Two years ago (geez...), I shared that we were replacing the roof and having the basement floor poured.  Both have been completed: the roof in the spring of 2012 and the basement floor in the summer of 2012. First, the basement:

In the previous post, we showed how drains were installed and we laid plastic sheeting as a vapor barrier.  We hired the pouring of the floor out to a crew because working with fast setting concrete, leveling it smoothly and sloping it subtly towards each drain requires a very cohesive team of strong workers who know exactly what they're doing.  

The whole floor was poured and spread in a day and the following day, after allowing it to set, one crew member came with a concrete saw to cut expansion cracks (Kitty is stepping directly over one, above).  These cracks discourage the cement from cracking wherever it wants, whenever it wants.

To finish things out, Shawn replaced the staircase and built a workbench in the corner of the largest space and filled the smallest space with shelves.  In case of the apocalypse, the shelves can double as bunk beds.

Now the roof:

The house (basically L-shaped) had part shingles and part metal.  We decided to go with an all metal roof because of the longevity.  The shingle part of the house still had good sheathing (the wooden boards) underneath with no rot. Shawn removed all the old shingles (two layers), laid new tar paper, then wood purlins (the 2 x 4s) to attached the metal panels to, and finally the 4' x 8' sheets of metal roofing.  Not a job for a windy day...  (Yes, he is tied on with his special harness.)

The shingle roof, therefore, could be down in sections as seen above.  The metal roof, below, had to be completely removed then completely replaced.  So we waited for a good, long, sunny weekend in May 2012:

Underneath the metal sheets, we found the original cedar shingles. Dry as kindling, they were just begging to be lit on fire.

Those came off fairly easily revealing the old wooden frame beneath. Where was I while Shawn was on the roof?  We laid sheets of plastic on the ground below and Shawn just let everything fall down.  I got clean-up duty carting all those old shingles, nails, etc. off the the burn pile or into various trash bins.

The bare boards weren't appropriate for keeping out weather or laying the roofing on, so Shawn placed new plywood and purlins on this roof. Meeting the the previously completed roof was tricky.

All in all, this portion of the roof was completed in just a few days. 

(The front's done too, but I don't have a completed picture on hand. Sorry.)

A number of small changes have occurred inside.  I've painted a bit, replaced some lighting, refinished some furniture, and placed some "band-aids" here and there.  I'll share a number of these small changes in an upcoming post.  The next big project is siding.  As seen above, the house is about 3/4s asbestos and 1/4 wood siding. We'll also be replacing windows, doors, and re-roofing the mini-porch in front and the one story laundry room in the back.  Details to come...

I love paint! Painty-painty-paint!

Can all sins be covered in paint?  No.  But you'd be surprised how many can.

The trouble with this house is that when starting a project, I'm never sure how deep to go.  If I rip off ugly wallpaper, will the drywall I find be finished and ready for paint?  Or did the wallpaper cover up unfinished seams and lumpy installation?  Or OSB in lieu of drywall?  Should I remove the faux-wood paneling?  Do I dare?  Is there drywall underneath or will I be exposing old insulation?

That said, every time I do an upgrade from sickly stained wallpaper to fresh paint, I don't want to spend too much time or effort because in the long run, we'll be replacing a LOT of drywall when we replace the insulation behind it.  But this is way down the road and there are several things I don't want to live with for that long.  Like this room:  

It's the spare bedroom and it was very obvious that the carpet had to go (smelly and grimy), along with the wallpaper (top half of walls), which was peeling off.  But once the wallpaper was removed, I found gaps in the drywall.  I wanted to removed the paneling, but wasn't up for doing drywall if there wasn't any underneath.  As for the floor, I found sheets of plywood with some gaps under the carpet and we weren't ready to buy new carpet yet.  So, within these compromises I assembled my arsenal:

1) flat paint in a warm white for the walls.

2) glossy chocolate brown for the trim.

3) floor paint in tan.

4) white painter's caulk for drywall gaps.

5) a variety of curtains and fabrics from Goodwill.

