Un-Yikes'ed

Ok, I tried to fill in as much as possible. As noted below, I really don't remember what we did Sat the 10th. I'll fill it in once I pick Andrea's brain. In the meantime, I think I like the current entry. Reflects my state of mind lately :).

Move in day is set for June 7. Regardless of whether we move in that day, our furniture will! :)

Finish Paint Done!

My parents have been diligently putting a lot of time into the house. They are excellent painters, and took the task of doing most of the wall repair, washing, priming, and painting. Today they completed the finish coats in all the rooms. Many many thanks!!!

Pictures will follow soon - the floors are being done (Wed 5/28 - Fri 5/30) so we will take pictures when we can walk on them (after Sun 6/1 - already June, yikes!!!).

More Priming

Darek and Marco came over to help again. They primed the rest of the downstairs, including the woodwork (my parents took care of the two bedrooms, so we did the living room, hall, and upstairs).

Randy was at the plumbing again as well. It's looking really good. Plus, he got the sewer pipe out of our head room in the basement, for which I am highly thankful (it's now against the foundation and out of our way).

Andrea had to go to work, so I picked her up so we could do the house in the afternoon and evening. She worked on painting some trim, and caulking bad areas since I neglected to do this in the living room area (my parents, ever vigilant, did not forget this step in the rooms they did :)).

I built the alcove wall, so that Randy could rough in the plumbing and we can put drywall up. It's a small wall (30", where the shower head is, to enclose the tub area). Accordingly, I figured it wouldn't take long. However, never underestimate the ability of fatigue to make a seemingly easy project difficult. Not only did this take longer than I would have expected (unfortunately due to the height of the wall I couldn't build it first and raise it, I had to build it in place which took longer), but it went further over because of stupid mistakes. Cutting a board too short by allowing for one too many 2x4s and forgetting to level one of the studs tops that list I think (I put up a stud from the edge of the bottom plate to the edge of the top plate, forgetting that the top plate was longer so it could catch a floor joist).

At any rate, by the end of the evening all rooms (except the upstairs bathroom and kitchen, which don't have hardwoods and can be painted later) were at least primed, and the tub enclosure was actually an enclosure. Not too bad for a day's work.

Yikes!

Well, so much for keeping this up to date. I'll fake it though :). So, I have pictures and think I remember roughly what's been going on. I'll start posting over the next couple days to get up to date. I'll back date the posts to where they belong (and then maybe delete this post to remove the evidence! :P). Rest assured, things have been happening since my April 27th post. Probably too much, thus the lack of posts here...

Look for updates tonight!

Paint Party

As fun as this sounds, we'll try to have a couple real parties once the house is done and we're moved in. The fun kind. Without work. Believe us, it's safe to come over! :)

This was a busy day. Andrea's father finished off the porch, adding the balusters. She and I washed walls and painted ceilings. Darek and Marco came over to help, and did a ton of priming. After they left, Rose and Patrick arrived and helped us finish paint the ceilings. Joe helped out all day, bouncing between washing walls and heling paint. Randy was there too, getting the plumbing in order so we can finish off the bathroom.

Mother's Day

We had a very nice Mother's day on Sunday :) - we took the day off to celebrate - lunch with my family and dinner with Andrea's.

?

I have no memory of this day.

Cleanup

Ok, so it took me a while to finally get around to this. Sorry :). It means that I've just been spending my time on the house, school, and work!
I'm posting this on Fri 5/30, but will attempt to back date it to the correct day.

(Sat 5/3) The basement supports have been added. The cracked foundation is no longer supporting the house. That's a relief :). At some point I do need to patch the cracks for aesthetics and to ensure a seal against moisture, but at least it won't cause any structural problems. In addition, some finish work was done on the front porch. During the week, I screwed the planks down. Today the end pieces were added. All that is left are the balusters.

(Sun 5/4) My parents came to help out today. If memory serves correctly, we did some yard work (raking the rest of the leaves, there were a ton of them) and demo. Andrea and my mom took care of finishing the basement ceiling demo. My dad and I cleaned out the rest of the bathroom. You can see the dust from the demo in the pictures, especially the basement one :).

Porch Replaced!

On Saturday, we got to one of the big projects - the dilapidated porch has now been torn out and rebuilt! Andrea's father and brother helped with this project again - good thing since I wouldn't have known where to begin :).

