Goodbye Tree

This was taken before we started working on the house.  The pine was massive and took up too much space in our backyard and shaded my garden.

My childhood neighbor came by to help dad cut the tree down.  He took all the branches off, topped the tree and then used a really big chainsaw to take it down.  Greg has started cutting up the branches and stacking all the wood.  My parents will use the wood to heat their house and we will rent a chipper and use the wood chips in Rudy's pen.

Goodbye Garage

 

We called the guy who removed our radiators to see if he would take down and haul away the garage, but the value of scrap metal has gone down so we had to pay him to take it down. It was the best $80 we spent.

Fiber Cement Siding

We got one quote on the fiber cement siding and trim work before we decided that we would do it ourselves.  The quote was $20,000, this was way more than we could afford and from our calculations included about $10,000 in labor charges.  It would have been nice if we didn’t have to lift a finger and the whole project would have been completed in 10 days, but we just didn’t have the extra $10,000.   In terms of the actual installation, Greg and our dads are doing all the work.  My primary role along with our moms is to make lunch, do groceries, cheerlead, help carry the siding, and work on the inside of the house.  All that we have to finish now is the siding on the two peaks, painting the soffits and trim work.  The peaks are the only thing we really want to get done this year and today was the first day we had snow so our good working days are numbered.

I am very happy with the look of the fiber cement, it has fake wood grain and the color is very pretty.  You need to purchase a special blade to cut the boards, and in terms of nailing it we are using 1 ¾” roofing nails.  We’ve gone through two Bostitch nailers and returned both, one broke after a couple days of use and the other broke within a few hours of use.  Last weekend we bought a Hitachi and it seems to be working well.  I had to get a reducer for the air hose and I took the gun with me to the hardware store.  As I was waiting in line, the guy behind me said he had the gun and he loved it. 

Our new addition

Well he isn’t that new, but for awhile we weren’t sure that we were going to keep him so I didn’t want to mention him. His name is Rudy and he is a 2 year old German Shepherd. We adopted him in February. Rudy’s first “parents” were an older couple (in their 70’s) and they had him for about a year, in the woods of New Hampshire. From what we were told, and from his displays of neurotic behavior he was not socialized. The older couple decided he was too much to handle and they gave him up to a German Shepherd breeder/police K-9 officer couple. The breeder trained him and gave him back to the older couple, but they still couldn’t handle Rudy so the breeder took him in. Rudy stayed with the breeder and K-9 couple for a few months, but I have a feeling he lived most of the time in an outdoor kennel.

When we bought the house it was always understood that we would get a German Shepherd and Greg and I agreed that we would wait until February, so in January I started to look on Petfinder and I fell in love with his picture. February 4^th we got Rudy. The breeder didn’t mention that he was fear aggressive and that he is afraid of everything, but we quickly figured that out. Since then, we took him to the vet and she recommended Prozac so we’ve tried that out along with, socializing him, exercising him (lots) and just giving him time to adjust, he is slowly getting better. I don’t trust him around children, or for that matter anyone else besides our immediate family and I fear for the person who is stupid enough to try and break in to our house.

Front of the house

We finished the siding in the front of the house this past weekend. As you can see we still need to refinish the porch. The lovely brown square columns will be replaced by wide round columns the same color as the trim. Next spring the plan is to add black shutters, paint the soffit and the gutters.

more photos from this summer

Without the old siding.


















End of day one- siding.

















End of day day two.










Olive Certainteed Fiber Cement Siding.

More after photos without asbestos

June

We're back

We're back to working on the house. This weekend we bought and installed kitchen knobs and pulls. They were stock knobs from home depot, which surprised us because we had looked there before, but they are nice and didn't cost us a fortune.



















I made another garden box and added some soil, but we need to get more. I actually won 5 yards of organic compost about 5 years ago (at an ecological landscaping conference), it was delivered to my parents house and they didn't use it so last time we were home we brought about 15 wheelbarrows full. I think the 5 yards will fill about 4 garden boxes.




