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.

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.

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!

Moving the Renovations from Inside to Outside

With Spring just around the corner, Beth and I have started thinking about work on the yard around Chateau Papillon. Our home sits on around 1/3 of an acre--a pretty big lot for the near-in Washington suburbs, anyway--and is adjacent to a wooded county park, making it a much more natural setting than we might otherwise expect.

The back yard is pretty much a blank slate.  We've got several towering trees along the periphery which will give us some nice summer shade, but that's about it.  The rest of the yard is a bunch of moss and a bit of grass and little else.

We want to keep the yard mostly natural, rather than creating some kept, artificial suburban lawn, while still having a large area for the dogs to run and play.  Of course, we want some room for things like grilling out, our hammock, and such, too, as well as a vegetable garden, and some kind of pond (the latter taking advantage of the natural wetness of parts of the yard).

We began with a good survey of our lot, taking note of where the sun falls, how wet the soil is, the direction of prevailing winds, existing plants and their shade levels, etc., then moved on to several books in our library, primarily The Audubon Society Guide to Attracting Birds: Creating Natural Habitats for Properties Large and Small and Bird-by-Bird Gardening: The Ultimate Guide to Bringing in Your Favorite Birds--Year after Year, which we used to make a list of the sorts of plants we wanted to bring in.

Now, landscaping and gardening take mucho dinero, and recall that Beth was laid off (and is still job hunting, though she's also working on developing a petsitting business as backup).  That does limit some of what we can do, but given both our desires to "do it yourself" to begin with, our expenses are thus limited to materials.

We began with a trip to a Merrifield Garden Center, a good local resource with a location only three miles or so from Chateau Papillon.  After going over our lot's plot and some of our ideas, one of their garden advisers showed us several sale-priced dogwoods as suggested first plants: creating an understory to break up some of the "yardy" expanse.  We picked out five, and though we paid more than we would have at a big-box retailer even with the sale, we got much better trees and over an hour's free consultation.

So far, we've gotten several of the trees planted around out yard and are already thinking of the next steps.  Because of the bluebirds in our yard, we have to be careful to leave them an open area as well as not to plant any shrubs favored by pests like House Sparrows.  We want to terrace a side yard for vegetable gardening, but that means finding good but cheap stone to be delivered, which we're in the process of researching.

Getting out into the yard has been invigorating, and although I know getting the yard to the point we want it will take us several years (and not solely due to finances!), it's exciting to see things beginning to take shape.

In parting, here are three of the best books we've found so far in planning our yard's gardening:

The Library Is Almost Done!

A quick review of recent posts in the "renovation" category will show a lot of progress on our library at Chateau Papillon; from the first two shelving units to the extension to the second wall, I've covered a lot of our work to-date on adding that most critical of rooms to our home: the library.  I've been remiss of late, though, in posting what we've accomplished in nearly completing said home for books.

As you can see in the photo above, the shelves now wrap around three walls of the room; I need only to add the above-the-window shelves on the wall to the left in the photo (I need more 3/4" plywood for that) and to attach some facing strips to several shelves where I ran out of the proper moulding previously to finish most of the first phase.

I still of course need to put in place the crown moulding above the units; that's going to be a challenge but a do-able one.  Also, the corners need shelves; they've been left open and have pre-drilled peg holes on two sides, but they need some back support and the shelves themselves put into place.  Then the room needs light; I intend to put some wall sconces on the uprights on the far wall (directly ahead in the photo) and into the ceiling a small chandelier we picked up on sale at Home Depot.  Speaking of the ceiling: no, it's not staying lavender; we plan to put up some fake tin tiles rather than painting it, as from painting my home office I've had quite enough of that chore already.

We've still got room for one more set of shelves, but we need to pick up a bit more lumber (another sheet of 1/2" sanded ply plus another piece of 3" case moulding for the front)--and we need to touch up some of the pink left on the walls from where I had problems getting the closet doors down when we first painted.  As for the closet itself, we eventually plan a fake fireplace and perhaps a fish tank inside it, maybe curtained off from the library proper.

The library is a lot more spacious than the wide-angle photo above gives it credit; we've got room for a couple of cozy chairs near the fireplace-to-be, and certainly well over two thousand books with a bit of room to grow on.  If I wanted the "stacks" look, I suppose we could add another set of shelves down the center of the room, but I like the open feel even when surrounded by books--something we'd completely lose by creating aisles.

Beth wants a leopard-print rug for the floor.  Hmm.  Have to think about that one!

Doing Our Part to Stay Green

During the long wait for the seller's bank approval to our offer on Chateau Papillon, I read quite a few books on green living, from Insulate and Weatherize to The Home Energy Diet, about reducing the impact we and our home would have on the environment.  Indeed, we determined to handle our renovations in as green a fashion as possible, from the use of low- and no-VOC paints to our choices of renewable flooring materials such as cork and bamboo.

