Monthly Archives: September 2024

20240826-27_Tenor-Clock_MEF2

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NOTE:  There are four (4) photos, with captions, in this moderate length post.

 

Monday 26 & Tuesday 27 August 2024 — Clocks, tanks, colors, and furniture

 

Monday 26 … It’s about time (clocks and septic tanks)

Glenn Williams, the owner of Tenor Clock, arrived right at the appointed time and carefully carried the mechanism for our grand-father clock in from his car.  He explained what he had to do to clean and repair it.  Besides cleaning off the oil that I had incorrectly applied to gears and some other parts, he replaced quite a few tiny (sleeve) bearings.  He had the mechanism mounted on a stand in his home workshop and had adjusted the pendulum to keep time.  He also adjusted the winding mechanisms for the three weights so that I could not overwind them and cause them to jam.  He then set to work re-installing it in the case.  Once mounted, with the pendulum and weights hung, he made fine adjustments to the clock hands and to the strikers for the chimes to get them to sound just right.  (It’s a Westminster Chimes set.)  The chimes now sound precisely at the quarter hours as they should and sound wonderful.  True to his original estimate, it had taken about two (2) months for him to fit this into his work flow.  We were happy to wait, but equally glad to have the clock back in working order.

Sometime during the day, I called Ewers Septic Service to arrange the pump-out of our two septic tanks.  Based on my last conversation with Phil Jarrell, our driveway/septic/foundation/grading contractor, I knew we were overdue to have this done.  The women I spoke to at Ewers reinforced that we were waaaay overdue.  I promised to do better in the future.

 

Tuesday 27 … A visit with our interior design consultant (daughter); staging a furniture donation for the local HfH ReStore

Our daughter (Meghan) came over during the morning and spent several hours helping us with interior design issues.  She has done a lot of remodeling on their house, and well-acquainted with many websites for design ideas, materials, furniture, lighting, and appliances.

Top of the list was choosing a color (stain) for our red oak floors.  We want them stained darker, but not too dark, but figuring out the correct tone/tint (warm, neutral, cold) relative to our existing hickory cabinets was proving to be a challenge.  Added to the mix was that we would be getting new dining room furniture and were trying to arrive at a style, shape, material, and color that would work well with the existing kitchen cabinets, appliances, and refinished floor.  Here is what we were considering:

Existing floor (red oak) and kitchen cabinet (hickory) framed by dishwasher (white, left) and range (white, right) with the floor sample we like (dark, large, Superior Red Oak with Praline finish) from Michigan Hardwood Distributor) and the table wood (hard Maple) and finish (not sure of the name) we are considering.

BdW guest Bonnie & Randy D were scheduled to leave tomorrow but left today instead.  They had found a buyer for their motorhome and today was the handover to the new owner.  This was set to take place at a credit union in Brighton, where money, title, and keys would be exchanged.  They would then check-in to a suites motel in town for about a week until the closing date for the house they had purchased.  For most of the time there were staying on our property they were cleaning out the MH and moving their possessions into a storage locker in town.  Their activities were never intrusive, even the day the RV inspector was here (most of the day), and we were glad that they stay worked out well for them.

Tuesday is grass-mowing day so, as usual, Keith was here.

After Meghan left, I moved the F-150 out of the large bay of the garage to make room for the dining room furniture we were donating to the Habitat for Humanity (HfH) ReStore nearby.  The buffet/China cabinet was especially difficult to move.  Even with the drawers and custom glass top removed it was still heavy and awkward to handle.  But we got it done as shown in the following photo:

The DR buffet/China cabinet and drawers in the garage, waiting to be picked up by the local HfH ReStore.  The DR table and chairs have yet to be moved to the garage.

 

With the Bassett DR furniture moved to the garage, we set up our folding card table and brought up the three folding chairs (with padded seats) from the basement.  Linda is seated at the table, which is not directly under the pendant light, as we think the proper location for the new table will be slightly to the left (north) of the existing light fixture.  Here’s a photo:

The dining room area looks very spacious without its usual furniture, but it is not that large of a space and we will have to be very thoughtful about what we put in here next in order to ensure good traffic flow with adequate clearance around the DR table.  The DR table sits at the intersection of the kitchen (with its door from the library/garage), doorwall to the deck, Linda’s desk (to the left of the refrigerator) and the hallway/foyer (to the bedrooms, and front door / basement stairs, and living room).

Here’s another photo over the color and wood grain palette we are considering:

Existing red oak floor, proposed floor color (large, dark sample of Superior Red Oak with Praline finish), proposed DR table sample (hard maple /warm brown) and fan-pack of stain sample photos on red oak.

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20240823-25_BdW_AAF_BAF-et-al

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NOTE:  This post has two (2) photos, with captions, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

FRIDAY 23 thru SUNDAY 25 August 2024 — BdW; AAF/AG(AA); A visit with Family

 

Friday 23 … A BdW guest leaves, and another one arrives; my sister has a birthday; and our painter stops by to chat.

Today was my (Bruce’s) sisters 69th birthday.  Happy birthday, sis!

BdW guest Shannen J. left early this morning, headed for points east, specifically Cuyahoga Valley National Park near Cleveland, Oho.

Our painter, Jim Pipoly, stopped by for pre-arranged chat concerning mobile communications options.  Jim knew we were “hams” (amateur radio operators) and figured I might know something about this.  Well, yes and no.  I know a few things, but there are a lot of things with which I am not very familiar.  Our discussion ranged from walkie-talkies and Citizens-Band (CB) radios to Family Mobile Radio Service (FMRS, which requires registration), General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS, which requires an easily obtained license), and amateur (ham) radio (which has several levels of licensing, each requiring a passing score on a written test).  We also talked about short-wave radio, as a way to receive information from all over the globe.

While Jim was here, we also discussed possible painting projects, both inside and outside.  The inside project would involve patching and touching up paint that has been, or will be, damaged as we prepare the oak floor for refinishing, and that work gets accomplished.  The major outside project is cleaning and re-staining the decks on the back of the house.

We were still chatting with Jim when BdW guests Bonnie &  Jimmy D. called to say they were 30 minutes out.  They arrived on time and called from the end of our street.  I met them by our first driveway entrance and guided them into our guest RV site.  They are scheduled to be here for five (5) nights.

 

Saturday 24 … A BdW guest leaves and another one arrives.  We visit Ann Arbor to look at DR furniture, and swing by our son’s house to visit with his family

We had our usual morning coffee and a light breakfast and then conferred with our son about his family’s plans for the day.  We drove to Ann Arbor (AA) to visit the AllAboutFurniture Amish Gallery (AAF/AG) store and see if they had the dining room table we thought we might be interested in, as seen on their website.  It was also a chance to ask questions about wood, color, and finish choices, customization options, prices, and delivery times.

The table that interested us was the Seymour, a 54” diameter round, extendable, dining table that would become a 78” x 54” “racetrack” shape table with the addition of two (2) 12” rectangular leaves.  A single leaf would make it a 66” x 54” racetrack shape.  Our interest was finding a table that was just big enough for the two us (98% of the time) while not crowding our dining room and providing for unrestricted flow between the kitchen, dining table, rear doorwall, buffet, entry foyer, and hallway.  But, we also needed it to expand to seat eight (8) people comfortably while still not restricting movement through the space.  A round extension table seemed like just the thing to meet our requirements.

They did not have the Seymour in the showroom, but had one that was very similar, the Julia.  It was also nice, and the salesman (Mark) thought it was a slightly better made product, but it differed in some minor aesthetic details that were important to us.  AAF/AG has relationships with many Amish furniture/cabinet makers in Indiana and elsewhere, and most of their products have to be ordered.  Delivery time for either table would be 12 – 14 weeks from when the order was placed, with something like 50% down.

