Before....After

Here are a couple of shots to show how dramatic of a change there has been to the house.

First the kitchen which is the biggest transformation next to the basement.

Before -




After -





Next is the bathroom. Definitely a nice change.

Before -





After -




And finally the living room. Disgusting to soothing. Love it.


Before -




After -

The Roof is on Fire

A few weeks ago the weather Gods finally smiled on us and we had a stretch of weather to replace our roof. The old system was the traditional rubber and bitumen with asphalt sealant. We decided to replace that with a more environmentally friendly and energy efficient acrylic system.

The first step was to remove the entire roof surface. Once the space was opened, we took that opportunity to insulate the gap between the second floor ceiling and the roof. Using and expanding foam insulation all of the gaps were sealed. Then cellulose insulation was blown in to give an R value of 30. On top of that we place a radiant barrier to prevent temperatures from penetrating through the insulation.

After finishing the insulation, 4x8 sheets of 3/4" underlayment were hauled up to the roof and fastened in place like decking. There were expansion gaps put in place to prevent buckling but those gaps were caulked to provide a surface of adhesion for the acrylic material.

Once the wood was attached and the surface caulked and cleaned, we began the final process. You begin by painting on a liberal (think Susan Sarandon) coat of acrylic paint and then rolling nylon fabric over it. After the nylon is in place and you remove as many of the wrinkles as you can, you paint over it with another layer of paint. Let it dry over night and ShaZam! - you now have a waterproof roof.

Once dry, I needed to apply more and more layers of paint until all of the material was gone. it took another 4 days but it wasn't that difficult to do.

We decided to use white as the final color to reflect heat but the lower two layers are gray so that uneven wear can be seen for future applications. Overall, it's pretty sweet and opens itself up to having a roof deck...but I doubt that will happen.

Sorry...we've been busy

I've heard through the grapevine that we are being unkind to our faithful readers by not having any recent updates. Hopefully, this will get things back on track.

As many of you know, we took some time off to do some small things like getting married and moving. After the wedding, our asses were welded to the couch for 2 weeks where our bodies tried to recover from exhaustion. During that time little got done at the house. Mostly, we digested 4 seasons of Lost and felt better for it.

Now things are back on track and while the house is not completed, we have moved in anyway. It will be a couple of weeks until we unpack and get organized but when we do - a showing we will have.

This week began the finishing of the basement which was supposed to be put off for a bit. Fortunately, we received a generous donation to the house fund from my newly anointed In-Laws which allows us to move forward instead of waiting until next year.

Therefore, if all goes well, we will have a completed (is it ever?) house by Thanksgiving.

I'm off to get some pictures for you so don't go away.

I got a solar tube!

Yay!!!! Today is roof day. We've cancelled the roof twice... so third time is a charm right? Minus the threat of high winds (40 mph!), the weather is perfect. Sunny, relatively cool -- and DRY! We're doing an acrylic roof - which is an environmentally friendly cool roof technology. It will be a white roof to reflect the sun, and it is very easy to maintain. Checkout all the details at: http://www.conservationtechnology.com/waterproofing_acrylic.html

We're also getting superduper insulation. The crawl space is getting a sprayfoam seal, then we're blowing in cellulose, and THEN we're putting in a radiant barrier. It's crazy expensive... but this stuff pays for itself right? Ha!

In my opinion, the best part of the roof re-do is my SOLAR TUBE!

Yes... I am now the proud owner of a beautiful solar tube (http://www.solatube.com/homeowner/) It is an amazing technology that far surpasses leaky skylights. The tube will reflect daylight into the upstairs hallway. I can't wait to get over to the house tonight and see it.

For those of you who are more visual... part 3

For those of you who are more visual... part 2

For those of you who are more visual... part 1

A Crazy Saturday (and Friday for that matter)

Hmm...where to start...maybe with some backstory? Nah. Too long winded. (Like what I've written below isn't long winded) Let's just say that when I called the guy to pick up his dumpster, he should have done it sooner than a month later. We'll get back to that.

There is (was) a stump in the back yard that was right on the property line. I broached the subject of getting it removed with the neighbors and they were all for it. We needed to remove it to have a 2-car parking area. They needed it gone so they could one day put a sandbox if they have children.

