Catching Up

OK. This is a photo fueled ramble, pretty much in chronological order.

First, the establishing shot! Last fall, I got the patio cleaned up and the heavier bits of construction wood out of the elements.

Here's a random shot of Thumper campling out in the laundry basket. He has gotten calmer and more pet-like around me. I can approach, reach and scritch him with no downside. (Others can't - an elderly gentelman tested that out for us last week.) He's excited to see me when I come down in the morning/get home from work, and is generally more manageable. He still quivers, but less so than before.

We have become buddies.

Work is progressing on the walk-thru closet: 

Much more below the fold!

"Where The **** You Been?!" - Yen, The 'Grease Man', Ocean's 11

So, no, I really haven't been around much since June, just a couple of posts on the two blogs.

I was self-medicating over on Twitter.  Since it's Lent, that came to a stop.

Last year pretty much sucked.  If you follow Leelu's Place, you know I lost Baxter in February, and Benny in July. What you don't know is that I lost Griffin in November.

He had taken to going down about half the way on the stairs, and then leaping to the bottom. On his last try, he managed to cripple himself. We did the same kind of steriod treatment that we did for Benny.

In his attempts to get up, he bruised his shoulder badly.  When I finally discovered it, it was about the size of my hand. I managed to drain it, but it was, I think, sceptic. He passed away on November 27. I'd put him on the bed, and started to read. After a bit, I looked over, and he was gone.

That was the proverbial last straw for me. He had started to become more friendly since his teeth were pulled, coming up to me for scratches when I was sitting and reading or watching a movie. It felt like we were beginning to bond, and I was really looking forward to seeing that develop.

So, I started to mourn them all. I didn't realize that was what I was doing until just before my birthday. In the time between losing Grif and my realization, I pretty much did nothing, except self-medicate with Twitter. OK, my alcohol consumption ticked up a bit. And I put on a couple of extra pounds (about ten). I mostly blame the two full batches of Ike's eggnog for that. And the chocolate peanut butter bars. But mostly, the alcohol.

I'm pretty much back now. Doing Lent has helped a great deal. No meat, just fish, eggs, cheese and such. No Twitter. Read the Daily Readings (Epistle and Gospel for the daily Mass) from the USCCB.  Didn't make 'no drinking' past the first week, but I have cut down to less than what I was drinking before the Black Dog came for his stay. And my weight has been dropping. This I know from being weighed each on the many times I been to the doctors in the last couple of months.

(That is another post.)

Work has been done to the house. I finished bracing the joists, and tightened up  the rods to (hopefully) keep the wall from sagging any more. Lots of Romex has been pulled the back bedroom. The 220 V line to  my old third floor bedroom has been split into two 110 V lines, one for the old bedroom, and one for the closet.

The next trick is to get the beam between the living and dining rooms reinforced to correct the sag. After that, I want to make the place able to pass inspection for homeowner's insurance. That will, I'm pretty sure, reduce the mortgage payment. As I understand it, it has to pass the 'looks right' test from the outside, and have no active knob and tube electrical wiring.

(That is yet another post.)

Most importantly, I'm looking for a new (senior) dog.

Life, The Universe, The House and Everything.

I see that I haven't done a non-whiney house post in almost 4 months, so I must be overdue! This will cover a couple of months, what with more tarping, the 4th of July, the garden, and the start of painting. So, in more or less chronological order, here we go!

This was the garden, pre-hail...

Lettuce, onion, and lemon grass in a pot.

Potatoes (rear), onions, and garlic.

Kitchen bed - oregano, rosemary, basil and onions.

Started life as a melon-from-seed bed, turned into strawberries and peppers.

First oregano harvest!

Border bed oregano

Border bed potatoes (there are more in the 'empty' spot on the right.

Strew flower seeds according to directions. Nada.

Smoking dinner...

The Heirloom purple tomatoes. Yes, they wound up getting dry rot, too.

Next, when I tarped the second floor roof, I took the opportunity for some aerial photos:

Top: potatoes, lettuce & peppers Bottom: Onions/garlic, lettuce & peppers, strawberries & peppers. Notice the addition of the final raised bed, next to the potatoes. This became home to lettuce and a Ghost Pepper. Strawberries and peppers bottom right.

Two views of the kitchen bed:

Tarping. The roof is not going to get repaired any time soon, so I want to keep the elements from causing any more damage (if that's even possible). I used garden pavers to hold things together.

Baxter sunning himself whilst I tarp...

First go-round. I've added more pavers since.

Starting to paint. White walls, with a sort-of denim blue for the trim. I've painted two walls as accent walls, using the Modern Grey that I used in my room

Stairway /dining room wall

Supervisor...

First trim coat done.

From basement door to stairs

Inspection and approval.

Next, the garden as of today!

Lemon Grass

The heirloom tomatoes

What's left of the potato bed. The heat wilted the greens, and the rain accelerated the weed growth to ludicrous speed.

Potato bed, post clean-up (Reminds me... got to bring the shovel in!)

Blackberries and remaining potato plants

Did get a big, fat, juicy, tasty blackberry today. Now I understand them!

Border potatoes. Did much better than the raised bed. They were shaded from most of the hail.

Strawberries and peppers

Kitchen bed, post weeding. Pile o' crap on the right. Wilt-y tomatoes are wild, transplanted from the compost heap.

First of two piles...

...second of two piles.

I did assault weeding in all of the beds except the garlic/onion bed. I dug up as many potatoes as I could find - about 1/2 of a 2.5 gallon bucket. Got reds, some blue, whites, and Yukon Gold.

Veering back to the 4th of July at @PeeteySDee's compound, I was tasked  with supplying deviled eggs with Jalapeno and bacon. I decided that a batch with Wasabi and shrimp  might be interesting. Those turned to be the hit of t he two.

