Marble Madness: Part 2 The Emerald City

Well, I almost feel like I shouldn't post this because there has been so much buildup that the reality can't live up to the hype (like The Matrix Part 2). But here here it is.

I should mention that whenever I find a really nice bathroom to, ummm, to do my business I usually name it.

Examples:

1. the toilet by the law library at school, by the Federal Registers, which no one knew about but me--The Fortress of Solitude;
   
2. the bathroom in my Dad's place in Florida (wall-to ceiling italian marble everywhere): the Taj Mahal;
3. the nice toilet at work: the Throne of Gondor.

You get the picture. Anyway, without further ado, I give you: The Emerald City!

This is a shot from the doorway. My brother helped with the install. With Ceramic Tile, I'm like Rainman is with BlackJack, but this is the first time I did Marble by myself (which is much less forgiving) so I wanted the skillz of the Fat Ninja on this one.

I should probably think of a new nickmane for him since he beat me up about 500 times when we were growing up and I probably shouldn't make him mad. I'd like to think I could take him now, but that's probably just wishful thinking. (My record against him is something like 499 losses- 0 wins-1 draw)

Here is a finished shot of the right side of the room. The wall has been primed, but not painted yet.

I'm telling you, with all that marble, if you take a deuce on that toilet, you'll feel like the King of Siam.
We drilled the holes for the toliet paper holder right on the grout joint so that the tile wouldn't crack. This tile would crack all over the place (Chinese Marble, man).

The tile is plumb here, but the wall isn't. I'm still thinking of a way to finish this off.

It looks a lot nicer after it is primed. I thought about using ceramic, but the nice ceramic tile was only a little less than the marble tile on sale so I went with the marble. This stuff looks great on the wall, but would crack a lot when I cut it on the wet saw so there was way more waste than I wanted. If I had to it over, I wouldn't use this marble again, I would pay for the good stuff from Italy. Once it's on the wall, however, it's solid.

Here is an inside-the-shower shot.















And another nice shower shot.

Here is a nice shot of the vanity and toilet. (okay, yes, I am bragging about a toilet). This was a pain to install because the plumbing monkey intsalled the toilet flange wrong when he leveled the floor so it took a little ingenuity on me & Fat Ninja's part to get it to get the bolts to sit right.

We also installed that tile on the floor. I think it matches well with the marble. I used a 2x2 tile because I didn't want to take a chance that using larger ones on the floor might cause them to crack. (plus it's not a big bathroom).









Another gratuitous shower shot.




Look at those lines....sswwweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

I also tiled behind the shower. I need to finish that door off with some trim.





This is what it looked liked with drywall, but before primer. I added more mud and and sanded before priming.













Here is something that still needs to be fixed. I need to close that hole in the ceiling, but first I need to get another bath fan and some of that ducting to take the moisture outside. The previous owner had a working fan in there, but no ductwork, so the fan was basically taking the steam from the shower and shooting it into that rafters...don't get me started on that.










This is something else I need to do too. I need to get some trim and finish around the door.

Closing up that switch box too might help. Bare wires and water are probably not a good mix.

My brother and I installed this sink too. It's only 24" wide. I would've liked a wider one, but I needed somthing that wasn't very deep (because the whirlpool tub sticks out a couple of inches more now, a regular vanity is kinda' a tight fit). This one is only about 13" deep.

AFTER we installed this I saw that HD now sells the same 13" deep one in a 30" wide model. Arrrrgh! Even when I don't buy soemthing from them, they still manage to piss me off.

[Ooops. I moved the pics on Photobucket and they went MIA for a while. They are back up now. ]

Ninja Mania: Catch the Infection

Okay, I'll try to post some home-improvement pics of the rest of the marble tile tonight or tomorrow. I got most of it done, but the pics are a little screwy because of my computer issues. In the meantime, here is some ninja-related news that might be of interest.

This blog was supposed to be mostly about Home Improvement, but if Ninja news comes up, I'll inform you about it. If you don't like ninja news, don't worry, it doesn't happen very often (one of the "news" items is 3 years old).

An indy film maker made a short about a ninja on a blind date.

http://filmmakingforthepoor.blogspot.com/2006/01/ninjas-need-love-too.html



Nice getup, but I think ninjas can dress up like regular people when they are not out scaling rural japanese fortresses to slay recalcitrant feudal lords.






The U of Md will have 150 artist-created turtle scultpures exhibited in DC*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122700822.html

http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/release.cfm?ArticleID=1183



Most of the sculptures are nothing to write home about, but this ninja chap looks like he could hang drywall with the best of 'em.

*If you'll remember, DC did this a couple of years ago with Elephant and Donkey sculptures, which itself was yet another attempt by DC to imitate a NY Trend (the Cows on Parade), and come off as hipster poseurs in the process. Thank you Mayor Williams for proving that you are banal as you are dim-witted.

In other sad, but belated news, a friend sent me this article.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/11/05/MN63634.DTL

S.F. Police Arrest Ninja-Clad Man During Eviction - Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff WriterThursday, November 5, 1998

SAN FRANCISC -- San Francisco sheriff's deputies shot and wounded a man dressed as a ninja yesterday after he allegedly threatened them with knives and other weapons as they tried to evict him from his apartment.

Witnesses described a bizarre scene in which deputies shot and then tackled the oddly garbed man in the middle of the day on a busy South of Market street.

