Making Progress... No, Really

I have three projects running at the rental house all at once, so here's about a week's worth of updates on all of them.

The Kitchen:

The window by the kitchen sink was in terrible condition when we bought the place. Both parts were rotting out, and were about at the point where you really wouldn't want to touch either of them for fear that it would all come apart. Long story short, I have a new window in. It was a pretty rough install because the window came sized just a hair larger than it was supposed to be, and because that corner of the house settled differently than the rest (translation: the window frame was slightly out of square). The old window is well... really old, but seems to have been put there in the 1980s. Enough talk, time for pictures.

The old...


The New...



The Bathroom:
I'm finally at the point where I get to build things, so in theory the place should look better when I leave at the end of the day than it did when I showed up. I think that's starting to happen anyway. Here's a shot looking towards where the vanity will go (on the right). You can see the 1970s tiles better. The wood flooring seems to have been painted once or twice, then linoleum put down, then the tile that's visible here, then two kinds of linoleum within the last 25 years or so. I'm installing Pergo because.




Looking towards where the vanity will be. I put up the framing for the new wall today. I'd like to do the electrical for an outlet and a light above the vanity tomorrow. It's starting to look a bit more like a room anyway.



The Wood

I finally took some "before" pictures of how bad this stuff was. They speak for themselves.


An untold number of layers of paint...


This is the piece that goes above the window to the left of the (new) vanity. It shows what the wood looks like after I remove the paint, but before I sand it.


Here's another shot of the same piece after I stripped the paint from the crown molding. The actual color of the wood can be seen, along with what color the wood was finished once upon a time ago. Wish I could've saved the finish (because I'd be done by now) but it was too far gone.



Every piece of wood trim has been stripped and sanded, and within the next few days I'll have it all refinished. I'm going with shellac, and a polyurethane topcoat over that on the larger window trim since it's more or less in the shower.

Plans tomorrow are to run the electrical in the bathroom and do the plumbing. Wish me luck...

The Bathroom Destroyer

I'm more or less finished demolishing the bathroom (no, not that way - I mean breaking out walls and stuff like that).

The bathroom has been about 8 colors over the years. Beige, something blue/green, fuchsia (didn't come out in this picture well), green, another shade of green, tan and another shade of tan. Whatever color I pick makes 9.



I also found all 3 major types of wiring used during the 20th century. Exciting stuff, I know... up there with Sheldon's enthusiasm with flags on this week's Big Bang Theory. Knob and tube, ungrounded, and romex.



Here's how everything looked after I finished destroying everything in sight.



The flooring mystery is solved. Linoleum (not pictured) on top of a layer of linoleum that was removed, on 1/4in plywood, on top of 12" vinyl tiles that look like wood, on top of actual wood. I'm taking it down to the tile that looks like wood level and then installing pergo. Not enough time to strip the tiles (they're REALLY on there) and refinish the wood below that's in unknown condition.


View looking towards where the vanity will go. This used to be a closet, now the space to the right will be a linen closet using the original entrance from the hall. The chair came free with the house. What a deal!!!



Looking towards where the vanity will go. I'm not sure if the wiring to the sconces is live or not... don't think it is, but I'd rather not find out the hard way. I'll deal with it when I do the rest of the wiring (vanity light and an outlet in that area. I'm still debating on whether to add an exhaust fan or not, but I probably will.



This is the scenic view looking back towards the shower/tub and window that's no longer there. I took all trim and the window out so I could scrape however many layers of paint off and restore the wood. The trim appears to be chestnut and I haven't looked at the window yet. I had no idea, but it's double hung. All 4 weights had broken ropes and I'm not sure if the top part of the window had moved at any point during my or my parent's lives until today when I took it out.

I've learned a few things about past construction methods while doing this. Technology aside, they were missing a few things like insulation in exterior walls and fire blocking. It's not like I expected to see fiberglass in there, but at least something. They weren't exactly big on attaching door and window frames to studs or any structure at all.Both items are held in place only by the casing. What surprised me was to find an electrical box and studs built to the same sizes ours are now. I'll be modernizing whatever is exposed but not tearing anything apart more than it already is.
Moving forward I plan on finishing the woodwork, framing out the wall between the closet and bathroom, replacing the window in the kitchen now that one finally came in, and rebuilding the bathroom. The job isn't done yet, but the end is in sight at least.

