So it took us a few years

But we have finally, finally finally fixed this situation:

http://thischarmingoldhouse.blogspot.com/2006/12/whhhhhaaaaat-part-2.html

Yes, way back in 2006, we documented one of the many oddities of the house, specifically the hole in the floor of the upstairs bathroom.  It was one of those things that bothered us, but that we didn't know how to fix, and that wasn't a hugely pressing issue.  But now, lo these many years later, it is fixed.  And there was great rejoicing in the land.

Our awesome next-door-neighbor and all around handywoman, Liza came over and fixed that thing right up.  Here's what it looks like now:

We also had her install a new faucet.

Next up: ELECTRICITY!

First, we had this box underneath the cabinet in the kitchen. Jake had installed it when the previous under-cabinet lighting fixture (which included an outlet) died.  It's where we plug in our kettle, so it's a pretty important one. 

 Lisa fixed it up with a more appropriate exterior-mount box and put it on the wall, in addition to tacking up the on/off switch for the undercabinet light so it's not so hard to find.  Genius!

She also moved the light switch that turns on the overhead light/fan in the kitchen so that now you can turn it on when you walk through the door.  I know, I know, seems pretty basic, but previously, you had to walk into the kitchen, around the stove, and over to the microwave nook to turn on the light.  So now, when you come to our house, you'll be able to turn on the kitchen light without a map!  We're still fumbling over it, though, and will be for the foreseeable future, I'm sure.

And then, our favorite piece: a new cabinet!Hooray!

Halloween (postponed)

So it's our favorite day of the year, but things have been crazy, crazy, crazy.  The storm that blew through has caused a lot of damage.  We are fine, and in fact never lost power, but our friends have not fared so well.  Just one block up the hill from us, all our wonderful friends have been without power since Saturday night, and may continue so til Wednesday or Thursday...we just don't know.  Lowell has postponed Trick or Treat, as have most of the towns in the area.  The numbers are bad (as per the Lowell Sun):


National Grid was reporting an estimated 500,000 electrical customers across the state were still without power as of noon Monday. Just in Middlesex County, more than 88,000 National Grid customers were without power.
Dunstable police report that the town is mostly in the dark and could be without power for four days.
Billerica police report that 70 percent of the town is without power and could be for another two or more days.

Read more: http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_19232424?source=rss_viewed#ixzz1cPGgQRAv

We're very happy to be safe and warm and fully electrified. More updates when we have them.  Hope you're all safe and warm!

so much to blog, so little time

If you're wondering why I've not been blogging lately, here's a visual for you:
Yup. Tenure binders. 14 of 'em. They are making my life miserable. But well-documented misery, that's for sure.

But there have been tons of things happening that I want to blog about -- our trip to the beach, the visit from Grandma, the progress of the garden (ooh! blueberries and tomatoes), the fun of the folk festival, Carter's haircut, our latest awesome new gadgets (I'm looking at you, carbonator!), our broken car and the mechanics of dubious honesty and/or competence....and the list goes on. I hope to come back to these sometime. I also really want to scan some of Lucy's recent drawings, which have been pretty amazing. But I just don't have the time at the moment. Blargh!

So for now, here are some teasers:
1) What's going on here:
Yup, exciting electrical work here at 83 Durant. In a forthcoming issue of "The Joys of Old House Electrical Systems."

2) Updates from Lucy's school. In Orange Family, things get more rigorous. Students have to start thinking about their future life plans. Witness the board of "When I grow up, I will be..." from Lucy's classroom:
And here is a close-up of Lucy's plan:
I think I might need to include that in my tenure binder.

3) Conversations with Lucy:
Oh, there have been so many. Here is a short, recent one:
Lucy (while sitting in stroller on the way home from school): Mom, what comes after zero?
Bridget (assuming this question is a trick): "uh, one?"
Lucy (exasperated): NO Mom, the other way.
Bridget: Uh, negative one.
Lucy (delighted!): NEGATIVE ONE!

Needless to say, Jake is delighted and preparing for further discussion of integers.

Let there be (not ugly) light!

