Fox's Fantastic Fixer-Upper

Just a quick update: Exterior is painted. I've still got to find a flag small enough that it doesn't look silly on my little porch and I've got to put shutters on the front facade. Once I'm done with that, I'll put together the "Before & After" photo.

 

Check your local jurisdiction (city? county?) for ordinances on which side gets the house number. Often these things are written into zoning laws so that the 9-1-1 guys know where to look and stuff like that.

 

They don't care. In fact the house didn't have a number for years--it was on the mailbox. At one point it did have a number on the wall, to the left of the door (as you face the house). You can still see its ghost under years of paint.

As far as the flag issue, it goes on the side that makes it less likely to blow in your face when you're entering the house.

 

Curb appeal advice - ditch the larger bushes in front of the house, add small shrubs and mulch. Line the sidewalk with mulched flower beds on both sides.

 

Last picture of the TARDIS, before it starts serving its purpose as a garden shed: I picked up a pack of cheap Styrofoam plates and glued them to the inside walls. Up close the result is less than convincing, but from a distance it looks somewhat cool. And as a photo...

 

When I look at that I see:

 

I just wish it wasn't so damned heavy. It'd be fun to take it down and set it up at random spots downtown. But building one, I can see why the wood production ones typically lasted around 5 years. Even the fiberglass models from the 80s wore out quickly with constant use.

I've got some leftover blue paint in another shade that I mean to add to it to create more weathering. And the, um, weather is doing a good job of fading and creating highlights, but since my backyard is quite a bit less grimy than mid-20th Century London, I need to go to work on it with some dark weathering.

 

Just an update on the guest bedroom. Before and after pics:

 

I just cut and installed a piece of trim on my flooring. Phase One of the home renovation is done for the exterior AND the interior.

I decided to use vinyl planking for the 3x3x3x3x3 pentagon "hallway" between the bedrooms, bath and living room. Initially I went with a Pergo in walnut in an attempt to match it with the living room. But I hadn't noticed that the Pergo was about 3x as wide as the boards in the living room, ruining the match. And being about 1/8" higher was more distracting that I'd expected. Working in Safeways as much as I have lately, I'd been won over to what you can do with vinyl plank so I picked up some for 98 cent per square foot in "Golden Oak". It doesn't perfectly match the bedrooms (and it looks a lot less weathered) but it works nicely. Picked up some actual oak thresholds (three 3' sticks wound up costing as much as 30SF of planking ), finished them with linseed oil, and screwed them into place.

Working on the hallway I've resolved to do the kitchen in vinyl plank. It is cheap (should be able to do the job for around $150) easy (at most you need to yank the baseboards and you can just stick it right to the existing vinyl) and looks nicer than the existing vinyl (and it will help tie the hallway in with the rest of the house). Were it not for a couple minor annoyances, I'd just bang it out right now. (I'd have to move appliances, I'll have to do the laundry room as well--and that really should get painted first--which will ALSO entail moving appliances, and I need to do some minor carpentry in the kitchen--along with painting, of course, and I really shouldn't be spending the money to boot.)

For the exterior, I've got some work to do on buttoning up the eaves underneath, gravel for the driveway, some landscaping, staining and sealing the back patio (I'm still not 100% on a pergola and/or a couple bamboo plants) and some cosmetic work in the garage.

Then there's the less sexy stuff, like vapor barrier in the crawlspace, insulation, beefing up some of the structure, etc.

You really never get done.

 

Painting opinions sought...

It is nearly time to paint the only original room left in the house--the laundry room/pantry/back entryway. I've got a couple decisions to make: what color to do the walls, and whether to do the ceiling in semigloss or flat.

Rule of thumb I've used is that living/sleeping areas get a flat ceiling paint while wet/dirty areas like the kitchen and bath get a semigloss. Coming in the back door, you go through the laundry room and into the kitchen. I have a door for the doorway, sitting in the garage. Even with the door in place there will be a definite tie in with the kitchen--the top half of the door is three glass panes.

So the first thing, again, is: do I go with the more flattering flat paint for the ceiling or should I use a semigloss to tie in better with the kitchen? Second, should I go with the yellow the kitchen is for the walls or, say, a more muted tan, like the one bedroom? Or maybe tan for the other walls and a yellow accent wall?

What do you think?

 

TARDIS blue to tie into the garden shed.

 

I've been putting mundane house renovation updates in my Blue Room thread and trying to save this one for things of technical interest. This could go either way but I've decided to mention it here:

I've been spending a fair amount of time in Safeways for my job. They use a good amount of vinyl plank in their floors and I've been impressed with how good it looks so I decided to try it out for the little hallway in my place.