Thinking back now over the past three months we've lived at Chateau Papillon, I realize that though there's still a bit to do (I've got much more insulation to do, for example, despite the amount I've already accomplished) but that we've also come quite a way toward achieving our goal.  Here are a few of the ways we're doing our part to cut our environmental impact and improve our green living:

Recycling

Beth sometimes calls me the "recycling Nazi," due to the degree to which I enforce recycling in our household.  We've always put out wine bottles, soda cans, and the appropriate plastic bottles (numbers 1 & 2 where we live); now, however, I've added paperboard & cardstock to the usual corrugated cardboard pickup, so that we're recycling pretty much everything except for unaccepted plastics (the most frequent being resin code 5, or polypropylene, such as is typically found in margarine tubs and similar containers).  We've also in the past put said unrecyclable containers to re-use for storing leftover foods, etc.  I even bring home from work the cardstock packaging and plastic tray from my typical microwave lunch to make sure they're properly recycled.

Though we always recycle plastic grocery and shopping bags, Beth has also crocheted a pair of mesh grocery bags we use alongside several others to cut back on our consumption of the same; paper grocery bags serve to hold our cardstock and paperboard recycling.

I've also been very careful to design, measure, and cut all of our wood used in renovations to minimize the waste (this obviously also has financial benefits), and am looking to find out the best way to make use of the remaining wood scraps: mostly thin strips of low-VOC plywood, molding, and small lengths of 1x4s.  Though commercially these are recycled--typically into composite building materials, such as particleboard and plastic decking (the latter making use of those plastic shopping bags, too!)--I've been hard-pressed to find a consumer recycling option.  It's possible we'll chip them and use the wood in gardening, given it's untreated lumber and the plywood is lacking toxic formaldehyde glues; I'm open to other suggestions.

Energy Consumption

Though the pets and Beth being at home during the day make the best use of our setback thermostat impractical, the amount of weatherizing I've done so far (sealing gaps around several windows, along baseboards, and the exterior doors) has allowed us to at least cut the thermostat back to 69 degrees (thanks to less water vapor being lost to the outside through those gaps), and likewise the furnace runs less often.  Our gas bill is already approximately half what it was at our rental house despite being for a larger home.

We have managed to replace almost all of the incandescent bulbs in the house with compact fluorescents (CFLs), typically cutting lighting costs by 75% or more.  For those naysayers who complain about the mercury in CFLs, let me point out that the local Home Depot accepts used CFLs for recycling--keeping the mercury out of landfills--and that an equivalent incandescent bulb contributes far more mercury to the environment via its consumption of electricity (which via the mining and burning of coal emits quite a bit of mercury).  I'm down to the fridge bulb and a set of small spotlights in the basement, and Beth's bedside lamp, for which there aren't any suitable alternative bulbs at present.

Even better, I've recently been able to replace several bulbs with LEDs, which consume even less electricity (and don't have any issues with mercury, either).  The dining room chandelier had used five 40-watt incandescents, and the candelabra-base CFLs simply didn't fit inside the light sconces--but Sam's Club just started carrying LED candelabra bulbs which consume only 1.5 watts of power for their 40-watt equivalent light output.  These bulbs fit the fixture and are priced right ($5 apiece); price has been one of the big detractors to wider-scale LED bulb use to date--for example, one basement spotlight fixture took three 1.5 watt LEDs to replace three 50-watt halogens, but at a cost of $30/bulb.  Eek!  The only downside is that these LED bulbs from Sam's are very directional (this is a problem with most LED bulbs today, mind you); the majority of their light is emitted straight out the end of the bulb.  I'm not sure why the array of individual LEDs are set up all in the same direction or why the protective plastic casing doesn't have a series of refractive lenses to disperse the light better... but for the chandelier, which primarily lights downward onto the dining room table, they work just fine.

I replaced several smaller external hard drives on my computer with Energy Star rated larger units; getting rid of the old 160 GB, 100 GB, and 240 GB units to replace them with a couple of 1 TB drives not only gave me the necessary storage boost I needed (my photography archive consumes about 1/3 TB at present!) but cut my computer's energy usage significantly; at present, even when all the drives are running, the system's on, and I'm using the external monitor, the whole consumes only 100 watts or so.

This year's holiday decorations were entirely LED-powered; for the Hokie tree, we found some orange LEDs on sale at Costco after Halloween which easily cut the tree's energy consumption to 1/10th what it had been with incandescents--and looks better, too.  Outside, we put up LED lights along the roof line, and for the more traditional tree, we found a few last-minute sales on LED light strands at Target which we used to replace several incandescents.  These LED decorations easily translated into a holiday-season savings of $40-$60 at our current electricity prices!

