Crocus'

I hear these are not native, but they sure are beautiful.

Xciting Xperience Xwith Xypex

Well, it wasn't that exciting. I took last Saturday to put up the Xypex HD-150. I ordered 4 twenty-pound tubs for two coats. Opening the Xypex is that it appears to be mostly Cement, and that's where they hide the directions. In my usual way, I didn't bother wearing gloves while mixing and applying the stuff. After two hours and using about 50 pounds of the stuff, I had received a nice chemical peel on my hands. The abrasiveness of the cement I'm sure also helped.

I mixed it in the ratio expressed as 5 parts powder to 2 parts water. This ratio did make a nice brushable solution. My "part" was 16 oz, which used a little less than half of the 20 pound tub, and fits nicely in a 2 gallon pail. The Xypex went on pretty smooth; it's like painting with mortar. So it has a little texture. I could fill the joints between the blocks with a little extra and a trowel. I would use the pump sprayer to moisten the walls then apply the Xypex in sections, maintaining my wet edge.

I've been curing the Xypex by spraying it with water every 4-6 hours. I keep the door and the vents closed as to boost the humidity. Tuesday night will be my last round.

Xypex implies that I might need two coats for concrete block walls. I'm hesitant to do this, as I'm tired of this project, we don't get any standing water in the basement anyways, and I plan to put a basecoat of UGL drylock on the walls next. Apparently I'm supposed to wait 21 days until I can paint.

After moving 50 pounds of the stuff my arm was beat.

Brown Recluse?!?!?!

This is the only spider that I've ever vacuumed that tried to put up a fight.

Please ignore our dining room wall paper.

How to be a 'Man' in the '30s

My wife doesn't like our Dining room light fixture. The original fixture was replaced a few years ago by the PO. Though we have quite a few records from when the house was built, we don't seem to have any information on the old light.

If any one has suggestions for a dining room light that would match a 1939 cape cod would be helpful.

Recently I was looking at old Sears house catalogs. It's very impressive that they had all of these houses "in stock". Is seems that no two are the same inside or out. That's certainly not like the local Dominion or M/I homes, where several layouts and facades are mixed and matched for a given neighborhood.

Reading some of the advertisements of cape cods for ideas I ran across this line, "Men are judged largely by the home they live in. A home like the Milford is a credit to you, your family and every neighborhood."

It's a grind

Of course my efflorescence that I have is primarily Calcite. I've tried TSP ( both fake and real ) and a couple different types of acid, but with all the bushing nothing would remove it effectively. Also the calcite would stay and the cinderblock would be eaten away or marked by the wire brush. I didn't want to do it but I ended up using my trusty 4.5 inch grinder with a wire cup and wheel to grind off the calcite. I put a fan in the window to blow the dust outside and prevent the dist from filtering into the rest of the house. I thought it would take me a couple of hours. Only about 30 blocks needed to be cleaned.

6 hours later I had completed the job and I cleaned up the dust. I put plastic over everything, floor to ceiling. I removed the ceiling plastic first which of course showered more dust down on me. I got smart and sprayed water from the pump sprayer to knock down the dust on the rest of the plastic and rolled it up into the trash. Pretty minimal dust (compared to last time ) I'll be giving the walls a good washing tomorrow and be putting on the first coat of the Xypex hd-150. Well see...

Mold in the Desert

I had noticed lately that my Desert Spring Humidifier has been leaking. I figured it was because of the rigged up way I added a square piece of duct to the round cold air return. I figured the duct was sagging under the weight of the water and mineral deposits. Well it started leaking again this evening. So I thought to clean it out and adjust the float a little. Well, to my horror my humidifier is also full of MOLD! Greasy slimy BLACK MOLD. I've contacted DS to ask what's up. I figure they'll try to sell me an Auto flush for 130 bucks. Might as well throw in an anti scale water filter.

UPDATE 12.6.08: Well I did buy a Auto Flush and it does help. Next I'm going to try putting the disks into the dishwasher to see if that helps.