UPDATE #7

Oak Bluffs Spring 2009 work blog – May 18

I have been somewhat remiss recording all the hard work everyone has done on the house this spring. As I nailed the last tongue & groove board to the alley wall this morning, I decided to record what I remember of the work.

Oak Bluffs looks very different in April than it does in the summer.

Here is a view of our usual swimming spot and below is the house without a bloom in sight.

Ellyn and I opened up the house on April 6. It had survived the winter (reportedly a very rainy one) in good shape. There was a slight ripple in the new floor from the dampness. The new kitchen space was like a cave – insulation on some of the walls but nothing else in the new space.

The first thing we did was cover the new floor with two of the many blue tarps left over from the tear down last fall. I built a step over the pipes going from the new water heater to the spot where the new kitchen sink would go.

I had brought a planer from South Bend and Ellyn ran a bunch of the tongue and groove boards we rescued from the tear-down through the planer to remove the paint and imperfections. The result was varied but interesting. Some of the boards were warped and lost quite a bit of their thickness, but a good number came out looking almost new. That planer was LOUD. I got a pair of noise-deadening ear muffs and also some ear plugs for the planer operator and others in the area. We tried to check for nails but some got by and the blades got dull by April 9 when we left to go up to Boston area so Ellyn could visit with Alison before flying back to South Bend. I ordered some new blades from a shop in Hanover but they took nearly three weeks to come in and then they only sent one blade of a two-blade set. (Bob found the other blade under the truck seat after we finished using the planer)

While Ellyn was planing, I installed braces on the west and south walls to nail the tongue & groove into. As Ellyn finished planing I installed a few finished boards. I decided to first install the boards over where the new counter and floor cabinets was to go. I started in the southwest corner and worked along the west wall for 6 feet and then started along the south wall. It took some time to work around the windows. I didn't put boards below the counters to save wood, since the cabinets would hide these areas.

I had taken the Prius over with a load of wood I had left over from various projects in South Bend on April 6. We brought it back on the 9^th to pick up another load and to make it easier to bring Ellyn to the airport and get back to Peg & Bobs for the annual Easter egg hunt. We had a good visit with Alison & kids and spent the weekend with Paul & Lesley. Joy came over for the Easter weekend as well, bringing Mike's Sawsall. I spent Easter night at Peg and Bob's and Bob and I bought the countertops at Home Depot on Monday morning. I met Peg at Ikea for the big cabinet buy after she dropped Bob off for his gastroenterology test. It took forever to finish this purchase even though Peg, Lesley, Joe, and Jess had scoped out what we would need a few weeks earlier.

Joe helped us create a site on Ikea where everyone could look at the recommendations. After we did the purchase ($$$) we had to wait for almost an hour for them to pull the items from their storage area. Then we had to check that all the items were there – there must have been 50 boxes. Then we had to divide up what Peg would take back to Norwell in the truck and what I would take down to the Vineyard in the Prius. I wanted to take the corner cabinets and the corner countertops so I could check that the south and west walls met at a right angle. (Actually they needed quite a bit of shimming before they were square.

Monday afternoon saw me taking the ferry to the Island for the second time in a week, but it has stayed here since April 13. I am still on the same tank of gas. It has been a long time since I have gone for over a month on one tank. Once I got down, I had to work non-stop to get things ready for Bob's client Peter two to install the floor cabinets, countertops, sink, and dishwasher which he did in two days on April 18-19.

I needed to run a dedicated circuit for the dishwasher from the fusebox over the ceiling and down the wall. I had to install the drain pipe for the dishwasher, including running a vent pipe up through the roof. I spent a couple of days with the spiders crawling around under the house to hook up the drain to the pipe that ran from the downstairs bathroom to the old kitchen sink. I had run water pipes to the place where the new sink was to go, but I needed to put shutoff valves and fittings on the pipes to hook up the sink and dishwasher. We thought we could recycle the faucets from Ped & Bob's old sink. We bought a double stainless steel sink at Home Depot when we got the countertops.

I followed directions to set up four cabinets that were to go in the corner so I could place the corner countertops and check for squareness. I had to shim out the west wall an inch to achieve a square corner. Then it was off to installing the tongue and groove.

I barely stayed ahead of Peter two as he installed the cabinets and countertops and I hung the tongue & groove. But we got it all done. The sink worked after a couple of leaks from not seating the sharkbite fittings properly. I had to go running out to the alley to shut off the water. I really saw the need to cut a gap in the porch railing so we don't have to go all the way to the street to get access to the alley. The dishwasher worked like a charm. What a timesaver that will be.

