(This is from LAST weekend, finally have pictures but it’s written from last week’s point of view).
Aimee, Jason, Jason and mom all came out this weekend. Jason came to work, the rest to play with the kids. So while Ryan and Jason worked (although I did do some electrical and cleanup), Aimee, Mom and I played with Little Jason and Alli-boo.
So while we played with the kids, some actual house work got done. Jason did the rough in for all the drains for the new master bathroom we’ll be putting in as well as got ready to do the little bathroom upstairs (we have to demo it before it can be done completely) and the laundry room next to that.
New drains for master bathroomNew drain on the left, the drains on the right will go away once we demo the little bathroom.
While Jason did the plumbing, Ryan put in the new kitchen window (which is where i light was so i had to put in a quick temporary light over head but at least we have a switch now!). The window is smaller overall but before it was 2 small windows with separation, now it’s just 2 casements together same amount of light.
New kitchen window!
While they worked, the carpenter was here and finished up the siding on the driveway side of the house so it’s ready to be painted!
One side of the house has all ‘new’ siding!
It’s nice having work get done while you’re doing other things. We like this carpenter, he does good work and after our horrible experience with the painters, it’s nice working with someone who knows how to work. FYI the painters haven’t shown up in weeks or stopped by when promised.
I’m still working on the post about last weekend (we got a lot done!) but I haven’t taken pictures yet so I will hold off on that. Hopefully tomorrow i’ll take pictures since this weekend we’ll be making more progress!
In the mean time we’ve been getting things ready for this weekend, doing plans, finalizing decisions because this weekend we will be making at least 2 of our huge purchases. Appliances (the 10% off sale ends monday) and Cabinets (10% off sale ends Wed).
So the kitchen layout has changed a bit, we fit in more cabinets and we’ll find out this Sunday how much these changes will cost us! Then I also planned out the electrical because this weekend we hope to get the lights installed (recessed and boxes for pendant lights etc). I can also get the electrical outlets for the fridge and microwave installed since that wall is demo’d. Actually the fridge outlet will be what is currently the microwave outlet, just shifted a bit.
For fun I also grabbed some 3D shots from the program i’m using for these layouts. Keep in mind the cabinets are generic and appliances are not accurate looks wise, just size wise.
Kitchen Cabinet layout with details for ordering the cabinets.The electrical layouts (for lights/switches) in the kitchen.The kitchen as viewed from the back of the house ‘entrance’ hallwayThe kitchen as viewed from the diningroomThe kitchen and diningroom as viewed from the livingroom – a very open layout.
We actually haven’t finalized on our cabinet look yet. We are going with Home Depot/Martha Stuart cabinets but are going back and forth between ‘painted’ cabinets (they use a shrink wrap, not a paint which is making us very wary) and stained cabinets. If we go with stained we’ll do a tile floor, if painted we’ll probably refinish the wood but there’s some major patching between kitching/diningroom that will have to be done that won’t be fun. Decision will be made on Sunday!
This past weekend was quite productive! First and foremost we got lots of play time with Alli boo who also took some great naps (although only an hour long, she did a great job putting herself to sleep for most of them and in the crib no less!). Baby girl is definitely growing up!
On Saturday I started the day by moving our open shelving from the kitchen into the gym (our temporary pantry) and Ryan hung up the tvroom doors. Our neighbor came over to play with Alex after she woke from nap number 1 and Ryan got to work removing the wall between the kitchen and diningroom. I helped as much as I could and we worked almost straight through till 1 when the dump closes (ryan had a quick dump run). Alex and I spent the rest of the afternoon together while Ryan continued taking down the kitchen ceiling (no plaster/lathe!) and cleaning up. It went pretty well and the cleanup wasn’t bad considering it’s a kitchen we still need to use!
The kitchen was vacuumed but still needed major cleaning so on Sunday Ryan spent his time with Alli while I mopped down the kitchen and everything that was left in it that got dusty. Then we took measurements of the kitchen and played around with our kitchen layout/design that we’ve been working on with home depot so we can order cabinets soon (4 week lead time).
Kitchen demolishedKitchen ceiling removed!
I also have been working on the layout for the upstairs master bathroom, bathroom and laundry room because that’s the plumbing that’s going in this weekend so layout needs to be finalized. So items need to be chosen (like tubs) so we know measurements and where everything can go. Luckily we have PUNCH 3d home architect (we’ve had it for years) so that works reasonably well for designing this all out!
