Since I have been bad with posting pictures recently, hopefully this one will make up for it.

Our living room:

Dining room:

Close-up:

Hallway to the main floor bedroom:

Main floor bedroom:

Quality test – PASSED:

We have to wait until Monday to move stuff in to allow it to fully “cure.” So, after 5 months of living upstairs, Monday is our “move-in” day. If I didn’t owe a good chunk of hours to my employer, I’d love to have taken the day off. For now, we are going to have to settle for cleaning all the dust off of the wood work and windows.

Some time today, our main contractor is supposed to be coming over to install the main kitchen counter top. That will allow the plumber and electrician to show up on Monday and get the kitchen finished. I should say that is the ideal scenario. I emailed the second tier “general contractor” to set up the plumber and electrician and haven’t heard from him yet. I’ll assume they’ll just show up sometime early next week.

What’s left?

1. Kitchen counters (today the main piece is installed, early next week the island and sliver between the stove and fridge is installed)
2. Sink, dishwasher, stove, and refrigerator hookup
3. Baseboard trim in the kitchen
4. Cabinet crown
5. Kitchen ceiling paint
6. Baseboard trim re-installation in the dining room by the door to the kitchen
7. Dining room door to the kitchen trim
8. Baseboard trim in the main floor bedroom on the wall opposite the kitchen (where we took out the added door)
9. Main floor lights installation
10. Upstairs hallway trim installation
11. Upstairs bathroom trim installation
12. Upstairs bathroom cabinet installation
13. Duct cleaning

All-in-all, not too huge of a list. Most of the items are pretty simple. 80-90% of it should be done this coming week. I probably missed a few things, but if I did, they probably aren’t more than a 5 minute job.

We’re getting there!

Round two starts tonight with a new contractor looking at it at 5pm. If this guy can keep his word, which I find half of these guys can’t do, he will be here Thursday to patch the floors if we give him the go ahead.

That is all I have. Just enough for three sentences and not even a single picture.

Hope you all are having a great Monday!

And with our appliances put in front of their respective locations:

Later this week, there is (yet another) contractor coming over to do some work we weren’t sure was going to be done or not. He is going to be doing some patching and replacing of maple flooring on the main floor. There are a couple spots where someone had put outlets mounted on the floor. While the one that is an inch away from the wall wasn’t that bad, the one that was right in the middle of the floor had been driving us crazy. So those two spots are going to go away. Then there is another location that had a cold air return in the past, and it was “patched” up by just placing 4 maple floor boards in the rectangular opening. While the floor is a good match, it isn’t blended at all, so it sticks out like a sore thumb. That’ll be fixed.

One of the worst flooring areas is where there used to be room dividers between the living room and dining room (ugh at whoever tore those out!). This area was patched in quite poorly with cut marks into neighboring floor boards. And after the burst pipes, they became quite bouncy and loose. I’m excited to see how this is going to turn out.

Onto the main floor bedroom, there is another cold air return that was patched again. This time with one solid board (at least 6″ wide by at least 2′ long). If the other one sticks out like a sore thumb, this sticks out like a monster truck at a Mini Cooper convention.  As Brendan would say: buh-bye. The other spots in this room aren’t quite as bad. There are a couple <1″ holes drilled in near the trim that will go. And in the middle of the room, there must have been a bad squeak, as someone put in around two dozen bright, wide, silver nails into the floor boards. This area will be cut out and patched.

As I mention in my last post, our bathroom floor is finally a full floor:

It is hard to imagine looking at it currently that it will all look similar, but I have high hopes that once the old floor is sanded and finished, the two halves will blend pretty well. Will it be perfect? I doubt it. But this is going to be infinitely better looking than the ceramic tiles laid over the original Douglas fir. One of my first fears of going with new fir was that the grain wouldn’t be as tight. Granted the old floor has a few boards that have tighter grain than any of the new ones, the majority of it is very similar to the new floor:

Here is just the new wood:

Here is just the old wood:

From here, he is going to be framing out the vent stack that runs behind the toilet, and then will be throwing the drywall up. This should started, if not complete, by the end of tomorrow.

