Tag: office space

July 15, 2021 – I Learned Something This Week

July 15, 2021 /

I have run into this problem multiple times where the door jamb does not sit properly into the opening. The generic problem is described as the wall is out of plumb. In my ignorance of the past, I have tried to build up the drywall around the protruding jamb rather than try to deal with it.

I ran into the problem last year when I was working on the apartment as well. Then I did some casework last summer for a relative with the same problem. It all boiled down to the fact that I did not know how to handle a door frame when the opening is not plumb.

First of all what not to do. Do not put in the door out of plumb so it appears to fit properly. That part I knew because it will cause the door to fly open, slam shut or hit on the floor. To operate properly, the jamb needs to be installed close to plumb and square. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but close for nice operation.

Second, I have no one to blame but myself. I should have taken more care when framing so that I didn’t have this problem in the first place. I was so anxious to get things up that I didn’t think through the consequences of a bit of sloppiness. You can read yesterday’s post about minding the small things.

But how to fix it? It comes down to a bunch of extra fiddling (or work) to shave or add material to the jamb so that the trim will sit flush in the end. If the jamb is proud of the wall, then sometimes you can nail the trim on anyway depending on how much it is sticking out. The trick I saw when looking up ideas was to plane the jamb until it was flush with the drywall.

In my case, on one side of the wall it was close enough that I didn’t have to plane. But on the other sided of the wall the jamb was 5/8″ shy of the wall at the bottom. That means the wall was tipped inward. I also had some extra framing errors that kicked the the drywall out more than was necessary.

In the end, I had to cut a tapered shim to match the tilt of the wall so that the trim will sit flush. Or said another way, I built up the jamb to match the gap. That took time plus it will require additional filling and sanding. Debating what to do or even if I wanted to deal with trim has impacted my productivity some. I had to figure out how to cut the taper in finish carpentry fashion, plus mill the material, plus test it and attach it.

By the way, I didn’t look too hard but I only found half of the equation on YouTube. I saw a couple of examples of planing off proud jambs. I had to deduce that if you removed material on one half of the problem you must have to add for the other half of the equation. So that is the new technique I learned this week.

End Your Programming Routine: I took this on not because the project required it but as an exercise in learning. This is one of the areas that I have struggled in, trim around doors. The finished product will speak for itself but so far this is a huge improvement in the things that I have tried before.

July 9, 2021- Close, But no Cigar

July 9, 2021 /

I am still dealing with the post 4th of July sluggishness. It has been a super busy week again with lots of moving parts. I didn’t get any more read in 1984 and I made slow progress on my project.

I had set a move in target of July 1 for my office. Here on July 9, I am close but not there yet. I am still messing around with the door and jamb. I need to get that set so that I can nail the trim on. Once that is done, I can move in (without the door). Here are some pictures of the current state.

I am currently at 105.5 hours and my estimate was 100 hours. I forgot to include time for trim, but that is not the real reason for my overage. I am going to give a full accounting when I completely finish. I would guess that I have 10 or so more hours to go. It depends on how much door modification I ultimately decide to do.

It is the summer time, so the temp is much more bearable in the basement. In fact it is staying 68-70 degrees F. The urgency has subsided a little bit but it is a far cry from sweatshirt, coat and stalking cap with the heater on. Truthfully, when it was over 100 degrees last week, it was still 68 degrees down here. When I was working in shorts and a t-shirt, I was cold.

End Your Programming Routine: I the end, a goal is just that. There were things that I could have re-prioritized to finish this faster. But, I have no need to push it. Despite that there are other things that also need to get done, so the longer this drags on the more things get backed up. Ultimately, I am happy with where I am at and still motivated to get this done.

June 22, 2021 – Slum Lord Tactics, Custom Paint Colors

June 22, 2021 /

This post may not be super revolutionary but it can get you out of a jamb or at least save some money. For me, I am typically paying $60-$100 a gallon. To top it off, getting rid of leftover paint is also a pain. In my state, every container is charged a recycling fee. That is supposed to cover the cost of returning leftover paint for recycling.

