Say goodbye to the coal chute!

(Or whatever it was.)
Saturday I got busy removing the coal chute so that the foundation could be blocked and stop leaking so much cold air into the basement (right under the heat vent for my bedroom.)
I got all kinds of tools. I thought at first I could do it sort of modified wedge style, by drilling pilot holes and then pounding a chisel into it to force it to crack along a plane.
That theory didn't last too long. The masonry bits I have just weren't really up to the task.
So I sat there and pondered for a little bit and decided the only way this was going to work was to beat it into submission.
I got out my 3 lb hand sledge and an old cold chisel and started beating the snot out of it. One of the corners was already cracked, so that's where I started.

Before - This is an old picture from when I first started trying to get rid of it.
You can see where on the left they had over poured the cement right onto the step.

The corner that was pre-cracked, and the score lines I started.

Sledge and chisel, You can see the vertical cracking coming down from the score lines.

Getting the first chunk out was the worst. Because it's cement, it didn't crack nice and smooth,
so you had to widen the gaps before it would release.

Eventually the crowbar came out. Leverage! It made things a lot easier.
So did the 8 lb long handled sledge hammer that eventually came out to join the party.

The cement carefully chiseled off the granite step.
You can see the pilot holes where this step was cut using feather and wedge.

Before, earlier this summer.

After - No more coal chute. The front is much more symmetrical now.
The two capped pipes are for running the dehumidifer drain line out in the summer,
and an extension cord for season decorations.
Now it just needs another step to go on top of this step (to bring it to code), and the front of the house is good to go.

I just liked the way this pile of tools photographed in the late afternoon light.

When I was done beating up the cement in the front of the house, I gutted the porch. It wasn't all that difficult, as nothing was nailed down very securely. Finding somewhere to put all the stuff that was out on the porch while we're working on it is something of a challenge.
But it all came up or out. There's an old hope chest that was left behind by the last owner that I think I'll re-purpose into a bench for sitting out there to put on your shoes.
Last but not least, the tile for the mudroom and porch came in. Fun times ahead. This will make picking a wall color much easier!

Tile is not light.
1'x2' tile is even less so.

So Busy

Last I left you all, the mold guys were done doing their thing. I had tried to do some yardwork and was defeated by surprise flowers.
Well. I made up for some lost time this past weekend.

Before.
Note the rust at the bottom of the door and sidelights.

During - There's no pictures of the sanding step, but it was in there.
Here I've cleaned the door, masked off a bunch and hit the problem areas with a rust retarder.
Also, filled the pinholes at the bottom with a filler.

During - Sanded down the filler, and hit the door with the first coat of oil based primer,
which promptly gave me a headache.
Subsequent coats were done using my respirator.

The weather stripping around the inside of the door was all shot at the bottoms, so I ripped it out and replaced all of it.

Second coat of primer?

And done! All in, there are 3 coats of the Ben Moore DTM white paint on the sidelights
(left over from the bulkhead) and 2 (3?) coats for Kilz Oil based primer on the door
(which was terrible to work with) and 2 coats of Ben Moore's Exterior grade
in "Prussian Blue" left over from the shed door.

In between coats on the door, which spanned two days, I decided to replace the exterior light. It was an adventure (I still don't know what breaker it's on, but it's on the left side of the box somewhere) and in the end, it was replaced and looks nice.

Pretty! I've since replaced the bulb with one of the fancy looking Edison LED bulbs.
Details, you know?

TaDa!

Now to work on getting a step there to bring that door up to code. There's a place up in the Fitchburg are that has reclaimed slabs of limestone that might look nice for short money. Now that the water isn't pounding on that area (yay gutters!) it's an option. The front of the house just looks so much more handsome now. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. I hope it holds up.

Other things that happened -

Found behind the outside light in the wall. It was loooong ago dead.
But it led to Operation Winter Prep, since the nights are getting colder.

Step one: Operation Winter Prep.
There are seven deployed in the basement, baited with dried cranberries and peanut butter.
I tour them every day or two.

Winter Prep step two: Fill in the hole in the foundation.
Here the frame was still sort of in place. A claw hammer and crowbar later it was gone.

Here I've started to dry fit the rock my coworker friend Erika gave me out of her yard.
They are mostly perfectly sized, I just need to go back for a few more.
I'm also going to get a length of PVC to put through the wall here
so I can still run the dehumidifer out of the house after I mortar it shut.

One of my "mammoth" sunflowers that I planted late, and in a bad location.
The biggest one is about 8", petal to petal, but so perky.

Last night after work I started whacking away at the front yard over grown mess. There are no pictures. It's a disaster of piles of debris. I'm about 1/5 done and that was 2 hours. Maybe I'll take pictures and share that process later.
So far I've uncovered Hosta, Tall Phlox, Rose (Intentional? Not sure?) Iris, ferns (Sensitive and something tall and plumey) - Also Blackberry, Goldenrod, Bittersweet, Grape, and Poison Ivy. I'm trying to leave some of the goldenrod and still-blooming phlox for the bees, but everything else is getting cut back. Just short of scortched-earth is the only way to reclaim this and keep my sanity.

