Drywall and Insulation

The appearance of the exterior of the house hasn't changed dramatically from last week. Sadly, no new decks. The real changes are inside. The workers put dry wall throughout the second floor. It makes such a difference to have walls up. I could actually hear my own voice echo! very exciting stuff. However, we won't be able to get a foothold on that floor because we're replacing the floor soon.
They also finished putting up insulation in the back of the first floor, where the powder room and laundry will go. You can see the framed walls for those rooms. Hopefully they'll start putting up dry wall on the first floor this week. But already it's much quieter. I can't really say that's it's warmer, since we still don't have heat. But I image it would be worse without the insulation. Tonight will be the coldest night yet (in the 30s), but this should be one of the last cold nights. I think the electrician is going to work on wiring the thermostats early this week. If that wasn't his plan, I think we'll have to ask him to reprioritize. Those who know me, know that I'm chronically cold and dressed in layers, so it's pretty comical to see my bed attire these days. It usually involves at least 2 layers.

We made a couple big decisions this weekend- picking the flooring for the second floor and the granite for the kitchen. Going to the granite store is so cool. Seeing these huge slabs of polished stone in such a variety of color, it's hard to believe they all came from the depths of the earth. We picked a tan color with some black flecks, and then we hope to have a soap stone island.

Today was a busy day. We started off by watching 3 people carry off some of our radiators. We were hoping to salvage them, but it turns out that it's more of a hassle than we were willing to go through with. But the crew was comprised of 2 women, one in flip flops and an older man. It made me laugh to think that our crew of 11 guys wouldn't handle the radiators (they're still scattered throughout our house), but this motley crew was ready to take them on. Good for them!
W's project today was carefully removing the upstairs wood floors so we can reuse it in the back of the house. In the 1930's, oak was more desirable than heart of pine, so we have oak on the first floor and pine on the second. These days, heart of pine is a rare commodity, so we're salvaging it to reuse in other areas of the house.

We hung out with good friends on Saturday night, which felt like such a treat. It's been a while since we've seen our friends. Plus, they were so kind to bring up a new air mattress for us Sunday morning! And I enjoyed a respite from the house work today by having a fantastic lunch at Z&Z's house in DC. They finished renovating their house last year, so can relate to our process, and their house is proof that it's worth the pain of renovation. Thanks again for the great visit and wonderful home-cooked meal!

And a closing shot of our pup, who is happily enduring the renovation!

Siding and Basement Bugs

** Updated Tuesday evening for pictures **

I'm only halfway up and running tonight. I won't have any pictures since they're on the other computer, which isn't here right now. I'll do my best to paint a picture of our progress to date. As of my posting last week, we were sleeping with the carbon monoxide detector. I'm happy to report that it never woke us with its alarm, and the water heater has been vented properly, more or less.

The siding is as complete as it can be for now, until the roofing and decking is completed. We're really happy with how it turned out in the end. We had to have the workers change the siding on the dormers, since they filled the whole thing with framing and no siding. It looked silly, but looks great now. We realized that the front roof isn't very stable, so we're having to rebuild that. So far, that's been the only unexpected project.

Today is a huge landmark. The electrical and plumbing are all roughed in, so the drywall can start to go up. Once this starts to happen, it'll really start to look more like a home. I'm getting a little tired of our temporary status, as we enter our second month of living from the basement. It hasn't been too uncomfortable so far, but it does get frustrating having dust coat everything and sleeping on a dying air mattress loses its charm.

I finally identified our basement critters as camel crickets, thanks to the help of the Washington Post. Apparently these guys really like the dry weather we've been having. In the scheme of basement bugs, these crickets aren't too bad, but I'm not a huge fan of them. They're usually at least an inch across. They don't bite, and they don't make noise. But either way, I do NOT like sleeping anywhere near them. For more info: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/Urban/camelcrickets.htm

Tonight our basement had an unusually large presence of camel crickets, and so I'm moving our bedroom upstairs to the kitchen area. This means sweeping and mopping, but I'm happy to oblige.

W & I had our own project yesterday in trimming the ash tree that is close to the front porch. W bravely pulled out one of the big ladders and scaled up the tree with the chain saw to cut off one of the limbs that was brushing the front. I'll post a picture to show the improvement. It looks nice now that the front has a clear view. We still have a lot of work to do on the old oak tree along the street. It's over grown with a couple vines. We've cut the roots and hopefully the winter will aid our efforts.

Before tree trimming, and before they fixed the dormer:

The workers were focused on putting up the siding, and finishing the electric and plumbing last week. This week I think they'll be working on the front and rear decks (only a small one out back) and putting up dry wall. They've framed in the powder room downstairs and the bathrooms upstairs. W & I have almost finalized all the selections, which has been no small task. Picking bathroom tile proved to be the most difficult selection. We ordered our kitchen cabinets, so we may have a functioning kitchen in 4-5 weeks! I'm hoping for a washer and dryer sooner than that.