This led me to ask the dumpster guy if he was interested in giving me a quote, as he is a landscaper, when he picked up the dumpster. He said sure. A month rolled by and the contractor said that he had a tractor and he would come and try to remove it on Saturday. Sweet. I was tired of waiting and, if it didn't get removed soon, it would hold up the job.

So early Saturday morning the contractor shows up with a little bobcat tractor. I expressed my doubts about being able to remove it before but now I was almost certain it wasn't going to happen. The contractor gets to work tearing up the grass to prepare the parking area and then attempts to remove the stump. He failed. Quickly. And broke the tractor to boot. Now I get to pay guys to stand around and fix a tractor. Awesome.

After the contractor fails, he asks me if I know anybody who has a stump grinder. You know, 'cause everybody knows somebody with a stump grinder. Yet, as some of you who know me will not be surprised, I DID know somebody with a stump grinder - The Landscaper. I call the landscaper and he tells me that his stump grinder is broken. Bummer.

He asks me to clarify the size of the stump. I tell him it is a massive melding of three large trees. He tells me he has an excavator that will do the trick and will let me know in an hour if he can do it that day. Sweet.

While I wait for his call back, I run to Home Depot to rent a compactor to compact the dirt that will be under our patio. I get there and discover that one is rented and the other is broken. On to another Home Depot. They don't have one either...but wait what is that...hmm...it looks like a different kind of compactor...better call the contractor.

Turns out, I was looking for the wrong kind of compactor and they have one. I rent it and run back to the job. An hour later.

While I was at Home Depot, the Landscaper called. Laughing. "Man, I'll tell you, when you do it, you do it right." This is a reference to yesterday that apparently is continuing into today. He tells me that this is a major job. I knew that. I tried to convey that to the contractor. He didn't believe me. Neither did the landscaper for that matter. This stump was ginormous. (Would you believe spell check didn't mark that as misspelled?)

So the landscaper gets to work a little before noon and after an hour asks me if I have a chainsaw. Man, if I had what I needed, I wouldn't need to know people who had what I needed. That's my art. Off to Home Depot again. The closer one this time. Guess what? They have a chainsaw. They also have the compactor I rented from the farther away Home Depot. Grrr.

I rent the chainsaw and, on my drive back to the house, the landscaper calls to ask if I could get a stump grinder instead. Cue frustration. I make a u-turn and head back. I return the chainsaw and discover that they don't have a stump grinder and the nearest one is a half-hour away. Shit. I call the landscaper and he says don't worry about it just bring back the chainsaw. "!&@#*!"

As I rent the chainsaw I just returned, amidst the chuckles from the employees, I begin to realize that I am not owning this day. I am getting owned. I have been on overdrive for over 4 hours and there is no sign of it letting up.

So, while I am running all over getting all of the things needed...progress is slowly being made. Steph is with me experiencing what I go through roughly three times a week and she doesn't like it one bit. Neither do I but you gotta do it. However, this was one of the most hectic stressful days of the entire job to date.

Back to the stump - the landscaper gets the chainsaw, makes some cuts, hits dirt, ruins the chain. It lasted like 10 minutes. Oh well, at least he made a couple of cuts. Shit - gotta go return the compactor. Easiest thing I did all day.

When I get back, the stump is out. It is easily 6 feet in diameter and weighs over 1,000 lbs. I tried to tell him.

While I wait for him to load up all the debris, I come to the realization, he isn't taking the debris. ARG!!! I sweet talk him into at least taking the stump because I have no way on Earth to move it. (Rastafarians apparently like cash and vegan sushi)

So now the stump is gone. There is still debris but I will remove that over the next couple of days. He told me that it was the biggest stump he had ever removed. Also, he was going to send me a card commemorating it. He said that the stump was only outdone by the heaviest dumpster he had ever picked up - which just happened to be mine also - and was only dealt with the day before. As he said, when I do it, I do it right.

Concerning the dumpster, a quick summary - 30 yard container, filled to the tippy top with 6 weeks worth of stuff, picked up 4 weeks late, so heavy it lifted the front of the truck off the ground 15 feet.

It was such an amazing feat that I am more sorry than you could possibly know that I did not get it on camera or video. I was too amazingly terrified to move for fear that I would miss the disaster that was about to occur. This story deserves more details and if you ask nicely, I'll write another meandering post.

