I built the patio during the hottest days of the summer, so it’s only fitting that another home project be completed with snow on the ground.
Thanks to about a million hours of work by my dad, we’re finally ready to get a garage door opener installed this week. Here’s what we did:
1) Drilled a hole in the house and ran wiring under the patio steps to the garage. (This was earlier in the summer.)
2) Called the electrician, who connected the line inside the house and installed a new circuit breaker box in the garage.
3) Removed the old garage support beams and added new ones, five inches higher — for proper garage-door-chain clearance.
4) Ran wire and conduit around the garage, so there’d be plenty of plugs and lighting options.
In true Dad Vankat fashion, all of these steps were completed with the highest quality materials and workmanship. Where I was willing to cut corners to save time (and prevent frostbite), he insisted on sanded boards and smoothly filed metal edges.
And of course he was right. It’s a project to be proud of.
Thanks, Dad.
Here’s the unveiling:
Editor’s note: In the video, the light stays on for a couple seconds, then goes dark. It must be said that this is due entirely to a faulty bulb, and is in no way a reflection of Dad’s contractor skills. The garage is sturdier and warmer thanks to his tireless efforts. I’m pretty sure I could live out there if Stephanie ever got tired of me.
The kitchen sink stopped draining two weeks ago. Just all of the sudden.
There had been occasional backups before — a nasty backwash from the dishwasher, or maybe the full basin took longer to drain somedays — but the water always went away after awhile.
Not this time. A giant pool of stale pasta water.
After a couple nights of me trying to clean it out with the pipe snake, and dry heaving under the sink because of the smell, we called a plumber.
The guy came over, took a look, and brought out the heavy-duty tools. He did his thing for about an hour without any luck.
Definitely not a clog, he said, but he’d have to come back to the house another day. He didn’t have the company pipe camera to see what was really the problem, but he also didn’t hesitate to speculate that we had a broken pipe under the basement floor. Would probably cost us a COUPLE THOUSAND DOLLARS to dig up the concrete and run a new pipe to the drain in the laundry room. Oh, and that’ll be $240 for today’s visit.
Great.
At this point, we’re terrified. No solution and a giant repair bill looming. Time for a second opinion. But first, an angry phone call.
Stephanie tore into the Aksarben Plumbing people on the phone, arguing that we weren’t paying for their unsuccessful unclogging. They got the message — refunded the all the money (even the fee for the service call) and agreed not to send their guy back with his camera for a second look. (Poor fella wouldn’t have stood a chance after Stephanie had already wasted all of a Friday afternoon with him.)
Next up: Aspen Plumbing, on a recommendation from Steph’s uncle. Their guy drove over the same day, on his own time, and gave us some super-poison-acid stuff to try on the clog. If that didn’t work, we were supposed to call another of his guys to come fix it.
Two days later, the Aspen guy is standing in the kitchen, laughing at the idea that a pipe might be broken in the basement. No way, it’s a clog, he said. After an hour of work, he busted through and we had a fully operational sink once again.
And the guy charged us 85 bucks. Bravo, Aspen Plumbing — cheaper AND better.
Plus, I really wasn’t in the mood to dig up the basement.
It’s been awhile since anyone has seen the progress in the back yard. So here we go.
Last time I shared photos (in November), I had just finished the bottom level and cut blocks to go around the edges. Needed some finishing touches this spring, but it was basically ready to go.
But I wasn’t quite satisfied. Seemed weird that we had a first-class patio, but just a crappy old concrete sidewalk leading up to it.
It needed a set of matching stone steps as an entry way. And while we’re at it, might as well redo the wooden steps down from the deck, which were entirely too steep and narrow.
Get the shovels back out!
Six weeks of occasional work later. It’s getting close. But I always say that.
Planning for two steps. Using stakes for depth measurements.
Broke up the concrete sidewalk with a borrowed sledgehammer. Dug out the area for the new steps. Then remembered another outdoor project we had planned: Run electricity to the garage for lights and a garage-door opener.
So, we dug out a big trench, and ran electrical conduit and wires from the house to the garage. I got to drill a hole in the side of the house! Sweetness.
Rental drill. Giant bit.
My well-dressed helper.
View from the inside. We’re through!
The nearly finished product.
Connecting to the garage.
So now, a simple call to the electrician will give us beautiful lights, power-tool hookups and an easy escape for the vehicle from inclement weather in the garage. Can’t wait.