Great big, scary update... coming soon!

Plaster and lathe wall demolition. All three major types of wiring used during the 20th century. Layer upon layer of paint removal. Double hung windows. All that, and more coming soon on (hopefully) later today's update!

What I've Been Up To...

The last month (technically since the beginning of the year) has brought a lot of work, but none of it on the house we live in. I've spent most of my time working on the rental, which I'm hoping to have on the market within 10 days or so.

A lot of the work has been incredibly boring, and things that pictures don't describe well. For example, cleaning windows that most likely last saw windex when I was in high school and adjusting doors so they can open and close freely again. As of today, the living room and dining room are complete.


The fixture in the dining room still needs to be adjusted to the right height and I need to get some candelabra bulbs for it.


The living room looks a lot better with new lighting, blinds and the ugly old furnace removed from in front of the fireplace.


Behind the furnace and some sheet metal was the cast iron fireplace surround. There was probably a center piece, but it's long gone. One of the bricks was loose, but there was nothing behind it.

A new window is on order to replace the old, rotten one in the kitchen. As boring and hard on the eyes to look at, the kitchen will remain more or less unchanged aside from new blinds and a coat of paint. Bigger changes are coming later, and a 1/2 bathroom will be added under the stairs in space the pantry occupies right now. Today I fixed the last of the plumbing leaks, so water has been turned back on.


At some point I'm going to need to do something about the outside... a new coat of paint is in store for the place sometime soon. I'm not going to be doing this since I'm not a huge fan of hanging around on a ladder all day and the person next door shared the name of the painter he went with and how much it cost him. The brick path in the picture above is old. Exactly how old, I have no idea but from the 3in of dirt that was sitting above, my guess is that it's been covered up for decades. The brick matches what was used around the bottom of the foundation.

Major things still left to do are finish up putting in new blinds, finish redoing the bathroom, put new flooring in the laundry room, do some painting and redo the landscaping. At least the yard is small so that won't be too much of a chore!

Survey Says...

Before I could really get under the house and start digging footings for new piers, it really helps to make a blueprint so you can see how everything is currently built. I always knew there were stairs under the house, but for some reason I thought the inaccessible area near them was much smaller than it really is. Perspective changes when you're under a house I guess. Here's about how everything is currently built. It brings in some new challenges that I wasn't expecting.



For reference, the wide opening at the top of the picture is the entrance from the kitchen to the family room. One square = one foot. The wall by the words "LOAD BEARING" is the one that I filled in after we moved here. Not on the drawing is the deck because that's not really important at this point, and the master bedroom / bathroom on the other side of the load bearing wall. I marked where existing piers are (except for under the load bearing wall since there are plenty of those) and where a beam under the floor currently runs. Joist span is currently about 16 feet in most places.

To start, I plan on adding three piers, shown on the drawing as being in line with each other near the bottom. The extra rectangle is something I forgot to erase, but shows about the line that the next set of piers running to the right under the master bathroom will need to be in. I planned on doing the same in the family room on the other side of the existing beam to cut that span in half, but ran into a bit of a problem.



Yes, those are stairs and a brick wall under the house... or under the living room to be exact. The rough position of all that is on the survey too. Before the room I'm writing this post in was made it was the back yard. There was a deck behind the house; a nice one lined in brick with a concrete top. When the place was added on to the outer layer of brick was knocked out and the concrete was removed to provide room for floor joists, but the rest of the brick, stairs and fill material was left alone. What this means is that I can add a short beam under that half of the family room before I have to stop because there's no more room left to work. The best way around this little problem is to wait until I have the flooring up in the family room, excavate a few inches of fill material and re-pour the top of the concrete slab. Then I'll be able to easily shim between the top of that slab and the bottom of the floor joists to make that half of the room feel a lot more solid than it does now.



