Stalled projects, and Idaho again

It's been over a month since the last blog post and it's not like nothing has happened, it's really that so much has happened that I haven't had the time or inclination to write. Certainly my personal home improvement projects have completely stalled, no progress whatsoever has been made on the downstairs bathroom, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy.

The mountains near Sandpoint Idaho. 

For starters, I was gone for over two weeks assisting at the Cougar Fire, a wildfire in the Idaho National Forest in the Idaho panhandle. My main function at wildfires is to provide specific weather information to the command and planning staff so they can make decisions regarding containing the fire and managing resources. It's two full weeks of 14 hour days and short nights in your tent. Very rewarding and challenging. Side benefits include working with tremendous people and getting to see parts of the country you would never otherwise visit. This fire was near Sandpoint Idaho, a beautiful small town on a gorgeous lake about a half hour north of Coeur d'Alene. Northern Idaho is truly beautiful and I hope to get back someday, as a tourist.

Chimney access door installed. 

On the home front, we had some major work done on our chimney again. The main issue is the flue for the fireplace. It goes straight up out of the firebox, then after about 10 feet it makes a right angle turn for a few feet, then straight up again to the top. This horizontal section is quite unusual, and makes it near impossible to properly clean. After two years of shrugs by the chimney cleaner, we had them install a door in the outside of the chimney so they could properly access and clean the flue. As far as I can tell, it's the first complete cleaning it has had in around a hundred years. As a fireman, I feel much more comfortable firing it up this fall.

They also fixed some of the cracks in the plaster that were caused by the improperly lined furnace flue. Next year, we will get a proper chimney cap and we will permanently repair the the outer surface. If all goes well that should be the last expense on the chimney. It is interesting to note that the chimney, flues, and related equipment has been the number one expense that we have had in our fixer upper. I think when you consider the risk if fire, and of carbon monoxide, your home's exhaust system is a proper place to hire professionals and spend a bit of money.

Here's a wintry view of our open garage. It has been open
since we moved in 3 years ago. This is about to change.  

Another big project has been started, again by professionals, is the replacement of the garage door. I really wanted to save the money and do the job myself, but nearly everyone I asked, and nearly everywhere I looked, suggested that installing a large, double garage door was just too tricky and dangerous by a weekend warrior. So, we bit the bullet and ordered a door and opener which will be installed later this week. I will be doing the wiring for the opener before they arrive, but the installation will be completed by the Gates Garage Door Company. It will be nice to keep the bats, skunks, cats and who knows what else out of our garage, not to mention winter snow. The added security will be nice too.

Hitting a moving target

A rather ugly yet plain bathroom. Note the
$5 light fixture/ 

We keep changing our mind on what we want to work on next so it's kind of hard to plan ahead. After discussion it has been decided that the half bath off the kitchen was next on the list, since I've done such a good job on the upstairs bath. (Ha Ha). I really don't understand the evolution of our tiny powder room. It was clearly not in the original plans of the house as it was added to the porch, but it seems like an early edition as it has some of the same old tile that is found in the main upstairs bathroom. It looks like an older style construction, but they punched a hole in the basement wall to get the plumbing through. In any case, the paint and tile are quite dated, with the lower half of the wall a metal "tile" that has actually rusted in spots. The first two rows of tile are ceramic, and I may retain them for sentimental or historic reasons, but that metal stuff below has to go. No decision has been made on what to replace it with, but I may dabble in ceramic tile. It should be a good place to practice at something I've never done before. The toilet and pedestal sink are newer, and in good shape so their fate is unknown. The toilet tank, at a minimum, will need to be removed to get to the tile, and if we decide to replace the sink, we will we to make that decision before I get to the tile work.

Old tile detail. along and above the thin black tile is
ceramic. Below is metal. It's amazing how well it matches.

A more pressing problem is the complete lack of insulation under the floor and in the walls causing the occasional frozen pipe. Next to and behind the bathroom is the old porch, which is unheated, and below is an unheated crawl space. I've insulated the pipe the best I can, and even added a heater to the crawl space in the winter. There is a small heater in the bathroom itself, but in the coldest weather, freezing pipes are still a problem. It really surprises me that they built it this way with no concern for frozen pipes. What I really need to do is force myself into the crawl space and insulate it. This may be a job for the fall, when all the bugs and spiders have gone away.

