The Last Days of the Remodel

Tuesday was a long day of remodeling, and even though I was just overseeing it, I was exhausted when Tom and Darren left around 5:00.  The floor was completely laid.  A first coat of black was on the inside of the two doors, but not yet the edges.  The window sill, but not yet the window surround, had been painted black.  Sanding had revealed some sloppy original paint on the original bathroom door under the first black coat.  Thinking of how Darren had incompletely filled the hallway bathroom door earlier in the year, I wondered how that was going to turn out.  (It turned out fine.)

Darren said he would come over to finish his part on Wednesday, probably around 1:30.  Somehow I also had in mind him saying 11:30, perhaps he had said that early in the day, but by the end of the day I'm sure he said 1:30, though I was still having trouble remembering clearly which he had said the next morning, so I was ready for him to arrive before 11, though at least that gave me a chance for fairly full sleep.

But just like the 100 pound roller saga, I waited and waited, and there was no Darren and no phone call either.  After about 2:30 PM I figured he might not come, so I'd better be prepared to go to work instead.  By 3:30 I was taking a shower to get ready for work.  I had left a note on the door for him to come in.  When I checked my phone while dressing around 4:00 I saw he had called, so I called back.  He told me that Tom had told him to call to tell me he wouldn't be over, but come Thursday instead.  I thanked him and said that letting me know made it possible for me to work a full day.  He should have known to call me himself, but somehow he doesn't seem to appreciate his client's perspective when off site.  (On site, he's very nice.)

On Thursday, Darren showed in the morning and got to work.  John Jones and TJ came out to install the new ceiling fan mount.  Then, just before noon IIRC Tom showed up.

Darren finished the trim installation, and painting the doors and trim.  Tom added the seals and doorknob to the door, hung the curtain rod, and finally, just before he left around 5 PM, at my reminder, he added the little plate to the bottom of the door for the sweep button.  Then I gave him the final check.

Tom also cut the three door thresholds, coated them with polyurethane (not my favorite thing, but ok in small doses and essentially without peer in this application) and nailed to the floor.  He talked to me quite a bit about this.  The threshold I had bought came with screws, but no concrete anchors.  He had purchased a package of slightly larger screws with anchors, but they had a less flat top, and plain galvanized rather than stained finish.  At first he tried using the small screws with the anchors, on the Queen's door, and it worked, but I decided to use the larger screws on the King's door.  But after using the larger screws, we decided that they held so much better, he went back and replaced the small screws with the larger ones on the Queen's door as well.  Because of the padded flooring underlayment, the thresholds can press in a bit if you stand on them, and obviously the screws need to hold very strongly.

However exhausting Tuesday had been, this was even moreso.  But I couldn't help walking around the room, probably spreading dust around, for a long long time before going to bed in the Queen's room.

My original idea as to where to put the curtain rod hangers was thwarted by the fact, only discovered afterwards, that the curtain rod wasn't long enough.  I had wanted the hangers 8 inches from both sides of the window, for a more massive look.  But the rod turned out not to be long enough.  Tom filled and painted the two holes he had made, and made new holes for the curtain rod length.  I had not yet bought the curtains (I did that Friday night) and my only thought was to make the rod 5 inches lower than the rod in the Queen's room so the curtains would touch the floor and crumple slightly, which is said to be the most fashionable length, and also would hold the curtains in place while I run the future fan.  I thought it was actually better not having the curtains, as Tom could concentrate on getting this correct compared with the other rod.  But after it was all done, and Tom gone, I wasn't so sure anymore I should have done this.  Contrary to my expectation, the window in the King's room is just as high or even higher than the one in Queen's.  So the lowered curtain rod now comes dangerously close to the top of the window.  I'm sure the curtain will cover, but there will possible be more light leakage from above than desired.  Also, it is said that higher curtains make a window seem larger.  These possibly lower than desired curtains do seem to do that, though they may also make the wall seem higher.  The high trim also may seem to make the ceiling look higher.