One thing I'm still working on is the electric space heater we use for supplementary heat in the basement for the birds at night; if run at full power all night long, the heater would consume 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity in a month, or over $30 worth of electricity at current rates.  I've gotten Beth to run it at a set temperature (68) to reduce its usage, and continuing insulation and weatherization projects should help lessen the need to use it at all.

There are times now where I watch the power meter outside and see if barely crawling along, even though we've got several lights on and the TV (an Energy Star-rated LCD unit) as well.  Nice!

Miscellaneous

Our dishwasher features a "Water Miser" setting, which gets the dishes done more quickly and uses less water, yet does a fine job getting them clean nonetheless.  Likewise, setting the laundry load size properly helps use the proper amount of water while still cleaning the clothes effectively.

And, of course, there's the tried and true method of turning things off which aren't in use: the TV, lights, etc., and unplugging "power vampires" like phone chargers and unused consumer appliances.  (Unfortunately, we have to leave the cable box on; it takes a good 5-10 minutes to boot up if you physically cut and restore the power--but at least the power meter we've got on the entertainment center shows the cable box consumes less than 10 watts when idled.)

Future Plans

We've got several plans lined up for the future which should help even more, both near- and long-term.

First, we want to replace our aging hot water heater with a tankless unit; our tank is old enough that a decently-sized, electronic-ignition, variable-firing tankless unit would really make an impact.  The furnace is also fairly old, so when it goes, we'll be looking to upgrade to a more energy-efficient one (the A/C compressor is new enough it won't be a problem).  Our home appliances are in pretty good shape, as they were made in the last few years.  Still, we do want to upgrade the refrigerator and would go with a more energy-efficient unit, and the washing machine could stand to be replaced with a high-efficiency unit, too.

I want to redo my bathroom, and the more modern low-flush toilets have come along well enough that I'm ready to replace the water-hogging ones we've got with better-conserving units.

Our home is oriented reasonably-well to take advantage of solar heating in the winter, and the woods around it will help shade it in the summer.  But there are steps which can help there quite a bit; at some point, we'll replace the asphalt shingle roof (already a light color, fortunately) with something more durable and which reflects more heat.  These are of course long-term projects, as would be adding a solar water heater and photovoltaic cells to the roof.  Shorter-term will be improved insulation in the attic.

In the yard, we're planning to add a vegetable garden as well as several water projects.  From a natural perspective, we want to add a small pond to attract birds, and we also want to improve the drainage of our yard.  I'm hoping to implement a rainwater catchment system to utilize rainwater for gardening and for our pond and perhaps eventually for other uses.  Landscaping is also going to help with the solar benefits of our home as well as provide more wildlife habitat.

The problem with these future projects is that they take money, and given Beth's current job situation, we've had to postpone several.  Oh, well... I'll at least have more time to read books on the how-to end.

The Bottom Line

Many of the projects we've undertaken will pay for themselves over time.  The insulation and weatherizing I've put in so far have had a definite impact on our utility bills, as have the more-efficient light sources we're using.  A few of our upgrades and renovations actually have tax benefits as well (and several of our future ones typically have received tax incentives each year, like high-efficiency water heaters and photovoltaic panels), though there's no guarantee that will remain the case).

The intangible benefit is that we know we're doing our part to ensure the Earth and her environments remain viable for the generations to come.

More Shelves, More Books ... Continued Library Work

I wanted to put together a quick post to cover some more of the work I've gotten done since Saturday for the library at Chateau Papillon.  The first wall's shelves are now pretty well loaded, and I've gotten the front case moulding in place.  I'd gotten the crown moulding set in place, measured, double-checked, checked again, test-fit, and then finally cut... but something seems to be off on the left edge (which should be a 22.5 degree inside angle--yes, crown is tougher to cut, but I double-checked it several times with test pieces).  Maybe it's fine; I kept thinking the piece that runs to the wall (visible at the top right) was wrong, but it's perfect.

Next, I've gotten a lot of the second wall done, too.  The first three standards are in place along with the two long shelves which finish framing the window; what's left is standard to the left which will create another slender unit (a couple of inches wider than the one on the right).  Then I'll cap the standards with the top board and install the face and crown moulding, too.  Last will be an extension on the HVAC duct, which will allow me to box it in tightly and put in a couple of shelves above it (right now, they'd get too hot in the winter without the extension).

There will be a corner unit between the two walls; the shelves are going to be a bit tricky to cut (with a 45 degree front face--and possibly the same in the back if I install a slender backer board in the corner itself).  But that's nothing compared to the crown moulding, whose ends meet at 22.5 degree inside "corners."  At nearly $2/foot, I can't risk many fouled-up cuts on that stuff!

Forgive the wide angle distortion in the above photo; however, it should give an idea of how the library's really coming along.  I've unpacked another four to five cartons of books--only somewhere north of 15 left (eek!), with many of those oddly-sized books which will shelve much less neatly.  Still, we've got the corner units to build, another slender unit to the left of the window framing, and two units up to the window on the third wall--and perhaps that window will be framed in, too.  The latter will necessitate more lumber, though; I'm down to two full sheets of plywood and cut sheets for another two standards and several shelves.

