Kitchen Remodel

The counters came off on August 29th in preparation of our new kitchen counters being installed.

More Tile Progress

Tiling has moved towards the Kitchen. Good progress is being made.

Tiling has begun

Our new stone tile with the modern 1/16th inch grout lines is coming along. With luck they will be done this weekend and the carpet installed Tuesday and Wednesday. Which is good because we are hoping to start moving in on Thursday.

Garage Drywall is Up

More garage. (sorry) But we did have them add a two inch styrofoam insulation. Eric's bed is going to be on the other side of the wall where the washer and dryer will be installed. Hopefully the extra styrofoam insulation will help keep the noise down.

New Front Door

They are not painted yet, and the hardware is sitting on the rental house hearth, but we have replaced the front door that belonged on a rundown Motel 6 hotel room with a very nice set of double doors. Yeah!

Walls are painted

After a lot of consultation we picked a very interesting wall color. We are very happy with the choice now that it is on the walls.

Kitchen Ceiling is refinished

We are told the kitchen was redone 10 years ago, but no one ever bothered to finish the ceiling. That is now taken care of and the ceiling matches the family rooms.

Pool bath vanities out

George has also removed the vanities from the main guest bathroom in the hallway that we call the "Pool Bath"

Bathroom Counters Out

The tile and vanities are gone from the Jack n Jill bathroom that will be Eric's.

New Walls in the Family Room

We have covered up the 1969 yellow painted wood paneling in the family room with a thin wallboard.

Blame Your Parents

GE Profile™ 30" Free-Standing Electric Range | PHB925SPSS | GE Appliances

For 23 years Betsy has said "You only want that because that's what your mom has..."

And here I thought I simply had really good taste in furniture when I insisted on Scandinavian teak furnishing for the house. Anyway Mom & Dad had an induction stove top for about fifteen years at their beach house.

We were out picking out appliances, and decided on GE profile. We selected a really cool 28.5 cubic foot french door refrigerator, an Advantium microwave, and found a deal on a used GE Profile dishwasher. We were settling on a range, when Betsy asked: "did GE ever come out with a free standing range with induction cooktop?"

Heh, yes in Fall 2009. So Mom, if you are reading this, we have a free standing GE Profile free standing range with induction cooktop and convection oven with a warming drawer in the bottom. This has got to be the biggest indulgence in the entire ruins project.

Now we have to go find a set of magnetic cooking pots and pans to work with this magic cooktop....

Garage, blah blah blah, garage...

It's probably funny to keep harping on the garage. But we all put a lot of work out here to restore the garage to a clean and useful place. Thanks to Henry Electric we now have two flourescent lights over the car area, and 3 area lights along the back path of the garage. The plumbing is now in place for the washing machine, and electric is in place for the washer and dryer.

We have also added a 30 volt outlet so you can park an RV in the driveway or power a table saw. The light switches are in places you would want light switches to be, and all the outlets work.

We also have the plumbing in place to install a slop sink next to the washing machine.

We now have a dedicated (unswitched!) outlet for the garage door opener. And Branch Garage Door came out and fixed and programmed the opener.

O.K. enough about the garage until after the drywall and ceiling are repaired and the walls are painted.

15,000 Volt Ozone Machine Attacks Mutants Living in Garage!

We have mentioned the bad smell in the garage multiple times. We have scrubbed the garage floor and painted the walls. We have demolished the majority of the drywall at the back of the garage. But the bad smell lingers.

This all points to a likely biologically caused smell that is likely embedded in the porous garage floor. So my next plan of attack was to soak the garage floor with a combination of Hydrogen Peroxide, Baking Soda and Hand Soap. This "secret formula" basically is an oxygenated attack on whatever combination of bacteria or mold is embedded in the concrete.

However, before I have had a chance to try the secret formula, David Henry called and brought over his personally built Ozone Maker. If you google Ozone Maker you will come up with a lot of interesting pages describing how a 15,000 volt version is used in unoccupied areas to kill embedded bilogical contaminents. David's 3 fan monster machine really moves the Ozone around. He left it for a day, and we ran two 12 hour cycles in the garage. Right now you can't smell anything but Ozone in the garage and we are hopeful that we are finally done with the bad smell.

As soon as we can, we will paint the garage ceiling, and seal the garage floor. Once we are finished the garage will be like a showroom.

And for anyone into garages, the lights that Henry Electric installed for us will make you jealous. We really have beautiful bright lights in the garage. Better than any garage we've ever owned.

TV above the mantle

It's funny how you come up with ideas. Betsy had recorded an issue of "Flip This House" and they had a short thing on installing a flat screen TV above the mantle.

Hey! That sounds like a good idea!

So while the Henry's were working on the house we had them add an outlet above the mantle, and he pulled to RG6 cables for us. I provide the cable, and David Henry was kind enough to pull it for free.

The last two home we have lived in we have pointed the furniture at the TV and away from the fireplace. Now for once, we will point the furniture at the TV *and* the fireplace.

Bet they never thought of that in 1969.

Wall Coating

The orange peel coating on the walls is almost complete. It looks really nice. Based on how nice the walls are going to turn out you will never guess the house was built in 1969.

Electric Phase I is complete

Henry Electic finished up late Thursday night. There all all kinds of improvements that they completed for us.

They did a really good job for us.

Things are getting done

I'll need to catch up with photos later.

Those guys at Henry Electric work hard. I think they finally finished up and left around 10:30 or so last night. We are very happy with their work and feel much better about both the safety and usability of our homes wiring. The light in the garage is amazing. The light switches in the garage now make sense. And a hundred other things that we'll get to later.

The mudding(?) and sanding of all the walls looks complete. They are starting to orange peel them today. It is really looking nice and we are happy we decided to do this.

Betsy is planning on cutting out the screens on the back porch today and starting to paint the aluminum. This is going to be interesting to see how it turns out. It is kind of a temporary repair before we spend real money on doing something out back.

This weekend we will order the appliances, stop by the do-it-yourself pest control and put the gel stuff in each switch and outlet, clean up, and work on the back porch.

Henry Electric Company

They are not done yet but so far we are nothing but pleased with our choice of Henry Electric Company of Fern Park, FL.

Sometime on Saturday it dawned on us that the electrical situation at The Ruins was more dire than we had suspected. We also started thinking about not only repairs to bring the house to code, but how nice it would be to have switches work like we want them, and have ceiling fan boxes up to code.

Our current landlord was kind enough to refer us to Henry Electric Company. They did us a great favor. David Henry and his two sons represent 2nd and 3rd generation electricians respectively. They arrived Tuesday to see The Ruins and discuss our wants and needs. Steven Henry got to work right away finishing our garage demolition. David took our list and also gave us a list of safety items including adding 7 hard wire smoke detectors to bring us up to code, installing GFCI outlets in the kitchens and bathrooms, plus much more.

Today they showed up in force. It's impossible to show what they are doing for us with simple photos. They are spending all kinds of time in the attic running wires, repairing past mistakes. They didn't break for the day until after 9:00 PM.

When they finish, I'll put a list together of everything they are accomplishing for us. All this activity is making us more excited about finishing the project and moving in.

Henry Electric Company
Fern Park, FL
407-834-4032

They are an Angies list Super Service Award winner for '07 and '08. Now we know why.

Air!

Libby Twins (407-299-3588) did the air. They were great too. All the contractors are really happy with the air conditioning. And we actually heard the system turn off today. It has really been working hard removing humidity from The Ruins.

The new laundry area is plumbed

Manny Amador the plumber, whose company is AM Plumbing Services, Inc. (407) 625-1920 came out today and did a wonderful job installing the water and drain for the new washing machine area, and a stub out for a soon to be installed slop sink.

Outside Color Choices

Air!

We have air conditioning! It's what separates us from the Apes. Well, that and blogging.

Betsy has been hard at work marshaling all the subcontractors and boy has she made progress!

Libby Twins finished up the air today and the interior temperature has dropped from 93 degrees to a cool 76. The system is drawing all kinds of humidity out of the house and the environment at The Ruins should really improve over the coming days.

The electrician came today and gave us an expensive, but good, quote for everything we want to get done. This will get the house up to code and give us plenty of light in the driveway, front walk, garage and foyer. We will also have proper ceiling fan stub outs for the Family Room and Living Room, plus add 7 hardwired smoke detectors to the house.

The plumber also starts tomorrow and will re plumb the new washer and dryer area in the garage. We are also getting the plumbing for a slop sink near the washing machine.

And the garage demolition is finished! All the drywall, studs, bad electrical wiring, bad tile, smelly shower room and worse smelling unducted laundry room are gone! Can't wait to see the job finished.

George Arias (A&B Painting & Remodeling, 407-963-7395) started smoothing the interior walls today. The process will include mudding about 25 gallons of drywall compound onto the walls, sanding it, texturing the walls with Orange Peel texture, priming, and finally painting the walls. Ceilings are also being painted.

Betsy also found time to go to Sherwin Williams and get interior and exterior paint samples. We are honing in on our color choices. We have picked out our tile for the kitchen, family room and bathrooms. And the rugs for the four bedrooms. Now we await carpet samples for the Living, Dining and Master bedroom. We have had quite a bit of help on this (thanks Dawson's Decorating Center - 407-851-2270!), and are doing colors we never would have picked on our own. But I think they are going to wind up being very very nice.

With all the progress we made today we are (finally) really getting excited about the house. It is fun to see a plan come together.

This week:

To Do:

1. AC Guys finish Tuesday Done!
   
2. Meet the Electrician Done!
3. Meet the Plumber Done!
4. Wash Garage Floor (Again!)
5. Finish Take down garage wall Done!
6. Finish Remove garage bathroom Done!
7. Throw away old planters from backyard
8. remove screens from back porch
9. paint back porch aluminum roof and supports
10. Stain back porch floor
11. buy quart cans of interior and exterior test paint Done!
12. order the appliances
13. Call Branch Garage Door Done!
14. Find a Window company Done!
15. Front Doors on Friday!
16. Need to buy front door hardware Done!
17. clear gutters on back porch
18. Call to have the dumpster picked up Done!
19. Hire a pool maintenance company Done!
20. Hire a lawn maintenance company
21. Schedule DirecTV move Done!
22. Order Internet Service
23. Order Phone Service
24. Order DirecTV move Done!

Lots of Work Completed last weekend

Still not sure how I originally thought we could get by with 3 48 gallon cans...

But we are now out of room in the dumpster. Fortunately, our part of the demolition work is mostly complete. We just have a few more studs and a small amount of tile left in the garage.

More Floors

I schooched from the front door to the back linen closet today with Betsy and Eric cleaning up after me.

At the start it didn't look like I had a prayer of finishing, but here I am back in the rental blogging about finishing the preliminary demolitions today.

Tomorrow we have to finish grinding down any remaining cement for the new tile.

The stove and dishwasher are now sitting at the curb waiting for those guys who drive around picking up appliances off of curbs. Both smelled terrible and the house is happy to be rid of them.

No More Ugly Tile

I pretty much spent my day on my butt. Sitting in sharp shards of broken tile.

I had planned on using my 16 lb. chisel, but our carpenter George told us to rent a small Hilti jackhammer from Home Depot. Said it would be the best $50 we ever spent. It's good to listen to the experts.

So I sat down at the front door and electric chiseled away. Probably started around 9:30. By 11:00 I was into the kitchen, by 2:00 PM I was in the family room. Sometime around 5:30 I was into the bedroom hallway before I was overcome by the dust. Betsy went out to retrieve a chicken dinner (chicken from "KFC" just doesn't compare to our memories of "Kentucky Fried Chicken")

While Betsy was out getting dinner I fell asleep while having a nice conversation with Eric. After dinner we finished the last of the interior (ugly) tile. I stayed on my butt while Eric and Betsy kept cleaning up the huge mess I was making. They picked up tile, swept, vacuumed, and threw stuff in the surprisingly full dumpster.

Tomorrow we need to level the floors to within the thickness of a dime so they can install the travertine-like porcelain tile with the 1/16" grout line. Plus we have to finish up removing the old shelves and drawers and get the garage ready for a plumber and an electrician to do their thing.