Yeah, T-Gem! For such a great accomplishment, so quickly! and for starting a new thread. I was at a loss. My creative, witty (If I do say so myself) titles have run dry!

I have kinda jump started my inside stuff again. Very happy about it.

During the X-mas/New Year's week painted my LR and hall, and hung my upper DR cabinets. Took me a while to master the latter because of studs -- or lack thereof. But I'm happy with it.

Yesterday I took off my BB countertop (16' of it) and am reconfiguring my base cabinets. I saved and had a beaded face frame made (love Brian @ TheCabinetJoint.com!) and am going to apply it to the face of existing cabinets. Odd, yes. Accomplishing the look I want without buying new cabs or trashing excellent drawer base cabs? Yes. YEah, BABY! (big fist pump!)

And.... Another endeavor!

I have all these antique doors. Before I knew sh... my ears from my elbows, I bought them to replace my existing, modern pocket doors. Lo and behold, they were 30"s and my existing were 32". What's a chick to do in the face of stupidity? Drool? Yes. Then...

After a couple of years I got tired of moving them around. When the LR was painted I loved how empty it is. Sooooooooooo (aren't you dying of suspense?) I started selling them on CL.

I sold 1 of the very chippy doors I created for $75. YEAH! I was hooked.
The ones I never fooled with are going for $25 to $30. I have a guy who wants them all 6 of these tomorrow. Hope he shows.
Then, I have the unfinished, modern, exterior (1.75" thick vs. interior 1.25") doors, of which I've sold 2 for $65 each.

I have a new thriving industry. LOL! I might consider locating another source for doors and keep this up. Or not.

Anyway, as business winds down to restaurants' slowest months of the year, I have a tiny little income from stuff I was going to redonate.

My year is starting out with a big, accomplishing bang.
(Oh, and I got an alignment done on my car for its new front tires. Wow. Who knew what a difference that'd make, when I didn't even realize it was wonky!)

I killed the Week 32 post!! with my post.
Newbies!!
I posted, then updated the post and it reposted with a double post.
Anyway, Hi I'm Allen. I'm restoring a one room schoolhouse in Illinois. the rest of my story is on the Week 32 post and my Kitchen design ideas post.

I'm doing cold dusty work. stud work. filling in 2 window holes and making a 48x48 window hole, then rolled insulation. if there's still time on the clock, we will start on kitchen ceiling. i think the high today will eventually get in the 20s. it was 9 when I went to bed

Texas_Gem - that's GREAT (and amazing!) news - we'll be looking forward to pictures.

Christine - 'I ... had a beaded face frame made...and am going to apply it to the face of existing cabinets' - I think I'm following you correctly and I think that's a genius idea!!

I love the layout in our kitchen, but I also love clean lines, and I would select a much simpler door style (and inset style) if I had to do it again. So, I do toy with the idea of redoing certain things and that might just be an option:)

pinkelephant64 - welcome! Were you born in '64? Good luck with your progress today.

Resolutions for the New Year -

1) Wooden floors refinished in 1st floor of the house. We'll get someone else to do the actual refinishing but this will involve moving every piece of furniture and so much cleanup work (we'll do the latter two).

2) Family Room - Convert family room fireplace to gas insert, remove step/stoop/raised hearth (not sure what that's called) and replace with a flat hearth, tile to ceiling (maybe), new mantel. Mount TV over mantel.

This was from a while back, walls painted, different furniture now:

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3) Family Room - complete finish work on new built-ins. Move cable box, x-boxes into cabinet, install fan to keep cabinet cool, and 'repeater' thingy so that remotes can be pointed at the TV.

4) Start planning redesign of DS and DD's bathroom.

5) Fix roof leak in map room.

On a personal level - make wills, bike more, and drop about 10 pounds.

