Maybe we're in the middle now?

Like the title says, maybe....

So after the last post, we had a near two week total slowdown of progress due to waiting around for the sheetrock, and then waiting around some more while it takes way longer than expected.

In the meantime, we ended up tearing down every single wall of the house which we should have done in the first place, we've got both front and rear doors re-glassed and lockable,  we've got the cement board down everywhere we'll be laying tile, we're in the process of going over each window and door sanding and prepping for primer, we've got the exterior sanded and actually began primer today.

Presently on the interior, the sheetrock is finally almost done, and we can move into the more "final" finishing stages.

Probably though we need a minor miracle to happen, because I really have no idea how we're going to be ready to accept our home goods on the 11th of November. Maybe the trim-out will start by thursday or friday, depending how long that takes as well as painting it all will determine when we can finally sand the floors and move in.....stay tuned folks!


Totally gutted, plus notice the 5 tiny windows we added above the cabinets:

stacks of drywall waiting to be hung:

Eating outdoors:

Getting to the middle.

In this post, we are sort of in the middle stages of the rebuild, the demolition and main carpentry are winding down, the plumber and electrician are in the house, as well as the AC guy starts in a day or so.

We filled up three of these so far, just had another empty one placed.

Got the garage slab poured as well. 

My good helper!

Annnnnnnd, cuteness for the win!

Better late than never.

Wowza, it has been far far too long since the last post.

In the meantime, we've made quite a bit of progress, and yet somehow feel so far behind.


This was our little visitor a couple days ago:

 Harv has claimed his chair:

Teaser for tomorrow's post:

Our ~350 Sq. ft. abode

Did I tell you all how much we like living small?  For real, it's not that bad, and as far as i know most people outside of America do it this way with even larger families.

This was what is to become our bedroom after cleaning out the cobwebs and cleaning the floors walls and ceiling.

This is Eric Todd, my old roomate, the guy who got me into cycling, and all-round good friend from the Army.  He was kind enough to take a whole week of work for me to fly him out here to help me make a place to live.

Add a window A/C unit, some paint, tile and voila!

Gross Bathroom we ended up totally taking even the floor out of.

Really gross rat's nest of foil wrappers and turds.

 After a few hours demolishing it looks like this.

 The next day we have this,

and, after a little of this, (that in my hand is a takeaway cup of Black IPA from the pub down the block, and it was dee-lish)

we end up with this!

Kitchen before,

during,

and after.

And, more pics!

                                  
Exterior view

Backyard, and our fine two-room quarters!

Fireplace, what you are looking at tho, is actually a facade added at some point after original construction and will be demolished to unveil the original.

Nice stairwell.

The kitchen walls you see were the outer, 5th layer.  Pretty gross underneath too.

This is where the magic will happen. (insert inappropriate smiley here)

Love that paneling.  For real tho the cracked plaster underneath is much more appealing.

Annnnnd, the three cousins for the cuteness win.

PHOTO DUMP!!!

Alrighty peeps, the camera cord just arrived, and so I took a break from plaster removal to upload the best of the best!


Where to start??


I guess we'll begin with pics the day we moved in:

All the rooms have fireplaces like this one, except they each have a different tile.  when they're cleaned off i'll go around and take pics of each tile, a few are painted over.

The drop-down ceiling.  so, instead of repairing the gaping 6ft hole in the ceiling, a drop down is even easier!!! SHEESH.

The vinyl.  Yes, this house is like an ONION.  Many, many layers of vinyl.  Record so far is six layers in this room.  Most have 4-5 layers, some 1-2 and one of the rooms had none.

Two of the rooms had some wood paneling on top of the plaster.  Most of the upstairs rooms and one of the down have 1/4" drywall right on top of the plaster.  Of what I've pulled down so far, they didn't even clean it off before putting the next layer on.

 More of the layers.  The lowest layer was old newspaper.

Really old, like 1937 old.  Cool stuff.  Even the comics were color back then!

Layers.  LAYERS.

random thoughts

so, i've had some random thoughts i've been posting over on FB, and i just wanted to expand a little over here.

it's really cool to open up a wall and find gigantic oldpieces of timber that are actually two inches by four inches, not that manby-cramby 1-3/8 $hit you find in a lumber yard. for real, i'm not much a "swear-word" user, but that's just how how i have felt about it ever since i found out a 2x4 wasn't actually two inches by four inches.

on termites and old wood: no joke, when eric and i tore out the floor in the bathroom, and attached a few supporting "so-called" 2x4's and broke off not only plain ol' drywall screws, but also the bits we were using to drive them in i was impressed. no wonder the floor joists were good as new, they might as well been petrified! too hard for screws and too hard for the termites. you can quote me on FB for that.

i am really dreading ripping up whatever kind of crazy asbestos laden-black-tar glued vinyl tiles are in the stairwell and hallway. seriously the glue is BLACK. and just plain gross. fortunately it's only a small area.

the re-framing of the modified areas is to start wednesday, as well as the rest of the demolition should be complete by the end of the week meaning the plumbing/electrical/HVAC will be starting next-next week. drywall up as soon as the last 'skilled-labor' is out, and we should be ready to receive the bulk of our home-goods (stuff) and actually live in the main house.