A super dumb way to save money

I got my mattress and box spring free from an old dead lady. (But she always slept on the couch so we can call it essentially new.) Then I got a platform bed free from a friend and it totally works with the little chests I got free from my grandmother. Don’t mind the junk. I cleaned it up later.

Because this is a platform bed, you’re looking at it without the box spring. I tried using the box spring but it looked ridiculous and I put it in the closet. So after some pondering and asking my parents for advice, I decided to throw out the box spring and just use the mattress like this. First I tried to give it away but no dice. Then my mom told me that her trash people would take it for just 20 bucks.

I said, “20 dollars? Do you think I’m made of money?” And I proceeded with my better idea.

That is, ripping it out with a crowbar. But then I realized that there were staples through it everywhere. Lots of staples. So instead I used an ice pick.

That worked pretty well. Until the ice pick broke. Too bad because it was a nice one. But then, has anyone used an ice pick in my lifetime? But anyway, I’ll call this a classically dumb thing to do. It took about an hour and a half. And then staples flew all over the room. I had piles of wood with sharp things protruding out of it. And there are still metal things lying around. I’ll probably find reminders of this in 3 months even though I thought I got it all.

 

Not only that but my closet has finally crossed the threshold from almost done to… done enough to hang clothes in part of it! Except half of them are in a wad instead.

And the overwhelming amounts of random scrap wood are almost sorted. I was holding onto old lathe because it has character and I could repurpose it. But after storing it for 2 years I decided I don’t have the patience to repurpose it and cut it all in half. Now it will fit in my parents’ fireplace. Other wood that’s not safe to burn is in other cans to throw out.

I’m really, really excited about all this. Being able to turn around in my basement! Putting the stove in the kitchen! It’s a little cluttery now. Plus, the Home Depot return pile is on the dining room table.

What would be really nice would be to borrow that Suburban again and get all this stuff sorted out, plus bring in a refrigerator and a few other big things. Problem is that somebody shoveled his car out and blocked the street with the snow. Then the city brought in a Bobcat to plow the street and it got stuck. So now there’s a mini-mountain outside my bedroom. And you can see that it’s sorta clear in front of this car.

Everything is ready to go. How long until I can drive down my own street? Your move, Philadelphia Streets Department.

Procurement – Appliances and more

My punch list, sadly, involves another round of buying stuff. And for me, kitchen appliances are a joyless purchase. I believe that planned obsolescence is real, meaning that manufacturers design appliances to last 10 years and break as soon after that as possible. As bad as that is, I think I loathe the way body styles on an appliance will “date” and require replacement even more.

Then I love to mock fancy kitchens that cost more than I paid for my house (and are usually ugly) and the “serious cooks” who claim to need them. There will definitely be more on this later because it’s fun to write.

Worst of all is the up and down buttons to change the oven temperature 5 degrees at a time. I don’t know who came up with this awful idea, but I have almost enough time to plan their while I get carpal tunnel rapidly pushing the touch pad to set the oven temperature.

Anyways, I don’t have the slightest interest in doing any of those things. And I’m especially uninterested in paying lots of money to do those things. First, I tried to snag this range.

It’s old enough that it probably wasn’t designed to break. And the oven temperature definitely isn’t controlled with a knob. I’d love something even older, but the really cool ones tend to be expensive and too big.

But that seller didn’t reply and I grabbed 3 white Maytag appliances instead. I still need a fridge, but I’m grateful to have the optional kitchen parts and a positive bank account balance.

I said that the kitchen is a work room and may as well work like one. That’s why I have a not-so-sexy over the range microwave and will not be putting wooden fronts on my appliances. But I’m not gonna lie. I’m glad the dishwasher has hidden controls. And it runs quietly to boot!

And you surely noticed the sink too. My mom told me I needed a pull down faucet, and I decided that makes sense. I decided first off that it has to be modern. I don’t like modern things anachronistically clad in period styles. I ended up not with the most modern one but the plainest. I think plain is what the house wants. I also bought the cheapest plastic drain I could get because a friend is giving me his garbage disposal whenever his building permits get approved. And boy is it CRAPPY.

