Painting

I'm in the process of painting my entry. I'll post pictures if I ever get done. Very random post, I know. I just couldn't think of anything else to say.

Moving Radiators.....

(Start by reading, It all started when...)

The pipes from the furnace to the heaters were cut. There was no reason the heaters couldn't be moved, right?

When we sanded and finished the floors in 2000, there was no way we could sand under the heaters. There had been carpeting that had been glued to the floors, so it was a rough under them and very hard to get clean and keep clean. A thorn in my side.

The King graciously pulled out two 500+ pound heaters and started to sand the floor. The palm sander was taking forever.

Time to bring in the big tools:
The King rented a sander and made short work of the job at hand. While he returned the rental equipment, I quickly applied water based polyurethane to the floor--under both heaters. Upon returning home, The King saw my error and gently explained to me that I should have used oil based instead. The color will never match up without an oil based finish. UGH!

I let it dry, then used the palm sander to sand under BOTH heaters. I didn't dare ask him to go back to town and re-rent the big tool. I then applied the appropriate polyurethane. I didn't stop there, I even painted the baseboards behind the heaters that no one will ever see.

So come on over, look under my heaters, I don't care. They are clean! Clean I tell you! (Come quick, clean doesn't last long here.) The thorn in my side is gone!!!

Can you see how one thing leads to another?

Stay tuned. We're still not done.

Hey, Let's Cut Those Out....

We have hot water heat, which means we have big radiators in all our rooms. The pipes that carry the water from the boiler in the basement up to the radiators in the living area are really big and hang down really low. Head bumpers which posed a problem. If we were to add another throne to our castle, some taller people may have to duck their heads to get to it. Furnace Guy came over and told us what to do.
"Ah, just cut 'em all outta there. Replace it all with PEX. You can even use all my tools." The King spent three weekends fitting old pipes to new PEX tubing. He was not in the mood for a wife to say, "Hey honey, since you cut all the pipes to the heaters, do you think we could move them out from the walls to sand and varnish under them?"

More Insanity. Stay tuned. It gets better.

(Read Next: Moving Radiators....)

Then The Water Came.....

All we needed to do before the waterproofers came was to grade the floor for cement. But water started to come into the basement. Irony. The waterproofers couldn't come in until we graded the floor, but we couldn't grade the floor when there was standing water.
Then one day while The King was hauling five gallon buckets of water out of the basement, he noticed the water was bubbly, and smelled a lot like laundry detergent. (I had been doing laundry all day.) After a consulting a septic guy, we were told our septic system was failing and backing up into the basement. It wasn't just water in the basement, it was sewage water.

Our waterproofers were put on hold. An emergency septic crew came in and installed a new septic system. All seemed well for a few days, until The King suspected a problem. Two of the three new septic tanks that had just been installed were cracked and ground water was seeping into them. One week after the first new septic system was put in, it had to be dug up, and replaced with an even newer one.

Oh, the basement insanity. Stay tuned. There's more.

(Read Next: Hey Let's Cut Those Out....)

It All Started When....

We decided we needed a second bathroom. Our castle has but one. Uno, Ein, Een, Un. One bathroom for nine people, it just isn't right. With so many royal members of the family wanting to sit on the throne, we decided we needed to add another one.When we decided to add a bathroom, the only place we could really go was down. Down to the hole, the pit, the dungeon. In the spring this basement held so much water that if we ever wanted to sell this place we could advertise an indoor pool.

We called in the waterproofing experts. They told us they needed to remove a lot of the concrete floor to put in tiles and then they'd patch over their holes. It was smarter for us to remove the entire floor so we could plumb in the bathroom when they waterproofed. The King jackhammered until he was numb. We hauled the floor out of the basement one five gallon bucket at a time. That was the first big project.

"Hey honey, maybe we should remove this 18 foot long by 8 foot tall by 12 inch wide concrete wall while we're at it. It will really open up the room." More jackhammering. The wall was hauled out of the basement one five gallon bucket at a time. That was the second big project.

This was only the beginning. Stay tuned for more Basement Insanity....

(Read Next: Then The Water Came....)

While You Were Out....

We decided to pull a "While You Were Out" episode on Jouster when he was away at camp. This project upset out whole house for an entire week. The morning he left, Jester began tearing apart their bedroom. He was already tearing down the loft beds by the time I got the camera upstairs.

As you can see, the boys had pink carpeting in their room. I am ashamed to say we have never painted this room since we moved in...uh..eh...EIGHT years ago. It was in pretty tough shape. The old plaster walls were cracked with peeling and chipping paint. Jester had to scrape and fill in many cracks and holes before he could start painting. Then he tore out the old carpet which was glued down rubber backed. He even hung a new light fixture.

It's hard to see from the poor picture quality, but the room is gray...Confederate gray is the best explanation. The new carpeting is a multi-colored berber. The carpet layers came in yesterday afternoon and when they were done we spent the evening reassembling the beds and moving furniture back in. Loft beds are great in a small room like theirs. Under one bed is a reclining love seat, and under the other is a desk. The love seat is their favorite place to take naps...it's too much work to climb up into bed for a quick snooze.

I had a great idea to put shelves up above the windows for their alarm clocks and fans (it gets hot so high in the air). When The King gets home Thursday, he plans to put permanent outlets up there so we don't have so many extension cords hanging around.

Jester worked hard to get it done and was extremely tired by the end of the week. He was pretty proud of his accomplishment. We still have a few more things to do...bookshelves, window treatments and closet organizers.

Jouster's reaction to the transformation? "Oh man, this room is sweet."