Long time, no posts

It's been over two months since I posted any progress on the house. I assure you, progress has been made. After days of working and reworking my plan modifications, Paul rained on my parade and said rerouting the plumbing was going to be more work than the benefits were worth. After we worked out the kinks involved with that, we were able to reframe the master bedroom (now featuring an 8-foot niche opposite the wall for the bed). The house has been tidied, swept, and vacuumed; kitchen cabinets and cast iron pipes were donated to any Portsmouth citizen with a truck to take them away; and the rear basement wall has been cemented over and awaits a coat or two of Dry-Lok for dampness prevention. Tom has been working on the yard a bit, cutting down three giant weed-trees, having a nasty run-in with poison ivy, and hacking away at the tree stump that bent the crankshaft on the lawnmower the second time we ever used it. The master bedroom has the electrical boxes in place and ready for the wiring to be run. About the electrical...

Our power got shut off sometime this week. I had called the power company to switch service over to our names, and they said I had to pay a $65 deposit within 10 days. No problem. I immediately called the number the service rep gave me, only to discover they assess a $3 fee for payments made over the phone. Being the frugal-minded person I am, I decided to wait for the bill to show up in the mail. And I waited. And waited. The bill arrived late last week, and the power was off by Wednesday. Do they expect that the bills are being delivered by teleportation? Luckily the meter hasn't been taken out, or else this would have turned into an even bigger mess. Hopefully their promise of getting it turned back on "as soon as possible" will translate into having power by the weekend. Otherwise, progress will come to a grinding halt.

Most of the windows in the house had been replaced before we bought the house, but two big (4' x 6.5') windows in the living area remained, both with leaded glass panels. We got Cornett window company to come out and look at them so we can get those replaced. For those windows, plus the transom over the back door and angle-trim for the rest of the house, including labor, demolition, and cleanup, it's going to set us back $1100. Plus they're replacing a damaged upper sash for free even though it's not technically under warranty.

A few of the vinyl windows weren't installed properly (Cornett didn't install them), but the company also doesn't make service calls to fix them. They do, however, let their installation guys get some side business on the weekends doing jobs like that. I'll presumably get a call from them soon so they can fix the windows. From there, hopefully we'll be able to seal and insulate to keep our heating bills down.

Introductions

So as you know by now, Tom and I bought a house in Portsmouth, Ohio.
It looks great, right? It is great, really. It just needs a few updates, like walls. The previous owners gutted it almost entirely, then unfortunate circumstances forced a quick sell. Even though there's practically nothing in it, we still feel like we got a good deal. A lot of the hard and expensive work has been done, like replacing the roof and windows, adding in two new furnaces, reframing walls in a more open floor plan, and roughing in plumbing. We both are enthusiastic about it and feel like we can do a lot with the 2660 sq.ft.

I've already spent many hours in there doing preliminary work, material estimates, and cleaning up construction messes. We bought some general supplies already (ladders, a ShopVac that is probably not nearly big enough for all the dirt this project will produce, various tools, etc.), but this weekend we'll be picking up lumber and starting the real work. I'll update with project details as we progress.