Also, fun fact: some of the finishes offered double the cost of the faucet, and they aren’t under warranty. Something tells me that chrome plating is a thing for a reason. I also got my hopes up in a big way when I saw these prices. That was not to be, but I did well.

Then there are the thermostats. They’re sorta hooked up. But we realized that the plumber bought the wrong control panel for them. We also figured out that a zone valve control panel is optional and decided not to spring for it. I ordered a transformer, but this is on hold until whenever it arrives. I had this idea that I could exchange the control box thing I have, but alas, plumbing supply houses don’t have Home Depot’s no receipt needed, no questions asked return policy.

 

Heating up

Yep, my radiators are finally working! (Item 1 on the Punchlist.) But this wasn’t quite as easy as 1, 2, 3. First I had to hook up all the radiators. I bought a spud wrench to do this in case the fittings were loose. And it’s a good thing I did because the plumber (or more likely his idiot helper) had one of them cross threaded and it wouldn’t go on. My dad said “I hope it’s the radiator fitting and not the pipe.” And horrible images of re-soldering things flashed before me. Luckily, it was the fitting and he had left an extra one behind.

Then I had to reconnect 4 PEX pipes that the chimney people had cut. And so I joined the West Philly Tool Library and was able to borrow the tools I needed to do the job! This is amazing and I highly recommend the place to anyone in the area.

Then we pressurized the system. But the water seemed to keep flowing in and gurgling up longer than it should have. Turns out one of the radiators wasn’t tight and the water was running down inside a wall. Thankfully, it wasn’t a repeat of Chad’s Tears Falls, but it meant a little bit of screaming, depressurizing the system, and very anxiously refilling it. And tightening up several radiators throughout the house. Big sigh. My bathtub still has a pile of wet blankets in it.

And then we got it on but the radiators weren’t heating up evenly. We decided to flush out the system so we opened the valves to fill the system and just let water flow through. And then I caught 2 valves that hadn’t been opened and finally learned how the control valve works. When it opened like a mini hot water fire hydrant all over my groin. I screamed. But actually the water wasn’t all the way hot yet. Anyways, it’s done!

Then there were some other important things that happened. My dad made this nice cardboard cutout for me.

What’s it for? The sink! We got this hole cut last week. I still need a faucet and I guess a drain, though sometime soon I’m getting a free garbage disposal. Note: this is an undermount sink, so we have to rig it to make it work with a laminate countertop. But they’re temporary anyway.

Speaking of which, remember how they needed to be shimmed up, braced together, and screwed down?

It’s nice to have scrap wood.

And I glued the leftover edge pieces on. So now I think I have the best $50 countertops I could have possibly gotten. They still need almond caulk to hide those seams.

And while I had the Pex tools I took care of some other plumbing things. The terrifying pipe that could have destroyed my kitchen is now gone. And the capped lines for the kitchen sink have shut off valves on them. I’m all set until I decide to live high and get laundry appliances.

All those pipe fittings were in my basement from who knows when. I’m going to use whichever ones work for my sink, and then you see those bar codes? I’m gonna wash them off and just see if I can return them for store credit. Would I call this honest? No. But there might be 15 dollars for me in there!

New for 2016: An Actual Punchlist!

I’ve (mis)used the word before and gave you a list of basically building the whole house, but the things on this list actually seem like finishing touches to me. Even all the kitchen appliances. I’m trying to keep this list to things it really makes sense to finish, but I may call Phase 1 complete without actually finishing the whole list. I really just want to get the basic functions and then cut back on the work a lot.

So here’s the new list.

Building Systems

• Connect radiators, fill system, fire up the boiler. No explanation needed.
• Wire thermostats and activate zone valves. Until I do this, the heat will be controlled inaccurately from a thermostat in the basement. After, I’ll have separate thermostats in the living room and both bedrooms. The bathroom will be on whenever the heat is on anywhere else.

Kitchen

• Finish installing laminate countertops.
• Install sink. Procure and install faucet and drain.
• Procure and install 30 inch gas range.
• Procure refrigerator, install hinges on the left side (Most come with right side hinges but are reversible. Refrigerator must be 28 inches wide to fit through the front door, which is the smallest full size refrigerator available in the US.) Because the mini-fridge with the missing hinge pin isn’t cutting it.
• Build remaining countertop out of leftover oak. (Requires dowel or biscuit joints)
• (Optional) Install drawers in lower cabinets.
• (Optional) Procure and install dishwasher, garbage disposal, and over-the-range microwave.

