White Trash to Middle Class-we’re back!

Alright, some progress to show you! The 2 weeks before Sadie’s birthday saw a few things get done. One of which was the new front steps! First the landing was covered with 2×4’s (no shortage of those here).

The stringers were installed on a new patio block footing.

The steps were finally screwed down after dark. It took all day.

Much easier to see in daylight.

Then the skirting was finished beside the stairs.

Now for the railings.
And this is the insulation all finished on the inside.

And the room all cleaned up. I couldn’t wait to get all the styrofoam dust cleaned up!

I hope to be able to show you more soon. Some rafters have to get beefed up and the woodstove area roughed in and the ceiling dropped a couple inches and a closet framed, and then the floor and ceiling insulated, and then we can start poly and drywall! I’m super excited for that stage! I will be in there painting before the dust settles!

White Trash To Middle Class -More Progress!

Since I last updated you, we now have  electricity back on in the quarter of the house that contained Sadie’s room, the bathroom and the entry.  I didn’t expect the bathroom to be that dirty.

We also have a front door!  And a bulb is already burnt out.

The door will get painted eventually.  Probably not till spring when it’s warm enough to paint.

And eventually I will get a good picture of the kitty, I mean Ninja.

The yard also got cleaned up some more.  Trust me.

Here’s inside the entry with the insulation installed and the door.  And the light!  This light is controlled by the switch next to the front door and another switch inside the other door.  This room is already a few degrees warmer than outside.

The insulation extends to the right just past the big window.  It’s about 60% done.

The floor is also about 60% insulated.  Some friends came up on the weekend and helped Darryl get started on it.  It took a lot longer than they thought cause the joists under half the floor were I-beams and they had to wedge the styrofoam in tight.  Hopefully the rest of the floor with 8″ joists will go faster.

This is what happens when you use styrofoam to insulate.  It barfs all over the room.

There’s a table saw and a chop saw buried in there.

The wood stove we’ll be using has migrated from storage to the addition.  Hopefully to be installed by the end of the month.

Darryl built a couple of shelves above the freezer to store the canning and food processing equipment and the egg cartons and diapers.  The large shelf unit they were on has to get dismantled cause it’s taking up too much room.  There’s still a few boxes of jars on it that need to get moved to the shed.

We’re hoping by December 3rd, we’ll have the addition cleaned out and the hole knocked through the wall so we can use it for our annual Christmas Tree Hunt.  We’ll see if that actually happens.

 

 

White Trash To Middle Class – Week 743

At least it feels like that long.

I think it’s only been 16 weeks since we started the renovation, and probably half that long since I updated you on its progress.

Well, this is where we are now.

Darryl raised the floor in the entry by about 2 inches.  Something to do with the door threshold.  He put a layer of styrofoam insulation under the subfloor while he was at it.

The box in the foreground is a built-in wood box.  It will have cupboard doors on the front and another access door at the back so Darryl can fill it up without walking into the house and we can get wood for the woodstove without walking to the entry.  Above the woodbox will be a built-in bookshelf, only it’ll be customized to hold the tv and electronics with a hidden electrical outlet and a chase behind the tv to hide wires.  Another door in the entry will provide access to the wires from the back.  The whole built-in will be painted white.

I even measured the couches to make sure there would be room where I’m planning to put them.

The electrical is almost done.  These wires in the ceiling are for pot lights, but after reading a bit about placement, I’m going to move them have them moved a little bit.

I’ve been staring at this ugly drywall-less panel since we moved in here, and it’s finally going to get finished (eventually).  We had to replace the 2 electrical boxes with one big one so it looks nicer.

These switches will control the front porch lights, the (new) entry light, and the (existing) entry light, and the last switch will control a special outlet we had installed in the eaves to plug Christmas lights into.  That way we can flick a switch in the house to turn on the lights.

 

I  L.O.V.E. planning where everything goes!  I love planning where I want light switches and fixtures.  I love planning for three-way switches and dimmers.  I have a switch controlling the top outlets on 2 different plug-ins so I can turn 2 lamps on with a flick of one switch.  My living room pot lights will be on 2 different circuits with separate dimmers.

