Lighting Upgrades in Progress

To the casual observer, not much has changed inside my house since my last post one month ago. I have not turned down any opportunities for fun and somehow the projects are incapable of finishing themselves on their own. No biggie. While no one project is fully complete, a lot is happening. The window mouldings and new drapery are complete in the living areas. These improvements made a big difference in the look and feel of the house. Window trim and drapery in the three bedrooms are on hold for now—it makes more sense for me to paint bedrooms 2 and 3 first so I don’t have to carefully mask around freshly painted trim and I (most likely someone else) can coordinate drapery with room colors.

The newly installed window trim and fresh satin paint made the baseboards look unfinished, so I began the process of painting all of the baseboards in the house. I replaced some of the existing door trim as there were two areas of the house where the trim was dented down low, most likely from the child of the previous owners. Since I was already fixing everything else it made sense to fill the dents in the sheetrock and retexture the walls in the damaged areas. The portion of the walls below the belt trim is complete with the exception of paint and I am planning a color change there.

Above the belt trim I filled nail holes, did some light retexturing and Hanna graciously volunteered to do the painting. The previous owners left behind the paints they used, so not only do I have the existing paint, I also have the color codes so I can have additional cans mixed. The trim is all painted with the exception of the main bathroom and hallway to the bedrooms.

The electrical work is moving forward, however the project goal involved kitchen and living room lighting, none of which has been touched yet. I have an electrical contractor friend helping me and he often gets stuck working long hours. While waiting for my contractor friend to become available I decided to start on my own in other areas of the house, using the knowledge I gained from helping him install recessed lighting and new electrical outlets in his ‘man cave.’

The two bathrooms had existing 6” recessed lights, however twelve years ago when my home was constructed, fluorescent fixtures still utilized magnetic ballasts with a separate starter to get the bulb going. When you flick the switch there was a two second delay before anything happened, then another couple of seconds of flickering before you actually got light. (See first picture.) Newer designs are much quicker and use electronic ballasts. Regardless, I hate fluorescent light and it’s not dimmable, so I went LED.

Here's what I removed...under the cone and trim ring, a magnetic-ballasted fixture:


The 6” cans in the bathrooms were designed for fluorescent and not IC-rated to contact insulation in the attic, so I swapped the cans out for the nice Title-24 energy efficient cans that are air-tight to reduce heating losses through the can and rated for insulation contact so my existing attic insulation can keep doing its job. I had to venture into the attic, disconnect the wiring and remove the brackets that brace the old recessed can between studs. This leaves you with a hole in the ceiling. The new recessed cans I installed are called remodel cans and are designed to be installed after the home has already been built and sheetrock is installed. Using the existing wiring, I made the connections to the housing and pushed the recessed can into the hole, with the unit supported by four clips that hold the can in place against the sheetrock. To keep it sealed I caulked the interface between the sheetrock and the can and installed the LED module. The two bathrooms now have instant-on light and a very pleasing amount and color of light. Unlike an incandescent recessed can light, there is no ugly and heat and air conditioning-wasting gap between the trim and the bulb, it’s all one piece.

Here is the new light engine. Obviously all you see is the flush-mounted white trim ring and recessed light.


While I was at it I replaced the light fixtures in the hallway. They were standard non-recessed hallway lights. I removed those fixtures, cut 6” holes in the sheetrock to accommodate the recessed can and wired them up. The hallway is now on a 3-way dimmer so you can turn the lights on and off from either end and they can be dimmed. It’s great being able to crank them up for cleaning and dim them down for ambiance. The dimmer switches illuminate when the lights are off so you can find the switch at night; brilliant. I had originally installed compact fluorescents (CFL) in those fixtures however I swapped back to incandescent because I hated the light from CFLs. The new LED fixtures are 10 watts each, so I went from 120 watts (two 60W bulbs) down to just 20 watts. And that’s at full brightness, I seem to like the look at 30%, so I think all of the hallway lighting is pulling around 6 watts.

Here the 'business end" of the new IC-rated, air-tight hallway lights, from the attic, obviously:


When my electrician friend is available we will complete the project we set-out for, converting the kitchen lights from six fluorescent tubes to LED can lights. There will be six of those. We are adding two more can lights to the living room. By the time we’re done my house will be full-LED except for the porch lights and bedrooms where I prefer non-overhead lighting.

No other big projects planned; I have plenty of existing projects to keep me busy for a while.

