New House Blog: Episode XXVII - Shedding Some Light

Welcome to the latest Episode of our New House Blog.  The other day we discovered that we're not too far from the area of town known as Little Saigon.  This designation is officially recognized by the city of San Jose, and there are signs in the area proclaiming this appellation.  One characteristic of Little Saigon that we noticed is the abundance of Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants.  It seems to be a fairly nice area, and we may have to check it out in more detail some time soon.

We also had quite an entertaining lunch that same day.  We were at a Panda Express in a shopping center just a few blocks outside of Little Saigon, and we were eating outside on the sidewalk by the parking lot.  The first group to to go by was a singing group on a trailer that was pulled by a pickup truck.  They had speakers, microphones, a guitarist, a drummer, and three or four singers.  The first time they came by we didn't know who they were or why they were serenading the parking lot, but the second time they came by they were accompanied by a man handing out cards advertising a Pentecostal congregation nearby.  Basically they were advertising and looking for new attendees.  The singing was overly repetitive, and the singers were not always on key.  The second group to come by was a group of walking protesters, shouting out sayings in Spanish.  They were a couple of rows away from us, so we didn't get to see their signs or find out what/who they were protesting, but they seemed to be peaceful and did not seem to be disturbing anyone.  The third group to come by were a couple of young women asking for donations for their cousin's funeral.  We gave them a couple of bucks.

This story is relevant because we were on our way to our house to continue prepping it for move-in.  On to the prepping.

Shedding Some Light

Our windows had to go.  Yes, they let in light, and to some extent they kept out matter from the outside, but they were old, single-pane, aluminum-framed mostrosities from the '70's.  They were probably original with the house, and they didn't open very well, if at all.  They also didn't seal up right, the screens were damaged, and to cap it off some of the windows in the big room had their screens on the wrong sides.  That is, the screen was on the outside of the house, but it was on the non-opening side of the window!  We dared not open those windows for fear of the massive amount of bugs and leaves that would get inside the house.  They clearly had to go.  And now they're gone.  In their places are new windows, and sliding glass doors, from Brothers Windows.  We chose Brother's Windows based on a recommendation from Becky's good friend, Marj.  The new windows let in light, the seal up nicely, they keep foreign matter outside, they all have working screens, and they keep a lot of the heat out.  We have noticed a real difference in temperature with the new windows.  And we can now open up more of them when there's a nice breeze blowing.  Here are some pictures of our new windows.

The upstairs bath, with Apple Orchard paint

 Please note that we are not showing you all of the windows here - that would take up too much space, and you would get bored and stop reading this Eipsode.

The master bedroom window

Becky's office window

The kitchen window and sliding door

The big room windows with screens on the correct side

From the inside - Can you guess the color?

The 1/2 bath

The 1/2 bath is the only bathroom to get the obscured panes.  The other bathroom windows are situated high enough that we didn't feel the need for obscurity. The paint you see above is not called Butternut Squash. :)













Shedding More Light

Windows are not the only source of light in our house - we also have electric lighting, some of which you have seen in previous Episodes.  The light we are talking about here is the light fixture in the downstairs bath.  Note that this is not the same as the 1/2 bath, even though both are downstairs.  We refer to our baths as the upstairs bath, the downstairs bath, and the 1/2 bath.  The old fixture had to go.  You will understand when you see the picture below.

It's not pretty.

Yes this is the same light fixture that is being advertised in this Episode.  As we have mentioned at least once previously, although we present things in general chronological order, we might not always present them in exact chronological order.  In this case, the old light fixture was pulled, but the replacement project wasn't complete until after the outside photo had been taken.

There were no major surprises with this job, although we did have to replace the old light fixture box because it was not compatible with the mount for the new light fixture.  Fortunately, we did not have to make any new holes in the wall, as we did in this Episode.  One reason this was fortunate is that this bath, for some reason unknown to us, has a very thin wood paneling on the walls, and making a hole would have required cutting through this wood paneling as well as the sheetrock.  Here, then, is the project in pictures.

This is the worklight we used.  This bathroom doesn't have a lot of natural light, and with the power to that part of the house off our lighting options were rather limited.

The new light j-box

Please note that this is mounted much more solidly than it looks like it's mounted.  We had to add some shims due to the large section cut out of the thin wood paneling.  Also note that the wires are not actually touching each other - it just looks that way due to the perspective.

The new fixture, illuminated by the work light

The same fixture, illuminated by itself

Is that another new color of paint?












Closet Repair

This may seem like a small detail, but it is an important detail.  In the closet in the master bedroom the hangar rod only had a socket on one end - the other end was hanging freely.  We had to correct this if we wanted to hang clothes along the whole rod, and so we did.  With the assistance of a Home Depot employee we found what we were looking for, and now the hangar rod is properly mounted.

Bonus Question

And now for tonight's bonus question: What is the name of this color?

Here's a hint that may not help at all: You've already seen this color in another picture above.

We are seeing the light at the end of the
   bIsh