Unlike Tuesday night, when I was obsessing about irregularities in the apparent firmness/flatness of the floor, such as where Tom had filled the old near-closet crack, and wondering if tiny bits of concrete a fraction of a millimeter in diameter under the floor were causing some other irregularities near where the side of my bed would be, by Thursday the floor was beginning to seem very flat, and especially flat around the hallway door on the inside, where I had obsessively cleaned on Monday night, and kept re-cleaning (possibly to Darren's inconvenience, though he copied me in vacuuming and re-vacuuming on Tuesday, along with his usual sweeping the top of the underlayment just before putting on each piece of flooring.  I'd still rather have had the time to fully re-clean not only the room but the surrounding bathroom (not clean at all, though I cleaned the bathroom floor a bit on Monday night in hopes it would help keep the under-flooring region clean

Pictures after the Remodel

View from hallway into master bedroom

View just as you enter master bedroom

View from bed area back to hall and bath doors

Walls, floor, and trim

Afternoon sunlight reflecting on floor

Inside view of door to hallway

High gloss black almost mirror like

Bedroom flooring deeper color than hall

Floor

Haikufan

This looks interesting.

http://www.haikufan.com/our-fan/technology/

Two week Review

It's only two weeks in to the whole project, already it's getting hard to remember what was done when.

IIRC the doors arrived Friday August 23 and I called Tom to see about moving into house.  He told me they were fine in the garage but came out for a look.  Before he left, we agreed to installing both doors and remodeling the King's room for a price.  To begin the next Tuesday, August 27 (that's two weeks ago today--and seems like eons).

Indeed, Tom installed the Queen's Door on Tuesday, getting it roughly up on Tuesday, then finely balanced on Wednesday.  They were also sanded and primed on Wednesday, I think, and the knob attached.  I can't remember if he did any work on Thursday (which could only have been a partial day anyway because I went back to work).    Tom then missed showing up on Friday for painting apparently because of how long it took to get his wife an MRI.  Then he went to the coast until Labor Day.  Meanwhile I and a friend picked up curtains (I ultimately made 3 trips to Anna's Linens), curtain rod, and hooks.  I picked up TV for Queen's Room.  With some help from my friend, I moved all my stuff (lots and lots) out of King's room and moved bed, clothes, and a few other things into Queen's room.  That was defintely 3 day weekend stuff.

Then, on Tuesday Tom ripped out the carpet.  I think that was also the day he finish coat painted the Queen's door.  He started taking out the moulding (we had just agreed to a price for replacing the moulding and hanging TV and curtains).  It was a short day because I had to go to see Ophthalmologist.  Actually, he could have stayed longer, my friend showed up (just as I was walking him out the first time) to watch and lock up afterwards, but he only stayed another 30 minutes I was told.

On Wednesday Tom hung the TV and curtains in the Queen's room, and we attached the sealing strips to the door.  He finished removing the moldings and cleaned up the related mess in the King's room.  On Wednesday night I pulled the wires out of the room.  Then on Thursday morning I made special morning trip to Hart Acoustical to get the acoustical caulk.

On Thursday Tom floated all the upper gaps between walls and ceiling, and sealed around the walls and floor with acoustical caulking.  Thursday was also the day John Jones came and replaced the security light and the oversized 20A breaker on the King's circuit, and evaluated the ceiling fan bracket (which he could replace from underneath).  I recall Thursday was also the day Tom painted the King's room ceiling.  Tom painted the room on Friday, and it might have been Friday I got him to add the little panel behind the sweep button on the Queen's door--or that might have been Saturday.  Tom was originally planning to work on Sunday but came out on Saturday instead and removed the old door and hung the new door.  On Saturday and Sunday I hooked up video to the Queen's room through my whole house networking panel, using a new 4x4 matrix switch, and I hooked up internet to the main hub in the kitchen through the new network also.  Then on Sunday night I re-sealed some of the acoustical caulking Tom had done, on the SW and NW corners of the room, where I though it needed resealing the most.

On Monday Tom and his nephew came out.  We agreed to new plan with a new price for doing all the trim, including doors and closet shelf, in black.  He worked on fine adjustment of door and sealing door jamb with acoustical stuffing sealed in with acoustical caulk.  Nephew worked floor, getting most of the underlayment in and about 25% of the actual flooring on.  Nephew also put first coat of black paint on the insides of the new door and the existing bathroom door, and on the window sill.