Part I of the interior updates

Having received a really nice compound sliding miter saw for Christmas, I put it to use right away doing some trim and moulding work in my house. Most newer homes have no window trim at all, just a bull-nosed sheetrock surround. My house already had quite a bit of colonial-style trim around the doors and on the mid-point of the walls, so I carried that same moulding onto the window surrounds and painted them satin white. The window sill and stool (part below the sill) are made from a nice grade of poplar, the stool painted satin white and the sill is satin black. The color combo seems a little strange, however the black sills match the color and style of my black photo frames and my wine rack and bookshelves in the dining room, and they match my entertainment center and artwork in the living room. I chose to spray the mouldings and sills rather than hand-paint them for a brushstroke-free look.

Installing the sills the proper way meant the sheetrock at the bottom of the window had to be removed, which was easier than I had expected. Score the sheetrock with a utility knife and break it away. If the goal was to litter my house in sheetrock dust, then the project was an overwhelming success. Timing is good though because next month's project will involve cutting yet more sheetrock. My shop vac is probably getting a little angry with me though--it has been instrumental in removal of all of the construction garbage and it's powerful enough that it will suck up a screwdriver, a center punch, a putty knife AND a container of wood putty in one swoop before you can even figure out where those items went.

The compound miter saw really made this project easy and I borrowed my father's pancake compressor and brad nailer for a professional finish. The brad nailer is a blast to use too. I also borrowed his router to round the corners of the sills, but we thought the non-routed square edges of the moulding looked more modern and matched my furniture better. My father spent the day with me showing me how the process is done and I was able to complete the rest of the windows with no problems and not even one wasted board. I usually go by the "measure once and screw up a bunch of times" method but decided the "measure twice, cut once" was more appropriate when working with expensive material.

This project required a lot of detail work. There is definitely an art to caulking--which smooths the transition from the moulding to the walls and from the sheetrock corners to the window panes. I have probably laid a mile of caulking at this point--one line to cover your 45-degree miters where the mouldings meet at the top, one line around the inside and outside of each moulding (X4 per window), a bead around the window itself and another between the sill and the window.

The window project created an opportunity for me to clean up all of the old paint on the window frames and recaulk each window, so it all looks brand new now. My Aunt, who is an interior designer, will be here in a week and is excited to help pick out some nicer valences for my existing wood blinds and some window treatments to finish it all off. After painting the window trim I realized that the baseboard moulding in my house is completely unpainted. The previous owners put in new flooring right before I moved in, so no doubt they were in the process of losing the home and just put up the moulding in a primed state; but it took me over a year to notice. So now I have moved on to recaulking and painting the baseboard moulding the same satin white as the window trim. I have only done the living room and dining room to-date; I will move onto the bedrooms perhaps next week.

Looking back at 2010

The holiday season came and went so quickly, I cannot believe it is over. I found myself in the holiday spirit much more than ever before and I rode it for all it was worth--the tree, lights and decorations were up before Dec 1, I hosted a Christmas party at my home, followed by an early Christmas the week before the actual holiday with my mom and her husband (who were leaving for a long trip to the Dominican Republic), as well as my sister and brother in law, then a Christmas eve celebration here as well with my sister and brother in law--we have always done our gift exchanges on Christmas eve, followed by our main presents and stockings on Christmas day, so we decided this year should be no different. We followed up with a Christmas day celebration at my father's home near Oakdale, with a prime rib dinner and a timely power outage that lasted about three hours--how ironic since my dad and his wife are both retired PG&E employees. I attended a half dozen other holiday parties in addition, so it was a very fun and busy month.

Santa brought me additional means for the home improvement I enjoy so much by way of a new compound miter saw for trim, moulding and custom cabinet work and Home Depot gift certificates that will certainly be used sooner rather than later. I am starting to feel embarrassed that one of my spare bedrooms still has two pink accent walls, and that's after a year and a half of living here. Painting work is in the plans this winter.

I learned some really good techniques for painting. In order to produce sharp lines at ceiling interfaces or areas where two paint colors come together, follow this technique--let's say your east-facing wall is eggshell white and you want your north-facing wall to be green. Lay your painter's tape down on the white wall, right to the wall corner. If you follow the normal technique of starting with the green paint, it will certainly bleed under the tape and it will be visible on the white wall. Instead, paint a strip of the *white* paint on the wall you want to be green. Wait for it to dry. That paint just bled white into the white area and filled all of the voids in the tape. Now paint your green over it and you'll have a perfect transition from white to green with no bleeding. My father used this technique in his RV garage and it looks amazing.





