Yep, that’s a picture of a toilet. Well, the toilets were yet another unique thing about our house. All of them were lacking in the whole “toilet tank lid” category. Which is extremely odd. What would you want with a toilet tank lid? Maybe they all got broken? Or they have some alternative use I don’t know about and got highjacked by the people that cleaned the house out?
You also can’t buy just a tank lid at the store. Nor, can you find one at the Habitat for Humanity thrift shop. Tragic. So, we purchased some nice new American Standard toilets from Home Depot. Surely they use way less water than the dinosaur 30-year old toilets that were there, anyway.
The toilet in the half-bathroom on the main floor is extra special. We figured since this one is the “high traffic toilet”, we would finally get and put in one of those crazy toilets that can flush 15 golf balls (or whatever that claim is..). Yes, we have the golf ball toilet. And let me say, I definitely notice a difference between the “flushing action” in the other, basic (read: cheaper) American Standard toilet we installed upstairs. I’m pretty sure the flushmaster could suck a small animal down the toilet in a single flush.
When my mom had a fish tank back when I was a little one, and a dead fish would get flushed, I’d always kind of have this fear that the fish would somehow revive itself and swim back up to the toilet to freak me out. If only we had the flushmaster 9000 back then, I’d be sure that the fish was truly gone forever.. haha.
I’m sure more on the bathrooms’ cosmetic makeovers will be posted in the future.. For now, they have the crucial functions established. Ding!
Well, we had to get a new HVAC system. What is HVAC you ask? It stands for Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning. In our townhouse, we almost never thought twice about our HVAC system, or what was going on with it. I’m sure you haven’t either unless it stops working! Well, now we have a (kind of) understanding of the whole thing.
Time for my very first disclaimer: No, we are not HVAC professionals. Read up on installing duct work in your own house on some other, more official web site, before attempting this yourself so you know the proper terminology (vs. my use of “that thingy.”) I also personally apologize for the “man project” nature of this post. Hey, sometimes you gotta do this stuff!
Our house is on a “dual zone” system. That means, we have two thermostats that are linked to completely separate systems. One system has the thermostat on the main floor and heats and cools the main floor and basement. That system has a gas furnace, which works, and a questionable air conditioner that we are worrying about in the spring. The upstairs system is based on a heat pump, which uses only electricity in an outdoor unit that resembles an air conditioner, and an indoor “air handler” that distributes the heated or cool air throughout the house. That’s what we got replaced – the old one had a host of problems – like flooding the ceiling in that one room. We were basically told by several people that it wasn’t worth fixing because it was old and crappy.
So, we have our new, lovely energy efficient model (for which we will get some major moolah rebates come tax season, and from our electric company.. which only slightly softens the blow of how much this crap costs). However, the technician that installed the unit said that the flexible ductwork that is used for the air returns left something to be desired. In fact, one of them was imploded (collapsed) and he couldn’t get a new efficiency reading on it to get us our happy rebates. This is the air handler up in the attic with the old, ghetto return duct:
Oak, being the frugal/clever fellow that he is, asked that we replace these returns ourselves. I don’t remember if we got a quote on having the technician do this, but I’m sure it would have been at least another $300 for labor costs. And it totally was NOT difficult! It didn’t even really involve any “man tools” – I know, bummer! After Oak found a place that would sell HVAC equipment to regular folks (as many will only sell to the pros), he bought some lengths of flexible ductwork, mastic (which is a special adhesive), special duct tape (not the gray kind we’re used to!) and uber long zip ties. That’s about all you need!
We did the short duct first. This duct goes from the right side of the air handler (the right vent in the picture above) to the return vent in the hallway. I’m only going to show the pictures from attaching one end because it’s basically the same thing at either end of the duct – one end goes to the air handler, and the other to the vent.
First, you must hug your duct. Oh, it’s lovely and shiny!
Now look at the awesome hole where your vent comes out. Wow. You can see downstairs! Next, apply the mastic to the metal circular part of the vent with a cheap, or old painbrush. Basically whatever you use is effectively going to be ruined. This stuff is super sticky, but spreads on like a thick paint. Go all the way around the vent:
Now, it’s time to attach the vent. Start by sliding off the shiny part and attaching it to the mastic. Then, affix a zip tie over the whole thing to really hold it in place.
Slide the shiny part back into place and you’re done!
Now repeat this on the other end of your duct. Pretty simple eh? The other duct (the one that goes to the bonus room) was a little more complicated because it was longer and involved climbing into another, less accessible part of the attic. Here’s Oak squeezing his way through :
And the shiny new, un-imploded vent in place. Our technician suggested running the duct under our hard ducts, which seems to work better than it going over the top like the old set-up did. Ding!
If you have any leftovers, you can fashion yourself an ultra-stylish robot costume! Just kidding. We actually had an entire length left over that we are going to exchange for some of the smaller ducts that carry the heat into the rooms. The ones we have work, but we can replace them for a higher “R-value” (ie better temperature retention). So, I may be returning with more HVAC fun in the future! Congrats if you made it to the end of this post without getting bored.. 
I think you may remember my mentioning of “doggie yum-yums” up in the subflorring in our hallway. Well, we are pretty sure that is also what caused these extremely rusty vent covers. Here’s the one in the dining room (aka our current bedroom.. haha):
Tres attractive eh? At first we thought perhaps they could be brushed and cleaned, but then after an inital attempt we decided to just get some new ones. Well, we can’t have a NORMAL vent cover that you can buy at Home Depot, it’s some specialty size. So these went nasty looking for a few months until we got the new heat pump. We asked that contractor to order us the new covers at cost from his HVAC supplier, but we’d put them in. Here’s Oak installing the new vent cover: 
He also cleaned out the vent with the shop vac before installing the new frame. We are now proud owners of not one, but two shop vacs. One ultra cute and handy Sears craftsman vac, and this huge uber-sucking dinosaur puppy that Oak acquired from somewhere in NY.. haha. Overall, although I didn’t really participate in the whole process, I’d say this was a simple project. Here’s the much better after:
Pretty! As long as you ignore the other flaws in the wall and severe need for a new paint job, we can admire its beauteousness. It’s really funny how holes in walls/ceilings don’t phase us anymore. Hole in the wall? Enh! Whatever! We can fix it!
Here’s the other side of the vent in the kitchen. I’m not sure what Oak looks so forelorn about. Maybe he already misses the rusty old nasty vent covers! (or not!)
The craft room was the second (after the laundry room) to get painted a COLOR! I got to do this painting around the first week of December, after Thanksgiving. Exciting! It is nice to feel when one room is “done”, even though, I still have to touch up the trim, paint inside the closet (I’m trying to figure out what color to use..), and paint the window. Oh well. Rolling the walls is by far the most exciting part, but lasts the least amount of time. Why is that? Grr!! 
Here’s a peek at the color, poppin’ white baseboard trim, unpainted beigy colored window, and the new ceiling light fixture. There was a ceiling fan in this room before that has since been moved to the master bedroom – I felt no need to have a fan blowing all the papers around my craft room, thankyouverymuch!
My first attempt at window painting is currently in progress in the master bedroom, which should basically conclude the painting in that space, then I’ll move back into do this window.
I hope everyone is having a healthy and happy 2010!
Our yard has all sorts of interesting debris. Things like old bottle caps, random pieces of trash, and the like. Well, to some extent we can understand that type of thing, because stuff can get blown into the yard from recycling piles and whatnot. However, this most recent discovery is just downright odd. Evan found the following two GLASS PYREX BOWLS while he and Oak were out leaf-blowing:
How exactly these ended up in the yard, I don’t know. Maybe they had plants in them at some point? Maybe they were used as outside dog bowls? Maybe they were to collect rainwater? Instead of questioning their existence, I washed them (as they were covered in dirt… you can see in the picture, I had started to rinse them off and then decided to take a picture). They’re as good as new and are now in our cabinet with the rest of the bowls. Oh, bonus!
The house is on a septic system – not a completely foreign concept to Oak and I, having grown up with them, but we certainly had never had one in our adult lives. One thing we did know – whatever you put down your sink, ends up in the tank. Certainly with all the painting and other messy projects we’ve got going on, that can’t be a good idea. So, Oak and his dad got the idea to put in a slop sink.
<Begin major undertaking>
It all started with choosing a sink from the Miller’s yard (yes, there were 2! haha). Of course, we had to have the bigger one. Yes, it was rusty but let’s say SOLID CAST IRON. Holy moly. Second nice part: FREE! It went on the back of Oak’s dad’s truck (along with many other acquired “treasures”) on our way back from Thanksgiving. Here’s a picture of the BEFORE:
Overall, it was rusty and grungy from being outside for who knows how many years. But oh, we had plans. Somehow, I got the job of refinishing the sink. Lucky me. It was actually pretty fun and involved the use of some MAN TOOLS (grunt grunt Tim Allen style). Here I am brushing off rusty pieces after my first rough attempt with a hand wire brush:
But oh… you don’t have to do it all by hand, oh no. It would figure they make a wire attachment that goes on your drill! (LeRoy alumni: Yes, that is my extremely fashionable, 11 year old marching band sweatshirt. Unfortunately it got demoted to my home improvement wardrobe. It’s very warm though! I also wear my super old glasses should any random particles decide to fly at my eyes and damage my beauteous new ones.)
Here I am cranking up the corded old grandaddy drill (which occasionally sparks.. whatevs) with the wire brush attachment. It made short work of the uber rusty corners:
The sink itself was the most simple and shortest part of the entire process, but unfortunately we didn’t capture the other fun on camera. Oak and Evan got to dig a drainage trench in the rain for the sink yum-yums to go into, while his dad did the neato fedito custom plumbing job. A few days later, we ordered drainage stone and Oak and Hwa filled in the trench with the stone. I believe the stupid stone was the most expensive part of the project, but we got some nicer pathways and widened driveway out of it too. I missed out on this part – being at work among various other things, but it definitely was a back-breaking activity that probably would have been too hardcore for wimpy ol’ Carrie anyway.