Ciao.

It's been a while

Hello loyal blog followers... we owe you an apology. It's been a while since we've posted anything about the house. We're sorry. It's just been so crazy busy!

Not exactly sure where we left off? Probably with the wiring of the house... Believe it or not we're still in the process of finishing up the electrical wiring. The hard part is done - the walls were busted up, the wires were run, the inspector gave us his green sticker of approval. Now we're waiting on getting outlets, switches, plates and light fixtures installed. That was supposed to happen today, but the electrician went AWOL. This is not uncommon behavior.

The cable and internet wiring of the house is complete. We did run into one snafu -- the cable/internet wiring for one room was cut too short to make it to the basement media panel. After much internet research, Chris found some crazy dohickey that could splice the short piece and a longer extension piece of cable together and fix the problem. Huzzah! Good work. Internet and cable for all!

Once the wiring was complete, the crew got to work on repairing the plaster walls. Three guys spent an entire work week patching and then skim coating all the plaster walls. They look amazing... they did a great job.

On the wall we share with the neighbor, we installed sound proofing drywall. Stupid expensive (normal drywall $14 a sheet, sound proofing drywall $42 a sheet) but hopefully worth it. Good fences make for good neighbors, right?

We also framed out, insulated and drywalled the entire basement. Between the bigger windows, and finished drywall, the basement is really becoming a lovely living space. This room will serve as the home theater, home arcade (ask Chris about the arcade!) , and laundry area. One day it will have full bath (all the plumbing's been roughed in) and maybe a small workout area for yours truly. A girl can dream :-)

After drywalling and plastering the crew split into two. One half primed and painted. Chris and I picked some beautiful colors... and one color that looks a little like french dressing. That one might be a mistake. But regardless, the painted walls make the house is really look like a home. And lest I forget the floor, door and window trim - again a finishing touch that really makes a huge difference. I can actually start to visualize our furniture in the rooms, dinner parties we might have... you get the idea.

The trim is a lovely white (you have no idea how many shades of white there are!) that looks fresh and clean. We painted the bedrooms mostly blue (the one color Chris and I could agree on), the living room is a lovely warm tan, and the kitchen/dining room is french dressing. Actually, I think it's called earthy henna, but maybe it's a bit too orange.

The other half of the crew tackled the kitchen and bathroom tile. I am SO excited about these floors and walls. In the kitchen, we did a light tan travertine tile, with small squares of slate inset. It is absolutely gorgeous! And in the bathroom we did a multi-colored marble tile basketweave floor, and a cream colored subway tile around the bathtub. It's beautiful. I have to admit that the bathroom turned out a bit different than I thought - I was going for more grey and white as opposed to multi-colored marble. But it is lovely the way it is... next bathroom I'll do grey and white!

So that's basically where we're at... getting to the finish line. This upcoming week is going to be a big one. We'll start refinishing the wood floors on Monday - which means no one can be inside the house. So instead, the crew will be pouring the concrete for our patio and laying the gravel for the parking pad. (see Chris' post about the stump that ate the parking pad) We're also hoping to tackle the roof on Friday. Weather g-ds, please send us good weather on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (yes, it's a three day job).

That's all the news from this half of the Cuttler/Aument duo... 'till next time....

Big stuff small truck

I love this picture of Chris driving home our window trim. Each peice of trim was 16 feet long - the truck bed is only 6 feet long. But we made it work! New pictures of "trimmed" windows coming soon. They are beautiful...

The Wired House - Nerd Alert

Traditionally, an older house has many different wires strung all over the outside as, over the years, technicians install phone, cable, and other lines. As this is a pet peeve of mine, I decided to add structured wiring to the house. This means I have eliminated the unsightly external wires and now have everything hidden within the walls.

** Ahoy! Technical Jargon Ahead! **

The living room, kitchen, basement, and bedrooms will all have two quad-shield RG6 (coax) jacks and two Cat6 network jacks. The RG6 can be used for closed circuit TV, cable or satellite TV, RCA, component video, and composite video jacks.

The network jacks can handle 10GB transfer speeds for networking and streaming media plus it will be able to fully utilize Verizon's FIOS capabilities when DC finally gets FIOS. They can also be converted to phone lines or merged to create HDMI cables and other goodies. Scrumptious.

