Category: Ruminating

Discussions on the blog itself, the remodeling process, and life events. Basically, not working on the house.

Considering the Right Way

November 5, 2014 / / 0 Comments

We’re facing a conundrum. We got confirmation from the city that we can pass inspection doing things the wrong way and found a different plumber willing to work with us, so we should be all set to move forward with our plan. Then we started thinking more about the future. We’ve lived in the house for over three years now, and by all accounts we’ve made a ton of progress. That said, it’s taken a long time to get to this point and we have a long, long road ahead. It’s possible that if we did things the right way it wouldn’t take as long, plus it would make several parts of the work simpler. It would still take a long time, but maybe not as long.

Here’s the decision before us: we can continue our current plan and finish the first floor. When that’s done we gut and finish the second floor in two separate phases so we always have a full bathroom. This adds complexity to framing, plumbing, electrical, and HVAC. After that we have to dig out the basement, which involves moving out for a month or two while the water line and sewer are replaced. Then we can finish the outside, the porches, the garage, the attic, the basement, and the landscaping.

The other option is we don’t finish the first floor yet. Instead we demo the back porch and the garage, dig up the basement including the part where we stay in a hotel for a month or so to replace the sewer and water line, then move into the basement. We’d have a full bathroom down there as well as heat, so we could gut and re-frame the entire second floor at one time. Then, since both floors would be open, we could get the HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and spray foam done for the whole house rather than in pieces. After that’s done we could finish the first floor followed by the second, with the remaining projects proceeding as in the first option.

Time estimates are incredibly speculative, and there’s no real way of knowing how long it will take us, but looking at the tasks and how they need to be done tells us the second option could potentially save a lot of time, possibly a year or more. Demoing and framing the second floor all at once with the first floor still open would be much simpler. Running the ducting all at one time through open walls would be significantly easier and avoid potential problems. It would also eliminate the complications of attaching to existing plumbing while supporting new plumbing. All of these things being easier and simpler translates to cheaper and faster while likely giving us a better end product.

There’s a catch, of course. We’d have to live in the unfinished basement for an indeterminate amount of time likely measured in years. Instead of a finished first floor next year, we probably wouldn’t have it for two or three. While we were in the basement there would be no kitchen and no bedrooms. Most likely we’d set up some sort of partitions, but it would be smaller than our current space on the second floor and much less comfortable (radiant floor heat aside). It would mean not having a garage for the foreseeable future, not being able to entertain friends and family, not being able to cook, and not having a dishwasher.

Finally, it would mean spending a lot of money sooner than we thought. The advantage of getting all the plumbing, electrical, radiant heat, air conditioning, and spray foam done at once turns into the disadvantage of having to pay for all of them at once, and in rapid succession. We haven’t reached a decision yet. We’re mulling the two options, looking for other alternatives, and trying to decide what will work best for us.

Doing Things the Wrong Way

October 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

We’re doing our project backwards and wrong. We’ve known this from the outset, but plowed ahead anyway. Basically, the right way to gut-remodel a house is to demo everything, rip up the basement floor and put in the new below grade plumbing, get that inspected, pour the floor, do the framing, install rough plumbing and electrical, get both of those inspected, then go on to insulation and drywall, and finish work. This is not how we’re doing things.

For starters, we’re living in the house on the second floor while we remodel. Because the house is a two flat we have a fairly comfortable apartment, if a bit cozy. We have a kitchen, a full bathroom, and heat. Second, we’re trying to remodel the first floor before we redo the basement. That means all the plumbing below the basement floor hasn’t been done yet, but we want to install all the above ground rough plumbing not just for the first floor, but to service the current and future second floor as well. At the same time, we’re trying to go by the book with permits and inspections.

This morning I met with a plumber, and he wasn’t excited about our plan. He suggested we dig up the basement floor, do all the below grade plumbing (new cast iron sewer to replace the existing clay pipe, new copper  service line to replace the existing lead one), then to pour the floor we have to also do the interior weeping system, the under-slab insulation and the in-slab radiant tubing. Once all that’s done, then he could do the rough in for the first and second floor. You know: the right way. There’s a few problems with doing things the right way. For one thing, our basement is full of stuff. Sure we’ll have to move it eventually, but we’re hoping that would be after we had the floors above done, so we’d have places to put it. Next, the most practical way to dig down the basement involves us tearing down our existing garage so we can get a dumpster and cement truck into the back yard. We’re planning to replace the garage anyway, but doing that now is also less than ideal. Beyond that, it may even prompt the removal of the back porch, depending on how we do it. During this process we’d most likely have to move out of the house for weeks.

