Secret Window Repair?

Kendra is out of town at a conference for a couple days, leaving me home with the kids. Now that the kids are in bed, I have a bit of free time. Since Kendra's not around to say "no," I have an overwhelming urge to start a home improvement project that will sit, unfinished, for several months.  In particular, I think I should pull out this window's sashes and trim to refinish/repair it:

See the cracked window in the upper sash that the previos owner scotch-taped(!)? The broken sash cords? Missing putty? Peeling paint? Okay, you probably can't see that because it's a pretty crappy picture, but trust me that this window is a mess--and in a prominent location in our living room, to boot. This thing's got to be fixed, but it's likely to take a few months to find the time to do everything that needs to be done. So I'll put it to a vote; should I tear into the window while Kendra's gone?

Should I tear out this window?

Joe's Home Improvement Week: 1 Win, 1 Loss

I'm sure everyone out there on the Internets can't wait to hear the conclusion of my gripping tale that is the plasma tv saga. Well Peaches fans, wait no more. I present to you, the finished product:

I'm not the one watching Rachael Ray, I swear.

Also, note the old-school NES. That's how I roll.

Victory! The TV is up with the cords deliciously hidden behind the wall. In fact, it's been on the wall for five days now, and it still hasn't come crashing down. I think I'm in the clear.

While most of you are likely unimpressed with my "ability" to accomplish a very simple home improvement task, there are probably two or three folks wondering how I got this done. First, I purchased electrical boxes better suited to my needs -- the new ones secured themselves to the existing wall pretty well. Then, I attached the switchplates directly to the plaster with self-drilling screws to give the electrical boxes a more finished look. With the help of the future brother-in-law, I was able to lift the TV onto the bracket.

At that point, the job was finished, except for one thing. There was no functioning power outlet near the TV. There used to be an outlet there, but it was on a knob-and-tube circuit that was removed before we moved in. It was my mission to run a new outlet to that spot. First, I had to enlarge the existing hole in the baseboard to make way for a new, code-approved electrical box. This was easy with my pocket saw--until the saw handle broke. Ugh. I was determined to finish the job without another trip to the hardware store, so I just put on some work gloves, grabbed the saw blade sans handle, and hacked at the baseboard until the hole was big enough. Surprisingly, I accomplished this without hurting myself or any bystanders.

Then, I tapped into a functioning circuit in the basement, ran the wire up to the electrical box, and connected the outlet to the wires. This was the first significant electrical work I had done to the house (there will be a future poston all the electrical work I have done so far--oh, I am such a tease). I flipped the breaker back on, and everything is working perfectly.

You'll notice the title of this post -- 1 Win, 1 Loss. The high of getting the TV up was quickly diminished by the low of my experience with the thermostat. Last Saturday, I purchased a programmable thermostat to replace the old one. I figured it was the right thing to do in that we would save some money, and also do our part to reduce our impact on the planet, being the conservationist that I am.

Installation was a snap (just a matter of connecting wires to screws) . By Saturday afternoon, everything was great--it was all programmed and running. We were saving money. We were saving the planet. I figured a congratulatory phone call from Al Gore would come at any minute.

Then, on Wednesday morning, the temperature in the house was 65 degrees. I fiddled with the thermostat for probably an hour that morning, but couldn't get any heat to come out of the registers. Not wanting to take any chances (with it being the dead of a Missouri winter and all), I called a heating and cooling guy to come take a look. He diagnosed the problem as a faulty thermostat--that fancy programmable one just wasn't sending the proper signals to the furnace. He put a basic, non-programmable one back on for us, and by the time I got home on Wednesday evening, the house was nice and warm.

Final tally for my thermostat misadventure, including the service call and the price of the (now useless) programmable thermostat: $190. Ouch. It's not like we'll go hungry or anything, but I would have preferred to just have kept the old thermostat and saved the time and money.

So, final score for the week: Joe 1, House 1.

Plasma

We are still going through all the fun that you encounter when you move -- forwarding mail, changing addresses, and setting up utilities. Yesterday, the satellite TV guy came, and hooked up our service. This is the first time we have had cable in about 4-5 years, so it's a bit of a change for us. The good part is that we will finally take full advantage of our HD plasma tv. We've had the tv for 3 years now, but--without cable--we were only pulling 5-7 of the local HD channels over-the-air. Now, thanks to DirecTv, we have 20+ channels in full HD goodness.

