One Fourteen

Little Helper

2011-08-15T18:58:00.001-07:00

We have spent most of our free time this summer working on the house. Well, mostly Josh has worked on the house with lots of help from Dave and little help from B and myself. The good news is that we are moved into our kitchen and feeling better about bring another baby home.

Hopefully, pictures of our kitchen will come soon, but in the meantime here are some of my two favorite guys hard at work finishing up the slate in the mud room.

Cabinets

2011-06-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

First of all here is a picture that I have been meaning to post for a while. Daddy and his little helper.

And most exciting is our kitchen update! B and I spent some time at Holly's last week and we came home to this! What a wonderful surprise.

Ready for Paint

2011-04-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

Here is what our kitchen looked like one week ago. It is amazing the progress that can be made when you hire professionals to help you out.

This is what it looks like now.

This is the view looking from the dining room at our kitchen.
Here we are looking to the living area.

Another view of the kitchen and looking into the mudroom

We hired out the insulation as well as the mudding, taping and texturing. I was so nice to be able to come in a few days later and prime.

Thanks to Dave for the help again

Now on to the good photos.

B is quite the help too. I am glad that we decided to take his clothes off before we started.

Showing Daddy what a big help he isThe cabinet guy just left. We ended up paying his designer to come with him and we are so glad that we made that decision. She gave us a few good ideas, but mostly she just encouraged us and let us know we are on the right track. We are on our way to having a "Real Kitchen!"

Update

2011-03-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

This isn't go to be the long overdue post that should be done, but here is a quick recap of the past year.

We had Rob Buckingham come install our hardwood floors 4/2010. We love them.

Last summer we enclosed the back porch so that we will have a mud room off of the kitchen.

Dave has been a huge help, here most nights after work and every free Saturday he has. Jason came up and helped too. We owe everyone who has pitched in and helped on our project.

This is my favorite helper!

This is what you see when you walk in our front door. We finally have a handrail.

All our new lighting is installed. We have these sconces in both of the stairways

All the work that is currently being done is behind the tarp. We are getting SO CLOSE to having real kitchen!!!

Stay tuned for more. Hopefully it won't be another year before our next update.

Making progress

2010-03-26T14:56:00.001-07:00

We have had a very productive month at 114. Our floors are being installed right now and we have been busy preparing for them. Here are just a few highlights of some of our projects.

Baby B has gotten a lot of Grandma time lately, but he loves watching the guys work whenever he gets the chance.

Josh and Dave building the posts for handrail.

The finished product
Sanding and staining the molding for the stairway

We were given an awesome Christmas present. Our main floor was painted for us while we were in Hawaii over the Holidays. Unfortunately, I did not do a good job of picking out the colors. So we got to repaint. I told Josh I could live with it. Thanks to him for not making me.

New colors in the powder room.

Master Bath.

Tiling our shower

We need heat and A/C on the main floor

Building a Tile shower surround

2009-11-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

Next step build a shower in the master bathroom! We wanted to keep the natural stone tile theme going from the upstairs floor but without the bathtub. So we started to study how to build a fully tiled surround. We found there is a lot to it.

Checking the plumbing to see if there are leaks. The liner is installed and tested over a motor bed poured to the correct slope.

You have gotta love PEX it is so simple and clean. This is the valve and plumbing for our new Moen Fixture. Notice the four body spray ports.

A lot has happend since May!

2009-11-21T15:55:00.000-08:00

If you have been following our Family and Friends blog you would know why our House Project blog has not been updated since May (check out the sidebar for a link).

Looking at our previous post reminds us how miserable that subfloor work was. We were glad to move on to Drywall which is just as painful. Fortunately we were able to hire out the taping and texturing.

Hanging 5/8 x 4' x 12' Sheets on the ceiling. Extremely easy with the jack. Notice the Expanding Foam Insulation.

Hanging rock in the master bedroom just before we purchased the right screw gun for the job. The drywall drills like the Milwaukee that we purchased are leaps and bounds better than trying to use the drywall tips on a standard drill.

