Welcome back... to my getting-better disaster

Hi folks! 

Sorry I had this on hold for so long, but I just couldn't bear to keep taking pictures, or to keep reporting that the bathroom just wasn't coming along as fast as we hoped.  Here's where we are!

This is where we left off.

Since then:

We drained the pool and it filled back in...

Hubs built a wall...

I helped. A lot.

I measured and marked.

I cut.  (Pardon the crazy angles... Lil C actually took these!! I love that I have an entire sequence of every move I made from setting the board down to walking away with it!) 

Hubs continued to build.

Lil C continued to play and be adorable, as always.

The baby bird hatched.  Then we moved the nest.  Mama Bird found him just fine.  Then he fell out onto Lil C's play structure platform and died. So sad. 

Then I threw the Biggest. Hissy Fit. Ever.  So we bought a cheap camper so I could have running water and a stove to cook on.

Hubs installed a PEX water supply manifold and spent a couple weeks routing all the lines....

Then we invited the plumbing inspector out and he gave us a passing grade:

You should have HEARD this guy go on and ON about how Hubs did a good job!  Makes us wonder who the  heck the poor guy works with all day!

And finally, after 6 weeks of miserable lack of facilities within the house, we now have a working toilet AND shower!

Hey look!!! There's a wall, and a toilet, and a tub/shower, and running water, and working drains, and connections for  all the other stuff we'll put in someday... like another toilet, and a shower, and a vanity in Lil C's bath and double sinks in ours...

Boring words and no pictures to follow in tomorrow's post!  Thanks for reading!

End of Back Wall Tearout

Welcome back... I'm glad you stopped by!  Sorry I haven't posted much - we haven't DONE very  much before today.  Work comes in spurts around here...

Question: Have you ever wondered what $600 worth of PVC piping looks like?  Yeah, me neither.  But here it is anyway.

Ignore Hubs' orange level (and the housewrap roll, and the sump pump plumbing), but all those connectors, all those tubes, all 3 gray bags...

We spent 3 hours in Lowe's on Thursday night.  I haven't written much here lately because Hubs was busy drawing up plumbing plans to show the inspector BEFORE we went and bought/installed all this stuff.  So Thursday evening, Hubs came home from work, we took the plans to the inspectors, then we came home and dropped off the car and took the truck to Lowe's.  (That's a 30-minute drive, by the way.)  When we got there, Hubs realized he'd left all his plans in the backseat of my car.  FAIL.

We went in anyway, and Hubs was able to buy every bit of what you see in that photo from memory.  After all, he DID just spend a week designing everything, right!?  Well, I'm impressed anyway!  ....The cashier wasn't too impressed when we showed up in her line 15 minutes before closing, but she finished in about 10 minutes, so she doesn't have anything to complain about, right?

Today, Hubs built me another spiffy hanger for putting up a second run of temporary support wall, so we can tear out the rest of the back.

See it down there at the end?  It helps soooooooooooo much!

Where the two temporary supports meet.

And then Hubs proceeded with the last bit of basement tearout.

"Before" ....ish, as always.

The bottom plate.  Totally rotted. :(

This is the underside of the previous picture.  And my shoe.  Our house was resting on ROT!

Now it's ALL out!

"But Krista," you ask, "where did you PUT all that wall material, since you don't have a dumpster anymore!???"  Oh, that's not what you're saying?  You didn't know I got rid of the third dumpster?  My bad.  Maybe that's because by the time they took it away for the THIRD TIME, I figured it wasn't a note-worthy event.  Anyway, this is what I did with the debris:

As organized as trash gets around here.  It gives me something to do when we DO get the next dumpster.....in a while.... We're not ready yet!!!

Lastly, an update on the pool.

Hubs put about double the recommended dose of chlorine into it - after 1/3 of the water had drained.  So in two days, it's cleared up quite a bit, don't you think?  All our friendly forest animals have stopped dying in our pond pool, since they can't really REACH it anymore.  No more furry drownings, no more toads, and - thanks to Hubs' shock treatment - I'm pretty sure no more mosquitoes.  And it's still draining... there are about 3" left to go in the shallow end.  I hope to post a picture before the weekend is out of a dry-bottomed shallow end!  Then... another three weeks before the deep end empties???  Good thing we aren't in a hurry!

Tomorrow I'm mowing the jungle and baking some bread while Hubs works on a Sunday.  Also, these next two weeks might be slow postings, since he is expecting to be working extremely late on some intense project at work.  We'll see how much we get done...he's not hopeful. :(

Plans, The Pool, The Cat, and The Dog

Well, I'll tell you about the cat and the dog first.  Hubs pulled a dead rodent out of the pool a few days ago and left it poolside.  Big mistake with our dog who likes to roll on dead things.  The poor dog has been banished to the backyard for two days now - until our groomer opens up after the holiday weekend!