The table was paired with a chair (Mariana) that we really liked.  The back was low, it mirrored the shape of the table legs, and had a comfortable (padded/fabric) seat in a fabric that we liked, and did not have a fabric back (Linda does NOT want a fabric-backed chair).  We made note of the name and clarified available woods and finishes.  The one on the floor was Brown Maple with a Tavern 10 Sheen finish and C2-39 Birch fabric for the seat.  We also looked at a buffet/sideboard that might work well with either table, and made note of that as well.  Mark wrote up a quote for us to take home and ponder.

When we were done at the furniture store, we went to our son’s house to visit.  The grand-daughters start school on Monday, and we will not really be able to host visitors at our house until the floor refinishing project is done, which includes removing the railing for the basement stairs for the duration of the project, repairing drywall (patched and painted), and then installing a new (Cable Bullet) stair railing as well as putting furniture and appliances back in place and re-connecting the later.

The front portion of the wine refrigerator as seen from above with one of the racks pulled all the way out so I can photograph the bottles on that rack before removing them for transport to the basement.

Back home, we moved the wine refrigerator to the basement.  This was one of the three appliances sitting on the oak floor that had to be put somewhere else while the refinishing work was being done.  We don’t access it every day and decided it could just live in the basement going forward.  It was fairly full, so I unplugged it and unloaded all the bottles.  The bottle racks in this wine refrigerator have extension slides, the bottles can be completely revealed.  I removed the bottles one rack at a time and photographed each rack before removing them.

We moved all of the wine bottles to the basement, keeping them organized by rack as best we could.  We then moved the wine refrigerator down the basement stairs using a dolly.  As seen in the following photograph, the wine refrigerator is short, just under waist high on me, and was not too heavy.  We positioned it at one end of our “L-shaped” bar because it fit there nicely, and there was already a 120VAC/15A receptacle at that location.

 

Sunday 25 … Need to figure out what we did today

The wine refrigerator in its new location in the basement at one end of our L-shaped bar, with all of the bottles put back on the same racks, and in the same locations, where they were previously stored.  You know … because.  (Paintings behind the bar is part of our “dead relatives gallery,” all from my side of the family.)

 

 

 

Since I have no notes from today, and there is nothing on our calendar, I presume we took the day off and relaxed a bit.  We had been working hard in recent days, and we deserved a break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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20240821-22_BdW_projects_friends-for-dinner

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NOTE:  This is a longish post.  It has one (1) photo, with caption, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

WEDNESDAY 21 & THURSDAY 22 August 2024 — BdW; Flooring, furniture, & new UPS; friends for dinner; fixing the garage door

 

Wednesday 21 … BdW guests sell their MH; Preparing food for dinner with friends

Tammy (RAMTAM19) messaged us to lets us know that they had sold the unit and the new owners would be taking possession of it today, assuming the money transfer occurred without any issues.  I visited with Tammy & Randy briefly, and then left them to their tasks as they were in the final stages of emptying out their motorhome and putting things in storage locally.  They are closing on a house in a week, and plan to stay in a local suites motel until then.  They are from this area, and have adult children who still live within a reasonable distance of Brighton, so our BdW site has been a good, central location for them to deal with the sale of their rig and visit with their children and grandchildren.  Their stay request had them leaving on Friday morning, but they will be leaving early, which is never a problem.

I put out food for the wildlife that frequents our property and then returned to inside work.  Our first task was to remove the paper we had taped to the floor yesterday to help us visualize a round dining room table of several different diameters, located directly under the existing dining room pendant light fixture.

Linda spent the morning and early afternoon preparing food for this evening and doing some final house cleaning.  She also helped me get a few measurements to locate the point on the floor directly under the dining room light fixture.  With that information, I added a 54” diameter round table to the QCAD drawing of the hardwood floor area of the main floor of the house.  I also drew the table in it’s extended (oval/race-track) configuration, and added the refrigerator, Linda’s desk, and sideboard to give us a visual and measured indication of how the table would fit in the space.

John and Diane arrived around 3:30 for a visit and dinner.  They brought a nice wine.

 

Thursday 22 … Moving the desk; mounting networking and power components on the wall; a BdW guest arrives; and fixing the new/small garage door

With the new UPS in hand, we cleaned off the top of Linda’s desk (computer, printer, adding machine, and Lamp) and moved everything onto our bed.  We then emptied Linda’s desk and moved it to our bedroom, which she had previously cleaned and rearranged slightly.  The top of the desk was not attached to the base cabinets, but they were joined together by the center drawer assembly.  I looked at disconnecting the center drawer assembly and decided it would be more pain than gain.  We took out the six (6) drawers, 3 from each base unit, and the center drawer, so we had 10 pieces in all to move and reassemble.  Plus the large UPS, of course, but I could not move it until I had mounted the new/small UPS to the wall and moved the power connection for the network switch.

Before we disassembled an moved the desk, I marked out the open space between the drawer boxes and the top/center drawer on the wall with blue painters’ tape.  The top, box drawers, and center drawer have been removed and temporarily placed in the bedrooms.  The boxes will be moved to our bedroom and the desk reassembled in front of the doorwall opposite the foot of our bed.  It will live there until the oak flooring is refinished and then be put back in its normal location next to the refrigerator in the kitchen/dining part of the house.

I selected the new UPS in part because it has keyhole slots on the back to allow wall mounting, or anyplace that supports a VESA 100mm mounting pattern.  I mounted it on the wall in the area between the two desk pedestals, which I had marked out with painter’s tape before we moved the desk.    I then moved the small network switch into the same area and bundled up the data and power cables to keep them up away from the floor.  This area is above and either side of the duplex receptacle and networking outlet box, so a good location for the switch and UPS.  This arrangement will remain when we move Linda’s desk back into its permanent position.  The small UPS for the network switch will be on at all time, but we can switch off the big one if/when we are away.

Around mid-afternoon, BdW guest Shannen J. arrived with her dog, Jack.  ABIR a couple of weeks later, Jack was a spirited yellow Labrador Retriever.  They were here for a 1-night stay.

Dan (Everlast Doors) showed up at 16:30 to fix the smaller garage door.  This involved several things.  First, he unplugged the motor-operator from AC power disconnected the spring-loaded drive shaft (mechanic release), and manually released the deadbolt, allowing him to move the door a bit and see what it was doing.  He moved the shaft and got the lift cable on the operator side back on to the pulley.  He then reattached the vertical track on the opposite side to the front wall, using molly anchors, and got the twist out of it.  This wall is just 1/2″ chip board and the original screws, which were not in 2×4’s underneath, did not hold.  He also adjusted the horizontal tracks near the ceiling to remove any twist and make them parallel and the correct distance apart.  This required some “adjustment” of the angle irons that protrude from the ceiling drywall, which were left over from the original door installation(s).  Operator re-engaged, power ON, raise and lower the door and make any final, minor adjustments.

With the door working correctly, Dan then installed two additional LED light fixtures on the east side of the ceiling for the larger bay.  He paired one of them with the operator for the large garage door and the other one with the operator for the small garage door.  With the addition of these two lights, which are plugged in to 120VAC power but wirelessly controlled by their respective door operators, whenever either door is opened we now have light between our vehicles and between the truck and the door to the library.  He was here for several hours.