A quick word about recycling. There is a company in the state that picks up all of the paint that is returned. Everything is sorted, for instance exterior and interior and by color. Then like colors are grouped together and mixed and finally standardized into a basic color palette to be sold at a value price.

I have personally never used the paint, so I cannot really comment on the performance or quality. I would consider it for applications that do not have high performance applications like interior paint or outbuildings that you just want to get something on. There is a lot of science involved in paint and just combining different manufacturers could effect the integrity of the paint.

Back when I was a youth and working with my grandfather, we would occasionally gather all of the leftover paint and mix it together. Often times, it would come out as a brown or olive color (as exterior). Interior whites were a no brainer, you ended up with some shade of white that was unique but just fine.

When you have multiple buildings to maintain, a smarter tactic is to standardize on one color. Many times we did use the same color, but there were times when it was inconvenient to drive across town to buy paint or a tenant had a special request or we were given paint and other such random events. Consequently, we always had a mishmash of paint.

I talked about this subject last year on July 1, 2020 when I referenced the color ‘Pandemic Pink’. That was a mixture of a lot of my random exterior colors that came out pink. Today I am going to mix leftover interior paint for my sheetrock priming. My plan is to mix about 1/2 a quart of yellowish/orangish with about 1/2 a gallon of purplish gray with one gallon of PVA drywall sealer. I expect it will come out as a light brown.

Ultimately, I am going to paint over it with something whitish because I want as much light as possible in the room. I just haven’t totally decided yet because I want to minimize the inventory of leftover paint. I also want to minimize cost so I am weighing total cost versus future utility.

Additionally, I wont go as far as saying paint has a shelf life but in practical terms nothing lasts forever. What I have found is that the container fails before the the paint actually goes bad. The ammonia used to buffer the paint (water-based) rusts steel and causes pinholes to let air in and dry out the paint. My point is that if you are saving partials for eventual touch-up you may find that your partial is no longer paint some day when you open the container.

End Your Programming Routine: As I mentioned above, there is a lot of science to paint. I am going to end it here today and save getting more detailed into the qualities of paint later. If you have a bunch of paint that you no longer need or want and a project that needs some painting, consider recycling it yourself.

June 15, 2021 – Am I in a rut?

June 15, 2021 /

Trying to come up with new things to talk about in a meaningful way everyday is sometimes difficult. It is not necessarily that I don’t have ideas but I am weaving this endeavor into my day and it takes a level of prep to do good work. I need supporting photos and videos ready to go when I sit down to start writing.

Sometimes when I get ideas, I queue up article stubs and then when I am looking for something to write about I go to the well of things that I have already put some effort into. Sometimes I have the week entirely planned out before I start. Not this week.

A large part of the reason is that I am focused on the drywall finishing of my office. It is not something that you casually pick at. It requires blocks of hours at a time if I ever want to get this project finished. Another analog is like painting with a roller. Once you get paint on the roll, you are committed to going until you have to stop because it takes so much effort to clean a roller that it is not a casual start and stop process.

Hence, it feels like I have hit a rut here. Monday some sort of opinion, Tuesday is a project update, Wednesday is a grab bag, Thursday is Tacticool and Friday is the 1984 analysis. I am definitely planning on not keeping it this way, but it is convenient for the moment while I am pre-occupied.

This project has grown more refined since I started. Originally, I wasn’t going to finish the drywall. I also wasn’t going to cover the ceiling or the ductwork. One reason that I did it was that it is going to be dark in there and wanted as much reflective surface as possible. In terms of cost, It added may $30, it is more the time that it is going to take to finish the project. I am still on the fence about molding, The cost is again minimal but it is more time and time is something that is pulling at me.

End Your Programming Routine: I should probably set a date to toward and be finished. So, I will arbitrarily pick July 1 to be moved in. If I feel like it, then you probably do to. For now, I am going to power through and keep going.

June 9, 2021 – How are my estimating skills doing?

June 9, 2021 /

Today is the last day that I am going to be able to see inside the office space without going inside. All of the insulating and drywall has been done on the other three walls. It is going to go pretty quickly because it is actually the simplest wall as well. It is exactly 8′ long and only has three protrusions to fit.

