Here We Go Again (aka Week 1)

Well, the time has come. It's time to launch The Final Project.

This project represents the final things that need to be done to bring the house up to current standards.

There are two parts: 

1. Remove the 30 year old vinyl siding on the front and side, and replace two old windows
2. Bolting the front part of house to the foundation, to prevent the house from slipping off the foundation in a big earthquake

So simple! Should be so straightforward!

Readers of this blog know these are famous last words around here. We are prepared for the unexpected!

"I defy you."

Preparation

First things first, we spent a weekend moving everything in the garage away from the walls, so that Mr. Bunkport (yes, he's back!) and his workers can access the foundation.

Jumble #1

Jumble #2

Jumble #3

Here's a closer look at the current state of the foundation:

That crumbling is actually not scary -- it's the normal process of the salts in the concrete coming out. And there is a lot of salt. When the city was rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake, they didn't have enough fresh water for all the concrete needed for all the new foundations, so they started using water from the bay. 

Lots of salt.

So, this is a very common issue here, and believe it or not, no one gets too worked up about it. They just put new concrete over the top of it to hold it in place. 

What's going on here is less good:

The crack isn't a concern, but (skipping ahead in the story a little) it sounds like there is water damage under there, and that section will probably need to be replaced. 

SURPRISE!

Hopefully that will go well (and the scope of the damage will be very, very limited). 

We are also going to be raising the level of the foundation on the other side (the uphill side) to be 6 inches above the ground level, to avoid more moisture and insect damage to the walls.

Now, drum roll, please...

WHAT LIES BENEATH

Well, what lies beneath vinyl siding is styrofoam.

But what about under that?!

On the front of the house, it turns out to be bright yellow asbestos shingles. 

SURPRISE!

Choices, choices. We could either remove the shingles (and in so doing, double our costs with special permits and special mitigation measures and special disposal fees and and and...) or we could do like everyone else around here, and just seal them in under new siding.

Ok, decision made!

On the side of the house, we found the original redwood shingles. We expected this, because the other side of the house, where it's too narrow for siding to have gone in, also has redwood shingles.

The bottom half of the house is in great shape:

The top half, not so much:

Seems like we are going to have to strip those off and put something new up. This is an area that no one can see, so we're going to go cheap and cheerful.

If you looked closely at that photo, you have seen something more surprising than damaged shingles. 

Recall the Big Project in 2014, and how this house (like most houses around here) are, as Neighbor Jonny says, "boxes on boxes on boxes." Back in the day, if you wanted a porch, you would get your uncles and cousins to come over and build it. Then you would eventually close that in to make a room, and then, naturally, add on a new porch. And so on. Our kitchen is actually three porches that were closed in and made into separate rooms over time -- what we did in 2014 was open those up into one big room, add a, you know, foundation, and fix all kinds of structural damage from moisture and insects.

Part of the outside of the kitchen stayed under the vinyl siding. So, I shouldn't say it's surprising that it's...crazy under there. Here's that area from a different angle:

So, yeah, piece of plywood, and a couple of boards across the studs.

SURPRISE!

With the siding gone, we can feel the wind coming through the area around electrical socket. Happy for fair weather!

In the garage, the workers had to pull off two feet of that decorative lath (there was no plaster; seems like someone's art project) around the foundation to get ready for the bolting.

Good news -- it's not terrible in there!

The north side of the house is very tidy and orderly under its shingles.

The south side (which is the side that had the vinyl) is a little crazy. Shingles nailed into random boards across the studs:

But that's ok. We're leaving all that in place, so no problem.

There were a couple of big holes in places -- plenty of room for critters of all shapes and sizes to get in --  but really only a couple, and not hard to repair. Good news!

Additionally, the neighbors have been very accommodating and understanding of the noise and disruption. While talking to them about how the workers would access the space between the houses, which sits behind a three or four foot-high fence, they mentioned wanting to put in a gate someday so they can access the plants in that little space more easily. To thank them in advance for their patience (...and, frankly, also to prevent damage from three big guys hopping over the fence multiple times a day for two weeks), we worked with Mr. Bunkport to put in this little gate for them (and the three big dudes). 

Lastly, when the workers opened up the wall, they found these things inside: 

That's a license plate from 1921, and that little bottle with the orange label was advertised in the early 20s. I need to go find my notes, but I think the people who lived here in the 20s and 30s were an immigrant Portuguese family whose Americanized name was Velvet. Maybe the lath was their project.

I don't doubt that more surprises are on the way, but that's all (and plenty) for Week One. 

On to progress!

And that's where the week ended. Week Two should see the front finished, and the side done or close to done. And then on to the foundation!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Mars!

This year, we began our holiday celebration on Christmas Eve, spending the afternoon making dumplings from a recipe in a cookbook Mother O'Brien sent us (I cheated and opened it early!).  

We began by making the filling -- spinach puree, bok choi, carrots, tofu, ginger, rice noodles, and scallions in sesame oil:

That was the easy part. Next the dough for the wrappers, dyed green with water squeezed from the spinach puree. It wasn't hard, but just a little tricky to get the liquid-to-flour ratio right.

