Whether your political tendencies lean towards an elitist, tax-and-spend democrat or a codgery I-hate-science republican or perhaps some wish-i-was-relevant third party candidate, the important thing is to get out and pick your method of suicide. Remember, there's only voter fraud, the electoral college and an entrenched two party system in between you and having a meaningful impact on the governance of our fine country!
Happy Election Day everybody!
(no seriously, get out and vote and remember all politics are local, which is where your vote counts anyways).
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Charts
Found a source for the historical personal savings rate from 1959 to current and it's pretty fascinating. CNN (etc) showed a very short term result from the past decade or so and it made me curious what that meant in a longer context. So you can figure it out yourself, here's the result in an ugly excel chart.
The source of the data is the U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis for anyone interested in it. The national data as shown above is from here http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/Nipa-Frb.asp?Freq=Qtr, I haven't quite yet figured out how to extract more detailed data, aka regional/income based which is the more interesting question(s). Oh well, enough of a side-track for now.
The source of the data is the U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis for anyone interested in it. The national data as shown above is from here http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/Nipa-Frb.asp?Freq=Qtr, I haven't quite yet figured out how to extract more detailed data, aka regional/income based which is the more interesting question(s). Oh well, enough of a side-track for now.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Anatomy of a Floor
I'm sick of bouncy floors. Most of the second story of our house has bouncy, creaky floors and I'm sick of it. The purple room we remodeled is a little bouncy, and so in working in the guest bedroom, I decided to guarantee the floor would be bouncy. So I knew I needed to sister the existing joists, but access to supporting walls wasn't very good. The center wall of the house where the second floor joists overlap was 4-5 feet past the end of the room, so the only place I could actually get full length joists in was around the window. For the rest of the joists, I took Tommy's advice and cut 3/4" plywood into 7 3/4" strips and glued and nailed two layers of 3/4" plywood to each joist. The total span was about 12' so it worked out well cutting from 4x8 sheets of plywood. Each piece of plywood was glued to the old joist (or plywood) and nailed every 16" to the old joist.
In the above picture, you can see the two joists that I was able to get full length joists sistered in, and the last joist you can see has two layers of plywood laminated to it. The plywood is flexible so you can really get it tight, glue and nail it place and adds a TON of stiffness to the joist. The difference was immeadiately noticeable. The plywood also made it really easy to level the floor. The corner you see in the picture was down about an 1" from the opposite corner, so it was easy to level the plywood before nailing it in place. I notched the plywood where it met the wall, so everything is as level as it's going to get. Next I put in 3 rows of blocking. I cut the blocking tight and pounded it in to place and glued and nailed it in. Lastly I cut strips off of 2x material to level the top of the old joist with the new sistered material. I belt-sanded the whole thing flat and glued and screwed sheets of OSB subfloor onto the joists. The difference is pretty amazing, I'm really pleased with how it came out.
I've been slowly moving the porch forward as well. I worked a couple of evenings this past week to get the footings dug and poured. Same old operation, 42+" hole in rocky till, sonotube and 3-4 80 lb bags of concrete.
This morning, I got 7 tons ( only wanted 6, but apparently, they got a little loose loading this morning) of #2 crushed stone delivered. I spread this under where the porch will be, I'll put brick down around the edge when I'm installing the screening later on. For now, it's a nice dry place to stand while working. In the picture below, you see our driveway, which looks like a driveway. What you can't tell is that I moved about 3 tons of new gravel on to it and spread it around. Ugh.
Next I'll need to get the sill beam of the porch flashed, housewrapped and get the ledger board installed.
In the above picture, you can see the two joists that I was able to get full length joists sistered in, and the last joist you can see has two layers of plywood laminated to it. The plywood is flexible so you can really get it tight, glue and nail it place and adds a TON of stiffness to the joist. The difference was immeadiately noticeable. The plywood also made it really easy to level the floor. The corner you see in the picture was down about an 1" from the opposite corner, so it was easy to level the plywood before nailing it in place. I notched the plywood where it met the wall, so everything is as level as it's going to get. Next I put in 3 rows of blocking. I cut the blocking tight and pounded it in to place and glued and nailed it in. Lastly I cut strips off of 2x material to level the top of the old joist with the new sistered material. I belt-sanded the whole thing flat and glued and screwed sheets of OSB subfloor onto the joists. The difference is pretty amazing, I'm really pleased with how it came out.I've been slowly moving the porch forward as well. I worked a couple of evenings this past week to get the footings dug and poured. Same old operation, 42+" hole in rocky till, sonotube and 3-4 80 lb bags of concrete.
