iLan & Vanessa's House Blog

Future bedroom! RE-construction - Part 10 - Framing... It does a body good!

iLan — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:14:01 +0000

And so with our windows in place and our insulation removed, it was time to press on. Next on the list - Framing! We had decided to frame around the entire perimeter of the room to increase the wall thickness so we could increase the insulation - so as to have a nice toasty bedroom! In addition, we needed to frame in the closets and part of the future master bathroom and the entryway! And so we picked a wall and got to work!

Wall beforehand

Checking for plumb! Looks good!

Nailing it in place! Nail guns are awesome...

And a few nails and wall sections later! Making some progress!

May not look like much, but it'll increase our walls' R-values by 15 when we're finished!

Making our way around the room.

And a little more...

And the final wall!

Now that we had the perimeter done, it was time to focus on the closets and interior walls.

Here is Vanessa's ridiculously enormous future closet. At almost 8 feet long and 3 feet deep, she will hopefully finally have enough room for her clothing!

Our first doorway! This is the future door to the future master bathroom.

Looking at the bedroom's entrance from inside the bedroom looking out. On the left side is part of the future master bathroom - The same doorway from the previous image. Eventually some of those walls inside the future bathroom are going to need some "Adjustments" - read, tear down.

And this is the wall that will separate the future office from the future bedroom. There's a whole lot of future action going on in here!

And this is the grand entryway to the bedroom. On the left is the entrance to our future master bathroom, and on the right is my little future closet. And behind that is a closet for the office.

And so with all that framing out of the way, it was time to start planning out the electrical for the bedroom. But before we started wiring it up, we decided to get the power to the house switched over to our new panel. Stay tuned... I'm not sure what, but something exciting is coming up next!!!

Future Bedroom Deconstruction - Part 9 - A trip to the marshmallow kingdom!

iLan — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:13:26 +0000

Okee dokee... It's been a little while. Hopefully we'll be back to a more normal updating schedule now that things have settled down a bit. We moved into the house in September and had cut back on our house-work quite a bit since then. Things are picking back up again so it's time to get back to work! So without further delay, to the marshmallow kingdom we go!

So we actually did this work this past summer when it was in the 90's in Seattle, which is not normal at all... And most unpleasant for this particular work. We donned our special marshmallow suits to prepare for the journey!

After getting all suited up, time to jump on in! One of the main goals of the future bedroom is to upgrade the insulation effeciency. Currently, the walls varried in their R values from R-5 to R-15 depending on which part of the room they were in. The ceilings are R-19. Our plan is to double the wall thickness and add an additional layer of R-15 for a total of R-30 in the walls and add a 2" rigid foam insulation to the ceiling to get an R-34 value there. That's still not even to code for new construction here in Seattle, but the ceiling is already pretty low and we can't add any insulation on top of what's there so all we can do is add down. The 2" foam is the most bang for the buck as far as R value per inch of insulation...

Here's the before. Everything all nice and tidy and kraft paper backed...

So onwards we go. We first removed all the old insulation, which was a mixture of kraft-backed fiberglass and some older stuff that I don't know what it was, but couldn't have provided much insulating value...

Some of that older stuff wasn't in the best condition.

Cotton candy-land!

We removed all the kraft paper first. We'll then take out the insulation itself ond reuse it in interior walls, but we needed to remove it to get to the current electrical and put in our future electrical!

We then unrolled the insulation right out of the walls and into large garbage bags for later use. After an uncomfortable not-too-long, we had the walls bare!

Stay tuned... Up next we start framing! Woohoo!

Future bedroom! RE-construction - Part 8 - Window Creation! (window #3!) This time with friends!!!

iLan — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:30:44 +0000

So we're pretty much window experts now! With 2 window removals and installs under our belts we're fellin' pretty good! We happened to have an excellent friend in town. Sir Gabe! We acquired his and our current rommate/friend don's help with the removal/install of our final window.

Who could say no to help from those 2!?!?!

She's a doozy! That window in the back is actualy 6 feet wide and 4 feet tall.

We thought it might be a bit much for just 2 people. Especially since it's about 8 feet up on the outside. And great company is great!

So just like usual, cutting away the old window.

And there's our strong sexy helpers making sure nothing comes crashing down!

Vanessa and I worked on the sill.

While Gabe and Don worked on framing the rough opening.

Once they framed the rough opening, we applied sheathing and attached the sill. Smiles for EVERYONE!

Then it was install time. Put the new guy in his hole and sealed him on up!

A couple roofing nails later, and we're good to GO!

Awww... Good times! Thanks VERY MUCH to Gabe and Don for their help with this guy. Couldn't have done it without you!

The end product!

Stay tuned for a trip to the marshmallow kingdom! Coming up next!!!

Future bedroom! RE-construction - Part 7 - Window Creation! (window #2!)

iLan — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:42:42 +0000

Moving right along here... On to the second bedroom window. This one went a little bit smoother with one window under our belts.

Here's what we're working with... A wide and short non-opening single pane window:

First we had to move our support wall into place. This held the roof up while we removed a large section of wall.

