Lesson 136: Timelines are relative

Well, howdy stranger. Long time, no update! 

So, news flash: Renovations apparently take longer than expected. 

Our original time frame was to have the upstairs hallway and all three bedrooms completed (read: demo, electrical, drywall, paint, etc.) by June. Looking back now, that goal was truly comical. Because, as of today, we only have one room completed. You read that right. It took us over four months to finish one. freaking. room. 

We knew that this first room would be our "teaching room." Where we would go slow, learn how to change out the dated wiring, and see if drywalling was really as hard as people warned. But we never imagined how long it would actually take.

But let's back up a bit and re-orient you to the layout of the house. If you recall from the house tour, our house is split level with the bedrooms upstairs. In the image below, the "kid's bedroom" is the room we decided to renovate first. I don't understand the biological desire to insure your children have it better than you. 

We began the demolition in mid-March and it took us the rest of the month before the electrical was completed.  When we tore down the drywall and paneling we discovered lots of strange decisions previous owners made. Exhibit A: The east wall (wall on the right) we believe used to be a half wall, joining the now two bedrooms. It has paneling halfway down, which due to stupidity on their part we were required to leave.  

Exhibit A:

View from closet

View from doorway

Link saw us stand, arms crossed, staring at the walls and each other too many times to count. We were often baffled at what we uncovered throughout this process. I'm that much more apprehensive about what the rest of the house has to tell us. 

Once we stripped down the walls, we had to deal with this mess. 

before

This is old, outdated wiring from the 60's and every electrician that saw this shook their head in disbelief. The system is known as a "Low Voltage Switch System." This was apparently supposed to be the big new thing back then but never took off. You can see why.

I won't bother you with the details about this debacle, but if you find yourself having trouble falling asleep at night, just Google it. You'll be out in seconds.

This system is non-compatible with modern switches, so instead of dealing with strange switches and wiring the nightmare of a breaker box, we decided to update it. Through tons of online research and trusty ole' YouTube, Josh figured out how to remedy this disaster. Which essentially consisted of ripping out old switches, wiring, and relay boxes.

This room was utter chaos for so long. Luckily, a board propped against the doorway was all that was needed to deter Link from being too curious. Maybe hazardous living conditions is just what he thinks is normal? 

Such a great helper. Bubble wrap only served as a distraction for a short time; power drills and screw drivers are like candy to a toddler. 

Josh's trouble shooting and determination was impressive to see as he had to refer back to some old electrical engineering concepts he hoped to never need. 

I have never been so happy to have a ceiling fan and light. To walk into a room and just flip a switch felt like a luxury that we once took for granted. Now, 10 months after buying this house, we felt like we had arrived. 

Except for the little things, like walls and doors. But that's for the next post. Stay tuned!

A post about floor vents

This whole post is about floor vents.

Yes. Floor vents.

When you have floor vents that looked like this:

then look like this:

You give them a whole post. Because look at those beauts. 

I literally did a happy dance once we "installed" these. And the words, "They make the whole room better!", came out of my mouth. 

Who knew floor vents make that big of a difference.

And who knew a whole blog post could be dedicated to them. 

Odds and Ends

We have officially owned this house for 8 months. At first glance it doesn't look like we've done much. Besides updating the upstairs floors, what else have we been up to?

Beside chasing around this booger, a whole lot.

If you didn't guess it, this house was disgusting. So the first thing we did was clean. Inside and out. Josh made a lot of illegal trips to surrounding dumpsters during those first several months. And we practically had a fire going every weekend.

 

Fun fact: Our hot water heater busted on Night 1. After hours and hours of exhausted tinkering (and preventing our downstairs from flooding), Josh finally got the leak under control. That first weekend was spent replacing the hot water tank and tearing down the surrounding shelving. That was a fun $500 spent. 

The fridge that came with the house was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. So we tore out some kitchen shelves to make room for a new, shiny refrigerator. If you can look past the exposed ceiling, it is the prettiest spot in the house. 

Most recently Josh has been doing a lot of work on the furnace and duct work. In the first week of December the temperature dropped to the single digits and our 15+ year old furnace decided to quit. Timely. With the help of YouTube, Josh replaced the gas valve and pilot assembly to breath new life into our ancient friend. Thus far, it has made it through the rest of winter.  

And as of this weekend Josh rerouted the main return air. The old return air was routed into the steps (see picture below), which we plan on rebuilding in the near future. 

The biggest, most expensive improvement we made is we replaced the roof! We choose a classy Black Walnut to bring out the blue in our eyes. It came with an expensive price tag, but it's well worth it not to have a leaky roof.

 And that, lady and gentleman, is what we've been up to the past 8 months.

Installing Plywood Floors

When we first bought this house we decided our first project would be renovating the kitchen. It's old and gross and was at the top of our priority list. But then we realized how disgusting the carpet in the upstairs bedrooms was and thought, NOPE! There was no way we wanted Lincoln walking around on this germ-soaked floor a minute longer than necessary. And the smell. Oh, the musty, dust-filled smell. So we shuffled our to-do list a bit and pushed these floors right up to the top.

