Kitchen is a clean slate...

Cabinets removed, window opened up, floor down to the lower level. Now ready to layout the new setup and arrangment.

Work...work...work...

Yesterday the boys helped get all of the old wood out of the house that has piled up over the past couple weeks. We also swept up the debris on the main floor. What a difference that made. Then I decided to open up the other half of the kitchen window...how many people can say that...half of it was covered with cabinet. So I pulled the cabinets on that side, removed the sheetrock and presto! What a change. Here is a picture taken today with my phone.

Sure brought in a lot more light today!

Today, I pulled all of the old wiring...lots of fun...started patching some areas in the floor, pulled nails from the living room ceiling and repaired the hole in the kitchen floor. Of course the boys helped out!

Prep for electricians...

About one week until the electricians come and much to do...
Today, I cleared out the pantry...soon to be the laundry and utility room. Had to tear out the pantry closet...nasty...the "newer" floor, then the old..old flooring. Found one wall doesn't even have a bottom plate but no problem if we enclose the back porch and make a door in this wall...enabling us to gain some much needed wall space in the kitchen. Below are pictures of the pantry before today and after today's work. The second picture is of the old, old flooring.









The other pre-work for the electricians is pulling out the old wiring and removing the boxes...fun. Nearly ready to complete this task. It should take about two hours to finish this up...sorry no pictures.

Ahhh...finally back to work on the house!

Ok so today was a good day. I had about seven hours of good work thanks to Christy hanging out with the boys today! First, I went ahead and put the closet door in Jace's room.

The closet door is left of the window. Yes...that is an old freezer wooden crate used as the wall in the closet...who knew Frigidare was made by General Motors?

I also cleaned up the front room (office) a bit and began taking off the baseboards, prep'ing for the wall cabinet, and hauled a good bit of lumber out. We are removing the baseboards and lower board in each room to clean out the bottom of the wall. Much dust and debris has made it into these wall cavities.

The other task for the day was removing the remaining old subfloor from the basement, putting in a new floor joist, and putting down the remaining OSBin the hall bathroom.

I did discover through the cracks between the boards on the wall to the left the newspaper backing used in the front room. One of them actually showed the header...Nashville Banner, April 23, 1928! It was another great find. Good chance this was when she was built.

Christy came over after 5:00 and went to treasure hunting...turned up an old key...very small, and I removed some wood so she could get to the old wood chisel she had spotted under the closet floor upstairs.

Tomorrow is another full day of working. I need to start preparing for the electricians. This means removing old wiring, removing old boxes, clearing out the "pantry" to turn it into the laundry room/utility closet, and much more. Baseboards must come off as well to give them better access...doing this anyway so might as well be nice. I also have some areas to patch/prepare for sheetrock and flooring. One area I want to work on some tomorrow is the kitchen floor where the washer and dryer had been and the hole now exists.

More treasures found...

Over the past week, we have found some more items...

First, in the bathroom wall we found these Carter's Little Liver Pills containers. I have yet to find the tin version online. Not sure how old it is. The glass tube had been used by Carter's. It is missing its label and cork. These are pretty common online.

Second, I also found they used news paper for some of the backer when they repapered the bathroom during WWII. I will bring those home and scan them sometime. I have a few small fragments that were able to be recovered. One was a picture list of men who had died in action or transport to various theatres of the war.

Third, is the Medal from the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago 1893. This was for the Mines and Mining Building. The basic cleaning has begun to expose some of the details. I guess I need to get some stronger cleaner. This was found where we removed the walls at the top of the stairs.

Christy is anxiously waiting for the evening when we remove the flooring from this area. The floor where the closets were has gaps so much has fallen between the boards...she has already discovered an antique wood chisel below the floor that has been there since the boards were placed.

I will get better pictures later of these items.

Seeing more pink!

Today, I had a bit of time to hang some more pink...needless to say I am ready to be done with this part. Five bags of R13-covering 148 sqr feet each....and I need about two more...

So far the hall bathroom, Jon and Jace's rooms, the open area at the top of the stairs (12x28), and a start on the third bedroom upstairs. Still have to do the three foot wall in the open area and ceiling and walls in the closets. I also trimmed the walls in the open area back. See if you can tell where from the pix.

I also vacuumed and cleaned the upstairs areas where I have hung the insulation.

Pink means warm...