Admit it: if you've visited 83 Durant, you've thought, in passing, "wow, those lights in the front hallway are kinda ugly." You know you have. I have thought that roughly once a day every day we've lived here.

Today, that has changed.

For those of you unfamiliar with our now old lighting fixtures, here's a picture:



My main problem with these was with the glass, which was tinted a light brownish color, almost as if the fixture was made of sunglasses. Also, we were less than crazy about the brass/gold color. There were in fact two of these in the front hall, the first thing you see when you walk into our house.


This project was long delayed by the problem of finding and purchasing the actual fixtures. It's not easy to shop for lighting. We saw a few things that we really liked, but they were crazy handmade pieces of art and well beyond our budget. Most of the other things we saw left us feeling "meh." Finally, after several disappointing trips to look at actual lighting in stores, I actually ordered fixtures online. I went with Lighting Direct, and I'm happy with the service and product. I would not have thought that online was the way to go (I really felt like I needed to see them before I bought them), but the site had a good return policy if it turned out I didn't like them. Well, it turned out that I really liked them a lot. They're Energy Star rated (always a plus) and I found them on sale w/ a coupon, so it was a pretty good deal. Our wonderful next-door-neighbor the electrician came over to do the install for us today. And here's the new look of the front hall:

Here's a closer shot of one:

Sorry those aren't great shots, but really, the fixtures are SO much better. I really really like how they look! Hooray!

What a Dryer will Require

Apparently, in addition to a new dryer, we are in need of a few other adjustments to the basement.
These include:
1. New wiring & a new outlet
2. (Potentially) a new venting system, which may include a new hole in the wall.

Issue #1: Electrical
Here's the current electrical situation for the current dryer:
Our current dryer has a 3-prong plug, and the wall has the matching 3-prong outlet. Our new dryer has a 4-prong plug, thus we will be needing a 4-prong outlet. According to various internet sources, we could actually re-wire the dryer to use the 3-prong plug, but the consensus of safety-minded folks is that we should really keep the dryer as it was manufactured and update our wiring. Thankfully, we have a wonderful neighbor who's an electrician, so she'll be coming over on Saturday morning to fix us up. Hooray!

Issue #2: Venting
This one might be more serious, but we're not sure yet. Here's the situation at the back of the dryer:

Yes, that is the vent from the dryer directing down into the floor. There is a crawl space under that floor, but we do not know where the vent goes once it goes down there. Does it exit somewhere in the back of the house? We've never noticed, but it's possible. What is more like (and what we fear) is that it just blows all the dryer nastiness directly into the crawl space under the house. This situation is less than ideal,* and obviously something we will want to fix for the new dryer. Will we be putting a new hole in the wall? Or can we figure a way to take it out through the floor and direct it outside? Or is it really OK the way it is? We hope to answer these questions for you (and ourselves) this weekend when we begin the Great Dryer Odyssey of 2010.

Stay tuned!

*I should note, and perhaps he will elaborate later, that Jake once lived in a house where the dryer actually vented directly into the house. Like, into the room (I believe it was the kitchen) where the dryer was. I believe he described some sort of sock-like contraption that hung at the end of the venting.

Past Mysteries Re-Visited

And just to follow up on a past post, a while ago, we asked our dear readers to tell us what this strange plug was about. Jake did some further investigations to find out what was behind the plate. Here it is:

There were no wires in there at all. Jake pulled out the thingy, and here it is, in all its broken ceramic glory (It was already broken before he took it out):

Readers, do you have any further suggestions?

83 Durant Mysteries, Continued

This post is part of an ongoing series exploring the mysteries of 83 Durant. You may remember previous posts, like WHHHHHHAAAT part 1, part 2, and part 3. Whenever we take on a project, we always uncover new mysteries about the house.

The recent work in the pink room has raised some questions. Readers, we'd love to hear from you -- explanations, scientific or humorous -- are always most welcome.

Without further delay, answer me these questions three:

Question 1:
What kind of plug is the one on the left?


Question 2 (same as 1, but different picture):
What kind of plug is the one on the left here? I think it looks like cable, but there's no actual cable coming out of it. There are two of these in this room.