This morning, I got 7 tons ( only wanted 6, but apparently, they got a little loose loading this morning) of #2 crushed stone delivered. I spread this under where the porch will be, I'll put brick down around the edge when I'm installing the screening later on. For now, it's a nice dry place to stand while working. In the picture below, you see our driveway, which looks like a driveway. What you can't tell is that I moved about 3 tons of new gravel on to it and spread it around. Ugh.
Next I'll need to get the sill beam of the porch flashed, housewrapped and get the ledger board installed.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Since the deck is done....
We have tackled the porch! Ugh. I had hoped to ignore the porch for another year or so, but several of the posts were rapidly turning into cabbage. Looking in the crystal ball, I knew there were going to be a large number of willing (family has no choice but to pretend to be willing) and (mostly) able bodied folks showing up for Thanksgiving. So what better time to frame and deck a porch then when I've got lots of people around? To that end, I needed to get the roof onto temporary supports and get the footings poured. I was not super looking forward to getting the porch roof onto temporary supports myself, so my I talked my Dad into coming down and helping. It was an unmitigated success!
We managed to get a 24' beam onto A-frame supports supporting the majority of the porch. This took about 8 arms, grunting, and a step-ladder. The crutches supporting the beam are all pinned. Here I am, watching the old man work!
He enjoyed himself despite all the work!
We used single crutches for the remaining parts of the porch. It was a fun day spent jacking up the porch to close to the right height, knocking out the posts and wedging in supports. Below is a nice view after I demo-ed the substructure.
Here's the dump truck that got dropped off to load the material in. I managed to step on a rusty nail while doing this, so I got to spend an evening in the emergency room getting an overdue tetanus booster and pumped full of antibiotics. Go coordination!
All in all, it was great, we went from rotten unsafe porch to fairly safely supported and all of the old material removed in a matter of 4 days. Could have done it without the help, Dad!
We just got back from the Fall Foliage Sheep Dog Trial in Cooperstown NY, which was a blast. We saw border collies that are actually useful. Max could only look on jealously!
We've got some more pictures and movie's that we'll have to post later. It was really neat to see and the weather was fabulous. Sitting out in the fall soon looking at ~peak fall color and watching some sheep dogs work was pretty nice.
In other updates, we added a motion-sensing light and some speakers to the deck a week or two ago. The speakers are great! You can know listen to football while in the hot tub, we just have to get video out there!
We managed to get a 24' beam onto A-frame supports supporting the majority of the porch. This took about 8 arms, grunting, and a step-ladder. The crutches supporting the beam are all pinned. Here I am, watching the old man work!
He enjoyed himself despite all the work!
We used single crutches for the remaining parts of the porch. It was a fun day spent jacking up the porch to close to the right height, knocking out the posts and wedging in supports. Below is a nice view after I demo-ed the substructure.
Here's the dump truck that got dropped off to load the material in. I managed to step on a rusty nail while doing this, so I got to spend an evening in the emergency room getting an overdue tetanus booster and pumped full of antibiotics. Go coordination!
All in all, it was great, we went from rotten unsafe porch to fairly safely supported and all of the old material removed in a matter of 4 days. Could have done it without the help, Dad!We just got back from the Fall Foliage Sheep Dog Trial in Cooperstown NY, which was a blast. We saw border collies that are actually useful. Max could only look on jealously!
We've got some more pictures and movie's that we'll have to post later. It was really neat to see and the weather was fabulous. Sitting out in the fall soon looking at ~peak fall color and watching some sheep dogs work was pretty nice.In other updates, we added a motion-sensing light and some speakers to the deck a week or two ago. The speakers are great! You can know listen to football while in the hot tub, we just have to get video out there!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Julie Rules
Julie ran the Rochester Half Marathon (and has the 13.1 sticker to prove it) two weekends ago and did awesome. Here she is, flying for the finish line!
I ran two, but look much less stylish. It was hot and gross from hurricane leftovers that day, but we survived anyways.
I ran two, but look much less stylish. It was hot and gross from hurricane leftovers that day, but we survived anyways.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Fall is in the air
How depressing, the last time we posted we were talking about how spring had finally broken and now fall has already arrived! Nonetheless, fall is here, whether we like it or not. Luckily, I love it! The air is cooling off, which only makes our new hot tub sound like all that much better of an idea! We rebuilt our deck this year and built a hot tub into the deck. Below is a picture of the hot tub right after I hooked it up and got the deck framing done. We had a bit of a fiasco getting the cedar decking delivered, so we had to walk very carefully on the temporary boards I nailed to the framing.
It looks pretty cool at night too!