Today, Tuesday September 10, the nephew has come out to paint the doors and trim black, and finish the flooring.  Tom is scheduled to be here later.

I got lucky in having both mattress and bed that had been stored in Lyndhurst removed last week in less than a day from the curb by scavengers (after discovering on Sunday that Goodwill does not take mattresses).  Then Tom and I got lucky that the two old doors and hundreds of pounds of plywood and MDF used to ship the new doors in a crate--that all got picked up by the city during a special annual pick up on Monday September 9.

Along with Tom (mostly) and his nephew, Tiger Services installed a new A/C air return (that was Wednesday August 28) and Chambliss plumbing fixed the toilet, added new shower arm diverter (much nicer, this Delta toggle switch diverter is the most wonderful of all) and replaced shower water valve) on Monday.

The biggest pleasant surprise of all was that my bedroom floor has only small superficial cracks (along with some erosion most likely caused by leaky tile in hall bath, a problem now successfully avoided simply by not pointing unused hand sprayer straight at tile in corner of tub).  Ever since I bought this house in 1992 along with my mother, I thought I felt and feared a huge crack running from the area near the doorway to the western wall just south of the window.  There were a couple of tiny superficial cracks in this area, but that was all.  Most of the sense of cracked floor came from folded underlayment.  Also, the apparent cracks near the ceiling were actually tears in the mud paper, which had been stretched generously over the wall to ceiling gap by the infamous builder Rayco.  That has now been replaced by 20 minute mud.

The fear of a major crack was one thing that discouraged me from spending money on this house.  But clearly in last 11 years it hasn't discouraged me much.  It was 11 years ago that I spent replaced the original 8 SEER heat pump from 1983 with a 15 SEER unit featuring variable speed blower, non-CFC coolant, and other then advanced features.

OK, what the fear of major crack (possibly costing $20,000 to fix, according to legends I have heard) really did was not discourage me from spending money, but making me feel bad about it.  Though probably the main reason to have such fear is more related to the neighborhood.  My neighbor, for example, had his TV stolen and window broken in separate incidents in the past two months.  He's blaming it on neighborhood decline.  I've only had one attempted entry/vandalism in 20 years, and that only resulted in two broken windows and a dented door.  (BTW, that was in 2006 at the peak when people in a couple of nearby homes were borrowing about 50% more than they are worth now--so you can't blame that on recession.)  The perps were immediately scared by my alarm it seems.  My general sense is that the neighborhood is gradually improving, and it has always had huge potential, being next to a wonderful park (often ignored because it's technically part of an adjacent city) and at the top of a local hill (with far more expensive homes below because they were built later).  And when you sit in my backyard now, you really feel that this is a nice place, deserving of my title for it, East Alamo Heights.

And if my house foundation doesn't have serious cracks, that is a good sign for other houses around here, though I might have paid mine more attention than some people.  Still, I know about a lot of homes in the real Alamo Heights that have had really expensive foundation repairs.  From what little I know about this, I might speculate that you might have less risk of needing expensive foundation repairs living in one of these cheap homes in East Alamo Heights.

LED Security Lamp

For a change, this was actually selected and obtained by my electrician, John Jones.  The 65 watt fluorescent I had selected about 3 years ago didn't last long.

The lamp they chose was an ALL-PRO LED Area and Wall light, model number AL2050LPCBZ.  It says the bulb should last 10 years, I thought the electricians showed me that where it said the fixture should last 20 years.  But it's unclear if those numbers have any meaning except with regards to establishing the purported $1765 in energy savings.  Just after they showed me where it said the fixture should have 20 year lifetime (IIRC), they showed me where it said the warranty was 2 years.

So we'll see.  The electricians weren't trying to pull the wool over my eyes, they just picked what they though was best.  It's a nice solid lamp sold by Cooper, a leading electrical manufacturer.  LED lamps don't have the starting issues that fluorescents do.  I think those starting issues, combined with variable cloudy and rainy days, were what probably shortened the life of the previous lamp.

