Author Archives: Jim Vanderveen

About Jim Vanderveen

I'm a bit of a Renaissance man, with far too many hobbies for my free time! But more important than any hobby is my family. My proudest accomplishment has been raising some great kids! And somehow convincing my wife to put up with me since 1988. ;)

Salvaging hardwood floors, other progress on the house

Posted on 2007-12-03 by Jim Vanderveen

We were pretty busy last weekend working on the remodel, as usual. Most of the stuff we did was prep work for our tile setter, but even though we put in about 50 hours this weekend we didn’t finish *any* … Continue reading →

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Difficulty upgrading to Leopard 10.5.1

Posted on 2007-11-28 by Jim Vanderveen

I upgraded my PowerBook G4 to [OS X “Leopard”](http://www.apple.com/macosx/) yesterday. (Thanks, Kasandra!) Looks pretty cool, but one of the first things it tried to do was auto-update to 10.5.1. The system would present a “You must restart to apply this … Continue reading →

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Punch list

Posted on 2007-11-28 by Jim Vanderveen

Our remodel/addition project has gotten to the point where it’s time to make a [punch list](http://sonicchicken.net/blog/wordpress/phase-1a-punch/). We (and our subs) still have quite a bit to do, but [this phase (1A)](http://sonicchicken.net/blog/wordpress/2007/06/21/remodel-master-plan/) is definitely nearing completion!

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Pictures!

Posted on 2007-11-27 by Jim Vanderveen

I uploaded quite a few pictures to our [Flickr account](http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonicchicken/) today and created some new photo sets. I also added some more pictures to the [painting photoset](http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonicchicken/sets/72157603089665346/).

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Week 32.5

Posted on 2007-11-25 by Jim Vanderveen

It’s been about 32½ weeks since construction began on our remodel, and we’re getting down to the finishing touches. We (and our subs) have been pretty busy, which explains the paucity of articles recently. Barb and I have taken a … Continue reading →

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Paint colors & techniques

Posted on 2007-11-16 by Jim Vanderveen

Barb thought it might be a good idea to document the paint colors and techniques we’re using, and what better place to do that than the blog? We’re doing a 3-coat process–sealer, primer, and color. The sealer we’re using on … Continue reading →

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Painting

Posted on 2007-11-10 by Jim Vanderveen

After nearly seven months of construction, we’re finally starting to paint! The garage, which required the least drywall compound, is ready for painting. Because this is all fresh drywall, we’re putting on two coats of primer–the first one basically seals … Continue reading →

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Another inspection, more drywall work

Posted on 2007-11-09 by Jim Vanderveen

We have another inspection(s) today–gas pressure test and stucco scratch. The stucco inspection is no big deal, the inspector just walks around looks at the exterior of the house. The gas pressure test is kind of a drag, though. We … Continue reading →

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Stucco scratch coat

Posted on 2007-11-06 by Jim Vanderveen

It’s sure handy being one of the few people building or remodeling a home at this point. I called Jack, our stucco subcontractor, yesterday afternoon to see if they could put the first coat on the house now, seeing as … Continue reading →

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Humor and the WSJ article

Posted on 2007-11-05 by Jim Vanderveen

Remember the highly slanted article in the Wall Street Journal, [Three Martini Renovation](http://sonicchicken.net/blog/wordpress/2007/09/28/wsj-art/)? A lot of people were pretty upset with the author for hoodwinking them into contributing to her preconceived piece. But the timing worked out pretty well–since the … Continue reading →

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