Peter two had brought his two daughters down and they had a great time wandering around Circuit Ave. Peg took them for a tour of Edgartown and South Beach as well. Speaking of plumbing, one thing that is happening is that the delta shower faucets are turning cold for a minute or two about 5 minutes into the shower. The faucet on the sink is still running hot at the same time. I have to get on the internet to see if others have experienced this phenomenon with tankless water heaters.

After Peter two left, Peg and Bob stayed for a day or two and Bob took up Ellyn's place at the planer. He discovered that one could plane a little less and use a sander to get the boards looking spiffy without having to thin them out so much. By the time they left, I had a good stack of boards ready to use.

Peg and Bob also set up the tall pantry cabinet.

That fit nicely on the north wall to the left of the dining room door opening as you look at the dining room. The rest of the week, I spent installing the drawers on the cabinets and the rotating shelf in the corner cabinet. We had to wait ten days or so for the drawer fronts and cabinet doors to come in. Fortunately, Mike planned to come over the weekend of April 25-27 to work on the ceiling and brought the truck over with the ply-bead panels and the beech colored cabinet doors. That meant I had to work hard putting up ceiling braces for us to nail the ceiling panels to and also getting the wiring for the recessed lighting in place.

Peg and Bob were real troopers picking up the ceiling panels on Friday, April 25. They called me from Home Depot to ask about using paneling instead of ply-bead and I said OK – never having worked with either of them. When they got the load to the parking lot, Bob struck up a conversation with a contractor who said the paneling would not work very well on the ceiling. So they exchanged it for the ply-bead. Then when they got home and started putting a coat of Kilz-2 on the panels, they discovered one of the panels was damaged. So back to home depot they went. Peg drove the truck to Woods Hole and exchanged it for Mike's Prius and the load finally arrived at 38 Samoset. Peg was ready to get back to her grading after all that excitement.

We had hoped that Dan or Joe would be able to get down to help install the ceiling because it was awfully high and while ply-bead is lighter than drywall it is not trivial handling those 4x8 sheets. Joe had friends from out-of-town visit and Dan had come down with strep throat earlier in the week. Mike and I wrestled the first panel into place over the sink and looked at each other. How were we ever going to get the high pieces in? Just then, the phone rang and Dan said, “I'm on the boat.”

He decided he felt good and didn't want to sit around all weekend. After Dan arrived, things went pretty smoothly. We set up some 2x6's on the ladders at various heights and Mike and Dan squirted glue set the panels in place and nailed them to the rafters and braces while I held them in place with a T brace we built out of 2x4's. We were all pretty tired when we finished in late afternoon, but it looked good. Dan went back on the 7pm boat since he had to work on Sunday. Mike took him over to Vineyard Haven and I went to the 7pm Mass – which it turned out was in Portuguese. I couldn't understand a word, although the written text projected on the wall looked a lot like Spanish.

The next day, Mike installed the leftover ply-bead on the top 24 inches of the north wall, to cover over the ratty area between the new and old roofs where Bob had tried to pry off a shingle and took a board out instead. It looks quite nice there, but needs painting as does the rest of that wall and the ceiling. Bob had sent over a bunch of tongue & groove from his old chicken coup but it was redwood and didn't look right alongside the pine. We did use one thin redwood board on the transition between the ply-bead on the north wall and the rest of the wall. I used the rest on the wall separating the set tubs from the laundry area and for the loft shelving over the screen door.

I had a couple of days alone and then Lesley came down to help. She installed the drawer fronts and the cabinet doors and the kick plates to hide the cabinet legs. The kitchen was really taking shape. One problem was that we had not picked up any knobs or handles so it was hard to open the cabinets and drawers. Peg solved that problem by putting blue tape on the drawers and doors so there would be something to grab. While Lesley was working on the cabinets (she also installed the three wall cabinets as well), I was wiring the recessed lighting boxes. I had already installed the ceiling light/fan before she got down. I cut the hole for the second recessed light in the wrong place and was wondering how I was going to cover it up when Lesley suggested that I use two switches for the lighting. One on the east wall to control the light over the table and the miscut one over the counter and the other near the stove to control the other two lights over the counter and the one over the stove.