Acoustical Caulk used behind baseboards

As previously posted, this morning I made highly unusual for me early morning trip to Hart Acoustical and got 7 tubes of OSI SC-175 acoustical caulk, which is the same kind I got to seal around electrical outlets in Lyndhurst.  Or at least same label, I wonder because when I previously investigated the ingredients in early 2012 I thought that the principal component was a Melamine resin, which btw I think is fine unless you're drinking it in your milk...  But now I no longer see Melamine listed, it has an Latex base, with some typical caulk ingredients including the ultra low VOC plasticizer oxydiethylene dibenzoate (hereafter called OD).  I must have been wrong about the Melamine, or perhaps they've just renamed to same stuff "Acrylic" which can cover a lot of ground.

(Update: I applied a significant amount of the new caulk on Sunday night to re-seal some gaps left by Tom.  This does not seem like the same stuff.  This SC-175 is smellier and less stiff than what I used last time.  I preferred what I had last time.  However, evidence suggests that SC-170 is not what I used last time either.  The OSI website now does NOT show either SC-170 or SC-175 as a Melamine caulk.  I wonder why I believed that last time.  SC-170 is solvent based, needs to be cleaned with minerals spirits, but SC-175 is latex based and cleans up with water.  That would pretty strongly suggest that SC-170 is smellier than SC-175, not the other way around.  That wasn't true last time for sure, I used only water and did lots of clean up.  So the more I look at this, the more confused I get.  One possibility is that what I got last time was very old tubes of SC-175.  They were sufficiently old to have gotten slightly stiff and lost the smell.  BTW, I don't trust my very own words in this blog a year ago saying that I was using SC-175 last time.  I might have just said that because I then didn't want to create perception that what I had used was better than SC-175 because I hadn't tried the other one.  So last time I lied to protect the unknown.  Show how much faith to put in this blog.  But at least it wasn't for pecuniary reasons.)

I didn't get Green Glue sealant because I'm not aware it is available in any local stores.  And actually, the OSI SC-175 might be more useful for big cracks anyway, as it's more viscous, almost solid, when applied.  (Not as solid as last time, unfortunately, and Tom's attempt to seal the big 1+ inch gap behind the baseboards was full of gaps, only some of which I had time to seal.  Once I tried using the new tubes myself I could see why.  To re-seal some of these gaps I had to use a float-like technique which was very messy and time consuming.  No builder is going to do things that way for production work.)  I'm only a little less sure of the ingredients in the OSI product.  The Green Glue Sealant is basically just latex.  The OSI product is more like typical acrylic latex caulk with mass adding ingredients for acoustic performance and OD added for permanent flexibility.  (And unfortunately lots of ethylene glycol as solvent.)  FWIW, it's also probably the cheapest product in the acoustical caulk category, which may explain wider availability.

Here's a great discussion of acoustical caulks and substitutes like plain old 50 year caulk.


OD does not appear to be particularly harmful in normal usage.  According to this MSDS, it's a negligibly low VOC plasticizer...just the thing for permanently flexible caulk.  It is not known to be or reportable as carcinogenic by the State of California (this is a correction, I first read the MSDS wrong, but it does use a disclaimer invoking federal law as it applies to the California law--perhaps just standard boilerplate, perhaps not).  I believe now it is similar to lots of stuff we are surrounded by, fine unless you're imbibing it directly.  Mostly, it just stays in the product, nearly forever, or so I hope.

I'm not worried at all about my exposure to the silica and quartz in the caulk, though these account for most of the wording in the MSDS.  Once applied, those ingredients will most certainly just sit there.  We live in houses built upon and sheathed inside if not outside with silica based products after all.  You get far more silica exposure messing with mud, for example, than caulk.

Anyway, I didn't much of this left over yesterday, and Tom was convinced that the wall-to-ceiling gaps should be mudded, not caulked, for better appearance.  Now I see I could have insisted that he used the caulk behind the mud.  That is the recommended acoustical practice--if you need the mud at all.  If you don't need the mud (to make flat visible surface) you should just use the acoustical caulk, as it has dampening flexibility.  But that would have taken two days just for the sealing, and I didn't have any significant amount of acoustical caulk yesterday, having using up countless tubes earlier this year for sealing the soundproof wall door jamb for the Queen's room.

