Our youngest daughter had asked if she could work a little over Xmas break from college this year so I took her up on it. Ain’t she something?
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You just don't look old enough to have kids in college dude. I can't get over that.
As far as your daughter goes..... Atta girl! Giterdone.
Well, maybe I should say "Kathy's kids" from now on.
Hey. Did I see in another thread you saying something about running the NY marathon? I mean...have you ever considered therapy? <g> TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
You lead a nice life Jim.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
Yeah, I really do. TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
That was therapy. I was like six months sober and totally out of my mind. I had been running short distance regularly at the time but had never run anything longer than a 10K. About 3 days before the marathon my buddy asked me if I thought I might be up for it. I figured I can endure just about anything for four hours, so what's the big deal? LOL. We hopped in the car, found a hotel room in New Jersey and the next day I'm running across the Veranzano (sp?) Bridge. It was pretty cool. It was my first and only trip to NYC.... nice way to see the city. ;)
I'll still have yet to run the Boston Marathon, but when I do.... I'm training for that sucker this time.View Image
Sobriety's great, isn't it? I mean, I can hardly remember the other years. All that guilt? And all the hours wasted? Man, what I wouldn't give to get just a few of those hours back.
But running a frikkin' MARATHON? You the man. TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Yeah... I just didn't know what I didn't know. That goes for running marathons as well as getting sober. :)
The marathon wasn't really a big deal considering the events of the year leading up to it. Mind over matter. Anyone can do it.View Image
cool
She's a worker, Tim. Great spatial intelligence. Sees the next step. Fun to be around - got her father's mouth on her - always got a wisecrack. I really enjoy working with her as well as our son when he's home. Good kids, for sure.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Is that the other house or the one your in now?
Geezzz,,had I known you made her work so ya'd buy her a pair of shoes...geezzz
Be floored...geeezzzz
a...
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides, I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
LOL! She can buy her own shoes! And believe you me, she DOES. That girl must have...seriously...30 pairs of shoes.
That's the house we are planning to move into...maybe...someday...when it gets "done"...TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
quality family time...
she's actually buying that line?
enjoy the moment -
"there's enough for everyone"
good times ! and ....
nice stain... i love them stained..
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
wow, and she isn't afraid to get dirty! Most of the ones I've been running into lately won't even stick their nose into my project house. Good kid you got there...assuming she isn't charging you $40/hr. ;)
What is the story on the woodstove and surround? Is the stone decorative, or is it actually a chimney? Looks like maybe tile on the floor around it? What kinda floor structure you got under all that?
[edit] WAIT A DANG MINUTE HERE! You got your daughter oiling the floors and your DIL doing tile work in the BA?!
jt8
"The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded."
-- Dr. Dale Turner
Edited 1/6/2006 2:01 pm by JohnT8
...assuming she isn't charging you $40/hr. ;)
ha- ha- ha- ha...
ha - snork -
I wish kids were that cheap.....
"there's enough for everyone"
"Not afraid to get dirty"? Nope. She's a worker. Revels in it even.
"Chimney"? That is a free standing masonry chimney. The stone you see in that photo IS decorative, but it's not cultured stone. It sits on a BAF (big assed footing). It's typical of the glacial till we have everywhere you dig around here, John. I THINK I have a photo of the chimney before I layed up the stone. I'll add it if I have it on the hard drive. If not, I'll try to dig out the negative and scan it in later.
That hearth is tile, flush with the finished floor. Directly under tile is 1/2" wonderboard. Beneath that is 3/4" firetreated plywood. Beneath that is 1x10 sheathing on 2x8 joists on a network of various beams, which are supported by 4x4 posts on 24" square concrete pier pads in the crawl space.
The original house was built early in the 20th century. I think about 1920.
"WAIT A DANG MINUTE HERE! You got your daughter oiling the floors and your DIL doing tile work in the BA?!"
I like working with young people, John. And they like making a little folding money. Who gets hurt?
Okay, let me see if I can find this chimney shot...
Had to edit this to say the chimney is in "living room 3" not "2". Sorry about that, couldn't figure out how to delete the first one.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Here's one of the masons laynig up the chimney itself, John.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Wheew, that's old school! Terracotta liner?
But that flush tile work really does look nice. I've been plotting to put a wood stove into my current project house. Imagine yours with bookshelves on either side, and that would be exactly what I'd like (except maybe SS liner). I'm just not confidant that the budget will hold out until then. :)
Is the space to the left intentional? Or are you gonna put something over there. Looks like an recepticle over there.
jt8
"The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded."-- Dr. Dale Turner
Edited 1/9/2006 4:44 pm by JohnT8
John, man, that's just standard flue liner and thimble. Masonry chimneys are pretty rare around here anymore, but I like them a lot. Really adds curb apeal, and not that expensive, even if you hire it done. But you can do it yourself probably cheaper than stainless.
That flush hearth thing, that's always been one of my favorite little details. Raised hearths always look like retrofits to me. Maybe it's my Yankee roots showing, I don't know. TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Move to a mixed climate, put the chimney on the side of the house where it can go through constant freeze/hot cycles (as fires are lit and die), don't put a cap on the chimney so lots of moisture gets down there, and fire up the fireplace for 100 years and you've got orange powder.
