Chadwell Chronicles

Kitchen Renovation

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:00:00 +0000

It took from March 7th to November 28th. We are tired!

So, from the beginning. We decided to do the demolition and contracting ourselves. After getting a general idea in our heads about what we wanted to do, we met with a kitchen designer for an hour and just confirmed that all of our ideas were correct, and she drew up a quick blueprint so we could get started.

Here's a quick lots-of-pictures post.

The night before demo-day we cleared everything out of the kitchen.

Clearing out the appliances and cabinets only took a couple of hours.

We found this credit card statement behind one of the cabinets. I hope they didn't forget to pay their bill...

Then began the dirty work. Thanks to our friend, Ben Russell, for helping out during this part.

Also included in the kitchen project was the laundry room. We couldn't properly cook or wash clothes or dishes for about 3 months. Awesome! We knocked out a closet that opened to the garage and added the space to the laundry room.

After finding some rotted subfloor under the cabinets, we decided to replace all of the subfloors. We also got them 1/8" thinner so we could make the hardwoods in the adjoining rooms flush with the kitchen floor... how's that for detail?

We added insulation because everything fell on our faces during demolition.

We hired out the drywall work. I have crossed "doing drywall" from my bucket list.

This is after the cabinet install. The are amazing.

Here is what we call our "dog shower" in the laundry room. Good for: muddy feet, muddy dog feet, novelty sized dishes.

I was also able to cross "lay tile" from my bucket list. It turned out well. Will do again!

Here's the sink installed with our Dishmaster M2000. It dispenses soap and water from the brush from a reservoir under the sink! Really cool product.

One of the first projects we tackled when we moved in was replacing the flimsy hollow core wooden door to the garage with this metal one. Turns out, metal is magnetic! Perfect!

And here is the finished product:

Built-in hutch displaying Natalie's awesomely colorful Pyrex collection.

It looks amazing. To heck with modesty-- we did a great job!

Moving right along...

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:08:00 +0000

Goodness, we need to update this thing! Things have been going well-- just trudging through the house repairs. We are officially down to four rooms left to renovate: both bathrooms, the kitchen and the utility room.

Here is the front living room's before shot:

And the after:

We really, really like the way it turned out, and we finally got to cover up that horrendous red accent wall!

The back living room is still in progress, but it's unbelievably different. Before:

And kind of after:

The photo's a bit burry and there's obviously still some work to do, but we are really pleased with it so far.

We are going to start work on the kitchen soon-- we finally saved up the cash to get it all done! Very exciting. I hope to post a bit more on here shortly, but we can't make any promises... the whole blog thing is pretty difficult when you spend all of your spare time doing the things you're supposed to write about.

Hey Everybody! The Study's Done!

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 03:36:00 +0000

Check it out!

It might just be the most beautiful study I've ever seen. And it only took 9 months to complete!

The Hallway Ceiling Saga

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 06:29:00 +0000

Ranch style homes. Everybody knows that they are objectively the best home design in human history. Simple, functional, elegant. One of the most well-recognized features of ranchers is their long, straight hallways. We have one. You may remember our hallway from such videos as that way-too-long timelapse of me stumbling my way through installing hardwoods.

P.S. Look how awesome it turned out (although this is pre paint and baseboards):

Well, since these hallways are what feels like 50 feet long, our lighting seemed to be a bit on the, oh, how shall I say it?, I-can't-see-anything-I'm-sorry-mom-I-haven't-been-eating-my-carrots-even-though-you-said-superman-ate-them side. We had one fixture near the entrance of the hall, and that was it. One light and then 500 feet to go. There were many-a-night where, on the trek back to our bedroom, I would become unsure of myself and have to call out to Natalie to come find me in the abyss.

Simple solution? Another light fixture!

We found this fixture at CSN Lighting. $18 a pop. Simple, functional, elegant. Perfect for our humble abyss.

As soon as the fixtures arrived, I spent 20 minutes replacing the existing fixture, then ran the wiring in the attic and had the new fixture installed in another 30 minutes. Oh, wait.

