Ice Cream Weather

To take a break from the insulation project, Steve and I went out for ice cream. We had to get dressed for the excursion first.

It's been a little chilly around here recently, but without the cold I suppose I'd never have an occasion to wear my awesome fuzzy ear-flap hat.

Attic Flooring's First Appearance

After work today, Steve and I picked up our first batch of plywood for the attic. The local lumberyard cut the 4x8 sheets in half (lengthwise) for us, allowing us to pass the sections up into the attic. I think that's about the point in the process that Steve wished he'd married a bodybuilder. 

At any rate, the plywood made it into the attic with a minimum of swearing. 

And here I sit atop my prize (our first completed section!):

I nail in a small section of 2x2 (we didn't want to drag the borrowed nail gun up into the attic just for these small pieces):

Finally, the insulation is in the attic and not in the bedroom:

Progress marches on. 

Insulation Acceleration

Luck smiled upon us as our insulation, estimated at 8-10 business days for receipt, arrived in less than 4. Home Depot really came through for us on this one (and they gave us 10% off list price as part of their price match to Lowe's). We're using Roxul insulation. It's a stone wool product (rather than fiberglass). It's virtually fireproof, non-itchy, sound-blocking and should be unappealing to pests. One downside however is that it does not compress much, so the packages it arrives in are pretty bulky. It took us four trips with the pickup truck to get it all home. And then, of course, there was the quandary of where to put it once it got here...

My dorky self included for scale (and there were six more packages like these already in the attic when these photos were taken):

Before placing the insulation batts, Steve nailed 2x2's to the top of all of the ceiling joists to increase the depths of the bays allowing for thicker insulation. This also served to add some rigidity to the aging wood.

Steve wields the nail gun with confidence despite awkward footing:

Steve did a fantastic job of cutting (with a bread knife, as recommended by the manufacturer) and laying the insulation.  

First batt going in:

I'm really excited about the rapid progress. We should be able to place the plywood flooring in at least a few areas this week. And with that, I'll be able to move tools and various supplies that we keep stumbling over around the house up and out of the way. A very exciting prospect, indeed.

The insulation project continues...

Steve vacuuming more insulation bits:

There is a section of the ceiling (originally lath and plaster) that was replaced with drywall at some point (not by our guys). At first we thought maybe somebody fell through the ceiling while working in the attic and had to repair the damage. However, the area is pretty sizable (about half of the living room) so that probably isn't it.

Shot showing a lath & plaster section next to a drywall section:

We are currently working with a borrowed air compressor and nail gun to reinforce some of the attic lumber. Insulation is on order. And we plod along...

Blinds and Insulation

I couldn't think of a creative name for this post, so I'll just go with simple in lieu of clever. This weekend, we had projects of varying difficulty level.

Difficulty Level Easy: Blinds

The blinds in the house were, unsurprisingly given the history of this place, disgusting. I didn't put any effort into cleaning them since they were just going to be taken down and thrown away. While perusing Santa Cruz's Habitat for Humanity ReStore (newly opened this past year... just for us I can only assume), we found three matching cell shade blinds in a great color for our living room. I was adamantly against cell shades at first, but I'll do just about anything to make this place even a tiny bit warmer, and they were a great price despite being brand new in original packaging. Steve cut them to size with his miter saw.

Before:

After (with pretty boring Cowboys vs. Bengals game in the background):

On to the next project...

Difficulty Level Normal: Insulation Removal

Bedroom coated in plastic to protect from our attic work (the thing hanging in the center of the shot is the rope to pull down the attic access ladder):

The insulation in our fairly sizable attic space was matted down in places and filled with the vestiges of past pest infestation (termites and rats... neither of which seem to be currently occupying the space). The wonderful attic ladder our contractor installed gives us easy access to the space and we want to use it for storage. So, out came the old insulation. Steve bagged batts of fiberglass insulation while I scooped loose cellulose insulation using the best implements I could find... a dustpan and an old redwood roofing shingle I found in the attic.

Steve inspects old (disconnected) knob and tube wiring for removal (with lots of debris in the air... our masks did a wonderful job of filtering it out, thankfully):

Steve bagging insulation:

That part of the process took all of Saturday. Today we went shopping for lumber to reinforce termite-eaten sections of the structure and hoisted that all into the attic... through the bedroom window. We're lucky there is a window that lines up with the attic ladder, allowing us to pass 12 foot lengths of 2x4 into the attic without dragging them through the rest of the house first.

We finished up with several hours of vacuuming up the last bits of loose cellulose insulation, rat droppings and termite debris. More pictures of this project to come.