Front Bedroom

• Finish painting closet shelving. Add clothes bars.
• Finish painting temporary particle board around windows. Install temporary blinds.
• Install door strike, stop molding, and door knob at entrance to room.
• Pre-paint and temporarily install trim around closet doors.

Back Bedroom Note: This list is low priority unless I find someone to rent the room. And then I’ll be scrambling to do it.)

• Sort all tools in closet and move to basement.
• Install closet door strikes and stop moldings on both doors.
• Paint closet doors, closet shelving and trim on door wall.
• Install permanent blinds, shades, and/or curtains.

 

Living room and General Clutter

• Count and sort kitchen items. Re-box items for yard sale and return them to parents.
• Collect all unused building materials. Shamelessly return everything for store credit.
• Install 2 remaining interior doors. Remove cardboard at entryway.
• Paint temporary particle board around front windows and install temporary blinds.
• Install panel sticking on stairway wall.
• Repair and refinish banister.

Upstairs hall

• Empty both closets. Paint closet shelving.
• Install roller catch and stop moldings on linen closet door. This door is thinner than standard and has a dummy knob.
• Install threshold and permanent stop moldings on bathroom door.
• Paint all door jambs, casings, and remaining baseboards.

Bathroom

• Procure and install towel bars, toilet paper holder, etc.

Basement

• Remove lathe and borrowed tools. Clean floor and walls.
• Discard duplicate paint cans. Consolidate paint to one can of each color.
• Add additional shelving as needed.
• Finish drywall at top of stairwell. Discard remaining stored drywall scraps.
• (Optional unless I get a roommate) Procure washer and dryer. Consider 24 inch appliances or local appliance dealer that will dismantle full size appliances and reassemble in basement.

Closing down the sawdust factory… and making room for a party!

Yep, that’s a big change isn’t it? Once I got used to having nice woodwork everywhere I realized that I had very few big things left that needed to be cut up. There were the countertops, and then everything else is small enough to do in the basement. So we got some odd jobs done. Shampooed a rug, my sister did some painting, and her boyfriend and I cut up my countertops into all the pieces I need to fit my kitchen. They need a little work to be installed right, but the messy part is done.

So as soon as that was done, we brought in 4 cars full of stuff over 2 days. The Suburban wasn’t available to me, but I’ll call this Moving Day Number 5. I crapped up the dining room table immediately.

My policy was always to take all the free kitchen stuff I could get and now I have an awful lot of things so this seemed like the way to make sense of it all. I had to wash construction debris off a lot of it. But somewhere around this point I was getting texts from friends who wanted to see each other on New Year’s Eve. So I said, “Why not come for dinner at my house and stay over?” And would you believe that my friends said yes?

I fiendishly unpacked, washed, and put away all my stuff. I cut shelves down for the custom sized wall cabinets. I put things on shelves. I found the hardware for my bed, assembled it while Tame Impala sang “It’s getting closer” to me on the radio.

I took a moving box full of my grandmother’s Pyrex dishes to the hole in the wall Indonesian restaurant on the corner and then set up a makeshift food warmer. One of my friends said I’m too classy for the

My brave friends had warm clothes and were ready to camp out in a construction site. But instead, they walked into this!

When they walked in I was on a ladder vacuuming the sawdust I forgot about off of the lights in the upstairs hall. This looking like a house thing continues upstairs! But the civility ends a few inches east of the antipasto.

That is Courtesy the Italian store around another corner. Remember, I didn’t just move to South Philly for the fun of having a small house with a tiny yard and no parking. And here are my guests, looking not too traumatized. Don’t tell my grandmother I didn’t use the table pads.

Just before midnight we took a walk, and had the pleasure of watching idiots burning their Christmas trees in the middle of an intersection with tons of lighter fluid (they even threw in the bottle) and no street closures. And of course no cops came because this is Philadelphia. Just drive around it.

