Fun with Layouts - Living Room

I did this in MS Word because I am limited in the programs I have available to me (it is to scale +/- an inch or two in a couple places):



I got a great deal on a front loading washer and dryer set a few weeks ago so I have those sitting in my kitchen right now and that got me thinking that it makes more sense to have them accessible on the main floor than having to hunch over in the basement every time. Also, getting them down there would most likely damage them in some way since there aren't really any openings wide enough. I thought about putting them in the kitchen, but since I already need to have that part of the room sectioned off for plumbing and possibly HVAC ducts, it wouldn't be too hard to frame out an enclosure there.

I contacted someone to come out and give me an idea of how the duct work will need to be run and what I'll need to work into my layout; I'll post an update once I get that info.

I'm working on the other rooms now and will try to put my ideas out there so I can have a record somewhere to compare against when it ends up being completely different.

The things under the stairs

I haven't posted anything about my house in a long, long time. Well, I guess I should throw something up here about that. The below picture will show you that I have cleared out the area below my stairs and now have an open view to my basement. My eventual goal here is to have access to the basement through a hatch type thing once I change to a floating staircase and lay hardwoods (or some form of fake hardwood). I think I may have found the stairs I want, and they really aren't that expensive ... but I want to finish some of the other work before I decide to tear out my current stairs.



While clearing out the wall under the stairs, I found a treasure trove and random crap from half a century ago. Everything was just scattered around (with a lot of nasty dirt and dust) in the area under the first couple steps. Well, not everything ... some of it was actually IN the walls.



Here are some of the highlight of what I found:



There were a few more of those playing cards, I think maybe 5 in total. There were a ton of prayer cards from different funerals, but I thought the most interesting one was for a priest that spent a large portion of his time in Japan. The prayer cards were mostly in very good shape. The card with planes on them are part of a set of 144 or something, but they are pretty beat up. The metal thing in the middle is a dog license from the 1950's and will go great with the other stuff I've found in walls from the 50's when I frame them in a shadow box. Probably the most interesting thing though is a Buck Rodgers card from 1936. Like the plane cards, it's in pretty bad shape ... but it's from 1936! Who cares what kind of shape it's in, it's older than my parents.



I guess I'll leave you with a picture of my living room with most of the sub floor put down (ignore all the crap, I took the picture on a whim and didn't feel like cleaning up).

Lots of wood to keep me busy

This will keep me busy for a while. Over 300 square feet for a new sub-floor.



More to come ...

Chimney TV Walls

I haven't posted anything in a while because I've been busy with friends visiting and doing other fun and exciting things that I could write about, but don't want to get back to this being just a bunch of pictures of me hanging out with friends.

The only work I've done on my house involves cleaning ... and it is definitely cleaner than it has been in a long, long time. I even had some of the aforementioned friends sleeping on the first floor. Anyways, the next thing I want to do is frame out around the chimney. This is basically what I want to do:



I used IKEA's room design freeware which limited me from showing what I actually think it will look like, but you can get the idea. The shelving will be built into the wall on both side and there will be a HVAC duct on the left side of the image closing in that section of shelves. The chimney will have a mantle on it with the flat screen hanging above. I am going to use an in-wall mounting bracket so I can wire electric to it and easily hide all the wires. I am looking at the Sanus LR1A system (below). It will bring the TV flush against the wall and also allow me to extend it out and rotate toward the "dining" area in case I am working over there and want to watch something.






If I find better freeware to use, I'll make a better mock-up of this and other areas I need to work on.

I have light!

I have more pictures from other work I did this weekend, but they are on my camera at home; this is from my phone. I am pretty happy to have this wired up the way I want it now. It will also make working on the rest of the first floor a lot easier.

Baby Steps ... What about Bob!

I haven't really dedicated too much time working on the house this week, but I have been doing small one-off things that I can finish quickly and feel like I made some progress. I decided to clean the basement area at the front of the house since there were large piles consisting of plaster, mortar and other random debris from working on the front wall on the first floor (a lot of the debris feel through the holes left from the radiator piping). I don't have a picture, but the front area in the basement is now clean and I will start moving some of my stuff in storage to that area. I also covered the radiator holes so more debris doesn't fall through (see duct tape on floor).

I installed the first outlet in the living room and had to place it a little lower than planned (was going to do 14" to the bottom of the receptacle but it would fit under the window so I did 12"). I am glad I did this one first because now I will install the rest on the first floor at the same height.



I also got a chance to clean up my kitchen and have that room in a state it will remain in until after my friend's visit at the end of April. I'll probably hang some drop cloth in the doorway between the living/dining room and kitchen so the dust from any other work I do is minimal.



Not sure what I am going to do when I get home tonight (after volleyball, of course), maybe start moving all the stuff in the basement to the front so I can cut down the remaining radiator piping this weekend, or maybe just partition off the kitchen.

Also, I should be able to procure a hammer drill pretty soon and once I do that I can finish wiring the rest of the outlets in the living room and turn that breaker on.

When I named this post "Baby Steps," I didn't really think about it ... but when I went to publish it, I thought about the movie What About Bob? and had to post a picture.