Question 3:
Have we made a serious mistake in covering up the box that's photographed here?
This is a mystery box that was in the wall, a little bit below where the doorbell is attached to the wall. It seemed to have no wires in it. Why is it here/what does (did) it do, and now that it's covered by drywall, are we in trouble?


Bonus Question:
What's up with this door?


I know, trick question. There are many things wrong with this door. First, there's the pink accent, which is not our fault. Then there's the red accent on that top section, which is our fault, because we were trying out a color that we thought we might be able to just paint over the pink (no dice).

If you look at that door, you may notice that something besides the color is off-kilter. It's just not-quite-right that there are three rectangles -- it just seems like they're not spaced appropriately, right? Yeah, now that you mention it, it does look kind of off.

That's because this door apparently is not an original door for this spot. If you look at the bottom, you will see that this door has been made larger with an extra couple pieces of wood attached to make the bottom 4 inches or so. This door was originally meant for a doorway that was shorter. Also, it's pretty clear that it's not really supposed to be an exterior door. It's not nearly as thick or sturdy as the other exterior doors in the house. This has me wondering what happened to the original door.

That's all for today. Hope you're having a lovely weekend. It's hot and rainy here. Sigh.

Power on (at least for now)!

The power came back on around 12:30, then went off again around 3:45; it's back on again now, but who knows for how long.

Campus is closed for tomorrow, too. Power is still off in various places around town. Yikes! Lucky for us!

Electrifying Goodness

No big updates recently; our jobs and my exhaustion have kinda kept us from doing much around the house on the big projects (or from blogging about them). This week, we did have our next-door-neighbor, Lisa, the licenced electrician come by to fix some stuff for us. She has been great!
She re-installed the lighting fixtures in the baby's room, including the overhead light in the main room


and in the closet.

Let there be light! She also dealt with the electrical cord that was sticking out inside the built-in, as you can see in this before and after pair:


































We also had a new problem -- the one outlet on the front wall of our bedroom blew a month or so ago. It was the one we used to power our bedside lamps, alarm clocks, and the air conditioner (perhaps that's why it blew). It wasn't just a fuse or circuit-breaker issue; it seems that it was one of the outlets with older wiring, and somewhere along the line, the wire fried. Lisa couldn't find the specific spot (without, say, ripping apart all of the walls) so we decided to cover that outlet completely and have two brand new ones installed.
Here's the old one, covered up:

And here's one of the new ones:

These are heavy-duty receptacles, with 20-amp (instead of only 15-amp) service, so we're good to go for plugging in all our power tools and air conditioners and whatnot.

Putting in the new ones involved a lot of fancy professional electrician kinda stuff, so we were very pleased to have an expert. She set things up and strung new wires from the basement, up through the wall by the chimney, overhead through the attic, and then into nice new heavy-duty outlets in the bedroom (one for each side of the bed). It's great, and now we don't have to worry about plugging in the air conditioner. [On a side note, I cannot believe that we still need an air conditioner in October in Massachusetts!]

While in the basement, Lisa showed Jake some of the fascinating wiring in our house. Most of it is more recent, and all of it looked safe to her, but it's really quite the wiring museum down there. Jake has some pictures, and he can probably elaborate further on our little piece of electrical history.



Other than that, we need to get back to finishing the baby's room; that's on the list for next week. Jake has primed all the trim, and also painted the ceiling with the ceiling white color (it has a name, but I forget what it is. Weirdly, it's not just "white.") The room is looking a bit creepy right now, with white on every surface. It's like some weird optical illusion:

Basement Improvements and New Plant Purchases

Today we got rid of a few things via Freecycle, but we also acquired some new things: These awesome lockers:


There are two sets of two lockers each. They're perfect for re-living my high school years. And also for storage.


Carter was not a big fan:

Now that the lockers are here, the basement is becoming much more like "Man Town." We've set up the TV for the future exercise area. There was an old radio left here by the previous owners. We took out the (broken and dusty) insides and we're using the case as a TV stand. I think it's pretty great. I'm thinking the little round glass needs a clock, or maybe a fishbowl in it.