The Library Begins to Take Shape

Another weekend's work has begun on the library at Chateau Papillon, and it's really starting to take shape with the near-completion of the first set of shelves.  Despite another slap in the face by Mother Nature--this when I'm using FSC-certified lumber, no less--with her single-digit temperatures, I managed to wheel out the table saw and cut several more sets of shelves and began unpacking some books.


Though there's woodwork still to be done--puttying and sanding the nail and screw holes for the standards as well as the shelves (which are stabilized by a thin strip glued and nailed to their front edges) for one, then attaching decorative molding to the fronts of the standards and along the ceiling, and of course painting or staining the shelf units, too.  But I really wanted to get a sense of how they'd look and work with books on them, so after Beth and I got the last standard in place for the wall (the one to the far left), I worked on setting the shelves in place and unpacking.

I'm actually getting a bit worried we won't have enough shelving in the library for our books!  So far, I've unpacked nearly seven cartons of books, leaving well over twenty more cartons to go.  Worse, many of those remaining are hardcovers and irregularly-sized books, which won't store as neatly or densely as what I've gotten in place so far.  Count-wise, I probably have somewhere close to 400 mass-market paperbacks on the shelves, maybe 40 hardbacks, and somewhere south of 100 trade- and oddly-sized paperbacks.  That's not even a third of the books in our total collection (as it exists--remember, we need room to grow)--and these first three shelving units represent over 1/3 of the total space we'd intended to devote to shelves in the library as a whole.

I've still got room for perhaps two more cartons of books in the first three shelf units; I've got to cut several sheets of 3/4" plywood for heavier-duty hardcover shelves, though; the 1/2" shelves, even with a strip along the front for stability, just aren't up to full-time duty for that much weight.  That, and I need to go to the hardware store in search of more shelf pegs; for the hardcovers, I've come to prefer L-shaped metal pegs over the inline ones I've used for the most part so far.  That should free up enough wood for four more shelves in these units, and I expect to get the next two standards up tomorrow as well.  They'll give us a narrow unit to the right of the windows, as well as define a corner space which will need some tricky shelf-cutting to fill.

We've got enough wood on hand to run the shelves along the rest of the next wall and perhaps do one set of shelves on the third wall (I hope!), and I've got two large shelf units in my office on which I plan to keep my birding books and my various writing, photography, and desktop publishing references--and perhaps, if I have room, my mythology references as well.  Still, even assuming we use some of the older shelves we'd hoped to discard in various rooms of the house, it's going to be a tight squeeze to get all the books in.  Dare I go through and find a carton or two's worth of books I don't need, and give them to Goodwill?  Eek!

More Progress on the Library (And No Thanks to You, Mother Nature!)

The three-day weekend gave me a chance to work on the library; after drawing up the plans and getting the floor done last weekend, we took a 10% off coupon to Home Depot and picked up the lumber and miscellaneous hardware needed to build custom floor-to-ceiling shelves for our library.

First, we ripped several sheets of quality plywood into strips 11.5" wide and just under 8' tall; these would, with 1x4" boards sandwiched in-between, form the uprights for the shelf units.  In the photo above, you can see one of the uprights in nearly-finished form: the two sheets of plywood have been glued to the 1x4" boards (and then screwed together for good measure).  I've clamped in-place a piece of pegboard which I used as a guide to drill the holes for adjustable shelves; subsequently, using a drill bit with a "stop" bolted on to control its depth, will drill the two rows of holes, over 300 per upright in total.

After that, I screwed lag bolts into the bottoms of the uprights, then sawed off the bolt heads using a hacksaw.  These pegs nee bolts then fit into holes drilled into the floor, and after much work with a level to ensure the upright is plumb, it got bolted to the wall as well.

In the photo above, you can see an in-progress shot of the first wall of shelving.  Three of the uprights have been installed, creating two shelving units.  The thin strips screwed with apparent abandon to the fronts are there to stabilize the uprights and keep them in perfect position until the top (a 1/4" sheet of plywood) and crown moulding are in place, and until I have more anchors set into the walls to hold them.

The adjustable shelves should provide a good home for our home library; as seen in the photo, I set several of the completed shelves in place at heights to support mass market paperbacks, trade paperbacks, and hardcover books.  There's still a lot to do even just on the first wall: one more upright to set in place, some tweaks to make sure all the units are perfectly square to each other, and, of course, the trim.  Each unit's front is faced with some fancy (and priced as such, unfortunately) moulding to conceal the plywood "sandwich," for starters.  And the nail and screw holes have to be puttied and sanded, and the wood finished, though we haven't decided whether to go with paint or stain yet, or what shade of either.

