Sunday, August 21, 2011

Next on the list..



Now that the wall is about done its time to move on the next phase of the project. The next big task is the hardwood flooring upstairs. Since we have to move in a little over a week from now, my main focus will be get the bedroom done. This also happens the be the more difficult room as the subfloor is...interesting, and there are several little walls that I have to work around, basically there will be alot of cutting. On the plus side I should be able to use up alot of the short boards.




As you can see in this picture the current sub-floor isn't very flat. There is 1inch rough sawn pine boards on top of the floor joists..which rough sawn 2x6s. On top of all that is tongue and groove flooring, probably some sort of pine. Luckily this gives me quite a lot of material to work with get things flat. I rented an 8inch drum flooring sander yesterday that ought to make this process alot easier. Once floor is flat enough we are going to paint this room and then its time to start laying floor..I can't wait.



Last night I also started to prep the stairs for their hardwood treatment. All of the remaining staples and tacks from the carpet had to come up and the bull-nose had to be cut off. The Oak stair nose pieces are on order with Lowe's so I can't start laying wood on these until those come in. We also got the Oak plywood panels stained and sealed. Those will be cut up to be used for the risers on the stairs.

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Wall is almost done.

Last week I was able to get the rest of the drywall hung and the door jam sorted out so that everything sat nice and flush.





With a little bit of practice I was able to match the texture on the existing wall. I found that the bucket scoop trowel worked the best as it has nice round edges that didn't leave marks in the compound.




Yesteday we got started on the painting. The new wall is lovely shade of Violet. The Halogen work light has been key for painting a nd spackling, even during the day. It makes it much easier to see the texture and whether you have good coverage.

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Thursday, August 18, 2011

Taking a step back..

I missed a few days in there, mostly because i was too exhausted to think about posting anything after 15 hours of running around and moving heavy things.


The first order of business with the rental truck was pick up studs, drywall and wood flooring.



Next it was time to clean out the house.  There was quite a lot of junk in the closets.  


Between the carpet, an old bed and random junk we filled the truck twice with loads for the dump.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Walls and doors...

The first big project to tackle was building a wall to divide the second floor into a bedroom and a living room instead of one gigantic bedroom. Seeing as I don't really do moderation well I decided that french doors would be a great way to learn how to hang doors.


Somehow we managed to get from the mess above to reasonably well hung set of doors. There was some creating shiming to provide something to attach some existing drywall that had to be cut back and to get something to nail the header into. Turns out the ceiling joists run paralell to the wall and I wasn't lucky enough to be right under one.


Sooo... the drywall got off to bit of a rough start. Luckily I have alot of spackle and hope I am better at that the cutting drywall.


The bedroom side of the wall, notice the extra stud on the left that was added after the previous pictures were taken. Kinda forgot about that one, fortunatly I rememered it before I had drywall on that side of the wall.



There...those gapping cracks don't look so bad anymore. Seems like it is going to be pretty easy to match the skip-trowel patter on the extisting wall too.
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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Productive Evening

We got alot done tonight. All of the carpet is torn up and started working on th layout for the new wall upstairs.


Natalie cleaning up after me as usual.



Wicket isn't very helpfull...but she's cute.



Master Bedroom sans stinky carpet. Turns out their is old wood flooring under the carpet in that half of the upstairs.



Neat old roll top desk that was among the treasures left in the house by the previous occupants....

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Celebrating the new house.


Yesterday after closing and running a bunch of errands we picked up Wicket and some Chinese food for our first meal at the new house.




We figured we should have a toast..so Champagne was in order.

 
Champagne and chinese food goes together surprisingly well.
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First things first..

Got a new lock installed last night.  Arr an unsuccessful attempt to re-key the dead bolt we devised to buy one with a key pad...pretty slick. Turns out that some new locks can be "taught" new keys..



Wednesday, August 10, 2011

It's done...

Closing is complete, we have the key.  Time for the fun part to begin.


Tools...

One of the best parts about house projects is new tools. Pneumatic finish and brad nailers. No more smashing fingers or trim trying to pound tiny nails by hand.  Hardwood flooring is the perfect excuse to buy a table saw.



Saturday, August 6, 2011

So it begins..

After moving to Idaho Springs, CO for Natalie's job with the Forest Service, we started looking for rentals in Golden where I found a job. It turns out that you can't get much for under $1500 a month...at least if your standards involve dog friendly, storage space and not smelling like a Animal house. We decided to look at the houses for sale Clear Creek county....and found one that We fell in love with. I can sum it up in a few choice words... Victorian, Wine Cellar, Keg cooler.


Wine cellar with the Keg cooler that is piped through the wall to the taps in the dining room wall..how convienent. This is the only room in the house that is air conditioned.


Kitchen; stainless appliances, cherry stained hickory cabinets, tile counters...not too much that needs to be done there.


Sitting room; small wood stove, window seat. The entire first floor is floored with solid oak.


Downstairs half-bath; This bathroom is part of an addition that was done in the late '90s which almost doubled the size of the house. The sink is a gold pan.


Stairs up to second floor; This will be one of the first big projects.


Master bathroom; the small white tile is kind of dated but everything is in good shape, a fresh coat of paint to break up the white on white on white scheme and we should be good to go in there for awhile.

Master bedroom half of upstairs. The entire 2nd floor is one large room. We plan to add a wall to sperate the bedroom from what will be the living room. The carpet upstairs is going away and will be replaced with 3 1/4in oak flooring to match the downstairs.


Back deck; This deck is off of the second floor, the door in the picture accesses the master bedroom. Behind me is the hot tub.


This is the view from the second floor looking out over Idaho Springs. The house is at the widest part of town and the highway is below town, so there isn't a clear view of the highway and very little noise, defiantly a nice thing in Idaho Springs.


The view from the stairs out into the sideyard. about half the yard is landscaped..we plan to build a dog run and a garden in the rest of it. This property actually consists of two building lots which is why the side yard is so large. All told there is 0.6 acres with the house, although a good part of that is the steep hillside behind the house.

Here is the dining room, you can see the door into the wine cellar and the beer taps..did I mention that there is a keg system?

The retaining wall structure in the side yard is impressive. There are terraced garden beds with built in steps to access them.


The protrusion on the end of the house if the stairs. The room above the patio off the dining room is the sun room. That will be tiled and become the office/plant room.

Going from the patio to the upper deck is a set of narrow steep stairs that keep going up the hillside..presumably to some part of the old mining claim which this property was carved out of.




And finally we have the view from the street. Wall street is a crazy little side street with 6-8 houses on it. We are one of only two house with decent parking.

Stay tuned, there will be more to come...much much more.