Electrical work continues

Nate has been diligently working away on the basement. He knows so much about electrical work and electrical codes now that he really blows me away. He's wired up most of the outlets and junction boxes, and once we decide on a lighting scheme, we'll have our plans ready to submit to the city. He's even fixing some of the old wiring before the inspector comes out and sees what a disaster things were. He thinks of everything!

Basement update

We've been slowly working on finishing the basement. Over the summer we replaced all of the windows, which is something I never want to do again. First, I had to remove the old windows, which were embedded in the concrete and did not want to come out. I did pick up some sweet crowbar skills from it though. Then, the sills needed to be brought down a bit and then refinished. Silly me, thought I could do it with a cold chisel and hammer. After chiseling away for some time, and losing the feeling in my hands, Jess offered to take a few whacks at it. After a few whacks she handed the tools back to me to allow me to continue. Things were looking a little grim. I managed to get that opening completed. My concrete patching skills left for much to be desired but the sill was usable. I managed to squeeze the window in the opening after shaving the concrete down with a scraper (note to self, always make the opening bigger than you think, you can always fill the gaps afterward).
After the chiseling fiasco I saw the opportunity to acquire a new power tool. I came up with the idea of scoring the concrete with a masonry blade on a circular saw and then popping the pieces out with the chisel. Since I did not have a circular saw at the time I was going to have to buy one. I had no idea what I was in for. The amount of dust created while cutting concrete is astounding. There were clouds of it billowing out of the window opening and drifting over the neighborhood. At the same time I was being completely coated in it along with everything else in the basement. I even put up plastic sheeting to try to contain it, with only limited success. However, the scoring idea worked. After I scored the concrete pieces came out like I was popping the keys off a piano. Cutting concrete does take its toll however. On the last window the bolt holding the blade on the saw torqued off in the middle of a cut. Luckily the blade stayed within the saw guard so there were no injuries.

A new door!

We got a new door a few weeks ago to replace the door between the house and the garage. Neither of us had ever installed a door before. No worries, right? Wrong. As we should well know by now, nothing in this house is standard or level or anything. Consequently, installing a door becomes a very tricky procedure.

First, we learn that there is a two inch gap between the frame and the opening. Second, we learn that new door will not fit into opening with the bottom threshold. So, we remove it. Then we saw down the ends of the frame because a standard door is just slightly too tall to fit in our not standard opening. Finally, we get the door in. Hooray! Oh wait, it's crooked. Or the opening is crooked. Or the frame is crooked. Or the house itself is crooked and everything else is straight. Who knows?

After much muttering, smacking of door frames, rearranging of shims, etc. we finally get it to a good spot. We screwed it into place, and now have a new door (sans doorknob)!

Winter 2007-2008

Our first winter was a little bit of a shock. I moved to CT in October, 2006. Nate followed about a month later (having finished his Americorps stint). We both expected winter in the Northeast to be full of big, fluffy snowflakes. We expected to be buried under snow for days at a time. Instead, it was 70° in January. Finally, in February, we got some snow. It was winter, Cincinnati-style - three inches of snow and an inch of ice underneath.




It got somewhat better after that. We learned that we had crocus bulbs all alongside one end of the house. We also learned that our house was at least two different shades of yellow.

Halloween

We successfully survived Halloween. There were a few late nights finishing Nate's costume, but I think it was totally worth it. I did feel a little silly riding in the car with a 4.5' stick of butter in the front passenger seat.

And so it begins...

Nate and I (but mostly Nate) have decided to try and keep a blog about all of the new things we do around the house. First, we'll have some historical posts to cover the house and yard's transition through the last three years. After that things will begin to become current. Here we have the only picture of our house before we ever saw it. This was the house in its purple door heyday!