Hello....is this thing on?

Greeting fellow DIY folks, parents, friends and wealthy admirers. It's been some time since I've done a proper blog post and since I actually get people asking what we've been up to (I know...I'm shocked too) I decided to just put it all out there. Online. To strangers. Like Chatroulette.

Ever since Parker came into the fold here on 13th street, projects have slowed to say the least. What would have been 2 weekends of 8 hours days now takes 6+ months, as evidenced by our work on Parker's playroom/guest bedroom/bass gear storage. In my previous post I laid out what was going to happen, and since then work kept going at a snail's pace, but like the Ice Age...slow movement is still pretty big.

In the past 2 months I completed the electrical (with an eye popping SEVEN outlets in there) as well as the rest of the framing and general to-dos. Our drywall guy and his crew squeezed us in between some actually profitable jobs just about 10 days ago, and they wrapped up the painting last week. I've included some progress pics of the the drywalling as well as the final closet I built along with the look of the bays since we decided to cover up (NOT REMOVE) the old wood trim at the bottom for a cleaner look. IF we don't like it I can remove the three pieces of drywall and all is well.

Note the "H" design of the closet with the left and right "flairs": the top is for a TV and whatnot with power and cable, and the bottom is a traditional closet space. The left side is square in the closet but hide the radiator pipes, while the right side is open in the closet for shelves and additional storage. We LOVE symmetry around here.

The pic to the left here shows how this front room connects to the rest of the house via the main hallway on the second floor, but also to Parker's current nursery, thus creating a 200 sq ft suite for a 15 month old. ....Yeah. This is about 48 hours old now, and the door on the right is gone and undergoing some TLC and I have created and installed the jambs for both this doorway and the lower closet.

View of the bay with the filthy screens.

What I'm doing right now is wrapping up the rest of the trim which I hope will b done net weekend if I can get a hold of Tague Lumber and get a delivery of some door casing. We'll see about that. In any case, I'm sanding/priming/painting the door between this room and Parker's room and Christina is taking care of the old bay window trim. I'm running baseboards tomorrow in between racks of ribs and beers.

Parker Approved!

It's always the darkest before dawn

I'm blogging about our house progress from Pennsylvania Hospital here in Philly. Why? Well on Friday Christina had a bit of fluid leakage and the docs said her water broke (only slightly but it's all or nothing there) and she's been admitted until delivery. She's fine and the baby's heart rate, size, and fluids look great. Christina is 32 weeks along (if you don't know what that means for this situation I'd suggest Google) which means she needs to hang here so that everyone can help the baby not come out for a couple more weeks at minimum.

In summary: while she's going to be here 24/7 watching tv and keeping the home fires burning in utero, the house HAS TO BE FINISHED. I'm also blogging about the house to help show our family and friends that we're doing fine and that when this baby comes home (albeit not in the way that we had planned) the house is going to look amazing.

With that being typed, to what I'll assume are complete strangers, it's time to blog about the house. Because I'm sitting here in the hospital I didn't have the patience to resize the pics in Photoshop. So apologies to those 4 people that are still on dial up.

After months of toiling on the house doing things like removing the old wiring, reinforcing joists and making huge messes, I think I see the proverbial light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. As our last post mentioned, the drywall is in full effect at the house which still makes me smile.

Since drywall posts are so fun for other people to read, I'll cut to the chase. Everything has been hung and two coats of mud have been applied. Sanding will be today (Sunday) and hopefully wrapping up tomorrow. I think I shed a dusty tear thinking about that. As usual I'm including some pictures so that you can see what we're up to.

The next piece to this puzzle are the floors which are ready in the wings. I've lined up the guy we used for sanding and sealing the red birch on the third floor that I installed. He's ready to roll on one day's notice, and I'm thinking Wednesday to start with the final two coats going down Friday will work out just fine. That'll keep the last of dusty and annoying tasks back to back which is A-OK with me.

The goal here is that while Christina is in the hospital I want the floors done and the place cleaned up. I have offers from some friends to help me prime and paint the new drywall which will help out tremendously and for which I'm grateful. If Christina does deliver in two weeks our kid will be here in the NICU for a couple weeks, so I'm hoping that those two weeks will mean that in the evenings we can head home and all Christina has to worry about is what outfit goes into what drawer, or where the wipes should go ease of use. That's it. Period. I don't want her worrying about when the paint will be done, or when the baby's room will be put together. I'm really going to work on getting that done so it's a non issue. In my perfect world she'll worry about what painting to pick for the room from our stash, or if the rug should be centered in the room or not...but nothing about the trim in the room or the second coat of paint.