Yup, I'm a half a century old now...

christine, I have bought many things on CL, but haven't posted anything yet. I found 1926 window sash pulleys buried in my walls and sold them on EBAY.
The big thing around here before ebay was auctions. Now there's so many ppl looking to resell, there are deals like there used to be. the one thing to hope for is something large to sell at the end of the auction and you being the only guy that still has room to haul it off.
My ex always wanted to have an auction here and I put my foot down. I don't want 50 ppl here pawing thru my trash.

well, I guessed right, it was a dusty day. we shoveled blown insulation out a window last week and my buddy wore a mask today. I wasn't as smart... I was hacking and blowing my nose half the day. It looked clean, but every time you touch the floor or wall, it adds a little more dust to the room. I don't want to blow it out and clean it right cause next week, I'm ripping down more plaster and slats and it would be a waisted effort.

We filled the hole on a small window and framed the studs for a 60wx48h future window (over a future kitchen sink).

My back wall of my kitchen is over 12 feet wide (12' 5" i think). I offset the window to two feet from the right. If I put a 36" sink on the right and my 30" stove on the left, that would leave about 34" between the two. with the kitchen space problems I'm having, I'm going with that and calling it good.

Tomorrow, I will pull out the left window and header, fix the load bearing studs, fill the holes, tar paper, caulking, then rolled insulation. that will be about the time I gotta go back to work (over the road steel haulin truck driver on the weekdays).

Well that was probably too much information. too late
Now it's time to play with a very happy 2 year old!!
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Wow, TG, that is awesome news! You guys are super fast!

Christine, I love that you are recouping some funds on your "finds".

OB2B, we have a fire place conversion in our "long term" plans. It currently holds a wood burning insert. It will eventually hold a flat gas insert.
But that will be after the kitchen.

Today was Tree Down Day! Wow it was pretty cool to watch..and impressive to feel them big fir's hit.
I will have to show the before and after tomorrow..but this photo is of my almost 6' 14 yr old standing at/on the branch base of the biggest tree, it was the last to come down, and we had no idea how big those branches were until it was down.

No plans for this week, but I want to brag about last week. I went skiing with my family in Whitefish, MT. We arrived to 14" of powder, and had a terrific time! Big Mountain is infamous for its fog, and we had good to spectacular visibility every day.

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I was a pretty good skier a quarter of a century ago.
Makes me think of the 80s when I talked my mom into putting her old wooden wheel skates and going to the rink with me. She wound up in the emergency room with a broken wrist. I can't afford to get laid up anytime soon.

I got the outside kitchen wall buttoned up and half insulated and called it a day.
I made some decisions. My back kitchen wall is about 149 inches. leaving 99 inches between countertops. I plan to squeeze a 30" oven and a 36" sink in there and put a dishwasher between them.

I jumped in a semi and made it an hour down the road and had to shut down because of ice. now I'm in bed in a rest area listening to all the sirens running back and forth on the freeway.
Goodnight all :)

@ oldbat2be - OMG There's a direwolf in your living room!

@ pinkelephant64 - the 9' tall windows sound really cool. Curious if they're still there or not...

Our accomplishments are not kitchen related unless cleaning or using it counts. Taxes are done except for waiting for more forms to come in the mail, cars are clean for the first time in ages (inside and out, and waxed), and I diagnosed why the Mercedes is not running correctly and am ordering parts today. I also biked 25 miles/day.

I wanted to work on the bathroom layout more and update the 3D drawings, but instead we only talked about it. It's a bit of a sin around here, but after exploring lots of very boring details about how the addition was built (and the boring details from the last thread about how they must leave the garage because they cannot be correctly plumbed/vented in there) the washer and dryer are basically forced to live either in the master closet or a small room immediately off the bathroom. We're looking forward to the bathroom project but first the main panel and probably a subpanel need to be replaced and our POS heat pump is having issues again. Plus needing to replace a fence and have someone do landscaping... we may be saving for a while.

The schoolhouse was for a poor mining town. The ceiling is 11 ft 8 in high and the north wall had eight 9 ft windows. Someone put in a drop ceiling around the 70s and filled in the windows. The work ppl did on the house was all done poorly with scavanged supplies. I put five 54" tall windows in the livingroom taking advantage of the way the wall was already designed for them.

CEF- I keep waiting to see a picture of the living room, pretty please with cookie dough on top? ;)

So glad you are able to sell the doors and make some money back. Also, yay for having a properly working car!!

Pinkelephant- I am so intrigued by your old school house turned home! I'm curious, do you happen to have any pictures from when you first bought it? It sounds like it has already been through a lot and now you are renoing it again. Your little girl is gorgeous!!!

