Recently in Home Projects Category

Well making the move to another house and packing for that move right now. I will rent out my current house. Moving is always a process but I’m not usually much bothered by the process but this time there’s more to this move.

First the impact on my web site will be significant since I host my web site, blogs and Internet music station at home. I will have to break up my services because of the house I’m moving to not having the same services available for various reasons even though its not far from my other house.

I will no longer have 20mb unregulated upload and download Internet service. This will affect performance and availability of my web site and music server. For some reason the developers didn’t equally allow all of the service providers in the area access to placing their infrastructure in place.

My current ISP will continue to hosts my domain but even though the new Internet service will costs more it will be one third of the speed even though its of fiber like my Internet service I’m moving from and they have a lot fewer features. I will not be able to get static IP addresses or

I’m also having issues getting my telephone service turned on for some reason. The only thing the new telecommunication company I’m moving to can say is that they are having facility issues at that address I’m moving to. What an ambiguous statement! Hell let me fix it!

I work at home most of the time so the internet and the phone service is very important and the fact that I’m capped on the Internet even though this provider has the same fiber infrastructure as my previous provider where I had 20mb upload and download really ticks me off!

All these delays are keeping me from moving into the new home so I can get in there and get this place rented out in a timely fashion and thus costing me money!

I may be offline for a while until I swing through the hoops of this new ISP and what I can do to push the envelope of this restricting package they offer.

What is this trend in America now of only doing well enough to edge out someone else who is underachieving? Come on someone try some excellence! That’s why we have idiots in political office and in key positions in companies and government positions there is definitely a decline going on and it may come to a tragic head in our generation if things don’t change. A lot of this is driven by inefficient fascists concerned more about image than substance. Don’t believe that fairytale that fascists are efficient their structures are a deck of cards!

Oh well this is all for the future and I couldn’t pass up the deal on this house as a future investment. I’ll start kicking off my personal business a bit stronger I do on the side.

I picked up a new refrigerator (Kenmore Elite Side by Side) at the Sears clearance center at a very nice price yesterday. My other refrigerator is in passable shape but the compressor was a bit loud. I 'm sure all my former fridge needed was some cleaning underneath to get it in good shape but since I may be getting one in about a month or so anyway I made the purchase.

My new place will have all white appliances so I wanted get that plus the same features I currently have like water in the door and ice. Well the new fridge has that plus auto lighting in the ice & water area, counts the amount of water dispensed with your choice of measurement, ie.. ounces, cups or liters.

The new fridge also has an ice bucket you can easily take off for parties drinks etc.. and a ton of other great features in the refrigerator area that someone who cooks quite a bit like I do would enjoy like a see through bin in the meat locker so I can remember to cook the meats there or freeze it.

I also finally trimmed the bottom of the cabinet that the refrigerator sits underneath so it could fit fully beneath the spot in the kitchen it was intended to sit in. When I installed my slate rock flooring in the kitchen it raised the floor level just enough so that my former or current fridge would not fit beneath it.

Thank goodness this cabinets is at the end of the wall so the cuts were easier but not easy.

Anyway I now have my former fridge in the garage and my new fridge has taken over after its 24 hour acclimation period.

Now I don't have to listen to a loud compressor while trying to watch TV or listen to my late night slow jams on my Internet radio show @ http://www.dhoytt.com/snake-ice-radio-blog/

Some more pictures of the finished floors that I laid. The floors came out very well! Only thing left is what baseboards to use or use portions of the slate tile.

Ok finally finished my floors. Had to do the floors in fits and starts around other projects that had more of a immediate need such as major pool maintenance so I would not have to deal with a pool full of algae garage sale, several computer issues etc… I also was really sick in there as well.

As I have stated earlier on this blog I also had to do the floors in modules not only for technique testing but because the kitchen is right between my den where I watch TV listen to music and relax and the garage where I have tools materials etc..

I did a lot of clean up especially after I put in the mortar between the tiles. I thought also that if I could scrub the tiles as much as possible before putting down the wet seal that would give it more outstanding final luster & sheen.
Well I could get no shine before the wet seal but tested a few pieces of extra tile from previous cuts by applying the wet sealant and they came out looking just ok. I was a bit skeptical about taking that final conclusive step at this point, but could find nothing else to scrub off of the tiles so started on one corner of the floor and it looked really good after the initial application of the wet sealant!
I proceeded to do one half of the floor so I still had a passage to the den and garage from the other part of the house and wow. It looked great! Tonight I finished the rest of the floor after returning from a nice run at the local Junior college and I’m done!

Believe it the floor is done and looking excellent!

I have already been studying up and researching for my next two projects, what color to painting the kitchen and redoing the cabinets and putting in another sink and possibly getting new kitchen appliances.

Some pictures:

Here I am after completion of putting down sealant on floors and after evening run still dressed from run.