Deputies fired at least four rounds and wounded Charlie Perez, 30, in the elbow and leg. He was listed in fair condition at San Francisco General Hospital. Authorities said he avoided more serious injuries because he was wearing body armor.

The incident began at 9 a.m., when Perez refused to cooperate when deputies came to evict him from his apartment at 136 Sixth St., authorities said.

Four deputies returned about noon, accompanied by medical personnel. Perez fled down a fire escape, officials said. Inside, police found bows and arrows, spears and other weapons.
Perez ran down Moss Alley, allegedly armed with two three-foot- long swords, a 2 1/2-foot-long machete and several throwing knives. As deputies chased him, ``he turned and charged,'' said Eileen Hirst, spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Department.

``He refused orders to stop and shots were fired,'' Hirst said. Perez then turned and continued to flee, she said.

``Then he rounded the corner onto Folsom Street. One of our deputies noticed there were schoolkids playing at a nearby playground. Then he took a flying leap and tackled him.''
Witnesses said the deputies appeared to have shot Perez as a last resort.

``I think the guy had it coming. The guy had a Samurai sword and wasn't stopping,'' said Jack Silva, 41, who works at a press shop across the street from where Perez was finally subdued.

Silva said Perez was dressed like a ninja, complete with a ponytail sticking straight up and black- nylon-and--chain belt.

``It was really weird; it definitely raised the adrenaline,'' Silva said.
Chris McDermott, assistant manager of MACadam Computers, said Perez was tackled right in front of his store.

``I heard sheriff's deputies shout, `Freeze, drop it, Freeze, drop it!' Then, bang, bang,'' McDermott said.

``He had a machete, a hand blade and a weird metal belt with chains,'' McDermott said. ``He

was a very confused guy.''

About 120 children were playing in the yard at Bessie Carmichael School when the shots were fired. No one was hurt.
Page A - 20

I'll be the first to admit I feel sorry for this guy if he was really was a ninja and really did get evicted. Getting shot by trigger-happy cops is tough, but not as tough as trying to find a rental in San Fransisco. Good luck on that one, dude.

But I really doubt he was a ninja, since a ninja wouldn't stand in the street with a samurai sword. He would probably kill all the lights (no pun intended) then hide in the closet and attack the swat cops with some type of improvised (but deadly) short range weapon...like a shoe with deadly powerful razor blades attached to it.

Does this House Make Me Look Fat?

Well, I usually don't link to other people's posts. Mostly, it's because until just now, I had no idea how to. Yet this bar chart deserves such an honor.

I had blamed taking on 15 pounds to stress, chili dogs and lack of exercise, but apparently I put on weight because I bought a bigger house.

Since people expand to fill their environment, my cave-gene sought to make me larger so that I would take up more territory. My larger territory would be marked by my larger physical presence, which is less messy than marking it by peeing in the corners.

I got to thinking about this graph because just when I decided to eat healthy, Burger King sends me a stack of coupons in the mail with my two favorite words in the english language: Free Whopper. All I have to do get a free one is buy one at the normal price. I should mention a couple of things.

1. Yes, I can eat two whoppers...and still have room for fries and a coke;
2. they closed the Burger King nearby, and the nearest one is 10 blocks away;
3. yes, I would walk 10 blocks to eat a whopper...wouldn't you?

If I wasn't trying to eat healthy, this would be a no-brainer. I wouldn't eat two Big Macs, even if they were free and even though McD's is closer, but this a friggin' whopper, people.

Now, just because something is free, doesn't mean that you should take it. If someone offered you a free glass of Miller Lite, or urine, you would probably say no, right? Now before someone at Miller decides to sue me, let me say that I am NOT saying that Miller Lite is made from urine. My friend who is a chemist tells me that, although they taste same, there are less calories in urine.

At any rate, BK is not in the cards for now. I went to the gym on Monday and Johnny Vegas lifted more than me (I'll never hear the end of that one).

My computer is crapping out on me and I have to take it to the Apple center in the Mall to get it checked out, so I did manage to upload a couple of finished pics of the bathroom before my computer really started acting funky so I'll try to post the final bathroom pics from the Toolbelt Diva's computer in a day or two. (I say try because the TBD read me the riot act a few days ago about what a terrible boyfriend I've been lately. I couldn't defend myself b/c it's all true, but now that there is some progress on the place, maybe I'll be under less stress...real floors under your feet will do that sometimes).
Alchemic Spot: Americans Grow To Fit Their Environment

Marble Madness: Part 1

Okay, here is a pic of what the old bathroom looked like. Before you ask, yes, that door was broken when I bought the place. The place reaaaaaaly looked like crap and needed to be re-done, but the previous owner (PO) didn't think anything was wrong with it and was asking top-dollar for the place because he saw renovated places in the neighborhood selling for a lot of money.

Well, smarty, if you think it's that easy to fix up, you should do it yourself. I eventually talked the guy down to a reasonable amount. My realtor couldn't believe my negotiation skillz. And I got the place for what new 1BR luxury condos were selling for in the area.

Oh, by the way, you probably can't tell from here, but that floor was reaaaaallly fcuked up and unlevel. It was 2.5 lower where the toilet is than it was on the other side of the bathroom. I had it leveled with cement before I installed the floor tile.