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20240820_Can-you-hear-me-now

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NOTE:  This is a longer post with one (1) photo, with caption, taken by me using a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

TUESDAY 20 August 2024 — An audiology appointment (Bruce); An RV inspector; flooring, furniture & railing decisions; another UPS; garage doors; a ZOOM call; and the DNC on PBS

The RV inspector arrived before I left for my 10:30 AM audiology appointment at the UofM Health Brighton Center for Specialty Care.  The audiologist (Sheri) was great, and it was a pleasant/interesting experience.  I’ve had my hearing tested before, but it’s been quite a while, so I no longer recall when or where it was done, or what the results were.  Today’s testing included examining the movement of both eardrums before testing my detection thresholds (faintest sound I could detect at various frequencies).  It also included a test of bone conduction and my ability to correctly identify spoken words from a recorded male voice.  The bone conduction test was interesting to me because Linda had a BAHA (bone anchored hearing apparatus) before she got her Cochlear implant, and I have recently seen ads on Youtube for headsets that rest on the bone in front of the ear rather than in the ear canal.

My hearing in both ears was in the “normal” range up to about  5 or 6 KHz (5,000 to 6,000 cycles per second), and about the same for each ear.  I do not know, however, if “normal” was an age-adjusted metric.  From 6 KHz – 8 KHz, my threshold increased in volume for both ears, with one of them slightly more affected than the other.  A graph of the data was displayed on a monitor in the soundproof booth and Sheri explained what it meant.  The upper end of the frequency scale was 12 KHz, but my hearing was only tested up to about 10 KHz.  I am not a strong candidate for hearing aids (frequency selective amplification devices) at this point, but might benefit from them in certain circumstances, and might need them all the time in the future.

I was aware that “normal” age-related hearing loss affects the highest frequencies first, so the results were not surprising.  When I was a teenager, and probably into my 20’s and 30’s, I was able to hear sounds as high as 20 KHz.  This was important for the full enjoyment of music, which was the major focus of my life from ages 10 to 21.  Music still sounds fine to me (which is not the case for Linda), but that is no longer a major concern.  My hearing is still good in the frequency range for human speech, although the roll-off in higher frequencies would affect my ability to understand females more than males.

Sheri suggested I return in one year and have my hearing tested again.  Not that she expects my hearing to change much in just one year (barring an accident or illness), but today’s measurements will only provide a baseline for future data.  Two measurements will identify if my hearing is changing and. If so, by how much.  When I was doing data analysis work as part of my last employment, conventional wisdom was that it takes a minimum of three data points to establish a trend, and more points are better, so I might go back again in two years, or perhaps skip a couple of years before testing again after next year.  But that will also depend on what the audiologist recommends after each visit.

On the way home, it occurred to me that we might want to go ahead and donate our dining room table and (4) chairs, along with the buffet cabinet, to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore sooner rather than later.  We have been discussing this for a while and had already started looking at possible replacement furniture, but the new insight was that donating it now would mean we did not have to find someplace in the house to store it while the oak floor was being refinished (in October).  Linda was onboard with the idea, so I called the local HfH office when I got home and left a message.  They called back and indicated they were approximately two weeks out for donation pickups, and that someone would call next week to set up a date.  I was reminded that all items needed to be in the front of a garage or outside; their employees will not come in the house to collect items.

Keith arrived to mow the property while I was at my appointment.  It was a nice day for mowing and, as usual, he did a great job.

Some wonderful fungi growing on the north side of the base of the large oak tree by our first driveway entrance.  I’m not sure exactly what they are, so I do not know if they are technically mushrooms.

The new Tripp-lite UPS & surge protector arrived today, several days after Amazon originally said it would be delivered.  To be fair, they provided updates on the delivery date.  I unboxed it and plugged it in to let the battery fully charge.  It is NOT a LFP unit, using an SLA (sealed lead-acid) battery instead.  The instructions said it could be mounted vertically on a wall, however, which was our use case.  The battery is easy to replace, and are available from EATON, which owns Tripp-lite.

This is a smaller, less powerful, unit than the big ones we have, but will be more than sufficient for running the small network switch that is mounted on the wall by Linda’s desk.  That switch is currently powered by the large Tripp-lite UPS that also powers her laptop computer, calculator, and the small canon ink-jet printer that she keeps on her desk.  The reason for the new UPS is that we are going to temporarily move her desk into our bedroom while the hardwood floor is being refinished, and the large UPS has to move with it.  The small switch will remain by her normal desk location, and needs UPS protection to avoid network interruptions from a loss of utility power.  Indeed, all network-related components in our house are plugged into UPS units, as are all computers, monitors, printers, the Synology NAS unit, and most of the media equipment.  We also have a whole-house generator, but it takes a few seconds to start and come online once it detects a loss of utility power, so the UPS units fill the gap, and provide power for some amount of time in the event the generator fails to start.

I had the garage doors open for much of the day to air out the space and let it cool off.  The high temperature today never reached 70 deg F, and we have a string of 3 to 4 nights coming up with lows in the 40’s.  That’s early fall weather for our part of the country, but we’ll take it.  We will be well up into the 80’s again by the weekend, so summer is not over yet.

When I closed the small garage door it stopped and went back up.  I pushed the button again and it went almost all the way down and then came back up.  I tried a 3rd time to close it and it went most of the way down, stopped, and jammed.  Whaaat?  I examined it and discovered that the vertical track on one side (opposite the motor operator side) had come loose from the wall and twisted.  I also noticed that the lift cable on the end by the motor operator had come out of its pulley wheel and started to wrap around the spring shaft.  Nothing for me to do at that point other than text Dan (Everlast Doors) and let him know.  He texted me back quickly and said he could be here around 7:30 PM.  While I thought it would wait until tomorrow, he was concerned that the garage was not secure as the bottom edge of the door was not touching the floor.

Linda set up a 5:30 PM ZOOM call with Paul & Nancy.  We had a good chat, and it was fun, as usual.  After dinner we watched the PBS coverage of the Democratic National Convention.

Dan showed up when he said he would.  He disconnected the door from the motor operator (there’s a pull cord for this), got the door unjammed,  got the lift cable back on its pulley wheel, and got the door all the way up.  I then moved Linda’s car outside.  He lowered the door onto the floor manually, I set the deadbolt latch manually, and the garage was secure for the night.  He offered to return tomorrow to fix everything correctly, but Thursday was better for us, and turned out to be better for him as well.  Until then, Linda’s car would live outside, which has for most of the time we’ve owned it.

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20240818-19_A-busy-2-days

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NOTE:  This post has one (1) photo w/ caption, taken by me (Bruce ) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

SUNDAY 18 and Monday 19 August 2024 — Visitation for K8UT/SK, a ZOOM meeting, a flooring decision, BdW activity, and the DNC.

 

Sunday 18 … Visitation for K8UT/SK

We had a well-deserved relaxing morning.  Breakfast was scrambled “Just Egg” served open-faced on top of a slice of a lightly-toasted piece of bread with a slice of lightly-melted non-dairy cheese.  We split a grapefruit, but it was not very good.  The one’s we have had recently excellent, but smaller than today’s, which was large but dry, tasteless, not sweet, and had a strange texture.  That probably meant it was too old, but might also reflect the growing conditions and when it was harvested.

In the afternoon I went to the Keehn-Griffin Funeral Home in Brighton for Larry G.’s (K8UT/SK) visitation.  (K8UT was his amateur radio call sign and /SK indicates “silent key,” as in no longer operating a key for sending Morse code.  It’s the ham radio community’s way of indicating that some has passed.)  I was going to leave around 1400 local time, but it started raining heavily as I was preparing to go.  (“Chucking it down” as I often hear in Youtube videos from the British Isles.)  I actually left at 14:45.  There were quite a few people there, but only a few that I knew from the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC).  Display boards were set up highlighting Larry’s interests and accomplishments, which were varied and significant.  As is often the case with someone I only knew through a specific hobby interest, he had led a full, rich life that I was largely unaware of, and was well-represented by the other people in attendance.

