Bookcase move

Have you ever moved a bookcase to a new spot in your room? It might be the WORST piece of furniture to relocate. It seems to me that I move them more than my other furniture. I married a bookworm. He loves to read and re-reads many books. I have some architecture and building books, he has the rest of our 3+ bookcases. This bookcase was a $5 find. I brought it to my parents, I was very proud and my dad said "I will have to beef up the structure, I can't believe you paid $5 for this." I asked him if the wood would cost more than $5, he said "of course" I said, "well then I got my money's worth!" It has been a great bookcase for us. I haven't decided if I will paint or re-stain it, so, 4 years later it sits in it's original state: worn. 

Productive Tuesday

Today I helped my aunt air seal her basement. I have recently completed an air sealing technician training. Simply, air sealing is used in conjunction with insulation to restrict air flow. We were attempting to keep warm air in her home by insulating the joist bay pockets. 

Joist bay pockets are the area where your floor joists intersect your rim joist. This is a great picture from National Energy Audits. Her joist bay pockets were not nearly as clean or evenly spaced (the house isn't exactly new.)

For partial payment she gave me a bunch of gold  frames for a future project and some round black framed mirrors. I love goodies from people's basements!

Craig's List "fun"

We have been on the hunt for a new coffee table. We have a coffee table that my mom purchased at a tag sale for my sister's college house. It was $15 15 years ago. It has been used by my sister, my parents and now by us, I think it may be time to hand it off to someone else. Either that or the base donated to a new Craig's List purchase. 

Flooring Hopes

Now that our water flow has seemingly stopped, it's time to move on. Our drywall and insulation will need to be redone, and our carpet pulled up. Since we are condo, we have to wait for the condo association to do our drywall and insulation, so for now I am floor crazy!
We have no spare room to temporarily move furniture to, so I am slowly, piece by piece, pulling up the carpet. When I first pulled the carpet up I found hardwood floors (which we knew were there) with a white substance on it.

Launch Pad Challenge

This is our launch pad in the front hallway

Leaky Leaky!

This past week I have spent most of my time trying to contain the water coming into our condo. We moved everything (furniture and electrical cords) away from our window wall towards the center of our room. Still, a chair got soaked as did the carpet under the windows. As the leaks got worse, water started to ooze from the drywall around the windows. Some paint started to actually bubble, we poked small holes to let the water drain out.
Here are some during leak pictures:

Waterfall from top of window and under windowsill

An Unanticipated Water Feature

Last night, while watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Reunion Pt. 2, I heard "drip, drip, drip." I started to look around and right there, on our window sill, we had water. YIKES! Now, I know plenty of people who's roofs have leaked, mostly caused from serious ice damns. I know a fair amount about building science to know that although we are not on the top floor of our building we weren't totally safe from the ice damns on the roof of our building. A few days ago icicles began forming ON our building, attached to the brick, completely.