First attached pic was taken from a basement cleanout. It wasn't until I'd taken a pic up the first floor flue that I figured out that the orange powder was (most visible to left of pic).
You would have thought that the previous owners would have figured out that orange crap coming down from the chimney needed to be investigated...rather than them just brushing it down the hole and lighting another fire. I suggested the current owners put a SS liner in there and adapt the fireplace to a woodstove (assuming they want a heat source and not a heat sink).
jt8
"The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded."-- Dr. Dale Turner
Oh. In an existing chimney I agree, it's safer to reline with SS.
But the last one we had relined was...I want to say...$2K?...$2200? Something like that. That was a single storey house and I shopped it pretty hard, probaly talked with 4 or 5 different companies. Could have bought all the materials for a brand new chimney cheaper.
Two years later the (elderly) customer built a fire in the pantry thinking it was the woodstove, and set the house afire anyway. Sad deal. TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Hey John. Have you posted photos of your project house you can direct me to? I'd like to see what the heck you're up to.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Hey John. Have you posted photos of your project house you can direct me to? I'd like to see what the heck you're up to.
There are a couple random threads based on different parts of the project (for instance the beam replacement), but I don't have a thread dedicated to the project as a whole. Partly because I move so slow on 'em, and partly because it is neither fine homebuilding nor astonishing renovation (like Sphere's). The random threads are out there because I like to bounce ideas off other people as well as learn either a different way of doing things (better is always good) or LEARN how to do something that I don't know how to do.
Single-story, mostly brick, simple ranch, with about a 4-in12 gable roof. 32x49 main house footprint gives you 1500+sqft plus the attached garage (20x24 IIRC). 8' ceilings, 1.5 ba, 3BR.
House has been vacant for at least 5 years, and possible much longer. About two years ago a water line froze & cracked open and it took a while before a neighbor noticed. I'd guess that the crawl was full plus a few inches across the first floor. They were slow getting it dried out, so it had some lovely mold crop up. The mold and water damage attracted the attention of some 'little white ants'.
This house has more wrong with it than any other house I've worked on, but on a lighter note, it apparently was built in 1971, so doesn't suffer from non-standard sizes as most of the older ones. And has had less time for people to 'fix' things. It is the plain Jane house of the street, so the neighborhood will accomodate as much improvement as my budget will allow.
I do probably 75% of the work myself. The other 25% is either friends helping or sub'ing stuff out. I'm on my second dumpster (40 yarder). Complete gut down to the studs (including the subfloor and all insulation). Furnace, AC, water heater, and all appliances are going. BA's are going (but I might try to save the cast iron tub). All new plumbing and electrical (poorly grounded 100amp is not enough), and roof... hmm, what else? It would have been easier to build a new one, but lot prices are high.
I attached two exterior shots of it from last fall, as well as a Flash that I made in November to email a friend. The Flash file shows the drywall removal of one side of the LR. From that angle, not much has changed since November.
jt8
"The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded."-- Dr. Dale Turner
She does concrete AND interior work as well?
That's a quality girl you have there, Mr. Blodgett.
Yeah, man. She cleans up pretty nicely, too.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
My only problem with my daughter? She's growm up too darn quickly!
Love working with Daughter.That stone work is the first thing I noticed there, Beautiful!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Herllo Jim
enjoying my daughter being home from that fine WallaWalla institution too - -remember those month long vacations between semesters? I never had one eitheranyway tomorrow I'm starting facing my fireplace w/ that very river rock you have - any hints or pointers?
Put down a hearth of some very beautiful ( and soft ) slate yesterday w/ a coat of waterlox to help protect while I'm messing w/ the riverrock
Jim, I hope Amy's ego is healthy enough to withstand being upstaged by a pile of stones, LOL
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
...upstaged by a pile of stones...
yur age is showin', PFN - I had to go back and look for a fireplace....lol -
"there's enough for everyone"
snork! One thing that girl has is a healthy ego. Stuff just rolls right off her. Of course, I guess all three of my kids had to develop pretty thick skin as a survival skill.
She's a corker, that kid. She's going to make somebody one fine mate, but they'll have their hands full, I'll tell you that with pride. She will absolutely, positively, NOT back down. She's got grit. TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Hey John, we STILL haven't gotten together for that cup of coffee! How about this week sometime? I have some planer parts I have to pick up at Tapp Tool in Fife. How about we set a date?
"Tips"? "Hints"?
As always, John, I just stumble through, trying this and that.
Are you using real stone? If it's real river stone it will have a flat surface on one face where the water has been sliding across it - makes for a much nicer job in my opinion. What I used there came out of the ground.
Have you worked with stone much? I've only done a few projects like this with it.
Let's see. Well, they say "one over two, two over one" but I mix things up a little. Another rule of thumb I've always heard is all yourmortar joints should be about the same size, but I like to see a lot of stone, and try to focus on always minimizing grout showing.
