Right tool for the right job.

Right tool for the right job.

So I'm a bit of a media head. And because I'm a media head, just a few short months after moving in it was a necessity to wire up my house with Ethernet.  If you're asking yourself what is a media head, that would be one who watches movies pretty often, and is continuously follows 1 or 2 TV series per year.  You see I have a hard time with commercials though so I much rather prefer to watch content through a media box that sits below the TV.  The media box plays anything type of media file whatsoever sitting on my computer.  In order for me to accomplish this I need to run a CAT5 cable from the hard drive on the second floor office down to the basement, and then from there over to the living room . Of course one would want it to look all cool and stuff so you have to drill holes through wood, cement, and basically string it up under the floor and behind walls. In my case I'm also going to run the line outside of the house to avoid having to tear up any drywall. There is already wires that are stapled to the red brick Towson row home's exterior, so I'm going to follow that and avoid further work. 

Techy plug, skip if math and tech companies bore you.

You would think it a whole lot easier if i just hooked up the WIFI right? Let the media stream from the PC to the TV over the air!  Well WIFI has trouble streaming media at a high bit rate. Anything at 1080p or higher can hit up to 45Mbps when streaming that delicious hi-def fidelity of  "honey booboo child" to your mush brain.   If you have any interruption in the bit stream then you get stuttering, and well no one will put up with that.  What I'm getting at is that you need CAT5 or "ethernet" cable which can deliver up to 100Mbps(Mega bits per second). This is still the fastest method to transmit data for the common man.  New WIFI standards have finally been set after years of debate so the generation "N" WIFI could get interesting, but ill believe it when I see it. It should be capable of playing HD over the air, but we still aren't quite there yet.  New interesting technologies from Intel's (thunderbolt) offer possible solution for a reduction in wires, and Bluetooth 3.0 sounds fun for short range capabilities, but an all wireless paradise is still some time away.

Back to the action

The plan is to run a CAT5 alongside a coax cable from the second floor across the house, and down into the basement. From there it will go through the cinder block wall, and head up underneath the floorboards as it snakes and follows other electrical wiring that runs across the house. Ill stop about half way under the house and feed the wire up into a living room outlet.  

To accomplish the deed I need to call in the muscle, and make sure the job gets done without any tech issues  popping up. Who better to call then ol' pops.  In less than a jiffy he's at the house with a bag a tools, and plenty of ideas.  Understand that I've worked with "computer" stuff with my dad since I was a child, by no means are we experts, but we both thoroughly enjoy messing with anything techy and um computer stuff. 

We immediately get started on the 2nd floor by drilling a hole directly parallel to one already there. Dad brings a power drill, and a masonry bit to get through the brick. I stand on a ladder outside leaning forward as I push the drill into the wall above my head.  Im about 20 feet up enjoying my home maker skillz as a put a hole in my house. The drilling isn't so much difficult at first, but its slow going through four inches of brick. We make it through the wall then take a wood drill to go through the baseboard inside. After a good 25 minutes of fiddling around its immediately discovered that the drill bit will in fact NOT be long enough to make it all the way through the exterior and interior wall. Its almost a solid foot between the outer wall and inner drywall while our poor little drill-bit is about 5 inches long. Close but not close enough.

Second floor drill hole

We go to Lowes!

With the longer drill bit its easy and satisfying as I punch through the wall from the outside. Dad sees the drill bit slide perfectly through to the inner wall. We are in business!  Now its time to play with the CAT5 cable. I mean after all we drilled one of our two holes, and we might as well run the wire though it so we can admire our drilling job.  I had a old spool of what I thought was CAT5 cable in the basement so we start with testing it out.  I'm a cheap ass so I want to avoid a unnecessary purchases at all costs. It doesn't take much effort to convince dad as i think we are both happy to play around and mess with it. Prices can range, but its about 35 bucks for a 50 foot spool.  The spool doesn't come with the Ethernet connectors on the end, of course, so you need to also have some RJ45's and a crimping tool.  RJ45's is the technical term for the thingies you plug into the computer/wall.  Long story short and an hours later worth of playing around we came to the realization that we need fresh CAT5. 

My long new drill bit!

 

We go to Lowes. 

