It hangs with pride next to the pictures of our house that the county had taken in previous years.

We are also putting in two raised beds for a veggie garden next year. I thought about larger or more beds, but honestly that just leads down the path to crazytown. I am not a diligent enough gardener to give myself too much room to play in. One bed will be all greens and salad makings, the other will be.. well all the rest of stuff you put in a garden: Potatoes, onions, carrots, that sort.

It’s been a slow process, and we are only half done. But it is the winter project. Cause you know, we just needed a little something to keep us busy while we finished the kid’s room remodel, and raised said kid, and all the other crazy stuff you do.

Good times

After pruning with the shears

Post chainsaw

After cleanup

Now to fill in the bare zone with grass seed (I’m overseeding the whole lawn this week sometime). Maybe I can even get out the sawzall and cut the stump down even further.

The back bedroom project is still underway, though. After gutting it back in March and April, we pretty much ran out of time and money. In May I was able to get all the framing done: I filled in the existing exterior door, framed two windows, added a real closet, and created a rough door opening where the end of the hallway once was. In June or thereabouts I was able to buy a roll of wire and run the almost all the electrical. And there I stopped for a couple of months.

Luckily, Jen had some stock options from her job that became sellable in August, so we finally had the money to get all the remaining stuff. Last week I took advantage of some time off work and finished the rough electrical and had it inspected (passed except for one minor issue with the closet light fixture placement). I also installed the folding attic stairs (I was able to do it entirely myself with the assistance of our drywall lift — thanks Jen!)

This morning, I went to Home Depot and ordered all the plywood, drywall, joint compound, doors, tar paper, light fixtures, switches, receptacles, etc. that I’ll need to complete (almost) everything. It gets delivered on Tuesday, so I get to spend this weekend doing everything that I can get done short of having the materials on hand: clean up the room, fill in all the floor/ceiling holes with firestop foam, pull the vinyl siding off the relevant sections of wall, flash the rough window openings, etc.

No pictures for this post, but I’ll take plenty as I work on everything next week.

• Gut down to the studs
• Frame in the door to the outside
• Add a window to that wall
• Take out the existing closet wall and move the doorway back to the bathroom wall
• Add a real closet and a reading nook
• Rewire properly
• Add attic stairs to the hallway ceiling
• Lay down a plywood floor in the attic for storage
• New drywall and moldings

Before

Saturday we had a lot of social appointments, so I only had time to pull down all the trim and moldings.

Casings down

Window casings too

Sunday I got out the big prybar and framing hammer and took down all the tongue and groove boards on the walls. I’ve pulled all the nails out and I’m hoping to be able to get something for them on Craigslist.

The hallway

The closet

Outside walls

Kitchen wall

Interestingly, the shared wall to the kitchen shows two framed-in doorways, one narrow and one normal size. I suspect that originally the hallway ended in a linen closet and the access to the back bedroom was through the kitchen approximately where the wall ovens are now. Supporting this theory is the fact that the vertical framing around the current bedroom doorway is kinda rough-sawn and that the stud on the kitchen wall opposite the end of the bathroom wall has lots of nail holes in it.

Oh, and also, apparently nobody who ever worked on this house ever heard of a header over windows and doors. The existing doorway is non-load bearing and so doesn’t need one, but the existing window, outside door, and framed-in doors on the kitchen wall are all on exterior or load-bearing walls. None of them have any more than the top plate 2×4. It’s a wonder this house isn’t sagging more than it already is.

Sometime this week I’ll take an hour and pull down and bag up all the blown-in insulation in the walls. Then next Saturday I knock down the closet wall and pull down the ceilings. That means a huge pile of rockwool insulation on the floor so that might be all I can get done in a day.

Pulling nails amid the pile of junk lumber

I also need to get my permit renewed so I can be all proper and legal.

And wow I can’t wait until I can replace all the electrical nightmares I uncovered. If Mike Holmes’ electrician were to come see my basement, he’d have conniptions — hidden junctions, wires hanging loose, unprotected tie-ins, etc. I’ll be salvaging all the romex wiring and using it to rig up temporary lights, switches, and sockets, and getting rid of all the old conduit. This will also get me one step further toward retiring the old electrical panel.