Here you can see the decking down and working on the railing. I used the Tiger-Claw hidden fasteners to put the decking down, and the surface came out nice and smooth. Unfortunately, it took a long time and a ton of effort to put down. Luckily, the hot tub was fully operational then, so I took full advantage of it. Here's some pictures of the railing.
The posts are 2x4's mounted on end to the rim joists with carriage bolts. I painted the 2x4's to make them stand out a bit and then made the rest of the railing out of cedar. There are three horizontal rails, at the top and and bottom are 3" rails and then a smaller 1 1/2" rail at the very bottom. The ballisters are 1x3" cedar glued and screwed to the rails. You can see on the left of the picture the alternate style of ballisters I used. On the corners and under the privacy screens on the end of the deck I alternated the 1x3" with 1x6 boards laid flat on the rails. All in all, it came out great. I spent pretty much the whole 4th of July weekend doing it, but we're really happy with how it looks. It's pretty much the coolest railing in town. The curved railing over the pond was a challenge.
You can never have enough clamps!
We had company a couple of weekends ago and the whole gang sat in the living room and watched Brady go down for the season. You'll notice nobody (except Max) looks happy in this picture!
Despite having to rebuild the porch this fall (I know), I foolishly started on another bedroom upstairs. I took advantage of Julies Dad being around to get started in there. He helped pull off all the trim, pull up the flooring, and cut the bottom of the wallboard off. I'm going to put up composite paneling (similar to flat paneling), it's basically a way to make pseudo-raised paneling that allows you to use dimensionally stable veneered plywood for most of the parts. Vastly less manufacturing and no worries about wood movement. We'll see. I had to rewire most of the room once I got a look at the wiring, which let me get ready to mount the boxes horizontally, where I can put them in the baseboard, so they won't interfere with the panel placement. You can also see the cool wallpaper I put up in there this week. It's textured and fabulous!
Julie also made a seat cushion and curtains for the window seat in the purple room. They came out amazingly, even if the huge piping on the seat cushion about broke her sewing machine.
Best,
Nate
It looks pretty cool at night too!
Here you can see the decking down and working on the railing. I used the Tiger-Claw hidden fasteners to put the decking down, and the surface came out nice and smooth. Unfortunately, it took a long time and a ton of effort to put down. Luckily, the hot tub was fully operational then, so I took full advantage of it. Here's some pictures of the railing.
The posts are 2x4's mounted on end to the rim joists with carriage bolts. I painted the 2x4's to make them stand out a bit and then made the rest of the railing out of cedar. There are three horizontal rails, at the top and and bottom are 3" rails and then a smaller 1 1/2" rail at the very bottom. The ballisters are 1x3" cedar glued and screwed to the rails. You can see on the left of the picture the alternate style of ballisters I used. On the corners and under the privacy screens on the end of the deck I alternated the 1x3" with 1x6 boards laid flat on the rails. All in all, it came out great. I spent pretty much the whole 4th of July weekend doing it, but we're really happy with how it looks. It's pretty much the coolest railing in town. The curved railing over the pond was a challenge.You can never have enough clamps!
We had company a couple of weekends ago and the whole gang sat in the living room and watched Brady go down for the season. You'll notice nobody (except Max) looks happy in this picture!
Despite having to rebuild the porch this fall (I know), I foolishly started on another bedroom upstairs. I took advantage of Julies Dad being around to get started in there. He helped pull off all the trim, pull up the flooring, and cut the bottom of the wallboard off. I'm going to put up composite paneling (similar to flat paneling), it's basically a way to make pseudo-raised paneling that allows you to use dimensionally stable veneered plywood for most of the parts. Vastly less manufacturing and no worries about wood movement. We'll see. I had to rewire most of the room once I got a look at the wiring, which let me get ready to mount the boxes horizontally, where I can put them in the baseboard, so they won't interfere with the panel placement. You can also see the cool wallpaper I put up in there this week. It's textured and fabulous!
Julie also made a seat cushion and curtains for the window seat in the purple room. They came out amazingly, even if the huge piping on the seat cushion about broke her sewing machine.
Best,
Nate
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Its spring again....
Okay - so its been awhile since we've posted anything new. But don't assume that's because nothing's been going on...On the contrary, lots has been going on, so much that I think we didn't stop to reflect on anything that we did. In between everything, I spent two weeks in Japan in April. I'll post some pictures from my trip another time, first - what have we been up to in the last month?
1) Bathroom Renovation. There's a small full bathroom on the first floor. While there was nothing terrible about it, it was dark, with ugly linoleum and the sink vanity took up way too much room.
