September 7th: Continuing with projects at Rebecca's

 We had limited our outside work Friday and Saturday, due to temperatures over 100 degrees in the afternoons. The air conditioning was struggling to keep up. Rebecca's south wall is mostly sliding glass doors. I had learned on the boat that I could significantly reduce the heat by hanging a sheet over the side of the boat to block the sun. We tried it on the south wall and it worked even better than I had hoped. That was nice because, due to the heat,  we were able to enjoy our early quitting time in the nice comfy house, with the dogs who were happy to have us back. Great to be missed! We got sucked into the old Seinfeld series, very funny.

Sun screen sheet over the sliding glass doors

Exercise room, new
rubber floor going in

Saturday morning while it was reasonably cool, and while I was working on the screen, Rebecca was working on the renovation of her exercise room. The carpet was shot, so she was installing a soft rubber floor, perfect for an exercise room. She repaired cracks and gouges in the dry wall in preparation for painting, and sealed the cracks in the wood trim with wood putty. I tried to get the quite old air conditioner to work, you can see it up on the wall, but no luck.

Water stain on the brand new ceiling

Water stain

 When we finished for the day Saturday, I went into the house and happened to look up at Rebecca's brand new ceiling. Oh no! A big water stain. I hated to tell Rebecca, but no option. We both thought, "It hasn't rained in weeks!" I thought, "Well, at least it's not the roof!" But I didn't share that thought as I didn't think Rebecca was looking to find the "Bright side" yet. We both knew it had to be condensation from the air conditioning which ran through the attic. I went into the attic and found the source of the problem. I put her big lobster pot under the dripping so we were okay for the time being. With 100 degree temperatures we did not want to turn off the air conditioning! It sure was hot in the attic. Rebecca called the contractor and he said he'd have George, the air conditioning man, come by tomorrow.

The weather cooled off nicely so Sunday night we enjoyed watching The Game of Thrones on the big screen. One slight change to the screen is still needed. We noticed that weaving the steel cable back and forth through the grommets created some slight wrinkles. Hardly noticeable, but we've come this far, might as well go all the way. I decided we could easily fix that by getting some rings to put through the grommets and use them to hang the screen, much like a shower curtain. Need to order the rings so next visit! In the mean time it's very usable.

New marble bathroom floor
with a tile that
was not sealed on top

Bathroom marble floor 

Backing up a little, one on-going project has been the newly installed marble in the master bathroom. Rebecca ordered honed marble because she likes a flat finish. The workers did a great job installing it, but then used the wrong type of sealer to seal it! The workers and the head contractor spent many hours sanding the marble trying to correct the problem. After three attempts, and several days of workers being in Rebecca's house, she put a halt on their attempts. The workers and the head contractor had spent many hours sanding the marble trying to correct the problem and they clearly didn't know how to "Fix it." There was talk of ripping it all out and starting over. Weeks of continued construction, after months or renovation. The bathroom was the final phase and Rebecca was more than tired of having workers in the house.


Rebecca and I both thought, "There must be a way to fix it." I talked to a couple stone contractors and of course checked out U-Tube. After considering the suggestions I decided the key might be wet sanding with a high quality rotary sander using carbide silicon sanding discs. The site said it took patience as it would take about 15 minutes per 1 square foot, but it will work if you have the time and patience. We ordered what we needed and happily discovered it worked.

I had ordered a lot of sanding discs but found they didn't last very long. It's not hard work, just tedious. After about 7 hours I had gone over the floor twice and was out of sandpaper. One of the reasons I stayed longer was to finish that job and the sanding discs weren't coming until Sunday before 9 PM. The sanding discs arrived Sunday night so the first project Monday was to finish sanding. It turned out great. We were very happy with the result. Rebecca was able to negotiate a reasonable settlement with the contractor so this project ended well. Of course Rebecca still needs to sand the shower floor and walls, but now she knows what to do!

Old seal

When I arrived at Rebecca's Thursday, I noticed her garage door seal was in pretty bad shape. It's not just cosmetic, it also keeps dirt and small critters out. I had helped Craig replace the rubber seal on the bottom of his garage door. It just slides in so it's pretty easy but it takes two people, one to slide it in while the other pulls it across the bottom.

New seal

Nice tight new seal

Rebecca ordered a new one seal Thursday night and fortunately it arrived Monday. That replacement project went without a hitch, for once!

Installing the ivy on the latticework

The garage door project went so quickly that I said we had time for one more project. I knew she wanted to put some of the artificial ivy, left over from the side fence project, on the lattice work we installed in the back yard. I told her I was up for it if she could take a break from working. She was able to take a break and definitely up for it. (Sometimes it's nice to be working from home.)

Newly installed ivy

Rebecca held the ladder for me when necessary and held the ivy pieces in place while I attached them. Again, no picture of Rebecca working but trust me she was! We are very happy with the result. The latticework provided pretty good privacy, but there is a three story apartment building behind her back yard and this made a very nice visual barrier. She decided she'd like to put some more up next trip.

Old plenum

And back to the condensation problem. George came out and decided the air plenum was not correct for the system. He made a new one, installed it and improved the duct work. He said there were numerous leaks and a lot of the air conditioning was going into the attic instead of the house. Very good news because the system will have improved efficiency. Hated to have the ceiling stained to find the problem, but definitely well worth it if the house stays cooler.

I included a picture of the old plenum in case you don't know what that is!




It was time to head back to Encinitas and let Rebecca to her work. Fortunately the traffic was very agreeable!