So far I've completed one hole for a new footing and half of the second. No small task since I'm digging a hole one foot deep / two feet long/wide, and doing it with a garden trowel. The layers in the soil are kind of cool, except the bottom one has a lot of clay and is harder to dig in. So far I've filled a 36 gallon trash can with dirt, plus some (no we're not throwing it out... gotta put it somewhere until I can decide what to do with it).





And of course, the area under the bedroom and bathroom needs just as much reinforcement as under the family room. What fun.

A week of Planning, a Week of Stress

I've been largely unable to physically do anything with the place this week. That's mostly due to the fact that at work I'm in an interim (acting) assignment for a job I'd like to do full time. It's something that works really well with my high energy desire to make things happen quickly. Since it's sort of an audition period I've been spending extra time trying to do my best to get the fill time job, and haven't had much time to devote to things going on over here.

That said, I've still been able to accomplish a little here. One of the biggest challenges we've faced with moving over here is that there's less closet and cabinet space in this house. A lot less. Part of that is due to the fact that most houses of this age just didn't come with much in the way of closets, but it's a problem that was made much worse by the previous owners who felt the need to eliminate the closet entirely from one bedroom and put in pedestal sinks in 2 1/2 bathrooms.

A pedestal sink may be a great choice in a small half-bath. There isn't usually a lot that people want to store in there besides some extra tp and cleaning supplies, but in a second full bath intended for guests/kids to use it makes no sense whatsoever. Here's ours without me going in beforehand to clean up and make the place look nice.

Ignoring the cat on the sink who probably thought I went in there to feed her, you can see exactly what I'm talking about. If we had kids there would be zero room to store anything at all except for where I put the cat supplies on the floor. With a normal sink and countertop there would be a place for the cat to stand and eat besides in the sink (food can't go on the floor because the dog would get it). We would have about four feet of counter and cabinet space to the right and a bit to the left to use. The place wouldn't look like a mess because there would be a place to store pet supplies that we actually use and everything would make a lot more sense.

Tying it all back together now, part of the reason why I've been spending so much time looking for things to get rid of is because there genuinely are a few things that've been forgotten about and moved from one place to the next with us which should go. But also because parts of the house look like a wreck because there's very little room to store things that we genuinely use and need. The problem should be going away pretty soon - there isn't much left to be gone through and things that we have too much of but use (like soap) are used up eventually. And of course the renovations planned will take care of the lack of space, so at some point all will be well in the world again. I'm sure that'll last for a week or two and then kids will come along and I'll get to start all over.

Too Long Since the Last Post!

A good rule of thumb is, that if a long time goes between posts that's because I'm up to more than I have time to write about and that's certainly the case here!

So what have I been up to... well from looking at the last post anyway, I finished repairing the fence (boring, so no pictures of a fence minus tree here). I finished working on the installing the door/frame/casing to the bathroom and we spent mountains of time just unpacking and basically moving in. I also embarked on a stupid project to strip the paint from the garage doors... it was supposed to just take two, maybe three weekends per door but it turned into an entire learning exercise for what to do and what not to do to remove paint. The results will be wonderful and the other two garage doors will go much more quickly, but the first door took about two months from start to (almost) finished!

We came up with some great ideas for the kitchen redesign, and I was able to firm up a design for all the stiffening that I'd like to do to the foundation. I want to add four beams to cut the span of every floor joist in half. Along with this will come adding a number of piers, but it should make a huge impact on how solid the place feels. I also would've had some work to do in the kitchen in order to build it up to take stone flooring, and I might as well carry that over to the rest of the house. All that will need to be done before I can do any part of the rebuild phase of the kitchen/living room remodel.

And the last thing that we finished is making the address marker for the front of the house. Numbers are the same as DWR sells, since they changed them over to being made from aluminum vs. stainless steel. Where they came from, I'll never tell.