Josh did a lot of research on how to cost-effectively install wood floors. We knew we didn't want to pay the big bucks for the real stuff but even laminate can be pricey. So we took a risk and decided to try plywood.

Yep, plywood. Maple plywood to be exact. Plywood is engineered wood and is extremely affordable.

It was easy but very time consuming. It took us several months to complete, because: toddler. We tackled one room at a time, starting with Link's nursery.



Materials:
22 sheets of 4'x8' 1/4" Top Choice Maple Plywood
4 packs of Pergo Gold 3mm underlayment
2 gal of Minwax Satin Floor Finish

Tools:
Circular Saw
Table Saw
Jig Saw
Angle Finish Nailer
Nails
Angles, measure tape, pencils, etc.

Before actually starting on the floors, Josh cut each plank from a 4'x8' sheet using a circular saw and table saw. This was the most tedious part but we knew cutting it ourselves would lead to cleaner, straighter lines.

We pulled up the nasty carpet and behold: nasty vinyl (possibly asbestos) tile.  Originally, we planned on removing all of this tile down to the plywood subfloor, but ran into the black tar-like adhesive under the tile.  This would have taken ages to scrape up, so we made an executive decision (because it's our house and we can do whatever we please) just to clean the tile and call it good.

While not necessary, we then covered the clean floor with underlayment.  This acts as a moisture barrier and sound insulation.  If we were to do it again, we would use thicker plywood and thinner underlayment, as there is a very tiny amount flex to the planks as you step on them.  Of course, only Josh really notices this.

Starting in the middle of the room, Josh then nailed each plank. You want to work your way out from the middle so you can keep even spacing and symmetry on either end of the room.  This proved to be extremely difficult, as these rooms couldn't be further from square.  Once Josh came to the end of the row, he'd cut the appropriate length and then use the remaining piece to start the next row. This kept the boards in an alternating pattern.

We used a really technical spacing technique: credit cards. Josh's card has never been the same since.

Once all the planks were down, Josh sanded the entire room with 220 grit sandpaper then applied two layers of finish.

And voila! A few months down and we finally have a check on our to-do list. We also have much cleaner socks.

Now for the best part. Savings! The floors ended up being about $1.10/sqft.  With such a great deal, it's hard not to be ecstatic with the way they turned out.

 

A House Tour

Since a lot of this blog will be about the renovation of our house, I thought I would give you a tour before things start changing too much. We've already changed a few things in the couple of weekends we have lived here, but don't worry. We haven't put a dent into everything that needs to be done.

To get your bearings, here is a rough blue print of the house. It is a split level home, with the living room and kitchen on the main level, three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs, and the downstairs containing one bathroom, bonus room, and laundry room. Not depicted is the multilevel deck off the living room.

Main level

Upstairs

Downstairs

Okay, now that you have a general idea of the layout, lets look at some pictures.

Exterior: Some paint, windows, and garage/entry doors will give it a much needed face lift.

Living room: We love the windows and natural light this room has. But lordy, that fire place wall. And see that brick square to the right of the stairs? That's a built-in planter. For like, ferns and stuff. Sigh.


We plan to knock down the wall separating the living room and the kitchen. Open floor plan for all.

Yep, that's a fake french door leading onto our massive deck.

Kitchen: Complete with original 1960s appliances. Except the fridge, because I have standards (read: I don't want to put food into a stinky, gross, old refrigerator). That beautiful fridge is the one new thing in this house. Oh, and the hot water tank. (But that is a whole other story...)

Next, let's venture upstairs. Our first project is to rip up that nasty nasty carpet.

Master bedroom: There is a sliding door just to the left of this photo that leads out to a small patio. To the right is open closets.

Master bathroom: Before we ever used that shower, I tore out the gross shower door that was covered in mold. And bleached this room from top to bottom. Twice.

Hall bathroom: Oh, the pink tile. And yes, you climb into that hole to bathe.

Nursery: At the time of this post, Link is actually set up in the other room; but we will eventually move him into this room.

Guest bedroom: Imagine new walls and pretty floors. But any suggestions for that cubby-hole?

Okay, that's enough of the upstairs. Now let's head down to the bottom level.

Bonus room: This huge room has a bar, fire place, and a built-in charcoal grill. We have brainstormed a lot of ideas for this space, but right now it just holds boxes and bicycles. 

Laundry room: Are laundry room pictures ever interesting?

Half bath: Meh.

Patio/backyard: The deck is huge. This view is looking back onto the house. The structure on the left is what the college boys dubbed "The Boom Boom Room." There is an alley way on the right hand of this picture (also pictured below) that runs along the side of the house/garage.

We have already made some serious headway on the yard. About 4 days of cutting, chopping, and burning and you can finally see that white shed. 

This is a picture of the lower half of the deck, from the view outside the laundry room door. So much deck. Above us is the patio off the master bedroom.

And there you have it. It is easy to get overwhelmed by what needs to be done. (Ahem. I'm looking at you Josh.) But, piece by piece, I think we have a real gem on our hands. Slowly, but surely, we will turn this thing into a looker.