Keeping the Old Forester Going: DIY Belt Replacement

Earlier this year, I started doing a lot of the maintenance on my car myself--more out of a sense of, "if you want it done right, you've got to do it yourself," than necessarily to save a few dollars, though the latter is nice, too, given the typical mechanic charges more than double what I make per hour.  One of the first tasks I tackled was flushing the power steering system, which solved a multitude of problems--but eight months later the steering started acting up again, this time with an audible squeak I hoped was only the pump drive belt and not the pump itself going bad.

Drive belt cover removed to show the power steering
 & alternator belt (left) and air conditioner belt (right)

I've got nearly 90,000 miles on my 2004 Forester XT, and though I've been pretty good with the upkeep, it's nonetheless eight years old.  The steering system had really started to squeak when I first started the car, and the steering wheel had started vibrating again along with the car idling a bit rough at times like it had before I flushed the fluid (don't get me started on how Jiffy Lube had put the wrong fluid in--yeah, I know Dexron III is labeled as transmission fluid and not steering fluid, but that's what Subaru designed the car to take and that's what should be used!).  Replacing the pump would set me back around $150-$400 in parts, depending on whether I went with the OEM or an aftermarket pump, so I figured I'd first try replacing the belt and flushing the fluid again.

I don't believe drive belts are supposed to look quite like this...

The existing drive belt definitely needed to be replaced: as you can see in the photo above, it had split along the length of the belt into three sections, and was starting to fray along one of the strands as well.  I'm actually a bit surprised my battery held a charge, given the same belt drives the alternator and obviously  wasn't working very well, as it was slipping and squeaking a good bit.  The fact the belt is hidden away beneath a cover is no reason I shouldn't have caught this sooner (nor an excuse Jiffy Lube shouldn't have noticed it during one of their services).

Getting the right replacement belt was harder than the replacement itself.  My understanding from much consultation with the Internet tubes is that the generic aftermarket belts from auto parts stores don't quite fit right compared to the OEM ones, and unlike most parts debates across Subaru forums, almost everyone agrees on that point.  I drive right past a Subaru dealership on the way to work, so figured I'd stop in and that their service department would have something like that in stock, but alas, they "were at the warehouse," already closed for the day--and come Monday, the same tech greeted me with the same line he'd given me a few days before: "Oh, I've got some bad news on those belts... they're at the warehouse."  Yep, closed for the day again, too.

The delay pushed back the repair until after I got back from a trip to Vegas with my sister (that's a long story involving a skinny ginger git from Harry Potter and worthy of its own blog post).  Facing a commute to the office with a seriously-deteriorated belt, I decided to tackle the job before going into work.

Under the hood with the belt cover still in place

For the 2004 Forester XT, the accessory drive belts are located beneath a plastic safety cover (pictured above, foreground).  This comes off with the removal of two bolts--have a ratchet with metric sizes on hand, and you'll have no problems getting it off and out of the way.

Bolts which need to be loosened to remove the power steering & alternator drive belt (red circles)

Even split and as worn as my belt was, it had plenty of tension and wasn't about to slip right off.  I could have cut it--the existing belt wasn't exactly in great shape anyway--but given the new belt installation requires getting things loosened up, there's no avoiding releasing the belt tension.  There are three bolts for the power steering and alternator drive belt (which are mirrored for the air conditioner compressor drive belt); I've circled them in red in the photo above.  The two leftmost bolts are called out in the service manual and serve to tension the belts--to adjust, first loosen the bottom bolt a few turns, as it locks the entire assembly in place, then turn the top bolt to move the alternator up or down and thus increase or decrease the belt tension accordingly.

Before you get too far and wonder why the belt doesn't seem to be getting any looser, here's something my service manual neglected to include: notice the third bolt (center right, above)?  You have to loosen it as well so that the alternator can pivot as you adjust the long bolt on the left; a half turn or two is all it should take.  I had to really lower the alternator to be able to get the old belt out and the new one in, running that long bolt nearly all the way out.

While you've got the power steering and alternator belt out of the way, you should go ahead and replace the air conditioner belt, too, as belts tend to show similar wear, and you can't get to the a/c belt without first removing the power steering one.  The tensioner is similar to the one for the power steering and is located just to the left of the air conditioner compressor (the thing with the big pulley on the right of the image above).

Once the new belts are in place, just reverse the process you used to loosen the components and relieve the belt tension in the first place.  The belts should be tightened until they displace about a quarter of an inch under firm pressure, something you can measure by putting a straightedge between the pulleys and then pushing the belt down with one finger while measuring the distance it moves down with a small ruler (easier said than done).  Don't forget to tighten the bolt which allowed the alternator and compressor to pivot down.

I did the change-out in about 10 minutes before going to work one morning, so it should be easy for anyone to accomplish.  No special tools are required--just a socket wrench--and the parts aren't particularly expensive (both belts together set me back around $25 from a local Subaru dealership).  Replacing the belts eliminated my car's squeak, smoothed out the steering system, and should be good for another 90,000 miles or so.

Weekend DIY at Chateau Papillon: Toilet Replacement

Channel-lock pliers. Bolt cutters. Hacksaw. Brake cleaner. WD-40. 9/16 box end wrench. Chisel. Screwdriver. Socket wrench. Hammer. Putty knife. These are some of the tools needed to remove the old toilet in my bathroom at Chateau Papillon, thanks to the heavily-rusted flange bolts holding it to the floor. After all that, I wonder if a sledgehammer might not have done the job of all of them together and with more satisfying fun to boot.

Replacing a toilet isn't really that hard of a job--I've tackled far more challenging DIY projects at Chateau Papillon in the past.  Still, like so many home improvement jobs, it ended up taking a lot longer than I'd expected; I had figured on about an hour total to remove the old toilet and install the new one, and it took closer to three.

Why the new toilet?  It was an "impulse buy" at Costco, I have to admit.  Beth and I had gone specifically to check out a laundry sink--something I spied at a Costco in Richmond last summer but which until now our local one had never had in stock--and right next to the sink were several high-efficiency, dual-flush toilets for under $90.  That's a pretty good buy; I'd looked at similar units at Lowe's and Home Depot before, typically for upwards of $150 with several brand-name models over $280.  Couple with that the fact we'd just gotten back from Spain, where like so much of Europe the toilets are similar to the one in the store, and we were sold.

Not to mention that my bathroom's old toilet was wearing out--I'd had to replace several parts on it over the past couple of years.  Nor that it was a water-hog, slurping down around 5 gallons per flush.  I don't think it dated back to the original home construction (mid-'60s), but the toilet wasn't much newer than that, either.

First, the old toilet (pictured above) had to come out.  Turn off the water, flush, pour a bucket of hot water through to empty the bowl, and remove.  You'd think that wasn't going to be a very difficult task, but you'd be wrong.  Two flange bolts hold the toilet to the floor, and the problem with older toilets is that the nuts on those bolts are typically rusted solidly in place.  Worse, the flange bolts heads simply fit into a slot on the flange beneath the toilet, so there's very little leverage to be had: the entire bolts will just spin in place.  Enter the list of tools and materials leading off this post...

I tried penetrating oil, WD40, and even brake cleaner (which consists mostly of very light, very volatile hydrocarbon solvents), and though I did thus manage to dislodge quite a bit of rust, that was it.  I had the most success gripping the tops of the bolts with some really big channel-lock pilers and using a box-end wrench to twist the nut in the opposite direction--though this really crushed the threads on the ends of the bolts.  Unfortunately, one bolt was so rusted that the end simply snapped off when torqued--and of course it wasn't the end between the toilet and the floor that broke.