Here is a pic of the old shower (it's a small bath, so it's hard to get a pic of the whole room. The ugly 50s bright yellow tile and toilet was too much to look at. I think that prozak hadn't been invented back then so people dealt with depression by decorating their houses in annoying bright, happy colors.

Okay, the Plumbing Monkey installed greenboard in the shower. That's technically, okay by the building code, but I wanted something a little better, so that it wouldn't have to be re-done in 20 years. So I, myself, installed 1/4" cement board over the green board. I don't like the idea of adding it after the tub has already been installed (b/c sometimes it looks like the walls are swallowing up the tub) but I used thin cement board so it looked okay. Plus, this stuff (hopefully) will last another 100 years and future gerenarations can marvel at my friggin' marble-setting skillz.

I didn't want to rip out the greenboard b/c it would be more time and money, plus, I was already thinking of firing the guy, so I didn't want to pay him to do stuff I could do myself (like adding the cement board over the greenboard), which is why I had them do the heavy unskilled labor stuff (like knocking down walls or carrying in drywall deliveries).




Here i sealed the gaps between the cement board with thinset and added the ledger board so that I could start laying the tile straight. The tub wasn't perfectly level (thanks to the plumbing monkey) but I wanted the tile to be level and plumb. I knew this would come back to haunt me.











Well, after I installed the ledgerboards to keep the marble straight and keep it from slipping while it sets, I started with the marble.

You can probably see that I only installed cement board on two of the the three walls in the shower. I didn't do it on the far wall because

• then I would have to put it on that whole wall (even outside the tube) so that the wall is even; and
• I figured that there isn't a whole lot of water that will hit that back wall anyway.

In addition to the ledger board, you can see that I held the marble in place with duct tape until it dried. This is probably overkill, but I didnt' want to take any chances.

Well, my computer at home is acting up so I probably won't be able to post the finished pics until this weekend when I can hook my camera up to someone elses' computer. But these pics should hold you 'till them.








So I started by installing a ledger board on the wall to keep the tile straight and to keep it from slipping while it sets.

A Prediction?

Okay, I don't make New Year's resolutions...especially by January 1st (I was busy doing flooring; keeping my visiting relatives busy; and perfecting my ulcer). So, I gotta' think of some better word to describe it. Stretch Goal? Target? Maybe a Prediction? hmmmmm.

Well, because I don't like to think to far ahead, here are my precidtions for next week.

1. work out more: Johnny Vegas asked if I was ready to start going back to the Gym next week. So I'll try to go at least twice next week;
2. food: I decided to start eating healthy again next week to get back to my fighting weight. Rather than eaaaaase into the transition, I'm stuffing my face with chili dogs all this week and washing it down with Cokes...I'll go cold turkey (literally) on monday.
3. blog: Blogging is hard, and time consuming. I don't know how some people have 3 or 4. Good luck with that! Next week I'll post some pics up of my marble bathrooom that I have been bragging about and which people have been asking about. It's worth the wait. When I have kids and one of them graduates law school, someone will ask me if it's the proudest day of my life and I'll say "no...but it's a close second" and refer them to my blog.
4. I'll post some pics of my crazy Sudanese neighbor's yard and explain why I almost had a fistfight with their contractors (long story and it sorta need pics to explain it right).
5. I'll try to finish up the upstairs bathroom (paint, a little drywall and replace a marble saddle).
6. I'll try to add a second coat of mud to the ceiling of the living/dining room (that might not happen though).
7. I'll think of way to fix that big hole I cut in the floor (I'm putting a bigass iron radiator RIGHT over the hole, so I gotta think of a way to make the support stronger than a Crazy Sudanese Neighbor's breath).

I think posting a list on here will keep me honest. I don't know if I could sleep nights if readers kept asking me why I never got around to replacing that marble saddle in the bathroom.

I Got Flooring Up the Ying Yang

Here are the pics of the top floor that I've been promising for a while. It took way longer than it should because the contractor that I fired (The Plumbing Monkey) really screwed up the floor. He pulled up a the 1" thick planks in the hall and laid down plywood that was only 1/2" thick. He also didn't level the floor enough. I didn't want to pay him to re-do it because the odds of him being able to fix something that he already screwed up once before are probably not good. So this I fixed with my brother when he came down for Xmass.




Well, from this first pic, you can see how far along I was with the flooring on the top floor. The flooring I used here and in one of the bedrooms is a 5" wide white oak floor that I got on clearance for $3 a square foot (the much thinner floor that I used in the rest of the house was $3.50 a square foot. I would've liked to have used these wide planks everywhere

• because it looks more like the original wide plank flooring that came with the house
• it's more than twice as wide so it only takes 1/2 as long to install and with half as many cuts
• it's cheaper than the other stuff (.50 a square foot doesn't sound like much, but I have about 1000 sqaure feet to install).
• I think the lighter wood is better if you don't get a lot of natural light.

Here is a decent intermediate shot. I stopped about here to fix some sponginess in the subfloor.






This is the transition to the floor of the only bedroom where I laid pergo instead of real hardwood. I used pergo there because I wanted at least one finished room to live in while I worked on the rest of the house. 3 things:

yes, I did use a piece of flooring turned sideways for the transition.

yes, I do have a pergo transition that I will install from the sidways hardwood piece to the pergo after 3.

