Holiday Break.....Master Bath work----

Thank goodness for breaks. Not only do they give you time to get around to see everyone that you need to see, but they give you a little bit of time to get bruises, bumps, cuts and dirtier jeans than just any typical DIY evening.

I worked all day laying subflooring, framing out one wall, and laying the hardy board down for the floor. Not a bad day for a one man work crew.Tomorrow I will make a trip over to the glass place to make sure that I am doing everything right and not getting mixed communication.

The shower is 40inches wide by 7 feet long. I want to do glass up to say about 7 feet from a 6"high basin. I don't plan on putting a door on the thing because the entrance is 5 feet away from the shower head. And the doors in enclosed showers is the most expensive part.....

The mess we make.

It is the part of the DIY show that they never let you see. The piles of debris that litter what was once a clean space. It's the countless trips to the dump, the rows of trash cans full of old drywall and insulation. What are they afraid of? That people will get a real view of what it is like? I sort of like making the piles and watching them change. From start to finish, the content of the piles have character and show the progress.

Today I finished up my subfloor project. Wouldn't you know that the floor joists change direction 1/2 way across the floor. I am going to have to do some work where we will be putting the drain line for the new 3" shower drain, but it shouldn't be that bad. The plumber came over today to see what the job is going to be like. It looks like we should have the rough in done next saturday!

I was able to stop by re-use on the way home and score a door for the new closet. It is a little different than the one that is original, but for 20 bucks I wasn't really going to complain too much. I had to trim it down to make it fit, but all and all, not a bad door. I hope to get the walls for the closets framed tomorrow if at all possible. Well that will be after my morning run to the dump. You know you might go to the dump when they recognize you and begin to help you unload because you are a regular.

Materials used to build this house.

It's always fun to work on old houses, it's never "the usual" renovation. There just always seems to be something waiting under or behind what you are working on that will suprise you. 10% good, 90% are like "what in the bleepity bleep were they thinking back in 19#$ when they built this place?"

For instance the drywall that was used in my house came in 2ft by 3ft sheets. It either came like that or the person had a really small car and had to cut the 4x8 sheets down to a better size for his VW or whatever small car existed in 1940 when this house was built. (Yes, I know that the bug was not out in 1940 but you get my point right?)

Nails. I know that there is a current crunch out there in the world in regards to metals available for building materials. Steel is at a premium. I think that I might be able to solve the crunch here in the Raleigh market if I were to start a smelter in my back yard under that gigantic oak. The nails that were used for this place are more like tent stakes used to hold down a circus tent. We ran into them first while working on the kitchen. The second nail we didn't come across while working in the kitchen, square nails. These bad boys were used for the tongue and groove flooring that was under the old school lenoleum. What fun these are.

So tomorrow I will either finish with ripping up the subfloor or I will be starting a new blog that details my new homemade smelting operation that will solve the local steel crunch.

Extreme Home Makeover visits Raleigh NC Part II

Sandy and I just made our final trip down to the EHMH and it is pretty amazing. While they were still carrying furniture and you can hear the sounds of saws and hammers in the workzone, it was ready to go. Here are a couple of pictures, left from wednesday night, right from monday night.

Help! DIY'ers...You make the call!

And even if you are just an armchair, laptop DIY'er who doesn't know squat about hammers, nails, screws, caulk, dust, dirt, or the pains of 1940's remodels, you might still be able to help.

The old kitchenette that we are turning into a master bathroom has old old old beadboard. The issue is that it runs horizontal...not vertically. Our first thought was to take it all down, cut it, spin it and nail it back up. Our thought now is to leave it up half of it, from the floor 1/2 up the wall, and then do new drywall and chair-rail in the rest of the room.

1. Do we take it all down and do all of that work?

2. Leave 1/2 and move on?

3. Do the entire room in new drywall?

Here is the room in question. Please leave comments

Extreme Home Makeover visits Raleigh NC

Pretty neat story. Last Thursday it all broke out among town. A couple that works very hard for the community and one of the local churches (1 of 5000 or so in this town) here in Raleigh NC had been selected for a makeover. When we visited on Saturday night they were still leveling the dirt. Tonight, Monday, they were painting, roofing, adding stone....just amazing stuff.

It really is a neat show, and even more amazing that it is a full-tilt, real construction area with hundreds of people all over working to get it done. I wasn't really excited about all of the waste that be thrown-out that was perfectly usable, but it's not my jobsite. I will try to post a finished product photo sometime next week after they move that bus!

good ideas, new camera, and a good dust mask

Good Ideas- second floor remodel+driveway right below+ chunks of old drywall+ blue tarp from harbor freight (yeah Bill I said Harbor Freakin Freight) = see below

We were able to make 2 trips to the dump with one more coming early in the AM. I really can't believe that the Raleigh area dump doesn't cost me anything to visit. In Seattle it was a minimum of $12 per visit. I like not paying, but I know that it isn't the best for the community resources.