Sorry I couldn't help more with layout, it must be b/c of the time of year it is, the board seems kinda dead. You might try posting another new thread asking for layout help. There are some amazing layout guru's on here, you just have to be lucky enough to catch them.

Good job though on shoring up walls, getting window openings set at this time of year, I know I don't want to be outside working right now!!

OB2B- I.e. refinishing wood floors, I don't envy you. The first place hubby and I bought was a 60 year old house, remodeled in the 80s and they installed wood paneling and carpet over the wood floors. When we bought it, the first thing we did was pull off the paneling and pull up the carpet. We ended up refinishing all of the original floors ourselves before we moved in. I can't imagine trying to refinish wood floors in a house while living there! The dust and fumes are so pervasive!! Good luck! Also, on a personal note? Only 10 lbs?!?! You are doing much better than I am with reno fatigue!!

Terri- I really want to see the before/after pics now!!! From the pic with your son, those trees were massive!! It must have made a huge difference to remove them!

Annkh- I'm not a skier but those views look amazing!! I'm glad to hear you had a wonderful time on your ski trip.

Schick- I, too, have all our taxes done, just waiting for a few forms to come in before submission. Are you good with electrical or are you going to have to hire it out?

Our first house had to have the main replaced to bring it up to code, we were able to do it ourselves. When we added my kitchen last year, we added a sub panel for the new addition and, once again (thankfully) we were able to do it ourselves.

I have only, in the past few years, come to realize why renovations are so expensive for the average homeowner. I was raised with a dad that taught me plumbing, electrical, car work, etc. (Yes, all work was done with a permit and passed inspection) No wonder others reno budgets are so high!!! I would have never been able to get even a fraction of what I have if I had to pay others to do it.

I hope you are able to replace the main without eating into your bathroom reno too much!

As for me, we left Saturday afternoon for them to spray insulation. We came back Sunday night with a vomiting kid and I spent the next few days trying to tend to her AND get work done.

She was well enough to go to school on Tuesday so when the baby was napping, I pulled (what used to be) the window in the master bedroom which will now be a doorway to my closet. I also went in my "closet" and pulled all the decking off of what used to be the outside of the house.

Just need to finish running electrical in there, build a header and install a door, and get drywall up and I will be able to start planning the design of the closet and planning the reno on the master bath.

The bricks were delivered yesterday and the brick layers are supposed to be here tomorrow to start bricking.

My dad is the one calling the shots on the reno since it is his (and my moms) place and I think he is honestly just ready for it to be done.

We hired out pouring the slab. We hired out the septic (necessary since you have to have the proper licensing, etc. for it to pass inspection.)

Hired out some framers to do the HIPP roof and now hiring brick layers to come and do the brick work. Most of this (except the septic) we could do ourselves but he is ready to be done and I don't blame him one bit!!

Spray foam rocks! After raising the ceiling we foamed the family room and have lower energy bills than before even though the cubic footage increased.

I'll be farming this one out. The only way to shut power off to the main panel will be to spin the meter and to un-spin the meter you need to have licensed electricians working on the place. There will be some work involved... the line from the meter to the current main is longer than currently allowed and that this will result in a main panel outdoors near the meter, then a subpanel where the current main is. What fun; I guess electrical practices have changed between now and 1970 just a bit.

Heat pump #1 for the house died this week. I do have three quotes, but the size was based on the current system instead of a load calculation. The current system that was poorly installed is (probably) based off the size of the system that it replaced. This was done so bad that the previous owners sued the HVAC company, and for all I know its size is also the same as what was there before the addition... a cycle repeating back to 1959. Probably. Load calculations will be done this afternoon.

Either way I look at it, this is going to take a pretty good bite out of the bathroom budget. :(

Schick- I have heard the praise about spray foam, we only had it put in for the addition but if it is as awesome as I've heard, we will be saving up to put it on the main house as well.

Ugh, I feel for you with the electrical. The only way we were able to get around having to hire professionals is that my dad got his journeyman's license in the past few years.