What the SE corner looked like yesterday

And despite saying yesterday that he didn't think any caulk would fill the baseboard gaps which go up to 1 1/2 inches, today Tom went ahead and started applying the caulk to the smaller gaps around the critical SW corner of the room--where the subwoofer sits.  The he decided the stuff was thick enough to use all round the floor of the room, which he did.  I was very pleased!  Just as he came to break the news to me, I was reading online about how it was best to use only acoustical caulk if possible, then mud on top for appearnces sake if necessary.  Tom used 3 tubes today.   The caulk will be covered by the baseboard so appearance isn't important, only coverage.

Tom also painted the ceiling with Behr Premium Plus Flat Ceiling Paint which he picked up when getting his lunch.  He checked out the can previously used in the Queen's Room so he would know what to get.  As posted earlier, I'm sticking with Behr Premium Plus for all interior work now.  Tom used a sprayer and sprayed from multiple directions he told me.  He also told me it was best not to pre-clean (that would loosen texturing) or use a roller (that would shred texturing--an experience I had when first painting most ceilings in this house...21 years ago!!!).

After the painting and caulking there was noticeable (though not intolerable) smell in the room.  I opened a window after he left but seeing the gathering storm clouds closed it shortly thereafter and opened kitchen room (where I have been since) instead, though I don't smell any caulk in the kitchen.

Already, with the new mudding and caulking, the room seems more isolated from outdoor noises, the wind and barking dogs, in spite of the fact the room is nearly empty and is hugely (though nicely) reverberant.  The reverberation dies away uniformly which is nice...no audible post-echoes.

So I think the room sealing has been a big win.

Day 3 of King's Remodel begins

Thursday day began very early for me (I usually sleep all morning) with a trip to Hart Acoustical and Drywall Supplies to buy more tubes of SC-175 acoustical caulk.  This is the most friendly lumber yard, and you enter you pass several big office areas on the way to the little Acoustical Supplies office in the back.  You might think you're invading a private area but no one gives you any hassle.  The first time I visited I asked for directions and people were very friendly telling me how to get to the Acoustical office.  The guy in the Acoustical office is also always the nicest guy ever, letting me spend as much time as I want reading labels, and hesitating, but producing an order form nearly the instant I have made my decision.  These incredibly huge tubes of SC-175 which is thick heavy lifetime never-shrinking permanently flexible caulk go for about $5 apiece still.  I bought 7 tubes this time and the guy gave me a break on price even though it wasn't the "ten or more" usually required.  Somehow, everyone in the Acoustical office has a DJ voice too.

I was back home by 9:20 AM and Tom arrived at 9:35.  Right now he's continuing to seal cracks where the ceiling hits the wall.  Today he's using Sher Max lifetime caulk from Sherwin Williams (which he prefers to the SC-175 for small cracks in paintable areas.  Wednesday afternoon he used 20 minute mud to seal the largest cracks around the wall/ceiling junction.  You could already see lots of cracks, but after he ripped out torn and damaged mud paper, there was a very large crack up to 1" half way across the west wall.  In one of these areas, just over the closet, he was feeling warm air.  Sure enough, after he ripped out the paper, you could see a 1 inch square hole leading straight to daylight, just below the eaves.

I have asked that no expanding foams be used, because I am wary of the chemicals in those products.  So Tom is just using mud and various caulks.  I try to check out the chemical in every product used also.  I feel very good about low VOC latex paints, and latex caulks generally.  After Tom painted the Queen's room door on Tuesday morning, I rested right next to that very door in early afternoon, and also later that evening, and disn't smell or notice any ill effects.  We are using Behr Premium Plus latex paint, which is low VOC.  I'm somewhat scared of the nanoparticles and other things used in the more expensive Ultra and Marquee paints, and I think Premium Plus is good enough.

