Tell Me a Story

Behold, our glamorous story poles! This bright orange netting went up yesterday in preparation for the city's Architectural Review Board (ARB) meeting to discuss our planned remodel of the garage.

Our garage is, in a word, butt-ugly. It's not entirely original to the house, having been built sometime in the 1930s. Presumably, this is when the owners bought their first automobile and wanted a place to park it. The garage was inartfully extended a few years later when the owners (we think) bought a bigger car. It didn't fit, so they moved one of the garage doors a foot closer to the curb.

The structure is inelegant but sturdy. "Bomb shelter" comes to mind. When we first approached the city about remodeling it, their knee-jerk reaction was no, absolutely not, we can't allow you to remodel an historical structure. Then I showed them a photograph and, to a man, they all said, "do whatever you want." They'd be happy if we demolished it.

Short of that, we've decided to give it a bit of a face lift. We want to top the flat, tar paper roof with a peaked roof that more-or-less mimics the roof of the house. We'd also like to replace the two homemade (read: crappy) doors with real doors that, y'know, open. And close. Radical, I know.

The city seems perfectly happy to allow us to do this, and our neighbors are thrilled, too. But we have to go through the motions of an ARB meeting first, and among the requirements are these "story poles" that allow passersby to see what the new roofline will look like. We think it might partially obstruct the view from the B&B next door (the yellow structure in the background) but that's too bad. There are no "viewshed" laws in Pacific Grove, so you can't prohibit construction merely because it blocks your view. Besides, we think the pitched roof and shingle siding will offer a better view than the flat, tar-paper view they get now.

Do-Over!

When it rains it pours. After two or three days of no help, today we've got two plumbers, two glass installers, and two floor refinishers all in one room, sharing about 20 square feet of space. Good thing they all play nice with each other.

The plumbers are a week late, installing the two sinks and faucets in the 2nd-floor bathroom. The glass guys are installing the shower door... which turned out to be the wrong size. You know the old saying, "measure twice, cut once?" This guy should have measured three times. He made the door an inch too wide, and you can't cut glass after it's been tempered, so he'll have to order another one. Alas, our shower won't be finished until after New Year's.

The floor guys are also here because the gorillas who installed the kitchen appliances scratched up the redwood. There are tell-tale gouges directly in front of the refrigerator and the dishwasher, and they ain't gonna just polish out. So the floor refinishers had to come back and remove the topcoat they put down a month ago, sand out the gouges, and apply a new finish. That's drying as we speak, which means the plumbers and glass installers can't walk on the floor. Or make any dust. It's a tricky exercise in not painting yourself into a corner, but hey--these guys are professionals.

We can't walk in the kitchen for another 24 hours, and the shower has no door. But at least the faucets work. At least, I think they do... I haven't tested them yet, so there's still plenty of time for something to go wrong.

A Rose Is a Rose...

Yesterday we got the rose window put back in the 2nd-floor bathroom.

Actually, the glass itself came back from the glass shop a few weeks ago, but it's been sitting downstairs waiting for the installers. In the meantime, we've had a scenic piece of plywood blocking our bathroom window for, oh, about two months now. Yesterday the plywood finally came down and the window went back in. (The tape is not part of the design; that's just there for safety and I've been too lazy to remove it.)

The lower half of the window is glazed with "glue chip" glass, so named because it used to be made by pouring glue onto clear glass, letting it set up, and then chipping it off. The glue would splinter off irregularly sized slivers of glass, leaving a random pattern not unlike that of frost condensation or wispy vines. Anyway, we like the look of it, and it's historically accurate.

This marks the first time in many years that this window has worked. The top was stuck open when we moved in, and the previous owners clearly hadn't shut it for many years before that. Since the bathroom had no fan or other ventilation, this window was more-or-less permanently fixed open. It. Was. Breezy. And cold.

In fact, the bottom two-thirds of the window was hidden behind a really ugly wall mirror, with only the rose pattern peeking out from the top. You can imagine the sort of crud that collected in the gap behind the mirror and the glass.