In the basement, there will be a panel with a nice clean look that centralizes the connections. And, since we will have DirecTV, I only have to run four RG6 wires to the panel and install a 16 port multiswitch to split the signal to all of the different rooms. If I get a big enough panel, I should be able to put the DSL or cable modem plus a router, hub, and electric so all of the wires can be hidden.

I will use single gang keystone wall plates for a nice clean look and compression fittings for the best connectivity of the RG6 cables.

Can't wait to get it all hooked up and making it look pretty.

You know you like it when I love talk nerdy.

Oh, the blue and black wires in the picture are the goods.

The Thing About Electricians

As a former communications technician and home theater designer, I have worked with many different electricians and appreciate what they do as a craft. I also know that their job is completely different from that of an installer/designer. For example, the wire they use costs considerably more and it can be difficult to work with due to its flexibility and size. Also, it's rather straightforward in calculating the circuits, amperage, and wire gauge needed.

I suspect that these factors contribute to the reasons I have such difficulty appreciating not what they do, but how they do it. In my installation experiences, rarely have I seen an electrician use finesse in an installation. Mostly, brute force gets the job done. Our house is no exception.

We decided to rewire the entire house and install new boxes, switches, and outlets. A good idea for the integrity of the house but a bad idea for the integrity of the original plaster walls. While I expected numerous holes to be made to run the wiring, I was not expecting those holes to be made using a hammer since I have always used tools with a bit more precision.

I believe that my disdain is similar to that of an Indy Car engineer regarding that of a NASCAR engineer. Sure both cars go but one goes way faster...and turns right.

Regardless of the process, the electrician did a great job giving us a heavy up to 200 amp service and new everything. Sure we cleaned up a lot of messes and we have a bunch of holes in the walls and ceilings but we saved a little money too.

The Weather is Perfect

We have finally had a break in the oppressive humidity and heat that is August in Washington, DC. You would think that with Congress in recess there would be less hot air here. Zing!

That said, this great weather just so happens to coincide with all of our windows (both new and old) being installed and finished on the exterior. No pictures of the new window added to the kitchen but I must say, the mason did an excellent job of trying to make the window opening look exactly like all of the others. I will try and post a picture of it tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of the others. We even removed the awful awnings today though you still may seem them in the pictures.

Oh, and did I mention that I narrowly avoided all of the special order windows being too big? What do I mean by narrowly? Well they only had to chip away some of the brick and block on the interior to get them to fit. Lesson learned on that one FO SHO!

More exterior pictures coming soon.

A Good Decision

We apologize for the lack of posts but it was odd at the house for the past couple of weeks. First, nothing was getting done and then everything snowballed into a whirlwind of activity. Now a ton of things have happened and it feels like we are getting closer to feeling like we are on the home stretch.

One accomplishment of special mention was our decision to enlarge the two south facing basement windows.

As you can see from the before during and after shots, we went from small virtually worthless windows to full size windows that not only let in a tremendous amount of natural light but also serve as a second egress point in case we ever want to turn the basement into a legal apartment.

The increase in cost was probably about 4 fold but the ability to turn a basement into something that feels like a regular living space could be worth more. The only real drawback is that we now have two giant (think bear trap) window wells out side that will need to be covered for both security and safety.

Overall, we feel we made the right choice on this one. Huzzah!!

4 weeks and counting

Friday was the 4 week anniversary of closing on the house. A lot has been done but there is a long way to go. This week was pretty laid back with me spending a majority of my time scraping wallpaper off of ceilings. All of it had been painted at least once and some of it had multiple wallpaper layers or stucco over top of it. Who does that? It took almost 8 hours to get half of the living room ceiling done. What a pain in the ass.

We also had our first inspection for the installation of the plumbing. Passed with no problems and, now that the dirt has been put back into the holes, the basement does not look so disastrous. I will post some updated pictures tomorrow.

The next couple of weeks will see things happening at a rigorous pace. Monday will commence the proper installation of the existing windows along with the new windows. Thursday, the living room floor will be reinstalled and the bad areas patched. The electrical work will be done next weekend and that will trigger the insulating of house and replacement of the roof.

Once that is done, we can close up the walls and get them ready for painting.