That first day, Tuesday, was interesting because I also had to be at eye doctor's office for eye measurements, pre op for forthcoming cataract surgery, at 3:30 PM.  I had a friend come over to watch Tom when I left and lock up afterwards.  She nearly didn't show up on time; after many text warnings I was already marching Tom out of the house at 2:39 (because I had to rush to doctor's office all the way across town in midday traffic) when she finally arrived.  Then, after all that, Tom only stayed about an additional half hour anyway.  In addition to painting Queen's door, he removed all the carpet and trim from the master bedroom.   We had only discussed replacing the trim in King's room that day, and also installing TV mount and curtain rod in King's room, that morning.  We agreed to $600 additional cost, or it would have been $400 for only the trim.

On Tuesday night I measured curtains, tried to make a trip to Lowes to buy the trim (but turned back because of poor vision from glare from oncoming headlights), and opened up the TV box.  Good thing I checked out the curtains and verified the fact that my friend wanted to use the curtain hooks we bought.  The curtain package said the curtains were to be slipped over the pole, which would have given a different measurement.  We agreed to a curtain height of just above the trim.

On Wednesday morning Tom and I re-measured the curtain rod height, and he hung the curtain and TV.   Then he added the seals to the Queen's door.  It was impossible to add all 3 seals recommended supplied by Sound Isolation Store.  The door wouldn't come close to closing with only two.  We were able to add one 3 tine seal all the way around except the top, where we used the 2 tine seal.  That was the most we could do and still get the door to seal.  He then re-adjusted the strike and the door now works great.  It only takes a little bit extra force to close the door to compress the seals.  On Wednesday night, I noticed an eerie quiet, the quietest I have ever experienced in this house.

Also on Wednesday my Air Conditioner service company installed the air return jump duct from the Queen's Room to the hallway.  On the hallway side it attaches to the same vent and box that the King's bedroom has used for a decade.  Tiger Services stuck to the same low price I had originally been quoted, and the work looks to be perfectly done.  One of the technicians was the same man who replaced my A/C compressor 5 years ago under original factory 10 year warranty.  Tiger Services had the entire replacement covered.  A competitor claimed the Trane authorization only covered half the cost and would have had me pay $2000 additional.  I have had 8 years of excellent service (two service visits yearly) from Tiger since they took over my contract when my original installer/servicer Burrows went out of business.

So Wednesday was big, and I'm not finished yet.  Though I had decided on the "extended colonial" (my term) moulding on Tuesday night, I hadn't been able to drive to Lowes at 8pm due to vision problems.  So on Wednesday I headed out to Lowes at the first opportunity, around 6 PM after Tom left.  Looking at the hardwood moldings again, I decided to go for the biggest and heaviest moldings for acoustical as well as aesthetic reasons.  The Victorian style seems to weigh about twice as much as the $19 per stick colonial, but only costs $8 per stick extra.  I decided it was worth the extra for the weight alone.  But I was a bit shocked to see the final price of $270 for 9 sticks.  Though all the sticks were near perfect, I rejected three out of the 12 I looked at for being more warped or knotty than the others.  These are all very fine looking molding sticks, as they should be for that price.

Then after a stop to Subway for the first and last big meal of the day (I had a double meat Turkey/Roast Beef sandwich), I went to Home Depot to get the high gloss black trim paint.  I selected some black colors from the displays but then the clerk told me I could just get a pure high gloss black premixed.  So I did that, and they shook the can for me.

Then I hit two big remaining things I had to do.  I vacuumed all the dirt around where the baseboard used to be.  The 0.5 to 1.5 inch gaps below the drywall were filled with dirt.  So I vacuumed them all out (they were slated to be sealed on Thursday with mud).  Then I pulled all the wires that used to feed the King's Room from the Computer Room.  There were about 15 such wires because as I upgraded the main video feed, I had just left the previous version in place, and I did that several times.  But before I could pull the wires through the holes in the wall I had made, I had to clear the impossible corner.  The impossible corner had a big stack of stuff including video monitor, video converter in a large wood case, and Large Advent loudspeaker.  All in a narrow corner blocked by computer towers, a 75 pound UPS, and other things.  On flaking sides of the corner are an 8 foot high Scandia shelving unit holding hundreds of pounds of equipment, and a large desk holding computer monitors.  The challenge is to pull the Large Advent speaker out of the corner straight up about 4 feet so it can clear the desk and shelving on either side.  By the time I had cleared all the other stuff out of the way, it turned out not to be as impossible to lift up the Large Advent loudspeaker as I had anticipated.  I think I might even be stronger than I was 15 years ago, thanks to a couple years of body building I did since then (but not so much recently).