Greg worked on installing the cabinet that goes above the refrigerator and we added paneling around the side.




















During the week we worked on removing vines from the trees that line our border with the apartments.

Since we moved in

Half bath on first floor.
























Staircase
















Full bath on second floor. I stained the vanity.





















New trim, we tried to match the original and came pretty close.










We got a snowblower, but it only worked for about 5 mins because it ran out of gas.

Living room floors

This weekend our parents came up and helped us install new floors in the kitchen and living room. Here are some before and after photos.

Here's the way the living room looked when we bought the house.



















5 months later, it looks about the same. It does have new windows, heating, insulation, plaster, and the linoleum is gone.












We love the new floors

Kitchen before and after

Here are some before and after photos of our kitchen. We're still missing a few cabinets and other details, but it's come a long way.


The house as we bought it, and the way it's been since 1861


















The way our kitchen looked all summer














Most of our cabinets and the counter tops installed













New floors and some of our appliances are installed

Homeless

We found out on Friday that our landlord found another tenant for our apartment, so we spent most of the weekend and Monday packing and moving everything to the house. Our parents helped out, and we got some electrical work done and installed two new windows in the attic. We'll be living out of a suitcase for the next couple weeks while the house is made habitable. All of the blue board is hung, and the plasterers will be putting skim coat up starting tomorrow morning. Hopefully we'll be able to start installing kitchen cabinets this coming weekend. We'll be staying with friends for the next couple of weeks.

Insulation is finished

We decided to have all of the exterior walls and the roof insulated with spray foam. Here's a picture of the kitchen with all of the electrical and plumbing work complete.











Two stoners came and sprayed the whole house with foam. It sprays onto the wall and expands to over 100x its original size. After it expands, one of the guys cuts away everything that expanded past the studs.




















Here's Greg pretending he had something to do with the installation.

Another inspection

We passed our building inspection.

We passed

We passed our electrical inspection! This weekend we worked on getting the house ready for the framing inspection.

Lowe's vs. Home Depot

Convenience - Home Depot wins because it is about 5 minutes from our apartment and 15 from our house. Lowe's is 30+ minutes away.

Kitchen design- We had layouts done by both, and the kitchen designers were both friendly. Lowe's had a better price on cabinets and the designer knew more about kitchen design. Lowe's designers work on commission and Home Depot is hourly. We ended up going with a local kitchen store that carried Wellborn Forest cabinets, they are about the same price as the Shenandoah or American Woodmark, but the people we purchased them from came out to the house to measure and we got a good deal on granite (we picked it out by looking at a slab, not a 4" sample). So I would award a point to Lowe's for price and knowledge.

Deals- We have run across some good deals at both. Last week we picked up some pendant lights at Lowe's that were normally $30 for $5. Our back door was a deal from Home Depot $100. Tie.

Helpful staff- Home Depot definitely loses on this one. When we go to Lowe's there is someone who offers to help us within a couple minutes and if we need to go look for someone there are actually people around. Home Depot, good luck getting help.

Windows

Greg is removing the last old window (besides the ones in attic) it was a bitter sweet moment, but I love our new windows.

















The windows in the front of the house have the nice permanent grills. We chose Windsor windows with black aluminum clad exterior and primed white interior. They came with the PVC sill and trim that will never rot. Windsor was recommended to us by the Boston Building Material Coop, they said the were like Marvin without the advertising.













We could really use a window in the center of the second floor.

Update with photos

A "new" grill dad picked up for us (at the dump). I am planning our first cookout Labor Day weekend so adjust your schedules.













Framing and new electrical boxes. This was taken from the far wall of Jenny's room looking into the hall and through the closet you can see our room.

















This took forever and it is only one side of the door. Every door we do we are saving $200 by not paying someone else to strip them.

Half Bath

Yesterday I went to the house after two days of not visiting. It was nice to see lots of new walls and plumbing going in. After we visited the house we went to Home Depot and we saw a toilet that matches our pedestal sink. We decided to go with the Kohler Archer series toilet and pedestal sink.

Here are some pictures from Kohler.