Now we've re-hung it with the original sash weights in place, on new cord. I pulled off, stripped, and lubricated the original metal sash pulleys. We found some modern replacements, but decided not to use them. Oh, and we stripped off several layers of paint, including one bright purple layer! Yikes. At least it was only painted purple on the inside. We're thinking it probably dated from the 1960s. I don't think they make paint that color anymore.

All Mod Cons

Woo-hoo! Our house has all the modern conveniences, even that new-fangled electrical lighting. No more gas explosions!

Actually, we just changed the light switches on the ground floor to period-correct pushbutton switches, seen here. They've got mother of pearl inlays and make a satisfying click when you push 'em. Some even have dimmers: you push the top switch on, then twist the lower knob to dim the lights. Spiffy.

The only problem during installation was finding room. These switches are wider than the "normal" modern switches, so they take up more room in the box. The wiring got a bit crowded and required some inventive routing and judicious use of wire nuts in places. It all ended well, though.

I Love a Parade

Thursday was the annual Parade of Lights in downtown Pacific Grove, and it went right past our window. Kathy and I stayed warm and dry inside, fortified with adult beverages, while the parade went by. We waved. They waved back. Life is good.

Among the paraders was the PGHS band, David's alma mater. We don't like their new drummer as much.

I'm Fine With a Bucket, Thanks

Half-forgotten amidst the flurry of activity in the kitchen is our poor "master" bathroom. It's the master bath only by default; there's a bathroom on all three floors, and the second floor is where our bedroom is located, so that makes it the master bath, right?

Anyway, it's been running consistently about a month behind all the other work. We're still a long way from being finished, but it's starting to take shape. The shower dam went in a few weeks ago. Then it got hot-mopped and filled with water, awaiting inspection. The inspector evidently came and went (I never saw him), so then the tile could go in.

Michele (mee-KAY-lee) is the young Sicilian tile setter. He's a hoot. He's also pretty good at his job. He sings, whistles, and talks to himself as he works. He also like the same radio stations that I do, which is surprising since he's half my age. He likes espresso, but he puts a lot of sugar in it. Yuck.

At any rate, he's been tiling the shower, then the floor. The floor got finished the day after Thanksgiving, then Michele came back on Monday and Tuesday to grout everything. Today it's quiet, for the first time in weeks.

We figure it'll be another... I dunno... four weeks before the bathroom is usable. The glass enclosure for the shower hasn't been ordered yet, and none of the plumbing is in. We've got all the fixtures; they're just not installed. So we wait some more.

How the Grinch (Nearly) Stole Thanksgiving

It was that close.

Thanksgiving traditionally comes on a Thursday, and by Monday morning we still didn't have a working kitchen. No stove; no dishwasher; no washer or dryer in the laundry room. Oh, and no bathroom, either.

Things were looking bleak.


The local restaurants may be our only choice. Dinner at Denny's, anyone?

With superhuman effort, three skinny workers hauled all the appliances out of the garage and up the back stairs to the second floor. No mean feat, that. Coincidentally, I wasn't here to see it (grin).

But that was last week. Now all the hardware is sitting in the middle of the kitchen, unplugged and only vaguely near their destined places. The official "appliance installer" had bailed out sometime last week with no explanation.

Sunday I muscled the fridge into place and leveled it. That's one down. Tuesday the plumber came and adjusted the gas line behind the stove. That's two. He also moved the gas hookup for the dryer, and plumbed the washer (and the dryer, which has a cold-water connection). Somewhere in there the leak under the kitchen sink got fixed and the dishwasher got plumbed in. By Wednesday morning it was looking... maybe... almost... possible.

There are no knobs on any of the drawers, so we made do with blue painter's tape. And we had no lights except for a couple in the vent hood, so... we're cooking early today! Turkey in the oven, veggies on the stove, rolls in the warmer, and pies from across the street. We're cooking now.