When I no longer have pink bedrooms to contend with, I think some stripes in my garage could make a fun winter project.

2010 was a great year for me. My recovery is coming along well and I have been able to do everything I have attempted. Extended hikes, home improvement/manual labor, mountain biking, kayaking, waterskiing and cliff diving (just kidding). My limitations will be ball sports that require a flick of the wrist, like throwing a ball or playing tennis (ball sports were never my interest anyway, and if I really wanted to I can learn to play left-handed), and two other activities that come to mind are those where you fall repeatedly on hard surfaces like rollerblading and iceskating...never did much of those either. I'll be up skiing in the coming weeks and I'll wear my old brace to protect my wrist during falls. Being able to return to more of a normal life has been great.

I managed quite a bit of travel and vacation in 2010 as well. A week in Death Valley, some time in Pt. Reyes, Lake Tahoe, several camping trips in the Sierras, a couple four wheeling trips, wine tasting, a boat trip to Canada with a seaplane ride home and of course an amazing trip to Italy, France, Switzerland and the Island of Corsica. I got to spend some really good quality time with friends and family and made new friends that I feel very fortunate to have in my life. I look forward to things that come in 2011.

winter is here

Trying to clear ice off the wipers (for the third time) under an I-80 overpass.

Blog catch-up

Sorry folks, the blog has fallen by the way-side the past couple of weeks while I prepared for the holidays. I threw a Christmas party at my home and I had a lot to do to get myself and the house ready. Nothing makes you finish up home improvement projects like inviting a bunch of people over--so I matted and framed eight photos from Europe and got them on the wall, had the fireplace chimney cleaned so I could have a nice cozy fire, cleaned the house and yards up and did the grocery shopping and food preparation for the party. The party was tons of fun, it was great to have some of my friends that hadn't met each other able to find out who these mysterious people are I have been talking about.

This weekend I did a little holiday party hopping myself and spent most of the weekend visiting with friends. Today I finally had a chance to clean up after my own party last week and pick up the leaf mess in the backyard. Here are some pics I took this weekend.

My crazy psychodelic blue house:


Crazy psychodelic blue Christmas tree:


And finally a temporarily clean backyard:

the holidays

The holidays are a busy time for everyone and surprisingly that is still true even though I am only working four days per week. Beyond the usual social calendar and trips to the gym I have a couple of winter projects going on at home. One simple housing project always involves five more associated projects, i.e. the Jeremy Clarkson "how hard can it be?" syndrome. For example, I am adding lighting above my kitchen cabinets to illuminate the soffit and while I'm at it I might as well add lighting under the cabinets to light up the countertops. So I need to make room for one switch on the wall--no problem, I will consolidate a separate ceiling fan and light switch into one multi-switch. But to do that I have to upgrade from the existing toggle-type switches to the newer flat paddle type switches. And while I'm buying switches I might as well add the nice dimmer switches now that I am converting to LED recessed lighting. Which means a new wall plate, which happens to be 5mm larger than the old one and requires removing, trimming, repainting and reinstalling the wall moulding to accomodate it. Wow, a simple project made not-so-simple; that's how I roll, apparently.

Among all of the not-done things I did manage to complete a few seasonal projects. Christmas lights and Christmas trees are pretty uncool items to have in February so I figured I might as well get moving on those. Christmas tree up and decorated, check. Christmas lights on house, check. I made a day of Christmas tree shopping with my friends Mike & Marin and Marin's sister Shannon and husband Dave and their children. We went to a tree farm near Placerville that lets you pick out your tree, cut it yourself, then you can hang out and drink hot apple cider and roast marshmallows around one of two firepits. We followed up with a stop at Z-Pie in Placerville and then home to get the tree situated. The tree is now up and decorated and the house smells great between the douglas fir tree smell and the fires I've been running in the fireplace.

Tonight I will pick up some 5x5, 8x10 and 11x17 photos I had printed of my trip to Europe. I already purchased frames and mats so there's another project to add to the list.

The Thanksgiving holiday was wonderful--great food, family and fun. Hope you all had a good one as well.

cash for.... ???

When life brings you lemons, make lemonade; and likewise, when the economy is in the toilet, take advantage of every stimulus package you can. (Without putting yourself in debt, of course.) I am taking some good friendly ribbing at work for it, so now I've made it my mission to take every one I can. It started with the controversial first time home buyer's tax rebate--I was on the fence about buying a house in declining economic times, and especially after taking a paycut while I was shopping for a home. That stimulus package ultimately gave me the confidence to pull the trigger.

