Quick catch up

We've been very busy. so here is just a quick catch up.

We've rented a big dumpster and tomorrow we'll fill it up with all the debris from the demolition and the tree-limbs.


We've purchased our cabinets. We went with Mills Pride cabinets which requires you to assemble them. According to Consumer Reports
they rank higher than some pre-constructed cabinets and they were alot less expensive. By the way I highly recommend a membership with Consumer Reports, it's $5 a month and you can cancel at any time. It's a non-profit organization, and there is some good information there. Rachel spent a good bit of time today assembling the units we were able to pick up at the Depot. The rest have been ordered and should be ready in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime we've also been working on patching and sanding the walls. Here's a tip: Skip the plaster mix and just use drywall mud. The plaster mix dries up super hard and is tough to sand. So far the drywall mud seems to be bonding to the existing plaster just fine.

Also discovered today I'm not quite done with the electrical. We need 3 more outlets, one for the oven (to run the timer, etc...), one for the microwave / vent hood above the oven, and one for the refrigerator and freezer.

I also manager to patch the hole in the floor where the fridge is going to go. Rachel didn't think I could do it, but it worked out pretty well and it's sturdy enough to stand on. After removing the coffee can lining (that's right, old coffee cans), I cut through the subflooring on two sides and placed a 3/4" piece of plywood in the hole and secured it into the floor beams.

Electrical Review

I've realized something. Just knowing that now is the best time to do a certain task, doesn't make doing it any easier. The electrical for the kitchen is finally updated, but it took alot longer than I expected. I ended up adding 5 outlets (two of which are GFCI). I also added 3 switches. One for the garbage disposal, one for under-cabinet lighting, and one for the cieling fixture. The latter was a real hassle, we have such a small attic space, much to small for me, so Rachel had to crawl up in the cieling to fish the wire over to me. At the end of the day it's done, and I'm just glad to move on. I do have a few things that maybe I can pass along.

• BE CAREFUL. Purchase the tools you need like an outlet tester. Never work on hot-wires.
  
• Educate yourself. There are alot of good resources out there for the do it yourself home-owner, purchase a reference guide or use the internet.
  
• Plan ahead. I did some rework to get things right, that I could have avoided by drawing out a plan ahead of time.
• Black to Black, White to White, Ground to Ground. No exceptions.
  Edit: Ok, I've been informed that there are occasionally exceptions, for example when wiring 3 and 4 way switches you might want to connect white to black so you just have to run one wire to the outlet. Black = Line, White = Lead in this circumstance.
• 1/2 hole is sufficient to run up to 3 wires through.
• When stripping the wires, a utilitiy knife works well, but be careful not to knick the wire.
• Countertop outlets and switches go 45 inches above the floor.
• Line = Hot wire coming in to a switch or outlet.
• Load = Hot wire going out of the switch or outlet.
• Outlets have a tab connecting the top and bottom plug which can be broken if you want them to operate independetly (of couse you need two Lines coming in.
• Anything on a circuit that comes after a switch will be operated by that switch so unless you want to turn your lights on before your outlets will work, branch Lines to switches off from a Junction Box.
• Be Careful.

After getting the electrical finished up Rachel and I put up a piece of drywall on the wall we pushed back into the (old) kitchen. I'll get a layout posted soon for our design for the kitchen.

Rachel braced the countertop when I wasn't making her pull wire for me. Josh and Jenny were over with Tyler and Jenny helped us get our cabinet design finalized. She works at Home Depot, so it's nice to have an expert in our corner. Pictures next time!

Demolition Diva

For about the last week now, while Seth worked on the electricity,
I have been working on demolition (i.e. making a mess). Last
weekend I focused on tearing out the cabinetry to make a home for our future fridge. I took out three wall cabinets and a double-door base cabinet. Much to my surprise (although by now it really shouldn't be), after pulling up the platform for the base cabinet, I discovered a large hole in the floor that must have been either an opening for duct work or for a laundry chute. Unfortunately for us, it poses yet another problem to overcome;
How do you put a very heavy fridge on a floor with a big hole
without cringing everytime you shut the door? Seth reassures
it is easily fixable ("alright...").

