Not ready yet

Even if we put all our effort in the house to move by mid october, we had to face reality pretty soon and change our plan. 

We got a lot of the framing done on Labor Day weekend, but we were only half the way. None of the plumbing was yet in place and all knobs and tube needed to be replaced by the end of the month in order to get our insurance to cover us. On top of that we needed to schedule inspections, a drywall crew, and a flooring crew. 

Eric's direction for Todd. Can't wait to see our bathroom completed!

Cole helping finishing blocking. Thanks!

The whole week after Labor day we worked until midnight almost every day. We made some neighbors unhappy (we apologized with wine bottles), used up most of our energies, and had to put the drywall guys on hold fir a few days, but in the end it paid off. We probably got the mellowest inspector on the city’s payroll. He came in fairly late in the afternoon and made it clear immediately that he didn’t have much time. He took a fast look around to our unfinished framing and electrical and didn’t pay much attention to the inexistent plumbing; he gave us a nice speech about his faith in people and provided some technical advice on how to do things, checking every now and then that we knew what he was talking about. After he was done talking he signed off the permit gave us permission to send him pictures of the insulation and told us to make an appointment with him to check the nailing on the driwall. We didn’t believe we were going to pass the inspection, what a treat! 

That inspector was a life saver. Passing the inspection made us able to slow down the pace a bit. We focused on framing for a few days and get everything ready for the drywall. While Charlie was taping and mudding Todd took care of some plumbing and got us disconnected from the old nob and tube. We got our new panel running just in time before the insurance’s deadline. 

The remodeled rooms have all electrical boxes set up...time for insulation

And after insulation comes sheering

Getting the panel done also marked the end of Todd’s full time commitment. He had some other jobs starting and we are only going to have him in his free time from time from now on. Enough to get us moved in by the end of October -we already gave notice to our apartment,so no more rescheduling.

So far we got temporary lights in most of the rooms and a couple temporary plugs, our walls are primed and the bathroom fixtures are on the way.  This past weekend we got the roof patched, the garage roof sealed and the some temporary kitchen cabinets in place. we also built some shelves and reorganized the basement. The task of the week is prepping the master bedroom and bathroom’s window to be set, stripping the paint off the rest of the windows in the house, and maybe get new fan boxes in the kitchen and the living room since they are pitch black right now. We are also getting close to pick paint colors...so looking forward to that! The flooring crew will come in next week to patch the floor in the master bedroom and refinish the hardwood floors in the rest of the house. During that time we will probably rewire the old plugs and add some new ones, and of course we will have to start packing! There is going to be a lot more work to do after we move in, but finally seeing the house coming together is incredibly rewarding!

While the drywall goes up it is time to start cutting the plaster for new plugs and switches in the rest of the house

Our command panel in the hallway-driveway, porch, hallway and living room lights and fans ready

We have walls!

Primer is on...now we can start thinking about colors

Stripping the windows...big job!

Patching the plaster

Temp kitchen

More cabinets and new spot for the stove

Change of Pace

Having Todd working full time on the house made a huge difference. The pace has completely changed now that we have all the tools and somebody to direct the big jobs. This is fantastic in terms of progress -there is so much going on that we never manage to stop working before 10.30 pm. We are tired, but seeing the progress keeps pushing us to do more work!

Although we worked hard to get the demoing done before Todd’s arrival we didn’t succeed. I had my portion of playtime hammering the plaster off 2/3 of the front bedroom on my own during the week, but we finished taking down the ceiling and the lathe  only on Sunday. 

On the weekend, thanks to the full crew (Todd, Jaime, Gene and John), we were also able to complete the partial demo of the closet and the full demo of the bathroom and laundry areas. As usual the house had plenty of surprises for us. we found a disgusting dead rat in the bathroom wall- I guess that explains all the rat poison we found in the attic space. Once we took down the plaster in the bathroom we finally could understand the extent of our dry rot damage. There is a crack in the plaster, right were the roof beam comes in. The whole water collected by the gutters has basically been coming in from that gap. These pictures give a pretty good idea of the result. We knew that the floor was rotting too, and we had patching already in the budget. However, when Todd poked a hole in it with his foot, while moving the claw-foot tub, we decided to take the whole thing out. At the end of the weekend the whole west side of the house was an open space...all the way to the basement.