Hey! THAT'S something! Have you seen the dyes you can mix with your grout? Mutual carries several shades of dye so you can get the right color to best highlight whatever color stone you use. I think it makes a real difference.
What else? Crimony, John, you probably have done way more of it than me. Let me dig around in my hard drive, I MIGHT be able to find a shot of the outside of this house we built in the 80s. That was the first stone chimney I did... TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Thanks Piffin. I really enjoy working with stone. Here's another shot. There's sanding dust everywhere from sanding the floor, but this is a better view.
I made a HUGE mistake on this that I won't again. I got done laying them up, and really, really liked it. But it looked a little flat. So I bought some "color enhancing" sealer, tested it on one stone, and sure enough, the colors in that stone popped right out.
So I sealed the whole thing.
What a mistake. Instead of highlighting the color differences between stones, it turned them all the dark grey you see in the photo, actually LESSENING the color differences. Plus, everything went darker, closer to the color I dyed the grout, which minimized the shapes of the stones. All in all I took something I was really pleased with and the best thing I can say now is "it doesn't really bother me that bad" instead of "man, I'm REALLY pleased to look at that stonework".
I was sick. I considered taking them all out and redoing it. But it's more than a week's work, and I postponed action, knowing I could do it later just as easilly. I still may well take them all out or try to strip that sealer (fat chance), time will tell.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Let me start with I love the stone, the floor, and the cieling with the exposed beams. But I'm curious why the stone work is an "L" but the changes in floor surface are a curvy organic shape.Just wondering.
Um...well...that's a good question Jimmy. Truth is, when I sketched that stone wall, I did have a big curve in there, that's why the thimble isn't centered side to side. Then when I layed it up I decided to flatten that section out into a horizontal line, instead.
I can still build that curve up.
Think I should?
You're the first person to mention it to me. I think you might be onto something, though.
Thank you for speaking up. Far too many people are "polite" and won't tell a guy he has a bugger hanging. I really appreciate opinions pointing out problems.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Jim , You could mask off around the stones that you don't want the hilighting stain on and then remove the sealer and then reseal with a differant one . I was thinking sand blasting but i have done that on a few chimneys in a house . Big mess should have closed off more of the room.
A slab on the flat will make a nice shelf/mantel sort of . You gotta have some place to put aunt Tillys' ship in a beer bottle.
Where are those photos, Don? Give 'em up! Turn 'em loose!TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
You should have them by now. I sent them email.
Still haven't shown up here, Don. We just got back from seeing "Munich" and checked e mail, and nothing there so I sent you another e mail thinking we got crossed threaded or something. Maybe it takes a while.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
It looks to me like it should have a reason for being the way it is.My personal inclination would be to wait until I lived with it and see what else I might want to do. Some shelves, either built onto the wall or as a hung cabinet, might be the right "I meant to do that" addition.More importantly, what does the DW think?
that darkness is part of what I liked, thinking it a local stone colour for you!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Man, that sure is an ugly prom date she has. I hope she marries someone better lookin'.(-:
An adult is someone who can legally run with scissors, but no longer has the energy
Ain't that the truth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"I hope she marries someone better lookin'."
Yeah. At least someone with a little more hair!TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Jim you mentioned Munich - heres a big plug for Pride & Prejudice if you have not seen it - maybe even playing at the new Yelm multiplex ( or has played there? )
Now in Proctor district Blue Mouse theatre - do see it and your kids will love it too
fantastic architecture, windows, countryside and romanceyou tell me when you want to get to Fife - I'll meet you thewre or you could come by here ( about 12 minutes from tool shop ) and I'll show you where I'm at w/ riverrock and the Pennsylvania Bluestone patio I just laid and all the other in the process projects I have going at this cobbler's kids where are the shoes house
note am leaving extremely early Thur morning for southland to host an 89th birthday gathering for / with my fatherI'm emailing you a couple phone numbers to give you info and also to confirm if that's working for you
ciao John
Are you going to be back Friday, John? That would work best for me.
We don't see a lot of movies on the big screen, but spent most of yesterday doing year end tax stuff and decided to get out for a little break (man, sure feels like winter, doesn't it?). "Munich" was excellent. Intense. "Pride and Prejudice" is on our list, but we'll probably order it from Netflix.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Hey if your lookin for dye
I have a 40lb bag of fire brick red taking up space in my garage
Just across the bay from ya in Browns point
thanks for the offer
am actually looking forward to the natural grey mortar working w/ the stones,slate, painted white cabinets and white oak floor
look forward to doing my first dyed concrete floor sometime - will ( might ) remember your stash
I can see much of Browns Point from my house - up the hill from the Lobster Shop
have to meet up sometime John
Ok
So you must be in Old Town
My wife comes from that huge Paulson clan over there.
Did they make it there yet? I sent off another set this morning.
Hey Don - Yes, I got them. Thanks.
Hey, those are impressive, especially those corbles you made and that corner detailing. I like the shot of the wall around the door, too. Are you a mason by trade? Want me to try to post some of those?TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Feel free to post any of them I can't get my clicker to turn the attach button white.
No I am not a mason but I like working with the rock better than brick.
Want me to start a new thread with them?TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Any way you want will be fine with me.