Going against the flow
OR
Zang work weekend 1

Posted on October 29, 2008 by clare

This past weekend, Rob and Ellen traveled to Denver to help Clare get the Zang house ready for move in.

We both arrived Friday night around 8:30. We stopped by the house on the way back to Clare’s apartment so that Ellen could get a look at it. It was a very comfortable temperature, since Clare had gotten the new furnace installed on Tuesday. After looking around for awhile and discussing what we wanted to tackle, we headed back to Clare’s apartment, chatted a bit, then went to bed.
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Shelves mostly built

Posted on October 16, 2008 by clare

cabinet and shelf base

My last project in the long saga of the downstairs bathroom was to build some shelves where the washer and dryer used to be. The main reason for this is because we moved the laundry tub to the next room (which we now call the utility room). To do so, I had to route the pipes to the laundry tub from the bathroom to the utility room, since they are embedded in the concrete in the bathroom. So there were pipes visible in the bathroom. I wanted to hide them. Thus the shelves.

I worked in the garage since it was rainy outside

I tried to re-use as much of what was lying around. I found some old cabinets in the cabin which were 12″ deep by 36″ wide by about 20″ high, which was just about exactly what I was planning on building. So I decided to use these to cover up the pipes. I also was able to re-use the drawers from the old vanity that we had replaced. Those ended up being about 18″ deep, which is exactly what I wanted as well. The drawers were 12″ wide, so that left me with 36″ left of the 84″ space. Clare had bought some cedar planks for a different project awhile ago, and had sanded them (covering the entire kitchen and foyer with sawdust), but we never ended up using them. They happened to be 7′ long, so I was able to cut 2 3′ long pieces from each of them, which filled up the space that will be open shelving.

plumbing is now hidden

I first built a base for the shelves using 2x4s. I nailed (or in some places screwed) the 2x4s into the footers of the walls, then put a layer of plywood on top of that. Then I screwed the cabinet into the wall and the plywood. I followed the same procedure that Dave and Ellen used to construct the old vanity for the rest of the project. I attached small pieces of wood to the bottom of plywood, and then screwed those small pieces into the plywood base. Finally, I put a single piece of plywood on top, and screwed that into the cabinet and the plywood for the drawers.

cabinet, shelves, and drawers fully assembled

Since we had learned that tiling countertops is relatively cheap and easy, I decided to do that again here. I decided to use 4×4″ inch tiles, so that it would match the countertop on the vanity. About 2 minutes after I finished, I decided that 6×6 would have looked better, because I would have had to make fewer cuts. Oh well. You know what they say about hindsight.

Shelves with tile on top.

The tiling procedure was the same as usual. I attached hardibacker cement board to the plywood with thinset mortar and special screws (and 1 1/4″ galvanized roofing nails in the middle). Then I put the tiles on top one day, starting with the outside edge. I used V-cap for the edge, including a special V-cap piece for outside corners. For the inside corner, I had to make a very tricky diagonal cut (2 cuts actually). Those 2 cuts probably took me at least an hour.

This inside corner was a tricky cut. This alone took at least an hour.

I let the tile on the counter top cure overnight. Then I attached the backsplash and the trim around the floor with pre-mixed mastick. We still have a little bit left. I did use up the rest of the thinset mortar, and most of the grout. I finally grouted a couple days later. That is my least favorite part of the job.

Another tricky cut

Now the last thing I have to do is put some trim on the front of the shelves and around the drawers. That will probably require some staining of trim first. Hopefully I will get it done before we leave.

The backsplash didn’t quite fit under the window trim, so I had to make it a bit smaller.

Covebase tile around the rest of the bathroom

New home-owners

Posted on October 13, 2008 by clare

Rob and Clare by the fireplace in the the Zang house

We are now the owners of 6423 Zang Ct. We have lots of work to do, but we are looking forward to it. It’s great that we got a bunch of experience doing home improvement in the Spencer house. More pictures in our photo albums

Rob and Clare by the kitchen in the Zang house

Salsa!

Posted on August 15, 2008 by clare

14 pints of salsa. Notice the blue coloring of the open jar. It is very old.

Wednesday I canned salsa. This will be the 4th or 5th time I have done it, though the first time all on my own. Previously I always had the guiding hand of my mother right next to me, with her years of canning wisdom. I first started canning salsa in grad school, and Clare joined me and my mom once or twice. I ended up calling my mom 3 or 4 times with clarification questions, which she happily answered. I harvested about 15 or 20 medium size tomatoes over the weekend, probably 2/3 lemon boy, and the rest better boy and celebrity. On Tuesday I stopped by the Bloomington Farmer’s market on my way home, and got a box of jalapeños, a box of poblano peppers, and some green peppers. Then I stopped in at the new Bloomingfood’s next door on 6th, and got 3 bunches of cilantro, and some chipotle pepper powder.

