Sealing mortar joints in exterior stone

 When the painters were here, they pointed out that there were cracks in the extrior walls, mainly where the stone meets the trim.

For example, the window in the library out to the front porch, on the exterior, has these two huge beams vertically on each side of the window.  There is a large gap between the beam and the stone work.

 And there were other, minor, places where there were holes, along the fascia boards where they meet the stone.

For this long gap in the front, the main painter supervisor suggested a caulk that is colored to look like mortar.

That seems to work pretty well, although you do have to be very careful of where it goes -- it does not clean off well.

I used just mortar (and water) on a couple of other places.

 

Servicing the Air Conditioner

The Air Conditioner was installed in November 2020, so this is it's 5th cooling season.

 Twice already, I've had to have it serviced. 

In February, the whole system just stopped.  At that point it was heating, but it stopped and the thermostat displayed an error code that suggested the system was not configured correctly.  I called Service Wizard, and they sent out a technician.  He checked the system out and could not find a problem.  A power-off/power-on reboot of the system seemed to fix it. $192.

In April, Service Wizard came out  out and did a "26 Point AC Maintenance Checklist" and it worked fine. $45.

Then, on 28 June 2025, after the outside of the house was painted, we noticed that evening that the house seemed hot.  The temps outside during the day had been in the 90s, but not out of line for the end of June.  Looking at the thermostat, it was registering 83 degrees in the house, although it was set for 78.

The thermostat was also flashing two error codes: 177.04 and 184.08.  These basically mean that the compressor had determined that the hot coolant from inside the house was not cooling down as it went thru the compressor coils, so it shut it down.  

I called Service Wizard, but being late (9:30) on Saturday night, it went straight to voice mail.  I left a message.

It was a hot and uncomfortable night.  Especially for the dog who couldn't get cool.  At about 1:30, he decided outside was cooler than inside and went outside to lie on the grass for an hour.

In the morning, shortly after 9AM, Service Wizards called back and said they could be out here by 11AM.  When they arrived, they checked all the normal things, then went outside to check the compressor.  Eventually he determined that the compressor coils where dirty, and using a hose, washed them off.  Dirt on the coils would prevent them from cooling the coolant.  

And that seemed to do it.  The system started working again, and in a couple of hours had the house back to normal (about 4 hours to go from 84 down to 78).  The technician said I should clean the coils every 3 months or so.  He also said that cleaning the coils is part of thier jAC Maintenance Checklist, so they should have been cleaned in April, but we didn't discuss that. $219.

Update: A couple of days later, on 1 July, I took time to go out and clean the compressor more completely.  First I turned off power to the unit, using the switch on the wall behind it.

 Then I could remove the top cover to the compressor and get at the coils from the inside.

 

I used a vacuum cleaner to get the leaves out of the bottom of the unit, and then a hose to back-wash the coils to get them clean. Just a normal stream will do fine.  Putting it on "Jet" or such to increase the pressure seemed to be too much and threatoned to flatten the heat fins on the coils.

 

 

 

Exterior Trim Painting

We had the house exterior painted in 1993, 2002, and 2017.  It is beginning to show how long it has been, so it seems best to get it repainted.  Vivax Pros had stopped by in February, and now were back again.  They gave a quote of $5572 to paint the entire outside trim, and agreed to use the stain that I have been using: Behr Premium Semi-Transparent Waterproofing Stain and Sealer (No. 5129) Chocolate.

 It took a while to get the quote and agree to it, but once that was settled, they got right to work.  They sent out a gig worker to power wash the trim first.

Letting that dry over the weekend, they started in taping and masking the house.

and then painting.  First they brushed around the edges, and then used a spray painter to do the bulk of the work, getting everything painted in one day.

 

 

Upgrade the Garage Sink

Back in January 2000, we put a big sink in the garage.  It was just temporary to see if it was useful.  There had been a small sink on the exterior wall.  We got a pre-fab cabinet and a big plastic sink, and put it in the corner next to the door to the kitchen.  It's worked out well -- seen lots of use.  But the wall above the sink keeps getting wet and then dry, and the paint is flaking.  Plus the cabinet (cheap press board) is starting to come apart.  So it seems time to make it permanent with quality materials.

