Friday, December 7, 2012

Day 100 Update

December 3, 2012:  It is hard to believe that we have owned the house for 100 days now! It really has been a back-and-forth of "I can't believe its only been 100 days..." and "OMG its been 100 days, we need to be done NOW!"  So what have we accomplished you might ask? We have:

*Replace underneath structure of house - Danny Clark and his guys had to come back a 2nd time and replace the sill under the dining room, and rebuild the brick structure around the AC duct coming in because it was not done properly by a previous owner. By this point, the old beams under the house are replaced, and there are a couple new beams supporting the house in places where there was not support before. 

*Re-framed termite damaged walls - That handy-dandy-hubby of mine is pretty much a pro at framing out walls now! He sistered in new studs to the termite eaten ones in the dining room and the living room. He also re-framed out the window in the dining room, and found the source of the water intrusion!

*More is always better - The 1bathroom upstairs was split into 2, so there is now a master suite, and a hall bath for guests. Berzad our tile guy did a phenomenal job!

*Dream Kitchen - My amazingly beautiful kitchen is installed, finally! The granite is beautiful, and the custom cabinets to fit all of our needs (and all my cooking and baking wares) are beautiful! The farmhouse sink is more than I could have ever dreamed of, now if only the knobs I ordered, which are on backorder, would ship out!

*Plaster repair - Over 88 years our house has settled, and so has the plaster. We had some major plaster repair throughout the house where overtime it had peeled away from the lath, or buckeled under pressure.  We also had a couple of the new walls get a texture treatment called Orange Peel to blend into the original plaster. And one of the biggest improvements is the ceilings were smoothed out! They look amazing!

*Knob & Tube no more - This is a huge one, the entire house was still on the old Knob & Tube wiring, which is not a huge deal, its just not up to code wiring by today's standards. Because we took off all the baseboards in the house, we were able to replace all of the wiring to updated Romex up to modern electrical code, and split up some of the circuits in the house.  Now the entire upstairs and a few random outlets downstairs are not on 1 circuit. 

*Window Reglazing - When you buy a RAP house, Riverside Avondale Preservation, you are not allowed to make improvements to the outside without board approval, this is to maintain the historical integrity of our neighborhood.  One of their big things is windows... Well all of our windows were painted shut from the inside out, so after watching Norm Abrams and ripping a window out of the wall, we figured out how to reglaze them so they can open once again!


But most importantly, we turned the house over to our flooing guy! He will spend 2 weeks sanding all of the hardwood floors, then stain and seal them with 3 coats. This is a huge step in the process, and something that has to happen before we can move anything into the house. There are still a lot of other jobs around the house that need to get finished, such as painting all the trim and walls, but that is something we can accomplish once we've moved in. The date is set and moving day is December 22nd!! Just in time for Christmas!  Here is a sneak peak of the floors mid sanding:

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