Flooring

We had some slaves friends come over to help us work today. We finished just about all the drywall that we can do for the moment and then moved downstairs to work on the flooring. We managed to remove most of the finished floor and will be able to hack away at the subfloor. It started here, right by the basement skylight:


And ended here, very close to the north kitchen wall (there's a stack of drywall on the last 2 rows of flooring - we removed more after this picture was taken):


After the wooden planks were out, we still had to dispose of the 105-year-old tar paper underneath it and pull out hundreds (I'm not exaggerating) of finishing nails that were sticking out of the subfloor. Four of us spent the better part of an hour pulling them out, and I think there are still plenty more left. Here's a shot of the entire space from the hole in the floor to give you a better sense of the size of the room:


We absolutely definitely need to figure out the bathroom door situation and complete the washer plumbing tomorrow. We need to leak test ASAP and start drywalling in the bathroom.

My evening job as a stripper.

Sorry if I just gave you heart palpitations, ma. I'm talking about stripping paint off of perfectly lovely solid wood doors. Well, one door anyway. The door to the master suite looked like this:

Please ignore the utter filth of the basement.

The picture makes it look like it's in much better condition than it is. The door itself is fine, but the paint was chipped and cracked in hundreds of places.

I applied a generous coat of America's #1 Stripper Brand, and before I could even finish the application over the whole door, I got this:

Thanks, Klean-Strip.

If I hadn't been able to smell the awful fumes, I might have mistaken the lovely crackle effect for a delicious lemon merengue pie.

Mmm, pie.

One swipe of the plastic scraper:


This is the door by the end of the first pass:

Not too shabby for 45 minutes of work.

If you have a paint stripping project in your future, I suggest you get somebody really smart to do it for you. Not because it's difficult, but because they can probably spare the brain cells they'll inevitably lose while using the stuff. I'll make a second pass at the door with Klean-Strip tomorrow, possibly in a better ventilated area.

I did get a few other little things done this evening. I added insulation in the hallway area and dragged out the door I wanted to use for the bathroom entry. I had planned on framing the doorway tonight, but decided not to because I'm not sure if it will work. All of the doors we have at the house are 32" wide. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave enough room for trim around the doorway unless we do something either 1) chintzy or 2) kinda crazy. I'm certainly open to suggestions and creative ideas, even though I think the answer will probably be just to suck it up and buy a new door.

Inviting myself over

We found out a few days ago that one of Tom’s friends is moving back to Portsmouth from Columbus. He and his wife are building a house on some family property. Her grandparents have a farmhouse there, but it has too many structural problems to try to fix. They plan on tearing it down and building on the same spot. I’m trying to figure out a way to invite myself out there and raid the house of materials. They insist that it’s in really terrible shape, but I’m sure there’s something there I could use. Even one working doorknob would make it worth it to me. I’ll let you know.

Bathroom inspiration board

Here’s a picture board of the products we’re using in our master bathroom so you can get a better idea of what it might eventually look like.

Flooring: Porcelain tile from Lowe’s. Rialto Noce ($2.08 per square foot).
Sinks: Two pedestal sinks from Lowe’s. American Standard (Around $90, I think).
Tub: 42”x60” Whirlpool tub. Special order from Lowe’s ($798).
Toilet: Kohler from Lowe’s. ($168? I remember thinking it was a lot for a toilet).
Mirrors: Oval mirrors from Lowe’s ($50 each). I'll probably paint the frames a different color.
Sink faucets: Delta Victorian, 4” centers. One from Lowe’s, one from eBay. (I can't remember how much these were without sifting through my pile of receipts).
Tub faucet: Clawfoot style tub filler. From eBay seller wosmile ($98).
Vanity light: Royce Arc 3-light vanity bar from Lowe's ($59 each).
Shower fixture: Delta Victorian showerhead. One from Lowe's, one from eBay. (Again, I can't remember. Something like $120 each).
Plantation shutters: Not purchased yet. I'm waiting to put casements on the windows to ensure a proper fit. Mom says she can get them in Mobile for $8 each. I saw some in a junk shop in town for $18-20 each, but they had a very limited selection.
Wainscot: I'll do these myself using various mouldings rather than a kit. I just like the look and think it fits well with an old house.
Fabric: I haven't finalized this by any means, but I'd like something similar to this for the window treatments. This particular fabric is a Waverly pattern, $20 a yard at fabric.com.