I'd perhaps been a bit ambitious in my scheduling in planning to have the first two walls done this weekend, but then, Mother Nature didn't help out much.  Though on Friday I did get several of the uprights and shelf boards ripped with the table saw, just after I'd gotten set up on Saturday and done a bit of sanding--I hadn't even gotten to use the table saw to do any work on cutting shelves to width or on trim--the skies opened up, first with sleet, then the same bone-chilling rain we've seen for the past couple of weeks off and on.  Enough rain, already!

We got the tarp on the table saw and brought the other tools in; I had to hand-dry several to keep out rust (and I only hope I got all the moisture!)  The table saw had to wait under the tarp for the rain to let up a bit, then it got dried off and wheeled to the shed.  All told, Mother Nature gave us a day's set-back in construction!  That, mind you, after I'd bought FSC-certified wood for the "green" aspect of our library construction; she's got no shame, apparently.

Well, hopefully this next weekend will give us a chance to finish the first wall of shelves and do some unpacking of the books; we need the space in the library to store the rest of the wood.

Picture Rail for the Home Gallery

One thing neither Beth nor I have ever had much shortage of is a collection of photography and art to be displayed around the home, and since I took up bird and nature photography seriously in 2006, we've run more a wall shortage and picture surplus rather than the other way around.

Credit Beth for the idea of picture rail; she suggested a "gallery" system where photos hang from some sort of bracket or strip on the walls and can be easily adjusted or moved around.  Having done moulding installation before--my townhome had several walls with chair rail--I took her idea and interpreted it as classical-style "picture rail," or a strip of special moulding that goes about a foot below the room's ceiling and from which photos hang by means of a special hook that goes over the moulding's curved profile.

(We both had some misconceptions about said moulding--Beth had envisioned a more modern strip, and I had thought it meant nailing hooks up along its length, vs. the curved moulding hooks which are actually used.)

I've gotten the picture rail installed on several walls in the living room now as well as down the hallway.  Please excuse the clutter in the photo above; it should, however, give you an idea of how the picture rail looks and is used to display photography and artwork: here, several of my bird photos.  The rail still needs to be stained (and the nail holes puttied over, of course), but as yet, I'm debating what color to stain it.  Originally, a dark mahogany seemed best, contrasting with the lighter walls and going well with the dark curtain rods and hardware; with the bare pine in place, though, a lighter color doesn't seem such a bad choice, either.

Progress on the Library

One thing we really looked forward to during our entire house hunt and particularly after we found (and then bought) Chateau Papillon was building a library.  I've got nearly 2,000 books (a collection which grows daily at times, it seems), and ever since moving to northern Virginia, most have had to live in cardboard boxes.  Beth has several hundred more herself; I haven't inventoried hers yet, though.

In Blacksburg, I built a set of custom bookcases for my loft, sized for the loft's rear knee wall (just over six feet high--the roof slanted down across it) and for my books (with special shelves 12" deep, and several at perfect heights for paperbacks and others for hardcovers, and yet others for various oversized books).  Even with those, plus my two large bookcases and seven (yes, seven!) smaller 4' tall shelf units, I was even then starting to see book "crowding."

So for Chateau Papillon, we planned to build floor-to-ceiling shelving, making a true library for all those books.  Before moving in, we got the painting done in the library--a nice teal color--though I did leave the ceiling still lavender (I tired of ceiling painting pretty quickly after my home office), with plans to put up tin ceiling tiles instead.  But that's where the library has been for weeks now.


Finally, today I got to work on reflooring the library.  Like the master bedroom and my home office, there had been a lot of damage to the original hardwood floors: paint spills by a former owner or tenant, and many staple and nail holes from the carpet which had been there under the prior owner's tenure.  No problem; we'd ordered enough bamboo to cover all three of those rooms.  I just hadn't had time yet to tackle the library.

The floors are (almost) done now; I've only a few specially-cut strips along the entry side of the room to install.  See those stacks of boxes in the background?  Those are our books, aside from a couple of cartons at the very top.  Between these boxes and a few of cookbooks in the basement, all told there are just under 40 cartons of books awaiting their shelves!

I've got Friday off next week, so I plan to get to work on doing the first two walls' worth of shelves (along the entry wall, where I stood to take this photo; and along the right-hand wall to the window, below it, and then up the other side).  More to come... it will be nice to get those books unpacked!

A Very Hokie Home Office

The renovations at Chateau Papillon still have quite a ways to go; we've yet to replace the baseboards in the basement (and, in fact, still need to put down a narrow strip of cork flooring to finish the floor), and the library has been painted but little else as yet--no floor-to-ceiling shelves, no bamboo floor, no light fixtures.  But there is one room almost completely finished: my home office.

