Recent content by norsea

Color this a me too post... I too am a very lucky man to be blessed with wonderful woman as my partner in life for the past 30+ years. She too is a very capable person. When in college she worked for her step father the contractor and as a result she can sweat copper joints better than...

Desert Oasis - The "other" Water Works When we returned this fall I finally got around to getting the water works on the east side of the house plumbed for the three bathrooms on that side of the house and the sprinkler controller installed. Inspections have passed for plumbing and...

Garage Organization... Some photo's of the garage after we managed to get the equipment into the shop which cleaned out a lot of stuff that was taking up space all over the garage. We managed to get the vast majority of stuff off the floor and onto shelves on the wall or suspended from the...

Spray Foam vs. batten insulation... Thanks for the kind words. This project does have a life of its own; living in chaos is one of the by products of a project where you live in the building while you are doing the work. And your right about getting a break from it being nice. As for the...

Shop Dog... Say "Hi" to Tater the wonder dog! And his Indian name: He's So Cute... What, me Worry? You got somethin' in your pocket for me? We goin' somewhere? Jim

You can give your money to the insulation manufacturer once, or you can give it to the gas/electric company forever. The choice is yours. We live in the desert; 110F+ temps in the summer are common. While the winters tend to be mild we do have occasional bouts of freezing days which will cause...

Good looking truck Griz. You have probably figured out that Citrus Heights is in California, just a tad north east of Sacramento. This probably accounts for some of the "good" condition of the metal. Back in the day, all P-Cup trucks in California were considered "commercial" vehicles as far...

The Shop... In the photo below you can see the Bridgeport Mill "standing in the door" waiting on me to come up with a better idea than the piece of steel as a ramp to get it over the threshold. Fortunately for me divine intervention came through and we employed the same tools the ancient...

I understand completely. I lived near Ipswitch for three years, Dublin, Ireland for two years and in Germany for two years. My wife and I spent seven winters in Spain in the Malaga area - all while traveling about Europe as our retirement gift to ourselves for seven years on our...

The Garage - At Last...(Continued) At this point we were ready to install the new header for the expanded opening for the garage door. Once again, this became an exercise in flexibility. We encountered a small problem. When we opened the wall on the side of the garage that was the existing...

The Garage - At Last... One of the things I liked about the house was the space that was available to expand the garage. The photo below is taken from the rear of the house, where a portion of the garage can be seen in the rear of the photo. The existing garage was approximately 20'X20'. This...

Re: Desert Oasis - The remodel begins The remodel added a new master bedroom, an office, expanded the size of the garage, combined the family/living room into a great room and dining room, converted the breakfast room into a laundry and combined the kitchen and dining room into a large kitchen...

Ya, it's hard to communicate to people what it is like to live in a climate where temperatures can actually reach 120F. I have a neighbor who tells me he can work outside up to 110F. He's a better man than I and he's in his late 70's. Once it hits 106F I'm a dead man walking. Today, it reached...

Re: Desert Oasis - In the beginning... In the beginning there was a house; ya, that's me in the driveway. In the area to the right of the garage you can see the clothes line. We had enough space in that area to bump the garage out in that direction seven feet. More on this later. and that's...

Re: Desert Oasis - Patience is a virtue... Patience Grasshopper, er Bib Overalls. All will become clear in the future...;) And yes, those 1950 houses with single pane glass and not much, if any, insulation combined with temperatures that are above 105F quite frequently and you get a big bill...