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Welcome to The Kester House & Garden Project!

This site has been created to document our rather in-depth home renovation project. Friends and family ask about the status from time to time, so this will serve as a place to keep track of our progress. I also use the site as a place to store photos, plans, and technical information (like paint colors, etc.) so I can find that information when I need it.

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Our 4th of July cookout (1 photo).

If you're visiting the site for the first time, after having a look at this Welcome page I recommend reading the House and Inspiration sections before you dive right in, so you'll have an idea of what we started with and what we're hoping to end up with. I've been writing about the project in the order we've been working on it, so the Garden sections would be next, followed by the Exterior sections and finally the Interior sections.

I often add new information or photos to various sections, so the News section below will always have links to the latest updates. There's also a Table of Contents at the bottom of this page with a brief description of every page on the site. Additionally, if you're looking for information about a particular project, you may find the table available on the Project Timeline useful, since you may click on the project name to go directly to the information regarding that specific work.

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2025.07.06
The House: Another quick update just to say we hope you've enjoyed a nice 4th of July weekend! We usually try to have a cookout for the 4th, but we also usually enjoy a pizza for dinner on Fridays, so… pizza on the grill, of course! The new double pizza stone worked great (which is actually five years old, but we've only used it one other time) — our old stone cracked when we tried to grill with it, but this new thing is a double-stone with an interlocking edge that creates an air-gap between the stone directly over the fire, and the upper stone where the pizza is placed. No cracking and the crust was perfect.
As for work on the house, I've not really done much for the last couple weeks, other than tinker around with the yard work a little (but I have decent excuse… ). So, a while back I cracked a tooth (my lower, rear, right molar, or #31) and pretty much ignored it as it wasn't causing any pain. Then a couple months ago the old filling from that tooth came loose, and it was started to hurt from time to time. After a few weeks of occasional pain, it really started to hurt constantly (as in, can't sleep with my mouth throbbing kinda hurt), so I finally called the dentist to have him have a looksee. He took an x-ray and confirmed that the remains of the tooth was gonna hafta go, and that it was abscessed, which is what was causing the pain. He prescribed a round of antibiotics and gave me a referral for an oral surgeon to get a root canal or have the thing extracted (apparently the roots were pretty twisted around, so he didn't want to work on it himself). After a few days of the antibiotics the pain stopped, so I called the oral surgeon to make an appointment. I said my dentist referred me for a root canal, and they said "we don't do root canals". Great, so my dentist won't work on it and said you guys need to do it, so they recommended I come in for a "consultation" to figure out what's going on and made an appointment for last Wednesday. When I got there, the assistant took new x-rays, then the surgeon came in and basically said it's got to go. He then recommended we pack the holes from the roots with "bone dust" so the jaw will fuse with the new bone dust, then they can put in a post and have the dentist make a replacement crown. The bone fusion typically takes three or four months to reach full strength, then we can decide whether or not to install the post and crown, or just leave it empty (the dentist had said I likely wouldn't miss it, so I doubt I'll do the crown thing when the time comes). I then asked how soon they could extract the tooth, and he said "We can do it right now!" So after a couple shots of pain killer to my lower jaw, last Wednesday at 4 p.m. my tooth #31 went away. Since then I've been on another round of antibiotics, along with a combo of 600mg of Ibuprofin and 500mg of Acetaminophen every seven hours for the pain (and there really isn't any, unless I neglect to take those horse pills at the right time). Bottom line: I'm taking it pretty slow for a few days at least, since I'm a little out of it with these drugs in me and a new hole in my head.
The Vanagon: Nothing new to report on the vehicle – it's still runnin' fine and gettin' me around (although I have noticed when I fill it with fuel the gas gauge only goes up to just over half-a-tank, so the sender's going to have to get a little tweak at some point).
The Site: Once again, no new content this time around other than this health report.