Since we already had practice attaching the Ethernet connectors to the old wire, its short work to get the wire through the 2nd floor hole, and the RJ45 connected.  I then easily sling the wire across the house to pops who hangs out the window.  He catches it and snakes it through the already existing wire brace holding the other services connected to the house. It sits nice and secure across the house and flows down with the rest of the wires to the basement. From there other wires run through the cement wall. They are properly drilled to size and sealed with caulk to keep the moister out.  These holes are out of the question so we must drill our own.  

Anxious to cause mass destruction I take the first stab, and grab the drill as I muscle to the wall angling all my weight on to the drill.  The next 30 minutes probably looked comical if you have ever drilled through cement.  We run down the battery in both pops and my drill with only making an inch of progress. The drill just won't go through the cinder block. We give up on this task, and in an effort to at least get the network up and running we run it through the basement window and plug it into the router.  A quick test up stairs, and for the first time in my life I see a download reach 92Mbps. Yes, this speed excites me... I know I'm a nerd, but I'm fine with that.

Our lack of progress forces us to the go the window.

The job isn't finished yet! We still have to run the wire from the router in the basement along the floor above us and over to an outlet. This is actually not so hard, and in 20 minutes we have the wire properly fished through the living room outlet.  We crimp each end and then install this cool little outlet cover that has a Coax cable and a internet port on it. Now it looks cool. 

Going up through the floor to the outlet.

CAT5 running up through the outlet along with the coax cable.

Finished product!

With the network up and running its time for pops to hit the showers, and tend to his own kin. As I head out back to start cleaning up, and think what to do about the wire running through my basement window my good neighbor Dave calls across the alley! Apparently he saw the comical workout I gave the drill earlier, and wants to help.  Dave informs me that the problem is not the drill-bit it's the drill! Cement or cinder block requires a drill called a hammer drill. He happens to have one handy,  and hands it over so the cement can meet defeat at my hands.  ouch im down to the bottom the barrel here I better finish this entry.  In a matter of about 15 seconds I punch through the basement wall with out barely breaking a sweat. Heck I didn't even have time to take a breath. I promptly thank my neighbor and return the drill. Success! Two trips to Lowe's for one day is enough, but I put hammer drill on my most wanted tools list. 

The moral of this story is I did all this work for TV. A very just and noble cause I must say. When Katy wants to watch Gilmore girls or I need my fix of planet earth we can sit back on the couch and watch whatever media is stored on the PC upstairs. Al a cart, on demand, commericialess TV, ahh what a thing of beauty. 

Finished product all plugged in.

Wire running properly through the wall and not the window.

This is a shot of the crimping tool, and me holding the cat5 cable in the proper sequence ready to receive the RJ45 connector.

Going Yard

Yard part two!  Woohoo!

Ok ok... I have been running a bit behind on the blog. With the house being in a livable and comfortable condition thing just seem to, well ya know.. Nothing better than a soft couch, endless snacks, and the O's playing every night on your beautiful TV.  Combine that with work and the weather warming up outside, and it leads to a very lazy man doing just what he wants. Drinking, having fun and living it up! 

Well somewhere in the middle of that castle-esk life-style we did find some time to finish bringing our yard up to neighborhood standards.  Still left on the to-do list was mowing, edging, cleaning up more weeds, disposing of several bags of yard waste, and some man decorating. 

The previous owners were nice enough to leave a working electric mower, several old shovels, and a seriously beat up weed whacker.  As you can tell from previous pictures our lawn is in three tiers. Thus in order to mow the lawn you must run up and down hills as you push the mower.  Its a sad admission, but I look at this as my exercise. Lol no wonder I'm getting fat! After running up and down my hilled yard things immediately started to take shape. Mowing your lawn is like getting a hair cut after you let it grow out for a long time. It immediately makes things look better. 

After the mow was a quick run around with the weed whacker.  This is a special weed-whacker though. The safety guard that holds the blade to cut the cord has been broken completely off for what looks like a long time. After wrestling with getting the wire though the little hole for 15 minutes I was finally off the races. It only took about five minutes for me to accidently give the cord a bit too much slack and realize that there is a reason that they place a blade on the safety guard.  The purpose of this invention is to cut the cord down to the appropriate size.  My shins were not happy with me. It looked like they got beat by a tiny little man whip. Don't cry for me Argentina; just a minor flesh wound!

