Coming Down the Home Stretch

It is now two weeks from when they started and the drywall job is still not done – but they promised me it would be done tomorrow so we’ll see! The room is actually starting to look real good and I find myself considering wall color options. If all goes well we’ll be priming and painting all weekend…well … after we spend a few hours cleaning up the white dust that seems to be everywhere in the house!

What do I do about an unreliable contractor?

The drywaller showed up on time – amazing! He didn’t keep his measurements from when he bid the job so he took the measurements again, inspected the job site and pronounced it good to go with minor shimming. He drove off to pick up the supplies and came back with half of the drywall, which he unloaded and stored on our front porch. He said he’d be back the next day with the remaining dry wall and would stay and get going on hanging it. Meanwhile I cleared the path from the front porch up to the room…the disorganization begins. My second least favorite part of living on a construction site is moving things out of the way, which then interferes with living. My least favorite thing is the mess that construction makes, especially the fine white dust from sanding drywall. I need to plan things to do for the next week to live peacefully through this phase of the project!! Fortunately the kitchen will not be impacted so meals can proceed as normal.
One week later...
It is now a week later from the first day the drywaller showed up and the drywall is still not hung! This kind of unreliability is why we are DIYers! He shows up each work day with some story of important personal things he has to do and then puts in a couple of hours work. The project schedule is affected as we missed the "Drywall finished" milestone, which is a prerequisite for the rest of the tasks on this project! Meanwhile my schedule is seriously affected as I am taking off from work and juggling appointments to accommodate him and his “alleged” schedule. I had hired him before and he does excellent work but I forgot how unreliable he is with his promised timeline. So I’m stuck with a conundrum – If I voice my anger and frustration I risk igniting his temper and I’m in the house alone with him and his helper; if I continue to be nice, he most likely will continue to take advantage of the situation and blow me off. Hmm…what’s a girl to do?

Ice Dams and Insulation

The Importance of Insulation
Turns out the demo work we did in this part of the house caused some unforeseen problems in other parts of the house. So much warm air was leaking into the attic from the demo area that we ended up with ice dams along the roof edge and consequently water was coming inside. Not in the room we are working on but in the first floor kitchen and enclosed front porch. What a mess! A whole section of porch ceiling collapsed, icicles are hanging from the ceiling fan, furniture and rugs are covered in ice. [It hasn’t gotten above freezing in 10 days!] We finally figured out what was going on by talking to roofers and researching online. The snow melt patterns on the roof were the telltale signs of where more insulation was needed.

First we bought a roof rake and cleared as much of the snow off the first floor roof (front porch and kitchen). Then we sprinkled environmentally-friendly ice melt on the roof by tossing it out the second floor windows onto the roof. Then we headed back to Home Depot and rented the equipment to blow more insulation into the attic where it was needed – and we found lots of cubbies that were not insulated. My husband Chris was up in the attic with the hose and I was downstairs feeding bales of insulation into the hopper. The dust flying around was heavy so I got to use my new super-duper face mask that I got for a recent birthday gift. What a noisy contraption! I had to turn it off after each bale to see if he needed more. It took most of an afternoon to finish.

Back to the gutted room
We stapled insulation between all the studs and cut Styrofoam insulation to fit in the obvious places where air was still getting in to the attic. Then we stapled plastic over all the insulation as another air barrier. (It also acts as a moisture barrier for the drywall.)
When we returned the rented equipment, we picked up the replacement windows. They went in so easy it was amazing! We installed them in an hour and a half, working from the inside, since the room is on the second floor. We only installed two since the third one was not leaky and had a storm window.

How to Install a Double Hung Replacement Window

Remove the old window as follows:

• Remove trim boards. (Ours were off already since we removed them during the demo.)
• Remove parting stop and pull the lower sash out.
• Remove the next stop and pull out the upper sash.
• Remove the weights and insulate that cavity.

1. Position new window in the opening. If you measured correctly it should fit. In our case there wasn’t a stock size to match our opening so we got one that was the correct width and a bit shorter. We measured the gap and nailed a length of 1X3 to the top of the rough opening – perfect fit now!
   
2. Remove the top sash stops from the new window.
3. Place the window on the sill and lever it into the opening. Make sure it fits well and shim it if necessary to get it level.
   
4. Screw the enclosed screws into the window jab through the pre-drilled holes.
5. Remove the bottom sash stops and screw the two bottom screws in to the jamb.
6. Replace all four sash stops, which cover up the screw heads.
7. Insulate all around the window.

The room is now ready for the drywall, and the attic is much colder! Rule of Thumb: your attic should be no more than 15 degrees warmer than the outside air.

The demolition is done!

