Our Home Renovation

My 3 Favorite Things in/on the Sheridan House (and what they looked like before):

The side storm door. I’m not exactly sure why I love this door so much, but it’s always been one of my favorite thins about the house. It’s got really cool old wavy glass and is still nice and solid. I have to admit I loved how it had weathered and would have loved to leave the paint as it was, but against the nicely painted house and trim it stuck out a little too much. The glass panes are all in one panel which is removable and presumably had a screen at one point. Here are the before after photos of the side storm door (you can click on any of the photos to see them larger in Flickr):

The kitchen counters and cabinets. We were able to rebuild the kitchen cabinets using all the original fronts. All the doors and drawers are original. The insides of the cabinets are all new. The old counter was really low and so we added a toekick (there wasn’t one before) and rebuilt the cabinets on top of the toekick. We ended up with one extra small cabinet door, which will stay with the house in case any future owners of the house need it for anything. We decided on a granite countertop which is absolutely gorgeous. The green color looks awesome next to the all-white cabinets and wainscoting.

The dining room light. Orginally hanging in the family room, the dining room light is a vintage 1930’s art deco light that looks fantastic in the dining room. The glass shades emit a nice soft yellow which looks great with the blue walls. We put it on a dimmer switch, but it had original dimming built-in… the bottom silver knob on the light turns and you can choose from three-bulbs lit, two bulbs lit, all on or all off. When we first hung it in the dining room, we forgot about that little dimming system and were puzzled for a while as to why only three bulbs were working. Then we remembered.

The Sheridan House is now sold and closing will happen sometime in the next week. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but I know lots of people have been yearning for photos, so here’s a start. A massive before/after post will be coming sometime soon; hopefully this will whet your appetite.

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.

One of the hardest things in renovating a house is figuring out what to do first. Especially since I love to start new projects, but I am horrible at finishing them. With our house, I can remember gutting the bathroom at the same time as I started reglazing a window from another part of the house and at the same time as tearing out carpeting in the house and at the same time as tearing out the previously-enclosed front porch. It’s been that way all along, but lately I’ve been getting better at pushing myself to finish a project before moving on (as much as possible).

These were all taken on the same day (the day we closed on our house - April 17th, 2005):

As we started working on the Sheridan House, we decided the first priority HAD to be the roof. It was in really bad shape and there were several leaks. So that was an easy decision to do first. We decided the second priority overall needed to be the front exterior of the house. If we do end up selling the Sheridan House, we want the curb appeal to be there as soon as possible - if there are a few details left inside that need to be finished up, there’s no reason a ‘for sale’ sign can’t go up out front. If the front of the house still needs obvious attention (or lacks the eventual curb appeal), then we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot (feet?). With our current house, the outside has ended up being the last priority - the inside of the house is almost complete and here we are 2+ years later and the outside (front of the house, anyway) still hasn’t had anything done to it really and we have yet to paint the house and give it any measure of curb appeal. But, that’s what the priorities are all about - we decided that livability was the highest priority overall, whereas with the Sheridan House, visual appeal was.

Plumbing was up there on the priority list, though, because it’s really hard to work without running water. (Thanks, neighbors!) Getting the bathroom done is high up because, again, it’s hard to work without any toilet or sink. The electrical service upgrade was essential because that would allow us to sleep at night not having to worry about the ancient electrical service.

Personally, I love problem soving and planning out priorities is really just one big puzzle; you just have to figure out the best place to start and then put the pieces together one by one. Hopefully this gave a little insight into the method behind the madness when starting to tackle a project like this. It’s been a lot different not living in the house while we’re working on it.

On a different note, it’s been hot this week (90+) and working inside without A/C is killer, especially when it’s as humid as it has been. I’ve still been getting work done on the house, but unfortunately at a bit slower pace than I would have hoped. Expect more progress updates this weekend.

We just spent a week in Louisiana helping finish renovate a house damaged in Katrina. This has motivated me to get at least one room in house totally complete! And the nursery is the chosen room. Sam barely fits in his bassinet anymore, so it’s time to move him into the crib. We can’t do that until we finish the windows. They are craftsman style weighted windows that are original to the house. The paint is peeling off of them and the glazing has cracked and is falling off in places. We considered buying new windows for the bedrooms but after calculating costs and time we came to the conclusion that we need to just get it done. Especially since in their current state, they don’t help keep the nursery very warm!