Kneading:

Rolling and cutting:

Then attempting to roll these little nuggets into perfect 2-3" circles:

Hm. Not easy, but a lot of fun.

After rolling the wrappers, we stuffed 'em. Not bad for our first time out!

And who cares if they look like a herd of lumpy stegosauruses, when they taste this good!

It was such a nice way to spend the afternoon, it has been decreed that every Christmas Eve day shall henceforth be celebrated as Dumpling Day. 

AJ insists that I add here that in addition to being fun and tasty, this is also a great way to keep me from hanging around the Christmas tree shaking my presents all day. 

Ok, fair.

Christmas Day has been very relaxed. We enjoyed our friend Brian's orange-cranberry bread with coffee with orange zest, and opened presents surrounded by our festive decorations.

Our stockings:

Plus, stockings we had made for Pickles and the mice a few years ago:

Momma Arave's sparkly bough:

And, of course, our Christmas tree:

Even Lolo was feeling festive today, sporting the Christmasy red and green plaid kerchief that Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Paddy sent:

After breakfast and presents, we all settled in to enjoy our new toys and books. Lolo decided she wanted to get cozy, and put on her new sweater, lovingly knit by AJ:

Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year!

2020: Working From Mars

When I posted Lolo's Halloween portrait a few weeks ago, I couldn't believe that I hadn't posted anything all year. I mean, it's 2020. We are here. All The Time. Doing Everything. Right Here. Surely, there are things to mention?

The day to day sameness of living our entire lives in our house makes it feel like there isn't much to mention, but that's not really true. We've done a lot to make the best of everything being upended. There are video calls with friends and family, and streaming services, and games, and our nice garden to sit in. We have made beer, we have pickled many vegetables, and AJ is knitting Lolo a sweater. It's not the same as before, and we have had our moments of stir craziness, but we have managed.

The hardest part has been adjusting to working from home. 

It's been less of an adjustment for me, because I had been working remotely for several months previous to the stay-at-home order on March 17 -- my new boss was in New York, so I wasn't bothering with the commute most days. I got used to floating around throughout the house during the day, moving from my office, to the kitchen, to the living room. 

When AJ was sent home to work, and we were both on video calls throughout the day, we had to figure out how to divvy up the space in a more predictable way. I made some adjustments to my office, and now spend most of my time at this desk:

Although I still move to the warm, sunny kitchen in the afternoon from time to time.

I enjoy working remotely -- I like the quiet. The most annoying thing for me is that meetings are harder to make effective, between wifi problems and the loss of all the nonverbal cues you pick up on when you're live in a room with another person.

AJ went through a lot more trial and error. The downstairs room worked really well for a while: 

It's quiet, and the height of the desk was perfect. But there is something about that configuration of devices and/or the wifi router that makes a video call drop from time to time (which is particularly problematic when trying to teach a class), so she moved her assortment of computers and notebooks back upstairs, and now she's the one floating around, moving from her office, to the kitchen, to the living room. 

This corner is a great background for video calls (balancing on a sewing basket and a photo album, on top of a stool has been surprisingly easy):

None of these areas upstairs are ergonomically quite as good as the downstairs, but in the end, changing positions throughout the day is probably better than staying in any one place, anyway.

We have done a pretty good job of creating separation between work and home by getting ready for work like normal, and putting everything away at the end of the day. But it's not always easy to leave work at work in this situation. And trying to support students in this distance learning experiment has been utterly, thoroughly exhausting for AJ. 

The only one having the time of her life is, of course, Lolo. Here is an action photo of her at her work station:

Lolo isn't looking forward to our returning to school and an office (at least a couple days a week -- I'd love to do a couple here, a couple there), but we certainly are. Hopefully we're not long out from getting back out into the world!

Todos Santos

Today we are observing Todos Santos -- the day we pause to remember and honor our departed loved ones. 

As always, we have set out pictures and mementos that represent our loved ones:

This year, we are also remembering things about how our lives were before the pandemic. People we used to see and places we used to go. Trips with family and friends we had been planning to take.

It's been a tumultuous year, and it's not over yet. It's nice to stop for a moment -- to visit old memories, remember how important these people and things were in our lives, and to take stock.

Happy Halloween from Captain Cucumber!

Captain Cucumber of the SS Grumblebum would like to wish you a very Happy Halloween!

Merry Christmas!

It's been a mellow Christmas here on Mars. Our friend Brian came over for breakfast, we went to see a movie with another friend, Susie, midday, and then after the movie Susie came back to the house for dinner.

A quiet, festive holiday with our little tree that Mother O'Brien sent a couple years ago (and the red ornament on the right she and Jack sent for our first Christmas here):

And the inimitable Lolo Claus:

Merry Christmas, everyone, and a very Happy New Year!

Attic Rewiring and Insulation Upgrade (belatedly!)