One more thing came along... since I don't have enough to do at this house already, and I have way too much time on my hands we are getting ready to close on a second house. This one will be a rental downtown. It's a craftsman built sometime around 1920. I like originality - it's not a post-modern mass-produced knockoff of a craftsman. It's the real thing, with tons of original character from the wood floor to the doors and hardware. The plan is not to completely redo this place. For now I'm planning on cleaning up, doing a bit of landscaping, getting new fixtures and blinds, and expanding the bathroom into an oddly-shaped hall closet. Kitchen rework, a bit of leveling and stripping paint will come at a later date. We'd like to have it no the market by February 1 (hint, hint for anyone who wants to live in Hampton Park Terrace...).

Here's how the bathroom door came out. Exciting stuff, I know... I experimented with building without casing this time around, just to see what all it takes. It was surprisingly simple - I just built a filler panel to go in the space above the door, and on the left/right sides it was a pretty good fit from the beginning and caulk was all that was needed to fill the gap. The master bedroom is now blue, just like our last house was. MUCH better than the horrible shade of purple that everything was beforehand. I'm probably going to replace all the doors when we really start redoing the place, but it's good to pick up a new skill here and there in the meantime.

Our second oldest project sounds so simple... just get numbers on the house so people can actually find it. Our address is a little strange compared to the houses around us, possibly because the people who built our house in 1959 are the ones who planned and built a lot of the others in the area. The lot is about twice the size as most of the others, but it's an older neighborhood and they vary a lot from one to the next. I couldn't just put the numbers on the house itself because they would blend in too much, so I built something that looked correct for the age of the place. The wood had to be cut, drilled, corners cut, edges beveled, and painted three times but the result is pretty nice.

Here's a picture from when I was almost done with the garage door. What I learned about removing paint... first off, don't bother with paint stripper if you have more than one coat to deal with. It can, however take care of two coats if they're thin. Work with a small area at a time, and don't let the stuff dry. The overwhelming majority of the doors were done with a heat gun since there were at least three coats everywhere except for the top panel with the windows. Since the wood wasn't varnished before it was primed, areas where paint was removed came out a grayish-white so everything had to be sanded. A quarter sheet palm sander sped this up and I'd have probably given up without it. That left behind the bare oak frame and cedar panels. I plan on going over it once more with fine sandpaper, and coating the whole thing with several coats of marine spar varnish to finish it off. That should leave the natural colors of the wood protected, and hopefully the only maintenance will be to add more every few years. The plan for working the other garage doors is to go just one section at a time instead of doing the entire thing at once.

Below is the rental house as it looks right now. Sometime next year it'll get painted. I'm not sure of what colors yet though. The part of President St that it's on is at the southern-most end of Hampton Park Terrace. When the national register surveyed the area some time back it was included in the neighborhood but since then that block fell off. I think it's an oversight since this block is on all the original surveys, and the legal description is something like Lot 1 as Surveyed by Hampton Park Terrace, Inc. / 1916, 1919. I'll deal with that more after I'm finished painting since I have a feeling that's a lot easier now than once it's re-added to a historic area.

A simple shot of the first floor, with the angle carefully chosen to keep the fireplace with a huge, ugly 1970s gas furnace that vents into the chimney out of the shot. Downstairs has two living areas (shown), a dining room through the french doors to the left and a kitchen. Upstairs has three bedrooms, a bathroom and linen closet. I think it's about 1,500 square feet. Anything made of wood besides the floor is covered with layer after layer of paint. I'm not really sure how to remove it from the french doors since heat guns and glass don't get along well.

So what's coming up next... for now I'm cleaning up the other house and that'll hopefully be complete in about a month and a half. Over here the next steps are to varnish the garage door, finish unpacking and moving in, add the two beams under the living room and master bedroom, and firm up the details about the kitchen renovation. We have a general layout figured out, but are unsure about some pretty important details. Mainly, what kind of appliances would we like, what type of cabinets, island/no island, flooring, and colors. The most logical order to go in is to demo the entry and living room first, add the beam under there and do subfloor repairs/strengthening, refinish and reinstall the wood flooring in there, demo the kitchen, do the other beam and subfloor work, then call a foundation company to level and re-shim the whole house. Then we can start reinstalling things in the kitchen. The subfloor and leveling stuff really holds up the kitchen work since that would surely damage whatever flooring we decide to use if we go in another order.

Lucky thing we're still in the planning phase, I guess...