It’s been about a millions years… or feels like it, anyway

Our last post here was a catch-up post that I wrote in early October 2020, and the post didn’t even catch us up to the then current state of progress on our remodel. It’s been forever, and a lot has happened since then. Frankly, one of the things stopping me from updating the blog is pictures. Between us there are many hundreds of photographs to slog through. I’m not going to do it. The photo slogging. Not today, anyway. I’m apologizing up front for the limited number of photos. It’s come down to this: I need to either process all of those (expletive deleted) photographs, or I need to blog without (most of) them.

The other thing is how to organize all of the information and events, and get them all to you in a way that makes sense. I’ve been thinking about it, and I think that if I break things down by month that will be the easiest way to go. We have email messages and Facebook history that I can use for the order of things. Though written in October, my last post caught us up as far as early August last year, with most of the windows being installed, the replacement of the beams in the kitchen ceiling, and graveling the driveway. Next up: the rest of August. Oh, and though I was going to write entire paragraphs for all of this, get Dave to proof it, and any number of other things, I’m not going to. I’m going to leave it as a bullet list, and actually get this update out today! Here goes:

August 2020

North-facing kitchen window re-framed for larger glass
Window installed

September 2020

Removed remains of double sticky tape from lower bath walls
Dave continues to take the house apart

October 2020

Building starts in earnest: the new laundry room is framed in

November 2020

Removed wallpaper border from half bath
Copper pipe removed
Plumbing rough in done, except for a few things that they returned to do, and a number of things they never did
Inspector passes the plumbing… why?

December 2020

Electrical rough in starts December 9, and turns into a much larger job than originally planned, as the original wiring in parts of the house were so weirdly done, and so far away from code that it’s amazing the house didn’t burn down decades ago

January 2021

Electrical rough in passes inspection—hooray!
Maple tree near house removed, so very very sad, but it had to come out as a significant percentage of the trunk was hollow

February 2021

We realize that the plumbers didn’t do more things than we’d thought… like they missed plumbing the shower in the downstairs bathroom, and the ice maker in the kitchen has no water, and a large list of other things; if you’re local and want to know which plumber to avoid, we’ll be happy to tell you

March 2021

Heavy rain shows that the fix to the laundry room wall isn’t 100%
Network closet floor installed, and it’s gorgeous; that same floor will be installed throughout the house, except in bathrooms and laundry room

April 2021

Roll up garage door installed in barn
Fixed laundry room back wall leak problem but good; work done by Rock Solid Waterproofing

May 2021

Dave begins pulling network wiring throughout the house
Master bath linen closet delivery
Removed remaining insulation from entire house
Same guy who laid the floor in the network closet also fixed the two toilets that the journeyman plumber didn’t know how to deal with (there are no words for that original plumber that make him sound good)
New plumber found to fix original plumber’s mistakes, then he leaves for a three-week vacation so work is put off until mid June
Rose hedge falls over
Insulation hung upstairs

June 2021, so far

Insulation hung thought most of the downstairs
Insulation inspection passed for upstairs; downstairs pending
Finally finished painting the master bathroom; painting the half bath begins
Sheet rock going up!
Climbing rose put on trellis
Work cutting fallen roses back begins; this is going to take me a while (there are 17 bushes in the hedge!); the worst of the fallen have been cut back, and the remaining canes look great

And now you have read the list, and we are all caught up. Basically. I don’t even want to tell you when we think we might be able to move into our house, as I don’t want to jinx it. Stay tuned. I’ll leave you with this photo of Ansel. He is extremely good at being cute.

May 19, 2020May 19, 2020

Catching up

It turns out that, what with one thing and another, we haven’t blogged for more than a month! We’re sorry. I’m here today to get us all caught up. I was originally going to create several short posts, each on a given subject, and release them on different days, but that seemed like too much work. I’ll do headings instead, so that you can skip something and go on to the next thing, if you’ve a mind to.