That turned out so well and the product is so inexpensive and easy to use that I went ahead with installing it in the kitchen and laundry room. I really should've painted the laundry room first but that involves sanding and taping; cleaning up after--all kinds of tedious stuff. Vinyl plank involves peeling off the backing paper and sticking it down. Oh, you need to trim end boards and some other stuff with a razor knife, but that's it. Oh, and rolling it down to ensure adhesion. So I started on that last night.

I think I'm happy with the way it is coming along. I'll know better when it is all done. One thing I hadn't expected: Safeway uses vinyl sparingly--accents to the tile mostly and my hallway is basically a pentagon with 3' sides so it is fairly small. The artificiality of the vinyl plank doesn't show up in small doses. But when you get an entire floor--even a small kitchen--covered in it it starts to look a little fake. Especially where it meets the hardwood in the living room. Still, once the whole floor is covered, I think it will look OK. Certainly better than the generic vinyl roll.

I'm at a challenging point, though. At some point I need to move appliances. If I were smart and patient, I'd have done under the appliances first and then moved them into place. But that wouldn't have given me the instant gratification, so I did it backwards. And the dining room table. But I can't move appliances until the boards I've already put down are set--24 hours or so. And if I put the table in the laundry room I certainly can't paint in the laundry room. What I'm probably going to do (again, not necessarily the smartest, but, instant gratification) is put the table onto the bar at the end of the counters and then put the chairs on that. That way I can do under the table and when it is dry I can just flip the table back down where it belongs--no muss, no fuss.

I was going to move everything from the laundry room out to the garage (I should organize what is already in the garage first instead of just adding more junk, but what can I say? ), but it's been raining all day. So I may just move it all into the closet in the spare bedroom. I still need to go out to the garage for dropcloths for the washer and dryer, but this should still be less messy.

Speaking of messy, the dog doesn't seem to care for rain, but she wanted to go out. Came back with muddy paws. I didn't think anything of it and wiped them off, but now I see she has a muddy nose. Someone's been digging.

Well, for now a quick break to do boring things like paperwork.

 

Yeah. So I didn't really do any paperwork--even though I need to. When the rain let up The Dog insisted we play fetch. Then I had something to eat and mostly finished up the kitchen. Like I said, I've still got to do under the appliances and I've still got the border plank to do (that, you need to trim it to size. ). And yeah, it looks a lot nicer in a low resolution photo, but still, I think it turned out pretty well:

 

Worked on the laundry room today. Finished the trim. Got about halfway on the flooring. OBEY THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE FLOORING. When you do floors (or any other tile or tile-like work), you make a crosshairs on the floor of the room. Then you start from the center of the room and work your way out to the walls. When you get to the edges, you cut them to size.

But that would've been a pain in the ass the way the laundry room is set up and it seemed easy enough to just start along one edge and work my way across the room.

Problem is, walls aren't straight. So then your straight tile is all crooked. And you wind up fighting it for the rest of the install and the install winds up looking like shit.

Luckily this is vinyl plank, not ceramic tile, so there's some "wiggle room" in fitting it--the "planks" can flex a bit to fit a shape. So it looks OK, but getting it all fitted was a huge pain in the ass. Like trying to put clothes on a cat or something.

I should go to bed so I can get up and tackle the flooring first thing, but I kinda want to monkey about a bit still.

 

The Home Stretch...

You're never done. I've still got to paint the mailbox and clean up the inside of the garage. The water heater is still suspect and the foundation makes me nervous in a couple places. But the stuff that was on the initial list is nearly done.

The other day I bought the chemicals to etch, stain, and seal the concrete patio. Today I'm sorely tempted to tackle the driveway.

I thought I was SOL on that until I got it all prepped--even moreso because my little pickup won't haul a ton of gravel so I'll have to do it in two trips. If it was a big, reliable truck, I could just load it up and leave the gravel in the bed. As it is I'll need to make a pile. But what I can do is make a pile in the driveway. then I can rake and dig out one end of the driveway, rake the gravel onto that and then work on the other end of the driveway before raking some of the gravel back.

But I have some unpleasant chores I need to do at my desk first. We'll see if I can get them done with enough time to make it to the gravel pit.

 

The goal is to finish up the projects that require conveyance and then rent (or borrow) as needed later on. I've had my Mustang for what, 3 years? Still haven't made it through the manual. But one of the bits I read is emphatic that you don't put a trailer onto the manual transmission models. I'm not sure the reasoning and won't venture a guess, but there you are.