After I finished the demo in the kitchen, I moved on to busting out the walls between the new kitchen and the current kitchen. This will allow us to place the fridge back so it is flush with the door to the basement as well as give us more room for cabinets and counter space. The walls come down pretty easily, but unfortunately the plaster is exceptionally heavy and will not be picked up by the trash company. So, we have decided we are going to have to rent a dumpster. It's not cheap, but it is much easier and quicker than taking it to the dump by the truckload.

In the meantime, we finally have a brand new heat pump and furnace. The guys from MidWest were out on Monday to take out all of the old rusty junk and put in the new equipment. I met them at the house to let them in, get them aquainted with the house and warn them about the hot wires. We also spent a good deal of time discussing the positioning of the duckwork to the second floor. They were there most of the day. When Seth and I got to the house that night, we were interedted to see this hole.
Hard to tell, but I took this picture from the bedroom on the second floor and you could actually see all the way down to the basement. On Tuesday, they came back and finished up. The ductwork runs up a corner in the dining room and then up into to bedrooms upstairs. We will have to do some framing in the dining room and the second bedroom (our closet) upstairs to cover up the ductwork, but Seth assures me it will be easy ("alright...").

We still have a little bit of demolition work to do (taking down the 2 x 4's and peeling up some of the vinyl in the current kitchen) but we should be done by this weekend. I have to say that although the demo is fun, and I have become quite good at it, I am ready to start improving the look of our home and not just the structure. Regardless, I know that it will all be well worth the trouble.

At least it wasn't the Ace

When you purchase an old house, especially an estate, you inherit quite alot of other stuff. Things you might not have thought you would be getting, things accumulated by the previous owner over many long years.

In our house we found the following:

• walk behind lawn mower which may or may not work
• electric hedge trimmers
• miniature windmill and hand harrow
  
• a deathtrap (aka metal swingset)
• trashcan
  
• 4 brooms
• cobweb mop
• regular mop
• upholstery hand vac
• dustbuster
• carpet push sweeper
• cabinet full of cleaning supplies, including a carton of tri-sodium phosphate, which by the way we were warned to be careful with because it contained... tri-sodium phosphate.
• A very old iron, which was found behind the dishwasher. Yes, behind the dishwasher.
• pinking attachment for a sewing machine
• a scythe. Yes, a rusty old hand-held scythe. I'll have the best ever "death" costume next halloween.
• the selling agents brochure and card holder
• and the Jack of Spades, behind a baseboard

Then you find things that you really just can't believe. When I first found this I thought it was rather amusing, but the more I think about it the more it really makes me sad. In a void in the basement cieling I found 8 empty bottles of McCormick Vodka and 1 lonely bottle of Peppermint schnapps.



Now back to your regularly scheduled home improvement blog. The framing for the new door position in the kitchen wall is complete.


The electrical in the kitchen is also about half done. I located 4 new outlets, and after Rachel reminded me, installed a switch for the garbage disposal. Still to do is add a switch for the cieling fixture (because of course there is not one) and run some lines for under-cabinet lighting and the range hood.

Rachel will be posting an update on what she's been up to soon. We've both been very busy this week!

Busy Weekend - Recap

We had a very productive weekend of work.

Friday night we started scraping the floor by hand before finally giving in and renting a belt sander with some 36 grit sand paper on Saturday. We also continued to tear down the lathe and plaster on the wall in the kitchen where the door to the office will be moved to. Moving the door will gain us about 22" - 27" of usable counter space depending on how wide we make the door trim.