Mr. Graham got a bit wobbly in the attic, and being frustrated at his horrible lack of balance, got angry and kicked his foot through the ceiling! 30 minute project just turned into a 2 week project. Which brings us to...

How to Fix Your Ceiling When You Put Your Foot Through It

Put a hole in your ceiling. Be creative! (pictured above)
Mark all extremities of wonky-shaped hole and create a square. Extend square as far as you need to expose half of nearest rafers in order to fasten the drywall. If that is impossible, put a 2x4 above drywall and attach to neighboring drywall for support.

3. Do your standard taping/bedding magic.

4. Texture to match, which we all know is 100% impossible, so let's just call it what it really is: texture to make it look good enough to not notice every time you walk by.

5. Prime your new ceilingbaby up.

6. Paint your ceiling the same way you just got done doing a few short weeks ago. Disregard blotchiness-- wet paint.

7. And after all of that, install your new light fixture, thus allowing you to travel your hallway safely for years to come.

P.S. Our bathroom door is uneven for no reason. Well, probably for the same reason as only having one light.

Before and After

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:46:00 +0000

We got carpet installed today, which brings our 4 bedroom renovation project to a near close. Here are some befores and afters.

The Study:

This has been the most major change we've made in our house. We ripped out a hallway-facing closet and added the room to the study. Unfortunately, I don't have any good photos on me that show the progress neatly.

Walls have been yellowed, new carpet installed. It will be furnished by this weekend. Still left: replace light fixture with something less... pull-stringy.

The Master Bedroom:

We decided to remove the shelf/desk built-in right inside the door because it completely blocked the light switch. So we did.

Much better.

Before (note the lighter square in the carpet. That's where the previous owner's bed used to be. Gross):

After:

New carpet, new paint, new blinds. It's... just... *sniff*... so beautiful. We especially like the green/purple colors.

So, that's just a start the magical bedrooms. We'll work to get some better pictures together and give you a tour.

Bedroom #3

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:07:00 +0000

Ah yes. This was my favorite room when we moved in. I especially liked the flowery border wallpaper.

Natalie did not.

And here's some of my shoddy photography to show our progress. We've just finished painting all of the bedrooms, hung blinds, and just measured for carpet. I can't believe we're going to be able to sleep in our bedroom again soon...

Our Life for the Past Month

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:51:00 +0000

1. We have been priming all of the bedroom walls and trim, and installing .75" reclaimed red oak strip wood flooring.

2. Here is the current cost outline for our entire back-of-the-house project (four bedrooms):

$500 for paint+primer+brushes+rollers+etc. (4 bedrooms, hallway, entry way)
$175 for 100 square feet of hardwoods
$15 for nails and staples for hardwoods
$38 to rent flooring stapler
$150 for drywall supplies/tools
$30 for sandpaper

That makes a grand total of $908. We've also spent a little here and there for various tools, but I will be using those for the rest of my life, so I won't include them.

3. Thank you to our friends Justin, Annie, Katy, Sarah, Anna, Mark, Crawford, Rachel, Chris, David and Bonnie for the help!

4. We did timelapse through the whole project. Surprisingly, you can't see my butt crack even once! I'm very proud.

Renovations Update

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:06:00 +0000

Well, Natalie and I have now been working on the study for about 4 months now. We are SO CLOSE!

Here's what we've done in the study alone:
1. Basic demolition: ripped out drywall, outlets, lightswitch, ceiling fan, built in cabinets, tore up carpet carpet+padding. Opened hall closet into bedroom.

2. New drywall, taping and bedding. This was the most time consuming. For those who have never tried it: it's not that hard-- just get the tape wet before applying to the wall.

3. Textured walls. How? Watered down (like pretty thick pancake batter) compound and a paint roller. Didn't turn out exactly like the rest of the house, but it's subtle and it looks nice.