I didn't install the pergo transition because I have to take up part of the floor and re-do it. It was my first time working with pergo and I installed it without removing the base molding (per the manufacturer's instructions) but I need to re-do some parts around the door more carfully.

So that they don't look like this.









Because the Plumbing Monkey and his flunkees used 1/2" plywood instead of 3/4" and because they didn't level the floors properely, I had to use a lot of shingles to level the floor out (or some left over pergo occassionally).







I cut the tongue and some fo the bottom off the groove so that I could change it from a male to female piece so that it would connect right with the honey oak flooring in the bedroom (where I started laying it from the other side of the room).





Well, this is what the inside of the closet looked like. 1⁄2” plywood is not strong enough for my tastes, but at least it’s better than a big hole in the floor. Great workmanship, Monkey boy! I swear I should’ve fired that moron the first week, or enrolled him in the special Olympics.GRRRrrrrrrrr!!!




This is the part of the floor that was springy. I didn't want the contractor I fired to rip up the plywood, so I told him to add some bracing to the joists from underneath to keep it from being bouncy.

And he did, but wouldn't you know, when he screwed the subfloor to the joists, almost every screw missed the joist by 1/4" or so.

Newflash to braniac: in really old houses, sometimes the joists aren't exactly 16" apart.






On this shot I think you can tell that screws missed the bracing (and the joist) by about 1/2". I guess they don't have that "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again" saying in Plumbing Monkey's hometown.
















Because I like my screws to go into the joists (as opposed to into the air), I marked where they are.





This is where the floor transitions to the stairs. Before you tell me that the 1x3 on the edge looks ghetto, let me say "shut the hell up about my beautiful floor!". Since I got the wide planks on clearance, they didn't have any pre-finished white oak stair trim for it. I did buy some UN-finished white oak bull nose stair trim (I overpaid in fact) and cut it to size, but I want to install it until I find the right stain for it and finish it before I install it so that it doesn't get dirty and look like I polyeurethaned over some coffee stains. By the way, for that stair trim I paid $8 a linear foot and got like 10-12 feet of it even though I only ended up needing 30". Math is not my best skill. Anyone need some stair bullnose trim?








And here is what the finished floor looks like.






Well, almost finished; this is something that still needs tending to. This a hole that I cut in one of the bedroom floors to get at the pipe (long story). It's a pretty big hole, as you can see. That soda can is to give you an idea of the size, not because I am a slob when I work.

Victory is Mine!

In case you are wondering why I'm reposting this, it got deleted from my blog (but not by me). ToolBeltDiva informs me that if enough people "flag" your posts, Blogger will automatically pull it. Who knew? Here's the story. Most of the people that usually read this blog are people that I know (my real life friends) and people who read/post on houseblogs.net (my imaginary internet friends).* Well, someone on DCblogs.com posted a couple of blurbs about my site on their blog and I got twice the number of hits I usually get. I assume some of them are from traffic cops, maybe one of them knew officer [Buttnut] (not his real name). Next thing I know, my post disappears from my site. Too much flagging? or further government oppression? I don't know what got my post pulled. Maybe it was because I mentioned Buttnut's real name? Maybe it was because I implied that he may or may not sodomize his pets?** I don't know, I'm no expert.

*Maybe all you houseblog people are real, but for all I know, all the houseblogs could written by two teenagers in Syracuse with waaaaay too much time on their hands.

**So that I don't get sued, let me say that I was actually kidding about that part. I don't know if Officer Buttnut sodomizes his pets, for all I know, it's the other way around.

But anyway, I am re-posting this gem with certain edits and removing identifiable info, so that it doesn't get pulled again. Here it is:

________________________-


I spent a few hours researching statutes last night and preparing my trial strategy. I was kinda nervous and popping antacids like they were M&Ms. I reaaaaaally wanted to get out of this ticket and make the traffic cop look like a moron in the process so I needed to be over prepared.


Here is a pic of the ticket (aka the government's attempt to oppress me...stop oppressing me!). I blocked out my address in case any real ninjas want to come by my house and see if my ninpo skillz are up to snuff...which they are...as far as you know.




Now, I don’t mind spending thousands on art that looks like it was painted by angry chimps or on trips to Maui, but as a libertarian I object to giving the leviathan state any of my money without a fight. So if these totalitarian thugs wanted my $75, they were going to have to fight for it!

I think I should mention something about my legal skillz before I go further.

Most of my friends know better than to ask me for legal advice. First of all, I don’t practice personal injury, family, criminal, property or any other type of law that might come in handy for mere mortals. Currently, I work with financial derivatives and before that I worked in mergers and acquisitions. If you want to buy a multinational corporation or delta hedge your foreign currency swaptions, I might be able to help, but if you want to know whether you can sue for slipping on the sidewalk, you’re probably talking to the wrong guy.

Secondly, I am not a litigator and have never set foot in a courtroom except to contest parking tickets (at which I am surprisingly good) and traffic tickets (at which I am surprisingly bad). When it comes to fighting parking tickets, I’m like Atticus Finch, when it comes to traffic tickets, I’m more like Forrest Gump.

If that’s not bad enough, most of my close friends know that when I was in private practice I represented some pretty big companies that were in trouble with the law (not Enron, but a couple of other names you probably remember), and as a result some of my former clients are in prison. So to summarize, I know next to nothing about going to court, my record representing myself is spotty, and I will be relying on my own legal advice (and the last few people who relied on it are in federal prison…but hopefully not for anything I told them).

