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.

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.

Floors

I joked to Eric while we were dumping yet another load of ugly flooring into the dumpster that we would never forget living at this house. And now he knows first hand what the term "sweat equity" means.

Pictures 1 & 2 will be Eric's bathroom, 3 the guest bathroom, and 4 will likely become a guest room / Eric's music practice room.

We have accomplished a lot this weekend, and have saved close to $3,000 on our project by doing this demolition ourselves.

Did I mention that the house was 88 degrees F this morning, and 93 in the afternoon?

We are definitely paying our dues here.

Bedroom floor gone

Betsy & Eric spent the morning scraping a faux wood vinyl product off of one of the bedroom floors and the linoleum out of the two north wing bathrooms.

How did you spend your Saturday?

Not sure how many square feet of tile we removed today but it was a lot.

Lots of trips to the dumpster. The materials were always too heavy to lift, so we had to reach in and hand throw most of the flooring until the can was light enough to lift.

Our 10 cubic yard dumpster is about 2/3 full by now.

Master Bedroom

The Master Suite is a bit on the small side, but does have a nice slider out to the patio. This will be one of our longer term projects where we redo the master bath and make this a nice livable area.

Dining Room

That's not a chandelier, it's a light you hang over a pool table. This area will be carpeted. And hopefully we will install a chair rail and two tone paint in this area. The view will be nice once we fix up the patio.

Living Room

Our goal is to transform our living room into an everyday entertainment area.

Living Room

The living room carpet was black with mold and smelled awful. It actually made me sick. The rug is gone now and the cement is a big improvement. The windows are relatively new and good quality. The amateur built in shelves will be knocked out. The front door is in bad shape and will be replaced. The light fixture at the front door is hanging by its wires for some reason.

Kitchen

The kitchen is on the small side but functional. The cabinets and drawers seem to be in pretty good shape. The appliances will all be replaced. The window will make a nice pass-through to what eventually will be the jewel of the house -- a screened and finished patio. Right now though, it's a home for all kinds of critters.

Kitchen

The cabinets are nice and will be kept. The counters are badly stained and will be replaced with WilsonArt HD counters. The ceiling will be made to match the family room. The lower counter holding up the tool bag will be knocked out. It will be replaced with a higher breakfast bar along the outside edge of the kitchen, and a bookshelf at the end of the counter facing the refrigerator. The refrigerator seals were vandalized and we will replace the fridge. We may replace the seals and keep it in the garage.

Family Room

The kitchen is off the family room. The fire place is way too big, but will have to be left alone other than a thorough scrubbing. At least we have a mantle for the clock. The ceiling above the kitchen is unfinished. That will be fixed.

The ugly tile will be scraped up and replaced by modern tile. The wood paneling will be covered up with 1/4" sheets of drywall with a modern knock down finish added.

The ceiling fan -- besides being broken -- is wired with an extension cord run through the attic, down through the closet, out through the wall and plugged into the far receptacle. The light switch on the far wall switches two can lights in the kitchen. I will tie all the can lights in the kitchen together and use the switch wiring for the ceiling fan.