Since we have not yet ordered kitchen cabinets, I get the feeling the house will be almost completely finished before the kitchen is installed. But that's ok. Rather have things paced then cascading into a whirlwind of crazy.

After 14 straight days of long hours, I am looking forward to the next 7. If my estimates are correct, I think the majority of the house will be finished in 6 weeks. If things go very well, we could be done in 8. Just in time for the wedding. Huzzah!

It's Electric - Boogie Woogie Woogie

The electrician started work today. Somehow managing to wire almost the entire basement while dodging dirt piles and chasms. Impressive.

He will be back tomorrow to do a heavy up to 200 amp service and to run the major appliance wires. I cut open a bunch of walls for him and I'm looking forward to having all new electric in the house. (Plumbing too, if you've been keeping abreast of things.)

We are also adding dual RG6 (Coax) and Cat6 jacks to each room as well for all of our future entertainment needs.

Sweet.

Erected wood meets big hole and other juicy tidbits

Since I have not posted in awhile, I decided to encapsulate this one with innuendo and debauchery. No sir, we will not have the usual clinical descriptives of progress but a stress releasing play on the joys of home ownership.

This past week was rocking when I got wood on Monday. It was even better when that wood got erected into a framed basement, kitchen half-wall, and other projects. Then the guys dug the huge - 36"x42"x60" - holes for the enlargement of the basement windows. I even loaded up the truck that is on loan from my dad and hauled a bunch of stuff to the scrap yard. Then it all came screeching to a halt.

As you know, I have been partying with the zany 'Poo-Poo Pipe' which lead to giving the house a colonoscopy after performing invasive surgery. Needless to say, the house looks like a f---ing (Steph censor in effect) disaster. There are three gaping channels that were jackhammered open to reveal clogged and disintegrated pipes partnered with giant piles of soil. I would post a picture but I assure you - it does not do justice to the situation.

The good news is that the scoping of the remaining pipe revealed healthy innards. The bad is that, because the pipe appears to have broken some time ago, all of the waste was just going into the soil under the concrete of the basement floor. The image of that is much worse than it really was but the side effect was that it eroded a few inches of soil from beneath a large portion of the basement floor. This means that we will either have to jackhammer a larger portion up to re-pour the floor or find another method to fix the gap issue. We'll know more in a couple of days.

Indiana Jones never had an adventure like this but mine is still better than the last movie. For sure!

Yet another plumbing problem

We have a separate, outside entrance to the basement. There is a drain at the bottom of those stairs. Turns out that it is broken too. That brings the total to all - all waste related pipes in our house are broken. All I can see is dollar signs. Adding up everywhere.

What I hoped would be a mostly cosmetic renovation, is turnout out to be more a gut and replace job.

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed today.

Problems with the Poo-Poo Pipe

So yesterday was a plumbing disaster. Turns out the waste pipe that is running under the house has exploded. Apparently, years ago the pipe cracked and disintegrated, and since that time, raw sewage has been seeping into the ground under the house.

The bad news: almost the entire basement floor had to be jack hammered and torn up, to get at bad pipe. Six hours of jack hammering into the cement.

The good news: we found the problem now, as opposed to a few years later when our toilets won't flush and our basement had been finished. Also good news, since the house has been vacant for a while, it appears as most of the sewage has drained away. There was no smell when they dug up the floor.

The unknown news: They are scoping the open pipe today. We may get lucky and only have to replace the short piece of pipe that runs for five feet in the basement. Or we may hit the unlucky jackpot and have to replace all the way to the street. If the latter, we're looking at $5K in extra expenses.

No matter what, we're fixing the plumbing. Better to do it now than later. And when we finally move into the house, we'll know that all the major systems are not only working, but updated, corrected and frankly: WARRANTIED!

Pictures will be coming....

Decisions Decisions

Prior to this house renovation, I thought I was decisive. Sometimes I would waffle on what to have for dinner, but overall, I was fairly efficient at getting the "decision making job" done. Oh for the days of simply deciding what is for dinner (fresh Alaskan salmon from costco, if you're interested).

Now I wake up nearly every morning with a list of things to decide. Ponder, pick and buy flooring for the kitchen and half bath. Design and buy materials for the 2 full bathrooms. Paint color, oven type, refrigerator size, flushing capacity of the toilet. Ahhhhh! I believe I underestimated how many little bitty things have to be decided to tear down - and then build back up - a 1500 square foot home.