Coming back later (I’m about half done writing it) and reading this missive, I think that I should probably break it up to make for easier reading. I’m not going to, though. Hope to see you on the other end. Three cheers, if you make it through! LOL

The bears

After what felt like years, but wasn’t really, Dave finally found a source for the now elusive spar varnish, got some, got it to the house, and painted the bears with it. They’ve gotten two coats already. Now they’re waiting for more nice weather, so that they can get another coat or two.

One of the bears kept giggling, while Dave applied the varnish. He said it tickled.

The shelf paper

Though I desperately wanted to use up my 30-year-old shelf paper, it just wasn’t going to work out. Apparently, if you keep the stuff in a roll for 30 years without using it, the stuff complains. Not that I can blame it really. So I bought some new. I ordered it on Amazon, who has been getting way too much of our money, especially lately, but there you go. In the earlier days of the corona virus and everyone staying at home, contact paper was apparently deemed a necessity, and I got it in a couple of days. Meanwhile, the disinfectant wipes that I ordered on April 5 have been delayed even more. No biggie. There’s nothing else in this house that we can use to disinfect, well, anything, so that doesn’t matter at all, right? But I digress. Out with the 30-year-old shelf paper, and in with the new.

Yup. When the world sends lemons, paper with zebra stripes is lemonade! Just like the bears in the backyard, whenever I open a drawer or a cupboard that has been papered, I laugh. In the one photo you can see the new paper in a drawer, next to one of the blue sinks (really? blue?), while in the other photo you can see the flooring below the papered shelves. Anyone remember that exact flooring from my parents’ house? Yes, I grew up with this one, and can’t wait to get rid of it… again. Though wait I shall. Clashes beautifully with the zebras, doesn’t it? 🙂

The lower garage

The lower garage has been used as one of the staging areas. We originally shoved all the rolled up carpet that we tore from the floors, the paneling from the walls, and everything else we could think of into this garage. We’ve spent a good deal of time in there pulling nails out of everything from paneling to planks, sometimes making a bigger mess before we were through. Then suddenly—well, maybe not suddenly—the garage was empty!

It’s amazing how much we’re using the pickup now compared to…well, any time in the last 20+ years that we’ve had it!

The stairs

I think that from the very first time we saw this house we wondered why the staircase was enclosed on the one side. I mean, the garage is on one side of the stairs, so it’s obvious why that wall is there. It’s the other side. It was a short-ish hallway that was all dark and narrow and closed in. Like this, except this side of the wall was paneled, too:

You see what a dismal thing it was? But now? Now it is glorious! Well, now it’s awesome. It won’t be glorious until we have our flooring put on the stairs. In the meantime, this is how it looks from the entry, or looking down.

You won’t be able to see under the stairs when we’re done, but the wall used to start at the base of the stairs, and went all the way up to the floor of the story above. I’m getting all tangled. Hope you understand. It’s just so nice that it’s all open now. Hooray!

The hi-lift jack

Dave has pretty much always wanted to have a hi-lift jack. He never got one before, though, because he didn’t actually have a need for one. Now he does. He’s used it to great effect in the backyard, pulling out those old posts, the clothesline, all sorts of stuff.

The backyard is still a disaster, but nowhere near as bad of a disaster as before we started attacking it. The three rhododendrons back here have been freed from ivy and blackberries, so has the big old maple tree, and the garden where nothing grows any more (except blackberries and ivy). Now it looks like it has potential, where before it was just a big, old mess. Click on the photo below to see it better.

This part—see below—is “the garden.” It was almost completely covered with a mess of blackberries and ivy that was probably six or seven feet high. Most of the pathway was completely covered over. There was just a narrow bit along one edge where you could walk. You certainly couldn’t make it all the way to the tree! Now Dave’s there, holding up the tree, not in fear for his life or limb or anything else. Super cool.

The kitchen

We went over to the house the other day. I think it was on Saturday. We’d been collecting up a bunch of stuff for the house in the living room and entry where we’ve been living. Ansel was starting to get a bit weirded out, and we all thought it would be good for us to take those things over to our house where they might do some good. We filled up the truck, and headed over. A few minutes after we got there the truck was empty, and we were wandering around the house. Then we had lunch.