If you ask my parents if I am a good lawyer, they will probably say that I am the best one around…despite the previous evidence to the contrary. And I work with freakishly smart people who seem to think that I am one of them, so maybe I had it in me after all?


Here is a pic of the letter; the government's attempt to throw down the gauntlet...I say, it's on, bring it! [okay, as you can tell I have no idea how to use photo editing software...but I'm not so bad at post it notes and scissors though. Since the government has the original letter, and I'll leave this pic out until I figure out how to edit out Officer Buttnut's identifying info].






In case you're wondering, this is not a pic of the courthouse. I forgot to take a pic of it when I left, but this is a pic of the National Archives, where I had to go to afterwards to fight further oppression (long story). It looks like the courthouse so just pretend that this is where the magic happened.





Well, my court time was for noon (actually, it said 12PM, which technically doesn’t exist) so I showed up at 11:30 and waited patiently ‘till I was called at 1:45 pm. I had two alternate theories of why the summons was invalid on it’s face and two theories why the District couldn’t meet the legal standard required to prove the offense (“clear and convincing evidence of guilt”). But after I was sworn in, the hearing officer told me that since the cop didn’t show up, I would be found not guilty unless I wanted to admit I was guilty…no thanks. That was it. I stared into the gaping maw of justice and it yawned and went back to sleep.

I had relied on legal theories and statutes and in the end I won because officer [Buttnut] (the fat rude traffic cop) was probably too busy stuffing has face with doughnuts, sodomizing his dog, or doing whatever else traffic cops do in their spare time to show up to court.


Here is a pic of the admistrative hearing officer, a/k/a the one who helped keep the corrupt DC government from some of the Home Improvement Ninja's hard-earned beer money. [I'll leave this pic out too until I can anonymize it]




So, I’d like to have won using my rhetoric and lawyering skill but a win's a win as far as I'm concerned...and at least the District of Columbia will now have $75 less with which to oppress it’s citizens. Huzzah! The ninja strikes a blow for freedom! Ummmm, okay, maybe that’s a bit melodramatic.


I should send this to the Library of Congress so they can display it next to the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution or something like that.

Traffic Nazis

Well, tomorrow I'll try to post some pics of some more of the work accomplished over the weekend. I could do it now, but I am busy preparing to go to court tomorrow to face the traffic nazis. Here are the top 10, errr, make that 7 reasons why I shouldn't have to pay the ticket:

1) THE LIGHT WAS YELLOW...no, really, I mean it.
2) The officer didn't get a good look at the traffic signal because
a) he was perpendicular to the light--not behind me--and you can't see two sides of a traffic signal at the same time
b) the guy was probably eating a doughnut and was probably distracted when I went through that re....errrr, I mean, yellow light.
3) on the ticket, he checked off both NE and NW and was too lazy to re-write the ticket, so it's obviously invalid...right? right?
4) He was a DC cop. If it was a NY cop, that's one thing, but thinking a DC cop could actually catch someone breaking an actual law is not only laughable, it's almost statistically impossible. Clearly I'm innocent.
5) I pay his salary, so he should've let me off. (Actually, I'm a fed, so technically you readers pay both of our salaries, but he didn't know that, so I should still get off).
6) I was driving to Maryland at the time. (I don't if this is an excuse, but maybe it should be).
7) The LIGHT WAS YELLOW...no laws against running a yellow light!

Window Frame Magic

First of all, don't ask me why the pics are sideways. I tried to rotate them on Photobucket, but it wasn't working, so if it bothers you, just turn your head sidways, or lay your monitor on it's side for the remainder of this post.

Okay, well I wasn't kidding when I said that a lot of progress was made over the past few days. Originally, this wall (plaster and wood lath) was taken out because it had no insulation (they didn't believe in such luxuries as insulation in 1910) and replaced wih sheetrock over actual pink insulation (or maybe it was yellow?). At first I tried to save the original molding around the window, but took it out when I realized that 1) the ledge wasn't level, and 2) the molding wasn't in great shape anyway. So ripped it out and we were left staring at this.

So we filled in the holes where the sash/counterweight used to be and installed the bottom ledge level. The molding around the window interior wasn't level either (it was about an inch higher on the right side), but instead of removing the whole molding, my brother had the idea of trimming it with a chisel down to size, which worked out fine.

We used 1x6s for the ledge and the side pieces. We reused the original piece under the ledge. The side pieces we trimmed to 4.5" so that they would be even with the replacement rosettes that we placed in the corners of the molding. It looks like the original trim, except that the original had fluting on the side. I could probably fix that with a router, but that is so low on my to-do list that it will probably never happen.

Okay, here is the finished product. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my dad fixed the areas around the trim with plaster. With 20/20 hindsight I would've done a few things differently (like buy a different house, or fire the original contractor after the first week). First, I would've added the fluting to the sides of the trim pieces and maybe rounded the corners on the ledge. Second (or third) I would've cut the side pieces a little smaller than 4.5" so that I could add another decorative trim molding to the side, which overhangs by 1/4" inch. But all in all, I am happy with the result. I am even feeling a little guilty that I called my brother fat. But since I was raised Catholic, even if I didn't call him fat, I would probably feel guilty about something else (Catholics don't need a reason to feel guilty).