As you can see in the photo above, there's little doubt where I went to college.  I chose to paint the office walls in Home Depot's Collegiate Collection "VT Maroon" for an authentic look (more on that in the earlier blog entry, "Mothers, Don't Let Your Daughters Grow Up to Be Princesses"), and Linens 'N Things' going-out-of-business sale offered up these two orange curtains.  That VT football field rug came from Kohl's, I believe, via my parents.  The VT football endtable is a gift from my aunt Marian, like the Tiffany lamp.

Of course, my two diplomas were among the first things to be hung on the wall.  I'd really like to add another or two (I do need to finish my M.A. in English; a M.S. in Computer Science or a M.F.A. in Creative Writing would be nice, too)--but I'd have to move things around a bit to make space!

This disturbing Salad Fingers wall plaque (crafted by my sister and her husband, and hanging in my office only because Beth wouldn't have it out "in public" near the front door where I'd wanted to put it) holds several pieces of Virginia Tech "flair," including bowl game ticket stubs for two Sugar Bowls (including the national championship game for '99-'00), a Gator Bowl, and various Hokie-themed bead strands collected in New Orleans.

My office is a bit of a "Where's Waldo" exercise in picking out all the Hokie-themed memorabilia.  This shot of the side wall shows a Tiffany VT lamp my aunt gave me a few years ago, along with my custom-made VT shoes (from the now-defunct Customatix), a Hokie bird beanie baby, a photo of Hokies Matt, John, and Zina from the '06 UNC game, and--if you look really closely--the "Dr. Who" Hokie scarf Beth crocheted for me several years ago (yes, it's approximately thirteen feet of orange and maroon warmth).  As the library isn't finished yet, I've got many of my birding references as well as some of my signed and vintage hardbacks and favorite paperbacks set up in the office bookshelves for now.

Aunt Marian has given me several VT football-themed plates as well; I don't yet have a place set aside to hang them, though once the library is set up, I may put them atop my office bookcases.

Of course, my office renovations aren't quite complete yet; I still have to finish nailing up the baseboards and put in a strip of shoe moulding as well.  But for now, my office is certainly one of the more-complete rooms at Chateau Papillon.

The Trials of Glued-down Carpet

Neither Beth nor I are much fond of carpet in the home. First, we both suffer various allergies, and not only does carpet typically harbor a fauniferous zoo of dust mites and their sneeze-inducing feces (yech!), but its fibers trap various outdoor allergens tracked in by humans and animals alike (pollen), and liquids can transform the padding and backing into mold and mildew factories. Our relatively short time in a temporary apartment saw increased congestion and related allergic symptoms in both of us no matter how much vacuuming we did, due I suspect to the wall-to-wall carpet.

So in moving to Chateau Papillon, one of the first orders of business was the reworking of the floors. Though the kitchen, dining, and entry hall were done in stone tile, and the living room left in original wood, the three upstairs bedrooms had been carpeted, as had the entire basement. We opted for bamboo for the bedrooms (true tongue-and-groove planks, mind you, and not cheap laminate), planning for the light-toned wood to offset the rich color palette we'd selected and help keep the smallish rooms as "open"-feeling as possible--with the added benefit that the Premium Green Bamboo we selected was inexpensive and represented a "green" flooring option in that bamboo is a largely- and rapidly-renewable resource, unlike traditional hardwoods.

But more on the bamboo in a later post. For the basement, Beth opted for cork, another renewable resource (the bark is harvested every five years or so, with the trees themselves never cut down) and one well-suited to her living space, providing a softer, warmer floor surface than other woods or materials like tile. Cork installs like laminate flooring, "clicking" together in either a floating or glued-down installation. But first things first: the basement floors were very nice carpet, which we'd hoped to salvage and make into a few throw rugs...

... until we discovered the basement carpet had been glued down instead of stretched and tacked as was done in the bedrooms. While not unusual for installations over concrete or tile, the carpet glue made our renovations quite painful.  I initially tried pulling up the whole carpet, but quickly discovered how sticky the glue was and gave up on salvaging the carpet.  At that point, I had two options: cut the carpet into strips (which individually would be easier to remove), or apply some solvent to help dissolve the glue.  Given we were trying to avoid fumes--recall we chose low-VOC paints for the basement--and the furnace and water heater would have to be turned off to prevent a possible explosion from the flammable solvent vapors, you can guess which option we chose.

Chance decided he'd "help" as he so often does: by climbing atop (or, as in the photo above, into!) the carpet as we were removing it.  Crazy Chance!

We had to remove the carpet in stages; between cutting the strips (itself a difficult task which wore out my hands and several utility knife blades), pulling them up, and using an industrial-strength floor scraper to help pry up the carpet and padding and remove any particularly-stubborn patches of glue, it was back-breaking work.  As a reward to ourselves (and a break from the carpet removal!), we started on the installation of the new floor before we'd even finished taking up the carpet.

