Wednesday, November 30, 2011

uncovering things

tuesday
the interior is moving along. the rotten corner is now fully unrotten. it has been restructured and supported is now good to go!  we have finished all the cross ties which will be exposed in our newly vaulted ceiling.  we are now laying the new ceiling joists in the dining room and living room.  the ceilings in these rooms will be brought up about a foot or so... to be approximately 10 feet!
new/roof ceiling

front windows/living room windows

 as we are uncovering things, we are starting to realize some new issues we have to address!
no header!
luckily this is not a load bearing wall.
foyer window
nine foot window...once again, no header.  
looks like these windows are going to have to take out these windows and build a header. 
this is a load bearing wall.
dining room windows
 more pictures of the ceiling joists being built....

dining room
rebuilding the ceiling joists

standing in the living room looking across thru the dining room into the library.
and our three sided fireplace.



Tuesday, November 29, 2011

ceilings etc

monday is done!

new roof from the inside. building the cross ties.

new reading nook! over the front porch!

new sleeping loft, over dining room and library

"sitting" in the living room

looking across from the sleeping loft to the reading nook
newly built support for the roof

the rotten corner

new vaulted ceiling in the living room


rotten corner of the house gets more work!

temparary roof supports in the rotten corner

new roof old ceiling joists

THE rotten corner.
 unfortunately, the water damage in this corner was so bad, we had to basically rebuild it. (think back to the picture of the ceiling where it caved in). we also have some rotten subflooring and are going to have to re-suport the floor joist. boo.....
underneath the house. the building of the rotten beam.



creating a new support for the roof, running from the new floor joist!




dear mom...

i promise to use spell check from now on. thanks for pointing that out....HAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

love always, trista

Monday, November 28, 2011

no more plaster! and a little bit of old house love...

i am completely and utterly falling in love with this process. don't get me wrong, we have already had some stressful moments. yes it sucks to live in two rooms. yes, the dust is irritating, etc. but we are lucky to not have many of our belongings here.  its so nice to be living simply. yes. our clothes are in suitcases. we have have only two plates, two bowls, two beer glasses (HAHA. priorities), two forks, one frying pan, one sauce pan and so on. we have a sheet of drywall haphazardly screwed into the ceiling in the bathroom, to prevent the plaster from giving way. we are making due. just fine. 
 i am completely surprised how much i am loving this. ask me again later, i might not say the same. ask nick, he might not say the same.  we shall see. but for now, i love saving this 1920's bungalow. someone before us loved this house dearly, but never invested much more than love and time into it. this our chance to make it live again. it makes my heart happy.  and then, there is the preservation factor. we are contributing to maintaining the spirit of this old neighborhood.  in raleigh, they take old houses like these, in not-so-fancy neighborhoods, and bulldoze them. that is not for us. that is not for this house.  to emphasize that philosophy further, it also feels really good to minimize the amount of things that end up in the landfill. each layer that we pull back i get to reflect on a different time, a different life. its scary. its mysterious. its exciting. its beautiful. i am truly inspired, fascinated and blown away by the emotions that fixing up this house has stirred in me.
okay enough cheeseballishness.
i'll get to the point. 
we are doing the inside in two phases. right now we are working on the front half, which had really bad water damage from that stinkin leaky roof. we have and will have assistance from demos builders for the insulation and for the rehanging of the drywall and also for the roof.  tomorrow we will have the floor re-supported on the "rotten corner". otherwise, here is where we are as of today.

all the ceilings are demo-ed! 
old wiring is cool
the fireplaces are all uncovered and are going to be amazing!
before and afters...

library
before
after

den
before
after

here are some plaster before and afters 
for your entertainment...

den looking towards foyer
before
after

foyer

after
library:
before

after
note: the white door is now a closet. we will be closing off this side and opening it up to the bathroom on the other side of the wall. it will become a linen closet.
 foyer windows and door into library
also known as the rotten corner

and now for my favorite before:

dining room
library





library AND the dining room!








Sunday, November 27, 2011

what color?

in tearing off the vinyl, this was the previous color.
we kinda like it!

sometimes, its hard to not be consumed by things like,
 what color should we paint the house?
 its so far away...( sigh).
Compass Ave Blue Bungalow by Beachwood Historical Alliance

Thursday, November 24, 2011

turkey day

this thanksgiving, we are just happy to (finally) have a roof over our heads! 
pics to come. no cooking here, so its off to the grove park inn for supper!
 happy thanksgiving yall!
~nick and trista

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

plaster demo

demo-ing the rest of the den and the foyer

its an adventure!

nick. post plaster demo.
(no he didn't get in a honky tonk bar brawl)
its a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it...

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Monday, November 21, 2011

i am back...

poor nick. he had been alone dealing with this business by on his own! 
all this time, i (trista) have been in beaufort working on a different project. 
saying goodbye to an old friend...
this is my former studio in beaufort.
 and, i also fired a the kiln a few times while i was there:

Sunday, November 20, 2011

voila!

the framing is done! 


and we saved space for some cool architectual feature right above the front porch!