We stuck around until the really loud explosions started (still not sure what that was) but there was no crater on this corner at the end of our walk.

There’s a bit of a dark side to having a dinner party with no kitchen sink though. I’ll leave you with this. Happy New Year!

 

 

The Irishman Giveth, The Irishman Taketh Away

To be fair, he didn’t actually take anything from me. He gave me 3 great days this week. I think that’s it, so lots of stuff is done, but there’s chaos everywhere and I’ve left it where it was for 4 days. Because there was this holiday I totally ignored. Then I decided not to ignore it on Christmas Eve and threw just enough together to save face.

So, Monday he came and we got the dryer vent pipe through the corner cabinet. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. He bored through a wire. Panic ensued, but we were able to free it from the spray foam with enough slack to add a junction box in the cabinet and everything is fine. Tedious, but it’s done! You can barely even see this stuff with the carousel in place.

Then he installed the higher base cabinet for that room divider I was talking about and all the woodwork in the living room! We actually have more done now including the trim at the top of the big opening, but I forgot to get a picture. I opted for dish storage on this side of the peninsula because I don’t really like stools, but this is high enough that I can eat standing if the table is set. That means it’s too high for short people.

Some of you were a little confused about my wordy description of the awkward corner where the peninsula has 2 heights and wraps around the pipe chase and door casing. Here’s what it looks like in real life. Not so bad, right?

And here’s the best view I have of the whole room. I have enough of that Formica to splice on pieces at both ends of the L you can see, and to do one side of the stove. The other side of the stove is going to get more of the free oak I have on the bar top. I think I’ll want the oak to the right near the door. Sometime later I’ll upgrade the work areas to all one material but probably keep the oak bar top for good. Do you agree with all this?

Then, remember how the floor slants? Well, my counters are near the standard 36 inch height at one end of the room, but then over here they’re a solid 3 inches higher. Which I love. But it means that the whole kitchen is not for short people. And then my wall cabinets are so high I can’t reach them without a stool. But my 9 foot ceilings are basically the only place where my house gave me more than minimum sizes (or below today’s minimums) so I have to use it. I’ll also need to shim up these cabinets a weensy bit.

There are a lot of loose ends to tie up but overall I’m pretty happy!

Finally, the bottom half of the kitchen!

All right, Day 1 of my 16 day “vacation” was mostly figuring out how to do this kitchen job. Remember my old 3D rendering? It still comes pretty close to what I’ll be getting. The room shrank a little bit and I put in upper cabinets that I didn’t bother to show back then, but the base cabinets are almost exactly as planned. Just picture another cabinet facing you on the back side of that peninsula.

But I had to refine the design now that I know exactly where my walls ended up. So here it is with dimensions and construction notes. And yes, lots of refinement.

The big problem spot here is the dead space right around the pipe chase. The cabinets don’t fit perfectly. Because I’m not spending 3 times my net worth on custom cabinetry. So that means I’m gonna have a gap shaped like Oklahoma in the back of my peninsula.

 

The space on the living room side is easy to fix. I am installing wood casing around the big opening between the living room and the kitchen, so I’m just building the opening to exactly the size that fits my cabinets. The top of this doorway will be at exactly the same height as the window. With the cabinets assembled you can already see it! Right?

 

 

Around the other side it’s more complicated. The cabinet facing the living room is actually supposed to go on a wall. I want it taller to hide the stack of dishes in my sink. And from this angle that stack is already hidden!

The problem is that I need to cover the back side of the taller bar top/china cabinet with better wood than IKEA’s flimsy backings and attach the cabinets to each other in a non-standard way. IKEA’s cabinets have these brackets that fit into rails on the walls. This is amazing for my non-level floors.

 

But I’m thinking that the solution here is to take them off of the cabinets you can see above and just screw cabinet grade plywood right into the cabinets with trim head screws. The standard hardware leaves a little gap behind the cabinets. I’ll just make it all flush and try to make that piece of plywood super sturdy. And then I’ll hang the wall-turned-into-base cabinet off of it. I’ll build a plinth for that cabinet to sit on since it’s not drilled for legs like the others.

