Category Home Improvements

So on Friday Cindy nearly doubled our amount of chicks in the house, picking up another 5 of them at Rural King.  When Cindy and I discussed this before the purchase we said it would be good to get the amount of chickens we want to more or less keep full time so we don’t have to go through the chick stage more than once.  I had talked about just picking up 2 or 3 more chicks, I was surprised to see 5 little fuzz balls show up in the picture.

We wanted to make sure to get some different, non-black varieties so we weren’t accused of being racists.  Cindy got 3 or 4 different breeds this time and they are all pretty diverse.  At first she put them in their own little box in the same tub as their 1 week older siblings.  It was amazing the size difference 7 days makes in a chicks life.  The first set of chicks were nearly double the size of the new hens.

You aren’t supposed to put chicks from different breeders together for germ reasons and safety reasons since the older, bigger birds could beat on the smaller ones.  We wound up commandeering the second bathtub in the guest room as the second brooder.  Cindy ran out late Friday to grab a second heat lamp and a few other things for the new babies.  It goes without saying that they are very cute although it is weird having both bathrooms in the house being turned into chicken brooders.

First thing Saturday I was outside doing a few chores, taking advantage of the cool temps and low humidity.  Once I finished up I headed into the office to work on the firewall switch over.  For the most part it went smoothly but I had a couple bugs that took me awhile to resolve.   On the way home I stopped at Ali’s place to do some work on her computer as well.  By the time I got home it was close to 3.

It wasn’t long until Cindy and I jumped in the SSR to head back down to Naples for me to pick up the entries and race bibs for Sunday’s 5K.   That evening we finalized the race prep and tried to get to bed at a decent hour since the alarm clock was set for 4:15am.

When we got on the race site a couple minutes after 5:30 there were already a number of people there which I am not accustomed to, normally Cindy and I are the lead off hitters.  It was nice to have the race set up routine already well underway that early.  I ran into a bug early that prevented us from using more than one laptop to put in day of race entries.  Luckily the walk up traffic wasn’t that heavy so Ali was able to take care of it solo.

Things went smoothly once the race started other than one bib that appeared to be dead and a woman that only ran one of the two laps that made up the course.  I would think running 1.5 miles would feel a lot different than 3 miles to even the most novice of 5k runners but it’s happened before, I am sure it will happen again.  Cindy and I rolled off site a little after 9:15 and grabbed coffee on the way home before attending to post race work.

Despite our weekend being busy we wanted to squeeze in seeing the new Avengers movie that came out.  Cindy and I are big super hero movie fans.  We decided to go to the 3:45 matinee.  Despite Coconut Point showing the movie roughly every half hour all weekend, the theater was still about 2/3 full.

I am a huge fan of Marvel movies and really liked the first Avengers so I had high expectations for the second installment.  Those expectations were met.  The movie is an orgasm of action and mind blowing visuals with just the right amount of satire and silliness mixed in.  I did not have a very detailed background of Ultron or other super beings introduced in the movie like The Vision.  I knew their names and little else.  It was cool seeing the origin of them.

Of course the movie was filled with unbelievable destruction and unlikely outcomes but with this type of movie you already commit to leaving anything resembling reality securely checked at the door.  Cindy and I both enjoyed it to a full A rating.  We stuck around for the late bonus footage which showed up just before the main credits.  I assumed there would be additional footage at the very end of the credits, since there normally is, but we bailed when Cindy looked it up online, finding there are no end of the credits Easter eggs.

On the way home from the theater we both got a very scary reminder of the dangers of distracted driving.  We were on Immokalee Road in the middle lane.  About 100 yards in front of us was what looked like a lowered Honda Accord in the middle lane and an Isuzu SUV in the right lane.  All of a sudden I see the Honda swerve right, plowing into the right rear of the SUV.  The Honda driver then swerved back left and then hard right again, hard enough that the passenger side of the vehicle lifted several feet off the ground, perilously close to rolling over.

The SUV immediately got off to the side of the road.  The Honda slammed back down on to the ground and managed to wind up on the side of the road in front of the SUV.  As we passed slowly with other vehicles we saw a shirtless, shoeless young kid open the door of his now destroyed vehicle.  I can almost guarantee the dumb shit was interacting on his phone is some manner that led to the impact.  Since both drivers appeared to be in one piece I decided to keep on rolling, assuming there would be plenty of other good Samaritans willing to stop if need be.

Smart phone usage while driving is so commonplace I think most become numb to it’s inherent danger.  I wonder if Junior will finally wise up after destroying his vehicle and majorly damaging another.  I doubt it.  I never realized just how dumb I was right around legal drinking age until I see kids the same age now from my nearly five decades on the planet perspective.

On Sunday we realized we had some dimension problems with the first set of chicks.  Cathy managed to flap/hop up on to the top of the bin, meaning she could easily hop into the tub or out on the floor from there.  This would be bad from an excrement containment perspective as well as the chick being cut off from food, warmth and water.  Cindy is working on some modifications today to hopefully address it.