A Very Ninja Christmas

It's been nice having some of the family over for Christmas, but it's also good that I can rest a little now. I put on about 10 lbs over the past few days from stress-eating. Since most of my family is in Florida or NY (and until now I have lived in a 450 sq foot studio), I would always go there for Xmass. This is the first time I have had people over to my place for the holidays. This is stressfull enough, but my house is only half finished and there were waaaaay more people than I am used to here. My brother's youngest kid is really cute but a handfull. He really stresses me out when he drops chairs (or spills coke) on my new hardwood floors, but my brother said not to tell him NOT to do something, because it will just encourage him to do it more. (this seems like a strange theory, but it's his kid, so what the hell?).


Here is a picture of the culprit. He's got a little too much energy, if you ask me. I don't think ritalin would help him. Maybe some valium would do him some good though.





Although from looking at him when he's sleeping, you would never know how high strung he is.






They left to spend New Years at my aunt's in NY, so the first thing I did when they left was to take a long, much-needed nap. My dad and brother ended up doing a LOT of work with me over a few days that they were here and to be honest we got more done than I normally would've done in a month (pics to follow).

His older son reminds me of myself when I was 15 (lazy and bad at fixing things). My brother yells and berates him when he does something wrong, just like my dad did to me when I was his age. This is typical of what went on when we were installing the wood floors. (We'll call my brother the Fat Ninja, because if I use his real name, he might sue me someday)

Me: Why don't you let your son use the flooring nailer so he learns how to install the floor?

Fat Ninja: Because when he screws it up, it will take me 10 times as long to fix it.

Son: Thanks, dad!


This is what is was like when I was his age:

[Dad installing drywall]

Ninja: Can I try it?

Dad: Okay...but don't screw it up!

Ninja: Ummm, thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad.

[I try to screw in a piece of drywall, and there is a horrible grinding sound]

Dad: Give me that, you moron! Go unload some drywall from the delivery truck or sweep or something.


I'd like to think that I would use positive reinforcement on my kids, but my brother says I shouldn't. Traditions must live on! Besides, if it weren't for my father being so demanding, I probably wouldn't be a lawyer right now. I might be a drug dealer, a traffic cop, a politician or some other form of low life.*

Anyway, on the first day, my brother and I finished the hardwood in the living/dining room while Ninja Daddy added a coat of compound to even out the terrible drywall job that the fired contractor (Osni the Plumbing Monkey) had done. My dad has some type of preternatural ability with drywall compound. He could probably fix a car, repair the New Orleans Levees or bring about world peace with the stuff. He did the job better than I could (and a lot faster).

Well, I'll post some pics of the work little by little. I think too much got done to include it all in one post, plus I still have to play around with uploading the pics to Photobucket.com. I am uploading all my pics to Photobucket now, b/c my computer is acting up and may need to be repaired, or put out of it's misery. I thought iMacs were indestructable, but I guess I was wrong.


At any rate, here is a pic of the happy ninja clan. That's The Fat Ninja and wife, Daddy Ninja and his girlfriend, The Home Improvement Ninja and the Toolbelt Diva.






And here is a pic of the (almost finished) floor. I'll put some pics of the finished product in the next post. I still have to upload them and it takes me longer to do computer stuff than it does for me to do construction stuff (even on an iMac my computer skillz aren't great).


*The ninja is due for an appearance in Traffic court in a few days so he is bitter at traffic cops and politicians who write traffice laws right now.

T Minus...5....4....3...

Okay, so I went to the mall with ToolBelt Diva yesterday and finished Xmass shopping for the relatives coming to visit. I am off from work tomorrow and they should be getting here tomorrow night or sat morning. SO that gives me anywhere from 8-10 hours to finish the floors, and prime the bathroom (I don't think I'll have time to paint it, but it should look like white paint if it's primed). And maybe fix the huge hole I cut in the floor upstairs during one of my "plumbing lessons".

I am secretly jealous of people who can find a small leak and repair it with a wrench and a little teflon tape. I find the same tiny leak and the next theing that happens, my ceiling looks like this. I know, I'll never here the end of that one. "What the hell were you thinking?" "Why didn't you just [do the simplest thing in the world, which would never occur to me]?" "You just like making holes in your walls, don't you? I knew we shouldn't let you buy that reciprocating saw...when you named it, I knew you were up to no good."

I don't think I'll have time to re-connect the radiators (which is bad b/c people from Miami think 50 degrees is freezing), but I've got some space heaters which should do the trick. Plus my dad and brother are far better plumbers than I am, so I think can re-connect it if worse comees to worse.

I'd like to do it all myself, but I think I may be outvoted, even in my own house. As a point of pride, and for bragging rights, I'd like to say I did everything, but my brother may have different ideas. I can here him now: "shuttup and gimme' that torch, you moron, it's freezing in here."

I have an interesting anecdote about my brother and the marble tile we installed in my bathroom, but it won't make sense without pictures, so I'll tell you about it in a couple of days...with pictures. Or maybe my brother should tell you...since I know I won't here the end of it from him all week.

Manual Labor: Harder than it looks

Now, I mentioned before that I have a manual flooring nailer. I thought about a pneumatic (air compressor) one, but I bought a manual one for several reasons.