This solves another funny problem. The cabinets stop just a teeny bit short of the corner. I thought about adding a filler strip in the middle of the run of cabinets to make them fit the room, but that would be ugly. So instead, I’m going to run the plywood all the way over and leave a little dead space between the carousel and the pipe chase. That means the higher bar top will look like this. I think it looks more awkward on paper than it will in real life.

 

Then I’m also adding a dryer vent to the back of my carousel cabinet. My laundry facilities will be in the basement, but the basement is fully underground at the back. And I’m not willing to board up a basement window or bore a hole in the marble base of my façade like most people do. Luckily, the completely useless dead space at the back of the carousel cabinet is just big enough!

 

And here’s this peninsula arrangement from the other side. Tell me what you think. Even though I’m not changing it now that the cabinets are non-returnable. The main cabinets will be about 5 inches higher. I can cheat the other one as I please.

 

TABLES WITH LAMPS ON THEM

If you’ve known me a while, my excitement over this little thing won’t surprise you so much. The plan for the weekend was to paint the baseboards in the bedrooms, turn the heat on, and have my 4^th moving day, bringing in furniture that goes in front of the baseboards in the bedrooms. But then we had 68 degree highs this weekend, which was crazy. But it was a rare chance to put off the heat and take the windows out and paint them, so I’m not complaining.

I put really good Marvin wood windows on the back of the house. Meanwhile the front windows are total crap, installed so they don’t close right, caulked shut where the drafts were really bad, with flimsy reclaimed Masonite around them. But that has them tidied up enough that I’ll grin and bear them till Phase 2. (The Masonite will be painted white)

But back to the windows I put in, one of the best things about these is that the jambs are all wood with slim metal tracks mortised into them. So although they aren’t quite as pretty as old wood windows, they have a cleaner look than most new ones. They also require massive amounts of cutting in with a tiny brush. The thought crossed my mind while I was doing all this that maybe vinyl windows aren’t so bad after all. Impure, filthy thoughts! But it went away, and after a solid 20 hours or so, 3 of my 5 windows now look totally amazing. It’s Sherwin Williams ProClassic semi-gloss, which is totally smooth and beautiful and just shiny enough to show off all my biggest splurges. I only got one coat on the sashes, but they’re easy to take out so the second coat can wait until spring.

Then, how did Moving Day Number 4 go? Well, one of the friends who helped with the couch came back AGAIN (I’m really lucky not to have scared him away) and I got in another 4 big pieces of furniture and a rug. This included my grandmother’s buffet (now reborn as a dresser) that was previously storing random crap in my parents’ basement.

Her matching hutch took its place. Which is handy because my dad is now working from home and the books from his old office are standing between me and my kitchen stuff in the attic. And now he has a proper place to put them.

And I need to give my parents credit for another round of cleaning and tidying up including my totally gross mini-fridge. Though while they were doing that I was getting old window labels off with acetone and my fingernails, which wasn’t all that much fun either. After that THEY treated ME to dinner!

You ready to see the rooms? Drumroll please…

So, now I can think about window treatments. Aside from continuing to paint and finally getting that heat on, they’re up next. I also need to shampoo the rug in the front bedroom before I set up the bed. The front windows get either cheap junk plastic blinds from Home Depot or even cheaper junk paper shades from IKEA. But the back can get a permanent solution. I’m thinking stained wood blinds mounted inside the window jambs. And I might add floor length panel curtains as this is the only window in the house where that is possible.

But something functional for privacy first. Whatever I get, I want it to look good all the way opened. Because that’s how I like all my windows during the day. Maybe there’s something better than wood blinds for that. Any ideas?

How hard can it be to get a couch into a rowhouse?

I mean, I knew my front door was narrow. Then I learned that authentic 18th Century furniture doesn’t have legs that come off. So I knew I was bringing it in the back. That means bringing it up through the alley from the street 60 feet away. No big deal, right? The alley is narrower than the sofa, but it’s only lined with 6 foot walls, so it just means holding it up above your head. My mom’s friend offered to come so she could ride in on it wearing Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra eye makeup.

Before we could bring it in, the patio door had to come out. I had the foresight to contact the sales rep my distributor was in touch with and he sent me instructions to take the panels out. Because this isn’t something that normal people do.

