Metropolitan Rural

I don’t know if I ever related the story from this past spring about our dogs getting themselves locked in our downstairs bathroom.  We had put them in there to keep them out of the way of workers in the house for something or other.  The larger of the dogs (Harley) has learned to nudge doorknobs with his nose as a sign that he wants to go out.  Well, the bathroom has a small latch below the knob that locks the door with a bolt lock.  He managed to do this back then and get them both locked in there.  I tried removing the door knob, only to shatter the glass knob falling on the tile floor of the bathroom.  No luck trying to get the lock open from the outside.  Luckily, we had the window open (it was spring and nice out) so I was able to get a ladder and crawl through the window and open the door from the inside.

Since then, we just used some tape to hold the lock open and we’ve used that bathroom to keep the dogs on a number of occasions (especially during thunderstorms).  Increasingly over the past couple of months, we’ve come home to one or more of the dogs shut in the bathroom.  We open the door and he (them) come rushing out all excited.  We really wish we had a motion sensitive camera set up there to figure out exactly how this happens.

Well, this past Saturday, Harley showed us that the power of his nose is stronger than tape.  Yes, we came home and he was not only shut in the bathroom, but the door was locked as well.  Oh, and since we shut and locked all the windows in the house before leaving for vacation, there was no external access now to the bathroom.  I went through several scenarios before finally freeing the dog.

1. I first tried the good old method of carding the lock.  I knew it was bolt lock and didn’t have a sloped side to card, but I also knew it was a very loose fit and maybe I could wiggle it enough to get it open.  No luck.
2. Knowing how door frames are made, I thought I could just take the piece of trim off the outside of the door and then remove the stop piece from the jamb.  That would surely give me enough space to wiggle that lock open.  Well, after getting the trim piece off, it was discovered that the trim was actually holding up the adjacent wall.  As in, the plaster is now sagging off the lath right next to it.  I also found out, they didn’t use to make door jambs quite so cheap and flimsy as they do now.  The stop and the jamb, in my case, was one solid piece of wood.  To add to that, the the jamb wasn’t even a butt joint to the top of the frame, instead, the two pieces were set in a half-lap joint.  At this point, my wife said she’s never heard me say they did something right.  She’s right, to some extent.  What’s usually done wrong though is the remodeling over the years, not the original building, but that’s a whole other post.
3. Getting a little nervous by now.  Since the plaster is loose anyway, maybe I can take a bit of it off and find the lock on the other side of the jamb.  No, I can see the tips of the screws sticking out from the strike plate, but I can’t get it the lock itself, and the angle is really funny to try and get a drill bit started.
4. Even more nervous by now.  Back to my first idea from the last time.  I wasn’t looking forward to breaking another glass door knob though.  My wife had the brilliant idea at this point to shove a few kitchen towels under the door to provide a softer landing area (as it turns out, the door knob did get a small chip, but it was not in a thousand pieces like the last time, great thinking on her part).  After getting the door knob shoved out the other side (the only opening here is for the knob post), we bent a wire coat hanger around and got it pushed through the opening.  I gave up and let the wife have a turn while I thought about some other ideas.  I eventually gave it one more try and did manage to mangle the tape loose enough that I got the lock open.  This proved more challenging than you can imagine since, peering through the hole, there was a cat on the other side who was enjoying playing with this fun piece of wire sticking through the door.

It’s a good thing I got it open when I did.  I had 2 more ideas at this point.  One involved a drill to try and find the lock mechanism from the outside of the door.  The other idea involved a 2″x4″ and a sledge hammer.

Of course, after finally getting them out, I disassembled latch and removed the mortise lock from the door.  I opened it up and physically removed the bolt lock from inside.  Everything is back together now with the lock no longer functioning.

Needless to say, it was quite a stressful experience.  On another note, anyone know a good plaster repairer?

Now that I’m finally ready to start posting again, it would figure that I would end up sick yesterday and miss it!

So, about the time we left off from our blogging adventure, I came home from work and sat down on the bean bag chair in the living room.  I relaxed and leaned back to rest my head.  Looking up, I noticed a distinctly wet spot on the ceiling above me.  It was right in the middle of a patched portion of the ceiling that had been repaired by the previous owners after the roof had leaked.  Unfortunately, their idea of fixing a leaky slate roof involved a bucket of tar and a putty knife. 

With all the rain we had this spring, a leaky roof in early June was a big deal.  I have only one call to make for the slate roof.  I’ve had repairs done in the past by Old World Roofing and wouldn’t dare let anyone else touch my roof without their approval.  They stopped by the next day to have a look.  Turns out the flashing around the base of the chimney was pretty much shot.  I guess 87 years of wear was a bit too much for the old copper.  The bad news was, the flashing repair wasn’t going to help entirely without finally getting the tuckpointing done on the chimney too. 