The dry rot hiding behind the medicine cabinet

The full extent of the damage once we removed the plaster

One of the old tenants

Goodbye bathroom wall

The naked front bedroom

Finishing touches

Our pile of wood keeps growing and we are starting to wonder if savaging is a good idea

Since the plan was to get a lot done through Labor Day weekend Todd took off Wednesday and part of Thursday. The rest of the week the two of us got rid of the old sewer, water and gas lines. On Thursday night Todd taught Eric and me the nuts and bolts of electrical and we were ready for the long weekend. 

Electricians in training

Labor Day brought us some new and valuable volunteers. Tatiana and Cody joined the crew on saturday and Sunday and James came to help Sunday and Monday. Thanks to such a large number of people we were able to get a lot of framing done and started pulling the new electrical lines. Todd and Cody also convinced us to reframe the closet...another item that we added to the list. Eric and I set the beams for the new flooring and felt really proud after completing the task.

Cody, Tatiana and Todd...an awesome crew!

James, great electrician helper

View of the basement...through the old bathroom floor

A piece of wood from the old bathroom-some termites must have had a very good time there

The west side of the house after demo

Framing crew at work

Learning how to use the chopsaw

Time to get rid of some windows

By Sunday night the closet and half of the bathroom were framed in, the floor beams were in place and the front crawl space, the front bedroom and the bathroom were all wired. On Monday we also purchased more material and got ready to finish the framing, replacing the last dry-rot and termite damage along the external walls, and get place the last outlets and switches. Got a lot done, but still a lot to do!

Cutting the new doorway

Door for the new bathroom in place!

You can almost see the bathroom aready

Got some good laughs out of this 

Exhausted but happy!

Hammers and Shovels

This past weekend was a lot of fun. We started stripping the plaster off the walls in order to get things ready for Todd. 

Growing up in Italy I have only seen buildings made of bricks and dealing with wood is a totally new and exciting experience. It is amazing how easily you can take down a wall and how much fun it can be. As many other things demolishing is a better activity if friends join to help. Gene was there all weekend, John joined the hammering on Saturday and Tony came by on Sunday to help taking off some trimming. We also decided do hire Jaime to help us and he was a life saver, especially when we decided to take the plaster off the ceiling. Luckily for me Phyllis provided lunch for everyone on Sunday -Great tuna sandwich and refreshing iced tea.

Taking the plaster down

The bones exposed

The lathe is coming off

Finally the ceiling has to come down

One room done, another one started

By the end of the day the first room was all stripped off and all the debris stored in the yard. Good job everyone!

Clean up time

Recycling

Let the Games Begin

Our first couple week of work slipped by so fast that I didn't have a chance to update the blog. 

Time to make up with lots of pictures!

The house tented...like in a cartoon!

Eric and I took advantage of our vacation in Oregon to get the house tented. I was a little bit disappointed to be missing the whole process, but it worked perfectly in the schedule. Luckily we have many great friends that volunteered to take pictures!

Once we got back from vacation both the tent and the termites were gone and we were ready to start cleaning up. We first vacuumed the basement to make space for some tools and then moved on to the refrigerator and the 1920s stove that came with the house. Since Eric has to work during the week I took care of vacuuming the crawling space. The house had been vacant for over a year and many spiders had made that their home, working really hard to cover any possible surface with webs. Beside that the previous owner seemed to have used that as a dog house and a personal dumpster. You would be surprised of the “treasures” I found while working down there. Goes without saying that after spending almost a week vacuuming and not being done I have plenty of respect for the property inspector that crawled down there before fumigation!

Almost felt bad when I had to take that down...So much work!

I wasn't smiling anymore at the end of the week!

Nice combination of spider webs and lint in our basement

The front yard before the pruning

The weekend came faster than I expected -we brought over the first tools, changed the locks and got ready for some serious work. 

With the help of John and Todd we cleaned up the front yard. We pruned the oleander trees and the boungavilla, producing enough debris to secure three full loads of greens for Recology. Our plants look a little bare now, but we are happy enough to be able to walk through the trellis to reach the front steps. 

Todd didn't really drive all the way up from Slo just to tame our wild front yard though, he came for business. Todd is a contractor and will be here for two full weeks starting at the end of August to help us. Eric proudly showed him his drawings and walked him through the project. Right now the house has 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, but the bathroom floor is dry rot and the sewer line in leaking. Before moving in we will strip both the bedrooms to update the wiring and make them ready for us to move- that is where we are going to live while working on the rest of the house. We are also going to install a new bathroom in between the bedrooms and remodel the old one later on. Since we need a new sewer line we will also get new plumbing right away. It is a lot of work but Todd is excited and we know how fast he can work.

Making good use of Todd's truck

First full bin. Two more to go