Home Renovations and Projects

I'm off to a start with my home renovation plan. 

My house is about 35 years old and hasn't had any major updates besides paint and a newer furnace in probably the past 20 years. 

I've decided to take a top down / inside-out approach. Since my plan involves basically replacing or  updating pretty much everything. 

1. New roof - Just got this done a couple of weeks ago. The previous roof was in really bad shape and I had patched various holes in it through the years. Plus there was unfortunately some animal damage that had occurred. As part of the roof, I had the soffits and fascia repaired or replaced and freshly painted. Also I got new seamless gutters installed. 

2. All new windows. The windows I have currently are basically builder grade single pane windows from 1985. Even well maintained, they have a really crappy energy rating. I have already ordered enough windows to replace every single on in the house. Hopefully that saves on heating and cooling costs in the summer and winter, also I think they will look a lot better. I'm also have the aluminum cover things placed on the outside of the windows to help ease up maintenance moving forward in the future. Its gonna be a few weeks because they are custom built but I'm looking at early October as an install date.

3. New exterior doors. At the least, I'm planning on getting a new front door and storm door. I have a few picked out but I'll probably be having this done at the same time as the windows, and by the same people.

4. Exterior paint. I actually already bought enough exterior paint for the entire house. Unfortunately I changed my mind about the trim color, so now I'm stuck with 5 gallons of trim paint I'm not going to use. On the bright side, I got a huge rebate when I initially bought the paint so it was cheap. I have to buy more, though, to match the color I decided to go with. I'm changing the whole color of my house, though. As part of that, I'm going to have to have a ton of siding repair (I have cedar siding) and caulking done first. Also power-washing.

5. New furnace. Seriously considering replacing my entire heating and air conditioning system. The one I have now is literally a dinosaur and it seems like every year it runs worse and worse. I'm thinking this may be the last season I'm going to use the air conditioning unit in it, and it probably has another heating season in it. But why wait until it completely breaks down before replacing it? Better to do it now while its still functioning. 

6. The deck. I'm halfway done with ripping the deck off the back of my house. Its old and not exactly square anymore. Not fixable. Whoever thinks its a good idea to put a deck near a tree...well its just not a good idea. Think twice before you ever do that. The tree has destroyed the deck. I'm thinking about just building a retaining wall at the line where the deck goes out to now and replacing it with a lower maintenance and more permanent stone patio. 

7. Front porch. My current front porch is likewise not exactly in good shape. Its survived many summers in the Georgia sun. Its solid enough, it just isn't really looking good anymore. Like the back deck, I'm considering replacing it with stone or maybe even concrete.

Do it yourself home repair...My little studio / basement edition

The home I bought has a finished basement. Unfortunately, it had been finished probably 20 years before I bought it. Obviously, a basement is a basement, and the years had taken their toll on the "finished" part of it. Namely, the carpet, the dropped ceiling, the drywall, etc etc. It smelled funny, looked bad, and really needed to be redone. I wanted to recreate the space as a miniature little studio apartment. Its approximately 550 square feet in total, give or take a few.



This is a shot of the floor after I finally managed to pull up all the nasty old carpet. The carpet had been glued to the concrete floor. Who does that?



Damaged drywall from a rusty old leaky water heater. Prior to repairing the wall, the water heater had to be replaced. Replacing the water heater was a job in itself. I really wish I had video taped my struggles with that stupid old water heater...in retrospect it was really funny.



The bottom two feet of the drywall was removed due to mildew damage. The rest of it was okay, so I left it. I took this opportunity to go ahead and rewire and install new electrical outlets since everything was open, exposed, and easily accessible. At this point I also installed a dimmer switch for the recessed lighting in the dropped ceiling.



Drywall replaced, prior to mudding and sanding.



After mudding, sanding, priming, and a fresh coat of paint. My favorite color...blue...one of my favorite shades of blue too. It really gave the room a nice warm feel.



A picture of the space to illustrate. I had knocked out the drywall and framed the hole in the wall as a spot for a future breakfast bar/kitchenette.



Next I went and bought this amazing product called carpet tiles. Carpet tiles are very easy to install. The brand of carpet tiles I picked is perfect for a basement since they are made of a synthetic (plastic) material and have a thick rubber/vinyl backing. The backing insulates against radiant cold from the floor. The material also makes them easy to clean since if they get wet you simply pick it up and drop it in a bucket of soapy water. Scrub it, dry it, and replace. They don't shrink either! Also, if one happens to get ruined you simply pick it up, drop it in the trash, and replace with a brand new (I bought an extra box of 25 just in case that happens!).