In our old house, we updated all the plumbing. Turned out that the city main actually ran through our backyard and, obviously, the city didn't want anyone touching it unless they were licensed and insured. It cost us 600 dollars to have a licensed plumber come out and climb into the 16 ft hole we dug in our back yard and connect our drain to the city main. It took him all of 15 minutes but we had to have a pro do it.

I hope you are able to get the HVAC done without completely blowing your budget!

As for us, there is a reason they call professionals pros! We had the brick layers here today and holy heck!!! It really is amazing how much a team can get done in one day. Here are a few shots of the end of today.
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The plan for the weekend is for the bricklayers to finish up, for us to finish the last bit of plumbing and electrical and then my dad hired a drywall crew to come in and do the drywall this time.

Doesn't really surprise me as my dads LEAST favorite thing is detail work and if he CAN get someone else to do drywall, he will.

Hopefully, (fingers crossed) this time next week the drywall will be done or almost done and we can lay flooring, install cabs, etc.

Wow! Texas! That addition is really moving along!

Ann, awesome ski day! I can't ski to save my life. I'd end up breaking every bone in my body, I'm sure. We couldn't afford it growing up, so I never learned.

Terri, that boys is big!! My son just turned 13 on the 3rd, and he's quite small in comparison! Any baby yet?

I can't keep up with everything that's been happening here! LOL We changed our shift schedule at work, so I'm adjusting to that. No more 12 hour shifts, boo!!

This year I'm going to do my bathroom. The fan has power, but somewhere between the switch and the fan, there's a disconnect, so I definitely need to get that fixed. I'll have to take down all the drywall because there is surface mold I wipe off every 2 weeks due to the lack of a fan. Plus, it needs to be moved out of the bathtub/shower area. I won't be changing the footprint at all because it is teeny-tiny. I'll be starting to shop for the supplies now and then when the weather is good I'll get a contractor in to start the work. I think I'll try to do the demo myself to save some cash.

WOW that is crazy fast brickwork! Wish I could work at only 1/4 that speed and quality (mine is terrible).

I spent hours with our CAD drawings yesterday evening and an online load calculator and discovered that the current HVAC system is oversized by 33%. I almost feel sorry for the previous owners, since they had two bad systems put in to the house with some clear code violations. Then they had it all redone three years later by some people that did substandard but code compliant work, but they paid for oversized units twice.

On the other hand these are the same people that sold fixtures and other things that were included in the listing, then left 30 trash bags in the back yard. So no, I guess I feel fine about it now.

I have a massive headache from dealing with all of this... hopefully it comes around soon or it'll be a long day at work.

Terri - I bet you are glad the trees are down. It lets in so much more light...at least that's what happened to the front of our house and the neighbors. Everyone in our neighborhood think it's a vast improvement.

Texas_Gem - Amazing progress. You've accomplished in two months what would have taken me two years to do. Your dad is right, finish work takes forever.

schick, and anyone else doing mains wiring - With the new code requiring AFCI's on everything, I've had two circuits so far that gave me fits. One issue turned out to have an ungrounded RG6 coax cable for the TVs hooked to a power pre-amp..seriously. These breakers are that sensitive. This took over half a day to figure out. The other problem was either from the hack job done on the downstairs bathroom where they simply twisted the neutrals in one of the boxes and did not put a wire nut on them or from using the backstabs on one of the outlets, which had a loose wire. I fixed both of those and no more problem. Lessons learned: Never use the backstabs on outlets and switches, always use the screws, and make sure everything that needs grounding is grounded. Having said that, I'm really impressed with these new breakers. They will make house wiring much safer. I just wish they did not cost so much. I'm in almost $500 already and still have five or six more breakers to buy.

Annkh - Ohh! I'm jealous. I haven't been able to ski for 30 years (bad back) I loved skiing more than any sport I've ever done. Used to live for Saturdays in winter when I could ski. Thanks for the pics.

pinkelephant - Good luck on your project. It's worth it! Post pictures when you can.

Well, I'm hard at work laying out the upstairs bath and doing final appliance layout on the kitchen. This needs to be done before I can start replacing the house's plumbing, which will start hopefully later this year. Once the layouts are finalized, I will start building some of the furniture for the upstairs bedroom and getting that put back together. Does it really ever end?