Today I was able to rip out some more drywall, insulation, and put together a plan for what we are going to do with all of our kayaking /backpacking/camping gear. The sollution was found in some space hidden behind some 1940's construction. After taking out some drywall and insulation, it should work out great.

We have recently upgrade our digital camera. I really love this thing. I have a long way to go before I am shooting like a pro, but it really is nice to end the work day with some artsy fartsy photos. This old house had BX cable all through out. That stuff reminds me of spiderman or some super hero. (link http://www.flickr.com/photos/43737467@N00/ ) I am still trying to get Flickr to work on beta blogger.

I love DEMOLITION!

There is just something about demolition. Maybe it is the fear of what you are about to do really can't be undone without some investment of time and material. Maybe it is the curiosity side of me that wants to see how this house was constructed. But then again maybe it is just the fact that I love to use powertools and that I really like to destroy things. It's really all three, but the destruction that is associated with discovery is most enjoyable.

Today Sandy and I started on the demolition part of the remodel. One wall was in the way and it lasted all of about 10 minutes. The majority of today's time was spent trying to salvage old bead-board that covers the old kitchenette from floor to light fixture. We decided that we will leave the original bead board 1/2 up the wall, with some new drywall coming for the rest of the room.

No fist fights broke out and the turkey tasted great!

Well the big turkey day has come and gone. With 13 people total in the house, it all worked out great. We had a couple of friends in from Oregon and California, with the remainder of folks coming from West Virginia and South Carolina. It was really nice to have the house so full, with so many people eating and drinking while carrying on so many conversations. The best part was the fact that we had 3 or more cooks going in the kitchen while some of the rest of us hung out in the dining room, but were still able to talk and socialize with those in the kitchen.

No Wall=Good Idea!

Everyone that stayed seem to have a good time, I know that everyone ate way too much and possibly made too many trips to the cooler of ice cold beverages that was on the back porch.

Now that is all done and the crowds have come and gone, we are going to start breaking down plans for the master bedroom and bathroom for the second floor. What this means is building a new wall, hanging some doors, installing sun tube sky lights, redoing the drywall, and creating a master bathroom in an old kitchenette. Now this is going to be way too much fun. My goal is to be totally done in 4 months. YEP! 4 Months. I really don't want this to drag on into the summer kayaking season.

I guess it's time to start digging out all of the tools that I just put away in the depths of the basement. It's time to fire up the XRP drills, plug in the recip saws, find a new pair of work shorts, and get busy with a new project. Till then.....

Grout! Grout! Let it all out!

Everything grout. I applied the sealant to the bar tops (looks great) and then Sandy worked the grout onto the backsplash. It really is fun to complete a project. Just some caulk, some sealant on the backsplash, and a little bit of paint and the kitchen will be 100% done. March 18th to November ?? Not bad....could have been better, but not bad. We really have learned a lot on this one project.

• How to take down a load bearing wall
• How to refinish a wood floor.
• How to do plumbing
• How to do tile
• How to do concrete countertops
• How to use caulk to hide things.
• How to salvage old trim.
• How to wire can lights.
• That HD nor Lowe's Have everything.

Now we are working hard to make sure that everyone that is coming up or down to our house has a good time and a full belly. We have Plenty of places to put em, now we just need to make enough food to make them all happy. With 9 other people coming for turkey day, we have a lot to figure out. Sandy started testing some recipes tonight ( I love taste tasting unless it involves green vegetables) Here are some pictures from todays work.

Live from Raleigh....it's Saturday Night!

Your guest host---Fosters Flooring----

John and Al came and finished up today with the final coats of Bona poly and the stuff looks Great! I guess they wrapped up today around 4 ish and now the fans are running while we are camped out upstairs. We will let it all dry for another 24 hours or so before we even think about putting our stuff back in. Till then it's Mtn Biking, shopping, and maybe just maybe a tackle on the basement shop area!

Some of you might be getting tired of seeing lame ol pictures of floors. So below are a couple taken from around our block today. Since we can't be just sitting here waiting for Poly to dry, we have been taking some nice walks See below

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The Rose Garden at the end of our street>

I just love progress

Sealant on......the rest to come tomorrow!

Thank Goodness for the Pros!