Use the regular paint for big jobs. Save the spray for small
ones, Trust me on this. 

Getting back to the upstairs bathroom, I mentioned last month how I needed to repaint the bathroom door as the old dark color was bleeding through. Well, I went ahead and bought the spray version of my favorite stain blocker made by Zinsser. This was a mistake. It does say on the label to use in a well ventilated place, and they mean it. Despite opening the window, the fumes were just too much, especially considering how big the door was, and how much paint I needed. I had a headache for two days. I was smart enough to do the second coat with the regular, brush applied version of the product, but frankly that stinks too. The good news is that the door came out great, after two coats of the stain blocker and a finishing coat of semi-gloss enamel.

On the lawn and garden front, I've had a sudden invasion of crab grass. Looking around the neighborhood, it looks like it has it everyone has crab grass to some degree, so I guess that makes me feel better. I have fertilized the lawn twice now this year, with little effect. Part of that may be due to the fact that I will not waste the time and money to water the grass, especially on the large side lot. As we get into August there's not much reason to do anything about it this year, but I'll do some crab grass research over the winter. In the meantime, I'll continue to call the collection of weeds and crab grass our "lawn".

Finally, a project completed, while others drag on.

The new lights, properly anchored. "Window treatments"
in the background

I can finally say with confidence that the upstairs hallway is now done. It joins the list now with 7 other rooms/hallways/stairs that are completely finished. Not bad, I guess, considering that Cindy and I both still work full time, and have done all the work ourselves. The final jobs in the hallway included installing the smoke detector, hanging "window treatments" and to finally replace the ugly lighting. Changing out the lighting was not quite as simple as you would think, since it took us quite some time to select the new fixtures, but more importantly, that once again I found incorrectly installed lighting boxes in the ceiling. This means that I had to properly anchor the boxes before installing the lights. We were able to purchase lower hanging, stylish lights since the ceilings are so nice and high, even on the second floor.  I put them on a dimmer so we can lower the lights and use them as a night light, and because the old fashioned filament bulbs look cool. We used an antique brass switch plate and ordered a solid brass dimmer knob to match the fixtures. Very nice.

The "window treatments" were just a curtain rod and curtains. These too took some time to pick since we wanted to match the light fixtures, and because short length antique brass curtain rods are not as common as you might think. The curtains continue our house tradition of the diamond pattern and are just lightweight shears.

First Alert P1010 smoke detector. Shown
larger than actual size

We got a button style smoke detector, only about 2 inches diameter and 2 inches deep, with a non-replaceable lithium battery which should last about 10 years. They are much smaller than, and work just as well as a traditional smoke detector. I eventually plan to add a smoke detector to our security system which will be a nice backup.

The "quick" bathroom spruce up has taken a couple of serious steps backwards. First, hanging wet towels next to the bathroom door is already having an effect. Despite several coats of high quality, semi gloss paint, it looks like the original darker door colors are now starting to bleed through. It now seems like I will need to use a stain blocker and repaint, and we needed to find a new place to hang our bath towels. So we decided to get new towel rods for the hand towels and bath towels. Hoo-boy. Something as seemingly innocuous as towel racks can definitely cause problems if you choose poorly, or do not think it through.  For starters, the bases of the fixtures we choose were square, not round. So what, right? Wrong. If you don't install the anchoring hardware perfectly level, the much larger square bases exaggerate even a minor error. Also, I installed the long towel rod in the dry wall directly above the top of the tile which runs along the bottom of the wall. I used my level to make sure it was true, which it is, but it didn't occur to me that it would look crooked when compared to the not so level top of the tile below. Damn. Finally, if you've installed any bathroom hardware lately, you may notice that it is "screw-less", meaning that the fixture snaps onto the wall anchor with no visible attachment. Perfect, if you've installed them exactly right and have no need to ever move them. Not so perfect for me, since I now have to muscle them off the wall. This will mean repairing the wall, and repainting before make another attempt. Oof.

We decorated the house again with flags for the 4th. We wanted to replace our large flag we hang off the porch. We've had the flag for many years and while it wasn't torn, it was quite faded. After looking locally for a quality embroidered nylon flag, we ended up ordering online and it arrived, just in time, on the 3rd. Our old flag will be disposed of properly thanks to our local American Legion.

"Torque" Johnson

Union-Endicott High School. It has looked like this for
around a hundred years. So yes, even when I was there. 

