laundry room celing

catching up: these pictures are from january 10th-ish

we have now added extra support to the laundry room underneath. added a few floor joists, some new subfloor, new plywood and tile board.
after tearing out the ceiling we finally got a chance to see what the new ceiling height would be like!

new ceiling height

 we tore out the old closets, mostly because it was just easier

the old ceiling was just above the door frame!
look how much taller it is!
also take note of the new tile backer board.

new ceiling height

next on the list, bye bye drywall!

tearing down the ceiling

catching up: these pictures are from january 9th-ish

here are our adventures from tearing the down the ceiling in the laundry room

its like a childrens book:
"how many layers of roof can you find in this picture?"

oooooone, twoooooo, threeeeeee, fourfiveseven - oh heck who knows?

a seriously slow project at this rate

 nick finally went up into the attic and kicked it a few times. much easier solution.

ah, yes. eighteenlayersof wallpaper.

laundry room day 2

getting ready for the tile!
we decided to use tile in the laundry room. we came across a great deal at the habitat restore and found several cases of tile. or we may use some tile leftover from other homes we have rehabbed. which ever we decide to use, we know we need a sturdy sub floor! nick spent a long time painstakingly leveling a previously very un-level floor. he then put down a layer of heavy duty sub floor. the floor already has never felt so sturdy. go nick! now, for the tile backer board.

(sorry for the not so stellar picture, i took it this morning after we had dragged the refrigerator into the room friday night and then back out again today).
you may remember that when we replaced the roof on the house we also raised the roof in this room to be as tall as the rest of the house. with the room empty, we  decided now would also be a good idea to go ahead and rip out that low ceiling. here are some pictures of the roof lines, before and after:

before

after

and this is the laundry room as it was, in all its glory!

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.

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

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!

band aid

today we are headed back up to the mountains to continue demolition on the house.  (so far the pics are playing catch up from our last trip). this trip will be a long one, i am sure we'll have lots to report!

for now, more catch up (not to be confused with ketchup):

more uncovering the band aids.

 lurking behind the paneling....

and now a fun project!

unfortunately, i forgot to take a before picture of the window with the awning. 

oh well. now, we can see the sky! yay!

the picture below is my favorite! this the new and improved view out of our window.  

that tall building that you can see (just to the right of the lock on the window) is downtown, across from the grove arcade. even cooler? 

thats where my (trista) grandfather lived!

stay tuned! more adventures soon!
thanks for reading
~nick and trista