So that's what is going on here on 13th street nowadays. I don't know how to properly manage work, hospital and being a part time G.C., but I'll find out tomorrow.

It's finally gotten pretty crazy around here, but I see dawn breaking on the horizon.

These are just two of my favorite things...

*da da dada ... da da dada*

Today I could have been Bryan Von Trap, as I swear as two of my most favorite things happened to us here in the City of Brotherly Love: SNOW and DRYWALL. My pulse is racing, my palms are sweaty, I think I've found my personal "field of dreams".

First, the snow. While our family and friends back in Indianapolis have been living in the white gold for weeks now, we only get a promise of 4 inches and then wind up with rain. For about 3 years this has been the case, and I've been in a serious snow drought. Well imagine my surprise when I got up today and our neighborhood looked like the pictures you see. Score! In 5 years here this is probably the third real snow we've witnessed. It's nice to get back to what you know.

The other major win today was that our drywall guys started. After our previous dealings with a contractor for something this big inside our house, we were both a bit apprehensive on what was going to happen. Was he going to show up? Was he going to take the first half of the money and split when we went to the office? Was I going to catch them riffling through my boxer drawer?

The answers: Nope, No, and I have no clue but won't ask.

There were four guys here today and hung sheet rock at a pace that would make our previous subs blush. I mean we left here at 8 AM with them here and got back from work at 5:30 and they were still here. And still working! And in the dark!

I almost caught the vapors.

I'm posting some shots of the drywall as it is today. Yeah it's not very exciting, and yeah it's just day one. But for the first time in months I didn't have to do it, and it's being done when we're at work. Not in the evenings or the weekends...but real progress when we're away. *swoon*

As with any project that happens in this d%#m house, it made a terrible mess. We actually underestimated the amount of debris there would be today as they're just hanging the stuff, but what can you do. I'm not going to argue with the chef about egg shells when he's creating something delicious (and when we have an obvious language barrier).

The last two pictures of the drywall are demonstrations of the debris just from today. I swept most of the house and used my shop vac as well just the other day. But what can you do. I was in my socks in our make shift "living room" where the door was closed all day. Not too bad in here, but the rest of the house is done for. Needless to say, our cats were PISSED when we got home. We also had to hunt for them a little and found poor Bing locked in the front room, while Marco had the run of the 3rd floor for the day. At least they were both safe, albeit a little dirty. They have given up tonight and started laying in the dirt piles. What can you do?

As usual, I celebrated our latest round of progress and Christina captured it for all to see. Of course I have no shame and the internets were made for nonsense, so the last image is my celebration dance tonight. You know the red eyes and obvious dance moves are getting you excited for more drywall!

4 Years in the Making

So 4 years ago we were newly engaged, bright eyed, and started out on our house hunt! Saw some that were finished but small and not to our tastes, a few "crack dens" and then our "old lady special". That great big house that just needs some updating. I fell in love immediately, Bryan I think has always been hesitant, but trusting and encouraged by all of our visitors comments of "this house will be amazing when you guys are done!"

So for the last year we have been working pretty much constantly on the house. Bryan much more so than me in the last few months, the bigger my belly gets the less good I am on the ladder! I think also his speed and determination has also grown exponentially along with the size of my belly. All of this leads to a VERY special milestone in the house progress. DRYWALL! I had grand plans of learning to plaster and fixing all the walls ourselves, but a year ago and 3 incredible estimates later decided that drywall was the way to go. So the last 6 months since we finished most of the 3rd floor has been a mad dash of work so that we can close up the walls and make the house look a whole lot less like a construction site.

The first image shows our living room with all the glory of the old lady wall paper, new lights in the ceiling and perfectly empty for the crew of guys to show up tomorrow. You can see the dust bunnies rolling through like tumble weeds at the moment. However, to get that room, 3 other rooms and hallway empty, you end up a basement that looks like this. It is actually moderately organized, into baby pile, tool pile, and storage pile. But, this is the path to the cellar in the back as well. Like Bryan said in another post, a year of construction really does distort your idea of normal.