Also, I've been working on drawing circuit maps of the house. This started in part because we finally plugged in (and began filling) our FREEZER! We wanted to make sure that it wasn't on the same circuit as something else (like the dryer). The circuit box has some indicators about what goes to what, but they're kind of confusing, and some of them are just wrong.

Here's my map of the basement outlets:

We also went to Salt Box Nursery, where we had a gift certificate (thanks, Rose and John!) and we bought some new addtions to the yard. They're either small trees or large plants.
We got a pair of holly trees -- male and female:

This is a lilac tree.
It should bloom purple, so we're going to put it next to our (rather large) white lilac that's already in the back yard.

Masters of Electricity and Plumbing

We've had a lot of help around the house lately here at 83 Durant! Check out the updates:

Ernie installed an awesome dimmer switch for the sconce lighting fixtures in the dining room. Who needs complicated 3-way switch installation instructions when you have Ernie! Thanks, Ernie! Here's the man in action:






















John (with assistance from Jake) installed our new utility sink. Unfortunately, they worked so fast, I didn't get a chance to record them in action, but here's the finished product:


Yes, they cut those special legs for it themselves, as we bought a sink that didn't have any of its own. It's a pretty sturdy set-up. And with the addition of some plumber's putty, it doesn't even leak! Awesome!

And as you may have noticed, beside that sink, you can see our FREEZER!! This Freezer Rules! Well, it's not plugged in yet, but upon our return from July travels, we will plug it in and start filling it with garden bounty! Woo hoo!

Electrifying

During the process of spare bedroom demolition (detailed in a previous post), there was one unintended, accidental destruction: we broke the lighting fixture (the overhead light w/ the switch). Today, I was thrilled to have our lovely next-door-neighbor, Lisa, and her daughter Cookie, come over and fix it for us. Lisa is an electrician and just all around lovely person. Cookie (who is in third grade) serves as assistant on Lisa's smaller (at home) jobs. It turns out that we had broken it in two places -- the switch itself and the overhead light were both messed up. (I'm sketchy on the details, so I'm afraid "messed up" is as well as I can explain things.) But they are no longer messed up, and instead, we have light! And safety!

She also mentioned that the electricity in the house was updated by the owners BEFORE the previous owners, so about a dozen years or so ago. She said she thought the wiring actually looked a lot better than most of what she'd seen in houses this age, so that was nice to hear.

We're so so thankful to have such kind & capable neighbors!

A funny thing happened while Lisa was working on the project. She needed to run out to the hardware store in the middle of it (I was pleased that we're not the only ones this happens to), so she went to our local Ace Hardware. While there, buying stuff for the spare bedroom, she ran into Zach, the former resident of that very bedroom. No kidding. We had never met him, but Lisa knew the former owners, including Zach (one of the kids) very well.

Zach asked if we had done anything to the house, and she told him we'd done a lot with the outside. The he asked if we'd done anything to his bedroom, because it was a mess, and because he knew there was a big leak in the room -- one that required a bucket -- that they had spray painted over when they sold the house. He said he thought they should have told us about the leak. He also mentioned that he had punched some holes in the wall, and that he could see outside through them. These things, of course, we have already discovered on our own. But he did mention one thing that we didn't know -- he said that there's asbestos in the attic. This seems a little strange (I thought asbestos was mostly in basement, around pipes and furnaces), but interesting. I wish they had told us about the leak, but, we figured it out soon enough.

All around, it was a very informative day!

The old switcheroo

We bought these awesome switchplate covers while we were in New Hampshire a few weekends ago, and we just got around to installing them today. Both are in the kitchen.




You can find these yourself direct from the creator, Tin Can Sally: http://www.tincansally.com/

We did some yard work today, and of course, Carter was just as helpful as ever:

More Infrared Images

In reponse to popular request, and because I just think these images are really cool, I'm including a few more images from our Infrared photo report. You should be able to click on the images to see bigger, full-page versions.

