I am keeping my radiators. I love my radiators.
During this renovation the radiators have been moved around and are no longer sitting right up on the walls. I figured this was an excellent time to remove the several layers of paint on them. So I spent an afternoon stripping the paint off of them with a heat gun and a metal scrapper.
I know the top layer of paint was good old latex paint, as it was the same color of paint that covered the whole house. However, that bottom layer, the layer above the rust colored metal…. I don’t know what the heck that was, and it was a pain to get off. The latex bubbled a little but the paint under it just had to be burned off. Which then made me wonder if taking a flaming torch to the blasted thing would make my job easier. However, the risk of burning down the house, greater.
While I was scraping I was wondering about the history of the radiators in the house. Wondering when were they put in, were they painted then? Were they new or some old used ones the landlord dug up from somewhere? Then who put on the first coat of paint, and did that paint have lead? That’s the question that made me hunt the job site for a facial mask.
Tag: renovation
Renovation 2007: Inspections & Miss. Cel Lany
Well my contractor called and said that the electrical inspection passed. Yay. And because they can’t do anything until the plumbing inspection there has been a lull in the amount of work they are doing at the house. Meaning, no one is around when say the plumbing inspector drops by. So there was a big red sticker (not orange but red) on the door saying that the plumbing inspector was by and there was no one to let him in. So that holds back the work until sometime next week when the contractor will wait around the house for the city inspector to come by and look at the plumbing.
The plumbing looks, interesting. He’s using plastic or pvc or whatever the heck that is, instead of copper in some spots. I guess that saves me money, considering the price of copper. The radiator lines do have copper.
Once the plumbing inspection goes through then they will begin the dizzying fast paced work of insulating and sticking up drywall. That’s when the walls will seem more real and I get closer to moving back into my house.
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On the TC front it looks like the grant for the Hanover Civic people and their Truxton Circle confirming beautification project will go through. I say, looks like. Given that the city already calls the area Truxton Circle and the Hanover people need the money and a few of us sent letters in support of the Hanover grant, I think we should be good.
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In the Shaw history research area I went to look for Shaw, Washington’s premier Black neighborhood : an examination of the origins and development of a Black business movement, 1880-1920 by Michael Fitzpatrick at the MLK and it is lost. It might be misfiled but it wasn’t behind the desk, like it was supposed to be. Nor was it on the shelf in the Washingtonia room. Confronted with this problem, I decided to leave the MLK, hop on the yellow line and go to VA to buy shoes. Cloth flats totally make up for a disappointing research outing.
Renovation 2007: Bathroom flooring
I’ve run the idea of using linoleum (the eco-stuff) by my contractor twice. And on the second try he gave a strong ‘no’ and “I’m not putting that in”. I’m not going to battle with him over the bathroom flooring as we have other disagreements I’d rather spend time winning.
Worse comes to worse I have tile options picked out already at Home Depot and Lowe’s, but they aren’t the kind of patterns I have in my head that I want. They are close enough. I know I want a black and white pattern for the floor and a white subway or field tile for the walls.
BACA meeting, TC happy hour & etc
The lousy meeting notes from last week’s BACA meeting are up at the super secret site. Okay user name is ‘thismeeting’ pswd: ‘neverhappened’.
Also check out the TruxtonCircle dot Org discussion board as there is a TC happy hour in the works for June. I expect Eckington people to crash it. It’s okay, we like you NoFlo people anyways.
Oh, other random things that I’m not bothering to link to because the links require 3 extra more steps than I care to take right now:
There were meetings about the Florida Market this week. (See Frozen Tropics and Rebuilding Space)
Arrests in the Montgomery schoolyard and rocks get thrown at Fox5 cameraman. (ANC2C)
The BACA website is not working for me. (DCBACA.ORG)
Big Bear Cafe said somewhere (probably on the Eckington listserv) that their aiming for a June opening. They open, when they open.
Soil samples are the new thing going on with the EC-12 firehouse.
As far as my renovation… waiting on inspections and I’m looking for the perfect tile. If you know where I can get a hold of a nice checkerboard black and white pattern for the bathroom, email me.