One Sixty: Hi, I'm Jess. And This is My Job

Hi, I'm Jess. And This is My Job

Last night the foundation we poured for the chimney had hardended, so we set ourselves to the second step - drilling a 6" hole in the basement wall where the pipe from the furnace will intersect the chimney.

After that was done, we had to drill matching holes in both the cement flue surround and the flue itself - a task that we thought was going to be so much easier than drilling the basement wall....

And drilling the cement flue surround was. Mike took care of it in less than 5min. But when we got to the flue - a terra cotta-like clay flue - all I could think about was Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe and the episode where he's smashing huge terra cotta pipes quite easily with a sledgehammer. Terra cotta is not tough.

And sure enough, we tried drilling it, chipping it, grinding it - but every time, the flue piece just cracked and broke.

After some research, we found out that only a diamond tipped tool will cut it without breakage. Unfortunately, we don't have one. But a way around it is to build a brick base for the flue and allow the furnace pipe to enter through the bricks.

Hopefully we'll be able to do that tonight. We're already a few days behind on this whole chimney project and cold weather is fast moving in for this weekend....

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.