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2025.06.22
The House: The last few weeks of work have mostly dedicated to projects in the yard and garden, since as I think I've mentioned before, I haven't done much of anything out there for a couple seasons after getting the bamboo containment project finally completed. There has been a lot of pruning to take care of on the shrubs out back (of which I've perhaps taken care of about a third so far), and I've also been working on getting the irrigation system running again (and that's needed two of the four control valves replaced so far). The old leaf chipper/shredder/vacuum engine could not be saved, so rather than try to get a new engine (for which Briggs & Stratton said they no longer make a direct replacement unit when I asked them about it), we decided to just replacement the thing with a new one from Home Depot (which is here, but still in the box waiting for me to put it together). So many little projects!
I did manage to get a couple things taken care of that I mentioned in the last news update: the cleaning and re-staining of the tsukimi-dai decking is finished and the thing is lookin' good again. I also got the new control cables for the lawn mower installed and after sharpening the blade, have already put that to use a couple of times. I also made time to get a couple coats of semi-gloss clear on the saobuchi ceiling trim, so that will start getting installed soon.
The Vanagon: The thing has been running just fine since the last update, and we've been using it for grocery shopping and a few other errands with no problems. I still need to take a day to have the shop put in the new clutch hydraulics, but that will likely wait a week or more since our weather for the next few days is supposed to be quite hot (we may get above 100° F, which is pretty rare for these parts). The oil pressure warning issue has not returned, so that's certainly good news.
The Site: Like my last update, I didn't add any new content to the rest of the site other than this status update. I did take care of cleaning up this page a bit by creating the new 2024 News Archives page and getting all of last years status updates moved over to that, which also warranted updating the search index this time around. That's it for now – Stay cool and enjoy the start of Summer!

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2025.05.21
The House: It's somewhat hard to believe how fast Spring seems to be going by as I'm making very slow progress on getting more work done on the interior renovation work. I haven't really done any more work on the living room ceiling light, although all the ribs are glued up and waiting for me to spend a day on them with a hand plane. I've also gone through that heap of saobuchi ceiling trim and given it all a light sanding, then stained it with two colors to closely match the ceiling panels. Clear-coat on that stuff is next to move things along inside (when the weather is a bit more cooperative – lots of rain and high humidity lately).
The good news is that we're actually making some progress taking care of the garden, as that was pretty much neglected for the last couple of seasons while dealing with the bamboo containment project. The lovely bride's been doing an outstanding job of collecting leaves, and I've been trying to get our outdoor power equipment up to snuff for another year (the lawn mower needs a new throttle cable and control cable, which I have and need to install. The leaf vacuum/shredder thing hasn't run for years, and I've had to do a new pull starter, coil, and now a carburetor to see if I can save it). I also intend to get after a lot of pruning that needs to be done out back, as well as clean & re-stain the tsukimi-dai deck.
The Vanagon: I've finally managed to get the Vanagon into decent running condition after lots of tinkerin'. With the new Oxygen sensor installed, I was able to get the idle mixture adjusted to that happy place of 0.4VDC average output after lots of adjusting of the mixture set screw and idle speed setting, and that output is consistent at idle, 1,000RPM, 2,000RPM, and 3,000RPM (which means it's correct). I didn't need to fiddle with the wiper arms or spring tension in the air flow meter (which is sometimes required to keep the mixture correct at those higher RPMs), so I was also able to seal the AFM cover back into place as well. I also installed a new throttle cable, since the old one had lost the sealing boot at the engine end of the cable and that allowed water to get into the cable sleeve and cause issues in the Winter when it would freeze. I then finally replaced the idle control valve (which is supposed to "vibrate" when powered on, and did not), and that's now humming along as it should. I got a spare idle control unit from my mechanic, so I'll likely send that out for a rebuild to ensure it's working properly. When I took it for a quick test drive after finishing up in the engine compartment, I was presented with a lovely oil pressure warning light & alarm (the above-2,000RPM buzzer and blinky light warning, as opposed to the below-2,000RPM light only warning), so I limped it home at low revs and ordered more stuff to deal with that. After a new proper MANN W719/12 oil filter, five quarts of Castrol 20W50 high-mileage motor oil, and a replacement high-RPM oil pressure switch, there was no more oil pressure warning. More than likely it was caused by the improper fuel mixture setting (it had been running very rich, which can thin the oil significantly and cause that oil pressure warning – the engine already has a replacement GoWesty 30mm high-volume oil pump, so I'm confident is was just thinned oil that was the problem, and it hasn't re-occured after the oil change).
There's still plenty of projects I'd like to take care of on the Vanagon (the upgraded wiring and relays for the headlights, installation of the fog, driving, and auxiliary back-up lights, replacement of the bearings for the sliding door, addition of the third brake light, and more), and I also need to get it back to the shop for them to install the new clutch master and slave cylinders. For now, it's running and driving quite well, so I'm just enjoying the ability to run errands for supplies without issues while we try to get caught up on yard work.
The Site: Other than this rather lengthy status update, I didn't add anything to the rest of the site this time around. That is all.