We’d been putting off that repair as we fixed gutters, downspouts and other plumbing/electrical work.  But, with a wet ceiling and more rain in the forecast, it was time to get it done.  While the roofer had a tuckpoint come out and have a look, their estimate was to redo the entire chimney, top to bottom (and not exactly at rock bottom prices).  The bulk of the chimney problem was the top 8-10 courses, with only a couple of spots in need of fixing elsewhere.  I decided to go with another recommendation I’d been given and used Carl Milbourn Tuckpointing.

Everything is now done and looking good.  I’d take a picture for you, except it’s tough even for me to see with trees and houses blocking much of the view.  I was a little scared to see the shiny, new copper flashing and cricket on the roof after that was done considering all the copper theft going on nowadays.  At least I haven’t noticed any more wet spots on the ceiling at this point, and the ceiling seems to have held up to the water it took.  There’s a small stain that needs to be painted over, but since we never painted over the plaster patch there yet, it needs to be done anyway.

So, one problem down.  Oh, did I mention that one of my original light fixtures quite working last night?  Not a burned out bulb either, the whole fixture is just… dead!  Guess I’ll be calling my favorite electrician today!

We finally finished getting garden and plants taken care of this past weekend.  There is still one blueberry bush we want to plant, but we haven’t figured out where that is going  yet.  I’ll never know how we managed to fit watermelon, beans, peas, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes and cucumber into a 10′ x 12′ garden so don’t ask. 

We’ve also got a good size planter where we have the herbs.  The cilantro is already taking over and blocking out the sun, so we will need to start using some of it soon.

Personally, I’m just hoping we get a few things out of the gardent his year.  I’m not really looking for a bumper crop in any sense of the word.  I figure that by planting a small amount of a lot of things we might just figure out what will grow well enough we want to plant more of it next year.

We did use a technique we heard described as “Black Gold Agriculture” when planting our garden.  The technical term is Terra Preta.  Basically we ground up a back bag of real hardwood, lump charcoal and tilled it in with the soil.  It’s supposed to help hold the nutrients in for a very long time.  That’s good, because we had a pretty good balance and very good looking soil where we planted (meaning almost no clay in there).

Now we just need to get that rain barrel ordered.  Of course, after that arrives I’m sure we’ll start the drought season.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday installing/uninstalling ceiling fans around the house.  I had put a new one in the living room last year after finding a really good deal on a nice one with a remote and everything.  I decided not to use the remote then because the fan was already on 2 switches, so  figured I wouldn’t need it.  I was shocked when I got done and realized there were no pull chains to adjust anything!  Thus, the fan was either off or on full blast!

So, we found another one this weekend (with pull chains) and the work began.  Had to uninstall the living room fan first.  That was pretty quick and painless.  Installing the new one there also didn’t take much time.  It would have been faster if I had looked at the direction and hadn’t gotten the wires hooked up before I realized I had forgot to put the cover on the post ahead of time!

Then it was off to the computer room.  The fan there worked, but the lights would always blow whenever you turn them on.  Plus, it was a rusty old brass and wicker version that just didn’t fit with the woodwork of the house.  Getting it down wasn’t much trouble, though I noticed it was about twice as heavy as the new ones.  The tough part was installing the new mounting bracket.  The old boxes were smaller than the new electrical boxes, but once that was done the rest went pretty smooth.

Now we have two great fans that are usable.  We’ve also got CF bulbs in both of them to boot.  Though the one with the remote flickers from time to time.  I’m wondering if the RF signal from the remote receiver messes with them or something. 

Notice I didn’t mention how many times I dropped screws when trying to screw the blades onto the fan!

Well, I’m not quite an old man (unless you ask my son), but I’d still love to be snoring in bed with all this rain we’ve been having lately.  I think my grass is sufficiently watered to come back from dormancy.  Now it just needs a little more sunshine to spring it back to life.

At least this morning I felt better about the rain.  I looked out my bedroom window this morning and down at the gutter over the front porch.  Do you know what I saw?  Nothing.  We finally had someone come out and clean out the gutters and replace a couple of downspouts yesterday and the gutters are running clean and clear!  Yeah!!

I had a very difficult time finding someone to do this, despite repeated requests on the Rehabbers Club e-mail list.  It seems no one responds to anyone who inquires about gutter work.  I did get a recommendation from my in-laws.  They (and several people in their neighborhood) have been using Cardinal Services to clean out their gutters every year.  My in-laws are on an annual contract to clean twice a year.

