March 2004

March 4, 2004: Whoa, baby! Whatever fool coined the phrase, "March goes in with the lions, and goes out with the lambs," .... ain't never lied.

Maybe he was talking about the weather, but we're talking renovation.

By the middle of last month ,we thought we'd hit a roll. We'd found a great color for the hallway, the supplies for the bathroom remodels started rolling in, the weather was started to get reliably warmer, and we were ready to rock and roll on all the renovation plans we'd obsessed over through a long, hard, cold winter.

Then, once again... the wheels fell off.

Y'alll should go grab a drink, 'cause this is going to be a looooooooooong story.

Huh?

Awww, no, no... don't worry, it all turns out okay, and it's kind of funny once you're a few days removed from it. So definitely go get that drink, wait for the entry to load, and sit back to enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln...

We were all excited to end Februrary with a bang. We finally got heartily sick of our daughter's dollhouse project occupying most of the studio's table workspace for over a year, so we got motivated, and spent several long days and nights finally finishing the darn thing. We're really happy with the results, and most importantly, so is she. Those of you who've been with us since last April know that it's been a long haul, from this:

To this:

And fiinally, to this:

The blasted thing is finally done, complete with Playmobil Vikings lined up outside. Um... No. We don't know why. And we're extremely hesitant to delve into the inscrutable mind of our five year-old daughter to find out.

We had no warning of the Vikings-- they weren't on the mortgage documents, and they didn't show up at settlement. To be fair, the Playmobil company creates wonderfully flexible playsets, with characters and props that snap on easily, and are completely interchangeable, from accessories to outfits to hair.

But this bunch happens to be wielding some seriously scary weaponry, and half of them are cross-dressed. Truly a frightening crew. We can only hope that our daughter learns some valuable lessons in Landlord-Tenant relations from the experience.

We came down off the high of finally finishing the dollhouse, to discover that the weather report for last weekend was an unseasonably high 60 degrees for both days, and it was to be crystal clear to boot.

Wahooo! It's dumpster time, baby! Again, for those of you who were around last year, you know that the coming of Spring around here isn't celebrated with the arrival of the first Robin Redbreast, but with the arrival of the first dumpster.

Well, Spring might not arrive for another month officially, but since the upstairs bathrooms had been begging to be put out of their misery for quite some time, and the weather looked good, we went ahead Friday morning, and ordered our first dumpster of the season:

Ain't she pretty?

And things went incredibly well. We loaded all of the crap we'd stacked around the property from our demolition this winter-- the upper kitchen cabinets and ceiling, and the family room ceiling. Life was good, and we're sure the karma around the property was significantly lightened. Or if not, at least the place didn't so much look like Tobacco Road.

Then we set to work on the master bathroom, which hadn't been touched since the Era of Bad Joey, Prince of Dark Molding. We discovered that, as a matter of fact, Joey'd been in rare form when he installed the bathroom. We stripped away three layers of drywall, a pile of mouse-eaten insulation, and a mess of tattered sheet plastic that we can only assume Joey thought would make a good vapor barrier. Except... said layers of drywall, insulation and plastic were installed on all surfaces-- interior walls, exterior walls and ceiling. We don't know why.

To be fair, maybe Joey thought that insulating and installing a vapor barrier in all the bathroom surfaces would completely contain the moisture inside that small space. But considering that there was no ventilation whatsoever in the bathroom, except for a really cheap, sticky 70's replacement window that only operated when it felt like it, we had to question Joey's thinking on the matter. After pondering it over and over again, tossing and turning in the wee hours of the morning, we decided that the tension headaches and concommitant investment in Advil wasn't worth it, and decided to go back to our original evaluation. Like our five year old's decision to engage the Viking horde... We. Don't. Know. Why.

But the tale doesn't end there. After stripping the inexplicable layers, we encountered another episode of "Bad Joey's Adventures in Framing." Now, we realize that we'd quit documenting Joey's creative framing techniques, because after we'd unearthed mounds of them, they started to become par for the course. But this one's so spectacular, we just couldn't let it go by without mention:

When you look at the photo, bear in mind that the house is balloon framed-- the vertical framing members run from the foundation up to the ceiling of the second floor. Clearly, sometime in the house's 160+ year history, a fire charred a few beams.

Joey, instead of just replacing the fried beam in the photo above, scabbed pieces of wood after wood, after wood, to no avail structurally. Man, how hard would it have been to just cut out the damaged section, and replace it with a 2x6? That would have actually met solid wood top and bottom?

Ehh... never mind. The mantra of the day? All together now... We. Don't. Know. Why.

We showered and settled down Saturday night after a good day's demolition, and decided to surf through all six TV channels that we get from the antenna in the attic. As luck would have it, PBS was showing Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. Hey, old movies fit the bill for mindless entertainment after schlepping tons of drywall and assorted bathroom fixtures down the stairs all day.

So we snuggled down in front of a big ol' bowl of microwave popcorn. We luuurve us some Cary Grant. And ok, the Kilted One finds Myrna Loy oddly attractive, in that 1940's marriedcoupleintwinbedsseparatedbyanightstandsortofway. Whatever. (Note To Self: file KiltedOne in the "Inscrutable Mental Process" file, after Bad Joey and Five Year Old Daughter.)