Since we have cable now, I thought it would be a good idea to try to mount our plasma to the wall. I had done this before in the urban highrise, but with the plaster walls at the country estate it was going to be a little more complex. Here is my step-by-step guide on how to mount a plasma tv, Joe-style.

Kendra and I already decided the TV was going in the corner of the living room by the pocket doors. There's a cable jack on that wall, so we are covered there. I even flexed my home improvement muscles and ran a new telephone wire up from the basement for the DirecTv service. There's no outlet there, but I am planning to add one into an existing cut-out. So far, so good.

Next, I used my new stud finder to find two studs. I'm attaching the wall mount directly to the studs with lag bolts, so I drilled four pilot holes, then attached the mount. Thankfully, it came out level.
Next, I took a utility knife and cut through the plaster to make two holes: one for the cords to go into the wall behind the tv, and one for the cords to come out of the wall and into our various components.

Then, I took a pocket saw and cut through the lath:

With my cable holes finished, I took two electrical boxes and cut out the backs using tin snips. I could have just ran the cables through the open holes, but I want to finish the holes out a bit, which ultimately proved to be my undoing. Here's one of the electrical boxes I used.

Mounting the box was tricky. One of my holes was cut perfectly -- I just slid the box in and it fit very snugly. It's not secured, but I don't think that's necessary right now. For the other one, though, the plaster crumbled a bit as I was cutting, so it didn't fit quite so snug. I had to rig it up using a toggle bolt I found in my toolbox. That keeps it in place, but it's got some play in it.

Next, I ran the cords through holes and electrical boxes:


And this, loyal readers, is where things went to hell. I went to install the switch plates I purchased at Menard's. I purchased oversized plates, thinking they would allow more room for the cords. But, come to find out, oversized plates do not fit standard electrical boxes. Shit. Now I'm stuck with a bunch of cords dangling from the walls, and my plasma tv sitting pathetically on its stand. There's no way I'm mounting this thing, only to have to take it down again to put regular-sized switch plates on.

Back to Menard's, I guess. I suppose I'll keep my TV on an entertainment stand for now, like some kind of barbarian.

Hell Hath No Fury...

In the last post, Joe described our low morale and Max's meltdown last weekend. He was kind to me, but should probably be ashamed of himself for blaming the meltdown on the baby. I'm the one who had the meltdown.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of painting trim (and I was among you just a few short weeks ago), let me tell you--it sucks. It's the kind of thing you should leave to the experts and exactly the kind of thing that I would like to have hired done but with two mortgages, my accountant (Joe) tells me there's no budget for an professional trim-painter. So I've learned to do it myself, I guess. Last weekend was my third straight painting trim, and I'm going to whine about it a little bit. At the end of each trim-painting day, my wrist (and sometimes shoulder) hurts and my back is sore from practically laying on the floor to paint baseboards. The first room (the playroom f/k/a/ Jayhawk room) was a challenge because I was painting white over BRIGHT red. The second room (the guest bedroom) was a challenge because the walls are highly textured and it was impossible to get a good line. I'm happy to report to you that, save for the windows in the guest bedroom, I think we have painted all the trim we're going to for while. And God bless Sherwin Williams paint because I think I'd still be painting the playroom trim if that paint didn't cover so well.

So I'm in an okay place with it now. But I wasn't last Friday. I was tired of painting trim and tired of it looking like crap. In the morning, Joe's brother Chris showed up while Joe finished up cutting in the living room. They decided they were going to tackle two "quick" projects--fixing the ductwork in the basement and installing the ceiling fan--before resuming painting. Even though Joe has been to the hardware store THREE TIMES for this project, he still didn't have the right stuff. So he and Chris went to the hardware store. In the meantime, Max refused to nap and I managed to get a tiny bit of trim painting done. About two hours later, Joe and Chris show up empty-handed. So they decide to put up the ceiling fan. Two hours after that, it is starting to get dark and there is still no fan. And I've been painting trim all day while giving Max two bottles, two snacks, one lunch, and attempting to put him down for at least three naps.

How many Mizzou fans does it take to install a ceiling fan?

They finally get the fan installed, but there are no lightbulbs to make sure it actually works. Max is screaming. I've had enough. So I pick up my child and threaten my poor husband and brother-in-law with their lives--I am taking the baby for a ride to put him to sleep and the ceiling fan better be working and the living room better be painted when I return. After a 30-minute ride to Plattsburg and back, Max was finally asleep and I returned to the house. All I can say is Joe and Chris must have done some speed-painting (hell hath no fury...), because the living room was painted when I returned. It looked great and the baby was asleep. I felt a little stupid about the fit I threw, but no one said anything so I didn't either. Everything worked out and my blood pressure finally went down.