When Tom asked me when John Jones (my Electrician) was coming out, I called the number.  John Jones was out by 10:30.  They inspected the old ceiling box and said they could replace it with a good fan box for a reasonable price (given to me just before they left) without entering the attic or cutting the ceiling.  They could also run double boxes through the wall where I used to run wires from King's Room to Computer Room.  They checked the wire gauge on the circuit that feeds all three bedrooms (though just one outlet in Queens) and determined it was 14 gauge.  They then replaced the inappropriate 20 amp breaker on that circuit with 15 amp matching the wire gauge.  And they replaced the dead fluorescent security light fixture with a new LED lamp fixture.

Queen's Door installation and King's Bedroom remodel under way

This week the big remodeling project begins.  Or at least it's the biggest room, the King's Room (aka Master Bedroom) though I'm not doing much more than floor and paint (and new window, but that might be later).

Last week Tom worked Tuesday and Wednesday on installing the new door.  By the end of Wednesday he had the door jamb attached to wall but not finely adjusted.  On Thursday he got the door  perfectly leveled (and it was perfect) and primed.  He was going to come over Friday to paint the finish coat on the door after his wife got an MRI in the morning.  But before the mid afternoon when he was beginning his Labor Day trip to the coast.  I figured that might mean he wouldn't actually make it, and indeed he didn't.  So he's painting the finish coat on the door right now as I am writing this.

Last week I ordered the new flooring with an email sent to my salesman at Atlas Floors which I sent at 3 am on Wednesday morning.  That day he confirmed he could have the flooring by Saturday and I made the payment by phone on Wednesday afternoon.  I picked up the flooring on Saturday morning.

On Friday I went with my friend to Anna's Linens and picked out the Pink (Shelby) curtains in 63" length.  We then went to Lowes and got a white wood curtain rod.  (She didn't like any of the rods with fancy do dads at Annas.)  But then by Saturday I had decided that I wanted the full 84" length after reading online that full length draperies are the norm (and the style is to touch or crumple on the floor, but I am NOT doing that).  So I picked up the 84" Shelby curtains on Saturday just after picking up the flooring.  Then, right after that I shipped my old defective smartphone at the main post office.  They couldn't add delivery confirmation to the pre-paid mailer, but just as good they gave me a receipt.  But by Sunday I had decided that the Shelby pink had too much blue in it, I needed a lighter pink and from the website it appeared that the Carly pink was a tad lighter and would be just perfect.  So I made my third trip to Anna's Linens in as many days.  But in the store, the coloring was reversed, it was the Carly pink that was even darker than the Shelby pink.  So I stuck with what I had previously gotten, the Shelby pink curtains in 84" length.