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2025.04.02
The House: We've actually gotten one of our interior rooms finished! Well, it still needs some proper wardrobes for the cloths, but I consider that in the category of "furnishing" the space and am happy to call the "renovation work" for that room completed. We often find ourselves just walking to the closet doorway to look over the space, letting the fact sink in that something's actually done. Progress!
The Vanagon: As I was workin' on idle issues, I decided to replace the Oxygen sensor so got a new, Bosch 3-wire unit (as opposed to the single-wire things that need to be spliced to the existing harness, and rarely does the job correctly). I installed a complete stainless-steel exhaust system a few years ago, so I was hoping the thing would come out without too much difficulty. Wrong! I instantly rounded off the existing sensor while trying to un-screw it with a 22mm wrench, then tried vise-grips and it wouldn't budge. I ended up trying to break it loose with a hammer and sharp cold chisel, which resulted in just tearing the sensor's mounting flange off the side of the catalytic converter. So, after I dropped the cat with the muffler and tailpipe, I then chiseled out the old sensor at the bench. Joy. I took the cat to the shop and they re-welded the flange (so that saved a few hundred bucks for a new cat), and they even ran a tap through the threads of the old flange so the new sensor should go in fine. Just waiting now for the new cat and muffler exhaust gaskets, as well as new stainless-steel hardware to put everything back together, then we'll see if the new sensor allows me to properly adjust the idle mixture.
The Site: The Bedroom page of the Interior section got a few new paragraphs and photos to cover the Closet/Laundry Room Flooring Installation work for that space. That also led to the usual update for the search index, and a new entry to the Project Timeline.

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2025.03.03
The House: I'm pleased to report that the finished ceiling panel (tenjou-ita) installation work for the living room has been completed, and I've even managed to save a few 2-foot lengths of the ceiling panel stock to use for the attic hatch when the time comes to work on that thing. I also got together with my friend with the pick-up truck last weekend for a Home Depot run and then spent some shop time at his place. We got all the stock for the bedroom and living room ceiling trim (the saobuchi) milled to size, and that stock is now waiting for finish to get applied once the weather gets a little nicer. I then spent a few days taking care of the last few details for the living room ceiling work with the painting & installation of the recessed light trim rings and the in-ceiling speaker grills, and then installed the last interconnected smoke/CO detector between the bedroom and kitchen on the new living room ceiling. The final little "side project" for the living room ceiling is to make a new pendant light fixture for the space, which I started working on last week (but we replcaed the paper lamp shade with a better looking pendant fixture for now).
Next up is to get started on finished flooring installation in the closet/laundry room and bedroom (so I can get all those Ikea® boxes of bedroom furniture out of the living room and finish the GWB work in there). Unfortunately, Lumber Liquidators no longer sells the laminate flooring we originally selected (and already installed in our offices off the genkan), so a new search for flooring began in earnest a couple weeks ago (we figured out our flooring was no longer available back when the flooring underlayment work got started a couple years ago, so I've been doing a little browsing for new flooring for a while now). We ordered a few color samples of various Pergo® Outlast+ laminate flooring to get a better look at the stuff, and decided to go with their "Cocoa Walters Oak" 12mm stuff with attached underlayment. We picked up a few boxes when we got the ceiling trim stock, and I plan to order the remainder to do the rest of the house soon, since HD has free shipping on this fairly heavy material (oh – I also recommend if you plan on buying flooring from HD, certainly order a couple samples for $3 ea., as they come with a 10% off flooring coupon).
The Vanagon: I got the Vanagon Synchro cooling system and engine compartment work taken care over the last few weeks (when we weren't getting dumped on with snow and ice). It's running again, although I'm not thrilled about how it idles and haven't really been driving it much. I've done a little trouble shooting to try to eliminate what could be causing the problems (temp sensor II and air-flow meter are relatively new and tested properly), so I'll likely need to replace a couple pricey items to really make it right (like the idle speed control valve & control unit – which is made of unobtanium so that'll be a pain, and probably a new throttle body unit from GoWesty). As the weather continues to become more tolerable to work outside, I'll keep pickin' away it the thing.
The Site: Once again the Living Room page of the Interior section got a couple more paragraphs and photos added to the Finish Ceiling Panel Installation section to wrap up what went into that project, then I started a new section on the construction of the Main Ceiling Light that I'm working on now. I've also updated the search index, and the Project Timeline to include the most recent changes.