Last but not least, fungus in the kitchen:

Will have pix of the (more) finished painting Real Soon! Need to do some more trim, one wall, and the ceiling.

Da House...

As Jack Benny used to say, "Well..."

I got the two downstairs radiators detached and their feed and return pipes capped.  This, I thought, would at least let me run the furnace and heat my bedroom.

Both God and the house said "Ha!"

I turned on the heat, and went upstairs to check things out.  There was a nice thin stream of water squirting out of the interior of the radiator.  And, whilst the system was pressurized,  rain began falling from the decorative(?) beam between the living and dining areas.

Let there be rain!

My suspicion is that it is the result of a pipe that burst between the ceiling and the floor upstairs.  I hope that it is one of the pipes to the closet heater, because those are relatively short sections, and I *think* I should be able to detach them at a joint near the living room ceiling.  If it is one of the pipes to/from the bedroom, oy!  They are straight, single piece pipes from the basement to the radiator, as far as I can see.

So.  Command decision is that *all* radiators are in some way dead.  Four new radiator panels and four valve sets are on order from Runtal in over in Massachusetts.  I've ordered two twelve foot UH2 panels, one for the bedroom and one for the closet.  Five foot and eleven foot UH4 panels are on order for the living and dining rooms.

Oh, and of course, there is wall repair needed where the old radiators stood as well, which really means that he downstairs needs painting.  Since heat is the priority, I plan on patching and painting the walls where the old radiators were first, then moving on to painting the entire living/dining area.  Deb had a color scheme in mind,  If I recall correctly, it was green for the living room, blue for the dining room, and red for the kitchen.  (My recollection is based on the colors of the kitchen and dining room chairs.)

The wall under the front window. NOT the worst of the two!

Someone put a 'cap' on the baseboard, because it is bowed away from the wall.

Close up of the cap.

The dining room wall, the worst of the two. This is after the first coat of fill.  Once it is completely dry, it gets sanded, a second, thin coat, final sanding, and paint.

This is the part of the floor over the dry rotted joist.  There is about an inch of gap between the bottom of the baseboard and the floor.  That is brick you see in the gap.  There was a majorly kludged patch covering it.  I think I have more shoring to do...

 In other news, I finished up weatherproofing the kitchen door.  This, of course, required some patching and painting, too, but the job is done.  Yes, the door and frame need painting, but I need to focus my attention on the walls before the radiators get here.

The improved product.

New threshold plate and coat of paint.

New weather stripping!

Next pay day, I plan on getting someone out to put in a new pane of glass in the hole covered by the cardboard.

In the mean time, the bedroom is comfy, thanks to an early Christmas present from Deb - an electric, infra-red heater!

The new heater.  It is a faux fire place, with the infra-red heater in the box underneath.  That's Suzu warming her tail.

Suzu enjoying the new 'place' by the 'fire'.

I created the place by using my old bedspread under two fleece throws I picked up for $3.00 each at WalMart.  The dogs seem to like it, and I've even noticed Baxter making use of it.

For my next trick, more outlets in the bedroom!

Oh,  an update on the last electrical post... the short in the wiring over the back bedroom migrated.  I came home to find my wireless out, because I had plugged it into the old circuit, which failed when the short migrated.  So all of those lights and outlets are dead again.

I love this place!!

More House (Garden, Not So Much)!

OK.  I know it's been almost  two weeks since I last posted about the house.  I have been busy.

First, I've installed two ceiling fans in the living/dining area. It's 80 outside, I just came back from getting lunch, and the downstairs is comfortably cool.  Without the A/C.

Pre-installation.

Installed and working!

Aaaand, the kitchen sink:

This started out with a friendly notice from the boro that my water usage was higehr than usual.  The hot tap was leaking, enough so the the faucet was hot to the touch.  So, off I go to get a new faucet set.  When I got home and crawled underneath, I saw things I did not want to see - a tangle of water lines, set screws, and what looked like solder.  Command decision - remove the old sink in toto, and replace w/ new.

I won't bore you with the tale of the sturm und drang needed to remove the add-in shelf so I could get the drain connected, required by the offset drain configuration. Nor will I talk about the holes drilled in said shelf so that the water supply pipes could be run thru them and then soldered together.  I mean, who would ever want to replace a sink or need to move anything, right?

In happier news, those are tomatoes from the garden.

The last major thing is getting the new room finished. "Finished" is still a ways off, but progress abounds! I've painted the ceiling and three walls, scraped the windows, and taped them off so I can start painting them.

The almost-but-not-quite-corner. This shot does give you a good sense of what "Modern Grey" looks like

This is a test. I'm painting the inner part of the frame Modern Grey, the rest of the frame and sill white. If I like it, I'll do all three the same.  If not, plain white.

One window, taped for painting.  I wound up putting filler along the left side, between the wall and frame. Sand tomorrow, then wipe down and paint!

Benny came in to inspect. Notice that the debris is gone!

And, in the midst of all this, we have a new resident. She showed up on the neighbor's porch Sunday evening before last.  I thought she was a kitten, but when I took her to the vet, they wanded her and found out that she has been chipped, her name is Ramen, and she's 12!

I haven't heard from the owner, but I did talk to the alternate contact, who seemed put out by the whole experience. So, it's looking like me, three dogs, and three cats.

Behold, Ramen:

(She can be shy at first...)

Ramen T. Cat

Her right ear is 'cocked' to almost horizontal, due to a large mass at the base of the ear. It looks like it had been treated, or at least biopsied, because there is a shaved spot, and a nicely-healing cruciform wound.

She's a little bitty thing, weighing in at only 5 lbs. And I think she has Nadia on the run.