As part of my kitchen update I am getting rid of the old formica countertop and backsplash and replacing it with a new formica countertop. And tile seems like a good choice for the backsplash instead of matching formica. Tile looks good and is very durable. I also have a bunch of tile left over from when the bathrooms were done. I couldn’t believe how much tile was left over from that project, so I have been looking for a way to use it. It is just plain white tile, 4.25″ x 4.25″, but some of the tile has a matte finish for using in the floor of the shower while the rest is regular glossy. There are edge pieces too. Then there are tiles left from the main bathroom which look kind of like marble.
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Category: Uncategorized
Arches National Park
After visiting Colorado National Monument we drove to Moab to visit Arches National Park. Arches is kind of an offshoot of the much larger Canyonlands National Park to the south, but our time was very limited. We got to the park at sundown and checked out some of the exhibits outside the visitor center, but it was getting pretty dark and we decided not to enter the rest of the park. We got going the next morning, stopping by the visitor center again to “get information” which for some people means visiting the gift shop. But I did find out that a ranger talk would be given at 11:30 at the Windows area. This worked out fairly well, actually, as we spent a while at Balanced Rock before continuing on to Windows.
Colorado National Monument
As part of the drive out West, we stopped at Colorado National Monument. We were able to navigate the winding roads and some steep grades and then stop at most of the viewpoints along Rim Rock Drive that runs on the top of the plateau. From the first viewpoint at Cold Shivers Point, you could tell it would be spectacular. For some reason there was no wind and you could stand overlooking the cliff in complete silence.
Going West
I went out West in the Spring, but I took the easy way, flying round trip. I didn’t know that I would be going again, but this time in a 17-foot U Haul truck. Susan recently bought a house in Salt Lake and wanted to bring the last of her stuff she had in storage in Atlanta. She is very busy at work and I have already taken a lot of vacation time this year, so we wanted to minimize the amount of time we were away from work, but also work in some fun stuff along the way. She flew out Thursday, we packed the truck the Friday, and then headed out Saturday morning.
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Energy Improvement Results
The new HVAC system was installed this week and on Monday they put in the new insulation in the attic and did all of the air sealing, including fixing the attic door and sealing the house fan. Today they ran a follow-up blower test to see what difference all of this made. They had missed a couple of things on the first pass, so they sealed around the ash dump door in the back fireplace and installed some weatherstripping on a door. They said the air leakage had improved by 30%. That didn’t seem like that much to me since the house was very leaky before. One thing we found was that a lot of air was leaking from the back room which has wood paneling. Apparently, air was being sucked down from the attic of the back room, down the walls, and out the joints of the paneling. The only way to seal that would be to caulk all the joints of the paneling, overlay the paneling with drywall, or replace the paneling. That would be great, but that’s more than I want to do right now. You could feel a breeze blowing from those joints, but they also had a pretty powerful fan sucking all of the air out of the house. There wasn’t a way to seal from above because that room has a low flat roof that isn’t accessible.
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