4. Finished subfloor around old crawlspace access (bottom left of picture below).

5. This is the biggie. When ol' Wendell put in his magical 80's mystery shelves, somebody went CRAZY with the ceiling texture-- it almost looked like acoustic (popcorn) texture, but it was made from compound. So I consider my options to make it look nice again:

Tear down existing, then hang new drywall on ceiling. Cost? Another $30 or so. Time? Demo, cleanup, hanging new, taping, texturing... 12 hours work? Maybe. A big mess? YES.
Hang new drywall over existing drywall. Still $30 and a lot of time.
Scrape off fake popcorn texture and see what happens...

Hey. Not bad! I spent about 2 hours spraying with a squirt bottle, scraping, then scrubbing off this previous texture. It looked BEAUTIFUL underneath-- just like the original ceilings. So I asked myself... why, Wendell, WHY? Why did you cover up the modest ceiling texture? I should have known...

At the end of my two hours of backbreaking, over the head arm-work, I got to a spot in the ceiling that acted funny. I scraped and all that was underneath was more compound. I still don't quite know what's going on with it. Natalie suspects that his leg went through the ceiling at some point and he just patched the whole area (about 3'x3') with putty.

Anyway-- my idea was a bust. Which brings us to my solution:

4. Scrape off as much of the texture on the ceilings as you can. Sand down any noticeable bumps. After a good wipe-down, float a layer of compound with a 10" drywall knife in one direction (I started going south to north). Allow compound to dry. Sand again. Float another layer of compound over in the other direction (this time I tricked it up a bit-- I went west to east sometimes, and east to west other times-- it was a total hoot).

So-- here it is. The near final product. I'm about 92% happy with it. Maybe it will look better with a layer of primer then some nice paint.

*deep breath*

Craigslist Finds Part IV

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:34:00 +0000

Item: Couch
Cost: $150

Well, Natalie roped me into buying another couch. It is our fourth. FOURTH.

The fabric is called Naugahyde. It's plastic-coated fabric, so you can clean your couch with window cleaner.

We haven't looked for labels or any info on it, since it currently resides in our garage, so I'm lacking many interesting details.

It folds out into a sleeper, which is awesome, and since it just uses the cushions it doesn't have a nappy matress all folded up underneath it.

Why, it's a chaise lounge!

Or IS IT!?!?

Anyway, it was a fun find. More to come later.

Yet Another Date Night...

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:11:00 +0000

Natalie and I usually have fancy date nights at fancy places with fancy people and fancy music playing... like this one:

This is my first foray into timelapse photography. I've always found it extremely interesting... and I hope to tackle some more interesting projects, but I thought this would be a good start.

If you're interested in making your own time lapse photography, here are the tools I used (and a couple I found and didn't have to use).

A webcam. I used a Logitech C200. $30. Available at Walmart.
Webcam Timershot Powertoy for XP-- this saves JPG files at specified intervals from your webcam. I've seen lots of people have problems with the program not detecting webcams, and I've actually had a lot of trouble in the past, but I had no trouble with mine now.
Yawcam-- free webcam software with motion detection, FTP upload... seems very cool. You can even set it up as a quickie security system! I will probably use this in the future because Timershot doesn't support Vista or Windows 7.
JPGVideo-- this takes a series of JPG files and combines them to create a video file.
Windows Movie Maker-- I use this to do editing, video compression, and adding music and effects.

Simple-- and all (except the webcam) free! Hurrah!

Ooops

noreply@blogger.com (Natalie at Chadwell Chonicles) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:46:00 +0000

We're still here. Promise.

We have two posts in the works, but between work, the holidays, and renovating the bedrooms we haven't had much time to do anything else.

We also have a fun craigslist find to share with you guys once Graham finishes up the post.

Hopefully (Graham hates it when I say that, apparently it is not proper English), we will get a new post up for you guys soon.

Our Christmas Tree

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:40:00 +0000

We just finished cleaning off our brand new (to us) 1959 aluminum Christmas tree, delivered directly from my grandma's barn in northeastern Indiana.

Complete with a color wheel, spinning base with music box.

Now we're all in the Christmas spirit. Merry Christmas, everybody!!

