Dec 2007
Permits, Inspectors, And Headaches
Dec/29/07 11:44 PM
Nearly 2 months later, we have FINALLY received our building permit. I’d swear that we have jumped through more hoops than a Vegas circus act. Kristin, being the one in charge of the administrative part of the renovation, is as happy as can be.
Most people fear the Building inspector. It almost seems that when the inspector shows up, everyone ducks for cover, and braces for the worst. In fact, when the Inspector showed up to inspect the temporary pole, one of the construction crew RAN all the way to my house to alert me that the inspector had arrived, when he could have just called my cell.
I do have to say, it was a bit intimidating. I expected some guy in coveralls and a clipboard. Instead it was 2 guys who looked the part of FBI field agents with matching jackets, hats and all. Kristin and I nervously introduced ourselves. And right off the bat we discovered this wasn’t some guy that was going to make us tear our house down and start over. No. He was, actually, very nice and extremely helpful. He told us a couple of minor things to change but that he would go ahead and approve it upon our promise to do so.
Kristin and I let out a sigh of relief as they started down the driveway. One of them was talking on his cell phone, THEN... They turned around and came back. “Um, Mr. Williams you are aware that your building permit was denied?” All the color drained from my face, as one of the crew squeezed passed us carrying lumber into the house.
I panicked, I looked at Kristin, back to the inspector, back to Kristin. I think my words were. “Uh, I... Um, sh eee, what?” Roughly translated meant “Oh, SH!T” It took every ounce of will-power not to take off running and screaming something to the effect of, “You’ll never take me alive, coppers!” But I didn’t, and Kristin calmly said “Oh, yea, they needed some paperwork that I took to them today.”
“Oh, ok, then come by the office today so we can get you your permit.” The color slowly returned to my face.
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Demo, Demo, And Yes Even More Demo
Dec/28/07 11:42 PM
I’ve done so much demo on this house that I am fairly certain that with an 8 pound sledge and a pry-bar that I could disassemble one of the great pyramids. It seems that there is no end to it. In fact I’ve felt that I needn’t have any blog entries for the past few days, so that I wouldn’t bore anyone to death with the monotony of the demo work.
I read somewhere that 90% of injuries that occur during the renovation of a house happen during the demolition phase. So I figured I’d give a damage report...
- I have a scabbed over bruise approximately 12” up on my left shin, this is where a 1’X1’ tile that I pried up, suddenly came loose and hit my shin, not once... but twice in the same spot.
- I have a gouge across my stomach where a particularly sharp nail decided to leave his mark before being thrown out.
- I have another scabbed over bruise on my thigh where a large piece of sheet-rock fell from the ceiling and plunged point first into my thigh.
- I have a baseball sized bruise on the inside of my left bicep, God-only-knows how that one happened?
- I have another baseball sized bruise on my right shin, from (as embarrassing as it is) a hammer that I swung in a downward motion, that upon completion of the swing, spontaneously decided to free itself from my grip and pummel my shin.
- Lastly, I was doing demo in the kitchen and I took off my eye protection for a little while, because it was light demo. Well, I swung the hammer at a piece of lath, and acting as a springboard of sorts, shot a piece of plaster directly into my eye at about the speed of a BB gun. I now have a disgusting blood clot on the white of my eyeball. Lesson learned...
Tankless Water Heater
Dec/28/07 11:41 PM
For the find of the week I’m going to have to go with the Rinnai 53i tankless water heater I found on Ebay. This model retails for about $1200-$1500, I found a new one on Ebay for $725. I also had to buy the vent kit and the valve kit which brought it to about $950. And I can still get the $300 tax break even if I install it myself. Overall a gas water heater runs about $400, the $250 dollars more that I’m spending will most likely be made up within a year or two.
I find myself constantly, surfing places such as Ebay and Craigslist in search of discounted items. As house rehab enthusiasts, we shed a little blood and sweat to save a buck or two, why not utilize the internet too right?