That took a lot of wiring and some swearing as well as I had to rewire the light over the stove since I had cut the original wire too short, but everything worked. I also had time to install a shelf for the microwave to the left of the tall pantry cabinet. I left with Lesley since I had to fly to DC for a conference and then a week back in South Bend. As we were leaving Chris Murphy and the motorcycle gang arrived to give the kitchen its first real test. Apparently it passed with flying colors.

While I was gone, Peg & Bob and Ed & Judy Casassa came down for a long weekend May 8-11 and installed the new floor in the laundry area. Bob also cleaned up a bunch of boards for me to continue working. He and Judy also managed to scrape, remove mold and paint the living room ceiling. Peg brought down the cabinet knobs later installed by Joe. I had finished the west wall before I left. After I got back on May 13^th, I finished the east wall up to the window.

Since Joe and Jess were coming down on the May 16-17 weekend to help install the windows, I got the final go aheadto install the skylight on the east wall (although Peg

thought I was going to install it on an angle following the roof line, but I had always intended to install it horizontally about 6 feet off the floor.)

I had to set up the braces for the windows, so we were ready to cut the openings when Joe arrived. Joe, Jess and Eva arrived on the 9:30 boat on Saturday. I had already gone to Hinkley's and bought 6 new tongue & groove boards to finish the east wall after the windows were in. Joe cut out the openings with the sawsall and placed the windows in the openings. They fit very well. I finished the outside of the windows while he measured and cut 2x4 braces to hold up the ceiling where it meets the wall. The ceiling had buckled in a few places during the three weeks since we installed it. I was able to screw up the worst of the buckles and the braces are pretty close to the ceiling for the most part. Joe put a coat of Kilz-2 on the braces before we put them up. In order to install the brace on the east wall, I had to install the tongue and groove, at least the high pieces all across the wall.

Saturday was beautiful but Sunday was drizzly, so Joe, Jess and Eva left on the 1:15 boat. Joe took some pictures of the almost-finished kitchen and sent them out this morning. You can see some insulation showing on the east wall. That is now all covered up. I will have a week by myself to do some finishing touches – move the hot water electrical box away from the set tubs, try to correct the weak cold water flow from the kitchen sink, finish installing the ¾ inch plywood floor in the back room, figure out how to trim out the windows, and develop a plan for finishing the laundry area. Peter two and Bob will be back on the weekend to do the work on this area.

Most of the wood is gone from the front porch. I may need some of what remains for the laundry area, but by next week we should be able to walk and sit unhampered out there. :)

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Addendum: It is now July and the first renters are due in tomorrow (the 4^th). I thought I would make this last installment of the blog as an addendum to the report above. I did reroute the electric box for the hot water heater so it is on the opposite side from the set tubs. I finished the floor in the back room and hung the old screen door (lengthening it by 6 inches so us tall folks don't bang our heads going out) in the opening between the west kitchen wall and the water heater. The door is bigger than the opening but there is room for it to close before it hits the washing machine. You have to see it to understand completely. I even was able to preserve the bang it makes when it closes, so those of you steeped in nostalgia will be happy. Actually, we tried our darndest to buffer the door when it closed but to no avail. Now we have three screen doors that bank with slightly different pitches (Ellyn's note: all very annoying). Bob had found a heavy aluminum screen door in his travels to cheer on Dan during his 100 mile bicycle ride, but it would not have fit any of the doors and I recommended that we not use it on the Vineyard house.

I discovered that the problem with the cold water pressure could be solved with a new faucet system. We had used the old faucet from Peg and Bob's replaced sink when their kitchen was remodeled but it must have been defective. Peg bought the new faucet and sent it down with Bob and Peter 2.

I also build an archway between the hall leading from the west side door to the kitchen and the laundry area, and put up the rest of the planed tongue and groove over the arch. That allowed us to have some loft space over the laundry area as well as provide a place to tack a blanket to prevent drafts coming from the back room during spring and fall occupancies. I insulated the wall over the arch and the wall above the west door to complete the kitchen insulation. The old floor there was replaced by Ed and Bob.

The old dryer died and we installed a new one late June.

It works great.

Peter 2 and Bob came down Friday evening and we decided his talent was better used working on finishing the kitchen than the back room/laundry area. He attached the counter to the small cabinet between the stove and the fridge, installed kickboards under the tall pantry cabinet and replaced the kitchen sink faucet – we got it backwards the first time and hooked the hot and cold hoses up wrong the second time but the third time was the charm. The cold water streams out without problem now.