A look at our texture before it we primed it. According to our drywall guy the style we wanted is called hand baroque. It looks far better once it is primed.

Priming the stairway. We used the airless and back rolled.

Sub Floor Agony

2009-05-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of Josh hard at work. The good news is his hard work has paid off and all of the sub floor is replaced. Just a couple more odds and ends and we will be putting up sheet rock.

I am sure that Josh is the person who is happiest that this part of our project is done. He would remind me often about how this was the worst part of our house project so far.

Progress

2009-04-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

The framing and electrical on the main floor are finished. Well, except for the kitchen. We are going to wait on that for a while and try to get our living area done first. We insulated Monday and Tuesday and now we are ready to start dry wall. Then maybe our place will start to look more like a home.

We sold our wood floors on craigslist and the best part of the deal was that the people who bought them, came and took the floor up themselves. Josh loved coming home from work to see progress.

Here are a few pictures of what we have been up to the past few months.

When Dad and Mom where here over Christmas Josh put Dad to work.

Josh doing more electrical

It seems like that is all he ever does
Our future bedroom, with all new subfloor.

Josh is now replacing the rest of the sub floor then we are going to start they dry wall. I don't have any pictures of the insulation yet, but I will post some soon. Things finally look like they are starting to come together.

Bedroom update

2009-02-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this is definitely not new news, but here are some of the pictures of the new paint in our room.

Framing Done

2008-12-06T15:21:00.000-08:00

Josh is done with all of the framing on the main floor and he is currently working on the electrical. I know these pictures don't mean much to anyone besides us, but we are super excited.

View our powder room and master bath from our kitchen

View from our future bedroom, door on the left is to our closet.

Back to work

2008-10-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

It has been way too long since our last post. We have been so busy over the summer, but the main thing holding up the work on our house was working on other houses. This summer Josh helped remodel his dad's rental. We have got some framing done on the main floor and all of the new windows in.

A couple weekends ago, on a spur of the moment decision, we started cleaning up our yard. We have hated all of the shrubs and overgrowth in our yard, but unfortunately we usually don't have the time to invest in the outside of our house when we don't even have a complete house to live in. We aren't sure if the yard looks any better now then it did before we started, but it definitely looks cleaner and more open. We are going to wait until spring time before we replant some grass.

Our house with the front fence and all the shrubs gone

This is how we spent most of our day. I got to run the backhoe while Josh did all of the hard work.
Our yard was a jungle

Pulled the half dead Hawthorne tree right out of the ground

This was the worst bush ever. It was half dead and took up most of our side yard. Also, cats like to hide under it and have kittens there.

Josh is downstairs framing right now so hopefully before long we will be working on electrical on the main floor.

Springtime means Yard Work

2008-03-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we spent all day Saturday working in the yard. On Friday afternoon we decided that one of our big trees in the back needed trimming so Saturday morning we set out to see what we could do.
The main purpose of wanting to trim our tree was because the branches that were hanging over our car were getting lower and lower as the months past. But as a result the back yard looks nice and clean. Unfortunately there has not been any work done in our yard for many years so this is the first of many adventures.

Josh loving all of the equipment he got to use

Dave testing out the chain saw

Our big mess

More mess to clean up

We do not having any pictures of the end result and I cannot go take pictures because it is currently snowing. YUCK! I am so ready for it to be warm. The forecast this weekend call for more snow, I guess the only good thing about that is maybe we will get more work done inside.

Guest Room

2008-03-22T08:53:00.001-07:00

I have just realized that we never finished posting pictures of the rest of the finished up stairs. Below are a few pictures of our guest room. Even though our house isn't even half way done we have plenty of room for visitors, come see us!

Finished Bathroom

2007-12-28T21:27:00.000-08:00

Here are some updated pictures of the bathroom. We are loving being in our place, but are still trying to get all of our belongings organized. We haven't been as productive on the rest of the house as we would like to be, but with the holidays and snowy weather we have been spending time with family and trying to keep up on the snow piling up around our house. I will put more pictures of the rest of the finished rooms up soon so keep checking back.

