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Category Archives: Remodeling

Various Overdue Updates

18 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by SaraS in NaNoWriMo, Remodeling, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Various Updates

I have really been neglecting my blog lately; I have a feeling Ally is going to come after me soon if I don’t post something!

What can I say? Things have been busy. So some random updates here…

NaNoWriMo

I am still mostly on track. So far I’ve written 27,481 words, so only 22,519 to go! I’m mostly on track, although I haven’t done my daily writing allotment yet today (Friday). Its been a long day, so I may just take a break tonight.

For the most part, I’ve managed to write just about every day of the month, although on some days I didn’t do very much. I think on my worst day I only did around 400 words. Most other days I came close to or surpassed by goal by a small amount.

As for the quality of what I’m writing. Well, there are some parts so far that I like, and I still think there is a worthwhile story in here somewhere, but there are also large patches that I know are going to need to be changed or cut completely when I go back and edit.

Now that I’m so far in, I’m finding it a little more difficult to shut off my inner editor and just write. Yesterday was particularly annoying…I’m really not happy with what I wrote at all. I think I am going to try going in a slightly different direction from this point.

Fortunately, I’m taking vacation days next week, plus the long weekend for Thanksgiving. So I should have the time to crank out the words and finish by the end of the month!

Gadgets

Somewhat related to books, although more about reading them than writing them…a few days ago I got a new Kindle Touch 3G. I went with the pricier version with 3G so that I would still have the option to download books when I’m not connected to a wifi network.

This was an upgrade over my old 2nd generation Kindle. The nice thing is, it only cost me $9.99! Okay, that’s not exactly accurate. I had a $100 visa gift card that has been sitting around unused for nearly a year. I also had $30 worth of Best Buy “reward” gift certificates. So I used all that to pay for it and only had to shell out $9.99 of my actual money.

So far I like the new Kindle. It is much lighter and sleeker than my old one, and I like the fact that I don’t have to listen to loud button-clicks when turning pages since it is all done via the touch screen. It will definitely be lighter next summer when I take it backpacking. Also, even though I got the 3G model, you can also connect it to a wifi network when available, which seems to transfer books more quickly. My old one did not have that option.

Just for kicks, I generated a Kindle version of my novel-in-progress to see what it would look like in that form. Here’s a picture:

my draft on a Kindle

My draft NaNoWriMo Novel on a kindle

I find it kind of cool to see this. I’ve also tested out reformatting it as a paperback novel and it comes out to about 107 pages. Somehow the words look different when presented as an actual book.

Of course, being busy with NaNoWriMo means I haven’t really had time to read much with the new Kindle. I read a few pages of a book I started before November and one short story. That’s about it so far.

House Projects

I am really behind on posts about recent house projects. A few weeks ago, Renee took out these big ugly sliding door in the shed (it was really just a piece of plywood pretending to be a door), reframed the opening, and installed a nice, real door and window. It looks great! I have a bunch of pictures to the process that I need to organize and write about.

Then she’s been working to help Carolyn and Ally redo their living room / dining room with new lighting, a new half-wall room divider with columns, new insulation in the attic, and paint. It turned into a pretty big project (all starting from just one new light fixture). It isn’t quite finished, but I think they are pretty happy with it so far. The plan is to work on painting tomorrow. I think this whole thing will be done in time for Thanksgiving dinner!

Again, I’ve got plenty of pictures – I just need to find the time to get them organized and write a post!

The Great Cat Room Remodel Part II

09 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by SaraS in Cats, Remodeling

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

doors, insulation, roofing, windows

(see part one here)

This year, we decided to solve some of the problems with the cat room — particularly the issues with the temperature and the high energy bill to keep them warm. Also, we really wanted to make it a more comfortable home for the cats, so they could better enjoy living here. In other words, it was time to turn the old shed into a deluxe cat condo.

Renee is already known as the “house project queen.” Since meeting her, I’ve helped with numerous home improvement projects (and I plan to write posts about more of them as well). But I think in some ways this particular project was the largest we’ve done since I met her. We did it over the weekends, and it pretty much took up every weekend in the month of September except Labor day (when we went backpacking), plus the first weekend of October. Not to mention the work that Renee did by herself on her days off when I was at my normal job.

