Gray Area

So this weekend we were kind of in a limbo of owning the house and not owning the house. But given the amount of work needed to be done to the place, we decided to go ahead and act like we fully owned it and start doing the work that needed to be done. Which is, frankly, a considerable amount.

After the dry close on Friday, Justin and I headed over to the house and started taking a peak behind all the paneling and start coming up with a plan of action. I couldn't stay, I had to run to the theater and help get ready for opening night, but Justin stayed and started pulling paneling down in the bedrooms. He discovered a section in the master bedroom that needed a panel of drywall, but the rest of it was in pretty good condition. The upstairs bedrooms were another story, sadly. The plaster underneath the paneling was in rough condition, and Justin held off on pulling the rest down until we could both be there to make some decisions. He did manage to get all the carpet up in the addition, though. A good start to the demo work.

Saturday we showed up at the house and started taking down the partition wall in the living room. Luckily the builders of this wall were not very good at what they were doing, and the whole thing came down quickly and cleanly. 20 minutes tops and the living room felt completely different. Lots more natural light from the front of the house, and I can better visualize how the room will work.

My mom and stepdad were showing up just as we were finishing the wall, and we did a walkthrough to start making lists - things to buy, things to do, things to take down, things to build up. My brother showed up and we started digging in. Justin's dad even made the trip up from Rochester to help! Sunday was more of the same - lots of work being done on the house. I'm going to list it all out, feel free to skip. I just want to make sure I have a record of it all.

- Pictures! We took pictures of the whole house before we did anything to it. We need to take more of the progress we're making, but ultimately we just want to have before and after pictures. They'll be online sometime in the future, I'm sure.
- Garage opened, discovered the problem with the garage door. We can get in there, at least, and have been piling up the trash in it, which is handy.
- All the doors rekeyed, and new deadbolts, even on the garage door. Now we have access through every door on one key. Awesome.
- All the paneling down and piled in the garage. This was a huge task, and I have to make special thanks to my brother for doing so much of the hauling. It was so helpful and we are so grateful.
- Took down the fake brick wall in the living room - I really need the picture to do it justice, but there was a 4' wide wall in the living room with this awful brick on it. I ended up pulling all the plaster/cement behind it down as well, so it's clear down to the original lathe. New drywall will go up in it's place.
- Took down the partition wall, like I said. Major improvement with minimal work.
- Determined that we would get all the paneling down in the upstairs rooms and then leave them alone for now. With so much work to do in such a short time we're focusing on getting the whole downstairs completed and then after we move in we'll tackle the upstairs.
- Discovered that there was two layers of subfloor in the addition - plywood and then particle board over that. Particle board? WTF? It was in awful condition, so we pulled it all up. The plywood is in pretty good condition, though, so I think we'll be able to leave it in place, which is great, since it means we don't have to worry about the vapor barrier and insulation, which is directly under the plywood. Once we get it cleaned up it should be ready for the new floor we're going to have installed.
- Pulled up a small section of the plywood and I got the fun task of going down into the crawlspace. That's right, when the built the addition they didn't leave anyway to access it. And of course, two of the three heating vents in the addition had fallen down into crawlspace, and I really didn't want to be heating that. So down I go, and it was...not as bad as it could have been. I retrieved Justin's new crowbar, which made him super happy, and we got the ductwork back in place. I was also able to take a look at the beams and they look to be in good condition. The ductwork is all insulated, as well, so at least they did a few things right. I crawled back out, we were able to use the same plastic to put the moister barrier back up, put the insulation right back in and cover it up. We'll get a new piece of plywood to put back over it, but that's a minor fix. We also discovered that we can use the closet in our bedroom to access it in the future should we ever need to, which means I don't have to be concerned about putting a nice new floor down in the addition. There is a concern where the original house meets the extension, but I think it will be okay until spring and then I'll have my uncle out to look at it.
- Most of the wallpaper in the living room is down. We still need to clean all the glue off the walls, but it's only a couple walls.
- Bedroom is prepped for drywall and patching. We'll need new molding around the doorframes and baseboards, but it's in pretty good shape overall.
- We determined what needs to be done in the bathroom to make it livable until the spring when we are going to have it remodeled. Should be minimal, except for the cleaning. The cleaning will be maximum.
- Discovered original hardwood floors in the kitchen. There's still a layer of laminated vinyl, plywood, pressboard tile and another mystery layer of stuff between us and the hardwood, but it's down there. I think we'll end up taking up the floor down to that point and then put a vinyl tile floor down until we can have the hardwood resurfaced. Still, very exciting to have that there.
- Carpet up in the addition, the closet and the front porch. Moved to garage. The house smells better already. Discovered original hardwood floor under the outdoor carpet in the front porch. There's a layer of black crud (the back of the carpet, all disintegrated) but with a lot of sweeping we should get it down to the hardwood, and the parts that are completely clean at the moment look really really good.

It's going very well so far. I'm still waiting to hear on the HUD being signed, but Jim is on top of it, I think. It's the stupid title company, they're making me crazy. As soon as we get that signed I can call the city and make an appointment for the water to be turned on, and start doing all the other calling I need to do. I kind of just want to make sure that gets done before moving on to the next stuff. Wish me luck!

Special thanks to Sarah and Gabe for bringing bottled water over. It was very nice of you, and has been really helpful to have.