By the way, peel and stick carpet tiles suck! Just get the ones with a nice heavy backing and fit them close together. There is no adhesive necessary if you simply install the carpet tiles properly and tightly together.

The only problem was trying to figure out the pattern I wanted to use. The above picture was one of the rejected patterns...



Placing the tiles. They are so easy to put down. You start in the middle and work your way out. The important thing is to get them square with the walls. Once you get to the walls it takes lots of careful cutting to make them fit together tightly. Fortunately they are easy to cut using a sharp utility knife/box cutter. Next you nail trim into the wall over top to hold the edges in and provide a nice finished look (leaving enough space to pull the tiles up and replace if necessary, of course).



Here's a picture of the completed space with the bed. The bathroom is to the right side. I didn't have to do anything with that since it was already finished. I hate the color of it but I can live with it for now.



Bathroom shot. I'm using the future kitchenette area as a spacious closet for now. I have faux wood floor cut to fit there for the time being. that will be pulled up in the future when I'm ready to install cabinets/sink/etc.

All in all, its a nice little space. I have a bathroom, a nice sized little closet, and a pair of french doors leading off to my deck. I've got my bookshelf for books and as a makeshift towel rack for the time being. There are still a few little anemities I would like to install when budget permits.

The other half of the space is more of a living/chilling area.




Before



After.

Most of the furniture is all stuff picked up in the free section of craigslist, by the way. Even the TV was something someone was giving away free on craigslist.

DIY Sunday: Thinking of buying a "handy man's special"?

In 2002, I bought this house. It was built in 1898. There was a ton of updating that needed to be done with this home. In some areas, no updating had been done probably since the original installs of the various rooms. The bathroom wasn't even original to the house! Imagine that. A house so old that when it was built, bathrooms were still optional. The only thing it really had going for it was that it had a newer furnace and newer windows.

Just be prepared if you want to even consider this sort of project, because you have two options.

Option one is paying someone to do the work for you. Generally you want a licensed and insured contractor. This can be extremely costly.

Option two is "sweat equity", or doing the work yourself. There are tons and tons of how-to manuals to do any type of work on your home. And it isn't that difficult, its really just a matter of having the proper tools, time, and an ability to follow step-by-step directions. Of course, if you're inexperienced in the work you want to do you probably won't get it perfect (but then again, even experienced professionals don't get it perfect all the time).

I used a combination of both these options. Sometimes I would make a quick fix until I could afford to pay someone to do the work for me. Fortunately after researching and visiting city hall, I was able to secure government grants to help me pay for some of the more costly repairs.

Depending on where you live, grants can be an option. Especially in older homes that are in dire need of updating. Unfortunately there are usually limits to the types of work these grants will pay for. For instance, I got a grant to help me pay for a new roof. However, the grant money could not go to gutters, that would come out of pocket.

You can also visit the bank and take out an equity loan to help pay for updates, but that can be a very costly road to start traveling down - taking out any type of loan or credit line should be considered very carefully. Equity loans are easy to get, and are also partially responsible for the current crisis with people's homes getting foreclosed on left and right as home values have plummeted. Credit lines at home improvement stores like Home Depot or Lowe's should also be carefully considered.

Just remember, any money you invest in your home you will not get back until you sell it.



The outside after new siding, new porch, new roof, new chimney, and some landscaping. That's just a portion of the exterior work that was done it!

DIY Sunday: Roof Repair

Last year during a severe rainstorm I noticed a huge waterspot developing on the roof of one of my bedrooms.

The next day after the rain stopped, I got back into the woods at an angle where I could see the roof.



I saw this.



A better closeup. How the fuck did this happen? Did a goddamn meteor hit my house or something?

Now this is a section of the roof that is only visible from a wooded area. So its not like I inspect it daily or anything; The more likely culprit was a broken roofing tile that went unnoticed. Also note the clear water damage that is visible in the first picture.

I know my entire roof needs replacing. Unfortunately that is expensive and I don't have the dough to do it right now. So I needed a quick fix to stop the interior from being ruined.

I contacted a roofing company and was quoted $450 over the phone. I decided to go ahead and do it myself.

I'll try to illustrate it. Unfortunately it was supposed to rain the next day so I had to make the fix quick. And since it is winter; daylight hours are limited. Plus i work the nightshift (7pm to 7am - 12 hour shifts). I needed to get this done before it rained again and damaged more of the interior. Since I was working so quick I kind of forgot to take more pictures of the process.