Weekend Number 1: Sept 10-11

The project started innocently enough. We went to Home Resource to see if we could find an inexpensive door to install. Our plan was to frame out the opening of the shed and install a normal door. But we wanted to be sure and include plenty of glass, so that the cats would get lots of natural light.

The shed also has a back room that serves as a greenhouse; last spring we started various seeds back there for the garden. The door between the cats’ room and the greenhouse was a heavy piece of wood on sliding rails that always got stuck. So we also wanted to find a way to fix that and make it easier to get in and out of that part of the room.

Sliding door

The door we missed out on at Home Resource

At home resource, we came across a sliding glass patio door and this gave us a great idea. Instead of framing out the shed opening, we could install a sliding patio door! This would give them a real door, while at the same time still letting in as much light as they had before, AND it would look much nicer than the pieced-together wall we had originally planned. The opening was already about the same size as a standard patio door, so we wouldn’t have to frame anything.

Unfortunately we made the mistake of running over to Home Depot to price new patio doors first. When we came back to Home Resource, the sliding glass door was already sold. Note to self: when you find the perfect item at Home Resource, either just buy it right away or at least put down a small deposit and have them hold it. NEVER just walk away!

old windows

The old windows

It was still a productive weekend. We put a new closet-type sliding door between the cats’ room and the greenhouse and replaced one of the windows in the shed with one we found at home resource.

The new windows

New windows

Later in that week, Renee picked up some nice tile from Home Resource (only spent about $10!) and tiled the countertop in their room. It made a HUGE difference! She also dug around and found some leftover paint and started painting some of the walls, which also helped lighten up the room.

New Tile and Paint

New Tile and Paint

Weekend Number 2: Sept 17-18

The second project weekend was mostly about cleaning up. We had old plastic roofing panels that we had never finished installing the previous year. We pulled those out to return to Home Depot. We also bought a new sliding glass door since we missed out on the great Home Resource find. Just a note: sliding glass patio doors are HEAVY!

New door

Buying the new door

We also cleared out all the bales of straw, cleaned and organized, and did some more painting. The material for some of the walls had been damaged and stained due to water leaking in, and it was also pretty much just rough wood. It soaked up a lot of paint and took multiple coats to really cover.

I think the area in which we planned to install the sliding door had once been used for some sort of old pocket door. It was just hollow space. So we took apart the walls and installed real insulation. This was a messy, unpleasant job but it was satisfying to see the finished walls and know that they cats would be warmer this winter! I also got to spend lots of time fighting to unjam and reload the staple gun. That part was not especially fun.

Stapling

Installing insulation

On the Ladder

Renee ignoring all the safety warnings on the ladder.

Finally, it was time to work on the door. We wanted to install a 2×6 across the threshold for the new sliding door to rest on. This meant we needed to fasten the wood directly to the solid concrete floor. We used a Ramset tool for this. This is a powder fastening tool. To use it, you load a special nail, then load a special .22 caliber bullet. The tool acts like a gun, using the power of the bullet to drive the nail.

Ramset 1

Firing the Ramset to fasten the wood to the concrete.

Ramset 2

Renee's turn with the ramset.

We ended up installing the 2×6 twice. The first time we were both essentially practicing with the Ramset since neither of us had ever used one before. I have also never fired a gun before, so the kickback was a bit of a surprise. We discovered after installing the wood that some of the nails had  bent and were not holding it securely, so we pried them out and did it a second time.

The second time we did a much better job driving the nails straight into the wood and concrete. That wood is NOT going to budge anymore.

At last it was time to fit the door into place. I should mention that earlier in the summer, we installed a new back door on the house and it was a painful, difficult process that nearly caused a divorce. I had sworn I would never install another exterior door, but here we were, doing the same thing. So I was a bit nervous about this process.

We positioned the heavy patio door in place (moving heavy objects is NOT my strong suit), pushed it up, and…discovered that the opening was a hair too short. Despite all the measuring we did before purchasing the door. The door would have to wait until Renee could cut out the header and move it up a bit.

