I'm a slacker

Sorry I just have not kept up with the blog as much as I should. This is not an excuse but just been doing other things and not to much of it has been house related.

Anyway the roof is done, looks good to. I just hope I get more than 10 years out of the damn thing.

So does anyone remember Delta Force with Chuck Norris? Is there anything that guy can't do?

Here is the premise, some Arabs are high jacking an airliner out of Greece. An Arab looking guy with long hair and a beard shows up late for the flight and causes a ruckus (go figure?) two other Arab's that made it aboard are wearing nice suits, white ties, white belts, white shoes, red shirts, and big aviator mirrored sunglasses. Now this was way before profiling was not PC, you think someone would have caught on to this earlier in the movie. There is an airplane full of Jews and these guys are dressed in bad suits, a setup for a really bad movie right?

We have George Kennedy (as a priest) and Shelly Winters (with a chicken leg in her mouth), Lee Marvin and of course Chuck!

So one of the first scenes is the terrorist pulls a pin from a hand grenade with his mouth, he hollers to have the cockpit door opened, the door is thrown open and it hits the guy in the face and knocks the pin out of his mouth! (I can't make this shit up!)

Well I am not going to ruin the rest of the movie for you, but you can just imagine the high kicks and karate chops, Chuck dodging bullets etc.

Back to the house.

I installed the water softener last night, and with every damn plumbing project I always make multiple runs to the home improvement store. First to get the basic parts, then after I take the water filter off I noticed that the O ring some how got distorted and I had to run back and find some replacements. I had water flying everywhere until I figured that little fiasco out.

It has taken a week but I can tell you that it has made a difference in washing clothes, dishes, and clean up around the sinks and tub. The build up is gone or going.

Also, Beth calls me up and she tells me she found another deal at Home Depot, a $1000 GE dishwasher marked down to $265. The old Maytag was still doing its thing but was so full of lime from the hard water it just wasn't really getting the dishes clean. So replaced the dishwasher.

Did some work on the neighbors house yesterday and today. She needed some repainting around some windows. Well as with any of my projects it turned out to be longer than I thought. I just cant do a half-assed job and walk away. Got her windows scraped and primed though. The "it took longer than I thought" is because the windows are on the second story and there is no way to get to them from a ladder easily or from the roof. So I kind of hung out the windows and did what I could and the rest from the ladder, doing a reach thing.

Roof layover

The roofing materials showed up this morning. I wasn't home but the driver did give me a call to let me know he was there. I gave a shout to the roofing guys to let them know everything was waiting in the driveway and they were there banging away when I came home from lunch. The one thing I forgot was the ridge cap. I need to go hunt some down tomorrow and get it over to the house.
From what I saw in the light the roof is looking good. I went with an architectural shingle vice the 3 tab type that are currently on there. The rain started on the way home after work and the roofers were wrapping things up by the time I got home. By the time I finished making diner and cleaning up a bit it was dark and I really couldn't see anything in the waining light and cloud cover.

Been awhile

Been a couple weeks since I posted.
I think last Saturday I started to install the crown around the tops of the kitchen cabinets, I only got two uppers finished. It takes me a long time to visualize the angles out in my head before I make any cuts. I guess I am overly cautious and want to make sure I don't mess up and waste the wood I am cutting. I bought two new saw blades for the chop saw, the hickory is so hard to cut and I could see that only after about 5 cuts the blade was having a hard time getting through the wood. I think there are about a dozen more cuts to do then I should have the crown finished.