Back home, I worked at my desk until dinnertime.  Linda prepared cauliflower gnocchi with mushrooms, onions, vegan sausage, and arrabbiata sauce.  So good.  After dinner we reviewed documents from our financial advisors in preparation for a ZOOM meeting tomorrow morning.

 

Monday 19 … A financial advisor meeting, and floor refinishing decision, BdW guest activity, starting to move things off of the hardwood floors, and the DNC on PBS

During the morning, we had a ZOOM meeting with one of our financial advisors.  Our investment objectives are well defined but there’s always something to discuss and decisions to make.  In this case, we made a couple of decisions about RMDs from IRA accounts.

With the meeting concluded, I called Christine, the owner of Boardwalk Floors in Milford, to let her know that we wanted to use her company for our hardwood floor refinishing project.  She was glad to hear that and comparing our calendars, we agreed on Monday, October 14 (this year) to start the work.  It should be done by Friday the 18th, but if it runs over into the following week it will still work for us.  We will get a deposit to her a couple of weeks in advance of the start date.

We have moved the dining room table out of the way, taped two pieces of paper to the floor, and marked the outer edge of a 54” diameter table, centered under the existing light fixture.  We have positioned four of our existing placements to see how they would work with a round table of this size.  Not very well, as it turned out.  That led to an online search which quickly revealed the existence of placements with a curved edge and sides that taper in toward the center of the table.  We are often surprised at the things that exist, but that have never crossed our minds, because we had no need to know about them until we did.

We took some time in the afternoon to mark out three sizes of round dining room table, 48”, 54”, and 60” diameters, on the dining room floor using paper and painter’s tape.  We are considering such a table with an extension feature of up to 2 feet.  We quickly agreed that the 48” size, when extended, would be too small to seat eight (8) people.  I liked the 60” size, which would easily accommodate a party of 8, but Linda felt that the table, in its round configuration, was too large for the space for everyday use.  I ultimately had to agree, and we settled on the 54” diameter as the right size after confirming that it would still seat 8 people in reasonable comfort.

Part of our discussion regarding the size and placement of a round dining room table had to do with the single outlet box that powers the ceiling light fixture for our dining room table.  I wanted to avoid having to alter the location of the outlet box, but was concerned about providing good lighting for both the round and extended (oval/race-track) configurations.  We did not come up with a definitive solution, but I was satisfied that we could figure out something that worked.

We noticed that our current BdW guests, RAMTAM19, were busy moving things out of their motorhome, but I didn’t want to bother them to ask why.  They messaged us at some point to let us know that they had a potential buyer for their motorhome, and ask if it would be okay for an RV inspector to come to our property tomorrow to inspect their rig.  We were okay with that, of course, but appreciated being asked first.

After dinner we watched the DNC convention coverage on PBS.

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20240817_Lots-of-balls-in-the-air

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NOTE:  This is a longish post with no photos.

 

SATURDAY 17 August 2024 — BdW guests leave & arrive, overseas travel planning, wood floor refinishing, DR furniture donation (HfH), ACI CPP via HH/BW, e-waste recycling and UofM Health.

Mike & Sheila came to front door to thank us for hosting them and say “farewell until next time” before pulling out.  Not long after they left I got a call from our Ontario, CA friend and fellow bus nut, Bill G.  I had commented to Linda several times over the last week or so that I needed to call Bill (and Marty, and Ed), but he beat me too it.  This happens a lot.  We had a nice/long chat, mostly about house/shop projects and cruising.  He and Karen have been going on at least an annual (January) cruise for years and are much more experienced cruisers than we are.  They have mostly sailed on Royal Caribbean, so they have a lot of loyalty points, but they are doing a Princess Cruise Lines repositioning cruise in the spring of 2026 from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Southampton, England because Royal Caribbean does not offer a similar cruise.  We will have to check the PCL website, but it sounds like the same cruise we are doing in the spring of 2025, with perhaps slightly different ports-of-call on the European continent.

After the phone call, Linda helped me load the electronics we were recycling into the back of the F-150 and drove to the county e-Waste recycling location.  The line was short, and I was in and out in very reasonable amount of time.  On the drive out of the facility, the line of vehicles coming in was backed up all the way to road, a considerable distance.  Timing is everything, and good luck helps a lot.

When I got back home, Linda and I had a long conversation about the floor refinishing project and its implications for the house and our ability to use it while the work was ongoing.  She has wanted to replace the dining room table and buffet/sideboard for a while now.  They are matching pieces to the living room and recreation room furniture that we have already donated to the local Habitat for Humanity (HfH) ReStore.  Most of our bedroom furniture is also from this same Bassett Mission-style product line.  We bought all of it the J.C. Penny store in NOVI, Michigan many, many years ago.  We still like it, but we have gotten our use out of it and are ready to pass it on to some who can use it, and getting something different for our house.

There are quite a few things we have to do before the floor refinishing work commences, and a few things we have to do after it is completed.  It was time to make a list.  The decision to donate the furniture, for instance, was a result of thinking about this task list.  By donating it we won’t have to find a place to store it.  And, we won’t need to replace it until after the floor project is done.  Genius.  This decision, of course, led us into an online search for a new dining table and buffet/sideboard.  More to come on that in future blog posts.

We have been in this house for just over 11 years, and plan to still be here for more years than that.  The recent flurry  of projects is motivated by wanting to refresh and improve things now, so we can enjoy them for many years, but still have the house and appliances in nice condition if/when we decide we want/need to sell.

While we were working on task list, BdW guest RamTam19 (Randy and Tammy B.) showed up.  They were our first visitors this year (April 16), so they just pulled in and parked in our guest RV site.  Normally I have people stop in the street but they new just what to do and just went ahead and did it.  No problem, in this case.  I went out to help get them into final position.  It was starting to rain, so we only chatted briefly and I left them to make camp.  They will be here for 5 nights, so I hope we have some good weather and get a chance to chat.

I got a reply from Kathy G. regarding the ACI/HH CPP system.  She was on vacation, but replied promptly.  While not necessary, it was appreciated.  She indicated that she was meeting with the ACI Executive Director and the HH software team on Wednesday, and would share my e-mail with them.  I replied to her e-mail, and reiterated the details of an unresolved concern regarding the logic of the BdW stay request system.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on blog posts, and e-mail.  I received an e-mail a few days ago about the passing of a long-time member of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC), Larry G.   Larry (K8UT/SK) was a technical superstar, especially with computer networking, a highly skilled operator, and an important contributor to the Ham radio hobby in SE lower Michigan.  I received an e-mail today with the visitation information (tomorrow) and funeral Mass details (Monday).

Earlier in the day I got a message from UofM Health reminding me to check in for my upcoming audiology appointment on Tuesday.  I don’t think I have any serious hearing issues, but my new primary care physician in the UofM-H geriatric clinic sort of indicated that he would like a baseline measurement.  It’s been a long time since I have had my hearing tested, so this seemed like a good idea, even though insurance won’t cover it.  While logged in to do the check-in, I also checked for any new invoices or outstanding balances.  I did not have any.  Linda does a great job keeping our bills paid, as long as she knows about them.

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20240815-16_Lots-Happening

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THURSDAY 15 and FRIDAY 16 August 2024 — BdW guests, oak floor, ACI addition to HH/BW

 

Thursday 15 … Deep-cleaning, wood floor refinishing project planning, blog work, and BdW guests

Mike & Sheila returned to Greenfield Village today (in Dearborn) and visited The Henry Ford (Henry Ford Museum).

