Year: 2012

Project Review

September 17, 2012 / / 3 Comments

Sometimes it helps to take a moment and look at where we’re going and what we’ve done so far. At the moment I’m thinking about a bunch of different projects either in progress or upcoming, so to keep everything straight I’ll lay it out. It also helps for any random or occasional visitors to this blog to know what’s going on.

So, to recap, we bought this house in June of 2011. In addition to the first and second floor units, there was a basement apartment that was like something out of a horror movie. We spent two months fixing up the second floor unit so that we could move into it. When we moved in we put the laundry on the first floor where the kitchen had been as well as stored a bunch of our stuff in one of the bedrooms. Here’s the second floor living room before and after painting.

 

We knew that the support beam and columns in the basement needed to be replaced, so our first major project after moving in was to gut the basement unit. It was a moldy, disgusting mess. Here’s a picture of what it looked like before and after we gutted it.

 

With that done, we got some quotes on replacing the wooden beam and columns with steel, including new footings. The quotes were a lot of money, so we held off doing it right away. Our son Derek was born at the end of November, which interrupted some of our work on the house. I started using Sketchup and came up with a floor plan we liked. I even made a whole 3D model of the house, inside and out.

 

Then we found an architect and got him working on plans and permits with the city. We also started working on selecting contractors, including electrician, plumber, radiant heat and air conditioning installer, and concrete mason. Getting our plans together with the architect took longer than expected, so we decided not to wait until we had our permits before demoing the first floor. After moving the laundry and storage to the basement, we threw a demo party last month and gutted the whole first floor. Here’s the before and after gutting the first floor.

 

Along the way there have been a lot of smaller projects, like moving gas lines and plumbing, re-routing electrical, getting a new electrical panel installed, exterminating cockroaches and disposing of at least a dozen rat carcasses, checking the depth of our foundation footings, and a lot of planning.

So what’s next? Our immediate steps are to select a concrete mason, since that’s the only thing holding up our permit submission. Once that’s submitted we should have permits in thirty to sixty days. ComEd will be installing our new electrical service in the next few weeks. I have to remove the electrical running along the  beam in the basement, since we can’t replace it until I finish that, and the seemingly interminable cleanup on the first floor will need to be completed, including our room full of lath.

Once we have our permit, the beam and column replacement in the basement can take place. We may wind up doing that ourselves because it would save us a ton of money. Once that’s done we can demo the foyer and replace the bearing wall in the first floor with an LVL beam and columns, and close up and replace windows. We can start replacing the plank subfloor with plywood.

Next spring we’ll put in a new high efficiency hot water heater and boiler that will direct-vent, allowing us to remove the chimney. We’ll take out the front stairs, demo the second floor office (where the new stairs will connect), and frame the opening for the basement stairs. Then we can finish the subfloor and install the new stairs.

Then and only then can first floor construction really start: new front and back doors, framing, plumbing, electrical, and the first floor radiant system (all big projects themselves). Then it’s insulation, drywall, flooring, cabinets, doors, trim. I honestly don’t know how long that will take, but I’d be very surprised if it’s finished by the end of 2013, and that’s just the first floor.

Some of these pieces may move around. We were hoping to have the new radiant system in by this fall and that didn’t happen. We thought we’d have the basement beam in last fall. Things that cost less like replacing the stairs  may happen sooner –maybe even this winter– while replacing the windows doesn’t happen until later. Some things are fixed in order. We can’t frame until the subfloor is replaced, and we can’t do that until the beam and bearing wall are replaced, the chimney and radiators are removed, and the stairs are replaced. The chimney can’t be removed until we have the new radiator and hot water heater. It’s a very big jigsaw puzzle.

With my full time job, Sarah’s graduate school and job, and a 9-month-old baby, it’s going to be a long process. If you’re considering taking on a project like this yourself, make sure that firm timetables are something you can live without or that you have a lot more free time than we do. Make sure that if you’re doing it with someone else that you both have clear expectations. I still think that working on a two flat is the perfect way to do it. One of the things that makes this project so bearable is that when we’re done working we can just go upstairs where there’s no dust or debris, cook dinner in a real kitchen, relax on the couch, and sleep in our bed. A lot of home improvement projects aren’t so lucky.

More First Floor Cleanup

September 12, 2012 / / 3 Comments

This is going to be a picture-heavy post. To start with, I got the partition walls on the first floor down. That really opened things up (and made the house sway a bit in heavy winds, which is concerning). I removed the pocket door mechanism whole by taking down the long board the four pieces are mounted on. We’re going to try selling it to a restoration shop, since we don’t have a place to put it.

Walls removed

You can see our massive lath collection on the left. Progress continues removing the plaster from the wall cavities. It’s time consuming but it’s getting done bit by bit. It’s still a big dusty mess, and I come up from working on it looking like a coal miner.