Today's decision: The large wall in the basement is south facing. There are two small basement windows at the top of the wall that are going to be replaced. We have the option of enlarging both windows to full size by digging out a window well, chopping into the basement cinder block wall, and installing big windows. Do we do it?

The positives: more daylight in the basement will make it a much more enjoyable space to be in. Who doesn't like a "bright" basement. Full sized windows in the basement will enable us to create a legal apartment downstairs if we decide to keep this house as an income property. And finally, the price difference to dig out the windows is probably $1000; not a deal breaker.

The negatives: We'll probably be one of the only houses in the area to have larger windows. As previous posts has indicated, our neighborhood is not crime free. Bigger windows mean more opportunity for forced entry. And it feels like we are constantly over-budget for everything! Electrical, appliances, termite damage. It's only $1000 - but that's another $1000!!!!

I dunno... and I need to make a decision. Today. Chris and the contractor think yes. I think..... I'd rather decide what we're having for dinner.

It's coming...

There will be conditioned air - and it will be delivered efficiently! Oh compressor, oh furnace! How I love thee.

A Mixed Bag

It was an early start day so I had to be at the house at 7:30. Unfortunately, the crew arrived 45 minutes late and threw off my day until about 1:00. Amazing how 45 minutes can wreak that much havoc.

Anyway, they came and weren't prepared to do what I needed to have done immediately so that resulted in a spirited discussion with the contractor about how we need to find a way to communicate better so I know that things are going to get done as expected.

We then had a meeting with a company, Amicus Green Building Center , who can recommend products to tighten up the house so it uses less utilities and such as well as sustainable or green options. Honestly, it was kind of a superficial meeting but hopefully it will result in some good information.

The HVAC crew from Argent Heating and Cooling returned to begin the full installation of the equipment and we now have a sexy new central air unit hooked up. They didn't have the new ducts ready so they will be back tomorrow to hopefully finish up. Overall, they have done a stellar job and baring a glitch in interoffice communication things have gone pretty smoothly. I must say that the crew of technicians were some of the friendliest I've ever interacted with and I used to work in that sort of field so I have a little more experience than most. Looking forward to working with them again.

The contractor crew finished patching the cracks and holes in the foundation blocks and began removing the termite damaged section of the flooring and such. This is where an unfortunate surprise occurred. Not much more than a single board was completely eaten by termites but, due to the way the house was constructed with that board going diagonally across the floor, we have to tear up 60% of the nice original hardwood floor to fix it. I've also spied what appears to be another damaged board that runs through the remaining flooring so it appears that we may lose 100% of the living room hardwood floor. That is a bummer.

I will post pictures after tomorrow reveals just how extensive the damage is but as Butterfinger from Hudson Hawk would say, "Coach, looks bad!"

No more wallpaper (or walls for that matter)

A big shout out to Mike for helping with the removal of wallpaper. He's quite a steamer :-)

Turns out that the removed wallpaper smells nearly as bad as the removed sub floor. So let me just say it out right: Everything smells in my new home. And by smells, what I really mean is STINKS.... badly. I own a stinky house. And for those who know me, I'm weird about smells. It's taking all my will power not to put glade plug ins all throughout the house. But then it would just smell like flowery stink. Which is not really all that much better.

So for the time being, my interim house renovation goal is to achieve an acceptable level of smell... or lack of smell, as the case may be. Wish us luck.

We've bounced back

So - Monday was a total bummer. But Tuesday has been better. At least on the house front :-) The HVAC team showed up this morning and started the heating and cooling overhaul. They promise that our house will be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It better be since I'm giving up one third of my kitchen pantry and more than half of my upstairs linen closet for new ducts and air returns.

While the HVAC guys were doing their job, Chris was attacking the multi-layers of wallpaper that cover nearly the entire house. Scrape, steam, scrape: repeat! Every wall, in every room. And on the ceiling [who puts wallpaper on the ceiling???]. Talk about sweat equity!!!! Pictures coming soon... who thought that bare plaster walls could look so good?