Once we had our support wall shimmed and screwed in place the cutting begins! We used our trusty sawzall to cut around the perimeter of the window. I did not do nearly as nice of a job on this side. The cut marks were all wavy and crooked.

Woah! What happened here!

With a wave of my magic hand, a little touch-up, and we're back in business!

It was getting late so we decided to call it a day. We didn't want to leave a giant hole into the house wide open, so we fastened a quick little wall. Worked like a charm!

We got the new wall and window framing all shimmed into place and nice and level.

This wall is right at ground level, so we didn't have to deal with being all up on ladders. Made things a bit easier to handle.

Here's Vanessa the lil' teapot, hammering away! Lookin' sassy! She's a hammering machine!

And concentrating hard on "NOT" hitting the window frame while nailing it in place. Great job! No damage done!

Look at that beauty!

Here she is from the outside. All flashed up. Still need to add siding, but again, we're concentrating on the interior for the moment. It's nice to have some opening windows in there!

Stay tuned for even MORE window madness coming soon!

Raised bed - Revisited!

iLan — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 05:41:55 +0000

Okay! It's been a while since we mentioned the raised bed in the front yard. Let's see where we last left off...

Sometime around mid-June:

These zucchini and cucumber plants didn't look like they were going to do to well. Right after we planted them their leaves all turned white and dried out. We cut off the damaged leaves, and tried watering them more carefully (not from above). Slowly as they got adjusted to their new homes they really started flourishing.

It took them about a month to really get settled in.

Here they are on July 20th, along with some new friends (Jalapenos on the left)

Not all that much different...

BUT. Here they are only 10 days later! (With some new broccoli friends (right side)

They really loved that week of 90º weather we had a little while back. They just shot off!

And here's our first baby cucumber!

And here they are 11 days after that.

There are loads of baby cucumbers getting bigger!

We harvested our first one just 2 days ago and he is a tasty burger!

This little zucchini has grown from this big to almost a foot long in only 3 days! And now there are loads more little guys growing.

Everything is going QUITE well! Except for one small thing... There is of course one down side... And it too involves a cat. Your friendly neighborhood feral cat has grown quite accustomed to using our garden as a litter box. Pretty much every day we have to go find the day's turds and remove them...

Hooray! Turds!

And waddaya know! More turds!

So we started putting things in the garden to take up any empty space. Leave no space to lay some sweet poop logs... Well that sort of works. Cat no longer poops in the garden. Instead just poops on the ground...

Yay! More turds!

So we pretty much have to clean up turds every day from our yard. Fun times. But at least the cucumbers and zucchini have gotten big enough that there's no more room in the garden for pooping!

For those of you who may be having trouble visualizing what's going on here...

Cat is crapping in our garden!

Alrighty!

Stay tuned for more window-installing fun coming up!

Future bedroom! RE-construction - Part 6 - Window Creation!

iLan — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:07:05 +0000

So first I would just like to apoligize to those of you who subscribed to this blog. I set up the subscriptions incorrectly so you received notifications any time someone left a comment. Including SPAM comments. I have changed it so you now ONLY get notifications when we post actual blog entries. And on top of that I have taken some steps to eradicate SPAM comments. Smooth sailing from here on out!

So with that aside I'd also like to clarify that we do actually really like windows! The window we removed was taken out because it we're going to have a closet there and didn't need a window. So next on the list was replacing the current single pane windows with new double pane low-e windows for better insulation. Not to mention the old windows don't open!

So first we had to build a support wall because the windows are over 4 feet long along a load-bearing wall.

This is the window in question.

We built our support wall and installed it about 3.5 feet out from the window.

It just looks crooked. It's actually perfectly level!

So our trusty Sawzall came in handy yet again for cutting out the windows. Looking back, I can't even imagine trying to get these windows out without it.

Alright! Window removed!

So we got the framing for the new window shimmed in place and attached sheathing to the exterior.

More Sheathing

Applied adhesive flashing to the rough opening. This will prevent water from getting in between the sheathing and the framing.

Once all the flashing was in place along the lower edge we installed the sill and the window. Nailed that puppy into place once we plumbed it level and then applied flashing along the perimeter.

And that's it! For now anyways. We have some siding to install, but we're still taking care of interior problems before we work on exterior cosmetics. Soon though...

Tada!!! It's finished! (until we re-side)

Future bedroom! Deconstruction - Part 5 - We used to have a window...

vanessa — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 06:50:08 +0000

So much to do, so little time... On we go!

Everyone likes windows. Everyone except us. We hate them. We would rather stare at some closet doors. Get that window out of here!

We started with this

We taped up the window really well beacause we weren't sure if we were going to break it trying to get it out.

iLan started sawing around the window. We got a reciprocating saw for the job and it came in handy!

In a matter of moments, it was GONE! Here is a nice view of our neighbors garage roof for you.

So then it was time to fill the hole with some wall.

I hope you all realize how safe we are while we work. Yes, that ladder is being supported by a 2x4 held on with a clamp. A clamp with 100 pounds of pressure. Top of the line here, folks. Nothing but the best for us. If you are concerned, try not to worry. We have ordered a new ladder and it should be arriving any day now.

