Our Home Renovation

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)

Last night we finished getting the old wall removed and got the new beam in place. Even though there was no doubt about the beam holding the weight, there’s always that moment of anxiety when you remove the temporary support walls. I’m happy to report that the house didn’t fall down and that the beam is doing a great job holding it up. I’m really excited to get the drywall/plaster done in here to see how will look all finished.

Last night we had some major rainfall - a neighbor’s gauge showed almost 6 inches this morning. News reports are saying anywhere from 4-7+ inches, depending on the area and they’re saying there were a few areas that were “off the charts” (does that mean their gauges overflowed??). Two blocks from our house, people were rescued in boats and many houses are under water. Thankfully our house is up high on a hill, so we didn’t have to worry about flooding like everyone else, but we did get around an inch of water throughout the basement which was a first. Last summer, my big project was building a media room in the basement. Walking in there this morning having water squish through my toes definitely felt strange. Our power just came back on, so it’s time to get the fans and shopvacs going. As annoying as it is to have to dry out the basement, we’re extremely lucky/blessed to not be under water, or even have more than an inch in the basement.

I checked the Sheridan House this morning and it was fine - there was a bit more seepage than normal, but if that’s all that there is when 5+ inches comes down in a short period of time, I have no complaints.

We have some good photos which I’ll add to this post later. We also made some awesome progress on the Sheridan House yesterday which I’ll write more about later too.