A little building, a lot of destruction

Look at that wonderful installation. I re-ran some of the wiring between the recessed lighting and cleaned-up the connections. I also sketched up the electrical layout for the living room and dining room and the stairwell light switch ... I would show it here but don't have a scanner and don't feel like drawing it in excel or paint or visio. The second switch in this box is going to go to the stairwell light but I need to get a 4-way switch to put at the bottom of the stairs and run the wiring to this 3-way switch. I also found out that the basement walls do not extend as far out as the living room walls and I'll need to cut into some brick in order to run the wiring for the outlet that is going to be next to the chimney; should be a great time ... anyone have a hammer drill?



After constantly tripping on the uneven flooring when coming in the front door for the past 2 weeks I decided it was necessary to pull up the rest of the floor in the living room. A short time later I am left with this hideous green laminate that has stains all over it. I thought the point of laminate was that it is stain resistant. Oh well, I'll be leaving several pairs of sandals around to ensure I never step on it barefoot.



Where to put all that flooring you ask? In a pile behind the door making it harder to take out when I eventually dispose of it, of course. I blame my friend Brian for not pointing this fact out when we were stacking it.



So, right now I have my utensils in a box, a box that is balancing on a pot, a pot that is in a pan, a pan that is on a stack of cutting boards, a stack of cutting boards that are on my microwave ... why? Cause I am a great friend that donated my main kitchen cabinet to my friend so he can make a liquor cabinet out of it.

Oh, oh, look ... more laminate ... it's so pretty, I can't contain myself.

Once I clean up the now vacated area, I am going to put my mobile island there and use that as my primary cabinetry until I determine how I want to design the kitchen.

As Promised, Step One of What Do I Do Now

The first thing I am going to do now that I have the front walls framed out is run the wiring to two outlets and the lights for the living room. This will provide me with a better environment when I begin to frame out the rest of the alley wall. I already have the boxes for the outlets and light switches (I am going to make the stairwell a 4-way switch and add one next to the front door). I should be able to have this done by tomorrow night (Tuesday) and will post some pictures.

I guess I need to make a list of all the steps because posting them one at a time really doesn't seem like it will be too effective. Next step - create master list; look for that next time.

I have a Wall ... or at least the framing of one

This weekend was very productive as far as moving forward with my house goes. In between endless amounts of college basketball and the BSG finale and football and volleyball, I (meaning mostly my dad with me doing whatever I could) were able to frame out the front wall and the section between the front and the chimney.

We built the small section between the front of the house and the chimney first because we didn't need to account for any windows or doorways and the floor and ceiling were pretty level. It was straightforward and didn't take very long to complete.



To make sure everything was flush against the floor, I pulled up the fake wood floors and got as much of the linoleum up as I could and scraped off the remaining residue. The original floor must have been pretty sweet, I am anxious to see what it looks like when I tear up the entire floor and get rid of all the linoleum. I am a sucker for hardwood with reddish coloring, my mom has Brazilian cherry hardwoods and they look great. For some reason I can't get this picture below to be in landscape so just turn your head sideways.



After measuring (and remeasuring) all the spacing between the walls and window and doorway, we (my dad) decided to make a Home Depot run and get two 10' studs for the top and bottom plates so we didn't need to connect shorter lengths. We also got some metal plates to attach the top plate to the joists. During our measuring, we found that the joist doesn't run parallel with the front brick and the floor is not completely level. We made sure when installing the frame that it would be plumb. This will allow me to use it as a point of reference when determining the final placement of the recessed lights. Now, for your viewing pleasure:







Oh, I forgot to mention that I had someone haul all the crap I had for $20. I replied to an ad off craigslist because they said the would take metal for free and I didn't really want to deal with transporting the 3 heavy radiators and iron piping to sell them for $50ish and then take the several bags of plaster (also heavy, and dirty) and the fake wood flooring and all that to a dump. I'll probably have them come back once I have finish doing all of the demo I plan on doing.

Now, I am going to document my next steps and hopefully set up some sort of timeline that I most definitely won't hold myself accountable to. I have to keep in mind that I am having a friend come visit for almost a week at the end of March and want my house clean for that portion of time. Tune in tomorrow (or quite possibly the next day) for the first of several installments of, "Where do we go from here?"

I also have to thank my dad for his help and his previous carpentry background. If it wasn't for him, I would not have paid as much attention to detail when ensuring the frame was plumb and level and probably would have built something unusable.

More house work (but not much)

Wednesday's volleyball match went well and we defeated the other team fairly easily. Unfortunately, the game was early and I didn't have any time to work on the house because the team goes out after for some food and drinks. Last night I made plans to go to Pho Dat Thahn in Columbia and have my first pho experience; it was really good and I am looking forward to trying different places now. The plans weren't until 8 so I decided to get some simple work done.