Ready for snow

2007-12-11T20:52:00.000-08:00

Josh built a snow fence to protect our heat pump from the snow coming off the roof. It is up and we are waiting for the snow start falling.

Winter Wonderland

2007-12-04T19:02:00.000-08:00

It snowed for two days straight last weekend. Josh was excited because he finally got to use the snow blower attachment on the tractor that he got last summer. We got about a foot of snow over the weekend. Unfortunately, it started raining and continued all night on Sunday and we awoke to a slushy mess on Monday. Here are some of the pictures of our house on Sunday night before the snow turned to rain.

Here is Josh getting his tractor ready for the snow

MOVING IN!!!

2007-11-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

We worked Thursday morning, all day Friday and all day Saturday. At about 8:00 Saturday night we started moving stuff in! We moved stuff in until about 10:30 then decided it was time to get some dinner and go to bed. After gospel meeting on Sunday afternoon we headed straight home and started moving in more. We were over there for about three hours and we have most of the stuff we want up stairs in! Poor Josh only had the help of his wife to help him carry in all of our furniture, but we finished without any serious fights and only a few sore muscles.

Josh putting together our bed

Now the guest bed!

Bathroom

More Bathroom

Living room/Dining room (not yet organized in this picture)

Our room

Josh relaxing after working hard

For those of you who don't know we are moving into the top floor while we continue to work on the rest of our house. We are so happy that we will finally be able to live in our house that we bought over two years ago. Once we get our temporary kitchen set up in the basement we will move on to finishing the main floor. Thank-you to Mom and Dad Barnes for putting up with us for the past year.

Ready for comments

2007-11-18T20:44:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

We have fixed the comments so you can now leave us your thoughts! We had to revamp the site after blogger changed their comment format. We would love to hear from each of you!

Bathroom

2007-11-17T12:14:00.001-08:00

The bathroom is done! We just have to finish cleaning it so we can use it. I am very proud of Josh's work on the first bathroom that he ever done.

The shower door is in. As soon as it was installed Josh took a shower in here. While he was in there he scrubbed away all the dirt and grout so we could move in with a clean shower. What a good husband!

Here he is checking out his work after installing the toilet.

Almost there!

2007-11-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

We are putting the finishing touches on the top floor of our house! Hopefully we can move in within the next few weeks. We have been doing lots of staining and cleaning getting ready so we can live in it.

Josh working on the bathroom door

Trese staining the base molding.

Dave came over to help put up some of the molding.

We put up the blinds in our sitting room.
Since we don't have our bathroom door finished yet Josh thought it would be easier to put up the blinds so our neighbors couldn't seen in while he took a shower.

Leaves

2007-10-27T21:04:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I spent most of the day on Saturday raking, mulching and bagging the leaves in our yard. One week later the ground is covered again! We love the Autumn and think that our trees are beautiful, but right now when we see all the beautiful colors all we see is work. Oh, the joys of owning a home! Thankfully, there are not as many leaves on the ground this week, but I am sure it will still take the majority of the day to get the yard cleaned up again.

Sidewalk in front of our house

More leaves to fall

Floors

2007-10-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

Finished floors! We are very pleased with the outcome. Now we just have to put the base molding on, put up the bathroom door and finish the closets and we can move in!
Finished Floors!

Josh hard at work

Bathroom

2007-10-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

We know it has been many months since we last updated our house blog, so we are going to try to update everyone quickly. Below are a few pictures of the bathroom over the past few months. Josh did an awesome job tiling the shower, the counter and the floors. We don't have our shower door yet. It had to be custom made and we are eagerly waiting for it to be installed.

The bathtub all framed in

Josh tiling the shower

The vanity!
You can see our dirty floor in this picture. It looks so nice when the floor is clean.

The Vanity with the sink and faucet in.

The finished product. The slate border around the shower is the same as that is on the floor.

