Go figure!

So we're adding that 1/2 bath upstairs in the mudroom...getting ready to drill the holes for the plumbing and low and behold...the floor joist is SMACK DAB in the middle of where the toilet drain needs to go.  GO FIGURE!  So here is how we worked around that.  (see the string in the middle...that's the center of the toilet drain)  Things were going pretty smoothly until we had to double that joist (in the top of the picture). 

 

In order to get the 16' joist up and attached to the other one, we had to move an old giant deep freeze that was left in the house when we bought it.  It was sitting on an elevated concrete pad, about 4" tall.  Well...it HAD to be moved, so Kade, not thinking about what he was doing, grabbed the front bottom corner of the pallet that it was sitting on...gave it a good tug...and pulled it right on to the floor pinching his fingers between the deep freeze and the concrete floor!!  YIKES!!  I can't even begin to imagine how much it hurt!  He quickly stood up and said..."I'm done", "I can't do anything else tonight!"  I told him that Dad and I would finish up...he just needed to sit down for a few minutes and then we'd go home and get some ice.   He started to get REALLY pale...and I mean PALE!  I told him to keep talking to me while we finished it up.  So Dad and I were working quickly....and I kept turning around to keep Kade talking when all of the sudden his face went blank...I jumped down off of the platform cause I was pretty sure of what was going to happen...and it did....he passed out on us!  Let me make note here...that I DO NOT deal with stuff like that very well, lol, so I was freaking out!  Got over to Kade, held his head up, tried to keep him from falling off of the stairs...Dad got over there and helped me shake him a bit...finally the color came back into his face (we're talking, it was like someone just poured a bunch of color on him and filled him right back up) and then he started to come back to us.  I ran to get him some water and cool him off, he was burning up at this point.  I guess from all that pain he had a rush of adrenaline and out he went!  UGH!!  He's NOT allowed to do that again...scared me half to death!  The only funny thing about any of it was after we got home and got him some ice...and he was telling me what happened...he said the first thing he thought when he came to was...Darrell (that's my Dad)....why are you so close to me?? lol.  Oh brother.  I'm just thankful that he's ok...nothing's broken, and I'm praying that he doesn't do anything like that again!!!

We did it!!

This morning we took down the rest of the old stairs....this is the true test!  If the new stringers don't work then we're in trouble...we'll have to use a ladder to go to the basement or to come upstairs!  Not easy to do while carrying tools, ha ha!

Look at that hole!  Mom wasn't a fan I can tell you that!  She's afraid of heights and even this bothered her!  I'm so glad I didn't get that gene!

LOOK!!!  NEW STAIRS!!  With temporary plywood treads!!

We even managed to shorten the actual run of the stairs by 3"!  YES!!

Look at those beauties!!  lol!  Who knew I'd be so excited about stairs!!  I actually think I'm more excited by the fact that we did them correctly...and on the first try!

Now we've got to move a floor joist below the new 1/2 bath.

Wouldn't you know it's dead center on where the toilet drain needs to go??

Are we ready to drywall yet??  (Ha, not quite, it's gonna be awhile!)

The Stair Saga....

Ok..maybe it wasn't REALLY a saga, lol.  It has really been worry us however.  I realize that we can just go buy new 2x12's, but who wants to be wasteful??  That would be one pretty pricy campfire!  So...we have planned....and planned...and measured....and planned....and calculated...and it's finally go time.  We spent about 4 hours today measuring and drawing out our lines before we even made one cut...no kidding!

Oh my....cuts have been made...

Look...only 3 sets of lines!!  That's not TOO bad!

Oh my gosh...look...we have a stringer!!  But is it right??

Let's put it up by the old stairs and just see...

We're supposed to have 10" treads and 7.5" risers, this will put them in code...

The old stairs had 9.25" treads and 7" risers...so they were a little short.

Well would you look at that....perfectly LEVEL!!  We did it!!  (and we actually did it RIGHT!!)

 

By 10:30 PM we finally had 3 stringers!!  HALLELUJAH!!

Good grief, that only took us 7 hours!!  That's it for today!

Too much stress and worry has worn us out!  We'll have to put them up tomorrow!

And I shopped some MORE!!!

Shopping actually seems like just about all I've been doing lately.  Mostly for lighting and tile, but there are plenty of other things in between that I've been trying to pick out too.  I've found some inspiration over the last several months...a lot of them are leaning toward a vintage style...not retro, but vintage.  I've got 2 clawfoot bathtubs that I bought over 10 years ago...and Kade has agreed to let me use one of them in the master bathroom!  YEAH!  Here are a couple bathrooms that I really like...

I love this floor...think that's what we're going to do!

For some reason this is one of my fav's!  Thinking about trying to make a "vanity" like this one...

Wish we had bigger bathrooms so that we could do double pedestals...cute!

 

I really like the beadboard too, so we'll probably do that on the wall in the master bath and possibly the half bath.

Found this a Home Depot!  Can't believe it's only 2.57!  Yeah!

Can you even begin to believe that this is the light that I think I want in the master bathroom?  (with the clawfoot tub)  It's got a vintage romantic look about it.  For some reason I love it!

 

This to go above the mirror in there...I think those two would go together alright.

Then here's some other lighting that I really think I like...and for different places around the house...

For the entry, just inside the front door.

This one to put above the stairs to the basement.  (So you'll be able to see it from the entry, dining room, kitchen and sitting area upstairs.)

I think this would be cute in the half bath over the pedestal sink.  It's got an oil rubbed bronze finish.

I also had to check out the railing parts...it's expensive to do stairs!!  I guess these are what we'll be going with.  I love the square Newel posts for sure.  I hope everything isn't starting to look super "Missiony" in style.  Hmmmm.

 

Gotta have a shoerail.  I don't want to have to dust around every spindle that hits the floor. (Guess that means I'll just have to dust around every spindle that hits the shoerail, lol)

 

Wish I could just build my own newel posts....I am actually considering this one!

Next is the stairs....now that the termite wall is down it is time!!

Why does this task bother me so much?

More Shopping

I have to admit it...I'm not much of a girl when it comes to shopping.  Maybe it would be different if we were millionaires and I could just buy whatever I wanted and never have to work, however, we're just not that lucky  :)

I went shopping again today to look at bathroom lights and continue my hunt for bathroom vanities that aren't out of a box.  Don't get me wrong...there is NOTHING wrong with a vanity out of a box...I'm just looking for something that's a little more "me".

The options were pretty blazay to say the least...

When I got back home I went on a hunt for something to use as stair treads.  The flooring that we picked is handscraped antique walnut....GORGEOUS!!  However, I just can't see putting up nice new stair treads to go with it!  That's NOT the mix of old and new that I'm looking for!  So I went scrounging in the barn and here's what I found...(ok, so I knew it was there...just hadn't thought about using it for stair treads!)

About 12 years ago my Dad had some old oak trees rough cut on the property.  It's been drying in the barn loft since...so it could be perfect to use!

I drug home a smaller piece to try as a sample.  Found this one about 4' long and only about 8" wide.

Here's a closeup after I sanded on it with the belt sander for awhile....I LOVE how it's still got marks from the sawmill.  I know we can buy oak treads for $20 each...and I'm sure you're wondering...what kind of idiot tries to make their own stair treads....wellllll..... :)

I'm going to be honest, I don't always (or EVER) make rational decisions when it comes to projects and how much work they will be.  I'd really prefer that we use rough cut walnut for the treads, but that may not be possible...and since we're reusing the oak flooring that was upstairs down in the basement, then I still think that I could make this work.  Who cares if it takes me days, lol!

I HATE BUGS!!

No, I'm not a girly girl going to scream about an ant crawling across the counter!!  TERMITES!!  How can such a small bug do so much damage?  We took down the old termite infested side wall tonight on the side of the stairs.  It came down rather easy since probably 50% of it was completely shredded to bits!

That 2x4 on the top is doing NO good now!

Look at that...like swiss cheese boards!

What we were left with after the wall came down.  We knew we'd have to take down more of the stairs...and we were wanting to rework the stairs anyway....I guess now is our chance!

Finally...all of the damage is gone!  One stringer completely destroyed as well.

Maybe we should keep these stairs??  NOT!  Next job...figure out and cut the new stringers...ugh!  I am not excited about that at all.  Stairs get cut wrong ALL the time...and we've never done them, so I'm a little concerned!  We're really testing our skills on some of these jobs!

More Framing

Now we've got all of the walls up for the new full bath off of the hallway, the closet for the middle bedroom, the master bath and walk in closet in that room AND the main floor laundry/pantry/and 1/2 bath.  Still need to finish installing the frames for the pocket doors though.  That'll be interesting...those frames look so flimsy! 

New full bathroom on the right, middle room closet on the left.

Doorways for the master bathroom & walk in closet!

Next we're moving to the basement.  Taking the termite wall out and rebuilding the stairs.  Oh brother...can we put drywall up yet??  lol.  NOT QUITE!!  But I'm really ready to see that change!

Hey...Who turned out the lights?

We got the rest of the new bathroom walls and just about all of the new closet up tonight before....you guessed it...the lights went out!  Let me just say that a house under construction is NOT the place to be with no lights on!  It really was time to quit and eat dinner anyway, so we closed up and got outta there!  Hopefully the power won't be out for long....

This is the best I could do with no lights!!  :)

We've Got New Walls!

I mean ACTUAL NEW WALLS!!  :)  Walls that weren't there before!!  Actually....now we can call it main floor laundry, mudroom, clutter room and a half bath!!  Yeah....well....ok, we still need to add another wall and the pocket doors to complete the framing of the half bath!

 

View from the sunroom doors. (the back of the house)  The kitchen will be to the left.  We have to move the door coming in from the garage over to the right a couple feet still.

 

View from the front door.  The wide part is the laundry/clutter/pantry and the narrow part will be the mudroom and the half bath.

 

I have to say....we can build a very impressively square wall, lol!!  When I'm not behind the camera I am actually working my buns off.  I love this part of remodeling!  Finally seeing some change!  I could work all day and half the night!!  Hopefully we'll finish up framing by Friday night and we can move on to plumbing & HVAC!  Oh...I forgot we've still go to rebuild the wall on the side of the stairs where the termites did all of their damage!  Gerrrr.... Maybe framing will be finished up on Sunday....

Dang!!

Well shoot...we totally forgot to get the pocket door frames when we bought the lumber, so I had to run to Home Depot and pick them up today.  I stopped and visited with a friend on the way...took Jimmy John's to another friend and had lunch....got a little Valentine surprise in my Jimmy Johns chips  :)

Isn't that the cutest thing?  It was right there on top when I opened the bag!

A little heart!

Dang I just love Jimmy John's, lol!

This is all we got done tonight!  It took awhile to figure out the TERRIBLE directions that came with the pocket door frames!  We framed the two walls that will actually hold the pocket doors.  Tomorrow we will stand them up and frame the wall for the bathroom and the back wall to the laundry room!  Those will be pretty easy.  We'll see what else we can get done.  Is it terrible that I wish Kade would get a snow day so we could just work all day long??  Not much gets done when you're just there a few hours.  You spend half of that time getting your tools ready and figuring out what you've actually got to do!  COME ON SNOW DAY!!  :)  We've gotta get this room done asap!  They're coming Thursday morning at 9 to do the measuring for the kitchen, mudroom and laundry/clutter room!

Ahhhh....the smell of fresh cut lumber!

That's the smell when you open the door at the new house now....and that means that change is in the air!  :)  (that makes me happy!)

My work station for the day!  This is the kind of work I really enjoy doing!

Here's the new master bath/closet view from inside the bedroom..just a few more things to do here.  I can't wait to see my clawfoot tub in that bathroom!  YEAH!  I've been saving it for like 10 years!

New view from the back bedroom.  The new wall is up with the 3 doorways (2 bedroom doors and the NEW full bathroom!  YES!!!)  We still need to frame in the bathroom and closet.

Hallway view from the front bedroom.  The stud in the middle at the end of the hallway closed up the old entry to the only bathroom on the main floor.

 

This is the new entrance to the hallway from the front door.  It went from 32" to 57".

That REALLY helped make it feel more "open" there!

More framing to do tomorrow.  A framing crew would be nice about now!

Let's Build Something!

We got our delivery of framing lumber this morning....and the delivery truck got stuck in the yard, lol!  Kade had to pull him out with our truck.  Gotta love it!  We definitely need to expand the driveway turn around/parking area.  It's just not big enough for trucks!!

I caught the end of it!  Our truck pulled the delivery truck sideways before pulling it back onto the road.

Here's the old bathroom - turning into the master bath and a walk in closet!

There's Kade framing up the master closet door.

We got a little bit done today....rehabbing is so much more difficult than starting from scratch!!  Tomorrow...more framing!

Planning, Planning, Planning...

That's ALL we've done this week.  Cleaned and planned!!  Planned, and then planned some more!!  Today we went over to RP Lumber and got prices on some stuff that we need...and ordered the lumber so that we can start our framing!  YEAH!!  It'll be here sometime in the morning...let's get movin'!

Invention Please!!

I need someone to invent a super dust sucking vacuum for demolition  :)  It needs to get all the tiny drywall and plaster particles!!  All I did today was clean up piles, pull nails and VACUUM!!  It's amazing how long it takes to Vacuum 1750 sq. ft.!!  I think I might have gotten half done and it took me over 3 hours!  Yuck!  I can't tell you how bad I wanted to just get my Dyson out and walk around instead of using the shop vac with the angle tip and crawling all over the place!  It looks a little better I guess...

We did decide to leave the plaster in the hall closet and the front bedroom.  There wasn't anything wrong with it and it'll be a tiny bit of drywall that we won't have to do  :)  Every little bit helps!

Tomorrow...more vacuuming!  Hopefully framing by this weekend...YEAH!!!