Countdown to Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:36:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, Natalie gave us an ultimatum (Why? I don't know... but she did): finish all four bedrooms by Christmas. Well, we're not going to be anywhere near done, but we're still working like crazy people to try to get as much done as possible.

This includes:

getting our new Christmas tree cleaned off (it lived in a barn for a couple of years and mice made a nest in it)
finishing drywall work and texturing in the study
painting all four bedrooms
removing border wallpaper from 3 bedrooms
buying new carpet for all bedrooms
installing new baseboard and trim in all bedrooms.

So, here's what has become of our house in the meantime:

I think I was just looking for an excuse to throw the Benny Hill theme song onto our blog. That song makes anything more entertaining.

A hint of things to come...

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:08:00 +0000

Life has been crazy for us the last couple of months. Natalie just finished with open enrollment, my company has grown a lot and I've been having to handle a handful of new client. Just wanted to throw a post up and let everybody know we're still alive and kicking. I will post some more work-in-progress pictures in the following days.

Here is this evening's entertainment. More to follow. Merry Christmas!

How to Keep the Dang Dogs Off the Couch

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:25:00 +0000

It all started one day when Maeby decided to make this couch her favorite place to keep warm.

Obviously we couldn't let her get away with it. We need to protect that couch! So we tried several things...

1) Scolding her only worked when she heard us coming to the room. That little turd knew she wasn't supposed to be on the couch! I guess the comfort just tempted her too much. If you think about it, she was a victim.

2) We tried covering the couch with towels... not so much to keep her off of the couch, but at least to keep her dog-ness funk off of the couch. (Oh, here's something I learned today that I never thought or hoped I would-- Gross alert, skip ahead if you are squeamish: Maeby has anal gland [gross alert on the link, too!!! EWWWW!]... issues. The vet said they were "very full" and then said that she had to poop. How gross is that? She actually SAW that our dog needed to poop. Kind of makes me want to throw up.)

Well, the towels didn't work because Maeby just treated them like blankets and scratched them out of the corners and plopped herself directly on the couch, bathing herself in towely-couchy luxury.

3) You can thank our friend Annie for this. She gave us the ultimate solution. Cheap. Easy. Non-destructive. I don't even have to harm the dogs. It's aluminum foil!

That's it! We just laid foil down over the cushions and the dogs hated it. I don't know if the sound or feeling just bothers them a lot or if they're scared or what, but it worked like a charm.

After a week or so of having foil all across the top of the couch, I was able to move to a more subtle approach-- just have the foil stick out from under the cushions as if it were about to attack them. It's really great. They won't even jump up on you to say hi anymore if you're sitting on the couch.

I'm hoping to scoot the foil under a little bit more every week until it's invisible and see if we can train them to stay off permanently.

Not only are the dog benefits great, but MAN it is stylish. I'm thinking about entering some local interior design contests. Heck, fashion contests, too! I've already started work on my foil mankini. Pictures to follow.

Estate Sale Finds Part IV

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:47:00 +0000

Wow. This weekend was very kind to us. Natalie and I drove down to Waxahachie Saturday morning because Natalie saw that there was an estate sale just north of town. Unfortunately, it was just terrible.

So, a little bummed, we headed into downtown for lunch. We ate at the Chisholm Grill, which, as it turns out, was built in 1879.

Funny, because the whole time we were eating lunch I was trying to guess when exactly it was built-- the air conditioning was hanging just beneath the tin ceilings (late 1800s/early 1900s), the electrical wiring was all outside of the walls (which puts the building pre-1930's, by when most buildings came with electrical wiring).

Well, lunch was pretty delicious (we got the small portion cheeseburgers), so we wandered downtown for a few minutes and decided to head back home empty-handed.

Just before we got on the highway, Natalie decided she wanted to drive past her grandparent's old house in Ovilla, which is a few miles off of I35, about 30 minutes south of Dallas. So, we did, and I felt like a real creeper peering through the gate onto their old property.