Do you remember how we had a contractor out to look at our floors and he was totally not on the same page as us? Well, this contractor is pretty darn close to being on the same page. He actually lives a couple blocks away in a 1920s home. He isn’t into the old stuff quite as much, especially when it comes to plaster, but from the sounds of it, he and his wife appreciate the majority of the older home items. He told Casey he even had new wood trim cut to match the original, and has a refinished claw foot tub. He had a few suggestions for finishing the outside of our claw foot tub:

Not only did he have some good suggestions, but today, he actually grabbed the feet for the tub and ran them over to a friend’s shop to have them sandblasted in a booth for us on his way to pick up some more materials. How often do you find contractors that run errands for you?

Today I decided to come home for lunch rather than eat at my desk like I normally do. The contractor, who is a really friendly guy, was about half way done installing the floor. While it wasn’t getting installed the way I would have liked with getting it blended in, I think it will still work. Essentially the left half of the room is old flooring, the right half is new flooring. As of right now, with the old flooring not sanded yet, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Hopefully after a good sanding it’ll blend in a bit more.

I apologize for no pictures, I will do my best to take some tonight and hopefully get them up. I’ve been asked to remove the crumbling plaster in our kitchen. It is the only wall that still has plaster and it will make the contractor’s job easier to just throw a sheet of drywall over it. I don’t mind since the rest of the room is drywall already. So that is in my list of to-do’s along with taking pictures. Also on the list is getting our cast iron claw foot tub painted on the outside. We have decided to use the tub epoxy paint on the outside that is normally used on the inside for repairs. It should be a much stronger finish than regular paint.

I should really post more, I am going a million different directions with this post. Last night when I got home from work, I went down to our basement bathroom and removed some old insulation that was laying down in the exterior corner of the room. Lucky for me, when I pulled it up, I found 1/4″ of standing water. So our concrete is seaping in a bit of moisture. To fix that, I called up an old high school friend who happens to do spray foam insulation for a living. He drove over and said that he could spray an inch of it on for around $1.75 a square foot. So around $250 to get it finished. To me, that is pocket change compared to having to fix mold issues down the road. So hopefully he can stop out soon to spray it down. We’ll then put R11 fiberglass batts over the top of the foam and finish it with drywall. Hopefully I won’t see any more standing water on the floor.

Over the weekend, I also ran a couple runs of speaker wire (12 gauge from www.monoprice.com) to the kitchen to eventually have a couple small speakers in there.

Like I said, a million different directions… I have an excuse though… I went to bed around 9:3o last night as usual. However, I woke up at 12:45 and literally laid in bed until 3:45, when I took a Tylenol PM to knock me out. I finally fell asleep around 4. I’ve never had that happen before. I am going to blame it on the few Diet Captain Morgans and the Washington Apple I had with the previously mentioned high school buddy to catch up. Normally that would help me sleep better, but it is the only guess I have.

First, one of the supposed flooring “experts” in town stopped by to check out the flooring damage. He is supposedly the best in the town according to our general contractor. While I wasn’t here to talk to him, Casey followed him around as he looked things over. In our living room, where both the tongue and groove sides of the flooring bowed out due to the moisture, and the flooring buckled in a couple areas, he claimed that it all had to come out. Same with the office on the main floor. He suggested replacing the maple (some of it is birds-eye) with oak because it is stronger and cheaper (price doesn’t matter when insurance is going to cover it, by the way flooring guy as long as it isn’t more expensive than what is in here). Then he looked at the steps going upstairs. He claimed that they were not sandable (which I have a hard time believing since they are a single board per step) and should be replaced.

Next, he looked at the upstairs which is all douglas fir, including the bathroom floor I spent hours and hours stripping of linoleum:

He said it all should come out as douglas fir isn’t a very hard wood.

First off, I put too much work into that floor to yank it out. It doesn’t look pretty in the pictures, but I’m certain it will sand out extremely nicely. Secondly, I don’t care if it isn’t as hard of a wood as, say, oak. Two reasons: one is that it is in pretty darn condition being that it is 80 years old, and the second is that I consider a ding or discoloration here and there “character.” It speaks to you. New flooring just doesn’t do that.