In June, we completed a big project, and I just realized today -- which is the 8th anniversary of our moving in, incidentally -- that I never finished the post! Here it is:

* * * * *

One of the last things on our giant list of updates to the house was to rewire the attic.

Most of the house had had its old knob & tube (i.e. antique) wiring updated before we moved in, but we knew the attic still needed to be done.

When we got the estimates from the electricians, it became clear that we also needed to remove the existing insulation (a combination of 2" of blown-in cellulose and old fiberglass batting), so that they could see what they were doing more easily. They said we could leave it...but the rewiring would take longer. Given what electricians charge versus what insulation costs, the math easily worked out in favor of removing the existing insulation and putting new insulation in afterwards.

And, even better, we found out that if we upgraded the insulation depth at the same time, we could take advantage of energy efficiency rebates from the state, bringing the overall cost down.

Here are some photos of what the attic insulation and wiring looked like before we started:

There was also old gas pipe up there, from when the house used gas lighting.


Step one, remove all the old insulation:

You can see both the knob & tube wiring, and the old gas pipes clearly now:

Also clear, the guy who installed the sun tunnels didn't do a great job. On one of them, a whole section of the aluminum tube -- which should run continuously from ceiling to roof -- had fallen:

Rather than try to schedule the guys to come back out, I got up there and fixed it myself. While I was up there, I found something interesting -- a bullet:

It had been fired from a gun at some point, but there is no damage (repaired or otherwise) to any of the ceilings, so we're thinking that it must have been fired somewhere else and fallen through the roof. Because we've never had leaks, we think it must have happened before the roof was last replaced 25 years ago.


Step two, replace alllll the wiring.

The electricians took two days to do the entire job. One guy in the attic, and two guys wiring fixtures and switches in the rooms. They do these updates frequently, and have a lot of interesting stories. One of them told me that a few years ago, they found a gas line in an attic that still had gas in it. We were all happy to discover that there was no gas in ours.

Here's one of the gas fittings that connected the gas line to the fixture, and the fixture to the ceiling:

These gas fittings protrude a little through the ceiling, so when the old gas lamps would get replaced, the electricians would install what's called a can -- basically a metal collar -- to cover the fitting, and then attach the new lamp to the can.

In our case, our cans were actual cans -- decorative coffee cans:

Here is the one in my office before they removed it -- you can see how the gas fitting pokes down through the ceiling:

There was also a coffee can in the bedroom. In the living room, the can was actually a piece of stove flue:

Ingenuity!

The only other surprise we found was that one of the outlets in my office was still knob & tube, and there are a couple light switches in the garage that are still knob & tube. They did the outlet in my office this time, and will come back later to do the garage.

The fixtures in the bedroom and office were these tulip things from the 70s:

We replaced them with some simple dome fixtures:

The fixture in the hall was a nice brass bell that had been painted over a million times:

I removed the paint:

They rewired it:

And back up it went:

The space ships from the living room and dining room each got rewired and put back up (AJ LOVES the space ships):

The switches took a bit of rearranging. Here are the switches in my office before they started -- the top one goes to the porch light (which died several years ago...excited to have a porch light again), and the bottom one goes to the ceiling fixture:

They removed the bottom one, cut the top hole bigger:

All done! And with minimal repair needed to the wall (which, of course, I did myself...glutton for punishment):

The bedroom wall got a little gorier. When they removed this switch:

They discovered this hole and sort of half hole underneath, and also realized they needed to move the switch up:

Having gotten handy with wall repairs doing the kitchen a couple years ago, I was able to patch the holes pretty well:

The other switches were more straightforward. Kitchen & dining room:

Living room light:

There's nothing special to report on those last two. I just enjoy how tidy they look now.

Here's all the stuff they took with them when they left:

Goodbye old wiring!

Goodbye gas pipes!

Goodbye knob & tube fixture!

When the electricians left, of course, I had to go into the attic to admire the tidiness there:

Step three, replace the insulation.

16 inches of glorious blown-in, fire retardant cellulose:

All in all, this project came in under budget (gasp!), plus we got a $600 rebate from the state for improving the amount of insulation up there.


Step four, fix up my closet.

The hatch to the attic is in the ceiling of my closet. Somehow, my phone lost the 'before' photo of it, but picture a smallish (16" wide by about 20" long), somewhat jagged hole cut in the lath and plaster, which became increasingly jagged the more the electricians and insulation people went up and down during this project.

I trimmed the hole up, and added a piece of drywall to seal up the smaller gaps and cracks that would have allowed cold air to seep down:

Then, I made a hatch cover out of some manufactured wood flooring leftover from a previous project:

While the closet was empty, I took the opportunity to remove the old patchy, painted-over wallpaper:

And gave it a fresh paint job:

DONE!

And with the completion of this project, there is JUST ONE MORE upgrade that needs to be done: removing the 25 year old vinyl siding, and bolting the front part of the house to the foundation (for further earthquake safety). I'm hoping we can do that next year or the year after, depending on how quickly we can save up.

* * * * *

To make up for my tardiness with this post, here is a photo of Lolo suffering through the difficult conditions she finds herself in here: