Month Two: August

Reed's project: Build an outdoor storage/prep station for the grill

Reed's project from Joanna: Stain/weatherseal the back deck

Joanna's project: Weed and the prep the gardens in the front and back of the house

Joanna's project from Reed: Choose and hang pictures around the house

The Power of Powerwashing

Let’s be clear, I now love power washing. It is one of the most satisfying tasks out there.  Summer in Maine is great, and yes, I’d rather be at the beach, but if you’re going to do house projects during the summer power washing should be at the top of your list. Here’s why — its outside, it’s wet, you can’t do it in the winter, so it’s the perfect summer task, and winter around here is LONG, there are immediate results, and finally if your kid is calling for you to find his missing Lego for the 20th time which is right next to him on the floor, you can’t hear him, which makes it the perfect task to do when you are home alone all day with your kid all summer.

I gave myself the project of power washing the front porch and back desk in preparation for staining. The front porch is a disaster and needs to be replaced. It has rot, it is painted, and is visible to all our neighbors, so I decided to start with it first. Based on the conversation I had with the friendly guys at Maine Paint (insert link) in SoPo while buying the paint for the kitchen trim, I was convinced that power washing the paint off the porch was going to be a cinch. He even said power washers can cut through metal! That old paint didn’t stand a chance against my big, bad power washer! Well, that paint is stronger that titanium because it wouldn’t budge. I mean, yes, I got some off, but it wasn’t like scraping melted butter off a warm piece of bread. I worked on it for a while and got frustrated at my lack of progress and decided to throw in the towel. According to Reed, this is a scraping job, followed by replacing rotted boards and then repainting. Talk about deflating my sails. Well, that sounds like a a lot of work to me to fix something I want to get rid of and use the space to expand our mud room into an expanded entrance/family room. As of today, the front porch looks the same as it did on July 1st.

After firing up my favorite power washer and giving the back deck some sprays, I knew the deck didn’t have a chance. That deck was covered in dirt, mold and general nastiness. All the hope I had for the front porch came to fruition on the back deck. I spent two afternoons, while Chase did god-knows what, inside (surely, there was a lot of PBS app watching and covert Angry Bird sessions), cleaning the grit and grime off the deck. And, that shit was fun. I am sure I didn’t do it as perfectly as Reed would have, if you look closely, the power washer did leave some inconsistencies in the wood but I don’t care, it look SO MUCH BETTER and I am proud of my work.

I’m buying a power washer. Look out, I am coming for your deck.

Trim It

Painting the trim in the kitchen was Reed’s project for me in July. It was fairly easy, but time consuming. The taping and prepping took the most time and I have to say I was a bit more thorough taping because of Reed’s knack for prep and because he was around the house while I was working. I didn’t want him judge my work and interject with his opinions about how I was doing. Or, even worse, give me some non-verbal cues on how I was not doing it right. One of the hardest things for me during this is to feel like I can work on projects without letting Reed’s judgement stop me from working or get too frustrated that I bow out. The truth is we are different workers. I like to just go and figure things out while I am working. And, actually, the prep I did for the trim project turned out to be mostly extra work that didn’t need to be done. During the project, I decided that I could have done just as good a job at staying on the trim without the tape. And, thought I should continue to paint beyond the trim, making the tape unnecessary. I am glad it’s done and it looks great. The sense of accomplishment is great and I am looking forward to other projects.

The second thing to note about doing this project is that Chase was at Nanna and Papa’s during this time. In order to do these project, Chase can’t be around because he needs attention that make project very difficult. I am grateful that Nanna and Papa can take him for a night so we can work on projects, but there is a little part of me that is frustrated that the only time I get away from him is spent doing house projects. I’d like to be at the beach.

Reed's other July Projects

A few other accomplishments this month:

Refurbished Grill

When we bought our house, the seller offered to sell us her gas grill and lawnmower. The mower has been great, but when we uncovered the grill this spring, it was effectively unusable, since the heating elements were completely rusted out. We debated about trying to replace parts or just buying a new grill, which seems like a reasonable option since the parts were looking to cost about $165. Percent internet searching, however, eventually uncovered an eBay seller (all signs point to South Korea), which shipped the parts to me at less than half that initial cost. Grill is now up and running.

Brush Clean-Up

I borrowed dad's pickup truck and spend a weekend hauling brush to the dump, which also helped me learn a bit more about how the dump works - a double win.

Cleaned Gutters

This was so unpleasant, time-consuming, semi-dangerous, and generally disgusting that it should have been an official project. At least for the moment, our gutters are clear of the complete ecosystem that had temporarily sprung up in them.

Checked Bathtub Leak

Joanna has had a legitimate concern that our sagging kitchen ceiling might collapse down upon us at any moment. I delayed CM’s departure after his visit in order to get his support opening up the access panel in the upstairs bathroom to do a bit of archaeological digging under the tub. We uncovered: 1) a burn-out light bulb sitting under the tub; 2) newspapers from 1986;  3) evidence that there was some sort of leak years ago (best guess: 1986); 4) confidence that the ceiling won’t be dropping down upon us anytime soon.

Front Floodlights 

It only took 8 months to figure out that the old lights were just burnt out. Somehow it required CM's wisdom to bring me to this realization. New bulbs and, voila, easy fix.

Jo's Project for Reed: Hang Ceiling Fans in Guest Room & Chase's Room

Outcome: Fan successfully hung in guest room. Decided not to hang fan in Chase's room, at least for the time being.

This project re-ignited my interest (and, to a lesser extent, began to re-build my confidence) in electrical DIY. If we continue with this blog for long, there will be frequent and reverent references to support from CM, my go-to project consultant and expert in all things This Old House. CM is on speed-dial and was integral to this project.

With phone support from CM, I got the guest room light and fan up and running in record time: four hours. I'm not quite sure what the good folks at Harbor Breeze were thinking when they estimated an installation time of 60 minutes. Close inspection also certifies that the fan is definitely not more than 18” lower than code. 

With that success under my belt, I dove right into the fan in Chase’s room, sure I could cut installation time to 90 minutes. I immediately ran into a little problem. No ground wire in the existing fixture.

This led me to a delightfully adventure, crawling around in our attic, with 18 inches of clearance, 100-degree temperatures, and a hearty mixture of fiberglass and mouse poop dust. This was informative: of the fact that the fix wasn’t going to be easy. 

Which is to say Joanna quickly let me off the hook with the rationalization that having a low-hanging fan directly over the car-molded bed of our jumping-bean five-year-old might not be the best idea, anyway.  

So, half a success. 

Reed's Phone Project

Outcome: I successfully cancelled my personal phone.

Not sure what it says about me, but the easy part was informing the whopping half-dozen people who actually occasionally call me that I have a new number. Turns out, my personal connections let out a collective yawn with the notion of my phone number changing.

So, I though I was home-free. Bam, done.

Although I then realized that there are actually a fair number of corporations and other money-grubbers who have my number (and, actually, seem to use it more often than the people who really know me). Trying to figure out which corporate mega institutions I had to alert and how to update them became much more of a challenge. I'm sure I missed someone, and, in 60 days when AT&T gives away to my old number to an identity-theiving hacker, all my accounts shall surely be accessed and lost. In the meantime, we're saving $100 per month without my phone contract, so it's all good.

Also worth noting: this week was the first week in a year that I didn't cart around two phones, as unbelievably 21st-century as that sounds. It's been liberating. (Just don't take my other phone away.)