Foundation Summation
Dec/24/07 11:40 PM
The Johnson brothers finished with the foundation, and I’ve got to say that I can actually tell the difference. Before Randy stood in the living room and jumped up and down and it seemed like every window in the house rattled. After they had finished, I decided to give it try. So I jumped up and down in the living room, the same has Randy had done before, and not a peep from any window in the house. It felt as solid as a slab foundation. I’m sure that part of that was due to the sequoia sized beam that they miraculously coaxed up under the house. They’d re-dug footers for piers, they even dug and poured footers just for the jacks that they used to level the house.
Anyway, The success of their work has opened up an option to Kristin and I that wasn’t previously available... Refinishing our hardwood floors. Before the floors were so out of level that it wasn’t even an option. However, since they finished, I gave the floors the marble test and not once did it roll more than 6 inches or so.
There are other issues with the floors, such as the patched hole where a furnace grate had been, but since we are tiling our bathroom, we can salvage some flooring from there to “patch” these issues appropriately. Now if I can just figure out how to do that...
Literary Insulation
Dec/21/07 11:39 PM
One of the best things about renovating an old house is all the nifty things that you find while ripping out the walls and cleaning out the crawl-spaces. It is essentially like treasure hunting. Sometimes you get lucky, but most of the time you come up empty handed. However, yesterday (although I wouldn’t call it LUCKY) my builder told me I had to rip out the ceiling of the bedroom because the ceiling joists needed to be replaced.
Well, being Christmas and all, my mother was visiting so I did what any loving son would do... I enlisted her to help me rip out the ceiling. While ripping down the lath we noticed, what looked like magazine pages fluttering down from the ceiling. Turns out it was a small stack of magazines tucked away amongst the rafters. Upon further inspection we noticed that all the issues were dated the same year that the house was built. They were issues of the Saturday Evening Post from 1925. While they were entertaining to read, the real find was the name on the address label (Randomly pasted over the “os” in Post). Delivered to a Mrs. R. F. Bell. A virtual gold-mine since we’ve had no luck in tracking down any previous owners other than the person we bought it from.
The date on the earliest magazine that I found was (the one pictured above) February 21, 1925. And from what I understand, our house was recorded as being built in 1925, but does this mean that our house was built in January or February? The latest magazine was September 5, 1925, so it makes me wonder what the significance of the dates are or how the magazines even got there. Anyway...
Call me crazy, but I plan on cleaning them off and putting them in a zip-lock along with a current copy of the architectural plans and placing them back in the ceiling once we finish out the room. And maybe someone (In 82 years) will find them and think the same thing I did... Wow!
I will be posting this under the Items I’ve Found section of our website shortly. Get a Hi-Res image of the cover here.
Contractor Conundrums
Dec/18/07 11:38 PM
I always thought, that hiring a contractor was like hiring a builder, but now that I’ve had my own experience acting as general contractor... I realize it is more akin to a juggling clown.
We have “broken ground” on our renovation, and coordinating the whole thing is probably about as easy as coordinating a 2nd grade Christmas pageant.
First I needed my electrician to put up a temporary pole so that I could get the walls demo’d so that my builder could start building, but before that I needed the lumber to be delivered before the builder arrived, and before that I needed to have the Roll-Off dumpster emptied before my lumber was delivered so I wouldn’t have to move the lumber out of the way to do so. Sounds like a great plan, right? Not a single part of that plan worked.
Ok, I haven’t heard or seen hide nor hair of my electrician, so the walls can’t be demo’d properly. The builder showed up on Monday morning, but the lumber didn’t show up ‘til late afternoon. The Roll-Off truck didn’t show up until after the lumber had been delivered, so my builder who could have been building once the lumber arrived had to instead move the lumber out of the way. And me? I’m the goofy clown in the middle trying to juggle all this.
Rain Rain Go Away
Dec/15/07 11:37 PM
To update everyone on the roof situation. I
temporarily patched the roof where that chimney was,
in case it rained. Well 6 straight days of rain later
it has finally stopped, instead it is snowing! Bah!
This hole in the roof has turned into a pain in my...
