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!

Flipping the switch - My tribute to electricity and Young Frankenstein

So today I threw the switch, and got over the electrical hump (lolz).

The recessed lights that I hung on New Years day were wired up yesterday afternoon upon returning from our drive from Indianapolis. It was a long day....

Today I roughed in the 4 gang box for 2 of the switches, and went ahead and threw two switches (temporary of course) in there for the pods.

For me pulling wire and wiring up most things is calming. There is something so simple as leg 1 connects to leg 2 and then splits here and there, it just makes sense to my organized software developer mind. I think there is a possibility to me keeping my 2009 "zen resolution" as long as there are more electrical rewiring projects in the house. But just like oil and Mel Brooks films, it's finite. *sigh* What can you do.

I've included a couple pictures that Christina happened to catch of my celebrating when the lights actually worked. I decided to test the circuits and lights before the drywall was hung, because really who needs the headache of finding out one of them wasn't properly connected AFTER all of the drywall is up? I may be working on being more even keeled, but there would be sleepless nights in horror if I didn't hook it all up today.

So yeah, that's that. The last picture here is, again, Christina catching me doing my usual Igor (pronounced "Eye-gor"!!) face when I've finished one project and my master can give me treats.

We have a weird life together I think.

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

Christmas Lights

So normally this time of year I try to get out the festive garland, tree, ornaments, and most importantly the lights on the tree. This year due to our compressed time schedule and imminent baby deadline, Christmas lights have a taken a new turn. My mom coming to visit in 5 days has also made Bryan hurry a little bit more, since the guest bedroom and bath are currently without any power.

Bryan has been working diligently on some of the electrical work in the house. We have as part of the last few projects had the main line to the house upgraded, new 200 amp box, new outlets on the 1st floor, and all new electrical on the 3rd floor. So really a good portion of the work is complete. Just the second floor and the ceiling in the first floor remain as remnants of the old work. This nice pretty yellow wire, is how all the new stuff is supposed to look.

The picture to the right shows some of this old work. For those who haven't experienced the wonders of knob and tube wiring this may seem even stranger, but this is a weird combination. This is actually a junction between the old knob and tube, and conventional, but old, wiring that also existed in the house. We are pretty close to getting all of the old wiring out of the house, but when you do see some of this old stuff, it is still surprising that the lights have actually worked for the last 100 years, and that we haven't burned the place down yet.

So the last couple of weekends have focused on new lights, and new outlets. As with all projects sometimes they take an unexpected turn. This one is no exception. They do create some unexpected results, that can also be kind of funny in a sort of sad way. This next picture falls into this category. It is kind of hard to tell, but this is a look into our old bathroom, which for the last week hasn't had power to the lights. So there is an extension cord from another room with a table lamp on the toilet. I should say it does create a nice ambiance in the room at least. With Bryan's extreme diligence it does seem that this situation will be remedied by Thursday when my mom shows up. While we can deal with bizarre situations in the house, it isn't nice to subject guests to our chaos. I did tell her to bring slippers, and a thick robe, as there is no real way to clean most of the areas under construction, but in theory she won't have to trip over the saws-all and table lamp in the bathroom for Christmas!

For our second wedding anniversary I give you...

...finished hardwood floors. You're welcome. It was nothing, just a token of my affection for smooth floors that look friggin SWEET.

So I'll recap real fast to keep this post short (there is a "debate" tonight after all). After we installed the floors I got total stage fright about finishing them. I mean if you mess up framing a wall or mitering window casing then you just buy more right? Well what if you sand and seal a floor and screw any of that up? You have to strip and refinish the floors all over again. There really are no do overs. Seeing as how I tend to learn a new project by screwing up a couple of times...I couldn't take that chance.

So we hired out, which is just about the last third party to work on our house in the near future. "So I got that goin' for me, which is nice." ---->

Anyway we had a great guy named Van (http://www.vanshardwoodfloors.com) show up on Thursday for a quote and did the job today. Below are some pictures of the floor as it is right now. In the end we elected to not stain the floors and just have then sanded a bit with 3 coats of poly. The floors are really wet right now and you can see that in the pictures...hey it's a messy job. And also let it be said that the fumes from the job are crazy. Don't underestimate how much the poly smells, and you can even taste it.

The floors will be dry enough to walk on tomorrow, but we'll probably not get up there until the weekend. Then it'll be putting the new bed together up there to get those damn boxes out of my workshop, and the mattress/box spring out of our living room.

