And so the day ends. With ear-piercing sawing action, the satisfying scent of warm fiberglass, a rift…
Now the plumber has to disconnect the plumbing. Why should David have all the fun?
Posts Tagged ‘remodel’
tubby tuesday
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011tues progress report
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011When we left off last week, the new column went in downstairs. Since then, David bolted the column to the metal bracket that was cast into the newly poured cement…
The ceiling came down everywhere…
Destruction began in the bathroom. The sheetrock is now gone…
Our dark secrets are fully apparent to all as you can easily see past the sink and toilet into the storage closet under the stairs…
When David pulled off the sheetrock along the rest of the north wall where we discovered past termite activity, he revealed more. Ewww, so much more…
They ate the paper backing right off the sheetrock, the hungry little buggers. No live termites apparent. (Almost done with my post on how we’re going to deal with this.)
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, tearing out the wall uncovered a mouse nest…
Ralph the Mouse is no longer with us. He died in an untimely motorcycle accident last fall…
I’ll alert Beverly Cleary.
wed progress report
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011As the concrete footing continues to harden up downstairs, what have David and Joe been up to? Apparently plenty. I’ll let David tell you in his own words what the heck’s going on down there.
* * * * *
Today Joe and I cleared the way for one of the two beams going in downstairs. The existing framing wasn’t going to cut it. It was a double 2×10 sitting mostly on top of a wall, with only about a 3′ span over the hallway. First Joe built a temporary support wall to pick up the load so we could remove the wall under the beam…
Then we removed all the vintage (and upside-down looking) joist hangers…
We cut through all the nails we could and levered the old beam down and out…
Easier than it sounds since there isn’t much to lever against. I put my wrecking bar through the floor upstairs in two spots when I got a little over-enthusiastic. Oops. Luckily the carpet is coming out and new flooring is going in, so no permanent damage done.
The new beam will span over 9′ and carry a new point load from the upstairs renovations, so it has to be beefy. It’s made up of three pieces of 1-3/4″ x 9-1/4″ LVL fastened together with hefty screws into one massively strong beam…
I put the first two together on saw horses and then moved them into place before adding the third, too heavy to move by myself otherwise.
A little magic and boom, it’s strapped into position and now awaits final installation.
A long day but we got a lot done.
tues a.m. progress report
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011It’s not even 9:30 in the morning as I write this and the giant hole David and Joe drilled out the other day is already filled with concrete. It pays to hire professionals. Who start work at 7:30.
Joe mixes the first batch of concrete while David dampens the hole. I can’t believe I just wrote that…
The big hole takes the first load. I can’t believe I just wrote that…
David’s job is to — well, you can look at the pictures and apply your own innuendos…
And now, coffee break while things harden up. I can’t believe I just wrote that.
FYI: COMMENTING ISSUES ARE FINALLY FIXED! HAVE AT IT.
wknd progress report
Saturday, February 26th, 2011Yesterday David pulled out the sink cabinet so that it wouldn’t be in the way…
Because today he and our good friend Joe, owner/benevolent monarch of Providence Restoration, had a mess to make. They donned their dust and noise gear (that’s Joe paying me not to blog about him)…
And then they removed a big chunk of wall…
And cut a 36″ x 36″ x 18″ hole in the concrete floor in order to make way for a footing for the soon-to-be new column…
Four hours later they found Vito “Fat Fingers” Marietti under the foundation with a perfectly preserved cannoli in his fist…
I didn’t get a picture of Vito, sorry. Respect for the cannoli and all that, ya know.
Waiting in the wings are 18 bags of concrete because Tuesday, the boys will mix and pour the footing…
And I will likely make another run to Seven Stars in order to ply them with baked goods and lattés.
fri progress report
Friday, February 25th, 2011UPDATE: In yesterday’s post I reported that David was about to launch into concrete cutting. So exciting. But not so fast. Instead, he’s building walls that aren’t in the plan…
Support needs to be added to either side of where the new column/footing are going in on the right. You know, so the livingroom above doesn’t crash through. Although it looks like a crazy man is building errant walls in the middle of the room, that’s not actually the case. It’s just necessary construction before the necessary construction. Got that?
A termite update coming as soon as I can get it whipped up!
thurs progress report
Thursday, February 24th, 2011You’ve seen what the downstairs used to look like. And you’ve seen the plan for what it will look like. So here’s what it looks like today.
The kitchenette cabinets are down. We need a professional to come and deal with the plumbing so we can 86 the lower cabinet now…
The sheetrock is all down and the trim is off. In fact, the trim is being picked up right now by some enterprising DIYer who saw our Craigslist posting for it in the “free” section…
The doors are out. Also being picked up by the same Craigslist troller…
The hallway seems so much larger without doors…
Is it too late to put in a bowling lane?
David is hanging plastic to keep the dust from migrating upstairs…
Because next up is concrete cutting so that we can verify for the engineer that there’s actually a footing for the column we want to put in…
Expect noise. A lot of noise.
scenes from the destruction
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011Step into the dust mask zone with me.
All the trim is coming off…
The sheetrock is coming down…
Kitchen cabinets being pulled out…
My fabulous wallpaper wall…
It came down. *sniff* *sniff*…
Wait a second… what’s that in the far corner?
Ugh. Signs of termites!! Old or recent? We’ll find out tomorrow when New England Pest Control stops by. In the meantime, wood for the construction arrived…
Hey, termites… LUNCHTIME!
downstairs: before
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011So. I broke out the plan for downstairs not too long ago but I’ve never given you the tour. My dear, dear friend, invaluable running partner and talented interior photographer Ellen Connery dropped by to capture the mess downstairs before we started tearing it apart.
It’s somewhat embarrassing but why let that stop me from giving you showing you around, right? We tried to make this space somewhat livable knowing it was temporary. Biggify to see the full glory…
My vintage file cabs. These I am not embarrassed about. My first ever eBay purchase back in… ’98? Could I have bought something more complicated? I think not. Had to hire movers to get them to Providence but it was worth it. These came from DuPont offices in Delaware. Original paint. We had to stash most of our kitchen items inside and on top because the efficiency kitchen down here is so… inefficient.
We got rid of the goth paint and chose colors that would work with the crazy file cabs. Inches from the cabinets is the kitchen/dining room with David’s grandmother’s Tulip table. Thonet bent ply chairs from the ’50s. That partial wall’s coming down…
On the wall: Owl print from Catherine’s Animals by Catherine Ledner. Black and white wood block (or linoleum, not sure which) prints from the Voices From the Mountains series by Katie Truskoski.
Opposite side of the room…
A hint of our hand-silkscreened Blackbird wallpaper by Cavern Home in kraft on the wall there. Wool Libre sectional from DWR (the smallest sectional I could find), covered in all-cotton moving blankets so the 6-year-old cannot destroy it. As much. Roost Aluminum Antler Lamp from Velocity Home. Walnut and maple credenza by David.
View down the hall from the couch…
That interrupting wall is coming out, thank goodness. The tiny 2′ stove is now in use upstairs for the moment. That first door with the paint scraped off it will be the wet bar. And down at the end of the hall…
The bathroom. Even Ellen can’t make that look good. Flesh-tone paint. Gross. Soon, this will gain a few more feet. It will still be small but much mo nicer when we’re done with it.
That’s it. Your 5 cent tour has come to an end. Now gimme my nickel and get out! heh heh. Stay tuned for destruction photos.
time to rock
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011After less than two days, the city of Providence has given us the thumbs up!
Got the building permit this morning. Remodel officially begins NOW!
I just realized that my very first post on mymodremod was February 1 — exactly one year ago today. What are the odds?!