Salsa up close

I had to go to Indy Wednesday morning for work, so I planned to do the canning Wednesday afternoon. After talking with my mom on Tuesday about the recipe we had used, I thought I might need some more tomatoes. I don’t think I would have gotten enough tomatoes ripe all at once from our own garden to make salsa (at least not 14 pints). On my way home from Indy, I stopped at the hardware store in Cloverdale and bought a jar lifter, and then I stopped at a little farm which had a little vegetable stand selling tomatoes for $0.50 per pound. I bought 6 pounds, and put my $3 in their little lock box.

I started the process around 3:30. The first step is to scald the tomatoes in boiling water for a minute or so, then place them in ice water. This makes it easy to remove the skin. Then I chopped up the tomatoes, removing any bad spots, and placed them in a colander to let some of the juices drip out. I ended up with just about 6 quarts of chopped tomatoes, which is what our recipe called for. I chopped about 5 or 6 green peppers, 2 large onions, 1 bunch of cilantro, and 5 or 6 jalapeños and poblanos. The whole chopping process took almost 3 hours, most of which was spent on the tomatoes. I put all the ingredients in an 8 quart stock pot, which was filled to the brim, and started heating it up. I also added 2 tablespoons of salt, 3/4 cup of white vinegar, 1 tablespoon of cumin and coriander, and 1 tablespoon of chipotle pepper powder. Even though I drained the tomatoes, it was still very juicy, so I ladled off about 2 or 3 cups of liquid, then added one large can of tomato paste (12 oz.). Once it was hot, I ladled the salsa into pint jars. My basic canner fits 7 pint jars (or quart). I put them in for about 30 minutes, and had some dinner while I was waiting (and called my mom again). Once the 30 minutes was up, I quickly removed the first batch, and had the second batch in within about 15 minutes. I heard a few of the lids popping while I was preparing the second batch, indicating that they had sealed. I was done by about 8:10, except for doing dishes, which took another half hour.

On Thursday when I got home from work, I checked the jars by pressing down on the lids. Three of them popped up after pushing down on them, indicating they had not sealed. I put those in the refrigerator, and will have to eat them within a month or so. I tested one jar last night, and it was quite tasty. It was not quite as spicy as when I had tested it on Wednesday. I think the additional cooking made it a bit milder. It turned out fairly thick and chunky, and I would give it a medium heat rating.

p.s. thanks to my mom for her advice, and to Dorene Grekowicz, for some of the canning supplies.

Good eats in fields and forests

Posted on August 4, 2008 by clare

Lemon boy, Better boy, and sweet 100 tomatoes

It is starting to be harvest time in Indiana. What an exciting time. All the work sprouting seeds starting in February, planting in May, occasionally weeding and watering — it is starting to pay off. I have gotten several cherry tomatoes in the last couple weeks, and in the last week or so the big tomatoes are really starting to come in. I have been enjoying the cherry tomatoes all by themselves, and I have been making the big tomatoes into my favorite simple salad. Slice the tomatoes. Sprinkle some fresh chopped basil over them (plenty of basil in the garden too), and then pour a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar over them, and a little salt and fresh ground pepper. Very tasty.

tomato basil salad

Last weekend there was also quite a bit of good stuff at the Spencer Farmer’s market. I bought some eggplant, peppers, and heirloom tomatoes from the Harrimans. I know that I have my own tomatoes, but I thought that the heirloom tomatoes looked really interesting. One big one that I got was called Kellogg’s breakfast. I can’t remember the name of the other one. I also traded some bread starter with Joanna Sparks for some of her goodies, which included parsley, garlic, and pearl onions.

heirloom tomatoes – the one the left is called “Kellogg’s breakfast”

I finished out my weekend of harvesting with some harvesting in the wild. Volya, one of the grad students in my lab is an avid mushroom hunter. We went mushroom hunting in the Charles Dean Wilderness, just south of Lake Monroe. It is part of the Hoosier National Forest. He showed me which mushrooms are okay to eat and which are not. We mostly collected chanterelles, and boy did we get a bunch! We spent several hours hunting, though we took a little break to take a swim in Lake Monroe, which was quite a bit warmer than the pond on Twin Springs.

Chanterelle harvest – This is about 30-40% of what we got.

