who did my floors recommended that I use his uncle, a master carpenter, to install my stair railing. I paid him hourly and while it took a bit longer then I expected, it turned out amazing. He truly did some amazing work, work that would have taken my Dad and I forever…if we were lucky.

I’m exhausted so I don’t have alot to say other than enjoy. Oh and yes Kyle, there are orbs in these pictures. I am going to keep telling myself that its from the sweeping I did before the pictures…

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Posted in floor medic, railing, stairs

Cabinet Teaser

Posted on June 29, 2010 | Leave a comment

After work today I unpacked a few more of the cabinets I could manage carrying into the house alone. My Dad is supposed to come down after work tomorrow and help me get the rest of them in and unpacked so we can install them this weekend.

Here are a few pictures of the ones I unpacked:

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Posted in cabinets, kitchen

Weekend Update 6/27

Posted on June 27, 2010 | Leave a comment

The last few days a bunch of different things have been going on at the house. The carpenter I hired through the floor guy started on the handrail on Friday. He got the upstairs part done and hopefully will finish tomorrow.

My Dad came d0wn Saturday morning and we grouted the kitchen floor. It wasn’t terrible I guess in the scheme of things we have done. I also started tiling the powder room while my Dad cut border tiles. I’m guessing we will start sticking them down this weekend and make our way up to the master bathroom.

Starting to clean off the grout:

I forgot to take pictures of the finished floor today because I was busy getting ready for the Comcast guy. As of now the plan is for my Dad and I to seal the grout tomorrow night.

The Comcast guy was scheduled to show up between 2 and 5 pm. He showed up at 5:45. I wasn’t really surprised, but he was finished in about an hour. As expected, he told me that my splittler I mounted in the basement (special ordered because it limits signal loss) would not work with their equipment. Hes full of crap. I’ll take his POS down tomorrow. He also told me I can’t use the cable modem I bought. Also full of crap. At any rate, while I was waiting for him, I got all of the in ceiling speakers installed except for the master bath. I still need to find the wires for those speakers because the drywall guys didnt poke them through for me. I wired the volume control for that room in the mean time.

All of the speakers work and sound amazing. I snagged a 6 zone speaker selector off ebay made by the same company that makes the amp. This will allow me to turn zones on and off without having to go to each room and physically turn off the volume control knob. I’ll get that hooked up this week but for now it was nice to hear music throughout the house finally.

I had Matt help me get my TV up to the house so that the Comcast guy could setup the box. I guess now that its setup I can stow the TV away in the basement so it doesn’t get ruined.

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Posted in cable, grout, powder room, railing, speakers, stairs, tile

No More Inside Temp = Outside Temp

Posted on June 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

I don’t have any new pictures to put up at the moment, but a couple updates I guess. I had someone from Clean Air look at my HVAC earlier this week. Turns out I have a freon leak somewhere and that my system is an ancient Montgomery Ward unit. Their recommendation was that I replace. There is a $1500 tax credit going on til then end of 2010 so I am giving it consideration despite how expensive this whole ordeal has gotten. Reason #459 I should have bought a shell…haha. I may try and make it until winter to upgrade to space out the spending a bit. For now, after a recharge, the AC is blowing cold and the house is maintaining a temperature in the mid 70′s without having to run all the time. That should at least make working in the house more bearable until it is finished.

I have a carpenter who is the floor guy’s (Floor Medic) uncle working on installing the stair railing today. This is one of the main reasons I pushed to get the AC fixed this week. Last thing I wanted to do was pay per hour and have it be 95 degrees in the house. Hopefully this afternoon when I leave work I can stop by and grab some pictures.

I have Comcast scheduled for Sunday…yes Sunday, after 3 separate employees told me they didn’t do weekend installs. I wired up the cable jack in the living room and will have to find a way to get my TV up to the house before Sunday afternoon so there is some way to verify the cable works after he sets it up. I need to do some more reading on wiring Cat5 jacks as well.

I think that is all for now, I’ll hopefully have some more updates soon.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Miscellaneous-ness

Posted on June 21, 2010 | 2 Comments

Well we decided to push the grout back. It was too much to try and squeeze into one night with my Dad leaving for Brazil the next day. I put a call in to a different HVAC contractor to try and get my air conditioning fixed. I’m really praying I don’t need a new unit. The air blows out of all the vents but it does not get cold. The unit on my garage doesn’t seem to be kicking on, so we’ll see if its as simple as a bad heat pump or a refrigerant leak. In fairness, I haven’t run the thing since I bought the house last July.

I spent a couple hours at the house tonight taking care of some odds and ends. I had to cut out the vent in the kitchen which got covered over during the drywalling process. Its one of the vents original to the house so its an odd size. Luckily, I found 2 grilles I had set aside in the basement. Both are the correct size, however I’m not sure which one was originally on that vent. After I cut out the drywall I cleaned up the rusty metal frame and louver that makes up the vent. I had some rusty metal primer on it that I had leftover from the steel beam on the patio. I then sanded and primed the two grilles I have and got them ready for black paint. The one I like best has a slight crack in the frame, but I’m hoping it either won’t be that noticeable or I can repair it some how. I think I uncovered enough of the vent to remount the grille when its done.

When I was at my parents house for Father’s day there was a pile of stuff in the garage that was going to be thrown out. I snagged this old watering can I am going to make a planter out of: