We are making terrific progress on the first floor. I do enjoy this work. I like creating strategies to improve building performance, I like turning the plan into a reality, and I like seeing the strategy fulfil its promise. Compared to the house as purchased, our efforts have doubled the size, and halved the energy usage. I hope that, as the construction sector improves, I can soon hire on with a company that will enable me to help design, build, and/or analyze larger projects.
12 Apr 2012
Rewiring is almost complete. The home I grew up in had about 8 circuits for the entire house. This place has ten circuits in the kitchen alone – code requires two countertop circuits plus stand alone circuits for each fixed appliance. That gives us:
- Counter 1
- Counter 2
- Oven
- Cooktop
- Hood
- Warming drawer
- Microwave
- Refrigerator
- Dishwasher
- Disposal
I rewired the main panel. Used 36 of 40 available circuits in order to comply with current code. All wiring in the house has now been replaced with new.
30 Mar 2012
New furnace and duct installation is almost complete. This new 60,000BTU Trane tucks up against the wall. The old 100,000BTU furnace/duct combo took up 1/4 of the basement.
Not sad to see this gone.
20 Mar 2012
New framing is mostly complete. We bumped out the fireplace to receive the new Valor gas insert. The walls are furred out ready for foam insulation and drywall. Bookshelves will flank the fireplace.
The new entry. We'll add a few more decorative columns after drywall is installed.
The weather has been nice enough that it will soon be time to dig out the '67 Triumph Trophy. Behind is the Alfa Romeo engine that I hope will go into my car project (next in line after the house is done).
This goes with the Alfa engine. Its a Devin body from 1962. I designed and welded the frame, but its currently in storage.
15 Mar 2012
The bearing wall between the living room and piano room is now gone, replaced by a beam and post.
The entire front of the house is now one big open space. Next, we'll frame an entry corridor consisting of a pair of symmetrical 48" high walls.
This shows how the post passes through the floor to the concrete pad in the crawlspace about 3' below.
13 Mar 2012
Time to yank the asbestos-laden HVAC system. The furnace is looking nervous.
Asbestos ducts are coming out.
The asbestos area is sealed off and connected to outside through a special filter system.
Fini! The furnace will be replaced with a Trane XV95 furnace (two stage, variable speed, 96.7% AFUE, Energy Star)
10 Mar 2012
The past few days have been busy with demo, framing, and a new roof for the carriage house.
First floor is demolished except for the kitchen. We'll redo that as well, but it will be the last room to get demo'd and the first to get fully rebuilt.
You can see from the front door all the way to the rear window of the bedroom.
We're changing to a more open floorplan. This means removing a weight bearing wall and installing a beam with a support column. Yesterday we crawled into the crawlspace and poured a 36"x36"x8" footer to take the weight from the steel post that will soon go in. I lent a hand on this job and I'm still sore from lifting 920lbs of concrete.
We'll start on a walkthrough of the new framing. This is the front door. Look at the floor to see the ghost of the old walls. The old entry was very confined. The new entry is not yet built. It will be a hallway with 48" high walls and columns to support the ceiling.
This is taken from the front door. You can see the wall at right is beginning to come down. The new entry hall will be symmetric with the closet door dead ahead. Just before reaching the closet, the entry hall ends and allows people to turn left into the music room, or right into the living room.
This is also taken from the entry, and shows the 1/2 bath to the left of the entry closet. Small rooms like these feel funny with 10' ceilings, so we dropped down to 8'. This gives us storage space behind some doors near the ceiling. Our old family home in Missouri had a similar arrangement in the dining room - very useful for Christmas decorations, boxes of old pictures, etc.
I'm standing at the 1/2 bath looking toward the living room.
I've entered the living room, looking past the old double doors to the dining room. No changes here.
These are the coolest rollers for double doors I've ever seen.
We're in the dining room. The green door is to the kitchen. Just to the left is the framed opening to the master suite.
We've walked straight through the master entrance, across a small hallway, and through the pocket door for the walk-in closet. We've turned around to see the hallway and master entrance. The bedroom is to the left, with the bath to the right. We framed the hall with an 8' ceiling to give us more storage above, just like we did above the entry closet and 1/2 bath. We won't install any doors here - just a high alcove 8' wide by 3 1/2' deep to store off-season clothes.
This is from the entrance to the master bath. The wall shown closes off the steam sauna shower (right) and toilet (left). We framed a wide opening for a sliding door.
This is also taken from the bath entrance. This is a 10' wide wall for two vanities with a makeup area in between.
We've walked into the bath. At right is the entrance, left is the shower, ahead is the space for the tub. Disregard the plumbing - it all gets changed.
I love uncovering old wallpaper. "Jalopies" in the master bedroom, "Turkish Weiner Roast" in the closet (used to be the old bath).
This is the roof of the original carriage house. It had sagged, water was pooling and leaking in from five places. We were trying to kick this can down the road a bit, but could wait no longer. Here, I've begun to remove the rotted wood - the only tools I had to use were my gloved hands.
Here is why the roof had sagged. Someone cut notches into all of the joists in order to install a garage door opener. I braced all of these with new wood in order to strengthen the structure and take out the sag. I just rehung the opener a little lower. Sigh...
Here we see the new joists sistered to the old. Strong like bull.
The rotten wood has all been replaced, and the roofers have taken over. There is just enough slope to shed the water off the back.
The new EPDM membrane is going on. After some tuck pointing of the brick (well, a lot actually) this structure will be better than new.