After what really only amount to a couple of hours of work Katy and I just had to get our Lowes on!  I mean damn they give you this plastic card and all you have to do it swipe it through this machine and they let you walk out of the store with whatever you want!!!!

An hour of exploring later and we were all set! Flowers, tomato plants, miracle grown, weed killer, crab grass killer, a trowel, and some other odds and ins.  Katy got right to work planting our flowers and plants and I laid down the first round of weed killer.  The lawn just wasn't ready for seed so I'm going hopefully kill all the ugly green stuff over the summer, plant my seed in the fall, and have a lush beautiful lawn next spring. I'm starting to think I'm going to be that guy who is going to have like a competition in my head with my neighbors on whose lawn looks better. 

With all the work done, and the yard looking right it was time to sit back and... wait.. sit back where! All I got is a big long lawn with a bunch a grass! Well heck this must be remedied immediately!  It didn't take much convincing for Katy and we were off again to Lowes! This time we were going to show them who was boss! I mean I need somewhere to sit in my lawn this is just inhumane!  Now of course you didn't think I was going to buy lawn chairs did you? Oh and we bought a grill too! Who wants to come over and party! /me begins to chant "Party! party! party! party!"

 

And the video walkthrough!

And the sun shines again

Although I'm still many articles behind on current events I couldn't help but sneak in a quick real-time article.  For the first time in what seems like forever it was actually warm outside Saturday and I couldn't resist putting off inside boring chores for a little fun in the sun.  The backyard was in need of some dire tlc, and who better to give it them me! I mean come on love is my middle name. Just ask Katy.  Anywho thats a story for a different blog..  I went to work about 10ish in the morning thinking this would all be over in the early afternoon, but ended up going till close to sunset. Weeding several flower beds that have not been touched in over a year sucks.  It takes a lot of time to pull everything up and then shaking out the dirt. Especially when every square inch is covered by grass or weeds. Here is what the beginning of my day looked like...

As you can see it's a mess. I'm not looking for a reno out here just a thorough cleaning. Well eight hours later with a half hour lunch, three big trash bags of lawn junk and extreme tightness in my hammies I had a respectable looking back yard. Of course nowhere from finished.. Like anything ever is... What I did get done was pull out all the dead plants, weeds, grass, and trash.  I also had the joy of discovery by finding out what was growing in this mess.  It was a pleasure to find that we have a very small strawberry patch growing in the top level garden bed. On each level there are some plants that the neighbor said grows into a massive shrub with big green leaves and one white flower that comes up the middle. Mom also came over and knew the name of it, but I have selected memory so I don't remember.  I plan on seeing what it looks like and then decide if it lives or not.  On the middle level I discovered a rose tree, or vine or whatever it's called. I am quite excited about that. What wife wont enjoy fresh roses from the garden. I also have a couple dozen green leaf plants that I think will grow a flower on top. They were pretty entrenched in the slopes.
After digging out a few of those gross vine trees who roots go like 2 feet down I trimmed back the overgrown grass on the sidewalk.  It only took about 30 minutes with a small flat head shovel to get a nice strait line. It made the sidewalk look much better. Another 40 minutes spent on cleaning up and finally I could go watch the O's(of course they lost in the 9th inning).  

 

Yeah me!

You better use it

So when you buy 13 gallons of paint you better use most of it. When you have the sun of mustard walls and the green monster kitchen it's not very hard.  Putty the walls, sand, fix anything that looks weird. You may need to do this more than once.  During the nonstop painting though we still needed to find time and pack. So we shifted our focus to getting moved out of the apartment we have been calling home the last few years.  

Lucky for me the well planning of Katy has allowed us to already have packed half of our apartment.  She has the inside connection when it comes to moving supplies since she works in a dept store.   Boxes of all shapes and sizes, wrapping paper in binds of 100's, a huge box of Styrofoam with various  cardboard shapes and squares. This makes packing tight boxes with all your stuff a sort of fun puzzle.  After a few days a large mountain of boxes begins to grow in the corner of our living room. The book boxes are my favorite to pack because they are simple and you get good satisfaction knowing you have packed a box with 0" square inches to spare and weighs 60 pounds.  It is more interesting though when your cutting up Styrofoam and card board to securely lock all of your large glass serving dishes, and other weird shape kitchen things. There seems to be at least 7 kitchen boxes not including all the cups. Kitchen items seem to be gathered at an alarming rate;  of course target doesn't hurt this process as I have keenly discovered in my few years of marriage.  I was hoping to find that one item that you exclaim aloud, "oh my god I totally forgot about this!", but alas no dice.  Then again I didn't really have time to get into the memory boxes, they just pretty much went into box mountain.