As far as the main floor, erm, floors go, I don’t see why it all has to come out. There are a couple spots that I can imagine the nails have failed and would have to at minimum be pulled up and renailed. Worst case is they’d have to replace the boards in that section. I have a few chunks of maple from when the kitchen/bathroom was turned into one room (granted it has a few layers of linoleum, nothing I haven’t seen before, right?) that could be used to fix these sections.

Granted, maybe he is just trying to give a worst case call for the insurance to make sure we can get what we need fixed without insurance breathing down our necks. However, Casey said he made remarks about how the wood they used for our trim is supposedly garbage. Does he think we are going to go pull the 80 year old trim off the walls and run to Home Depot and grab some crap wood to replace it? Sure… we’ll get right on that on boss.

We have a different contractor who is going to do the bathroom flooring upstairs, and if we are happy with the results there, we will have him do the main floor as well as he seemed confident the majority of the floor could be salvaged and seems a bit more on our side.

Besides flooring, we still have an uninsulated kitchen and bathroom and our temps aren’t supposed to get above zero for the next several days so I really hope they can get in soon to get these walls covered. Our heating bill is going to be outrageous…

All in the life of a homeowner right?

New tools list:

1. Small flat bar
2. Large flat bar
3. Paint scraper
4. Heat gun
5. Lead & asbestos respirator
6. Safety glasses

I wish I could say this is the last time I have to remove asbestos backed vinyl, however, both rooms upstairs have the vinyl tiles that will eventually be coming up. It was by far the most undesirable job I have ever done. I would rather strip 10 layers of latex paint, 5 layers of lead paint, and a layer of milk paint, and proceed to clean up the remnants, and finish by sanding, staining, and polying trim for a week than remove one bathroom floor’s asbestos linoleum. Especially when the said bathroom has the strongest heat vent in the entire house and you are wearing a respirator. Supposedly when you remove asbestos, you are supposed to spray it down with water to keep the dust down. I just lean my head over and douse it with sweat.

Starting a little more than a week ago, and enduring a terrible cold in the process, I removed all the shower tiles (new tool #1 + hammer), gutted the walls of drywall and plaster (new tools #2, #5 and #6), and stripped the entire floor of asbestos (I have to say that as much as possible to show how manly I was to tackle it, right?) linoleum (new tools #3, #4 and #5 + putty knife and gloves). After finishing this afternoon, I got my hair buzzed and took a shower. I’ve never felt better. What a glorious day!

Here is the floor from a couple angles (feel free to call it dirty names for being such a pain…):

Looking at the pictures, the darker spots are either discolorations (near the toilet drain), or linoleum backing that is in between the slightly raised grains in those locations. Both of which should hopefully be taken care of with a light sanding (which someone else gets to do!). The actual color variations between the boards is due to some still having their last finish, and others not having any finish left at all. I’m pretty certain this is shellac. From what I know about shellac, I should be able to wipe it away with denatured alcohol, and if it goes to unfinished wood, then it isn’t stained. Either way, I’m anxious to see the floor sanded and refinished. I’ve got my hopes set high.

Tomorrow morning, Casey is going to call the contractor who is going to fill in the floor and do the insulation/drywalling to let him know we are ready. When we talked to him last (Thursday), and we told him we’d be done by Monday, he seemed reluctant to believe us. Who’d blame him? The walls were still up and the floor still had linoleum on it. If it were a normal contractor, it’d probably take a couple weeks . We’re really hoping they can get in and either finish the floor or the walls by the end of the week.

To finish this off, I found one picture from several years ago before my father had actually renovated this exact bathroom showing the lovely tub (or the top of it) and the sink. The toilet was the same color in case you were curious:

Someday I hope to find the pictures I took of the initial walk through before they purchased it in 2002. Someday.

But since this is what I currently am showering in, I need to get this upstairs bathroom done as soon as possible:

Anywho, this is what the upstairs bathroom looks like as of this morning:

See those two holes on both sides ? Those are openings to the area under the roof behind the bedroom closets. Like all the rest of you lucky home owners that have opened that one spot that hasn’t seen the light of day since the house was built, I was hoping to find some momentos from the builders or original home owners.