Next came a chisel; I figured if the bolts were that fragile, I might be able to snap them off beneath the nuts.  This meant some rather awkward hammering, as I didn't want to slip and shatter the toilet itself into a million tiny fragments of porcelain.  That didn't get me very far, and next up was a hacksaw.  The problem there was that my toilet was crammed back into a nook, giving me all of a couple of inches of space and a completely useless angle to use the saw.  I gave up on the saw, but perseverance paid off in the end when I managed to get a pair of bolt cutters onto one of the two.  This gave me enough leverage to twist the entire toilet free without further work on the second bolt, as I was able to rotate the toilet around the flange enough that the bolt head aligned with the slot used to originally install it (sort of like the wide part of an old-fashioned keyhole).

A wax gasket serves to seal the bottom of the toilet to the floor flange and sewer pipe, preventing leaks.  The old gasket has to go so that the new one will seal properly.  I discovered in removing the sticky, gunky old mess that whoever had installed the current toilet hadn't taken out the original gasket--there were two, nested sets of rubber seals and wax gaskets!  (You can see one of those in the photo to the left.)  A putty knife, several pairs of gloves, and some rags took care of that phase of prep, all the while with a rag stuffed into the pipe to prevent icky sewer gas from filling the room while I worked.

Notice, too, that the old toilet tank had leaned right against the wall and collected a nice bit of moisture, as well as some mildew where the original wallboard had apparently never been painted at all.  Taking care of that required a scrub brush, some bleach, and a couple of hours of drying time followed by several coats of paint--thankfully, we still had part of a gallon of the "Miami Mist" color on hand.

Everything finally prepped meant it was time at last to install the new toilet.  New flange bolts into the flange: check.  New rubber seal and wax gasket: check.  Remove the rag in the sewer pipe: check.  With Beth's help, I got the new toilet in place, gave it a little twist (to seat the wax gasket properly), and secured it to the floor.  Note that I absolutely slathered the new flange bolts with WD-40, as I expect I'll need to move the toilet at least once when I get around to a total bathroom remodel in a couple of years and retile the floor and walls.  Hook up the water, fill, and flush: nice.  No leaks.

The dual-flush on the new toilet uses only 1 gallon of water for the "light" flush (and though it may be a bit grotesque of me to say so, I do typically follow the Southern California dicta of letting yellow mellow to save water, too) and 1.6 for the "heavy" flush.  While some high-efficiency models are prone to clogs and otherwise problematic, this one seems to work like a charm so far.  (We'll see if the dual-flush mechanism on top of the tank confuses anyone the next time we have guests over...)

The old toilet, thoroughly cleaned, ended up on the cub for Habitat for Humanity to pick up, bound for a new home no doubt.  A little disappointing, I must say, not to take drag it out into the woods for a consultation with a shotgun, but, like the new toilet upgrade, a more environmentally-friendly choice.

Silicone Intercooler Pipes for the Forester

In trying to track down a minor fuel leak under my hood, I noticed what appeared to be a very timeworn hose--and though large parts of said hose were hidden away from sight, its purpose was clear: the hose led from turbocharger to intercooler, and I can't imagine having that hose fail while driving would lead to good times.  So after a bit of research, I ordered not the cheaply-built OEM plastic pipe but a snazzy silicone set which would stand up to the temperatures of a turbocharged engine better and look good at the same time.  Replacing the turbo hoses would involve my first real bit of mechanical disassembly under the hood and give me some good practice for future maintenance.

The intercooler with its fancy new silicone Y-pipe installed

Between the appropriate Haynes repair manual and Peaty's excellent instructions over at the SubaruForester.org forums, the process wasn't too difficult and something any amateur mechanic could tackle--the hardest part was working the old hoses loose and getting the intercooler out without bending any of the delicate metal radiator vanes (you can see some bent vanes in the photo above--not due to my handiwork, I can assure you).

The original intercooler pipes--cheap plastic covered with foam wrapping

I made sure to clean the fittings well--they had a little bit of cooked blow-by oil on them from the turbocharger, but not as much as I'd feared.  Still, there was enough oil that it makes me wonder if I might need to replace the turbocharger itself in the next couple of years; I'll definitely give it a good once-over when I have the intake manifold apart when the weather gets a bit nicer.  I did after all have the engine throw an AVCS-related code a couple of years ago, most likely due to an oil filter screen dropping down into the AVCS body--and in the process, the turbo could have starved for oil a bit and taken on a bit of excess wear.

While I had the intercooler off, I also gave the engine a treatment of Sea Foam straight in through the throttle body, given it hadn't had an upper cleaning for at least 20,000 miles (if ever--I asked for one at my 60k service, but am not sure the mechanic actually performed it or not).  On the 2004 Forester XT, there just isn't a vacuum line which feeds all four cylinders equally, so applying the cleaner straight into the throttle body is a necessity and cleans the throttle butterfly, too.  Surprisingly, the Sea Foam didn't yield quite as much smoke as I'd expected--some folks describe the effect as a spy-gadget smokescreen as atomized carbon deposits make their way out the exhaust--maybe the mechanic had actually done an engine upper cleaning after all.

I went with the Samco intercooler hose set for the 2006-and-newer Subaru Impreza WRX (part TCS332).  Samco doesn't make a Forester XT-specific hose set, but two of the three pipes in the WRX one are directly compatible with the 2004 FXT: the Y-pipe (the replacement of which had started this whole exercise) and the short coupler between the intercooler outlet and the throttle body.  The third hose, the blowoff valve recirculator hose, won't work in the 2004 Forester XT due to being the completely wrong shape, but my original BOV recirc hose looks fine.

Putting the intercooler back on wasn't too hard--the hoses were significantly easier to reattach than they had been to remove.  After a bit of idling in the driveway to make sure nothing was leaking, I took the car out for a spin.

The completed installation

I do need to work on the vanes on the intercooler a bit; bugs and even some small pebbles (!) sucked in through the hood air scoop have left their marks on the delicate metal. It's a painstaking task with a safety pin, though, and something I don't want to do when it's near-freezing outside.

Next up: maintenance on some of the oil supply lines to inspect (and in two cases completely remove) poorly-designed filter screens from inside the banjo bolt union screws.  One of these already caused a "check engine" code on my car a couple of years ago--thankfully without doing apparent damage to the oil control valves--while another can critically starve the turbo of the oil it needs to spin at 100,000+ RPM.  I've still got plans to take apart the intake manifold and fix the cold-weather leaky fuel line problem affecting so many Subarus, but that's a task for warmer weather and a long weekend.  After that, I may install the OEM turbo boost gauge to see just what sort of output I'm getting from my stock turbocharger.

Weathering Another Winter (Or: Wishing for Sunshine and Finally Buying a Generator)

Last year, we had an awful winter in the D.C. area, with not only one massive "Snowmageddon" but a second "Snowpocalypse" dumping over two feet of snow apiece on us.  Somehow, we made it through both without losing power, though during the second storm, Beth and I seriously considered a generator as tens of thousands of people in the area suffered outages. Though this year we've managed to avoid snowfall totals like those, what we've ended up with has been bad enough: heavy, wet snow and ice which has struck hard at our new plants and those still recovering from last winter.