After getting home, I washed the chanterelles and then boiled them for 10 minutes like Volya told me to. I then decided to add them into a risotto, with onions, garlic, butter beans, fresh tomatoes and basil, and vegetable stock (and a splash of dry vermouth). It turned out pretty tasty.

Chanterelles up close

Risotto with chanterelles, fresh tomatoes, and basil

Summertime, and the living is easy

Posted on July 19, 2008 by clare

anaheim and banana peppers

Well, we don’t have any cotton in our garden, so I can’t make any comment as to whether it is high or not, but our garden is doing well, and I have definitely been enjoying summer this week. On Wednesday, I took some time in the afternoon to do some work, which included getting the flat tire off the riding lawn mower so I could take it in to the tire store. It turns out I needed a socket to get it off, so I had to take a trip to Pell’s first. I got the needed socket, and picked up some 2x2s at the lumber yard to make the remaining 6 tomato stakes, and some 6″ corrugated pipe for my ditch project. After I cut and pounded in the remaining tomato stakes, I savored the first ripe cherry tomato of the season. There appear to be many more waiting. Then I picked the first ripe hot peppers — we planted anaheims and yellow banana peppers. I used those in the burritos I made for dinner, which were very tasty. But before that, I decided to finally take a swim in the pond. I never got around to it last summer, and I decided that I ought to do it before this summer is over as well. It was very refreshing on a hot summer day. It was also quite cold, as my in-laws had promised. I didn’t venture too far out, but I did put my head under water.

On Thursday I got a tube put in the flat tire for $15, and did some mowing after work. It felt really great to leave work at 5, since I have been working late the last several weeks. And Friday, I went to the see the new Batman movie at the drive-in. I had never been to a drive-in before, and I never got around to it last summer, even though it is only a few miles from our house. And for once in a blue moon, they were playing a movie that interested me. And speaking of blue moons, not long after enjoying a marvelous sunset at the drive-in, which drenched the corn-filled horizon in dark red light, there appeared a big, beautiful full moon.

Real men use reel mowers

Posted on June 19, 2008 by clare

Our reel mower (thanks Sean!)

We have 3 mowers — a small riding mower, a powered push mower, and a reel mower. I use a combination of all three. Last summer I used the reel mower quite a bit, but time has passed, I have started using the riding mower more, mostly because it is faster, and I have realized that my time might be better spent cutting wood rather than cutting grass. However, the reel mower is much more pleasant to use. Last week I was looking for a little exercise after getting home from work, so I used the reel mower some. I will list all the advantages:

It doesn’t pollute at all (except maybe for some odor coming from my armpits)
It doesn’t use any gas
It is fairly inexpensive
It is quiet
It actually cuts the grass, unlike rotary mowers (Golf courses use reel mowers too, though they are big ones that are pulled by tractors)
It gives me a good workout using it
It scatters the cut grass uniformly around the lawn, instead of leaving clumps
It is not as dangerous as powered mowers

I also want to say that the reel mower is much better than I had thought it would be. I had never used one prior to last year, but my friend Sean had one lying around that he gave to me. I had always heard about how hard they were to use, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that it wasn’t that hard to push. I had also heard that they can’t handle very tall or thick grass. The tall part is true, but I feel that it handles fairly thick grass and weeds just fine. It does help to have sharp blades. My dad gave me a handy little mower sharpening tool. If I spend 3-5 minutes using it before I mow, it works much better. I also recommend mowing in overlapping lines. Sometimes the mower does not get all the grass in one direction; instead of cutting it, it just pushes it down. Going back over half of the previous row will get most of this grass that was pushed over before.

If you haven’t tried one, I would highly recommend it, especially if you have a small lawn. You can buy a decent one for $100-$200, and even if you only use it every other time you mow, you will still be helping to reduce carbon emissions and noise pollution, and will be giving yourself a good workout.

p.s. I am not in any way implying that women are not real, or that women (or children) who use reel mowers will become or already are fictional. I am merely playing off a cliché

The writing is off the wall
OR
Painting the bathroom

Posted on April 28, 2008 by clare

Goodbye orange paint!

Last weekend (the 19th and 20th) we painted the bathroom. This is one of the last steps in our bathroom re-model, and one we had been very much looking forward to. I think one thing we have learned is that if we ever rent out a place, we will not let the renters paint, since they frequently do a very sloppy job. Though we are trying very hard, I sometimes wonder if we will be able to even get the house looking as good as it did the day Ellen and Dave left for Arizona. Bit by bit though, we are undoing and covering up the damage that previous renters had done, including, yes, writing on the wall.