Of course it still wants rugs, accent furniture, and pillowcases, but these pictures show progress and they show what a difference a very simple neutral palette can make when you're going from icky to usable.  It won't grace the cover of House Beautiful anytime soon with such a bland look, but this is where we are right now.  Paint + Compromise.

Similar compromises were made in the upstairs hall and bathroom. At some point cosmetic becomes structural and finding that point and knowing when to quit are a big part of getting anything accomplished.

Interiors: I love paint!

There are a few little changes to the innards of the house that I accomplished in the last few years.  All thanks to my new friend...paint!  A few years ago, I got tired of looking at the plywood walls in the kitchen.  (Yep, they put up OSB in lieu of drywall.  Wallpapered it too.  Engreased dust covered the wallpaper so it came down too easily.  Ew.)














So, I got some yellow paint (flat), primed the kitchen, and painted it.  I painted the trim a warm white, and added a little trim over the range hood and sink.  Take a look:













MUCH better.  But....not without its flaws.  I learned some things...
1)  Flat paint doesn't cover all sins.
2) Grease stains soak into flat paint, they don't wipe away.  Mleh...

We had better luck with the room we use as a den.  Here, I experimented with texture paint.

 We took down the faux wood paneling down a found that the drywall underneath looked like it had been hung by a group of Cub Scouts, but with less planning.  Plus, it was covered in icky dried Liquid Nails--impossible to remove.  So, we texture painted it, but we know we'll have to take it ALL down someday because the insulation needs replacement someday.

Okay, well, picture layout in 'Blogger' has become officially too frustrating to continue.  More pictures in my next post.

Basement Floor

Gah...It's been an age since I last posted. I've changed jobs, Shawn's changed jobs twice, and just last month we got married (whoot!)  But as much as our daily lives have changed, the home improvement has been rather moderate.

The major one was replacing the roof.  This before picture shows the two different types of roofing that we had up there.

The original house (near in the pic) had corrugated metal roofing over top of cedar shingles.  The 'new' part (far left in the pic) had layers of shingles.  Shawn did the shingled part first in the fall of 2010.  In order to avoid exposing the whole layer of sheathing to the elements, he did it in sections.

 When this was completed, Shawn worked as a long-haul truck driver for about a year.  Which sucked because a) I missed him, b) nothing major got done on the house, and c) I missed him.  Now he drives locally for a nearby business and he's home every night.  Yay!  So...

The original portion of the house was re-roofed in May of 2012.  Under the old corrugated metal roofing was the original roofing material: cedar shingles.  And after years of living under the metal they were dry, dry, dry--that is, a fire hazard.  Not so yay.  Here's the process:

 First, the cedar shingles, then the bare bones, and third, the new sheathing.  Here's the nearly final product:

I'd go out and get a completed shot but it's raining just now.  But comparing even this to the image in the header of this blog makes my heart go pitter-patter.  Now, back to the basement:

We've hired a guy to pour our four inch thick concrete basement floor.  Yes, that's right.  We've hired someone who doesn't live here.  Reason being: no single person can put a smooth finish on a nearly 900 sq. ft surface faster than the concrete can dry.  It takes a team.  Furthermore, it takes an experienced team where everyone knows his job and can get it right the first time and fast.  (So, not me.)

What we have done is place thick (6mil) plastic sheeting down as a vapor barrier (it'll be forever covered by the concrete) and installed three drains that run out to the french drain which runs out to our sump well and a backup dry well. 

 Because, why not?  Shawn's done everything to prevent water in the basement including waterproofing the concrete block, grading the yard, running gutters, digging a dry well, and installing a french drain.  But just in case of torrential weather some year, it's cheaper to install these drains and never need them than to buy flood insurance.  

So, now we wait for our floor guy.  In the meantime, some smaller fun things are happening inside!

