Carrington Electric and Spiders

So progress here at the ranch, cave, rock....whatever you wanna call it....has slowed down a bit. Jon (hvac) is really busy with his full-time day job and I got bit by a spider on my ankle. I am on a couple of different antibiotics and the swelling is starting to go down, but I still look like I have fat mans foot.

Adam just left @ 10:35 on Wed. night! I just can't believe how flexible and willing that guy is to work with us on the electric for the house. The guy works a full day doing commercial work and then makes it over to our house for 3 hours more! He is awesome! The best part is the fact that he cares about our house and doing the best job that he can possibly do. The details that this guy does just to insure that everything is perfect is simply amazing! If anyone gets down to the basement, be sure to ask to see the electric system!

We are going to be busy this weekend with at least one day dedicated to building the bars between the kitchen and dining room. I will post up on here.


Oh yeah if you are digging on my posts about renovation you might like Nick's blog over @http://wsbungalow.blogspot.com/ He was the guy that always helped me and I always helped when we lived out on the Left Coast.

Almost there-

Javier said 7am....and he meant it.

He shows up with 2 guys and just gets after it! One guy wrapping pipe, one running duct, himself measuring the vents out...leaving me to cut the out of these floors.




One nice thing about cutting out parts of the floor is the scrap blocks that are created. I sanded them down and Sandy tried a couple of different Poly's on them. We want to re-do the finish on them and get them back to natural. Here are the tests that she did.

The original is on the far right.

The far left is some ebony stain I tried.

All and all it was a great day. The system held 300lbs and Jon will be able to run it as soon as our electrician gets to hooking up some volts! All of the vents are in, the ducts wrapped, and the machines in place. The summer will be somewhat pleasant within these stone walls.

Oh yeah. Sandy started another project while she was waiting for the rain to stop and for me or Javier to give her a project. She took down all of the ceiling tiles upstairs.....and started to pull wall paper. Oh Boy...Wall Paper!

Go Home! It's 10:45!!!!

These guys are just animals!
It's 10:45 and you can still hear the banging, drilling, cutting in the basement here at 2505. Javier and his 4 guys are pounding it out down below grade. The airhandler is up, the soft duct is run to the 1st floor vent locations, the air return is cut and placed, and the holes for the second floor runs are in. The second floor run holes look like we are installing an old fashioned 2 seater at the moment, but I have been told that they will be filled in with nice hard duct.

Javier and the guys just left to go home for the night. 7am and they will be back. Man ol Man how hard they work

Beer Break

Big plans for the house this weekend. Air Condition! That's right we bought a house in NC that didn't have central AC. We did have some window units, but those were energy hungry, and only worked to keep cool a couple of rooms. We are moving right on into the modern day with this house. First was new plumbing, second was electric, now AC.

So the beer break goes on until tomorrow. Jon and Javier will arrive and start placing equipment to get it all ready for install on Sat and Sun. Adam will be over sometime during the week to hook it up with the electric supply. Then after we pass inspection we'll have a nice little cool place to escape to during the brutal, humid NC summers.

Out with the OLD in with the OLD?

So somehow I ended up with 5 pieces of this wood. Not just your everyday Lowe's or Home Depot stuff, but late 1800's flooring. Yeah that stuff is flooring! 6 ft long, 5 inches thick and 8 inches wide. I am not sure of the species, but I do know where it came from.

This wood is from the American Tobacco Building in Durham NC. Here is a LINK to the project that is going on.

Our hopes for this old wood is to mill it down and create the bartops for our two bar spaces between the kitchen and dining room. And if we have enough, a bench for the front porch. We will keep you posted.

The Beam goes up

The Beam goes up!!

I did all of the prep work on saturday so that sunday would be the day. Man what a difference it makes!

Bryan came over bright and early and we started getting it done! Using 2 11 7/8 LVL beams, with lots of lag screws and washers, we built a nice 12 foot beam. Total over kill but with this house, everything seems to be.


We put up the braces, cut out the old studs, adjusted the jack studs on the end to be plum and true and then wah-lah! A totally new space!

our plans now are to figure out what we want to do for flooring, how high the bars will be, and what color the concrete countertops will be.we have tons more to do but we are making progress

Someone's in the kitchen with Dyna

Today I started the kitchen remodel......

I met with Bryan (an engineer by trade) and Adam (our electrician) to discuss the weekends events. Little did I know that come 8 am this morning that I would be standing in a lumber yard, sipping coffee and gathering my LVL beams for the wall.

The wall is between the kitchen and dining room. The kitchen is in the back of the house, the dining room and living room have a large opening between them, but the kitchen was in never never land. Our idea is to open this up with a gigantic opening, with two bars, that will connect the kitchen to the other rooms.

The wires are cut, the drywall (which is more like hardy board with how hard this stuff is) is down, and the floors are all cleaned up. Tomorrow Bryan is coming by to help me frame it up. Bryan did a big beam in his own house, so I feel pretty good having him helping.

Stafford House

Stafford House
We left seattle in mid aug. We left a small house near the sound to be the third owners of the Stafford House, a large stone house in Raleigh NC.

This is our story and life of living through the remodel(s)