Heating woes

My kitchen is always *freezing.* California standards, but to me it is still cold. It gets into the mid to low 30's here at night in the winter, winter being an actual season we Northern Californians have.

Very few substantial changes were ever made to my house, save some minor remodeling in the kitchen, which left the original cabinets intact. The kitchen doesn't have a heating vent, and the original back door isn't insulated and leaks like crazy. (an aside - I've use a curtain from a decorating project 3 homes ago and a bath rod that didn't fit over the bathtub to put in a press fit curtain over the door. It's really helped with the heat loss, big time). It gets cold in that thar kitchen.

So here is my vintage 1938, American Gas Association approved furnace, built in Beverly Hills (ya think they're still in business? ;) )



I love this thing. Unlike modern forced air furnaces, it is dead quiet. It heats up the house nice and quick. I loath to replace it, though I know I will have to one day. Something modern that is more likely to break and noisy. Just wish you could have energy efficiency *and* quiet at the same time.

I was twiddling with the valves in the ducts to try to balance out the heat to the house. The bathroom received the lion's share of the heat, and the living room would freeze. Tweaked the bathroom, bedrooms, living room and dining room vents. I had an extra duct.

It went to the kitchen.

When the prior owners did their minor kitchen remodel they closed off the vent. So I get to freeze my butt off every morning when I make my breakfast. Joy!

Me vs the Locks Round 2

Locks 1, Me 0.

aaaarrrrgggghhhh.

So I finagle the door into letting me put a vertical mount door knob. Nothing major to report there.

Remember that decorative plate I talked about?

It made the door about 1/4 too thick. The screws can't engage with the door handle on the other side.

*mutters cursewords under breath*

Guess I'll have to put the old knob back on.

Weeee!

I was going to keep this blog 100% house stuff, but I can't help it. I just accepted a promotion and a hefty pay raise! Excited doesn't even cover it. I made Senior in less than 4 years out of college. I'm still in absolute shock at how this played out.

So this means I can get the house painted this year *and* not feel guilty for spending the money!

*does happy dance*

Vanity Post

Because I feel like showing off, pictures of my house's details


While the fixture is rather hokey I like the light pattern it gives off. It amazes me that in 70 years the faux wood grain was never painted over and is in such great shape.


The evil door knot that wouldn't be changed. It *really* doesn't go with the door! Love the inset door, so 1930's! Again the faux grain, though it has experienced some wear and tear. Any ideas on how to clean it up without destroying the finish?


Nice floor to ceiling arched window, with built-ins on either side. I'm finding I like the detailing found in homes in the 1930's more than earlier homes, it has plenty of personality yet is cleaner in its lines and not as fussy.


Now this plaster wall texture in the front bedroom has me a bit confused. I've never seen anything like it before. The lines to straight up and down wall with no wavering, you can *just* tell is was a 6" float because the lines are ever so closer or wider every now and then. I can imagine it would have been cheaper for an experienced person to do, but it would take some skill to get the float from ceiling to floor without it wiggling at all side to side.

Me vs door locks

I finally got around to replacing all the locks on the house. Yeah yeah, I should have done it ages ago. Was going to replace all the door knobs too but I decided enough was enough after the front door knob considering how much I was spending just on the locks.

I received them yesterday and have attempted to install all of them.

The original deadbolt on the door down to the garage was a quicky, home done job and not *quite* to modern standards. The hole for the bolt was drilled in crooked so one side of the lock barely engaged (and only if I removed the trim around the lock), and the recess for the plate is about 1/4 too small, so the new lock plate doesn't sit flush. The door had a fatal crack along the side not because it'd been kicked in like I'd thought, but because someone did a lousy job at installing the dead bolt orginally and it caused the door to crack. Something catches internally too because bad drill job, so fully unlocking the door is a major pain. Thankfully I don't have a need to lock that door much.