On Sunday I also received my latest robotic cleaning assistant, an iRobot Brava 380T.  This is a floor maintenance robot that is not as robust as the Scooba I already own.  A Scooba dry vacuums, sprays cleaning solution, brushes and then sucks up the liquid.  The Brava uses simple cloth cleaning pads which have the ability to perform Swiffer like cleaning.  It isn’t a way to clean floors thoroughly but is great for maintenance.

The robot uses more intelligence than Scoobas or Roombas which blindly bounce around the cleaning area in a random pattern.  The Brava uses a little cube they call Northstar to provide something similar to Neato-like smart routing around a room.  The cube bounces signal off the ceiling to help the robot make it’s way around a room.

You can use a dry cloth for sweeping or a wet cloth to do light mopping of the floor.  With our main living space being all tile I figured something like this would come in handy following up Neato sucking sessions.  Now if they only had a robotic lawn mower that was up to the task of handling my large, varied, yard terrain…..

Yesterday we worked on getting the house close to 100% back in order.  Repeatedly throughout the day Cindy and I stopped and commented on how different and how awesome the new flooring is.  It’s like the interior of the house just got a facelift, every space feels better.

Yesterday I talked to the regional VP of the company that handles installations for Home Depot, USIG.  It was in regards to the negative feedback I left about the tile installation issues.  Wayne said they take negative feedback very seriously.  I explained the details of the problems.  He said the woman’s stand off stance regarding our issues with the grout was not acceptable.  He said he would be talking to the installers but also was quick to offer up some remediation based on the work Cindy put in after the installers left.  He said they would be sending me a $250 check to compensate which sounded great to me. Between that and the materials we returned we will recoup about half of the unexpected tile membrane cost.  I also made sure to let him know that the carpet installation was done exceptionally well which he was glad to hear.  All things considered, even with the bumps in the road, I would recommend using Home Depot for a project like this.  Their lifetime installation warranty offers some peace of mind after the fact as well.

The other thing we worked on yesterday was getting the coop ready for the chickens to move in.  This meant we needed to clean up a lot of building materials and tools as well as make some final tweaks.  Part of those tweaks was installing a center perch support which was a 4 x 4 secured to a roof support.  We cut a branch off one of the pine trees and used it to create four staggered perches on the pole, each one within jumping/flapping distance of the other.  It should be a fun thing for the chickens to hang on once they figure it out.

During this process I was on the lanai to grab something inside.  All of a sudden I heard a lot of wind noise but it was strange, it seemed very isolated.  The garden was being whipped around violently but little else.  All of a sudden my Green Machine Timing canopy which was anchored to the ground by some thin wire attached to the table saw, became airborne and started tumbling.  Instantly I ran out in the back yard to catch it, the forces being applied to the frame as it tumbled made me think it was going to break at any second.  By the time I got to the shelter it had blown about 75 feet from where it started.  The frame appeared to be intact but there was a small rip in the canopy cover on one side.  Since I have lived there I have had a few occurrences of these mini-tornadoes.  They go as quickly as they come but they can be very powerful.  Over 10 years ago  there was one that set off the house alarm and sucked the pond shell that was full of water out of the ground.  I guess the good news is the cyclone yesterday did nothing to the chicken coop/run other than blow the front door open.

We tried to get the chickens used to the idea of being inside their new coop during the afternoon.  We got Lola and Lucy inside thanks to a corn bribe.  We then closed the shed door so they had to go back out via the chicken door which both chicks did successfully.  Later we closed them up in the run so when dusk came they would hopefully go up into their new home.  We knew it was going to be a tough first night, chickens are very much creatures of habit.  They were not going to like not being able to go to the chicken tractor which has been their bedroom.  As the sun was going down we looked out and saw both chickens pacing by the door of the run, wanting to go back to their normal home base.

When Cindy and I went out we saw that even if they wanted to go into their new coop they couldn’t.  The automatic chicken door had already closed, obviously I needed to adjust the timer.  So we opened the chicken door and called the chicks in.  They both cautiously came up the ramp and in the door.  The low light conditions were making them disoriented, especially Lola.  Cindy picked her up and put her in a storage bin she had filled with wood shavings on the floor.  Lucy walked over and jumped in with her as they always like to sleep close together.  It will take some time for them to adjust to the new arrangements but once they understand the entire space is for them I think they will be quite happy.

I got my web cam up and running in the coop, unfortunately I will need to come up with some sort of alternative mounting position.  The camera can rotate left and right as well as up and down but it’s downward angle is not enough to see the floor.  I am sure I will come up with something that works.

So Cindy and I were not thrilled when we heard the install window for the carpet was between 10AM and 1PM.  We figured it made the prospect of the carpet getting done on Tuesday remote. Wow, were we ever wrong.