(Oh man, that’s reminds me of another blog post I forgot to write: We got rid of one of our cars! Stephanie’s working from home a lot more now, so we sold the Jetta to save on gas and insurance. So far, we’re loving it.)
But anyway, back to the patio …
Dammit, I thought I was done having piles of blocks and sand in my driveway!
Filling it up. Rounded corners for added degree of difficulty.
Side view. Also notice that the wooden deck steps are gone. Makes for a dangerous trip to the grill, which is on the patio below.
Top steps finished.
Just gotta add the blocks for the step down onto the patio.
And there’s finally a project deadline. Stephanie’s hosting a bridal shower for Natalie on August 13. Patio will be done. Steps will be done. And we’re hoping the next step of the backyard overhaul is also complete: new fence!
We’re sitting at home on Thursday night, kinda tipsy on margaritas, and we decide to have a party this weekend.
“Hey, Saturday is The Rapture, let’s have people over to celebrate the end of the world.”
So we drunkenly type out an email, agonize over who to invite and send it off.
“Join us on Saturday a 7:30 if you want. BYOB. We’ll see you if we see you.”
Went out today, bought a bunch of drinks and chips, got the yard and house all cleaned up.
And here it is, going on 9 o’clock. No one’s here.
“It’s weird isn’t it, that no one even acknowledged the email?”
“Yeah, it’s almost like the email never got sent.”
Come to find out, THE EMAIL NEVER MADE IT. Lost in some strange Gmail Bermuda Triangle. (Or was it drunken user error?)
So here we are, all dressed up, with a pitcher of margaritas to drink and a batch of guacamole to eat.
If we drink enough all by ourselves, maybe we’ll decide to throw another party next weekend. You might just get an email from us tonight. Or maybe we’ll find a way to screw it up again.
Our old fridge was fine. It just didn’t have a working ice maker. Or water dispenser in the door. Or an exterior color that matched the rest of our appliances.
But it did work. Milk was cold. Frozen pizzas were frozen.
At a January party, though, Sarah told us they had a nearly-new fridge just sitting in their garage — black, ice maker, water dispenser, French doors — a fine upgrade.
“My husband’s parents bought us get a new one as a housewarming gift,” Sarah said, “so we’re just going to put this one on Craigslist soon if we can’t find anyone to take it. Would you guys want it?”
“How much?” we asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. What should a used fridge cost? What if we charged you $150 and made you take us out for drinks a couple times?”
SOLD.
First step: Will it fit? The old fridge was pretty small and came with the place when we bought our house. I emailed the old owners and asked how they got it in.
“It was here when we moved in,” Tiffany said. “And those doors are narrow. So good luck. Tell me how it goes.”
So, we measured the new fridge and the space in our kitchen. No problem. Then we measured the door frame. Uh oh.
Side door was immediately ruled out. Too narrow. Plus, how would we lift it up the steps in the kitchen? Front door would be our only hope. We could definitely get it inside. But the problem was going to be the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room.
Width of doorframe: 29 inches.
Depth of fridge with doors removed: 29 inches.
At one point, I think we weighed the pros and cons of just leaving it in the dining room permanently.
After another couple weeks of nervous hand-wringing where we officially ruled out having it transported by a moving company (“Two-hour minimum?! All I need is for you to lift a fridge off the truck!”), Dad finally rented a trailer and we drove over to the Hansens’ house, committed to taking it off their hands, but not yet sure what we would do when we got home with it.
We had to unhinge the front storm door, and take off both wooden entryway doors just to get the fridge into the living room. Then the surgery began in the kitchen.
Removed the oven handle. Fridge still didn’t fit.
Removed the oven knobs. Didn’t fit.
Removed the brackets holding the fridge feet. Didn’t fit.
Removed the metal plate covering the back of the fridge. Didn’t fit.
We were running out of options. Our last hope seemed dangerous — removing the cardboard we had installed as padding to protect the wood of the door frame and granite on the countertop. Plus, the whole process was taking “longer than it should,” which is my ultimate frustration with projects around the house. I was getting crabby and impatient. We were removing quarter-inch sheets of cardboard from the edge of the doorway, so of course I was skeptical. It still wasn’t going to fit.
But, a couple furious extra shoves later, the fridge finally hopped over the lip of the kitchen tile and groaned its way through our narrow passageway.