Today, I caulked and painted the six windows on the backside of the house. Two are the original and the other four were put in about eight years ago. The original windows I caulked shut. There was quite a bit of air coming through and around the frames this past winter. I just figured until I can get them replaced, and I don't open them, I thought I might as well just seal them as best as I can.
The other four, are about 8 years old but the wood surrounding them is still the original wood, and in bad shape along with the caulk it was separating pretty good causing a few good sized gaps between the window and the wood frame. I used Behr exterior paint. A bit more expensive but I think it is worth the money.
I have to say that it went on really well and soaked in pretty good. Guess that is an indication of the old paint being just beat to death by the west sun and weather. I also used colored caulk (brown) to help blend in better. The rest of the house had all the windows replaced about six years ago and the company that did them wrapped all the exterior wood in aluminium. So those don't need any repainting. They still need some touch up with caulk to fill in the gaps that are drying out. I want to get as much done on the exterior before I have to leave for training this fall and get the house sealed. Don't need any worries about heating the outside again this winter.

About three weeks ago I had the roof leak in the valley above the front door. I called a guy to come look and see if he could patch things up to get me by for a while longer. Well it rained again two weekends ago and I still had leaking, this time in another room. The front room has a basketball sized bulge in the ceiling and now the front porch hallway has some bulging going on now. I planned on replacing the front room ceiling but did not want to do the hallway. Fucking sucks. Now I am looking at a roof replacement.
The insurance company was of no help and only offered to patch the roof and patch the ceiling. Just what I need, another freakin patch job by some hack that only State Farm approves of. Maybe it is my agent but they have fallen into the "they suck" basket as far as I am concerned. I will be parting ways with them soon.
The last week I have had three guys come look at the roof and give me quotes. The fourth never showed up. One isn't bad on price, the second wants to do a total tear off and replacement, and the third I had to do some price bickering to get him to come down a bit. It is still going to cost over $6000 and that is just a layover and not a tear off. The high side bid was over $10000, way out of my range.
Wednesday I stumbled into Home Depot and caught a sale on 30 year shingles, but the sale ended that night. I ran across the street to Menards and their cheapest shingle was still more expensive per bundle than the ones HD had. So I plunked down $2300 that night, and another $400 or so for the rest of the stuff, nails, starter strip, flashing, etc. Really sucks! I was hoping to get another 10 years out of the roof.
When the last roof guy was topside, he said he saw where who ever last put the roof on that they had cut other shingles on top of what was already laid down and sliced right through the flashing and shingles creating a pretty good sized gap for water to seap in. This last rain also showed another leak around the chimney where the flashing has failed prematurely from improper installation.
The neighbor did warn me that some gin heads and druggies did the last roof install. They also tore out all the copper flashing for good measure in case a normal person would want the rain to stay outside vice coming through. The guys are suppose to start Monday on the layover, so I am hoping that everything gets sealed up before the next rain, which is suppose to be Monday!
To take some frustration out over this past weeks roof "event" I moved 10 wheelbarrows of white marble rock across the street to my neighbors house. I had a ton of it around the house from the PO and this was the last of it and by far the biggest area to be removed. A few months ago I saw him and his wife outside pulling all their rock up, cleaning it, putting down a weed barrier and replacing what they had. I watched this for a weekend and thought I would go ask if they were going to buy more to add to their "pile". George and Brenda are nice people, I offered my white marble up and would even haul it over if they would take it. Deal struck! So all in all they got about 15 loads from me.
It saves me from having to pay someone to haul it away and they can finish their landscaping. How cool is that?! Now I need to work a deal out with someone to pull the lilac stumps out. Any takers?
Wish I took a picture of their front sidewalk, 10 loads of rock sitting in front of the house. That's where they wanted it!
Sunday? I need to tear a wall out in the basement and get it into the pile in the garage. I found a guy to haul all my debris away this coming week and he said to get all I could before he comes again.

More Pics

I wanted to share a few more pics of our trip to Michigan, the first is the Meyer May house again. This is a view of one of the children's bedroom.

This is a view of the trim that went all around the ceiling on the lower half of the house. The joinery still blows me away along with the layers of wood built up.

Here is a fence that we found in Sagatuck MI. I would like to surround my yard with something like this someday.

This picture is the most hilarious image that Sugar has given me. I couldn't tell if she was pissed for being left behind or happy. You have to admit it is funny. Her tail was wagging the whole time.

And the last is her royal heiness soaking in the beautiful afternoon.