Anyway, here’s the photos of the rubbish pile. I forgot to take a “before” picture, so I have a “halfway” and an “after” picture:

Halfway gone -- notice the 19 cu. yd. truck full of stuff

All gone! That's the second (full) truck in the opposite driveway

(There’s actually a little bit of rubbish left behind the pergola, but that’s stuff left over from the previous owners that was covered by morning glory.)

Next on the list is remodding the back room and hallway. It’s almost all cleaned out — all the furniture is moved to the library — and so next weekend I can do the demo, and then in the second half of the month when we have more money I can start putting it back together. I’m sure it’ll be easier than the bathroom.

The universe must have must heard my screams of hatred. I hated that fridge so much I can’t even tell you.

hate.

hate.hate.hate.

And now it goes to live in the basement like it should.

That means I can really get going with renovating the upstairs without having to worry anymore. Next on the list: the back bedroom and hall.

Basement stairs, looking north. Headroom is 58"

Step 1: Knocked down the existing stairs. Pretty easy work with a hammer and a prybar. I really did this simultaneously with step 2, since it was easiest to install most of the joists while sitting on the stairs, but the last two had to be after taking out the stairs and lifted over my head. (Have I mentioned that I have biceps for the first time in my life?)

Step 2: Sister the cut joists with fresh 2x8s. I had to use pressure-treated wood since there is no sill plate on top of the foundation and the joists would be resting directly on concrete. And since I didn’t trust pure sistering, I cut them long enough to sit on the girder in the middle of the room. I followed Mike Holmes’ advice and glued and screwed them to the existing joists and toe-screwed them into the rim joist. This is where having the One Drill To Rule Them All really came in handy.

Step 3: Put down the subfloor. This step is a little out of order since I had to get it done before the in-laws showed up that evening; I would have rather done all the blocking first. I forgot to use adhesive on the joists, so I doubled up the screws to 6″ apart throughout.

Step 4: Take out the half walls around the edge. Easier said than done, because although each wall had only about three studs in it and could be wobbled by hand about an inch either way, they were put together with a really excessive number of 3″ screws.

Step 5: Insulate the rim joist using doubled-up pieces cut out of a 2″ thick Foamular 250 board for a total of R-20, and seal the edges with expanding foam. I made sure to take photos of every joist bay to prove to the inspector that I insulated, since you wouldn’t be able to see it after the next step.

Step 6: Install blocking around the edge of the subfloor patch to support the edges. Because of where the main water pipe runs under the old top of the stairs I couldn’t maneuver in notched 2×8 blocking, so I put in 2x6s against the subfloor and then cut and hammered in 1″-2″ pieces of the pressure-treated board to fill between the 2×6 and the foundation. It’s a little squishier than the rest of the patched area but well within tolerance.

Step 7: Cut a piece of birch plywood to act as a finish floor until we can afford to have the hardwood patched in and refinished by a contractor. I tried really hard to get an exact fit — I taped paper over the patch and marked the edge of the hole by crayon rubbing, and then cut out the template and transferred it to the plywood — but since I don’t have a jigsaw and it’s really rather difficult to match a wandering line with a circular saw, the patch is off by up to half an inch. Sigh.

Step 8: Rearrange furniture to suit.

And that’s where it stands today. There’s still a whole bunch of debris in the basement I haven’t lugged out to the ever-growing junk pile. And I’d like to stain the plywood “oak” color to match the rest of the floor, but I am stain-illiterate and I’m worried I’d make a huge mess for a crappy result.

Eventually, I’m going to build a new set of stairs where the old front entry/current walk-in closet is, but that’s going to require a hell of a lot of structural work, with steel posts and concrete saws and LVL beams and so on, not to mention lots of exacting finish carpentry. I have a good book on the subject, and I have a Google Sketchup model about halfway completed, but it’ll still be after next year’s tax return before I can even think of taking it on.