We're painting!

While we're not painting, we're picking out paint colors and carpet...so many choices! Leaning toward a really pale yellow and a fat berber.

It took the mud and tape guys two weeks to get the job done, but it was all under the table and pretty cheap (under $1800). They did a great job on the smooth wall.

Now we're priming. It all soaks up so much paint. We're going through about a gallon a night.

Look at my new closet! It's hot and I can't wait to fill it up!

Stupid dog.

That's my sweet new heater on the left and all the hookups for the new TV on the right.

Drywall is hung!

One month later and the drywall is complete! So many angles and cuts but he got it done! First time drywaller. With the sheetrock, green board, hardibacker it was about $650. Plus, we ended up buying a screw gun and renting electric sheers.

Check out that bathroom! It's quite a site! You can even spot the pocket door cavity on the left.

Look at all those elecrical outlets! Even a spot to hang a TV!


The stairwell is pretty tall, but it's covered now. The other two sides will be a railing that we'll build ourselves.

We're hiring out mud and tape for $1750. He'll be out on Nov. 1 and says he'll be done in about a week. Then it's on to trim and paint! Yay! There's an end in site.

Drywall is here!

90 sheets of 8 foot, 1/2 inch drywall arrived in the driveway from Home Depot Saturday morning. Of course, I was alone with the baby at the time...with a chance of rain on Sunday! The dads came down to help load in, but hubby didn't arrive from work until four hours later!


They got it all loaded in before the bad weather settled in (and it did rain on Sunday!). Tools were bought on Sunday and the practice pieces were installed; re-interior closet, my closet! Yay! I have a new closet!

Can't wait to fill that thing with clothes and shoes. Maybe we'll do a few more practice sheets and then get the dads down again to help cut and hang. Mud and tape guy will come down end of this week or early next to give us a quote. Hopefully it's good because we really don't have a plan B...besides giving up and moving to a cookie-cutter neighborhood.

Yay for drywall! Early December?!

Insulation complete!

It took two days for American Insulation to completely re-do the insulation upstairs. $2200 later and we have this beauty. They did such a great job, even filling the holes where the electricians drilled in the 2x4s for the wiring. They sealed up the skylights, cracks around the chimney, space between the new windows.

Now, when you close a window upstairs, you could hear a pin drop...it's so quiet. Maybe not THAT quiet, but it's pretty quiet. R23 for the walls and R15 for the ceiling. The ceiling is 2 1/2 thick rigid board. The trusses are only 2x4s, so not a whole lot of space. It'll be interesting to see how hot it gets tomorrow.

Electrical roughed in! Prep for insulation

Finally, we have lights! Not really, but they're pretty much wired in. Above is one of 4 lights on the stairs! That's right, FOUR LIGHTS! Light that puppy up like a runway.

Below is one of seven 4-inch can lights. Apparently they "don't put out much light." Great. But there's not a whole lot of room in that ceiling.




The bathroom fan and light switches will be on the outside of the room. Not ideal, but whatever. Also, we'll have a thermostat in there to turn on a toe-kick heater! We didn't even know you could get one of those.

Below is one of the heaters. They'll be on one thermostat at the top of the stairs. Also, we had a dedicated 20 amp circuit wired for a potential AC for next summer. What other bells and whistles? Not a whole lot. Each closet has a light going to its own switch. We have the bathroom fan, a couple extra sockets for behind the bed.


Next up is insulation! It comes tomorrow. So I had to crawl into the attic and move insulation away from the bird block holes, which I drilled just before July 4th. Tore up a good pair of jeans when my finger got stuck on the drill switch. Left a pretty good bruise too. Anyway, rather than mess with it all, I made this handy "spoons taped to a stick" contraption to move insulation away from the vent holes. Works like a champ, especially when wearing a head lamp.

You can see all that blown in insulation...and a storage bin! That's what attics are good for, right?! Xmas decorations are on the other side! So the insulation bid came in around $2200. That includes a bunch of 2 1/2 inch rigid for the ceiling...that's what's so expensive and time consuming.

After that, we have a few plumbing issues to wrap up (setting the tub, pea trap, etc) and setting the bathroom pocket door, before we begin drywall. Those bids came in around $4500, so we're opting to do it ourselves! YIKES! The good thing is we know a guy who will mud and tape for us....Thank God. I hope to be moved in by Thanksgiving. Geesh.

A remodel distraction

Since we're sort of in a holding pattern on the upstairs, here are a few pics from the backyard garden. How nice and relaxing is this scene? We need to finish up those stairs and plant some lush greenery along the fence.

Blueberries! Almost ripe enough to pick. Of course, the rhubarb is encroaching.

Look at those Hops! Can't wait to pick them and make a hops pillow this year. I'll be falling asleep to the smell of hoppy beer.

And here are the embarrassing tomatoes. Yikes! No sun this summer.

Three red little grape tomatoes is all I need.