 The first problem is the wall.  Since it gets wet, a tile wall would be best.  I noticed a tile wall at a local sandwich shop (Snarf's) that I liked, so I went looking for that and found it on the internet.   We planned to tile the entire back and side wall, so basically 8 feet high by 8 feet wide (3 feet on the side and 5 feet on the back).  We bought 70 sq feet of the tile, from FOC Tile (thru Paypal) for $1408.59.

And we also need a new sink.  That was more difficult.  The old sink was very large, and deep, but plastic.  There are few sinks of that size.  We finally found a 24 in. Farmhouse Single Bowl White Fireclay Workstation Kitchen Sink made by Deer Valley sold by Home Depot ($306.24).

We figured that rather than running the plumbing from the side wall, thru the cabinet to the sink, we would actually move it into the wall between the kitchen and the garage, since we would be rebuilding that wall anyway for the tile.  So now the entire project is exceeding my skill level -- move the plumbing, rebuild the wall, tile it, new cabinet, new sink, new counter top, and new sink faucet. 

But I had had a good experience with Joshua Dickson from Meadow View Construction when he came out and did the trim work for the 3rd return air and under the granite countertop in the kitchen, so I discussed it with him and we came to an agreement that he would do the work, for $4,133.

I removed as much of the stuff in way in the garage (the towel rod, the overhead shelf), and emptied the cabinet.  Then came demo -- remove the old sink and cabinet and open up the wall for the plumbing.

 Since we are tiling all the way to the ceiling, we will replace the sheetrock wall with Hardie board, so remove all that sheetrock.

 Next, Josh moved the hot and cold water lines, and the drain line to be in the wall, over where the new sink and faucet will be installed. And then install the hardie board as the new wall.

 I bought a roll of fiber glass insulation from Home Depot and put it in the exterior wall before it was covered with hardie board, just in case that helps later.

Once the walls were coverd with hardie board, and it had been properly sealed against water, Josh could start installing the tile.

 This took several days, putting up a couple feet of tile, and then waiting for it to dry before going on to the next section

 and the next

 until the entire wall was tiled.

 Once the tile was on the wall, it was grouted, and sealed.

 It looks much better all cleaned up!

 

 In the meantime, I drew up a design for the new cabinets, using my best high school drafting skills.

Jaimes Cabinets agreed to make them, for $1400, using solid plywood.  They did a great job and I picked them up, brought them home and put two coats of polyurethane on them.
 

Josh then installed the cabinets and installed the sink in place.

 The sink sticks out a bit (2 inches) from the cabinet (the "apron" part).

Next, we need a countertop.   We noticed a brochure at Costco that they do countertops, so I called them.  Costco put me in touch with Toor Stone Countertops.  We decided on a Quartz material, in Blanco Aspen (white) color. $919.03.  They sent a technician with a laser system to measure the sink, cabinet and walls to define what the countertop should look like.

After about two weeks, Toor showed up to install the countertop.  It took 4 guys.

Despite the laser measurements, it didn't quite fit the walls, shoving it over too far to the right for where the sink is.  As a result, they needed to trim off an edge two or three times to get it to fit. They used a silicone caulk on the wall/countertop joints, and also all along the top of the cabinets.  Then they applied more to the counter top/sink joint.  

 

Before they caulked everything down, I drilled a 2 inch diameter hole in the shelf under the sink, behind the sink, below where the hole for the faucet was drilled.  That allowed me to put the new faucet (Delta Classic Model 19810-SS-DST) in place.  Unfortunately all the tubing underneat the sink (the hot and cold water lines, plus the hose for the spray) did not reach down below the sink, so I had to enlarge the hole in the shelf, in order to get my hands up into the space behind the sink, and get things installed.  The faucet itself had to be bolted down to the counter top.  

Then the hot and cold water lines were attached to the cut-off valves that Josh installed.  Finally the spray hose had to be attached, with a weight on the hose, to allow gravity to pull the spray head back into position after it is used.  All this while lying on my back with my hands in the hole behind the sink working in the dark.

