Monday, December 28, 2009
Time off
But, we are getting antsy and feel like we need to get busy soon. We've started cleaning out the "crap room," which has housed anything that didn't have a spot for the past six years. Until recently, we would just open the door, drop the item in need of storage, turn, and exit. It was our dirty little secret. However, we have emptied the room of most of its contents, made multiple trips to the Savers donation center, and found a lot of treasures that we had forgotten about.
We're beginning to formulate the floor plan and will get started soon. The Old Arnold bedroom will transform into the new master bath!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Post party post
So...we have been intentionally holding back until we had the big 142nd birthday party and could reveal the house to family and friends. For the last two months we have been working at a furious pace attempting to get things done for the party. We were able to finish the two upstairs bedrooms, the stairway, and the "Landing," as we are now referring to the new TV room. We're taking a well deserved break and figuring out what to tackle next.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Happy 142nd Birthday!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Addition Part 2
(Turn your head sideways for this one)
Lessons learned: There is such a thing as a potato shovel, patience is a virtue, drinking cream-based alcohol beverages (i.e. Hot Sex) all day is never a good idea, if the foundation isn't quite level just shoot a level line at the top, 12 people in a single house with one bathroom is very cozy.
Items found: A lot of plastic shopping bags stuck into nooks and crannies, the Arnolds like to use tar to patch everything, the original storyboard for the clapboards, and years worth of dust and grime.
Thank you: Tom, Kathie, Trina, Isaac, Loren, Amanda, Derek, Adam, Eric, Nicole, Crystal, and Eddie.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Real Master Bedroom
Since we've been so focused on moving into the new room, we've neglected blogging on the BIG addition project, stay tuned...
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Saying Goodbye to the Mini-Master Bedroom
We started by painting the walls a crisp shade of light blue and the trim a clean, consistent white. We tried to install more electric outlets, the room had zero to start with, and found that the exterior walls had been filled with clay blocks as a firestop/insulation method. This is the 147 year old section of the house and we were lucky that this was all we found in the walls. We were able to install three outlets and we eventually installed a switch for the overhead light and ceiling fan. Hello twenty-first century!
To create a sense of privacy, we reframed the existing large entry and installed French doors with trim that we found to match what was left of the original trim in the adjacent "parlor."
We pulled out the old area rug and found the previous floor treatment - a lovely tarpaper that was hard to part with. We went with a wood laminate that we installed ourselves - of course. It was a fun-filled weekend with a lot of sore, bruised knees and aching backs.
Items found: Probably some junk we can't remember and the clay blocks in the wall.
Thank you: Jason for helping with the electrical and Amanda and the rest of the move-in-and-paint crew!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Creating a master bedroom
Today we wainscoted the master bedroom (we had finished bedroom #2 a few weeks ago) and got started on the wall treatments for the media room/lounge (vote on the room name later). When we first saw the soon-to-be master bedroom, it was filled with guitars, furniture from every era, and painstakingly placed cut-outs from muscle car magazines that had been pasted to the walls (thank you Arnolds). Wherever the muscle cars weren't, there was faux walnut Formica paneling. The dipping ceiling was held in place with fender washers. You may ask, "what were they thinking?" Truth is, we saw a lot of potential, but maybe not all the hard work involved.
To create a master bedroom, we closed off a doorway to an adjacent room, jacked the ceiling and sistered on new joists to the existing joists, created a new ceiling with plywood and sheetrock, replastered the walls, rewired and added several outlets, created a closet, and painted the walls and added wainscoting. We spent over an hour this evening at Menards looking at floor treatments.
The closet, the small speck on the wall is the lone guitar that we left intact
The muscle cars after the paint and before the wainscoting
Covering up the cars
To finish the room we need to: install floor treatment, paint the trim and wainscoting, install closet and entry doors and closet system, and haul everything from our temporary bedroom upstairs. More images to follow as we wrap everything up.
It's been a sad week, we lost our faithful remodeling assistant, Brew, our 11 year old lab mix. She tended to get underfoot, but was eager to help with the beer drinking at the end of the day and never criticized our work.