Then, Hubs and I were sitting in the living room at 1pm on Saturday afternoon of a long weekend, working on plumbing plans, and we heard a cat fight RIGHT outside our front window.  We DO allow our cat to go outside, so Hubs pretty much tackled me to get outside and make sure our cat was okay.  Turns out, she was bleeding small drips from the bum area, and she wouldn't let him get a good enough look to see how serious it was.  I scrambled to get the cat carrier, while Hubs corralled her and TRIED to look at her wound, then gave up and comforted her.  After she (and her bleeding bum) were contained, I called my vet.  No answer - it was after-hours already.  Of COURSE!  So I scribbled down the emergency vet's number, called them up for directions and to let them know I was coming (and that it wasn't life-threatening), jumped in the car and drove off.  Then I got to the end of my street and realized I'd forgotten my cell phone.  So I had to go back for it.  Fast forward 3 hours, antibiotics, a shaved and washed bum, and $200 later, and you'll find the cat sleeping on the drive home, acting like nothing's wrong. When I got home, we settled her into the bathroom, where she'll be making her home for the next 10 days... yay for us.  :/

So, other than all THAT adventure, we haven't really DONE much the last couple days, due to the need to plan the plumbing in the ENTIRE HOUSE before proceeding on a single wall.  But I'm pleased to show our progress!  (And Hubs' awesome grid-paper magic!)

Plan for the entire basement layout!

The top is the front of the house - the front half is pretty much open, unplanned space at this point.  The only main features of that space will be the fireplace and the electrical panel on the left, and the stairway to the main level on the right.

Moving on to the bottom half - the leftmost feature is a walk-in food storage closet for me - plenty of shelves and space for my upright freezer!  Also, where Hubs has written "Backfiller" along this closet's wall - that's going to be a open-and-close-able  pass-through wall for proper food storage rotation!

The next space over will be open, with the door to the backyard just outside my food-storage closet.  Right along the midline, you can see that Hubs has sketched in some cabinetry.  The precise usage will be determined later - entertainment, or daycare, or ... yeah.  We don't know.  (Yes Mom, I hear you.  "Dehydrator space!  Bread machine! Sewing station!"  I'm also thinking this will make excellent storage for my less-frequently-used appliances.)

The next space will be a utility room - my washer and dryer will be on the other side of the wall behind the cabinetry.  Um, actually... *looks HARD at this drawing* Please ignore the layout of THIS bathroom design.  It's wrong.  It's not what we're doing.  But that's the bathroom area.  The NEXT picture will show you the final layout of that space.

Lastly, the space all the way on the right is the space under our den, and will be used as a mechanical room.  We are likely going to install a geothermal system, forced hot air, and an instant water heater in there.

Under the stairs to the main level we will have the well accumulator tank, the whole-house filter, and the water softener.

THIS is the bathroom layout!

The top of this picture is the mechanical room.  The right side is the external wall to the backyard.  The left side goes out right next to the empty space at the front of the basement, and the bottom backs up to the counter space.

My washer and dryer will have a built-in countertop running over the top of them!  The sink will be a utility/laundry sink.  Just to the left of the sink, we see the space under the stairs - where the water softener and filter will share the drain with the utility sink.

That big pipe-looking line that runs through the middle is just that - Hubs' plan for the drain lines.

Layout for the upstairs bathroom reno - turning 1 bath into 2!

Along the left side of this drawing is our upstairs hallway.  The topmost wall shown here borders the attic area above the den.  The right wall is exterior, and the bottom will open into our bedroom (there will likely be a door, even though there isn't one shown here).

The top bathroom will be Lil C's - simple, cheaper materials that get the job done and are easy to clean.

The other bathroom will be part of our new master suite.  The toilet will be under a window, the shower will be nearly 5 feet wide by 3 feet deep, and we will have nearly 6 feet of counter space to house our double sinks!  Our closet will run the 8-foot length between what is currently the first window in our bedroom, and the current bathroom window.  We'll use elegant tiles, pretty glass, a more expensive toilet, up-scale fixtures, and Hubs plans to put some homemade built-ins in the closets.  (As I type this, he has run off copies of these pages and is still working on the exact drain lines of all of these fixtures.....)



Lastly, I went outside a couple hours ago to snap a progress update picture on the pool draining, and.... well... our devil horns came out.....

At my urging, Hubs threw the dog into the pool - at the deep end!

He made a bee-line for the stairs, although he seemed to be enjoying himself.

So much so that he turned around, swam a circle, and THEN headed for the stairs.