Two layers of 6 mil polyethylene sheeting went down atop the old vinyl tiles to act as a vapor barrier and help keep moisture away from the new cork floors, followed by a layer of half-inch OSB sheeting to act as a subfloor (this I had to "shoot" into the old floor using .22-propelled concrete fasteners; I'm sure the neighbors wondered if World War III was breaking out with all that noise!).  After that, the cork "tiles" (approximately 3' x 1') went down, with painter's tape on the seams to help keep prior rows from moving as new ones went in.


We're almost done with the basement flooring; above, you can see the last bits of exposed vapor barrier along with a bit of the OSB subfloor.  We've finished now up to the last strip, a 3" or so border down the edge of the wall; once that's done and I fill in some gaps along the base of the wall with foam sealant to keep out bugs and moisture, it will be time to put in the new baseboard.

Although it was a LOT of work, I think the cork floors look great.  They're environmentally-conscious in that cork is incredibly renewable, and the brand we chose had very low VOC content (the glues used in their construction make next to no use of formaldehyde).  They're soft underfoot and warmer than I'd expect for installation over a concrete slab.  Overall, we're both quite pleased with the work so far!

Mothers, Don't Let Your Daughters Grow Up to Be Princesses

Or, at least don't let them paint their rooms that way! When we first visited what would become Chateau Papillon, a couple of rooms stood out as testimony to the family's little girl in residence: fuchsia walls, lavender ceilings, and the whole nine yards of Disney's princess motif. Although I'm sure the decor worked quite well for the little girl, it wasn't going to stay when Beth and I began our renovations. One room would become our library, and the other my home office.



A consultation with the paint desk at Lowe's on how best to prime the walls and ceiling for repainting led to some "Maximum Color Hiding" primer plus a can of flat white ceiling paint; Home Depot provided the wall paints in a Virginia Tech maroon and a grey primer to go beneath it.

Let me tell you: priming walls is no fun at all. I put an entire gallon of that "maximum hiding" primer onto the small room's walls (my office is approximately 10' x 10') in two full coats and some additional touch-up, and you could STILL see the fuchsia shining through. Likewise, the ceiling was even less pleasant and took two coats of primer as well, leaving a hint of lavender showing, too.



The ceiling then took two more coats (four total!), this time of flat white ceiling paint. I think I removed all traces of purple, but it's tough to be sure. At any rate, nearly two gallons of white paint later, and the room was ready to get its new colors. Beth painted a coat of grey base to go beneath the Hokie maroon (recommended by Home Depot to help the maroon show up properly), then I followed that up with two full coats and some spot work in maroon paint.



Though the above photo shows the maroon paint in various stages of drying--and thus appearing fairly streaky and purple to boot--the end result does look good, and once I have the baseboard in place and the furniture arranged, I'll post a photo of the finished product. After painting, I put down a layer of bamboo flooring (full tongue-and-groove boards--no laminates!) and have cut, but not fully installed, baseboard; shoe moulding is going to be one more required touch to fully conceal the floor's edges. And, of course, I hung orange curtains...

Lost Chapters in the Saga of the Gas Range

In covering the saga of the gas range, I managed to leave out a few details (and have subsequently discovered a couple more verses in this long Edda as well). Actually, well before the wall had to be notched to accommodate the new range's wider-than-specified console, I had to take out an ancient through-the-wall kitchen vent (a major draft source!)

My grandmother's house had one of those vents next to its range, too, if that gives you a better idea as to the age of the fixture--and from the amount of grime on the vent fan itself, this one could have certainly been an original to the house circa 1964.

First, I had to pry off the faceplate; I then was able to unplug the fan itself and pull it from the duct. I considered routing the range hood's vent out the same hole (the hood currently vents into the kitchen--less than ideal--but direct venting the hood outside would require knocking another hole in the exterior wall), but the ductwork necessary was going to be problematic (two tight 90-degree elbows which would likely become grease and gunk traps).

So, I cut a piece of cardboard to the size of the existing duct and caulked it into place, blocking off the end of the duct from further drafts. After that, I filled the rest of the duct with fiberglass insulation, caulked around any gaps, and put a heat shield in place to cover the now-filled hole through the wall (no need to redo the drywall when it's behind a piece of metal!)

As for those new discoveries? Well, don't order a gas range online. I've read and re-read the specs as presented on the Sam's Club Web site, and nowhere does it say that the range is 31" wide at its widest point (the failing which led to my having to notch the wall); to be fair, GE's own specs don't list the 31" dimension, either, unless you dig pretty deeply. But also nowhere on the site does it say the range has a broiler drawer and not a standard waist-high broiler! In effect, there's only the lower gas burner in the oven, with none at the top, and the drawer underneath the oven holds a broiler rack. Problem is, large things (like turkeys) cannot be broiled in the drawer--only stuff like toast, steaks, and fish fillets, and broiling involves bending over to floor-level; any decent chef knows the mise en place for a good kitchen minimizes awkward movements and actions for tasks done frequently (like broiling).