Peter 2 spent the rest of the time framing in the windows. I think you will like the look of the windows. We wondered about what color to paint the frames, blue or white, took a poll and came up pretty evenly split. The painters, Peg and Ellyn, had voted for blue, so they made an executive blue decision. After Peter 2 and Bob left, I finished framing and priming the windows. While Peter 2 was working on the kitchen, Peter 1 (that's me) worked on the back room. I installed four lofts for some of our “stuff” which we would have stuffed in the back room. This includes beach chairs which seem to multiply each year, the extra wood shingles, extra pieces of bamboo flooring, fans, oars, insulation, life preservers, plastic tarps, and hazardous waste and stuff to take to the dump such as paint and the rusted out gas tank. The next hazardous waste day is July 18 out by the airport. The one after that is September 15. I used most of the remaining wood to build the lofts – what was not needed to finish the wall between the back room and the laundry area.

That about finished the project except for putting up a couple of shelves in the kitchen, moving the phone over by the dining room door, installing baseboards around the bottom of the walls and doing a lot of finish painting. Peg, in a fetching headdress, brightened up the ceiling and then put a couple of coats of polyurethane on the tongue and groove walls after Ellyn and I left in early June. Ed and Bob finished the threshholds for the new floor.

We did some touch up things during our family week in late June, including stopping the leak in the drain under the sink, and switching the kitchen lights, microwave, computer and washing machine circuit from 15 to 20 amp. That should prevent popping the circuit breaker. With some telephone consultation with Peg and help from Ben, we did some re-decorating.

We did not get final pictures because we had the last minute hurry to the ferry rush, but will add them later. Here is one picture close to the end.

The kitchen works well in that the southwest winds cool it down on hot days and there is more daylight. There is room for the young children to cavort and play while several adults are cooking and chatting. It is a nice place to relax. And even more, the floor is good for dancing.

The kitchen looks real nice if I do say so myself.

Thanks everyone.

And special thanks go to Norman Reed, Judy and Ed Shemik, and Sal et al, our neighbors, who put up with weeks at a time of pounding and machinery and porch debris!

Peter

July 09

Update #6

[Peter sent this update on 15 October 2008. Sorry it took me so long to get it up! -ANT]



This report is a bit delayed. I tended to work late and was too tired to blog while I was down at the Vineyard working on the house. I will try to recall the sequence of events as best I can.

Ellyn and I came out east on September 17. Ellyn stayed with Joy and Mike until Sunday, the 21st, and I went on to Paul and Lesley's for a trip to Myrtle Beach Fri-Sun. We both ended up in Lexington Sunday night and headed down to Norwell early Monday morning, arriving there at 7:30am. We transferred our tools and clothes to Bob's new truck along with 12 cases of bamboo flooring, Ed Casassa's tools and table saw, and a new microwave which a honeymoon couple bought to replace the one at the Vineyard they thought was broken. (Actually, they just had not realized the necessity of setting the time before trying to use the power.) One of the things that we transferred from the Prius was the new tankless water heater along with its vent system. Needless to say there was no way to see out of the back window of the truck when we started out to catch the 12:00 boat.

We caught the boat without problem, passing the boat Peg was returning to Woods Hole on - we were too far apart to see each other, however. Peg had started transferring food from the pantry and dishes from the dish closet to the dining room. She had pushed the dining room table against the east wall and moved the shelving unit from under the kitchen counter to the west dining room wall. Ellyn and I continued that process, putting a small table on the west wall for the microwaves and toaster, and transferring everything from the kitchen counters and cupboards to the dining room. I removed the screen door and black wood door from between the kitchen and back room. I had to expand the opening a little so we could move the refrigerator out to the back room.




Ellyn removed the bottom shelf in the pantry exposing the little sink in there and making room for the dryer. She also removed all the shelves and doors from the dish closet.

I disconnected the dryer from its plug in the back room and filled in the shingles we had removed to allow the dryer to vent out the back wall. I had to crawl under the house, greeting the spiders as I went along, to retrieve the dryer plug. There was no skunk smell under there, so I guess the parade of skunks going by the front porch in the evening has not tempted them to take up residence. Once I got the plug mounted on the pantry wall - I fed it up through the old toilet hole, I saw that I needed to rebuild the floor before installing the dryer. This was the first of many places where my carefully timed demolition schedule fell way behind.