A quick drive through downtown Ovilla (in which Walker, Texas Ranger has graced his presence for several episodes), and we were on our wait back home. BUT WAIT. I saw an estate sale sign on the side of the road. In the middle of nowhere. No, really. I mean it. The middle of nowhere. This was just meant to be.

Here we go.

Item: Rocking chair
Era: Manufactured in 1954 in Chicago. Natalie can't remember what company, but there was a label on it.
Favorite part: Grandma never, ever let anybody sit in it. It's in mint condition.
Price: $15

Item: Set of two bi-level (walnut?) end tables with inlaid wood design.
Era: Unknown. No markings. '60s?
Favorite part: They weigh about twice as much as I thought they would. Grandma also didn't let anybody put anything on these tables, so they are practically flawless.
Price: $50 for the set.

Item: Set of 2 table lamps. Wood with brass bands and tweed lamp shades.
Era: '60s
Favorite part: I don't know who decided lamps needed to be shaded by tweed, but I like them.
Price: $15 for the set

Item: Itsy-bitsy cutie lamp with glowing base
Era: '60s
Favorite part: It's itsy-bitsy and has a glowing base!
Price: $3. Yes, $3.

I'm going to have to split this into two different posts because we found so many awesome deals. I'll leave you with a full view of our "formal" living room. It looks pretty sweet so far, and our walls are still bare while we wait to paint before we hang anything up.

BOOYAH!

My Favorite Part of Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:35:00 +0000

For those of you who don't know, Jones Soda has limited edition flavors every Halloween, and they are generally delicious.

Natalie and I have started a yearly tradition of raiding the clearance bin at Target after Halloween. Natalie slipped into her I'm-at-a-boyband-concert-and-must-walk-faster-than-everybody-else mode after we walked in the store. I may have just a little bit, too.

Price: $9

Pictured above: 6560 calories and 1600 grams of sugar. Excellent.

Not only is our binge wildly unhealthy, but these little guys are just precious! A deadly combination.

Bedroom/Study Renovation Update

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:45:00 +0000

If you are interested in learning how to fix up your house (or anything, really), you can't be afraid of breaking anything. Here is the last few weeks of my life in pictorial form.

Step one: Destroy everything.

Step two: Get your tools ready.

My very first electrical work. I'm so proud.

My first piece of drywall to hang. It was a ceiling piece and I was all alone. I pre-drilled the screws so I could hold the piece to the ceiling with my head.

It worked!

This door is the reason I got myself into this big mess.

Door gone!

Note the broken closet next door to the left. I guess I can't blame the previous owner for installing it. He was cheap and it was 1994, so of course he would buy this door. It is literally being torn apart. I am not pleased.

Trim gone!

Door frame gone, new wall framed out. I'm also quite proud of this part.

Hint: If you ever find yourself hanging drywall by yourself (or with somebody else, for that matter), you want to keep the drywall off of the floor and have a clean, small gap with the drywall above. Just get your pry bar and push the drywall up and fasten the piece. Simple enough, right?

It's like the door was never there. Cool, right?

Some more progress inside the room.I waited as long as I could to avoid the outlet holes. But I found a tip to help with those measurements.

Step one: Get your favorite lipstick and apply it around the outlet box.

Step two: Align your drywall, give it a good punch over the outlet. Cut along lipstick marks.

Next steps: sanding the ceiling, taping/bedding, texturing, tearing out carpet (this is Natalie's doing. I've been begging to remove the carpet from day one but nooooooooo).

So there you have it. I am learning a ton about how houses go together, how to use my awesome power tools, and how much fun you can have in a room with no electricity.

Craigslist Finds Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:11:00 +0000

Item: 2 side tables marked "3712 LAMP TABLE"
Era: We think 1950's judging by the legs and markings.
Price: $65

I am really digging the bronze bars that hold up the drawers. These aren't the most amazing things we've ever found. They have a veneer surface and will need to be refinished, but otherwise they are in good shape and serve their purpose.

Expect more posts soon! Life has been crazy but we are finally starting to catch up.

