Monday, March 20, 2006
New TownHouse Renovation - Day 21 (3.17.06)
Friday:
Goals: paint the shit out of the upstairs.
I went to work a bit early on Friday so that I could leave early and get as much painting done as possible.
Before I plastic-off the upstairs hallway and spare bedroom/office, I decide to try to fix a problem that developed two weeks ago. A couple of the drawers for the tall cabinet are supposed to attach directly to the tall cabinet door and bull straight out from the cabinet, when you open them. The problem is that all of the drawers come with the same hardware (drawer, front and backs and rails). Two of them didn't need the front cover since they attach directly to the door. Well these covers got put on during the cabinet building frenzy last weekend, and now they are stuck, and won't come off. Rena wants to take them back to Ikea to exchange, but I believe (having testicles and all) that I can remove the front plates with ease. So I get down to business, prying, screwing, unscrewing, prying some more, smacking, grunting...etc.. Finally I get one off and realize that there is a large spring that I need to recompress to get it back into the shelf. I try to use the pliers to compress it and shove it back into place, but this only results in the thing shooting out bouncing off of the stove and hitting me in the forehead barely missing my eye. I think we will go to Ikea to replace these after we move in.
I begin by priming the ceilings in the upstairs hall, bathroom and spare room. They each get a coat before Rena shows up. She had a late night at work and didn't get to the place until almost 8. She gets cracking on the master bedroom trim again, as I finish up the priming of the master bedroom ceiling.
It is at this point that we decide we are freezing again, so we attempt to attach the new shutoff valve that I bought. We attach, and I smell gas. At first I think it is because I didn't tighten enough, but upon further investigation, I find that the 12in. extension pipe coming up out of the floor is all jacked up. I remove this pipe and decide to get yet ANOTHER shut off valve to replace the whole mess and just have the shutoff closer to the floor. For those keeping score, that’s the third shut off valve that I have to buy...so far in our collection we have a Big (Large in metric) to Big, a Small(Kai in metric) to Small, and what we really need is a Big to Small.
I end up giving all of the ceilings a second priming coat. Rena finishes up painting the yellow and we head home.
Status update: We take stock at this point. We need to lay the kitchen tile and install the dishwasher before Monday so that the countertop guy can come in and measure. Some of the other things that we would like to have done are: finish painting the bedrooms, finish painting the ceilings upstairs, and finish scraping the ceiling in the garage (more popcorn! oh my) and get the carpets cleaned before Friday.
One last note: This is officially our last weekend in the old place. We move next Saturday so things are REALLY starting to get hairy. We haven't packed too much, although we have been bringing things with us as we make trips back and forth. The old landlord rented our place, so he's off of our back. We are ok with not having the cabinet doors up before we move in, because we want to take our time with that.
Goals: paint the shit out of the upstairs.
I went to work a bit early on Friday so that I could leave early and get as much painting done as possible.
Before I plastic-off the upstairs hallway and spare bedroom/office, I decide to try to fix a problem that developed two weeks ago. A couple of the drawers for the tall cabinet are supposed to attach directly to the tall cabinet door and bull straight out from the cabinet, when you open them. The problem is that all of the drawers come with the same hardware (drawer, front and backs and rails). Two of them didn't need the front cover since they attach directly to the door. Well these covers got put on during the cabinet building frenzy last weekend, and now they are stuck, and won't come off. Rena wants to take them back to Ikea to exchange, but I believe (having testicles and all) that I can remove the front plates with ease. So I get down to business, prying, screwing, unscrewing, prying some more, smacking, grunting...etc.. Finally I get one off and realize that there is a large spring that I need to recompress to get it back into the shelf. I try to use the pliers to compress it and shove it back into place, but this only results in the thing shooting out bouncing off of the stove and hitting me in the forehead barely missing my eye. I think we will go to Ikea to replace these after we move in.
I begin by priming the ceilings in the upstairs hall, bathroom and spare room. They each get a coat before Rena shows up. She had a late night at work and didn't get to the place until almost 8. She gets cracking on the master bedroom trim again, as I finish up the priming of the master bedroom ceiling.
It is at this point that we decide we are freezing again, so we attempt to attach the new shutoff valve that I bought. We attach, and I smell gas. At first I think it is because I didn't tighten enough, but upon further investigation, I find that the 12in. extension pipe coming up out of the floor is all jacked up. I remove this pipe and decide to get yet ANOTHER shut off valve to replace the whole mess and just have the shutoff closer to the floor. For those keeping score, that’s the third shut off valve that I have to buy...so far in our collection we have a Big (Large in metric) to Big, a Small(Kai in metric) to Small, and what we really need is a Big to Small.
I end up giving all of the ceilings a second priming coat. Rena finishes up painting the yellow and we head home.
Status update: We take stock at this point. We need to lay the kitchen tile and install the dishwasher before Monday so that the countertop guy can come in and measure. Some of the other things that we would like to have done are: finish painting the bedrooms, finish painting the ceilings upstairs, and finish scraping the ceiling in the garage (more popcorn! oh my) and get the carpets cleaned before Friday.
One last note: This is officially our last weekend in the old place. We move next Saturday so things are REALLY starting to get hairy. We haven't packed too much, although we have been bringing things with us as we make trips back and forth. The old landlord rented our place, so he's off of our back. We are ok with not having the cabinet doors up before we move in, because we want to take our time with that.
# posted by Tony Starr @ 2:40 PM 