This most recent storm had been projected to be a heavy bout of rain up until about two or three days out, when the computer models all began to converge upon a significant snow event.  Even then, many remained doubtful we'd be hit hard (a sentiment which carried over into the actual storm even as it slammed areas to the immediate west).  Local schools made the right call and cancelled the day before, when we'd only had a dusting of precipitation.  Unfortunately, the Office of Personnel Management for the feds decided only to dismiss two hours early--putting tens of thousands of federal employees and contractors on the roads right as the storm arrived.

As I left the office, it was raining, but by the time I got out of the parking garage, the precipitation had changed over to sleet.  When I got to Fairfax Circle--about halfway home along my commute--we'd already gotten over an inch of snow.  The sheer energy of the storm created thunder and lightning--an eerie, almost frightening event known as "thundersnow" which though fairly rare I've now experienced three times in the past year.  Visibility fell to a couple dozen feet, and even jam-packed with an early rush hour's traffic, the roads quickly accumulated several inches of snow.  The last mile or so of my commute was a nightmare, thanks to the elements and drivers who had no business being on the roads: folks with no headlights on (!); people who drove in the middle of the road even with oncoming traffic; cars like the Mitsubishi Eclipse I saw spinning out trying to make it up a fairly gentle hill or even the SUVs whose owners seemed to think 4WD gave them license to drive like fools; and, worst of all, those bad drivers who made things worse by abandoning their cars in the middle of the highway.  During the hour and a half it took me to go seven miles--and in that I was lucky; some folks had 10-13 hour commutes in what has come to be known as "carmageddon"--we got over three inches of snow.  Finally home for the evening, I settled in with Beth and the Pupsters.

Our oriole feeder after a January ice storm

Sure, it's pretty for a few hours, but when the weather is bringing down trees all around the neighborhood, it's not fun anymore.  Nor is it fun to see the gardens over which you've toiled long spring and summer hours over  demolished by the elements: last year, we lost an American holly in the front yard when the snow snapped it in half (we've since resurrected the stump, which put out new growth over the year), and our inkberries and several other plants sustained heavy damage and many broken branches.  "Here we go again," I thought as snow came down at up to two inches an hour.

Even venturing out into the snow three times during the storm, Beth and I were hard-pressed to protect our plants.  We gently brushed and knocked the dense, thick snow from limbs and foliage and hoped for the best.  The new American holly out front, along with an English holly that made it through last winter intact, both had been weighed down so badly they risked snapping their trunks in half, and our scraggly, barely-recovered inkberries had been splayed to the ground.  Our red-twig dogwoods--species well-adapted to snow, being native well into Canada--for the first time had broken limbs, too.  Evergreens of any sort had been crushed by the snow.  Worst, every one of our river birches were bent completely to the ground, sustaining several snapped branches.

"Ms. Kooki, perhaps you're unaware it's snowing and that we want to play outside?"

Despite all the plant damage and several times when our power flickered off for a second or two, it seemed like we'd make it through the evening without losing our electricity.  The snow finally let up around 10:30pm, having dumped a layer of sleet topped by about eight inches of snow on us.  As I mentioned earlier, we'd considered a generator last winter but managed not to need one, and then missed out on the sales-tax holiday on them in May (for hurricane preparedness).  We were not to be so lucky this time around.

Shortly before midnight, the power went out and stayed out.  We discovered the next morning that a huge tree had come down near the entrance of our neighborhood, blocking the road and snapping several lines--not to mention a half dozen more minor breaks just in our immediate area.  Given the extent of the damage, we'd likely be without power for days--Dominion's Web site (which doesn't work with Chrome, making it impossible to report an outage from my phone) estimated they'd have it back up the next night, but I knew from experience they were being incredibly optimistic.  The house had held heat fairly well thanks to all the energy improvements we'd made--after a night of 20-degree temperatures, we were only down to 63 degrees inside from 69 the evening before--but it was only going to get colder.

So Beth and I headed to Costco before they opened on Thursday and lined up outside the entrance along with a dozen or so others--about half of us with flatbed carts and clearly intent upon the same thing: generators.  Within five minutes of the doors opening, Costco had sold out!  Several customers helped each other load the heavy boxes onto each others' carts, and after picking up a few other necessities, we headed home with our new generator and six gallons of gas to fuel it.

We had to shovel a path and dig out an area where we could run the generator, then assembly took some time out in the cold, snowy yard: I had to put together the generator's frame and wheels,  fill its oil reservoir and attach exhaust components, connect the battery, and drive and wire ground stake.  By the time I had everything set up, I had to go into the office, as the OPM had not closed the federal government despite the weather and widespread power outages, and the facility I work at was open.

Dominion's estimated time to get our power back up came and went as expected. I unfortunately let Beth talk me out of wiring up the furnace blower motor to the generator, instead using it to power just our fridge, a lamp, and an electric space heater we set up in the living room.  We spent the evening playing cards and listening to music on my iPod, then bundled up for a chilly night ahead: a day and a half into the blackout and temperatures inside had fallen to 54 degrees.  Multiple blankets, thermal underclothes, and even a true three dog night as all the Pupsters piled onto the futon with us... but it was not a comfortable night, as I had to get up several times to tend to the generator outside.

During the "break in" period for a new engine, you have to change the oil after about five hours of use--and check the oil level repeatedly.  And of course, you have to top off the gas so that it doesn't run dry.  Each of these operations requires disconnecting the appliances et al being powered, shutting off the generator, then powering it back up and reconnecting things afterwards.  I also was hesitant to run the generator basically non-stop for more than seven or eight hours, particularly given how it was brand new.

Friday morning meant another day at the office, a shower by flaslight first, and on the way out of the neighborhood I saw that Dominion had yet to even attempt to move the giant tree which the storm had brought down.  Worse, one of our neighbor's trees had dropped a limb onto our power lines, though it hadn't actually snapped them.

I left the office early, came home, and decided enough was enough with the upstairs temperatures down to 50 degrees and the basement pipes likely in danger of freezing up.  I finally had time to re-wire the furnace blower to run off of the generator.  Though I didn't feel like investing in a $280 transfer switch at Home Depot, I did completely disconnect the furnace from the power mains so I could just plug the furnace into the generator and not worry about overloading the generator or damaging the home's wiring.  Some people do that--plugging a generator into an outlet with a double-ended cord may be convenient, but that's a mistake and a fire hazard.

You know, gas heat works really well when you have electricity to blow the hot air around--within hours, the house was back to livable conditions.  (This of course ensured Dominion would have the power back on within another five hours or so, about two and a half days of blackout.)  After we got back from dinner with some friends, Dominion had finally come and cut away the branches on our lines, too.

I can only hope we're done with winter--Punxsutawney Phil be damned. But we're ready for the next bout of winter if it comes, shiny new generator and all.

The Magical Effects of a Power Steering Flush (DIY for $7 or Less)

My car is getting old, and an older car means more maintenance. Worse, it's a turbocharged import, meaning work on it isn't cheap--my last major scheduled maintenance cost over $2000. So the fact my car had started having a few issues and my desire to put another 82,000 miles on it before even considering a newer model has driven me (no pun intended) to teach myself some basic and not-so-basic maintenance. The first success: flushing the power steering system--a task easier than changing the oil yet which had a big payoff!

Winter weather is rough on cars, and I'd been prepared to dismiss the slightly-jerky steering on my way to work each morning as a side-effect of the chilly temperatures. My car had also started idling a bit roughly, but hey, it was after all seven years and 82,000 miles old. Oh, and that vibration in the steering wheel around 45 mph? Probably tire wear or alignment, right? And the shops I took the car to checked all the fluids, didn't they?

