One Sixty: Concrete Analysis

Concrete Analysis

Mike, bless his soul, has been trying to get a hold of floor dudes for a good week now. Our first choice - the bold man who showed up at our house one day and offered to do it. Now, I know this may be a little riskay - but for the right price, I'll give anyone a chance. Plus plus, he couldn't do any worse of a job than we would do all by our selves.

Anyway, he hadn't called us back despite a couple phone messages. That is, until yesterday. He called Mike back and told him he could pour tomorrow... which is, today. Mike told him, of course, give me an estimate first before you do anything. Here it is at the end of the day and I'm wondering what the verdict was.

Imagine if the price was right and Mike told him to go ahead and I got home and it was all done?! How awesome would that be? Once this floor is poured we can get our new oil tank, furnace, and water tank down there and start plumbing it all. We're definately doing the 2nd heating zone in the upstairs this time around. I'm not tearing all the plumbing apart a THIRD TIME! Cause that's just insane.

And then we'll rebuild a floor for the mudroom and get my durn washer and drier hooked back up... and be able to enter/exit from the side door again. I want to get a nice set of french doors in there. And I want to turn the double window into a bay window with a window seat. I think both those would look totally bright and airy and nice in theres.

May have to wait on all that though. After the basement floor and the mudroom are all set, I have to worry about trimming out the inside windows and doors, plus base and crown mouldings. And finish the hallway. And the hardwood floors, don't cha know.

Then there's the bathroom.

Then there's the exterior to worry about - which, I AM worried about because I want to ditch it ASAP. It's fugly. Plus, I need to get a demo dumpster for all the basement construction trash and I want to trash the oldy moldy siding at the same time.

I guess that sounds like a "next" doesn't it? Now that the basement's done, every other project is at the top of my list. Sucks that all the money's gone. I've just got to get used to doing everything little by little again.

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.

One Sixty

Concrete Analysis

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