Micro-lettuce! These starts got off to a bad start. But now they're trying to grow...we picked some tonight and had a wonderful salad. It's almost time to plant a fall crop.

And below is the famous rhubarb... I picked some last weekend; only three stalks as suggested online. Apparently any more than that would be too traumatic. So I'm done with you rhubarb. Have fun tiny little black bugs...it's all yours!

So that's it for now. We're waiting for the electrician next Saturday. Everything is read to go, including a list of wants/needs. Should we put a X-mas lights switch in the closet upstairs? We'd never have to run extension cords and plug in lights in the snow!

Upstairs skylights, plumbing mistake

The skylights are in and the roof is patched! The roofer only charged $150 to add flashing and fix a minor mistake. Everyone should add skylights...it makes such a big difference. There is so much light upstairs now. The morning sun just streams in. It's absolutely wonderful.

The electrician comes next Saturday to rework everything. We cannot wait to get that behind us so that we can move on to insulation and drywall. It's not going to be an easy feat.


We had a bit of a mishap the other night. We heard a huge crash as we were getting ready for bed. It sounded like someone fell. Upon further investigation, the light cover in the baby's room full of water crashed down onto the rug below, sending at least a gallon of water splashing across the room. Luckily, the baby takes after his grandfather and didn't even stir, even during cleanup and the split-splat of water collecting in the 5-gallon bucket below.

After a quick solder attempt (fail), two tests, and a removal of pipe and then a re-solder, the elbow on the last run to the water heater was repaired just before 11pm. The baby's rug is still outside drying. We just hope the bay between the two joists is drying as quickly.

We'll add a few nailers in the closet, so that it's easier to hang rods and shelves, and where we may hang a TV brace. We also have to run our cable to a spot for the computer.

Keep you posted on the electrical....hoping it doesn't run us any more than $2500.

Probably not going to be moved up there by Labor Day weekend, but hoping for October 13- birthday! Wondering if it's all worth it now?

This next set of photos shows the progress of framing. You can see in the above pic we had to replace some of the wall. The studs were a bit "off" and some were pretty beat up. Some are spaced further apart; this is where we'll add attic access. You might also notice the new PEX plumbing and the new bathroom floor, which was pulled up to deal with drains and vents.

You can see the new ceiling nailers. We're not going all the way to roof line, but leaving some space to allow for better air flow and for lights. In the below pic, you'll see the new home of the water heater! It used to exist right, smack in the middle of the bathroom. It'll be enclosed in a closet. It was moved in half a day. The roof guy came out and was slipped a $100 to patch up and add a couple vents. Money well spent.

And the real framing commences! These are the two closets. The window will be at the end of a somewhat narrow hallway. You can barely see the water heater in there (left)

The below pic is looking north to the main stairs. On the left is a linen closet that will be full of shelves. To the right is part of one of the main closets. It's shaped like an L and butts up against the bathroom wall (shower). It's a hefty closet, which is needed in a tiny Bungalow with no garage.

And there's the bathroom! That bucket is where the shower water spout will one day fill. The shower has a lack of headroom, but enough for one person to stand and wash his/her hair. We decided upon a full bath, so someone could soak in a tub rather than mess with the ceiling. If you were to turn to the left, you'd hit the toilet and sink. The toilet area will have slightly less headroom as the sink is located in the tall area. A pocket door should remedy the space issue.

Wondering about the shower curtain issue? Dad assures us he can weld something special...and there are plenty of options online. We'll see. This coming weekend we plan to block up the bathroom wall to give the tub something to rest on and cut out two holes (one in the bathroom above the toilet and one above the stairwell) in the roof for skylights (2x2). This should help with the lack of lighting.

We're sort of in the middle of a battle with the window company, which has always been really good for us. We had to special order two double-hungs (to keep the kid from falling out), but the other company screwed it up and gave us sliders...that are too small. Still working it out.

Electric scheduled for Aug. 13! And then insulation the week after. We should be hanging drywall by Labor Day, at least!

Upstairs remodel begins!

These are our before photos of the upstairs. We're in the middle of a remodel, but I wanted to post these first. We began demo the second week of June, maybe June 10. So it's been a little over a month and the framing and the plumbing are about 90% complete. The plumbing required us to remove some panels downstairs (behind the bathroom sink, in a bedroom closet, etc) to get to the old pipes. We used mostly PEX, and a little copper for the new shower. The tub is already waiting upstairs.

We added a few roof vents and drilled 100 new bird block holes for better ventilation. We hope rigid board insulation against the roof will help block out heat and a better R rating on the half walls should also help.

The electrician is scheduled to do his thing either the last week in July or first weekend in August. We're very excited!

Then insulation guys will come in. We could do it ourselves, but by the time you pay for it, it comes out just a bit more for labor. Hanging drywall may fall on our shoulders. Our quotes are about $1500 more than we want to spend. Plus, we have a guy that'll do mud and tape for pretty cheap.

Take a good look at these before shots because the next photos you see will be during framing.... big changes!