Yet when working on a completely separate issue (more on that later), I noticed the power steering fluid was a yellow-orange color, when everything I'd read had stated the Forester's fluid should be red. Hmmm...

Jiffy Lube wanted $100+ to tackle the flush-and-fill on the power steering system. I can only imagine what a dealership would have charged! (The average price seems to run around $100, from what I can tell, with a range between $80 and $150.)  Enter a trip to my service manual and the Googles.

Confusingly enough (though stated so in the owner's manual and on the power steering fluid tank), the 2004 Subaru Forester XT's power steering system takes Dexron III automatic transmission fluid--not power steering fluid! I'd been considering flushing the system myself for a couple of weeks when I finally stopped at an auto parts store on the way home from work one day and picked up a couple of quarts of the stuff at a total cost of under $7.  Obviously, it pays to use what the manual actually calls for and not just look at the shelves and labels!

Though the full flush procedure involves a somewhat-tedious process (not one I expect the big-brand service centers actually complete, mind you--there's no way they do so along with everything else in a 20-minute service), there's a simple trick that does the job almost as well and with a fraction of the effort. Here's what you do:

1. Drive the car a bit to warm things up, then park on a reasonably level surface and shut off the engine.
2. Siphon out the existing power steering fluid straight from the reservoir (you could drain it by removing a hose, too). I used an all-purpose siphon hose, but a lot of DIY'ers claim a turkey baster from the dollar store works well, too.
3. Fill the power steering reservoir to the appropriate level (should be marked on the reservoir) with new lubricant.
4. Start the car, then turn the steering wheel all the way to the right and then all the way to the left several times.  This will help circulate the new fluid and remove air from the system.
5. Stop the car, and repeat steps 2-4 several more times.

The first time I flushed the system out, the fluid was a dark orange.  It wasn't gunky or burnt, but it certainly wasn't right, either.  After one flushing, the fluid still came out orange, even though what I'd poured in was deep red.  I repeated twice more, with each change of fluid coming out more and more red.  Overall, I didn't even use a full quart of fluid in this process.  You may need to repeat the process weekly if your power steering system is really dirty--after a week, though, my fluid is still nice and red.

No, it's not a true, full flush of the power steering system, but I can guarantee the typical big-brand service center doesn't do that, either, in the 20 minutes of "while you wait" work, either.  It got the job done for me, though.

What's amazing is that this simple bit of work, accounting for perhaps 10 minutes of this car maintenance novice's time, has had a huge impact on my car!  Gone is the jerkiness in the steering in the morning.  Better yet, gone is the rough idling: I suppose the fluid was dirty enough it was causing the power steering pump to strain a bit.  (Now, whether or not that means I have to change the whole pump out sometime in the not-distant future is an open question; if my fluid was bad enough to cause that much strain on the pump, might it not have done damage to it, too?)

I didn't even use the second bottle of Dexron III yet, so my real cost was $3.50.  That's a savings of at least $96.50 over what I'd have paid someone else to do it, and the process required no tools (well, the siphon, though I could have gotten by with a $1 turkey baster) and 10 minutes or less of my time.  And it had a noticeable effect on my car's everyday driving--nice!

After such a simple fix as my improvised power steering fluid flush, I feel empowered over my car, no longer in thrall to the mechanic's shop for anything short of a total engine overhaul.  Yes, I know my accomplishment was nearly effortless (an oil change would be more work, actually), but baby steps, baby steps!

Next up is a barely-more-challenging task: I'm replacing the stock intercooler hoses on my car with some fancy silicone ones from Samco.  No, I'm not out to make my car over into some modded race machine; I simply noticed the stock hose was a bit scruffy and ragged looking when under the hood. Wouldn't do to have the hose that delivers hot air from the turbo to the intercooler to split... and why pay over $100 for the cheap plastic and rubber OEM hoses when a similar outlay gets something much more temperature-resistant and with improved airflow (read: more horsepower)?  More on this next weekend when I should have the parts on hand.  (Way) further down the road will be disassembly of the intake manifold, as I need to pull it to get at the source of a minor fuel leak (again noticeable only on freezing-cold mornings like the power steering issue was), which most likely lies in the lines supplying the injectors or in the injector O-rings given everything else I've checked.

Obvious disclaimers: I can't be responsible for any damage you do to your car or yourself or others if you work on your own car. I simply want to share the simple process which worked for me! Be safe, and do your homework before attempting any maintenance on your vehicle.

Chateau Papillon has an "English basement," opening out onto the backyard with one of those ubiquitous sliding glass doors.  Or perhaps I should more correctly say had one of those sliding patio doors; one thing that had nagged us since moving in back in 2008 was the door's poor operation, and the fact that even fully open, it was just an inch too narrow to easily get the bird cages out or to bring things like appliances in.

The solution, obviously, was a nice French door, which we could swing out on both sides.  So, when Lowe's ran a 15% off special order doors sale earlier this fall, we went in and picked out a fairly basic Energy Star-rated model sized to replace that leaky, finicky old sliding door.

Installing the new door was actually very easy; the hardest part was getting the old one out.  I'd done such a job caulking the old door last year that the metal flashing around it was quite loathe to come loose, and I managed to destroy my caulk remover in the process (as well as the metal flashing--but we'd no real thought of salvaging it).  With advice from uncle E.C. and his contractor's expertise coupled with physical labor from my dad and sister Brooke, we got the new door in place with the only snag being some 1/4" cedar planks I had to remove around the opening.  Fortunately, the sill was pretty level, and the sides fairly plumb, requiring very little shimming and adjustment--for proper alignment is absolutely critical when installing any door, much less a French door where anything out of square will result in poor operation and often a gap between the two doors instead of a weather-tight seal.

I got the new door insulated (with low-expansion spray-foam) and caulked, as well as locksets installed and keyed to our existing house keys--a nifty feature, that.  There's still work to do; the inside needs some case molding, and the outside a fascia board along the top as well as possibly some casing along the outside edges.  Too, the strike plate for the main lock needs to be aligned better, and the handedness of the lock swapped (as the levers appear "upside-down" as installed).  But so far, so good!

The old door will be going to Habitat for Humanity, assuming they want it, as we got it out without any significant damage.  Now, if we'd only managed to get the door ordered before the submission deadline for the second round of Virginia energy efficiency rebates, we'd have saved about $100 more on the cost of the door.  Nevertheless, we made good use of our energy rebates, between replacing our furnace and a/c unit, buying a high-efficiency washing machine, and getting a home energy audit (the fruits of which, in all the caulking and other insulation work I've done, are seen in each month's energy bills).

Weekend Scones Report: Breakfast In... the Laundry Room?

At Chateau Papillon, we have a tradition we call "weekend scones," where at least one of the two mornings I bake up something special for breakfast.  It doesn't have to be scones proper: in the past, I've made donuts, muffins, cookies, cakes, tarts, and all sorts of other tall-glass-of-milk-worthy confections.  This weekend's dish: Walnut Cream Cake.  This weekend's cafe locale: the laundry room.

Yes, that's right: we had our breakfast in the laundry room this morning.  We finally replaced my old washing machine--on which I'd replaced the drive coupler three times over the years and into which I put a new clutch a couple of years ago--thanks in large part to Uncle Sam, the so-called "stimulus act," and its energy efficiency rebate funds.  No more clanking-transmission on the old machine, and to boot, we have an Energy Star model which uses less water and electricity and gets our clothes cleaner than the old one.