The biggest reason against doing the basement first is the money: redoing the basement floor is a very expensive project, and if we do it now it will mean other projects like the first floor will have to wait. When the basement is done, we’ll have an unfinished basement. It’s not a bad thing to have, but for the money we’d rather have a new living room, new kitchen, and new family room. We need to finish the basement eventually, but doing it now just for the sake of doing things the “right way” isn’t an attractive prospect. Unfortunately, there’s a good possibility that if we don’t do it the right way we won’t pass inspection, since none of the basement work would be done when we want to close up the walls in the first floor.

We’re going to talk to some other plumbers, contemplate some other options and possible compromises, and figure this out. One possibility may be doing the underground plumbing now but not the rest of the basement floor, though even that is a pricey way to go. There may be others we haven’t considered. Hopefully we’ll come to a solution in time to get spray foam in before winter, but if not, it won’t be the first time we’ve missed that goal.

Purpose

April 8, 2014 / / 2 Comments

When we’re growing up, we’re given the impression that as we get older we will discover what we are truly good at, what we’re really interested in, and then go off and make ourselves a career of that. We’ll do that thing until we retire, and while retirement means different things to different people, we generally view it as a time of leisure, to enjoy ourselves and live off our accumulated work, spend time with family, that sort of thing.

As we reach adulthood, we usually come to discover that the world is vastly more complex than we thought. Our own interests more nuanced, challenges are not so easy as they seemed, and simply diving into a fascinating lifetime career isn’t always the way forward. Some people find themselves doing things that they’re good at, things that may even pay fairly well, but don’t fulfill them in the ways that they thought life was supposed to. Maybe it’s not as exciting or glamorous as we envisioned, maybe we thought we were “special”. We end up searching for a purpose, something more meaningful.

Along the way, we may start families, build friendships, move to new cities, come up with dreams and plans and new ambitions. Sometimes we simply cling to ambitions we held as children, convincing ourselves they will yet come to pass, that we’ll conquer the world… next year. Maybe we’ll start a business, earn passive income online, invest in real estate, win the lottery, travel the world and eventually get the glamorous life we know must be in store for us. In the meantime we watch television, play games, and read books.

Sarah and I decided to buy a crappy house and fix it up ourselves. This was our dream and our plan. Maybe it wasn’t going to give meaning to our lives, but it was a way to stretch ourselves and do something more than just watch TV. We both knew what we were getting into and we both didn’t. I think what we didn’t know was that we were going to have less than half as much time to work on the house as we planned, and that everything would be twice as much work as we imagined, meaning it will take four times as long to finish.

Part of the reason we bought the house was that our condo was small, and Sarah was pregnant with our first child, Derek. He’s two now and our second is due in the next few weeks, maybe sooner. The upstairs unit of our house where we’re living is smaller than our condo. I tried for a while to really push, working on the house every day, as much as I could. The result was that it didn’t seem to go much faster, I was more worn out, and we weren’t as happy. It seems the regular pace is the one that works for us, no matter how long it takes.

Working on the house is frustrating, time consuming, and expensive, but I do derive satisfaction from it, and imagining what it will be like when it’s done keeps me going and makes me smile. The house presents challenges and problems to solve, mental far more than physical. I know that I’m getting better at the work, day by day. I may not attain the level of craftsmanship that I aspire to, but I keep trying. I just hope that by the time we get to trim work I’ll be good enough to make it look nice.

We envisioned working on the house together, but between pregnancies, kids, and graduate school, Sarah hasn’t been as hands-on as she’d hoped. Instead we’ve been overwhelmed by family and friends who have volunteered their time to help us with this crazy project. It’s made us feel very grateful for the people around us.

I’m still dreaming of winning the lottery or stumbling upon the amazing idea that changes the world. Until that happens I’m going to keep working on this house. It’s more than something to do, more than just a hobby. It’s building a home for myself and my family. It’s a purpose.

Blergging

November 22, 2013 / / 1 Comment
Matt after being on the roof all day

Matt after being on the roof all day

We’ve been at this for a while now and habits form quickly. When I say “this” I really mean the blog more so than the house, and when I say “we”, I mostly mean the royal me, since Sarah’s been way too busy with grad school to indulge in things like blogging in a long time. I’d like to take a step back for a moment and think about what “we’re” trying to accomplish.

When we started the house remodel (and the blog), writing entertaining posts was fairly simple since we could focus on how laughably awful the house was. It was filthy, everything was done wrong, and a sort of accepting despair was just how to get through it. Over time, as we clawed our way through the detritus and filled up garbage can after garbage can after dumpster after dumpster, it slowly stopped being quite so awful and disgusting and became more like a normal construction project. As that happened, the entertainment value sort of faded away into the mundane plodding details that it really is. Sure, we had interesting things like 3D floor plans and events like demo parties and steel beam installs, but the fun in the writing was slowly drained away.