We find that we can completely sympathize with poor Mr. Blandings.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, and we happily continued to cart the remains of Joey's renovation out the door. Around 6 pm, we were scooping up the dregs of the dust and plaster in the bins to be carted out to the dumpster, when the KiltedOne suddenly straightens his body, cocks his head like a meerkat and says, quite innocently, "Sounds like the well pump kicked in, but hasn't turned off. I'm going to go down and check it out."

His inspection reveals that the well pump is indeed chugging along, but is sucking air like Marlon Brando in his last movie role. The pump won't hold pressure, and it won't make it through the night. We killed power to the pump, and headed out in search of a replacement pump. As you can imagine, our options were severely limited on a Sunday night at 7 pm. But we found a pump and replacement well tank at the Despot, and set to replumbing.

Unfortunately, the new pump, tank and plumbing didn't quite do the trick. Marlon Brando returned, and at midnight on Sunday night, we gave up and resigned ourselves to calling in a plumber. Said Plumber arrived, checked the plumbing, tank and pump, and having satisfied himself that the problem lie elsewhere, proceeded to pull the wickedly large and heavy concrete well cover off the well and proclaimed...

Eureka! A fitting connecting the pump inside the house to the well assembly had blown, and was spraying water (and sucking in air) like the Fountain of Trevi. We fell at his feet, singing Hosannahs like true believers. Unfortunately, our hopes of finding the One True Messiah were dashed when he declared "I can't fix that problem. My home office says it's too dangerous for me to go down in the well, so you'll have to find someone else."

Gah. Talk about Golden Calves.

So we set about finding, not your run-of-the-mill plumber, but an actual well guy, who could duck into the nearest phone booth, don red and blue spandex with a big hexagonal "S" on the chest and climb six feet down into our 3 foot-wide, 27 foot-deep hole, and fix our blown fitting without plunging headfirst into the pit of doom like that scary psycho girl from that Ring movie.

Took us much gnashing of teeth, and sitting around with our thumbs up our a**es, (and two days without water) but the Well Wizard finally showed up at 4 pm on Tuesday afternoon. Dude looks at the blown fitting, says "Yah, that's a mess." We say "We absolutely concur. Did you bring a winch assembly and a safety belt to lower yourself down into the Pit O' Doom, fix the problem, and emerge unscathed by the flames of Satan himself?"

He says, "Nah," and disappears around the corner of the house.

He comes back a few minutes later, with a long, rickety old wooden ladder, a 6 foot iron bar, and the pockets of his coveralls full of tools and fittings. Without further ado, he lowers the rickety wooden ladder into the well, catches it two rungs from the end with the iron bar, and suspends the whole thing over the well hole. Ten minutes later, the blown plastic fitting's been replaced with brass, fixed with two pipe clamps at either end, and he's hollering for us to come back from walking the dog to sign off on the work order.

Hallelujah! We love Well Wizard. And oh, yeah, dude was cute, and would have totally been able to pull off the red and blue Spandex thing.

It was a long, exhausting experience, but at least we've got water again. A happy ending for all, us and Mr. Blandings.

Hey, if you ain't eatin' Wham, you ain't eatin' ham!

March 11, 2004: Aw, man. We thought we had the makings of a David Mamet screenplay after our recounting of the well pump disaster, but we completely forgot one thing...

Photos of the one and only success of the weekend-- the demolition of the master bathroom! Roll your mouse over the image for before and afters...

Big improvement, huh? The exorcism of BadJoey continues, square foot by square foot.

Hey, don't make fun. Linda Blair was a wuss-girl compared to Joey, and pea soup vomited projectile-fashion cannot possibly do anywhere near enough damage to a structure as Joey could.

March 17, 2004: Daughter's tucked away in bed, ToolBeltBabe is cozily ensconced in the family room watching "America's Next Top Model," (No... I don't. know. why), the Grateful Dead's "Skeletons in the Closet" is in the CD player, and I, the KiltedOne, have control of the computer for this website update. So . . .

Just prior to the Great Well Pump Disaster, we had decided to remove the wall between the kitchen and the family room, pictured below:

The kitchen's completely trashed from our piecemeal demolition starting in October 2003, and continuing in January and February of this year, and the family room's mostly trashed from our demolition in November of last year. Couple that with the fact that we have to solidify our framing plans for the bathrooms (located above the kitchen) so that we know where to run the plumbing, and it was time for the wall to come down. Time to expose the framing and shore it up for the next phase of the renovation. Otherwise, knowing our luck, the wall would come down anyway, at the most inopportune time, with the entire second floor right behind it, or above it, or crashing down around it. Anyway, we've learned that pro-active demolition's always best. It minimizes the surprises at 3 am.

Around here, the only thing that makes us happier than new construction going up/in, is dust flying as demolition commences, preferably with much swinging of sledgehammers and the buzzing of reciprocating saws. And so, with much vigor, we set to.

I must digress shortly for my own observations on the work of BadJoey. . .