Here are the layouts i’ve been working on (click for larger view):
This is a possible bathroom layout, although I think we’ll end up switching the shower and toilet and the shower will be a rectangle instead of that diagonal wall (that’s a limitation of the software).Kitchen cabinet layout most likely, although we have to get this priced out now that we added a few more cabinets than we had before.In this one I added lighting (just getting started figuring that out) and the beams in the diningroom (we need one support beam to firm up the floor and we’re going to make some fake beams to make it look like it was meant to be that way) 🙂
With rain coming today this may be the progress that’s made. Luckily it was good progress. Ryan made window caps (we couldn’t fit our entire window cap like we made for the lower level windows but he made some nice caps that fit perfectly and since it’s the second story I think it looks great! Then he finished the siding up around the caps, getting the last piece in last night just as Alex and I got home.
Last piece going onThe right side is finished
As you may notice, the crown molding was also finished up along the roofline! The carpenter we hired and the carpenter from our painter’s crew worked together and managed to get all that molding up (around the porch and then the roof) in just 2 days. We liked the carpeter’s work and we’ll probably hire him in the future for more exterior work. Unfortunately, aside from the carpenter (subcontractor) of the painters’, we haven’t seen any other painters around. They still have some sections to strip and then painting to do. The owner was supposed to stop by last friday but Ryan never heard anything from him. If i have time today I will call the office again but that’s never helpful since it’s just a receptionist. I doubt they’re coming over the next few days with rain forecasted.
So a bit of the story with this painter. We hired him to strip and then paint a few sections of the house including:
The soffit and frieze board on the driveway side of the house
The soffit and posts on the porch, all the way around (top part of the posts since we are re-doing the lower sections)
The siding next to the side door
The shingled section in the peak on the driveway side (he didnt have to strip this section, just sand/prep for paint and then paint.
The quote is not tiny, mostly it’s for the stripping which is understandable and it was very clear that everything was covered except for the shingle section since that wasn’t getting stripped he didn’t write that part out explicitly like the rest.
Well they stop by the first day of the job and I talk to the owner (who did the quote) and turns out he didn’t realize we needed the whole soffit of the porch done, he thought it was just the posts and the board the posts touch (or something like that) so he wanted to get back to me with a new quote. At the time i didn’t have the quote in front of me so I didn’t argue but was concerned about how much more this would cost.
So I get the new quote and the wording ‘soffit and frieze board around the porch’ is the exact same wording as the original quote so we mention this to him and he admits he just screwed up. He asks if we’ll work with him, it would be cheaper for him to have his guys remove most of the wood instead of stripping it and put up new wood. Fine, as long as they can make it look very close to the original, that is fine with us.
So they get to work, they have 1 guy stripping the posts (and man is he slow) and another guy starts taking apart and rebuilding the soffit around the porch. Well it became clear pretty quickly that a) the stripping is going to take forever, the guy only showed up sometimes and he was ridiculously slow at stripping (he had the wrong type of scrapers mainly and he kept dinging up the wood). I mean it’s nothing compared to the work I did stripping the soffit outside our gym. ho hum.
Then it became clear that the carpenter he hired is not a finish carpenter, he can’t do moldings well, not only does he waste tons of material cutting things wrong, he leaves corners with gaps and broken tips and he puts up the moldings in small sections because that’s all he can manage by himself. One corner in particular was really bad so we complain about that and the owner decides to get another carpenter he hires sometimes to come fix it. Meanwhile the first guy is still working on other sections.
In the mean time, they started this job in August (13th), they worked that first week then showed up sporadically the second week then stopped coming until this past week, right when Ryan was off and needed to do siding on that side of the house (we had anticipated that the main work would at least be done and they at the worst would be painting at this point – nope).
So Ryan and the guys are stepping on each others’ toes and Ryan is catching them doing all manner of stupid things and ends up helping them (when he needed his time to do siding etc.). Finally the owner basically fires the first carpenter and wants the second carpenter (who admits freely that he is not a finish carpenter and it took him so long to do that one corner of molding he doesn’t feel comfortable doing the larger molding by himself). He however knows a real finish carpenter and we decide to just hire this other guy to put the molding up and the painter’s carpenter can help him (the painter is paying him to put up the molding so that works out). So we will be out an extra thousand probably when this is all done but the large molding is coming out SO much better and we are finally happy with the work.
The stripping is still taking forever! The same kid (whom we found out was hired at the time of this job starting so this is his first time doing any type of construction and no one is overseeing him!), is still working on stripping the porch. They replaced almost everything but he’s got to strip the moldings at the top of the posts and the moldings in the front of the house/triangle/peak. The soffit along the driveway hasnt been touched yet and has a large section to strip as well. No idea when this project will get done.
Today however Ryan got a few more pieces of siding up and the window installed! He’ll be continuing siding this weekend and next week before he goes back to work on wednesday.
And now some pictures, we walked around the house today after everyone left.