It is really incredible to think that in a few short days the wall paper will be replaced by drywall, and with some primer, paint and trim we can actually use 90% of our house again. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot to do in the next month or so, but this is a milestone that we have been talking about for 4 years. A bit scary also to not be able to poke holes all over the house just to see what might be under there! At the same time fantastic to see things finally come together and instead of demolition, see the end in sight. I also don't think Bryan can take many more days of the demo. This last picture was the end of the work day today, and I think it will be really good for Bryan's sanity to have some progress happen while he is blissfully at work for a few days!

Lights, camera, 2 months until the kid arrives...

So here we are in the last week of January, and it's really starting to feel like things are coming together with the house. I have officially rewired the entire place with just the finishing touches left on a couple outlets. All of this is good since I'm so sick and tired of putting holes in surfaces and the dirt that is created. It's funny how you can get used to something like living in a dust bowl. There should be no reason that it's ever normal for you to automatically know to wear shoes when you walk around, or to not drag any bare feet on the floors lest you desire splinters or nails. I mean really...this renovation thing alters your brain.

I'm including a couple shots I took last weekend of my work in the last two rooms on the first floor (the dining room and the "pink" room). Mainly what you see is a trench I created in both ceilings to allow for pulling out the old knob and tube, and to then to reuse those holes in the joists for the new wire. Not rocket science, but it's still pulling down dirty plaster and lath above your head.

The pink room got two new cans (*snicker*) and that was that. The picture on the right shows the pink room and the top of what I've created as a door to the kitchen. There's a larger picture of that creation to the left. In all of the months of renovation the house, there is one place that dirt and construction debris is not acceptable. *drum roll*........yeah, the kitchen. Big climax to the post right?!?!?!?!?! If you decide to live through this, keep your bedroom debris free, one room to lounge in that is moderately free of crap, but the kitchen should be clean like you're not walking through it with dirty boots. That's one key to having your marriage survive at the end of this. End of debate.

I've also added a little picture of what my left arm looked like after just that little demo in the dining room ceiling. Please keep in mind that it was only a small trench where I broke the plaster with a wallbaord saw and pulled off the lath. Nothing even close to the demo of the entire third floor back in May. I'm totally becoming compulsive about pulling down anymore plaster. Ugh.....

At this point we feel confident enough about where we're at that we have our dude Jose the drywaller on call to start in the next week or so. He estimated that it'll take about 90 sheets of sheetrock, so this isn't some small job. But at the same time he thinks it'll take two days to hang it all and three more to tape and mud. Man, we hope so! Given the fact that Christina is something like 31 weeks pregnant at this point, we have to get the sheetrock up, all of it primed (two coats), the ceilings painted, and at least the kid's room painted with the trim in place. We also need to get the floors refinished on the first floor, but honestly, I'm not sure there's time. We'd like to get all of this done by March 1st to allow a max of one month before the kid arrives to get her room ready and some feeling of being situated.

But to this point what is being "situated" in this house?

If anyone in the Philly area wants to help out with the painting, I have all the pizza and beer you might require. For real. Just let me know when you all want to stop by!

What is a "holiday" from house renovation?

So 2009 is here and didn't seem to care that we were totally unprepared for the harsh reality that this new year brings. But as any good soldier, we keep on marching.

With the baby scheduled to make her appearance the first week of April, my pace around here has been "brisk" to say the least. The fact is that when I come home from the office every night, I go right upstairs and throw on my jeans and clock in here. The pay is horrible, and the working conditions are cramped, but my boss is cool. So that's a plus I suppose. In fact, Christina's mom was out here for Christmas, and I decided to take that day off. By the end of the afternoon I had organized most of my tools, swept up the workshop/living room and was chomping at the bit to get cracking on the remainder of the electrical I had to pull.

Being me is complicated to say the least.

Oh before I forget, I want to mention my resolution for this year. I'm putting it on here so that the people in my daily life will hopefully hold me accountable for the inevitable lapses that will happen. 2009 is the year that I'm learning to just chill out and relax. What do I mean? Well, as my parents will comment about, I was born pretty high strung (bright red due to high hemoglobin, hair straight up, and screaming). Pretty bad. Since that November day in 1977, I've lived my life pretty tense about just about everything. Ever seen a guy freak out at the coffee shop because someone cut in line? Ever heard the neighbor screaming four letter words 150 decibels? How about if you've ever seen a grown man throw items down in disgust about something? Yeah, well that's me.

