Uncategorized

Seriously… large items. Somehow, our gaze has drifted and we've picked up a few items that are larger than the usual ModApple fare, but cool nonetheless. Check them out.

Need to bring your Ikea Urban chairs back to life? Try a Scotchbrite and Penetrol (then protect with 303 Aerospace Protectant).

On a lark, I remembered what magic Penetrol did for Eames fiberglass chairs, so I gave it a try on these Urbans. First, clean well and "exfoliate" the seriously ashy bits with a Scotchbrite. Protecting the area well (dropcloth, etc.), saturate a rag with the Penetrol and wipe liberally on the chair. Rewipe if necessary and let dry for a few minutes. Wipe (or even out any excess). Let it dry a day and protect with 303.

You're ready for another season or two…

It's funny what you find when you check your web stats. Thanks, Unplgged, for the feature.

Good magazine details why white roofs are good.

You don't have to remind us — we've been enjoying one for four years now and it's helped keep inside temps 10-15 degrees cooler than outside. This is quite a difference from Summer 2007 when it was 110 outside and 120 inside thanks to our old black tar roof. Whew.

Some great information available at The White Roof Project.

I was about to chime in on a post over at the Eichler Network, but it started to get a bit long and it seemed here might be a better place for links, etc.

In the past four years, we've met a lot of Eichler homeowners — often while buying/selling/trading/rescuing house parts. One of the biggest questions is: "Will anyone want this?" (and) "Is it valuable?" Well, something is worth as much as what someone is willing to pay for it, but we've found that only a few things are actually "sell-able" (for a few good reasons, really) while others indeed have "handy-to-have" value.

 

…

What’s it Worth?Read More »

Casie just added a bunch of new stuff to ModApple. Check it out.

Today, the heat will remind much of the Bay Area what summer really feels like — it'll hit near 100 today in Concord… so this post seems appropriate.

I spent the morning talking to neighbors about various options for this-and-that and one of them was air conditioning. Matt's comment was: "Well, we can't really afford air conditioning, so we're thinking about getting a swamp cooler".

I said: "Wait, maybe you can have AC and not spend a bundle…" and I told him of how we added two units to the back of our own house (14K-BTU total) for under $1000… and that — thinking a bit larger — it'd not be impossible to add 24K-BTU to their main living space for about the same cost.

Here's how: window units… plumbed into the wall (or through the wall units). You could even use a casement model and not have to do as much re-framing.

…

Ghetto BlastersRead More »

Here's your chance to own a bit of RedneckModern history… the 2.0 truck!

When we started the renovation, we purchased a semi-beat-up 1994 F150 and got a lot of use out of it. In 2009, we upgraded to the Ranger (with much-needed AC) but have used it relatively very little, so it seems like a good idea to seel it while it's still nearly new.

Check it out on Craigslist.

 

 

Giving our own projects a break, we took the last few days to give Diane and Greg's bathroom some new life. What started as an ailing 1963-vintage bathroom on Monday was gutted, re-plumbed, re-floored and with a new tub by lunchtime yesterday with all sorts of supply runs in-between.

We anticipate the entire project coming in well under $5K and — although modest in styling — will flow well with the rest of their otherwise fairly original 1963 flat-roofed Eichler-built home in Concord.

Hopefully, we'll have "after" pictures up soon…

Closet-door-a-palooza is what Casie called this past weekend… and while it wasn't "palooza"-worthy, we did end up finishing the doors for the hall closet.

The old doors were beat… and had been sitting outside for four years. We had purchased wood and supplies last year but are now just getting into a place where we could tackle the project.

While I had envisioned how to make these for months, for starters, I made a small prototype which helped to bring it to life a bit.

The design was pretty simple and very similar to the original — a simple channel (3/8in sq) was rabbetted into one side. Ideally, this would be done using a dado blade, but I set the table saw to make two passes to cut the chunk out which worked pretty well (and we now have a ton of kindling). From there, it was like assembling a Lincoln Log house: top, bottom and stiles. We used pocket screws to hold the stiles (the up/down parts) to the top and bottom rails and used glue and staples to hold in the thinner center rails… a pretty solid construction. The trickiest part was the double-rabbet needed for the rails — a dado would have been easier and safer here.

One of the hardest parts was hanging the doors. With the built-in "skirt" (or fascia) hiding the original track, getting a new track to work was problematic. The old door/track design (which used custom, builder-made tracks) just lifted into place whereas newer systems necessitates you to tip and swing the door onto the track… which was difficult with the skirt in the way as it prevented the door from swinging out far enough. After a failed hanging attempt, we discovered we needed to hang the track 1-1/2in lower and 3/4in back which allowed enough room for the doors to swing in. Kre8 has a pretty good explanation of this.

Once we figure all of this out, we just needed to create doors the correct height, cover the panels with grass-cloth and hang.

Some notes:

• We got the grasscloth online and used Super-77 to adhere it to the masonite/hardboard panels (Masonite was purchase at Lowes).
• All lumber came from Home Depot — 1X4s for the stiles and bottom rail, 1X6s for the top rail and the center rails were 1X4s trimmed in half. We used fir. We stored the wood flat for a year and some of it got twisty — making it unusable. If we were to do it again, I might consider ripping down plywood or using MDF… or springing for furniture-grade lumber. Straightness is important here.
• The original doors are a bit over 1in thick. The new ones use "one-by" lumber which is only 3/4in thick… a bummer, but it's what's available without custom milling. The 3/4in also made modern track systems possible without rabbetting the top of the doors for the rollers to inset. We used the Stanley track sytem, but there are a few others out there. The Stanley system is nice as adjusting is as easy as turning a dial — the others would have been more difficult… and because of the "un-square-ness" of the house, adjusting was very necessary.
• We used a framing point driver to secure the panels in the doors and it worked very well. I'd suggest picking one up if you're going to do this.
• We used pocket screws to secure the top and bottom rails to the stiles along with a good bit of Gorilla Glue — they're rock solid. The gorilla glue is nice as it expands to fill any void and sands smooth (alleviating putty).
• The door frames are painted the same color as the beams — a dark brown.
• The original doors have bottom tracks (grooves cut into the bottoms of the doors) which will be tricky to use since the doors now tip/swing into place. We might have to install the doors, install the bottom guide and hope we never have to remove the doors (as they'll then not "tip out")…