Bathroom window

I thought we had the wrong one, but I was convinced otherwise.

The framers got the thing installed, but it looked terrible so i had to start again using the Norm Abram methods I learned from watchin a lot of  New Yankee Workshop.

The window - tired and rotten frame and double hung window. Very hard to keep water out of it from the shower. That's probably why it was tiled over.

Let's get that window out, then.

We need some lumber

And a new window

Lots of mitred joints, caulkding and care and we end up with a nice 'un

Raising the ceiling!

(Steph writing)

The guys who replaced the roof are back today to raise the ceiling in the now open-plan dining living area.

Here it is with the old beams removed:

And here it is with the beams reused for the new ceiling shape:

And a quick aside: it is December 15th, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, 70 degrees F...crazy!

Trash no more

It's gone and we are very pleased. For weeks there has been a steeply accumulating pile of bags and bits of wood outside the house in the back yard. It was an eye-sore and was slowly starting to rot and smell bad.

Then the dumpster came so it was time to move all the crap up the sloping drive piece by piece. It took 2 of us about 5 hours to move it all and it was exhausting, but the reward is in the yard that now feels twice the size.

So much trash!

Somewhere to stash it

Gone! And what a relief

Grandma Sue is Coming to Town

(Steph writing)

Chez Hill is filling up. We've got Steve's parents/laborers/saints in our basement bedroom, while we two are on an air mattress in the living room. Everyone shares the one operational bathrrom, which you have to go through the bedroom to get to. It's...cosy.

We also have my mom arriving tonight or tomorrow, so have been hard at work upstairs getting one room semi-functional for her to sleep in (air mattress again-- sorry mom!) as well as a functioning toilet and sink in the upstairs bathroom. Sadly, our window mix-up is preventing us from tiling around the shower, so we will all have to share downstairs. Chez Hill is a little downmarket these days, but hopefully will improve over time.

Steve screwing drywall in to the bedroom ceiling.

Rob measuring the next piece.

Rooney doing his part to keep Steve's sweatshirt warm.

Cutting.

Did you know apes can drywall? Apparently they're really very good at it...

Professional Shopper

(Steph writing)

It seems that my role in the project involves daily trips to Lowes (like B&Q) and whole weekend days spent at IKEA. This is what my world looks like now:

Good news is, after an 8 hour (no, I am not exaggerating) day at IKEA we now have our kitchen, and managed to get 20% off to boot.

The staff at Lowes have started saying 'see you tomorrow' now instead of 'have a nice day.' I think I might get an invite to their company Christmas party...

More bathroom

We're gaining on it, but due to a mis-order, we still don't have a window.

The old lead pipe for the sink. Too old and weird in size to fit anything new so we had to get rid of it and the section of fibre-glass tape holding it together.

Repaired with some handy bits from Lowe's

Dad making progress. Floor is done and, as you can see, the sink is in

Bathroom progress

Slow progress. Cutting and measuring tiles is slow work, but here it is:

it begins

Still working on it. just need to measure and glue the remaining tiles.

More work...

My crew have helped speed things up so we've managed to get some trades in to move the gas pipe to allow the kitchen to be deployed

we ordered new windows, continued the drywall and got on with the bathroom floor

Gas pipe relocation

nice new windows. The picture isnt super-clear, but the new one is double glazed, high reflectivity and doesn't look shite.

me, working on the kitchen

New windows - sadly, most of them are 3" too small due to the existing windows being an odd size. I will have to make a tweak to the frame to make them fit. Not sure what to do yet...

Mum cleaning off paint

Overview

Walls be gone

Took them away. They were only thin interior walls and the enlarged space is much better.

One big space

A problem shared is a problem quartered

Ma and Pa are in town and have been extremely helpful. Now whilst I'm working on something, I can hear three more people doing something else that I would otherwise have had to do. Very good.

We have, in about 5 days, cleared all the wallboard from all walls and all the ceiling we need to, figured out some wiring, spec'd bought and acquired a kitchen which took all sunday whilst we waited for Ikea to pick it out from the warehouse, and put up all insulation and a good bit of wallboard.

Things are coming together nicely.

Kitchen stripped, but there was a leak in the tap faucet which had been damaging the floorboards for years, we reckon.

Floorboards fixed using scrap pieces. Insulation installed

Front bedroom, with half the drywall installed. Where's Rooney?

Front bedroom with the other half of the walls not covered, but insulation in

Dining room and kitchen

Back bedroom, partially boarded

Living room with insulation installed

Living room

Dining room with kitchen parts scattered

Coming along!

Drywall is hard

All the walls have to be stripped of their plywood and their fibreboard then re-covered with new drywall.

I've been watching youtube about it and it seems easy, but what's not clear on the internet is how heavy and unwieldy the boards are. Still, it looks nice when it's done.

Old fibre board

Kitchen with its new insulation and board

Dining room/kitchen

Rooney's new hangout

(Steph writing)

We have fenced in the back yard!

Turns out this view is more than 100 feet.

Now Rooney can get busy with some of his favorite activities, like obedience training (here he is showing you his best 'down'),

digging holes,

chewing sticks,

looking cute,

and playing with his rope.

Something Constructive

(Steph writing)

You may have started to notice a pattern in our work so far: almost every post is about how we destroyed something! It's starting to feel like everything we do shows us just how much more work there is to go. Not to be the stereotypical lady in this project, but I'm ready to make things look nice.

Unfortunately we have to carry on tearing things apart for a while before we can get to the contructive stuff. In the meantime, here's a little crafty side-project:

All the doors in the house have their original knobs and door plates intact. Sorry, but I didn't get a good picture of them still on the doors. Just know that deep down inside they are nice looking, but had been painted over and over and over again since 1925 until they pretty much had become a part of the doors themselves. I spent an evening removing them all (not easy!), and then we got to work with the paint stripper.

This is what Friday night looks like at our house.

The rough brass lurking underneath 90 years of paint.

Hey! What a lovely oil-rubbed bronze finish! Amazing what a little Rust-oleum spray paint can do.

I'll post again once we've sanded, primed, painted all the doors and re-fitted the hardware. It's going to look good, I can feel it....