deciding on the floor...

if you have been reading previous blog entries, you will know that recently we decided to turn the dining room into our bedroom and make the old "library" into the dining room.

if you keep up with the blog, you will also know that we have been trying to decide what to do about the beautiful, but in spots, ruined heart pine floors that are in the front two rooms. the two rooms are open to each other and have long spans of wood running across. nick, board by board, painstakingly removed most of the boards ruined by termite damage. we have been trying to order replacement flooring to place the wood. its an odd size of 2.5 inches. no one carries it! and we don't want have to rip down a three inch board. we found a place where we can order salvaged heart pine. yay, right?

no, its kind of more of a BOOOO. its $8 dollars a foot and will get here in 6 to 8 weeks. after calculating the square footage we need, which as of right now, and if all things go well,  is about 100 square feet. mathematician says $800 dollars?!?! boy, that's a lot of money... 

BUT THE BUDGET!

what to do....what to do...?

wait! the floors don't have to be continuous between these two rooms anymore. we are putting up a wall. solution: take out the old floor in the new bedroom and use it to repair the living room floor!

taking out the floor in the bedroom

of course we found some rot in the subfloor. not a shocker. we will fix that!

we call that an opportunity. 

subfloor

all done!

to be as least wasteful as possible, we think we will end up using left over floor that we have from another house. but, we'll let you know!

tearing out the drywall/plaster

catching up: january 10

while beginning to tear out the drywall in the laundry room we found someone's home:

UM, EWWWWWWW!!!!!

i will also add that we found a matching and slightly bigger nest on the other side. what is better than that? we found the old tenants...i wish i was there to take the picture when nick opened the wall.

 but there it was. a bird, dead and preserved in the wall, and his friend mr. squirrel (who unlucky for us still had a bit of an unpleasant odor!)

squirrel and bird remains!
UM, SUPER EWWWWWW!!!!
anyhoo, here's the open walls.

a little drafty in this room you say??

more nests.
also, take note of the lack of a header on this doorway. so safe!
don't worry. nick will fix it!

 i like seeing the backside the lathing, where the plaster hangs. so cool.

in the laundry room looking towards our  current living room

cleaning up the mess

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!

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...

rainy day...

looks like we're going to be working inside!

 ok i wasn't working inside... i was in beaufort. yep, i left nick all alone to work on the house while i went back to to fire some pots and  pack up the studio. it rained. so the focus was on on demoing the inside. this is what it looked like.  

dining room now

october

dining room wednesday

dining room in october

fireplace in dining room, super cool brick underneath the plaster...BONUS!!!!

second bathroom, debris

october

dining room, another view

den looking towards entry

rotten as all get out

this was the corner of the house where the ceiling caved in during the roof demolition. this was also where the roof moved when you walked on it. even more fun? this is where after we demoed the drop ceiling we notice a crack where the ceiling and the wall met that was "slightly" gaping. this gap eventually revealed the wall seperating from the house. notice the very rotten beams... one of them had rotted down to 4 feet tall. 

(don't worry its fixed now!)

covering the window and the fireplace in the den

same room, october (can't see the fireplace very well though)

breaking it down, this action shot was right in the middle of demo

tarp over front porch and den/entryway after ceiling demo.
hi future roof! just some joists for now....

new joists

roof:second half of deconstruction

where old meets new

back of the house, looking into backyard

old wood...and a foot.

after removing the old wood. starting to remove old frame work.

trash pile!!! this will later be separated into recyclable waste and trash.
 metal and non pressure treated wood will be recycled.