All The Things

Stairway to Storage

 If you're like me, I'm sure your first thought is probably, "What the heck have you been up to?"  And then your second thought would be, "It is improper grammar to end a sentence with a preposition."  That's why we're nerd friends.  However, I do have several answers to the question of what I've been doing since February 2017.  The new job I took in January has kept me busy as has running Trusty Assistant around to weekend events and after-school activities but no big changes on the family front otherwise.  That doesn't mean I've been lazy in my free time.  Well, except for updating this blog.  After finishing the last big project of the expanded garden bed and stone & brick inset patio I took a bit of a break but it didn't last long.  In the late summer and early fall of 2017 I began the fun task of redoing the attic.

Now, I'll admit I've been procrastinating on this one, something at which I'm pretty good.  And for good reason.  The attic had old blown-in insulation (thankfully no asbestos), old wiring, and needed some reworking of the rafters among other things.  The first step was ordering and installing an attic ladder as the previous entryway was just a 2' x 3' hatch which required me to set up the fold-able ladder every time I needed to get into it.  The step ladder install went fairly well and after that began the real fun.  Our 1920's era home still had some knob & tube wiring that was in integral part of supplying power to the main floor lights and walls and other fun wiring surprises hidden under the insulation.  At first I attempted to remove the insulation with my five-gallon shop vac one garbage bag at a time.  After about four trips to the waste transfer station, and only clearing out about an eighth of the attic, I knew it was time to get serious.  I ordered a drop box and rented an industrial insulation vacuum and managed to fill up six and a half 75 cu ft bags.  Those suckers (pun intended) are about 4' x 6' and surprisingly heavy when all that insulation gets compressed in them.  To say the original workmanship in the attic was tidy and clean would be a whopper of a lie and there were often times when large chunks of wood or plaster would block the vacuum line and at one point I even had to remove the impeller cover to clear debris.  It was a mess.  I still managed to get it all done in one day and return the vacuum the next morning for a nice discount.

Look at all that usable space!

Afterwards, the fun of running new wiring began as I had to replace every ceiling light fixture junction box, wall outlet, connected switch, and more.  Thankfully I had already put in a series of new lights and an outlet up there prior but before I began the re-wiring I also installed a window on the west end for some natural lighting.  What a difference!  Once the wiring was complete, I followed with a moisture barrier (there wasn't one before), new denim batt insulation, and then a plywood overlay so that the attic could actually be USED for something.  Unfortunately, prior to installing the ladder and the window I didn't consider how I might get a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood up in that space and I ended up having to cut them all in half to just barely fit them through the ladder access hatch.  After laying down the plywood flooring, I used the scrap plywood to add reinforcements at the rafter joints (which were just butt-joints) and finally remove the three cross braces that hung about four feet up from the attic floor.  I swear I have a permanent scrape and bruise from hitting my head on those things.  With the attic finally done, I had the pleasure of moving a bunch of crap from the basement upstairs.  Yeah, it's as fun as it sounds.  The west exterior got some new siding and trim to go with the new window and now that summer is nearly upon us, I'll get out to paint it soon.  The final pieces of that project are on hold for now as the big lifting has been done and much of the basement has been cleared to begin on the next one...the basement bathroom.

Rasped, chiseled, carved, and
sanded.  I won't lie, this took
way too long.

One other thing came out the attic update that is almost complete as well.  After cutting the extra plywood pieces into rafter braces that fit the shape of the rafter pinnacles, I was left with a large bunch of plywood triangles that were almost all identical.  I just knew that there was something that these could be put to use for besides a burn pile.  Eventually I decided they would make a great lamp stand.  Centered around a spare piece of 3/4" conduit, I stacked the pieces and rotated them slightly to make a helix appearance and glued them all together.  Once the glue was set, I used a rasp, chisels, carving knives, and sandpaper to smooth the overlaps on all three faces.  Being plywood, there were gaps all over, especially at the edges, where chunks had separated or holes existed.  To remedy this, I took inspiration from the recently installed bar at Loowit Brewing which had used reclaimed 2"x 4"s.  They had used a transparent resin to fill all the small holes that existed from the wood's previous life and then coated it with a matte finish to give it a really nice natural look.  I found some self-setting resin at the Craft Warehouse and began trying to apply the same to my lamp base.  This may have been a bad idea.

Watching varnish dry.  Nearly as fun as
watching paint dry.  

Because of the spiral nature of the helix structure, there are no level surfaces except the top and bottom.  To fill the gaps, I had to work on one face at a time while the base was turned sideways in a bar clamp.  Using painter's masking tape along the edges, I would pour about two ounces of resin at a time over an area, let it set, then twist the base slightly so that it was "level" now a few inches down.  This process took way too long and I wouldn't recommend it.  If you're working with something flat that can easily be leveled, resin is great but not for this.  Eventually I got all the holes filled and even the edge gaps covered.  I did discover that because my degree of rotation for the individual pieces wasn't enough to bring it back to a full 360 degrees, the center of gravity was off so I had to add a one piece plywood base to provide the necessary support.  I picked up a lamp kit at Lowes (I know, I would have gone local but I had a gift card to use) and a lampshade from Goodwill.  After lots and lots of sanding with my orbiter sander, I finally evened out the resin so that you just see it where it fills the holes and gaps and the natural wood comes through otherwise.  I had to remove the base piece prior to applying the final layers of matte varnish and once this is dry and sanded, I'll install the kit and base and, voila, a new lamp will be born.  Thanks attic.