Put in new wood, Cut out old wood

This weekend I worked on finishing the framing that was started for the upstairs bathroom, so that when we're finished, the drywall contractor can get in and run along the ceiling, around the door, etc... Here is a picture of the ceiling framing with the insulation put back into the roof area. We'll be putting a ceiling fan duct in here next week.



This is looking the other direction where I framed around the door.


In the downstairs bathroom, I cut out the walls and disposed of all the rubble (that's in another picture.) This will allow the plumbing contractor to get in there this week and put in all of the plumbing for the downstairs shower and to run the water lines upstairs for the bathroom above.



Upstairs, I cut out 3 runs of floorboards between joists to allow for plumbing work to go in for the upstairs bathroom. You can also see that I cleaned out the far wall. That insulation was saved to go upstairs above the batt insulation in the ceiling. I'll replace the wall stuff with some rolled fiberglass before drywalling.

Lastly, in the middle joist run, you can see the ceiling fan for the downstairs bathroom.

It doesn't seem like as much work as previous weekends (and probably wasn't) but the demo and removal of debris took up a lot of time. Hopefully the electrician and plumber will get close to done this week and next. Thanks to Dad and Dave for helping me this weekend.

The baby is doing great! Almost every day we can feel all sorts of new things. Rather than a simple punching and kicking routine now, we can feel funny little pokes and what appears to be hands or feet slowly sliding across the stomach - very cool.

Unfinished Business

So the lower (SE) corner of our house has some real drainage issues. It periodically gets wet on the floor down there and soaks the carpet, etc... Having finished that room many years back and not knowing that this problem existed, we're now stuck with hidden moisture. So I started ripping into the walls I put up and will be removing the finishing on the exterior walls. Also we'll take the carpet off the floor. This should allow us to waterproof the masonry walls from the inside and epoxy coat that floor. I have some pictures to post soon. An additional downspout re-route will be happening as well to try and divert the moisture from that corner all together.

April Showers

It rained like cats and dogs this weekend. Our current house has water seeping in all over the SE corner in the basement. Carrie and I are both tiring of it and of this house/neighborhood but we always have the NEW (old) house to look forward to! Each weekend brings more excitement as we get closer to having the baby and closer to being in our new digs! It seems like crazy amounts of new things happen each week.

This weekend I worked on many items at the house. I took the old crappy door frame to the wine cellar down. It was installed way back when about 4-5" out of plumb which was wonderful. It made the door open into the old floor. After I got this out, I demolished the cruddy old shelving in the wine cellar and hauled it to the landfill. Oscar got a cookie there so he enjoyed the trip. Once the room was clear, i was able to do a quick vac-job and then "rubble-ize" the floor like I did elsewhere (this is inspired by it's success on City projects.) Once I did this, I wetted the subgrade and placed the last 5 bags of concrete for the floor. I screeded it all and trowelled it off so it could sit for the weekend. Now I can wire brush the walls and paint the room. I'm going to have Muller Plumbing get rid of the old pipes. Then our wine rack and beer fridge will go in here, along with a new small shelf i'll build. It will also get a new window but that will be recovered by black paper to keep it dark and cellar-like. I also wrapped the water line coming into the house with insulation and now that corner is bone dry... no pipe sweating... yay!

Sunday I worked on 2 new benches and got them mostly completed by lunch time. They're both 8' long and 3' deep. They make a great storage area and basement work space to stage the house remodeling after. Thanks to Dad who helped me finish the lower shelves on them after he and Pete built their speakers. I have to oil the tops and get the wall painted behind them. Then they can be moved into final position and I can put up some shelves, pictures, shop lights, etc... After this, Dad and I moved the old washer/dryer into the shed and now you can see how wide open and spacious the kitchen really is. I've got everything cleaned up and wide open so the contractors can come in and start getting busy.

Lastly, I took two pictures of the bathroom layouts so people can get an idea of what will be happening in them. Both bathrooms will have the corner shower concept that was in an earlier blog post and you can see the footprints of those roughly laid out. In the downstairs bath, we will be turning the toilet for better access and moving the sink slightly away from the toilet down the wall so it's better centered and so there is more legroom. Upstairs, we measured out the actual fixture sizes so you can see how things will layout. (The wall on the left will be 5" further to the left when done... TOMORROW!) The small gap between the shower and tub will probably not be there as i'll frame in a little ledge to make it look better and be more useful. Dad also had a great idea which will be instituted: we won't have the storage closet door in the bathroom - that space will simply be walled off solid making that corner way more useful (trash can, hamper, etc...) Instead, we'll cut an access door to the closet through the back of the guest room closet. This will allow a much larger door/access and will hide the door! Huzzah!

BABY UPDATE
Things are going really well. We're almost at 75% of the way! Tomorrow we have our 3rd of 5 baby classes where we will get to do relaxation tapes and hopefully listen to "Welcome home... welcome to life!" the awesome baby relaxation tape. I'll sing it for you the next time I see you. The nursery is fully painted and ready to go. I have to buy a mattress and Dad is busy on a changing table for us. We have hung some pictures which Will and Sandy gave us and we LOVE! Sue did the framing. They sit right above the crib. We have a few other things to hang in there.

I have included a picture of Carrie about 10 minutes ago so you can see the belly in it's full glory. After 8pm it's Kick 'N Punch time. That's when I feel her stomach to see what the baby is doing.

We thank everyone for their continued love and support as we get ready for both of these 2 huge life changes. We apologize for our lack of travel and communication... we know we're not doing as well as we normally do and we hope you'll bear with us while things change crazily over the next year.

R&C

Concrete and Epoxy

This was a very productive weekend! After speaking with Iowa Paint, I determined that it would be better to let them do the concrete floor overlay in the "main" basement because the cost was low and they could do it in probably 1/4 the time of me, as well as with a 2 part epoxy which is about as good/strong as it gets for coatings.

My always reliable helper... Dad, came over and helped me prep, clean and paint the rest of the brick curb around the basement perimeter. After we did that we vacuumed the basement and
Darren from Iowa Paint came over around 9 to put on the first coat of epoxy. It took him about 3 hours and looked excellent. It got pretty toxic down there so we had to shut off the furnace gas and leave the premises after awhile.

While Darren was working on the floor epoxy, Dad and I worked in the laundry room. I busted up much of the existing slab... in effect, turning it into a gravel rubble. I beat all of this flat and we spread out some bonding compound over the surface with a brush. We cut some 2x4' lengths and tapcon screwed them into the existing slab (that's a special screw to be used for concrete.) After these were in, we used the large tub I bought to begin mixing 80lb. bags of 5000psi Quikrete. We poured the W and E walls and got them trowelled off by mid afternoon. I watched lots of basketball after that.

Today (Sunday) we returned to finish the floor (almost.) Darren also showed up and completed the 2nd coat on the floor which went very quickly. He also left me a kit to do the laundry room floor after it cures for a month. And he left me lots of free supplies and painted the front porch as well. He was a great guy and did a lot for us that he didn't need to do. If you ever need paint, painting, supplies, etc... I will always recommend him (Iowa Paint on S. Gilbert St.) Dad and I pulled the lumber formwork and mixed 9 more bags of Quikrete. We poured in the center piece... between the two we did yesterday as well as the small square in front of the wine/beer cellar. All that is left to do is the wine/beer cellar floor once I pull the old shelves out of there. We got everything trowelled off and later, once the concrete set up a bit more, I cut some edging into the slab joints that I will fill with a high grade caulk. Things are looking good down there and we no longer have that crappy old busted up floor. In addition, i believe this will help keep radon out of the basement.

Contractor work should begin later this week. Then things will really be hopping!