One of the nicest things about this renovation has been the neighborhood's excitement about our project. They are thrilled that we're fixing up this house that had obviously been uncared for for many years. Many people stop just to shout "looks great!" through their window as they drive by. And lots of others have walked up to chat with us about our project. Even in Lowes, the tile guy said, oh that's YOUR house!

So maybe by my next post, I'll have some dry wall to show off! I'll try to get pictures up tomorrow.

One quick shot of our friendly neighbors, Sam & Bella:

Technical Trouble

Hi all-
We had some connectivity issues last night and weren't able to post anything. We'll get a new posting up Monday night. Sorry!

Facelift

**Monday update- I'm able to upload pictures now. Water heater is still not fixed. **

This week was an interesting one. The workers made a good amount of progress both inside and outside. Blogspot is having some technical difficulties, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to upload some shots.

They've completed a good amount of the siding. I really like the color we went with. We plan on installing black shutters in a few weeks, but I think it looks nice even without. They've also made a lot of progress on the plumbing and HVAC. Most of the plumbing is roughed in and all of the ductwork is installed for the HVAC on both floors.

You may remember that we were going to sleep in the penthouse this past week. That went well for the first few nights. It was a little louder than I was prepared for, but it was doable. Then on Wednesday a cold front came through during the night. With it came a strong storm with lots of wind and rain. The purpose of an attic is for ventilation and ours is particularly effective right now, since we don't have windows (or didn't at that point). The wind was blowing mist onto our faces and we could hear a leak somewhere in the room. After we closed the tarp to block some of the rain and wind, the sound of the tarp brushing on the floor sounded eerily like a squirrel scurrying around the attic. Needless to say, it wasn't a restful night.

Thursday wasn't quite as bad, but it got cold! We have insulation in most of the house, but we don't have heat and there are still some gaping holes near windows. It was in the mid 40's outside and it couldn't have been more than 55 inside. We were fine bundled up beneath our down comforter but it's an experience I hope we don't have to repeat too many times.

Tonight marks a significant breaking point for me; I've caved and agreed to sleep in the basement. Till now, I've resisted due to the crickets and general damp smell, but it turns out that it's the warmest place in the house right now. To add to the excitement, the hot water heater was replaced but only slapped together, so the exhaust is dumping into the basement, as opposed to outside. So tonight we'll be sleeping by our newest purchase, a carbon monoxide detector. So far, we're clear.

(Harley warming our bed.)

Note the open exhaust pipe pointing to the left- excellent.

My parents dropped off our dog today too, so our little family is complete again. He seems to enjoy the excitement for the most part. And during the day, we'll drop him at a local doggie day care, so that he's out of the way of the workers.

I think the main pushes for this week will be completing the siding, plumbing and electrical. I'm also hoping they'll work on redecking the front and back decks. Right now the back door just opens to a drop off, so it would be convenient to have that decked again, especially now with that the dog needs access to his yard again!

Sorry for the lack of pictures tonight. I'll try to get them up early this week.

Living with Studs

I thought we had things pretty well gutted out, but apparently there was much more to be removed. We are really down to studs now! There are only a few small areas that have any type of original blown in insulation. There are no walls whatsoever. The house looks like this throughout.

We had some great progress, scattered with a few irritations, mostly from my perspective. We had our first delivery of dry wall and insulation. This is a great sign of progress. If dry wall is coming, that means we should have walls before too long. Dry wall delivery was an amazing process for a first time renovators like myself. They just popped out a window and lifted the pallet up. I thought it was cool.

The house has almost completely been rewired as well. Although the old knob and tube was interesting, the new insulated wire looks much safer. We have new windows in the garage and the house and garage are wrapped in green shrink wrap (I'm sure there's a more technical term).

The 2 minor frustrations of the week were fixable. First the workers tossed the contents of our dog's rubbermaid box, including about $200 worth of medications. Second the oil from the boiler was drained onto the basement floor, not touching our belongings but filling the area with the pungent smell of gasoline.

W is telling me that we should be able to create a semi-permanent bedroom for ourselves in the attic, hereafter referred to as the penthouse. This sounds like a pretty good plan, since it'll get us off the air mattress for a few nights (which I think has a small leak) and might relieve me of mopping duty for a little while. However, the penthouse does have a few drawbacks, including the gaping holes where windows will go and neatly drilled 2" holes where insulation was blown in. I think we'll give it a try for a few nights. Here's a shot of our penthouse suite.

This week, the electric should be completed and the siding should start to go up. I sure hope I like the color we picked!