Filled and not looking too bad, if I do say so myself.

Well, I guess it looks better from the inside. We have too much to do inside the house to worry about the exterior yet.

One project down...

P.S. Have you ever looked into buying closet doors? All of closet doors we saw in Home Depot were pretty ordinary except for one. But they are SUPER expensive. More than closet doors have a right to cost! So iLan is going to make us some awesome closet doors himself. That will show them.

Future bedroom! Deconstruction - Part 4 - The Saga Continues!

iLan — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:43:57 +0000

So next on our list was the removal of the old flooring in the bedroom. There was an old parquet floor installed in almost all of this side of the house. If you look closely at this photo you can see the outline of the square tiles on the floor.

We started with some shovels we found in the garage but quickly found that those little buggers were glued down real well. So we once again went back to the trusy little multi-function tool from Harbor Freight. This thing has really proven itself useful for us!

So the middle of the room wasn't glued down quite as heavily as the sides.

One of us would use the multi-function tool to scrape up the sides of the tiles and the other one would use the shovel as can be seen leaning up against the wall on the left there to try to scrape up as much of the tiles as possible. It was a slow process, but we made steady progress.

And before we knew it we were done! Took 2 half days to get that guy cleared off.

Turns out the tongue and groove sub-floor underneath is in pretty good condition, so we're going to leave that in place. We're pretty excited about that. We really didn't know what to expect. We were hoping we wouldn't find anymore special kitty places.

So now that we've got most of the mess making tear-downs taken care of we finally got around to installing the new sub-floor in the area where we pulled up the subfloor. We bought some 3/4" T&G plywood and got to it!

We sized it up first to make sure it fit correctly...

Looks good so far.

Glued.

And Screwed!

Alright! Our first construction, as opposed to de-construction! Actually quite sturdy too!

Moving right along!

And before we even knew it we were done!

It's quite sturdy now. And the room is slowly losing that cat-pee aroma as it's being replaced by the scent of freshly cut lumber. A vast improvement!

Stay tuned! I'm not even sure what's coming up next!!!

Roof stuff...

iLan — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 05:43:34 +0000

So with the garage as nothing but a distant memory, we moved on to higher ground. The roof. Apparently, we hear from our neighbors that the roof has been a constant source of problems for years. Two problem areas in particular have leaked for as long as anyone we spoke with can remember. Supposedely they've had people come out to repair the leaks, only to find out they didn't quite get it right...

Soooooo... We thought we'd give it a try. Vanessa headed up to the roof with a watering can, and I stayed down below. She'd water around in a particular area, and I'd wait for any signs of problems. We found a problem. One section of trim on the roof in particular had a nice gap that when water got in, would go immediately into the room below. So we replaced the trim and sealed it up.

Still needs to be painted, but that seemed to be the only problem area in that section of roof. We'll find out the next time it rains!

Then Vanessa spent some time clearing out the gutters.
Filled to the brim!

And after

Beautiful!

And now onto another little fun quirk of the house. The door to the roof. The door was originally tarped over when we bought the house. We pulled off the tarp, to find that the door was siliconed shut.

Didn't miss a spot!

After a good deal of cutting, prying, and pushing, we finally got the door open.

Once again, my multifunction tool worked wonders for scraping that silicone/asphault caulking off the door.

We pulled out the threshold and found a few places where the torch down roofing didn't seal with the frame leaving a perfect space for water to work it's way downstairs.

We added some flashing to cover that seam and caulked up the sides. I think it will work marvelously. We replaced the threshold and weatherstripping around the edges and we're back in business!

Flashing in place!

We replaced the sweep on the bottom of the door and adjusted the lock so it actually latches now. It's rained a few times and so far, we're all dry. Only time will tell how well it holds up though.

Future bedroom! Deconstruction - Part 3

iLan — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:56:38 +0000

Moving right along here...

So the progress continues on the bedroom. When we last left you we had gotten to this point. Dividing wall had been removed and ready to move along with fixing up the bedroom.

We decided that the drywall was poorly installed (no joint tape) and was coming apart at the seams. Some had some prior water damage. And we were still worried about kitty pee in various places. We also had been considering adding insulation to the walls and ceiling to keep the room cozy in the winter.

So we started removing drywall in the problem areas.
Like here:

And here.

We found the older section of the room had been insulated using rock felt instead of fiberglass. That will eventually all get replaced.

Moving right along...

Of course the next day I forgot my camera. We made a good deal of progress. The ceiling drywall was much easier to remove.

Looking pretty good! We got all the drywall off the walls and ceiling. Made it a bit easier to see what we're dealing with here.

1 of 2 buckets with nails from the drywall. I'm not sure what took more time. Pulling the drywall down, or pulling out all the nails.

A little bit of cleaning up later, and we get this! We just placed the old subfloor back down so we wouldn't get drywall bits all in the fiberglass. Worked relatively well too.

Stay tuned! Coming up next is the removal of the flooring.