Another finished product

Apple 2 anyone?

2007-03-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

It is time to paint! Trese choose and I approved Apple 2 for our bedrooms as our base color! It is a very nice color. It really makes the rooms feel like home. Good choice Treser. Trese is going to finish painting the rest of the upstairs Next week.

Pimers done

2007-03-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Primers done...Wow my posts are getting boring.

Drywall is done!

2007-03-15T21:18:00.000-07:00

Dad really helped us out by finish mudding. He is very good at it. A pro. He says that he can do a good job it just takes him forever! We let him mud while we do other things. Thanks pops. Ready for primer.

Fixtures are here!

2007-03-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

UPS has shipped our fixtures for the upstairs bath to us! Most of our trims we purchased online at http://www.moendepot.com/ . We went with oil rubbed bronze and the kingsley collection for almost everything! Tell us what you think. The stuff is a little spendy but it is good stuff! Should last tell we are ready to gut the house again. :)
We recommend moen depot for purchasing fixtures! Quick service and a great selection. We tried the locals but they said 4 weeks out and few dollars more!

Plumbing is Done!

2007-03-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

Recently we finished the plumbing for the upstairs bathroom and the rough plumbing for all thre rest of the bathrooms in the house. The place is ready for drywall and hardibacker.

We found a leak

2007-03-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

Yeah thats right we found 3 little leaks when we tested the drain system. They all were due to the absence of glue. I forgot glue on a pipe right over the main beam of our basement.

To test the pipes I filled the entire system up with water (3 floors worth) and proceeded to look around for drips. One was dripping from the beam. Dad and I got up on ladders to get a closer look.

I pushed up on the elbow so that I could get my hand under and feel if the leak was coming from there when a huge stream of water knocked us both off our ladders. Found the leak. I had forgotten to glue the joint.

This was in late January early February so our basement was approx. 28 degrees F.

You can see by the look on dads face that he was finished, through, done, ready to leave at that instant. We took some pictures and left.

Trese loves the cold

2007-01-27T18:19:00.000-08:00

Trese standing by our original fir 5 panel doors. It is quite cold but you can tell she's having fun right?!

The doors are in great shape except that the finish is incredibly brittle. You can scratch the finish off with your finger nail. We are going to strip the doors and stain them a little darker.

Trese is going to be in charge of the doors!

Air is now handled!

2007-01-27T18:15:00.000-08:00

In Mid January John the HVAC guy installed the air handler upstairs in the storage area and we have heat!!! He hasn't finished installing the ducts yet hopefully soon. I need to give him another call.

The system without ducts can take the upstairs from 20 deg to 75 deg in about a 1/2 hour. Must be the insulation!

It's so COLD Brrrrrrr

2007-01-27T18:10:00.000-08:00

Wow Dave said that he was going to turn us into the labor union for inhuman working conditions. He is such a pansy. It only dropped to about 4 below zero. Check out our indoor thermometer. It says a wopping 20 deg F.

Yeah we could see our breath. We are so glad that we have put the best insulation we could upstairs. As soon as our HVAC guy finishes installing the system we will have great working conditions upstairs.

We have fire

2007-01-27T18:07:00.000-08:00

In late November we installed a old used pellet stove that we purchase from a lady in Waterville. The stove took awhile to figure out how to keep it lit but we've finally got it down . It is nice to have heat.

Drywall is up!

2007-01-27T17:20:00.000-08:00

In early December we hired Marcos and his crew to come and install drywall! In four days they hung the entire upstairs floor and did the first two coats of mud (tape).

Dave has been a real life saver. He is a very good top coat mudder (if that's what you call it) He is a perfectionist which means great quality but a little slow. I also have learned the art of sheetrock. I know have all the tools to do the job. All that we have left to drywall is the bathroom upstairs and finish mudding the stairway!