I thought that I would take a look at my hours estimate and break down where things are at.

ActEstCompleteDescription
24Xclear out holiday area
22Xremove west floor system, cleanup
42Xremove drywall
44Xinstall interior sheeting
88Xbuild floor
48Xframe east wall
48Xframe west wall
3.58Xframe south wall
48Xframe north wall
8.58electrical
8.58insulation
138interior drywall
8paint
28exterior drywall
28install door
69.5100

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that things are on track to finish right around the total estimate. What isn’t as accurate is the distribution of tasks within the breakdown. I think that there are some reasons that I will talk about now.

First, I finished framing in about half of the time. I attribute that largely to buying a framing nailer. I can do all of that by hand and I nailed the platform by hand, but there was a significant savings when I started using the new tool.

From what remains, insulation will be done in two hours or so. I still need to terminate all of the electrical. If I were to guess, I would say that is going to be 4-6 hours. The drywall I way underestimated. The out of level floor and walls plus all of the box cuts has taken a lot of fitting to make work. I still have all of the finishing to do as well, which I know is going to take some time. I would guess that I am 8-16 hours remaining.

Hopefully, you can say that I have learned from this to make better estimates in the future. If this were an actual bid, I would have spent more time breaking down the tasks and applying an extra contingency factor to compensate for unknowns. Maybe something like this.

EstCategoryDescription
4Prepclear out holiday area
2remove west floor system, cleanup
2remove south side drywall
4install sheeting
8Framingbuild floor
8frame east wall
8frame west wall
8frame south wall
8frame north wall
6electricalrough electrical
6finish
Prep10
Framing48
electrical15

Hopefully, when you do this enough, you start to develop a proportion of scale. Something like Prep 10%, Framing 25%, Electrical 15%, Finishing 50%. That is when you start to develop a skillset of ‘this feels like a two week job’. From there, you can start to make assumptions based on one element.

Too often people either don’t know what to do or don’t put the effort into breaking down all of the small tasks (like me). I just threw the numbers out based on what seem like an arbitrary guess like I could do this on a Saturday. So, I didn’t spend the time to break down the tasks very well. But I am not getting paid for this, I just wanted a rough breakdown of how long I was going to need to work on the project.

End Your Programming Routine: It feels good to be back in the saddle, almost too good. I would definitely rather be working on this project than what I am supposed to be doing for my job. It seems like that siren song keeps pulling at me. For now, I can afford to dream about what could have been different and live vicariously through my projects. I would definitely recommend tracking your time if you are ever interested in learning how to make accurate estimates.

March 8, 2020- It’ll do for now

March 8, 2021 /

I suppose that you could say that this is my second official weekend since I began my new job. While working for Amazon, I don’t think that I had an entire weekend but I did have blocks of two consecutive days off, I just never really knew when they would be. We would get our schedule for the next week (starting on Sunday) on Friday. I pretty much kept every kind of planning in limbo.

So, now that there is some normalcy, I am feeling the pressure to get stuff done when I have the time. It is also the appropriate kind of stuff that needs to be done like I finished pruning the apple tree on Saturday. I needed light, I wanted reasonable weather and I needed it to be done before it starts budding out, which is coming fast. One more thing about that, I haven’t done that job in probably over ten years, it took a lot more effort than I remember or expected.

I have stated that building an office is a priority. I can’t build an office if I am spending all of Saturday pruning and all of Sunday with the family. I talked about pruning already but my boys have a campout this weekend with the Boy Scouts and despite all of our previous efforts, they still don’t have adequate gear. We had to get that sorted out before next Saturday because they need pack weights and meal plans to be made, etc.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been working off the dining table. That works to a point, but we need that space to eat. That means that I am daily setting up and tearing down. I have also added an extra monitor to my routine because the workspace on a single laptop display is not good for comparing two documents or having a meeting and viewing other documents at the same time. For productivity reasons, I needed an office sooner rather than later.