The old porch was in rough shape. I already knew this, but it was in even rougher shape than I thought. Most of the demo was us pulling it apart with out hands; hammers and crowbars were barely needed.

I didn't have a digital camera with me (mine was lost and I forgot to borrow Andrea's), so I only have pictures from when Andrea got there after work. I took a few midway with a disposable, which I will develop to CD and add later.

Before we tore out the old porch, we temporarily supported it with some sturdy beams. It was an interesting sight to see the mudroom resting only on the two beams, although those were probably sturdier than what was there before.

We built the new porch around the mudroom. We completely tore out the floor. Andrea's father got it right on, so once the frame was built, we were just able to slide the slats under the mudroom. Once the slats were in place, we took out the old beams and let the new porch do its job.

Sam guarded our lumber for us when he was outside :).

Most of the porch is now in place, as you can see in the photo. The balusters still need to be added, the last slats on either side need to be fitted, and I still need to stop by some night this week and screw in the slats (for now we just have them tacked in). Also, inside the mudroom, we need to remove some of the bottom portion of the wall to screw in the slats which are under there. Once that is done, we'll need to extend the wall down to the porch (because it had settled, the porch wasn't level so there is a gap as you move from the front of the mudroom to the house). We will also put plywood sub floor in the mudroom and some flooring, probably tile.

Tuesday Break

Tuesday was break day. I had my staples out, so I'm back to normal again :). Also, I had my induction to Alpha Sigma Lambda, the honor society for continuing ed students at UMass Lowell. Quite a turnaround from my days at UMass Amherst! Andrea came with me - they had a nice dinner, and it was good to be able to put a face to a couple names I've seen in classes.

Monday Demo

Yeah, yeah, I know, my titles are starting to lack a certain creativity. At least there are posts now though :).

This is the work Andrea and I did Monday the 21st. Again, just a couple hours. We cleaned up some of the debris from Sunday, now that I remembered the wheelbarrow. The big item of the day though was tearing out the carpet and ceiling in the basement.

The carpet came out rather easily. I cut it into four sections. It was thin with no pad or glue, so that was helpful. Unfortunately, there was a small section of glued-down vinyl floor under the carpet. This I left for now, until I can get something to remove the glue.

The ceiling in the cellar was moldy in places, and bowed. As I tore it out I discovered the reason for both - the mold was especially curious as there shouldn't be any water or water pipes in that section.

It turns out, the waving was not from water damage, but a bad installation. The supports for the house were very roughly milled, as we noticed when planning the supports for under the kitchen. To compensate, when they finished the basement they installed strips of wood to try to even it out. However, these were small and nailed in rather than screwed in, and spaced too far apart - they couldn't hold the weight of the drywall over time. Given the low ceiling, I am considering leaving the beams open, as they don't look too bad. I'll also take a level to it and see if it's possible to hang drywall directly on the beams - we would gain a couple inches from tearing out the useless wood strips.

As for the mold - well, in one section a whole ton of mouse droppings came down with the drywall. I'd imagine mice were the source of the moisture for that mold... yuck!

Because the installation wasn't sturdy, the drywall came down quickly. The only area which had plaster was the stairway. I found the best way to approach this was to get a decent size hole in the ceiling, and then use my pry bar to pull the drywall away. I will go through and take out the rest of the wood slats later. In this section there was no plaster left on the slats - I imagine it got shaken down over time between the vibrations from impact on the stairs above, and the installation of the drywall.

All in all, as with the other demo, it seems with this house demo is actually already an improvement over what was there :).

Sunday Demo

This is the work we did Sun the 20th.
We were somewhat tired, but Andrea and I put in a couple hours starting on demo in the bathroom. Always a fun way to get out your frustrations!
There was mold behind the shower enclosure of course, so it's good to be rid of it. Luckily only one of the four walls is plaster (that's coming down another day).
I thought I had a photo of the other side but can't find it - the bathroom door is now gone, as is most of the wall on the door side of the room (where this photo was taken from). I avoided the fixtures for now so we could keep the water on as long as possible - I'm not sure how long it will take us to finish this project.


Once we were done with the bathroom - apart from the walls with plaster and fixtures - we started tearing out the carpet and pad from the stairs and the upstairs hallway.
Luckily, everything looks better without the carpet :). It will be some time before I can properly finish the stairs. In the meantime they don't look great, but the subfloor that is there is much better looking than the old, stained, worn carpet. We lucked out with the upstairs hallway - as I was hoping, there was hardwood under that carpet which matches the floor in the bedrooms.