Though the new washer was delivered on Friday afternoon, we didn't have the laundry room quite ready for it yet: we still had tile prep work (floor leveling, mostly) to complete under the old washer and the dryer, and of course tile to lay in that same area.  We'd been putting off those last few bits of work as we turned our attention to the outside at Chateau Papillon and got our early spring gardening chores in, but with a new washer to install, it was time to get moving on the tile.

We had a marathon tile laying session Friday night, wrapping up around 11:00pm and emptying out around three more cartons of tile--we've still got around 15 more to go to finish the hallway and parts of the storage area in our "water closet."  Late Saturday afternoon, we grouted the entire area done to-date, then sat back to let things dry so we could replace the appliances this morning.

After maneuvering the washer into place, getting all the connections set up, and the washer leveled, we tossed in a load of dirty clothes to try it out and make sure everything was properly in place.  That's why we had breakfast in the laundry room, mind you; we may be kooky, but not so much so a morning in front of a new washer is "entertainment."

Chance pronounced the new washer properly leveled as he tested it out for vibration on its inaugural load.  We still have my old dryer, which though 12 years old really hasn't seen that much use (none, in fact, from 2004 through late 2009); I didn't see a good reason to replace it yet, particularly since there aren't any energy rebates offered on dryers at present.

We've still got a little bit of rebate funds available; between the furnace last fall, an energy audit, and the 20% rebate we'll get back on the new washer (on top of the sale price + 10% additional off at Home Depot), we should have around $200 to put toward either a new water heater (ours is 15 years old and rather cranky) or else an Energy Star-rated French door to replace our sliding patio door.

Planting, Framing, Painting, Framing (A Different Kind), Wiring, Writing (Or: Where Has My Weekend Gone?)

It's been a busy weekend for me at Chateau Papillon (and busy for Beth, period; she's putting in 12-hour-plus days petsitting due to spring break for Fairfax County).  First, the plantings, with all this fantastic weather: two River Birches to join the one we planted in our side yard last year; add to that two Red-twig Dogwood shrubs, a juniper (non-native, unfortunately, but c'est la vie), and three bags of various bulbs.  Oh, and I replanted a tree sapling which had seeded itself along the fence line.  Still to go: the Ninebark, two Blueberry bushes, three Rhodies, two foamflowers, and two Inkberries.  And about 6 sacks of miscellaneous bulbs.  And the little saplings from the Arbor Day Foundation (10x) whenever they come in.

The framing?  I needed mats cut for two 12 x 18" prints, so I picked up a Logan 450 Mat Cutter at AC Moore with a 50% off coupon (making it cheaper than Amazon by about $40, but it can be found more cheaply online than that).  I framed the two photos (one of Fort De Soto Beach at sunset, one of a park in Vicenza, Italy), then moved on to more complicated matting and framed a creepy kitty postcard from Venice (said feline is dressed as a plague "doctor"), doing the 4 x 5.75" postcard in a huge 12 x 16" frame with a black mat.

Painting... well, not as much as I might have wanted so far, but I got out the power paint stirrer for my drill and cracked open a can of the chocolate we used in our hallway... two coats later, and the new thermostat looks like it was always meant to be there--despite all the screw holes I filled and sanded down where the new unit hangs vertically.  Add some general touch-up in the hall as well... I'll say the paint, over a year old now, is on its last legs; within 10 minutes after mixing, it had already begin to separate back out.  That leaves the library wall near the lights witch, as well as the library closet (which is still fuchsia, believe it or not).  And touch-up here and there throughout the rest of the house.  Not to mention the Neptune Suite and painting the exterior block walls, but those latter tasks will have to wait.

Framing again... I'm slowly working on framing in the new wall and doorway which will separate the laundry & storage room from the rest of the basement--once complete, guests staying in the Neptune suite need no longer see our Zombie Preparedness Racks of food bought in bulk and the like, or our grubby laundry sink and the sundry junk (X-mas decorations?) piled around that room.

Wiring... goes with that latter framing.  Two new outlets (one GFCI), a new light fixture, two light switches, and rewiring two fixtures we put in a few weeks ago to get them all on the same breaker.  Still to come: crawling in the attic again before it gets ungodly hot and draws in all the buzzy-bees and creepy-crawlies who have come to life with the coming of Spring.  I've got a ceiling fan and the Library's second fixture to install before weather compromises my ability to work in the attic.

Writing... well, I keep having inspiration to go and put some pen to paper and tackle something really creative--maybe the Torso Man story, or maybe something a little less gruesome.  Instead, I'm pooped and am writing in my blog.

I've left out photos, something quite important, as the Bird Watchers' Digest contributor submissions are due Monday, so I've got tomorrow to get my set together and posted online for BWD with the hopes of having them take (and pay me for) one of this month's.  And I've got to check into the due dates for Virginia Wildlife's contest, and Wild Bird's (which I won last year with my White Ibis--can't enter the amateur category there anymore; sigh).  Not to mention more trip photos to process, bird photos taken around the yard (no time yet for a trip to our favorite birding park, Huntley Meadows; sigh).

And cooking... oh, yes, how can I forget that?  I think I'll have to devote another blog to that alone.

It's been a busy start to the weekend, anyway.

Tiling the Basement: Part 1 (And Other Household DIY Tasks)

A couple of weeks ago at Chateau Papillon, we had a bit of a plumbing snafu.  Earlier that afternoon, I'd unclogged the master bathroom toilet, then gone into the hall lav to take a bath.  Beth, meanwhile, was doing some laundry in the basement.  A few minutes later, Beth came rushing upstairs: the downstairs shower, toilet, and the floor drain in the laundry room were all backed up, flooding incredibly nasty water into the basement.

If you recall, last time we had a drain issue in the basement, I'd been able to solve it by use of a pressure attachment for the garden hose.  Beth and I tried that again on both the laundry room floor drain and the downstairs shower to no avail; the clog was bad enough that even the high-pressure jet simply forced water out of the other fixtures.  Getting the drains fixed took a couple of visits by our plumbers, plus a subcontractor (Sparkle Drain Cleaners) who used a powered, bladed auger snaked into the main vent stack from the roof to clean out the entire line to the county sewer system.  You'd be amazed what they found in the main line: coins, nails and screws (none from our work--some were likely as old as the house itself), and even a socket wrench head, which was simply too large to have fallen through any of the drains (maybe via a toilet?).  But that whole experience is a bit tangential to the story at hand, if necessary set-up nonetheless.

Despite quick work with the carpet cleaner, we knew the basement carpet simply had to go.  Within a day, the entire basement began to smell like urine, and despite running the dehumidifier unseasonably and at a brisk pace, the laundry room in particular stayed damp--an increasing risk of mold, to be sure.  We'd planned to redo the basement, anyway--as you may recall, both Beth and I hate carpet (and who ever heard of carpeting a laundry room?)--but the flooding moved our schedule up a bit.

Taking out the carpet was a cinch; unlike the main downstairs carpet (in the "jungle room," no relation to Elvis and Graceland), not that much glue had been used to install it, and the water took care of what adhesive there was.  Quick work with a utility knife and some twine to bind up the rolled strips of pee-reeking carpet and we were done.

Sort of.

The water had gotten underneath some of the 1980s-era vinyl tiles in the basement, too, and where they'd come loose, I lifted those tiles up and away, expecting adhesive-stained concrete beneath.  Unfortunately, I found more tile underneath the vinyl, and not just any tile.  9"x9" black asphalt tile, probably original to the house from the 1960s.  There's one real problem with that sort of tile: it's laden with asbestos, up to 85% or more by weight.  (Some vinyl tiles up until the late 70s/early 80s also contained some asbestos, but what we've got post-dates that, luckily.)