I figured it would be easy to cut the iron pipes in the living room that were running to the radiator in the bedroom. Well, I guess I am just a dumb ass because it took about 30 minutes to get through one pipe (I was using a hacksaw because I didn't feel like spending money on something better). Halfway through the second pipe I gave up and decided to do something else until I got a better saw. The failed pipe cutting results:



I grabbed the crowbar and decided to see how well the plaster was adhered to the front wall. To my surprise, most of the upper portion came off very easily. I didn't want to get too dirty since I was going out to dinner, so I just pulled off the pieces that were loose and decided to move to the kitchen. Front wall:



I only had about 20 minutes before I had to leave to get to Pho Dat and decided to detach the radiator in my kitchen. That was easy, but moving it proved to be a lot more difficult for just me. The feet of the radiator were set into holes in the floor, which made me have to lift it out so that I could slide it over. It got done, and I amazingly didn't get dirty in the process. Now I am looking forward to the time when I have to clean that wall (as you can see below).





I picked up a reciprocating saw and a metal blade so I hope to accomplish a lot this weekend.

Weekend House Progress

I got a lot of work (for me) done on my house Sunday. I have all 4 recessed lighting housings up in my living room and just need to wire them; which I am planning on doing tonight. I am not going to completely hook them up yet until I frame out the front wall and I am not going to be able to do that until I expose the brick and remove the radiator piping to the second floor.


Now all I need is power going to these

As far as removing the radiators, I was able to drain them fairly easily. The water that came out was pretty nasty and had an awful odor. It took about an hour to drain all 4 and I was able to make use of the tub in the basement as a drain. After draining them I disconnected the one in the living room (since it wouldn't matter if a bunch of nasty water leaked there) as a test to see if they were actually empty. There was a little water left inside but I was able to drain that by tipping the radiater into a bucket. Not sure how heavy the radiators are, but I am going to go with 300+ pounds. I'm pretty sure the one in the basement is going to need to be taken out back and through the alley.


The faucet connection was not that great


Anyone thirsty?


There used to be a 300 pound hunk of iron here


Now I can start exposing that wall so I can frame it out

Also, I found something I can do when I am bored or only have a few minutes to work on something. I grabbed my golf club cleaning brush to clear off a chunk of plaster on the brick and decided it would be a good way to prep the brick on the wall I am going to leave exposed. It's not fast, but I can be more detailed and take extra care on the spots that have loose mortar. I bought a couple brass wire brushes so they wouldn't be too abrasive and the results turned out great.


Brick with the left-over plaster on it


More brick & plaster


Brick after cleaning it up

Finally, Something in My House is Different

I was in a weird mood yesterday and decided that I wanted to accomplish something. I didn't take a before picture so here is a description of my stairs. Originally they were covered in nasty burnt looking carpet (which there are old pictures of) ... when I tore up the carpet a while back the stairs were covered with linoleum and had metal pieces on the edge of each step. There were also a ton of tacks and staples in the stairs from the carpet.

I figured it wouldn't take long to tear up the linoleum and pull out all the staples/tacks and it would look a lot better and give me that sense of accomplishment I was looking for. This worked and now I am re-motivated to work on stuff. The next steps are to pick up my dad's belt sander Wednesday and sand off all the adhesive. I think I may sand the risers too and take off the white paint, but haven't decided on that yet.

By later tonight, I meant tomorrow morning

Here are the pictures of the finished product from this weekend:


That wire hanging down is the switch to the light at the top of the stairs, but you can also probably use it as a jump rope


I am truely looking forward to the tedious task of removing all the small nails in the cross beams


I think this is where there used to be another chimney or a wood stove, still haven't gotten a good look at the hole in the top of the picture, but those bricks (not even real bricks) are just sitting in place with no mortar or anything


Old stairs maybe? and the opening that has been half-assedly (it's a word) filled

That's my neighbor's house, thier second floor to be exact

The craptastic patch job of a master mason I presume

Another angle

Yes ... the walls do appear to have been pink

House Post #7 - Main Floor Repair (pt. 2)

So, I said in my previous post about not knowing how to repair the hole in the chimney; I think I did a pretty decent job. The hole was about the size of two half bricks on top of each other. I chiseled out the remainder of the brick to make an opening for two whole bricks and cleaned out the surface of the opening. The amount of mortar I bought wasn't enough and was meant to touch up small areas so I was initially only able to do one brick. You can see how the mortar on the lower brick is dry while the rest of it is fresh. After picking up more mortar I put in the second brick and filled in any gaps that were left with the first brick. The result is a chimney with no holes and a few mismatched bricks and different colored mortar. I don't really care too much about this because I intend on having the chimney taken out (if possible) once I get central air and no longer need it for exhaust purposes.

The hole prior to prepping it for repair

Finished product

House Post #6 - Main Floor Repair (pt. 1)

Since this is a catch-up post it kinda falls out of order from some of the previous ones but I don't care, here it is. The first thing(s) I did to my house was getting a new front door (and new water pipe from the street and new circuit breaker box). The previous door, which I sadly don't have any close up pictures of, was pretty much a glorified piece of cardboard with the kind of lock you find on antique desks. I felt like I was going to fall into my house before even turning the knob when I would stumble home drunk. The new door was a good investment and while I am trying to do as much labor on my home as I can, I really just had no interest in completely framing a new door and dealing with all the details involved in constructing something that I needed yesterday. I hired a contractor to do it and feel like I got a fair price.

This is the best picture I had of the original door

While I lost the storm door, I gained some privacy and security.