I decided last week that part of what was holding me back on starting was that it was such a mess in the basement. Stuff is piled everywhere. One thing that I have to do during the rainy season is make sure that anything that could get damaged is off of the floor. That leads piling stuff on stuff to protect our precious junk. It is not just that, it is also I am the only one who manages anything in the basement. It becomes the refuge everything that has been rotated out of service, but still has value including nick-knacks, clothes, seasonal items, etc. I cant even start until I have room to start and I have no room to start.

Sunday night, I started clearing the way and just organizing. I thought that if I could just clear enough space to work, it would also help get me motivated to continue. The other bugaboo is that the basement is essentially unheated. It is tempered by being mostly underground and there is some leaking heat, but too cold to want to sit for hours. I figured that would also push me to work faster. Here is what I came up with.

After sitting through my first one hour meeting, I knew that I was going to have to make some changes to the heat situation. I have a sweatshirt and a jacket on as well as wearing a hat. My upper body is OK, but not my legs and feet. I have a baseboard heater that I salvaged out of the apartment remodel that I was planning on using in the office, but I need heat now. I also have an empty 240V circuit that had a baseboard heater in the bathroom which I removed years ago because the bathroom has central heat now.

I quickly wired the baseboard heater under my computer table to see if that will make a difference, I think it will but I need to be more in front of the heater and not to the side like I am currently setup. So, more junk organizing to come. I may also need to add some deflectors to keep the heat originating under the table and not defusing in all directions.

I will want to shut-off the heat at the circuit breaker each day because a baseboard will continue to heat if the temperature drops below a minimum level, nominally 50 degrees F. I also want to get a thermometer down here to monitor the daily temperature swings with and without heat. My ultimate office plan includes insulation, so this heater will be completely adequate for that use but there is no way for it to warm a leaky basement. Right now this is only a comfort measure.

December 16, 2020 – Light and Indoor Painting Tips

December 16, 2020 /

Recently, I was helping my wife paint her office. We were painting after dark with artificial light. It was also white over white. I was trying to use the ‘force’ to make sure that I did a good job. Everyone knows that it can take a long time to master the force.

You would think that when you are painting a very similar color over another, that you wouldn’t have to be that careful when painting. That is not exactly true because depending on the lighting situation, the spots telegraph through. When painting with artificial light, the glare masks the missed spots or really light spots.

I really prefer to paint in natural light to begin with, but that is not always a surefire solution. I noticed when painting the lighter over the darker, I needed the artificial light to see the spots I needed to touch up. The point that I am trying to make is that you will probably need to use different lighting conditions to validate your paint job is the best it can be.

When it comes to paint, I can provide some tips as well. I hold a pretty tight opinion of exterior paint but for indoor the brand is not as critical as long as you accept some things.

  • Indoor paint has must less performance requirements than outdoor paint. I would keep the price above $25/gallon and you will get a decent product.
  • Cheaper paint uses more cost effective materials. So, in that $25/gallon range you are likely going to get a PVA (or blend) versus and acrylic. Excellent scrubbing capability but will yellow when exposed to UV light.
  • There is a place for solvent based paint on the interior. That is woodwork and cabinets or things that are going to be touched frequently. Without an absolute cure time of several weeks for waterbased that paint tends to stay gummy.
  • The paint job doesn’t have to last a lifetime. You might want to change the color or sheen after ten years. Plus, who really scrubs walls anyway?
  • I like the look of flat paint the best, but plan to touch up spots periodically. The pigments used in flat paints don’t reflect light as well and also tend to absorb dirt on contact.
  • To mask or not mask opposing surfaces is a personal choice. I find it much faster to cut in with a brush carefully than to mask in most cases. I would mask when spraying, but those people are probably not reading this. Windows included. I can scrape off glass with a razor faster than masking for sure.
  • Buy quality tools and supplies to do the job. There is very little overall cost to the project in a $5 brush and a $20, but with proper care, the more expensive one will last nearly forever and do a better job.
  • Off-white masking tape versus blue or green. The off-white is less expensive and uses a solvent based adhesive. That adhesive can get oxidized and leave residue or not adhere properly. If used fresh and removed quickly it can save some money but not if you are going to leave it up for a month (potentially)

This is a good starter list of tips. I think most people know how to do this but maybe you learned something too.