AMAZING SOUP ALERT! (a.k.a How to Destale Your Chips)

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:52:00 +0000

Natalie got a bit snazzy the other day and decided to make us some incredible Black Bean Tomato Soup. It is about 10 minutes of prep work and maybe an hour and a half total time before you could be enjoying it.

It was worth a whole blog post.

Looks great, right? Well, it immediately would have been enjoyed, but we ran into a problem after the soup was prepared. It was our poor tortilla chips! They have been lonely for a while and had become stale. Being a part of the Google Generation, I quickly searched up a solution, and present my findings for your benefit.

Deeeelicious.

This is a complicated process, so I'll break it out for you from the start:

Step 1. Get your chips from the store.

Step 2. Make them stale using your favorite methods.

Step 3. Put a napkin on a plate.

Step 4. Put said chips on said napkin.

Step 5. Microwave on high for 30-45 second.

Step 6. Enjoy the sizzling sound when you take the out of the microwave.

Step 7. Eat chips, being careful not to break them into those little triangles that a) scrape down your throat or b) wedge themselves just right on your wisdom-tooth-holes and make you cry a little bit.

Seriously, these chips were so delicious. I now feel guilty for having thrown out so many chips in my life.

Expect more posts on the house in the near future-- life has been insane for the past couple of weeks, but we're possibly starting to catch up.

The Renovations Start!

noreply@blogger.com (Natalie at Chadwell Chonicles) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:21:00 +0000

We will be getting the detailed quote from our contractor really soon. He sent me the the whole number so far. I knew it would be a lot, but man, it is a lot. I have been trying to think of ways to cut corners, but the items I had him quote us are things I don't want to mess with.

As soon as we get the quote, we'll post it with pictures and details. It will also kind of set a time line for us for the renovations.

Stay tuned for drywall pictures. Graham will be putting that up this weekend in the study.

And sorry for the silence - our lives have been crazy.

Estate Sale Finds Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Natalie at Chadwell Chonicles) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:11:00 +0000

I went to an estate to pick up a nesting bowl set I saw online, but came away with dishes instead.

Item: Universal Pottery Ballerina Style Plates, tea cups, saucers, creamer, sugar holder, etc.
Era: 1950's/1960's
Favorite part about it: These are just so darn cute!
Price: $25

I want to know what these plates are called! I want to complete the set. Graham and I have searched Google, Ebay, Etsy, and Craigslist and we can find NOTHING about this pattern. I do know the Ballerina is a style introduced by Universal Pottery in the 50s. I found some sets that have "names" and found another that does not. This is a set that does not have a "name."

From what I understand, Universal Pottery was founded in 1934 and closed its doors in 1955. They then changed their name and started manufacturing other items. One interesting thing I found out was that after they stopped producing dinner plates, Taylor Smith Taylor and a few other china companies began producing some of their patterns. I guess I found that interesting since I own an almost completed set of Taylor Smith Taylor plates from the 1950's. They were my grandmother's and I heart them.

From what I can tell, the only way to figure out what my Ballerina set pattern is called is to get my hands on this book:

No book stores around here have this book. No libraries either. I do not want to buy it. I just want to find the page with these plates on it. Am I allowed to buy it, do that, and return it? A little unethical, huh? *sigh* I'll probably end up buying it along with the Collector's Pyrex book I want.

Finally, I think this is just adorable since Graham says he doesn't like the dogs...

Note from Graham: Natalie asked me to proofread this post and I'd like to clarify that I did not, in fact, actually enjoy cuddling with the dogs. I'm just a good actor.

How to Fix Your Old Radio (and get fat while you're at it!)

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:12:00 +0000

Natalie and I picked up a mid-century coffee table/radio/record player combo a few months ago. When I turned the radio on, it wasn't broken per se, but there was a loud buzzing/humming sound. As I've learned from my research, this is called "the 60hz hum." I may have made up the official phrase, but I think I've earned that authority from what I've accomplished. The electricity from the power lines is delivered in what's called alternating current, or AC-- which, for we non-electricians, means that the electricity looks something like the picture to the right.