The next thing I knew I was putting zebra stripes on more shelves, and Dave started attacking the dishwasher. We had someone in line who wanted to take it off our hands. We knew it’d be a whole lot easier for someone to haul it away if it was already outside. That took some doing. The plumbing was all wonky, and instead of being plugged in the thing was wired into the wall (who does that?). Once that was done, managed to get the eating counter off of the back of the cupboard that had had the cook top in it.

Then he started wondering how the top counter top was attached to the cabinet. Dave can often be found pondering with a hammer in one hand.

The next thing I knew he’d gotten the thing off.

And then he got the cupboard up off the floor, and moved it over.

About this time the refrigerator got moved into the living room. Doesn’t everyone have a fridge in the living room? It’s so handy!

Then the cupboard that used to have the cook top in it also got moved into the living room. Dave asked if I could help manhandle it. I tried to budge one little corner. It laughed. I said no. We left for the day.

These next photos are some that Dave took yesterday, when I was at home buying more things for the new house. When he arrived the floor where the dishwasher had been was all wet. Now it’s leaking into a bucket. There’s another bucket installed where the “laundry room” sink used to be, too. He took that out yesterday, too.

Dave somehow managed to get that cupboard into the living room. It’s no wonder the man comes home with sore muscles so often!

The kitchen sink is out now, too. And all the lower cupboards. And the paneling on the walls. The only things really left are those two upper cupboards that are holding up the faux beams. Don’t get me started.

It’s spring

While all of this has been happening in and around the house spring has sprung. Everything is soooo green! Except for the flowers, of course. We now know that our rhododendrons are in an assortment of colors—a little thing that makes me dance with joy. There are two reds, two pinks, and a purple. They’re all glorious. Here’s one of the red ones:

The apple trees (two) bloomed their little hearts out.

Here’s one for scale. Dave’s 6’2″ tall, and looks like a tiny little guy in front of the barn… and the trees that soar behind it.

For those of you who are interested, there are more flower photos here.

I’ll leave you with a view shot, as a reward for making it all the way to the end.

April 5, 2020April 5, 2020

More walls coming down

Well, at least the coverings on the walls are continuing to come down. Dave worked diligently this week, and got the paneling off over the stairs/north dining room wall, some tongue-and-groove along the stairs themselves, and paneling on the west dining room wall removed. Now you can stand in the master bedroom, and see who’s eating in the dining room.

Or, you can stand in the dining room, and look out the guest room window.

Here’s Dave in action, taking the final full piece off the dining room wall.

If you’re standing at the top of the stairs, you can see that the paneling on the stair-side of the pony wall is gone now, too.

If you enter from the front door, then go into the dark and dingy hallway that leads to the lower rooms, you can see where Dave removed more tongue-and-groove planks at the side of the stairs. Before we’re done (I use the imperial “we” here, as Dave’s the one doing the work, as usual), the side of the stairs will be open to the hallway, making it lighter and more welcoming. That’s the general idea, anyway.

While Dave was working on those things, I was running from bathroom to bathroom removing ancient, ugly, dirty, disgusting contact paper from the drawers, cleaning the drawers and cupboards, and also giving the toilets and counters a little much-needed attention. I wish I’d thought to take a picture of the paper that was in the drawers in the master bath. Remember how all the curtains were either dark brown or dark red? Well, the contact paper matched: dark red brick print. Really?

This lovely paper (and even better papering job) was in the bathroom off the living room. It was there so long that the paper was brittle, and actually broke, often, in response to my attempts to remove it. I won in the end, however. These drawers are now paper-free, and washed.

I replaced the original paper in the master with this little floral print that I’ve probably had since some time in the 1980s. Brand new roll. Well, never used, still wrapped in the original packaging. That’s “new.” Right? It’s so old, though, that it didn’t want to stick. I ordered some brand new contact paper that I use in all the bathrooms after it arrives. I expect that it’ll stick better than this poor old blue floral.