Living Room "Before"

Living Room "After"

I think you'll agree , the new lighter green (Sherwin Williams, Lemongrass) makes the space seem much more open and brings out the woodwork nicely. And the ceiling fan is actually from this decade, which is a nice touch.

As you know, we didn't do any work on Saturday (go Tigers!) and we only had a few hours on Sunday, so we made them count. My Mom and Dad had Max for the morning, so I finished up the trim work (hooray!) and Joe cut in and rolled the first coat of paint on the dining room.
We still haven't figured out how to get those mirrors down, so they're staying put for now.

So here are our ambitious plans for this weekend:

1. Put another coat of paint on the dining room
2. Finish painting the window trim in the guest bedroom
3. Touch up the playroom, guest bedroom, living room, dining room
4. Fix the ducts
5. Install a second ceiling fan
6. Begin pulling trim off the wall in the entry OR try to strip and sand with the trim still on the walls
7. Maybe--if we're lucky--begin painting the kitchen

It's a pretty big list, I know. Especially for two novice do-it-yourselfers like us. Are we setting ourselves up for another disappointing weekend? Or will we rally and come up with the most productive weekend ever? Tune in next week and find out.

Morale Bottoms Out, and a Weekend Pick-Me-Up

With the holiday weekend, we planned to spend two full days (Friday and Sunday) working on the house. With all that time, we figured to knock out most of the remaining painting, get a ceiling fan installed, and fix the broken duct in the basement.

Good plan, terrible execution. Painting has proved to be extremely tedious. On Friday, we managed to get the living room painted (pictures to come in a later post), and that was about it. Kendra also finished some touch-up trim painting. But we definitely hit a low point on Friday. I went with my brother to pick up the duct work to finish that job, and the local hardware store doesn't carry the pieces we needed. That burned a good 1 1/2 hours. On top of everything, Max decided that he didn't really care for the lack of attention he was receiving, and had a near-meltdown. By the end of the day on Friday, we were ready to burn the house down.

But then Saturday came, and we remembered that we had tickets to the Missouri football game of our lifetime.

Your 2007 Heisman Trophy Winner, Chase Daniel.

The game was a blast, with Mizzou winning 36-28 to grab the #1 ranking in the country.

Our spirits buoyed by the big win, we were able to bounce back a little bit on Sunday. We've knocked out a lot of painting, installed a ceiling fan, and have a good plan to devote some solid hours this Friday/Saturday. We'll post some pics later this week to show the before/after on the painting.

Watching Paint Dry

As Joe already mentioned, the last two weekends have been a little slow. Two weekends ago we traveled out of town for Mizzou football game, and last weekend we had an extra helper.

Max and Maggie

Our 3-month-old neice, Maggie, was with us for the day on Saturday. And we had her baptism to attend on Sunday. So the house went on the back burner for a bit, which is OK since it doesn't look like we're going to sell the city highrise and actually move to our country estate any time soon.

But I think Joe is too hard on us. We have gotten quite a bit of tedious painting (cutting in and trim work) done over the past couple of weekends. And one important task was complete when we left the house on Sunday. In fact, I would say this is THE most important task in light of the MU-KU showdown coming up on Saturday. The Jayhawk room is painted! Every trace of red and blue is gone! And from here on out we will refer that room as the playroom f/k/a the Jayhawk room. Unfortunately, the light was too low to get a good picture of the final paint job, but I took a picture of the room before I put on the last coat of trim paint. I think you'll get the idea, despite the bit of stubborn red that is still bleeding through in this pic.

Go Mizzou!

I also think Joe is too modest. He has failed to mention that, although it is slow work, he is the ultimate cut-in expert.
Exhibit A:
This is a picture of the top of the trim in the parlor, which Joe painted last weekend. Notice the perfect line and the complete lack of paint on the trim? That's the kind of craftsmanship you get when Joe's cutting in. Here, you can see him cutting in the living room WITHOUT EVEN USING ANY TAPE! CRAZY!
The moral of the story of the last two weeks is this:
Even though it can be slow and sometimes the work isn't very entertaining or sexy, we're learning every day and creating a beautiful house--our home--together with the help of our families and friends. So, dear readers, stick with us and watch the paint dry. We promise the pace will pick up soon.