Go to a supply place, buy a sheet of OSB that matches the decking that you have on your roof. Match the sheet you buy to the size of the decking on your roof. Mine was 7/16th. it cost me $5 for a 4x8 sheet which was more than enough for the repair. Also, buy a box of galvanized/coated deck screws and some roofing nails (they're cheap $20 for more than enough to finish the job).

Also, you'll need a saw. You can use a manual handsaw if you like, but a circular saw or sawzall will speed the process up and be slightly more precise. I used my circular saw. I'd recommend a circular saw because you can set it to not cut through your rafters, but if you're like me and on a budget you can use whatever. Just be careful of the overall structure.

You'll also need a roll of roofing felt ($15) or tarpaper. I'd recommend #15 because it is cheaper and it really doesn't make much of a difference if you use #15 or #30, unless you're anal retentive...then go with the #30. But I'm guessing if you're using this method you're trying a quick cheap fix, so go with #15.

Also, break a shingle off your roof and take it with you. Buy a stack of shingles ($15) that matches (one stack will be more than enough).


Since I have an extremely pitched roof, I also invested in roof jacks. These are designed so you can make a little platform out of scrap wood to stand on while you work. Lest you fall to your doom. If you're scared of heights, this isn't a good DIY repair to try and undertake, btw.

MAKE SURE YOU SECURE YOURSELF AND YOUR LADDER IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE. YOU WON'T SAVE MONEY IF YOU BREAK YOUR GODDAMN NECK OR LEG DURING THIS PROCESS. DON'T TAKE ANY CHANCES WITH YOUR SAFETY.



Step one, cut out around the area where the hole is. I noted that the surrounding wood was wet around edges the hole for several inches. So I went ahead and used my circular saw to cut a rough eyeballed square to where the dry wood was.



Next, I cut a piece of 1x8 pine wood a foot wider than the hole I cut with my saw. Holding the piece of wood underneath the hole, I used deck screws to secure it into place (where the x's are in the pic).



Then, after I had measured the size of the square, I cut a piece of 7/16 OSB that I had bought to fit the hole. I screwed it in with deck screws (where the x's are). Since the 7/16 OSB matches the decking that I had just removed, the whole installation is completely flush with the rest of the roof.



After that I used my caulking gun to add roofing tar around the edges and form a seal around the OSB "patch" I created. After that, I went ahead and removed any damaged shingles around the hole itself.

Once I had it stripped down to the damaged areas, it was just a matter of reshingling. And don't be afraid of pulling shingles off. One shingle can cover quite a bit of area, and a pack of shingles goes a long way.



Here is a shot of the completed patch. Obviously the newer shingles look a lot better than the 15-20 year old shingles that the home is currently roofed with, but I bought myself some time until I have the money to do the job right.

Hope this helps anyone who is curious about fixing holes in their roof. This was not very difficult at all. It just takes the correct tools and about 2 hours of your time.

Total repair cost? $68. (I also bought some rubber gloves + a bucket to clean out my eaves since I was up there). Quoted $450. Saved about $375. Total time was about an hour of labor and another hour to run to the hardware store.

DIY Sunday: Subfloor Repair

Got a hole in your subfloor? Rotten wood, water damage, etc etc?

I did this at a friend's summer cottage. Water had been leaking under the door for some time, and had done major damage to the OSB subflooring. Being right in front of the door, it was very dangerous to have rotten/weak wood in that particular spot. Here's how I fixed it on the cheap.

Step one: I pulled the carpet back. Next I ascertained the extent of the damage with a hammer and a crowbar. Once I had done that, I marked out the damaged floor areas with a pen. Next I outlined a square with one of the markings aligned right down the center of a joist (just look for the nails to find them or a stud-finder).



Step two: I used a circular saw set to 3/4" and cut the subfloor back to viable wood in a nice square. You can see all the rotten wood in the hole. I'm lazy, I just left it there in the crawl space.



Step three: I measured and cut a new square of wood from a piece of 4'x8' OSB that I had I picked up at the local hardware store. I fitted it tight into place (wood has a tendency to shrink over time so a good tight fit is essential). Next, I placed a piece of plastic to one end to help protect the wood from water drips. After that i used staggered deck screws to hold it down tight to the floor. The plastic was kind of a crappy spur-of-the-moment fix for the water problem. But the water wasn't what they asked me to fix and was a job for a different day.

Step four: Replaced the carpet. Good as new!

DIY Sunday: Pool Repair

Last May I decided to replace the pool liner in my pool. The old liner was probably 20 years old, torn, and unrepairable. I contacted a pool company, and was quoted $7,500 to have the work completed. I decided I could probably do the work myself for much cheaper.



Here's a shot of what it looked like prior to starting the work. Gross!