So we are down to the wood, done with all of the sanding, and the guys are buffing up the floors with a 180 grit. Next they are going to put on a sealant. We are going with the natural stuff, something that allows the floors to be "natural" and no funky tints or color. And this stuff is suppossed to be UV protected so that it won't change color over time....We will see. We plan on being here for a very long time.....we should be here for a long time with as much work as we have done on this dang joint! So the sealant will go down here in just a bit (It's 5:30 on a Friday evening and they are just now finishing with the sanding)

Here are some before and mid-way pictures for those of you keeping track. They were all taken under the same lighting conditions, give or take an hour in the day. If you click on this picture it should enlarge and give you a better view of it all.

I'd be pulling my hair out about right now....

But lucky for me we have decided to pay the pros to do the floors. They showed up around 9am this morning and at 1pm this is what has been done.


It appears that the previous owners used wax to treat the floors. And according to John Foster, this is just one of the worse things you could do. And it is making for some hard work for them.

They are taking the time to get it up with scrappers and blades, but it is still going to be an uphill battle.

Bring everyone up to speed-

• 1939 stone house built by Ralph Butts ( Fire Chief of Raleigh NC from 41-47?)
• We are the 3rd Owners. Most everything is original. Glass door knobs, skeleton keys...
• New Electric ( Carrington Electric )
• New Plumbing
• New Central Air
• Totally New Kitchen
• New Back Lawn
• New paint in every room downstairs
• No more wallpaper in the upstairs bedroom
• ------Now for new floors~

We have moved out, moved up, well this isn't the Jefferson's for crying out-loud! It's just time for the original old oak flooring to be redone. They haven't been touched in something like 66 years. That is longer than my dad has been around. So we have moved things around in the old stone house and are awaiting the fine folks from Foster Flooring to show up in the morning and start sanding ! Now I know that I COULD have done it myself, but I just don't have the bloody time. Besides, this is what John and his guys do everyday. It will look much much much better than anything that we could have done ourselves, and in the end.....well come back on Friday night or sometime over the weekend to see what happened. Till then....Here is a pic of our original stuff...

Down on the corner....

Out in the streets!.....welll that is some lyric from some southern rock group....

The tile is all up, with the grout yet to be done, and our floors are getting re-done this week. we are now in "pack up" mode, and will be that way for a couple of days. Wed is the first day where we will be having the floors sanded, who knows about thurs and fri?

Here are some pictures of the final tile job and a couple of the concrete countertops with the tile.


















So we will continue to move our materials upstairs, and leave the floor downstairs as nice as we can. Not sure how much it really matters since it is impossible to get all the KELSEY hairs up and out of it.

My girl works hard!

Now during this whole blog update / house remodel stuff I believe that I have failed to mention or state just how hard my wife works at all of this. This whole thing is a team effort. I can't really think of a project that hasn't been 50/50 other than the concrete countertops. From paint, to drywall, to floors, my wife works hard!

Anyways.....another hard night of tile. Well it really isn't difficult work, measure, cut, sticky stuff, place it, second guess, adjust, add spacers, curse, step back, adjust, re-cut, smile. (I have really only been doing the cut, measure, and curse part of all of that, Sandy has been doing the rest)

Tonight we didn't get as far as we really wanted, mostly due to the late start and the fact that the walls on this old house have some wavey-ness. After making some minor adjustments and having some small fits on some hardi-board, we started. We wrapped up around 9:30 tonight with about 60% finished product. Hopefully we knock the rest of it out tomorrow and are able to grout this weekend....oh this weekend is going to be HUGE!

Here are some before and mid-point pictures for all the picture freaks

Next stop on the subway.....

The Backsplash!

In just over 4 hours we were able to tile the east side of the kitchen backsplash. It is really amazing to see what change it brings to the whole room. The under cabinet lights make a great difference, and the bright-whiteyness of the tile make the concrete countertops POP!

We are going to knock out the west side of the kitchen tomorrow. With the grout coming later this week.

Bondo? Check! Old Trim? Check!

Well the boys showed up to help me out with the trim. We salvaged the trim from the old kitchen door opening and were limited on what we could use. Instead of screwing it all up we called in Isaac and Eric to knock it out. One little mess up, wrong angle, and we would have been out of luck. Something that we couldn't afford. So call in the pros

They did a fantastic job too! We don't call in PRO's that often, but we have been extremely luck with those we have worked with.

Now on the the baseboards, touch up some paint and to tile the backsplash. Not too much left to do in the kitchen or dinning room. Now for the upstairs, and the bathroom, and the floors.

Speaking of floors, we had someone by today to give an estimate on getting them redone. If anyone out there has used a contractor that has used the Controlled Dust System or CDS please send me an email or comment. This guy seemed to be a real pro and we liked his ideas.....just curious what others experiences are.

I hate / love that gigantic oak tree.