After a day of careful measuring and shimming, I had a fairly level floor and was able to install the dryer. I cut a hole in the wall behind the set tubs for the vent. I haven't extended the vent to the outside yet, but the warm dryer air was welcome during a few of the chilly days we had there. While I was wrestling with the floor, Ellyn was dismantling the dish closet. I sawsalled the wall off at the base and continued cutting off the wall at the base along behind where the fridge and stove were, thus opening the back wall of the kitchen to the back room. I had to take up the sheet of plywood flooring next to the water heater so I could continue extending the piping from where the new sink is to the new water heater location. It was easier putting back the flooring with the old kitchen wall removed. I only had to solder one connector and one plug as the rest of the fittings were shark tooth or compression type. The cold water line is mostly PVC (up to 3 feet from the water heater, and the hot water line is half inch copper. Both of them change to 3/4 inch copper within a couple of feet of the heater. I installed drain faucets on both hot and cold water lines so they could be drained when the house is shut down in the fall. We need to remind Jason about this.

I also removed the west wall of the old kitchen along with the screening and blue tarp we had used to keep bugs from getting from the back room into the kitchen all summer and hooked up an outlet for the washing machine. I removed the track lighting on the west ceiling and the wiring and switch from the ceiling and walls. I also removed the hanging light from the center of the ceiling and the track lighting near the sink. I disconnected the light in the dish closet and the new light up by the towel racks (which had stopped working between August and September). I remounted most of the lights on the wall to the dining room and the east kitchen wall so we would have light during the demolition. Ellyn and I removed the picture window behind the stove.



Cathy and Bill arrived on Thursday, September 25. It was damp and cool, not the kind of weather that Florida folks enjoy. We had a fire that evening and cranked up the living room heater so it wasn't too bad. Bill and I moved the washer to the southwest corner of the old kitchen where it was to go. Bill drilled holes in the wall to hook up the washer to the set tubs directly behind. It was nice to have the washer and dryer side by side. We decided not to take out the partial wall behind the washer and drier as it held up the piping and shelves over the set tubs.




Cathy and Ellyn removed the linoleum from the floor under the new kitchen after we had moved the stove over beside the washer. The plug for the stove will be in exactly the right place in the new kitchen. Fortunately, the linoleum was not glued down except for a spot where it had torn in the 70's when we moved the refrigerator. Bill and I installed the first stud for the new wall and built a workbench for tools. Cathy and Ellyn transferred all the tools over to the new bench, clearing the wall on the alley side.

Cathy painstakingly went through a couple of junk boxes, carefully sorting the myriad of screws, nuts, drill bits and tools.

Peg and Bob arrived on Friday afternoon and Joe in the evening for the big demolition weekend. Bob crawled up into the space between the roofs to disconnect the blue tarp which covered the kitchen roof all summer to repel bugs. While he was doing that, he thought he saw a wood shingle still on the wall, but it turned out to be part of the wall. We now have peep holes from the bedrooms down into the kitchen. Fortunately, you would have to be 12 feet tall to peek from the kitchen into the bedrooms.



Bill and Peter had taken down the sail and hull of the sunfish and stored the former near the rose trellis and the latter against the back wall in the neighbor's yard. I think we have finally agreed to try to sell the boat. Joe helped us take down the sheets of plywood from the between roof which we stored there during the cleanup weekend in June. Bill had gone to the hardware store to pick up some hurricane straps and roofing tar. Joe installed the straps from the rafters to the top wall plate. Now a hurricane will have to carry the whole house away to lift the kitchen roof.  We experimented with removing a few boards from the kitchen roof.

Saturday was the major demolition day. Peter used a sawsall and circular saw to cut off the roof boards along both the east and west walls without falling through. Joe and I pried off the roof boards and Bill carried them out to the porch. They ended up everywhere - I even found a couple up in the roof eaves over the table by the rose trellis well after the load had left for the dump. Bob hoped to reuse the boards, but they were fairly rotten and were not tongue and groove. We ended up carting them all off to the the dump.

We used the sawsall to cut through the rafters. We were able to rescue the 2x6 part of the rafters to use as floor braces. Just as the last of the rafters came crashing down - just missing my head, I heard a voice say "Hello, Dad." I turned to see Joy and Katherine standing there and behind her was Mike and Caroline. They had made a surprise overnight visit. When Paul, Lesley, Maddie and Ben arrived, I was really getting suspicious. Ellyn had organized a surprise 70th birthday party for Bill and I. I had no inkling of it. We were to go out to dinner at Nancy's.