The water heater, now that has taken an interesting turn. I hesitate to say anything for fear of jinxing myself, but currently it seems to be fine.

To recap: it has a form of "cancer". I'm told water heaters of my vintage had a plastic tube in them that was made of a material that happened to deteriorate over time. So since moving in, I regularly have to take the aerators off my faucets and clean out little crumbly white chunks that look a bit like coral sand. Well all of a sudden that (knock on wood) seems to have stopped. It is possible the pipe has finally disintegrated. I don't know. I also don't know what the ramifications are of not having said pipe.

I never considered rebuilding a water heater. Never heard of it but wouldn't mind hearing more. I was resigned to just buying a new one. I was all set to put in a tankless model, but when I researched it, it turned out you need to add a butt-ton of venting to deal with additional heat. I was also resigned to paying a plumber to do the install, but a friend said he just did one. And looking at it, it looks like it is an in pipe, an out pipe, a gas pipe, and an electrical connection to replace it, so who knows? Maybe I'll do it myself.

 

Bought a wire brush for my drill. Tests indicate it will work nicely on the patio. Right now I'm working on the driveway though. I've got about 3/4 of the length dug out, removing any vegetation and soil that will support vegetation. Hoped to complete it Saturday, but prior commitments interfere. With luck I'll "finish" everything but the garage interior before the rains hit full force.

 

Finished the driveway tonight.

Or at least I think I did. I didn't get done until after dark. And the gravel will settle as I drive on it, so it will require some raking until it stabilizes.

Either I misunderstood something when I was getting the gravel (which I doubt) or the guy that loaded the truck was jerking me around. When I gave him the dimensions of the driveway, he said I'd need about a yard of 3/4-, which would be about a ton--and cost around $23. So today I came in to pick up a load. Since I was driving the 1983 Nissan pickup, I wanted to do the delivery in two trips--I very much doubt the thing is rated to haul a ton--even new. As the guy dumps the load into the bed there is a disconcerting settling of the springs. When I get to the scale, I confirm he only loaded a half yard. He says he might've loaded 3/4--it'd hard to tell with the front end loader. Then he says "Huh. No. A little less than a half yard." But then he charges me what he quoted for a ton. So I shrug and get on the road.

The truck is handling REALLY dodgy. So when I get home, I get out the receipt. I was billed for a little over a ton of gravel. At first I thought he had just charged me for the whole order, but the more I thought about it that didn't make any sense. How could he know the exact amount apart from using the scale? And why would he sell me 1.05 tons. Fucker loaded over a ton into a 27 year old pickup that is probably rated for a half ton.

 

OK. A quick sidebar on the TARDIS shed.

There are folks who get super anal about building a TARDIS. Then there are people who just want something that is relatively close (I assume. You don't see these people on the Internet.)

I fall somewhere in between. My plan was to balance cost, accuracy, and ability to weather the elements. So now I find myself doing the upgrades.

My biggest regret was not discovering "orange peel" texture paint before painting the bugger. For those of you keeping score at home, the TARDIS is replicating a Mk II Gilbert MacKenzie-Trench London Police Call Box. These were cast out of concrete--not wood. Research indicates the door was teak, but the rest was concrete. So ideally it should have a concrete texture, not a wood grain. Orange peel paint would also do what it does in rental properties--hide imperfections. Of course now that I've spent a couple days painting the fucking thing I'll be damned if I'm going to spray something on it that makes me repaint it.

So the stuff I can do:
I need to put in a vent. Now the old police boxes integrated the vent into the light. In the past I've been leery about this. Water is very pervasive and cutting a hole in the top of the roof seems a very good way to let a whole lot of moisture in--as opposed to out. But if done right, I think this could work. Also, my light has a sort of flattened pyramid as the "roof" over the light. While this is accurate to some iterations, the most common version (IMO) and certainly the one on the 1963 prop is more of an inverted bowl. I'm leaning heavily towards taking an hors d'oevres plate and grafting it to the solar cell/LED of a $5 solar yard light, painting the fucker blue, and sticking it on top of the roof. While I'm at it, I'm thinking I should put a hole under the "lamp". Not only does this allow a vent from the inside, the solar lamp will light up the lamp at night and a degree of light will filter through to light the inside.

Another project is the lintel signs. The ones I have are less than perfect, but on the whole, I'm not terribly disappointed by them.

More bothersome is the door plaque. I was limited by the size of paper my printer can handle, so my door plaque is only around 9x12" when it should be more like 12x14". The quick & dirty solution is to go to a Kinko's and print out the sign on 11x17" paper and slap it in a frame, but I'm also considering having it (like the lintel signs) professionally printed up on plastic so it will be more weatherproof.

