Mud Fight!...Well, not really.

The mudding for the drywall has been progressing.  Both the Nursery and Guest Room might be complete by the end of today.  Jim and his mother are currently upstairs mudding as I type.  I'm not much use to them at the moment since I am now 32 weeks pregnant.  I'm not allowed on ladders, and I can't bend over easily; so I would just be able to mud in the middle.  LOL!  I would just be in the way.

Here is a shot of them that I took this morning in the Nursery.

After the bedrooms are complete, all that is left to mud is the hallway.  We want to have everything mudded before we start to prime for paint.

Jim has continued to work on the new hallway closet and built-in.  We went to Building 9 to see if we could find any discount doors and drawers for the project.  It was a success!  We managed to find a 3 panel door we liked for $30, matching cabinet doors for $10 ea, and $5 for a drawer front.  Sorry, no pictures yet of the doors, but I do have one of the closet framing.

The bottom part will be cabinets.  The middle is where the fake drawer will be, and the top will be open shelving.  That is a peek into our Master Bedroom on the left.

We have also finally installed the fire-rated drywall for the attic stairs.  I actually screwed it in place while Jim held it up.

Because an old house always has a trick up its walls, we recently had to replace our kitchen light over the sink.  The previous owners had installed a fluorescent workbench light for over the sink at some point.  The kitchen isn't one of our top priorities at the moment, so we just left it like that.  Well, one of the lights burnt out  and wouldn't work even with a new light bulb.  After a bit more fiddling, we decided to scrap the whole thing (it was ugly anyways) and traipsed over to Lowe's to peruse their clearance rack.  We were delighted to discover that they had a 3 pendant light fixture on clearance for $25.  Score!  The fixture didn't include the glass pendants, so we had to buy 3 of those.  We ended up still paying less than what the original price of the fixture would have been, so we're happy.  Oh, and in case you were wondering...Yes, Jim did have to fiddle with the wiring since the previous owners did it wrong.  Surprise!  Surprise!   Not!

Here are some pics.

 Of course, now the rest of the kitchen looks really sub-par with these new stylin' lights.

Haha!  Oh well!  Don't worry, Kitchen.  One day, your time will come for a remodel. :)

The Straight and Level

Our second story renovation project(s) have been progressing rather slowly lately. After we installed the drywall in the two bedrooms in May, the next phase of the renovation project began. As you know, I've spent a few weekends cleaning up blown-in insulation and knocking down the old plaster and lathe in the hallway. We have finally progressed past the point of demolation, and we can begin building-up again.


I had been prepared two weekends ago to remove the plywood subfloor and tile in the hall. Once I lifted one of the plywood sheets though I found the reason the subfloor was there at all. Luckily, I did not find a pack of rabid opposum, or a used mail-order taxidermist assistant's kit, or a space/time rift under the subfloor. But the original floor boards are warped to such a degree, that the triangular 2x4 ribs which brace and level the plywood subfloor measure up to 4 inches on the lowest side. I quickly put the subfloor back, then slowly took a cautious second look.

If I were to fix the slanted original floor, I would do what has already been done. Therefore,...
Amanda is taking over this post, since Jim has been too preoccupied with actual renovation to finish his draft. :)
Jim has decided to leave the already leveled part of the floor alone, and we will just build the rest of the floor up to that point.  This means that Jim does not have to remove any of the tile.

The Tile

Jim has since leveled the ceiling but not the floor (will be explained in future posts).

Leveled Ceiling

Don't let the old beams fool you, the new wood is what is level.

While Jim was removing the plaster and lath from underneath the one and only hallway window, he came across an interesting find...

An Old Beehive With Layers of Honeycomb

Alas, no honey.  This was a very old hive from the looks of it.

With the help of Jim's parents, we were also able to finally install the fold-up attic stairs that we purchased months ago on sale.

The Frame

The Stairs Closed

The Stairs Open

It is so much easier to get up into the attic now.  We are both really glad that we decided to do this.  The previous attic access was very small and inconvenient.  No fears, we have purchased fire-rated drywall for the stair's "lid" as per code.

We would also like to share with you the pics of our doors for the nursery and guest rooms.

The pre-hung doors on the left will be the style for the bedroom doors.  I noticed that the original doors in the house (of which there seem to be only 2- not counting the french doors) are both 4 panel doors.  These were the closest match we could find in our budget without actually buying vintage doors.  The doors on the right will be used for the sliding doors in the closets.  These are also styled after vintage doors, and Jim really liked the look of them.  We bought them a few months back when Lowe's was having a sale on custom doors.

   

Attic Insulation

Jim had requested off work today to go to a midwife appointment with me.  Unfortunately, the appointment had to be rescheduled at the last moment d/t the midwife being ill.  Jim decided in the afternoon to head up to the attic to finish insulating the attic above the nursery and guest room and to start the hallway demo prep.  He has currently finished with putting in the fiberglass insulation and has now started removing the blown-in insulation over the upstairs hallway.  He has taken a few pics of his progress for me since I can no longer get up into the attic.

The as-of-yet untouched blown-in insulation above the hallway, bonus room, and stairwell

View looking towards the nursery gable from the attic access in the hallway

Looking from above the nursery towards the guest room gable

 The ridge vents seem to leak a little when it rains and snows, so we have placed some plastic and paper towels in those areas.  This is only a temporary measure.  We plan to have a roofer come and take a look at the ridge vents sometime next month.  We think that the vents are just bent out of shape and need to be corrected...at least we hope that is all it is.  :?

Cross section of our new insulation in the attic above the guest room

We insulated the guest room and nursery ceilings with R-19 fiberglass batts.  This pretty much leveled with the top of the ceiling joists.  We have now added R-30 fiberglass in the opposite direction on top of the joists.

So far, Jim hasn't found any new treasures hidden under the old cellulose blown-in insulation.

Let There Be Light (In The Attic)!

Jim has been a busy bee.  Unfortunately, I haven't been much help to him.  The last project I helped with was putting insulation on the walls of the nursery and guest room and on the nursery ceiling.

 Nursery walls

Guest Room Walls

Nursery Ceiling

This is at the point where I stopped helping due to being constantly sick.

Jim decided at this point that it would be good to install electricity in the attic.  I believe he spent a weekend installing 5 lights in the attic.  Now we won't have to struggle with portable lights and extension cords like we had to when removing the blown-in insulation over the nursery and guest room.

The attic without electricity

Let there be light!

Yea!  This is the portion over the hallway and bonus room.

During this time, Jim also created a new HVAC box for the new louvered vents that we purchased a few months ago.

If I remember right, his fingers suffered a few cuts and scrapes from shaping the metal.

Jim started back in on the insulation after completing the side projects.

 The nursery

The guest room

These 2 rooms looked much more like rooms once the insulation was up.  We could also tell a definite difference in the room temp and outside noise level.

Panoramic view from the guest room.