An hour’s worth of deep cleaning later, we had ice cubes crashing into the reservoir and water splashing into our glasses.
No, literally, SPLASHING. There’s something wrong with the pressure to the dispenser. Water is shooting out like a laser.
But that just gives me another excuse to head to the hardware store.
With the hope that listing these home-improvement projects in a public space will inspire many motivational, “Is it done yet?” questions from friends and family, I present to you my always-increasing list of “Stuff I’d Like to Do to the House” :
Paint the front bedroom
Paint the bathroom
Install the chandelier in the kitchen, which first requires the conversion of two light fixtures, which first requires the addition of an attic crawl space.
New water line to the kitchen for the new refrigerator. (Also: Transport the new refrigerator.)
Running electricity to the “wine cellar” in the basement, plus a new door. Prerequisite: Stop the leak.
Chisel the paint from the crown molding in the dining room and living room. (Not from my own sloppy painting, of course. I just refused to cover old painting mistakes with new paint.)
Paint the small strip of drywall by the backdoor that I forgot when I originally painted the kitchen.
Paint the basement.
New first floor windows. Eight of them.
New electrical outlets in the living room and on the front of the house.
Outdoor faucet on the southwest corner of the house.
Now that I’m relegated to inside home improvement projects thanks to sub-zero temperatures, I’m tackling a few nagging issues.
First up: kitchen water pressure.
Since we moved in two years ago, the kitchen sink, it seems, had only released water by accident. An anemic, pathetic stream. Jokingly, I would tell people that you could make a trip to the bathroom in the time it took to fill up a pan with enough to make pasta. Then one night I actually did just that. (Another, equally annoying, option would have been to just fill up the pans in the bathroom. That, though, is more difficult to explain at dinner parties.)
Occasionally, there would be a sign that the pressure might return. We’d turn off the main water line to fix something else, and when turned back on, the pressure would surge in the kitchen, then promptly return to a trickle.
Our (and by “our,” I mean Dad’s) main theory was that the mix of copper and iron pipes in the basement had combined to form a corroded road block of sorts, causing the low flow to the kitchen. We scheduled several exploratory sessions that mainly involved a lot of grasping our chins and staring knowingly at the pipes in the basement ceiling.
“That’s got to be the problem,” we’d both say, as we tried to come up with another excuse project that DIDN’T involve hack saws, a blow torch and hours of work.
I’d cautiously taken the sink handle apart on several occasions, thinking there wasn’t much damage I could cause as long as I put things back together in the right order. No luck there either. Same wimpy flow.
Seeing strong pressure (blasting pressure — seriously, the basement shower can take off skin) at the other faucets in the house only made it worse. Here’s a 95-year-old house taunting me to find the problem. So, a few weeks ago, I did what any clueless homeowner does — he backtracks, thinking to himself, “Maybe I missed something last time. If I just try it again, I’ll find the solution.”
And I did.
I grabbed a bucket, then pulled out the trash can from under the sink and disconnected the lines. When I turned the valve, water shot out. A steady stream. “See! Look! The pressure from the basement is great right here. The problem is somewhere beyond the valve!” (This was me talking to myself at 1:30 in the morning.) Five connect-disconnect experiments later, I had isolated the diverter (I only know the name because I found a parts diagram online) that sends water between the main spout and the sprayer.
That diverter had three parts, giving me a choice: Do I just order all three parts from the internet, or do I go with the cheapest one, hoping it’ll work? And of course, stupidity prevailed again. I ordered only the cheapest one. $18.73 from the Moen online store, delivery in 5-7 business days.
I even sent Dad and Stephanie an excited, 2:30 a.m. email proclaiming a theoretical solution that didn’t involve potential basement flooding. Understandably, they responded with the email equivalent of rolling their eyes: “Good! I hope it works.”
At this point, I should probably apologize to my family, who had a hell of a time finding Christmas presents for me this year. For about a week mid-December, I was truly so excited about this sink part that I didn’t even WANT any other gifts. I wasn’t going to be bothered with a list — all of my problems could be solved if I could just fill a bowl of ramen noodles with water in less than 20 seconds!
Imagine my disappointment then, when the part never came.
After eight business days, I emailed Moen customer service:
“Hi, I bought this sink part and you said it was coming this week, but it never did. Can you tell me what happened? And maybe refund my shipping cost?”