1. When I had done flooring in the past when I was younger, I used a manual one like this. They really didn't have a lot of air-powered tools around 'till recently. So I was more comfortable with it.
2. I didn't want to buy a compressor just to install some floors because the air-powered nailer is so expensive that if I added the cost of a compressor to that, it would be cheaper just to hire someone to do it.
3. the air-powered nailer uses staples, not nails, so I didn't know if it would be as good.

After installing some floors, your lower back hurts from being hunched over; you wrist hurts from from the impact (you have to hit each nail hard at least 2 or 3 times to get it to go in right) and you get callouses on you hand. Okay, okay, callouses on my hand and my wrist hurts, please spare me the comments on excessive onanism.

This is a pic of me with the flooring nailer. My back hurts just from looking at it.


The worst part is that I did end up buying a compressor (it came with a finish and brad nailer) and I found a place http://www.harborfreight.com that sells a air-powered flooring nailer (new) for the same price I bought a used manual one . Arrrrrrrghhh! I wish I had known about that place before. So I am thinking of getting another one, but I only have about 1/2 the floor in the living/dining room area left, so I don't know if it's worth the trip (they don't have stores in DC) just to get it when I need to finish the floor now.

So my aching back, arms and bruised ego caused me to have an epiphany: manual labor is harder than it looks. It's good that I work in a nice air-conditioned office and the only danger I face is carpal-tunnel syndrome or acute boredom (very common among derivatives lawyers).

It's difficult when I have to do heavy work for a few hours on the weekend, I don't wanna think about how my candyass would make a living if I had to exert myself strenuously for 8-12 hours a day. I would probably have to turn to a life of crime, or become an auto mechanic, which is basically the same thing except you get a little dirtier overcharging someone to replace a timing belt than you do breaking into houses and stealing VCRs. Moving on...

Toolbelt Diva missed the mark when she tried the flooring nailer and hit her foot with the big-ass mallet so she doesn't want anything to do with that machine again. But she works in a nice air-conditioned office too, so she doesn't need to bother with that. She got a nice bruise on her shin from it. Now if someone asks her what she got for christmass, she can show them a big blue welt on her shin. I think if I got a air-powered one she would be good at it, but that won't happen 'till my next house.

Tasting the Cake Batter

Since I haven't finished my post with all the cool pics, I'll just show some preview pics so that you can get a general idea of how I've suffered for your amusement.

I'll post all the rest of the pics when I finish my other post. So consider this post as the one that is comparable to when your mom lets you lick the cake batter out of the bowl while you wait for the cake to be baked. For those of you who are lactose intolerant, this metaphor will probably make no sense to you.


Okay, so this is where I left off a couple of weekends ago. As you can see, I got as far as where "disco lives forever" entry tiles used to be. The dip is leveled with roofing shingles.




I had gotten callouses on my hand from hammering all those boards in with my manual flooring nailer (I'll tell you why I don't have an air-powered one in the next post), so I thought that it might help if I wore my workout gloves, which are padded. They helped a little, but now they are all jacked up and probably usesless for working out. Now I have yet another excuse to keep me out of Gold's Gym.




Okay, here is an interesting idea. I used a board turned sideways as a transition to tthe next room. This is a LOT cheaper than using a transition piece, but it's also a great idea because

1. I need a some kind of end piece so the floor doesn't look wierd;
2. I don't know what kind of floor I will put in the kitchen, so I don't know exactly what kind of transition I will need.
3. this piece is cheap enough that I won't care if I need to rip it out eventually and replace it with a saddle or some other kind of transition piece.

This is what the finished product looks like. As you can see, I made it to the pipe where the radiator goes, so I can reconnect the radiator before (or while) my guests arrive.

Foreshadowing

Okay. So I didn't get as far as I'd like with the hardwood (this sounds like a recurring theme). But I did make some impressive progress. I was going good until I ran out of nails. I'll try to post some pics up tonight. I also have to make a run to Home Depot (which I hate worse than Hades itself) because it's the closest place that would carry nails for my Porta Nailer 401 flooring nailer. The HD on Rhode Island avenue is always out of what I need (even if it's something basic like teflon tape for pipes) and the people who work there are either indifferent, lazy, or idiots...some are all three. So although I loathe that place, I'll give some more of my filhty lucre so that I can make some progress before the arrival of some visitors on friday.

I had hoped to make more progress this weekend, but I wasn't feeling so well. Friday I left work early because I felt like I put anthraz instead of sweet-n-low in my coffee. I am not feeling so hot today either, but hopefully it will pass before my guests arrive. I don't want to have to listen to gripes when I am not feeling well.

Ketchup Post

Okay then. A few people have asked me what happened o'er the weekend. So to catchup:

When we last left our protagonist, he was planning on making repairs to the ninja fortress for the upcoming visit of Big Bad Ninja Daddy and Evil Ninja Twin Brother (and their respective entourages).

Okay, so progress didn't go like I planned. But some positive results were achieved.

