Getting wired

The cable guy is coming on Thursday afternoon/evening to hook us up with Digital Cable and RoadRunner service. I'm not going to have him do anything overly complex at this point - just get the service online and get my computer(s) hooked up. Because this is our own house, and we have some room to spread out, I can take some time and get a nice setup going, instead of tacking wires to walls and ceilings like I've done in apartments.

My original plan was to make the pantry/laundry room my "server closet" as well. Place the Linux box in there along with the cablemodem and wireless router. However, I'm not sure that we have enough power outlets to run everything the room, and I don't want power strips everywhere. Continuing with that plan, though, I was going to go wireless for my desktop in the back bedroom, and then when spring comes run some Cat5 in conduit out the dryer vent hole (being cut by the plumber next week when he does the rst of the requisite work to move the washer/dryer to the pantry), underground over to the bedroom.

There's good power, and coax, on the kitchen side of the shared wall (above and left of the fridge is a piece of coax where she had her TV), I may be able to pull those through to the other side after punching a hole in the pantry. I don't know that we're going to make use of the power & cable in that kitchen location anyway. If I get desperate, I can always put a splitter inside the wall, with short lengths to either side.

My other idea was to put the equipment in the upstairs front bedroom. It already is wired for cable, and the bathroom extends into the bedroom, creating a shelf (think building-inside-a-building) where I could tuck the computer, router and cablemodem up and out of the way. Plenty of power in that room. But then it's a chore to go do any maintenance right at the physical equipment. And I'll have really long Cat5 runs if I decide to do wired networking anywhere.

On one of my many trips into the basement, I noticed that there's a lot of coax down there, and several splitters in various locations. I may spend a weekend this summer ripping all that out and cleaning up the wiring. Then I can put in one large splitter to handle everything, and when I pull the coax to each room I can pull Cat5 along with it to establish a wired network in the house. Most of the rooms I want to do these runs for already have coax, so I can use the existing cable as a fish line. Just have to work out where the equipment would actually reside.

We have water!

While at Home Depot, I actually asked someone in the plumbing department about my cap situation. He suggested that since it's a short-term item, and I don't care about appearances, I should use a compression fitting and a plug on the end of it.

So I did, and after a false start (not enough Teflon® tape on the plug threads), we've got a solid seal and can use our plumbing.

There's still a Pavlovian response going on though. We're expecting to find it leaking RSN but I'm guessing we're solid at this point. It's a mechanical seal now, not an epoxy/chemical/voodoo solution.

Me make fire!

After a stop at Home Depot and another at Chase-Pitkin tonight, I had 2 new adjustable wrenches and was able to tighten up the gas fittings. Quick check for leaks, plug it in, shimmy it into place and we cooked dinner!

Leaks galore!

After several more JB Kwik applications, I'm still getting a leak from that pipe. Tonight's plan: cut off everything I've done, use a dowel to displace as much water out of the pipe as I can, and try it again. We had to drive back to the townhouse this morning just to take showers.

Tried hooking the stove up last night, still have a very tiny gas leak on the flare connection on the stove. While I'm at the hardware store for the pipe cap (I have one somewhere but I can't locate it - easier to just buy another for 50 cents) I'll pick up some larger open-ended wrenches and/or the right sized adjustable and we'll try to get that finished off.

Yum, plaster & wallpaper

Started serious work on the south wall of the family room today. In many places, the plaster & wallpaper are coming down easy. I figure it's about 50% done already. Plenty more to do, plenty of mess to be made.

Had to empty the Shop-Vac already today. Canister was full and the filter completely clogged.

This isn't good...

Well, we woke up this morning to find that my JB Kwik job had failed - had water coming out of the pipe again. I slapped some more on, and it fixed the leak - but there's another pinhole now. Gonna have to bite the bullet and get the plumber in ASAP to finish off the plumbing.

More demolition?

We hadn't even fully moved everything in and people started taking a hammer to the walls! Once most of the stuff was brought in, a few people started taking a look at the south wall of the family room to check out the drywall situation. Lots of covered-up water damage. Then, someone got the idea in his head that since we were going to drywall over it all anyway, why not take some down and see what's in there.

So, some cutting, some Sawzall action and more, and we're in. What was found:

• The drywall? In really rough shape.
• The stovepipe protruding? Just a very small piece. Rusted, fell right out
• Inside the stovepipe? Adobe. And I don't mean the company that makes Photoshop.
• Behind the drwayll? Brick. No surprise, we know the chimney's there
• Behind the rest of the wall? Studs. Then 5 layers of wallpaper. Then a skimcoat of plaster. Over the original brick, which is in great shape!

New plan: we take the south wall down to brick, clean it up, put a sealer on, and we now have a brick south wall for the family room. A little more work than we had planned, but we can take some of the drywall back now and exchange it for brick sealer and some mortar.

Now, where's that dumpster?

Moved!

Well, 99% of our stuff is in the house and we just spent our first night here. 9 hours of blissful, silent slumber.

The house is a mess right now, and the cats have no shortage of hiding places due to the furniture being in total disarray, but we're here. The cats are working on adjusting but it's hard for them with everything being a mess, plus the demolished family room.