Keep the heat in

2006-11-04T19:46:00.000-08:00

We are currently in the process of having our upstairs floor sprayed with expanding polyurethane foam insulation. The stuff is great! Due to the 2x4 construction we needed to get the maximum R value possible. We are supposed to be getting approx. R7 per inch. I don't think it will be quite that good but i know that it is the best way to go. It seals every square inch with foam. No air movement, no vapor barrier, no spiders. We have a friend in watrville that does the spraying.

We Even sprayed under the tub. Rodger is spraying the foam in this picture. The foam is applied at 120 deg. F. and within a couple second expands 100 times its original size. Fasinating! I love the stuff. We saw down the 2x4's to trim the foam to get it ready to for drywall.

Can lights

2006-11-04T19:43:00.000-08:00

We decided to go with can lights as our main source of lighting in the upstairs floor. We know that it is not original but it the are very unobtrusive and they really fit into any style. There flush mount design gave us the head room we needed.

Upstairs is wired!

2006-11-04T19:37:00.000-08:00

My first wiring project is complete. I sure learned a lot. I love wiring. We also ran 2 cat 5 cables to each bedroom and to the central room between the two bedrooms. We put central vac outlets in for the future someday we will buy the unit for the basement. It really isn't too expensive and with the walls apart it is the perfect time to put it in.

By the way our electrical inspector is great to work with. Our building inspector is also a great inspector. I recommend remodeling in Waterville.

New 400 amp service

2006-11-04T19:29:00.000-08:00

A 3' trench had to be dug from the house to the corner of the garage and then down the alley to the pole. We put 2 - 2" conduits for the "sweet Brier" (4/0 4/0 2/0) aluminum cable. 1 - 2" (orange) conduit for the Cat 5 fiber optic internet connection. We also put in 2 - 1" conduits for future expansion to the garage. Thanks Jared and chaz for the muscle.

New Windows

2006-11-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

New Vinyl windows! We tried to match the orginal style as much as possible. I would like to have wood windows but for the value and the lack of maintainence of vinyl you can't go wrong with these. These will be so much better than the old single pains. Does anybody want our old windows???

Don't let them fool ya!

2006-11-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

They are just acting! Trese and Kari pulling a few stray lathe nails. There were only about 6 million of those little nails. Can you amagine being a "lathe hanger" in the early 1900's

I think I like my job.

Risking their life!

2006-11-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

Bruce and Nadine visited the work in progress not too long ago...well maybe it was awhile ago...not long in my slacker blog posting time zone. Thanks for the compliments and maybe next time we'll put you guys to work! (do you want me to photoshop a tool belt into the picture?)

Raise the Roof!

2006-09-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

We solved our sagging floor problem in the front upstairs bedroom! The remidy: raise the front of the house up by 1" on each side. There was only a 2x6 floating inside each piller. We used a porta power hydraulic jack. Piece of cake. We are planning on adding a third piller just to the left of the front door to help keep the beam in front of our place straight. The piller will also help define our entry as well give us a lot more options for decorating.

New Bearing Wall

2006-09-13T22:59:00.000-07:00

New wall with the doorway framed in it for Phase 2 of our project: the main floor! Phase 1 is the upstairs floor ( 2 bedrooms, full bath, and a central room for a total of about 850 sq. ft. our own apartment).

Our new stairway!

2006-09-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

These stairs are going to be awesome. I kept the width of the stairs the width of the closets that they replaced which is a wopping 4' wide! I love lots of room. All the "head bonkers" in the house are now gone with exception to the two upstairs bedroom closets. We kept the orginal mini solid fir five panel doors.

No more stair way

2006-09-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

Hole in the floor

2006-09-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

The upstairs stairway has now been removed!

Notice how open the room looks. You might have to be here to really notice.

Reinforcing the ceiling

2006-09-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

The wall seperating the kitchen from the dining room is now removed and the guys are beefing up our upstiars floor joices with 2x8's. Purpose is two-fold. 1. reinforce our floor 2. provide adequate space for our upstairs toilet plumbing.