Progress!

Here we go!!!


First, playing catch up here... The pool is (mostly) down, and the dumpster has arrived. I'm working to try to get rid of the rest of that pool...


Today, we put in footings for resupporting the basement and building a new front porch. Took a while to get the holes dug, but we got there. In all, there are 5 footings in the basement and four for the new porch. We went about 3.5 feet deep for the porch, and about 2 feet in the basement.


Finally, we poured the cement for the footings. In the basement, we just poured it directly in the hole - the objective being to create a solid base for the support columns. In the front, we used tubes to create the footings, 10" diameter and about 3.5 feet high.

Next week, weather permitting, we will add the supports in the basement and rebuild the front porch.

Foiled Again!

Well, seems that postponment is the name of the game lately. The dumpser is ready to go, but, unfortunately, I wasn't.

Last weekend I was supposed to gut the bathroom, remove the basement ceiling, and tear up the carpets. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas. I had my gallbladder out on Saturday, so I was good for nothing for most of the week.

With some help from Andrea and her family, we're finally going to get to it this weekend. Planned is resupporting the house (the foundation in the back left corner is settling) and putting footings in for a new front porch. If that doesn't eat up the whole weekend, we may do some demo. Otherwise, that will be next week's project, since the dumpster is set to leave next Friday.

The time wasn't completely wasted though. I have 9 windows on order, and a siding contractor ready to go after we're done shifting the house. Also, I found someone interested in the scrap metal, so the pool is mostly gone. He was supposed to pick up the rest by this weekend. When I'm at home, I'll load the photo of the partially removed pool.

Calm Before the Storm

Well, I had a couple pictures to post, but can't find my camera cable. They weren't very interesting anyway - the shower door is down, deadbolts are installed, leafy trim is down from the living room, and the place is a lot cleaner thanks to Drea.

Not too much activity yet, so far its mostly been prep - getting quotes for siding and the basement (need to resupport one corner), and evaluating the bathroom and front porch projects. Until the foundation work is done not much else will happen - it has the potential to crack windows and drywall and mess up doors, so I'll let that happen before doing any serious work.

The one exception is demo in the bathroom and the basement ceiling. I'm planning on replacing the bathroom walls and ceiling, and upgrading the electrical wiring while the walls are open. Also, the ceiling in the basement needs to go (some mold, and is wavy - obviously had severe water damage at one point, although it seems dry now). All of this can be done without worry from the foundation project, but I need to time the dumpster right - I want to have a full weekend to work on this. The end of semester is next week, so i have a paper this weekend and finals next week, which means this project will probably be the week after.

Mold!

No picures from tonight (forgot my camera), but not doing too much yet. Got the scary ceiling fan down in one of the bedrooms -- it was stuck on because the switch didn't work, and falling down. The wiring is pretty scary too, might have to do something about that. The house has a new electrical panel, but it looks like at least that room still has old wires.

Also took down the shower door in the bathroom. Got a look behind one of the shower walls. Given that they were already loose, I suspected there would be mold. And there is; lots of it. The backer board has already frayed away near the tub because of the water that got behind it. Looks like the bathroom will need to be gutted and completely redone, which is about what I expected. I just hope the tub can be saved -- I was planning on keeping it, but if that much water got behind there I may need to take it out and get down to the subfloor to see if it was damaged as well. Ick.

This adds to the known mold. The bathroom had other visible mold on the ceiling and shower window, which already had me thinking it needed to be gutted (plus the vanity needs to be replaced and there are at least three layers of floor, so...). There's also mold in the basement ceiling, so that's coming down. And there's mold in the crawlspace -- I will be getting soffit vents which should improve airflow and take care of the problem there, will just need to clean up what's present to fix that.

Looks like this will be fun!

Bat Country

My new house came complete with a resident.
However, when it came time to do a closer inspection and relocate the poor thing, Drea and I had a good laugh...

Turns out our bat was just a broken speaker hanger :). There were spider webs in front which probably made it look like it was breathing. And someone splashed dark paint on the wall... Lets just say I'm glad I'm not cleaning what I thought I was going to have to clean!

Seminole!

Ok, my last attempt at blogging was a miserable failure. This one should be interesting though. As I work on various projects at my new house, I'll post before/after photos, info about the projects, mishaps, etc. Hopefully at least some of it will be entertaining and some informative. The rest will probably make you glad this isn't your house right now :).