Saturday we got a bit of a late start after a trip to Home Depot to rent the belt sander. Josh (Rachel's brother) and Tyler (our nephew) were over in the early afternoon. We spent the rainy day putting together the beautiful fire pit that Josh and Jenny (Josh's wife Tyler's mom) gave us for our wedding. After Sunday's activities we certainly have plenty of fuel for it for awhile! After Josh and Tyler took off we sanded the glue off of the kitchen sub-flooring. Several people have asked me why bother? I think, even with some backer-board underlayment, any ceramic tyle we put down will be susceptible to cracking over time from being walked on. I could be wrong about that, but its better to be safe than sorry. Even with the belt sander though it was a hard job and to be honest, Rachel did most of it. Even the little I did made my arms feel like jelly.

Sunday was a really beatiful day and I'm glad it wasn't rainy and cold like Saturday. Rachel's father (Mike) was at the house by the time I got back from returning the belt sander to Home Depot and already had the chainsaw fired up. First target was a medium sized cedar that was growing too close to the large elm we have right behind the deck. I pushed and pushed while he cut into the base, but it fell right towards our neighbors fence. Fortunately the weight was all on the branches and not the fence. We soon had it disassembled. And I started stacking the usable pieces of firewood under the deck. This is what I did most of the afternoon. Other than a smallish dead redbud, that was the only tree we took down, but we trimmed most of the others up by taking down the low hanging branches. I learned alot about pruning from my father-in-law . Here are some tips for novices.

• Ideally you should prune trees in the fall, but it can also be done in the early spring before they bud out.
• Go slowly and take off small branches. Step back and take a look. You can always cut more off, you can't glue it back on.
• Each branch has a collar of bark where the branch meets its parent branch. Do not cut into this or behind it. Instead cut just on the outside (the part being removed). This collar will grow over the stump left behind and seal it up.
• Use good sharp tools and leave a clean cut.
• Prune rose bush stems at an angle, just above a branch.

Josh and Tyler joined us again in the afternoon. Even with all the limbs on the lawn, the yard looks so much better. We were considering renting a chipper to turn them all into some mulch, but, but I think we are going to just haul them away instead. Once the limbs are picked up and the trees have some leaves on them, we'll post some after pictures of the yard.

Rachel and her sister Amanda also took down the aluminum awnings that were over each window. Someday I would like to have some wider window trim, but for now it is fine. Some people might have liked the awnings, but for us they just weren't working. There is a lot more light in the house without them. Of course priority #1 just became some blinds for the bathroom window!

After Mike and Amanda called it a day, Rachel and I stuck around to work on framing up the new wall and doorway in the kitchen. This is the part of the project I've been waiting for from day 1. We are about halfway done with it as of last night.

P.S. - I forgot to upload pictures from the camera, so that is why there are no new pictures today.

Slowly but Surely

Well, here we are, almost one week since the last entry and we have finally finished removing all of the staples from the floor of what is to be our kitchen. Now don't think it is the only thing we have managed to accomplish, but it was perhaps the most tedious to date. I honestly don't think that it would exageration to say that we removed somewhere around 500 staples by hand (Seth did most of the work, but I helped). Now our new tile floor will lay flat and beautifully; worth the work.

Unfortunately the pink hammer was lost in all the action. First went the second half of the claw (or the "rabbit ears" as I call them). While hammering, I felt something hit my leg, I looked down to see it laying on the floor in front of me. Seth and I laughed together. He offered me the new hammer, but I refused arguing that this one still hammered, "unles the head falls off" I said. Five minutes later, I swung the hammer forward and the next thing I know, the head goes flying accross the room. I couldn't believe I called it. Despite all of the setbacks, The "little pink hammer that could" got me through until the job was done.

Last night while I finished up the staples, Seth began to tear down the wall next to the office door. Our idea is to move the door to the corner which will give us more wall space for cabinets and an oven. This will give us more overall space and won't really change the office layout too much. Looks like it might take a couple of days and will require some tool purchasing (which Seth is a little too happy about) but it will make a huge difference.

Once that is done, we will be able to move from demolition (Seth's favorite part) to putting things back together (my favorite part). First we'll have to patch the walls and put the frame back up around the back door. Then we get to order cabinets and buy a fridge, then... well, you know the drill. It should be all up hill from here. (Keep your fingers crossed).