Before: Ugly wallpaper.
We wanted to lighten it up and replace the broken toilet and the oversized vanity with a pedestal sink. I decided on a blue and white theme and used blue and white mosaic tile on the floor, and white subway tile about 1/2 way up the wall. Chrome fixtures finish everything out. First of all, let me say that Nate warned me about mosaic tile. Never having laid tile before, this was a challenge. I made a good faith effort at using the manual tile cutter and after a single tile, drove to Lowe's to buy a tile saw. Much easier! We finished the floor tile, and then it was on to the walls...
We chose a white subway tile with a cobalt blue accent tile placed under the fancy chair rail tile. It really went well with the blue tile in the floor, if I do say so myself! Check out the new pedestal sink and shiny chrome fixtures too.
What's left? Caulk around the tile, hang new ceiling light/fan, and make and install a medicine cabinet/mirror. Oh yeah, and finish the trim. That's it - I think.
2) Assorted gardens. Its spring again, and of course that means working outdoors. I have planted peas and lettuce(s), and NY spring onions so far outside, but inside is where most of the action is. This March, I planted my seeds from Johnny's. I started Washington Cherry Tomatoes, Polbig, Big Beef and Brandywine tomatoes, green bell and pimiento peppers, eggplants, Thyme (why I don't know - who needs that much Thyme?), Celosia (or fuzzy brain plant, as I call it), leeks, and silver queen corn. Expecting a dismal germination rate, I planted 3 times more seeds than I actually needed or wanted. Well, as luck would have it - I successfully got pretty much a 100% germination rate - thanks to the awesome plant rack that Nate built for me (see below). So the question - what to do with all those tomatoes? I'll have to find room!
3) Compost. So last year we started a compost pile. Literally, a pile - unattended and lazily resting and decomposing against the back fence. Surprisingly, when we went to check on our compost this spring - we actually had nicely composted stuff! But, not wanting to continue letting it lean up against the fence, Nate and I (mostly Nate) built a brand new two bin composting system using the rails from our old deck (our new deck is in the process of being built - more on that later). So now, our compost is away from the fence and we have a place for good compost/dirt and another place for stuff that is in the process of composting!
So, the gardens are getting ready, stuff is composting and spring is here!
1) Bathroom Renovation. There's a small full bathroom on the first floor. While there was nothing terrible about it, it was dark, with ugly linoleum and the sink vanity took up way too much room.
Before: Ugly wallpaper.We wanted to lighten it up and replace the broken toilet and the oversized vanity with a pedestal sink. I decided on a blue and white theme and used blue and white mosaic tile on the floor, and white subway tile about 1/2 way up the wall. Chrome fixtures finish everything out. First of all, let me say that Nate warned me about mosaic tile. Never having laid tile before, this was a challenge. I made a good faith effort at using the manual tile cutter and after a single tile, drove to Lowe's to buy a tile saw. Much easier! We finished the floor tile, and then it was on to the walls...
We chose a white subway tile with a cobalt blue accent tile placed under the fancy chair rail tile. It really went well with the blue tile in the floor, if I do say so myself! Check out the new pedestal sink and shiny chrome fixtures too.
What's left? Caulk around the tile, hang new ceiling light/fan, and make and install a medicine cabinet/mirror. Oh yeah, and finish the trim. That's it - I think.
2) Assorted gardens. Its spring again, and of course that means working outdoors. I have planted peas and lettuce(s), and NY spring onions so far outside, but inside is where most of the action is. This March, I planted my seeds from Johnny's. I started Washington Cherry Tomatoes, Polbig, Big Beef and Brandywine tomatoes, green bell and pimiento peppers, eggplants, Thyme (why I don't know - who needs that much Thyme?), Celosia (or fuzzy brain plant, as I call it), leeks, and silver queen corn. Expecting a dismal germination rate, I planted 3 times more seeds than I actually needed or wanted. Well, as luck would have it - I successfully got pretty much a 100% germination rate - thanks to the awesome plant rack that Nate built for me (see below). So the question - what to do with all those tomatoes? I'll have to find room!
3) Compost. So last year we started a compost pile. Literally, a pile - unattended and lazily resting and decomposing against the back fence. Surprisingly, when we went to check on our compost this spring - we actually had nicely composted stuff! But, not wanting to continue letting it lean up against the fence, Nate and I (mostly Nate) built a brand new two bin composting system using the rails from our old deck (our new deck is in the process of being built - more on that later). So now, our compost is away from the fence and we have a place for good compost/dirt and another place for stuff that is in the process of composting!
So, the gardens are getting ready, stuff is composting and spring is here!
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