One thing that has always fascinated me is how, as children, we are influenced by the people around us. I do believe that a significant portion of what we are is nature, but perhaps a larger portion is nurture. In my last blog,  I wrote about how my grandfather was a big influence in my life. My parents and other relatives were huge influences as well, but then there are others that only nudge you in a direction, and like any other course correction, it may seem minor at the time, but end up being huge later in life. These nudges are often given by peripheral people in your life, like the next tier of relatives, friends, and of course teachers.

High school for me was, I think different, then it is for many. I had a close but small circle of friends that were from all the different cliques. That worked out well, being on the periphery of the groups, but not committed to any one. My teachers, like my friends, were varied in personality and I really liked almost of of them. One that stood out for me, and a couple of my friends, was Mr. Johnson, our physics teacher. He was a new teacher back then, not all that far removed from school himself, and he seemed to connect well with the kids. The thing that I liked about him, was his humor and easy going manner. He played a great practical joke on us one day in lab when he pointed a laser at the lab table from another room. We had never seen one before (this was 1977) , and suddenly this moving, glowing spot was on our table. It must have been priceless watching our speechless amazement and excitement. He later told us the results of other times he had pulled this prank on people, and all the other hilarious reactions. He made me feel special by including us in his circle of people he trusted enough to prank.

"Torque" Johnson and a blogger.

Another time in class he was teaching us about rotational force, or "torque". During the class he naturally said "torque" many times and that kind of stuck with us. My best friend, Mike Hidock, named  him Torque Johnson at the end of the class and he really seemed to enjoy that. Anyway, through his friendly and gentle guidance, I ended up with a final grade in the high 90's for that class, and I give full credit to Torque Johnson for that. He was so approachable, so easy going and so enjoyed the students around him he just made me feel like I wanted to be there. Never intimidating, always helpful in a class that could be quite difficult. I give him full credit for advancing my interest in science, and giving me a firm foundation for my career in meteorology, a field that is based in physics and math.

I found out that Torque Johnson is retiring this year, after at least 40 years of teaching and positively influencing high school students. It could not have been easy, especially in the later years with kids that are less easily impressed with lasers, or perhaps even physics, Still, he must have helped thousands of young minds over the years and he and Union-Endicott High School should be proud. I wish him the best, and a happy and relaxing retirement. He deserves it.

Grandfather was a carpenter

Sorry. The Crown molding again. I'm really happy
with how it came out. 

My paternal grandfather was a carpenter. Not any carpenter but a master carpenter, that built houses in the 1920s and 1930s in and around Red Bank, NJ. In fact, he built the house he lived in for over 70 years, and it was magnificent. I think about him now and then, especially lately as I work on our fixer upper, and I think he would be amused yet proud. He particularly would like the crown molding I've installed. He was a tender and quiet man that I would expect would give me gentle guidance and advice. I'd like to think I've inherited a bit of carpentry skill from him, and hope that skill manifests itself someday.

Grandfather Morford was a true gentleman. He treated those around him with kindness and respect, and took special care with women. He was quick to take the arm of his wife or pull out a chair for her, or any other woman in his vicinity. One of our fondest memories of him is from our wedding. Cindy had wanted a horse and carriage for our wedding, and as we left the church, one was waiting for her. When she went to climb into the buggy in her wedding dress, grandfather bolted from the crowd to help me help her in. He wisely didn't trust my knowledge of horses and carriages.

He came by his knowledge of horses honestly. He was from the time before automobiles were common. As a teenager, he drove a horse and wagon, picking up all the children to bring them to the one room school house. Also, when an alarm came in at the volunteer fire department, he would race to the station to rig up the horses for the fireman. He told me how the horses knew from hearing the bell that there was and alarm and would be waiting for him, ready to go. What a great story.

My first NWS job was in this historic building, the
Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia. 

Both grandmother and grandfather loved that I had also become a volunteer fireman and I think felt like grandfather had been an influence in that. I think they were right. They also loved that I became a meteorologist. They told me a story how one of my great uncles was somehow involved in weather and I must have gotten the "weather bug" from him. When I got my first job in the National Weather Service at LaGuardia Airport in 1986 they were very proud. I would occasionally take the 2 hour drive down from Queens to Red Bank to visit them.