The back door went fine, no problems. The front door, not so much. The deadbolt just wasn't working right, until I figured out that I'd installed the interior thumb latch upside down twice. D'oh!

The door knob on the front door, aye. I've a pretty little cast iron decorative plate underneath a modern ugly cheap and worn door knob. I want to keep the plate, and use this latch. Turns out the old modern knob only works because someone tweaked the door and plate in the horizontal direction, widening both by that 1/4 of an inch on each side to allow the screws to pass through. My problem? The screws on the knob I'd bought are mounted in the vertical direction and those tweaks had been made horizontally. There was no way I could canniblize the old stuff and/or reconfigure the new stuff to work either, I tried. I'll have to take the door off its hinges to drill out 1/4" on each side or buy a new door knob.

And the down stairs side entry.... It has always been a tricky door to close, but it isn't used too often. The door knob wouldn't latch, and you had to lean on the door to latch the dead bolt. Replacing the lock was easy. The bolt just wouldn't fit into the latch plate in the jam any more, no matter how much leaning you did or jiggering. And of course the latch plate in the jam had rounded off screws so I couldn't move it easily. Back to the old lock we go . . .

Final Score: Me 2, Doors 2.

Pictures!!

As a follow up to this gardening related post, here is what we've done since then.



The clover is gone! There is bark! And weed control mats! And pruned roses! Sorry for the bad pic, but I was using hubby's el chepo camera that doesn't handle low light conditions well.

And now my favorite part . . . before and after on my windows!

The establishing shot...


A closeup of the bad one


I opened the window one day and the bottom part of the frame stayed put. Nice and leaky too, so I sprayed all the cracks with insulation.

And after


And the full thing


The room is **so** much warmer now. It is quite amazing.

I paid through the nose for divided dual pane windows without the fake looking dividers, but, I'm satisfied every time I look at them. They are Anderson windows, and the installers did a bang up job at putting them in, keeping the house clean and everything. I had one other window replaced, down in the garage, and they even replaced apiece of trim that was missing on the original.

Low Cost To Do Lists

To keep on track, I've developed a minimal cost to-do list on the interior of the house. I'm going to start working through this list. I'm going to strip most the paint as it is bubbling up in enough spots in the house to warrant it. And I can breath easier knowing we won't have much lead paint around anymore.

Entry

• Paint
• Refinish floor
• Curtain for little window
• New lighting

Living Room

• Strip wall paper
• Paint
• New Curtains
• New lighting

Dining Room

• Strip wall paper
• Paint
• New fan
• Curtains
• Fix baseboards
• Stain the new windows

Hall

• Strip wall paper (all 4 walls this time!)
• Paint
• New light fixture

Back Bedroom

• Paint
• Curtains
• New lighting
• fix door (it won't close all the way)

Front Bedroom

• Paint
• Curtain rods
• New lighting
• Replace cracked window pane

Bathroom

• Paint
• Refinish sink and tub
• New non-Ikea cabinet
• New semi-Deco style fixtures

Kitchen

• Paint
• New (insulated!!) back door
• New door to stairs (with kitty door!)
• Fix crooked Ikea cabinet door by buying new hinge

Medium/Long Term (expensive) Stuff

• Paint House
• Install yard irrigation systems
• New electrical system
• New plumbing
• Replace furnace and asbestos covered ducts (you know the steriotypical image of a big old scary furnace? That's my 70 year, still working, gravity fed furnace)
• Bigger water heater
• Second bathroom on the ground floor
• 3rd bedroom on the ground floor
• Sewing/laundry room on ground floor
• Remove crappy kitchen cabinets and replace with nice stuff in style of original
• New kitchen counter tops
• New floor in kitchen
• Rip up carpet and refinish hardwood floors
• Gas zero clearance gas fireplace installed in current faux fireplace
• Add on to house - a master suite on the main floor, another bedroom and a family room on ground floor.

