Jeremy and Grant visit

Posted by Cuthbert Returned , Monday, February 28, 2011 6:38 PM

It is terrifying how time escapes us. So much has happened since December and we have completely let the blog slip - for those of you following our lovely pit, we apologize. So let's start as close as possible to where we left off. After New Years, feeling very much stuffed and spoiled from too much food and too many gifts, we loaded up Grant's new trailer with all manner of furniture, books, clothes, an amazing old chest, an 8' long couch, too many cool things to list. Sufficed to say it was a trailer full. Grant, Jeremy, Amanda, Chloe and I convoyed across this great nation by way of one of its nicest stretches of road...until you get to Pennsylvania. We were sane enough to actually stop off on the way at a hotel in Illinois. (Where Chloe took a while to settle in, but was a great sport for traveling as far as we did...)

When we got home we found the house just like we left it....broken heat pump and all. Amanda had huge plans to put them to work while they were out and they did ten times what I would have ever expected to people capable to do in such a short amount of time. We will forever be in their debt for the amazing amount of work and I just hope at some point we can help them out in the same way.

The first order of business was dealing with the master suite. This requires a little bit of back-story as the room was a bit of a disaster before hand. The original construction of this house had a solar water heater with roof mounted water heating tanks. These leaked sometime in the 90's from what we can gather and led to the roof rotting through and eventually the ceiling in the master collapsing in on the previous occupants. Anyway the sheet rock was no good anymore and when they came to repair it they never bothered to put insulation back up over top of the new sheet rock. Or tape the sheet rock or anything else that would resemble the job actually being completed. Leaving the Master Suite in shambles. Also there was a giant duct running through the closet to nowhere....apparently it had been abandoned by the previous heating methodology.

Grant and Jeremy's first order of business was to demo the area. Which happened so quickly I came home to the job being done and felt like a complete jerk. See inn the photo below - the right hand side of this photo was a center vanity that divided the closet (left) and bathroom (Right). The vanity was the first to go and here you see the closet following.

Below, the handsome guy is Amanda's brother Jeremy in the old master tub. (Yes, everything was blue) We can post before and after photos when we get them together. The wet wall is behind him and where the shower head use to be and you can see the attic blow-in insulation that kept falling down throughout the project. They salvaged what they could and then when we got the lighting, wiring, sheet rock, and proper support fixed, they laid down even more insulation over this stuff. (Our master wing is probably more insulated than the rest of the house right now.)
Removing the bath tub: Oddly enough, bath tubs have a special boot attachment. You can buy a clasp/boot for around $30 at Lowes or you can you a monkey wrench and screw driver. Just insert the handles of the wrench into either side of the slats on the boot and use the driver as a lever. We then donated the sinks, tub, and toilet to the Re-Use store - which we love!! In the photo below you can see the door frames that Grant and Jeremy put in for the revamped bath and closet. Same space as above, but we stole 2' from the bedroom and then split the space from the old disconnected vanity. 

The previous layout of the closet/bathroom side of the room had the 80's powder room special. Meaning an extra sink outside of the bathroom. I'm aware at one time this was a very popular thing to have, however in today's age it made the room seem like a hotel. So they ripped the wall that divided the bathroom and the powder area out and merged those two areas. Also the closet wall facing south was moved out to be flush with the new entrance to the bathroom.

They then started to Sheetrock the walls and run electrical for the bathroom and closet. I got to at least feel useful in this part of the project as we discovered numerous code violations and flat out hilarious electrical layouts. The worst being the circuit that goes up to the bedroom down to the garage then out to the north to the out door outlet......  We also realized at this point that both bathrooms were on the same circuit even though the wiring was setup in such a way as to have two circuits...So we added a split breaker and and now have two bathrooms protected by GFCI's and Breakers. 

Grant also noticed a myriad of shortcuts that had been taken by the builders. For instance the baffling for the insulation in the attic was bits of cardboard that disintegrated if you breathed at them. Also there was no vapor barrier other than the paper on the back of the insulation. The new windows that had been installed were not insulated properly.

After adding a vapor barrier to everything that was demo'd and pulling wires Grant and Jeremy hung the sheet-rock. Grant had brought a special driver specifically for sheet-rock screws that made short work of the process.


The next order of business was by far the coolest part of the project. Grant had told us about a trayed ceiling and it sounded like a great way to get some added height to the bedroom since the ceilings in this house are a bit on the low side (especially for Iowa GIANTS!). The process basically involved shoring up the pre-existing truss's and raising a portion. I have to apologize for a lack of pictures in this part of the process.

After installing the tray, insulating the attic, installing vapor barrier in the bedroom, we still got to keep Grant long enough for his legendary plaster work. Every corner and edge look amazing now! Texture to follow...

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