For some reason, he was always "grandfather", never grandpa or pop. The formality certainly fit him as he was always well dressed, never in jeans or even a golf or tee shirt. Always slacks and a dress shirt, often a sweater or even sport coat. The shirt was always buttoned to the top, and fastened with a Bolo tie. To this day, he is the only person I've ever known to wear a Bolo tie.

He was also a Master Mason and active in his Masonic Hall. I always knew this, but knew little about it. I know he wore his Masonic ring, but never really talked about it. Now that Masons are the subject of conspiracy theories, and featured in the huge best seller The Da Vinci Code, I would love to ask him about it. I have no idea what he would of said, probably not much, but it would be interesting to know his take on it. As far as I know, he never tried to recruit dad, or any of us to join. I wish I knew why.

Grandfather escaped the horrors of war. Being born in 1900, he was a bit too young when WWI broke out, and a bit too old for WWII. He would have served if asked of course, but I'm glad he missed out. Selfish of me, I know, but he was no warrior, and had he survived, I would be afraid that kind and gentle man would have been forever changed by the experience. During my entire memory of him, he was the manager of an enormous cemetery, literally just steps from his backdoor. Why he dropped carpentry, and took this job is unknown to me. Maybe the lack of carpentry work during WWII. In any event, the cemetery manager was a perfect job for him, sympathetic and gracious as he was. He worked that job well into his 80's, 6 days a week.

He remained active almost up to his death in his mid 90's. We heard that he was up and the second floor roof of his garage replacing shingles as he approached 90. Grandmother was not pleased, and dad was concerned, but of course he was fine and fixed his roof without injury. Not only had we underestimated his health, we somehow forgot how careful and smart he was. He did nothing in haste and without careful planning.

In 1989 grandmother and grandfather drove from New Jersey to Cortland, NY to stay with Cindy and I. They announced that this was their last trip away from home and wanted to visit everyone they could. Of course they were wonderful guests, insisting on taking us out to dinner one night, then grandmother helped Cindy prepare a whole turkey the second night. Right around dinner, a fire call came in and they insisted that I go, that there was no reason for me to keep them company. Cindy I think, felt differently.  After a couple days they returned to New Jersey and, true to their word, never left again.

I feel lucky and honored to have known such a good man. A man that had so much knowledge and experience, of gentle kindness and wisdom. He had a lot more to teach than just carpentry, and I'd like to think some of it rubbed off on me, in the 30 plus years that I knew him.

Memorial Day

The flags are out. 

Memorial Day means different things to different people To many, it's the first holiday of "summer", although that's pushing it here in the north. Being that, it's traditionally the time to open pools, parks, and to get the boats out. It's a time for family gatherings, grilling, and just enjoying the outdoors. The freedom and ability to do such things is what makes this country great. Of course, like most things good, it has come with a price. Millions gave everything to allow us to enjoy our freedoms, whether that be as simple as grilling a burger in your backyard, or as important as speaking your mind at a political rally.

Part of the way Cindy and I honor their memory is to put about 40 flags on our property for the weekend. A simple task, and appropriate too since this holiday used to be called Decoration Day. Decoration Day was originally established after the Civil War as a day to decorate the graves of soldiers with flowers. As time went on, flowers changed to small flags, and people began to call the holiday Memorial Day. Hopefully, as people walk or drive by the house, the flags will help them remember why we have the holiday, and remember those that allow us the freedom to honor it as we wish.

Molding finally done. I like the contrast between the
wall color and ceiling. 

On the home improvement front. the molding has been completed. The new compound miter saw worked beautifully and the angles came out nice. There are some minor gaps of course, mainly because the house is not square, and the walls have rolling waves in them, So, I have nearly completed caulking the gaps and nail holes in the molding, and it actually looks pretty good. Soon the paper I taped to the floor in November, will finally be removed.

It looks better in real life. Honest.

With the arrival of warm weather, work has moved outdoors, mostly of the general maintenance and upkeep variety. Last fall, after stacking all the firewood in the garage that would fit, we had about a half face cord left outside. It took me two tractor cart loads to bring that wood in the garage. My raked and re-seeded lawn is coming along nicely, mainly thanks to our persistent rain. It got it's first cut last week.

Despite my brown thumb, and questionable purchase decision, our little spruce tree is doing great. It's loaded with new growth and looks very healthy. I never let it go more than 24 hours without water as it tends to droop a bit in dry and warm conditions.

