The holes aren’t exactly in the roof. We had a feeling that something bad was hiding behind the aluminum on the fascia and soffits. The contractor suggested we leave it in place, but the gutters were all askew, we were doubtful. Our perseverance resulted in a $5,800 work order. Read addition to the original “fixed price” contract to replace all the existing fascia boards, and wrap the vented soffits with plywood.
The demo on the porch revealed something else we suspected. The porch roof isn’t connected to the house…at all. Whoever built it, just toe nailed the side roof supports to the house. As the workers were pulling off siding around those connections, they discovered that one side is now hanging by one nail and the other is just floating in space. Help. I need 2 x 4s right now! These are holding it up for now and they are going to build a couple of half columns up against the house to carry the load. Don’t even think about the nightmare if that roof had fallen on the head of anyone using our front door over the last ten years. Can you say lawsuit?
Ever seen knob and tube wiring? If you aren’t familiar with it, let me just say a few words. Ungrounded, aluminum, 15 amp, fire hazard. This stuff has got to go. While directly connecting aluminum knob and tube to modern copper wire is a really bad idea – special insulated wire nuts are used to make the connection safely – we are lucky that there is modern wire running to a junction box right at the front porch wall. All we need to replace is a few feet.
Still think there might be some good news? Well there is. Replacing the porch ceiling with new bead board was already planned. It’s a good thing considering what the old ceiling looked like after the workers removed the vinyl that was installed over it. And, this project is allowing us to take an interesting walk through the many colors of the house’s history. Right now, the house is a conventional gray with white trim. However at one time it was apparently robin’s egg blue with dark brown trim. Was this the result of a conscious choice or a paint sale? Guess we will never know.
I’m sure you aren’t as interested in my home improvements as I am, but it is sucking up most of my time. Since I’m neither working on the book nor thinking up great topics for the other blogs, I thought I would share.
After many weeks of crossing and dotting, the City of Atlanta graciously granted us a permit for the repairs we have planned. Why we even need a permit to replace siding and put up new gutters is beyond me. I thought I was a master wordsmith back in my marketing days, but the linguistic maneuvers required to get basic repairs approved is a real art. Contractors actually hire expediters – people who are experienced at running the maze – to help them get building permits in less than a month.
Today the workers started ripping the old vinyl siding off the house. The good news is that we found R11 insulation behind the foam board. That means we have a credit coming from the contractor. We didn’t think there was any insulation in the walls, and were planning to install R13 before adding a plywood sheath, moister barrier, and Hardie Plank siding.
What’s the bad news? If we thought the squirrels had access to the attic space before, they sure do now. Apparently the only thing between the great outdoors and the inside of our attic space was an inch and a half of foam board and some vinyl siding with about half the nails and none of the caulk that should have been there.
And, we are going to have a chance to spend the credit from the insulation on rebuilding spots like this. The contractor originally planned to demo the old siding and put up the new as he went along focusing on completing one side of the house before moving on to the next. Now he has decided he had better demo all of the siding quickly to see what other surprises are in store.
My next challenge is to get a survey of the property. We already have a survey, done ten years ago when we bought the house. However, our expediter tells us that the Bureau of Buildings won’t issue the permit to rebuild our deck and patio without seeing a survey that includes topographical markings.
So I’m headed back to the phones. Maybe I’ll work on the book tomorrow.
Lately I’ve been looking for a way to host hardcopy documents online. Several or my articles about native plants and gardening have been published in magazines, and I wanted to give the public access to the good information available there – with the publisher’s permission of course.
My first thought was that I would just reformat the word document I had submitted to the publisher, and make a new post on the blog. However, after a couple of posts, I decided that the effort was way too time consuming, and the end result was a sad facsimile of the actual glossy magazine spread. At least for the time being, professional layout in a magazine trumps what can be done by amateurs (me) with free tools on the internet.
Next, I decided to scan the actual magazine into a multiple page .pdf file and upload it. The scanning takes just a few minutes, but finding a way to upload the file to my blog was a bit more challenging. I decided I would need to find another location to host these documents, and provide a link from the blog to the host site.
Enter Scribd. A startup from Silicon Valley, Scribd aspires to be a massive library of online documents published by individuals and organizations. Already over a quarter million people are using of this cool tool. Unlike other document sharing tools like Google Docs or the upcoming Microsoft Office Live Workspace, Scribd is not focused on collaboration so much as information distribution.
or embed code here that will display the document. Like this…
Documents can be available for download or not, public or private (viewed only by those you invite) and may be designated as common domain, creative commons license (requires attribution and may have other restrictions such as no commercial reuse), or protected by traditional copyright.
Four ways writers can use this tool
Create an online portfolio for agents and publishers to review
Share a draft with your illustrator, copy editor, readers, etc.
Keep an offsite archive of published documents and works-in-progress in case the house burns down or floods.
Provide your mother with an easy way to show all of her friends how successful you are
The holes aren’t exactly in the roof. We had a feeling that something bad was hiding behind the aluminum on the fascia and soffits. The contractor suggested we leave it in place, but the gutters were all askew, we were doubtful. Our perseverance resulted in a $5,800 work order. Read addition to the original “fixed price” contract to replace all the existing fascia boards, and wrap the vented soffits with plywood. 
The demo on the porch revealed something else we suspected. The porch roof isn’t connected to the house…at all. Whoever built it, just toe nailed the side roof supports to the house. As the workers were pulling off siding around those connections, they discovered that one side is now hanging by one nail and the other is just floating in space. Help. I need 2 x 4s right now! These are holding it up for now and they are going to build a couple of half columns up against the house to carry the load. Don’t even think about the nightmare if that roof had fallen on the head of anyone using our front door over the last ten years. Can you say lawsuit? 
Ever seen knob and tube wiring? If you aren’t familiar with it, let me just say a few words. Ungrounded, aluminum, 15 amp, fire hazard. This stuff has got to go. While directly connecting aluminum knob and tube to modern copper wire is a really bad idea – special insulated wire nuts are used to make the connection safely – we are lucky that there is modern wire running to a junction box right at the front porch wall. All we need to replace is a few feet. 
Still think there might be some good news? Well there is. Replacing the porch ceiling with new bead board was already planned. It’s a good thing considering what the old ceiling looked like after the workers removed the vinyl that was installed over it. And, this project is allowing us to take an interesting walk through the many colors of the house’s history. Right now, the house is a conventional gray with white trim. However at one time it was apparently robin’s egg blue with dark brown trim. Was this the result of a conscious choice or a paint sale? Guess we will never know.
