Stained Glass Window Repair

The latest project at the house was the removal of the large stained glass window that was in the front living room. It was almost eight feet across and a little over two feet tall.



Some friends of ours, Joe and Mitzi, came to town for the weekend a couple of weeks ago to play some golf and look at the stained glass window. They just happen to work on stained glass windows as a side hobby/business. After looking at it they decided it was something they thought they could help repair. We applied a lot of duct tape to both sides of the window to help stabilize it and then carefully removed it from it's frame. Parts of it were so loose it took little effort to get it out.



This past weekend I worked to get the frame out of the upper window and replace it with a piece of fiber board. I just need to go back and do some caulking around the edges to seal out the weather.



Hopefully in a few months we'll have a beautifully repaired window to put back in place.

Sledgehammer

It didn't take a crane or a bomb to get the coal burning furnace out of the cellar. But almost. A friend of mine told me to use a sledgehammer to try to break apart the cast iron inner section. Using the neighbors' 6# sledgehammer I started hitting the furnace as hard as I could. After about five minutes I realized that it just wasn't going to work. The sledgehammer wasn't heavy enough to get the job done. So off to Lowe's I went in search of the ultimate sledgehammer. I ended up buying a 10# contractors grade sledgehammer, the heaviest model they had. Back at the house I once again tried to break apart the furnace. This time it worked. After several hours of work and a lot of sweat I had the furnace broken down into pieces light enough to carry or roll out of the cellar. I now have close to a thousand pounds (guesstimate) of cast iron ready to be sold to the local scrap metal yard.

Here are some before, during, and after pictures:

Weekend Update: Dumpster Edition

The dumpster was delivered on Friday. It took them two attempts. The first truck they sent couldn't make the sharp turn required to get to the back of of house. They sent a second truck that was able to make the turn.



Saturday was spent loading the dumpster with the plaster, wood, junk from the yard, and all of the demolition waste that has been piling up since the beginning of June.

Sunday was spent clearing out the majority of the duct work and other junk from the cellar and crawl space. The only things left are an old water heater and part of an automated coal burning furnace that probably weighs fifty tons. The outside sheet metal has been removed but the cast iron inner part still remains. Hopefully it won't take a crane or a bomb to get it out.

Comments

The comments for the last several months' postings have been deleted. Someone posted a short anonymous comment along with a link to a gambling, mortgage, or other SPAM website on each individual posting. The only way to get rid of them was to delete the comments section for those postings.

From now on all comments will have to be approved before they're posted to the Blog. We'll only deny or block comments that have unwanted links or other trash. Comments about me never working, using a hand trowel instead of a shovel, or other jabs at us will be allowed.

I hope you enjoy reading the Blog and keep your comments coming.

Hot & Humid

It was very hot and humid this past weekend. The heat index was well over 100 degrees. So...what did I do? I decided to dig up a fence post. It needed to be removed to widen the entrance to our back lot to allow a dumpster to be dropped off. The pile of scrap wood, plaster, and other demolition junk has gotten pretty large and needs to be removed. The ancient duct work and other heating system stuff in the crawl space also needs to be removed. It took me over an hour using a pick axe and shovel to get the post out of the ground. I sweat so much my clothes were dripping wet. I spent another hour or so clearing some tree limbs out of the way. I'm so glad I don't have to earn a living doing manual labor.

Things We Have Learned About Paint Stripping

1. Paint stripping, quite frankly, completely sucks.
2. Wallpaper removal is unpleasant, but not nearly as bad as paint removal.
3. Tree chipping is hard, but not as hard as paint removal.
4. The former tenants created foul odors, but nothing as noxious as chemical strippers.
5. Poo left from a squatting (literally and figuratively) raccoon is gross, but paint stripping is worse.
6. The "sky is falling" warnings about lead and asbestos are scary, but not nearly as frightening as the "you could have brain damage or go blind if you use this product" warnings on the chemical stripper labels.
7. Old houses have more paint on them than the Glidden store has in stock.
8. The infrared stripper gets pretty hot, so it hurts if you happen to accidentally touch it to bare skin.
9. Old paint is tenacious. It's even more difficult to remove than tenants.
10. The end result will make it worthwhile.


Other than "enjoying" paint removal, we have been working on some demolition in the kitchen. The plaster isn't in the best shape and has a lot of peeling paint. Since one wall will be torn up to install plumbing for one of the upstairs bathrooms and other walls will hold cabinets, we are going to just take down the plaster and use drywall.

If you think our house looks bad.....

If you think our house looks bad.....take a look at this couple's project in New Jersey. We particularly like their "Open Letter to Rich People".

Independence Day

Its been a busy week. As you probably expected, we celebrated the 4th of July by working on our little piece of history. We got to enjoy some fireworks thanks to the new shopping center just up the road from us. They put on a pretty nice show. Of course, a few local morons and idiots felt the need to set off illegal fireworks in the middle of our neighborhood and risk loss of their digits, eyesight, etc.

One of our favorite sporting events has also begun...the Tour de France. We'll spend most evenings over the next couple of weeks watching it on OLN and listening to their genius commentator call it the Two ur deeeee Frantz.

The infrared paint stripper arrived last week and has been put to use on several occasions. This contraption works wonders on paint. If the paint is newer and holds enough moisture, it will scrape off like icing from a cake. The older, drier paint puts up more of a fight, but still comes off fairly easily (as compared to using a chemical stripper). Its hard to strip paint from crevices and rounded trim with the infrared device. We'll probably have to use a chemical stripper on these. Either way, it's a slow and tedious process.


