Phone, and cleaning

The landline was turned on today (to the carriage house) and, of course, the wire needed a little work. And it turned out that:

• Two wires had come loose in the inside terminal box
• The terminal box itself predated the new wiring, and so its cover could not be removed until I unstapled the arm-thick 50A-rated 6-3 cable to the stove and moved it out of the way
• Where the phone line (and an old cable wire) enter the carriage house, there is an inch-wide gaping hole to the outside with no attempt to insulate or seal.

So it was par for the course. I moved the inside terminal box (shown in the photo in its new position), restripped and fastened the phone wires, restapled the stove cable, and vowed to visit that wire entry on my Big Sealing Project later this month.

Cleaning: the last of the major carriage house cleaning is now complete, after today's marathon push to finish the mopping of the ceiling and walls in the front room. I still don't really want to know what process could have scattered organic material so thoroughly and with such even distribution onto the walls and ceilings here; I am merely grateful that it comes off this excellent enamel paint so easily.

So. Progress today, however slight.

Updated plan

Fourth post today: I know the planning posts are less fun, but for me they're the most useful, because they're my actual to-do lists I'm working from. The carriage house livability point is still the focus, although we're moving in on the big house, too, at this point (the books are living there, after all, and the WiFi access point).

1. Carriage house livability


• Garage area livability
• Remove superfluous fiberglass insulation from the ceiling and around heating ducts (we're going to heat the garage area, after all; we're living in it)
• Drywall the south wall where the garage door used to be
• Caulk everywhere, the previous owners had no idea about winterizing, it drives me berzerk, there's daylight all over the place
• Some plaster patching where it'll do some good
• More paint


• Bathroom
• Attach and plumb vanity
• Touch up paint on walls and paint the trim


• Windows
• Front windows
• Remaining two 28"x54" (kitchen and bathroom)
• Trim on bedroom window and window 2


• Cleaning
• Finish mopping ceiling and walls in front room




2. Big house


• Some more plumbing, perhaps the upstairs bathrooms
• Cleaning
• Winterization, a lengthy process
• Heat

That's a pretty truncated big house list, but it's all still vague and just looming on the horizon.

Book storage

So here's the first actual use of the big house for anything: the books are in the parlor. I'm telling people that we have a 760 square foot apartment with roughly 8000 square feet of storage.

South side yard, before and after

The yard cleanup crew has moved beyond the back yard between the buildings, and is now encroaching on the main house. I don't have a really good before picture, but my picture of the south side from May shows a little of the now-absent disorder.

The lumber is from the remains of a dog fence that I took out yesterday. I started unscrewing the 2x4 cross-pieces, and the whole neighborhood ended up helping rip out the 4x4 posts. They were all pretty excited yesterday; the alligator that lives across the street had escaped and everybody got on the news.

Laundry!

Success! My $50 Craigslist washer/dryer set is functioning perfectly (well, the dryer is really loud due to what sounds like a wobbly bearing, but it's functional, and whaddaya want for twenty-five bucks??).

This was the first actual improvement I've made so far. Everything else has just been refurbishment, i.e. replacing broken bits and cleaning. This is new functionality. It makes me inordinately proud.

Washer hookup functional!

The dryer outlet's circuit breaker isn't installed yet (because I bought the wrong type of circuit breaker; they all look the same but are subtly different, and there are at least three types; mine are Square-D) - but other than that, the washer and dryer hookups are a go!

I glued the drain yesterday, then installed the trap for the utility sink this morning, and then the Building Muse took over and I cut and glued the entire plumbing to the washer hookup in one session lasting about four hours, time I really hadn't intended to spend on building today. Also, I had to visit Menard's because I ran out of 3/4" CPVC elbows (just one freaking elbow) - but as I had to return the circuit breaker and get the right one, that means I don't have to go tomorrow to get the dryer finished, so it all evens out in the end.

At 7 PM, after returning from a short hike with the kids and dog, I turned the water back on, and discovered only one leak - and that one not in a glued joint; I'm on a 100% roll on glued joints so far. The leak was in my homemade washer hookup.

I'm really pretty proud of this, even though it looks like a school project. I just bought the shutoff valves, drilled two holes in a bit of 2x4, and screwed the CPVC connectors onto the other side. The only problem was that the stem of the valve was juuust too short to make that final turn on the cold valve, and when I turned the water back on, it leaked copiously. So I scraped off a little wood on the bottom of the 2x4, and tightened the valve one more turn, and it was fine, crisis averted.

The only fly in this ointment is what my pictures haven't shown you yet: for some reason, there is a large hole in the floor around the drain stack, leaving me no easy way to put my washer and dryer there. I'm going to put some plywood there for now, but obviously at some point I'm going to want to fill in that hole and put concrete over it.

Dryer vent

On the carriage house livability list, things are moving along, with the successful installation of the dryer vent today (along with gluing of the drain and installation of my washer hookup - not plumbed yet, but installed).

How to install a dryer vent:

1. Cut a hole in the wall where you want the vent. Check.

2. Drill through the other side of the wall, then go outside to find out where your hole is.

3. Fail to find hole.

4. Drill a hole from the outside at the measured point you expect the inside hole to be. Go inside to check where you came out.

5. Fail to find hole.

6. After much headscratching, realize that the wall is two layers thick - remember how the carriage house was built in 1909 of brick? And how its walls are therefore about a foot thick? The structure of this wooden wall, which replaced a garage-door thing, is plywood - insulation - more plywood - more insulation - third layer of plywood.

7. Go to Menards and buy a keyhole saw to cut out the hole in the middle layer of plywood.

8. Discover that the studs on the two layers don't line up. Now what are the odds that the more-or-less random spot I chose for my dryer vent should be precisely centered on a stud on the other side? See the hole I drilled?

9. Cut another damn hole three inches to the right. Plan to buy a little cover panel for this one.

10. Success! I can finally drill a hole from the outside that I can see on the inside. So cut out the hole on the outside.

11. Don't forget to lay a bead of caulk under the vent hood on the outside before fastening it to the wall.

12. Bask in the glory of your finished dryer vent!