The problem with asbestos arises--pun intended--when it gets airborne, and when microscopic fibers of it travel deep into one's lungs.  A few decades later, and your grieving relatives might be calling one of those ambulance-chasing law firms advertising on television, looking to cash in on your mesothelioma.  So long as it's undisturbed and sealed up, though, asbestos is fine--and likely lurking in the floors, walls, and possibly attics of tens of millions of homes across the United States.  What this meant, though, is that we had to entomb up that exposed asbestos tile ASAP.

The past week, we've been troweling in floor patch and sealant compound, building up to level where any vinyl tiles came up, and sealing all the way to the edges over the asbestos tiles.  It's still not quite level enough to do a good tile installation, so next up is a "self-leveling" compound, which we'll pour onto the floor and let settle to even out the edges and rough spots.  (Yes, I do plan to remove the baseboard, and re-seal the block walls along the bottoms where there's some inevitable water seepage, which you can see in the photo above if you look really carefully.)

A lot of the work has involved wearing my double-cartridge respirator, which I originally got for attic work (and which has now seen service in sanding down wall compound, cutting holes in the ceilings, attic work, and  basement asbestos remediation).  Obviously, we've avoided any scraping or removal of the asbestos tiles--just leave those suckers be, and seal them up; that's the way it's done.  And the one good thing about all that plumbing backup: wet tiles are much less likely to be "friable" and to flake off airborne asbestos particles.

While waiting for the last coats of floor patch to dry, I went ahead and installed a couple of lights in what will eventually be a basement hallway.  We'll be walling off the laundry and storage room area (which Beth calls the "water closet" now), so the hallway thus created leading from the "jungle room" (the main basement living space) to the wine bistro, downstairs bath, and around to the guest bedroom needs light.

Beth picked out some inexpensive sconces which ended up being very easy to install--as I mounted them on the wall around our furnace and utility closet, which was only finished on the outside, and the drop ceiling in the back half of the basement made for easy routing of the wiring.  I intend to move the lights over to another circuit once I relocate the larger fixture which currently sits over the laundry area; I discovered last week that the same circuit serves my office, the laundry room lights, and one set of living room lights upstairs.  When we pulled out the electric range, that freed up room for several small (15A) circuits in the main breaker box, and it will be a simple matter to tie into one of the unused 15 amp breakers and split these lights off of the other circuits.

Much more to do; I hope we can lay most of the tile itself tomorrow.  We won't have time to finish the hallway walls before going to Europe for a short vacation in a few days, but we'll at least be well on the way to having the "water closet" redone.

Getting an Audit of the Good Kind: Greening Up with a Home Energy Audit

This past Friday, Beth and I had an audit--but not one of the unpleasant IRS kind.  No, we'd taken advantage of the Virginia energy-efficiency rebate program to replace our furnace and a/c unit earlier in the year, and thanks to the weird way Virginia thought out (or failed to do so, I guess) the program, which included $250 toward an "energy audit," we had to complete everything before filing for the furnace--as once we've claimed part of the Virginia rebates, that's it: no claiming the furnace first, then the audit, and lastly any improvements made thanks to the audit.

As expected, the auditor came by with a blower door and nifty forward-looking infrared camera.  Basically, the blower door--a big fan in a frame which installs in the front door--establishes negative pressure inside the house, and spots of air leakage and other thermal issues thus become easily visible on the FLIR photos.

Heck, with the blower door in place, several of the air leaks were self-evident; simply placing my hand in front of them, I could feel the flow of air through cracks in the caulking around my office window or the light fixtures in the living room.

While we're still waiting for the full report from the energy auditor (at which time I'll finally be able to file for our Virginia rebates), I've already done a huge amount of work on remedying the basics.  Seven tubes of silicone caulk so far: I've applied caulk around the window frames--many of which were quite leaky, even though the windows themselves were not--and around several exterior air leaks, like the front door and the gap between the attic fascia boards and the brick, which let cold air straight into the attic beneath the layer of insulation.  And getting up into the attic gave me the chance to finally get around to wiring a light fixture in the library, and we've ambitions to install several more fixtures (a bedroom ceiling fan, a light fixture over the stairwell, and a couple of spotlights over the picture rail and bird art--all before we seal several air leaks along the tops of the walls and install another layer of fiberglass insulation.

Already, the house feels warmer with the reductions in drafts, and I'm sure our energy bills are going to be falling--and we'll be helping the environment as well.

Equipping a Young Padawan: Homemade Christmas Gifts for 3-Year-Olds

My three year old nephew Iain has embraced Star Wars rather eagerly: goose-stepping to "The Imperial March" and re-enacting Luke Skywalker's amputation scene from The Empire Strikes Back, and he's able to name any of the dozens of figures both vintage and modern at a glance.  And we make a lot of the gifts for family each year.  Put those together, and a natural Christmas present for this young Padawan was a hand-crafted Jedi outfit.

Several years ago, I re-taught myself how to sew when I made for myself a Jedi costume, and though it's been a couple of years since I last used either the serger or the sewing machine, I dug both out to put together Iain's gift.

I ran into a problem finding a pint-sized pattern and ended up going with an adult one, trimming an extra three or four inches from the dimensions of the extra-small size.  Back when I sewed much more often, I picked up a remnant of a nice Jedi-esque fabric, which though a bit difficult to work with, ended up looking great in the costume--and which emptied out one more bit of the many storage bins in our basement.

Using the serger made the costume something which will stand up to the many trips through the washing machine necessitated by the day-to-day wear and tear of a three-year-old, and I do have to say I did a fine job overall on the outfit: Iain's dad Wayne asked where I'd bought it.  I need to touch things up with a couple of darts in the back to take in a bit of excess size in the shoulders, and I didn't get the obi finished yet as I couldn't find my good loop-turner (the plastic belt Iain's wearing came from a Star Wars toy set I found when cleaning out our storage unit), but overall, I think the Padawan's ready to take up lessons in light saber and the ethics of the light side / dark side dichotomy, don't you?

Celebrating One Year at Chateau Papillon

This post is a couple of days late, but we celebrated one year as happy homeowners at Chateau Papillon on Tuesday. We closed last November 10th and thus began the first phase of of what we hope to be many years of making the home our own, from the travails of taking out glued-down carpet and installing a slightly too-wide gas range to installing bamboo floors

to building a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves to reworking our back yard to a natural habitat to bringing Jug Boy to the back yard.

We've still got many more renovations planned, including a "wine bistro" in the cellar, painting the guest bedroom (and adding to it a walk-in closet for much-needed storage space), and eventually adding a deck and balconies to overlook our back yard. Everyone says, "You'll still be working on things 30 years later," and given my mom only got her baseboards put in some 30 years after the house had been built, I'm sure they're right.

Manufacturing the Chateau Papillon Graveyard, Part Two: Resurrecting Graveyard Man

Several years ago, Beth and I came up with this creepy figure as part of the decorations at our rental home in Vienna. We'd been out at Fair Oaks Mall and stopped by the Spenser's Gifts store to look at their Halloween selection, and I came across the mask pictured above. It was pricey ($40 if I recall correctly!) but fantastically creepy.

I built an armature out of some heavy-duty wire, added some upholstery foam for structure, and voila--a head to place the mask atop! I also wired in two flicker-flame candle bulbs as eyes (the orange pinpricks seen in the photo above), which really makes the ghoulish gent.