Tiles still wet from tonight’s application of the sealant.

Showing last night's application with half the floor not done to allow passage from one part of the house to the other portion of the house.

Floors and garage sale how do they go together? Well I moved things out of my house plus acquired a few new pieces of furniture the past few months to replace or sell and moved that furniture to storage until my floors were done.

            Well I ended up a bit sick and also my tile wasn’t available in the store when I took the time off to install the tile or at least the main portion of the install.

Well I then ran into some killer furniture deals at auctions and knew that these windows of opportunities at those prices so gotta take advantage and then decide which pieces I wish to keep.

I always take advantage of the storage specials of half a month off or 1 dollar a month when doing things like this and this was no exception. This time however my timing was off because of the tile not being in stock and my getting sick.

            So to move these things out I had a garage sale so I could get things out of storage without costing more money and keep things off the floors since I’m not totally done. I just have to clean the grout haze and seal the tile. Then I will place the pics up on the site.

The kitchen floors are taking a while since I can only dedicate a few hours a day to the venture. I like to test out each new step to make sure I have the techniques correct and that the work is quality. I don’t like having to redo things! Now if I make any errors on one section by doing it a step at a time I can go back and see what I did and correct those issues. I also have so many other things to do that are time sensitive plus my regular home maintenance things are moving forward but just not in leaps and bounds. This is where attitude comes in anyone can start something with enthusiasm but finishing when going through some crazy things I cannot talk about, well hey knock the dirt off and keep rolling hard baby!

Here are a few pictures not the current situation but I’ll try to update that later this week. The tiles are 16" x 16" (16 inches squared) slate.

Before:

Partial Dry Run:

Getting things rounded into shape including the body and house.

I'm getting the tile slate laid out that I'm placing in the kitchen. I started the cuts so that I can have the cuts done really get busy after mixing the mortar. I really wanted to find out what techniques I needed to use for the cut using the saw I bought. Well good thing that I did that after 3 cuts of the same length the guide on the saw broke! I returned that saw went to another store and picked up a saw that is sturdier and has less moving parts and those that move are designed better. This is why I like doing these types of projects you learn not only the obvious but what too look for in tools for instance.

A lot of people are scared to do something they have never done before. I have never understood this. How can you say you are learning and accomplished if you are afraid of learning something new. So many people are scared to look like they don't know what they are doing they refuse to learn new things. I’m not just talking about learning things at a trivial level where you don't pick up the nuances. I mean diving in and learning the theory and then executing it to see if your theories of a great way of doing something really works or is a bunch of crap. I don't understand that narrow and confining behavior. You don't have to try everything but try something new sometimes!

Anyway the slate is tougher to work with than normal tile especially cutting the 16" x 16". I do think putting the tile down will be easier after the cuts are made than dealing with the 12" x 12" pieces. I noticed that while working with the slate pieces you also have to be very wary of easily chipping the edges.

Anyway doing the tile floors and trying to keep up with the regular maintenance like the pool and moving things out of the house and trying to get a garage sale or something together. Oh well maybe next week.

Good news on the new trees that I planted a few weeks ago. The trees are actually growing new leaves and limbs I noticed yesterday. I was more than a little concerned since the trees were dropped off before I was ready to plant them. I planted to spec as provided by the Sacramento tree foundation and fertilized the soil and watered regularly and kept the weeds out of the 4 foot diameter area I gut 16” deep and the tress appear to be doing ok now.
Today I also filled in the holes where my pine trees were located and seeded those areas as well as the rest of my lawn. I also put down some additional lawn fertilizer.

The trees are oak, one is a Bur Oak and the other is a Valley oak a native of the Sacramento Valley area.

I cleared enough space in the garage for workouts on the weights. I am still in the process of getting more things out of the house to get room in the garage permanently!!

One thing at a time though!

The last pines was cut down and my Oaks are planted, prepped with the plant food is mixed in the soil. I only had to stake the Valley Oak. The Bur Oak was a bit more mature and had a stronger trunk.

Both tress I had left in the pots the past week and were a bit dry because they were dropped off earlier than I expected and could not get the time to plant them.

The Bur Oak's roots had gone through the bottom of the planting pot so I had to cut the pot off.

The biggest issue was digging through and weeding all of the roots from the trees I had cut down.

I gave them a generous watering without turning it into a swamp and with the food I left in the soil plus the food tablet from the Sacramento Tree Foundation and constantly keeping the trees watered I should be able to resuscitate them.

I am also closer to making my new system the primary system once I move all of my critical data to the drives. I moved one of my drives I took off of my music server and placed it on my new system. I moved the drives to the place they will be permanently on the system until my next hardware upgrade! Most of the applications are already loaded and everything is working fine.

I will post my old system and new system specs later. I am however moving from a 478 P4 to an AMD 64 bit system with an Adaptec 39160 and some screaming drives. The new system is very fast!