It's a love hate relationship, me and the oak. Sure it was around here long before me and has some sort of "squatters" rights, but that is just crap. Hell that thing was probably a seedling back when Jimmy Carter was born, it's just gigantic. I love that tree during the summer, as it shades our house from the southern sun. Protecting us from the rays of heat that would warm our stone house and create an oven. I love that. I love the massive branches that allow for Maxwell to set up a swing and hang from it. I love the squirrels that live up in it that taunt my dog. It gives and give during the summer. And come fall.....IT'S WAR!


Soon it will begin its air-raid. Dropping acorns from 20-30-50-100 feet. Falling to the ground with some sting. Making the yard appear as if an acorn truck decided to dump its load. It will slowly fill up the gutters with tops and bottoms. And then the leaves. The leaves aren't huge, but from my calculations ( a true hillbilly guess) will total about 4.3 million come years end that will make home in my gutters, on my back porch, and all in our newly seeded yard. And there isn't much I can do about that. ......OR IS THERE?


Today while at church, yes I have started going back to church....(LOWE'S) I found some gutter filter guards that look like they might do the trick. They slide up under the first row of shingles and snap onto the gutter. In theory the leaves and acorns should roll off. That is in theory, who really knows how they will stand up to the beating that this tree will unleash in a few weeks.








The Grass in the yard is doing really well. Thanks to the rain every now and again, a small sprinkler, things are turning green. We honestly were not sure how to do it, but how hard could grass be? Kyle across the street seems to think that we have done a great job, and he is a pro when it comes to gardening.

Holding up well.

Things have slowed down alot around here since Gauley season started. We knew that was going to happen, and it's ok with us. With little projects all around, and with everyone coming to our house for Turkeyday, we have plenty to do. And some projects are just starting.

The Yard is starting to grow. We are about 10 days after seeding and the little bits of green are taking over the drab brown of the straw. The next couple of days should be great for the grass, but this weekend is not. I am sure that we will be able to find something to do.

It's great to have a kitchen that you can cook in. Not just cook in, but prepare foods in. Just the fact that we have a space for everything is awesome. Spices, flour, bulk goods, pizza stone...it's all right there. The working triangle with-in the kitchen is big, but is working out great. We can both be in there, cooking and working and not banging elbows. It's nice.

Lately I have been playing with my pizza stone and the gas grill. I can't get off my Thai kick, so I made a fantastic pizza using chicken sausage, fresh basil, peanutbutter sauce, and some veggies....mmmmmmmm yeah!

The grass might be greener-

Well it is that time of the year where we load up every friday and head north to WV. Gauley season is one of the greatest parts of our life. Although we won't get on it all 6 weekends, we will do our best to get up there as much as possible. And since we are doing all of that, we won't really have time to be working much on the house. Here is a picture of OX and myself in a shredder on the upper g.


We did have a chance to tear up the back yard last week. I worked a tiller Friday afternoon and sandy worked out all of the not-so-level spots while I worked an event Sat. Morning. When I got home we started the seeding. I hope that it works. I have never planted that much seed before, like an entire yard. If it works out, our yard will be awesome. The concrete polishing didn't really help out that much, so its really great that we decided to just go for it. If you were going to till up your yard I would recommend something larger than the 5.5hp tiller that United Rentals rents. There is a larger version, comes on a trailer, but I don't have a hitch.

We are thinking about hiring someone to do all of the floors and on the edge about doing the upstairs. Time is a wastin.

Bocce Ball, Meatfest, and working in the woodshop

Jerry did a great job this past weekend with Meatfest 2006. Chris cooked it all but thanks to Jerry's planning and use of the house, everyone had a great time. We had a fantastic Bocce Ball tournament, 17 people played and in the end Andy cheated me out of a point to take home the trophy. It's all good, I don't think Andy had ever won a trophy in his freakin life,,,,,just kidding. He played some great rounds and really pulled it off. It's all good, there will be a winter tournament and I am confident to whip his butt.

On monday Jerry and I made some nice trim for the kitchen bar tops. We could have gone to the store and bought premaid stuff, but there is just something about making what you want. We ripped some red oak 1x6 boards down, and ran them through the router table. by doing it this way we were able to make it the "just right size". It wasn't hard at all to do this.

The molding went up without a hitch (meaning I made all my cuts right) and really does look good. Now I have yet to paint it but, it has already made a difference. I hope to get the paint and grout done tomorrow or Friday. Here is a pic of the trim installed (unpainted)

On a side note, the SC in-laws have been making an extreme push on their own kitchen. We are talking a total gut, top and bottom, and underneath. I was totally blown away by the amount of progress that they have made down there. While they are just passing the half-way point, where ya start to put things back together. It was very entertaining to walk into someone else's project.

I am pretty glad that we didn't have to cut a hole in our kitchen floor. And Stoked that I didn't have to wear Tyvek to get the project done.