Have you noticed the water quality or the level of the pool water at ALL yet???  Or are you too busy reading captions?

Then, for good measure, Hubs threw him in again.  This time, the poor dog just went straight for the stairs.  Apparently, once is fun, twice is mean?

Sheathing!

Today was QUITE a busy day!  I mowed the grass while Hubs got started on working. Lil C did.... something.  I'm not quite sure what.  She watched some TV (though not as much as you might think).  She strung some beads on some pipe cleaners, and read some books, and played outside a little bit.

Hubs started sheathing this wall:

Then he pulled up the ice&water barrier:

He only put up enough barrier around the window that he had laying around - we'll cut more off the roll later...

In case you're wondering about the different colors of plywood, yes, that IS pressure-treated plywood that we just installed.  Maybe it wasn't necessary.  But it made ME feel better to know that termites aren't likely to want to chew through it NEARLY as happily as they would through regular plywood.  And since they were ALL OVER this wall, I want to be POSITIVE they understand they are soooooooooooooooo NOT welcome here EVER AGAIN.

And then?  We GHETTO-FABULOUS'ed our whole wall.  Rockin' the Lowe's look.  It'll be like this for a LONG time, but not forever.

Ok, now  you're all screaming about half a dozen different issues.  I hear you, I hear you!  Shut up and listen:  This is TEMPORARY.  It's a permanent temporary solution - we'll leave it this way for several months.
1) I hear you yelling about the 8" gap under the window, above the wrap.  "The rain will get in behind it!!!"  No, it won't.  Yes, it COULD, but it won't.  It's rained BUCKETS here these past four weeks that this wall has been opened, and that part of the wall simply doesn't get rained on.  We'll take our chances.

2) "Where's the window???"  Yeah, yeah. It's under there.  Well, the opening is, anyway (you can actually see the dark spot behind the second-farthest logos).  The window itself is actually sitting inside that room.  We'll install it later.  We aren't leaving up this house wrap permanently.  We'll pull the whole thing off, put up some foam-board insulation, and all new siding.  Next summer.  Maybe.  In the meantime, I'm tired of bumblebees and carpenter ants flying in that window, just to fly back out.  Bugs are just NOT welcome in my house!!!

3)  Ok, I could only see two issues.  If you're still yelling about more, leave me a comment.  Or assume that we're probably aware of what you see and we'll get to it.  Later.  We ARE still kinda concerned about that gaping hole that has now shifted to the left of the picture, and isn't going to sew itself up as easily as this did.  (Hubs has to move the main drain out of the external wall.  That takes Some Planning.)

And speaking of planning, that's what's on tap for tomorrow.  I've prepared a different post for you tomorrow, since I don't see any sort of interesting post coming out of graph paper and HOURS of conversation, and maybe a second-time-this-weekend trip to Lowe's.

Oh, and YAY for Hubs being home all day on a Friday!!! :D

Back!

Hello!  I would LOVE to take this opportunity to share with you exactly what I was doing, where I went, who I was with, yada yada yada... But I kinda forgot to take ANY pics.  Seriously.  So as soon as I get ahold of a few photos that were taken by others who were present, Where I Was will remain a mystery.

Therefore, we'll just move on to what Hubs did while I was gone!  Quick and easy, down and dirty:

This is my front door (Left) and my coat closet (center).  ....or is it??

That's the GARAGE!  Where did all our coats go??? (Hubs stored them in a good place - a.k.a. a wife-approved place - before ripping out my coat closet and reclaiming HIS garage space!)

I know it's blurry, but you don't really want to CLEARLY see all the crap in my garage anyway!  That bright light is my front door!!!

Hubs ripped out this whole part of the wall.

The robin found his way back into our support joist once the wall was open again.  That poor bird isn't going to score himself a mate this season if he keeps making his nest in a place that humans keep throwing it out!   Mamas need to know their babies are SECURE!!!

Hubs decided to dig.  A lot.  At the top of this pic, the main drain where it exits the house.  Cleanout, broken check-valve and T's and Y's to basement fixtures.

This is a close-up of the bottom hole from the previous picture.  Hubs has No Clue what this broken pipe's purpose once was.

But the pipe crumbled in his hand and looked like this.

Did I mention Hubs dug A LOT??  This is from two stories up.  Notice the pile of concrete at the top.  And the wire pile to the right. That gray pile just to the left of center is about 18" high. And just below the orange line, you can see a brown pipe.  That's the main drain to the septic system.

Lots of things to look at here....

The red pole on the right is the temporary support.  The pipes in the middle are there because Hubs knows I'll pitch the worst fit in history if he disconnects my washer and dryer for more than 12 hours at a time, so he can't just rip out random plumbing that's all connected right there.  That center stud is...a stud.  I don't know why Hubs has left it just now.  Oh wait.  Yes I do.  It is holding the outlet for MY DRYER!!!  Oh, sweet husband of mine...  

