house

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!

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)

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.

 

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Moving right along here... We got another multi-parter on our hands.
 
So there are three rooms on the south side of the house. One tiny one and two normal sized ones. We will be re-organizing these rooms into a different 3 rooms. One master bedroom, one office, and one art room. We're pretty sure the previous owner had cats. We're also pretty sure said kitties liked this part of the house. A tingling in our noses tells us so.
 
So the floor in these 3 rooms is not the best. We decided it would be our best option to remove the old sub=floor and possibly some drywall to get the cat-pee smell out of there. The fact that the floors aren't in great shape just kind of helps convince us this is the way to go. More work, and more money, but worth it in the end. The story of the house...
 
So we started with the small room...
 
We used a stud-finder to find the floor joists, but soon realized looking for the nailheads would work much easier and be quicker. So we circled the nails. And marked out a square to cut out.

 
We'd never really done anything like this before so we really had no idea where to start...
 
We chose here:

 
The magical gateway to CandyLand!!!

 
So we had a better idea of how thick the subfloor was (3/4") and where the joists ran, so we make a larger cut. 4' x 4'. Then we tried to lift it out. We pried our little hearts out...
 
Stubborn little bugger!

 
Turns out the guy built the floor before he built the walls. So the subfloor sat underneath the walls. Which made it impossible to lift this thing out as one sheet. It took us about half an hour of yanking on this thing. Smashing it, bending it up and down. We tried everything, before it finally broke at the wall. We quickly decided we weren't doing that again... It was hot, dusty, and slightly fiberglassy, and spending half an hour per 4' was not getting us very far.
 
There must be a better way!

 
So I broke out this little bad boy. Harbor Freight multi-function tool. This thing is a lifesaver! I was able to cut the entire permiter of the room flush to the outer wall. It's like an angle grinder, but it just wiggles back and forth about 1/4" really quickly. Not the speediest saw, but it does a heck of a job!

 
That's more like it!

 
It was at this point I came to a startling conclusion... I found the motherload... I was cutting along the perimeter of the room when I caught a slight waft through my respirator... It was a sweet burnt smell. The sweet burnt smell of cat piss. Penetrating deep within my soul... Right there in the middle of the screen. That dirty smudge against the back wall...
 
Tastes like burning!

 
Perhaps this will help illustrate my point...

 
That whole little section of wall was wonderfully saturated with this liquid gold.
 
Upon this discovery, we decided it had been a long day, so we called it quits for the day. Lots more coming soon... Stay tuned!
 
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