Linda continued deep-cleaning, turning her attention to the cabinets in the hall and master bathrooms.  She was on a mission.  I spent most of the day at my desk working on blog posts.

As part of refinishing the oak floors in the house, we want to remove the existing railing around the basement stairwell and replace it with something more attractive.  The product that we would like to use is Cable Bullet.  It’s a clever system that uses stainless steel cables, installed horizontally or vertically, between/through posts, and includes a tensioning system.  The posts can be wood (existing or new) or metal, which can be purchase from the company, along with top handrails.  The product can be used inside or outside, and even on stairs.

Linda revisited the Cable Bullet website and saw that they supply online estimates, but you have to submit a sketch of your project; limit 10 MB.  No problem.  They will accept a hand -drawn sketch, but why would I do that when I have CAD software?  I wouldn’t, of course, so I started working on a simple CAD layout of this project.  I had already done a CAD layout for the floor refinishing, so I simply reused that portion of the drawing, which was already to scale.  I eliminated all unnecessary details, and added necessary ones specific to the railing.

FedEx delivered the replacement hinges for Mike & Sheila’s Dometic refrigerator.  The hinge that holds the bottom of the upper/freezer door and the top of the bottom/refrigerator door, broke in half while they were driving to our house.  The only place they could locate a replacement part was Panther RV in Washington State.  They had it shipped FedEx 2-day, and it arrived this afternoon.  They got back from The Henry Ford (Museum) in Dearborn around dinner time, and came over to chat, but it was a shorter visit as they were tired.

 

Friday 16 … Different day, same stuff as yesterday

Linda spent most of the day on her deep-cleaning / reorganizing project, and I did a load of laundry while working at my desk.  First up was finishing the CAD drawing for the Cable Bullet railing estimate.  I saved it as a PDF, which turned out to be 27 KB file, much smaller than the 10 MB limit.  To upload it, however, I had to go through a whole series of options and specify my “design” choices.  I had not really studied the complete product line enough to know exactly what we wanted, but I was only interested at this point in an approximate cost, so I consulted with Linda and we made choices that were probably close to what we will actually want.  I received confirmation that the request for estimate was submitted successfully and waited for a reply.  My understanding was that an actual person would review what I submitted and assemble the quote.  The company is based in Indiana, which gave it a nice, local touch.

In light of the-mail I received on the 13th from the Airstream Club International (ACI) about the immanent release of the ACI/HH CPP joint venture, I e-mailed Kathy G, the ACI coordinator for the project, to ask a few questions and reiterate a few concerns regarding just how this will work for existing Boondockers Welcome hosts.

I spent the rest of day working on blog posts, doing final clean ups and adding to the one for this week.

Mike & Sheila were due to depart tomorrow, and came over after dinner for a long chat, a lot of which was about travel.  They were headed “up North” (northern lower peninsula) from here, with numerous stops planned in nice areas.  They would then cross the Mackinaw Bridge into the U.P. (Upper Peninsula and head west through Michigan, with a detour up to Copper Harbor, before going through Wisconsin and into northern Minnesota.  They will be doing much of this trip in September, which should be a beautiful (and cool, literally) time to be there.

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20240814_flooring

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WEDNESDAY 14 August 2024 — Hardwood floor refinishing

 Christine, the owner of Boardwalk Floors (Milford), arrived promptly at 10 AM to look at our oak floor refinishing project.  Another experienced and knowledgeable business owner, she understood quickly what we wanted to accomplish with the project, and made several suggestions that we had not previously received.  She e-mailed her estimate (quote?) that afternoon.

One of the things we heard from all three of the flooring contractors we met with was that the refrigerator and range have to be removed from the space before the work begins.  The range is natural gas, so it will just have to sit somewhere (inside the house) until it is re-installed.  There’s no room in the garage at the moment, so it will probably end up in the living room.  We have a corner in the living room with a duplex 120VAC/15A receptacle where the refrigerator can sit and be plugged in so we can use it.  We won’t have chilled water or ice, but we will survive without them.  We will be responsible for having the appliances removed and re-installed, and will hire someone to do this work.

Heritage Hardwood Floors and Boardwalk both indicated that the second half of October would work well for them.  Functional Floors indicated that they could do the work later this month or in September, but October would be fine with them as well.  This month seemed too quick for us, and we will be traveling from mid-late September to early October, so we are looking at Monday, October 14 as a possible start date.  All three companies indicated that this would be at least a 1-week job, and their intention would be to start on Monday and have it done by the end of the day on Friday.

While the work is ongoing, and for about a week afterwards, we will not be able to walk on the floor.  That means we cannot use it to move from one part of the house to another.  It also means we cannot use our kitchen or have access to our pantry, crockery, utensils, small appliances, medications, etc.  Nor will we be able to access our hall bathroom, small and middle bedrooms, our two coat closets, the linen closet, and the basement stairs.  That sounds like a big potential problem, but we think it will be quite workable.

Our bedroom has a doorwall to the upper deck and has an on-suite bathroom and walk-in closet.  Our library has a front and rear doorwall, with the rear doorwall opening onto our middle deck, but also has a doorwall into the living room.  There is also a door from the library to the garage as well as a rear entry door to the garage.  (The library was originally a breezeway between the garage and the house, so all means of egress are outdoor rated.)  The basement is a walkout with a doorwall, so we have access to that part of the house without using the inside stairs.

There is a bar area in the basement rec room, with a microwave and an old Jenn-Air cooktop/oven.  Linda intends to move the Breville toaster/oven from the kitchen to the basement, as she does not intend to use the Jenn-Air, but it’s there if we decide we need it.  There is also a bar sink that includes a faucet for our RO system.  Our TV is down there, along with my office, the laundry, and a full bathroom, so we think the house will be quite useable while the work is ongoing.

As long as we move a anything/everything we might need out of rooms we cannot access, we will be able to get to the rest of the house by using outside pathways.  Since we will have to leave the doorwalls unlocked, one of us will be home at all times.  The cat (Cabela) will still have access to the library (food, water, sleep at night), as well as our bedroom (door to the hallway closed) and possibly the basement.  The issue with the basement will be sealing off the staircase so she cannot go upstairs.

Besides having the refrigerator and range removed and getting everything we need out of inaccessible areas, we will have a few things to do in advance of the work beginning.  This includes removing the existing “baseboards” (which are actually door casing) and scraping out the small gaps between the floor boards.  The floor boards are tongue-and-groove with beveled edges, so these gaps are an intentional “decorative” feature.  They are not our favorite feature in the house, but they are okay and will remain after the refinishing is done.  The refinishing will look better, however, if we clean all of the grooves before they are sanded and stained.  This will be hand work, done on our hands and knees.

I spent most of the rest of the day in my office, dealing with e-mails and working on blog posts.  I selected and post-processed additional photos and worked on narrative.  Linda continued with her deep-cleaning in the kitchen, going after the grout for the tiles on the countertops and the floor on three sides of the island.

Mike & Sheila went to Greenfield Village in Dearborn today.  They got back a bit later and we did not see them this evening.

For dinner, Linda served a vegan Korean BBQ (TVP) product over white rice.  It was very tasty.  For dessert, we had a few cookies (animal crackers) and peppermint bark dark chocolate (Lake Champlain Chocolate Company) and watched the last two episodes of the final season of The Last Detective on Prime.

 

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20240813_Intl-Trav-Plan_ACI-HH-CPP

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TUESDAY 13 August 2024 — International/overseas travel planning and HH/ACI CPP update

Next April and May (2025) we are booked on a 24-day cruise on the Regal Princess (Princess Cruise Line), followed, but not immediately, by a 16-day Rick Steve’s land tour of England and Wales.