The last window is in on this side!The peak, they had to replace some rotted wood and the first carpenter put in the small molding. Ryan agreed to put in these small blocks to save the carpenter from having to do these outside angles on the molding which saved probably a day of labor.The large molding is done – all around the porch, they just have to do the one at the second/third story of the house next week.They even did the peak because there was no way to meet up the new trim with the old. Notice only 1/2 of the peak is stripped, the kid started this in the morning and must have got bored because he then swapped to doing other parts instead of just finishing it for some reason. This whole triangle I could do in an hour easily, took him 3 to do half of it.The painters showed up one day this week and started priming the molding that was up, Ryan mentioned to them that the stripping still had to be done and would mess up their paint so they stopped. I hope painters are coming next week now that it’s almost ready for them!The back corner. We are so happy with this now, thank goodness something is finally working out.
So this will cost us but it was worth it to find a local finish carpenter that does good work on historical houses and he’s not slow about it either. He also brought his dog (he brings here everywhere) and she hung out in the back yard and even met Fitz for a bit 🙂
Ryan is working on the siding this week. 2 problems with this, our painters/construction crew took a couple weeks off and decided this week to start back up full time so they are kind of stepping on each others’ toes and annoying Ryan in general with the quality of work. I’ll wait until they are completely finished before I do a post on all of that, so far they have fixed the couple of things that were really bad but in general, having a single carpenter trying to put up long lengths of boards or moldings is not easy and they did not staff this job correctly. Ryan and I could easily have done everything they plan to do in just a single week with just the 2 of us. They finally seem to have a second carpenter here (although they do not work together) and Ryan has been helping them here and there so things get done correctly (one guy wanted to use 2 pieces for an 8′ length just because it would be too hard with one person so ryan helped so we wouldn’t have that break).
All well, we’ll see how it comes out. Anyway so on Monday Ryan got up some frieze boards and got the siding started. Problem was that the first side to do was full 16′ lengths of siding and doing that with one person is very hard so after a few hours we decided that I would take 2 hours off on Wednesday morning to help him finish up the long lengths and he could focus on the smaller stuff.
Tuesday he removed the rest of the siding on the left side of the window we still need to replace and got the front porch section cleaned up that we are siding up to (aluminum siding still to remove and some trim). Then he almost fell of the roof after slipping on some debris the contractors were leaving all over the place so he quit for the day and took a break.
Wednesday was a much better day, I started by sweeping up the roofs. Then we got the long sections of siding done with the two of us. Ryan spent a good deal of time helping the carpenters with their jobs and trying to make things easier for them because angles and moldings are definitely not their specialty! He then got the section of 12′ pieces of siding up on the far right.
I’m pretty hopeful that we can get the siding finished up by this weekend. Ryan also has next monday and tuesday off if he needs them but i think he wants to do some other stuff by then. Oh and this weekend we have our neighbor’s daughter coming over for a couple hours to play with Alex which frees me up to help finish up the siding too.
Wednesday afternoon progress – the carpenters are done for the day (they are waiting for some moldings to arrive) and Ryan is still siding that far side.a closer look at the siding done so farRather than strip the siding on the porch the painter asked if he could replace the siding with new – we agreed and even paid for the siding (they are losing a lot of money on this job with how much work is going into it since he did not estimate enough time for stripping everything).
Ryan was able to get the far side almost up to the top of the window before calling it quits yesterday. Today he is working around the carpenters again (they are doing the moldings right above him) but he’s gotten the 2 smaller sections about halfway up and the last 2 12′ pieces done (the last piece has to wait for window caps). He thinks he can finish up that side minus the caps/last pieces of siding this afternoon before he has to pick up Alex.
Tomorrow will be the window on the left and siding over there.
More progress on the built-ins this weekend! We got the shelves painted (last coat) so we can install them tomorrow. We put in the 5 drawers that were finished (yea – storage!!!). Ryan hooked up the final speaker wires and we ran a new wire for the subwoofer that is hiding behind the couch. All of the electronics are hooked up and wires are run appropriately. Ryan also drilled a hole in the console of our couch and we installed a surge protector in the console so we have easy access to outlets for our laptops and phones!
Outlets in our couch!Speaker wiresSpeakers are wired in the top and bottom of the bookshelves.The cabinet with doors has 3 finished drawers installed and the 2 drawer cabinet is baby stuff!Almost done!
We still have 5 drawers to finish (the shellac goes fast, but they need a first pass of good sanding first). Then Ryan has to make/install doors on the built-ins – he has 1 set of doors almost done and ready for paint but that leaves 3 more sets. We still have to finish the doors to the room and the closet itself. I can’t wait to move our dvds into the built-ins and put some things up on the bookshelves and walls!
