Magnolia House

You're breaking the house!!!!

Sometimes the big projects need to fall to the side so a little project can be completed.

The weekend before Thanksgiving I decided it was time to rewire the door bell. When all our electrical was redone, the door bell was left out, transformer who knows where. The old wiring through the wall to the bell needed to be replaced as well.

Well, you know how projects go sometimes... In order to run the new bell wire up through the wall in the kitchen, I ended up with three holes in the hallway wall to get past fire blocks.

The one at the bottom wasn't supposed to be there... I was under the house drilling up through the sole plate into the wall cavity, and my drill got off course.

Miss Cynthia was upstairs screaming "you're breaking the house!" as the spade bit was spitting plaster all over the hall.

Under the house I needed power, so I added a junction box and transformer right near where I've got a jack to raise the house where the floor is very sunken.

That's another story. A few weeks ago, I was under the house with my brand new 12 ton jack. I have a new post and beam where there wasn't one and should have been, I've been planning on jacking the house up 1/8" per month there. All along Cynthia's been saying "you have to stop if anything starts to crack." Right, the floor is sunken and I have a 12 ton jack!

So I was under there with my new jack, marveling at how much my new beam flexed as I tried to lift the house up just that 1/8th of an inch, and then there was a little "pop!"

Next was my lovely wife screaming over and over again "Stop!!! You're breaking the house!!!! You're breaking the house!!!!"

Upstairs there was some paint that popped off of our wainscoting. No biggie, right?

So for the last three weeks she's been trying to get me to promise I won't jack up the house any more. 

"But Honey, I just bought a new 12 ton jack..."

The door bell works.

Living Room

Miss Cynthia was busy this week. Living room is all painted, drapes are up, furniture rearranged, ready for a party... 

Over the Rail...

One thing we needed to change upstairs was the height of the wall around the stair well.

The picture to the left is what it looked like before all the remodeling upstairs.

At 32 inches tall, it seemed like for clumsy ol' me, it would only  be a matter of time for me to stumble and fall over it. I'm tall enough it was below my hip.

Oh yeah, and then there's code... it needed to be atleast 38 inches to pass inspection.

So this weekend I built it up another six inches and did a little molding magic.

It still needs to be filled, sanded and painted, but it's safe!

 

The Secret Door Project

So, before we ever owned the Magnolia house, I was trying to figure out how to get stuff upstairs. I concocted a plan to make the sun porch ceiling removable and add a six foot attic door in the upstairs bedroom so we could send stuff up and over.

And it worked. Two beds, a couch,  and a claw foot tub would never have made it up here. And then there was all the dry wall...

This room is our coffee and TV room, and we've been staring at the six foot wide hole into our attic for months. This weekend was close up the hole weekend. The tricky part is anything that goes into the hole has to be able to come back out so we can get big stuff in and out of the upstairs.

So, we decided on a cubby hole and door. Our file cabinet will fit nicely in the cubby, and some sculpture will go on the shelf. We were going to make it a secret door, so it looked like a part of the wall that opens, but after enough messing around with designs, we changed our mind and embraced the door and cubby for what they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cubby hole screws into place in two pieces, and the right side of the door jam is removable, so with a little effort, we can open the hole back up for those occasional big things that need to be moved one way or the other.

We finished out the trim in the room as well. I'll post a picture of the finished product next time.

Running out of steam, but getting closer...

Cynthia is off to Portland to prepare for our daughter's wedding. 

We made it pretty far before this weekend, which was our deadline.  We are some wainscot and paint away from assembling the upstairs bathroom.

Downstairs we have a tile shower and wainscot to do as well.

We have our living room and dining room set up downstairs, and all the rooms upstairs set up.  They have paint, but need trim work.  We're getting close to the completion of phase 1!  Whew!  The kids move in next week, ready or not!

Guns and Hedges

Cynthia hollered at me Saturday morning to have a look at one more thing she's found in the dirt where the hedge used to be. 

She exclaimed "It's a gun!" as she poked at it half buried in the dirt. 

A few weeks back she found the missing crystal to our chandelier in the dirt out there.  Who knows what else we'll find with a little digging?

Progress continues this weekend.  Painting, working on the bathrooms, cleaning, moving stuff upstairs. 

Saturday morning I was using my ingenious hoist system to raise the 350 pound tub up through the sunroom ceiling.  Just as it lifted from the floor below "SNAP!" my eye bolt broke.  Oops, I could have sworn that eye bolt was rated for what I was lifting.  Cynthia freaked out "My tub!  Is it bent?  (no) Is it scratched? (yes, but just a little). 

I waited until the afternoon to try the lift again, and we used straps and brute force.  With three of us below, and three on the floor 12 feet above us, we lifted, pushed, pulled, and towed the tub up a steep ramp of 2 x 4's.  There was a lot of screaming, groaning, resting, and celebrating.  The tub is upstairs.  So is some of our furniture!  And some was arranged back into a living room. 

We watched TV in our house for the first time in 4 weeks last night.  Thanks Steph, Janice and Steve, and Dennis for making all this happen!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the way, the gun was an old plastic squirt gun.  We were careful not to flash it around much.  We're still new in the 'hood...

Three days closer...

Here's a chunk of the drain plumbing from our house.  100 years of plugging going on. 

Pretty much all the electrical and plumbing are now replaced!  We worked away through the three day weekend and made some great progress.

We reconnected the kitchen sink, and rebuilt the laundry room wall with new tongue and groove boards to cover up the demo'd wall that gave way to new utility sink and washing machine plumbing.

Today, Cynthia set up our bedroom upstairs.  We have just one room all cleaned up.  The others are still works in progress.

Oh, we connected the bath tub downstairs too, so we both took hot baths in a bathroom under construction.  A hot bath is a hot bath, whether you're staring at tile or studs.

The upstairs drywall is also almost done, but dust is still flying everywhere.  Our bedroom will be our "clean room" and get sealed off during the day.

Downstairs next

Today we got the green light to simply finish everything up with just a final inspection.   We can close all the walls, tile showers, floors, and put things back together.

There is still plumbing, electrical, and drywalling going on, but we're in the home stretch.

We should be able to move back into our mess over the weekend, setting our new bedroom upstairs aside as our sanctuary.

We'll be right up to the wire getting things finished up before the kids arrive, but we should be close.

 

 

 

Three day weekend ahead.  We'll see what kind of progress we make.

And the walls go UP!

This week, things started taking shape. 

The drywall is going up, the shower pan is in, plumbing is coming together, the electrical is almost done. 

With any luck, we'll be tiling bathrooms over Memorial Day...

Phew!

It gets worse before it gets better...

Our house is SO torn apart that we moved out.  You can read more about that in my other blog.

This weekend the rewiring is continuing, drywall is going in, and the plumbing is falling behind.  I'm the plumber...

A real plumber is going to help us speed up the process so we can get this project done as much as possible before the kids arrive in June. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over this last week, we demolished the old shower and framed a new one, hired a drywall crew, and have scrambled to stay ahead of them with framing and design elements.  Our elecrician is doing his own share of demolition as he rewires downstairs. 

Cynthia's running the project, and buying all the materials I need, as well as light and plumbing fixtures to put the house back together.

All the guys we're dealing with to help with this project are Christ-followers, which is a delight. 

There's a LOT to do, but God willing, we'll have our house back soon.