The installers showed up about 11:30.  Cindy was happy there would be no language barrier as there was with the tile installers, both of the carpet guys were just average Joes.  They were like a fine tuned machine right from the start.  They tore into the job in a way only an expert can.  I was amazed when Cindy told me they were vacuuming up the installed new rug at 1:30.  They laid down new carpet and pad in four rooms in right around two hours.  I had no idea it could be done so quickly.

Not only were they fast, they did a great job.  Cindy reported back that the new carpet looked and felt great.  The higher quality carpet combined with the best pad Home Depot sells was a perfect combo.  The darker color also added some nice contrast to the wall color that is throughout most of the house.  Cindy told me she was going to get busy moving back what she could.

I was surprised when she sent me a picture later in the afternoon of the main bedroom pretty much completely put back together.  She used the furniture sliders and determination to get it all back in there.  I was amazed when I got home and saw just how much she had accomplished.  Almost all of the furniture was out of the great room area.  It looked great.  I got my first in person look and feel of the new carpet and was thoroughly impressed.  I was very pleased.

I changed and got busy helping Cindy with a few of the bigger pieces she couldn’t move herself as well as starting work on the office.  The server/switch/wiring shelf I have had in the office has been pretty nasty looking ever since I set it up 10 years ago.  I decided to TOTALLY rip everything apart and redo it.  It took a lot of doing but the end result was a much improved NOC where most of the wiring is concealed from view.  I moved the stand to a spot where I was able to eliminate a huge handful of CAT 5 wires which helped as well.

We also worked on getting the hobby room back together which probably had the most stuff in it of any room thanks to all of the running club equipment that I house in there.  We worked until close to 10PM getting things back in place.  All of the major portions of the house are back in place at this point.  We just have a number of detail items to attend to now which I hope to get done during the day.

It feels fantastic to finally be emerging from the other side of what has been a month long deluge of home improvement hell.  I told Cindy last night that the new flooring is sort of mom’s last gift to us as I used some of the proceeds from her estate to help us pay for it.  I am sure she would have approved of the end result and it will just be another way for us to remember her with every step we take.

Last night I was out in the coop reconfiguring the other front window so it could be hinged, allowing more airflow through the coop.  Since I already did the procedure once, the second time only took me less than 15 minutes.  We also have started pulling out the tools and other construction supplies in anticipation of moving the chickens into their new, highly upgraded living arrangements.

So today the carpet installation is scheduled to begin.  When we woke up this morning we had to clean out the last items in the bedroom and the office.  Adding the items to the already stuffed great room area just added to the chaos. As I have spent the last couple days in the house with all of the stuff piled up around me it made me wonder how some people live with tons of clutter around them on a daily basis.  Just being immersed in this mess for a couple days is making me crazy. Clearing the office means my home network infrastructure is also down.  I can hear the emails piling up as I type.

There are some positives about having to remove every single item from every bedroom in the house, it allows for changes when the rooms are put back together.  Cindy and I already have identified a few things we want to change up when we refill the rooms.  It also gives me an opportunity to redo things in a more organized and logical manner, like my office network.

Originally we had high hopes that maybe the carpet installers could get all four rooms knocked out in one day however we just got an arrival window for them of anywhere between 10AM and 1PM.  If they arrive at the tail end of that window I doubt our hopes will be realized.  The one thing we have going for us is the prep we did on the floors should allow the installers to jump right in instead of having to do that prep themselves before laying down the pad and carpet.

Yesterday I filled out my survey for the tile install where I aired the various issues we had with it.  After filling the comment field with various negatives I was sure to mention that we thought the husband, who cut and laid all the tile did an excellent job.  Our issues were with his wife and the various screw ups in the materials that were ordered and delivered.  I got a voicemail from the head guy from the local office afterward regarding the survey.  I got his voicemail when I called back.

I forgot to mention that over the weekend Cindy’s brother stopped by with his new wheels, a 2015 Mustang.  It is the 4 cylinder turbo model.  Now I have always been a GM guy primarily and I was very close to buying a new Camaro before I pulled the trigger on my SSR.  I have to tell you, if somebody sat a new Camaro and a new Mustang in front of me and said I could have either, I might actually slip behind the wheel of the Ford.

I LOVE the exterior redesign they did with the 2015 Mustangs, it just looks great.  The interior is equally awesome with all of the bells and whistles you can imagine.  Despite only being a 4 cylinder motor it pulls like a beast thanks to the addition of the turbo.  It just felt great during the 10 mile or so test drive we went on. Despite it’s small displacement the motor cranks out something around 315 horsepower.  If you jump up to the V8 GT you enter into the neck snapping power realm.  The 15 Stangs are a sweet, sweet ride.

So on Friday the tile installers finished up.  The woman was not very happy with Cindy.  I had called in to the installer office saying that we thought the grout joints were not filled enough.  Cindy reiterated this when they showed up.  Cindy had already aggravated the mother by not agreeing to sign off on the install on Thursday before the work was actually completed.  The woman was not very receptive to our latest complaint.