It’s a new year and we’re having another go at this blog. We have not forgotten about it. On the contrary, we’ve really missed posting and getting feedback. However, we have an excuse, a really good one. We’ve been busy. On August 18th, 2006 at 12:22pm our son was born. His name is Samuel Joseph Kelley. He weighed 8lbs 10oz and was 20.5 inches long.

Most people would probably take a break from home renovations at a time like this but not us. We have been busier than ever. In the days leading up to my due date we were scraping paint off the walls in the kitchen, finishing the room in the basement, running new electrical, hanging new lights, and doing a major cleaning of the house. We had the drywall finished in the bathroom and the kitchen. Also, we painted the kitchen, bathroom and basement. Set up the nursery and were doing some minor landscaping. We’ll have more posts coming in January with updates on these projects, so you’ll have to wait until then for pictures

I also wanted to take the chance to let you all know that there are now two authors on this blog. Shawn was the one doing all the writing but I will now be writing a lot as well. I’m Danielle, Shawn’s wife.

Lately the big project has been the guest room in the basement. The room that will become the nursery is currently a guest room, so we needed a new guest room.

Here’s the layout that we came up with:

Why is there a wet bar in a guest room, you ask? Well, originally this room was going to be a media room, and hopefully one day will be used as such. We’d love to put in a murphy bed so that 90% of the time it can be a media room and the rest of the time it can be a guest room. We’ll see if that ever comes to fruition.

In the mean time, we’ll have a huge guest room that has a nice wet bar in it, which will actually be convenient, because until we add a bathroom to the basement, we only have one bathroom.

All of the framing is complete, the electrical is roughed in and hopefully I’ll get the insulation finished tonight. Then comes drywall, electrical finishing, trim and carpet. Think we can get it done in the next 2 weeks before the inlaws arrive? Let’s hope so!

By the way, the consensus on the piano is to dismantle it and re-use the wood for other projects. Specifically, the vanity and cabinet in the bathroom. Now I just gotta figure out how to get rid of the 500lb+ soundboard! Free hunk of scrap metal, anyone?

When we moved in, there was a piano in the basement…a really old piano. After talking to some neighbors, we discovered that the piano belonged to the original owners who built the house in 1928. When they moved out in 1993, the piano, which had been moved to the basement for storage (not a good idea) was apparently too heavy to move, so they left it. And there it sits today.

So, here’s where you come in. We need to decide what to do with it. We have three options that I can think of. Leave a quick comment and let us know what you think. Here are the options (we’re open to others if you have any)…

1. Leave the piano in the basement and make up a cool story to go with it - aka The Legend of the Piano
2. Recycle the piano, i.e. reuse the wood for other projects, somehow dispose of the innards
3. Just get rid of it and avoid the hassle altogether

Just to clarify, we were hoping to get it fixed, but it’s beyond repair, as it has 2 cracks in the soundboard. So, what do you think?

Last November we went to New Orleans to help gut homes for a week. Less than a month later, we returned to stay for six months. Our role (through a non-profit organization) was to coordinate the 75-150 people that came each week from all over the country. They were broken up into work crews of 5-20 generally and we matched those teams up with work that needed to be done.

It was an awesome experience getting to do a small part in impacting thousands of people’s lives, helping them move forward once again. As hard as it is to believe, almost 10 months after Katrina, there are still thousands of homes that haven’t been touched. I just heard about an elderly gentleman from N.O. who ended up here in Rockford. Long story short, he hasn’t been back since Katrina and has no idea what the state of his house is. I’ll be returning soon for a week and have promised to go by and get pictures for him so he can see what is left.

Needless to say, we weren’t doing much in the way of work on our house in Rockford, IL. We were, however, helping my cousins (who live in the N.O. area) to fix up a house in our free time. It was a lot of fun and would have been great content (a 2800 sq. ft. 1960’s home that was getting a complete makeover) for blogging about, but we just didn’t have the time.

Anyway, we’re back now, getting settled back into life as it was and are getting ready to do a lot of work on the house in the next few months, so you can look forward to more posts in the near future.

Oh, I almost forgot! We found out five days after we got to LA in December that Danielle, my wife, is expecting. It’s a boy and she’s due August 14th. So, among other projects, we’ve gotta get the nursery ready, as well as a new guest room for visiting family and friends (since the old guest room will become the nursery).