The cruise starts in Ft. Lauderdale (Port Hollywood), Florida and ends in Southampton, England; twice, actually.  The repositioning part of the cruise is Ft. Lauderdale to Southampton, with ports-of-call in the Azores (Portugal), France, Belgium, and The Netherlands.  On our first visit to Southampton, some passengers will disembark, some new ones will embark, and the rest (like us) will remain aboard.  The ship will then continue for another 10 days, going around the southern end of England and stopping in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland (several locations) before returning to Southampton, where we will finally debark (disembark).  Our Rick Steve’s tour begins in Bath, England six (6) days (5 nights) after we debark the ship, and we will be on our own for that time.

Having spent considerable time over the weekend booking shore excursions for our Virgin Voyages cruise this December, we were in a frame of mind to deal with those aspects of our cruise/tour trip that were still undecided.  We had itineraries for the cruise and tour, so we knew where those would take us and what we would/could see/do in each place.  We also have several Rick Steve’s travel guides, maps (including the London “tube” system), and our most valuable resource, Kate, our friend who has been to the British Isles many times.  The Rick Steve’s tour ends in London, but we will only have a couple of days there as part of the tour.

Our initial thought was to get off the ship and go explore places in England that are not part of the tour itinerary.  The more we thought about it, however, the more the idea of moving around constantly, luggage in hand, did not seem to be the right approach.  The easier, and more productive, approach would be to stay in one place, within easy distance of many things, including public transportation, and avoid having to rent a car.  In other words, stay in London.  Coming to that conclusion provided focus and clarity to what was starting to feel like an overwhelming task.

We studied our map(s) of London and compared them to the map of the tube system (subway, underground, etc.).  We would also likely need to use the train system, to get to Cambridge for instance, but less so than if we were trying to travel great distances across the countryside.  We knew what hotel the Rick Steve’s tour was using, so we concentrated on that part of London to see what was there.  It turned out to be an area with a lot of things to see and do, good access to the “tube,” and a good selection of restaurants for lunch and/or dinner.  Linda started looking seriously at hotel options, and found one in that area that looked nice enough, and was reasonably priced (by London standards).  We ran this past Kate to get her perspective, and got a “thumbs up,” so Linda booked it.  We paid a small premium to have the ability to cancel the reservation, and an additional amount to have (continental) breakfast included each day.  (The various restaurants in that area do not serve breakfast an we wanted more choice than a typical coffee shop.)

With that piece of our travel puzzle now in place, we turned our attention to our return trip to Detroit.  Ideally we would have taken the Queen Mary 2 to New York City, but we would miss its westbound departure by a week.  Besides, having been away from home for almost seven (7) weeks by this point, we though it best to fly back.  We usually fly DELTA; their main hub in the USA is DTW (Detroit Metropolitan Airport) which is also THE main airfield in southeast Michigan.

Delta only had one non-stop flight from Heathrow (or Gatwick, not sure which) to Detroit, and it was eye-wateringly expensive just for economy seating.  Ugh.  So, Linda looked at other airlines.  What she found was that we could fly Iceland Airlines (Icelandair, IcelandicUS, IcelandicCA, IcelandicUK, etc.) from London to Reykjavik to Detroit for HALF of the cost of the Delta flight.  AND … wait for it … we could do up to a 7-day layover in Iceland, and explore at least some of yet another country.  Wait … does this sound familiar?  Why, yes it does!  This is exactly what our son and his family were doing, right now.  We just hadn’t realized that Iceland Air does this with many other countries in Europe.

We did not book a flight at this time, but we almost certainly will, and do so well ahead of time.  My guess is that we will make it a 5-night layover and see as much of Iceland as we reasonably can in that time.  We have Rick Steve’s guide to Iceland, so we already know what he (his company) thinks is the best way to use that amount of time.  Before booking this flight, we need to make one last decision, how much time do we want between the end of the Rick Steve’s tour and getting on the airplane for Reykjavik?  I think the ideal arrangement would be to spend a minimum of one more night in the final tour hotel, allowing us to get up the next morning at whatever time we need to, and make our way to the airport without being rushed.

We received an update e-mail today from the Airstream Club International (ACI) about the joint venture with Harvest Hosts (HH) to move the ACI Courtesy Parking Program (CPP) from the ACI Membership Directory to the HH platform.  We think this is a good move, as they will apparently add an icon for ACI/CPP to the existing map function.  People who are ACI members, by not HH/BW members, will only see the ACI/CPP icon, but will not have to pay to use the site.  HH members who do not belong to ACI, will not see the ACI/CPP icon, but will see it if they are ACI members.  I’ve been told that, as a BW host who has also signed up to be an ACI/CPP host, ACI/CPP stay requests will be integrated with the BW stay requests.  As such, nothing will really change for us, which will be great.  We have had a fair amount of BW traffic this year, and all of the last few years except 2022 when we were traveling eastern Canada.  (We don’t accept stay requests when we are traveling.)  So, it’s not that we need more visitors, but it would be nice (for us) if fellow ACI members stopped here and we could discuss “Airstreaming.”

Mike & Sheila came over again around 5:30 PM and we had a second night of interesting and lively conversation.  We always ask guests to bring their own beverage of choice.  They brought two bottles of red wine, and insisted on sharing.  Well, okay, if we have to, I suppose.  🙂  We have always made ourselves available to guests, and many have spent time chatting with us over the years, but this year has been different.  We think it has been a confluence of factors, namely; temperature (either hot or chilly), rain, mosquitos, short (1-night) stays, or people just being busy with their own affairs.  Whatever the reason, it’s fine; we do not expect guests to spend time with us, but we enjoy and appreciate it when they do.

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20240812_BdW_Firepit

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NOTE:  This post has one (1) photo with caption.  Photo taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 12 August 2024 — More BdW guests, burning yard debris, and international/overseas travel (not us)

Linda and Diane met at the park to walk this morning, the first time since the funeral for Diane’s mother on July 23rd.  We had Boondockers Welcome guests arriving today, so I had a few chores to take are of ahead of time.

First, I pruned some of the weeds and saplings along the edge of the wooded area that parallels the south edge of our visitor RV site.  These grow out to the north (towards the site) looking for light, and eventually become an impediment to working on the south side of rig, or mowing along the edge of the forest.  I got out the lawn tractor and trailer and moved all of the pruned material to our fire pit.  I then drove around the rest of the property collecting downed branches and transporting them to the fire pit.  I removed all of the material that had accumulated in the fire pit and sorted it by size and type before piling it around the outside, about 8 feet away.  This left only the central stack of organized twigs and larger pieces of branches I had built a couple of weeks ago to serve as the core of the bonfire I was about to light.

While deep-cleaning the kitchen, Linda found a package of fire-starters.  They were wax impregnated corrugated cardboard.  We typically use shredded paper to start our bonfires (we usually have a lot of it), but it doesn’t always light well if it has absorbed moisture.  The fire-starters did the trick, and fairly quickly I had a nice, but not overly large, fire.  I added some of the stacked material to the fire and then mowed the areas on either side of the driveway by our guest RV site.  The weather has been dry, so Keith will be here tomorrow to mow the whole property, but this way he won’t have to mow right next to someone’s RV.

The bonfire has been lit (right side of wood stack in the fire pit).  Various sizes of branches, and a pile of weeds, waiting o be added to the burn pile.