I had talked to a supervisor and explained what our issue was.  He said with straight edge tile it is normal to feel the edge somewhat when you are walking on it barefoot.  I told him that my girlfriend took a picture of the tile they have on display at the store including grout.  The grout joints were significantly higher.  So anyway the mother said once they were done Cindy could go around and let them know if she saw problem spots.

So I loosely monitored the work as it went on.  I did not see them doing anything to the areas that were already grouted during the day.  Cindy did say the new areas they worked on seemed better however she didn’t press them to redo the stuff they already did.  The mother was complaining about how her neck hurt and just being a pain in the ass.  Cindy asked them to leave the grout they already had mixed up so she could touch up any low joints she saw.  Cindy would do a better job anyway.

So after the installers left Cindy spent probably a couple hours going around filling low joints, especially in areas that see the majority of foot traffic.  It’s pretty lame that the only way we could get it the way it felt right was to do it ourselves. When I got home I inspected the final outcome of the installer and Cindy’s work.  The visual impact of the tile is pretty dramatic, the house looks so different.

We went about a psuedo normal Friday evening eating pizza and watching some dvr’d show back in the bedroom.  Afterward Cindy said she had to do some clean up work on the tile.  She was working for awhile when I came over to take a closer look.  A lot of the tiles had gray streaks in the grain of the faux wood.  The streaks were dried grout.  When Cindy was doing her touch up she was applying grout and then wiping with a damp sponge but she didn’t follow up with a towel to get the residue off.  That residue had now dried and because of the grooves in the simulated wood grain they would no longer clean up with a quick swipe of a towel.

Well this was the start of a two hour on your knees scrubbing session where Cindy and I went around the 750 square feet of tile and did the best we could to get grooves clean.  Of course I wasn’t happy to be working on this until 11:30 at night but it was hard to get mad at Cindy for busting her ass to try to make things right.  We worked mostly in silence as we used a combo of towels, rags, sponges, and brushes to clean the tiles.  At the end of the night things looked significantly better.

I awoke Saturday and emerged into our freshly tiled living area.  I inspected our scrubbing from the night before.  For the most part we were successful, I quickly scrubbed down a few spots we missed.  As I did I paused several times to admire the visual the new tile created.  It looks awesome, despite the angina we had to deal with to get there.

Saturday morning I loaded up the left over material from the job into the back of the Tacoma. There was quite a bit of it, seven bags of thin set, two bags of grout, two jugs of stain blocker and four boxes of tile.  I kept two boxes of tile just in case something happens down the road. After a rather long and drawn out return process (Cindy experienced this all week), I got around $300 credited back, something that will help offset the unexpected $1100 tile membrane hit.

When we got home the majority of the rest of the day was consumed by starting the arduous process of emptying the office and three bedrooms into the tiled area in preparation for the carpet installation that is supposed to start tomorrow.  By the end of the afternoon we had the office cleaned out with the carpet and padding stripped.  I temporarily put my computer set up on a fold up table for easy rip down on Tuesday.  The server and associated network equipment was the only other thing still in the office.

Pulling up the carpet revealed some nasty mildew looking carpet tack strips in the office.  They are the result of some water leakage problems we had with the walls before they were sealed with Rhinoshield.  At first I thought we were going to leave the tack strips in place to be reused.  Seeing this made Cindy eager to just pop them all out so we could get new strips.  Before we quit for the day we also got all of the furniture and considerable other junk moved out of hobby room as well.  The great room and dining room areas of the house suddenly looked like a scene out of Hoarders, with each room filled with stuff.  It was a pretty shocking visual and I immediately felt unsettled having all of this shit piled up.

On Saturday night I took Cindy to one of her favorite Mexican restaurants, Iguana Mia.  She busted her ass all week with the flooring project and chicken coop work, she certainly deserved a  a nice meal out.  Both of us went a bit crazy with the food.  Cindy also had a “Pink Cadillac” margarita that threw her for a loop.  It felt good to just get away from what seems like the non-stop work the last 3-4 weeks have felt like.

Sunday it was back to the grind.  We finished up pulling furniture out of the remaining bedrooms, adding to the already hugely cluttered mess in the tiled areas of the house.  We then had to pull the carpet, padding and tack strips from the rooms, something we are pretty adept at by now.  Pulling up the carpet revealed another myriad of foundation cracks, some of which were pretty big.  After posting pics of the cracks Randall asked how I was going to fill them.  I originally had no intentions to fill them since the floor was going to be covered with high grade, 1/2″ thick, 3M pad with vapor barrier.

After Randall mentioned filling them I had an internal discussion where I decided to go grab my caulk gun and fill them.  There would be no better time to do it and the effort required to fill the cracks was not massive.  I used 25 and 50 year silicone caulk for most of it.

