One Sixty: If you've been thinking about making the switch...

If you've been thinking about making the switch...

Ok - I should have knocked on something yesterday.

Our good friend and carpenter Chad stopped by the house randomly yesterday while Mike and I were at work. That eager beaver wanted to start replacing beams - with the house up and everything!! He called Mike yesterday night to express concerns about our other friend Nick Mitchell doing the remainder of the digging. Nick's company has done foundation holes, but not for lifted houses. He strongly recommended that based on his lack of his experience, we hire someone else.

Well that got us thinking that maybe we should. I mean, even though the house is pretty stable - a hard knock with a big machine could do some damage. Even with a nice insurance check, we would be devastated to lose the house or have to re-do work that we had already done inside. So if Nick hasn't started today, Mike is going to turn to another friend of his who has apparently worked with our house lifter before.

Making this all the more tricky is the foundation dude, who's coming on Mon Tues. I'm not going to delay him - even if that means paying a little more for the escavation. (How much more could it be? We already dug half of it, right?)

We'll see tonight. I'm working late so I'm sure I'll be dying of anticipation around 7 or 8pm as to what the verdict is.

And if you're wondering what's going to be next after the house comes down... hold on to your respirators gang - the asbestos siding is coming off! And who better to give us an estimate than the local ASBESTOS MAN!! Du duh duuuuhhh!

Seriously, his company is called "Asbestos Man." I love that. More to come houselovers. More to come.

Blog Story

My now husband Mike and I purchased this quaint home back in spring of 2004 - our first home - and, being the handy folks we are, expected to have the entire thing renovated in about a year or so.

And here we still are... renovating away.

This house needed a complete overhaul. Its plaster walls were uninsulated, its attic floor covered in 2" of bat guano, its basement - dirt and snakes, its exterior - asbestos siding, and lead paint windows in every room. The electric had not been updated and light sockets hung bare from the ceiling. Plumbing featured cast iron radiators - and only one for the entire upstairs.

We began by gutting almost the entire house from top to bottom. (sans bathroom - we needed to pee) We rebuilt the entire upstairs, with a new floor (not new carpet or wood - the once unstable framing underneath) and turned 3 small rooms into two. We reinvented the downstairs by turning a closet into a hallway and eliminating interior exterior windows and doors from old half-assed additions.

New insulation, windows, electrical wiring (including phone and CAT-5 internet), plumbing and baseboards, and drywall were all added.

We purchased kitchen cabinets from a yard sale. (None existed previously.) Our families helped us replace and purchase new appliances including the once also missing washer & dryer.

Then we had the entire house lifted - straight into the air - dug out the dirt, and had a real basement foundation poured. We updated our oil tank and burner and created heating zones.

Outside, we took down trees and planted grass. We dug out an awkward hill to create a 2nd part to the driveway and used the rocks our house once sat on as a retaining wall. We electrified and repainted the garage.

And of course, we spent many an hour on finish work like paint, trim, closet doors, lighting fixtures, hardwood floors, curtain rods, dimmer switches, and many other things everyone else takes for granted. We are still working to complete all this final finishing, but happy to report that we are FINALLY nearing completion of all little things in all rooms!

In 2008 we began overhauling the exterior by creating a new french door entryway and building a farmer's porch and garage addition. We replaced our roof and then stripped off our siding and replaced with new clapboards. We then planted two new flowering trees and a maple in the front yard - our first major landscape purchases. I'm happy to report that here in 2011, the porch is nearing completion and the back yard is on the road to recovery with some new loam and grass. More plantings soon to come!

In 2012 we plan to attack the last MAJOR (emphasis on major) job in the house - the dreaded BATHROOM! We plan to first add a second bathroom in the basement. Then, demolish our current bathroom and rebuild it, adding a second bathroom on top for the upstairs.

And that pretty much brings you up to date. The battle continues day to day as we try and complete everything.