This week the weather is supposed to be great, which is good because this is Ryan’s one week to get the last window installed and all the siding up! By himself. Hopefully this works out!
It is getting very close now! This last weekend we made some more progress on the tvroom. I got 5 of the 10 drawers sanded, and 2 coats of shellac put on them. Ryan installed the hardware so they’re ready to get installed and we only have 5 more to go 🙂
I also got a first coat of paint on the shelves, hopefully finishing up those this week so we can put them in! And finally I cut in on the last 2 walls and ceiling in the tvroom and ryan got the rolling done so the walls are completed and the room is looking more finished for sure!
We still have to finish those 5 drawers, the shelves and make the doors for the built-ins but it’s very close now and much more usable. Once the shelves are in Ryan can finish installing the speakers (2 more to go) and our 7.1 surround sound will be done as well.
That’s right – we hired someone for another project. This time we decided we really want the porch to be stripped (lead paint) and re-painted before winter so we decided to hire someone to do that work. Interestingly enough I could probably do this stripping faster if we just hired a babysitter, but the work is getting done and I don’t have to do it so bonus.
What are they doing? We are having the soffit and frieze board around the top of the porch all done, the tops of the posts (the bottoms are being rebuilt by Ryan’s Dad). The soffit and frieze along the roof line on the driveway side of the house and the shingles in the peak (those are not being stripped but just sanded and then painted). Finally the siding next to the side door is going to get stripped and painted. It’s easier to show in pictures.
Rather than strip a lot of this, they are actually just taking down the wood and replacing it, fine with us and cheaper for them.
This section of siding will be stripped and then painted green with yellow for the trim.Here you can see the posts are stripped and that upper frieze board was replaced, the piece between the posts and the top has also been stripped but needs some repair work (they are going to screw it up to secure it better than putty it up). The posts and frieze/soffit will all be yellow.The outside frieze/soffit removal is started. I believe they remove the entire thing and replace it because the moldings are all standard and easy to replace rather than strip. The carpenter is waiting for confirmation on that from the contractor so he’s waiting on that.The work up here hasn’t been started yet but they will replace and/or strip the soffit all along the roof there just like the porch. The shingles will be sanded and painted red, the soffit yellow and the molding they are going to add in will be red. There are also 2 sections that were rotted a bit so they are going to repair that up as well. The only section they aren’t touching (except to sand and paint) is the shingles and frieze around the shingles.
So that’s our house progress while we have no time to work on the house just yet. I have the shelves for the built-ins primed, ready to be painted. I also made one of the two curtains for the nursery so some progress is being made here and there. Hopefully this weekend will see more progress.
Well it’s done! We are officially no longer using oil – the oil boiler is gone! That really saves a lot of space in the basement, opening it up a bunch. The gas line is in (they even planted grass where they tore up the lawn – and some of it is growing even without me watering it haha!). The new water heater (tankless) is in and feeding the hot water for the house. The heat works, although it was only on to test it. We have a furnace in the basement that does forced hot air downstairs then we have a gas line that goes up to the attic and runs a furnace up there that has forced hot air through ceiling vents to the upstairs.
The oil furnace is gone!New tankless water heater nicely mounted!
New gas furnaceA view of the main trunk and return trunk.
We also have central air in the upstairs (condenser unit outside) that has been on for a few weeks (no gas needed). So we are very excited to have actual heat this winter – no oil bill (just a gas bill which should be MUCH lower than oil has been!).
We also bought our own heat registers for the floors downstairs, the brown ones they installed were very nice but we were looking for something a bit more ornate to match the victorian feel since the downstairs has so much nice trim work we are doing to keep it victorian. Upstairs the vents are in the ceilings and I couldn’t find nice ones to replace them so we’re leaving the simple white vents up there.
Heat registers (this is actually a return, the registers are smaller)
If I haven’t said it, I’m very excited, last winter half the downstairs didn’t even have heat because we had removed the radiators during renovations. Now every room has heat (the kitchen will be light on heat until we renovate and he comes back and adds a second drop to it but that was our choice since we don’t know the layout yet). The ducts take up a lot of space but surprisingly they fit well in the basement, you can easily walk under them without even bending over so it shouldn’t be a problem. In the attic they are all run to the side (behind what will be a knee wall) and then under the floors leaving the main area open still.
We just have to insulate the attic before winter so the furnace doesn’t freeze up. Technically we could put in the knee wall and just insulate around the furnace but with the spray foam it’s easier to just do a large area. We’ll see what happens, we have time before we have to decide and other projects to finish first.
On my list now is to find someone to remove the old oil tank and then someone to remove the old steam radiators!