Difficulty Level Hard: Completion of the Insulation Project (upcoming)

We've had some minor drama ordering the insulation, since we want to use a stone wool insulation that is (extremely) fire resistant and hopefully unappealing to pests. We realized after ordering the insulation that it wouldn't fit in the intended space (the bays are too shallow) so we had to cancel and re-order the correct size. Of course, since the insulation didn't actually arrive at the store when it was supposed to, that was fairly easy.

Laying the insulation itself is simple. And we don't think sistering the termite eaten lumber will pose much of a challenge. The most difficult task with be laying the plywood attic floor... not because the technique is difficult, but because I will have to hoist the sections up to Steve and help manipulate them. And I have very little upper arm strength. I really wish I'd hit the barbells when Steve purchased them... too late now (for this project anyway). Hopefully I'll get stronger as we go.

(Mostly) Completed Bathroom

I understand that having a house means endless projects. But it's really sinking in how nothing is ever completely done. I kept putting off taking new pictures figuring I would take some as soon as just a few more projects were done. Finally conceding the flaw in this plan, I am posting the almost finished bathroom.

The new layout makes it feel surprisingly spacious for a 4' x 11' bowling alley of a room. There's still work to do of course. The door got another coat of white paint after this picture was taken. And we still haven't put up the light fixture over the mirror, although we did take it apart and clean it last weekend (it's a funky dual swag style fixture my parents saved at my request from their bathroom remodel). And then there's the towel bars and such to put up... like I said, nothing's ever done. But things are looking pretty good.

Fun with Ikea

I have gotten some comments about the lack of updates, so I'll try to get back on track here. 

We returned Sunday night from Thanksgiving with Steve's family in Southern California. So we ended up spending most of Monday evening getting caught up on the usual household drudgery... grocery shopping and the like. We did want to accomplish something around the house, however, so we assembled our latest Ikea acquisitions.

First, Steve installed the rail and hooks he picked out to hang cooking implements above the stove. 

Then, work began on a small dresser I selected to house my jewelry and some of my clothes. I was impressed by the number of small parts. While Steve started the assembly, I laid out and organized the pieces. I resisted the urge to straighten and face them all... although I did start to do so before I realized the silliness of such an endeavor, given that Steve was rapidly using the parts in the building process. 

That's all I've got for now. I took a "mental health day" and stayed home from work today. I spent the day organizing and continuing the endless unpacking process. I'm really loving our little house, and it's coming along quite nicely.

When Mom & Dad come to play...

... walls come apart.

My parents offered to drive up and help us work on the house. I gratefully accepted and we accomplished a great deal over the three full days they were here.

We (that's the royal we... meaning my dad with help from Steve) painted the kitchen green. I absolutely love the color and think it turned out amazing (in person, the green is much richer and not as bright as it appears in these pictures taken with flash). My mom did a lot of trim work and paint stripping.

These pictures of Steve admiring his work amused me (note our awesome new light fixture in the center of the room):

Then I asked for some consultation on a door that was sticking. And we found this:

Close up:

If you know what's wrong with this picture, you would probably make a better handyman than whoever did this. To be perfectly clear, this was not our contractor's work. It was done by the previous owner.

The header in the picture above has two big problems. One, it wasn't supported by anything; it's full weight was just resting on the door since the jack stud was cut too short. Two, the header wasn't doing it's job because there was no blocking between it and the structure above. So not only was the header pressing down on the door and throwing it all wonky (technical term) it wasn't doing anything to support the weight of the roof... which is the kinda the point of big chunks of lumber like that. Definitely needed to be fixed. And to top it off there was an improperly done electrical connection above the door as well (not our electrician's work). Which meant, of course, taking the door and surrounding frame apart.

I really like this series of pictures of my dad and Steve working on the door, so I'm going to post several. It ended up being a pretty involved endeavor taking basically an entire day. Steve even got to crawl around under the house to install some missing support structure (hence his coveralls). A fun time was had by all.

My parents also helped us repair much less serious problems on two other doors, put up curtains and run errands to Home Depot and Ikea. I wasn't feeling very good and was pretty stressed, and thus was pretty useless, but they did an amazing job and we were fortunate to have the help. Hopefully the next time they come up we'll spend less time on construction and more time on the fun decorating-type projects.

In Between Yawns

I've been exhausted lately. In the six years I've been at my job, I've never had an audit season like this one. Usually fall is pretty calm for me. We have around a dozen audit clients, but they get their information ready at different paces, giving a natural spacing between gigs... usually. This year, everybody got their stuff done at once. In just one hour this morning, I had three clients drop their files off to begin the work. And I already had eight audits open.

