photos

So here are the promised pictures. Living room is complete with new couch and surround sound installed.

Dining room is done.

Currently working on the guest room and the hallways.

Photoless

Since the last post the office is 100% complete. We have both moved into it and are mostly set up.

The dining room is also 100% complete, we actullay had a great breakfast prepared by Amy in there on Christmas morning. There are spots on the floor that did not dry correctly and require touch up. The first piece of art has be hung on the walls in the house in the dining room. It is a painting by my old GM from Finale.

Now that these two rooms are complete that freed us up to move on to the living room. This has been the most exciting room to complete so far. Over the New Years weekend we sanded the floors and put the first coat of polyurethane on them. Tonight I applied the second (and hopefully final) coat of polyurethane. Before doing the floors we had the ceiling and walls drywall completed, installed two light fixtures, painted the ceiling and walls, created and installed trim on half the waindows and all of the doors, installed and painted crown molding and painted the upstairs radiator pipe.

I promise the next post will have photos of the above work.

Long time, long post

It has been a while since my last post because we have been busy fixing the house.

The back right room (future office) is almost completely done. The drywall has been finished, primed, painted. The windows have been trimmed out with new casing that is a close match to the existing including the rosettes. I built new interior stools including routering a 3/4" bullnosed edge. We installed new crown moulding throughout.



In between finishing the office and starting the dining room I have been working on the hall outside the office. This should be ready for photos and paint before thanksgiving. It is tough to prioritize a hallway.


As soon as the office was showing progress I started the mud in the dining room. This room has 3 exiting walls and one new wall with the french doors. One of the walls was in such bad shape I had to cover it with new drywall. In addition to the new french doors it has a door to the kitchen and two windows with original trim. The kitchen door had ugly 70s trim which has been removed and replaced with a style similar to the original purchased from Grossmans for 1/8 the price of Lowe's. All of the walls have had chair rail installed at the same height as the original. The two original walls had a texture that looked similar to grass cloth. I was able to find a texture paint from Behr that provided instructions to match the grass cloth. We spent last night attempting to apply it, but wore most of it. It should be dry by tomorrow allowing primer and paint. The ceiling was also painted yesterday allowing the installation of the light fixture.

Today I started patching the plaster in the living room hopefully allowing this room to be painted in the next few weeks. Two weeks ago we hired a professional drywall taper to complete most of the new taping. He did an excellent job requiring minimal touch up from me.



Last week I built a new shed so now the outside stuff has a home for winter. During this vacation the door in the mudroom was removed and a new pre hung unit installed.

Busy Days!!

This weekend was really busy for working on the house.

The bulkhead entry has been rebuilt. A door with a hinge has been added, eliminating the plywood and cinderblock.

The rotten floor and failed threshold in the mudroom has been removed. New floor has been installed but I need to buy a threshold that fits.

The rotten floor joist in the living room ceiling/bedroom floor has been cut out. I removed approximately 12" of rotted wood. bolted a new joist to it and reattached to the house and lifted it approximately 1" eliminating most of the dip in the bedroom floor.

Tonight was a big milestone in the house. We started priming the walls in what will be the office!! Hopefully by the end of this week they will be painted olive green.

ROTTEN!!

So I decided I would give in to Peter telling me to rip my new ceiling open and find out what is causing the spring in the floor. Glad we did.

We discovered that the end of the floor joist has rotted away so it currently is not resting on anything and also has a short split in it. The rot is another issue from the improperly installed roof. This joist in in the same spot that the water in the living room was coming in.

This fix is jumping to the front of the list for priority even if it takes the trampoline in the bedroom away. My plan is to cut all of the rot from the joist. Jack it up using my car jack or a bottle jack if I can find one. After jacking the joist I will sister another 2x6 to this and extend it past the crack by a few feet, bolt it to the existing joist and attach to the house with a hanger or side nail it into the wall.

first blog post

hi. this blog is to track the slow progress of the renovations in our new, old house. bear with me as i figure out blogger and find time during drying paint and sanding walls.

the house:
style:bungalow
color:peeling red
age: built in 1920, you do the math.
size:1,575 s.f. 1 1/2 stories. yard .20 acres.
where: abington, ma. abington is a small town 1.2 hour south of boston. We are on park ave which is across the street from island grove park and in front of the plymouth/kingston line of the commuter rail.

needs:everyting.

we bought the home from a woman who had raised fifteen kids here over the past forty two years. imagine 15 kids in 3 bedrooms with one bath! the house shows alot of wear from all those kids.

i promise that there will be photos soon.

so far we have had a fence put around the yard. the street side is a woden stockade fence running 65' across the yard creating a front and back yard. the back fence is a metal chain link fence with a gate going from the back porch to the commuter rail wall.

a new roof is going on as i type this. architectural shingles in charcoal grey. this eliminated the overhangs that are typical on this style home. hopefully it also eliminates the water in the dining and living rooms.

the wall dividing the second floor has been removed creating a large master bedroom. and new drywall has been installed but not finished.

the wall creating and odd space on the first floor was demolished and a new wall wth french doors has been installed seperating the dining and living rooms.

stairs have been added to the front porch.

trees have been trimmed back around the house which justified me getting a new chipper!!

the room that will be an office soon has 2 and 3 coats of mud on the walls. one more coat of mud then its time for paint, moulding and floors.

closing photos:

listing photos:

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