Most electronics depend on direct current, or DC-- which is a constant flow of the same amount of energy. So, one way to convert AC power to something closer to DC power is through the use of capacitors. (If you'd like to learn a little more about this, have a look at this video, it's actually quite interesting.) If a capacitor fails, then it just sends through the alternating current and the effect on a set of speakers is a low pitched humming or buzzing sound.

Well, you ask, how might one solve this problem, oh wise electronics expert? An anonymous reader shared a bit of his or her expertise in the following comment:

If you're handy with a soldering pencil ($10 at radio shack, get a 30-watt), you can easily replace the capacitors yourself. There are many videos on youtube that will guide you through it, as well as dozens of experts on audiokarma.org who will help you with the restoration. New parts are easy to obtain via tubesandmore.com The hum is indicative of a vacuum tube set -- it's important to replace these capacitors soon as running the set with the aging parts will potentially fail as a "short circuit" causing firworks and potentially taking out irreplacable coils with it. Excellent find any way you look at it!

oops one more thing on the capacitor replacement. Choosing the new parts is easy -- just look for paper/wax "tootsie roll" looking parts on the chassis. They'll have numbers on them like ".01 uF / 350V". the uF indicates the size, the V indicates the voltage rating. Just get the identical part values (both numbers should match on the replacement) from tubesandmore.com. The "hum" you hear is the large filter caps, which look like a hair roller in a metal or cardboard can (usually something like "47uF / 450V", a larger number than above). This is a common age-related problem. Don't be afraid to learn! I taught myself by reading and have restored many old radios over the years!

Thank you so much for this information! So I got right on the problem and did a bit more research on my own. First things first, I needed to crack open the ol' radio.

Behold, the much coveted wax tootsie roll (which doesn't sound particularly delicious...)! I've found over the years of trying to fix (i.e. tearing stuff apart) is that you will not learn anything if you're afraid to break it. Step 1 in my case: recklessly take a pair of scissors to the wax tootsie roll.

Continuing to follow the advise from our wonderful reader, I took a gander at the roll and saw 6 bits of important information-- this tootsie roll contains 3 capacitors, all with different ratings. 100MFD, 300VDC on red, 75VDC, 300VDC on blue, and 70MDF, 25VDC on green. uF (which means microfarad... which means...I don't think we need to explore this any further) and MFD mean the same thing and VDC (Voltage Direct Current) and "V" mean the same thing, so if you're looking for new parts, just know those are interchangeable.

So, just search those numbers and you're all set, right? Not quite. Capacitors have a lot of possible values and I wasn't able to find an exact match. Never fear, here is a website that tells you what's an acceptable range for replacement.

So, I then had to wait (very impatiently) for the new parts to arrive. Here is how I waited...

Grilled ~~Ribeye~~ Sirloin Steak with Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce, sweet potatoes (an impulse decision by yours truly... they just sounded good), a salad with homemade orange oil and vinegar dressing, pineapple and avocado (which, if pronounced with a Spanish accent, sounds strikingly similar to "have a cow").

That's right-- we used a whole stick of butter on dinner. It was worth every calorie. Unbelievably good.

Hi, I'm being cute. Can I have some?

He got a little bite from his food bowl. How could we resist? (P.S. How cliché am I? Blog? Check. Pictures of your animal? Check. Captions on photos of your dog with what you think they say? Check. Oh dear, I've become what I hated.)

The new capacitors came in today and I got to work immediately.

Yes. It's sloppy-- even looks like I planted a tiny bomb (aww, cute little guy). I forgot how terrible I am at soldering.

But-- you won't be able to see the sloppy job. Instead, enjoy the beautiful glowing ruby-shaped LED.

It's alive! No more buzz. (Note: See "FM Stereo"? Looks like this puts our unit somewhere around the early 1960's as FM Stereo system wasn't approved by the FCC until 1961)

And now that we're all tuckered out, it's time to get some sleep. We let it all hang out here on Chadwell Drive.

Saving Money Part I: Utility Bills

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:00:00 +0000

I like to save money. Anybody who knows me knows that. I consider myself a bit of a connoisseur of finding new, exciting, maybe event a little bit ridiculous ways to save money. Natalie is all too aware of this and many of my most... ahem... interesting ideas have been shot down.

Having paid utility bills on my own for 3 years now (I am sooo experienced in life!), I have a few pointers and a few things we have done, so you can know how to save as much money as you can and maybe having a little fun as you do it.

1. When Natalie and I lived in a top-level apartment, we had a 16' vaulted ceiling in the living room which caused the A/C to run constantly. Our solution? I devised a simple safety pin/old comforter/Velcro contraption. Slap the blanket to the entrance of the hallway and you're good to go.

I'm pretty sure this was a non-typical situation, though. A/Cs are generally sized correctly for the areas they cool, and if an A/C cycles too much it doesn't run as efficiently as one that has a larger area to cool and runs in longer cycles.

2. Install a shower shutoff valve. Lather up while the water waits for you! Cheap, practical, and a good way to remove any enjoyment you may have derived from showering.

3. Set your thermostat closer to the temperature outside! Fans in the summer and blankets in the winter are you friends. What I've heard is that every degree can be up to 1% off (some say 3%) of your electric bill, unless you already keep it at a reasonable temperature. I don't think going from 85 in the summer to 87 is really going to save that much more.

4. Electricity in Texas is deregulated-- that means (from what I understand about it), depending on where you live (I know, for example, that Denton only has one choice), you can choose your electricity provider. In our apartment with the giant vaulted ceilings, we used Green Mountain Energy, who charges higher rates because the power they deliver is renewable (which, apparently, is debatable). When we moved into our house, we switched to Champion Energy Services and ended up saving 35% on our rates, the net result being that the electric bills in our nearly 2000 square foot home are about the same as our 700 square foot apartment.

5. Get a power monitoring device. There are a lot of options out there, but I've only looked into the following:

Kill A Watt This device goes between your appliance and the wall and shows you exactly how much energy it's using. Some simple math (watts recorded*time/1000*cost per killowatt hour) and you can see how much everything in your houses costs to run!
PowerCost Monitor This one's a little different-- one part goes on the meter outside and one part stays inside with you and tells you how much energy your whole house is using at any given moment and calculates how much you're spending at the same time. Pretty nifty and probably effects your behaviors since you can see the money trickling away.

Anyway, there's just a few things that can help out. I may also consider solar panels as their price hopefully comes down, but at the moment Natalie and I just don't use enough electricity to offset the cost in the next 10-20 years.

Student Loans

noreply@blogger.com (Graham at Chadwell Chronicles) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:10:00 +0000

Here's a great article about student loans on Mint.com's blog.

Facts that stood out to me the most:

44% of graduates will delay buying a house because of their student loans (we did)
28% will delay having children because of their student loans
Public tuition runs an average of $62,421

Natalie and I got out of college in relatively good shape (just about $30,000 in loans combined) thanks to our wonderful parents and also thanks to taking up part time jobs throughout college (I worked 10+ hours for the first year and a half of college and over 30 hours a week for 2 1/2 of my 3 years at UNT).

Although I'm generally not a big fan of debt, I would venture to say that student loans can be justified because:

As the article says, you will end up making $800k more overall than your non-bachelor-degree-holding counterpart. That could be worth up to a certain amount of debt...
You are specializing in a field that actually DOES make more money with a college degree. I would seriously, seriously avoid debt if you're going to school for a social work degree or something else that is known to commonly make under $30k.
Interest rates are really great on most student loans (ours were 4.25% and 6%)
Upon graduating, it is extremely easy and even natural to continue "living like college students" and pay down your debt.

Natalie and I actually got me through my last year of classes with cash and paid off our student loans by doing just this. We lived in a modest apartment, didn't celebrate graduation by buying a car or a house by borrowing money and we now stand debt free except our single mortgage on the house.

I am really enjoying managing our money and all it took was a few years of hard work, then a couple of years of reasonable decisions. Now we can have fun with our money and hardly ever worry about it again! Give it a shot.