Filling in the blanks - The past 3 months

Since I was away from blogging for awhile, I wanted to do a quick run down of what I have done to the house these past three months.

First, with my job I am lucky to get some nice holiday time off. I actually get November 7th off each year to celebrate one of our greatest liberties - Election Day. After unsuccessfully trying to remove someone who I feel is absolutely the worst member of the U.S. Congress, I was ready do some nice hard physical labor. I have been planning on putting a new roof on my house next year but the current states of both my front porch and back porch are such that they really can't wait until next summer. So the job for that day was to tear off the old front porch roof and lay a new dimensional shingle roof. Roofing is one of those jobs that is just grueling especially if you do it during the summer. Caring bundles of shingles up a ladder, working on a dark abrasive surface, and having to work crouched down just take a toll on the body. We were able to get the job done and I really like how it looks. I am going to hold off on the back porch until later since I will have to use it to bring all the building supplies up for the upstairs renovation later on. There is no need to have heavy traffic on a new roof, it can wait. Here is a picture of the new roof.





Prior to the onset of cold weather, I painted all the trim around the windows the red color I had picked out and painted the outer trim cream. Once I got all the windows painted I primed and painted the aluminum storm window trim cream and put them up. I needed to get this done before the winter set in because my windows definately wistle winn dixie and I don't want to be hit too hard on heating bills. Heck, the cheapo I am hasn't had my thermostat set past 65 F yet. Nothing like waking up and seeing your breath.



Here is an updated picture of the front of my house. I did get a new mailbox!!!



To also help prepare for Winter I have gutted my back porch and added insulation to the walls. I ran wire for a new electrical outets on the outside and along the back wall. I am still slowly tracking down some of the existing electrical lines and updating those, so I was able to remove a nice chunk of the old knob and tube. Unfortunately while doing so I cut some lines and when I turned the power back on none of my ceiling lights would come on. So I tied those back together and got those working again. Now I know where that line originates. When I renovate the upstairs I will update the ceiling lights electrical lines. I am planning on drywalling the backporch and installing a drop ceiling, but I want to wait until I have more plumbing and electrical ran for my washer/dryer.

In the kitchen I have installed all the electrical outlets so all I need to do in this room is to put a final coat of paint on the walls prior to getting the cabinets installed. I do have flooring for this room but I am waiting on getting cabinets before I put this down. The flooring was given to me by a family friend who had their refridgerator go out and it ended up destroying a small portion of their flooring. Their insurance paid for them to have the entire flooring replaced. The rest of that flooring away from the refridgerator (~250 Sq. FT) was in great shape so they gave it to me. Mark up about $500-750 in savings!!!

Well, that is all that is coming to mind right now. There have been numerous other small tedious jobs that I have undertaken but I won't lay those out and bore you with those also.

A few pictures...

Here area a few pictures of the new flooring in the study.

This first one shows the new floor on the top of the image and the hardwood flooring that is in the dining room and front room. I think they match up fairly well. Last night I put down the last strips so the floors now butt up. I am still need to get a threshold strip and put it down.

Prior to putting down the flooring I also painted the walls in this room with Ralph Lauren Suede paint. This is really neat paint and it hid the blemishes in the walls which is definately a plus. I must confess, I didn't paint the walls I brought in my professional painted to do that work. Thanks MOM.

3 Months since my last blog!!! Where have I been....

It has been about 3 Months since the last time I updated this thing. If I remember correctly, I think I once said that I would try to at least update this monthly. So much for that thought. Well I bet you are asking, where have I been or better yet what the heck have you been up to?

First off I need to state that beginning at 12:01 AM on the second Saturday in October until the first week of April I am under the wonderfully magical spell of COLLEGE BASKETBALL. As my old college roommates can attest to, I simply cannot watch enough games to ever satisfy this lust I have for watching the games. I am so sorry house. The buzz from the table saw has been replaced by the roar of the crowds as a big shot is hit. The pounding of my hammer has been replace by my shouts at the TV when there is a bad play. Oh, but each season there is one week I dread because the game I so dearly love takes a break....Finals Week. This year I am filling that void with the saw and hammer going full boar. The hallowed hardwood from Assembly Hall is being set aside and my focus is on the hardwood that I am putting down in my "Study".

The story of this hardwood is that my Uncle owns an Auction House here in Indianapolis and they frequently get some materials that I can use in renovating my house. One such item is new hardwood flooring. I guess a company out of Michigan sells the remaining wood that they have left over from other projects at auction. They had a fairly good variety of woods ranging from cheaper laminates to engineered hardwoods to nicer prefinished thicker hardwoods in a variety of woods. They had about 700-2,000 square feet of each type that were set at a minimum bid of 70 cents to $2.00 per square foot depending on the type. I found that it was about half the price as what I was finding in hardware and flooring stores.

I decided that if I disappeared from work for a few hours last Wednesday I wouldn't be missed so I headed off to the auction. I had three different woods picked out that would work well in my study. Two were engineered hardwoods which is flooring with a thinner veneer layer consisting of a choice wood on top and few core layers below. It is cheaper than pure hardwood but is better than a laminate which is only a fake picture on what a choice wood looks like. These two matched the flooring I already have pretty well. The other was an unfinished pine hardwood that I can stain to match the rest of the wood downstairs. Suprisingly when these items came up for bid I was able to get the first one of my items that came up for the mimimum bid which was after tax about $1.50 per square foot. This is easily 1/2 of what this exact product is listed at stores I have looked at. Mark up about $300 dollars savings and now I am able to put down hardwood probably cheaper than carpet.

Yesterday I took a half "sick" day and met my Pops over at my house around noon. Since the subflooring in most the rooms of my house is so unlevel from board to board I had to put down a thin layer of luon to even out the floors. I have done this in my kitchen, bath and back bedroom prior to flooring those rooms it it has worked out well in reducing the waves in the floor. After doing some online research and consulting the hardware store flooring guy we decided that using the air nailer was the best we to install the floor rather than using a glue adhesive. Not having set directions was the only disadvantage I found from buying this wood at auction. My dad stuck around till about 8:30 PM last night (much to the dismay of this back) and I finished up around 10 PM. I should get the last two tricky rows put down tonight then all that is left is the quarter round molding. Ahhhhhh, one room nearing completion.

I will post pictures soon and tell you about what else has been going on at the Fountain Square Renovation......