Pulling the carpet in the master bedroom revealed another oddity, a cut off, uncapped pvc pipe.  Within 8 inches was another pipe that was filled.  My theory is it was another one of the “oops” that occurred when the house was built.  In the lightning fast ground breaking to completion 3 month build period there were a number of things that were screwed up.  This looked like they mislaid the underground pipes at some point.  What I didn’t understand was why they would be too lazy to just fill the fcking pipe.  When Cindy first saw the pipe a few small ants were milling around it.  I did what the home builder should have done 14 years ago and plugged the pipe. We got all of the rooms stripped, swept, vacuumed and caulked by mid-afternoon.

We are getting to the point where the chicken coop/run is almost ready to open for business.  One of the things I wanted to try to do was convert the two front windows from stationary to hinged to allow for additional airflow in the coop on hot summer days.  The shed only has one window in the back and two small vents near the roof eave.  Earlier in the week I grabbed a continuous hinge and some hardware to implement the mental blueprint of how I was going to make this happen.  I was not sure how successful I would be so I only bought stuff to do one window in case it was an epic fail.

I was somewhat surprised that what I came up with worked pretty well.  The window can now swing wide open during the day and be secured at night with the insertion of a couple screws.  Now I need to rinse and repeat on the other side.  I also did some work trying to stiffen up an indoor perching structure Cindy made for the chickens.  Hopefully sometime this week Lucy and Lola can get migrated to the new coop.  It may be a challenge since both of them now firmly identify the chicken tractor as home base.

Over the weekend I developed the mysterious red eye syndrome that I have had a handful of times over the last 6-7 years.  My right eye is very red and is painful to the touch.  When it happened the first couple times I went to medical professionals and an eye doctor but nothing was firmly identified.  The last couple times I just ride it out and lay on the Visine until it goes away.  That is my intention with this latest episode as well.

So the Eagles signed Tim Tebow for some odd reason over the weekend.  It just adds to the biggest head scratching off season I have ever experienced as an Eagles fan.  I have no idea what Chip Kelly’s master plan is but I do know if the Birds suck this year he is going to look like an utter dolt as a player personnel guy.

So the carpet installation is scheduled to start tomorrow.  Hopefully by this time next week all will be right with the world again.  This past month has been filled with more at home labor in a concentrated time period than I want to deal with at this point in my life.  It’s amazing what two people can accomplish with some hard work.

So I worked from home all day both virtually and literally.  I was home because Cindy had an appointment in the morning so I needed to be there because the tile installers would be.  I wanted to multi-task so I took one of our laptops out to the chicken coop/shed and connected to the office via wi-fi.  The connection wasn’t great but it got the job done.  I would simply check the laptop periodically as I was doing work on the coop.

The main focus was getting the steps for the shed finished.  Cindy started the task the day before, getting two of the the three stair frames in place.  For the treads of the steps we decided to use left over composite lumber that I have had sitting around for years.  It is a byproduct of when I covered the dog deck years ago.  The color of the lumber went along with the tans and browns of the shed and chicken run plus it basically will last forever.  The steps looked good and felt rock solid by the time I was finished.

I worked on a number of other small coop related projects during the day as I checked in with the office.  Cindy was out there with me most of the time.  We got a lot done.  At this point there are only a few more things we need to get done before we let the chickens move into their new, greatly expanded living quarters.

So before the tile installers arrived yesterday I called into the installation headquarters to talk about the lack of the stain blocker we paid for being added to the grout.  I told them we had 9 bottles of the stuff delivered and we still had 9 bottles after they grouted on Wednesday.  They said they would call the installers and find out the deal.  So I get a call back.  The woman tells me the installers said they did not grout yet.  Huh??  I was a bit flabbergasted.  I told the woman that I know what grouted tile looks like.  She asked me to send her a pic of the area I was talking about, which I did.  Once she saw the pic she realized the installers were not being accurate.

So I got off the phone with the main office only a few minutes before the installer and his family showed up in his new F250 Crew Cab Super Duty 4×4.  I opened the garage door and asked if they heard from the main office about the stain blocker.  The husband speaks basically no English.  The wife speaks bits and pieces of it but nowhere close to conversational level.  Their son was the best English speaker but he was not great either.  So anyway, the woman tells me “We used, we used” as she started digging through the empty boxes of tile.  At the bottom was a bottle of the stain blocker.  Evidently they had a bottle of their own that they used for that batch of grout instead of using the stuff we had.  Ok fine, mystery solved.

So the tile installation went on all day long and into the evening.  Their late starts and early finish times the first two days laid the groundwork for the long day.  The skill work was almost all exclusively done by the husband.  He did a really nice job getting the tile flat and fit it very well around the corners and obstacles.  The son did a lot of the grunt work.  The wife did stuff like mopping the floor, and grouting, poorly.