The taping, sanding, and fixing weird stuff, this is the fun part. You get to use your various tools you purchased from the hardware store, and apply your man skills. It ends right about there. Then lay down plastic all over the floor, and prepare for the next 20 hours of painting.  Don't worry it's just a minor thing called physical labor.   As you find out after several days painting takes pretty much all of your muscle groups to complete.  It is a great jump-start to your "I need to get in shape spring is coming" mindset.  There is an upside to all this painting though... it ENDS! :) (at least in its mass quantity). You will not be able to doubt that the results of this multi-day and night affair will make your place look anything but comfortable. It pretty much transforms the place, and you really have that sense of pride set right in. 

The before picture

February 12th

The before. 

We are still getting all of our plans together, but we decided to at least get a good assessment of how clean the house is.  I decide to tackle cleaning the fridge and Katy tackles the bathroom and dusting.  Overall the house has been cleaned pretty well. No crazy surprises. 
Here is grainy video I took from my HTC EVO.  I didn't have much light and the video recorder isn't that great to begin with...  If your having trouble making out what you are seeing then please let me explain.   

The video starts with me entering our house from the front door. I don't want to give away any spoilers *coughnameoftheblogcough*, but YES that is a GREEN door on the first blog post.  The first thing your eyes are blasted by is the goldish yellow walls.  They must have caked on like 4 coats of this stuff because it basically makes you feel as if you are in the middle of mustard filled sun. This covers the walls of the living and dining rooms.  Up next is the incredible hulk kitchen.  Looking back I really should have spent more time on my video and sent it in to HGTV. I think maybe I could have won a slot on one of those free reno shows.  I really skipped the video because who doesn't love to put their own sweat and tears into remaking their house.  Well more like sweat, loud cursing, and exhaustion.  But getting back to the incredible hulk kitchen you will see they have painted every wall, baseboard and door green. This is nicely offset by the dirty dark brown cabinets and the beautiful plastic drop ceiling! For some odd reason they also decided to take out/stop the nice hard wood floors and throw in a plastic floor that looks like wood!  You will also notice the sturdy and stylish construction of a eat in bar type thingy. Hey at least the appliances are from this century. 

The basement is your typical 70's style wood panel, which I nicely point out to you in my narration within the video. Not much to look at down here. Pretty standard unfinished basement. 

As we head up stairs you get your first glimpse of the lovely blue carpet that for some reason was chosen to cover the original hardwood. SMH. Oh boy your in for a treat once we get upstairs! PINK is my favorite color bathroom awaits us! I'm just not going to comment on this one right now... SMH... What you cant see in the bedrooms isn't so bad. Aside from the really awful paint colors, there is just a bunch of cleaning.

I ask myself many questions after being in the house for the fifth time now, but mainly.... WHAT WERE THESE PEOPLE THINKING! I mean come on people.. Now much of this rant comes from the coaching Katy has given me, but had they ever heard of the term neutral pallet! I mean who paints there damn kitchen a dark GREEN, and then says, "shit I like this so much I'm painting the fucking doors and baseboards green too!". LOL.  

I'll give them a pass on the bathroom though. I'm sure they were not the original owners when the house was built in 1960, but that really says a lot for our parents generation right?  I can see the conversation between contractors now. 

Contractor 1" Hey I have a great idea. Lets make this entire bathroom one color!" 
Contractor 2 "Oh man that would be far out! Dont you think an all white bathroom though is a total bummer?" 
Contractor 1"White! I was thinking all pink man." 
Contractor 2 " Totally heavy man." 
Contractor 1 "Hey puff, puff, pass man! not cool"

The last thing to drive me to inquiry is why on earth you would cover your hardwood stairs with blue carpet and then stain the upstairs hardwood a different color then downstairs.. SMH again...

Anywho... lots of fun coming as you can see. :)