And just to the left of my dryer exhaust is the main drain to the whole house.  That used to be encased within the external wall.  Hubs doesn't like that design.  He also can't very well stud in this wall until he moves - a.k.a. replaces and then switches... - the placement of that stack.  And THAT requires planning out NOW every last drain pipe of the house in the manner we intend to put them.  

Well, that covers everything that Hubs was able to get done in 3 working days while still caring for his daughter all by himself!  I'm quite impressed, aren't you?

Check back tomorrow for what we got done the night before I left, and hopefully by Thursday I'll have pictures of what I was doing!

Moving The Temporary Support

Ok, so I really don't have very many pictures to go with this story, but I can't express to y'all how ACCOMPLISHED we feel, having moved the support down another 16 feet.

Well, I guess we better start at the beginning, hm?  So first, we took a deep breath.  I explained to Hubs how big of an exercise in trust it was on my part to be standing under the house while the support was removed - it was the one and only test of the strength and integrity of the wall he had just built.  But I seriously believe Hubs could build anything, given enough time and materials (...and maybe another strong back, since mine doesn't seem to get the job done except maybe 10% of the time).  I seriously mean he could build ANYTHING.

Anyway, he slowly backed the jacks down, and the whole floor creaked and groaned, but didn't fall.  AFTER he was done, he explained to me that he had actually jacked the floor up slightly higher than it was originally, so it was just settling back to where it belonged. (And I do mean SLIGHTLY - my poorly-constructed floors within the house creak more when I walk over them than the house did when he "lowered" it.)

Then we held the 2x10s and kicked out the scrap 2x4s that were helping to keep the support from twisting, and then we moved it into the old kitchen and set it down.  I AM WOMAN, I AM STRONG, HEAR ME ROAR!  :D  (Cue Hubs rolling his eyes here...)  And then we looked at each other.  The main level's floor joists are almost a foot lower in the termite room than in the rest of the house.  Hubs measured me on my tippy toes, arms completely extended - my palms were 14" from the bottom of the joists in the old kitchen.  I couldn't stand there and hold the 2x10s to the joists!  We needed to do something else!  I'm strong enough to hold it on my shoulder all day long, but I really don't have the strength to hold them over my head for long, even when I AM tall enough.  So I suggested a bracing between the only wall that still exists WITHIN the basement, and Hubs one-upped me.  He gave me this:

Isn't it beautiful????

Hubs spent 20 mins screwing that shelf together for me!  And he left it up, he says to make taking it back DOWN easier.  My face lit up anyway, and he knew I planned to blog about it - awww he reads my mind! Anyway, Hubs got the support up on that, I held it at the other end, and he got the jacks in and snugged up!  And psst!  We  never dropped it even once!!!  Which is an awesome thing, considering it's currently above my new-since-we-bought-this-house washing machine!!!  ....Which is currently covered with a towel to protect it, tools because it's one of the few flat surfaces that isn't The Ground, and then covered with a trash bag in anticipation of birds finding the support's new location.  So far, so good - no birds!

So here's a view of what we'll be ripping out next!  There's nothing but the king and jack studs to the left of that leftmost window, and we'll rip out till halfway between the door and the next window.

Termite Wall Framing

Hey folks!  I'm sorry I haven't posted in almost a week!!  Yes, I KNOW!!!!!!!  We were too busy working and I wasn't busy enough blogging.  My bad!  I've got a few posts lined up for this week, so start checking back again, k?

So we started wtih this.

Totally clear slab.  Then we went to Lowe's and got a butt-ton of cinder blocks.  Hubby had a steep learning curve in masonry, during which time the camera was banned.  He gets a little camera shy sometimes.

So he laid the blocks, and filled them with cement and the anchor bolts.

We busted out the work lamp and worked most nights this past week till 10.  We've also had a few chats with our neighbors.  They're all SUPER sweet, and none of them have minded yet.  I really hope they WILL come yell at us if we're too loud too late....  Anyway, back to the wall:

Add a couple top plates, a couple bottom plates, and some water&ice dam.

Add LOTS of lumber and VOILA!  It looks like a wall again! ...Mostly....

Hubs also found this.  More termite damage.

He got around to fixing it later that evening. 

Day 4.  Seriously.

It was cute the first few days.  Now we're tired of pulling made-overnight birds' nests from our temporary support.

Check back in tomorrow for the post about Moving The Temporary Support - a good time, I promise you.  Spoiler alert: we did NOT drop the 2x10s this time!!!  (We did the first time - it sucked.)