See why I'm having the electrical replaced
The Cabinets are gone (why do I feel the need to capitalize the word cabinets?)
The next few I just took pictures of the dust in the air.
Dust.
More dust.
Where'd everything go?
Tore this sweet deck of this weekend.
Found under deck: parts of previous deck, 3 empty handles of brandy, refrigerator parts, bowling ball, etc
Deck all gone, we salvaged the stairs so that door is still useful.
Oct 26
As I’m sure you’ve noticed the past two weeks have been dedicated to tearing apart my house. So far we have taken the back bedroom, the kitchen and the back entry area all down to the studs. With the help of a good friend (and another guy) the decrepit deck is now a thing of the past. All of this destruction has overfilled one large dumpster to the point where I think I will need another one delivered this week. The demo has provided some very nice surprises, most importantly the gain of about 14″ in ceiling hight in area just beyond the kitchen.
But really who am I kidding, the demo portion is the boring part of this whole process. This week we get to start putting the house back together, and it’s going to be a busy one. All week I have the plumber, electricians in to do their things. Wednesday should be crazy, the glass block windows are being installed in the basement, the new windows in the kitchen will have the necessary framing done, and the drywall will start to be installed. It may actually look like something that you could live in soon.
If all goes well, I think I am going to be refinishing the wood floors next weekend. I’ve never done this but my friend Jay says he’s done it a few times and my neighbor said he and his brother could help too (his only payment needed is beer!!). As things are laying out now, I may be able to move in next week, which would be a perfect birthday present.
Well I was going to leave you with some pictures of the process, but I forgot my camera this morning. I’ll try to get some up tomorrow or maybe even tonight. This picture is sort of what my house looks like right now.
My house... (note: this is not really my house)
Oct 20
Even though I’ve spent the first two weekends of homeownership in Iowa and Wisconsin, I have made some amazing progress towards moving in. I could really use a weekend where I can just get at it, it looks like the upcoming weekend will be it.
About a week ago I was so close to painting the walls in the back bedroom, but ran out of time Wed night. Thursday, with the help of my mom and uncle we decided that I should re-Sheetrock that room. My mom had actually pealed a bunch of the paint off in the back room only to discover a layer of paint covering about four layers of beautiful wall paper. So as it stands now, with the help from my mom and some good friends, we’re almost all the way down to the studs from the kitchen back. I have been getting bids this week to have that all Sheetrocked, mudded and taped. It will be nice to have that all new.
Kitchen sans upper cabinets, looking into back bedroom. That is the chimney in the back.
10 days, all gone.
I have electricians scheduled in on Friday, so I have to have the remainder of the drywall and cabinets out before then. I’m also thinking that I am going to add to the insulation in the attic. There are some ridiculous incentives for that stuff right now, hopefully I’m not too late.
As I expected, I keep finding new things every turn and every wall I tear down. Nothing has been too bad yet and there isn’t much left to go, so my fingers are crossed that we’re all good. This weekend with the help of some friends, we’re going to tear the decrepit deck off the back of the house. It’s a bit of a mess right now, but I think my neighbors will thoroughly enjoy the changes. The dumpster is close to the point where I should probably close the door and start throwing stuff over the side. Hopefully I’m close to moving in, I’m working to get in by November…. There are a lots of things to happen before then, but I think it’s doable.
Oct 13
It’s took 117 days from the day I made my initial offer, but it’s done. I finally closed on this place Friday, so it is officially mine. So to celebrate, like most good homeowners, I bolted and went to Iowa for the Iowa vs Michigan game Saturday night. Had a great time by the way. 6-0, who would have thought.
I got the work started on Sunday, did some needed cleaning of the bathroom, changed the toilet seat, yes I know this is all very exciting. Then the real fun started, the demo. So far in a little over two days I’ve pulled enough crap out of this place to fill what looks like a quarter of the enormous dumpster that showed up yesterday. It’s mostly filled with sweet wood paneling that was so popular a long time ago.
This place has been quite amazing. As far as I can tell none of the previous owners liked to take anything out when they would remodel. Nope, they just build on top of it. The typical wall (inside to outside) in this house goes like this: studs, old drywall, few layers of paint (pretty normal so far), then anywhere from what seems like 18-20 layers of various patterns of contact paper, then for good measure, they throw a few layers of that sweet aforementioned paneling.
The ceiling in the back of the kitchen, really I guess it’s the dining room, has a the ceiling structure, then dry wall which is painted, then a drop down to a square panel ceiling, then another further drop down to another square panel ceiling, which has had a knockdown applied to it. All in all, they’ve lowered the ceiling I would say about 8 inches after adding all these layers. I’m really just making my house bigger.
As I’m sure you find on many or all houses people have their own way of doing things. The previous owners of this place loved to do things on their own, but they had no idea what they were doing. From what I can see they were just trying to make this small house feel smaller. They were quite successful at this, I’m doing my best to reverse it.
Living room looking into the Kitchen.
Some amazing artwork, make an offer, you know you want it.
Kitchen, all of this is going, besides the wood floors. This will be the best part of the house, which is very exciting.
The exposed drop ceilings, what a waste of headroom.
Anyways, this is just the beginning, it’s becoming more daunting as the days past, good thing the place isn’t very big.
Aug 5