I didn’t take any view shots when we were there, so I’ll leave you with a photo of Ansel looking out the window.

February 18, 2020March 2, 2020

What’s above that ceiling?

We decided a while back that the library ceiling was one of the few that we’re going to take down. There are reasons. One of which is the mystery light fixture that doesn’t work (the one that doesn’t work is over the sink—naturally). Another is ambient light. It’s so very dark in there, and always will be since it has no windows, that having a standard white ceiling will probably help. It’ll help make it feel a little higher, too, and since it’s less than eight feet high that’s a good thing. Plus, with the ceiling down we can see how the furnace in the downstairs closet connects to the heat pump, we can more easily get to the spots in the kitchen where we need to run gas pipe for the cook top, and lots of other things. So, the ceiling must come down.

Backing up

Part of our task this day was to remove the rest of the back of the guest room’s closet wall. It started out looking like this:

There’s that silly furnace in there, and we checked into it. Yeah, sure, we can move the furnace out of the closet, and into the garage where it belongs. For a small fee. Right. How about if we turn it instead, so that we can access it from the library instead of from the inside of a clothes closet. Okay. That’s doable. The sheet rock has to come down, though. That’s one bit of demolition that Dave really got into. There’s no point in trying to save and reuse sheet rock, so the big hammer came out, and a few minutes later the closet looked like this (and then I cleaned up the debris):

Now for the ceiling?

But wait! We have to take the board and bat walls down before we can remove the ceiling. Joy. Here’s what the room looked like when we started:
This is how the library looked when we bought the house.

For the most part, removing the board and bat walls is a simple thing. Most of them are held up by only a couple nails and a whole lot of habit. There are some that are a bit more complicated, though. Like the ones behind the appliances, especially the wall boards behind the sink. Well… we (and when I say “we” I mean Dave) moved the fridge and the range out of the way, but we weren’t prepared to deal with plumbing that day, so what to do about those walls? Dave took out his handy new multi-tool, and cut the boards above the back splash. Ta da! We’ll worry about the lower half of those wall boards later.

Now for the ceiling!

With those wall boards out of the way, the ceiling is much easier to get down. While Dave wrenched at it, I mostly pulled nails out of planks that had already been removed. Once in a while I ran into the library to catch the end of a board as it fell off of the ceiling. This was a dicey thing. I had to put up my arms out, in the right place, and then quickly close my eyes so that falling icky stuff wouldn’t blind me. I actually did catch a few.

Now that most of the ceiling is down, everyone who needs to see where the plumbing and electrical stuff is going, needs to go, can go can actually see what they need to see. It’ll make working on all that stuff so much easier, too.

In closing

My gratuitous view shot of the day isn’t actually a photo of our view. Instead I captured a photo of our very first camellia flower! This flower is probably at least ten feet off the ground, and the rest of the plant soars above it. But look! How pretty.

January 18, 2020March 2, 2020

Wow! That Really Opened Things Up

We removed some of the kitchen cupboards recently. Specifically, the cabinet in the laundry room area of the kitchen, the cupboards above the cook top, and the cupboards above the counter to the right of the sink.

It really opened up the whole upstairs.

Here is what it looked like before:

Kitchen

And now:

I can now see our spectacular view while standing at the cook top. I love it.

Of course there will be a big vent hood over the new cook top before we’re done, but still…

January 13, 2020March 2, 2020

Shower: Exit Stage Left

We’re doing an addition to the house for Laura’s office. It’s going to be off the southeast corner of the house with its door to the left of the bathroom that’s off the living room. Unfortunately, that bathroom has a shower right where the office door needs to go.

So out goes the shower. Don’t worry, there are three others. Besides, who needs a shower right off the living room, right?

So here is the bathroom as it was when we got the house:

As the shower was making its exit:

And all that’s left:

Still need to remove some of the flooring and cut and cap the drain pipe.