Next was the 'cash for clunkers' program which I certainly would have used had I owned a clunker. You have read about my involvement in Roseville's 'cash for grass' program and that worked out super well for me. I spent just under $300 on plants from the UC Davis Arboretum, $50 on irrigation supplies and $150 on mulch, or around $500 total. The City wrote me a check for $445, covering nearly the entire cost. [Speaking of which--the City did their final inspection last week and they asked if they could come back next spring and photograph my yard (if the plants are still alive, LOL) and use my house in their marketing material--that made me happy.] I would not have initiated this project had it not been for the City program.

Yesterday I took advantage of the 'cash for appliances' program. I had been using an old 18 cu.ft. refrigerator that I bought used from the previous tenant of my east sac house. It was old, small, inefficient and noisy and looked silly in my kitchen. My countertops and cabinets left a hole 11" wider and 7" taller than my old fridge, so it looked like the equivalent of a smartcar parked in a Cadillac Brougham parking spot. I really liked the appearance and features of the Samsung models but I nearly blew a heart valve when I saw the multi-thousand dollar price tag of the counter-depth model refrigerators. I shopped around and found the exact Samsung model I wanted at Sears Outlet--it was new in box, but had a ding in the side that you can't even see. I paid one-half of retail price and it still carries the full warranty because it is new. Throw in another 5% off for the Sears card, plus both the State and City of Roseville energy efficiency rebates and I got a sweet new fridge for way less than the going-rate. I never thought I would be excited about a fridge, but I rather like this one. It's a french door style, full LED-lit interior and control panel, purified water and ice in the door and has a unique dual compressor arrangement (which is nearly silent, btw) so the freezer and refrigerator have completely separate systems. When you open a door and let the cool air out it only has to run one small compressor to cool that side rather than running one large compressor to make up for the lost air. And because the air circulation is separate, the smell of your chicken in the fridge can't pass into the freezer and make your ice taste like chicken. (I like chicken, but chicken-flavored ice is a bit much.) If you need appliances, check out Sears Outlet before you buy anywhere else.

There are two more programs coming up that I would like to be involved in. The Senate is expected to pass a new 'cash for caulkers' program that allows rebates for further energy efficiency upgrades. They will help pay for a tech to come to your house and use FLIR (forward looking infared) to scan your attic and walls for air leaks. I have always wanted to do this because simple and easy to repair air leaks around windows and in HVAC ducting can kill your home's energy efficiency. And next spring the City of Roseville will initiate a new water efficiency program. Their focus is changing out sprinkler heads for new technology that reduces leaks and malfunctions and new sprinkler timers that use a combination of an outside temperature probe and/or soil moisture meters to change irrigation water schedules based on the weather. I would love this since I take extended summertime trips and have to over-water the duration of my absence. The City of Roseville told me that due to this year's cool summer, people's water use was way down over past years. Then we saw three consecutive days over 100-degrees where water use ramped up by nearly 50%. The City staff told me that people never re-adjusted their sprinklers after that event, so water use stayed at those ultra-high levels through the remainder of the summer. The new sprinkler controller technology would prevent such waste.

Beyond the various incentive programs I've been finding that printable online coupons are becoming much more common. I'm talking about coupons for big stuff from places like Home Depot, Lowes, Pier1/World Market, Sears, etc. I'll throw some examples out there--yesterday I used both a sale ad and a 20% off coupon at Harbor Freight to buy a handtruck for moving the refrigerator. None of my friends owned one and U-haul wanted $12/day just to rent one. I paid $31 for a new one at HF. I've been using these coupons at Lowes and Home Depot as well, got nearly half-off on my TV (thanks to a co-worker) and a super deal on photo prints and frames thanks to an online link from my sister.

I know some people disagree with these various economic incentives. I'm going to be one-sided here because I can, but the first time home buyer's rebate likely saved my home from becoming another slum-lord rental house or worse-yet, a vacant bank-owned home waiting to be vandalized. The various energy and water efficiency rebates will reduce my carbon footprint as well as my water and fertilizer use. As energy use rises the utility companies have to make costly investments for new infrastructure, which always have environmental impacts and, as ratepayers, we have to pay for that infrastructure via higher utility rates. I read that if U.S. citizens were to reduce energy consumption by 1% per year, the U.S. could meet its current and future energy needs without building new facilities. These incentives also encourage spending, which helps pump money into the economy that otherwise wouldn't be there.