This first one is from our bedroom, and it does a nice job of showing the contrast between an insulated and an uninsulated area of the wall:

This is the outside wall in the upstairs bathroom. Said bathroom does not have a radiator in it (though it does have that mysterious hole in the floor). It also has a non-functioning electric heating element under the sink cabinet. We have hooked up a small electric radiator in this room, but the corner pictured here is rather far away from that heater.


Perhaps the most serious problem that the photos uncovered is the place where the one-story flat roof on the back of the house meets the side wall of the back of the house. The pictures below are from the pink room. The very cold spots on the ceiling and at the top of the wall are at the spot where the flat roof meets the exterior wall. There's also an uninsulated bay in there between the room and a closet.


So it seems that the flashing where the flat roof meets the house has some gaps, or is uninsulated. Interestingly, the bathroom that was the victim of frozen pipes earlier this season is DIRECTLY ABOVE this area of the house. This would seem to explain the freezing.

We also have another cry for help to our readers. We thank all of you who made suggestions to our previous issue (the basement window well). Here's a photo:



This is in the ceiling in the basement laundry room. I know, I know, it's a light socket. That much is clear to me. The problem is, as you may be able to see, the pull-chain that is supposed to turn it on and off is completely missing. It would be very handy to have this bulb operational, to provide more light in the laundry room. Any suggestions on what to do about this?

Small projects; Small Dogs

It was a rather uneventful weekend, but we did manage to get a few things done. Jake fixed the broken utensil drawer in the kitchen using the saw and some scrap wood from our local Ace hardware. I fixed the wiring on an old lamp so that it works (and, at least as far as I know, no longer poses a fire hazard). Looks like seventh grade electrical shop class has finally paid off! Check it out:


In other news, we found last week that Carter was having a hard time with the snow -- it got in between his toe pads, and seemed to be causing him some pain, resulting in pathetic, raised-paw pauses during walks. Here he is, a few days ago, less than pleased about the snow in the back yard:













And here he is, only slightly less pleased today, after I put on his brand new doggie booties. He looked so sad that I didn't even try to put the ones on his back feet.

WHHHHHAAAAAT? (Part 1)

This is the first of feature I am sure will contain many, many parts. There are some strange things about our house. Unsolved mysteries, curious solutions to unknown problems, and general thing that make us go WHHHHHHAAAT? Why did someone do that to our house?
A brief list, so you get the gist:
-- a lightswitch (kitchen) that does not seem to turn anything on or off
-- cloth stuffed into the side of chimney in the basement
[Also, said chimney appears to be load-bearing. -jb]
-- a beautiful wallpapering job in the bedroom, sadly marred by bright pink paint seeping through due to lack of primer
-- pipes in odd places, like the bathroom ceiling
-- mysteriously lowered ceilings (downstairs bathroom, I'm looking at you!)
-- holes in odd places in the wall (what could they have hung there?)

These are just a few; we are constantly finding more. Here is today's WHHHHHHHAAAAAT? moment:



Yes, that is a piece of a pencil jammed behind the outlet box. This outlet is in the kitchen. I had been annoyed that the little outlet cover didn't seem to quite fit in place, so I took it off to see if I could get it on a bit tighter. After seeing this, and realizing that the outlet sticks out because of the pencil, which I can only assume must have been put there for a reason (though unfathomable) I just put the outlet cover back on. No mystery solved.

Minor Project Updates

We've been busy with school and Halloween lately, so not much time for projects. We've done a few small things, like putting up lightswitch and outlet covers in the basement. We also put up a nice paper lantern in the kitchen. The photo shows it here attached to the ceiling fan in the kitchen. You can also see our lovely pressed tin ceiling and cheerful kitchen curtain on the window over the sink.

I also did a bunch of weatherizing, including the gaps in the door to the pink room. But that's not really photo-worthy.

The painters are all finished with the outside. We're pleased with how it looks, but a bit frustrated with the contractor. We have paint chips and paint drips everywhere. Time to bust out the shop-vac. The painting contractor is supposed to put up gutters for us, but we haven't heard from him in a while. We are learning that it's hard to get house jobs done. Sigh.