Our BdW guests, Mike & Sheila M., arrived around 2 PM.  They were aiming for 1 PM, but got caught in really bad traffic on westbound I-96 between Novi and Brighton.  The improvements to the highway system in our area will be amazing when they are finished and operational but until then, getting anywhere during the daytime can be difficult.  (You need patience to make sure you don’t become a patient.)  I met them in the street, per usual, and directed them into our guest RV site.  Linda came out to meet them as well.  We chatted briefly, invited them to get-together on the deck later if so inclined, and then left them to make camp.

Our guests came over around 5:45 PM and we had along, spirited conversation.  Mike is native Hawaiian.  Sheila was from the Carolinas, but moved to Hawaii many years ago and stayed.  They moved to the mainland a few years ago, bought a Coach House Platinum Class B+ MH, and started full-time RVing.  They flat tow a Toyota CJ Cruiser.  The Toyota required a driveshaft disconnect modification.  The MH is able to handle the weight of this vehicle, but struggles on steep upgrades, so they got a custom/tuned ECM program installed.  Apparently it makes quite a difference in the vehicle’s performance.

Around 8:30 PM, our son and his family took off from DTW enroute to Sweden via Reykjavik, Iceland.  Their destination was Stockholm (Shawna had a conference in Uppsala, so it was a work-related trip).  There were, however, several reasons for the intermediate waypoint in Iceland.  He and Shawna had been to both countries before, but this would be the first time for the girls to visit either one.  At 11-1/2 years old, Mads sees herself as a sophisticated world traveler, and at 5-3/4 years, Sadie is up for almost any adventure.  The stopover in Iceland would also break up the flight into two legs of more reasonable length and time, which would be much easier on everyone.  But what really made this interesting, to us as well as them, was that Iceland Air allows passengers to book this as a single, continuing (round-trip) flight, rather than two separate flights, AND allows the layover to be up to seven (7) days!  Obviously Iceland Air has a very good and cooperative relationship with whomever is in charge of tourism for the country.  Icelandair will come up again in a future post.

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20240810-11_Cruise-excursions_&_Home-projects

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SATURDAY 10 & SUNDAY 11 August 2024 — Cruise shore excursions, and continuing work on electrical wiring, deep-cleaning, and the CAD layout of our oak floor

 

Saturday 10 … A big day for cruise shore excursions, and continuing electrical work and deep-cleaning

We continued to defer yard work in favor of house projects, a decision made easier by the continued presence of mosquitos.  But first, it was time to make decisions about shore excursions at each port of call for the cruises we currently have booked.

For the Virgin Voyages cruise in December (2024), we have never been to most of the islands we will be visiting, and wanted shore excursions that would let us see them and give us a feel for each place, so we selected and booked a shore excursion for each port-of-call.  I won’t describe the details at this time, but generally speaking, we selected experiences of moderate length with a cultural or nature focus, and a combination of touring on a bus, and moderate hiking/walking.  We did not book excursions that involved snorkeling, beaches, drinking, or ATVs.  With the shore excursions taken care of, Linda texted Nancy to let her know what we had booked.  They had only booked one so far, and we booked the same one.

For our Princess repositioning & British Isles Cruise in April 2025, we selected and booked a shore excursion at each port-of-call except for Brest, France.  Only one (1) shore excursion was on offer for Brest.  It was short, and not very interesting, so we decided to wait and check back occasionally to see if additional excursions became available.  If not, we will just get off the ship and walk around or take a city trolley into the center of town and explore on our own.  We did this quite a bit on our NCL Alaska inside passage cruise and it worked well for us.  This is the only port-of-call in France, and since neither of us has ever been in the country, we have to get off the ship and put our feet on French soil (or pavement, or whatever).

With the shore excursions taken care of, Linda returned to her cleaning project and I finished up the electrical work for the new circuit for the new clothes dryer.  I tested the GFCI receptacle and it was functioning properly.  I put the cover back on the main distribution panel and updated the circuit breaker legend that I maintain in MS Excel.  It’s an 11” wide x 17” tall document that uses up the entire sheet of paper, except for some margin space.  (Our inkjet printer can print up to 13” x 19” format.)

I put all of the suspended ceiling tiles back in place.  Linda helped vacuum the carpet and move the coffee table back into position by the sofas.  We had to move the table as I needed to work directly above where it normally sits.

 

Sunday 11 … A breakfast treat, and trying to finalize the CAD drawing of our oak floor

After our morning coffee, we had pancakes for breakfast.  Pancakes or waffles for breakfast are an occasional treat that is usually reserved for Sundays.

After breakfast, I finalized the CAD drawing for the hardwood floor area/project.  With the changes/additions I had made, I was able to calculate/approximate the linear feet of shoe molding and baseboard that was needed.  We now had a document that provided a fairly accurate estimate of the square feet of flooring to be refinished, the amount of new wood to be installed, and the length of baseboard and shoe molding required to complete the job.  We were able to look up “average costs in our area” online and get a rough idea of what this project should cost.  This will allow us to decide if an estimate/quote is “in the ballpark.”

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20240809_Floors_elec_clean

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NOTE:  This post contains two (2) photos with captions, both taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

FRIDAY 09 August 2024 — Another look at refinishing our hardwood floors; more electrical work and deep-cleaning

Dan, from Functional Floors in Brighton, stopped by this morning to look at our floor refinishing project.  He was the company’s Senior Estimator and was on site for about 90 minutes.  He was obviously experienced and knowledgeable, and we had a good discussion, not all of it about flooring.  Like Michael’s visit yesterday, some additional considerations were raised and options offered.  We were very comfortable with Dan, and he e-mailed the quote that afternoon.  But we also liked the fact that yesterday we were talking to the owner of a company.  Choices require decisions and (rational) decisions require criteria.

Our main electrical distribution panel with the cover removed.  It’s a Square D box with 40 spaces for circuit breakers, not including the large 240VAC/200A main breaker/disconnect at the top.  Some of the circuit breakers are “piggyback” devices, powering two circuits in the space of a normal single breaker, so there are more than 40 circuits originating from this box..  I am not a huge fan of piggyback circuit breakers but, in any older home which has undergone modifications to the original wiring system, they are sometimes a necessity.

When Dan left, we got back to our on-going projects; Linda with the deep-cleaning, and me with the electrical work.  Having decided on an approach, I paid a visit to the barn to rummage through the storeroom and see what materials and devices I already had in stock.  I have quite of bit of stuff left over from various projects, most recently the wiring of the barn, but I did not have most of what I needed for this project.  I gathered up various electrical tools that I would need, put them in the truck, and then headed to Lowe’s to get wire, conduit, conduit clamps, the outlet box, GFCI outlets, and cover plates.  (We had several outlet boxes around the house that did not have cover plates, and it was well past time to get some and install them.)  The most economical way to get the wire was a 100-foot roll of 12-2+G NM-B (Romex) cable.  It came in yellow, so it would stand out amongst the existing wiring, which is mostly white.  I would make several more trips to the barn over the next days for additional tools as the need arose.

A view of part of our recreation room looking east from near the main electrical distribution panel.  Suspended ceiling tiles have been moved to provide access to the floor joists so we can route the new 12-2+G NM-B cable for the new clothes dryer circuit/receptacle.

Back home, I moved some of the 2’ x 4’ acoustic ceiling panels so I could examine the floor joists in the ceiling to scout out a route for the new cable.  It looked like there were existing holes in some of the joists that I could use, even though they already had one or more cables going through them.  I figured the fewer holes I had to drill the better.

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20240807-08_Home-&-Travel-Tasks

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WEDNESDAY 07 & THURSDAY 08 August 2024 — Cleaning, cruising, dental, electrical, & flooring/CAD

 

Wednesday 07 … Cleaning continues and some CAD work for the floors

As usual, we started the day with coffee and breakfast.  Around 9:30 AM I started calling the short list of floor refinishing companies Linda had compiled.  The father of the father-son team scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, the medium firm for Friday morning, and the larger firm for next week on Wednesday morning.  And just like that, our floor refinishing project was moving in the direction of becoming a reality yet this year.