His arms are more sturdy wire, surrounded by a pair of flannel "sleeves" I sewed from some scrap fabric; they're stuffed with plastic grocery bags for volume. As for the title of this piece--Graveyard Man's resurrection--that is a story in and of itself. During our last year in the Vienna rental house, some rats got into the storage shed and ate away Graveyard Man's hands (a pair of monster gloves that fit over the wires). Fortunately, I had the mask safely inside with our costume supplies, but his hands were ruined, and we didn't get him set up at all that year, or last year (since we were in an apartment, waiting out the last two weeks of our short sale purchase of Chateau Papillon).

The hands I found at Spirit this year as replacements aren't perfect, but they work. I still want to add animatronics; the plan is to use a through-shaft motor (e.g. the axle goes all the way through and is on both ends of the motor, not just one end) and two cams to cause his arms to jiggle. I even had the perfect motor at one point, bought as a kid to try to add power to the big plastic van Babykins and his pals drove around in--but who knows what has become of it. Perhaps next year I'll have time.

(p.s.: that's one of the concrete tombstones we cast this year behind Graveyard Man.)

Manufacturing the Chateau Papillon Graveyard, Part One: Casting Tombstones

Ever since childhood, I've enjoyed "do-it-yourself" Halloween decorations. I think it started with some old stereo equipment and "spooky sounds" LPs; I know I made a loop tape from a spooky thunderstorm track on said vinyl and set speakers up in the shrubbery outside my windows, piping out a bit of Halloween atmosphere to accompany the decorations. (I was probably around 7 years old at the time.)

Later displays included hand-painted light bulbs--making up for my allowance not covering fancy colored lights by adding "blood" to plain white incandescents--set up to illuminate a ghost constructed out of a rubber devil's head mask, a white sheet, and a strategically-placed box fan. My sisters got involved as well, and we even drafted some trusted neighbors to help out, with the apex of our work a display (including a too-lively scarecrow seated on the porch, played by my sister Erika if memory serves) terrified a group of the neighborhood kids, sending future reality TV star Ashley McNeeley and several others running screaming down the hill.

My wife Beth and I enjoy decorating even today as adults, and a few years ago put together quite a nice setup at our rental home in Vienna, Virginia, with the centerpiece a zombie we titled "Graveyard Man" built from a wire armature, structural foam, and two flicker-flame bulbs in night light sockets as "eyes" set behind a fantastic latex mask I picked up at Spenser's. The past two years, we haven't gotten to put our ghoulish talents to work; we simply didn't have time in 2007--particularly to rebuild Graveyard Man's hands after a rat got to them in our storage shed!--and in 2008, we were in a temporary apartment (itself a bit of horror, mind you) waiting out the purchase of our new home.

This year, though, despite some rather uncooperative weather, we've gotten back to work, and the centerpiece of the display is to be a graveyard next to the front porch. Whereas in the past we used cardboard boxes, duct tape, and some craft stone-textured spray paint to set up our tombstones, having a home of our own has inspired us to do more. This year, we're making our own concrete tombstones.

The task isn't as hard as you might think, but nor is it as simple as it could be. I wanted to have several of the traditional arc-topped slab tombstones, and we wanted to have carved or etched lettering on them as well. The design would be fairly simple, and concrete isn't that hard to work with; you just need a suitable mold.

From all of our work on renovations and other improvements, we have plenty of scrap wood sitting around, and my table saw made short work of cutting some sides and bottom to make up the tombstone shape; the backing is one of the cheap particleboard shelves I pulled out of the pantry when redoing it with leftover plywood from the library. The trickiest part would be the curved top of the tombstone; no problem with the table saw, though, as I simply "kerfed" a strip of the same scrap plywood used for the sides and bottom.

The space left by the wood cut away by a saw blade is the "kerf," and the technique--commonly used to create curved pieces of wood--makes a series of cuts which almost but not quite go all the way through the wood (leaving a thin veneer atop the cut). As anyone who's made a balsa model knows, thin wood bends easily, and each cut will allow you to bend the piece slightly.

Assembling the mold was a bit tedious--primarily because I wanted to make it easy to disassemble and reassemble, as breaking concrete free of a mold can be a challenge. I secured the sides and bottom with as little hardware as possible, instead putting fixed braces along the edges in several places (look at the sides, above). The kerfed top I glued in place and braced at several points to keep the desired shape.

Beth lined the mold with wax paper to ease in breaking the concrete free once it set. In the meantime, I mixed up the concrete itself, combining a ready-mix blend with a shovel of clay-laden dirt from the yard to make the final product more natural in appearance (sculptors will often blend in all sorts of things to achieve artistic effects, such as hypertufa concrete). I used some scrap metal rods as reinforcement, placed into the concrete after filling the mold halfway; I need to track down the leftover wire I used for Graveyard Man's armatures for future castings, or else cut up one of the garden's tomato cages, perhaps.

After letting the concrete set for 15-20 minutes, I pressed in some wooden letters we picked up at Michael's (here, spelling out the traditional abbreviated Latin requiem)... then waited. A couple of hours later, I pulled the letters out, leaving their images behind in the quick-drying stone.

Fast-forward 24 hours; when I got home from work today, I carefully unmolded our tombstone by placing a slab of scrap plywood over the mold and then inverting both (the wax paper really helped--I barely had to wiggle the mold at all--and didn't have to remove any of the sides to free the set tombstone).

The concrete was still a little "green" despite being a quick-setting variety, so I handled it pretty carefully and set it aside to dry more before we try standing it up in our "graveyard." (We cast a bird bath from some concrete left over from setting posts for our compost bin--so I know the blend I made will firm up quite well despite the addition of dirt as the bird bath mix had dirt and even potting soil mixed in.)

But as you can see from the photo above, it's going to be quite a nice addition to our Halloween display! I cast another one by flashlight this evening (inscribing this one with a date and a stylized cross instead of "RIP"), and we also made a different tombstone shape (a trapezoid) which we plan to use. Only thing is the weight: even though the tombstone is only 2 inches thick and about 12" x 20" in dimensions, it weighs a good 30 pounds or more! Definitely a bit more of a pain to move about than those styrofoam ones sold at megamarts this time of year... but oh so much more realistic.

Renovating an Antique, Part I: Reupholstering a Chair for the Library

Growing up, one of my vivid memories was of the furniture in my grandmother's upstairs sitting room, which had arms that looked like they ended in hands--something that creeped me out to no end; amidst the quiet clicking of the grandfather clock and the ticking floor register of the gas furnace, I imagined turning my back for just a moment and then finding the antique chair had come up to grab me from behind.

Several years ago, my aunt Mae had taken the sitting room furniture off when my aunt Marian wanted to redo the room; Aunt Mae never got around to having the chair and couch reupholstered, though, and recently, she offered them to Beth and me. As the wood itself was in great shape (particularly given the furniture is at least 100 years old), we decided to do the upholstery ourselves. Above, you can see the "before" shot, with Mr. Parker, enjoying the ratty old fabric. Aunt Mae must have tossed the cushions at some point (probably just as well, given the state of the fabric underneath).

After a lengthy, hot afternoon pulling out dozens of upholstery tacks, Beth and I finally got all the old fabric off, and the springs removed. To make things simpler, I used the table saw to cut a base platform to replace the springs; above, you can see that Didi quite approves of the chair which will soon be added to our library.

A couple of years ago, I repaired one of our antique kitchen chairs after its seat broke; in the process, I removed the old cushioning and replaced it with memory foam, making it the envy of the dining room table. Taking similar inspiration for the antique claw-armed chair, Beth and I cut a block of 3" thick standard foam, topped with an inch of memory foam padding from an old bed pillow top we'd quit using; a bit of foam glue pieced the layers together nicely.