This evening's adventure took on the task of putting insulation in the hall bathroom, Jon and Jace's rooms, and a bit in the landing area rafters. The outside sounds began to fade as did the draft from the windows and walls. Here are pictures from the boys' rooms.

The pictures below are a portion of the boys' rec area. Put a bit of plastic up to hold the insulation in place overnight until I get the rest up. This area will take quite a bit of pink to finish. The nice part of the rafters is it is the first consistent area I have found. I don't have to cut each piece a different size.

A good evenings work!

Progress...

So we were able to get the upstairs cleaned up, the drywall and other material from the bathroom wall, cut out the water damaged area in the bathroom, and plumbing mostly removed. Today, I will put down the plywood, get the upstairs vac'd, pull nails from studs, and final prep for insulation upstairs and in bathroom.
I hope to get in touch with an electrician and siding guy as well to get estimates.

Tearing out...nearly done....

So, today was another day of tearing out. The game plan is to get all the physical changes and structural shifts finished before we start putting in all of the new things...lol. So today I took out three walls at the top of the stairs and we removed boards from exterior walls so we can put in insulation. So, here are the pictures from across the top of the stairs. The wall on the left will be back one more foot and the one on the right will come back another 18". This area will be opened up and set up as the boys' entertainment area. Games, TV, and others. We have thought about putting a dumbwaiter in...not sure about that one yet...lol.

The wall to the front on right is the one that will come back another 18". This picture makes this seem like a low area but it really isn't. The left wall is at about 3' and the highest is at around 8'. We will insulate the rafters, dryall, carpet....and more. Debating on wood to cover the rafters...figure the heard headed teen boys might have a problem with the drywall.

So if the weather holds we will clean up the upstairs, cut back the two walls, finalize the prep for insulation all around the upstairs, and head back to the hall bathroom to remove sheetrock and wood...then we will be ready for bats of insulation for the upstairs and hall bathroom.

Treasures...

We have found some treasures in or on the wall...an old pipe, brand new bar of soap...new a long time ago, a shopping list, and the brand on the back of the wallpaper sheeting.

I believe the soap is from the 1930's. It has been tough finding the date on the wallpaper...fabric sheeting.

Changes...

Change comes fast...first is the bathroom...The before and now shot...it is a clean slate for the upgrade! A few sub floor boards to replace, plumbing, electric, drywall, cement board, tile, pedestal sink, repainted claw foot tub with new hardware, paint, and lighting...lol...that's all to finish it...

Then there is the living room, dining room, and stairs...massive change...

We saved the old Craftsman cupboard to be used somewhere else in the house. All we have to do is patch the Sheetrock on the wall, put up the banister, a girder, support post, drywall the ceiling, run recessed lights, switches, TV wiring in the walls, remove part of the living room flooring, sand, finish...and paint the room...that is all...Thankfully most of the rooms will be much easier than these.

A few pictures from yesterdays fun!

No more wall! I was able to save the wall insert display. We will encorporate it in another room. Now we decide whether to build a girder and remove the wall buy the stairs. This will be more work as it is structural.

Is this the same house? Today I removed the wall between the living and dining room. Def opened it all up! Pix to come in them a.m. The hall bathroom is 50% for it's update we have to pull some wall boards off. Then patch the subfloor, and away we go.

Oh baby! This was a fun day!

Ok, so I got the living room and dining room cleaned up and organized. Measured the plumbing, and had some help tearing out the kitchen floor (to the cabinets) and loading the truck....then the fun began! I pulled one of the closet walls that was next to the hall bathroom to give the bathroom more square footage and then with Christy's curiosity we set our eyes on the living room-dining room wall! Pictures below from the days progress...so much for the clean living room.

Ahhhhh...almost out of the dungeon

Wow...total of around 20 bags of debris, two huge bags for the wet/dry vac, and the loads hauled off yesterday! Ended up taking several hours today to get it finished. Now all I have left to do is tote the bags out of the basement and get them to the trash place. The Rigid Vac was a great investment! It was amazing how it pulled nearly a century of dirt, dust, and debri off the concrete floor. Pictures of the basement below.

Tomorrow, I plan to get the main floor cleaned up with the cool vac. This way I can have a little peace inside...lol. Hard to believe organized and order are good. Then evaluate the plumbing and make the decision on what route is next for this area.