They came out to have a look on Tuesday and said it was mainly just a build up of old debris.  He gave me individual quotes for the cleaning and each of the downspouts.  He said he would normally give us an estimate for an annual cleaning contract, but he didn’t seem to think we would need them cleaned out for a few more years so he wouldn’t bother.  That’s the kind of honesty I appreciate from contractors.

So, if you live here in The Lou and need some gutter work done, I highly recommend Cardinal Services.  You can talk with Jerry Stanley at (314) 644-4285. 

PS - This is not a paid endorsement, I just know how hard it was to find someone myself and thought I would share with you!

The weather was nice this past weekend and I finally get fed up with walking by the “monument” in our side yard.  The story we were told was that previous owners of our house erected this small monument to a son of theirs who died at a early age.  The pillar was evidently topped with a statue of Saint Christopher and overlooked a concrete reflecting pond next to it.

While understanding the significance (to someone I’ve never met mind you), these monuments are smack dab in the middle of our side yard, taking up the best usable space for family time and playing catch at such.  After all, it’s time for us to make some of our own memories to go with the house.So, with the warm weather, it was time to get the old sledge hammer out of the garage.

The pillar is gone by now, the pad underneath is yet to be smashed and removed.  The only creepy part was after getting the main pillar down and seeing this white bottle underneath.  Thoughts raced through my head of what was in there.  Luckily though, it was a newer plastic bottle that once house “wedding bubbles.”  When the statue was removed, there was a hole in the top of the pillar.  I’m guessing some child after that shoved the bottle down there to see where it would go.

Though the pillar is gone, the memory lives on in my sore shoulder that is still throbbing 2 days after my last swing with the sledge.  The concrete reflecting pond will be going next and will likely take much more effort as it seems pretty solid compared to the column that was concrete block covered with concrete and rocks.

The moral of my story is this:  “If you want an everlasting monument to a family member, please use a cemetery. ”

We’ve been talking and working for some time around our house to make ourselves more environmentally friendly.  Here’s a few of the things we’ve been doing or talking about doing:

• Recycling - We’ve always been pretty diligent with recycling around out house.  The nearest drop off point is just a couple blocks from the house.  We’ve been more diligent lately in checking plastics and washing them out and such.   
• Compact Florescent- We’re about half way through replacing our old incandescent bulbs in the house with compact florescent.  As the old are burning out we are using the new CF.  I was hesitant at first because I’ve never been a fan of that florescent look, but the new bulbs are quite nice.  Our fixture in the bathroom had 4 bulb outlets at 60 watt max.  We’d only been able to get 2 of them on in the past with 60 watt bulbs.  With the new CF bulbs, we have all 4 of them lit up.  The bathroom is shining bright and we’re using less energy than we would have used in just 1 bulb before.
• New Lawnmower- Just bought a new lawnmower last weekend (well, new to us).  We got a used push reel mower from South City Lawnmower on Morganford just north of Utah.  For $40 we have an adjusted and sharpened mower that requires no gasoline.
• Gardening - We’re going to try a vegetable garden this year.  We’ve got the plot laid out in the back yard (making for less to mow!) and the seeds have been under the grow lamp for about a week by now.  We should hopefully get the soil ready this weekend barring too much rain and be ready to plant within a couple more weeks when the seedlings are ready.
• Rain barrel - In preparing a garden, we realized we will need to water said garden.  Well, our garage happens to need gutters as well.  That’s a pretty simple project I can do myself.  Since it is right out near the garden plot, we’re hoping to find a rain barrel to attach to the downspout to collect and use rain water on the garden.  This is not really a savings of cost for us as we are not on a water meter at this point, but it should be good water to use for the veggies!  Home Eco is just down the street from us and they just sighed when I asked about one.  Seems they sell out quickly and have been having to special order for people.
• Solar Energy - Also on our last trip to Home Eco, I talked about the possibility of putting some solar panels on the garage to run the power out there.  Since we were going to have some new electric service run out there, why not consider going off the grid for such a small use?  Well, with wanting to run power tools, it might be a bit more expensive.  I’ll have them out soon to take a closer look and get an idea of the cost compared to having conventional electric run from the house out there in a few months.

That’s what we are doing, what about you?

Unfortunately, my demolition on our basement has slowed to a crawl the last few weeks.  With teaching 2 classes in addition to my full-time job, time has just been too precious.  I finish up with one of my classes this week and the other in 2 weeks.  I did get some time late last week to pull down about a quarter of the stuff to the floor.  I still need to get it cleaned up and out to the dumpster this weekend I hope. 