Meet Marcos y Jorge

2006-09-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

These guys are awesome. With a little bit of broken english and a lot of sweat these guys went did all the things that I wanted to do. They are so much faster than me. Here they are working on the stairway in the front entryway.

More cat stain

2006-09-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

Major Cat damage. and yes it is an outside wall! Believe it or not but we were able to get most of the stain and all the smell out of the beams by just using a 2200 psi pressure washer and a little bit of bleach. I also install new subfloors over the exposed areas.

We hate Cats!

2006-09-12T22:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why but cats will always pee on the bearing and outside walls. The stains are from the cats next to the original masterbedroom

Looking around

2006-09-12T22:36:00.001-07:00

From the kitchen looking NW

From the back door looking West

Lumber is here!

2006-09-12T22:33:00.000-07:00

A first load of lumber for the project is here! Wood is expensive. We decided to use Timberstrand for our stair stringers. Timberstrand is an engineered board that is perfectly straight and incredibly strong! $45 for a 2x12x16! ouch, but worth it!

Stairway to...

2006-09-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

The view from the future landing looking down the future stairs.

Main floor looking down to the basement!

A Clean Basement!

2006-09-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

Dennis and Holly pressure washed the basement a few times with a little bit of bleach and it smells 98% better! I had marked all the "trouble areas" when we first started the project.

Still chuggin along

2006-09-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

Dad and I removing the old fir flooring. The flooring was in great shape till the cats destoryed it.

You can see the upstairs from the downstairs....WOW!

Furnace Removal

2006-08-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

Heavy! Thanks a ton for your help Dennis!
Heavy!

Chim chim Trese and Holly

2006-08-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

Trese and Holly hard at Work!

Chimney Removal

2006-08-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

The chimney for the diesel furnace went straight up through our kitchen and through the upstairs bedroom. It had to go for the new floor plan to work!

Super steep roof. We had to repel down! Thanks Sean for the help.
Thanks Dad and Sean for all your help
Sean carefully removing bricks

My goodness It has been awhile

2006-08-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yes.. we have been very busy. Too busy to post but not too busy to take pictures. I will try to post as many pictures as possible today while I do have a free moment.

Trailer Trash!

2006-05-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

Yes we are! Check out our awesome home! Actually it is quite comfortable. Thanks Dave and Kathy for letting us use your 5th wheel. Two months have flown by and we are not sick of the small living space yet. Will the novelty wear off? You betcha.

We have to be out of the trailer and into the house by winter cause it gets rather cold here in Waterville. A couple feet of snow. Brrr.

Rubble Art

2006-05-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

A picture during one of our breaks

Transparent Upstairs

2006-05-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

The lath is almost completely out of the upstairs! I love the open feeling. Slightly dangerous up there. Wood with nails sticking up everywhere. Trese we need to get you some boots!

I think this is our first picture together in the house. Trese doesn't like it we had both been working all day. It is a momentous occasion!

Plaster Pile

2006-05-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

All the plaster is out and we are ready to dump! Conquered the hard white stuff!

114's Diet Plan

2006-05-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

Our house is considerably lighter after we removed all the plaster! Check out our wheat truck full of plaster.

If you look close enough you can see 114 smiling!

Ewww Gross!

2006-05-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

This is why we are gutting the house and not keeping all the millwork. Cats... well that all I should say here.

Check out the plaster behind the millwork. Yeah thats "cat damage" Keep your mask on!

Bash Brothers

2006-05-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well It was time to get some help on the demolition of 114. It is too much of job for one guy. My back muscles told me that after one week. Plus three can work faster than one right?

Jared and Chaz came to my rescue. They sure have worked hard and they make our job a little easier. I think they like swinging a crowbar at the walls. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to reak havoc on a house?

Thanks guys!

Family Help

2006-05-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

My younger brother Joel gave us a hand. The baseball player swings a mighty crowbar!

Hidden Treasure

2006-04-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

Guess what! Behind the built in shelving that was covering the fireplace I found a brick fireplace that is in mint condition! The bricks are brand new and there is even a little design in the brick pattern. Removing the shelving also made the room seem much larger.