Gardening fun

My back yard used to be nicely landscaped. The prior owners collected rocks, and have beautiful rock defined beds all over the place of really interesting rock specimens they'd picked up all over the place (including a couple of **huge** chunks of obsidian). The last 15 years as a rental meant it went to hell.

When we bought the house



By the time we'd moved in two months later it was full bloom with clover.

Honestly, I was content to let the back yard sit for a while. We're on an 8,000 foot lot, most of which is in the back and the whole thing isn't irrigated (required for your sanity in California). I live by myself as my husband is in the Army. I work full time too, nor could we afford any professional help. We've still ended up landscaping

My mother-in-law lives just far enough away to make visiting frequently not possible. She is a landscaper by trade, living and operating out of San Franicso (and used to its tiny, high maintenance back yards), so their is a bit of living vicariously going on. A back yard, including a rose garden, was quickly designed up for us. With a kids play area in the sketch (we don't have kids).

She got family to come over this summer and work on the garden, without really asking if we were ready to take this on. We weren't about to reject help if offered (or really, pressed into) You can see the fruits of our labor here



Very pretty, but with the boy deploying to Iraq again I just didn't have the time for it, especially with out an irrigation system installed and a clover infested yard. This is what resulted:



It is quite a pretty little meadow, though not good for anything trying to survive under the blanket of clover. This was after a 5 month maintenance moratorium on the back yard (the front was only mildly better). I knew she'd be asking about the garden, so I weeded about half the center planting bed and part of the walk way, as well as around most the roses about a three weeks ago. Save the roses most of the plants had died, though some of the bulbs had managed to push up in spite of the clover.

My in-laws came over yesterday and we did some more weeding, getting the whole of the circle cleared and the roses cut back and fertilized. She's going to come back next week so she can finish the roses for me and so we can put down plastic to block the weeds in the walkway.

I love the fact that she's willing to help out and work of my garden, but sometimes I really wish she'd let me get to this on my own speed. There is *so* much that needs to be done with this house but I'm having to spend lots of time on the yard or risk disappointing her or acting ungrateful, which I'm not. I wish I could find that middle ground - she wants to get ready to put grass in this summer.

I'll take some photos of the yard's current state next week.

Washing Machine Escapade

When I moved in, I bought a lightly used washer and dryer from my sister. Two years old, six months used. My dad brought them over and hooked them up for me, even buying the hoses.

After a bit, the washer stopped washing in hot water. It would run for a second, I'd hear bang from water hammer, and the exposed piping in the framed in garage would shake. I futzed around with the connections and determined that yes, water was flowing from the hot water connection.

I did some research and discovered that a similar model of washer had problems with the temperature compensating valve. It was a $20 part, and the toughest part was to get at it to change it. Figured the water hammer was being caused by the slamming shut of the temperature valve.

I buy the part and quickly discover figuring out how to crack open a washing machine isn't as easy as it looks. After about 4 months, I decided to suck it up just replace the damn thing.

But, on a visit, my dad tells me how to get into the washing machine with out taking it to bits. There are two little clamps in the back (which I'd jiggered with) and 2 clips in the front I wasn't able to see, with little alighnment pins in front that looked like screws when I was messing around with it. So I got the top off and I replaced the valve that day. Took about five minutes.

And guess what? I still had the problem.

I go, for the umpteenth time, to futz around with the water connection. For the first time, I notice the tag on the hose. It says "FloodSafe" on it.

Both of these hoses have excess flow valves in them. I'd never heard of excess flow valves being used for residential purposes, though the water hammer should have clued me in. This hose (both actually, I'd switched them even in my trouble shooting) were shutting off the hot water when ever the washer would kick on. I almost replaced my washing machine for $30 in hoses.

And now an engineer's rant:
Excess flow valves are one of those "what a great idea!" things that don't actually play out well in real life. They trip and shut the flow off when they aren't supposed to, and can be tricky to reset. And they don't always seat that well so they may leak by, and they can make troubleshooting a nightmare if you aren't familiar with them. But boy are they an easy sell!