Linda continued her deep-cleaning and reorganization of the kitchen and I worked on the CAD layout of the hardwood floors, which occupied the rest of my day.  After dinner we watched the NBC recap of the Paris 2024 summer Olympics.

 

Thursday 08 …  A crowning achievement, cruise finances, and a first look at refinishing hardwood floors

I had an 11 AM dentist appointment to get my new (replacement) crown.  I left around 9:45 AM for the estimated 1-hour drive.  The drive to the clinic was no worse than I expected, and I arrived a bit early.  The appointment lasted about an hour.  I decided to stay off the highways on the drive home; it took longer, but at least I was moving most of the time.  I do not like sitting in stopped highway traffic.

Our final/full payment was due today for our December 2025 Virgin Voyages cruise to the Windward Islands in the southern Caribbean.  Linda also checked to see if we could start booking shore excursions.  We could, so it was time to look at what was on offer, make decisions, and then make reservations.  Soon, but not today.

I turned my attention to the new electrical circuit for the new heat-pump dryer.  I spent some time studying the situation and decided to surface mount a PVC electrical box behind the dryer location and use a piece of PVC electrical conduit to get the new wire from the ceiling to the box, where I would install a 20A duplex GFCI receptacle.  Linda helped me use a 100’ tape measure to get an idea of how many feet of wire I needed.  It turned out to be more than 50 feet, and since most of it would be run through holes in the joists for the main floor of the house, I would need Romex (non-metallic sheathed multi-conductor cable) rather than the individual insulated conductors I had run through conduit in the barn.

Michael, from Heritage Hardwood Floors (Howell), called to confirm his appointment, and showed up around 2:30 PM.  He was on site for about 75 minutes and took the time to understand what we were looking to have done, discussed the details with us at length, and explained how he would approach the job.  He was obviously very experienced and knowledgeable, and we were confident he could do the job.  The last time we had floors refinished (at our previous house) we used a father-son team, and they did fabulous work, so we were comfortable with this business model.

Michael’s visit had raised questions, but after he left I returned to working on the new electrical circuit.  Dinner was followed by watching the Olympics recap on NBC.

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TUESDAY 06 August 2024 — Continued cleaning, floor measurements and drawings, and dinner out with a friend

Linda continued deep-cleaning the kitchen cabinets but took time out as needed to help me measure the oak floors in the main level of the house.  For some time now (years) we have been considering having the oak floors refinished and getting new countertops for the kitchen.  More recently we have been discussing the floor refinishing as a “sooner rather than later project.”  Linda spent some time looking online for floor refinishing companies and found three that were relatively local and had good reviews.  One was a father-son team, another was a somewhat larger firm, and the third one was a bit larger than that.  All of them were local businesses, not franchises of larger chains.  She gave me their contact information so I could call them to set up appointments, which I deferred until tomorrow.

With our decision to move ahead with the floor refinishing, I wanted to have a fairly accurate understanding of the extent of flooring involved.  Our mental project list included replacing the vinyl tile flooring in the kitchen pantries, replace the existing “baseboards,” adding baseboards to the closets, and adding shoe molding to the kitchen base cabinets and island.  (The existing “baseboards” are the same 2-1/4” door casing used to frame out all of the doors.  We want those replaced with actual baseboard that matches our floor, as best as can be done.)  Some trim work was needed along the exposed edges of the floor in the entry/foyer, specifically oak nosing.  We also wanted to remove/replace the railing around the staircase to the basement, a potentially major project in itself that we will do ourselves.

Rather than dig in to the electrical work, which was also relatively high priority, I started creating the floor layout in my QCAD software as I wanted to have it done before contractors showed up to look at the job.  The front entrance/foyer, hallway, dining room, and kitchen are one odd-shaped, but continuous. flooring surface that extends into three closets, but not the kitchen pantries.  After getting reasonably good measurements for the wall lengths and positions, I divided the space up into rectangles so I could calculate square inches and convert it to square feet.

We wrapped up our work a bit earlier in the afternoon so we had time to get showers, put on nicer clothes, and drive to Ypsilanti to have dinner with our friend, Kate.  We picked her up and headed down the street to Plant Based Coneys on Cross Street (next to the Side-Track and Frenchie’s restaurants).  We had Coney dogs (very good), French fries (really good), and dessert; root beer float for me and enormous brownies with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce for Linda and Kate.  All vegan, of course.  Not being a bar or a coffee shop, and having somewhat uncomfortable metal furniture, we moved to the Panera on Washtenaw Avenue in Ann Arbor (next to Whole Foods Market) for coffee and continued conversation.  We were there until they closed at 10 PM, returned Kate to her house, and drove home.  US-23 between Ann Arbor and Brighton is in the middle of a major road construction project, but at that hour of the night, traffic was flowing nicely.

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MONDAY 05 August 2024 — A home health visit, deep-cleaning, and the start of an electrical project

We had a home visit with Signify Health this morning.  These visits are provided as a benefit of my Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System (MPSERS) Medicare Advantage health care plan, administered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBS-MI).  This was only the second such visit we have had since I retired in 2012, and the first one was very cursory, lasting 20 minutes at most.  ABWR, the only “testing” done during that visit was to check our blood pressure.

Today’s visit was very different, and much better.  The provider was an older, semi-retired, male nurse-practitioner.  He was friendly, with a great demeanor, clearly experienced and knowledgeable and genuinely interested in assessing our state of health.  The visit lasted two (2) hours, and was very thorough and informative.  For each of us, he checked our temperature, blood pressure, blood oxygenation, and peripheral artery blood flow.  (He was not able to get the peripheral artery measurements for me, done at the hands and feet, because my resting heart rate is slow compared to “normal” and this confused the measurement device.  Rather than submit bad data, he did report any findings for this test.  He had a peek at our eyes and inside our mouths, and applied a simple cognitive test while doing a comprehensive review of our medications and supplements.  We had an excellent discussion, and even talked about diet and activity.

In the afternoon, Linda started deep-cleaning the kitchen cabinets and installing new bumpers on the drawers and doors.  She also identified hinges that were loose and had me tighten them.  With the hinges done, I started working on wiring the new dedicated electrical circuit for our new Miele heat-pump dryer.  The washer and dryer could be here next week, so I needed to get this done.  Following the latest NEC requirements, the dryer needs a dedicated 120VAC / 20A circuit with GFCI protection.  GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) is a useful safety feature that is appropriate almost everywhere, but is required by code (NEC) in “wet” locations, including (at least) bathrooms, garages, kitchens, laundry rooms, and outdoors.

The washing machine also requires a dedicated 120VAC / 20A, GFCI protected circuit.  The current washing machine is plugged into a 120VAC / 15A duplex receptacle in the laundry room.  Analysis of this circuit revealed that it is wired with 12 AWG 2+G wire (12-2+G NM-B aka “Romex”) and protected by a 20A circuit breaker, but shares the circuit with three (3) duplex receptacles in my office, at least one outdoors, and does not have GFCI protection.  The good news was that the laundry room receptacle is the end (last) device on the circuit.  As a temporary measure, I could simply replace the duplex receptacle in the laundry room with a duplex 20A GFCI receptacle and have power to the new washing machine that was in conformance with the NEC except for the requirement that this be a dedicated circuit.  So, that is what I intend to do.  My slightly longer-term plan is to run a dedicated circuit for the washing machine, just as I was about to do for the heat-pump dryer.

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