With the electrical almost complete, we can finally start insulating.

Darryl and his buddy brought home a cube van full of styrofoam insulation cutoffs from an ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) building Darryl was working at.  We’re all about recycling here.  The van subsequently caught on fire on the way back to town (It’s since been replaced).

This insulation will be used in the walls and under the floor of the addition.

Actually, the insulation is being installed as I write this cause Darryl had a couple days off this week.

Yay!

I will have more to show you soon.  The insulation should be basically done by the end of the weekend, and we’re planning a work bee for next weekend to get the most important projects done before it snows.

It better not snow until we’re done.

 

White Trash to Middle Class –Week 7

If you’ve been following this series, you’ll recognize this photo from the last post.  That’s because I wanted you to see the dramatic difference to our home in just one week.

Tadaa!

Oh, and one minor change.

Instead of a screened-in porch, we’re getting another bedroom.

But until the outside is done and the yard is cleaned up, this is my view.  And my obstacle course.  I can’t get the stroller through it to the back half of the yard anymore.

Here you can see the top half of the post.

I know the colour looks nice but it’s going to change.  Right now it’s just primed.  We still have to fill the holes from nailing on the siding, then paint the siding and trim and build stairs and install two doors and outdoor plugs and lights and insulate under the floor and put on the skirting.

Then we can focus on the inside!

It still looks like this.

And this.

Eventually it will get done.  Maybe before Darryl finishes his post (hint hint).

White Trash to Middle Class –Week 6

Darryl got lots of sheeting done before the Big Saturday Workday.

It smelled like formaldehyde around here for a couple of days.

Darryl built out the post so it looks interesting instead of utilitarian.  We put a pony wall there as a railing because snow likes to blow into that corner in winter.

Kitty’s getting big.  He caught a mouse in some bushes by the house the other day and brought it up on the porch.  Of course, he let it go to play with it and it started to get away.  Montana caught it and took it down the the grass and killed it.  Then he kinda lost interest when it stopped squeaking and the chickens took it from there.  I’ll spare you the details.

It takes three animals to properly dispose of mice around here!  We’ve been missing the first vital part of the team until we got a cat!

He didn’t feel like posing for pictures.

Anywho, back to the reno…

On Saturday, things really started happening.

Windows went in.

Trim and flashing started.

Most of the electrical got started.

Darryl helped run wire from the electrical panel under the house to the new plugs and switches.  New circuit breakers went in the panel to handle the extra load.

What did I do?  I made lunch and took pictures.  Probably the most important and crucial role in a renovation.  But I’m happy to do it.

Now the porch looks like this.

Then on Sunday more trim went on.

And tar paper and J-channel for the soffits.  See Sadie in her sweater-dress?

That’s Tom working on the house.  He’s doing a great job!

Darryl also put Blueskin around the bottom of the walls to seal out any moisture that might accumulate on the porch.

You’ll be amazed at the difference in the house by the end of this week!

White Trash to Middle Class –Week 5?

Alrighty, last week we (Darryl) got lots done!  At least it looks that way cause you can see a big difference.

He started sheeting the outside.

This is the entry from inside looking out the existing front door to the new front door opening.

From the yard.

Another view of the front porch and entry.

From the new living room looking at the entry.

Once the sheeting is done, there will probably another phase or two when it looks like nothing’s getting done.  If everything goes according to schedule (and when does that ever happen?), the windows and doors will be going in in a few days and the electrical started and siding started.

Then once the siding and soffits and fascia and flashing and trim are on, work will proceed inside.  Doubling up rafters, raising the entry floor, insulation, poly, drywall, paint, lighting, flooring, trim, insulation and sheeting UNDER the floor, fireplace installation and framing around it, rock work (we got free manufactured rock from a friend!), chimney installation, glass railing and screening on the porch, more lighting and painting and installing doors and building stairs and railings.