The wall in the pictures above is bead board in the kitchen. The exposed wood isn't particularly attractive, so the board will have to be repainted. There was too much old paint on the wood to paint over. The removal of the old paint should also help with the stench reduction process.

Shave anyone?

We've had to do quite a bit of demolition work in the upstairs bathroom. When we were removing the lathe a couple of nights ago, we found a big pile of razor blades. This bizarre mystery was quickly solved by Wife's mom. The razors were probably dropped through the razor disposal slit in an old medicine cabinet and piled up over the years. It sounds like this isn't the first time this has been discovered during renovation.

Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound

Remember our previous post about the newspapers on the kitchen floor? Well, one of them has a interesting little advertisement for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound. The newspaper is dated 1918. Here's the ad, and since the text is hard to read in the picture, we've typed the text too.



OVERDOING - How American Women Break Down

Owing to the modern manner of living and the nervous haste of every woman to accomplish just so much every day, they overdo and as a consequence develop ailments peculiar to their sex, as indicated by backache, headache, nervousness, the blues, displacements and weakness.

Women who find themselves in this condition should slow down, and depend upon that good old-fashioned herb and root remedy, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, to restore them to health and strength, for there is no other remedy known that quickly restores a healthy, normal condition.

Slow News Day

There isn't much to report in renovation news. The wallpaper removal saga continues, but should culminate in the foreseeable future. We removed beaded board from one of the kitchen walls and all of the board in the upstairs bathroom today. The board from the kitchen will probably be re-used elsewhere in the house.....of course, not until it has been through a thorough cleaning and disinfecting session and repainting.

In other news, the cat hid under the bed in one of the bedrooms and ended up getting shut in all day.

Cartoon

Salad Shooter

Once again, we have been to the local rent-all. Not having been satisfied with erecting what was quite possibly the heaviest extension ladder on earth, we had to get something even more exciting....a wood chipper. These dandy little items are basically industrial strength Salad Shooters that can make quick work of vines, branches, small stumps, and limbs. Fortunately, we only chipped backyard flora, not fauna (aka Husband and Wife) or fauna's limbs. The result is a lovely mulch pile that we can use in landscaping....if we ever get to that point.







Since we have a cooking theme, well sort of, we should update everyone on our kitchen design progess. We met with a kitchen design/custom cabinet company last week to design a layout, pick cabinets, etc. We are waiting on the initial design and estimated cost. Hopefully the cost will not be at a stroke-inducing level.

Wondering how we plan to celebrate Independence Day? Well, we hope to have a grand ole time removing lots of paint from trim, etc. at the house. What a treat this will be. We plan to rent an infrared stripper. If its any good, we'll buy one. If not, we'll have to use caustic chemicals to strip paint. Cross your fingers on the infrared gadget.

Sometimes Cute...or Not

Sometimes the girls are sweet little angels......


and somestimes, they're not.

New managing editor

Wife has decided to resign from her position as managing editor of the blog. All future posting and editing duties shall be handled by Husband.

Father's Day Weekend Update

Nora's parent's came up to visit this weekend and we promptly put them to work. Saturday was hot and sunny and we decided to work outside. We mowed the front lawn and cut down the overgrown weeds and grass in the backyard. We also cut down and cleared out a lot of the brush and scrub trees in the back.




We spent Sunday afternoon scraping wallpaper. Being Father's Day we decided to give Nora's father the day off. Her mother also took the day off as a belated Mother's Day gift.

Tiles

Each of the four bedroom fireplace mantels has a decorative tile.

Scraping Wallpaper

Wallpaper, wallpaper, and more wallpaper. We spent the majority of our time at the "money pit" this week scraping wallpaper. We've finished the living room, entrance foyer, and upstairs hallway. We've still got the stairwell, master bedroom, small bedroom, and the ceilings in the dining room and two front bedrooms left to do.

Back To Work

With the holiday weekend over it was time to get back to work.

Nora has spent the last several days pursuing her new favorite hobby of wallpaper scraping. She's making a lot of progress but it's a never ending task. She keeps scraping and scraping and scraping.



John has spent the last several days gutting the lower porch rooms. At some point in the past the porch was added on to. The foundation and construction isn't that good and probably isn't strong enough to support the master bathroom that we plan to add to the upper porch. Because of this we plan to tear down part or all of the porch and plan to add on to this section of the house. This will give us the space for a master bathroom and closet space on the second floor and a half bath, mud room, and breakfast area on the first floor. But that's a long ways off and there's a lot of demolition work still left to do.

Memorial Day Weekend

We took Memorial Day Weekend off and went to Madison, WI for a friend's wedding. Besides the wedding, we went to the Madison farmer's market, toured the Trek bike factory, visited Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture school at Taliesin, and drove (yes, drove) by the Taliesin house. Had we arrived at the vistors' center a mere 30 minutes earlier, we would have been able to take the tour of the residence. It was most irritating to receive this news upon our arrival, and several of the more colorful words in the English language ran through Wife's head. If we had not stopped at a local coffee shop to try to use the free wi-fi internet (which, not surprisingly, would not work) to check the tour times, we would have arrived on time.

After driving for almost 10 hours without a fully functioning air conditioning unit (which is not conducive to a pleasant disposition), we picked up the Girls and the Brains of the Operation. The dogs were pooped from several days of endless barking. They collapsed on the kitchen floor and conked out. They will be back to nuclear behavior shortly.




Thanks to the miracle of global warming, the temperature at the wedding, and everywhere else for that matter, was blazing hot.