ToolBeltBabe has gone on at some length (and deservedly so) about the incomparable work of the 1970's "renovator" of this particular old house. Let's just say that whenever we commence demolition of any portion of our home, within about 10 minutes or less of the serious application of inertial powered multi-directional impact generators (the Pentagon's 1980's description of $600.00 "hammers"), inevitably one of the other of us says: "Omigod. . . you have got to see this!" And the other comes over, shakes their head in disbelief, scratches the scalp, and exclaims: "What the holymotherofgod was BadJoey thinking!?!?" Eventually, this devolves into impressions of Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now" as, in resignation of the enormity of what we face, we rub our heads in utter disbelief and mutter: "The horror... the horror..."

Having exposed the beginnings of the work that He-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken-aloud had wrought, the initial thrill of discovery inevitably is followed by the revelations of multiple additional examples of BadJoeyisms, piling one atop the other until wonderment fatigue at the woodworking ineptitude of The Plumber (as He is also sometimes charitably called) ultimately sets in, our sides ache from laughing so hard, and we are reduced to the type of cursing such as would make a Singapore-based sailor blush.

Example: Of the 9 vertical balloon studs originally supporting this wall of the house between the kitchen and family room, BJ completely cut out three contiguous ones, leaving 1/3 of the upstairs portion of the house without support. Why? We.Don't.Know. Review his patch-work "repair" of the previously charred support timber in the master bathroom in our first entry this month. . .

The shame of it is, considering the amount of virtual-ink spilled on this website relating the crimes of The Plumber (and I don't mean G. Gordon Liddy), we have really only related considerably less than 1/2 of the "WTF?!?!?!'s" with which Joey's blessed us.

Oh, and lest you think that BadJoey The Plumber was actually a competent "plumber" . . . during our latest demolition, we discovered that he was not even marginally capable at that discipline either, given he had vented every one of the fixtures in the entire house (two bathrooms, a powder room, the kitchen, and a laundry room) through one vent that had to be "boxed" outside of a wall he installed. Not the best example of sane, sanitary or sensible plumbing. But I digress.

So. . . We set about demolishing The Wall, which first entailed removing the drywall that MeasureOnceCutTwice had placed over the plaster.

See, now. . . much as we try, commentary on BJ's work is simply inescapable. The scrap pieces of wood used by this guy to scab out the original wall to take drywall (rather than just removing all of the plaster and lathe off to get to bare studs) is simply mind-boggling. He must have had a cousin in the Scrap Wood and Nail Manufacturing business. Or the local hardware store (pre-Despot) ran frequent Nail and Scrap Wood Specials. I mean, the sheer number of nails used . . . I'm only sorry that you, gentle reader, can't get a sense of that particular Soprano's determination that his work would endure for all time. 18 nails, in a 10 inch piece of wood, that had no structural purpose that we could determine?

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair."

Alas, BadJoey is simply no match for The Babe and her trusty Sawzall, and the wall came a' crumblin' down:

It looked good, sort of. Or at least we could visualize how good it would look when it's all done. More importantly, the house is still standing, but the demolition only demonstrated how much more work we had to do to fix Joey's "renovations" to get it structurally sound.

So, on to the span tables for engineered framing members, and on to praying that there will be something strong enough to hold up the upper two floors of our house after Joey hacked out half of the structural supports bisecting the house. Better living through chemistry, or structural engineering, indeed. TrusJoist ain't never seen nothin' like this. . . Hope they're up to it.

Now, lest y'all think all we do every night is remove critical portions of our house, drink wine and listen to Jerry, we also took some time out for fun and games in the last couple of weeks. At the command of our 5 year-old daughter, we attended the concert of a couple of "American Idols" up in Philadelphia-- Kelly Clarkson, the Idol winner from 2002, and a certain tall, lanky, spiky-haired, sexually ambiguous runner-up from 2003, whom our daughter has decided she wants to marry.

Sorry to be so pseudo-cryptic about the other concert headliner, but if you've been anywhere but Outer Mongolia in the last 8 months or so, you will understand that the mere mention of the name of the red-haired, geeky, almost-anointed one on a website will send the site crashing down to Middle Earth itself in hits by rabid teenage guuurrlls, and their equally rabid mothers, and grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. . . We don't get the phenomenon (though our daughter obviously does), but it doesn't matter. We value our webhosting service, so we're not going there.

Anyway, we liked Kelly-- she was cute, obviously polished from her year as reigning "Idol," and in great voice. We might pick up her CD to round out our next Amazon order. As for Spiky Haired Boi, well . . . anyone who can make our 5 year-old swoon for an entire hour rates for us.

We also participated in a fund-raising auction for our daughter's school, at which I was the featured fast-talking auctioneer and The Babe kept me on message with cues from the back of the room, and vocally coherent with ample supplies of hot water and tea.

Oh, and Tool Belt Babe's Mini-me (the 5yo daughter) decided that she wanted to dye her hair pink. We ultimately indulged her whim, though it took us a while to find pink hair-dye that would wash out. But now she's got pink streaks through her otherwise blonde locks. She's happy, her kindergarten teacher is horrified, and all is right with the world. Helllloooo, teen years.

See, it's not all work around here...

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