Water stains on the ceiling

On Friday night I did one final sanding of the drywall mud and washed the walls. I also took off the light switch covers (something the renters who had painted before us did not do).

Walls are ready for painting

Saturday morning we put a coat of Killz primer on it. We did the ceiling first, and then the walls. I did the trimming and Clare did the rolling. The ceiling is textured, so we used a nappy roller for the ceiling. We used the same roller for the walls with the primer, but then switched to different roller for the paint. We also tried out a little trick that our friend Tim told us. Instead of cleaning your brushes and rollers between coats, you can wrap them in saran wrap and put them in the refrigerator. We tried this with the nappy roller, since we were going to be using white paint on the ceiling, and the primer was also white. It worked pretty well. We didn’t use this method overnight though.

Rob trims the walls

The primer coat took us a good 3 or so to complete. After that was done, we had some lunch, and took a little break. The primer claimed that it only needed an hour to dry, and it did dry very quickly. We probably gave it a good 2 hours or so. We used some leftover Killz ceiling white for the ceiling. I continued trimming with a 2″ brush for the ceiling, and Clare continued rolling. Once we were done with the ceiling, I switched to a 1 1/2″ angle brush for trimming, my father’s favorite. One definitely can get a lot more accurate with a slightly smaller brush. This coat went a bit quicker, maybe 2 1/2″ hours, plus some time to rinse out the brushes (in the newly re-installed laundry tub – more on that in an upcoming post).

Primer coat is complete

We chose “ginger” for the walls, which is a beige-ish color — the same color we used in the livingroom and our bedroom. We liked it so much that we decided to use it in the bathroom too. We discussed some different colors, but we wanted to keep it fairly light, since the bathroom doesn’t get much sunlight. We also decided to go with a semi-gloss finish, as we had in the upstairs bathroom, since it is a bit more water-resistant than a satin or a flat, and is easier to clean.

No more water stains

Sunday morning we slept in a bit and had a leisurely breakfast, so I started trimming around 9:45 while Clare talked to her parents. I think she started rolling around 10:30, but it didn’t take long for her to catch up. After surveying the first coat, we decided not to put a second coat on the ceiling, but just to touch up a few places with a brush, after we had finished painting the walls. There were a few spots on the ceiling that were a bit thin, and also a few places where we had gotten some wall paint on the ceiling. That’s why we did it afterwards. We used drop cloths the whole time, and always had a wet rag handy in case we got some paint on the wood, tile or some other place we didn’t want paint, but there is nothing one can do about getting wall paint on the ceiling, except to cover it up later. (Again, former renters apparently did not have the forethought to wipe paint off trim with a wet rag, nor do many other people, as we have recently learned).

Walls are finished

It really is amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do to a room. There are still several more finishing touches to be done, but it is really coming together. Just in time for mowing season.

Mmmm. Ginger

Spigot
OR
Faucet

Posted on April 17, 2008 by clare

Tee valve

The bathroom is still a work in progress, getting closer to completion all the time. A week or so ago I set out to put up the last piece of drywall. This was possible once the washer faucets had been turned into the utility room, but there was one last project I wanted to complete. Our house did not have a spigot outside. I don’t find the need for water outside that often, but occasionally I do. Last summer I simply ran a hose through the window. But this required opening the window, and potentially letting in insects. I asked Dave and Ellen at some point why they didn’t have a spigot, and as always, they had a very sensible answer: they had a spigot on the cabin, and had problems with the pipe freezing. I had a solution to this though. I would have a shutoff inside the house, so I could shut off the water in the winter.

Hose in the wall

In fact, I decided to use the same shutoff I had been using last year. I had been hooking up the hose to the cold water faucet to the washer, which required disconnecting the washer hose. I had gotten tired of this, so I bought a Y-joint. I decided to simply run a hose from this Y through the wall and to the outside. Like most of my projects, it started with a trip to Pell’s hardware store. I got a 5′ washer hose (a steel reinforced one so it should last quite a long time). I also bought a 1 1/2″ wood drill bit to drill holes in the studs so I could run the hose through the wall. I decided to put the spigot right above the dryer vent, since there was already an additional board there. So I simply drilled a hole through the wood there, and then started feeding the hose through the wall. I then drilled holes in the studs to pass the hose through there as well.

