We made some great progress this week on our project!
[x] Carpets ordered!
[x] Hardwood flooring ordered!
[x] Primer sprayed upstairs!
[x] Paint selection underway
[x] Plumber meetings setup
[x] Electrician meeting and bid underway
[x] Office ceiling demo complete
[x] Subfloors in living room removed
[x] Half-bath demolished
[x] Play set demolished
[x] Bushes trimmed and waste cleanup in front yard
[x] Pressure washed driveway
The week started out with some fun... I purchased a Graco 370 Airless sprayer a while back and have been dying for a chance to try it out. I donned a paint suit and could barely wait for Shelly and Sarah to finish cleanup of the bedrooms before pulling the trigger. Shelly snapped a few photos of me in all my glory:
Those pink walls are history! As are the purple walls and the dark blue walls and the rag rolled brown in the master bedroom! A nice, neutral primer has taken their place, just waiting for a finish coat of paint.
Unfortunately, the paint suit was awesome and protected every square inch of me...with one exception. Imagine my surprise when I looked in the mirror afterward to find....
Speaking of paint, Shelly has been hard at work trying many samples and asking everyone who stops for input. I think she just about has it whittled down, but if you want to weigh in, stop by early next week!
We also got some giant orders in for carpet and hardwood flooring. The carpet we're going to have installed, I have no desire to do that myself, but the hardwood we are excited to install ourselves.
Pro tip: did you know that if you are making a big order from Home Depot you can ask for the super secret 'bid room'? I didn't even know such a thing existed, but if you're planning to spend thousands there, it might be worth a try. We asked for the bid room off a tip from one of the workers and it saved us 10% off our order, just for asking! In addition, we learned about the Pro Xtra program which is going to save us even more! They basically provide a bunch of services to help professionals and contractors manage and track their purchases and provide incentives, like up to 20% off paint, based on how much you spend. We'll definitely be qualifying for the discount, which will be nice when we order, say, 30 gallons of paint. :)
We met with our electrician this week to plan the changes we want to make to lighting, switches and the like. Wow, I didn't realize just how big the changes are until we talked through them, but we're talking about adding a dozen new lights, a half dozen switch changes and wiring for the new kitchen layout. Electrical changes this big are another one of those things we want to have a certified professional undertake. Not only will they do it faster, but they will also manage the entire permit and inspection process.
We did not have as much luck finding a plumber. It seems they are in short supply. I called 4-5, and I got one appointment to meet about the project, for next week. Two others said they would stop by sometime in the next few days, I take that as code for "not interested". We need our gas and water lines moved a few feet. If anyone knows a good plumber who does both gas and water, please let me know!
Anyway, while walking through the new office with the electrician I was reminded that we hadn't removed the 2x4 that held that faux ceiling in around the edge of the room. Some genius had face nailed the 2x4s into the floor and rim joists with about a bazillion nails, making it extremely difficult to remove. Seriously, we counted 24x 3-1/2 inch nails in one 8 foot 2x4 which we had to pry out, one inch at a time with our giant 3 ft crowbar. It took all of our strength and determination to remove them from all four walls.
One funny moment happened during the process. I turned my back for just a few seconds and when I turn around I see Sarah, hanging from the rafters! She was trying to pry one of the nails out of the floor joist and it got the best of her!
We had another major demo project this week which we didn't anticipate. We knew that the old office in the back of the house had some water damage, the sheet rock had been hastily mudded and the carpets were still wet when we pulled them up. The subfloor looked ok though, after a week it had a faint water ring around the edge, but otherwise felt sound just like the rest of the house.
A closer inspection, however, showed the subfloor had warped with small, 1/4 inch waves where the wet carpet had laid on it for who knows how long. It was barely noticeable, but given we are planning to lay hardwood flooring over this subfloor we decided we wanted it to be perfectly flat. We discussed this with our mentor and he agreed that they were worth replacing. So we pulled out the circular saw and cut through a 100 sq ft section of the subfloor, exposing the floor joists and the crawl space. This has the added advantage of making it easier for the plumber to route the gas line to this back wall to relocate the fire place!
Replacing subfloor is not a task I had anticipated, but was relatively straight forward. And now that we opened it up, I'm really glad that we took this step.
The floor joists underneath the wet subfloor are solid, but show the effects of allowing wet carpet to lay unmitigated. We're going to leave this open for a week to allow them to air out and spraying them down with bleach to inhibit mold growth before replacing them with new subfloor.
Shelly used her childhood gymnastic skills and walked the joists like a balance beam back and forth across the room as we pulled up section of wood. And when scraps fell down into the crawl space, she would dive her head down into the abyss and pull them back up. I couldn't help snap a photo of this beautiful partner of mine hard at work! :)
We plan to remove the siding from the back wall in this space and inspect for mold as well... we know the sheathing in this area of the house will almost certainly have to be replaced, so we'll be taking the wall down to the studs in this whole area to ensure it is sound and any signs of mold are fully mitigated.
Today we got some surprise help which accelerated the rest of our completion list by about 3-4 days, but Shelly's got that story coming soon.. stay tuned! :)