The demo is done. It is such dirty, messy work – yuck! We tarped over the entrance to the room to control the dirt, which worked okay. We bagged all the debris and carried it to the curb. Lucky for us, the city takes whatever you put out as long as it is either bagged or under 5’ in length.
The bids are in and the rebuilding work has begun! The rough electrical work is completed and the bid from the drywaller was acceptable. Our tasks are the insulation and replacement windows. We bought the insulation and vent panels to install under the insulation (so the roof can breathe). We have 10 days before the drywaller starts to get the insulation up and the windows installed. It is 10 degrees outside and has been snowing for 50hours…not exactly a good time to pull out windows and put in new ones! But we don’t want to put the whole project on hold until Spring so we’ll soldier on! The forecast is for snow all week so we plan to do the windows next weekend. We can get the insulating done in the evenings after work.

We uncovered oak flooring and some bead board walls!

This week I went after the floor. I took a wide putty knife and pushed it under the corner of a tile and it popped right up. One after another, they came up in whole pieces! I threw them in small empty boxes so I could easily cart them downstairs and to the curb for the trash men. It took 1 hour to remove the vinyl squares and the floor looks great. These were peel and press tiles so there is no black glue on the wooden floor – just dirt that filtered down between the cracks. A light buffing should be fine, plus I have a nice room-size rug that will cover most of it anyway!
Meanwhile Chris disconnected the light fixtures in the old kitchen area. I called my electrician/plumber handy man to do some things now – cut the copper sink drain pipe level to the floor and cap it off; remove the gas pipe that runs from the basement to the old stove; and check out the electrical boxes and wiring for safety. He spent 3 hours completing those tasks – not bad!
We tore down the paneling in both rooms – a quick and easy job. Under the paneling in the kitchen area was original pine bead board, unpainted and aged to a beautiful color. Nice find - I’ll just clean it and polyurethane it later on.

We removed the door between the two rooms and discovered a vent pipe in the wall, which limits the size of the opening…but it is a wide enough opening to join the rooms visibly and functionally. On the drywall under the old paneling, some kid had written all over the wall. There were the stats from the sports page in May 1971 and other funny writings. We also found old newspaper stuffed in the wall from 1915. Since I know the house was built in 1900, this addition was probably added in 1915.

When we removed the drywall on the ceiling, we realized that we would be able to go with the vaulted ceiling as the studs were just installed to hold up the ceiling not the roof so they can come down.

Dismantling the Former Kitchen Area

The Kitchen Demolition Begins

I have no idea how they got that huge sink/metal cabinet combination in here! After disconnecting the drain and water supply, we had to take a reciprocating saw to it to get it out! And I thought we could salvage it and resell it!
I figured out how the upper cabinet was attached to the wall by trial and error. Chris was ready to yank it off the wall with a crow bar but I wanted to salvage it for use in my basement workshop. I unscrewed all the screws I could find inside the cabinet but it was still tightly attached to the wall. I figured there had to be some “invisible” brackets holding it up – what else could it be?! So I pushed up on the whole unit and it slid a bit. Hooray! Chris & I got under it, pushed up with our shoulders and it slid right off the wall. It took longer to figure out the bracket system than to remove it! We carried it down to the basement and cleaned up the demo site.

The Beginning of the End

I stumbled on a cool blog that motivated me to get going again since I’m getting restless now that the major work is done on this home renovation project. I decided to start in on the last piece of the renovation – the former studio apartment. The bathroom was finished in October so now on to the other two rooms of the apartment - the kitchen and combined bedroom/living room.

Before I begin the demolition, I want to formulate ideas of how to change the rooms for better functionality and aesthetics.

My dream for the rooms
Since the combo bedroom/living room is an addition, there is no attic above it which leads me to dream about a vaulted ceiling with a small loft over the old kitchen area. The ceiling is starting to fall down anyway so it has to go! The walls all need to come down because I figure under the ugly paneling will be awful drywall. I dream of smooth, white walls! No much to add, just some additional electrical outlets, and new lighting fixtures. I peeked under the vinyl flooring and it is oak that looks good. New replacement windows would be great since those are so leaky (and I love to be able to wash both sides of a second floor window from inside!) Now is the time to dream so I can figure out what I can afford to do. I have 2K left in the budget and could squeeze another 1K out of my next few paychecks. Can I renovate two rooms into one and decorate the room for $3000? I figure the new dry walling will be the major expense for this project.

First comes the demolition
Here’s the demo plan:

• Take out all remnants of the kitchen, which includes the sink, the wall cabinet, the gas line for the stove, the ugly paneling and florescent light fixture.
  
• Open up the doorway between the two rooms so it becomes one big room.
• Remove all the ugly paneling on the walls.
• Tear down any plaster and lathe that is in poor condition.
• Remove old drywall ceiling that is sagging.
  
• Pull up the vinyl floor tiles to expose the wood floor.

Next comes the bids from contractors
Here's what they need to do:

• Cut the copper drain pipe below the floor level and cap it off.
• Remove the gas pipe that runs from the basement to this second floor room.
• Check the wiring for safety and add a couple more outlets.
• Hang and finish drywall.

Here's what we can do:

• All the demolition (except the gas pie and drain).
  
• Insulate walls and ceiling.
• Replace 3 old drafty windows with new vinyl ones.
  
• Prime and paint walls.
• Replace window trim; sand and paint it.
• Buff the floors.

That's the dream and the plan so far!