Spigot is installed

Once I had the hose all hooked up (it was just long enough), I turned the water on and gave it a try. It seemed to work fine, so I finished by driving a couple screws into the wood in the notches in the faucet. Unfortunately, it was leaking, but I didn’t realize this until two days later. As it turns out, you can already see in the photo of the spigot that the wood looks wet. When I went to use the hose several days later, it was quite wet. Of course I discovered this right before going to bed, so I had all night to worry about it. The next morning I checked it and it was getting worse. I feared that I might have punctured the hose somehow. So I unscrewed the spigot from the wood, and checked the connections. It turns out that I had simply not tightened the connections enough. I had used 1 wrench, but not 2. I got them nice and tight, and let it sit for several hours. After waiting awhile it seemed that the wood block was drying out, so I drilled in some new screws in new holes. I can’t believe that I went so long without a spigot!

The bread trick
OR
Pipes pointing into the utility room

Posted on April 2, 2008 by clare

This past weekend my parents visited, and we tried to keep them entertained by doing fun things like going to some waterfalls, and visiting a local winery. We were trying hard not to rope them into doing any work, but Saturday afternoon they made the mistake of asking us what projects we would be working on if they weren’t there, so we ran down the laundry list. So we ended up doing a little work, but we mostly stuck to having fun.

Saturday afternoon my dad helped me get the blades off the riding lawn mower. I had already tried it once before by putting it up on cinder blocks and crawling underneath it, but I couldn’t get enough leverage. Our neighbor Vic Greenwell, who was the original owner of the mower, said that he had put the mower up on its back wheels and rested it against a wall. So we tried that. I ended up kind of holding it up instead of leaning it against the wall, and wedged a 2×4 in by the blade while my dad used the wrench to get the blades off. Now I just need to find the right replacement blades. (Walmart in town didn’t have the right ones)

Sunday morning we were thinking of what to do, since the winery didn’t open until 1 p.m. I convinced my dad to help me turn around the pipes to the washing machine. The washing machine pipes used to turn into the bathroom slightly, which is where the washing machine used to be. We moved the washing machine next door, and wanted to turn the pipes around so we can finish the drywall in the bathroom. I said it would only take an hour or so, and I was sort of right. After an hour, we had successfully cut the pipes, and sweated a coupling onto each pipe with the faucets now angled slightly into the utility room. To do so, we had to turn the house water off and drain the pipes. But we couldn’t get all the water out of the pipes, so we used the bread trick. Shove some bread down the pipe a little ways so the water doesn’t come all the way to the top of the pipe. If there is water where you are trying to sweat, the copper won’t get hot enough to melt the solder.

The bread trick worked just fine, except for the final part of turning the water back on and the bread coming out. After a minute or so the bread came out of the hot water pipe, but not the cold water pipe. I decided the best thing to do would be to wait awhile. We waited an hour or so. No luck. We went to the winery tour and tasted some nice wine. When we got back 4 hours later, we tried again. No luck. We started brainstorming different ideas. We tried sticking a coat hanger in it, but couldn’t get it past the first bend in the faucet. We tried backflushing it by hooking up the hot water to the cold water through a laundry hose. All no luck. I decided to wait longer.

Monday. No luck. I was starting to think it would never come out and I would have to re-cut and sweat the pipe, so I asked Clare to buy some more couplings. I also decided to ask Rich Dibble, Dave’s brother, who taught us the trick in the first place. He gave some similar suggestions. Dave suggested trying to put some acid in the pipe or something. Tonight I decided to fix it once and for all. I tried turning the water on and off a couple times, and tried back-flushing it. I also tried putting some vinegar in the pipe through the hose. None of this seemed to help. On Sunday my dad had mentioned that he thought that the faucet might not be working. I had disregarded this possibility as having an extremely low probability, since it had been working fine right before we started the project. He suspected that the faucet was not opening correctly. It turns out he was on the right track. I did not want to take the faucet apart on Sunday evening, because I feared that we might end up with a leaky faucet or worse yet a faucet that wouldn’t stop at all, and we would have to turn the water off to the whole house, instead of simply not having a washer for a few days. Today however, I decided to try taking off the faucet. I had the water turned on as I started taking it off, and this weird brown goo started coming out. I quickly turned off the water to the house, then continued taking the faucet off of the pipe, and grabbed a bucket. Finally the bread came out. It had been clogged up in the faucet. I got out the coat hanger and cleaned out some of the bread, then hooked it back up and flushed it out with the water back on. I did one more cycle of turning the water off and on, and put some teflon tape on the faucet. Then I hooked the washer back up and re-leveled it, and it seems to be working fine. I am happy that it worked out, but feel a little stupid that I didn’t try taking off the faucet on Sunday. Oh well. What is that saying about things ending well?