Cindy and I noticed in the area that was grouted on Wednesday that the joints did not appear to be filled very high.  When you walked across in socks or bare feet it was literally painful as the overly exposed edge of the tile dug in.   The area that was grouted on Thursday was even worse.  Since I have grouted before I assumed the shallow grout was the end result of the woman not pressing enough of it into the joints and being overly aggressive with the sponge that is used to clean the joint after grouting.  The bottom line was Cindy and I were not happy with it.

They were there until after 7PM.  They had all of the tile cut and placed in thinset by that time but over 1/2 of the tile needed to be grouted yet which is supposed to happen today.  The woman asked Cindy to basically sign off on the job last night so she could send the paperwork to her supervisor.  In as nice of a way as Cindy could muster, she told the woman she wasn’t going to sign off until all of the work is complete.  The wife seemed to think this was unreasonable, and said “we 90% done”.  Ok great, when you are 100% done we will sign it.  I thought it was an odd request.  It actually was good that Cindy was the one who intercepted that request as she is generally less trustworthy of people than I am.

We also had more minor detail annoyances where we did not have enough grout to finish the work, meaning Cindy had to make her third unscheduled trip to Home Depot this morning to pick more up.  We also will have to return a bunch of extra stuff including tile, thinset and stain blocker when everything is done.  Even though Cindy and I both are very happy with how the new tile looks and how it is installed (minus the shallow grout), the numerous list of details that were screwed up with the install are really piling up.

This weekend of course will be another work packed affair.  We need to get stuff that belongs in the main living area back there and then stuff all of the furniture/items in the office and bedrooms in the same area as well.  One more week of chaos and then things can return to normal.

So work continued on the tile portion of our floor project yesterday which I again monitored via my 6 year old web cam that was sitting on the wall shelf.  Yesterday they had one additional person, meaning a total of four people were on site.  However it never seemed like more than two of them were working at a time.

The most egregious slacker was the woman, who is the wife of one of the guys that actually was working.  She spent most of her time leaning on the kitchen island futzing with her smart phone.  The only real work I saw her do was to spread some grout on the area that was tiled on Tuesday.

Well it turned out that the grout was not done correctly.  We paid for a stain blocker agent that was supposed to get mixed into the grout.  It’s much more effective than the type of grout sealant you only apply to the top after it’s all done.  Well the woman did not use the stain blocker, something Cindy only realized after they left for the day when she saw all 9 bottles of the stuff were still unopened.  Well of course this annoyed me, so now I have to add that to the list of detail items that have been screwed up so far.

The woman had said on Tuesday that the crew would get a lot done Wednesday as they planned to work until 5:30 or 6.  Instead they were out of there before 3 o’clock.  The woman told Cindy she had a “family emergency” and since all four of the people working were related, they all left.  Cindy had doubts about the validity of the excuse but whatever, there wasn’t much we could do about it.

The tile itself looks great, the cracked and wavy foundation is not reflected on the surface at all.  They have finished up to around the kitchen and still have the hallway and dining room to complete along with a couple detail items.  Supposedly they will finish up by Friday.  I am home today since Cindy had an appointment she had to go to this morning.

Cindy also was quite busy yesterday doing more coop related things, the highlight of which was the stand she made for the nesting boxes.  She also did some work on getting steps built for in front of the shed.  So far she has definitely been earning her keep. 🙂

So it did not take long for issues to develop with the tile installation which started yesterday which I was monitoring via my webcam.  The crew of three people showed up, one woman and two men, literally a family, somewhere between 9 and 10AM.  They quickly identified the cracks in the floor and said they would need to be addressed (in heavily accented and hard to understand English).

The first thing told to Cindy was Home Depot normally charges 300 to repair cracks and do leveling but she said they could do it for $100, which sounded like they were offering to do it outside the umbrella of Home Depot.  $100 sounded great to me which I relayed to Cindy.  Well then the woman says they did not have any materials with them to do these sort of repairs which I thought was odd.  They also identified that we were delivered the wrong type of grout.  We had nine bags of unsanded grount, we needed the sanded variety.

So there were a series of phone calls from the woman to her supervisor, from the supervisor to Cindy and finally the supervisor to me.  The end result of this was the $100 resolution exploding into $1100.  The supervisor said with all of the cracks on the foundation the way to address it was to lay down a membrane which isolates the tile from the floor, making it immune to any stresses on the floor that caused the cracks.  It sounded like a good remedy but the price was still shocking.  For whatever reason this membrane costs $1.50 a square foot, more than the high quality carpet pad we ordered.  Well I had little choice, I wanted the tile to be installed in the best way possible.  I authorized the work and provided the CC info over the phone to the supervisor. Well the installers did not have the membrane either and had to go get it.  Cindy used that time to take the incorrect grout back to the store and exchange it for the right stuff.  Everyone arrived back at the house within 5 minutes of each other.

The installers got busy laying down the pricey membrane and laying the first section of tile.  The adhesive used for the membrane had some quite nasty fumes, Cindy kept Tuki in the bedroom to try to protect him from it as much as possible.   She stayed outside a good portion of the day as well to avoid the stink.  My big brother cam let me monitor the work which ended relatively early in the day for some reason.  Supposedly they plan to arrive earlier today and work later.