We cleaned up the huge mess in the room so that the cats could be a bit more comfortable in the meantime.

Finished Up the Door During the Week

During the week, Renee worked out there on some smaller projects after work. She fixed up some of the wiring and installed nice new light fixtures (also from Home Resource).

The door!

The door is finally installed!

Finishing installing the door was actually somewhat anti-climatic after all my angst over it. On Thursday (Renee’s day off), she cut out the header and moved it up to accommodate the new door. When I finished my real work for the day, I helped out. Once again, we hefted the door into place, set the bottom on our 2×6 and pushed the top up into place. This time it fit perfectly.

 Celebratory pizza

Celebratory pizza

We had a little trouble adjusting things with shims. We over did it the first time and the door became “off” enough that it would not slide smoothly. So, we pulled all the shims out and started over. The second time it worked, so once we were satisfied that everything was nice and level, we drove screws in all around the door. And it was finally in place.

We celebrated with homemade pepperoni, mushroom, and green chile pizza.

Weekend Number 3: Sept 24-25

The third weekend was for the big job: installing the new roof.

Old roof

The really crappy old roof

We had special ordered this Ondura roofing product from Lowe’s. Late in the week we got the call that it was in, so Renee picked it up and stacked in the shed area. It is a corrugated product, made out of asphalt. It looks and feels considerably more durable than the old plastic and fiberglass panels that had been up there before. We got mostly brown panels as well as a few of their translucent skylight panels so that both the greenhouse and the cats could have some natural light.

We wanted to do it right this time. I really don’t want to have to install this roof ever again. It had better last.

toony

Toony helping install sheathing

Our friend Toony came over to help, which was huge (Thanks, Toony!).

We started with replacing the rafter at the far end of the roof. The old one was rotted and nasty.

Then, we pulled down all the old panels and installed OSB (Oriented Strand Board) sheathing. Just this alone made a huge difference; we could finally walk around on the roof without having to balance on the rafters!

OSB walking down the alley

OSB walking down the alley

I somehow ended up with the job of pulling the old nails and screws out of the old panels and stacking them up neatly as Renee and Toony pulled them off and tossed them off the roof. At one point, I looked up and saw our neighbor Ron from two houses down. He came down the alley carrying a hammer, safety glasses, and a pair of gloves and said “put me to work.”

Do we have the coolest neighbor or what? This is the same neighbor that would run his snowblower down the sidewalk for our entire block last winter. He would also take a short detour with it to clear our driveway. Really just an amazing guy. He and Renee occasionally get to chatting and exchanging war stories (literal war stories — Vietnam for him and Iraq and Afghanistan for her).

He helped out all the rest of that day and all day Sunday too.

We finished up Saturday by getting all the sheathing up and ready for the new roof.

Ron and Renee

Ron and Renee at the end of the day

Skylight windows

Skylight windows

Sunday was a very, very long day. We cut openings in some of the OSB panels for skylights. It was a little creepy walking around on the roof once it had gaping holes in it.

Ron worked on installing fascia board along the eaves. He also painted it for us and installed the new drip edge.

tar paper

Renee with the tar paper

We rolled out sheets of tar paper across the OSB and stapled it down. For this job, we used a stapler that is shaped sort of like a hammer, and you smack it into the material to inject the staples. I somehow managed to take over this job. I found it entertain to walk down the length of the roof, whacking it over and over with my staple gun. (it was also around this point when we were too busy to take any more pictures…so no more pictures.)

Finally it was time to start installing the actual roofing panels. The panels were pretty easy to move around and position on the roof, but nailing them in place was very time consuming. For the nine skylight panels, we had to pre-drill holes in the panels first, then drive in 4-inch roofing nails. For the regular panels, at least we didn’t need to pre-drill, so it went a little bit faster.

It was getting dark by the time we finished.

The next day I felt like I had been beat up, or taken part in a really hard workout. My whole body was sore!

