Our Home Renovation

I just realized that I was counting an extra week between now and Labor Day. We’ve been hoping to have the Sheridan House on the market by Labor Day weekend. The Sheridan House is right by the river and a large park with a boat launch. Everyone going to that park or to the boat launch drives by the house (we see 50-100 boats go by on trailers everyday), so it seems like to best take advantage of the location, we need to get a sign up in the yard before Labor Day weekend. So, yeah, it’s only 1.5 weeks away, not 2.5 like I was thinking/planning. So, we’re going to kick it into even higher gear! We’ve pretty much been there all day, everyday (except for when I’m at my “real” job, but even then, there’s usually someone there working, either Danielle or one of my friends that has been helping).

I haven’t quite kept pace to make 30 posts in 30 days, but it’ll be close. The other day I had a great post ready to go with a photo of our truck pulling out a stump in the backyard, but the photos got deleted before I had downloaded them. Oh well.

I’ve heard of nails referred to by “pennies” since I was a little kid and somewhere along the way I heard the explanation for that reference. The other day, however, I found myself trying to remember which was bigger, an 8 penny or a 16 penny nail. Somehow I had gotten it switched around in my head. So, I did a quick double-check, figured it out (I’ll never forget again) and thought that there might be others that don’t know the explanation or want a quick refresher.

(That large nail is, I think, a 16d finish nail. It’s the only one I found - they must’ve had a hard time getting that piece of crown to stay up!)

The penny reference goes back a ways, apparently to England. Pennies were sold by the hundred, and the penny reference was how much 100 nails cost. So, 6 penny nails were $.06 per 100. Simple enough.

Curious how I got confused? I was thinking that the penny number was how many you could buy for a penny. Hence, 16 penny nails were 16 for $.01, and 8 penny nails were 8 for $.01 - the bigger the nail, the fewer you get. But that’s wrong, so don’t get that idea in your head or you’ll get confused like me.

But, you say, I’ve heard them referred to as “16d” or “8d”, etc. Apparently (thanks again, Wikipedia!), the ‘d’ stands for denarius, a Roman coin equivalent to today’s penny. In England, ‘d’ was the original symbol for their pence, or penny as we know it here in the USA.

This is a nail that didn’t want to go into the wall, apparently. I thought it was cool. Amazing that they pounded it hard enough to get that whole thing in the crown moulding.

On Friday, the drywall guys came and hung new ceilings. The plaster was pretty badly cracked in every room except the bathroom, so a friend who is a drywaller sent his crew out to hang new ceilings for us.

They hung 1/2″ drywall right over the old plaster. It made such a big difference - this is the most exciting part of the renovations - starting to see everything come together. A finishing crew will be out sometime this week to finish the new ceilings and patch some other areas for us. Lots of photos.

The garage roof is about 75% done. It’s looking fantastic - such a huge improvement (before photos). I can’t wait to see the garage painted and the carriage doors tuned up.

My brother and a friend have been working on it the last couple days. Hopefully I’ll be able to get up there tomorrow and help finish it (I have to admit that I really like roofing, though I know that probably sounds like a kid saying that he likes homework).

Once the garage roof is finished, we’ll move back inside. The drywall/plaster guys are coming either on Wednesday or Thursday this week and hopefully we’ll get the front sidewalk formed up so we can have concrete delivered on Friday.

As far as the list from the other day goes:

• toilet is installed
• drain isn’t unclogged yet
• bathroom has first coat of paint, but the color is a little off, so we have to adjust that
• front sidewalk is all broken up and half has been removed

Visible progress feels so good!

So, these aren’t the pictures that I promised, but they hopefully explain the quietness around here the last couple days.

On Sunday, we left our one year old son with a friend (it was the first night for mom to be away from her baby ever!) and went down to Peoria, IL to see Nickel Creek and Fiona Apple in concert. It was an amazing show and we managed to score 2nd row seats, which was a great bonus. Afterwards, we camped (which ended up being free because the campground hosts were away for the night and there was no other way to pay) and got home by 10:30 this morning. It was a great day/night away from house stuff.

Tonight we were back at it (until 9:45!), working on the garage roof. All the new decking is down and 75% of one side is shingled while the other side is all tar-papered. Hopefully it’ll get wrapped up tomorrow so we can move on. House photos tomorrow, for real!

Mid-day update: We started tearing off the old shingles on the garage this morning. We got about 70% done before we got into a fight with a wasps nest. Jay finally won that battle thanks to some nearby gasoline (nobody light a match near the garage now!).

We then headed over to help some people clean out their basement. They had just moved back into their house 3 weeks ago after spending everything they had fixing up the house after the flood a year ago. A year ago, the water came through and the force of the water completely blew out an entire wall in the basement. It’s taken almost a year to get the wall rebuilt and the house habitable. At 2:30 am on Tuesday, they woke up because of the intense thunder and lightning and a few minutes later the whole house shook and they realized that the newly-rebuilt wall had blown in. The house has now been condemned and they’re hoping that the city will buy the house and turn the property into a retaining pond. The house is the low point of a several mile wide valley that has been totally built up and was poorly planned. All the runoff from a large area of town converges on this house and the force of that rushing water is what blew the wall in both times. So, a bunch of people helped get what they could out of the basement - washer, dryer, furnace, water heater, etc. We started shoveling out the mud and carrying out the cinder blocks, but decided to stop and wait until the city decides whether or not they’re going to buy the house and bulldoze it.

Now, it’s a short break before we head out and drive around giving out free ice cream (again, I’ll explain later) and then head back to work on the roof. And hook up the toilet. And unclog the 30+ year-old drain. And paint the bathroom. And tear out the front sidewalk. Stay tuned for tonight’s update along with more photos.

I just had a great post written and had to restart Firefox…blast. Oh well. So, a busy weekend ahead. It will hopefully include tearing off and re-roofing (including re-sheathing it) the garage, tearing out the broken front sidewalk, helping clean out someones’ flooded basement, painting the bathroom, installing the toilet, unclogging a drain that hasn’t been used in 30+ years, driving around handing out free ice cream (I’ll explain that one later) and hopefully even more. Or less. We’ll see. I’ve got some great help for at least one more day, so we’re trying to get as much done as we can. Many photos will follow.

In case you’re bored or want to read more houseblogs, I read quite a few. Here’s a few that have become favorites that I frequent (almost) daily:

Enon Hall - be prepared to spend several hours on their site poring through the archives. They’ve got an awesome piece of property and house that they’re doing an incredible job renovating. If there were a vote for ‘best houseblog’ and/or ‘best project’ and/or ‘most amazing house’, hands down, they would likely get all of them.

House in Progress - a blog by the same couple that runs houseblogs.net. They’re doing a great job restoring a bungalow in Chicago.

Petch House - A Victorian house in Eureka, CA. Greg is doing a fantastic job with the house.

The newest: Nate’s Fargo Fixer-Upper. A 1928 home in Fargo, ND that is being renovated by a first-time homeowner.

There are quite a few more, but those will suffice for now. I’m falling asleep as I write this…

As promised, here are some photos from the flooding this week. My brother (who is a photographer) took these photos. Thankfully, even though more rain was forecast for the past two days, very little ended up coming down. The ground is still so saturated that even the quarter-inch we got last night put a lot of water on the roads.

(Click the photos to see larger versions)