In fact that was me....today. I'm off to a really rough start in my resolution this year. Christina has taken up saying "Bryan, that's not very zen". Well, I'm thinking about this being a marathon, not a sprint. It's one day at a time. You have to learn from your lapses. Pick your favorite phrase, I'm TOTALLY OK WITH IT!!!!!!

Anyway, I need to work on this for the sanity of our new baby (who needs a kid being born with that kind of bad around), my coworkers at the office, and my wife. Maybe I need to take up bonsai trees or something?

This being a house blog, let's get to the blogging!

For about XXX months/weeks/days (I have no clue) we've noticed a sagging spot of plaster in our living room ceiling. So in preparation for our drywall contractor to stop over for a final walkthrough before the work hopefully starts in a month, I decided to investigate. Well sometimes you shouldn't poke around when you're not prepared to deal with what is hidden in the dark. The cause of the sag? A split joist.

DOH! If you look at the pic on the right you'll see the culprit. This is also one of the points in home repair when you realize that you have been at this before......and you don't mind making a mess and tearing holes in any surface.

Since our house is pretty old, the joists are mortise and tenon instead of any fancy-smancy space age joist hangers. Well this one split right at the tenon which was causing the sag. I had looked for any real sign of the joist failing or being really springy from the top, so I decided to pull back the plaster a bit and lag bolt the joist in three spots. I then added a joist hanger to the thing to help spread the load from the mortise and tenon to the hanger.

After cinching up the bolts the joist came back together and the bottom was lifted about an inch. Not too bad. To help it out I'd like to sister the thing for a few feet, but I'm not 100% sure how to do it in that spot versus like mid span, but that's what Google is for.

As Christina has mentioned before, I've been replacing all of the electrical wiring that was here when be bought the house. At this point I've added tons of new circuits with properly grounded and SAFE outlets as well as lighting throughout the house. On Tuesday we went to the Depot to buy some recessed housings for the living room ceiling. Christina and I went back and forth for a good two weeks on what housing size to use up there. 4 inches? 6 inches? It was pretty serious up in here for sure. The winning size? 5 inches. See what we did? We pulled switcheroo on you all.

Today (being a "holiday" for some people, but not those of us with a kid on the way) I went ahead and installed the lights. nothing is wired up yet, but the feeds have been pulled and are in place for a simple junction and then BAM! we'll have that roughed in.

As usual I had to cut into the plaster which as usual made a horrible mess. The worst part of any work with the plaster walls and ceilings is what is does to your sinuses and throat. That is some serious dust that just hangs in the air. Ugh....I really hope I'm about done with that.

Anyway, the layout of the lighting is that we're creating two "pods" or sets of 4 lights that are on either side of our fireplace. Each pod will be on its own dimmer to create that romantic feeling I guess. I'm just the labor guys.

So that's it for now. I'm about 90% done with the electrical right now. After roughing in the cans, I need to power up the ceilings in the other three first floor rooms, but that's it. Every other outlet, switch and feed has been replaced and is safe at this point. That's why you see all of the gopher holes in the ceiling from removing and pulling the new wiring. Not too shabby for a software developer who has a hankering for beer on occasions.

Cheers!

- Bryan

Our Circus Tent

A few weeks ago we went to see Cirque De Soiel under a giant blue and yellow tent on broad street. Which was an amazing experience. There were a few acts of insane balance and some contortionist. I never really expected to associate that with our house. However, this week we came home from work the first day to see how the drywall guys used old floor boards to suspend themselves above our stairs to get the drywall onto the ceiling. The first picture is their upgraded system with some additional supports on the landing and an extra 2x6 to extend the reach. I have to admit I can't imagine hanging heavy sheets of drywall above my head on a floating barely nailed down platform.......but hey, that is the point of having a contractor....The second picture also shows the same boards floating over the railing in their precarious position. You can also see most of the drywall is up and you can really see the closet and how the space is going to look.

Since the pictures yesterday didn't turn out so well due to the super bright sun, this is a better shot looking towards the front of the house. Both of the windows are the same size one just has some extra drywall leaning in front of it.

So in general the last few days have been pretty good, and we are starting to see the light and maybe see the end of all this albeit for a brief, brief moment before the next project starts! Part of every home sale/closing packet really should be a copy of "The Money Pit" movie.......