Oh, and somewhere in there, knocking out the windows in the living room and kitchen and trimming those up and building steps and a closet in the entry and adding wiring for speakers and a built in bench in the entry and built in woodbox in the living room and tying the fireplace into the existing ductwork.

Yeah, I’m sure there will be a few times when it will seem like nothing is getting done.

But I really like being involved in the decision-making that will affect the final outcome.  Designing room layouts and where to put lighting and plugins and windows is so much fun.  I would totally love to build my own house.  Even though it would seem like it takes FOR. EVER.  These are some of the fun decisions people get to make in this life.  I could make decisions about designing houses and decorating them every day.

Well, maybe not on weekends.

And some of the decorating decisions are slower to get decided because some rooms need time to tell you what they need.  But that’s a whole ‘nother post.

 

 

 

White Trash to Middle Class –Week 3 & 4.2

I know, there’s been a bit of a gap in the porch reno documentation, and that’s because for the entire second week, it didn’t look like anything actually happened.

Darryl was working on fixing the underside of the porch, but he will tell you all about that sometime before it snows.

So during Week 3, he got the far outside wall up and the wall for the new front door.  That beam you can see between the new door wall and the header over the stairs will be coming out.

Darryl temporarily reattached the stairs where the new ones will be built so we could use something other than a stepladder to get on and off the porch.

I know everything looks skewed in this photo, and I’d like to blame it all on lens distortion, but as Darryl will tell you (I will bribe coax him to finish his post soon!), things aren’t actually that, ummm…level.

Looking out the existing door at the new doorway.

We’re going to use this door for the new entry.  It will get a new coat of paint.  White on the inside and we’re thinking that a shot of red would look nice on the outside.

I believe Darryl built the outside wall with the big window opening during week three, but I don’t have a picture showing just that.  Now I can get you up to date with pictures from yesterday showing the ton of stuff that got done!

Here’s the first big window.  He took down the beam in the middle of the new little entry porch.

Then he built this wall dividing the entry and porch from the living room.

Then he built the other huge window opening.  We have two 4×8 foot windows for these holes.  Due the the slope of the roof, this window will be almost 3 inches lower than the other one.

Now that the second window wall is done, we can take out the beam on the left (below).  Instead of that beam across the whole room, Darryl’s going to double up the joists in the ceiling.  The last thing he did yesterday was build that little wall in the middle.

It finally looks like something’s getting done around here!

Today after work, Darryl’s planning to start sheeting the outside!

By the end of Week 4, there should be more to show you.

I found Sadie playing with the dog and cat under the porch this morning.

 

Luckily there’s nothing nasty under there.

She’s a true farm girl.

Patio Furniture

I got me some furniture for my impending screened-in porch.

Four (very comfortable) wood folding chairs and a wood folding table.

With cushions (that I plan to recover).

Guess how much.

They were free.  Yup, I’m not even kidding.

This is the bottom of the folded-up table.

They even came with a can of linseed oil to rejuvenate them.

Oh, and he threw in a wagon for Sadie.

I love online classifieds!

White Trash to Middle Class -Day 4

The outer railing is completely gone on this half of the deck, leaving the large beam and posts set back from the edge.  Those will be removed after the outside walls go up.

The stairs are off.

This is where the stairs were.

The roof had an overhang that covered the steps.  It was cut out so the roof wouldn’t look weird, like there used to be stairs there or something.

From the other side.

And here’s my favourite photo from the renovation..so far.

It’s very manly.

White Trash to Middle Class -Day 3

Now the french doors at the top of the porch steps are gone, as well as the short walls on either side of them.

I started taking down the burlap we (Darryl) put up a long time ago.  It worked well to make the wall a little nicer.  Darryl put a billion staples in to hold it up, even though I tried hinting that it might be more than enough.  He seemed to think it was necessary.  Now I have to pull them all out in my copious amounts of spare time.  I got the first little section done in less than an hour!  Go me!

Darryl took the next two evenings off cause it was raining one evening and he was wiped out after work on the other evening, but he spent all day Saturday working on it.  Those photos will be up tomorrow.

I can hardly wait till it’s done!