The mold has been mitigated, and the bulkhead painted.

Tuesday I took a day off from work because the Mold Men were coming!
Puroclean sent a two-man crew out and one of them spent a good 5 hours up in that cramped filthy hot attic crawlspace documenting and cleaning. There's no action shots, but they did send me a nice document with some before and after pictures.

The top is before cleaning, the bottom is after.
The profusion of roofing nails made it difficult to get super detailed.

I plied them with gallons of water and a bag of potato chips when they were done. After the bill was taken care of, I had what I'd been waiting for.

(They really need to take my check and get their printer heads cleaned.)

While the nice men were dealing with the issues in my attic, I couldn't just hang out and do nothing. I also didn't want to be underfoot, so I went outside and started cleaning up a flower bed in a funny cement planter that needs to go. I figured I could empty it and back fill it with gravel to create a pad for a generator. I got out all the yard tools and started wacking away at it when I discovered the most curious thing.
Crocuses. In September.

Before

After

Crocus. Actually not a true crocus, but a "Naked Lady"
Autumn Crocus, which is a member of the lily family.

Well. I couldn't be killing these lovely little flowers trying to move them right now, so I had to find something else to do.
I was standing right next to the bulkhead, as seen in the right of the before and after photos.
The kind of rough, a little rusty, in-need-of-love bulkhead doors...

Ok. New plan. Paint the bulkhead.

Scrubbed.

Before. I didn't want the little rust to become big rust.

I love my palm sander. Once of my best purchases.
Took it from course up to fine , paying special attention to the rusty spots.

First coat of white Ben Moore Direct To Metal paint. I remain skeptical.
I had to drill out the handle.

First coat. I rolled it, and it's kind of patchy. I'm not a fan of this whole "Paint + Primer" trend.
I just wind up putting on multiple coats anyway.

Coat number 2 drying a few days later.

After a number of hours of dry time, I through the plastic over it while I went to VT and it was supposed to pour.

New handles! So much cleaner!
Such a crappy picture, making it look like it glows!
(It doesn't glow.)

So that was a nice little project to get out of the way. I have to deal with the poorly painted and pealing flashing above it, but the doors are in better shape now.
Next up will be the front door.
I'm anxious. But it will be ok.

Perky.

Basements, driveways, and mudrooms, oh my!

I was a long weekend for a variety of reasons. But!
I got the basement stairwell as done as ti's going to be:

The paint is a light blue-grey semi-gloss.

Pre-lightswitch plate and railing re-install. The motion sensitive LED battery light is nice.

I've since added back the switchplate and railing. It's as done as it's going to be.

The guys showed up at 8:30 to start sealing my driveway - all 172' of my driveway. I felt they did a really good job, and the end result around 4 pm looked like:

Do not cross for 4 days!

All nice and black!

So that's ticked off the list.

At some point this weekend... Saturday morning? I discovered that the freezer is no longer freezing on my fridge. I lost a bunch of stuff, put the still frozen stuff in a cooler and hoofed it over to a friend's house to stuff in their chest freezer for now. Knowing I was going to have to replace the fridge, and wanting to replace it into the mudroom instead of the kitchen, I started demolishing the mudroom Sunday morning.

Closet doors off.

Shelves can't stay and accmomodate a modern fridge.

The closet was added before the outer wall of the mudroom shifted.

Closet and shelves out. Electric box will need to just be moved.
(That is the cold air intake to nowhere.)

Next up - Remove the rest of the closet shelving/rod parts, fix the walls, pull up the carpet. Try to determine where the electrical comes to that wall from. Try to get the electrical in the wall and not spidering out as a web of conduit. Eventually fix the floor, level things, and get the fridge in this room.

The idea is to put the fridge and a stacking washer/dryer on that back wall next to each other. I know putting a dryer basically on top of a refrigerator is a bad idea, but there's precious little room in this house to accommodate both. I might start with a washer and do a lot of line drying (eventually).

Basement stairwell walls

Last night I sanded down the walls to figure out where the high spots were, and slapped some more spackle on the divots and holes.

Left side - Fixing up pretty nicely, actually.
One more sand and this one should be good enough to prime.

Right side - this side is a bigger pain in the next because the rail is in the way, and there was more damage.
The patch above and around the light switch is slowly getting better.
This side will need another round of spackle and sanding before priming.

Stay out!

That last picture is from where the wall of the right side of the stairwell joins the stairs above. It's the most amusing, ridiculous thing. The hole is maybe 7-8" long, and maybe 3" high, and blocked with 4 large framing nails (?).
I'm not entirely sure what we're keeping out (or in). Mice would dance right through the gaps. Rats? (Have seen no evidence of rats.) Squirrels? Cats? Wombats? A rogue wallaby?
I don't know, but I'm leaving it alone as a point of interest.

Not much of a visual difference, but I'm puttering away on it.

When I'm allowed too, anyway.
Good thing it's hot, she's not all over me for my lap right now.