Healthy little tree. 

I came across an interesting blog that was very complimentary of our small city. The writer praised the architecture here in Binghamton that survived the urban renewal wave of the 1970s. He also liked our collection of interesting and eclectic bars and restaurants, many of which I have yet to visit. It really is amazing how this small city, with a struggling economy, has really had the downtown area blossom with so many interesting places to eat and drink. A lot has to do with the growth of Binghamton University, but I think the abundance of classic old buildings at a relatively cheap price, has certainly helped. I need to check more of these places out, and you should too. Several small business owners deserve to be rewarded for the effort and innovation, and the more new customers they get, the better.

Crown molding failure, and lawn failure

First piece installed. Note the nicely painted ceiling, wall
and trim work. Very proud of that. 

It was not a good weekend in the home improvement and maintenance front here at the Morford estate. To start with, I had the weekend off and decided to wrap up the ongoing hallway improvement by installing the crown molding, with Cindy's help. It's fairly straightforward work, but the 6 foot long pieces of molding take two people to install, and Cindy is not only a good sport, she wants this hallway done! So, we forged ahead. The tricky part of any molding installation is the mitering of the corners. In the living room, I got expert help, because there were some non standard angles, and it was a very wide molding. For the hallway, it was all 90 degree cuts, with a much narrower molding. No problem. Ha ha. First of all, in my defense, you really can't buy a decent manual miter box anymore. Pretty much all you see is this plastic thing with slots for common angles. It will work with standard molding, like quarter round, but even narrow crown molding is installed at an angle, which makes the cuts tricky. Essentially, the molding is inverted, and held at the angle that it will be installed, then you make your 45 degree cut. Problem is the crappy plastic miter box allows the molding to slip no matter how careful you are in holding it. This then throws off the cut, and when you go to install the molding, the cuts don't line up correctly and frankly, it looks like crap. Damn.

So, the solution is to get a better miter box. Well, at least locally, you have two choices: Buy the cheap plastic thing like I already own, or spend $150+ and buy an electric miter saw with all the bells and whistles. Considering I needed to redo the hallway, and I still have the den and the sun room/bar in the future, I ended up jumping into a $179 Porter Cable compound miter saw. After taking it out of the box and reading the instructions, I have a whole new appreciation for anyone that can use it. I think the engine room of a battleship may have fewer levers, dials, and readouts. It took me almost an hour just to figure out how to unfold it and set it up on my work bench. Good news is I think it will give me plenty of blog fodder for the future.

The dead zone. In this picture, I'm about half way
through putting down the grass seed and mulch cover.  

Then there is this lawn thing I have going on. Faithful readers of this blog will know that I may be a marginal carpenter, but I am an abject failure when it comes to growing green things. This include our "lawn". By "lawn", I mean the loose collection of dandelions, weeds, and pitiful tufts of grass. The weeds do provide at least some ground cover, even lasting through summer dry spells when whatever grass we have dies or goes dormant. This spring, I decided to buy a lawn fertilizer, weed killer combo to encourage a bit more grass to grow.  As I prepared to spread it. I decided to look more closely at a large area of bare dirt that had developed over the winter. Leave it to me to be such a brown thumb that even the weeds died. I have no idea what happened, but decided I needed to start from scratch and plant new grass in that area, after tilling the ground. Of course, I miscalculated the amount I needed and had to run back to to store for another bag.  Elsewhere I spread the fertilizer and weed killer hoping for lawn improvement.

This little tree makes me happy. Note the
bare ground behind it. 

There is a bright spot in my gardening world. Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree made it through the harsh winter and looks terrific. It's loaded with new growth and looks happy. It is right on the edge of the dead zone and apparently whatever killed everything else had no effect on the little tree. Have I found something green I cannot kill? Lets hope so.

Other good news is that we have finally broken the back of winter. Just in time too, considering that the days start getting shorter again in a little over the month.We jumped right into the 80s, some places even touching 90, which has caused an explosion of colorful flowers and budding trees. It's mother nature's version of seeing a gap in the traffic and stepping on the gas. Better hurry up and get going before it's too late!

Lastly, the owner of the Adam's Family house behind us has hired a local father/son team to clean up the lot. A large tree blew down over the winter so they took care of that while cleaning up other branches, and picking up plain old garbage that has sat there since we moved in. All in all I'm impressed. Any work over there is good news.