It'll be a magical moment. We still need to install the window stools and all of the trim (casing and baseboards) but I think we can start that next week-ish.

On another note, months ago I ripped apart the electrical for the third floor and half of the second. This was in late May before the demo was 100% done. Anyway, over the past weekend I ran new lines up to the second floor and rewired the office/workshop. It was a pain in the butt having to use flashlights at night and not being able to work in there after like 5:00. The picture on the right doesn't look like much, but there was a lot of wiring up there to even get the lights to work. I've added one new outlet right now, and I'll be adding 3 more in the next couple of weeks.

The wire sticking out of the box is for the (to be delivered and installed) recessed lights that are going in the soffit. I'll split the feeder line and that's it.

So yeah, that's about it right now. Today is in fact our second anniversary, and with the house stuff and life things, we both half spaced it until last evening. We're hoping that it's not a harbinger of things to come for the next 70 years.

So you know, my anniversary gift to Christina was completely cleaning out our dump living room and the basement. Things are finally where they need to be and we don't have piles of lumber in the living room. For her part, Christina paid Van for the floor job...so I didn't have to do it. That's a gift I'll take any time. (I was really hoping that wood was the 2nd anniversary gift, turns out that is the 5th, so maybe we got to that one early. Too bad this year was cotton-Christina)

Aint love grand?

And we thought drywall was a MIRACLE!

So, when the drywall (well the first day...not the results or the work we had to put in ourselves) went up we were so happy to see the great progress. Well, that has been bested! We now have working lights, and working plumbing. Definitely a huge milestone, and one that I honestly wasn't sure would ever happen!

This picture should help explain the tub location at the stair landing, also we did have a casualty today, the marble ledge in the picture didn't make it through the days activities. The feet of our blogged about tub might be a little wacky, and thus gravity took it's toll. What can you do? If that's all that came out of having people working on our house today and not (for once) royal screwing us...it's a TOTAL win.

So for the recap: on Friday we paid the extortionists their money to finish the electrical, which was done 90% right, but I can actually turn the lights on to close the windows at night, and not feel like I was going to step on a saw, nail, or weird metal item. (btw we got our green sticker for a pass on our FINAL electrical inspection today) Then we spent the weekend working on the floors, which look really good, and also solved another previous problem, of being able to see into the bedroom below through the subfloor gaps, especially in the dark while closing the windows. Kind of unsettling at times.

Then today we had a new set of handymen/plumbers install the plumbing. The sink, toilet, tub filler, tub, and shower are now all in place. Notice the water filling up the bathtub (ignore the lack of window trim, that's on the list)?

The picture on the right is the shower fixture we created. And before any eye rolling begins, yes this is another shot of the shower, but at least it's something new. Anyway, the main part of the fixture was purchased at an architectural salvage place here in Philly. We fashioned the connections up from chrome pieces and threw on a rain head just to make the thing even more antique/industrial/modern.

We should wear black framed glasses and refer to ourselves in the third person. It looks that good. Believe it.

So yeah, I suppose that's it for now. the bathroom is ready to roll with just some misc things left like window trim, the missing marble and new radiators. But hey, it's not winter, trim is overrated and marble?!?! Whatever. All will be solved in the next month or so we hope.

Let There Be Light!

Well, almost.....last week was a bit slow as our contractor decided he needed to go see wild horses in Delaware for his family vacation. Who gets a vacation?

Anyway, the electricians came on Thursday and started to layout some of the recessed lighting, and switch locations to actually get electricity back into the 3rd floor. There are still a few more things to add, and a few things that did not land in quite the right spot, but those should get fixed next week. The plumbers also came on Friday and started to mark the ceiling on the 2nd floor for the plumbing runs, and the one line out to the existing stack on the OUTSIDE of the house.

Yes, one of the exciting things about a house built without plumbing or electricity, was the exhaust stack is on the exterior of the house. The old knob and tube wiring is also amazing to find. It is quite scary really to realize that a small ceramic tube was part of the power for an air conditioning unit......so far only a couple minor electrical fires, but that is why we are renovating, right?

The other great accomplishment of the weekend is the tub is almost done. I think Bryan is refinishing the tub for me to earn brownie points for the rest of the Baseball season (meaning he can watch some games at the corner bar). I think his plan is to get the tub set up so I can soak in the tub while he watches the never ending, constant all the time Phillies games......in the end it will probably work out for him!