I covered the cushion with the same velvet I used on our repaired dining room chair (we'd bought the entire bolt of the stuff when the Vienna location of Hancock Fabrics went out of business a couple of years back). Now, we need to sew the back cushion and do a bit of trim work to finish things off; more on that when we're done.

Corner Shelves for the Library, Finally

For most of the spring and early summer, we've been working outside at Chateau Papillon, putting together our gardens (both natural and vegetable), but the oppressive heat of the past few days--coupled with the work I got done inside while Beth was out of town, such as redoing the pantry shelves and installing some of the baseboards and trim--gave us the impetus to move the library one step closer to completion.

In designing and building the floor-to-ceiling shelves, I left space in the corners for transition units between the two walls. I'd debated butting the two sections against each other and perhaps crafting some "secret doors" into the hollow columns thus created, but in the end, decided 45-degree corner units would be the best use of space and would allow for additional book storage, photo display, and a place for some of the knick-knacks we've accumulated over the years.

Building the shelves began with the back support uprights; using the table saw, Beth and I cut 45-degree angles on the two sides, such that each upright panel would fit flush into the corner and provide support along the backs of the shelves themselves. I still had the drill template handy for the shelf peg holes (although it didn't line up perfectly left-to-right for the uprights--ah, well), and attaching the back uprights to the walls was fairly easily accomplished with several heavy duty wall anchors. I may eventually put in some really heavy-duty long screws through into the studs, but 6x 100-pound wall anchors should be more than sufficient for the duty--and there's really no way the support can collapse; the shelves, once in place, are wedged by the walls and the side shelving units; the back support is really there as a shelf peg holder.

The shelves were a tricky design; they're irregular hexagons, with a back edge (against the corner support) about 7 inches wide, a front edge of around 14 inches, and then two sets of sides (one set parallel to the shelves, one set parallel to the walls) of something like 11 and 16 inches, respectively.

Still, a table saw makes fairly quick work of this sort of carpentry; the hardest and most time-consuming part actually was attaching the facing strips of moulding to the shelves.

With the corner shelves in place, we've now got even more room to grow our library's collection; I also rearranged one of the main upright units to accommodate an extra shelf of paperbacks, which was dearly needed.

There's still plenty to do in the library; although the baseboards are all back in place, and all the shelves faced now, there's still the matter of the purple ceiling (no, that's not an intentional color choice on our part!) We intend to apply some false tin ceiling tiles for a classical look; it's just a matter of ordering them and doing the layout properly. After that, the crown moulding needs to go in along the tops of the shelves to complete their woodwork.

The closet still has a lot to do; at least with getting the corner units in place, we're able to clean out the stuff piled in the library closet so that I can pull up the carpet there and install bamboo flooring like the rest of the library. After that, we're debating how to finish it off; I'll put the closet door back on temporarily, but we want a fireplace (fake for now; perhaps gas logs in the future), and will put in some brick veneer for a nice hearth look... and perhaps a "secret" compartment behind the edge of the shelves where they meet the closet opening. Oh, and the antique claw-footed chair from my grandmother's house: it needs to be reupholstered; we've got the fabric, wood, and foam, but have not had the time yet.

And we have light fixtures to install; way back before we bought Chateau Papillon and were waiting out the bank for the short sale buy, Home Depot had a sale on chandeliers, so we've got a small one to put in over the library's seating area, and will also need some additional lighting at the other end.

With the corner shelves, though, we're one step closer to finishing the library!

Do-It-Yourself to Save

I've always been a hands-on, self-taught, Jack-of-all-trades sort of guy, and that philosophy extends throughout all facets of my life.  In today's economic crisis, those traits open up all sorts of wonderful cost-saving opportunities.

You don't realize how much you can save by doing things yourself that you'd normally pay others to do until you sit down and calculate some of the savings.

For example, at Chateau Papillon, Beth and I have done nearly all of the work in our renovations; indoors, the only thing we've contracted out to date was the extension of a gas line to the kitchen for our range--and it's not that I don't feel I could have successfully taught myself to do gas-line plumbing, but rather that I'd prefer to have the security of mind in knowing someone who does that work for a living did it safely.  I'd rather my house not go "bang!" after all.

That means our only costs have been materials.  No costly labor (though for those less handy, the stagnant construction industry means you might be able to hire contractors for far less than you would have just a couple of years ago--keep that in mind, too).  That's let us spend much more on those materials and thus get a lot more renovations done than we would have otherwise.

Likewise, I've tackled several home maintenance tasks entirely on my own.  When the downstairs bathroom clogged so badly that the toilet wouldn't flush and the shower wouldn't drain, we could have (and almost did) call a plumber--something that would have cost us likely $200 or more (and I speak from experience--a clogged sink at our prior rental home cost the owners nearly $700 and three different plumbers to fix satisfactorily).  Instead, we spent $11 at Home Depot on a little gadget that screws onto a garden hose and expands to fill the pipe, then directs pressurized water at the clog to break it up.  Snaking that down the shower drain cleared the problem up in less than ten minutes.

In the back yard, we've made great use of local resources; instead of paying quite a bit for composted soil or for someone to haul mulch to our home, we've visited Fairfax County recycling facilities which give away composted leaf and hardwood mulch--the stuff you'd pay $4 or more a bag for at garden centers.  So far, we've used at least six cubic yards of the free mulch--saving ourselves at least $500 and recycling yard waste which otherwise would go to waste (no pun intended).  We've done all of our own landscaping so far, after a (free) consultation with a local garden center.

And it's not just in the home improvement arena where we've saved by doing things ourselves.  Yesterday, I replaced a burnt-out headlight and brake light on Beth's car; we'd have paid several dozen more dollars in labor had we gone to a shop, and the work was only a matter of ten minutes or so.  A while back, I repaired and then reupholstered one of our dining room chairs; the discounted upholstery fabric I used combined with scraps of memory foam from dog mattresses we'd made in the past saved us a ton over what a shop would have charged.  And while we're on that topic: sewing is a great skill to develop, and one which isn't difficult to learn for the purposes of repairs, hemming, simple clothing construction, etc.

Now, you might not feel like you're ready to tackle some of the do-it-yourself projects we have; that's fine.  But remember: I'm largely self-taught, and like me, you have to start somewhere.  Find a relatively easy project to start with.  Visit your local library, home improvement center, or craft shop to see if you can find hands-on instruction--for free or at low cost.  As you complete each project, you'll experience a great sense of satisfaction, and your confidence will grow, enabling you to tackle those larger jobs.

And "do-it-yourself" extends beyond the areas of construction, maintenance, landscaping, and the like; take up cooking, and with any degree of creativity and self-confidence, you'll find yourself quickly moving beyond following recipes word-for-word to all-out improvisation.  For example, one night last week, I glanced in the pantry and pulled out a couple of different varieties of dried lentils, some bulgar wheat, pine nuts, walnuts, an apple, and some cheese that was getting a bit old and dry from the fridge, and cooked up quite a tasty (and healthy, I might add) dish, just from what we had on hand.  No need to go to the store or to spend money at a restaurant; our dinner cost perhaps $2 total in ingredients, and a half an hour or less for me to prepare.  Cooking is a wonderful skill to develop that will save you quite a bit of green.  You might find yourself like me, noting the sale and coupon items at the store and wondering, "What could I do with that?" and thus saving even more!

So consider doing-it-yourself to save yourself a bit of green!