1. I made a pilgrimage to tool mecca (http://www.harborfreight.com), which is the place where I previously bought The Persuader. I didn't get anything major, but I did get some much needed shelving to get some tools off the floor and get some appearance of order.
2. I was shooting for like 10 rows of hardwood or something, but I'm thinking maybe I was a little bit optimistic on that one. I did manage to get about 6.5 rows installed dowstairs, with the toolbelt diva's help. (One of my co-workers, [T-Bone*], asked me a question about hiring people to install some wood floors in the bonehouse. I said "hire? just come over and you can help me with my floors and learn how to do it yourself so that your wife will think you are all manly and stuff". I was kinda' hoping to get some free labour form the guy, but he didn't show up. I guess he was not interested in trying to convince his wife that he is a manly man, because she already knows that he is a lawyer and therefore not macho.)**

*not his real name

**actually, T-bone is a trial lawyer, which is more exciting than being a transactional lawyer, like me (lets' face it, there are no TV shows about lawyers editing the forum selection clauses in a widget contract). You might think that reviewing documents is not very macho, and in actuality , it's not...unless you are a ninja!

Here are some flooring pictures:

Okay, in this first one here, this is one of those before shots. the wall you see was knocked out to open up the space and the ugly "disco lives forever" tile was torn up. This not done by my mad powerful chi energy, but rather by the contractors I fired. They were surpisingly good at breaking things; but at putting them back together...not so much.

At first I just tried to lay some wood down, like this. But there was a slight dip in the floor. Possibly this was from the weight of the tile, but more likely it was from being walked on for 40 years by people with bad taste. Even though others claimed the dip was unnoticeable, it drove me mad, so like Edgar Allen Poe in the Tell Tale Heart, I ripped up the floorboards and laid a few roofing shingles beneath to even out the dip (this was harder than it looked, but not an amusing anecdote, so it will be skipped. For the morbidly curious, I will describe it in the limited edition HomeImprovementNinja DVD. It will be in the "special features" section titled "deleted scenes" I'll probably put it between the movie trailers and the director's commentary by me and academy award winning actor, F.Murray Abraham).

Here is a picture showing how partially outta wack my floor was. As I said, the dip was noticeable to me. I dunno if the people who said they didn't notice the dip were just tryin' to be nice or maybe some of them had some kind of inner ear infection which was affecting their balance or something....ummm, yeah, there's a lot of that going around this winter.





Okay here is what it looked like after I went medievel on it. I tore up a few rows of the stuff and layed down some roofing shingles under the floor to level it out. This sounds like some kind of crackhead quickfix, but two websites and a guy I know who does flooring confirmed that this is the proper way to fix a minor dip in the floor (although they could be on crack for all I know).



and here is a pic of the Toolbelt Diva measuring some hardwood so that she can practice her newly-acquired skillz on the compound mitre saw.

[EDIT: OKAY HERE ARE THE FINAL PICS I PROMISED THE OTHER DAY]


Okay, so here is how it looks so far. The dip is leveled out and there is flooring where the tile used to be, up to the point of where the wall used to be (luckily it wasn't a load-bearing wall...and no I didn't consult an architect before I had them rip it out. I just looked at the two floors below and the house next door to guestimate that it wasn't load-bearing. Then I had them rip out the wall (while I was at work) and when I noticed that they were still alive and unsquashed, it confirmed my hypothesis). This leads us to today's safety tip: If you are worried that something might injure or kill you, pay someone else to do it.

Check this out: If you look from upstairs, you can pretend that the whole floor downstairs is done. (sweeeeeet!) It's not as much fun as pretending you are batman (or a ninja) but it's a fun pretend game, nonetheless.

Operation Weekend Progress

Okay, so I got a phone call yesterday that my Dad, his GF, my Brother, his wife and 3 kids might be coming to visit me this christmas. Now I usually go where they are (florida) for christmas because:

1. almost all my family is in SoFla so I can kill a bunch of birds* with one stone by killin-errrr, visiting them all at once.
2. it's easier for me to go there than for all them to go come here (especially since, 6 months ago I was living in a 450 sq. foot studio).
3. spending week in december in Miami is much nicer than spending it in NY or DC (trust me on this one).
4. I can work on a natural tan while I'm there, which will probably give me a less-malignant form of skin cancer than I would get from fake-baking in a tanning bed.

This presents a dilemma though. Although the ninja fortress is, theoretically, 1800 sq. feet, it needs some work to get it in livable condition. The 3 BRs upstairs have floors installed, but there is no such footish luxury in the living room/dining room or kitchen. If they come for a visit, I'm wondering if they (especially) my dad will question what progress I've made in the last 6 months. I could tell them stories about my numerous floods and show them the many holes in my walls and floors where I acquired a Ph.D. in plumbing, but I think some tangible progress on the visible areas of the house are in order this weekend. Therefore, here is the workplan for this weekend:

1. install, ummmm, 10, that's right, 10 rows of hardwood flooring in my living/dining room. (I knocked out the wall that separates these two rooms. I am wondering if "the Great Room" or the "Grand Hall" is pretentious enough to capture the feeling that I have towards this room).
2. Install the funky track lighting I bought (8 months ago) in the masterbedroom (Using my 1000 wattt worklight to look for a t-shirt at 3am is kinda ghett0).
3. finish mudding the walls in my bathroom and prime it for paint.**
4. get organized and burn, errr, remove from BRs and file all my old my papers.

*before I get any PETA nuts writing me, let me say that "killing two birds with one stone" is just a metaphor. I don't advocate killing birds with stones. You should only do that to kittens.

**this is the bathroom where I installed marble tile everywhere. I'll make a separate post about it with pics soon. I did this with my brother some time ago so it will be like a flashback blog post. If you want to get the full flashback effect, like in the movies, hold a lavalamp in front of the screen when you read the post...or take some LSD.