I spent roughly 3 days repairing the dirt/prepping. It involved removing the giant tarp, ripping/cutting out the old liner, all the accumulated trash in the bottom (bricks, toys, sticks, dead leaves, all kinds of crap), and dropping a sump pump in and emptying out about 10,000 gallons of really smelly and disgusting rain water. After that I hauled out disgusting smelling sludge, bucketload by bucketload, which involved slipping in the mud a lot and getting covered in sludge myself. I also got a hell of a sunburn.



There is a sand/cement mixture that is supposed to sit on top of the georgia style red clay/dirt that's everywhere around here. Basically the goal was to make the surface as smooth as possible, and keep trash out, of course. Much of the work was down n dirty with a shovel and a trowel.

After this work was completed I measured the dimensions of the pool about 10 times (double triple quadruple quintuple check the measurements!!). Then I faxed the order sheet to the vinyl liner manufacturer and prayed it didn't rain before the liner arrived!



48 hours later the liner was delivered by a guy with a forklift truck. Next step was to unroll the new liner, which literally weighed about 450 lbs. During this step it is really important to make sure the liner is sitting in the hole properly, because once you start to fill it with water, it ain't going anywhere!! Water is super heavy and will make the liner sit VERY tight to the sides. Make sure its snapped in well too! The vinyl will stretch during filling so don't worry if it seems a half inch off here n there, because I can be adjusted...just not that much...



Filling it with the garden hose took forever. This involved making minute adjustments to the liner as it filled to prevent creases from forming. It took 8 hours just to fill it three feet; and about 48 hours to fill it in total. It is 8 feet total in depth at the deep end, and is 16'x36'. The pool holds around 23,000-25,000 gallons by my math (give or take a thousand).



Here's a shot of the pool after completion of the project. Total cost was around $1,500 and about 30 hours of physical labor. My water bill that month was only $50 more than it normally was, so I saved money by being patient and waiting for it to fill as well. Compared with the $7,500 quote from the pool guy, I saved rouchly $6,000 total. It was well worth it. With proper maintenance the new liner should last 10+ years.

Plus pools are fuckin fun!

DIY Sunday: Framing a basement

These are some photos I took of a carpentry job I did in 2001. There was major flood damage to a basement, mold was growing, and it required the complete demolition and reconstruction.



Since this is a non-load bearing wall 2"x1" suffices. Stagger them so you can fit foam insulation in between. Pop the foam in and tape it into place until the drywall can be put up.



Framing around the furnace was pretty dumb, since if the furnace ever needs to be replaced then the whole wall would need to come out, fucking up my beautiful work. But its what the homeowner wanted, so whateva.


Frame the duct work with whatever wood you have lying around. I think I did this with some old pieces of fence wood. As long as it can hold the drywall up, you're gold.

Black Widow I found in my backyard

Found this in the retaining wall next to my pool.

Bathroom Redo

This is part of my weekly home improvement series:

Oddly enough, the bathroom was not an original part of this home (built in 1898). The bathroom was a later addition to the mix. It was easily evidenced if you looked at it from the underside (the basement) and the upstairs attic above it. Apparently the area did not have a sewer system until 1908, and no running water until 1910. So originally this house would have been equipped with an outhouse. A few years later I found the site of the original outhouse when I was digging postholes for a fence in the backyard (no poo, just a few rotten timbers and some trash about 4 feet underground). Later, one day, I was helping an elderly neighbor take out his trash. He showed me the site on the streetcorner where there had been a shared pump for the communal well where the original owners and neighbors got their water from. Interesting stuff.


Sink "before"

This is the bathroom after I had stripped off some hideous wallpaper the previous occupants of the home had put up. For some reason they had painted the rest of it this weird pink/purple color.

What you're looking at was probably the original cast iron sink fixture. It was hanging at a crooked angle and the plumbing was literally ducttaped together, rather than properly chemically welded. Pure laziness on the previous owner's part.


before

The claw foot tub was really pimp. This was most certainly an add-on fixture. I'd guesstimate probably around 1910. This same style of tub is still available, but they cost well over $1000. I sanded the rust from the toes and painted it with rustoleum primer.

Notice the carpet on the floor. Who the fuck in their right mind puts carpet on a bathroom floor? I could only imagine how many times that toilet got stopped up and overflowed....how do you clean that? disgusting. The carpet had to go.

You can also see the previous hideous wallpaper there behind the tub.

The walls were horse hair plaster. I couldn't work with the plaster walls too much due to the lead contamination in the walls.

Since the sink was so screwed up, that went in the trash. I wasn't in the mood to try and restore anything by the time I got to that point.