(Of course, I never got a tracking number on the package when I placed the order because that would have cost me two more bucks. “$1.99 for Priority Mail? Pssssh. Heck naw, that’s a ripoff.”)
The response from Moen was predictable: “We usually advise customers that shipping will take 8-10 business days. And we have no idea where the package is because you didn’t want that option. No refund.”
So, I waited another, excruciating week. One night, I thought it had arrived. Smallish, yellow envelope. Plastic cylinder inside. Strange, unknown return address. Yes!
Nope. It was Mom’s stupid Christmas present watch. Seriously, my happiness at that point was attached to the unknowing mailman’s daily deliveries.
Another email, two weeks after the shipping confirmation: “Come on now, Moen. Quit playing games with my part. It’s been 13 business days and two full weekends. Where is my Product #14960, Pre ’09 Model?! This time I’m formally requesting a refund.”
“Mr. Vankat. We are sorry. We don’t know where the part is. Let us send you a new one, free shipping. But still no tracking number.”
Here’s the latest from the patio. As you can see, all of the full-size stones are in place now. Another few blocks to finish off the edges and it’ll be ready to go.
Last weekend was spent breathing in stone dust as I cut odd-shaped pieces to fill in around the edges. At one point, I was worried I was going to run into a roadblock when the hammer-chisel method provided unpredictable results.
Dad to the rescue. He whipped out the circular saw, and I made a quick trip to Lowe’s for a diamond-tipped blade, which the internet promised would cut through stone and skin alike with no trouble whatsoever. After a quick backyard tutorial where I learned some survival tips (adjust the blade with the power off; keep the cord under control), someone might have confused me with Bob Vila if they didn’t look close enough.
Other than being deaf for two days thanks to all the noise, I made it through with all 10 fingers. Success.
Dangerous power tools cutting through stone with a cloud of dust enveloping the back yard and sparks flying everywhere. Of course, I made it all weekend without getting any action shots of the manliest thing I’ve ever done. Go figure.
Anyway, I’ve the bags and piles of materials are finally cleared from the driveway, just in time to bring out the snow blower.
We’re checking the schedules for a Saturday afternoon party next weekend to celebrate the near-finished state of backyard affairs, so plan to stop over in the afternoon on the 20th for some drinks and patio sitting.
Exactly two months later, it’s time for a patio update.
Here’s where we left off, on the 23rd of August.
Following the digging of the trench, I did lay most of the blocks for the wall on the weekend of Aug. 29 (with some help from my construction adhesive expert):
Then I promptly took a vacation from patio work during the first three weekends in September. Went to Lincoln for a football game. Then Mother Nature stopped cooperating and turned the patio into a swamp for a couple weeks.
During this time of no progress, I had plenty of time to think about ways to complicate the project. The idea of a single, giant 15 x 20 space had been bothering me a bit. The patio needed an additional “something.” So I decided to add a second, lower level to the patio plan. (And remember, the “plan” for this project was never really more than that sketch I showed in the original blog post about the patio.)
So, the last weekend of September was spent adding a few more wall blocks and digging out the space for the lower level, which is just a single step town from the upper part:
October has had plenty of spectacular weather, which allowed for real progress.
I moved the rest of the crushed rock, a wheelbarrow at a time:
Added sand to the lower level:
And started laying the paver stones:
By the end of last weekend, I had moved all of the raw materials from the driveway. All that’s left now are those two palattes full of stone down by the garage:
This weekend: I’ll rake flat the rest of the sand on the patio’s upper level, then start laying the stones. I’m hoping to finish all but the very edge, which is going to need some special cuts to fill in the cracks and small leftover spaces. More pictures on Sunday night.
As most of you know by now, I’m spending my weekends building a patio in the back yard. (For anyone that’s just now figuring this out, be happy that you’ve been spared my near-constant project storytelling. It’s seriously, the only thing going on with us right now, aside from Tuesday night drinking.) But trust me, you haven’t missed much yet, mostly “and then I moved across the yard.”
Back story: We haven’t really used the back yard for anything other than lawn-mowing practice and a failed attempt at growing some herbs. And we don’t really have a front-yard space private enough to sit outside and eat a meal or hang out with friends and family. So, we’re building our own little retreat. One that blocks out yipping dogs, car noise and weeds from the south and gives us a flat area on which we can put a picnic table and some chairs. The patio is the first step. As an added bonus, I’ll also be getting rid of most of the back yard grass, which, if you’ve seen the any of the front yard this summer, you’ll agree is probably for the best. (Thanks, fungus!)
