Porch Demolition - Day 2

Today was day two of the porch removal. The only things remaining are the first floor decking and brick foundation.

Porch Demolition - Day 1

The contractor started on the demolition of the back sleeping porch. The roof and second floor walls were all taken down during day one. Here are some pictures of the days progress.

March 25th Update

We continue to work on the plaster walls and foyer ceiling. We spent most of the time at the house this weekend working on the front two bedrooms. As we've said in the last several posts, we're making progress but there's still a lot to do.

The HVAC subs were back this week to finish hooking up the heat pumps. We now have heat and AC on both the first and second floors. They're done for now but will be back when the porch section is framed in.

Slow News Week

You'll be disappointed to hear that there isn't a lot to report this week. We pretty much did the same things that we've been doing for the past several weeks...plaster repair. At least the finish line is in sight for the wall repairs. With the exception of the the two upstairs front bedrooms, we're more or less done with joint compounding for now. We'll probably have more touch up work after we start sanding.

Although there is little news in the land of renovations, we'd like you to know that there is peace in our animal kingdom.

Dumpster Vol. 2

We had a second dumpster dropped off for all of the plaster and other demolition junk that's piled up since we had the first dumpster. We'll also need it for the upcoming removal of the back porch section that's being replaced.

March 12th Update

During the past week a lot of work has been done at the house. The contractor framed in the two new closets in the front two bedrooms. The electricians have done the rough in wiring for about 85% of the existing house. We now have temporary lights in all of the rooms except the kitchen and several working electrical outlets.


We plan to use reproduction push button switches for all of the downstairs switches and the upstairs hallway switch.


All of the outside walls are plaster on brick which makes it hard to install wall outlets. Because of this a lot of the electrical and cable outlets will have to be in the floor.


We continue to work on fixing the plaster walls and front foyer ceiling. We've made a lot of progress but there's still a lot more to do.

March 5th Update

This past week the contractor and electricians were back at work wiring the second floor electrical panel in the attic and the second floor rooms. We now have lights in the attic and temporary lights in several of the bedrooms.



We continue to work on the plaster repairs throughout the house. It's slow going but we are making progress. Here are some pictures from the front entrance room.

How Far We've Come....

We've never previously posted a cluster of the "before" pictures in order to avoid horrifying our family and friends or risking long-term, involuntary commitment to a local mental health facility. Given our progress, it is now time to show you (as opposed to describing) just how awful it really was. It's even stunning to us how bad it actually looked.

Here's what you are seeing...in no particular order since the blog site is not cooperating with easy photo posting today:
Foyer fireplace and pile of tenant's junk;
Upstairs hallway and pile of tenant's junk;
Hall bathroom and pile of tenant's junk;
Master bedroom and giant pile of tenant's junk;
Small front bedroom and more junk (note the kerosene heater and canister of kerosene!!);
Rear bedroom (the green peeling wallpaper and mold photo...blech!);
And last but not least....the kitchen.

More Wall Repairs

As usual, we were back at the house this weekend for more repair work. We continued working on the dining room walls, spent some time on the ceiling in the foyer, and did some touch up on walls that are pretty close to complete (except for sanding).


Here is one of the walls in the dining room. There is an earlier picture of this wall in last week's post. Not to sound like a broken record, but the joint compound looks a hundred times better than the nasty brown paint.


Here's a before and after comparison of the foyer. The first picture was taken when the tenant was still "living" in the house and before we even made an offer. Just looking at this picture is nauseating. The second picture was taken this afternoon. No more nasty wallpaper, wall stains or giant holes in the plaster. And most importantly, no more horrid stench.



We are exceptionally proud of the wall repair in the picture below. This wall is on the right side of the foyer and just below the stairs. A lot of the plaster was crumbling and stained. First, we scraped all of the loose plaster off and applied giant pieces of mesh wall tape. Next, we applied layer after layer of joint compound and ended up with a repaired wall. As we've experienced with some of the other walls, some of the yellow stains seep into the joint compound as it dries. We'll use a primer, such as Kilz, to stop this after we sand and are ready to paint.

Snowy Day

We had a little snow this weekend. Maybe and inch to two at best, but it was pretty.

Since the HVAC was repaired early this week, we were able to go back to work this weekend. We worked on the dining room quite a bit. Husband removed all the bits of wallpaper that were still clinging desperately to the wall. Wife began layering joint compund over the brown gloss paint. Joint compound sticks to the paint, but doesn't apply particularly easily. Either way, the white compound looks so much better than the ugly brown.

No Progress

We discovered this weekend that the fan in the basement heating unit has gone kaput for no apparent reason. Lucky us. This means that we have no heat. The HVAC company will be back at the house on Monday morning to replace the fan. Since it's so cold at the house without heat, we would freeze if we tried to work. It's also simply too cold for joint compound to set properly.

Instead of working, we reflected on the life of Anna Nicole Smith and then rented a few movies...The Black Dahlia, The Illusionist, and Little Miss Sunshine. Here are our thoughts:

The Black Dahlia - Read the book by James Ellroy because the movie is unbearably bad.

The Illusionist - One of the better movies we've seen recently. Very entertaining.

Little Miss Sunshine - Haven't watched it yet. But, it's nominated for an Oscar, so it must be good.

FYI - Shut Up and Sing (the Dixie Chicks movie) comes out on DVD on Feb 20. Great movie and band.

Wall Repair Vol. 2

Yes, it is a travesty that Wife is missing the most important of American holidays, Super Bowl Sunday, to post photos of plaster cracks. Well, not really. Our President is a travesty, but that's a topic for another blog.

Anyhoo, here are some before and after pictures of the front wall in the living room. This area is immediately to the right of the location of the big stained-glass window....currently an attractive piece of particle board is in its place.

Where's Tippi Hedren?!?!

As we were leaving to work at the house on Saturday, we discovered that the front yard, and more specifically, our bush, had under attack by a giant flock of robins. In fact, the photo below does not show the full contingent of birdies in the bush, tree, yard, or street. (Take note of the vast number of red berries on the bush in this picture.)


When we returned a few hours later, we discovered that the bush had been picked clean. Not a single red berry was left!