In other news - we learned something interesting today. Chris tore up the sub-floor in the kitchen yesterday as part of his "destruction therapy." This morning, when he opened up the house, the was a distinct lack of smell. For those of you who have been in the house you can attest - there is a distinct bouquet that permeates throughout the entire place. Turns out that the horrible house stench was emanating - in part - from the sub-floor in the kitchen. While I wouldn't go as far as to say that the house smells good, it sure smells better. And that's a good thing.

Energy efficiency audit planned for Thursday morning. Should be fun!

This is why Monday's shouldn't exist

Today started out with things seemingly off for others but not for me. Luckily for me, I was soon to be on the same page with everyone else.

Got to the job site at 8:00 and got to work stripping wallpaper while waiting for the two crews to show up. At 9:00 nobody had shown and I started calling around to find out what was going on so I could plan the rest of the day.

My contractor told me that he was not sending anyone because they were stuck at another job. That was fine. I didn't really need them today. Then the HVAC guy told me that he made a mistake in scheduling and had me down for next month instead of today. No big deal as long as he can get started this week, which he could. I then talked to Steph who told me that she was having a crap day at work with no good stuff on the horizon.

So overall, everyone was having a bad day and now I had the day to myself. That would be my bane.

You see I decided to go get the wheelbarrow tire fixed because it had sprung a leak. So I locked up the house and went to the place where I bought it last week. They told me they couldn't help me so I had to go to Home Depot. Instead of getting back to the house in 15 minutes, I ended up being gone from 11-12:30.

When I got back to the house I went to charge my cell phone and couldn't find the charger. It took me a second to figure out why but then it hit me - where are my tool batteries...and where is the third bag of tools. They are gone! SHIT! (by far the nicest word coming out of my mouth for the next half hour)

It appears that I was seduced by the idea of moving from a transitional neighborhood to a nice quiet one and left my front window open. So while I was gone, someone came up on my front porch, crawled through the window, put all but one charger and battery in a tool bag, grabbed the bag and a drill I bought yesterday, and opened up the back door and left.

Luckily, it was only one person or I would have lost all of my tools. Needless to say, it appears that someone was watching the house because today was the first day when I was alone. Now, I have moved all of the tools I can't carry to and from the job site daily and hidden them in a booby trapped closet in the master bedroom. If that fails to deter, I'll get a little more medieval.

A $1,300 lesson learned. I hope it doesn't happen again because we are months away from finished.

Oh, and I did fix the wheelbarrow. (Plus, removed most of the tiles on the basement floor with a sledgehammer - for therapy of course)

Demolition is complete

Yesterday was the final day of demo work. We finished removing both bathrooms and the screen porch. The workers had a difficult time moving the tub to the first floor due to it being a 1/2" cast iron design but they did succeed without damaging anything. Well, at least I didn't see the damage if it exists.

Our formal architectural plans were approved yesterday and we have our building permit. Now we will move on to preparing the house for framing and painting. The upcoming week will include installation of the new HVAC system, repairing the termite damage, and patching and waterproofing the basement walls.

I am investigating some drywall options from Serious Materials (www.seriousmaterials.com) that have eco, soundproofing, and insulating qualities. Hopefully they will get back to me with a local dealer so that I can determine if it is cost effective.

Thursday I measured for new windows and began the process of getting quotes. With the majority of windows already replaced we will be spending less money on materials but a lot more on labor due to the poor initial installation. In the end, we will have a house full of dual pane, LowE glass windows that should help control energy costs.

Can't wait to see them in action.

A BIG day

Today was the first day with a small crew from the contractor. It was apparent early on that there is a reason they do this professionally. After a 10 hour shift, with a small lunch break, they demolished an entire floor and some of another. For perspective, my nephew and I finished the basement demo that has been going on for five days. Granted, the basement is more involved but as you can see from the pictures, they don't mess around.

After tomorrow, I expect to have most if not all of the demolition completed. Not bad for only owning the house for six days.

We received the first drawings from the architect last night and are having him make some changes due to a couple of errors. They should be finalized tomorrow which means we can get the construction permits and get the real party started. That also means we get to pick out cabinets. I'm sure that will a simple task.........

The HVAC is scheduled to be installed at the beginning of next week and I believe that will be at the same time that framing will be in full swing. All in all, a great start to the week. I hope it all goes this smoothly. (Commencing the biting of the tongue)