The really aggravating part here was cutting out the caulk all the way around that door panel. And for that you get a super exciting short video of me cutting out the caulk.

Then on to actually bringing it in. Remember what I said about the 6 foot walls? Well, that’s true after the first pair of houses. Right next to the street, the house on the right has a 7 foot wall plus barbed wire on the street side. And the house on the left is built all the way to the alley with a wall way to high to pass anything over. And if that’s not bad enough, the phone lines are all droopy and criss crossing the alley everywhere. Yayy.

So we needed chairs and a ladder. My friend sat on the wall and lifted the wires up so we could push the couch through under them. 2 other friends stood on the sidewalk lifting it as high as they could to pass it to us.

And then part way through someone was smart enough to think of covering the wall with blankets. This was revolutionary because we could set it down on the stringers halfway onto someone else’s property.

And then after this it was easier for a bit. But you see we had more power lines to cross. Then finally we took it through 2 other people’s back yards, which was so much better. Just not the one you can see above because the whole yard is completely full of junk.

And… In it went!

But let’s back up a bit before you get too excited about how my living room looks.

I’ll need to clean off the residue from when the phone lines rubbed against it and then cover it with sheets before I use the saws again. We also broke the guys off some of the phone lines. My friend said he’d help me reattach them and I said no. I accept no responsibility for the disgraceful state of those lines. If I’m feeling generous, I’ll call them and tell them to come clean it up themselves.

But it’s out of the way before my parents get their Christmas tree. Or, before they bring it in. Look what’s on their driveway now.

A look forward and way, way back

I worked through most of Thanksgiving weekend and my employer has a use it or lose it policy for vacation time. So this week seemed like a good time to check how many hours I get to stretch through December 31. And what did I find?

78.5 hours!! Meaning between vacation and holiday, I get the last 2 weeks of the year with 6 1/2 to spare! I wonder what I’ll do with the time. Not.

I’m hoping for plenty of rest and family time. We have 5 people coming in from Massachusetts and North Carolina. I also have this wild and crazy idea that I can install all my kitchen cabinets and maybe even make the house fully functional. This probably means waking up early like I usually do and putting in a lot of half days.

So my future is looking bright. The other order of business right now is confronting my past. The plan was to condense all the house crap into the back bedroom closet so civility (and stored kitchen crap that I wanted out of the basement) can take over the rest of the house. Or at least the rest of the second floor. To my dismay, the whole back bedroom was completely filled with crap.

So this week it was time to confront my past. Namely, confront things I hastily threw into boxes 2 years ago and only partially sorted out. But again I was relieved. This time because most of those boxes were mostly empty. And so after just a couple of evenings, I’m down to a totally manageable hoard.

 

And I’m assembling the unused stuff for the next mega-return-for-store-credit-and-make-the-cashier-want-to-kill-me Home Depot trip. (Last time this trip was mildly humiliating but gave over $400 in store credit, which was clearly worth it.)

And I’ve started to unpack my linen closet! This is an extra special spot right now because everything in it was my grandmother’s. When she moved to assisted living a year ago, we sent her off with some stuff and got rid of a lot, but there was this trash bag stuffed with stuff for me. So a lot of it is totally normal. Like old towels that don’t match. My mom told me that she was never allowed to use the Bicentennial eagle towels until my grandparents redecorated the bathroom and the color didn’t match anymore.

Then I have fancy, really old table linens. Some of them are so fine you’d think they’re silk even though they’re cotton. And better yet, they have MUK embroidered on them. That stands for Mary Umpstead Krause. Apparently the one great grand aunt who had money before the stock market crash was friends with this lady and now I have stuff from her hope chest. Some ancestor of mine pulled threads out of the tablecloth by hand to make that open border. But the napkins are the smoothest cloth ever.

And then there’s this apron. Clearly my most useful possession.

So anyways, the new schedule is another week of sorting, tidying, prepping, and any door strikes and odds and ends of trim that I can throw together. I’ve gotten instructions for dismantling my patio door to get the couch in this Sunday. And next Thursday and Friday I’m taking half days and that’s when the painting needs to resume. If nothing goes wrong, I should have central heat by the 13^th.