Cindy had to make a second unplanned trip to Home Depot late in the day.  The metal strips that separate the new tile from the existing flooring that we paid for were not in the pile of stuff delivered to our place.  The installers said they would need the strips for today’s work, for some reason the idea of them simply picking it up on the way to the house today was not in the scope of possibilities.  So in total Cindy put around 80 miles in on the road to address HD screw ups, something we will be pointing out when we get our post work survey.  We are going to look for some sort of compensation for the mistakes.

Cindy said that we could not walk on the tile last night, we had to gain access to the bedroom via the window.  It made for some challenges throughout the evening as we exited and entered the house like a burglar repeatedly.

Cindy and I both liked the section of the floor that had the tile on it.  The faux wood looked really good against the wall colors.  We are very excited on how transformed our living space is going to be when all of the work is completed. Today I am hoping some serious progress is made.

Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Hilary Clinton are the current cast of declared presidential contenders. For me the last thing I want to think about is another toxic presidential election cycle.

Have you started watching Daredevil on Netflix yet?  If not you should be.

Yesterday was a big one on the chicken farm with Lucy producing her first egg.  It was the first egg since we adopted our new set of chickens.  Cindy was quite proud.  The egg was perfectly shaped but very small when held up to a store bought egg.  As Lucy gets older the egg size will probably grow with her.

So after we finished up watching the first Game of Thrones I wanted to head outside to close up the chicken coop.  The chickens now are smart enough to put themselves to bed each night.  We just walk out and close the main door to the coop to make sure they are secured.  Well with the sofa blocking the bedroom window I did not realize it was already dark outside but I wasnt concerned since I knew they would already be up in the coop.

When I walked towards the coop I saw  two shapes pressed up against the door of the coop.  I quickly realized it was Lucy and Lola.  When I moved the coop I evidently forgot to open one of the two doors so the hens could get back inside.  Cindy and I felt terrible seeing them huddled by the door, locked out of their home.

Chickens seem to be very disoriented when it is dark out.  They didn’t even want to move as I pulled open the swing out door.  Lucy eventually figured it out and headed into the coop and up the ramp.  Lola went inside the base of the coop but seemed to be confused about how to get up top.  Cindy shining light into the area with her phone just seemed to add to Lola’s confusion.  Cindy eventually reached in the side door and picked up Lola, something Lola has never allowed us to do before, and placed her up top in the sleeping area.

Today is a big day, the tiling of the main living area is supposed to start.  This morning I got a call saying we should expect the installers to show up anytime between 8am and 11am, a rather large window.  I am crossing my fingers that the install goes relatively smooth, despite the less than smooth/flat surface the tiles will be installed on top of.  I am using my remote control web cam to keep a birds eye view on the install remotely as Cindy will be in charge of handling any on site issues.

Saturday morning Cindy and I were up and out the door early for the lone beach run the the running club puts on each year.  It’s always a pretty small event and we stopped chip timing it a couple years ago.  The sand was always a mess with the computers/timing equipment.

I decided to try to informally time the race using an app for the iPad called Webscorer.  Basically as runners cross the finish line you tap their bib number which registers their time.  I needed to enlist Cindy to help me in the process, her job was to write down the finishers in order so when there is a group of runners finishing around the same time I could go back and assign bib numbers to times.

Early on as it was only single runners coming across the line it was easy, I had plenty of time to tap in each runner and their bib number. As more finishers started coming in I only was able to tap them in to register a time and then had to refer back to Cindy to get the bib number associated with that time.  We started to identify a problem.

Since I never timed a race in this manner I had not thought through some of the speed bumps, like when a runner comes through the finish line with a bib covered up or not wearing one at all.  I did not emphasize enough to Cindy how crucial it was that every person that crosses the line was recorded , even if they didnt have a bib number.  If even one finisher is skipped it throws all the times of the subsequent finishers out of whack.  I got frustrated with Cindy when I realized the problem but later felt bad for doing so.  Like I said, I should have been more clear with how it needed to be done. When we got home we were able to get things sorted out thanks to the GoPro I had capturing the finish line.  We used the video to reconcile times pretty accurately.  In the end we were able to produce pretty official looking finish results for everyone even though the event was officially untimed.

So even though we were tired from the early alarm clock we wanted to get more done on the chicken run.  I had a loose goal of wanting to at least get the run totally enclosed.  Cindy and I worked diligently to accomplish that goal, busting ass until late afternoon.  For most of that time the chickens were inside the run with us, they already seem to like the shade and safety the space affords them.