So, we decided we want a patio. Now what? I’m not exactly Bob Vila, so it took a couple weeks of talking about a design — this was in April, I think — which led to a couple weeks of thinking about a design that finally gave way to a couple weeks of planning for the design. All so I could put off the actual implementation of the design. We knew we wanted to do it ourselves to save the money and I knew that there were plenty of good tutorials on putting in simple brick patios.
The actual work started with the old “step it off then draw a crude sketch from memory” plan, which you’ll see below. (Note: For a while we entertained the idea of a small firepit. I think we’re skipping that now. But the heated stripper pole option is still in play. Click image for larger version.)
But since I have no imagination, I still worried about how the finished product would look. So, I stayed up late one night teaching myself how to use Google’s 3D modeling program called SketchUp. Too many hours and too many beers later, we had a visual plan.
At this point, there’s really only two options: procrastinate because you’re still terrified, or buy the blocks and start digging. After another week of thinking about it, I chose #2.
As you can see from the pictures in the gallery at the bottom, the yard sloped pretty severely from east to west, which meant there was a fair amount of digging to be done to get the space level enough to put the patio down. So, I went to Lowe’s and bought a couple shovels, a level, a hand tamper, some string and some stakes. I’m pretty sure I remember standing there, staring at the different options, then shrugging, saying “Let’s do this” and walking up to the counter. There’s really no other way to start a project like this except to just jump in.
I decided to cut the digging in half by taking dirt from the high side and adding it to the low side. And by the end of the first weekend of work (Sunday, Aug. 1) I had made pretty good progress with the leveling. Obviously, still much to be done, but I had successfully converted our sledding hill into a mud wrestling pit. Not bad for the first two days.
Next up: the stones. Lowe’s has a sweet little project planning booklet that helps idiots like me figure out how much to buy. And with a retaining wall to build, thanks to the slope of the yard, there was the added complication of getting wall stones and capstones. “What are the dimensions of your patio?” the booklet said. “Insert that number here. Here’s how many stones to get. Here’s how much crushed rock you need as a base. Here’s how much sand to you’ll need.”
I fully expected to get a bunch of questions when we walked in to buy this stuff. I imagined the guy behind the counter staring at me like I was an alien when I asked him for several hundred patio stones. In the end, it was almost TOO easy. I wanted someone do say, “Do you know what you’re doing, little boy?” so I could just give up and hire someone. No such luck, so the show goes on. Final block-purchase tally:
But I figured out quick that big-box home centers aren’t the place to get the dirty stuff — crushed limestone and sand aren’t cheap if you’re buying it in bags you can carry. So I made a couple calls to local landscaping / contracting businesses, which, again, wasn’t as painful an experience as I imagined it would be. They’re well-versed in conversation with guys who call and say, “Uh, hi. I’m putting in a giant stone patio in my yard and I have all the stones. But apparently you have to put rock down under it to help with drainage. So, uh, can you guys help me with that?” Thank you, patient receptionist lady.
By the end of the week, I had six tons of patio blocks AND six tons of raw materials sitting in my driveway.
(Word to the wise: When the contractor offers to put the rock in separate one-ton bags, you tell them yes. Even if it’s an extra $10 per bag. It’s definitely a tactic they only use on the home-improvement rookies, but the bags keep the yard (and the neighbors’ yard) from turning into a beach.)
Weekends No. 2 and 3 were more digging in 100-degree weather and the start of the trench around the outside of the patio where the retaining wall would sit. Plenty of sunscreen, sore arms and slow marches inside to ask Stephanie for another beer.
This past weekend was kinda fun. I finally got to put some pieces into place. Even though it takes five or ten minutes to get each stone level on the first layer of blocks, it’s nice have some real progress to describe to people, beyond “Our pile of dirt is larger and smoother.” After four weekends, I’ve spent probably 20 or 25 hours working in the yard and I actually feel pretty good about the progress, especially when you consider I’ve worked alone (which has been by choice — I’ve had plenty of offers of help) and that the extent of my patio-building knowledge came from these two tutorials on the This Old House website:
I’ll continue with the blogging during the rest of the project, so get excited for updates on “My afternoon with a giant rental power tool” and likely one called “Oh shit, my wall fell down, now what?”
In the mean time, check out the full project photo gallery embedded below:
