Putting it Back Together

The heart of the home is coming back together. Our new best friend, Jerry, is helping piece back all the new tongue and groove and sheet rock in the kitchen walls. Over time, it felt like a real room again and you could finally get a sense of home. Sadly, it also enclosed the room so it didn't feel so open and airy so it's lost a little bit of that "largeness". However, its still a big room at 20x20. Just mental.  Jerry, Jay and Heath (bright safety yellow shirt) do a great job working together. So half the room is tongue and groove while the area in which the cabinets are located will be sheet rocked and later tiled for back splash. And you may notice the one doorway is alittle small... its part of our new diet program. Keeps you from coming into the kitchen for food f you can't fit through the door :)  J/K - needs to be cut back and framed out with the new pocket door jam.

Bedroom Ceilings Got to Go

After many discussions, priming, more discussions and finally some hands on research, we decided to start looking what was under those 50 year old bedroom ceiling tiles. They are so ugly... and who knows what they've seen and well, they could still retain the old house smell.

No thanks! So, pry bar, hammer and needle-nosed pliers and I was off.
I did find out what left that stain in the middle of the ceiling. Ironically enough, due to the house shifting over the years, the actual leak was from the center of the house and the water ran to that spot. Thanks Gravity!
So as I started to peel back the tiles and found more oddity's....

One bedroom had wood strips holding up the tiles with staples. The other bedroom they used glue and staples. I seriously wonder which room they did first and what learning's they had as they attached each tile.

Glue versus strips plus nails.... I prefer the wood strip method. Record time in taking them down. Mind you, the rooms are 13x13. So That's 169 tiles in each room. 169 tiles time 4 staples for the corners and an additional 4 staples in the centers of each side. That's approx 1352 staples to be removed. 1352 *2 rooms - = 2704 staples. Fun.      

Oh by the way, we'll be sheet rocking back over the ceilings. We are glad we took them down. Nasty old tiles bye bye.

Cabinets have Arrived

Sneak Peak of the kitchen cabinets! Natural Hickory..... Yes Mom, we all agree...Love all the lines and knots in random spots. Can't wait to see it all come together. I'd say less than a week..
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Nate vs Fence & Cement - Round 4

So typically, digging out an old fence is a known task on my list. I have learned to not go into thinking, "this is going to be easy." Reminder of old "fence diggings" can easily come to mind though. Fool me once, shame on me..... fool me twice, find someone else to dig the holes and remove the junk! Well, not this time. The old fence was a barrier to the old propane tanks that once provided heat to the house.

They are now gone. Thankfully, the ground is very soft still and unlike every other property we've worked on or owned, there are minimal rocks or should I say, mammoth boulders to have to worry about. With the tanks out of the way.... my results were quite easily obtained. Yea Me!

Fence Markers

In normal October fashion here in New England, we are waiting for the news that a big storm will pass through near Halloween. To get a head of that, Jay planned out to have all of the fencing posts done early while the ground is still soft and before any possible snowfall or trees falling may impede our progress :)
So he's got a good start on the front corner of the house and we'll start working our way back to the shed facing the neighbors... good fences make good neighbors, right?

New Kitchen Framing

In the old kitchen, the washer, dryer and fridge were all exposed and tucked into the far corner of the kitchen. Concept back then worked well.... and its still does today. Keeping all the water lines, dryer vent and electrical, all we're doing is now going to box it in and make a closet for all to sit in. The washer and dryer will be stacked to the left, creating storage and shelving to the right of the closet. The far right will be the fridge, nicely tucked in to create a nice linear line. Just wait till they get further in but until then, use your imagination! its going to be a great addition to the new kitchen space.

More Space

Knowing that we would still need to have a spot for the pups and at least 2 crates, we've been trying to get creative of where they could be. We didn't want to have them in the Living Room or Kitchen, so we've decided that one of the bedroom closets could be transformed into a nice nook where we could have the crates in a hideaway. Just remove some sliding doors, studs, nails, throw up some kilz and vuallah... more space!
BEFORE:

AFTER:

 Just a little nook goes a long way!

Wall Treatments

In order to cover the walls and paneling (which we actually like), we decided to Kilz them to help cover any smell they had absorbed over the years and to help us apply the new paint in the future. Boy, did that help make it feel like, and smell like a different house.

Out with the old....

There are stairs from the kitchen to the basement. Its not much of a basement. Barely 20x15 size space for the boiler, water heater, mechanicals, etc.... and barely 6 foot in height so tough for most of us to really stand and feel comfortable, great for you shorter folks. Anyway, knowing that we really wouldn't need to have direct access most of the time from inside the house, and there are always the external bilco doors, we had an idea. Reuse the staircase space and make it storage... a pantry!!! BRILLIANT! Its amazing where you can find space in an old house for new purposes. And what's even better, Jay was even smarter to keep the stairs and just include a hatchway so if we needed to get down from inside the house, we still could. Genius!

Doors & Windows

Up until now, we've been having to board up the place to keep it secure. Some of the old doors just had to go since they were old, but mainly had to get ripped out early on just to do the major repairs necessary. The main work had to happen at the kitchen door to the patio. The old stairs were crumbling, built wrong to begin with and allowed water to flow down the garage wall causing the wall to crumble as well. Just not good. But now, the door is replaced, we've shifted the kitchen window (stairs are gone soon to be back) the garage wall was reinforced, and we even moved the garage door to the left for future renovation needs. Jay and the guys are doing a great job moving these projects along! Last picture you will see a sneek peek at some new framing :)