Cari and David both made it from their respective homes. It smells like a real Thanksgiving.

Paint No Stopping Us Now

Before the kitchen is entirely finished, we (meaning Kathy) wanted to paint. It's easier to paint before everything's installed because you don't have to reach behind all the appliances and you don't have to worry about dripping on your new cabinets.

On the other hand, it can be risky to start painting before the construction is complete because it might get bashed up. We went for the latter option.

The kitchen is green and the laundry room is yellow. (We haven't decided on the bathroom yet.) We chose green for the kitchen because it's always been green before. When we took out three layers of flooring (cf.) they were all green. And the hand-painted cabinets were green. Finally, there's green in the stained-glass window over the sink.


The same rationale led us to choose yellow for the laundry room. It had a green floor like the kitchen, but the glass in the door is yellow and blue. We eliminated blue as a choice, so it was yellow by default. Counting the contrasting ceilings, that's four colors of paint. Plus primer. We went through a lot of brushes and rollers.

Our Baby Shower

We haven't had a shower in over three months.

By that I mean, the bathroom shower was demolished a long time ago, and the replacement shower isn't done yet. Since it was the only shower in the house, we've had no shower at all since... June, I think.

We do have an ancient clawfoot bathtub upstairs, and for the first month or so we just sat in the tub and poured water over our heads with a big plastic cup. That got old after awhile (imagine!) so we sprung for the "telephone-style" shower installation you see here.

We still crouch in the tub, but at least now we can spray real water over our heads instead of dipping the big cup. It's progress. We've advanced from Medieval technology to Victorian.

Piles o' Tiles

I call this one still life with tile.

These aren't very interesting photos, but they provide a snapshot (hah!) of where things stand right now. The bathroom is stripped bare, the kitchen is crowded with appliances, nothing works, and there are no lights. Basically, it's a minefield of hard edges and square corners.

We drove up to Gilroy to get all the tile. Twice, because they gave us the wrong quantities. Now it's all sitting in piles awaiting the tile guy.

We don't know when the appliances will get installed. Thanksgiving is coming and we can't even walk through the kitchen, never mind cooking. And we're tired of going to the laundromat.

Cabinet Minister

All last week was kitchen cabinet week. Roy and Dino were here every day installing cabinets. The cabinets themselves were made in Canada and got delivered a few weeks ago. We've been storing them in the garage until this week. Roy and Dino haul them upstairs one by one.

The two corner units, in particular, were a problem. They're heavy, for starters. But they barely fit through the door, with maybe a half-inch to spare. I don't know what they would have done if they hadn't fit--open up a window?


Naturally, none of the walls are straight. Even though all the plaster is new, you can't fix hundred-year-old studs. There's a bit of a wow along one wall, for example, that confounded Roy's attempts to line up the cabinets. In the end, he had to remove it and change the shims to get everything to line up. No problem; he likes to sing while he works.

Now that most of the cabinets are in, the room is looking pretty pale and colorless. The plaster is pale, the cabinets are pale, and the doors and drawer fronts are pale ("bone"). It'll get better when the chocolate brown countertop and knobs go on. We're reusing the old tarnished brass knobs from the original kitchen cabinets and supplementing them with some new knobs that look about the same. Kathy plans to paint the walls green, and that'll add some color to the room, too.


The appliances arrive on Monday, so we're almost ready to start thinking about cooking again.

Iraqi Bomb Site

This is how the backyard looks. Charming, eh?

And this is actually pretty tidy, after several loads have already gone to the dump. The workers just toss stuff off the second-floor landing (with our blessing) and let it land in the yard. When the pile gets big enough, they haul it down to the street, load up a trailer, and haul it away. That's happened about... four times so far, I think. Plus, Kathy and I have hauled at least two loads ourselves.

This is what's left after a bit of electrical work, some plaster work, some plumbing, and a whole lot of floor sanding (which doesn't make much of a mess). I think we'll give it a few more weeks to get really nasty, then we'll haul this away, too.