I also need to get some more electrical boxes to use with the light fixtures as I take them off the plaster.  My experience with the others is that there was no junction box and just the wiring poking through the plaster and the fixture just attached directly to the ceiling. 

All this work though has gotten me excited about getting the electrical work done and building my workshop in the garage.  My wife found a website for the St. Louis Woodworkers Guild.  Lucky for me, their next meeting is the evening before Good Friday which I should have off work.  So, I should be able to get my fix of wood working by meeting with some others to get some inspiration to really get started. 

I’ve been thinking lately about community improvements.   The question that comes to my mind is “Where do you start?”  There are several factors that go into making a nice, livable community.  Here are some of my ideas.

• Housing- Going beyond style of houses, but having a mix of single and multiple family along with different sizes and owner occupied and rentals.  There’s also the aspect of neighborhood design and at least some consistency in style of setbacks and such that factor in here.  Of course, there’s also the big one of condition.
• Education- Here I’m thinking everything from elementary schools to adult education and literacy programs.  You don’t need a neighborhood full of PhD’s but it sure helps to have a neighborhood where everyone has some basic education.  Enough so to stay in touch with the rest of the world and make smart, well-informed decisions.
• Business - Local businesses are often touted as the key to bringing an area back around.  Local shops provide not only necessary goods and services, but also a local sense of connectedness for the residents to meet and share common bonds.

These are 3 great areas that can have a great impact on a neighborhood.  The problem is, where do you start?  There are some “really nice” neighborhoods around with very nice houses, a highly educated residential base and almost no businesses.  Those don’t interest me because the people don’t feel as connected to each other.

The same can go for any 2 of the 3 or any single one.  Areas that have all 3 of these things going from them really thrive and grow (in my experience).  If you start with housing, you can often start to attract more highly educated people to the area as they are more likely to have a higher paying job which can afford the remodeled house. But if you don’t take the time to educate current residents and keep a mixed housing stock, it might seem like they are being pushed out because they would no longer “fit in” to the new demographic. 

Obviously, in this scenario, businesses would be attracted to the neighborhood.  But as incomes go up so does the draw of big box stores.  While I’m not opposed to those kind of stores (they are not “evil” as some propose them to be), they also displace the social connectedness you have with smaller, family run businesses. 

I think this all really goes down to keeping a good mix of all of these things.  Diversity in housing, education and business is necessary for a truly great experience for all.  That was always the thing that turned me off from most suburban communities.  So much of the time they are built to create sameness.  There you can live in a house that if it’s not the same as the one next door is at least the same as the one 2 doors down and be among people who have about the same education and income as you.  Everyone drives the same cars to shop at the same big box retailers to buy the same stuff to fit in their same houses. 

That all sounds like such a bore!  I guess people are attracted by that because so many of us are afraid of conflict.  Maybe if I live someplace where everything is the same, there won’t be any. 

Personally, I see and hear comments from people occasionally about such and such city neighborhood that is “coming back.”  What defines that?  I’m almost afraid at times that it is coming back because people are solely remodeling houses to try and make a big check when some well off, highly educated family moves in at inflated prices.  It seems a lot of people I talk with think that is what makes a neighborhood nice.  I don’t want to see suburban communities here in my city (I’m very worried that McKee is planning that very thing with all of his tax incentives).

How can we insure that we reach a balance in community development and improvements?  How can organizations improving these different areas work together to bring about neighborhood improvement that brings people together rather than segregating people out like we’ve done the last 50 years?

The next few weeks you might not see me around here much.  Between the full-time job, the night teaching (2 nights a week) and getting the basement work done, time is going to be precious.

 I took advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday and got the garage cleaned up.  Basically, it was a lot of stacking of lumber that had been taken out of the basement and/or leftovers from working on the fence.  That let me take an hour or so on Sunday and get about half the stuff we have stored in the basement out to the garage.

I used several long 4×4 posts and some big 1×12 boards to make a large “pallet” on the garage floor so I can keep most the boxes off the floor should there be water get in the garage (which seldom, but does occasionally, happen).  I’ve got a couple tables and another dozen or so boxes to get out there some evening this week if it’s warm enough. 

That means that by next weekend I should be able to put up some drop cloths to keep dust out of the main part of the house and go to town tearing down plaster ceiling.  I’ll have a few light fixtures to work on in the process, since the one’s I’ve found down there were attached directly to the plaster ceiling without any kind of junction box.  So, I have to carefully work around those and then redo the fixture with a proper box so that I can still have some light down there when I need it. 

Anyone feel like a weekend of plaster removal, just drop me a line and I’ll hook ya up!  Heck, I could even pay ya in wood lathe or maybe even some bead board!

I won’t hold my breath.