Shellack today

Today I managed to get another coat of shellac on the windows and front door. The front door only needs one more coat and then we can put a privacy film on the glass and get rid of the trash bags taped there which the dogs rip down often. Yay! The original plan was to put a shade there, but given how easily and often the dogs rip down the plastic bags it seems a shade wouldn't last long. 1 window in the living room is done except for the final sanding and buffing. I can then install and shellac the trim and order and install a shade. Yay! I want to order just one shade at a time so that if I make a mistake it won't be on 12 windows.

Today's window effort was 2 hours, bringing the total to 208 hours.

rained out

I wanted to do a coat of shellac today, but was thwarted by the rain. This is part of why the windows have taken so long. It is very hard to schedule this work. I need to do it in the daylight (helps me to see and make sure the shellac is even), I need a large block of time (very hard to come by), I have to be able to be home for several hours afterward because the windows need to stay open to dry, and it has to be nice weather (no rain, warm enough to leave windows open).

wanted to do a coat of shellac, thwarted by rain

More chips, sanded windows

Today I put down 8 more bags of wood chips in the yard bringing my total to date to 60 bags. I am still estimating that I will need about 100 total to finish the yard. Some areas were done so long ago they already need to be redone, but the chips just aren't a priority. I buy more bags each trip to Home Depot, and they get done when they get done.

I also spent 1/2 hour sanding the windows. Total time to date: 206 hours.

Shampoo'd the rug

Today I set aside the day to shampoo the 8x10 rug we have in the living room. We've had this rug since April 2007, so it's only about a year and a half old, but we have two dogs and the rug is in front of the front door so it gets a lot of traffic. I rented one of those machines from the grocery store and I have to say the results were just gross! You can see the water that has been extracted from the rug and it was more like black sludge in our case. I couldn't believe how bad it was after only a year and a half! Since I had the machine, I did the sofa too which was also quite dirty. It's at least 10 years old and has never been cleaned. It also had a ton of dust which is ever present in our house due to construction.

Window sanding

Today I managed just 15 minutes sanding the windows. It's hard to find time for everything!

Cumulative time on windows: 205.5 hours

Fixed the heater wire

Today we fixed the heater wire! C went to the local home improvement store and picked up some wire, and we managed to rerun and connect it and it worked! We saved at least $200 doing it ourselves. I did the attic crawling - at 6'4" there just isn't room for C to move around up there.

Back on the windows

Finally I am back to working on the windows. We replaced all the windows and doors in the house, and I am finishing all of them in shellack. It is a beautiful, environmentally friendly product but it is labor intense. I got sidetracked on this for more than a year and can't believe it. The windows keeps getting pushed back for other things, but I am finally back on it. I did a coat today, and start to finish it took 3 hours. My cumulative total is now 205.25 hours. I can't believe it really takes this long but it does. This time around, I split windows into 2 sections, and I am SO glad I did. We have 12 windows and 5 doors, and right now I am only working on 6 windows and 1 door. Doing a coat on just this half took 3 hours, and there is no way I could find 6 hours of uninterrupted time very often. 3 hours is much easier to find, and it will get the windows done sooner. I am so looking forward to having shades and not newspapers and trash bags taped over the windows!

What a crappy day

There has been so much broken lately - both of our computers, my braces, the heater, the fire pit, and water pooling under the house.

I can't seem to get on top of things - for every 5 I get done, 4 new things come in. Lots of things that were done need to be redone already (wood stain, tub deck grout, etc) and I haven't even gotten to everything once. How do people keep up?

This evening, C checked wire that goes from the thermostat to the heater with electronic tools that he has. It's good to have a husband with a degree in electrical engineering. His testing showed that the wire was not working, which compelled me to check the wire again (I had done it during my initial trouble shooting) and found the problem. During the summer when the roofers were installing ventilation for whole house fan they accidentally cut the wire. We are going to try to replace wire tomorrow before we call someone. It's a pain, but so are contractors. even in this bad economy. Even if it is a quick fix, they often charge a minimum service charge of $200 so it is worth it to fix it ourselves if we can.

Remodeling HELL

or perhaps more like purgatory, where everything is unsure or in limbo and nothing is done.

It's been a really bad few weeks with no forward progress. Last week, we found a place where water was seeping under the house. It's only a small crack, and we get very little rain, but still it's not good. On Monday, I had an orthodontic emergency and got nothing done.

On Tuesday night, I tried to put the heat on for the first time this year and got no heat. Nothing. I got a heavy quilt for the bed and dealt with it. Fortunately, it doesn't get too cold here. On Wednesday, I spent several hours crawling around in the attic trying to trouble shoot the problem and got nowhere. C wanted to check it out when he got home before we called someone. It's good to have a hubby who knows electrical!

Also on Wednesday I tried to turn on our propane fire pit and it wouldn't work either. Hopefully it's just out of propane. I need to order a guage for it before I try to return the tank or call someone to fix it.

3 things broken in one week! Monday and today I had to preempt my existing plans which pushes everything back. Was going to finish washing windows today so I could hose screens and clean the outside frames on Friday so it would be done. It won't be done now until at least next week.

Ugh. It's all very frustrating. I can't seem to get anywhere. I feel like it's never going to be nice, and that there's no hope of ever being done.

I'm still here

Yeah, I'm still blogging, but as usual and as with all areas of my life I am perpetually behind. I keep track of everything so when I get the time I can write it up, add pictures and post so I will get it all up eventually but until then stay tuned! Today is actually December 26, so I am about 2 1/2 weeks behind, which isn't bad for me.

Sanded windows

Due to an orthodontic emergency, I got nothing done but sanding windows. The good news is that they are ready for shellac on Thursday. It's hard to find time to schedule the shellacking. I need a big block of time, daylight, have to be home for several hours because windows need to be open, etc.

Total time on windows to date: 202.25

Some progress, icky jobs done

I did the annual changing of the furnace filter today. Thanks to our plumber's incompetence, it's a much harder job than it needs to be. He didn't know we had to reinforce the roof when the hung the heater from it, even though two different inspectors said it's a common requirement. Because of that, we had to have the reinforcement done after the heater was installed and it partially blocks the slot where the filter goes in. Last year, I didn't close the heater door properly and it wouldn't work, requiring me to trouble shoot it. This year, I made sure to close it correctly and make sure the indicator light as on "OK" before I finished.

I also insulated attic trap door with extra insulation lying around the attic. Once we had the roof ventilation put in the heat could go right out the attic so it was important to get this done before we need heat for the winter. I added weatherstripping as well so the heat couldn't get through the cracks around the trap door. It's funny to find out I know more than I think I do. I knew that a draft could get around the trap door and knew how to fix it. I don't think I knew that before having this house.

I prepped the windows for shellack. I am happy to be getting back into this project which has been stalled for a year. Shellack is a beautiful, non-toxic and environmentally friendly product, so I am please with my choice but it takes forever to apply. I've started keeping track of my time just to know how much time the windows take.

Total time on windows to date: 201.25