A funny story, I had propped up a trash can underneath the horribly patched hole to catch water, I of course secured the trash can with the flimsiest piece of trim I could find. Fast forward 20 gallons later... My foundation guys were in the crawl-space working when they heard a FWOOMP and saw 20 gallons of water pouring into the basement through the ceiling. Randy yelled at his guys, “STOP! Someone busted a water line.” and they scrambled around to shut off the water to the house. Needless to say it wasn’t a busted waterline, nope... All that toolin’ around under the house had disturbed my ever so delicately balance trash can full of water. So now I have since secured the trash can with the flimsiest piece of wire that I could find instead.
Kristin, however, came up with an ingenious setup that uses paper towels to “wick” incoming water into a small bucket See the picture on the left. It actually
worked! (Ahem, not that I ever doubted it.) Anyway, when I came in this morning, there wasn’t a drop in my trash can and her bucket setup was half full!
Today we had a propane heater going full blast to dry it out since it stopped raining. Now if i could only get an hour when the roof isn’t wet or icy, then it will be fixed! You can believe that I will definitely have a blog post about that triumphant day...
A funny story, I had propped up a trash can underneath the horribly patched hole to catch water, I of course secured the trash can with the flimsiest piece of trim I could find. Fast forward 20 gallons later... My foundation guys were in the crawl-space working when they heard a FWOOMP and saw 20 gallons of water pouring into the basement through the ceiling. Randy yelled at his guys, “STOP! Someone busted a water line.” and they scrambled around to shut off the water to the house. Needless to say it wasn’t a busted waterline, nope... All that toolin’ around under the house had disturbed my ever so delicately balance trash can full of water. So now I have since secured the trash can with the flimsiest piece of wire that I could find instead.
Kristin, however, came up with an ingenious setup that uses paper towels to “wick” incoming water into a small bucket See the picture on the left. It actually
worked! (Ahem, not that I ever doubted it.) Anyway, when I came in this morning, there wasn’t a drop in my trash can and her bucket setup was half full!
Today we had a propane heater going full blast to dry it out since it stopped raining. Now if i could only get an hour when the roof isn’t wet or icy, then it will be fixed! You can believe that I will definitely have a blog post about that triumphant day...
Architectural Drawings
Dec/14/07 11:36 PM
Well, our architectural drawings are done, and for anyone who wishes to do so can look at them here (In a read only PDF).
Bret Park of Park Company Architects has done a wonderful job in translating both our ideas and needs to paper, and there-in striking a balance between them. Our current satisfaction encouraged Kristin and I to proceed to the next step in having Bret begin our lighting design. We are excited to sit down and explain our extremely grandios and way-over-budget ideas to Bret. Hopefully, that’ll go well too.
On another note I had my first meeting with the builder yesterday and my first onsite meeting today, Kendall Stevenson with K-S Construction, whom I’ve known for years will be doing our framing for the stairs. I had done a logo design for him years ago, way back before I was actually any good at such things . It was good to see that the logo was still on the side of his work trailer. Anyway, after our hi-how’s-it-goin’s at the onsite meeting, one of the builder’s crew said something to the effect of, “Man, you’ve gotten yourself in deep, haven’t ya?” What do you say to that? All I could say was, “I know... That’s what everyone keeps telling me. ”
Living With A Broken Hearth
Dec/13/07 11:34 PM
After the removal of the chimney, the massive eye-sore in the living room was next on the list. In case you don’t
remember looked like this picture on the left.
This job has actually been a little more physically demanding than the chimney removal. While the pneumatic chisel has been a crucial tool in this job, I think I actually got more milage out of the sledge and crowbar. I used the pneumatic chisel to open up a slot for the crowbar, then I would give the rocks a few taps with the sledge hammer to loosen the mortar. At this point, I would use the crowbar to pry off large pieces of the hearth. Which has proven to be our messiest endeavor to date, every inch of the house is covered in a 1/8” thick blanket of dust. You should have seen the funk coming out of my nose (Kristin wouldn’t let me post the photos), and I was even wearing a respirator! Speaking of Kristin, I have to give her mad props. She came home from a long day at work, to find that I had made her a nice dinner and uncorked a nice bottle of wine, then afterwards I had to break it to her that we had to go move several hundred pounds of rock and mortar in the rain.
Ok, by now you may be asking, “How the *