Weekend Number 4: Oct 1-2

Finally the project was winding down, but not quite done yet. We weren’t able to find another good, correctly-sized window at Home Resource, so we just bought a brand new one from Lowes. We are getting to be pros and installing windows — way easier and quicker than doors.

Once the window was in, Renee added brick moulding trim all around it and painted it with our green accent color. This completely dresses up the outside of the shed.

Now that we had a real roof on the shed, we could add insulation in the ceiling as well. This winter, the heat won’t all be escaping through the roof! Installing insulation in the ceiling was more difficult than installing it in the wall since the pieces had a tendency to flop around and land on our heads. I definitely recommend safety glasses during this task to keep that crap out of your eyes!

Also, our rolls of insulation were not really wide enough for the areas we were filling in. Renee originally bought them with something else in mind, but we really wanted to use as much existing materials for this job as we could. So we made it work.

For the first couple sections, we installed the wider section of insulation, then cut a narrower piece, stapled it in place, and taped the two sections together. However, this was rather difficult and involved a lot of reaching over our heads and fighting with the insulation. Finally we came up with the idea to do the cutting and taping on the floor first, then fit the full piece into place. This worked out MUCH better and faster. Pretty soon the whole roof was nearly done.

We ran out of insulation before we could do the last, smaller sections right around the skylights. We also still need to add sheetrock to cover up the panels. Eventually I would also like to install some nice double-paned glass over the skylight panels to help insulate a bit more.

We also did more painting. The old wood walls just soaked up the paint and required several coats to fully cover. But the end result was great — no more dark, reddish stained walls, but a nice bright interior instead!

Finally after all the insulation, painting, and cleanup, we rolled out a nice blue indoor/outdoor carpet we bought from Home Depot. This is the finishing touch that really made it feel like a room, and no longer a “shed.” No more ugly concrete for the cats to walk on — now they have wall-to-wall carpeting!

But What Do the Cats Think?

Pippin in his bed

The homeowner is getting cranky about how long this remodel is taking. "Can't you contractors speed it up? How much am I paying you?"

Like most homeowners living in their home during a big remodel, the cats did not really enjoy the construction process at all. There was just too much noise, dust and clutter! After the first couple weekends, they did get somewhat used to it. Xena would just hunker down in her crate and ignore all the activity. Pippin would go out to the patio and hang out with the dogs or sleep in his favorite chair in the shade.

But once the remodel was complete, the cats decided it was worth all the trouble and inconvenience.

Pippin likes to lay on a little mat in front of the new window. He can actually see out now, and it is no longer drafty.

Pippin in Window

Pippin approves of his window seat

When we go out to visit the cats each morning, Xena now comes right out of her crate and asks for pets. She likes walking and rolling around on the nice clean, soft carpeting.

We picked up a pet door designed for sliding glass doors for about five dollars at Home Resource (a great find as these run about $150 new!). We still need to replace the flap, but in the meantime, Renee designed a temporary flap to hold in some of the heat. Pippin has gotten practice going through the door. I don’t know if Xena will try going in and out, but hopefully she will give it a try if we have any nice warm days before winter sets in.

Tile

Love the new countertop

New carpet

New carpeting

It feels like we really finished this just in time. Late last week it started getting pretty chilly at night, so we setup the heater in their room. It is nice walking in there now and feeling no outside chill.

Geraniums

The cats even have house plants!

Cats in Sun

Xena and Pippin in the Sun

It is obvious every time we go out there that the cats are much happier now. They no longer live in a shed, or in a straw-filled barn. They live in their own private condo, and they love it!

Cats soaking up the sun

Cats soaking up the sun

There were more pictures than I could fit into this post; if you want to see them all, visit my Great Cat Remodel photo set at Flickr.

 

The Great Cat Room Remodel – Part I

08 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by SaraS in Cats, Remodeling

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cat condo

So I named the blog Muddy Poodles, and yet my first really long post here is not going to be about dogs, but rather, the cats. Xena and Pippin.

How Did I End Up with Cats?