The New Old Floor, Part II

All this week Gilbert the floor guy has been sanding, staining, and finishing the floors in the second-floor kitchen and laundry rooms. He finished on Friday and it's been drying over the weekend.

Gilbert sealed off both rooms, first to prevent the sanding dust from escaping, then to prevent outside dust from entering and ruining his finish. I've kept the doors shut... until now.

I had a peek Sunday evening to see what Gilbert hath wrought. Methinks he doth good work.

The floors even match, even through they're different species of wood (redwood in back; Douglas fir in front). It still smells like wood stain in there, but I imagine that'll go away as soon as we open up the doors and windows and get a little air in there.

Tomorrow -- fingers crossed -- the kitchen cabinets go in.

The Floor Model

Today started the serious kitchen floor refinishing. Yesterday, Gilbert the floor guy spent the entire day on his knees sanding down the kitchen and laundry room floors. He sealed off the rooms with plastic first (thanks, Gilbert!) and had at it. Naturally, it was also the hottest day of the year.

Today the sanding is mostly complete and Gilbert started staining and finishing the two floors. The kitchen is redwood, but the laundry room is Douglas fir, so they're different colors. We decided not to stain the redwood and just put a clear protective finish coat on it. The fir we're staining "spice brown" to match the redwood.

And it looks pretty good! The rooms are sealed off now to prevent dust (and people) from ruining Gilbert's work. Tomorrow he comes back to apply another coat.

New Old Floor, Part I

We've decided to keep the original redwood floor in the kitchen.

You'll recall that this was the "three-floor floor." There was a layer of tile, a layer of new wood, and a layer linoleum all stacked over the original wood floor. Kathy stripped all of that off, dropping the floor level by a good inch. At bottom are once-nice redwood planks. Against the polite urging of our contractor, we've decided to sand and finish the wood rather than tile it over.

When I say "we" I mean "somebody else."

Today the somebody else arrived, and he wept in despair. Not really, but it wasn't 10 minutes before he was on his cell phone whispering to our contractor, "this is gonna take longer than you said."

Part of the trick is going to be replacing two long planks right in the center of the room. These were carefully pulled up and set aside -- and promptly lost. They were removed to plumb the island in the middle of the room. We could replace them with new redwood, but the color won't match.

Instead, the plan is to carefully pull up two different planks, and not lose them. If we pull up wood from under the cabinets we'll never see them. Those can be replaced with new boards, using the old boards to repair the center of the room.

We'll let you know how it goes.

One Step Forward...

What good remodeling story doesn't have at least one flooded bathroom in it?

We had ours about a week ago. The 2nd-floor bathroom was stripped out to the bare studs, with even the floor pulled up to expose the joists, wiring, and plumbing. The latter two got replaced while the former got braced and sistered where necessary. The project took three or four days... the point being that the plumbing was left unfinished and open for two or three nights.

Naturally, the plumbers left everything in a safe condition at the end of the workday. They're professionals, after all.

Scene: interior, kitchen. Time: morning. Jim makes coffee on the 1st floor while Kathy takes a bath on the 3rd floor. Jim notices sound of splashing water, presumably running through new drain pipes nearby. He idly lays a hand on new pipe, makes a confused face, looks up, and... Splash!

The water isn't just running inside the new pipe, it's running on the outside, too. And puddling on the floor. In fact, the 1st-floor bathroom is flooding. Bathwater has been running from the open pipes directly overhead, through the cut floor, and leaking through the ceiling into the 1st-floor bathroom. At least it's got vinyl flooring.

I wait until Kathy's out of the tub to tell her that the toilets use the same drain pipe.

Let's Get Plastered

Right after the insulation went in, the plasterers came by and installed wallboard and then hand-plastered over it. The plaster surface has little "cat faces" in it: little imperfections that make it more interesting than perfectly smooth Sheetrock would be. We thought it was more in keeping with the age of the house.

