Time to check in to fill you in on what’s been happening to our old house. We’ve had our hands full keeping the subcontractors lined-up in this phase of the renovation. But as the cold winter months have slowly allowed spring’s arrival, much interior work has been completed and much to our delight, the siding is going up right now. What do you think? Is it looking like we imagined in the planning drawing above?
The north side of the house with shutters still to come.
Larry installs a final piece of siding on the front of the house.
In March, after all the inside framing was completed and the new windows installed in the attic, Plumber Steve arrived and went to work. Pretty much all the water and waste lines were replaced and new ones added for the master bath, half bath and laundry room. Keith and Larry installed the exterior trim around the windows and doors and then disappeared to another job for a few weeks.
With the plumbing rough-in work complete, the insulation specialists arrived to work their magic. They sprayed a one inch layer of foam insulation on the inside of all the exterior walls. The heating and air conditioner workers then could step in to begin reworking the ductwork throughout the house. This took quite a bit of time and proved challenging for an old house that’s been added onto over the years. Thankfully, Dean, the electrician, got to work, too, with his workers rewiring the entire house. Out with the old and in with the new—plenty of outlets and switches in all the right places. About that time, Keith and Larry returned and started installing siding to the exterior.
The spray foam application is part one of the insulation package
After the required inspections for the newly constructed addition to the house, the insulation guys returned and added the fiberglass batting over the foam applied earlier, but not before I thoroughly picked up all the scraps and vacuumed up all the sawdust including that which was hiding in the wall cavities. All that made everything look neat and tidy and ready for dry wall. We took a photographic inventory of all the walls as a location record of every duct, pipe and wire for future reference.
The batting is part two of the “flash and batt” system of insulating.
Before the batting was added, we took lots of photographs
to document the location of
ducts, pipes and wires—thus the signs.
Wires, wires everywhere...
The attic is fully insulated now. We will reinstall the
beaded board to the walls and ceiling in this room.
While all that was going on, Bob and I picked out the lighting fixtures for all the rooms (only two more to decide on). We’ll have ceiling fans with lights in all the rooms except the dining room, baths, entry and laundry room. All the pieces for the kitchen have been selected and ordered. Just a shower door for the master bath and a mirror/medicine cabinet for the half bath are yet to be decided upon.
As the dry wall is being installed, Bob and I are hard at work getting the inside trim primed and painted. In addition to shopping we’ve spent many hours getting the salvaged trim ready for painting. We filled nail holes, bumps and imperfections with wood putty and sanded, then filled and sanded again. We’ll have additional windows and doors so Mars Lumber has our order for additional door and window casing, bull’s eyes, plinth blocks, and window sills and aprons. They had to make new cutting heads for all of the patterns except the window aprons! We’re waiting on placing the base board order as we want to install what we have first. It will be like a puzzle as so much has changed in the room configurations.
The detached garage of our
rental house is our painting workshop.
Thanks, Hamilton’s, for the concrete floor!
Priming the bull’s eye trim.
Of course before the trim goes up, we’ll have to paint the walls. We purchased all the wall paint—Sherwin Williams was having a 40% off all paint sale! We brought home a boat load of paint. Really, it filled the back of our Outback. I was glad we had all the paint colors picked when that sale was announced. We have hired neighbor Joe, who is a professional handyman and painter, to spray the primer on all the dry wall and the finish coat on the ceilings.
That’s about it for now. Maybe we’ll have time to check back in when the dry wall is installed. I know we’ll be busy, but the end is insight. Oh, you’re probably wondering—move in date is hopefully in June.
ChrisAnn for both of us