The final thing I need to do is "weathering". The big trick, apparently, when you make a TARDIS, is getting the blue right. And this IS tricky as fuck for a number of reasons. First off, blue looks different indoors, outdoors, and under studio lights. So what seems too dark in a garage suddenly seems too light when you erect the bugger. To compound problems, the TARDIS on the show has changed colors through the years. Some seasons it has been almost an electric blue (like in the early Tom Baker years). Other seasons it has been such a dark blue that it was almost black (like the 2005 reboot or, obviously, the b&w Hartnell/Troughton TARDIS). I decided the accurate color for a London Police Box was "Oxford Blue".

The catch is, when you walk into a Lowe's or a Home Depot, and ask the 19 year old kid working the paint counter for "Oxford Blue", he or she will look at you with an expression that is somehow bored, confused, frightened, and annoyed--all at the same time. So you've got to look at the color swatches and make your best guess.

You're never happy with it. When I look at the trim on a Burger King or a US Post Office drop box or the trim on the neighbor's house I go "Now THAT'S OXFORD BLUE!"

So imagine my excitement today, while killing time, to discover a spray can of satin Kryolon exterior spray in "Oxford Blue". Up to this point, my plan for "weathering" the TARDIS was to find a tube of ultramarine blue or similarly dark artist's acrylic and muddling it onto the existing paint with a wet rag to create lowlights. Actually Mother Nature has been doing a pretty decent job of creating highlights, but I might cut the paint with some white to add to the highlight areas. The Pacific Northwest rain and the mud in my backyard have done some nice natural weathering on the lower part of the TARDIS, but I'm hard pressed to create the coal/oil patina that would coat a booth in London in the early 20th Century, so I was set to use a common TARDIS builder technique--a wet rag and some black acrylic artist's paint to complete the weathering.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Oxford Blue spray paint! With this spray paint I could do some tits shadows on the box. With spasms of ecstasy, I frenetically shook the spray can. As I popped the cap I picked the least obtrusive side of the box to test it out on. I sprayed. And nothing happened. It turns out that what Krylon has decided is Oxford Blue is DEAD ON THE NUTS THE SAME as what I decided, looking at paint swatches in a Home Depot is Oxford Blue! How's that for validation.

I mean seriously, you can't even fucking tell where I tested the paint. Hell,I can't tell--and I know exactly where to look! Anyway, yeah. I'm awesome. And I wasted $4.25 on spray paint. Also I need to rework the windows at some point. I just used a couple $5 fluorescent light diffusers (shades) as a quick and dirty "window". This is a pretty common trick for first time TARDIS builders. Then, over time, when anal retentiveness and general snobbery sets in, we seek out frosted glass for 2/3 of the panes and "hammered pebble glass" for the remainder.

 

And you wonder why you didn't get your dick wet with that twentyfive year old.

 

Thanks to David Tennant, you'd be surprised at just how many twisted 25 year olds get their panties wet over a TARDIS.

 

Setbacks and wasted time...

Today was an odd day for me. Didn't get a lot done; didn't feel like getting the chores done--cleaning, laundry, etc.

The penultimate big project on the "to do" list is staining the concrete patio. I sort've felt like doing that. The problem was, before I can stain and seal, I need to etch. And before I can etch I need to get the battleship grey paint off it. This is a project that nature has taken care of about halfway for me, but there's still quite a bit of work to do. The results with scrapers, sandpaper, and wire brush have been less than inspiring. Last week I picked up a wire brush for the electric drill and preliminary testing showed some promise, but today it turned out to be no more effective than a regular brush.

But since failure didn't make me feel any more like working on routine chores and I didn't feel up to my last idea--a can of Zip Strip that I've had laying around for literally decades, I did what any reasonable person would--worked on weathering the TARDIS.

As Forbin would probably tell you, the trick to adding realism to a model is to wash shadows into low spots and cracks and brush highlights onto edges--this adds depth to your model. Same principle if you're trying to age something. You don't want a uniform, new coat of paint. You want spots where grime has collected and other places where sunlight and the elements have faded the paint.

When I found that can of Oxford Blue satin spray paint, I added that to shadow areas. It is very slightly darker than the main coat of paint. If I were doing it again, I'd prefer a darker shade, but it looks OK. And since the actual paint is semigloss, it dulls and "dirties" the finish where it is. The effect is very subtle, but works. Today I rummaged through my art supplies and found an old white oil pastel stick. I carefully rubbed that onto the edges & corners. Again, the effect is fairly subtle but I'm happy with it.

