Icewind's Ramblings

I finally had some time to upload the photos from my projects this spring and summer.  Travel has been taking up a lot of time this summer with several projects ongoing at any given time but I was able to finish several things going on. The bathroom project took much more time than originally thought.  It started during the winter after the first bathroom remodel went quickly over a couple weeks.  It was minor compared to the master bath. A quick make over with a new moose light fixture, paint, and remove and replace the vinyl flooring with tile.  I also relocated the sink and base cabinet to give additional room by the toilet.  I took bi-fold doors from the bedroom and installed them in the small closet.  Two weekends and the project was done and looked great. I can’t remember if I came home from a trip or just home from work a couple weekends later to find my wife had taken hammer and chisel to the tile in the master shower.  This was between Than...

The story continues from previous post . . . My wife learned quickly that things are not exactly as they are shown on HGTV where things are wrapped up nicely in a thirty or sixty minute television show.  They do not show the time preparing, marking lines on the walls and floor to install straight tiles or that time needed to mix the sand and mortar mixes used in the deck mud (concrete shower base) in the bottom of the shower.  With each batch there is the mixing to get the consistency of something that looks like toothpaste.  The adhesive thin set is applied to the walls and the tile itself and pushed onto the wall with a little wiggle and tap to make them stick to the wall surface.  What should happen next is the waiting time for the thin set to cure.  For us it did not happen that way for us . . . the tiles would slowly creep down below the line I had drawn to align the tiles.  This led to some heated words and a scramble to cut wood to make a ledge t...

Or Getting the Bathroom to a point it can start being rebuilt. Today (Thursday 19 th ) started out frigid as we were again below zero this morning now several days in a row.  For some reason I was aware that this day had many small tremors and a couple of medium ones that gave loud “boom” noises.  At first I thought it might be the F-22’s coming back into Elmendorf for landing and dropping their speed below mach 1 creating a sonic boom as they decelerated.  But after several times I checked out the Alaska Earthquake Information Center for updates on today’s activity.   There was quite a bit of small tremors over 30 so far today and counting with activity in Cook Inlet between Homer and Anchorage and in the interior between Fairbanks and Anchorage .  It appears several fault lines are shifting plates far below the surface bringing with it the loud noise and jolt from the shifting surfaces. I am still amazed that there is quite a bit of activity on...

There are things that most of the HGTV type shows about remodeling never really touch on in their 40 to 60 minute shows.  Most of these shows (my wife watches, I don’t) seem to nicely wrap things up in the quick one episode.  What they forget to tell everyone is the little things that creep into daily life that slows down the process of getting things done. I have been involved in remodeling projects for many years now and things hardly progress in a nice linear flow on most projects, large or small.  There are the little disagreements between the parties on things like color, maybe how something should be torn out or what additional damage was discovered once the area was opened up.  In some residential projects between husband and wife it is that understanding, sometimes unspoken . . . for that plea to call in a professional to come in and complete the job.  These shows seem to wrap up everything in one quick segment.  Lost on the cutting room floo...

I was standing in line at the bank yesterday. As if there isn’t enough anxiety about banks these days, the branch where I go has a giant plasma screen TV behind the tellers so you can watch while you’re standing in line. Great. They always have it on CNN.  I’m worried about my account because of a mistake they made earlier and now I get to watch another war and more people with blood on their faces in Texas at Ft. Hood from an Army Major who is a coward killing soldiers and civilians as I wait to speak with a representative. Please pump all the fear and loathing you can into an otherwise normal trip to the bank, Wells Fargo! A shipment of Viagra was high jacked today I saw it on the news.  Police have put out an All-Points bulletin: Be on the lookout for two hardened criminals! They will face a stiff sentence when convicted and they'll surely be sent to a Penal Institution. Have you realized that in about 30 years, we'll have thousands of OLD LADIES running aro...

These past couple of weeks has had me tearing out bathrooms, with the remodeling ongoing leaving me little time to write or have any thoughts to put on paper. I can report the first bathroom is finished except for a towel bar so it went smoothly with the demolition of the flooring, cabinet, sink, and closet being redone.  The hardest part of the demo was getting the several layers of flooring out and the prep for the tile. Once everything was taken out the first thing was a fresh coat of paint, Lowe’s Baguette color.  It is a nice color that in the low night light conditions gives off a nice easy tone.  In full light it blends nicely with the tile shades.  What started this makeover was my wife looking on Craig’s list and finding Italian marble tile for a low price.  She found 18”x18” squares (40) of beautiful tile for fifty bucks.  It was enough for the bathroom and closet floor.  The cabinet was painted and new base trim was installed. We ...

Job safety is always on everyone’s mind on a construction site and keeping those injury free work days climbing in the books usually makes for a great Safety Program. It’s a shame when someone gets hurt on a work site but sometimes it seems they just can’t be helped. One such incident happened recently that I just had to blog about. Electricians work with high voltage lines and take extra care to be safe at all times but as one found out he might just have been too careful. One of his coworker’s passed by and observed an electrician shaking violently while working on a circuit. Construction workers know that if someone is being electrocuted you should never grab them or touch them as the current will pass to that person also. The trick is to either kill the power by tripping a circuit breaker or getting something non-conductive to move the person off the power source. Acting quickly is important in saving a life and keeping the amount of damage to ...

When all else fails, Read the instructions. Today was one of those almost perfect days of springtime in Alaska . Everyone was out and about, cleaning up the city, taking care of the yard work needed after a long hard winter. There were long lines at the two ‘free dumps’ where the city opens up the landfills for two weekends in the spring to allow everyone to clean up the debris from winter, their garages and sheds as well as get rid of those old tires sitting in the yard the last three seasons. At my house there was pressure washing going on, painting, laying out a new deck I’m about to build. There was a makeover of a bedroom, a quick trip out to buy a queen bed and table off Craig’s List and gathering all the items for a run to the trash dump either tomorrow or next weekend. Lastly I tried to kick back late in the afternoon to sit outside and watch the world go by. It did not last long as I was asked to look at the hot tub so I can demo it t...