The guys hung up a plastic sheet (seen here) to close off the room, built some tables/scaffolds to stand on, and started smearing. It took exactly one day; they finished at 4:30, cleaned up, and took off.

That stuff is wet! The house is all muggy and damp now that the plaster is in. By evening, the inside windows were dripping. We opened the kitchen windows and door, and left 'em open for two days to let the room air out. Eventually the plaster dried out, at least enough that work could resume. We're told it'll take a full week for the plaster to fully dry.

Unlike the previous plasters, these guys didn't leave their bottles behind the walls.

At least, I don't think so...

Insulation Installation

Hooray! Today we got insulation installed in the kitchen and bathroom. We're actually putting stuff together instead of taking stuff apart. It's a good sign.

Oddly, we got mixed opinions on the seemingly uncontroversial subject of insulation. Some apparently knowledgeable people said not to insulate the house at all; that old Victorian houses like to "breathe" and weren't designed to be insulated. Insulation traps moisture and accelerates rot, the thinking goes.

Other experts told us it's perfectly okay to insulate as long as it's done properly.

The definition of "properly" changed depending on who we talked to, though. One experienced installer said to use Fiberglas bats with no facing paper. Another said bats with the paper facing inwards (toward the room). In the end, that's what we did.

Everyone agreed that insulating the walls doesn't do much good, no matter how you do it. Most heat is lost through the roof, floor, and windows. Walls are the most obvious, but least effective, target. But hey, that's what we've got open right now so that's what we're insulating. The attic and subfloor can wait.

A Fine Mess

All this came out of one little bathroom.

Remember all the twisted plumbing in the second-floor bathroom? This isn't even all of it. This is just the shower; it doesn't even include the pipes from the two sinks, the toilet, or the overhead waste pipe from the third-floor bathroom. Man, all that recyclable metal has got to be worth something.

Bathroom Trolls

Some things you just never want to see.

Oops, too late. This is the under-floor of the second-floor bathroom. This used to be our main/favorite bathroom, largely because it was next to the kitchen and on the same floor as our bedroom. The former is what doomed it: it was adjacent to the kitchen and therefore got caught in the plumbing-and-electrical overhaul.

We're happy to be redoing this bathroom because it was such a mess before. Cramped and crowded, with a funny layout, we knew its time with us would be short. Once the builders removed the vanity and shower, they found a bit of dry rot, so the floor came out as well. This is a view of where the bathroom floor was, looking down onto the first-floor ceiling.

I gotta say, those are some beefy 2x12's. That's also some ludicrous plumbing, if you ask me. We found unused gas and water lines in here, plus the now-familiar rusted iron waste pipes. It's hard to tell what this room used to be, but it probably wasn't always a bathroom, and it certainly didn't always have the plumbing routed the way it is now.

I'm particularly amused/horrified by the twisted drain pipes under the sinks and shower. You can see it here in the upper-right corner. The proverbial plumber's nightmare. What a tangle.

That will all get simplified as we move the shower to the opposite end of the room (away from the door, thank you) and swap the two sinks to the opposite wall, while the toilet moves a few feet to under the window. We should end up with the same number of fixtures (that's important) but better organized. And with plumbing that's not all rusted out.

Chef de Cuisine

Behold, the kitchen nerve center of Chez Turley!

I'm so ashamed: this used to be a four-star restaurant, the kind of place you booked six months in advance, and we've reduced it to a toaster oven and a microwave.

This house had two kitchens when we started, and now we can't even boil water. The upstairs kitchen is entirely gutted, of course, and even the downstairs kitchen is mostly out of commission. There's no commercial gas stove any more, and the big under-counter fridge never worked. We're making do with a 60s-era fridge (in harvest gold), some shelves, and these deluxe appliances. (We didn't even have the toaster oven until this week.)

On the plus side: we get to eat out a lot.

Shedding a Shed

This little bit of architectural heaven was fun to take down.

