April 6-8

I started in the corner…1st layer was paneling, 2nd layer was spackled drywall underneath and the 3rd layer was very flaky insulation that didn’t come out very easily. Don’t forget about the ceiling tiles through the whole house…

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April 9-11

We needed to be careful ripping out the interior walls because of the electric cables…it’s an old house so you never know how they were ran until you got it open…

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April 12-19

The walls in the hallway were the most complicated…lots of studs to pry tiny pieces of drywall out…

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The only room that we didn’t gut was the Master Bedroom (and the kitchen…because we already did that)

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After a fantastic Anniversary weekend at Rocky Gap Resort, it is time to get this project rolling!  Scott came over last Thursday and we went over just about everything we want to dig in to. This is the order for getting the porch done…electric, insulation, and then drywall.

The first thing that really needs to be done is the wired doorbell so I can move my office down stairs and not have to run upstairs every time the dogs feel the need to bark (they do this at least 10x’s a day…one barks and the other two start (not even knowing why)) So the idea is to do what needs to be done to get there…

The first thing I need to do is gut the inside front wall so we can put some outlets on the front porch and the ceiling fan

There are alot of things going on around here, but I have fallen behind on every post.  I decided that I will start with today and then go back and fill in the blanks, hopefully I wont miss anything in the process.

refinanced the mortgage and home equity loan into 1 payment, as well as having an advance on the new loan to do some work around here.  Closed all my accounts at the big bank, Lemon Law case is done, bought a pickup and a cover (that I need to pick up today)…all in the last 2 weeks!  My head is spinning a little.

The reasons I promised Jen that I wouldn’t start with the demo until after our Anniversary weekend…

• we are gutting anything that has paneling (and the drywall underneath), still trying to figure out if we’ll be tearing out the ceiling tiles.
• Mom is house/dog sitting while we are gone, so we don’t want to kill her with the dust…and
• I really don’t want to be thinking of all of this while we are away.

Scott will be here tomorrow to go over what’s on the agenda, he will have plenty to do…we have to decide on when he will start and what he wants us to have done for him to start. We picked out a doorbell so that I will be able to move my office to the basement until things are done (or maybe permanently…) after that, we can start with the demo

I’ll post a few before pictures in the next few days

Last weekend I decided that I was going to buy a piece of vinyl flooring and put it underneath Jack’s base cabinets.  Everything that I want to do down in the basement has been put off because of the water that comes up from the center of the floor.  (hydrostatic pressure).  (I will link this to the page that explains the basement water issues at a later date)

So…Jack’s cabinets have been sitting in the basement for way too long, he busted his ass building them…and they are beautiful, but they were custom made for their kitchen in DE…we couldn’t leave them there!!

Today, I put down the vinyl and put the base cabinets in…I would say they are permanently installed.  Since we had done all the kitchen cabinets with Scott, I was feeling fairly confident that I could do this!  The floor isnt level so that really was the only trick…I wedged a 1x under one end of the room and smaller wedges to the other end and screwed them into place.

I will get my dart board back up soon!

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Jack Pop’s cabinets are now a permanent fixture in my basement

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It’s been a while since I have put any updates on this page…there’s a reason for that…and I may or may not include my reasons later…but I am hoping to get back on track with the house stuff in the spring…as well as add some personal stuff I have going on.

The newest thing going on is the MS-City to Shore bike ride, in October…it all started with Jen giving into peer pressure from her friends (just kidding)…they asked her if she wanted to try it next year and without thinking…she was in!  Then she asked me if I wanted to do it, and then I gave into the peer pressure without thinking and said yes…wait, what?  🙂

Since I did the Bike to the Bay (twice) 20+ years ago, I kinda know what it’s like, I kinda know what we will need to do before Oct…so I have to work off 20 years of not doing the ride as well as figure out something that will help my lower back.  So if you have any ideas, please share!

I completed the steps on Saturday, but had to pull up one of the boards, shift it a hair and then put it back in place.  I also had to finish screwing in the board I replaced on the porch…so now it’s COMPLETE!

I also replaced one of the boards that ended up being part of the top step.

There are still a couple boards I want to replace, but I am thinking more about the railing now.  Strange how once you start improving things, the things that weren’t so bad, now seem to be worst…

There is one more thing that we want completed this year and then we will wait until next year (or the year after) to screen it in….the siding on the front A-Frame!  That will pretty much make it look complete from the front…Tyvek paper makes it look incomplete!

I watched a bunch of videos on siding, and if I had the patience for trying to figure out the angles, I know I could do it.  I just imagine me measuring, cutting, up and down the ladder a million times…total frustration!

Jen and I have been spending more time out on the front porch, there always seems to be a breeze and the porch now provides shade…it feels like summer at the beach now!

It’s a love hate thing!!

After months of working well, all the sudden mom’s computer started shutting down on her, she got to the point where she could time it. Troubleshooting remotely might have helped narrow it down faster, but timing that could be a real pain in the ass!

I gave Shelly a can of air to give to her to blow out the fan a while back, thinking that it was getting hot and her room is pretty much closed off, it could be full of dust (normal issue for any PC).

This didn’t seem to help, so my next guess was a lack of memory. So when she came over this weekend to dog sit, I asked her to bring her PC with her. I installed some hardware monitoring software and found out it was definetly heat related. The fan would come on and try to cool, but it would still shut down.

Turns out it was the hard drive that was overheating and NO way to cool it down. Who the hell would design a case that had no ventilation? I was set on tearing some old dead PC’s apart to rebuild one. So far, the only thing I would need to buy is a Power Supply. I told mom that she could take her PC home until I can replace it, but the problem is still there.
I told her that she could open the case, and blow a fan directly into it, as I showed her where the hard drive is, we discovered a vent that was hidden in the front plate. Needless to say, there is no longer a faceplate on it! The vent had many layers of dust! Once we cleaned it off, that seemed to do the trick!! Mom’s PC is back to it’s normal kick-ass self!

Welcome back to the internet mom!