While we waited for dinner, Mike and Joe used a metal blade on the circular saw to cut away the flashing sticking out of the wall just above the old roof. What a bad burning smell this produced. We were glad to clean up and go off to dinner. There must have been 14 people at a long table overlooking the harbor and the food was very good. After dinner we returned home and sang some songs Ellyn had written to honor Bill and me. Everyone took turns reading testimonials Ellyn had collected not only from folks there but from Abby and Piers as well. We finished it off with some delicious chocolate cake from the bakery. (It had been on display in their display case all day.) It was time for the little ones to go off to bed (and some of the big ones as well).

Peg and Bob had gone to Hinkley's on Saturday and picked up some R-11 and R-21 insulation and also some magic coat hanger-like thingies that eliminated the need to staple the insulation. Joe and Mike installed the R-21 between the roof rafters over the new kitchen lickety split on Sunday morning. We debated putting up the ceiling covering at the same time, but decided to wait until the wiring and lighting was installed first. I can't remember the name of the covering - it had some initials and numbers as I recall. I can't remember exactly what we had decided about lighting either. Dodie, how are you coming with the minutes?  Bob, Dan and I installed some flashing buried in roofing tar between the new roof and the house since we had found a few leaks during the rain on the previous day. Getting the flashing to lay flat was like herding cats. But we stopped the leaks. Joy and family left after church, and Paul and family left shortly afterwards along with Joe. Dan left later in the afternoon after the roofing was done. It was very quiet after they had gone.


Ellyn left first think on Monday morning to catch a boat, 2 buses, and a train to get back to South Bend. Bob worked on shingling the outside wall on Norman's side on Monday while Peg worked on the plants and loading the truck for a trip to the dump. After a final warning to everyone to take a shower, I shut off the water and put some temporary shut off valves under the sink. The cold water pipe was steel connected to copper and the steel part stuck out over the floor, but we were able to tear out the kitchen sink and lift it over the pipe. He and Peg took the recycling and a partial load and then came back for another load including the kitchen sink. It was good to get rid of a bunch of trash. I installed the new water heater and wired an outlet box to plug it in. It will be on a different circuit from the rest of the kitchen. Peg and Bob left on Monday afternoon.

Bill and I worked on bracing for the new floor where the dish closet and sink were and it fit as snug as a bug when we lifted it into place. We had to wait on the flooring until we took out the cold water pipe.

Bill also helped me move the fridge from the back room to the kitchen to the right of the bathroom door.  When we took out the old kitchen wall, we discovered that the floor in the back room was not level with the kitchen floor. It ranged from being 3/4 inch lower by the water heater to flush by the east wall. We decided we would have to take up the floor in the backroom and do something about the joists. Bill came up with scheme after scheme to do this, most centered around Lesley pushing down on a long 2x6 on the other side of a fulcrum with a chain at the other end of the 2x6 attached to a joist and pry it up so it is level and then hammer a foot brace to keep it at the correct height. I worried about this problem most of Monday evening.

I disconnected the old water heater and drained it Tuesday morning. Bill helped me cart it out to the truck so we could include it on a last load to the dump later in the week. Bill also helped me put in a stud to help brace the partial wall that the new heater was hanging from and also to install the vent pipe. We had to cut a bigger hole in the roof to meet fire safety standards for the vent pipe.  Bill and Cathy left in late morning and I finished reshingling over the new roof vent just as it started to rain. There was a drip leak through a nail hole on the down roof side of the vent, but I decided not to do anything about it since it does not drip on anything to worry about, and it is a very small leak. I put up a brace for the support stud and attached the brace for the vent pipe to it. I also measured and glued an intake vent out of 3" PVC and installed it along the wall over the towels to the outside.

As I was alone on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, I shut off the water and cut and replaced the steel pipe by the old sink with a capped off stub. I also cut the pipe from the old water heater and hooked up the piping to the new water heater. It took me most of Wednesday to finish this. I also removed the final piece of wall behind the old water heater. We have quite a pile of tongue and groove boards by now. We will have to see how much of the new kitchen wall they will cover.

Lesley arrived midday on Wednesday. She immediately tackled the problem of the uneven floor. She unscrewed the plywood flooring over the old back room and we took up all the boards. She didn't think much of the idea of lifting up the joists both because the floor underneath was none too sound for supporting the foot braces and the joists were fairly level front to back so the whole joist would have to be raised, not just one end.