The final step in "weathering" will be to take a wet rag and a tube of "lamp black" acrylic art paint and rub it onto the finish to add some mid 20th century London soot and grime to it.

At some point I'll likely rework the door plaque and probably the windows and a few other things, but for now it looks pretty good.

 

Re: Tileforge-bathroom advice...

The old maxim in home repair when I was in the renovation biz was, "There's never enough time to do it right, but there's always enough time to do it over."
Don't take shortcuts; in the long run you'll suffer for it...

 

That is good advice. A little like my maxim to "always pay a little bit more for a tool than you can afford." Because you can get a cheap Chinese tape measure. Then you can replace it every five months, when it breaks, or you can get a Craftsman (or better) that you will have for the rest of your life.

That said, there are times when I'll buy a cheap crappy tool or do a half-assed job on something. Say, if I'm painting something that doesn't have to be perfect and cleanup will be a bitch, I'll just buy a cheap crappy brush and throw it away when I'm done.

For me, I'm enough of a novice that even if I try my best doing it "right" can have the same results as half-assing it, because I just don't have the skill to get it perfect. That said, all told I've done OK.

 

A couple tidbits:
1) I am stymied by painted concrete. The last thing on my first round of things to do is stain and seal the patio concrete. The problem is about 50% of the concrete still has grey paint on it. And there's really no good way to get paint off concrete.
2) The next big thing to do on the TARDIS is do a proper sized door plaque. Problem is (actually the problem is twofold, because my door panels are a lot more square than they should be) that I need a sign that is at least 14"x14". Barring a professionally made sign, the largest I can do without a plotter is 11x17. Unless I do 1.5" trim, that ain't gonna work.

On a lighter note, I did some "weathering" to her. It's subtle, so most people aren't going to be that amazed by it--and the actual, y'know, weather did a fair bit of weathering to it too, but I added some satin Oxford Blue spray to vary the color and age her a bit. Then I took a light grey oil pastel and hit all the high points to add some "fading". I planned to add highlights with some white acrylic paint but the tube had dried, so I rubbed it on in a couple places and then ground it into the rooflines so as it rained it would wash down onto the walls and "fade" the paint. Today I got out a tube of "Mars Black" and applied it to simulate early 20th century London soot and grime (21st century Oregon weather won't give you that). The geeks I follow advise using an entire tube but I wound up using a much smaller amount.

[EDIT: Oh, and I totally forgot: After more than a one weekend of laboriously digging out the driveway to make way for a ton of gravel, today I found sprouts of grass in said driveway. Shit, in Portland, shit will grow on concrete during the rainy time. ]

Anywho, here's the pic:

 

Sandblasting is about the only quick way to do it.

 

Kinda stalled with this thread. I redid the driveway, but forgot to take pictures. Besides, a before and after of a gravel driveway is less than impressive. Need to work on the inside of the garage, but don't have the time, money, or energy to really throw into it. Besides, before that I want to refinish the patio concrete. And I'm stymied on that by the extant paint. Apparently a chemical stripper and/or pressure washer are the solution. Stripper is messy, slow and not inexpensive. Pressure washer is spendy and involves breaking out the pickup for a trip to the rental place. After that, the remaining projects are decidedly unsexy--insulating around the ductwork, reinforcing the floor joists in the bedrooms, etc. They don't really photograph well either.

On that note, I have done some renovations to the TARDIS. I wasn't entirely happy with the undersized door plaque, so I had one done up that was proper size (since the door is wider and taller than 11", I couldn't just print something up myself). It was about twice what I'd planned on and still isn't completely perfect, but I think it turned out pretty well.

The lamp wasn't entirely right either. And from a practical standpoint there was no ceiling vent. The actual police boxes the TARDIS was based on have their vent in the lamp, so I reworked the lamp with a vent. We'll see how waterproof it is.

Anyhow, in doing it, Lowe's had some pretty big solar landscaping lights for $5. If you've never seen one, the practical workings are all in the "shade". The base and "lamp" are mostly cosmetic. So I threw them away, integrated the "shade" into a 68 cent Wal*Mart plastic plate and mounted it to the rest of the lamp (after drilling a hole under the glass and appropriately venting it). The results are below.

One day I may rework the signs on the lintels but I'm mostly happy with them. I wasn't entirely happy with the windows--especially the one on the door, which I tried something experimental on. The best fix would be to find some frosted glass and some pebbled or hammered glass and putting them in as individual panes. For a time I looked at getting frosted glass film, but I discovered I could achieve a decent effect by hitting the extant plastic with 60 grit sandpaper. That is an ongoing project. Pictures of that to come.