And on top of all that (and I'm leaving out my cellphone travails, covered in my AudioInvestigator blog) I called Bjorns about TV's on Friday afternoon.  They did not have a Samsung TV any better than the 4003 in 32 inches.  I wanted 5500 series.  But then it occurred to me that even 32" TV would not quite fit.  I thought about it and decided to try for something slightly smaller than 32", but also with 1080p (which I'm very surprised isn't the minimum resolution now).  I took a look at Best Buy, but they had only a couple of TV's smaller than 32" with 1080p, Samsung and Toshiba.  The Toshibs was slightly larger, at 23" as compared with the Samsung at 22", and I thought it looked slightly better too.  A salesman showed me the wall bracket for it.  I then thought about buying TV right then for about 30 minutes by myself.  I took another look at the bracket, and it said it was for 26" minimum TV.  So then I went to Sears.  Sears had the identical 23" 1080p Toshiba TV, but they had it right next to several other similar TV's, including the 22" Samsung.  (At Best Buy, the Samsung and Toshiba had been about 10 feet apart, with the Samsung in a special "Kitchen" display.)  Seeing the two TV's side by side it was clear the Toshiba looked better.  They also had a slightly more expensive bracket but it clearly stated it was good for 22" to 37".  The salesman told me I would not be able to find 1080p in any size from 23" until 32".  I believed that from what I had seen at Best Buy.  None of the intermediate sizes had 1080p.  So I bought the 23" Toshiba and wall mounting bracket from Sears.  BTW, one of the issues with Samsung TV's is just like Samsung cell phones.  They are too complicated.  I appreciate that Samsung's have full color adjustment as good as you might need to use service menu to achieve on other brands.  But then they lard that up with a whole families of bogus presets, Sports, extreme brightness, etc.  So to really get a Samsung TV looking decent, you have to spend hours online getting adjustment recommendations and then hours of adjustment.  I had only done some of this on my very own bedroom Samsung TV, and did not want to bother with the TV in the Queen's room.  Just give me a good picture out of the box.  And that's what the Toshiba appears to do.

On Sunday after the third trip to Anna's Linens, I went to Home Depot and then Lowes looking at door thresholds (floor saddles, actually) and baseboard mouldings.  I picked out a wood saddle for the Queen's Room door.  I had decided not to use the metal acoustical threshold which would require cutting and gluing the otherwise flooring to the cement.  I never liked the metal threshold very much, but then seeing as to how it would mess up my floor permanently, I was positively against it.

Home Depot didn't have much in the way of fancy real wood baseboard moulding.  I found one that was simply a larger version of the gently rounding mouldings my house already has (except for the Queen's room, which got a nice Colonial style moulding this spring, which has just been painted pink). I bought a small piece of what looked like Home Depot's best offering.  Then, after dinner at Shoney's, I looked at the much fancier hardwood mouldings at Lowes.  They had two oversized Colonial styles, which would do, and a Victorian style.  I wasn't sure I really liked the Victorian style better, but I did like the weight and the duller sound it made when thunked.  I decided not to make this decision until talking it over with Tom.  I plan to paint the moulding in the King's bedroom high gloss black.

Tom showed up about 9:30 on Tuesday morning.  He agreed to do the curtain mounts, the TV mount, and new moulding, for a price he quoted which sounded good.  He agreed to use the new wood saddle, which will be coated with polyurethane first.  Then he started painting the door.

All over the 3 day weekend I was moving stuff out of the master bedroom.  When my friend came over to help on Sunday I had only intended her to help moving the TV.  But we decided to move out bed and dresser as well.  The bed and my Samsung TV were moved temporarily to the Queen's room.  Later that day, after the long shopping trip partly summarized above, I moved 4 large boxes of records, first by moving the records, then the boxes, to the living room.  On Monday, I spent nearly 4 hours untangling and coiling up wires from my extensive A/V system.  I then moved the equipment rack and a credenza filled with records into the Queen's Room.

But also with my friend's help on Sunday, I moved the old Queen's mattress (which my mother used!) and day bed frame to the front.  I put the day bed frame on the curb with a sign and it was picked up in 15 minutes.  I asked the guy if he wanted the mattress too (which we had put into the car) but it turned out he wanted the bed frame just for the scrap metal.  After he left I took the mattress out of the car and leaned it against the car with a "Free" sign.  In 90 minutes, nobody had taken it.  I took the mattress to Goodwill but it turns out they don't take mattresses.  So then I put the mattress on the sidewalk with a free sign, using my city-provided trash can to hold it up sideways.  It sat there all night but was gone by the time I got up at 9:30 on Monday morning.

But it turned out I didn't need that much extra storage space in Lyndhurst to store the King's room stuff.  Most of it just got moved to living room or Queen's room.  I did store two wall hanging pictures in Lyndhurst, along with the bedside table, and the very large box of cables (which didn't even include about half of the cables I rolled up, the rest being returned to common cable boxes in the computer room, and stashed ad-hoc in the living room.)