Although it wasn't strictly part of the kitchen remodel, or even necessary to remove, I hated it. It's a shed, an outhouse, that covered the downstairs water heater. When the water heater went, the shed went with it. And with it, the ugly white three-story chimney pipe you see here. Good riddance.

Now, of course, I'll just have to build a new shed in its place to cover the new water heater, plus the water softener. With my luck, the new shed will be the same as the old one. But at least that nasty chimney is gone. So there.

What Am I?

Any clues what this thing is?

We found this lurking in the wall above a first-floor bathroom. It appears to be some sort of vent pipe. It's a 90-degree elbow, way up near the ceiling, and is double-walled, as if it needed to be thermally protected. That's it: just the elblow. No pipes connected to either end.

It's been boxed in and invisible for who knows how many years. My theory is that it was a vent from a boiler or furnace that used to sit in what is now the ladies' room. Anybody got any better ideas?

Daniel Was Here

Yesterday Kathy and I cleaned some upstairs windows, and lookie what we found.

Scratched into the putty on the outside of the uppermost window was this: "Daniel Bergerac 73"

I'm assuming here that Daniel was Lucie Bergerac's brother, and that this was his room. (Lucie's childhood bedroom was across the hall, in what is now my home office.) We do know that the Bergerac family lived here in the 1970s, and that father Raymond Bergerac was the first to operate a restaurant in the house.

I'll ask Lucie. She still lives in the area and we really need to have her over for lunch.

Proof of Water

These are not pretty pictures. They're here for legal purposes.

The workers demolished our 2nd-floor bathroom the other day, and in order to ensure that we can rebuilt it, we photographed all the fixtures.


Specifically, we'll need to prove to the local "water police" that we had one shower, one toilet, and two sinks. Otherwise, they may not let us replace those fixtures one-for-one.

So here they are... uh, were.

Re-Volting

Sometimes there just aren't enough electrons to go around.

Whole-house electricity was fairly progressive stuff when this house was built (as was indoor plumbing). There's knob-and-tube wiring throughout the house, but not nearly enough to serve today's needs. Each room has just one or two outlets, and they're rarely grounded. This is particularly annoying -- and dangerous -- in the kitchen. Where did those silly Victorians expect to plug in a microwave oven?

Simply adding more outlets around the kitchen won't really solve our problem. The wiring itself is overtaxed, and there are only so many circuit breakers in the service panel. So...

... we're adding a second service panel in the laundry room. Here she be.

To feed the panel, the electricians are running a big beefy electrical cable from the original service entrance, under the house, up through the walls to the second/third floor, then across the ceiling and down to this panel. It's the long way around, but the electrons don't care and it avoids running conduit on the outside of the house.

Since the kitchen is pretty much smack dab in the center of the house, this gives us a good opportunity to run shiny new wiring to almost all the other rooms. The kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, dining room, master bedroom, and two of four rooms upstairs are all accessible from here. For the ones that aren't, we're tossing new "home run" wiring in the crawlspace anyway so we can fish it out later.

I had the electrician toss in some CAT5, telephone, and RG-6 cable, too. You just never know.

Ah, modern technology.

A Tankless Job

Behold, the mighty tankless water heater!

Today we* replaced the second of our two** water heaters with a brand spanking new tankless style water heater. It's the latest thing in water-warming-upping technology. It has no reservoir tank; it heats the water in real-time as it passes through your pipes.

This saves energy, since you're not heating a tankful of water you may not need. It also means you never run out of hot water, no matter how much you use. It just keeps heatin' as long you you keep usin' hot water. Hellooo, long showers.

For you plumbing nerds, this is a Navien NP-240A. Made in Korea, with a built-in recirculating pump. So not only does it heat water, but it reuses already-heated water from the pipes whenever possible.

Some of the extraneous copper pipe you see is left over from the installation, and some is preparation for the water softener, which comes tomorrow.

Here's a shot of its predecessor, looking a bit old and forlorn.

* It was really the plumber. I watched.
** There were actually three water heaters in the house, but #1 and #2 were removed earlier. Keep up, will ya?