I have also removed some of the “lowered ceiling” and uncovered the “real” 9ft ceiling! I found about 12 2x6’s spanning the living room. The lumber is in mint condition and is holding the 2^nd ceiling up. I’m sure we will be able to use them. Bringing the original ceiling back will sure open things up!

Who has the number for L&I?

2006-04-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

I had to run to the clinic and get a Tetanus shot today. I stepped on a rusty nail and it went straight through my old Nike’s. July of 99 was my last shot and it was good for 10 years, but I learned that it is only 5 years if there is an injury.

There is something sweet and sour about being married to a Nurse.
Sweet: Trese you saved my jaw from locking shut. (is that what happens?)
Sour: I had to get a shot. Needles are for sewing.

Bungalow Blitzkrieg

2006-04-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Well I have attacked the living room. The first day I was the winner, annihilating everything in sight. The second day the room beat me. It is hard work removing plaster from the walls.

The plan was to save the original millwork…yeah right! Once I got started I found out just how hard it is to remove the dry and brittle wood without nicking or splitting it. I gave up after I cracked the very first piece of molding I tried to pry off the wall. We will replace all the molding with new wood (keep the same style of course.) It will be more $$$ but we are changing the floor plan so we would have had to mix old with new anyway so now it will all be matching.

Original Floor Plan sort of...

2006-03-17T08:41:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the original floor plan CAD sketches that I created this summer when we bought the house. I don't know what my brother Joel and I were on when we did the measuring but there are numerous mistakes. At least it gives an idea of what the inside of 114 is like (in 2D of course).

The basement is not pictured but it currently has 3 rooms. The basement has 5 pillars running the full length and are the only objects determining the design of the basement!

Main floor on the left.
Upstairs on the right.

Click to enlarge!

Measurements and some VIP's

2006-03-17T07:46:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Last weekend on Saturday the 11th we made the trip to Waterville once again. The main purpose was to change tires for our road trip to the Grand Canyon, but even though we haven't really started working on the place we always have something to do at 114. We needed some more measurements to help us with our CAD redesign work.

We want to make the kitchen as large as possible. Its original size is 9' wide by 15' long and separated from the rest of the house. True Craftsman Design! The stairs are what is currently determining the width of the kitchen. The stairs are in the center of the back of the house.

Our goal: move the stairs to the front entryway in place of the two coat closets and make the kitchen at least 3' wider. With the stairs in the entryway we will be able to open up the ceiling all the way to the second floor eve, which is storage space (wasted?) anyway.

There are quite a few critical measurements that we needed to determine.

How far is it from the upstairs dormer to the entrance to the house? This gives us our footprint. We have to make sure that stairs will fit comfortably in the entryway.
How wide is the front porch? Half of the upstairs bedroom is over the porch and the other half is over the entryway.
Ceiling Height. This helped us with figuring our stair dimensions.

The VIPS
Well we had the privilege of showing the house to some of our VIP's last weekend. Justin and Pam our good friends had two of our church ministers staying with them! Harry and James. James just happens to have two degrees in architecture. Perfect Huh! Unfortunately the visit had to be short but we were able to get a few great ideas out of him. James is pictured with Dave (Josh's Dad) showing what they truly think of 114. Subtle? We think not.

Friendly Visit

2006-02-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

We spent the weekend of the 28th of January in Waterville with our good friends Andrew & Leah from Eburg. Andrew and Leah both work in the Custom Home Industry. Andrew is a project manager and Leah works with the budgets.

Saturday was a perfect day for snowmobiling. It had snowed 3" Late friday night and on Saturday morning there was hardly a cloud in the sky! We spent most of the day sledding on Badger Mountain. We had lunch at the Badger Mountain Ski Hill Lodge. Andrew and I then took the sleds out by ourselves and found a coyote. Trese and Leah went to the padres house to clean up.