 But after hours of work, I got it all installed.

This is a workstation version of the sink, so it came with various extras -- a cutting board and mesh flooring,  I'm not sure how those will end up being used, but it gives it a touch of class.

 

 While getting things put together, I noticed that the grout didn't fully cover the space around the light switch.

That required getting some more grout (Egg-shell white), and carefully filling in the missing spots.

Refinishing the Back Deck

 The back deck was rebuilt in 2003, and then refinished in 2010 and 2017.  About 7 years apart.  Which means it is overdue.  The main problem is getting it cleared off to work on.  To ease that, we decided to do it in two pieces.  First we move all the stuff from the right half over to the left half.  Then we clean and refinish the right half.  After that is dry, we move everything over to the right half, and clean and refinish the left half.

Luckily, there are two long deck pieces running down the middle of the deck that meet in the middle.  So first we move everything off the right side.

 

Then we power wash the deck, to clear off all the old stuff.

As before, we use Cabot's Australian Timber Oil (Natural color).  We buy that from Lowe's at $60 a gallon, and need 3 gallons. 

We use a wide paint brush to apply the finish.  It makes the deck look quite a bit darker.

 The back half of the deck, up against the house, under the roof, has aged quite a bit different from the exposed front.

 After a couple of days, we move all the stuff onto this refinished half and  we repeat this process on the other half of the deck.

 It takes 4 hours to do the other half of the deck.  The part near the house

 and the part away from the house.

 In addition the stairs needed to be refinished.

 and we gave special attention to the handrails.  We sanded them down with the belt sander, and put a coat of the Timber Oil on it, then waited for it to dry and put another coat on top of that.  Previously, leaning on the handrail risked splinters. The hope is that the sanding, and two coats, will minimize that.  With a little light hand sanding after everything is dry, that seems to have worked.

 

 

Refreshing the Back Sidewalk

The back sidewalk is constructed of Oklahoma Thin flagstones. While they are cemented in place, they still need to be grouted between the stones.  We did this when it was built in 2006, extended in 2014 and when it was refreshed in 2021, and it looks to be needing it again.

We begin by pressure washing the sidewalk, to clean out anything between the stones.

 

Then we applied the same Polymeric sand.  Tan. Bought from Home Depot. Techniseal EZsand.  This is just poured on, and then swept into place.

 and then wet down with the "Mist" setting on the hose.

 

Once it was all dry (several sunny days), we bought some waterproofing sealer from Home Depot (SealKrete Original)

 and used to hand-held pump sprayer to spray this on all the seams, in an attempt to seal them against the elements, leading to a longer time until this has to be done yet again.

We also tried a different approach on the section of the sidewalk by the garage, and around behind the raised garden.  On this section, instead of using the Polymeric sand, we just poured mortar mix.  We used the broom to again sweep it into all the cracks between the stones, and then the mist setting on the house to spray it down.  The hope here is that the mortar mix, being harder and more rigid, will fill and seal the space between the stones, and stay there.  So we will not need to replace it again.  Time will tell.

 

 

Trim under Granite Countertop in the Kitchen

 Back when the granite countertops were installed in the kitchen in 2011, we removed the previous Formica counter tops and with them the trim at the intersection of the countertops and the counters.  We never bothered to replace that trim

 After all it's just trim -- has no functional use.  But you can see that the top of the counters under where the trim had been is not stained, and there are some gaps between the granite and the counters.  

But we needed a trim carpenter to do the oak trim around the 3rd return air grille, and as long as he was here, we tasked him with doing the trim in the kitchen too.  $700.

We were able to find the same sort of concave trim at Lowe's, in red oak, in 8 foot pieces. We got eight 8 foot pieces for $130.39.

We added this along the top of the counters where they met the granite countertops.

 And also removed the old trim and replaced it with this new trim in the three vertical places where the counters mean the painted sheetrock.

 We then stained the new trim with Varathane Penetrating Wood Stain in Colonial Maple and put a coat of polyurethane finish over that.

Special attention needed to be paid to the opening over the dishwasher, since there is no cabinet to attach it to there.

 

But that is why it is sometimes best to hire  a professional.