I never used to be a cat person. Growing up, we always had dogs. I remember my dad commenting that he didn’t like cats because they “jump up on the stove and lick the butter.” I thought this was a little silly at the time since we didn’t keep the butter out on the stove where it could be licked, but I think he really just didn’t like the independence of cats and the fact that you really can’t train cats.

When I was with my ex-partner Laura, I somehow became the owner of two cats: Pippin and Xena.

Xena as a Kitten

Xena as a Kitten

My dad not currently worried about the butter

My dad not currently worried about the butter

We got Xena back in 1997 when we lived in Oak Brook, Illinois. She is a full siamese. From the time she was a kitten, she often seemed more “dog-like” than cat-like. She wasn’t much into jumping up on things or climbing.

Baby Pippin Looking Innocent

Climbing

Climbing

Pippin came along after we were living in Montana. He is some sort of random domestic short-hair mix. He came from one of Laura’s co-workers when their cat unexpectedly had kittens, so we had no idea who his parents were. He was, unlike his sister, completely cat-like, which was a bit of a surprise to me since I was used to Xena and her non-cat ways. He climbed and jumped. He loved climbing on the little cat-tree we got him. He quickly learned how to jump up on the countertops. I’ve no doubt that he would have happily licked the butter if we had left it out on the stove.

He was also the devil cat from day one. He chewed up my dining room chairs. Once, I came downstairs and found my cell phone with the charger cord dangling out of it like a little, frayed tail. The other end of the charger was still plugged into the wall. Glad he didn’t electrocute himself while chomping through the plugged-in charger.

The damaged chairs

The damaged chairs

I think Pippin was never meant to be an indoor-only cat. He just got too bored being cooped up all the time.

At Renee’s House

Fast forward a few years. Laura and I had broken up, I was now with Renee, and we decided to move in together after about a year. This presented a bit of a problem with the cats. Between the two of us we had (at the time we moved in) five dogs. Three of which were standard poodles. Sirus (the cream poodle) saw cats as prey and chased them whenever she had the chance at my house. So combining households was going to be challenging.

Our solution was to set up the shed in the backyard to be a home for the cats. It wasn’t perfect or ideal, but it mostly worked. We cleared out the various gardening tools and things, moved in a big pet crate with a big fluffy comforter, and tried to make it as comfortable for them as we could.

This solution worked, but had some definite drawbacks. It didn’t have a good solid door, so we tacked up some heavy plastic for the winter and got a small heater for them. This kept the chill out of the room, but significantly jacked up our electric bill. We also got some bales of straw to provide shelter from the cold, but the cats did not really like feeling as though they lived in a barn.

Pippin in the pond area under the pine tree.

Jungle cat on the prowl!

On the other hand, there were several good things about this solution. Pippin loved having full access to the outdoors. Once he got over his initial anxiety about being moved, he started exploring the backyard. We have a tall fence and as far as I know, he has never managed to escape into the greater outdoors. But the backyard has become his personal kingdom.

The squirrel liks to tease the dogs and pippin

The dastardly squirrel

He loves to watch birds in the trees. I don’t think he’ll ever catch one (they have become smart), but he stalks them. It is pretty funny to see him, as he makes an odd little chittering sound when he watches them. He does the same thing with squirrels. He’s as interested in watch the squirrels as the dogs. In fact, I think that may have helped him and the dogs learn to get along since they actually have something in common with each other.

Sirus and Pippin Negotiating a Truce

Sirus and Pippin Negotiating a Truce

Speaking of the dogs, the turn-around has been amazing. We keep an eye on Sirus because she sometimes still regards him as prey. But he is no longer afraid of the dogs. He stands his ground when he is out and just refuses to BE chased anymore. It is great to see him strutting around the yard, even when the dogs are out and about, with no signs of fear. The dogs have learned to respect him and mostly leave him alone.

Cats on the Deck!

Cats on the Deck!

Xena has also adjusted to her new home. She doesn’t enjoy the outdoor access quite as much as her brother, but over the summer she did sometimes come out and lounge on the pool deck in the sun.

Still, we clearly needed to do something to solve the drawbacks mentioned above…

To be continued in The Great Cat Room Remodel: Part II.


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