Shortly after we finished the skies let loose and it started to pour.  I saw this as an opportunity to check the chicken run for leaks.  I ran out through the downpour and stood inside the run.  The main area of the run was great, I saw no water leaks anywhere.  The only problem area was the small gap between the shed and the run, there was lots of water running down the shed wall, something a good piece of weather stripping up top should address. As I was standing out there Cindy came running out in the rain to see what I was doing.  I hypocritically asked her why she came running out in the rain.

So we had plans to go out to the movies Saturday night.  I was in my boxer shorts getting ready to take a shower when I glanced out the window.  It was still pouring out but now a very gusty wind had accompanied it.  I saw one corner of my Green Machine Timing shelter that we have had outside for shade during the project lift off the ground and look perilously close to becoming airborne which would surely destroy it.  Without pause I ran out the back door in my boxers, into the storm and grabbed the shelter.  I then started lowering the legs while getting absolutely soaked .  The rain felt very cold. Once again Cindy came running out to help me in the rain.  I told her to go back inside, there was no reason for both of us to be soaked.  She insisted on staying out there until the shelter was lowered and secured. I was shivering and looked like I just jumped in the pool in my underwear by the end of it.

So the movie we went to see was Furious 7, a movie that has done blockbuster numbers worldwide.  It was the first movie we got out to see in nearly a month, an eternity for us.  It was weird seeing a movie where one of the main characters died in real life, Paul Walker.  On the way home Cindy read about how they were able to finish the film even though Walker died relatively early in shooting of FF7, it was pretty amazing.

I was worried that drowsiness would be a problem since Cindy and I were up and on the run since 4:45AM.  Luckily Fast and Furious 7 is as good as a two hour cup of coffee.  The movie unapologetically appeals to the lowest common denominator of most movie goers, seamlessly transitioning between T & A, action, and violence in very rapid succession.    Of course the plot was incredibly unrealistic and never in my life have I seen that many people routinely walk away from apocalyptic car crashes but hey, it’s Fast and Furious, not Gone with the Wind.  There is no denying the movie was entertaining, even if a large part of that entertainment was laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of some of the “plans” used by the crew to get out of sticky situations.  The tribute at the end to Paul Walker was touching and sad.  FF7 is B+ fun all day long.

So we designated Sunday as carpet rip out day.  We needed to move all of the furniture out of the great room and dining room areas and then rip up the carpet and pad to prep for the tile being installed this week.  I wanted to get my bills paid in the morning so I would not have to access certain areas of the office which would be stuffed with relocated furniture.   We got started moving furniture late morning.

We utilized furniture sliders to move everything of considerable size into the guest bedroom, hobby room, master bedroom, and the office.  It was a tight squeeze but we got everything out of the main living area.  Cindy was much more excited about ripping up carpet than I was.  My primary role was to be the pack mule, cutting and rolling up old sections of carpet and padding to be lugged outside.  Cindy was the tack strip remover, popping the carpet strips out with a hammer and wonder bar.

Pulling back the carpet revealed the less than ideal foundation.  I already knew the floor was wavy in spots from my previous experience tiling the kitchen, utility room, and both bathrooms.  The bare cement also showed lots of lovely cracks, something else I expected and one of the side effects of houses being built on mounds of sand.  My assumption is professional tile installers will be able to remedy any foundation imperfections.

After all the old carpet and pad was yanked out the bare floor needed to be “cleaned”.  I first went around with a flat edge shovel and scraped any padding that was stuck to the glue that was used to secure it.  I then grabbed the big garage push broom and swept up the debris.  I was surprised how much dirt/sand was in the pile, a testament to the downfalls of carpet in a high traffic area.

After sweeping the entire area I went back through it with the Shop Vac to vacuum up as much junk as possible.  As you can imagine this process created a lot of dust.  To try to make things less nasty we had a bunch of windows as well as the front and rear doors open to air out the house, despite the warm and humid air outside.  By the time we finished up we were confident we prepped the floor sufficiently for the tile installers to come in and hit the ground running. The echo in the great room with nothing in there was dramatic.  When we brought Tuki back in there he seemed to enjoy the new sound his various noises/words now delivered.

We again did not finish up until late afternoon.  We ran out to Home Depot for a couple items and then picked up eggplant parm subs on the way home, the house wasn’t in much shape for cooking.  We had to adjust to our suddenly very crowded living conditions.  The office is jammed with furniture, the only usable space is a small square in front of my desk.  Our bedroom has the sofa and loveseat jammed inside of it, affording us about a one foot passage way to get past the bed.  We have been eating meals on the floor of the bedroom.  It’s not ideal but tolerable for a few days.

Despite the very full weekend I threw new rear hatch struts on Cindy’s Prius.  The old struts had a bad habit of collapsing when it’s cooler or in a strong wind.   The new struts are like night and day compared to the old ones.  Of course I had to tape it to add to my large and growing automotive maintenance series on YouTube.

Today is Cindy’s first day of her new situation where her primary focus is studying for her PT exam, working out, and attending to the myriad of house related upkeep/projects.  I think it will turn out to be a win/win for both of us.