I also haven't finalized a paint color. I tend toward cool colors, especially aquatic blue-greens and grays. A warm color might make sense, though, since this is where my long waking up process will take place every morning. I'll probably pick out window treatment fabric first and draw a wall color from that. It's a lot easier to match paint to fabric than vice versa.

Any tips or thoughts?

Deadline.

Everybody keeps asking when we think we'll finally get moved in to the house. I've never had a good answer because it always seemed like we had so much more to do before we could even consider it. I finally put pencil to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and wrote down everything that had to be done before we got in there and estimated a deadline for each item. I think that September 15 is a reasonable deadline. It will take a lot of work and long hours to get it done by then, but (I think) it's doable.

I added the list to the bottom of the blog to help keep track. I'll remove or cross items off the list as they're completed, and add items as I think of them. Hopefully it'll keep me motivated to chip away at the list bit by bit.

Long day.

Tom and I didn't work at the house yesterday (we were out of town for a table tennis tournament), but we made up for it today with a 12-hour workday. We're about 80% done with hanging drywall in the bedroom and will probably start working on the bathroom next.

We tried to do our plumbing leak-test, but I apparently forgot to cap off a couple of lines the previous owner had installed. Luckily Tom heard the water splashing from the basement and shut it back off immediately. I had to get creative, but I managed to cap them off. Unfortunately, you're supposed to wait 2 hours after gluing before you pressure-test, and it was already getting dark.

While we were doing our weekly inside-trash-can-to-outside-trash-can dump at the end of the day, somebody stopped and asked if the house was for rent. Huh? Nothing says "Rent Me" like an ill-kept yard, drywall scraps in the trash, a broken window, and two really dirty people in the back yard. Oddly enough, this is the second time we've been asked that.

I took pictures today but left my camera at the house. Really, though, pictures of drywall aren't all that exciting.

Renovation blues

I've been reading a few renovation blogs lately for some reassurance that this process will eventually end. I've enjoyed most of them, but none of them really seem to have taken on quite what we have. Most of their "renovations" are more aesthetic - pulling down old wallpaper and painting are the two main projects I see. Sometimes they'll gut a single room (usually the kitchen or bathroom), but most everything else stays the same. If they are doing a full down-to-the-studs type of project, the blog is mostly filled with reports of what their contractor has accomplished.

I'm not really sure what my point is. I guess I just feel discouraged sometimes not having accomplished much of anything. We've owned the house for a year and we still haven't moved in. We really have gotten a lot done, but visually there's not a whole lot to show for it. Some things we've done, if only to dampen the self-pity party I'm having over here:

- Cleaned out a bunch of old junk from the main floor.
- Coated the basement wall with a skim coat of concrete and waterproofing material.
- Sistered the second-floor ceiling to accommodate a habitable attic room (this involved cutting notches in every joist in an attempt to level the ceiling while we were at it).
- Framed a knee wall for the attic room.
- Replaced the attic cross-bracing.
- HVAC installed (hired out).
- Windows replaced (hired out).
- Patched cracks and gaps in the brick mortar.
- Framed the bedroom, bathroom, and closet.
- Installed insulation in attic and master suite.
- Lay sub-flooring for attic room.
- Ran new electrical for master suite.
- Ran new plumbing (supply lines, drains, and vents) for master bath.
- Installed subfloor for bathroom tile.
- Hung drywall for most of the master bath.
- Removed subfloor from parts of the first floor (we plan on reusing much of it).
- Installed OSB sheathing where we removed the original wood planks.
- Tore out a bunch of questionable electrical work.

I guess that's not really all that much, even accounting for the whole getting married thing.

Maybe I should just look in a mirror and say: