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Thursday, January 31, 2008

More pics of finishing the dry wall

This is Matt, Rick and Jason. I took the picture I was standing in the dining room looking west into the livingroom.


Will's secret room.


Will's room, his bookshelf.
Will's room, his shelf.


Picture from front door in living room, looking into the den, (north).

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Dry Wall Crew

Upstairs hallway facing east.


Livingroom facing south, front door is to the right.


Bookshelf downstairs, at the bottom of the stairs. It is a lot larger than it appears.

Our barrel ceiling.


Upstairs hallway facing west looking into our bedroom, Will's bedroom is to the left. The brick furnace is straight ahead and the linen closet and bath are on the right.


Kristen's bookshelves and closet. Look at her ceiling.

We hired a crew to do the drywall. They have done an excellent job. In two days they got all the dry wall up and the first coat of mud up. Everyday Jason has been to Menards, Lowes, and/ or Tractor supply getting more equipment for this project. It was a lot bigger than anyone expected.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Will's room

Will's south east side of his room with the bookshelf going into the secret room


Will's closet and looking into the secret room.


Will in the same corner of his room now with more dry wall.


The southwest corner of Will's room. Notice the curved ceiling.


The north side of Will's room looking into the hallway, the ceiling is vaulted and has a curved shelf.

Well the guys started on Will's room, they made a lot of progress, but it will take them way too long. We have to move in before March 1st, due to me not wanting to pay a mortgage payment and a rent payment. After a lot of discussion we decided to get estimates for a dry wall crew to come thru and finish everything.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Matt always there to help out

Living room, starting to come togethor.

Matt has helped Jason almost every day Jason has gone to the house. He has helped with everything, demo, electric. He wired all telephone lines to every room, HD cable lines to every room, and he wired the speaker wires in the living room. They have fixed pipes togethor. He hung insulation, he hung dry wall, he supervised our help. All three of them, Jason, Matt and Rick did so much more than I know, because I only came once a week for about 10 minutes to look at how things were going. Matt is in the construction business and is branching out on his own. If you need any remodeling, he is the person to call. He has helped kept Jason on task, and helped immensely with our time line. He is reliable! Thanks Matt!! And thanks to his family, Whitney and Aiden for allowing him to help so much.

Rick's woodworking skills






Rick did a lot of special projects. He vaulted Will's ceiling which you will see, later. He raised the upstairs hallway ceiling by a foot, which is in pictures 2 and 3. He arched our bedroom ceiling which is the 1st picture. The last two pictures are of Kristen's arched book cases and her new closet. Her bedroom initially had a broken back door to the outside, and was 16 feet long, Rick shortened the room by 18 inches and made the closet bigger and made these bookshelves. Rick did a lot in Will's room, he has a curved trophie shelf, a bookcase, a special closet and secret room. He also made 3 more closets/ and one more arched shelf for me, so they can be for linen closets and all our nic nacs/ or chatchkes (as said on HGTV). Thanks Rick!!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Still working on insulation, wood, and electric

This is our bedroom, used as the workroom, for a while.


This is in the kitchen looking into dining room and into the living room. The vent and pole will be gone soon.


This is the opposite of the picture prior, from the living room, thru the dining room into the kitchen, notice the pole, and vent are gone and the lights in the kitchen are new.



This is Will's closet, used as storage. Will started off with a 6 x 12 closet with nothing in it. Rick made an opening in the middle for Will's chest of drawers, and the two sides of wood are for hanging and shelves. Then while the guys were demolishing in Will's room they found a secret attic space. It is now attached to Will's closet, with a lightswitch and some plugs for him to have his toys and to play in. Rick also made Will a bookshelf by pushing into that space about a foot.


This is looking from the hall into our bedroom. We are going to expose the brick for the furnace showing, and to the right of that is a special linen closet.





Tuesday, January 1, 2008

After lots of cleaning we have just 2x4's left inside






Top picture is in the dining room looking into the hallway, into the blue bathroom, heading north. They used it as a storage room, all the trim they will re-use is in there.
2nd picture is the living looking thru the dining room, and into the kitchen, heading east. As you can see some of the walls are gone, we opened the whole wall, from the dining room into the kitchen, and will move the furnance vent. There are also two brick chimneys that were in the house when we bought it, that are no longer functional. They tore down one, because it did not go to the roof, when they put the new roof on. Which was between the dining room and kitchen, that is gone, that was a huge mess. The second one is staying it is in the center of the house and goes all the way up thru the roof. That brick will be completely enclosed on the first floor and exposed on the 2nd floor, in the hallway.
The 3rd picture is from the den into the living and dining rooms heading south/ east. The front door is to the right. They will also be opening up that doorway a little.
The 4th picture is Kristen's room facing her door and the stairs, intot he hallway and dining room, heading south/ west.
The 5th is a picture taken from the living room into the den, heading north, from about where the front door is. The den opening from where the den doorway is will be about double that, where that wood ladder is.

We have a mess






Jason along with our two friends Matt and Rick did everything, on the whole project. They have been at the house every weekend for over 10 hours per day, and they go over there at least 3 nights a week after they have been working their day jobs. We hired 2-4 guys on some of the weekends to help with the demo and cleaning. It is a BIG mess. Thank goodness we weren't living there at the time. There was pretty much no insulation upstairs, but betwen the downstairs and upstairs in the ceiling was celulose insulation that came down when the took the ceiling down. I went to visit on christmas eve with my parents, there was over 12 inches of celulose, plaster, wood and nails on the ground on the whole first floor. The bathroom and kitchen countertops had at least 3-4 inches of dust on them. I decided that after Santa came on christmas and my parents took Will and Kristen to the Holiday Inn Pool/ Hotel for the night that Jason and I would try to clean up some of the house. We cleaned on Christmas, we paid some guys to take out the big trash the next weekend and 4 guys worked 16 hours each, and they got a lot done. Then Jason, Will and I went back on New Years Day and cleaned some more, I was able to see the countertops and floors by the end of New Years Day!!! The picture right above this looked fairly good compared to what my parents and I saw on Christmas eve, we were in shock and I thought it would never been cleaned.