Nichol Street Experience - flue work

This week I re-hung the entry foyer door at the Nichol Street house. At some point in time, someone had taken it down for some reason that is beyond me. There must have been 50 nails, screws, staples, curtain hangers, and thumb tacks attached to the door.Weather stripping bits and pieces clung to the edges. I scraped them off. Now the door will need to be scraped, sanded, primed and painted.

When I began work on this house back in January of 2009, the man from the gas company told me that he would go ahead and turn on the gas since no one was living in the house but in the event that it ever has to be lit again, we would need a cover over the opening to the pilot light on the gas water heater. Furthermore, the exhaust pipe from the water heater would need to be hooked up correctly. It was just a smaller pipe laying in a bigger pipe. So we had gas heat last winter. Over the summer, Phil had the gas turned off to save money. As the weather got cooler, I couldn't help but remind Phil that we needed to get the water heater situation covered. I figured this was his job since I have no idea about any of this and he's the guy. The weather continued to cool down. Then one afternoon, just as I was leaving the house around 4pm, Philip showed up with some flue pipes. He was heading to the basement to fix the flue. Getting the flue fixed was one of those pivotal points in this construction project. We will need heat soon when we start the painting. And heat's needed for the joint compound to dry. Things were looking good. I went home to start dinner. Around 7 pm I called Phil to see how much longer he would be. He was at the hardware store. "I needed a part. I have everything together so I will just let you hook it all up tomorrow." He offered. I was furious! Thanks a lot. I guess if I want a job done, I will have to do it myself!
Another part of me knows that if I don't get this together, it will be another month before he makes it back over here. I could wait it out but I want to be finished with this place!
The next morning, I took a few tools and the 4inch to 3inch conversion pipe to the basement and began tinkering with the flue system. I had no idea what I was doing except that Phil told me that I would need to cut the 3inch pipe to fit into the 4inch pipe just so. I crammed the new pipe into the hole in the wall and discovered that the pipe in the wall was only an illusion as it crumbled into a pile of rust on the floor. I scraped out the rust in the hole and tried my best to wedge the new pipe into the hole. Long story short, the crumbled up pipe in the included pictures is that new pipe. Anyway, 2 days, 3 new pieces of flue pipe, 2 hack sawed chunks of old galvanized pipe and 3 trips to the hardware store, the flue pipes were assembled and in place. A job that Phil said should have taken "15 minutes."
Now for the pilot light cover. The original cover had disappeared a long time ago so all I knew to do was make a new cover. As I looked into the pilot light area, I noticed a pile of papers crammed in around the burn area. So I pulled the papers out and threw them in a pile on the floor. A woman's face caught my eye. She had pretty blue eyes and blond hair all arranged in a nice, up swept, going to the prom - hairdo. A man was standing behind her with his private part laying on her head, in that pretty pile of hair, like some kind of fancy Easter bonnet. The woman looked off into the distance as if she had something heavy on her mind. I laughed. "For goodness sakes" I said to myself. "Nothing seems to be working right today." I fixed the cover then scraped up the mess - Easter bonnet and all and threw it in the trash. I promise.
I am almost finished with the spackling. I have the entry foyer and the kitchen to finish. I will probably have to do a bit more in the dining room as that too is a long story. It feels like I am in the home stretch. I won't say too much as it is always more than I figure on.

A walk through the garden

I am not that good with modern technology. I am trying to download or upload a 3 minute video I took of my garden. I believe this was made in September. The garden was grown in celebration of my son - Harrison's wedding in July to Brittany Barnett. By September there was a battle of weeds to be fought. They were the victor and I was the vanquished. So as you take the tour, please note that though there are weeds here and there, flowers also flourished. I will also admit that when I planned the garden, I underestimated the boom factor of flowers. I play garden like a child plays house. I put the zinnia too close to the path and didn't allow for the boom factor and by September, the zinnias have hidden the path. I find that gardening is a learning / evolutionary process. And it doesn't hurt to have a little patience.

P.S. Due to technical difficulties, I am so far unable to upload or download my video. Check back later.

Update: the video I have is 182 MB and this is apparently larger than allowed by Blogger. I will try to figure another way and hopefully without signing up for a you tube account.

Another Update: I was able to post the walk through my garden on my facebook page. My friends can watch it there.