(And Laura notes that having a shower control and shower head in the middle of the door to her office will probably be slightly inconvenient, and so both of those should go as well. LOL)

November 21, 2019March 2, 2020

We Have Three Fewer Closets

As part of the remodel we’re moving the wall between the master bedroom and the master bath to make the master bath a little roomier. As it is, the door can’t be opened all the way because it hits the counter. We’re going to pull the wall back a bit and replace the swinging door with a pocket door (Laura would say Squee or some such at this point).

To do this we have to remove two of the existing closets and rebuild one of them in a slightly different location. This is how things started.

The closet to the left with the swinging door is the linen closet and will be moving to a larger space in the hall. The closet to right is Laura’s and the one that needs to be moved.

And this is how it looks now.

Master closet gone

So, that’s two closets gone. What about the third? Ah, well. The future TV room has a closet (with a water heater in it that will be moving).

The library is on the other side of that closet and we need all the room we can get in the library. So we’re going to rebuild the TV room closet to be only 12 inches deep. That should be plenty for DVDs and the like.

Here are before and after shots.

So, that’s what I did Monday and Tuesday.

November 21, 2019March 2, 2020

Say Goodbye to the Giant Satellite Dish

I took advantage of the nice weather last Thursday to take down the 12-foot satellite dish on the upper garage roof.

Still in one piece — How it began the day

There was no realistic way to just remove it, especially by myself, so I disassembled it and took it down piece by piece.

Its construction was pretty straightforward. Nineteen supports bolted to a central hub bolted in turn to the support tripod. The 19 supports result in 18 metal mesh panels that create the semi-hemispherical shape of the dish.

Each panel was mounted to the supports with about a gazillion small, self-drilling, self-tapping screws. Most of them were rusty and not particularly willing to disengage. I used an impact driver to remove them and in the process destroyed a total of three sockets.

After a certain point I started removing the supports as well. These were mounted to the central hub with 9/16-inch bolts, most of which were pretty rusty. You can also see some of the mesh panels in the foreground.

The last two supports were a bit more difficult to remove. In addition to the two large bolts mounting them to the central hub, they were “captured” by some of the support hardware. That meant that I had to remove some very large, very rusty bolts.

The last two mounts — The last two supports

I left the tripod because it is mounted to the garage roof and removing it would result in leaks into the garage. It can wait until we’re ready to pitch that roof.

Here is some of the hardware that held the thing together.

Dish hardware

October 22, 2019March 2, 2020

Removing Some Paneling and More Board and Batten

Started removing some of the paneling up stairs.

This stuff is actually rather hard to remove. First off, it’s pretty high-quality. The panels overlap at the seams instead of simply butting up against each other. That means that you have to take them off in the right order (i.e., you have to remove the top panel first).

In addition to that, they used 2″ nails with heads instead of panel nails in most places. That makes it really hard to get them to pop. Most of them are pulling through.

I also removed most of the remaining board and batten in my office.

That’s a lot of wood!

October 17, 2019March 2, 2020

A Bit More Demolition

The last few days I’ve been doing more demolition.

I removed the ceiling trim and paneling from part of the soffit in the kitchen so that we can see how far up the new cabinets can go.

Those big purlins (beams), on the ceiling are apparently just for show. They stop at the walls and are attached with nothing more than home-made joist hangers.
Soffit and purlin

Having removed some of the ceiling trim I went ahead and finished removing the rest of it upstairs and down. The results aren’t much to look at but here’s the pile of trim.

The narrow boards at the left are the trim (the wider ones to the right are the board and batten that I removed from my office a while ago).

I also removed the shelves and shelf supports from the pantry.
Pantry before
Pantry after

And here’s an odd thing.

Yep. That’s a bare copper wire going across the corner of the pantry. On the opposite side of the wall to the right is a light switch. On the opposite side of the wall to the left is where the intercom master unit was. That wire is how they grounded the intercom system. Nice install guys. Not! 😕

I also finished removing all of the faux shutters, removed all five (yes, five), small satellite dishes, removed the (really ugly), medicine cabinet from the master bath, and finished removing all of the folding door hardware.