Saturday night we spent 3 hours in 114 discussing what we should do after deconstruction. Our guests we so helpful with their experience and great ideas. Trese and I were encouraged once again and are enthusiastic about getting started.

Thanks again Andrew & Leah! We have to make snowmobiling at our place a tradition!

Let it Snow

2005-12-31T16:06:00.000-08:00

It has been snowing a lot in Waterville. In the last couple days there has been about a foot of snow fall! We love the snow. Whenever we come visit the parents we go over to 114 and shovel the snow. Today we took the snowblower with us. Thats really all that is new so happy holidays all!

The Plan

2005-11-25T17:09:00.000-08:00

What's our plan for the 114 you may ask? Well, we are currently living in Ellensburg 100 miles away from the house but Dave and Kathy Barnes are looking after the house till March when we move to Waterville. Once we are in Waterville we will be staying in the Barnes's 5th Wheel trailer while we make 114 liveable.

114 is a very structurally sound house without sagging floors or a sunken foundation. There is hardly any creaking or groans which is very surprising for how old the house is. The previous owners "The Harmons" lived in the house for many years (how many? not sure yet). The Harmons did not have any children to wear the house out like our both of our families did. To take the place of children the Harmons had at least a million cats! They loved their feline friends and everyone in town knew this and would bring "spare cats" to 114 for adoption. Cats do not harm the structure of the house but boy they can sure stink a place up! The smell was horrific when we first had the tour of the place during the summer...even worse when we returned while it was raining...ugh. The tremendous damage is what allowed us to get such a great deal on the place but it also means that we will be gutting the entire house including much of the subfloor. When we are finished we will have a "new" house with the Crafstman charm.

We're Stuffed

2005-11-24T16:32:00.000-08:00

Turkey Day in Waterville at Dad & Mom Barnes’s. Bruce & Nadine, Erik & Corrine w/ Berkley and Bennett, Jason and Joel. After dinner and a nap everyone walked across town to 114 and took the stinky tour! Other than the cat pee smell everyone liked the house. “So much potential” was a norm comment.

I noticed while we were there that our power cables coming to the house from the power pole was back in place. Two weeks ago while we were in town visiting the snow and wind had brought down a large tree branches onto the lines and ripped them halfway off the backside of 114. Dave (dad) called the PUD for us while we were gone and had it fixed for us. Thanks Dad.

Livingroom and Entryway

2005-11-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from the living room and entryway of 114. The wonderful tangerine molding makes the living room so inviting. Love the molding, not the color. Notice the stains on the carpet. Cats, lots of cats..ugh. and the custom cabinetry over the fireplace. The ceiling has been lowered from the standard 9 foot. Lots of work to do here.

Images from this August when we purchased 114

2005-11-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

A few images

2005-11-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

Is Bigger Better?

2005-11-23T09:59:00.000-08:00

Check out this article about the comforts of a Craftsman Style Home. Yet another example of why we love the Craftsman Bungalow!

Is Bigger Better?

Site Design Complete

2005-11-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

We finally got the site looking acceptable for the time being.

I (Josh) do a little bit of web design for work right now so I enjoy playing around with the code.

In case you are wondering the image on the top of this blog is our house!

Looking at the place causes us to feel just a little overwhelmed. There is so much work that we have to do to bring it back to life. We are really excited about jumping into the massive project but at the same time there is so much that we do not have figured out yet. I guess we will just tackle each project as it arises.

Greetings from 114 1st Street

2005-11-21T22:48:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to our house renovation blog.

We just purchased our 1915-1917? Craftsman Bungalow this summer and have not had a chance to do any renovation yet. We have only ripped out the carpets...yep that is it.

We are currently living in a town about 100 miles away from 114. Trese is a nurse and I (josh) am working part time and finishing my degree.

We hope to use this house blog as a digital diary of all our renovation fun..renovation pain...renovation sorrow...renovation joy...renovation... whatever.

Enjoy and keep in mind that we are both people who really do not enjoy writing...yes, quite terrible writers really. Trese is a nurse and I am an engineer. Nuff said.