This is the closet to the left:

And the closet to the right:

All I get is a Smörgåsbord of insulation… unfair? I think so. So instead, I’ll spend the rest of my day scraping away at the floor, removing the lovely asbestos vinyl flooring from our Douglas fir hardwood. I did stop by Ace Hardware the other day and picked up one of these though:

How does it look on Casey?

I also picked up a giant roll of duct tape and a plastic drop cloth to seal myself in with the fumes and asbestos dust. Hopefully that’ll make it so only I get cancer and not my wife and son.

One nice thing about demoing the room is we were able to see how parts of it were originally set up. There were two wall sconces (which we are looking for if you have any to sell ):

And we could see the outline of the original sink in the paint:

You can also see the line around the room where the original trim was half way up the wall:

With the fake plaster tile, do you think they would have done a wood trim piece, or actual tile?

Lastly, we had the contractor out here who is going to do the insulating, drywalling, and the floor come look at the bathroom floor for his input. He is from a local outfit (Simonsons Lumber) and he claims to have old growth, vertical grain Douglas fir on hand. While I would prefer salvaged, I don’t have the time nor the extra funds at the moment to justify it. I will be asking for a sample first to make sure I am comfortable it will match close enough.

Now that I can concentrate without my head buzzing, I can build the damage list:

1. Possible foundation damage between driveway and house… something moved an inch or two, and I don’t think it was the driveway
2. Maple flooring is buckled in places, and almost all joints have raised edges… hopefully it can handle another sanding
3. Kitchen ceiling still has a hole in it…
4. Kitchen walls that face the exterior are going to have to be gutted due to insulation that got wet
5. Stove is DOA
6. Refrigerator works, but who trusts something that was rained on for hours?
7. Lower cabinets in the kitchen are shot… high quality Menards stuff
8. Wainscoting is in pretty rough shape, but might be able to be put back together (not original, so don’t shed too many tears if it has to be gutted)
9. Bathroom in the basement will need the walls facing the exterior with insulation gutted
10. Vanity in bathroom in the basement will most likely be scrapped due to the (once again high quality Menards stuff) laminate peeling off
11. Furnace has been replaced (~$6000)
12. Water heater might be replaced as it was rained on
13. Washer and dryer in the basement might be replaced as they were rained on
14. At least 10% of the paint in the large living/dining room is separated from the plaster and will have be taken off… no idea what the contractors will do
15. Our main sewer drain line seems like it might have plugged up as the toilet and tub downstairs barely drain at all… really sucks when they are the only working toilet and tub in the house
16. Upper bathroom is most likely a complete gut… tile floor is buckled which means it will most likely be pulled. There are a couple large holes in the drywall from trying to quickly fix the leaks. We will replace the fiberglass tub with a cast iron that we purchased a couple months ago
17. Upper kitchen doesn’t have water as there is a small leak (which plumbers apparently do not carry PVC parts to fix). Was fixed today!
18. Our garage is still leaning… any ideas on how to blame that on burst pipes?

Now, why couldn’t a pipe in my basement crack like over at bungalow23? No, it needs to crack in the top most room in the house, above the most critical rooms in the house.

One of the things that helps ease the pain, a new furnace:

Here are some “calm after the storm” pictures of our kitchen:

This is what happens to cheap cabinets when they get wet (sorry for the terrible quality, the light is quite dark and was hard to get a picture at this time of night):

And our living room (not quite positioned how it will end up, just a rough, get it out of the center of the room setup):

Yes, that is a huge area of missing paint. A good chunk of the room could be just like that with a few strokes of my hand, but I’m going to let the pros deal with the lead dust since they are covered by insurance (hopefully).

And here is our terrible back entry way. I’d love to find a way to make this not suck, but nothing comes to mind yet (once again, sorry about the quality, its dark and I’m lazy…):

And here is the room I’m in right now, with the ugly paint and peeling wallpaper border:

As it looks, it is very temporary. I have a nice oak desk (from 1909) that we refinished two years ago that will go in there once the floors are refinished. I have no desire to put it together and then have to disassemble in a week or two.

I need to get back to working. I’ll save the upstairs and basement photos for tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll look better than these as well…