Anyway, point is, I've actually been working like a normal person. Then I come home and work on projects around the house and end up going to bed later than I intend... then I'm tired when I get up in the morning and the whole thing snowballs. Let me be clear: this is not a complaint. It's an excuse. The last thing I've felt like doing is blogging about the house. But here we are.

So, on to some recent pictures of what's going on around here...

There are many layers of paint slathered on our walls and trim. In this picture, you can see my attempt to strip paint from this redwood door frame. Saying it's slow going is a serious understatement, but I don't want paint stripper fumes in the house, so I continue to chip away with a putty knife and some marginally effective non-toxic paint stripper.

We finished painting the bathroom. Other than a few small touch-up projects, it's done.

We finished painting our salvaged kitchen cabinet, placed a countertop on it and attached new hardware. The countertop has a bit of overhang, but as this setup is not meant to be permanent and the old cabinet is unusually shallow, we didn't want to cut the countertop to size. We used an adjustable table/desk leg from Ikea at the end and put our microwave underneath. I think it looks pretty good anyway.

We really like our new kitchen island. We have chairs we found for a great price in Ikea's as-is for it in our storage unit... hopefully I'll get a chance to fish them out soon.

Another view of the kitchen, showing the rehabbed cabinet, island, pantry and fridge in the background.

Moved In

The camera disappeared at some point during our move, so I don't have any pictures with this update. Hopefully I will unearth it soon. For now, a text-only update on the house project.

Moving and Construction Wrap-Up
Steve's oldest brother Ed and Ed's wife Tiffany drove down from Sacramento last Saturday night to help us move. All day Sunday, they worked tirelessly to move all of our furniture and many heavy boxes to our new house. We really couldn't have done it without them. Some finish work was still going on around the house, so we basically stacked everything up in the center of our rooms. Electrical wrapped up on Friday, so we were able to start making things feel a little more like home Friday night. We have the computer and entertainment center set up, the kitchen is in working order and the bathroom (complete with absolutely awesome heated tile floor) is done.

This Weekend
Steve and I picked up parts for our closet organizer today (to be installed tomorrow). We finished sanding the kitchen cabinet we're salvaging and put the first coat of beautiful black paint on it. It looks so much better already. We'll do another coat tomorrow, put the hardware on and attach the countertop. We would have gotten farther in our to-do list today, but I was completely exhausted. I fell asleep on the couch for a couple hours this afternoon. But as far as I'm concerned, there's no hurry on these things. It's our house now... there is no deadline.

Living Downtown
Santa Cruz goes a little crazy on Halloween. Something like 15,000 people gather downtown. It's basically a street party... informal parades, elaborate costumes, public drunkenness. Steve and I decided to go out to an early dinner and then do a lap around the major downtown street to see the costumes. It was so nice to not have to worry about where to park and then feel like we had to stay out later than we'd like to make the trek downtown "worth it." We could just wander a little, then walk the few blocks home. Quite an enjoyable little outing.

Last night, we wandered over to our local ISP, who was hosting a few gourmet food trucks during Santa Cruz's First Friday art celebration. Traffic was a mess and parking nonexistent, but Steve and I just walked through the chaos and had a delicious meal.

Preliminary verdict: living downtown is pretty great. I expect we'll have our issues with the local transients and drunks in the future, but as one of our neighbors put it, living downtown is "99% awesome and 1% scary." Probably a worthwhile tradeoff. And hopefully with us fixing up our house, we'll be able to improve the vibe on our little street. Another neighbor says we've already helped tremendously in that regard.

Overdue Update

First, a couple pictures of the kitchen progress.

Installed vent hood (mysterious oven/range under wraps), scraped down cabinets (my little side project) and installed recessed lighting:

 

Completed (and operable!) sink and cabinet with installed dishwasher:

 

Dry-fitting tile in bathroom last Saturday:
 

Steve using the tile saw with consultant:

Steve laying the tile over the underfloor heating mat (with supervision):

Laying the final piece of tile:

Steve scrapes the spaces between the tiles to prepare for grout:

Grouting complete, I wipe down the excess:

Completely tiled bathroom with the walls going back together:

As you undoubtedly noticed, Steve's father Arnold was in a couple of the pictures above. Somehow Steve's mother Carolyn managed to avoid being in any of the shots. The two of them were a huge help in this tiling project. Arnold read instructions, assisted with conceptualizing the whole thing and mixed thinset. Carolyn provided a ton of energy and drive as she helped Steve lay tile. Truly we appreciate so much the time they took to drive down to Santa Cruz and help out.

Everything is hurtling toward move-in this weekend. Finished or not, here we come.