I redid the plumbing to accomodate the pedestal sink. I redid the PVC and CPVC according to code.

Next I rewired the old insulated style electrical system. I placed new switches and outlets, including a GFCI plug next to the sink. Then I replaced the old light fixtures with a bathroom fan and a UL approved lights.

I ripped up the carpet and a layer of old linoleum to find the original tilework. To my horror, I realized they were asbestos tiles. Not a good idea to remove and impossible to dispose of safely. So I simply laid 1/2" OSB and vinyl floor over top and made a good seal at the edges with floor edging (see the above "after" picture).

I carefully "spot" repaired the plaster, being sure to wear a respirator mask while doing so. Then after the plaster was repaired, I painted about 5 layers of paint over the entire thing.


After (partially)

I did the water supply pipes wrong under the pedestal sink, as you can see (thanks to a last minute change in sink style). In fact, eventually that sink also went in the trash and I installed a vanity a few years later. The walls were painted over about ten times. And in this pictures you can see the final primer coat while I figured out which color to finally paint it. It's amazing what a new fixture and a coat of paint can do to a room though. Unfortunately this is the only surviving "after" picture I have, and you can't see the new light fixture. Oh well. You can see the new flooring though.

Home Improvements and Repair

This is the first part in a weekly series I'm going to write about home improvements.

In 2002 I bought a 100+ year old starter home (the home was built in 1898). I bought it from a bank at an auction. It was a deal and a steal. Unfortunately, it had not been updated since probably 1950 (at least). The original intention wasn't to flip it or anything, but it was in serious need of a lot of work. Unfortunately I no longer own this home, but I did do a lot of work on it.

I'm going to go over some of the basics and try to show before and after pictures as often as possible. Unfortunately, I've sold that home and since moved, so if I don't have "after" photos I can't really go back and take any now can I. So I'm just digging through my photo archives and uploading what I can find.

Keep in mind, I have done previous work as a fire restoration subcontractor in various roles (painting, roofing, siding, electrical work, tile work, carpentry, etc), and I'm not very fainthearted about tearing stuff up with a crowbar when push comes to shove. And there is nothing more gratifying than smashing stuff with a sledgehammer and rebuilding it again new.

Remodeling and construction is like wiping a canvas clean then painting a new picture. In an abstract way, construction work is really very artistic.

So for part one we'll cover one of the dangers you may face when attempting to remodel an old home. Lead.

Back when my starter home was built in 1998, the builders would mix lead into everything as a preservative. This was great at the time, since lead is a fantastic preservative, but as many of you may know lead is extremely hazardous. Especially for children. Over time, with ambient moisture, lead leeches into basically everything it comes in contact with. The plaster walls of the home were full of lead thanks to the paint. Even the joists behind the plaster. The wooden windowsills were contaminated thanks to being painted. I was afraid of the lead dust contaminating everything in the house if I tried to break apart the plaster, and even sanding it spreads lead dust everywhere.

The only other way to deal with it is to either A) Pay professionals with special equipment to tear everything out or B) Put a seal between the wall and the rest of the home (which is much more cost effective and still safe if done properly).

So oftentimes I would simply paint over or cover up existing things to create that seal rather than attempt to get rid of them. Especially when it came to trim work or plaster. Tearing the place apart wasn't really an option unless I wanted to spread lead dust everywhere (especially on myself!). And since I needed to live in the home as I improved it.

Fixing my Furnace

I tried to test fire my furnace last week to discover it had stopped working.

After spending a few hours this week troubleshooting and narrowing down the problem, I decided it was the ignition control board. I'd go into how I came to that conclusion but it is boring nerd stuff.

I called the Ruud dealership and the lady said, "I'm sorry, we don't sell parts, we just sell furnaces. There is this place you could get the part you need but they won't sell to you since you're not a contractor." Ha ha ha...thanks lady.

So I managed to track down the part at this appliance store. They had two in stock. Otherwise I would have had to order it online. Which I would have saved money but I really just wanted to get my furnace working, because I have a one track mind like that.

I drove down there, got the part, and sat down to replace it. Keep in mind, I'm not a furnace guy, just a homeowner that likes to fix his own stuff when possible.



The offending part.



The replacement.



45 minutes of careful rewiring (I admit, I took a 15 minute break about halfway through...so 30 minutes).



Piece of junk!!!



Ignition!!!

Works perfectly. A furnace company would have probably charged me $500 to do the same work. I got it done for $150 total.

Just remember that any electrical parts come non-refundable, so you better be damn sure that the part you are replacing is indeed the part that is broken. Also, if you fuck up the new part between the time you buy it and install it, you're also fucked.