The sink got installed into place before I had a chance to put a second coat of paint on the outside, but you get the idea – here is the sink in its place in the garage:
Another coat of black paint on the outside, and it’s good to go! Let me tell you how awesome this is. No more painting for hours, getting to the kitchen sink to rinse your stuff out, only to discover that the sink is full of dirty dishes! (How annoying is that!) Also, the sink has HOT water so you get a toasty retreat from the cold garage as well! Ding!
Oak has always dreamed of being able to have two ovens – very handy for entertaining, baked goods, stock-making, and so on. We always had a struggle with what temperature to use when cooking two things at the same time.
Well, our house had a microwave-oven combo. As you can see, it was a lovely unit:
Also, check out that HAWT brass squashed light fixture. When we moved in it had like a 1/4″ of dust on it. We have it as a souvenir out in the garage. There’s a simple flushmount fixture there now but I really want to put in an L-shaped track light when we redo the kitchen.
Anyway, the microwave didn’t open. It was missing a crucial piece: the handle. (WTF?) Initially we thought, oh, we can just use the oven for awhile because we already had a microwave… but an hour of trying to chisel off the black gunk on the inside caused us to throw in the towel. Even my mom, the queen of rescuing grungy appliances, said it had to go. Um, GROSS! Unfortunately I never got a picture of the inside of the oven. Consider yourself lucky!
We went on a hunt on our new favorite site, craigslist. Double ovens are tricky because they need to fit the width and depth of your cabinet. We finally found one! Best part was that we ended up getting it for something like $175 (you might note that a new double oven is at least $2000). Ding a ling.
First, the old oven had to come out. Note the awesome hair on Oak caused by several days of hardcore housework. I think they took out the electrical panel on the top of the unit for fun! haha.
Our new oven would fit the cabinet, but the pesky electrical box stuck out and would cause the oven to stick out a few inches too far. Dave had the great idea of recessing the electrical box back into the wall behind so the oven would fit. Sweet! Here he is removing the box to cut the new recess:
Yeah.. OK, he actually DID turn off the electricity this time and he was not actually being shocked. Had you fooled there for a minute didn’t I?
Oak decided to give our new unit a hug after we plugged it in and did discover it was functional (always a question with a craigslist find)!!! Woohoo!!
A little more work by the boys and our new double oven was in place. It’s already made several delicious meals and batches of stock!! It even has convection… aren’t we fancy?
Side story: As you recall, the microwave in our old unit was lacking a handle. However, when you looked in the door, you could see that there was something inside the microwave – like balls of plastic bags or something. Oak and I liked to joke that there was a raccoon living inside of the microwave. Being the curious cats that we are, we had to bust that puppy open. Dave thought there might be some money hidden in there (ie. our key to fame and fortune). However, the result was several bags of cereal and some leftover Halloween candy. Um, yes that is what I store in my microwave!! Whatevs! Stay tuned for some more interesting items found in around the house..
Our yard has like… a lot of leaves. Our neighbor noticed Oak and Evan struggling with rakes on our 10-year pile up of leaves, and offered up his hefty heavy-duty leaf blower. Oh boy!!! That definitely made things easier. You still had to rake the very bottom layer of decayed leaves, but, at least the vast majority got moved along!
Leave it to the boys to be screwing around.. No the blower wasn’t actually on at this point.. haha.
Next step… figuring out how to get grass!! haha.
The front (guest) bedroom in the house was pretty much a disaster. An HVAC unit above had leaked and caused a giant hole in the ceiling:
The leaking also pretty much destroyed the particle board underlayment on the floor:
So, we had to get all that out of there, in addition to some in the hallway… the foreclosure peeps reportedly would let their dogs relieve themselves wherever in the house. Lovely. Well, we could tell there was some doggie essence in the hallway so we took that floor out also. Luckily it seemed the dogs couldn’t get to many of the rooms upstairs.. phew.
What does “removing underlayment” mean??? Demolition. Oak was very excited at first and gave the brute force (i.e. “Oak SMASH”):
but both of us did get pretty tired of it after awhile, especially when we approached the doggy toilet area… let me tell you, that is not a scent to bottle. My responsibility was mostly to bag up the yucky old pieces and not stab myself with any wayward nails. No Carries were harmed in this project, luckily. After the smashing process we put some primer over the plywood underneath to seal off any yum-yums that were left. Sometime in the next couple weeks the contractor for our renovation loan is going to come and put in the new underlayment. Woohoo!
We got this cool door knocker as a housewarming gift from Daniela and Donny that now graces our front door:
Get it… Oak… acorn? hahhaa Daniela and I think that a red door on a brick house.. not so optimal. Add that project to the list…