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2025.01.29
The House: While I've been pickin' at the work on the new Vanagon over the last couple weeks while waiting for parts to arrive (and finding more stuff to take care of, then waiting for more parts to arrive), I did finally manage to get back to doing some work on the house once again. I got the daikokubashira stained, and re-stained the tokobashira, then got a few coats of Minwax® Antique Oil Finish applied to both pillars. I also determined I needed to add a piece of trim to the bottom of the fusuma door header so the living room ceiling panels would have something to butt against to get them all aligned properly. With that I've been able to make some progress on the finished ceiling panel installation work for the living room, so things are moving along on interior renovation work once more.
The Vanagon: As far as the vehicle goes, as mentioned above, that work is still ongoing. I'm taking care of alot of little things in the engine compartment that I wasn't thrilled about – lots of clean-up, some wiring repairs, and then the cooling system fixes that started it all a few weeks ago. The last couple parts should be here this week, so it should be back on the road in early February.
The Site: The Living Room page of the Interior section got a couple new paragraphs and photos to address the Finish Ceiling Panel Installation work for that room (which I'll likely expand as the work continues). I've also added some more detailed information about what I'm doing to the new Vanagon Synchro within the Old Volkswagens section of the Et Cetera page. As usual, I've also updated the search index, and added new links for 2025 to the Project Timeline.

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2025.01.12
The Vanagon Status: Not really a site update (since this has nothing to do with the house)…
Did you know that most automobiles have basically four hoses for the cooling system? There's a couple big ones that go from the engine to the radiator and back again, then a couple small ones that go from the engine to the heater core (although one of the heater hoses has a heat control valve somewhere in its run, so I suppose it should be five hoses). The 2.1l VW Vanagon Synchro, on the other hand, has over 20 hoses for the cooling system, along with another six metal pipes, and a big 4-way junction block to feed another half-a-dozen hoses for supply and return to the front and rear heater systems. An "average" modern vehicle has a coolant capacity of between three and seven liters, while the 2.1l Vanagon holds 17.5 liters. So why am I blatherin' on about the Vanagon cooling system? On New Year's Eve we were on our way back from the local grocer when I noticed a lot of steam/smoke in the rear view mirror — that's gotta be a coolant leak. The store's less than 10 miles from the house, so I decided to try and make it home rather than pull over and wait for a tow. I did my best to keep the revs low and let it coast when I could, all the while keepin' a close eye on the temp. gauge. Not too hot, and no blinky red light (which starts up when the coolant reservoir is low) and we were more than half-way home. Slow & steady… now into our neighborhood… Temp's startin' to climb but still no blinky red light. Made the final turn onto our street and the light started, so I just turned it off and rolled down the hill then into our driveway.
So my chilly New Year's Day was spent takin' apart stuff in my engine compartment to get a look at the cooling hoses I haven't already replaced (all but three of the big hoses were replaced with $ilicone hoses from VanCafe, and the metal connector pipes were replaced with $tainless $teel units from GoWesty when the engine was in the old Vanagon). My suspicion was that something for the oil cooler had popped – either one of those four little hoses split, or one of the little connector pipes finally gave up. I removed the A/C compressor to see the lines below it, then poured in a gallon of water and connected a pressure tester to the system to pump it up and see where it was leaking. Despite the crusty lookin' steel oil cooler pipes, it was actually a tiny hole in the elbow of the "peace pipe" hose that was sprayin' water on to the cylinder head when pressurized. Luckily, VanCafe still had all their silicone hoses on sale for the holiday, so I ordered a new "peace pipe" hose and the set of four oil cooler hoses from them that afternoon. I also ordered one of the stainless steel oil cooler pipes from GoWesty (the other was out-of-stock at both GoWesty and VanCafe, but I found one at Van-Again so I can replace 'em both while I'm in there with the system drained). Now I just need to wait for everything to arrive, then it'll be time for fun with cooling system work… in the driveway in the middle of Winter. That is all.