I'll have to live with the limitations of a broiler drawer for now, because I'm not about to buy another new range (nor can I afford one at present). I think I could have spent $100 more and gotten a range better meeting my expectations--problem was, the Web site presented it as having a smaller oven (probably so--to account for the additional waist-high broilers). I guess when we tackle some major kitchen renovations--such as expanding the kitchen itself when we build a sunroom for the birds and extend the kitchen over it (and add a sunny little breakfast nook), we'll replace with a couple of in-wall ovens and a cooktop on an island; 'til then, we're stuck with this range.

I tried doing a lot of Web research in picking out the right model for our budget and feature requirements, but never could find the exact model numbers anywhere to make sure everything lined up (and, to be fair, GE has several dozen models nearly identical and within a few hundred of each other in price, making things even more difficult). Shame on me for not doing more research, and shame on Sam's Club for such poor description of their items on their Web site.

The Saga of the New Gas Range

Cooking is one of my passions--so in house shopping, each potential home's kitchen received a bit of close scrutiny: the layout of this one was bad, that one had older appliances, this one had too little counter space, etc. The biggest lack at Chateau Papillon was its electric range; I'd gotten a bit spoiled to the cooking efficiencies of gas while at the rental home on Tapawingo Road. But Chateau Papillon, unlike several homes we looked at, already had natural gas running to the house--so converting to gas for cooking couldn't be that difficult, could it?

First things first: we got estimates and hired plumbers to come out and run a gas line to the kitchen; the existing gas line entered on the opposite end of the house, where it fed the furnace and water heater. At least the drop ceiling in half the basement made it relatively simple to route the extension line, though it still involved multiple visits from the plumber, a Washington Gas subcontractor to re-do the meter and regulators, and the Fairfax County gas inspector.

Of course, I had to run a new electric line for the gas range, too. The electric range had a 220 volt range outlet in place; the gas range needed only basic 120 volt line service. The home's breaker box was full, of course, but removing the big 50-amp, double-pole breaker for the old range gave me plenty of room to add a 15-amp circuit for the new gas appliance. (Fortunately, I've worked informally as an electrician before, spending summers in high school working for my uncle's construction business--that saved us quite an expense!)

The biggest problem, though, became the range itself. The existing electric range abutted a wall--and bubbled paint testified to the poor choice of location that had been; our home inspector recommended a heat shield for safety (and with a gas range's high heat output, a doubly-necessary precaution!) So I put on order a metal plate that would cover the wall next to the range and thought no more of it--and after some measurements, ordered the gas range itself.

I'd ordered a fairly basic GE gas range, one with a "power" burner and another "precise simmer" burner but little else fancy (we'd after all just spent several hundred thousand dollars on the home plus thousands more in our initial renovations). Its dimensional specifications matched the electric range we'd be replacing, so once the gas line was in place, we'd be set, right?

Wrong.

What GE didn't mention in their specs was that the range's console was actually 31 inches wide, even though the oven and range top were but the specified 30 inches. In the recommended installation with at least two inches of space on either side of the range (remember the need for a heat shield due to the wall being so close?), that extra inch wouldn't be a problem... but in our tight quarters, it became a show-stopper. The only viable solution was to cut into the wall itself!

I planned to cut out the drywall alongside the range, replacing it with the metal heat shield I'd ordered. That would buy me at least a half an inch, which would not only let me get the range into place but would also be better from a safety standpoint as well, moving the wall surface back just that little bit more from the range.

As you can see in the photo above, I first cut (using a utility knife) the outline of the new heat shield, then used a drywall saw to slice away the wall itself. I even got a hammer involved--I realized once I'd cut the outline, there was no reason to wear myself out sawing through the drywall when I could just break it up into chunks and trim away the last bit of paper backing.



That got the space opened up; I then had to add some framing to support the new heat shield. Initially, I ran full 2x4's between the existing wall studs, but then I realized I only needed to put anchor blocks at the corners (notice the one to the upper left--necessitated by the routing of the light switch wires), which I attached via drywall screws to the remaining drywall. I then ran some J-bead along the exposed edges of the drywall, applied several coats of drywall compound, and sanded them flush to the wall.

The finishing touches included another coat of grey primer and two coats of VT Maroon paint; the heat shield then screwed to the supports I'd added, followed by a trim layer of shoe moulding mitered to sit inside the opening and reinforce the J-bead edges.



The range was still a tight fit, but not because of the console any longer. My work notching the wall and putting in place the heat shielding took care of that perfectly. A second heat shield went in behind the range; I will probably frame it in shoe moulding later to make it consistent with the side wall (and yes, we do plan to replace the microwave with a black unit to match the range later as well).

What a saga! Well, what's life without a bit of spice to it?