Thinking back to the start of the blog, though, one of my goals was to improve my writing. I’ve got lofty, far-off goals of writing seriously someday, and they tell you that “writers gotta write” to get any good. As posting went on, my concern shifted to trying to clearly explain what we were trying to do and why, and seldom doing so succinctly. It seems like a lot of things we do require explanation. Why do that? Why do that now? Why do that the way you’re doing it? Teasing apart the thinking and doing behind the complex 3D jigsaw puzzle we’re living in takes some words, some paragraphs, some time.

In thinking about my audience, though, I have to consider a few things. One, my blog is not a how-to, and never will be. As I’ve said before, I don’t know enough about what I’m doing to teach someone else to do it. Two, if you’re reading this you’re either interested in home improvement or you know us personally, and probably both. Three, if anyone wants to know the details, the whyfors and howtos, they can ask in the comments. In short, the dry, specific details aren’t nearly as important as making it worth reading.

Here's a picture of Derek sweeping with two brooms, just because

Here’s a picture of Derek sweeping with two brooms, just because

Even if the projects we’re tackling aren’t exciting, they can still be interesting, and a lot of that is how it’s presented. I’m going to make an effort to write more entertaining posts, and I hope you like them enough to read them and not just scroll through the pictures, and for those that have already tuned out, I apologize. I never meant to bore you.

Better Living Through Self-Delusion

June 11, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Ever since we put up the beam in the first floor I’ve been grappling with the unfortunate reality that I’m not as good at building houses as someone who does it for a living. This is an obvious statement, but it runs up against my perfectionism. We’re starting to do constructive work on the house rather than destructive work. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, but now that it’s here I’m forced to confront the fact that my carpentry skills are not up to my own standards. I’m also forced to either accept less-than perfect results or redo things I barely have time to do in the first place.

One of our primary goals in building our house ourselves was to make sure it was built right. To achieve this I’ve done a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of planning, and we’re spending a lot of money for the right materials. All of that still butts up against the lack of experience I have at physically doing it. I have a level, a square, a measuring tape and good eyes, but things still don’t wind up fitting the way I expect them to.

One of the things I take pride in is a level of honesty with myself and the introspection to see when I’m not doing a good job. Ira Glass talked about the difference between taste and skill, and while he was speaking about the creative pursuits, I don’t think there’s a difference. I know what good quality construction looks like. I can see what’s wrong with every building I walk into, and appreciate it when things are well made.

We watched a lot of Holmes on Homes before starting this project, seeing horror stories of bad craftsmanship from shady contractors. Because I knew I wouldn’t accept less-than-good quality, I convinced myself that I would do a better job, but I failed to understand that just because I would doesn’t mean I could. I recently read a blog post by Allison Bailes discussing his experience building a green home and the role his own self-delusion played in convincing him that he could do it himself and to plow ahead despite setbacks. In a separate post he said that one of the top ten mistakes he made building his home was thinking he could save money by doing it himself.

On the one hand, without the self-delusion, he (and for that matter, Sarah and I) would probably never have undertaken the project in the first place. The self-delusion is necessary to convince yourself to do risky things. Once you’re committed, you eventually work a way through it. However, the self-delusion is only useful up front. Once you’re in the thick of it, self delusion only serves to prolong the project by telling you you can do it all. The question becomes, when is it actually a good idea to do it ourselves and when should we hire out?

There are always things that are worth doing yourself. The basement steel beam is a prime example. We started out convinced we needed to hire it out, got quotes of fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, and wound up doing it ourselves for about two thousand dollars. However, without the help of our friend Mike, a construction welder that was able to buy the steel and help us put it in, it wouldn’t have been so straightforward.

A counter example is the first floor LVL beam. We were quoted a bit under five grand to have it done. We did it ourselves for roughly sixteen hundred. That’s still significant money saved, but the time and effort it took, the quality of the finished product, and the lingering uncertainty of whether it was done 100% properly add up to me concluding I probably should have just written the check.

If nothing else, I’ve reminded myself to at a minimum get a quote for the work so I can make an educated decision. With Sarah in grad school for the rest of the year, my evenings are dedicated to watching our son, Derek. That means I can only work on the house on weekends or if I take off work, and individual projects that would take a contractor a few days may take me a month or more. There’s value in that time, and I’m slowly realizing that sometimes I need to pony up the cash if it will get things done. To start with, I’m going to get a couple quotes for the joist levelling and the subfloor. If one of them is reasonable, I’ll save myself a ton of time and effort and hopefully have a better product than I could do myself with the time allotted.

Going forward, we’ll take it one piece at a time. We don’t have a construction loan, so everything is out of pocket. That means we feel it acutely when we make big ticket decisions, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth it. I expect we’ll still wind up doing most of this project ourselves with the help of friends, but maybe a bit smaller “most” wouldn’t be so bad.