For past chronological updates, please see the following pages:
     2008 News Archives.
     2009 News Archives.
     2010 News Archives.
     2011 News Archives.
     2012 News Archives.
     2013 News Archives.
     2014 News Archives.
     2015 News Archives.
     2016 News Archives.
     2017 News Archives.
     2018-21 News Archives.
     2022 News Archives.
     2023 News Archives.
     2024 News Archives.

Using the Site

Visitors should check this page to determine the most recent updates, or browse the sections listed in the navigation menu on the left. I'll try to always have a picture of the most recent project or the house itself on this page too.

Navigating the Site
The navigation menu will expand when you hover your curser over an item with a down arrow (↓) in the name. The section you are currently visiting will display in a different color than the rest of the menu so you hopefully won't get lost. There's an up arrow (↑) near the bottom of each page that will return you to the top of the page when clicked. Links in the body text will display in a different color than the rest of the text. All internal links (links in the body text or nav menu sections) will replace the contents of your browser's current window with the target's content when clicked, so you may navigate using the 'forward' or 'back' controls of your browser. External links (links to other sites) are in the footer and will open in a new browser window (or tab) when clicked. If an external link is placed in the body of the page, it will be indicated with an icon: link opens a new window.

Receiving Updates
If you click the RSS feed icon ( news icon ) in the News section above, your browser will open the news feed page that I usually update whenever I update the site. In order to have it display in your browser, it simply runs a little code to allow it to show up, but no longer provides a means of subscribing to the feed. In order to automatically receive updates, you'll need to use a dedicated RSS News Reader application (or browser "add-on"), then copy & paste in the address of our feed: http://kesterhouse.com/rss/kesterhouse.xml into that reader. If Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge get their "Collections" and "Follow" stuff worked out, perhaps I can get rid of the code and go back to just loading the XML in the browser.

Searching the Site
When you click the 'SEARCH' item in the nav menu you'll be presented with a search box to enter the keyword(s) you'd like to find. Hit your 'enter' key or click the little magnifying glass and your browser will load the search results page with your search terms highlighted. When you navigate to a page from the link provided in the search results, the search terms will also highlight in the new page to make them easier to find.

'Lightbox' Image Viewing
When you click on a photo it will enlarge in the browser window and the background around the image will darken to allow better viewing of the image. If there are additional photos on the particular subject, you will find controls to view those additional photos below the bottom-right corner of the image. You may also hover your curser over the image to use the Next and Previous buttons when there's more than one photo in the group you're viewing, or view the set as a slide show by using the Play and Pause buttons below the image. To open an individual photo in a new window (in case you wish to bookmark the image, or copy it for appropriate use), click the small Expand icon in the top-right corner of the photo. To return to the normal page view, click the small X below the image, or click anywhere on the background around the photo.

The Footer
The footer contains a link to send us an e-mail if you'd like to make a comment or suggestion. It also contains external links (they all open in a new window) to other sites I enjoy.

Creating the Site & Compatibility
I've created the site entirely with a text editor, since I'm still a member of the 'old-fart school' of web design. I'm using a lot of Cascading Style Sheet design controls, as well as a fair amount of Javascript to make the page do what I want it to do - some written by me, but mostly I'm using the wonderful jQuery library with plug-ins I've found here and there. If you've got Javascript disabled in your browser, the site should degrade gracefully and remain functional, although it's not going to look very nice.

I check the site occasionally for functionality with a smart phone or tablet, although I generally write everything in anticipation of having it read on a laptop or workstation. I have the latest versions of most Windows 10 browsers installed and have verified the pages display correctly with those. As stated above, Microsoft Edge is currently having issues with RSS feeds as they implement some new news reader features, so I'll tweak the XML as needed when and if they get it all worked out.

What's in the Sections

Here's a description of what's included in the sections - some are more complete than others but it's all getting there.

 

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