Since the floor sagged when people walked on it, we decided we needed cross braces between the joists every 16 inches. Lesley used her magic laser level to get the braces even with the old kitchen floor, and then we used shims to raise the joists up to the level of the braces. When we put the flooring back on Friday, the floor was quite level and very solid. While Lesley was working on the joists I put up the rest off the studs along the new kitchen west wall, and then installed the last joist over the place where the old water heater was so we could finish laying the flooring. We also cut and laid the flooring in the section where the dish closet and sink used to be. We were ready for the finish floor.

I had been trying to reach the gas company installers for ten days for them to finish installing the hot water heater. I finally reached the installer on Thursday and he came out on Friday to look at the job. They would have to replace the tank and install 3/4 inch black iron pipe instead of the half inch yellow steel pipe we have now. They will have to move the gas tank closer to the street instead of further back towards the tree as I wanted, in order to be far enough away from the vent from Norman's kitchen heater. This means that we will not be able to have a door to the alley near the dining room. It will have to be near the southeast corner of the kitchen. See below for Norman's comment. The installer said he would do the work during the week of October 6-10, so Bob and Ed would have hot water. It will cost us $600 for installation plus gas for the new tank, but we get credit for gas still in the old tank.

Lesley left on Friday afternoon with job well done. She helped me install plywood sheathing on the utility room side of the west kitchen wall studs before she left. She also helped me make a dump run which got rid of a lot more stuff, including the old water heater. I felt bad junking it because it still worked, but couldn't see how to find it a new home. I spent part of the day and evening wiring and hooking up outlets for the new kitchen. We have four across the back wall, three on the west wall plus one facing the workbench, and two so far on the east wall. I will put in at least one more on the east wall in the spring after I get the framing in.

I left on the 1:15 boat out of Oak Bluffs on Saturday, October 4, after nearly two very profitable weeks. Before I left I opened the boxes of bamboo flooring and laid the pieces out in front of the TV building a stack about a yard high. This is supposed to acclimate them to the atmosphere inside the house before Ed and Bob install them. I guess the location was not ideal since I later learned that Ed wanted to watch the Red Sox game the first night they were down to lay the flooring. I guess it motivated him to work fast. I also took a final trip to the dump to drop off the boxes from the flooring and to the lumber yard to bring back a copper pipe, a shut off valve, and the extra pack of R-21 insulation.

Peter

Bob sent this addendum after his long Columbus day  weekend with Ed Casassa installing the new bamboo floor:



1. No hot water for our stay (Friday afternoon to Monday afternoon)- Peg remarked on our failure to comport with (to?) minimal standards of hygiene; Ed tried the cold shower- just a slow dribble; I went for a (brief!) splash a couple of occasions, so that the church would not empty as we went to Mass on Sunday;

2. Your new best friend (Ken, the gas company installer) says that he will do the gas work today (10/14) (says "we were bumped"- perhaps in favor of Republicans?);

3. New floor is done, to the studs or walls all around; we have some flooring left over, and Ed is of the opinion that one more box could finish the rectangular area where sink, washer, dryer, fridge, stove are presently located; perhaps you and Peg could talk further about the prospect? Unclear whether we can send pictures of the blessed event, but Peg is checking with the phone service. Floor looks kinda spiffy if I do say so myself.





4. We used about two rolls of R-11 insulation, starting on the left side (above old closet) as you enter from the dining room, and got around to the wall between kitchen and storage area; my sense is to keep putting it in where possible (i.e: above old pantry) even if the primary effect is as a noise muffler. Sure do not want to take the cotton picking rolls back to the lumber yard!

5. Started in on the shingling Monday afternoon - now using the old ones; it appears as though Norman's ladder will make it to the high side where new roof meets the house and I should be able to wrap it up the day(s) we are down there to put the house to bed for the winter. What's wrong with this picture? Norman gets to critique my performance, watch as I fall off his ladder, and then get ready for papers to be served on him for defective product. (Priscilla and Norman were given a guided tour of the buffed up kitchen area by your sister, to soften the blow.) Norman, a stand in for Bob Hope if ever there were one, repeated his leave them in the aisles lines about not using flour and water for paint this time, and said for the umpteenth time that we should not put the door back on the side facing his kitchen. (Perhaps some sybaritic ritual takes place on his side of the alley involving demiclad folk and kinky music that has escaped our attention before?)