Bedroom floor cleanup

Here’s a view looking toward the front in the bedrooms. Again, the partition walls separating the bedrooms and closet have been removed (except for the room full of lath that you can see at the end). With help from Matt and Will I pulled up the floor in the back bedroom. Tonight I pulled up the remaining bedroom floor. You can see the subfloor planks in the foreground and the hardwood in the back.

Debris

We carefully separated and de-nailed all of the old wall studs and put them in the basement for later use. The rest is thin pieces that were used to edge the doors and cap the wall studs, which unfortunately has a tendency to crack and split when we pull out the nails. I’m not sure it’s worth saving.

Filthy

I don’t think I can understate what a mess it is. The original floors were installed over felt paper and cross boards to float them so they wouldn’t pop with the temperature swings. This created a cavity under the floors that is basically full, both with the plaster dust from demo as well as a hundred years of regular day to day living. I’m fairly sure we’re going to need another dumpster,  albeit a smaller one than before. I’m looking forward to a step in this process that doesn’t involve a shovel.

Slow Going

September 1, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Work has continued but not very quickly. Sarah recently started graduate school, which understandably preoccupies her time, and Derek is now nine months old and becoming less interested in chilling out while we work. I have managed to get a little bit done.

Living room cleanup

One task was to clean up the debris in the front yard. During the demo party we had a chute from the front window down to the yard to speed up plaster removal, but of course some of it wound up on the ground. You’ll recall from an earlier post that our front yard is all wood chips. Removing the bits of plaster is tedious at best, and I daresay I’ll never remove all of it, but the majority is cleaned up and the front yard looks a bit better.

Next, I got the remaining plaster and lath down from the corners and behind the radiator in the living room. The “ribbon” that is set into the exterior wall studs to support the floor joists complicated efforts to remove all the lath, but I’m working through one room at a time. I used the shop vac to suck out more of the plaster from between the studs, but I haven’t finished that yet. There’s pockets between the studs in the exterior wall the depth of the floor joists that filled up with plaster bits during demo, and getting it all out is slow work with regular cleaning of the shop vac filter.

Plaster pockets

 

While the living room is one of the largest rooms in the first floor, the fact that I’m not finished with it and it’s the first one I’ve tackled suggest that completing the cleanup will be a lengthy affair, especially given how little I’ve been able to work on it these past few weeks. Even after I finish cleaning up all the rooms I’ll need to do a second pass to remove all the nails from the walls and ceilings. I’m hopeful that I can make some better progress this Labor Day weekend. For the first time in a while we’re not going anywhere.

Ceiling Demo and Cleanup

August 17, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Work on the first floor has continued. After the demo party I worked on taking down the ceiling. I got all of it down except for the front bedroom where we stacked all the lath. The dumpster was hauled away and we’re left with the aftermath, which for the time being is mostly cleanup.

Full Dumpster

The first floor is currently a dusty mess. In addition to the room full of lath, the floors are coated in plaster dust and the walls are full of chunks of plaster that need to be cleaned out. There are also some bits here and there that still need to be torn down, along the edges of windows and such.

Post demo first floor

After spending a few hours with the shop vac sucking up plaster I decided I was going to take down some walls because it felt more productive. The wall between the dining room and the bathroom has clearly been modified at points in the houses existence. I’m guessing there was originally a built-in china cabinet in the wall of the dining room next to the chimney, since the space has been strangely closed in.

Dining room wall

Whatever the case, it was done a long time ago and then more recently modified. The boards were cracked in places and the whole thing was pretty rickety. I was impressed by how heavy the old 2x4s are. They’re definitely a lot more solid than the studs you get these days.

Wall removed

It’s took a lot less time and effort than removing chunks of plaster but it was a lot more satisfying. I’ll need to get back to cleaning, of course. There’s a lot of that left to do. I also need to figure out what to do with all the lath. The original plan of burning it seems inadequate to the volume of lath.

First Floor Demo

July 26, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Wow. We had our first floor Demo Party this Saturday, and boy did we demo!

Kitchen Demo

Compare this to the photo from the previous post, which was taken in roughly the same place. Friends and family joined us for a party of mass destruction. We took down all of the tile, drywall, plaster, and lath on every wall on the first floor and hauled it out to the dumpster. The “crew” worked incredibly well together, moving seamlessly between the different tasks with almost no coordination or direction until it was done. We grilled up lunch and dinner since the work took over eight hours to complete, and it was capped with some needed relaxation in the back yard around the table.

It feels like we’ve taken a giant step forward, since now we can start to envision the process of putting it back together. It also feels like the “no turning back now” point, both exciting and frightening at the same time. There’s still a lot of work to be done before we can start building anything, and it will continue to be a slow slog, since not every day can be a sudden transformation like this one.

Sarah and my thanks go out (in approximate order of appearance) to David, Collin, Eileen, Rob, Nicole, Sei Youn, Eriq, Ariel, Dean, Siobhan, Will, Mike, and Lee for the tremendous amount of help they gave us. We owe all of you!