November 3

November 3, 2009 is sixteen days from today. By the end of it, Shawn and I will be homeowners. It's a heady notion. But not a frightening one. We can afford it, we'll get the tax credit, which we can set up in a checking account and use to pay the mortgage and taxes for quite some time, and the payments will actually be LESS than what I've been putting aside each month anyway. Of course, we can't insure it until the foundation is done (January?). We're financing through the seller (Pop), not a bank, which is how we can buy it without insuring it. This is fueled mainly by the tax credit deadline. There are extension rumors circulating, but I don't put faith in rumors.

It's been rainy and miserable here, so yesterday we stayed inside and winterized, putting our inch-thick polyisocyanurate (foam) panels into the windows. I think this one-room living arrangement will be cozy this winter and keep the heating costs lower. The Ingalls' had it right -- cooking and living in the same room.

I made a no-reason-cake last night and left the oven door open when I was done. No sense wasting heat that's already been paid for. Speaking of Laura Ingalls, I made the light bread from the 'Little House' cookbook last weekend and think I'll do it again. If you've ever wondered how people stayed warm in the olden days, lemme tell you...labour-intensive cooking is the way to go.

Stay warm!

Stink Party!

You guys missed a great party on Saturday. We invited my mom over and we painted vile-smelling waterproofing over the new walls. Oh, it was a good time... you don't even know.

Actually, we have made a lot of progress since late September. Shawn built up all the exterior walls on the new footer (see diagram--the yellow is the finished footer, the red is the finished wall.) Then this past weekend we waterproofed all the exterior surfaces that were still exposed. So anything that's grey in the following pictures is new--and now black.

Taking out the I-beams is a bit by bit process. First, the blocks the house is sitting on have to be dry enough to hold the house (naturally), the the I-beams come out one at a time and we fill the holes they came from with a few more blocks.

Here, Shawn portrays the god, Atlas:

These are some pictures from the back part of the house we did over the summer and how we filled in the remaining blocks:

Second Third of Footers

Two (big) thirds of the footers are finished. In the above diagram, the yellow represents the first 'third' we poured and the purple is what we did last Wednesday. The thin red line shows where our new walls are, and Shawn's down there as I type building the walls up on the purple footers. The light blue footers will be our last, as well as the easiest with a simple U shape. The pour went better this time than last. At least the mixer didn't get stuck in the mud!! (Click here and here to see videos of the last time we poured.)

This is a pretty cool shot of how the house is being supported. If you notice that the sill supporting the wall is bowed heavily in the middle, don't worry. I'm just a poor photo editor.

The supports don't always work out quite as well as we like, which is scary, but...eh... we lived. The left side of this one is a bit taller, or lower, rather. We had them both dug down as deep as the one on the right, but when we dug alongside it for our footer trench we had an accident. It started to collapse. So we lost several hours but were able to secure it. The house didn't cave in.

I guess we were misguided by the heavy clay content of the soil this far down (about 8 feet below ground.) Most of our dirt is silty sandy stuff, but we found a few areas that had a good 3-4 inch deep layer of pinkish, purplish clay. Very pretty but a pain to dig.

But dig it we must! Here Shawn's digging for rebar that he hammered horizontally into the dirt during the last pour. About 5 feet of the bars are in the previous footer and 5 feet are in the new one.

When you pour a footer is sections, the places they meet are called 'cold joints' and require these bars as extra reinforcement because these cold joints are the areas most susceptible to cracking over time.

The cement blocks are helping maintain the 24 inch width required as we set up the forms. Once the forms are nailed together and spreaders put on top, the blocks will be removed. Spreaders are just 2x4s long enough to bridge the gap and hold the forms the correct distance apart during the pour.

For this pour, Shawn made two chutes that the truck's chute could easily move between. This helped get the concrete spread out as it came in, a.k.a. less work for us.

Here's the end of one chute, just after the pour. Allowing for overflow is very important. We can always toss out the excess, but if we order too little.... oh, snap...

All done! This concrete has been poured and 'screeded' (leveled out by having a 2x4 dragged across it.) This is a cold joint, so the rebar is deep down in it. All that's left is to remove that spreader on top, let it dry (see the color change?) and the building can begin. We took the weekend to enjoy company and relax and this morning Shawn started the new walls.